Duane realized with a shock that the movement up ahead was more likely to be Elena. If she emerged from cover, he was sure that his men would fire reflexively, before they even had time to think. If they did that, all would be lost.
Aware that he was inviting fire on himself if he was wrong, but terrified of taking the gamble and losing, Duane rose and waved frantically at his men. He felt a presence behind him and turned, slowly, to face whoever had just emerged from the curtain of green.
It was Elena.
She stood there, frozen, torn between flight and fight. With only fifty yards between them, Duane figured it was worth trying to make a lunge for her, and he ran a couple steps toward her before the tense silence was broken by a wild burst of SMG fire.
Duane whirled and yelled at the man who had, in his nervousness, let fly a burst at the girl. When he turned back, it was too late. She had retreated, the noise and threat breaking her hesitation. He swore and took off after her, all caution forgotten, his men following him.
* * *
BOLAN HEARD THE burst of gunfire and broke into a run. The direction was clear, right in line with where Elena had been headed. There had been no scream. He hoped this meant she hadn’t been hit. If he was right, then she’d been lucky...and so had he. There wouldn’t be a second chance, so he had to try and mop this up as soon as possible.
He crashed through the undergrowth, fighting against the pain in his leg. He couldn’t afford to be slowed down right now. His determination was reinforced by another burst of SMG fire. Then the burst turned into a chatter of exchange fire, and he felt more optimistic. It sounded as if Elena was holding her own.
* * *
CAUGHT OFF GUARD by the sight of Duane, Elena had frozen, spurred to action only by the sudden burst of bullets. Recognizing her extreme vulnerability, she had realized she needed to get back into cover before she was killed, let alone taken. She stumbled and fell, then picked herself up and ran, paying no heed to direction. That didn’t matter right now. The important thing was finding some kind of cover. She knew in her gut that the only way she was going to stop them and save herself was to face them head-on.
Elena could feel every footfall jar her bones. Her injuries were throbbing and the pulse in her temple thumped painfully. She kept a tight grip on the gun Cooper had given her, despite the screaming pain in her hands and fingers. Her lungs felt as though they would burst, but she refused to give in to the burning pain in her chest. Give in, and she would be taken or killed. Not much of an option either way.
She didn’t dare look back over her shoulder. If they saw where she was going, then so be it. Ahead was a small clump of bushes, about chest height, with thick, waxy leaves. It wasn’t much of a hiding spot, but short of trying to clamber up a tree, and risk being a sitting target when Duane and his men caught up, it was the best she could do.
She flung herself over the top of the bush, landing on her elbow and panting. She tried to stand, and then doubled over in agony that she fought desperately. She couldn’t afford to give in to this, not now. Pain was a luxury she could not afford at any cost.
She sank to her knees and raised her Uzi, sighting over the top of the bush. Her breathing and heartbeat were loud in her ears, but she could still pick out the sound of men coming toward her. In the increasing daylight, she scanned the dense, swampy forest, focusing her attention on the obvious path she’d taken. The first man through was going to get a burst. God alone knew if she would hit anyone, but she was sure as hell going to try....
Instead of one man, three burst through the foliage simultaneously, and Elena was hesitant in choosing which one to fire at first. Instead of focus, she felt panic. She fired the SMG, the recoil catching her where she had an imperfect grip. The burst went high and wide.
She hadn’t hit anyone. Maybe the tops of a few trees suffered, but that was all. She swore as she tried to wrestle the Uzi back under control while ducking down behind the bush. She’d stupidly given her position away, and now she was pinned down. Plus she’d failed to score any collateral damage on her enemy.
The returning bursts of fire told her this, as if she wasn’t already well aware. But none of them came directly at her. The rounds rained down on either side, intended to mark off space and trap her.
To keep her in place for as long as it took for her to use up her ammunition, get worn down and be taken alive....
Chapter 16
Martha sat in the back of the patrol car, watching the dawn and knowing it would be her last. She should be thinking of her mom, her friends, the hopes and ambitions that had been thwarted on the day she’d been stupid enough to get curious about the Seven fucking Stars—as she couldn’t help but think of them right now.
She would never get to write the stories she wanted, or have kids, or do anything else except end up in an anonymous hole in the ground somewhere in the swamps. She should have been thinking of that, but she wasn’t. All she could think of was that if she had been a bit smarter, she could have bought herself some more time. Because she hadn’t given up hope until the last few moments. As long as she’d been in the office, as long as she’d been in Griffintown...then there had been the possibility of rescue. Now that she was out here, that hope was replaced by despair. Even if the guy on the end of the phone had been playing her straight about tracking her cell, his guys would have to find her in a semitropical swamp, and by the time they fought through that.... Hell, Ramirez and his people knew this land too well to let anything slip.
She started to wonder what it would be like to die. How would they do it? Would she have to kneel in front of a hole she had dug herself, and then be shot in the back of the head? Or would they make her face the gun when it happened? Would it even be a shot, or would it be something more painful and drawn out? Wilkes had the look of a psycho about him, someone who would enjoy making it difficult. She felt as if she was going to throw up over the backseat. Her imagination—the one she’d never have the time to develop as she’d always intended—was running riot, and at exactly the wrong time.
