to six feet off the ground, and the pilot, in an obvious hurry, signaled a jump.
Dan hit the ground and they were gone. It was eerily quiet. Then he saw someone running toward him with a gun.
As Corey ran downstream, the wilderness calm was broken by a cop's ringing shout.
'Everybody freeze, put your hands up.' The copter had come down ahead of her. Must have dropped a cop.
Knowing she might have just one last chance to kill Maria Fischer before they closed in, she sprinted the one hundred yards to the point where the rock wall became a steep incline and the muddy bench ended. She was still one hundred yards above the leader. At the creek's edge, she turned and looked back upstream. There were no tracks in the brown sand. She climbed back up on the rock bluff and moved upstream, perhaps another fifty yards. Not even thinking about protecting herself from a fall, she slid headfirst to the cliff's edge, barely managing to stop. The copter was now a quarter mile away and moving rapidly up the hill and away.
'Yes!' she shouted in a hoarse whisper after her first glance over the edge. There she was-seventy yards downstream, standing next to the rock wall. She swung the AR-15 around; the safety came off with a flick of her thumb. Maria was moving around a rocky outcropping. Shifting position, Corey steadied the rifle.
Dan had been traveling downstream fast and was below the man with the gun. Judging from Shane's far-off shout and the gunman's clothing, it couldn't be Shane. From his vantage point he was able to discern that the shooter was looking at the creek bottom somewhere below him. Refusing to think about the risks, he scrambled down the slope and peered over the edge, desperate at the thought of Maria pinned down in the rocks.
Seeing that the shooter was drawing down on her, Maria dived behind a rock no larger than a living-room chair. There was so little cover. She had to think. She couldn't even hear the chopper anymore. Risking a look, she saw the gunman moving toward her once again. She had to run before he got any closer. Sprinting down the rock wall of the creek as fast as the water and muck would allow, she found a small crevice and slid in. A shot smacked the rocks inches behind her, sending the grit flying. If she hadn't been moving, she'd be dead.
Dan flinched at the gunshot and kept running at the barely visible black-clad figure.
The radio rasped to life.
'Helo. 10–49 to my 10–20. 10–49 to my 10–20. I'm down the creek in the brush fields.'
'This is Helo. We copy. We had to leave.'
Having measured the distance to the muddy creek bottom at twenty feet, Dan figured he could jump and not kill himself. Before he hit the mud, he saw Maria, and when he splashed into the shallow water, he estimated the shooter at fifty yards. Too far away for him to hit even if he'd been armed. Maria, however, was close enough to reach in time. He hoped.
Shane's voice crackled over Dan's radio as he ran. 'I hear shots from the gorge in the area straight ahead of me.'
As he neared Maria, Dan took a quick glance back, saw the gunman on the cliff's edge, aiming at her. He dived in front of Maria, waiting for the shot.
Corey cursed. Only Maria's hip was visible under the cowboy-looking cop on top of her. She wanted a clean kill, not a martyr with a wounded leg and a dead cop. Then the cop shifted and she saw the middle of Maria's back. A heart shot.
'Oh yeah,' Corey said breathily, bearing down on the trigger.
Her rifle bucked skyward. Her hands stung with the impact. But there had been no shot.
The little Japanese stood next to her, awaiting her reaction. She swung the barrel, but with blinding speed, his hand caught it. His other hand took her shoulder and severe pain shot down her left arm.
With her right she reached for her hand gun. A hard kick to the inside of her upper right arm brought a scream to her lips and immobilized the arm.
'Go,' he said. 'Or I will kill you.'
Spooked out of her mind, she let him take the rifle as if she were a child. She scrambled up the cliff and never looked back.
The shooter, unaccountably, had disappeared. Shane was combing the area and finding nothing.
'You're an idiot,' Maria said with a bone-tired smile.
'I know.'
Crying, she kissed him full on the lips.
'Let's get out of here,' he said.
Kenji Yamada was more than worried. Groiter wasn't answering his cell phone. Groiter had called him when they brought in Maria Fischer, just to reassure him. They should have finished with her by now. Something had to have gone wrong. But Groiter was experienced, and he had the Spaniard, who was equally deadly.
Kenji was certain that Groiter had proof concerning Catherine Swanson. He also had the photographer's remains. If something happened to Groiter, Kenji could be the victim of leaked evidence to the police. He had two men in San Francisco he could trust. There were two more at the forest compound that he would need to trust. He would dispatch all four men to learn what happened at Jack Morgan's.
At the emergency room there was no wait because the sheriff was personally involved. There was an awkward moment when Maria was ushered into the treatment room.
'Dan, you and Dad stay in the waiting room while Mom comes with me,' Maria said. 'I'm really all right and I'm sure I'll be right back out.'
Dan wondered why he hadn't remained in the waiting room in the first place. He was with Maria, but he had no status. Any minute Ross could show up-he was supposedly just a friend now, but he didn't seem quite content with his new status.
''Dan, go in and sit with Maria for a while,' Laura Fischer said. 'She'd like that.'
Amiel winked at him.
'Sure,' Dan said. 'I'd love to.' They buzzed him into the treatment area.
'Maria Fischer, please,' he said to the nurse. She pointed the way, and when he entered the room, he was greeted by a bruised face and a big smile. She was lying on a gurney in a curtained-off area with a hospital gown, a blanket, bandaged wrists, and an IV.
'Quite a shiner,' he said.
'Yes. It hurts but nothing is broken, I'm sure. How's Nate?'
'Great. Worried about you. Wants to see you.'
'I'm sure we can arrange that.'
'I want to know who's behind all this, once and for all,' he said.
''We will. There was a woman. The same woman, I think. She's nuts, and I think she's associated with the environmental movement.'
'How could someone like that be connected with Amada?'
'That's what we've got to figure out. And we will. But I need a little time out from that subject.'
'Oh?' He wondered what could possibly be more important or interesting.
'Before I left with Nate, I really and finally broke up with Ross. I thought you should know. I don't want you to feel like you need to say anything. It's a little embarrassing telling you this way.'
'Maybe it was just comfortable, having that… I don't know what.'
'I know exactly what you mean. And we still have that something in a way. But you're the industry and I'm the environment, so don't go getting all weird on me.'
Once again they found themselves seated in the well-designed conference-room chairs as a guest of Sheriff Robert McNiel. This time they waited no time at all. He entered the room still talking to someone through the doorway. For some reason he had shaved his droopy mustache. Dan's was back, somewhere between stubble and
