Jack Frost

by Diane Capri

  Most of it was rotted and crumbled. A few larger blocks were piled together in the middle of the trail. The two of them could move the boards aside with a little bit of effort.

  The bigger problem was the stream.

  The headlight beams were partially blocked by the debris pile, but he could see the stream was too deep and moving too swiftly to drive through.

  Could they walk across?

  He looked around for a tree branch long enough to test the stream’s depth. When he found one, he used it as a walking stick to test the ground as he climbed over the debris and moved toward the running water.

  On the other side of the debris pile, he heard the door slam and the Chevy’s engine change pitch. He whipped around to stare into the bright lights.

  It took him a moment to realize that Olson had thrown the transmission into reverse and punched the accelerator. The Chevy retreated along the dirt road, as quickly as Olson could drive.

  Keegan couldn’t possibly run fast enough to catch her.

  He whipped the pistol into the air and shot at the retreating vehicle. The headlights shined into his eyes, blinding his aim.

  He fired three times in the general direction of the retreating windshield.

  Two shots were deflected by bad angles. He heard the ricochet.

  One of his bullets penetrated the safety glass.

  Olson screamed, but she kept driving.

  Had he missed his target?

  Keegan fired off three more shots, this time aiming between the headlights. He heard the bullets hit the Chevy, for sure.

  Somehow, Olson kept going.

  The Chevy backed around a bend, and the headlights no longer aimed straight toward him.

  But he no longer had a clear sightline.

  He couldn’t hit her from here.

  He couldn’t run her down on foot, either.

  Those last shots had hit the Chevy. Maybe damaged it enough.

  She’d be stuck somewhere soon. No way would she make it out tonight. Especially if he’d wounded her well enough. With any luck at all, her wound would prove fatal within the hour.

  As the illumination from the Chevy’s headlights faded and total darkness descended upon him, Keegan considered his options.

  He was only about three miles from the hangar, give or take. Four miles at the most. He could walk that far. All he had to do was cross the stream and then stay on what was left of the old road until he reached his destination.

  The Gulfstream was scheduled to arrive before nine o’clock in the morning. The pilot was reliable because he’d been on Keegan’s payroll for years. No worries there.

  Keegan’s backup security man would arrive by four o’clock, he’d said. He would signal from the ground to let the pilot know it was safe to land.

  The Gulfstream would touch down to pick up two passengers and then take off again.

  A quick turnaround. Not more than fifteen minutes on the ground. The jet probably wouldn’t even come to a full stop. The engines wouldn’t be shut down at all.

  The plan had been solid when Keegan had originally conceived it, and despite a few necessary adjustments, it still was.

  This was a temporary setback. Nothing more.

  He couldn’t worry about Olson sounding the alarm. Even if she survived, she didn’t have a cell phone or any other way of communicating out here.

  Eventually, someone would find her.

  Maybe she’d still be alive. Hopefully, not.

  But by then, he’d be gone.

  Right now, Keegan needed another plan for the rest of the night. He didn’t have a flashlight or anything else to illuminate the pitch blackness.

  Even if he could safely cross the stream in the dark, the road might be washed out or blocked again farther along.

  Reluctantly, he accepted that he couldn’t reach the hangar tonight.

  “Okay. No problem,” he said aloud. “You’ll have plenty of time to get there after sunrise.”

  First light would come early. All he had to do was find a safe place to wait for it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Sunday, May 15

  South Dakota

  7:35 a.m.

  The specialized GPS system Kim had connected to the government satellite routed them through the South Dakota backcountry toward an old airstrip that no longer appeared on any map. The airstrip was just over ten miles south and east of the Mount Rushmore monument.

  Older maps showed two entrances, both long closed. The main entrance, on the east side of the runway. And a smaller service road that exited on the west side.

  The east entrance was the most accessible and closest to Bolton, which was why Kim had chosen it. It had been much slower going than the distance alone warranted. But they’d finally found the road and slowly advanced toward the hangar.

  “We should have been out here at the crack of dawn,” Burke said, stating the obvious.

  “We tried,” Kim replied. “If Keegan is already gone, we’ve lost. But if he waited until the park opens, we still have a chance to pick him up before he’s gone for good.”

  The abandoned gravel roadway had last been graded across uneven hilly terrain, maybe back when the sculpture at Mount Rushmore was created during the Roosevelt administration.

  The road wasn’t much more than a trail now. A single lane with steep drop-offs on either side was designed for a heavy truck or tractor, Kim supposed. A slow, heavy vehicle with sturdy tires and a dirt-proof engine.

  The oversized Lincoln Navigator was none of that. It was a full-sized luxury SUV meant for soccer moms and weekend warriors.

  “How far do we need to go before we reach the runway?” Burke asked.

  “Fifteen miles, maybe?” Kim replied. “But it looks like this road was well-traveled back in the day.”

  Eleven miles off the main road, a tree had fallen across the road. Burke stopped the SUV and put the transmission into park.

  “I’ll move the tree out of the way. You drive through,” he said, climbing out of the Navigator.

