But mere seconds after he aligned the barrel with the target, a voice said, “Please do not shoot.”
The voice sounded strangely familiar. While keeping his pistol trained on the subject, Zane used his left hand to pull out his red-filtered flashlight. He clicked it on and then froze, scarcely able to believe who was illuminated.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
After crossing the road, Amanda entered the trees. She was pleased to discover that the woods contained little undergrowth, and it only took her about a minute to traverse the distance to the other side. Upon arriving at the forest edge, she crept up behind a trunk. The snow was coming down hard and visibility was spotty at best, but she still felt the instinctive urge stay hidden whenever possible.
The scene that met her eyes was about what she expected. Just ahead and to her left was a parking deck, and to the right was a series of buildings, although it was snowing too hard to see how many. Was that where everything was going to take place, or should she keep looking? Were Carmen and Zane inside? She felt as though the answer to both questions was “yes.”
As she continued to stare, Amanda finally noticed that dim light was spilling out of the windows of the building that was facing the parking deck. Unfortunately, she was too far away to see inside, not to mention that she was at a bad angle.
Moments later, voices could be heard from a couple of different directions. It seemed as though one set was coming from the parking deck and another set from the closest building. When she looked at the building again, she saw two men standing next to an entrance on the side. Amanda knew she was well hidden, but it concerned her that there were so many people around. Something was going down. She knew it.
But what should she do next? That simple question gnawed at her as she shivered in the cold. She knew that the parking deck and the nearest building were out of the question. There was no way she could move around at either place without being seen. She eventually decided to move further down the tree line and enter one of the other buildings, all of which appeared to be dark. In the meantime, she would continue to pray, asking God to give her further instruction. Her experience had taught her that sometimes those instructions were clear, and other times they were just a vague notion or inclination.
At that point, she only knew to push forward, recognizing that danger was closing in on all sides.
Amanda took her time moving through the woods, occasionally pausing behind the trunks of trees to look around. She knew that whoever had come in on the bike could be lurking nearby, just like her.
When she drew even with the second building, she noticed that it was smaller and didn’t have any windows or doors. Giving her no means of ingress, she continued weaving through the trees until she was opposite the third building. That one had windows, and yet it was hard to be sure if there were any doors because of the row of fir trees planted along the side.
With the temperature dropping by the minute, she knew she needed to move quickly. Seeing no movement, she took a deep breath and ran across the space between the woods and the building. The snow out in the open was deeper than the snow under the trees, which almost caused her to fall a couple of times. But despite the pitfalls, she eventually punched through the row of fir trees to the other side.
Before proceeding to look for a door, Amanda decided to try some of the windows on the other side of the bushes. The hedge was thick and would provide her some measure of cover. Since the plants were adorned with prickly thorns, Amanda walked a few yards down until she found what appeared to be a slight opening in the tangle of branches. She would scoot through, try a couple of the windows, and then scoot back out.
Just after pushing some of the limbs aside, Amanda thought she heard a noise behind her. She turned around, the hairs on her neck standing on end once again. Where had the noise come from? And what was it? It sounded like a twig snapping, and yet she also realized that the wind had picked up and might be blowing something around.
Amanda stood perfectly still, her eyes moving back and forth in an attempt to discern the slightest movement. At one point she thought she saw something behind one of the trees, but after staring at the same spot for a full minute, she realized there was nothing there. And if her eyes were playing tricks on her, it was likely her ears were as well.
Taking a deep breath, Amanda took one last look and then got down on all fours and started to crawl through the opening. As soon as she did, she could have sworn she heard another shuffling sound, but she ignored it. Her adrenaline was running at high levels, and it was likely affecting her senses.
And then, right as she was about to punch through to the other side, a hand grabbed her ankle. She let out a little scream and rolled over in an attempt to defend herself, but it was too late. A large brute of a man was looming over her.
Another scream welled up inside her, but before it could leave her mouth, the butt of a rifle swung down through the air, striking her across the head and turning everything to black.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
By the time Philippe tracked Amanda’s footprints to the other side of the woods, they had mostly disappeared, dissolving into what was by then almost a full inch or two of snow. The impressions appeared to move off to the right, but he couldn’t be sure. The gentle undulations could have just been subtle changes in topography.
Soon after the pastor had started to pray, he — like Amanda — had come to the conclusion that his destiny lay inside one of those buildings. And like his American friend, he still didn’t know what role he was to play, only that it was a more active one than he originally thought.
It hadn’t been hard to follow her tracks initially, particularly on the road where the snow had not yet become too thick. The footprints had been a bit more difficult to follow in the woods, but he took the liberty of using a small penlight on occasion, when the trail seemed to disappear.
He stood at the edge of the woods looking at the CERN complex spread out before him, with a parking deck to the left and a series of buildings to the right. What next? That was the question that echoed in his mind as he crouched behind the trunk of a tree. Should he go into the parking deck? That might afford a good view of the building on the end. Or should he move to the right to see if Amanda had followed the line of trees? Perhaps she was trying to find a way into the buildings.
In the end, Philippe felt drawn to the parking deck. He didn’t like the idea of crossing the open space, but he knew he had to be obedient to the voice he sensed in his spirit. The timing couldn’t have been better, and was perhaps even providential, because as Philippe stepped out from behind the tree and ran, a strong gust of wind came ripping through the open space. Not only did it kick up clouds of snow from the ground, but it also swept an avalanche of flakes off of the parking deck and buildings. For a full fifteen seconds, it was as though he was running through a snow globe that had been shaken hard.
As soon as he stepped under the protection of the deck, Philippe sprinted up a flight of stairs to the second level. He had seen the tops of a couple of sport utility vehicles, and assumed it would make a good place to hide. Not to mention it would provide some shelter from the storm.
Before stepping out of the stairwell, Philippe paused and listened. Hearing nothing, he approached the line of vehicles in front of him. They were all facing the building, so he would simply slip in between two of them and watch. If someone came toward the parking deck, perhaps to enter one of the vehicles, he would retreat to the third level or to the other side of the elevator column in the center.