As Radcliff wheeled the president out, Baxter pointed at Bill and Troy in turn. “Where were you pricks on this one?” He stared hard at them for a few moments, eyes flashing accusingly. “Nowhere, obviously,” he hissed as he stormed from the room. “Nowhere!”
CHAPTER 7
As Travers raced down the railroad tracks through the darkness, bullets strafed past. He turned and darted into the dense forest lining both sides of the double main line. Going into the trees was his only chance.
Three minutes ago he and Harry Boyd had been ambushed at the gas station. Boyd had been shot dead through the windshield by one of the men who’d attacked them back there. But Travers had escaped by hustling out the back of the van, then racing onto the tracks that lay at the bottom of a steep ravine at the edge of the gas station’s parking lot.
Now he was running for his life.
Kaashif and the driver glanced at each other when a DJ broke into the rap song playing on the vehicle’s radio to announce in a trembling voice what was unfolding across the country. Huge high-end malls were being attacked in big cities all over the nation.
When the announcer finished, they high-fived each other — just as they pulled into the short driveway of Kaashif’s “parents’” house.
“Stay with me,” one of the EMTs said loudly as they rushed the young woman toward the mall entrance where the three assassins had opened fire on the crowd eleven minutes ago. “You’re gonna make it,” he said as they guided the gurney around the security guard’s dead body. “Don’t give up.”
Jennie could barely make out the features of the man above her. Everything about him seemed out of focus, and she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. Had they given her drugs, or was her body shutting down? She couldn’t remember them giving her anything. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“The little girl,” she whispered. “Is she all right?”
The EMT leaned down. “What?”
Jennie couldn’t say the words again. Her strength was gone, and her eyelids slowly slid shut.
The EMT shook her shoulder gently as they guided the gurney through the outer doors of the mall lobby. But she was unresponsive.
“We’ve gotta hurry,” he urged his partner as they raced her toward the ambulance, “or we’re gonna lose her.”
“Looks like we may already have,” the other EMT responded dejectedly.
“No dogs,” Major Travers muttered thankfully as he dodged the trunks of leafless trees coming at him through the gloom. Unfortunately, most of them weren’t wide enough for a man his size to hide behind. “That’s good. A couple of Dobermans would have been a problem.”
Travers hurdled a wide stream, clawed his way up the steep bank on the other side, and then hustled into the trees. He had time — though not much. Still, that narrow window provided an opportunity. If they’d sent dogs out on him, the odds of success would have dropped drastically. And life was all about odds.
He stayed in top physical condition with the kind of insane workouts other men his age would have died from. But when it came to physical ability and stamina, working out was no match for youth. He knew that as well as anyone. Despite the heavy workouts, he knew he’d lost a step.
The key difference between most other men in their fifth decade and Travers: He accepted timeless truths and used experience and cunning to turn those truths to his advantage.
Sooner or later the two men chasing him like wolves — steadily and relentlessly — were going to catch up. That outcome was inevitable. He’d seen their faces back at the gas station during the chaos in which Harry had been killed. They were much younger, and they could certainly go longer and farther than he could. More important, they were hungry with much to prove, like most men their age.
And that would be their downfall. He would use that hunger against them.
The two assassins raced through the leafless forest of oaks and poplars with their pistols drawn, then on into the dense pine forest and the gathering dusk. They were closing in on Travers, the primary target of their mission.
“Don’t stop until both men have been neutralized, and bring me back the right forefinger of Harry Boyd as proof of your success.” That was the order from their superior, Shane Maddux.
The young man running second had Boyd’s finger stuffed in his pants pocket. Now he wanted Travers. Dropping that dead finger on the table in front of Maddux was going to be a proud moment. But snaring Travers was much more important because it would absolve him of his failure in Los Angeles.
As the two pursuers broke into a secluded clearing, Travers dropped down from above and slammed his right knee directly between the lead man’s shoulder blades. Most men would have crumpled to the ground out cold, but this kid was in tremendous shape. He remained conscious.
Travers could feel that natural, youthful energy and strength surging through the young body as he wrapped his arm around the assassin’s head so the face was buried in the crook of his elbow. Then he twisted wickedly, fast and hard. It was a shame to do this to such a valuable asset, but he had no choice. This fight was to the death.
The sound of the neck breaking was loud, like a dead branch cracking beneath a boot, and the kid died instantly without even a groan.
Travers dropped the lifeless body to the leaves and whipped around, then lunged immediately to the right just as the other young man fired his pistol. The bullet blew through Travers’s jacket and grazed his left side. But with all the adrenaline pouring through his system, he didn’t feel it. He lunged again as the young man aimed. But he beat the second bullet, too, and then chopped down like a sledgehammer on the wrist of his attacker so the fight became a hand-to-hand struggle when the weapon flew off into the woods.
The younger man caught Travers flush on the cheek with a brutally fast left, but Travers was leaning away when the punch landed, so the impact did minimal damage. Travers retaliated with a sharp elbow to the Adam’s apple, a powerful chop-kick down onto the right patella, and a knee to the groin. It was over that fast, and now Travers had a willing witness — though the kid didn’t realize how willing he was about to be.
Travers splayed the victim on his stomach on the wet ground like a deer carcass. Then he quickly broke the man’s right shoulder by straddling the lower back, grabbing the right wrist with his right hand, pressing down on the right shoulder with his left hand, and then rotating the young man’s arm all the way around on the axis as he held it straight out until the joint snapped as loudly as the other man’s neck had. Travers repeated the technique with the left shoulder and left arm, and now there was no risk of counterattack or escape. The kid was done. He wouldn’t even be able to make it to his feet without a herculean effort.
“You shouldn’t have fired at me so fast,” Travers hissed as the man beneath him cried out in terrible pain. “You should have taken your time. You always have more time than you think. And you shouldn’t have run so blindly into good cover like this.” Travers nodded respectfully and thankfully to the thickly needled limbs of the pine trees above him. Then he leaned down so his lips were close to the ear of the young man, who only now did he see was also African American. Up until this moment he’d been too focused on survival to notice. “Tell me who sent you.”
“I can’t,” the other man gasped. “You know that.”
“What’s your name?”