Sophie snatched up Jonah’s phone and jabbed at the buttons with trembling fingers. Nothing.
“It’s dead. I don’t understand.”
“He jammed the signal. Fuck.” Jonah’s face was slick with sweat. He cast another worried look at his father.
Suddenly the truck jerked right. Then tipped left.
“The tires!” Sophie screamed. “Get down!”
She braced herself for the inevitable explosion of glass, but it didn’t come. Jonah pressed the gas. The truck struggled forward. Metal crunched as they slammed into something hard. A rock?
“Shit!” Jonah pounded a fist against the dash. He shoved the gear into park.
For a moment, all was quiet. Just the idling engine and the sound of Sophie’s rapid, terrified breaths.
“Okay, new plan.” Jonah’s gaze met hers. “I’m going to draw his fire.”
“What?”
“I’m going to put some distance between us and distract him. You two stay here. Low, behind the engine block.”
“But—”
“Once I take him out, I’ll come back to get you in another vehicle.”
Sophie’s head was spinning. He was serious.
He unbuttoned his white shirt and stripped it off. He reached into the back of the cab and pulled out a rifle, then a box of ammo.
“Jonah … you can’t do this! Don’t leave us here.”
“We’re all clustered together. Better to spread out the targets.”
“But his target is me! Let me draw his fire.” She clutched his arm as he reached for the door handle.
“This guy’s a sniper, Sophie. He’s lethal and he’s patient. He’s cut our communications, and he can wait us out all day if he has to.” Jonah nodded at his dad, who was now deathly pale. “He doesn’t have time.”
“But what’s to stop him from just walking out here and gunning us all down?”
“He could try. Shit, we left the shotgun in the other truck!” Jonah glanced around and grabbed the handgun off the floor. “Keep the pistol in your hand, and listen for anyone approaching, okay?”
“We should stay together.”
“Then we’re all dead.” He looked at her, and he was so certain, so confident, she didn’t understand. How could he want to do this? “Sophie, listen to me, all right? I know this guy. I know his type. He’s got an ego and he thinks he’s invincible. If all he wanted was to kill you, he could have planted a bomb last night, end of story. He wants the challenge, Sophie.”
“But—”
“I’m going to give him one.”
The grass was high and thick, and Jonah belly-crawled through it, keeping his gun ahead of him. About ten more yards to a stand of cedar trees, and from there he would issue his first shot.
He just had to get there before the gunman closed in on the pickup and finished off his prey.
He kept his head low and tried to think. He had to do this right, and he had to do it fast. His dad was bleeding. He needed a doctor. Jonah pulled himself through the dirt and grass and thought about his strategy.
The ridge to the camper was a four-hundred-yard shot. The gunman had a high-powered scope and probably a good pair of binoculars. He might be watching Jonah through them right now, but Jonah was counting on a different scenario.
Never fire more than two shots from a single position. It was the sniper’s cardinal rule, and Jonah was counting on him following it, which meant he was on the move right now, looking for his next hide.
Sweat dripped from Jonah’s chin as he heaved himself forward. He smelled the dew on the grass and the loamy scent of dirt under his belly. Two more yards. One. His world darkened as he pulled himself into a dense clump of brush. Now he had cover, but he couldn’t get sloppy.
He had to get that shot off.
He crouched at the base of a mesquite tree and did some quick recon. Sun in the east. Wind out of the southwest, about ten miles per hour. To the northeast, the ridge. Jonah faced it now and imagined the property like a clock, with Sophie and his dad in the center. The ridge ran diagonally, from about two to three o’clock. The escape vehicle was at ten. The gunman’s next logical firing position would be anywhere between ten and two, where he would have a quick route back to the Explorer with the benefit of tree cover all the way.
Jonah kneeled in the grass and rested the barrel of his rifle on a notch in the branches. He checked his scope, scanning the area from two o’clock to ten for potential positions. He doubted he’d be lucky enough to spot him, but if he judged this shot right, he could definitely give him a scare.
