by Tom Crown
Alex looked out and watched as Roman toss a match into the pickup truck. Flames roared into the air around him, engulfing the wreck in seconds. Roman hurried away just in time.
Alex started the engine again and released the parking brake. It was time to go.
He kept looking into the forest, as they got rolling again, half expecting to see Katia’s mutilated body leaning against every tree they passed.
And suddenly he slammed on the brakes. He had actually seen something.
“Damn!” He grabbed for his gun in the center console.
“What?”
He had seen someone in the forest, not Katia, but a man moving along the side of the road, keeping down, watching them.
Alex flung his door open and bolted out. It took him two seconds to circle the van and reach the edge of the forest. In another two, he saw the outline of the man’s moving head.
He raised his gun and fired.
CHAPTER NINE
RYAN LUNGED FOR cover as the bullet smacked into the tree behind him. A fallen spruce was his best option, and its overgrown trunk was only a few feet away. It was closer to the shooter, always a bad thing, but right now it would simply have to do. He rolled across the moist vegetation and then pushed his body flush against the trunk.
Katia and Steve were far behind and they probably couldn’t hear what was happening. It was probably for the best, but he kept wishing for the gun he had seen on Steve’s ankle.
The shooter was approaching quickly, his footsteps light and agile as he raced through the brush.
Ryan kept down, hidden for now by the fallen tree, but that cover wouldn’t last long. He looked around for better options and noticed a splintered stick that could hopefully do some damage. He grabbed hold of it and pulled it closer.
The man fired off another three shots in quick succession. Ryan felt the wood rain down around him, but the worse sensation was the sound of the final bullet burying itself deep in the damp ground. That’s what that would sound like if a bullet hit home. That, and his own anguished screaming.
He’d have to do something right away.
He turned onto his knees and pushed himself halfway up. Still holding on to the stick and noting its feeble weight in his hand, he pushed away from the tree, ready to bolt.
“Stop!”
Ryan did as he was told. Then he turned. The man was there, gun raised, a malicious grin on a gaunt face. Ryan could do nothing but stare into the man’s bloodshot eyes and watch them narrow with superfluous concentration. They were standing so close all the man needed to do was pull the trigger. And he was doing just that.
Ryan had only a split second left and his options were few. He could remain standing, or he could dive back down behind the trunk and live another few seconds, unless that motion triggered the shot and killed him.
He thought of the world as he had seen it, the darkness that had been pushing out the light instead of the other way around. He had seen too much violence since he’d ventured out in the world, beginning so brutally with the death of his sister on a desert road so far from home. It had changed how he looked at the world, and how he looked at people. And what a perfect end to that slippery slope this would be, the grin of a stranger, the muzzle of a gun, and no sense to any of it at all. Just like Patricia’s death, which hadn’t even happened in the mountains of Afghanistan like they both had feared, but instead the first time they were together, months after the end of her second deployment, traveling for her work in South Africa. She had wanted to show him the world, in all its richness, and it had met them with darkness and death.
Still, thinking about her, that horrible final moment, and everything he had seen in her eyes, he didn’t want to go out just yet. He needed to live for the both of them.
“Hey,” he said, slowly raising his hands, hoping to buy himself a little bit of time. “I don’t know what you—“
“Shut up! And keep your hands up.”
Ryan did as he was told.
“Give me your wallet.”
Ryan nodded and moved a hand down toward his inner pocket. This man wasn’t after his money. He wanted to know his identity.
“I’m reaching for it.”
Ryan made sure to maintain eye contact with the man as he felt into his pocket. His wallet and passport were right next to each other. He’d have to pull them both out if he wanted to be reasonably quick about it.
“Three. Two.” The man was now counting down, visibly squeezing the trigger.
“All right! Here it is.” Ryan pulled out the wallet and passport and held them up in the air.
“Toss them over.”
He did and watched as the man picked them up off the ground. He considered running, but he didn’t want to die from a bullet in the back. Instead, he just kept watching, as the man stood and opened the passport, gun in hand.
“Ryan West. Sorry to make your acquaintance. Turn around.”
It didn’t seem like a good idea. He stood his ground.
The muzzle found the middle of his face again. Ten feet away now. It was hard to miss from that distance.
“Suit yourself,” Ryan said finally and began to turn, hoping it wasn’t the last thing he ever did.
A shot rang out.
Then another and another.
Ryan was still standing.
The shots had come from a smaller gun.
Another shot rang out, this time in front of him, and that bullet buried itself into the tree he had been hiding behind. He dropped to the ground and caught a glimpse of a man running as he fell. That final bullet would’ve hit him in the stomach if it hadn’t been for the tree. His insides burn with that realization.
Ryan looked around for a second shooter and saw Steve coming to a halt against a nearby tree, pressing himself against it, his gun raised and ready to fire.
“Steve! Over here!”
Steve kept his eyes on the enemy, aiming carefully, and then fired off another round. Ryan didn’t bother to look where it went. He would survive, and that was more than enough for now.
