by Fiona Quinn
The windshield wipers swished back and forth maniacally.
Ice particles accumulated on the edges of the windshield.
Anna wondered about Finley’s skills driving in winter weather. She itched to be in the driver’s seat. She’d driven the Hindu Kush mountains in the worst of conditions and at least had some finesse with her reactions. Confidence in driving on ice was foolish, but Anna knew how to partner with a car to get the job done. The driver and the machine had to be in sync. It was a dance.
Anna considered Finley but couldn’t place his accent, or his body posture. If he was from south of the Mason Dixon line, they were probably screwed. Both of his hands were relaxed on the wheel – no white knuckling, no leaning forward with anxiety. Elbows tucked to his ribs, so he wouldn’t over steer. Steady on the gas.
That was all good.
Anna had no control. And she really liked control. I just need to get through this leg, she told herself as she pictured her hand sliding the front door key into the lock back at home.
Home.
She’d be there soon, she told herself as she shifted around, rotating her shoulders, pursing her lips and blowing out some stress.
First, Washington DC, then to her apartment at Fort Mead in Maryland. She’d push open the door and get comfortable. A glass of wine, some warm jazz on the stereo, and a hot bath with something that smelled good and feminine.
Roses or lilacs?
Roses, she decided. They had a richer smell. A summer’s day smell.
And chocolate. She’d put a plate with chocolates on the toilet next to the tub and sip her wine, nibble the chocolates, and consider her next move on the chess board.
The car fishtailed, bringing her back from her reverie.
Anna thought about the trek down the mountain with slick roads. She looked out the side window past the rusty guard rails at the long, long, long drop to the valley floor.
Mulvaney pulled her phone from her coat pocket and said. “Last instructions were to stay the course. I can’t get an update. This cloud cover and the mountains – we’ve got no cell service. No GPS.” She popped open the glove compartment. “I thought this might be a problem.” She slammed the door back in place and maneuvered to open a map.
“Just plug the address into the car’s nav system,” Finley said.
Mulvaney tensed then fiddled with the buttons. “Satellites must be down, too. Must be the cloud cover. It’s alright, I’ve got the map. We’ll do this old school.” When the map fluttered open above Mulvaney’s head, Anna saw it was a topo map.
Interesting.
Not exactly the normal road map one might find in a glove compartment – if one still kept a map in the glove compartment. It could be that the person who used this vehicle before had gone hiking. But that didn’t make a lot of sense. This was an FBI vehicle from out of DC. It could be the car had been taken on a roundup somewhere off the beaten path. That was a little more likely. But, as Anna strained to see the tiny corner of the map sticking up against Mulvaney’s window, it looked like it was a West Virginia map not a United States map.
Huh.
“I traced out the route on this map while you were in the bathroom,” Mulvaney said, looking up to catch Finley’s eye.
Wait. That wasn’t right.
Mulvaney had been playing on her phone, texting someone while Finley was in the latrine. She hadn’t pulled out that map before. Anna was suddenly very focused on this new piece of information.
No cell service meant they were on their own if anything were to go wrong. No GPS meant that the peons in the FBI office were no longer sitting in their comfortable chairs at headquarters, tracing the car in. With the low ceiling on the cloud cover, Anna didn’t trust they could find them with satellite imagery. Why would the FBI risk such a thing? They could get around the highest mountains had they taken a different route. Easier driving, places to pull off if things got tricky with the weather – jails where they could have shoved Johnathan and her for a night or a couple days if need be. Cell phone connection if they ended up in a ditch.
Yeah.
This was either a major strategic error, or this was deliberately maneuvering them into a blind spot, a good tactic for an ambush.
Where were the directives coming from?
What were the unknown variables in this equation?
Anna’s breath shortened, and she could feel perspiration dampening the armpits of her shirt.
The engine worked to muscle them up another hill.
When they slid to the side, the wheels spinning, trying to grab at the road, Mulvaney lifted her feet onto the dashboard, bracing herself, clutching at her belt.
Finley shot her a look, and yeah, that had been human but not very professional.
Mulvaney had started humming, but it didn’t sound like a tune. It sounded like barely-masked anxiety. Her voice was like Styrofoam cubes rubbing against each other. A few more minutes of that and Anna would have to take her out. For everyone’s sake.
Panic was contagious, and the air was steeped in fear.
Johnathan was rocking beside her, and now his mutterings were picking up in intensity. He was speaking Slovak, muttering about coal mines and money laundering. He should get millions and millions of dollars, all he had to do was broker the deal. He thought it was done. Signatures were scrawled. He thought he was rolling in riches. The money should be moving to his off-shore accounts today. Today. Today. Then he could get off this mountain and back to civilization. He’d proven his worth. Today was the day.
Anna was finally starting to get a picture. Starting to get some of her questions answered – if he’d just keep mumbling. But the letters in his words started to slide together. To intertwine. He was no longer making any kind of sense – he just sounded like a wild animal.
Cornered.
Wounded and desperate.
Anna had her attention fully on him. She had seen him toss back some meds at his house before, but when she’d asked what they were for, he’d said allergies. Anna was fairly convinced they were anti-psychotics. Did anyone think to ask if Johnathan needed any medications before they hauled him to the car?
