Blue Smoke and Murder

87

SEPTEMBER 17

6:38 P.M.

Gunshots sounded above the SUV’s racing engine. Zach recognized the sound of the Colt Woodsman. The return fire was from a bigger caliber pistol.

“Faroe!” Zach said urgently. “Is Jill on the air?”

“No. We heard shots fired over Jill’s bug, but Red Hill had already agreed to withdraw. What’s happening?”

“Does Red Hill have her?”

“Negative.”

Something burned like ice in Zach’s chest, in his gut. “Jill could be down, hurt. Tell Red Hill to get the hell out of my way.”

“The general has already done that. Jill’s last known position was cabin four.”

“Go!” Zach said to the driver.

The driver didn’t bother to point out that she couldn’t go any faster.

A set of headlights appeared, coming down the one-lane dirt road at them. Dust and grit boiled up in the lights.

“Don’t slow down and don’t give way,” Zach said.

Jill, talk to me. Tell me you’re alive.

You’ve got to be alive.

Silence came through his earphones.

“They’re not giving way,” the driver said.

“Put ’em in the ditch,” Zach said.

The driver flipped on the emergency blinker and kept the accelerator pinned, hurtling through the dusk.

The onrushing Red Hill vehicle held its course until the last possible instant, then veered off into the sage and scrub. There was a loud grinding as something metal slammed into rock. The Red Hill SUV caught air, slammed down, veered back onto the road behind Zach, and raced for the highway.

“There’s a second vehicle somewhere,” the driver said.

“Ignore it unless it gets in your way,” Zach said.

“And if it does?”

“Ram it.”

The driver waited, but Faroe didn’t override Zach’s command.

“Zach, you don’t have body armor,” Grace’s voice said. “Let the other ops take care of it.”

Zach didn’t answer.

“Zach?”

The driver looked sideways at her passenger’s face, then looked away. Zach was in the kind of mental space where she never wanted to go.

Headlights flared near the ranch. The second Red Hill SUV didn’t even try to play chicken-it just took off into the desert, cutting a wide arc around the St. Kilda vehicle before getting back on the dirt road and speeding toward the highway.

An executive helicopter lifted and banked away, lights blinking, climbing fast, heading toward Las Vegas.

The driver put the Navigator into a power slide that ended at cabin number four. While the SUV was still moving, Zach opened the door and bailed out in a hail of rocks and sand. He hit the ground running, gun at the ready.

A shot rang out from number four. Then another.

The scream of pain was female.

A bulky male figure dashed out of number four and turned the corner, heading toward the back of the cottage, running hard. The gun in his hand had a surly gleam in the headlights. He held the weapon one-handed, fired the same way.

Like the shooter in Taos.

Bullets gouged dirt inches from Zach. He stopped and fired two closely spaced shots.

The man jerked, reeled, and scrambled around the back of the cabin. As he ran, he dropped a spent magazine and slammed another one into the butt of his pistol.

Zach went low through the front door of the fourth cabin, sweeping the room over his gun, remembering the driver’s words.

She looked for a back way out. Didn’t find one.

“Jill!” he called. “It’s Zach!”

Silence answered.

Gun at the ready, Zach took three gliding steps and saw the bathroom door. The breaks streaking through the cheap paint and the bullet holes like black eyes made his stomach clench.

One kick finished what somebody else had started. The door screamed and broke away from its handle, taking the ice cream chair with it.

The bathroom was empty.

The toilet window gaped. Khaki shreds hung from it.

Jill was alive.

And so was the killer chasing her.