But his relief lasted only for a second or two. The other man was back in the game again, firing an automatic AK47 from down the road. Ryan had heard and seen plenty of those in Afghanistan and knew the bullets would eventually shred the entire tree to splinters.
Steve was trying to take shelter behind the tree he had used for support. Bullets were hammering into the trunk, and it was obvious the tree wouldn’t last long.
They caught each other’s eye. The noise from the AK47 was so loud they didn’t even try to shout, but as far as Ryan could tell they were in agreement. It was time to run and hope human skin was thicker than the bark of these hundred-foot trees.
* * * *
Jenny had just managed to locate Steve’s Land Rover when Katia heard the familiar noise of Alex’s machine gun firing into the woods.
“Get down!” she yelled and moved in close to the vehicle, taking cover against the nearest wheel, hoping to put as much material as possible between her and the firing weapon.
Jenny threw herself down beside her. “Oh my God, oh my God.” She looked at Katia with frantic eyes, and it was obvious she had never experienced anything like this before.
Katia pushed herself up, peered over the hood, and saw Ryan charging through the forest, pushing greenery aside as he went. Steve was flailing wildly with a gun in his hand a few feet back. Alex’s machine gun probably wasn’t too far behind.
“They’re back,” Katia said, without taking her eyes off Ryan, who shouted something to Steve.
The turn lights flashed. The locks popped open.
Katia turned and looked at Jenny. “Get inside!”
Jenny pulled the nearest door open and took the passenger seat up front. Katia climbed in back and pulled the door shut. Steve climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine. Ryan threw himself in a split second later, finding room next to Katia in the backseat.
“Go, go, go!” Ryan shouted, slamming the back
of Steve’s seat with an open hand.
“What happened?!” Jenny asked, looking back and forth from Ryan to Steve, her eyes wide with excitement.
“We’ll talk later!” Steve released the parking brake. The acceleration pushed Katia back into her seat. She felt her heart pounding in her chest and fought to stay calm. She was with people she didn’t know and had no reason to trust. She wanted to be in control. That’s why she’d run into the forest in the first place. Control was important. But for now, she would simply stay put and stay quiet. Alex and Roman were too close, and these people were still her best bet for escape.
She focused on the trees rushing by outside, trying to keep track of where they were taking her. If she needed to run she would, but first it was time to let her body rest, if only for a few minutes. She was sure she would need all her strength soon enough.
“Have we lost them?” Ryan asked after a time, looking around.
“I think I hit their front wheel.”
Ryan nodded. “Thanks for saving my life,” he said after a moment, looking at Steve in the mirror.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. So thank you.”
“Any time.”
“What were you doing in the forest anyway? Talk about good timing.”
“Or bad.”
Ryan chuckled, but only for a moment. Then he looked at Steve again. “But really?”
Katia thought she heard something new in his voice now, a hint of accusation. Perhaps he was catching on to the fact that Steve must have seen the wreck, but hadn’t called the police, or the fact that he carried a gun that was not designed for self-protection in a forest, where a rifle or shotgun would make more sense. Either way, the look Steve shot at him in the mirror was tinged with darkness, but only for a second. Then he grinned once again, flashing a wide smile that never reached his eyes.
“To be honest, I was tracking you for a while back there. And it didn’t turn out as I expected.”
“Tracking me?” Ryan asked, moving forward in his seat. “Why?”
“Just wondering what you were up to. It’s the off-season. Why come here at all?”
“Well, why did you?”
Steve quietly studied him. Katia thought there was something eerie about how his lips transformed into an almost invisible smirk.
“You saw the car wreck, didn’t you?” Steve asked. “On the road back there? Did you call it in?”
Again there was something off for Katia about the way he was looking at them, searching their faces for clues, but she couldn’t say for sure what he was really after.
Ryan shook his head, looking away. “Everyone was already dead.”
Steve raised an eyebrow and glanced at the group for clues, lingering on Jenny, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable again. “Well, don’t beat yourself up about it,” he finally said. “I called it in.”
Ryan just nodded.
Katia clutched the backpack closer in her lap, feeling the weight of the money and even the outline of the passports. It was her ticket to freedom, but it was doing her little good in this group of people. What she needed was a weapon, but as far she could tell, Steve had the only one. He had put it in the door on his left, entirely out of reach from where she was sitting.
She’d have to wait until the time was right. Then the money in the backpack would take her anywhere she wanted to go. It was a familiar illusion, she knew, and the thought brought her no real hope. The fact was that she had no place she wanted to go, no place she felt she could go, and that made it very hard for her to run at all.
Steve had turned off the road and was taking them toward an isolated waterfront log house. A permanent ‘For Rent’ sign stood on the edge of the lot. She didn’t like the remoteness of this place, but figured Jenny would probably get in trouble with these men before she did, if it came to that.
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever see this place again,” Steve said, turning the wheel slowly toward the house. “Not when he opened up with that AK-47.”
