It was a man, and he was wearing some kind of ghillie suit that would have made him blend effortlessly into his surroundings just beyond the tree line if not for the rifle in his hands. The muzzle was pointed in Keo’s direction, and the reason Keo hadn’t heard anything resembling a gunshot meant the weapon had a suppressor—
Keo dived left at the last second even as the man fired again, the second round smashing into the wall an inch from his head, so close that the sound of the weapon drilling through the vulnerable wood (Thwack!) and disappearing into the barn was the only noise the shot made. He had thrown himself down to avoid the bullet without thinking and had to stick out his hands — with the AR-15 clutched in them — or else he would have smashed face first into the ground.
There was a loud boom! from behind him, and Keo didn’t have to look back to know someone had just kicked the barn’s side door open. Not that he could have looked to be sure, because he was still falling—
He hit the ground, spun onto his back, and grimaced as the second rifle slung over his back dug into his flesh (Should have left it behind, dammit!), but the pain vanished quickly and was replaced by blinding fury when a steel-toed boot slammed into his side. He was pretty sure one of his ribs cracked. If he was really lucky, it would just be one.
He glimpsed figures flashing across his line of vision, blotting out the sun above him, just before the stock of a rifle cracked over his face.
There goes the nose again.
He tasted blood in his mouth and felt his rifle being yanked out of his hands as if he were some old man incapable of holding onto anything, then another boot (or was it the same one?) landing a second kick, but thankfully this time it only glanced off his thigh. It still hurt like a sonofabitch, and it was all he could do to grit his teeth to keep from crying out.
He waited for more, but his punisher had apparently decided that two (Or was that three? Four?) was enough and backed away, leaving Keo to lie on his back staring up at a glowing orange ball. At least it was warm and sunny this morning. He could think of worse ways to go — somewhere cold, for instance.
God bless freaky ass Texas weather, he thought with a wry grin.
“What are you smiling at?” a voice said. Female. Partially amused, but mostly confused. “I don’t think you should be smiling right now.”
“You sure that’s a smile?” a second voice asked. This one was a man and wasn’t nearly as pleasant-sounding.
“Looks like a smile.”
“Hard to tell with all the blood…”
Keo shifted his sight from the sun to the first silhouetted figure looming over him. For a moment he thought it might have been Marcy again, but it couldn’t have been because she was a collaborator and these were Mercer’s men. Or had he stumbled across the wrong group of people? Had Davis lied to him after all and sent him to his death?
Clever, Davis. Real clever, you jackass.
“You missed,” the man said. It didn’t sound as if he was directing the accusation at Keo. “Twice.”
“It’s the suppressor,” a second male voice said. “Threw off my aim.”
“Riiiight.”
“I’m serious, man.”
A third silhouette flanked the first two, except this one seemed to have the outline of a…bush? No, not a bush. He was looking at a ghillie suit…the guy with the rifle who had taken the shots at him.
“He’s seen better days, that’s for sure,” Ghillie Suit said. “Damn, look at that face.”
“That’s my bad,” the other man said.
“You did that?”
“Had to make sure he stayed down.”
“I think you made sure.”
“Damn straight.” Then, “Is that what I think it is?” The man crouched briefly before straightening back up, this time with a familiar white wire dangling from between his fingers. “Aw, shit, it’s Davis’s iPod, isn’t it? What the fuck’s he doing with Davis’s iPod?”
“I guess now we know what happened to him and Butch,” Ghillie Suit said.
“You think they’re dead?”
“I don’t think they gave it to him out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“Is he alone?” the woman asked.
“As far as I know,” Ghillie Suit said. “Could be more hiding in the woods.”
“I swore the nightcrawlers found us last night,” the other man said. “They might have sent their human lackeys to check. You think he’s a collaborator scumbag?”
“Maybe,” woman said. “Spread out; make sure he doesn’t have any friends hiding out there.”
The man who wasn’t Ghillie Suit left and Keo heard a radio squawking, but that was quickly drowned out by the sound of a machine roaring to life. First slowly, then gradually gaining speed and power until it was all he could hear and the ground under him began trembling, pebbles dancing near his right eye.
The helicopter. Wait for me, boys!
He must have grinned a second time, because the woman said, “There it is again. What’s so funny?”
He thought of a joke Danny had once told him about a priest, a rabbit, and a horse walking into a bar, but when he opened his mouth to tell it, the only sound that came out was a slightly labored wheeze.
“I guess not!” Ghillie Suit said. With the noise continuing to grow in the background, the man had to shout to be heard. “What’re we gonna do with him?”
“I don’t know yet!” the woman shouted back. She crouched next to Keo and her face slowly came into focus.
Not completely, but enough for him to know she wasn’t entirely bad looking.
“What’s he doing sneaking around out here by himself?” the woman asked, though Keo wasn’t sure if she was asking him or Ghillie Suit, or just talking mostly to herself.
Maybe I should ask her out for drinks. Get to know one another…
“He looks like he’s going to be way more trouble than he’s worth,” Ghillie Suit said.
“Maybe,” the woman said, standing back up. “We can always just throw him out of the hatch later if he becomes a pain in the ass.”
Or not.
5
Gaby
“Ready, kid?”
“No.”
“On the count of five…”
“Danny, I’m not ready!”
“One…”
“Not yet!”
“Two…”
“Danny!”
“…four…”
“What happened to three?”
“Go!”
She would have cursed him if she had the chance, but by the time his Go! echoed in her ears, the pickup’s tires were screaming and the smell of burning rubber filled her nostrils as the vehicle slammed to a stop in the middle of the road. She threw her body into the door, one hand jerking at the lever, praying she had timed it just right, because otherwise she was going to go splat on the pavement—
The door snapped open, rusted hinges working overtime, but was soon lost against the overwhelming squeal of tires under her and the quickly approaching engines of the two vehicles behind them. Her feet didn’t so much as touch the road as they graced it, and she was racing forward. A sheet of abandoned newspaper crumpled under her boots, the sound like gunshots despite all the other noises swirling around her at the moment.
The road out of Gallant, Texas, was a two-lane street separated by fading yellow lines, and their vehicle had turned slightly left as it skidded to a stop and she lunged out. That pointed her right toward the shoulder and the row of cars on the other side. They hadn’t made it very far out of town before Danny came up with his (not so) brilliant plan. She would have argued to keep going and hopefully lose their pursuers among the side streets, but Danny hadn’t given her any choice.