“What if it’s Blake he takes prisoner next time?” Grace spat.
"She won't be going alone," Conor said. "And she's right. I wouldn’t leave that weasel alive. He’ll come back another day with more men."
Teresa conceded, though it was unclear if she did so out of agreement or because she was too exhausted to argue. She put her arm around Dylan and they began walking toward the house.
"Stay in the Ready Room until we get back," Grace called after them.
"Okay."
“The Ready Room?” Conor asked.
“It’s our combination gun safe and bunker,” Grace replied.
“Excellent,” Conor said, nodding in approval.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Hardwick Farm
Grace and Conor double-timed it down the driveway in pursuit of Paul. Conor pointed out occasional droplets of blood splattered in the dusty road.
"Somebody's hit, but not bad."
They ran to the bottom of the driveway and exited the gate. They turned left and ran up the road, heading back the way both of them had come in earlier. They accepted that it was always possible Paul was hiding in the bushes along the way or had taken to a trail in the woods, but a lazy man would usually choose the road. It was the easiest traveling and it was familiar.
"How did you even get here?" Grace asked. “Did you come in on a helicopter too?"
"I don't live too far away. A hundred miles or so,” Conor puffed.
Running in the heat was exhausting business and neither had much breath for conversation. Still, there were things that Grace wanted to know.
"Why did my dad feel like he needed to send you? I thought he was driving up here right behind me in a couple of days.”
“The compound he’s staying at with my friend Kevin came under attack. They’re safe but they can't get out."
That worried Grace. Arthur’s compound had seemed more secure than any place she’d been lately. She couldn't imagine there being any attack, short of a heavy assault, that they couldn't repel. That alone told her something. Maybe the attack was not just a band of locals.
They had run about three-quarters of a mile when Grace and Conor rounded a bend to find Paul and the two women sitting on an abandoned vehicle stopped dead in the road. They were all sprawled out on the vehicle, trying to catch their breath. When they saw Grace and Conor, they scrambled into motion, taking cover behind the car.
One of the women had a bolt-action hunting rifle and she popped off a round in their direction. She hadn't even aimed. The round was nowhere close to hitting them, but running into gunfire was generally a losing proposition. Conor threw a hand up and latched onto Grace’s shoulder. He steered her toward the ditch and dived into the weeds after her. It was not ideal cover but it was all they had. At fifty yards, it might not be enough.
There was another shot from the rifle, this one whizzing over their heads. Knowing that the shooter would immediately have to cycle the bolt before firing another round, Grace rolled into a shooting position with her AR-10. She aligned her scope on the driver’s side door and popped off a couple of rounds, knowing the round should punch straight through to the other side. That would give Paul and his buddies something to think about.
There was a flash from beneath the car and a round whizzed by Grace’s head. Their aim was improving with each shot. It made Grace wish they’d been able to choose a better hiding spot. She popped several rounds off at the pavement near the car, hoping to send the ricochets splattering beneath it. It must have worked because it provoked an immediate response.
Another woman threw herself across the hood and began blasting away with a semi-automatic shotgun. Buckshot sprayed the weeds around the ditch.
Grace ducked, trying to make herself as small as she could. When there was a lapse in the fire, she raised up and found a target. She creased the hood with a 7.62 round and caught the shooter in the lower half of her face. There was a spray of blood and she dropped away, the shotgun clattering across the hood.
"One down," Grace said. “We got this.”
Their elation at evening the odds was short-lived. Unexpectedly, Paul came up with the first intelligent and strategic move he’d ever had in his entire life. He lunged inside the abandoned vehicle, popped the shifter into neutral, and released the emergency brake. The wheels turned, then began to pick up speed. The car gained momentum as it coasted down the incline toward them.
Conor raised up on his knees and dumped rounds on the car. The passengers aimed out the side windows and returned fire. Conor was forced back to the ground, the shotgun loads having such a spread at this distance that the shooter needed no skill to take the two of them out. The rolling car was closing the distance now, gaining speed.
Forty feet.
Thirty feet.
Twenty feet.
“We got to get outta here!” Conor yelled.
Conor raised his rifle above his head and began shooting blindly in the direction of the car. He was holding the AR-9 by the pistol grip, doing a spray and pray. The car bore down on them. Conor leapt to his feet and wrapped his hand around the drag handle on Grace’s load-bearing vest. He twisted and swung with all his might, sending her careening out of the path of the vehicle.
The tumble disoriented her. She rose to her knees in time to see the vehicle plow into Conor and she screamed. The car came to a stop over the same ditch she had been laying in moments ago, the bumper digging into the embankment. Grace raised her Glock 19 and ran to the car, fully prepared to put rounds in everyone in the vehicle.
It was empty.
Whoever was in the car had abandoned ship. She was trying to figure out where they’d gone when she felt a hand latch on to her ankle. She immediately recoiled in fear and jumped back, aiming the pistol downward. What she saw paralyzed her with horror.
Conor's hand extended from beneath the vehicle, his fingers grasping for her. Grace called his name but he did not answer.
"Are you okay!"
There was no response. It was a stupid question. How could he be okay?