And issue a challenge, which was the whole point.
An outcropping of limestone at about eleven, topped by a few boulders. It was a good position, putting the gunman directly in line with the windshield of the pickup. He could set up there and wait patiently for someone to peek over the dash. Jonah adjusted his scope.
He rested his cheek against the stock and peered through the lens, and the world opened up for him six football fields away. Had he guessed right? Was the sniper there, watching the pickup through the crosshairs and preparing for his next shot?
He scanned the area, looking for anything that didn’t belong—any movement, any color, the slightest branch that looked out of place. Jonah had hunted this property his whole life. He knew it like the back of his hand, and that was his only advantage. But everything looked natural. Wherever the shooter was, he was well-concealed.
And then he spotted it. A too-fast flutter near the rock. He squeezed the trigger.
The rifle kicked back as he heard the bullet report. A splash of dirt at the base of the rock. He’d missed the shooter, but he’d achieved his objective.
The shooter wasn’t focused on the truck now. He was too busy thinking about where that shot had originated.
Jonah fired another, for good measure.
That’s right, game on. Fuckin’ come and get me.
Sophie cringed at the second shot. It was both reassuring and terrifying. It told her Jonah was alive, he’d made it, but it was also as if he’d stood up from those bushes to the east of them and shouted from a megaphone: Here I am!
Sophie busied herself tearing Jonah’s shirt apart. She carefully removed the top layer of Wyatt’s bandage and stuffed the new fabric on top. She didn’t want to remove the layer closest to the skin and disrupt any clotting, even though not much seemed to be happening. God, he was bleeding a lot. She looked at his pale, clammy face as she wrapped a strip of fabric around the bandage.
Wyatt mumbled something, and her heart lurched.
“Wyatt? Can you hear me? You’re going to be okay now. Jonah went to get help.”
He winced as she tied the cloth.
“Sorry. I know this hurts. My whole family’s doctors, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Florence … Nightingale.”
A hysterical bubble of laughter rose up in her throat. Her eyes burned with tears. “I wish. Wyatt, I’m so sorry this happened. We’re going to get you out of here, okay?”
His lids fluttered open, and he was staring at her with hazel eyes that looked so much like Jonah’s.
“Jonah … will get him.”
Sophie bit her lip. Had he heard Jonah’s plan? They’d thought he was unconscious. If he’d heard, he knew how risky it was. How possible it was that all three of them could end up dead at the hands of this sniper.
Wyatt’s hand moved on the console, and Sophie glanced around. He was reaching for something. A water bottle? The keys?
The pistol on the driver’s seat. Sophie had put it down so she could re-dress his wound.
“You want the gun?” God, he was too weak to even hold it.
“You,” he rasped.
Sophie took the pistol in her hand and crouched on the floorboard. She already had a cramp in her leg from squeezing herself between the steering column and the gearshift, but she knew they had to stay low.
Wyatt reached over and patted her arm, just once, with his
limp hand.
“Good girl. Good … shot.” Then he closed his eyes and drifted off.
Hide, blend, deceive.
Jonah sorted through concepts he hadn’t thought about in years. He didn’t have a ghillie suit, but he’d been taught to improvise. He dug his hand in the dirt until he got to a layer that was cooler and wetter than the topsoil. He rubbed it over his face, his neck, his chest and shoulders. His skin was tan from doing yard work all summer with his shirt off, which would keep him from standing out like a beacon. Also lucky was his choice of pants today—khaki. But in the not-so-lucky category was his gun. Black metal with a walnut stock. His opponent’s would be painted with flat earth tones to blend in with the trees. He’d be wearing camo head to toe, maybe even a ghillie suit covered in foliage. Jonah was going to have to stay concealed. He smeared some more mud on his face and scanned the area. He’d already worked out his next position. He needed some elevation, which meant he had to get from the brush to the spot where the limestone rose up from the prairie. The route was covered, but not completely, and he’d have to be careful. No sudden movements that would draw the eye. No casting shadows. He glanced at the sun rising up over the eastern tree line and calculated his route.