“Are we safe here?” Jenny asked, looking around uncertainly.
It was a question Katia would never have bothered to ask, knowing full well that there was no such thing as safe.
Steve parked where the approach road ended on the gravel at the back of the house.
“Yes,” he said and turned off the engine. He reached for the gun in the door. “Perfectly.”
CHAPTER TEN
RYAN TOOK IN the surroundings as they made their way across the gravel to the house. A lake was fifty feet away, down a slope, its still water weakly glittering in the fading light. In the other direction, a wall of spruce stood tall against a darker sky. The road curved to the left along a slight rise, and then it took a sharp right over the top and disappeared into the forest. The house was small, brownish-gray, and would have been hard to spot for a distant observer if the clearing hadn’t given it away.
Steve unlocked the door, hastily excused himself, and went inside alone. Ryan stepped away from the door and peered at the small beach, flanked by spruce and pine. He had never much liked water. If he had, he’d probably gone to Florida, Hawaii, or even Australia. He liked to do things right, and if he’d liked water, a place like that would have been right. But he liked dryness. Mountain air. Crisp and clean.
The air had been like that in Kandahar, Afghanistan when he’d first arrived, and foolishly walked the same street every single day. Always to Herat Bazaar, just east of the Shahidan Chowk Square. It was a bit away from the hotels and restaurants, but not too much. They had probably been watching him for some time before they struck, a couple of weeks, maybe even more. He shouldn’t have kept to the same routes, the same routine, it made you vulnerable to attack. But so did venturing into unfamiliar territory. It was a difficult balancing act, and one he had failed spectacularly.
He sucked in the misty midnight air. This was a beautiful spot and perhaps exactly what they all needed now. The water was still, the light soothing. There was an innocence to this Lapland landscape, a fairytale quality that made him think of trolls and elves. He had sensed some of that same magic in Kandahar as well, but there it was part of a whole different set of stories. The city, founded by Alexander the Great, was surrounded by settlements that were among the oldest known anywhere in the world, and in many of those place it seemed as if time had always stood absolutely still.
His eyes drifted across the lake once again, and he imagined animals hunting each other down below. Things were often peaceful from a distance, but never when you got up close.
He felt himself shutting down physically. He was starting to feel the accumulated effect of his trip, those terrible photos, the fight at the camping site, the car chase, the crash, chasing Katia through the forest, the firefight, and even the sudden small talk on the road keeping him on edge.
Yet he needed to analyze his options. He had lost his passport and his wallet before the shootout and needed to get them back. He obviously wanted them for all sorts of practical reasons, but there was more to it than that. He had lost his previous passport under very similar circumstances, and didn’t want to repeat any part of that experience if he could help it.
He tried to think about something else for a moment, food, sleep, but those things didn’t feel as important as they probably should have. His mind kept drifting back to the Volvo he’d abandoned, and the keys at the bottom of the river. Not to mention the rifle they’d left behind.
He still hadn’t slept in this country and he didn’t trust his own judgment anymore. He hoped the Volvo was far enough from the crash site, so the police wouldn’t find it. The rifle was one thing, not impossible in and of itself to explain; the photos were entirely different. With those and the burnt wreckage, explanations would get very complicated. He could easily imagine himself being locked up again, in another foreign country, and it wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind when he traveled here.
“Hey there,” Steve called out, opening the front door wide to let them i
n. He grinned apologetically. “It wasn’t as bad as I remembered.”
It was a small house with a living room, kitchen, double bedroom cluttered with camera gear, and an ensuite bathroom with a window opening toward the gravel yard in the back. The furniture was sparse, mostly made of yellowing pine, accentuated by flowery pillows and curtains, none likely to have been chosen by Steve himself.
“Shouldn’t we call someone?” Jenny asked when she saw the phone in the hallway. “And see what’s happening?”
Katia looked at Ryan and shook her head slightly, and he nodded in agreement.
“We could call anonymously,” Jenny suggested. “We shouldn’t just leave everything, I mean, you know... Mats, we shouldn’t...”
“Hey,” Steve said. “I called it in. The rest will take care of itself. It’ll be all right.”
“No. No, it won’t.”
“It’s late now. We’ll figure it out in the morning. It’ll be all right. I promise.”
Ryan nodded, even though he didn’t agree with Steve that anything was, or would be, all right. The only thing he knew for sure was he didn’t want to get mixed up with the police if he could help it and not just because of his own history, or even his own involvement in Mats’s death. Too many things were wrong here, and it seemed all too likely the police weren’t to be trusted. Perhaps some had been paid off to turn a blind eye, or worse, were even involved. This was all conjecture, he knew, and his line of thought probably heavily influenced by his time in Afghanistan. But he wasn’t taking any chances.
Either way, they’d be better off taking matters into their own hands, at least for now.
He looked at Steve. “Got any more guns?”
Steve grinned and seemed to give his answer too much thought, but then he simply shook his head. “Sorry. No guns.”