They hadn’t waited for him to dress, so Anna guessed not.
Note to self, if I ever get out of this and am on the arresting end of a case, I will always ask about medications.
Mulvaney stopped humming when Johnathan began hooting, not like an owl, more like an old-fashioned teapot just as the water started to boil. Rocking and hooting. His torso swings were becoming more violent. He bounced off the back seat and hit Finley’s seat with his forehead to bounce back against the back seat again.
Finley powered his seat forward so Johnathan couldn’t reach him. But, Anna noted, that shift bent his legs out to the side, and he didn’t have comfortable movement and control of his feet. Finley sent Mulvaney a “fix-it” glance.
Mulvaney huffed out an exasperated breath and unsnapped her seatbelt, flipping around so she could look Johnathan in the face.
“Johnathan,” she said in a soothing tone. “Johnathan, listen to me.”
Johnathan filled his cheeks with air and pushed it out. It was one of the strangest things Anna had ever seen. What was this guy thinking? The rocking grew more intense. He started swinging his head back and forth.
Okay, Anna had seen this before. This was an out and out panic attack that zapped the brain with high voltage stupidity.
“Pistol whip him,” Anna shouted. “Now. Knock him out!”
“Johnathan. Stop!” Mulvaney was calling over Johnathan’s baying.
On his next rock, Anna saw Johnathan’s finger had reached from behind his back to the clasp on his safety belt. He slammed back against the seat; and when he bounced up, the seat belt came loose. He lunged forward and headbutted Finley.
“Stop, you’re going to get us killed,” Finley yelled.
Anna’s voice was louder though, she was screaming to Mulvaney, “Knock him out! Do it now! Knock him out!”
> As Johnathan hit the back of Finley’s head, Mulvaney was coming over the seat, trying to push him down.
What kind of novice shit was this? Why would they send someone as unprepared as Mulvaney into this situation? Anna pushed herself into the corner to stay out of the way, so Mulvaney could do whatever the heck it was that Mulvaney was doing.
Finley was slowly bringing the car to a stop, which was the right thing to do. No fast moves in these conditions, but the car began sliding sideways on the icy turn.
One more body slam from Johnathan and over the lip they went.
Anna, with her hands cuffed behind her back and her safety belt securing her tightly in place fought for a way to hold on. She watched Finley shift the car into low gear and was engine braking as they slid down the side of the mountain. She was astonished he was cool headed enough not to throw his arms over his face and give up.
He was fighting for their survival.
Finley was intense as he hunkered over the steering wheel, aiming toward the saplings that would slow their descent without killing them all.
Johnathan had somehow gotten hold of Mulvaney’s hair and was holding her head in their seat. Mulvaney was trying hard not to move, which gave Finley a fighting chance at saving them.
Anna thought their speed was slowing. Thought they might just get out of this whole mess. Almost took in a deep breath of relief when suddenly there was no more mountain. The car’s front tires went over an edge. Their downward momentum powered them forward. They went end over end in a perfect loopty-loop through the snow-filled air.
Chapter Four
Anna
Anna brought her head up. Slowly she turned left then right. Her hair hung in her face, obscuring the view. At least the car was upright, and she wasn’t dangling from her restraints.
All the doors stood wide. Finley was in the front seat. Johnathan and Mulvaney were gone. Anna didn’t attach any definition to that information other than she had some space to maneuver now.
By kicking her feet up on the seat, Anna was able to shift her weight onto her heels, lifting her hips so she could force her cuffed hands over to the seat belt. She pressed the button and the belt disengaged. She slithered down on the seat until she was lying on her back, then pulled her knees to her chest and at the same time thrust her arms down over her hips. The metal edge of the cuffs ground into her skin like knives as she tugged them as wide as the short chain would allow. She maneuvered her hands past her hips and down behind her ankles.
This was the good part of not having her boots on, Anna thought as she wriggled and forced her wrists below her shackles and over her feet.
She decided not to get out of the car into the snow. Wet socks would make anything that happened next that much more miserable. She dove over the front seat in an opposite move to what Mulvaney had stupidly done just a few minutes earlier. Anna tried hard not to touch Finley. He might be dead. But if he were just unconscious, she didn’t want to make things worse for him.
Brushing her hair out of her face, she reached into the case on his duty belt for Finley’s cuff keys. With stiff fingers, pink with cold, she worked to set herself free.
The airbags hadn’t deployed. Nothing told them to. There wasn’t a direct hit from the front or the sides. From what Anna could tell they had done a perfect rollercoaster flip in the air and landed on all four tires. But unlike a carnival ride, this one came with body-destroying force and impact.
Free from her constraints, Anna assessed Finley’s state. He was out for the count. His head rested on the steering wheel. His knees pressed into the console.
Anna ran her hands over him looking for breaks or bleeds but found nothing. She checked to make sure his tongue wasn’t blocking his airway.
When he came to, she’d be able to do a better job of assessing.
Car keys in hand, Anna pulled out the floor mats on either side of the front seats. Laying these down leap-frog style to keep herself dry, she made her way back to the trunk, popping it open with hopes that she’d find not just her boots, but some significant supplies. Maybe a satellite radio.