Then he made his move.
Wyatt didn’t look good.
His skin was ashen now, and the air rasped in and out of his lungs. He’d bled through Jonah’s shirt, and she’d added her T-shirt to the bandage, which seemed to be holding now—the bleeding had stopped, at least. But something else was going on—although she didn’t know what—and for the hundredth time today she wished she’d followed in her father’s footsteps.
God, where was Jonah? It seemed like an eternity since that last gunshot.
The sniper had some kind of silencer. She couldn’t hear him; she could only see the horrifying results of his actions. She or Jonah could be in his crosshairs right now.
Or Jonah could be dead already, and she wouldn’t even know it.
Jonah peered through the scope, looking for anything that didn’t belong. A patch of color that didn’t match. A sudden shift in the vegetation. A circular black hole in the bushes that would indicate a scope.
His gaze settled on a clump of trees about ten o’clock. He focused slightly to the right of it, hoping to catch any movement in his peripheral vision.
He caught it. There was something there.
His enemy was at ten o’clock, facing southwest if he was aiming at the pickup, facing due south if he was aiming at Jonah.
Jonah eased himself into a comfortable crouch. He pulled the butt of the gun snug against his shoulder and settled the barrel on his hand, which rested atop his knee.
Three deep breaths.
He waited for the pause.
He squeezed the trigger.
Two seconds later, a burst of bark, just above his head.
Holy shit.
Jonah dove low, nose to the dirt, his gun out in front of him now. His heart galloped. The shot had missed him by less than three inches, and he hadn’t even heard it.
He’d almost had his head taken off.
But he’d accomplished his goal. He’d engaged the enemy on his terms. He was one step closer to gaining the upper hand.
•••
Sophie kneeled on the floor of the truck, holding the pistol in her hand as she watched the door. At any moment, she expected a man to appear in the window, and she’d be staring down the barrel of his rifle.
Or would he approach from Wyatt’s side and ambush her from behind?
Something glistened on her leg. A chunk of glass. It was dripping from her hair. She had little cuts along her arm and cheek, but she hadn’t had time to pick the shards out. She’d have time later, if they survived this.
If.
She glanced over her shoulder to the east, where she knew Jonah was hiding. She glanced west, where the sky was turning a bright, hard blue.
Jonah belly-crawled to the edge of the ridge and peered between the ears of a prickly pear cactus. He was on the southeast slope of the ledge, just elevated enough to see over the grass. He was eye-level with the truck, where Sophie and his dad waited and where he hadn’t seen the slightest movement in more than fifteen minutes.
Which could be good or bad.
Were they hunkered down, waiting silently, as he’d instructed?
Or were they dead?
Jonah gazed through the scope and settled his attention on an outcropping of rock at exactly nine o’clock.
It was a bad position, facing directly into the sun.
But it was tempting because it provided solid cover and allowed an unobstructed view of both the pickup and Jonah’s current firing position, which the gunman had probably figured out by now.
Jonah wanted the shooter at nine o’clock, but would he take the bait? Or would he make the prudent maneuver and drop down to eight? Or maybe he’d make the really smart move and abort the mission altogether.
Jonah knew he wouldn’t. He knew it in his bones. This guy was swept up in the challenge, the thrill. And his need for that battle high was going to be his downfall. Jonah was counting on it.
He peered through the scope and waited. The familiar weight and shape of his rifle calmed him, made his heart slow. His scope was zeroed for eight hundred yards, and he wasn’t sure he could make it even if the shot presented itself.
But failure was not an option.
A brief flash, and Jonah’s breath caught. The sun, glinting off a scope. It was a serious mistake, and now it was up to Jonah to make it fatal.
Three deep breaths. He paused. He pulled the trigger and took the shot of his life.