Thinking back, she decided she had made it too easy for Montgomery. He had started to ask her questions with the air of a man who expected this to be a long and distasteful process. He had made a few threats about torture, and the propensities of the men he had working for him, before asking her about Cooper—though he hadn’t known his name until she’d told him—and about her interest in the Seven Stars.
Under any other circumstances, the look on his face would have been comical. He was expecting her to claim ignorance and keep silent, whereas she’d opened her mouth and sung like a canary. Once she’d started, there had been no stopping her. She’d told Montgomery everything—how she’d become intrigued by the fact that the Midnight Inquirer ignored a story on its own back porch; how she had gone out to Eveland and been chased; how Cooper had saved her and how they’d been followed back to the building; what he’d told her that evening in the diner; where she thought Cooper was now and what he was doing. She shared even the most minute details, so Montgomery couldn’t accuse her of leaving anything out.
But she’d also spoken at length to buy herself time. The longer she talked, the closer help was getting. If she kept it up until daybreak, the cavalry—or the military of some kind, she assumed—would ride to the rescue.
And, of course, she didn’t tell him everything. The best way to hide a secret was to be open about everything else, and there was no way she was going to tell him about the number Cooper had given her, or the call she’d made. She needed to make sure she hung on to that cell for as long as possible. The fact that Ramirez and his associate had not searched her was a stroke of luck. In this case, it was a good thing that corruption had made them lazy.
When she’d finished her story, she’d sat back and asked simply, “Any questions?”
Montgomery hadn’t taken that well. It was her o
nly misjudgment during the hour or so that she’d taken to ramble through her tale. Face white with rage, he had stood up and slapped her across the face. She could still taste the blood from her split lip.
“Don’t be insolent with me, you interfering bitch,” he said in a cold, low tone before yelling for the sheriff and his deputy. When the two men entered, he’d barked out his orders. All the officers Ramirez had were to be sent to Eveland to hunt down Cooper and kill him. He wanted Ricke and all the cult members killed, as well. That was if the military man had left any alive in his wake.
“I want no trace of him, and I want them to look like they’ve gone Jim Jones on their own asses. Then burn the park. All of it. I don’t want anything left.”
That was when Martha had realized how deep in shit Montgomery really was. His refusal to publish anything on the cult wasn’t just a matter of leaving them alone and getting on with his empire. She had always suspected that he was either tied up with the Seven Stars, or else didn’t want anyone sniffing around his fiefdom, so he’d tolerated them. But from the look of cold fury—and of fear—on his face, she knew that Ricke had something on him. Why else kill them as well as Cooper? Why else raze the place?
She swore to herself that if she ever got out of this alive, then she would find out what it was. She’d do anything to nail this bastard.
Ramirez had pointed to her. “What about her?”
“Kill her,” Montgomery had muttered in a perfunctory manner. “Just kill her somewhere out of the way. Do it yourself. I want to be certain.”
Ramirez had nodded and grabbed her roughly by the arm, pulling her upright. She had thought for a fraction of a second about making a break for it. If she took them by surprise, she could make the elevator or the emergency stairs before they had a chance to react. She doubted they’d shoot her here; it would make too much mess that needed cleaning before morning.
But where would she run? Once she was out of the building, where could she go? She had no transport and didn’t know how to hot-wire a car, and anyway, if Montgomery had the town under his thumb, a little mess on the office carpet might not even matter.
Despite the panic rising in her, she knew that her best option was to keep calm, go along with what was happening, and wait for help to come. It would come. It had to.
But now that she was in the patrol car and they were headed into the darker recesses of Griffintown County, she was beginning to feel she’d been giving in to blind faith. If she could somehow surprise them when they took her into the swamp, then maybe she could get away, maybe hide for long enough...? She still had the cell on her....
That was her only hope. Ramirez and Wilkes had said nothing since the sheriff started up the patrol car and gave orders to his office over the radio, sticking to the barest terms. It was a sign of how much Montgomery controlled them all that there had been no dissent—not even a query—from the dispatcher, just a monosyllabic acceptance.
As the sun rose, birds began to sing. Martha had never really been a fan of nature in the raw, and so birdsong was something that had always slipped in one ear and out the other. Today, it registered through the deputy’s half-open window. The melodic, the raucous, the sweet and the dissonant. All of it was a glorious symphony, and all of it was underpinned by a low and distant hum that seemed to grow louder and more insistent.
Martha felt a surge of hope. She looked at Ramirez and Wilkes, and it seemed that they hadn’t noticed the sound. Then they exchanged glances. Ramirez peered up through the windshield, trying to locate the source of the hum as it grew near. The morning was overcast, and it was only when the first of the choppers burst through the clouds that it became apparent just how close they were.