  Kim changed to the driver’s seat. She pushed the lever to move it all the way forward toward the steering wheel and securely fastened her seat belt.

  She was as stable as she could get to drive the ridiculously mammoth-sized Lincoln along the treacherous strip of dirt. If they slipped off and rolled down the hillside, she wouldn’t fall out of the vehicle, at least.

  Burke struggled to move the tree aside. When he finally shoved it off the road, Kim drove through. Burke grabbed a backpack from the rear and then opened the passenger door and settled into the passenger seat.

  “Can you drive the rest of the way? In case we come to another problem?” he asked.

  “Yeah. This beast has four-wheel drive, doesn’t it?” Kim asked. “We may need it further ahead, so we should engage it now.”

  “Yeah.” Burke adjusted the dials.

  The SUV’s heavy suspension bounced along the rough gravel road, lifting her from her seat every time she hit a hole. Which was often. This old road hadn’t been graded since the last century, for sure.

  Progress was slow. She kept both hands on the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator with her toes to increase speed as much as she dared along the few straight stretches, raising her foot to take the curves.

  She stole a glance across the vast cabin toward Burke, organizing equipment he’d retrieved from his backpack. “What is it with men and big cars, anyway? Compensating?”

  “Size matters. Bigger is better.” Burke grinned. “I miss my aircraft carrier. I like room to move. Sue me.”

  “No ocean around here. An aircraft carrier would be useless,” Kim quipped and then laughed when he wiped away a fake tear. “Once a SEAL always a SEAL, eh?”

  “That’s the Marines. We’re both Navy, but not the same,” Burke shot back. “Now that we’re actively trying to locate this place, I’m wondering how Keegan knew it existed?”

  “He’d have had no access to old maps while he was in pris
on,” Kim replied. “Someone on the outside told him about it.”

  “Had to be Olson, right? She was his connection to the outside world. Through Walsh or Denny,” Burke said, as he attached the sight to the rifle he was assembling.

  “What are you planning to do with that?” Kim asked, slowing to take another treacherous switchback without rolling down the embankment.

  “Be prepared. That’s what I learned back in Boy Scouts,” Burke replied.

  She scowled at him.

  He grinned again. “Hey, you weren’t the only one who got early training.”

  Before she had a chance to slay him with a snappy comeback, she rounded the next bend, and the view opened up ahead.

  Which was when she saw the low, decrepit building across an open expanse of landscape.

  Between her and the building was the runway.

  Precisely where the old maps indicated she’d find it.

  She stopped the Navigator to get a better look.

  The runway’s origins were uncertain. It might have been built during the construction of the monument, same as the road. Somehow, building supplies and equipment had to be shipped in, and there were no real roads and no trains out here back then. Cargo planes were the most likely method for delivering freight.

  Or maybe it had been a part of an old defense system built during the Cold War. The mining company bought it and used it for a while after the Cold War ended.

  Regardless of its origins, at some point in the last century, mining operations had ceased.

  The runway was more than a mile long and in decent shape for its age, all things considered. Better than she’d expected. Which meant it had been used for something in the not too distant past.

  Perhaps another owner had bought it from the mining company and used it to fly tourists over the parks for a while. Or maybe it had been used for drug trafficking. Which, now that she thought about it, was much more likely.

  Whatever the reason for the runway’s existence, two things were obvious now.

  The runway had been abandoned.

  And it was still usable.

  Which explained why the sleek white Gulfstream was parked at the far end, both engines running, the sound echoing off the Black Hills that surrounded them.

  Kim glanced at her watch. It was nine-fifteen. The park had been open for an hour. Tourists were likely arriving and departing. Probably a few of them were on private planes.

  Just as she’d thought.

  “Well, look at that,” Burke said as if he hadn’t expected Kim’s hunch to pay off.

  She might have gloated, but in truth, this was a long shot. The odds were against her, and she knew it.

  But there it was.

  Keegan’s getaway vehicle.

  Fueled up and ready to fly out of the country. The Gulfstream had a flight range of about five hundred miles. Which meant there were other places Keegan could go from here. But she was a betting woman, and she’d put her chips on Canada.

  Kim picked up her phone to call Smithers.

  She still couldn’t get a cell signal here.

  There was plenty of open sky, though, which meant two things.

  First, a satellite phone would work if she’d had one. Which she didn’t.

  And second, the Boss could see and hear them if he tried. Gaspar and Finlay could see and hear them, too.

  Whether any of the three were paying attention or not was another question entirely.

  The Gulfstream’s jet stairs were down, leading from the door behind the cockpit to the pavement. From this vantage point, Kim could see the pilot in his seat and two men at the stairs.

  “Burke. Look,” Kim said, pointing, when the first man trudged up the last few steps, ducked his head, and entered the jet. “Keegan.”

  The second was a bigger man. He was dressed in jeans and work boots. He wore a brown leather jacket.

  He waited on the pavement until Keegan was inside.

  She guessed him to be about six feet four or five, maybe two-fifty. Longish fair hair blowing in the breeze.

  Burke confirmed her thoughts quietly. “Jack Reacher.”

