Tom was beginning to think the chase would be easier than he’d anticipated. Then he heard the sound of a helicopter’s rotors slicing the air.
SWAT had arrived.
Tom craned his neck skyward. The land in front of him dipped. He nearly lost his balance trying to pinpoint the chopper’s exact position. There was a quick break in the tree cover. The helicopter was almost directly overhead. The forest thickened again, but the damage was already done. The helicopter pilots had seen him. Same as he’d seen them.
For ten minutes the helicopter kept pace with Tom. He knew what was coming next. He heard the sound in his mind before he heard it in his ears. The whining engines of ATVs barked out their warning from the dark wood behind him. As he expected, SWAT had mobilized a task force to hunt him down. The helicopter worked as a spotter. Now it was up to the ATV riders to bring him in.
Good luck, Tom thought.
The ATVs sounded at most five hundred yards to his back. He knew not to be confident in that assessment. The forest made pinpointing location by sound a misleading endeavor.
He accelerated to ninety-five rpm’s. His destination was nearing. It would be a race to see who got there first. Diffused light from the late-day sky flattened out the shadows and blended dangerous obstacles in with the harmless terrain. Tom’s night vision acuity couldn’t reveal everything, and when Tom hit the rock, a small boulder buried beneath a lump of decaying forest rot, his only option was to take the fall.
The wheel of his bike connected with the rock’s jagged side at full speed and sent Tom lurching forward. He catapulted over the handlebars like a projectile launched from a slingshot. With a grunt, Tom landed on the hard-packed ground, feeling the impact like a thunderclap rolling about his head.
He staggered to his feet and retrieved the crumpled bike, which had landed some twenty feet from where he rose. The bike’s front wheel was bent slightly; a few spokes had become dislodged on impact. He checked it quickly; it could still be ridden. The noise of ATV engines grew louder with every passing second. They buzzed, seemingly from all directions.
As Tom remounted his bike, headlights appeared at the top of the hilly rise several hundred feet behind him. The headlights, like a swarm of gnats with glowing eyes, six sets in total, lit Tom’s face and cast threatening beams that danced over the rocks and trees of the darkening wood.
Tom began to pedal again. It wasn’t far now. He’d studied the maps before he’d left the house. He knew how the terrain changed beyond the creek. Where the land rose again stood a forest of densely packed, smaller trees. Skiers in the Northeast might refer to the tree line up ahead as glades. But Tom had a different name for it.
Escape.
A voice from a megaphone overhead cut through the noise of the ATV engines and whirling rotors.
“This is the police. We’ve got you surrounded. Dismount your bicycle. We have orders to shoot. Dismount and get down on the ground.”
Tom pushed harder against the pedals. He was sweating. The muscles in his calves and thighs burned as fibers broke down and lactic acid built up.
“Last warning. Dismount now,” boomed the voice from above.
Tom risked a glance behind him and saw that five of the ATVs were still in pursuit. He estimated the distance at fifty yards back, but closing in quick. The sixth rider had stopped to ready a weapon.
Fifty yards to the glades…. now forty…
The crack of a rifle shot exploded in the distance. The bullet slapped into a tree not far to Tom’s right. It splintered the wood with an alarming snap. Another shot, this one passing close enough for Tom to hear the bullet whiz by.
Twenty yards to go…
The riders were close enough now for Tom to feel the heat of their headlamps. All forest sounds gave way to the noise of their engines revving in pursuit.
Ten…
Another shot rang out. The bullet was way off target. Even so, the lead ATV had managed to pull alongside Tom. The ATV rider slowed to keep pace. He wore a black helmet and had on leather protective gear.
Good for him. He’ll need both, Tom thought.
The rider released one hand from the ATV handlebars and motioned wildly for Tom to stop.
Tom released his hand from the handlebar. He used that free hand to point to something up ahead.
The rider turned to look to where Tom pointed. Tom could see the rider try to brake. But he braked too late. The spacing between the trees was twenty inches, twenty-five at most. Tom needed only eighteen to clear the obstacle. The ATV required more than seventy. The impact when the ATV threaded two trees was ferocious.
Traveling at over thirty miles per hour, the front of the ATV collided against two trees with only a tap of the brakes to decelerate. Metal crunched against wood, and the ATV’s engine made a desperate whirring sound, as though taking its final breath. The vehicle flipped over onto its front, but the trees held it in an inverted position, which kept it from toppling over. The rider flew into the air, arms outstretched, and landed, miraculously, between two other trees. The force of his fall buried his head beneath a dense pack of ground cover. The other ATVs stopped inches before hitting the glades.
Tom’s bike, however, wove in and out of the trees, tracing a zigzag path between the obstacles like a seamstress’s stitch. The forest canopy thickened again.
Above, Tom heard the helicopter circling, but he could no longer see it overhead.
Behind, Tom listened to the angry idling of five waiting ATV engines.
Ahead, Tom saw only trees. Densely packed and narrow.
The final passage to his escape.
Chapter 77
Tom rode the bike in a wide circle. The police would assume he’d continued on his northerly course. He doubted anybody would suspect that he’d backtracked toward home. But that was the direction he had to ride if he wanted to make it to the Plenty Market—and to Jill.
The sun had set, and the late summer song of crickets and other woodland critters punctuated the evening’s calm. In this part of town, there was nothing unusual to draw the people’s attention. No all-points-bulletins had been issued to locals, warning them that Tom Hawkins was a fugitive from justice. Sure, news spread fast in Shilo. But Tom was confident it didn’t spread that fast. Whatever was happening on Oak Street was taking place a world away from where he was now. Here, there were only food shoppers.
Tom entered the market. He wore a baseball cap he’d packed in the backpack and kept his head low. The high-powered air conditioners chilled his skin. He intentionally proceeded down an aisle without any other shoppers. He headed straight to the back of the supermarket without slowing. Once there, he pushed open the swinging double doors that led into the back storeroom.
Gill Sullivan was sitting at his desk in the little office with the big plate-glass front window. If Sullivan hadn’t been there, Tom had plan B ready to roll, but he was glad to see the bastard hard at work. Sullivan looked up, frowned at Tom, rose from his seat, and was quick to leave his office.
Puzzled, Sullivan took hurried steps toward Tom, slowing as he neared. “What are you doing back here, Hawkins?” he asked.
Tom lunged at Sullivan with a burst of acceleration that took Sullivan by surprise. Sullivan’s eyes went wide with fright. A panicked look replaced his earlier confidence.
Tom sliced the side of his hand through the air as though he were brandishing a sword. The blow connected against Sullivan’s windpipe with enough force to drop the man to his knees, but not quite enough to crush the organ.