know if it was the gunfire that spooked her, or if she could see the huddled shape of the sentries a few feet away.
He didn’t have time to coddle her. “We’ll go single file. Reverend, you’re the meat in the sandwich. Hammond and I can see where we’re going. You can’t, so hook your hand in my utility belt. We’ll be moving fast.”
“A.J. My name is A.J.”
He turned away. “Hang on tight.” As soon as he felt her hand seize the webbed belt at the small of his back, he moved out.
They crossed the clearing at a dead run and didn’t slow much when they hit the forest. The ground was rough, and the night must have been completely black to her, but she didn’t hold them up. A couple of times she stumbled, but her grip on his belt kept her upright, and she kept moving.
Good for her. He blessed her long legs as he wove among the trees, listening to the diminishing blast of gunfire behind them.
“Where are we going?”
“This trail intersects the road. We’ll meet the truck there. There’s a log here you’ll have to jump.” He leaped it.
She followed awkwardly but without falling. “This is a trail? Are you sure?”
He grinned, pleased with the trace of humor he heard in her voice. “Trust me. It’s here.” He’d found and followed it last night. Fortunately, the canopy wasn’t as thick here as it was in some places—part of this forest was second-growth. But that meant that there was more underbrush.
“Hammond,” he said. “Anything?”
“No sign of pursuit, Mick.”
Everything was going according to plan. It made Michael uneasy. Yeah, it was a good plan, implemented by good men. Problem was, he’d never yet been on a job where everything went according to plan. The truck might not start, or any of a dozen things could go wrong with getting it out.
When they reached the road Michael’s pessimism was rewarded. The truck wasn’t there. A fistful of soldiers were. And they were coming up the road, not down it from the compound.
One second A.J. was running a step behind her rescuer, her hand locked for dear life in the webbing of his belt while plants tried to trip her. The next, he stopped so suddenly she slammed into him.
He didn’t even wobble. Just spun, shoved her down and hit the ground beside her.
She couldn’t see a thing. Her hip throbbed from her rough landing in the dirt. A stick was poking her shoulder, and she didn’t know where Sister Maria Elena was. The other soldier, the one with the face of a comic book villain and the Mr. Universe body, wasn’t beside them. When A.J. lifted her head to see what had happened to him, a large hand pushed it back down so fast she got dirt in her mouth.
He kept his hand on her neck. She felt breath on her hair, warm and close to her ear. His whisper was so soft she barely heard it. “Soldiers coming up the road. Not the ones from the compound.”
Oh, God. More soldiers. Now that she’d stopped running, she felt cold. So cold. Or maybe it was his thumb, moving idly on her nape, that made goose bumps pop out on her shivery flesh. Or fear. She tried to keep her whisper as nearly soundless as his had been. “The truck?”
“Listen.”
She heard it now—a motor laboring, moving toward them. And from the other direction, voices of the soldiers he’d seen, coming up the rough dirt road. How could they have gotten in front of the truck?
No, she realized, these soldiers weren’t from the compound. They must be some of El Jefe’s other troops. Was El Jefe himself with them? Fear, sour and brackish, mixed with the flavor of dirt in her mouth. She tried to breathe slowly, to calm her racing heart.
Headlights! They splashed color against the dense black backdrop of trees just up the road as the truck rounded a curve.
“We’ll have a few seconds before they realize the truck isn’t part of their team anymore.” His hand left her nape, and she felt him move, crouching beside her, his weapon ready. “I’ve signaled Hammond. When he moves, you follow. Head for the back of the truck.”
The truck was closing the distance rapidly. Its headlights picked out three men on the road ahead—ragged, but unmistakably soldiers.
“I’ll lay covering fire if needed, then—hell! Damn that Crowe!”
Shots—machine-gun fast and deafeningly loud—came from the truck. One of the soldiers jerked and fell. The rest scattered, leaping for cover. And firing back.
The gunfire hurled her back in time, to a place and moment she never wanted to see again—past blurring the present with horror and blood. Her ears rang. Terror spurted through her like flames chasing gasoline.
Someone yelled—it was him, Michael, the lieutenant—but she had no idea what he was yelling. He waved his arm and the other soldier leaped right over her, huge and dark and graceful. Then he was running toward the truck, the sister in his arms, with the roar and hammer of gunfire exploding everywhere.
The truck had slowed, but it hadn’t come to a complete stop. The soldier leaped again and landed in the back of the rolling truck, the sister still in his arms. Oh, God, it was still moving. It would pass them by. She had to get up, had to run—but noise and terror, gunfire and memory smothered her, pressing her flat in the dirt.
The lieutenant grabbed her arm and jerked her to her knees. “Run!”
She gulped and shoved to her feet. A shadowy form loomed suddenly up out of the darkness. Moonlight gleamed on the barrel of his gun—pointed right at them.
Gunfire exploded beside her. The shadowy form jerked, fell. Someone screamed—was it her? Shots burst out all over, seeming to come from every direction. Dirt sprayed up near her feet.
He seized her hand and dragged her after him at a dead run—into the forest.
Away from the truck.
She pulled against his grip and tried to make him let her go. Maybe she cried out those words, let me go, let me go to the truck—but he dragged her after him, into the forest. She stumbled, tripped, crashing into the loamy ground. He jerked her to her feet and growled, “Run like the fires of hell are after you. They are.”
She heard renewed gunfire. And she ran.
What followed was a nightmare of darkness and noise. The soldiers came after them. She heard them crashing through the underbrush, heard them calling to one another. And she heard their guns. Once, bark chips flew from a tree, cutting her cheek, when a bullet came too close.
They ran and ran. The lieutenant gripped her hand as if she might try to get away, but she no longer wanted to, no longer thought she could let go. She ran as if her feet knew the ground her eyes couldn’t see, trusting him because she had no choice, relying on him to steer them both through the trees. She ran, images of death following her, of the man he’d shot to save them both—the body jerking, falling. Images of another man, shot under bright lights, not in darkness. Images of blood.
She ran, grieving for the truck and the lost chance of escape, fleeing ever deeper into the forest instead of being in the truck rolling rapidly