  Kim exhaled slowly. She’d never seen Reacher in daylight. Before now, she’d seen only photos and video and shadows.

  Many times, she’d doubted Reacher’s very existence.

  Jack Reacher had become a mythic creature in her head.

  Could the second man really be him?

  She raised her phone and pushed the zoom lens to get as close as she could and recorded video as the big man bounded up the jet stairs.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Sunday, May 15

  South Dakota

  8:30 a.m.

  At the top step, the big man paused a moment, glanced around, and then doubled over to enter the plane behind Keegan.

  As he pulled the stairs in and snugged the door closed, Kim enlarged the video on her phone. It was grainy and unfocused.

  Was it him? After all this time? Had she finally found Reacher?

  The sound and vibration from the Gulfstream’s engines changed. The jet began to move toward the opposite end of the runway. In no time at all, the plane would be in the air.

  Unless she stopped it.

  Kim knew a lot about planes of all sorts. She’d made a point of learning every conceivable way a plane could fail and how she could survive if it did.

  Which was how she knew the only way she might be able to prevent takeoff now, with the jet on the runway and already moving, was to damage the plane.

  A damaged jet could crash.

  No pilot would take such a deliberate risk.

  She hoped.

  “Hang on,” she said to Burke as she slid forward and stomped on the accelerator with as much force as she could muster.

  The big Navigator’s engine growled as it revved up and began to move. The SUV was pointed straight at the jet, but both were moving.

  The apron where the aircraft must have once parked before heading through to the runway was wide.

  She used the full width of the apron, sweeping the SUV around while keeping her foot down on the gas pedal.

  The tires squealed.

  Burke held onto the grab handle, hefting the rifle with the other hand.

  The Gulfstream was moving faster now, its twin engines leaving heat trails in the air and stirring a storm of debris from the rarely used runway surface.

  The Navigator’s wheels thumped over the expansion joint and they were on the runway.

  Kim pushed the pedal to the floor, chasing the jet. She had to reach it before takeoff. This was her last chance to get Keegan and Reacher into custody.

  The runway debris hammered the SUV, joining the roar of the engine, although they were quite a ways back. Damage to the Navigator would be extensive. She didn’t care.

  “Go to the left side,” Burke said, lowering his window. “There’s more room to move over there.”

  Kim eased the vehicle to the left of the plane’s path as Burke leveled the gun out of the window.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kim said, speeding ahead. “We want to arrest Keegan and Reacher, not kill them.”

  “I’m aware of our mission,” Burke replied, attempting to aim out the open window.

  Kim had no time to argue now. She turned her full attention to stopping the jet.

  The Navigator was gaining ground, reducing the distance between them, but the roar of the air and stones and the Gulfstream’s jets was deafening.

  A few moments later, Burke brought the gun back in. “The ride is too rough. Can’t line up to shoot the tires.”

  That settled the matter.

  The Navigator was a hundred feet back but still gaining fast. Soon, the jet would speed out of range.

  Burke didn’t need to disable the Gulfstream’s tires. That had been a crazy plan. So crazy, she wondered for a brief moment why he’d even tried. But she couldn’t puzzle that now.

  All Kim had to do was damage the plane, which wouldn’t t
ake much. She could impair the jet seriously enough to persuade the pilot not to take off.

  “Hang on!” she gripped the steering wheel tightly and yelled toward Burke into the overwhelming noise. The stink of jet fuel filled the Navigator’s cabin making it difficult to breathe.

  The big SUV sped past the Gulfstream’s tail and engines with ease. She kept her focus forward on her driving.

  Stone chips would be the least of the damage to the Navigator now, but she wasn’t letting Reacher get away. She’d come too far, tried too hard, endured too much to let him slip from her grasp now.

  She stared ahead, judging the distance.

  In the high riding SUV the jet’s wingtips looked to be at head level.

  She could hit the wing or damage the hydraulics, which would interfere with the pilot’s ability to steer and to land.

  He’d still have the second engine. Maybe he was good enough to fly to Canada and land with one functioning engine. But she had to try to stop him.

  Burke must have realized what she planned to do. They would feel the impact with the jet’s wing inside the SUV. He hunkered down, still holding the rife.

  Briefly, Kim considered easing off the accelerator to just tap the wing, do less damage. But she didn’t, and the Lincoln covered the distance before she made the conscious decision.

  “Hang on!” she yelled again, a split second before the SUV’s roof smacked into the jet’s left wing, maybe three feet from the tip.

  Metal crunched at ear-piercing volume.

  The Navigator rocked.

  The Gulfstream did too.

  The jet’s tires skipped on the pavement, kicking projectiles against the Navigator like bullets.

  Kim backed off the accelerator.

  The Lincoln lurched hard.

  The SUV had connected to the aircraft and stayed locked to the wing.

  “Roof rack,” Burke said, pointing up to demonstrate the problem. The roof rack had wedged onto the wing and stuck there.

  She had to get loose. She tapped the brakes.

  The SUV jolted, bouncing on its suspension when she severed the connection.