“Where will you be?”
Another explosion shook the building. Pieces of the ceiling tiles rained from above, like snow on a dark night.
Aarons flipped down a mask he recognized as a pair of night-vision goggles. “Sir, I’ll be out here making them pay for every inch they try to take. Don’t worry. We got this.” The man slammed the door.
Petteri went back to feeling out of control.
It didn’t suit him.
CHAPTER 13
Somewhere in Central Wyoming
When it was near dark, Misha called them all together. Besides her, Asher, and their immediate friends, there were still a few people in the boxcar who wanted to tag along, plus Robert and a fellow railroad employee who helped pilot the engine. All told, there were twelve people in their group.
“We will be safer in darkness,” Misha said dryly. “We should go.”
“Safer?” Robert asked. The man in the greasy coveralls had been a good sport about having been shot at several times, but he was clearly growing weary of the activity.
“It will never be perfectly safe. Nerio—the woman in the helicopter,” he added for the new people, “has the tools to make our lives miserable all hours of the clock.”
“He means our best chance is now,” Grace added, amazed to find herself backing up the ex-hitman. She continued. “We’ll go back out in the truck and scout ahead.”
Robert and the others didn’t immediately jump at the chance to go, but Misha reminded them why they were heading to the rock near Yellowstone. As before, he told them how he had friends there who could protect them, but then he added a line about making them all wealthy with the ore from the dig. That seemed to entice everyone into accepting the risk.
When she and Asher got back in the truck and drove toward the orange sunset, she asked him about it. “Why did you tell those people they would get rich going toward Yellowstone? Was it a lie to get them to do what you wanted?”
Misha shifted forward, one arm on each of the front seats, so he could speak from the back. “Nyet. Not a lie. Your friend, the Crow, said he wants to secure rock on his land. We can do the same for TKM piece where we are going. When you see it, I am sure you will agree is enough wealth to share with those who help defend it.”
She saw a flaw in his plan right away. “But you don’t know if the owner will agree to it.”
He exhaled. “I am betting he will.”
They drove for several hours during the night. Misha radioed back and forth with the train at regular intervals, to ensure Robert didn’t see the helicopter, either.
Traffic on the highway helped them blend in. Nerio couldn’t shoot at each car, Grace reasoned, so the threat to them was much less than those on the bigger train. A few times they spotted aircraft in the sky, causing her to ask if they should pull over and turn off their lights, but each time Misha counseled her to drive on.
“If you stop, we will stand out,” he said the first time. “That would be bad.”
She continued on, ignoring the second and third brushes with lights in the sky.
After traveling the interstate for another thirty minutes, the truck crested a rise which allowed them to see a straightaway at least twenty miles into the distance. The white twinkles of headlights were barely visible at the vanishing point near where the ground met the starry sky. However, a black shape passed in front of her sight line, far closer.
“Stop!” Misha shouted.
She slammed on the brakes.
“Lights off!” Misha yelled, already almost in the front seat.
Grace slowed the truck, kicked off the headlights, and veered toward the side of the highway. She rolled the window partway down to listen for the expected sound of a helicopter.
An eighteen-wheeler roared by in the next lane, momentarily drowning out everything else.
“Did you hear it?” Asher asked, rolling down his own window.
“I think so,” she whispered.
“It was her,” Misha said, shifting himself around the rear seats. “I know it.”
The semi’s red lights continued down the highway, allowing the air to settle outside the truck. As she listened, the sound of a chopping rotor became evident. “Yes, I hear it now.”
“Where is she?” Misha said evenly.
“Can we get out the big gun?” Grace asked, feeling as if the truck were about to be split open by the machine gun.
“There is no time for it. It is not effective when the helicopter is directly above.” He continued to move around from one side of the rear compartment to the other.
“There’s always fine print,” she said to Asher, seeking a laugh from her friend.
He smiled in the low light of the dashboard before responding. “We have to trust him.”
“I know,” she lamented, anxiously slapping the steering wheel.
“Be ready to go when I say.” Misha’s voice had become clinical.
The dark shape returned, a few hundred yards in front of them. The silhouette blotted out the stars. “I see it!” she exclaimed.
“Drive!” Misha shouted.
The clatter of Nerio’s machine gun tore through the nighttime air as Grace pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floorboard. The concrete of the roadway behind them lit up with fireworks as a laser-like line of orange zipped out of the sky.
Misha finally sounded nervous. “She uses tracers. Avoid those.”
“No kidding!” she railed. Another volley came down from the flying platform of death. Grace realized, too late, there was no hiding from the glowing fingers
