south. She had a patchy view through the trees and overhanging branches. Given all the variables, she felt the north side of the helicopter was the best place to wait. Or was it? Maybe she should be inside the trees, under deeper shadow, but then she remembered her headset. The uncoiled cord wouldn’t reach more than five feet from the helicopter. She wasn’t going anywhere. If Leonard Bridgestone spotted her, there was little she could do about it. Besides, the Air Force was watching the place. If anyone approached, they’d be giving her a heads-up.
Except during the satellite blackout.
She looked at her watch, cursing herself for not knowing the blackout period. Was the blackout just starting? Or ending? What were the odds of Leonard arriving during the blackout period? To distract herself, she tried to calculate them. Thirty minutes of three hours is the same as one-in-six odds. Would she bet her life on one-in-six odds? Hell no. She fought an overwhelming urge to look behind her.
Two seconds later, an invisible brick smashed her torso at the same instant the air cracked.
She struggled with the truth.
Before blacking out, the last thing she saw was Ernie lean under the helicopter and smile behind his gag.
* * *
The high-power rifle report ripped down the canyon, echoing off thousands of exposed limestone ledges. Nathan and Harvey hit the deck simultaneously.
From the prone position, Nathan whipped around. “Harv!”
“I’m okay. You?”
“Okay.” Nathan pressed the transmit button. “Grangeland, you copy?”
No response.
“Grangeland, do you copy?”
Nothing.
“Harv, form up. I think Grangeland’s down.”
Harv ran in a crouch over to Nathan’s position and settled in.
“That was rifle, not a handgun.”
“Agreed,” Harv said.
“I’m going back. Stay here and keep your head down.”
“She’s dead, Nate.”
“I’m going back. Radio silence from now on. We have to assume Grangeland’s radio’s compromised.” Nathan knew changing frequencies was useless: The devices had scanners and would automatically switch to any active channel.
“We should go together.”
“Harv, the endgame is at that rock formation down the canyon. It all comes together there. Ernie will tell Leonard there’s only two of us out here. They’ll try to take us down and recover the money. Leonard knows if he doesn’t get his money now, he never will. He won’t leave without it.”
“Shit,” Harv said.
“I’ll stay on the north side of the canyon and try to flush them down the south side. I doubt Leonard has a ghillie suit, but he’ll be in a woodland combat uniform. Ernie will be easier to see in his civilian clothes. Stay concealed and wait for me.”
“Nathan-”
“No matter what happens, I won’t leave the north side of the canyon. If you get seen or pinned down, give me three quick shots with the Sig and stay put. I’ll come get you.”
“Nathan.” Harv shook his head. “Man, we’re brothers. Closer. I just want you to know… Aw, shit.…”
Nathan grasped both of Harv’s shoulders. “Keep your head in the game. We’re going to win.” Nathan opened and closed the bolt of his rifle in two crisp movements, chambering a round. “They don’t stand a chance.”
He forced his mind away from Grangeland and concentrated on stealth. Moving from tree to tree, bush to bush, and boulder to boulder, Nathan worked his way back upstream to the west, always staying in deep shadow. In one sandy streambed feeding the main creek, he had to drop to his belly and crawl across the open ground. He hated being exposed, even though his ghillie suit made him all but invisible. The thirty-foot-wide area of sand offered only thinly scattered buck brush for cover. From the opposite side, he’d have a three-hundred-yard visual look at helicopter through its eastern tree cover. If Grangeland was down, it was good bet Ernie would be long gone. It was also a good bet Ernie would tell Leonard everything he’d seen about his captors. Leonard would now know what kind of weapons they carried, what they were wearing, and the direction they went. He hoped the bastards wouldn’t take time to destroy his helicopter. It was more likely Leonard would make a mad dash, free his brother, and get back into cover as soon as possible.
Once out of the sandy wash, Nathan crawled the last few yards through thick underbrush and oak fallout, being careful not to bump any bushes or dead branches. He also kept an eye out for ants. Crawling through a fire- ant nest was never a good idea. He felt stinging and dampness on his right arm. The stitches had torn and he was bleeding again.
Ignoring the renewed pain in his arm, he cleared his thoughts and put himself into Leonard’s head. I’ll take the high ground on the opposite side of the canyon with the sun to my back. The enemy knows I’m here, he heard my shot. McBride will double back to check on the woman and Ernie. When he approaches the helicopter, I’ll nail him from a bench rested position on the southern rim of the canyon.
Wrong, Leonard. Sorry to disappoint you.
Secured in deep shadow, Nathan slowly brought his rifle up, shouldered the weapon, and flipped the front and rear lens caps up. Three hundred yards distant, Grangeland was down. Her back was to him. He steadied his rifle and tried to determine if she was breathing. He couldn’t tell. She looked like a lifeless heap. Wait… Movement. A slight motion of her left arm. Her hand lifted above the sand for a moment before falling. Nathan kept watching until he saw her move again.
She’s alive.
And of course Ernie was gone. Anger began to flare, but he forced it aside and slowly pivoted his rifle through an arc covering a one-hundred-yard radius centered on the helicopter. Nothing. No movement at all. Approaching the helicopter was suicide, an obvious trap. He couldn’t make a mad dash to Grangeland and tend to her. Not against a trained shooter like Leonard.
Gritting his teeth at the fire in his arm and leg, and at Grangeland’s situation, he backed away from his current position and tucked himself behind a fallen log offering solid cover from the south rim of the canyon. He couldn’t leave Grangeland. Nor could he save her. He could almost feel Leonard’s rifle scope sweeping back and forth past his location.
Two can play this game….
Moving with a caterpillar speed, Nathan maneuvered himself into a cross-legged position and bench rested his cloth-wrapped weapon atop the log. He began slow, sweeping scan of the canyon’s opposite rim beyond the helicopter, zigzagging back and forth from the ridge down, concentrating on rocky spots with deep recessed shadow.
There. A flash of white.
Possibly Ernie’s T-shirt. He swung his rifle back and focused on a spot where two huge slabs of fallen limestone formed a narrow triangular area of shadow.
There it was again.
“Got you,” Nathan whispered.
Through his Nikon scope, Nathan watched as Ernie slowly ducked up and down with a pair of field glasses in his good hand and a handheld radio in the wounded hand. The white flash Nathan had seen was the gauze wrapping on Ernie’s hand. Good ol’ Ernie had wisely removed his white T-shirt, but overlooked the gauze.
He turned the elevation knob of the scope, counting ten clicks for a four-hundred-yard, slightly elevated shot. He gauged the wind as calm, maybe two to three miles an hour from the northwest. He’d be shooting into the wind so he didn’t make a correction.
“You’re blowing it,” he whispered to Ernie. “You’re being too regular with your movements.” Every fifteen
