Sam turned his head and whispered in Remi’s ear. “Stay perfectly still.” She nodded.
Moving slowly, carefully, Sam curled his legs beneath him, then rose into a crouch onto the balls of his feet. He took two crab steps toward the tailgate and turned his head to listen. After a moment, he turned back to Remi and held up four fingers. Four guards were standing on the other side of the tailgate. He pointed to his rifle, then in the direction of the soldiers.
She handed him the rifle. Sam laid it across his legs, then pressed his wrists together. She nodded. He gestured for her to lie flat. She did so.
Sam made sure the rifle’s safety was off, adjusted himself and took a deep breath, then reached up with his left hand, grasped the canvas, and jerked it aside.
“Hands up!” he shouted.
The two soldiers closest to the bumper spun around while simultaneously backpedaling. They stumbled into their comrades, who were struggling to unsling their rifles.
“Don’t!” Sam said, and raised his rifle to his shoulder.
Despite the language gap, the soldiers got the message and stopped moving. Sam gestured with the barrel of his rifle several times until the men got the message. Slowly each man unslung his rifle and let it drop to the ground. Sam backed them up a few feet, then climbed over the tailgate and hopped down.
“All clear,” he said to Remi.
She dropped to the ground beside him.
“They look terrified,” she said.
“Perfect. The more terrified they are, the better for us,” Sam said. “Would you do the honors?”
Remi collected their rifles and dumped all but one into the truck bed. Sam said, “Safety off?”
“I think . . .”
“Lever switch above the trigger on the right side.”
“Got it. Okay.”
Sam and Remi and the four Chinese soldiers stared at one another. For ten seconds, no one spoke. Finally Sam asked, “English?”
The soldier on the far right said, “Small English.”
“Right. Okay. You are my prisoners.”
Remi sighed heavily. “Sam . . .”
“Sorry. I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“Now that you’ve got that out of your system, what do we do with them?”
“We tie them up and . . . Oh, no. That’s not good.”
“What?” Remi glanced at her husband. Sam’s narrowed eyes were staring over the heads of the soldiers toward the cab of the second truck. She followed his gaze and saw a silhouetted figure sitting in the cab. The figure ducked down suddenly.
“We miscounted,” Sam muttered.
“I see that.”
“Get in the driver’s seat, Remi. Start the engine. Check for-”
“You can be sure of it,” she replied, then turned on her heel and sprinted toward the front of the truck. A moment later the engine started. The four soldiers shuffled nervously and glanced at one another.
“All aboard!” Remi shouted out the cab window.
“Coming, dear!” Sam replied without turning.
Sam shouted at the soldiers, “Move, move!” and gestured with the rifle. The men sidestepped away, leaving Sam a clear shot at the truck’s radiator. He raised his rifle and took aim.
The fifth man, until now hidden in the second truck’s cab, suddenly stuck his torso out the driver’s window. Sam saw the silhouette of his rifle coming around toward him.
“Stop!”
The man kept twisting his body, the rifle coming around.
Sam adjusted his aim and fired two shots through the windshield. The soldiers scattered, diving into the underbrush bordering the road. Sam heard a crack. Something thudded into the tailgate beside him. He ducked down, lurched sideways around the opposite bumper, turned again, and snapped off a trio of shots into what he hoped was the truck’s radiator or engine block. He turned, raced to the truck’s passenger’s door, jerked it open, and climbed in.
“We’ve worn out our welcome,” he said.
Remi put the truck in gear and mashed the accelerator.
They hadn’t gotten a hundred yards before realizing Sam’s gunshots had either missed their mark or had been insufficient. In the side mirrors, he and Remi saw the truck’s headlights pop on. The four soldiers scrambled from cover and hopped aboard, two in the cab, the other two in the bed. The truck surged forward.
Remi called, “Narrow bridge ahead!”
Sam looked. Though still a couple hundred yards away, the bridge in question looked not just narrow but barely wider than their truck’s girth. “Speed, Remi,” he warned.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“I meant, slow down.”
“Joking. Hold on!”
The truck hit a rut in the road and slewed sideways, lurched upward, then slammed back down. The bridge loomed in the windshield. Fifty yards to go.
“Oh, of course,” Remi said, annoyed. “It had to be one of these.”
Though wider and more heavily buttressed, the bridge was simply a larger version of the one they’d crossed on foot earlier that day.
The truck lurched again. Sam and Remi were bounced from their seats, heads hitting the cab’s roof. Remi grunted, wrestling with the steering wheel.
The bridgehead was almost upon them. At the last second, Remi slammed on the brakes. The brakes squealed, and the truck skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust enveloped them.
Sam heard the clank-clank of gears and looked over to see his wife shifting the transmission into reverse. “Remi, what’s on your mind?” he asked.
“A little reverse chicken,” she said with a grim smile.
“Risky.”
“As opposed to everything else we’ve done tonight?”
“Touche,” Sam conceded.
Remi slammed down on the accelerator. With a groaning whir from the engine, the truck started backing up, slowly at first but rapidly gaining speed. Sam glanced in the side mirror. Through the dust cloud created by Remi’s hasty stop, all he could see of the second truck was headlights. He leaned out the window and fired a three-round burst, then a second. The truck slewed sideways, out of Sam’s view.
Eyes fixed on her own mirror, Remi said, “They’re stopping. They see us. They’re backing up.”
Over the roar of the engine they heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire. They ducked down. With her head below the dashboard, Remi leaned sideways for a better view of her mirror. The pursuing truck was in full reverse mode now, but the combination of Remi’s collision-course ploy and Sam’s gunfire had clearly rattled the driver. The truck careened from one side to the other, the tires bumping over the berm alongside the road.
“Brace for impact!” Remi shouted.
Sam leaned back in his seat and jammed his feet against the dashboard. A moment later the truck jolted to a stop. Remi glanced at her mirror. “They’re off the road.”
“Let’s not stick around,” Sam prompted.
“Right.”
Remi shifted back into drive and pressed the gas pedal. Once again the head of the bridge appeared.
“It didn’t take,” Remi announced. “They’re back on the road.”
“Persistent, aren’t they? Hold the truck steady for a bit,” he said, then opened his door.
“Sam, what are-”
“I’ll be in back if you need me.”
He slung the rifle around his neck and then, using the cab’s door-frame for support, climbed down onto the
