The rifle exploded again.
Like all head wounds, mine hurt like a son of a bitch, and although it wasn’t deep, it was gushing blood. I needed to apply pressure to slow the bleeding, but I didn’t have a spare hand.
It seemed I was being targeted by a single individual. But Billy had suspected that a larger conspiracy was at work inside the prison. I had to proceed on the assumption that other armed men who wanted to kill me were in the woods.
Predators that hunt in packs behave in predictable ways. They might work together to separate the weakest individual from the herd so they can run it to ground. Or they might drive a prey animal toward a waiting attacker. When they have to overcome a guardian, say a bull moose defending his harem, they keep him occupied while other members of the pack cooperate to separate a vulnerable female from the circle of the male’s protection.
These thoughts didn’t run through my head in a systematic manner. I was too shaken, too pumped full of adrenaline. Instead I found myself guided by flashes of insight and physical reactions that only made sense in retrospect.
The attackers were here for Aimee and the Cronklets. I was nothing but an obstacle in their way. A dangerous obstacle.
I had to get back to the cabin. They knew I was coming. Why waste time and manpower hunting the woods for me when they would understand I had no choice but to place myself inside their killing zone?
The coldly logical thing to do would be to take Gorman Peaslee’s truck and, horn blaring, let them know I was leaving to fetch help. But chances were, they had a truck of their own blockading the road and would know my stratagem couldn’t succeed. Nor would they believe I would leave a woman and children to their possible deaths—whether it was the coldly logical move or not.
My SIG had seven rounds in the magazine with another already chambered.
I had two other loaded magazines in my pocket. Twenty-two bullets in all.
Plus an automatic Gerber 06 knife Billy had carried with him across Iraq and Afghanistan, which he had given me as a memento before he went to prison.
Against an unknown number of attackers equipped with rifles outfitted with night-vision technology, those were my armaments.
The forest had grown still again. I listened for footfalls. Leaves rustling. Twigs snapping. My executioner approaching.
Just then, multiple gunshots went off from the direction of the cabin. They sounded almost like firecrackers in the way they exploded one after the other. From a distance I couldn’t differentiate them from the rounds that had been fired at Gorman Peaslee and me. But they sounded different somehow.
I heard a crash off to my left and realized it was my attacker bulling his way out of the forest. He was daring to leave me unguarded. Maybe he thought he’d wounded me worse than he had.
I took a chance and started after him. Like the cornerback I had been in high school, I took a pursuit angle on the runner.
He was distracted, his attention focused on what was happening ahead of him. For the first time I heard a radio receiver, which he must have had in his ear. As I moved to intercept him, I saw his silhouette. His rifle barrel was hanging down and across his legs so that he kept knocking it with his knees.
When I broke through the cover, I was nearly parallel with him. The sniper was smaller than me, dressed in black tactical clothes and a black knit cap. I hit him with a brutal blindside tackle. I pinned his arms to his body with my own and slammed him hard to the ground. His forehead must have struck against a rock because he went limp when I landed on top of him.
I rose to my knees. He was wearing the rifle—a Bushmaster carbine with a collapsible stock and an Armasight scope—hung around his neck on a bungee sling. None of it was military or law-enforcement issue. Nor was the Taurus revolver he had holstered against his thigh.
I turned him over but didn’t recognize his face. He was young with a buzz cut and a neck tattoo I associated with turnkeys. He had lips the color of a night crawler. I doubted he had a military background given his atrocious aim and his clumsiness carrying a loaded rifle.
He was breathing, but I figured his skull was pretty well cracked. If he awoke from his concussion in the next hour, he’d be too busy puking to pose a problem to me. I doubted he would remember his own name.
I relieved the unconscious man of his weapons. I re-holstered my SIG and stuck the Taurus in the back of my pants. Then I pulled the bungee sling over my head and checked to see if a round was in the chamber.
I unclipped the radio from the unconscious man’s belt and screwed the earpiece into my own ear. The sound of static was like freezing rain against a windowpane.
My last action was to yank the cap from the killer’s head and pull it down over my ears. It wasn’t the best disguise, but maybe it would create some confusion if I was spotted and provide me an extra few seconds. The merino helped soak up blood from my wound at least.
When I stared through the scope, the world turned an unreal greenish color, as if I were looking at it through an uncleaned aquarium. With the barrel raised, I began to creep slowly up the drive in the direction of the cabin. I hadn’t heard a thing since those popcorn gunshots.
When I crested the rise, I noticed that the door of the cabin was standing open and the windows had gone dark. From the outside it was impossible to tell