Anna sat on the lip of the trunk as she laced on her boots. If nothing else, she could start a fire with the survival prep they had done one night at the Southern Iron Cross (SIC) meeting. She’d rolled her eyes at the time. She thought it was a silly exercise for a bunch of guys who liked to role-play courage. Who could have imagined this scenario? The one the “commanders” had painted was the government banging on their doors, coming for their guns, and they had to escape and evade until they could make their way to the SIC compound.
She took a moment to self-assess. Anna thought she’d come out of the accident okay. Not great. But, nothing obviously broken, no blurred vision, no open wounds. Anna grabbed the red first aid kit, a big red box, shaped like a briefcase, and went in search of Mulvaney and Johnathan.
Johnathan had had a good grip on Mulvaney as the car began its flight. Anna imagined that centrifugal force had sucked them out the left-hand side and spat them at some distance away.
Anna walked toward the sheer drop off they’d fallen from. She’d start there and walk a grid pattern.
Finding the white blanket first, she picked it up, folding and rolling it, then putting it around her shoulders as she scanned. Johnathan’s red gym shorts stood out against the white and brown of the landscape. He was doing a backbend over a boulder, his hands still cuffed behind him. Anna had zero confidence he was alive, but she moved over to check his pulse, anyway.
Nothing.
Anna climbed up on a pile of rocks, her fingernails gripped into the icy surface. The shock was wearing off and with it the protective cloak that had hidden her pain. Now, she was getting a taste of what was to come. She could tell that she’d sustained some bone bruising in her legs and her back had been jacked up but good. She took a moment to open the first aid kit and pop a couple of pain pills to get them working in her system before she lit up too brightly. She ate a handful of snow to get the pills down.
When she stood, she scanned the horizon, looking for a dark blob against the white. Seeing nothing, she tried to make her way up to a higher elevation. She questioned her decision when she realized how slick the ascent was.
She scanned.
Another cautious step upward.
She scanned, again.
A third step, and Anna caught a glint of yellow, far off to the left at an improbable distance away.
As Anna made her way down and over to Mulvaney, she remembered watching Finley back at Johnathan’s house and thinking that one of them was going to die before this was over.
Anna checked Mulvaney’s pulse and got nothing.
Two down. Two to go.
Had they reached their death quota?
To be honest, Anna told herself as she started pulling off Mulvaney’s clothes, it was a very good possibility that no one would survive this. Anna took off her own coat and added Mulvaney’s sweater and coat before she pulled her hunting jacket back in place. These extra layers would buy her more time before she became hypothermic out here in the storm.
She folded Mulvaney’s long sleeved t-shirt and tucked it in the blanket in case she needed dry clothes later.
Next Anna picked up Mulvaney’s duty belt, pulling out her Glock and checking the chamber for a ready bullet before belting it around Anna’s own pants. She patted over Mulvaney’s pockets collecting an extra magazine, three protein bars, and Mulvaney’s phone. Anna felt down the other side and found another phone in the cargo pocket down near her ankle.
Two phones?
Anna, pulled off Mulvaney’s boots, took her socks and laces, then set the boots to the side – they weren’t her size. Next, she yanked off the woman’s pants leaving the body dressed in a red sports bra and purple lace panties.
Two phones?
Anna swiped the first phone and found that it was locked with a finger print. She moved over to Mulvaney, lifted her hand onto the screen and pressed.
&nb
sp; A quick scroll through the contacts, told Anna this was the normal stuff you’d find. Mom, ICE, Hubby, doctors, a list of FBI folks.
Anna did the same with the other phone. Here there was one contact “Him.” When Anna saw that, her body iced in a way that Mother nature, even in this near-blizzard that was stoking up, couldn’t replicate. It was the cold-assed feeling she got when she knew she was in a sniper’s alley and someone was training their scope on her.
Imminent death.
Anna checked both phones for signal and got nothing from either.
She hadn’t expected any good luck to head her way, but if it showed up, Anna wasn’t going to turn it back around. This was not the time to make stupid mistakes like believing Mulvaney when she’d said there was no cell service here.
Having stripped the corpse of everything useful to her survival, Anna carefully traced her footsteps back to the car, hoping that if the bad guys came in with tracking skills, and even if they brought a dog that they’d think she did what most people would do, crawled back up to the road to get help.
That was absolutely not what Anna planned to do.
* * *
Anna had found a box of chemical heat wraps that were supposed to ease back pain in the first aid kit. She’d wrapped one around her waist and had put one around Finley’s core to keep him warm. She’d draped him in a Mylar emergency blanket to conserve his body heat, and then covered him with the dog blanket. He wouldn’t freeze.
He still hadn’t come to.
That was a dilemma.
She couldn’t leave him here alive; he’d die. “No man left behind” wasn’t a creed she could unwind herself from. But dragging him out of here in the storm or with her injuries didn’t seem a workable plan either.
Anna sat in the front seat with a big fat question in her head. How did they get here? She wouldn’t know how to get out of the situation until she figured out the series of events that landed them here.