Grace fell to her knees and began reaching beneath the vehicle. She felt his body, it was compressed beneath the weight of the car. She understood now that he couldn't answer her because he could not breathe. He was being crushed to death beneath the car.
Grace was in a panic. This man had come to save her life and she could not let him die. She reached into the car and popped the trunk, then ran to the back and dug around for the jack. She found a raincoat, windshield washer fluid, and a can of tire sealant. She was still shuffling through the contents of the car when she felt the cold steel of a gun barrel at the base of her neck. She immediately froze, paralyzed with fear.
"Yesterday we didn't even know each other," Paul whispered. “Today we just can't keep from running into each other."
"You have to let me help him,” Grace pleaded. “He's going to die."
The gun barrel did not move. "I’m okay with that. If the car kills him, then I don't have to."
"Kill her," said a female voice. “She killed Millie. Kill her now."
Grace assumed that Millie must have been the woman she shot across the car hood. It had been self-defense, but she wasn't going argue her case now.
"Shut up!" Paul told the other woman. “She could be useful. This puts me in the same position I was in before with the kid. Now I have someone I can take back for leverage. Without a hostage, they're never going to give me the house."
"You'll never get me back there," Grace said. "I'll die before I put my mother and brother in that position."
"Turn around. Slowly."
Grace did as she was told and turned to face Paul. He had a hunting rifle in his hands. She could see that the safety was off, the barrel pointed right into her face.
"If I can't get you back there as a hostage, you’re no good to me at all. I might as well just kill you right now."
Grace didn't want to provoke or encourage the man in any way. She just stared him in
the eye. She considered her options, fully aware that every second she wasted was a second Conor was pinned beneath that car. He could even be dead already.
She wondered if she could go for the rifle barrel and divert it to the side. She still had her Glock. If she could get that rifle barrel off her, maybe she could draw the pistol and drop him.
"I'm waiting on your decision."
Grace opened her mouth to render her final verdict. Then her ears caught the familiar whir of electric motors. She couldn't stop herself from searching for the source. When Paul turned to see what she was looking at, Tom fired the first round from his AK pistol. He held it to his shoulder, sighting through the optic, and managing to put a round into Paul's upper back. The round hit the slight man like a sledgehammer blow. He spun and staggered away from Grace, dropping the rifle. With a margin of distance now between Grace and Paul, Tom burned off more rounds, shredding Paul. The man staggered and fell in a heap.
The woman with Paul went for the dropped rifle. Grace had her Glock out by the time the woman’s fingers wrapped around the stock and double-tapped the woman at nearly point-blank range. She was dead before she could scream.
Grace located the jack and ran around to the side of the vehicle. She dropped to her knees at the front of the driver’s door and felt for the dimple in the frame that the scissor jack would fit into. She slid the jack in place, twisting the screw with her finger until the jack tightened and began raising.
She was locking the handle into position when Tom appeared beside her. He’d unstrapped from his track chair and joined her by the vehicle. He didn’t know what was going on but sensed Grace’s urgency. When he got closer, he saw the arm sticking out from beneath the vehicle and sprang into action.
"Let me do it!" he yelled. He took the jack handle, inserted it into the jack, and began cranking furiously. Grace lay down on her stomach and tried to see what was going on beneath the car. Between the shadows and the tall roadside weeds she couldn't see much. She took Conor's hand and squeezed it but he did not squeeze back.
"Go faster!" Grace urged, desperation in her voice.
Life on the farm gave Tom plenty of upper body strength and he threw everything he had into it. When the jack first started taking the weight of the car, it sank into the ground instead of lifting the car.
Grace groaned. All his effort was gaining them nothing.
Then the car began to raise.
"This is shaky," Tom warned. "It could turn over at any moment."
Grace backed away from the vehicle with Conor’s hand in both of hers. She tugged as hard as she could. Between his weight and the pressure of the car, she could feel no movement. The car inched upward as Tom desperately worked the jack handle. Sweat poured from them. Grace tugged furiously at the limp arm. She was not going to let him die. Suddenly, she felt the first movement.
"He moved!" she yelled.
She got off her knees and sat down on her butt, digging her heels into the ground, tugging with all she was worth. Her sweaty hands kept slipping off his arm and her frustration grew. She let go of Conor’s hand and scooted closer to the vehicle, reached beneath it, and caught a strap of his vest. She braced a foot against the tire and a hand against the side of the vehicle. She tried tugging that way, levering herself off the vehicle.
When she still made no progress, Tom flipped over onto his stomach and looked beneath the car. "I think he's hung," he said.
Tom shot an arm beneath the car. He fought to untangle a piece of webbing from Conor’s vest. It was snagged on a heat shield beneath the exhaust. When he had it free, he rolled away from the car.
“Pull!"
Grace tugged on the vest. Tom got his hands on Conor’s arm and pulled too. His body began to slide toward them. Grace scooted back and Tom did the same, adjusting their grips. They pulled again and in seconds Conor was free.
Grace threw herself across the man, pressing an ear to his lips. "He's breathing."
"Let’s get this gear off him,” Tom said.
