'Tell them to form a perimeter around the hotel: They can be right on the tree line and still remain hidden.'
Michelle and Parks knelt along the tree line behind the Fairmount Hotel. A police cruiser was blocking off the road leading to the hotel, but still out of sight of the place. Michelle spotted a sniper up a tree, his rifle with long- range scope aimed at the front door of the hotel.
'You sure you have enough people here?' she asked Parks.
He pointed toward other places in the darkness, indicating where other lawmen were positioned. Michelle couldn't see them but sensed their comforting presence.
'We have more than enough to do the job,' he said. 'The question is, can we find Sean and the others alive?' Parks laid down his shotgun and picked up his walkie-talkie. 'Okay, you've been in that hotel and know the layout. What's the best way for us to hit it?'
'The last time we were here, when we nabbed the convicts, Sean and I managed to make a gap in the security fence as we were leaving. It was easier than climbing over. We can go in that way. Thefront doors are chained shut, but a large window about thirty feet from the front has been busted. We can go in there and be in the lobby within seconds.'
'It's a big place. Any idea where they might be?'
'I have a guess, but it's a pretty educated one. The Stonewall Jackson Room. It's an interior room right off the lobby. There's one door going in and a set of elevators inside.'
'Why are you so sure they're in this Stonewall Jackson Room?'
'This is an old hotel, and there are lots of creaks and groans and rats and creepy things. But when I was in that room and the door was closed, I didn't hear anything. It was quiet, too quiet. But when the door was open, you could hear all the normal sounds.'
'I'm not getting your point.'
'I think the room's been soundproofed, Jefferson.'
He stared at her. 'I'm starting to see where you're going with this.'
'Are your men in position?' He nodded. Michelle checked her watch. 'It's almost midnight but there's a full moon. There's an open stretch of ground we have to cover before we reach the fence. If we can direct the main attack from inside, we might have a better chance of not losing anybody.'
'Sounds like a plan. But you lead the way. I don't know the lay of this land.' Parks spoke into his walkie-talkie and ordered his men to move their perimeter closer in.
Michelle started to sprint off but he grabbed her arm.
'Michelle, I was a pretty good athlete when I was younger, but I was no Olympian. And now my knees are shot, so could you just slow down enough so I can keep you in sight?'
She smiled. 'Not to worry, you're in good hands.'
They darted through the trees until they came to the open ground they had to cross to get to the fence. They paused there, and Michelle looked at the hard-breathing Parks.
'You ready?' He nodded and gave a thumbs-up.
She jumped out and ran for the fence. Behind her Parks did thesame. As she hustled along, Michelle focused at first on what was in front of her. And then her attention moved to what was behind. And what was there was suddenly chilling.
Those weren't the sounds of normal strides; they were the same disjointed lunges she'd heard outside her bedroom window at the inn-the ones made by the person who'd tried to kill her. She'd been wrong. It wasn't the painful jogging of a wounded man. It was the arthritic loping of a man with ruined knees. And he was now wheezing too.
She jumped behind a fallen tree a split second after the shotgun was racked, and the blast hit right where she'd been. She rolled, pulled her weapon and fired back, scattering shots in a wide, lethal arc.
Parks cursed at his miss and threw himself down, barely avoiding her fire. He fired again.
'Damn you, girl,' he yelled. 'You're too quick for your own good.'
'You bastard!' Michelle screamed back as she scanned the area both for an exit and any accomplices Parks might have. She aimed two shots at Parks that blew chips off the large rock he was hunched behind.
He returned the favor with two blasts from his shotgun. 'Sorry, but I had no choice.'
She eyed the line of thick woods directly behind her and wondered how she could make it there without dying. 'Oh, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better. What, doesn't the Marshals Service pay good enough for you?'
'As a matter of fact, they don't. But I made a big mistake a long time ago when I was a cop in D.C., and it's come back to haunt me.'
'Care to enlighten me before you kill me?' Keep him talking, Michelle told herself. Maybe she could figure a way out of this.
Parks hesitated and then said, 'Nineteen seventy-four ring a bell?'
'The Nixon protest?' Michelle racked her brains, then she seized upon it. 'When you were a D.C. cop, you arrested Arnold Ramsey.'Parks said nothing. 'But he was innocent. He didn't kill that national guards-' The truth hit her in a blinding flash. '
'Crazy times back then. I was a different person, I guess. And it wasn't supposed to be that way. I guess I hit the kid too hard. Yeah, I was paid off all right, and as it turns out, I wasn't paid nearly enough.'
'And whoever you were working for back then is blackmailing you to do all this?'
'Like I said, it's cost me big. No statute of limitations on murder, Michelle.'
She wasn't listening now. It had occurred to her that he was employing the same strategy she was. Keep her talking while they outflanked her. Now she was trying to recall the exact model of shotgun Parks was carrying. Okay, she had it. Five-shot Remington. Or at least she hoped. He'd fired four times, and it was so quiet out here she was sure she would have heard him reload.
'Hey, Michelle, you still there?'
In answer she fired three rounds at the rock and received a shotgun blast in return. As soon as the buckshot sped by, she leaped to her feet and raced to the woods.
Parks jammed fresh shells in, cursing the whole time. But by the time he took aim she was too far away for his buckshot to do any damage, and accelerating fast. He yelled into his walkie-talkie.
Michelle saw him coming. She cut to the left, hurdled a log and went flat to the ground just before the slug slammed into the bark.
The man she thought was a police sniper up the tree was now also gunning for her. She placed several shots in his direction and then slithered on her belly for about ten yards before leaping to her feet.
How could she have been so damn blind? Another shot slammed into a tree near her head, and she hit the ground again. As she sucked in air, she assessed her abysmal options. There really weren't any thatdidn't involve her violent death. They could track her grid by grid, and there wasn't much she could do about it. Wait, her phone! She grabbed for it only to find it had fallen off her belt clip. Now she was cut off from all help and had at least two killers stalking her in dark woods in the middle of nowhere. Okay, this beat the hell out of the worst nightmares she'd ever had as a child.
She sprayed a few more shots in the direction she thought they were coming from, then leaped up and sprinted hard. The full moon was both a blessing and a curse. It enabled her to see where she was going, but it also allowed her pursuers to spot her as well.
She broke free from the woods, then pulled up just barely in time.
She was right at the edge of the embankment of the river she'd observed on her first visit here. A long drop awaited her if she took another step. The problem was that Parks and his partner were right behind her. She checked her mag: there were five rounds left, and she had one spare mag on her. Okay, in another few seconds they'd break free of the trees and have an unobstructed shot at her unless she could find somewhere to hide and nail them first. Still, even if she got one of the shooters, that would reveal her position, and the other shooter would probably bring her down. She looked around, seeking a solution with higher odds of survival. Then she checked out once more the long drop and the fast-moving river. Her plan came together in seconds. While some might call it foolish, most would term it suicidal. But what the hell, she'd always loved the extremes in life. She holstered her weapon, took a deep breath and waited.
As soon as she heard them make the clearing, she screamed and jumped. She had picked her spot carefully. About twenty feet down, there was a small rock ledge. She hit it and splayed out, grabbing for anything she could.