A jolt of movement in the bushes behind the rock.
The shooter falling? Was he dead?
Jonah’s ears were still ringing as he stared through the scope and tried to determine.
The shot had been clean. Steady. He thought he’d made it, but there was only one way to know for sure.
He had to go see.
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and murmured a prayer. Jonah was alive. She’d just heard his gun.
But the shooter could have returned fire, and she wouldn’t even know it.
She looked at Wyatt again, passed out and slumped over the console. He was breathing. He had a pulse. It wasn’t strong, but it was there, and Sophie was praying it would be there when Jonah came back.
And if he didn’t … She couldn’t think that way. It was like a betrayal.
Sophie needed to be ready for anything. She needed to be alert. She adjusted her grip on the pistol and stared at the door.
The sniper wasn’t there.
Jonah crept up on the hide and saw that it had, indeed, been recently used. He noted the flattened plants, the scuff marks in the dirt.
The trail of blood leading away.
Jonah gripped his Glock in his hand now as he glanced around. He followed the trail into the plants and saw the olive green object protruding from the base of a bush.
Another wary glance around. Jonah crouched down and slid the rifle out from where it had been discarded.
The scope was destroyed. The front layer of glass was shattered. The bullet had penetrated a good twelve inches through multiple layers of thick glass but hadn’t come out the other end.
Son of a bitch. What were the odds? A perfect shot, and the fucker was saved by his own scope.
Maybe.
The impact would have been tremendous. Even at eight hundred yards, the force of a rifle absorbing that round would be a major blow to the head.
Hopefully, a mortal blow.
Jonah unslung his rifle from his back and slid it under some brush. This was up close and personal now, and he needed to be ready to move quickly.
His heart hammered as he tracked the blood through some bushes. It moved in the direction of the Explorer, but the path was erratic—either purposely so or because of a severe injury.
Then suddenly, nothing. No more trail.
Jonah stopped
and listened.
A whisper of wind through the scrub brush. The buzz of insects. The distant croak of a bullfrog down near the creek.
Snap.
He dropped to a knee and whirled around, gun raised. A deafening boom an instant before he pulled the trigger. Jonah dove to the ground, rolled, and scrambled to his feet.
A flash of movement, so close he didn’t even have time to aim, he just threw his weight into him. They crashed against a tree and a pistol went flying just as Jonah pointed his Glock. A burning twist of his wrist and it fell to the ground. Jonah brought his arm up and shoved it against the man’s throat. He got his first good look at his attacker as the man’s head snapped back against the tree trunk. Green and brown greasepaint, blood-matted hair. Sharpe’s right eye was swollen shut, maybe even missing, from when the rifle had pummeled him.
Jonah felt a hot pain in his side and leaped back. Bad move. The sniper landed a knee in his kidney. Jonah sensed the knife swinging in again and dodged right, then spun around again, slamming his weight into him. He hit him squarely in the solar plexus with 230 pounds of angry muscle, and in the instant of paralysis that followed, he seized the knife hand and crushed the wrist. The weapon dropped to the ground alongside Jonah’s Glock. He lunged for the gun and Sharpe was on him. Jonah reached back and grabbed him by the shoulders, and with a giant heave, flipped him over his head to land on his back. Jonah rolled sideways to grab his Glock and brought it up just as the attacker got to his feet and charged him with the blade.
Pop.
Sharpe jolted back as if he’d hit an invisible wall. He fell against a cactus bush and rolled to the ground.
Jonah was on his knees in the dirt, staring at the dead gunman. Jonah’s gun was still raised and aimed, as if the man might suddenly spring back to life.
Jonah stood up on unsteady legs and took a step forward. His heart thundered. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he could have taken on an entire enemy platoon with his bare hands.
This enemy was dead.
He stared down at the man with disgust. The streaks of blood on his face contrasted with the greasepaint and the greens and browns of his woodland camo. One eye was swollen shut while the other stared sightlessly up at the sky.
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