Jack wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm. “Do you think cows were affected by the activation?”
“I doubt it. How do you tell a cow to kill someone?” I said.
“Or commit suicide,” Lea added.
We jogged across one more muddy field, peppered with hoofprints and cow pies, to the edge of the highway. I would describe it as a dual carriageway. It had two lanes in either direction, and motorways in England had three. A mix of larger residential, business, and industrial properties lined the route, giving it a cluttered mishmash feel.
I ran for the closest property. A big, two-story, gingerbread-style house, painted light green, with a fenced-off garden at the back. I always preferred to live away from main roads but would have made an exception for this place, sheltered by trees and set back around fifty yards.
Somebody had loved the back garden. Lush dark-green ferns and light shrubs stuffed the borders. Daffodils and tulips proudly stood in the neat circular rockeries dotted around the smooth lawn. I would have been proud of producing this myself.
Jack’s hand snapped up, and he aimed the Ruger toward the back fence. I ducked behind a wooden chair on the patio.
He lowered it, let out a deep breath, and clutched his chest. “Jesus Christ.”
I visually swept the garden.
“What is it?” Lea asked.
He pointed to where he’d aimed. “I think GA missed someone during their cleanup operation. By the buttonbush.”
“The what?”
“That shrub over there,” I said.
She aligned her vision with my pointing finger and gasped.
Since leaving the Army, Jack and I had taken up gardening and were adept at identifying objects by orienting them to the nearest tree or plant. It had almost become second nature.
A discolored, naked corpse lay under the shrub. I’d initially assumed, with a casual glance, that it was another rockery or garden decoration. On closer inspection, it looked as though an animal had feasted on various parts.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Lea said.
“We’ve seen worse—get a grip on yourself,” Jack snapped. I think he still felt irritated by her wanting to go back to Monroe while we were in immediate danger.
The stench from the pit wafted over on a light gust of wind, and I pulled the sweater over the bridge of my nose. Thunder rolled again overhead. I yanked a small chopping axe out of a tree stump and ran my finger along the blade. It wasn’t very sharp, but it was better than nothing.
After negotiating our way through two more or less attractive gardens and sprinting across a derelict office car park, we arrived at the edge of a field with a small wooded area on the opposite side. We were only forty yards from the Rovers. I studied the tree line in the direction the goons headed, but couldn’t detect any signs of movement.
I knelt by a thick tree trunk. “Wait here for a few minutes. Make sure the coast’s clear before making our move.”
“Why don’t we take a Rover?” Lea said.
“And drive where? Back to Monroe?” Jack said.
She turned away from him and sighed. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
We crouched in silence, observing for the next two minutes. Flocks of crows swept down and landed in large clusters. Individual birds of prey, recognizable by their broad wings, soared overhead. I guessed they’d been attracted by the human dumping ground, an unlimited supply of food, but it made our movements dangerous. If we startled a group of them, they could give away our location from a reasonable distance.
“Run for the cars. Once between them, we keep low and move quickly, got it?”
Jack nodded and checked the Ruger. “Got it.”
Lea vacantly stared toward Monroe. I reached over and shook her shoulder.
“Got it, Lea?”
She rolled her eyes. “For Pete’s sake. I heard you. We move through the cars.”
“We need to work as a team and move quickly if we’re going to get out of this in one piece,” I said, attempting to hide my frustration at her flippant attitude. “Drop all thoughts of Martina until we’re clear and have time to come up with a plan.”
She moved to within inches of my face. “Do you think it was easy for Martina and me? She’s the one shining light in this mess, my hope. You get that, right?”
I didn’t return her icy stare; instead, I squeezed her shoulder and tried to look sympathetic. Internally, her loss of focus concerned me. Our full concentration had to be on our escape, and nothing else.
Another rumble of thunder banged in the sky, followed by a flash of lightning. Rain pattered against the trees around us, lightly at first, but within a minute it bucketed down.
“Those guards could be back here at any minute,” I said. “Now!”
I set off at a sprint through the field, past the Range Rovers. After quickly reaching the first few cars, I ducked into a small triangular-shaped clearing and waited for the other two. Jack and Lea followed, and we hunched together between three damaged vehicles. I carried out a quick inspection of the closest, which had taken a side impact. Small sections of dried bloody handprints flaked off the door as raindrops hit the paintwork.
“How far do you think this stretches?” Jack said.
“Hopefully, right up to where we parked at the end of Otter Creek Road,” I said.
Vehicles had been parked in rows of six across the highway, sometimes five where trucks or large SUVs were positioned. I couldn’t see the end as the massive parking lot disappeared around a shallow bend in the distance. I reasoned that we wouldn’t have far to go. GA didn’t have unlimited resources, and this job alone must have taken them hours, if not a couple of days.
Two hawks circled high to my right, above the death pit we saw from Otter Creek Road, which confirmed my theory. Luckily, the rain kept the full force of the stench at bay.
I gestured to a foot-wide gap ahead. “Jack, lead the way. Lea, you follow and I’ll bring up the rear.”
“No, Harry, I’ll take the rear,” Lea said. “If we come across anyone, you’ve got an axe.”
“Okay, keep checking our rear. We don’t want any nasty surprises,” I said.
I wanted Lea to feel like an active part of the group and not just a passenger, mainly to take her mind off Martina. I edged in front and followed Jack as he crawled forward on all fours. The deeper we penetrated, the more tangled the obstacles became. Jack managed to find just enough space for us to crawl between the gaps or underneath larger vehicles for the first few hundred yards, and we made good progress.
He stopped abruptly and turned back. “We’ll have to slide over the front of this one.”
A green Chrysler with flat tires was parked at a slight angle in front of him. Not enough room to go underneath or around.
“Crack on,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Jack slid over the hood, and his boots crunched against ground on the other side. He leaned under the chassis. “All clear this side.”
I crawled over the hood on my belly and noticed a large circular hole in the windshield, about the size of a golf ball. Dried streaks of blood stained the cream leather passenger seat.
While elevated, I glanced around at the trees, the scruffy rows of vehicles, and back to the Rovers before easing myself down onto the other side. Rain continued to fall, and my clothes started clinging to me, but the noise of the weather came as a welcome bonus to aid our escape.
Jack sat with his back against the Chrysler and ruffled water out of his hair. His buzz cut had grown to the length of a number four and had efficiently collected droplets. I did the same and felt the water spray through my fingers.