Grace and Tom undid the buckles of the man's gear. Tom dragged the heavy plate carrier off his chest. Grace listened again at his lips. His breathing was shallow. She put her mouth to his and gave him a couple of assistive breaths.
"His color is better," Tom said. "Keep going."
Grace continued to help Conor breathe. He’d been breathing on his own when she pulled him out, but now his efforts were stronger. In a couple of minutes, Conor was twisting his head and moving his arms. Grace moved off him and patted him on the upper arm.
"It's okay. It's okay. Just relax."
Conor's eyes flickered open and he focused on Grace. "Are you okay?" he whispered.
She smiled, tearing up slightly. "Yes. Thanks to you."
"Thanks for saving my life," he said.
"Thanks for saving mine."
She put her hand on top of Tom’s. "And thank you for saving both of us."
"That was too close, Grace. If I’d been a minute later…” Tom couldn’t finish the thought.
She nodded, her expression reflecting that she fully understood just how close it had been. "I wasn't sure how long it would take to charge your track chair with that charger. I wasn’t expecting you to show up when you did."
"When it hit twenty percent power, I got on the trail. I got off at the first road crossing and started looking for vehicles. I figured most of the cars had run out of gas but might still have functional batteries. Every car I came to I stole the battery and switched out. That's how I got here."
"I'm glad you did,” Grace said.
Conor sat up and rubbed his face, trying to shrug off his near suffocation. Grace introduced the two men.
“You had a close call,” Tom said.
“I was kind of addled when the car hit me,” Conor admitted, “but I thought I would still be able to crawl out from under it. If I hadn't had on all that gear I probably could have. The weight of the car was pushing my gear against my body armor and my chest was being squeezed between the front and back plates. It didn't leave much room for breathing. I thought I was dead."
Tom maneuvered himself back into his track chair and strapped in. He mounted his AK pistols back on the gimbal mounts. Grace stood and helped Conor to his feet. Everyone geared back up. They retrieved the weapons that had belonged to Paul and the two women. There was very little ammo and no other gear. At Conor's insistence, they dragged the dead bodies off the road into the weeds.
"No use advertising what happened here," he said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Hardwick Farm
Grace and the two men made their way back to the Hardwick farm. They found everyone in the Ready Room anxiously awaiting their return. Grace made the introductions. The job of the reunion was overshadowed by the glaring absences. The Hardwicks were still missing Robert. Tom was still missing his mother.
Teresa hugged Tom and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for helping my daughter get home to me. I don’t know that I could ever repay you for that.”
Tom looked embarrassed at the attention. “We helped each other. You raised a very capable daughter. She can take care of herself.”
"Did you see Debbie?" Mrs. Brown asked. Her voice was still difficult to understand, garbled from her damaged mouth. Grace’s mom had given Mrs. Brown one of her own prescription pain pills and it at least allowed her to tolerate the pain.
Grace's brow furrowed. "I've never met your daughter so I don’t know what she looks like. There were two women with Paul when we found them, but I don't know if one of them was your daughter not."
“What happened to them?" Mrs. Brown asked.
Grace hesitated. "I…killed them. In self-defense."
Mrs. Brown's hand flew to her mouth, the sudden movement causing her to wince in pain. She was in full panic for a moment, the automatic reaction of a mother. Then the panic subsided and a peace settled over her. "If you killed her, I'm sure she deserved it. I hate to say that and I know it sounds awful, but
it's true."
Dylan got up from the video game he was playing with Blake and came to his grandmother’s side. "I don't think she was with Paul. I didn’t see her in the truck, Granny."
Mrs. Brown nodded. "Thank you, sweetie. You go play with Blake, okay?"
Conor leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I heard the man driving the truck say something about keeping someone prisoner. It sounded to me as if she were being held captive back at wherever these folks came from."
Mrs. Brown nodded somberly. "I think I know where that is. Debbie only had one friend she still hung out with. Do you have a way you could take me over there later to check?"
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to travel,” Theresa said. “You have broken bones. You could have internal injuries. You need to lie down.”
“I need to tend to family business,” Mrs. Brown said. “Will you take me or do I walk?”
"Probably a four wheeler would be best," Teresa conceded, certain that Mrs. Brown wouldn’t have even been able to walk to the property line.
"You have two of them?" Conor said. "I'd like to go along."
"We do," Teresa said.
"What are you going to do?" Grace asked.
Ms. Brown shook her head sadly. She said nothing else and the tears running down her cheek discouraged more questions.
Conor kept watch outside while Grace and Teresa tended to Mrs. Brown. They suspected she had two broken ribs. They wrapped her chest in gauze and then with duct tape. Since the fracture in her arm did not appear to be displaced, they applied an elastic bandage. She had dozens of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Those would heal faster than the wounds on the inside.
While they treated Mrs. Brown, Grace recounted her adventure home. She’d arrived home to such chaos that it wasn’t until she started recounting her journey that she realized she hadn’t told her mother about Zoe. When she told the story of losing her best friend, her mother and Mrs. Brown both broke down into tears. The ladies had known Zoe also, and their hearts broke.
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