Mark ducked down and said, “What kind of rifle do you have back there?”
“A thirty-aught-six and a three-hundred Win Mag.”
“Give me the three-hundred and I’ll own this guy.”
“I’ll do the shooting.” Larry rose high enough to fumble the folded carpet out, then dropped with a shout when another burst of gunfire rattled the truck.
“You hit?”
“No, but it was closer than I’d like.”
Mark pressed up against the rear passenger-side tire, holding the.38 and feeling impotent. He was a fine pistol shot, but the distance rendered that meaningless.
“I think he’s shot himself out of bullets,” Mark said. “Hurry!”
Larry grabbed for the rifle and instead caught the roll of carpet and dragged the whole mess out, flopping it into the gravel. The shooter took a few steps farther from the building, as if considering coming all the way out, then stopped, and Mark caught his breath.
Garland Webb.
“It’s him,” Mark said, though his uncle had no idea who he was talking about. “He’s here.” He swung around the truck, rose to his knees, and shot the cylinder on the.38 empty. None of the bullets came close, and Garland Webb turned and fled into the shadows of the building.
“Shit!” Mark looked at Larry, still fumbling through the rolled-up carpet for the right rifle case, and shouted, “Give me your pistol!”
“Pistol, hell! We’ve got to make up the distance!”
“Give me the pistol!”
Larry looked up at him in shock, saw Mark’s face, and handed over the gun. It was a Colt.45. Mark checked the load and took off at a sprint while his uncle screamed at him to stop. If Webb had more ammunition or another weapon, it was a suicide run, but Mark couldn’t think clearly enough to care. Webb was there, and Mark had a gun in hand.
He’d waited two agonizing years for this moment.
He ran down the ditch and scrambled up the other side and then hit the fence and climbed. There was barbed wire along the top, and he felt it shred his stomach as he flipped over and then landed in the gravel on the other side, but he didn’t pause, just stumbled forward and then ran hard once he had his balance, praying that Webb would show himself again, step out of the darkness and into the daylight. Into shooting range. For too long, he’d been hidden just like this-behind high fences and thick walls, locked inside dark, inaccessible rooms.
Now, though, he was right there.
Mark was halfway to the building when he heard an engine start. He pulled up short. Then he realized that the engine was coming from behind the building, and he began to run for the closest corner of the barn. He was halfway there when a truck came into view from the opposite side, a white Silverado with mud spattered along the side. Instead of driving toward the gate, it angled across the empty parking lot and toward the fence, gathering speed. Mark took two shots at a run-foolish, wasting bullets-and then forced himself to stop and take careful aim, going for the tires. He squeezed off the rest of the rounds in the gun, hitting the tailgate but never the tires. Meanwhile the truck was still accelerating, heading right for the fence. On the other side of the chain link, the land was rough but flat enough for driving, and the road was only a hundred yards away.
“Damn it, Larry, shoot! Shoot him!”
But no gunfire came from his uncle, and the Silverado hit the fence at fifty miles per hour at least. It tore through the chain link as if it were so much twine; the engine howled and the truck fishtailed and bounced over a short clump of brush, down into the ditch, and then up onto the road. The tires burned rubber, smoke rose from the pavement, and the truck was gone.
Mark dropped to his knees in the parking lot. His chest was heaving, and he could not take his eyes off the spot where the truck had just been.
Where Garland Webb had just been.
Had him. He was here, and so was I, with a gun in my hand. Finally.
He felt so tired, so beaten, that it took two tries for him to rise to his feet. By then, Larry had reached him and was in midsentence as well as midstride.
“…stupidest stunt I’ve ever seen! If he’d had another clip you’d be splattered over this parking lot like roadkill! Running into the wide-damn-open with nothing but a pistol, and you-”
“Why didn’t you shoot?” Mark screamed. “You had a three-hundred Mag and you couldn’t get off a single shot!”
“I don’t drive around with that thing loaded up and ready to fire from the hip, Markus! If you hadn’t run up there like a damned kamikaze pilot, I’d have been ready to pick him off no matter how he came out.”
They stood there and stared at each other, both of them glaring and breathing hard, and then Mark turned away and said, “Stupid son of a bitch!” He was talking to himself, not his uncle. Larry was right; if Mark hadn’t forced the issue, there would have been enough time to load and scope in, and then no matter how Webb chose to leave, it would have ended with a squeeze of the trigger.
It would have ended.
Mark reached into his pocket and closed his hand over Lauren’s old dive permit. There was blood on his hand from either the glass or the fence, and he could feel it oozing between his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You should be, acting that damn foolish,” Larry said, unaware that Mark hadn’t been apologizing to him.
“That was him,” he said. “Uncle, that was the man.”
“I got that impression, son. Tell you something else-I know whose truck he was driving.”
Mark turned to him. “What?”
Larry’s face, speckled with fresh cuts leaking blood, was taut with anger. This time, though, it didn’t seem to be directed at Mark.
“That Silverado belongs to Scotty Shields.”
“The hunting guide? I thought you said he was in Alaska?”
“He did say it. But he wouldn’t leave that truck behind. Not by choice.”
For a moment Mark was silent. Then he said, “Let’s see what he left in there.”
They crossed the parking lot and approached the open side door from which Webb had emerged. Even though it seemed unlikely there was anyone still inside, Mark lifted a finger, asking Larry to wait. Mark had made enough foolish mistakes in this place. He motioned to the doorway and then back to himself, indicating that he was going through first, and Larry nodded and stepped to the side, ready to provide covering fire. Mark went in low so Larry could shoot over him if needed.
Nothing but silence and darkness greeted him. The inside of the barn smelled of rust and something with an acidic tang that Mark couldn’t place. He turned sideways and checked both sides of the door and found the light switches.
“I don’t want to turn these on,” he whispered.
“Hell, son, ain’t nobody here but us and the rats. Light the place up.”
Mark glanced into the expansive dark, clenched his teeth, and hit the lights.
The fluorescents had that little hitch, the half-second pause before full glow, and by the time the barn was illuminated Mark had placed the smell-there were pallets of fertilizer stacked around the room. A fine explosive material. Along the far wall were more grates for the cattle guards, loose pieces of steel, and a pair of commercial-grade welders. Quite the workshop.
What was most troubling about the place, though, was how empty it was. Mark didn’t think it was a case of slow stockpiling. It looked more like they’d been taking supplies out. Fresh tire tracks lined the floor, and a Bobcat with a front loader was parked near the huge barn doors on the opposite side, where the Silverado had evidently been. It looked like they’d been loading.
“They’re getting ready,” he said softly.
He walked to the big double doors and pushed them open in a shriek of rusted metal. More tire tracks here, and they were wider than the pickup Garland Webb had been driving. A flatbed, probably.