Swooping low over the highway, the copter made Ramirez curse and swerve, putting the patrol car into a skid. Martha was thrown across the backseat, her head cracking against the frame with a jarring thud.
Ignoring the throb in her skull, she stared out the back window as one chopper flew toward Griffintown and another landed about a mile down the highway. A group of armed, uniformed men dismounted and charged into the undergrowth. With a shock, she realized the patrol car had just passed the turnout where she’d emerged with Cooper almost twenty-four hours ago. She knew that if Cooper was still alive—and somehow she couldn’t image anything short of a raging bull elephant taking him down—those guys would find him and whoever he’d been sent in to rescue, if he had them. As she watched, the chopper took off in the same direction as the first one, toward town.
She’d been so enthralled with what was happening down the road that she hadn’t noticed what was going on here. Turning, she could see that a third chopper had circled and come down in front of them. The noise was deafening. Ramirez and his deputy seemed paralyzed, unsure of what to do.
No wonder. As the rotors started to turn slower, the hum becoming a deep, rhythmic throb, the side door of the craft slid back and six men in blacksuits jumped out, assault rifles trained on the cruiser. They were yelling something, but words were lost in the thrum of the chopper blades. Still, there was no mistaking their intent from the men’s hard expressions and the gestures they made with their guns.
The detachment formed a semicircle around the police vehicle. Behind them, more men spilled out of the chopper and entered the swamplands, on the same side of the highway as their fellows had a mile down the road.
The yelling was audible now, and Martha could make out that they were ordering the sheriff and deputy to get out of the patrol car and kneel on the tarmac. The funny thing—and the relief had made her light-headed enough to actually find humor in all this—was that the two men in the front seat were so frozen in fear that they seemed ready to forfeit their lives just because they were too scared to comply.
There was a man on each side of the patrol car now, and they wrenched open the doors, pulling Ramirez and Wilkes out and throwing them flat on the highway.
Another man unlocked the rear door and opened it with a surprising gentleness that was echoed in his tone. “Martha Ivers?” He waited for her to nod before he continued. “You’re safe now, ma’am. You can step out of the vehicle.”
Offering her his arm, he assisted her out. As she stood up, she finally appreciated the bump on her head. She felt suddenly dizzy and stumbled against him. Then again, maybe it was a side effect of fear and relief mixed together. The man supported her and grinned encouragingly. “Steady there. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
She gazed up at him. “You sure have. And not a moment too soon. I thought I was dead. As good as...”
“We try not to let anyone down, Martha,” he said. “I think you may be in shock, which is not surprising. You’ve done some good work for the country tonight, I can tell you that, and I think we should get you a little medical care.”
Under any other circumstances she would have complained—she didn’t like being patronized, and this sounded a hell of a lot like that to her right now—but she was prepared to cut him some slack. He was only trying to help, after all, and to be frank, she didn’t feel so great. She opened her mouth to tell him so, then the world closed in and went black.
* * *
THE FIRST CHOPPER landed in the parking lot of the Midnight Inquirer building, with two marines detailed to take the offices, while the others spread out in pairs and made their way through the streets. Despite the early hour, the sound of the approaching helicopters had woken many local residents, who had come out to watch.
The second chopper came down beside the sheriff’s office, and the first three marines out secured the station in a matter of minutes. There was only the dispatcher on site, and she was on the ground, surrendering her weapon, before the group leader had a chance to finish barking the order. She was only too happy to detail Montgomery’s orders, as relayed through Ramirez, clearly hoping her cooperation would cut her some slack.
The ma
rines locked her in one of the cells, then one took over the communications center and the others joined their fellows on the streets.
Griffintown was secured with an ease that was almost uncanny. There was no sign of any law enforcement within the town boundaries, and marines patrolling each area drew questions but no hostility from inhabitants, who tolerated Montgomery’s regime out of frightened self-interest rather than loyalty.
With the town in lockdown, a detachment of marines set off in pursuit of the sheriff’s men, who had headed toward Eveland. If any local lawmen encroached on the areas where the GPS revealed Cooper to be holed up, then they would wander into a killing field. But if they used the park’s main entrance, they would bypass the detachments scouring the woods.
There were still a few vehicles in the sheriff’s lot, which the marines piled into. Ramirez’s men had a head start on them, but likely hadn’t been in a real hurry. Maybe now they had some idea that they were being closed down, but up to a certain point they hadn’t had any reason to rush. The marines, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate to floor it.
Montgomery was sitting in his office when the two marines found him. He was leaning back in his chair, staring into space. He failed to respond when told to move away from the desk and lie flat on the floor. He failed to respond again when the order was repeated, with the caveat that punitive action would be taken if he showed any sign of hostility.
The two marines exchanged glances. Montgomery was still...too still. While one man stood to the side and covered his colleague, the second moved toward the desk. He came up close to Montgomery and looked him directly in his glassy, unblinking eyes. He reached out and touched the newspaper owner with a fingertip.
Montgomery crumpled forward over his desk, knocking over a cloudy glass of bourbon. The marine checked for a pulse and shook his head.
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