Chapter 55
Chapter 55
I dialed sixteen minutes of windage into the scope and let the crosshairs settle on the man who, lucky for us, was standing exposed behind a tripod-mounted rifle. I didn’t know for sure the caliber of his rifle, but judging by the sound of the projectiles pinballing off the rock walls around us, it was either a .338 Lapua or .50 cal. The distance between us, one and a quarter miles, gave him the confidence to stand out in the open because he thought no one was capable of shooting back.
Camp, still staring through binoculars, said, “Hundred bucks says you don’t even hit the house. Much less the man.” I closed my eyes, measured my breathing, slowed my heart rate, then opened my eyes and placed my finger on the trigger. The trigger was a Kepplinger. Its normal pull was two pounds, but if you “set it,” or pushed it forward the opposite direction you would normally pull it, it became a hair trigger with a six-ounce pull. I took a breath, set the trigger, let it out slowly, and was in the process of applying pressure when two more rounds whizzed above us. Followed by three more, this time closer. The presence of so much lead inside the tunnel confirmed for me that making a run for it was out of the question. Camp was still looking through his binoculars. “He’s getting that thing dialed in. If you’re gonna—”
I pressed the trigger and Camp and I watched—him through binoculars, me through my Schmidt & Bender—as 5.3 long seconds elapsed while the bullet crossed the distance between us. When the bullet made contact with his chest, it flipped him backward, tearing him away from the rifle and sending him through the window behind him. A surprise offensive attack that brought three angry men out of the house. One of whom righted the tripod and began staring through the scope. It would only take him a few seconds to find us. “Time to go,” I said.
We exited the door at a full run, following footsteps in the snow. Or rather, two sets of footprints and what looked like two drag marks where Miriam and Ruth had been unwilling to walk.
We wound through the woods as the new shooter at the cabin peppered the trees around us. With Gunner in the lead, we ran nearly a quarter mile down a well-beaten snowmobile path until we heard what sounded like the engine of either a dirt bike or a snowmobile. Given our surroundings, it wasn’t tough to guess.
We crept through the trees to see two snowmobiles at less than two hundred yards and two bad men trying to wrangle two unwilling girls atop them with little success. To the girls’ credit, they were fighting for all they were worth. While I was glad they weren’t going down without a fight, their movements made it impossible for us to shoot. I hit the path at a dead run, where I was nearly overrun by a man running next to me. Stride for stride. This time he wasn’t telling me how he couldn’t make the line before time expired. Aaron Ashley was barely breathing. The look on his face told me he wasn’t running alongside me as vice president, and he wasn’t even running as a father. The only word that came to mind was “reckoning.”
We closed the distance to 150, 100, then 50 about the time one of them threw a vicious right at Ruth’s chin and knocked her naked body unconscious. With 40 to go, I unholstered my CZ and handed it to Ashley. “Sir—”
Ashley palmed the grip, cycled the slide in midstride, making certain it was loaded, and launched himself at the man on the right when still five or six yards distant. He caught the man in the chest, toppling him and separating him from Ruth and sending him sliding out across the ice, pawing for purchase with little effect. Ashley grabbed Ruth with one arm, cradling her and protecting her from return fire, then, leveling the pistol, he fired five rounds. None missed.
I’m not quite sure why, but I have an uncanny ability to pick fights with people who are stronger and faster than me. Silverbacks disguised as professional MMA fighters. Somewhere prior to our arrival, he had managed to bind Miriam and throw her sideways across the seat. He was in the process of throttling up and exiting at a high rate of speed when I launched myself at his head. My forward momentum pulled him off the snowmobile, and we flew spinning out across the ice. The only thing that saved me was hooking my arm around his neck before he got his bear paws on me.
As we rolled across the ice, I knew rather quickly that I couldn’t outmuscle him, given his size and strength. So, thinking maybe I could out-quick him, I attempted to put him to sleep via rear naked choke. I only had one problem. He didn’t want to be choked, so he stood up, wearing me like a backpack, and then jumped, arching backward and slamming us both onto the ice where I and my rib cage served as his cushion. The blow knocked all the air I’d ever breathed not only out of me but out of my memories. I tried to maintain my grip, but he was twice as strong and three times as mad and was in the process of ripping my right arm out of its socket when, thanks to the force of our impact when he slammed us earthward, the ice broke and we fell through.
The shock was paralyzing. Not to mention that between the two-hundred-yard run, the body slam, and my futile attempt to wrestle this behemoth to the ground, I was out of breath. He must have had lungs the size of a zeppelin because despite the amount of sheer strength he was using to unhitch me from his back, he didn’t seem to be breathing hard at all. Quickly I thought through my two options: hold on or let go. Neither was all that appealing. I didn’t know what would happen if I held my grip, but I was pretty sure what would happen if I let go. So I decided to hang on for all I was worth, which seemed dumber and dumber as he fought frantically and we sank deeper into the icy darkness. Everything in me wanted to let go and fight for the surface now, but I knew if I gave him an inch, he’d crush me with his bare hands and bury me at the bottom of this lake. I squeezed my forearm and biceps as tight as my fleeting life would allow, placing pressure on his carotid. Seven good seconds was all I needed. I just doubted I had seven seconds left. They ticked by slowly. Each one taking a year as he thrashed and pulled and we somersaulted in the icy water.
The walls were closing in and I was close to blacking out myself when I felt a flash of weakness, followed by a sound and a few kicks, and then he went limp. Knowing I had but a half second to get topside, and knowing he might well be playing possum, I pushed him down as violently as I could, kicking him farther with my feet on his shoulders and willing myself to the surface. Out of air, I pulled and kicked and pulled and kicked again, but we’d descended farther than I thought. I was waterlogged and my vest now served as an anchor. I could see the light of the surface, but the distance was too far. The walls closed in. I pulled one last time and the world went black. Save one image.
Bones.
Dressed in flowing white robes. Holding a glass of wine. A cat-eating grin. Waving. He was mouthing something, but I couldn’t make it out. He was fit. Tanned. And his eyes were bright. Looked like he’d been eating healthy. Oddly, he danced a little jig when I waved, which was strange because I’d read one time that the dead don’t dance, but at the moment I couldn’t remember where I’d read it.
If I’m honest, I wanted to go to him. I wanted to be finished with the pain. The pain in my lungs. The ache in my heart. And now a stinging pain in my leg caused somewhere in the last three minutes. Evidently someone had shot me. If the cold didn’t kill me, and the water didn’t drown me, then surely I’d bleed out through the hole. Things were not looking good.
When I was about to cross the chasm between Bones and me, a hand grabbed my vest and rocketed me out of the water. When he found me unresponsive, he blew air into my lungs and began chest compressions, which hurt a lot. Coughing up half the lake, I pushed Camp’s hands away and told him if he kept doing that he was going to break a rib.
As I lay there, gorging on air, allowing the light back into my eyes, the man in the water reemerged.