Chapter 15
Fifteen
Gideon didn’t figure the helicopter was weaponized, but it didn’t matter. The people in it were locked and loaded, and the pilot would instruct additional ground support to press them in on both sides. What were the escape options? The list was painfully short, only one in point of fact.
They’d have to ditch the RV in the forest, lose themselves in the trees. How long could they stay one step ahead of their executioners? With his wound and both of them running on fumes?
The helicopter roared behind him as they shot into the thicket.
He practically stood on the accelerator for a half mile maybe, willing the old clunker onward until he pulled the unwieldy RV to a stop amid the dense evergreens.
Mackenzie was ready with their packs, but her expression was void of hope.
Once more they were forced to ditch the shelter and warmth they both desperately needed.
No more denying it. The net was being pulled tight on all sides. Their best option—to get to the main road and follow the nearest evacuee out of town—was now off the table.
He thought of survivor stories from soldiers who had been captured after excruciating days and weeks of evasion. The level of defeat they’d experienced, the profound hopelessness, invariably weighed more heavily on them than the physical duress they’d endured.
No. Not while his heart was still beating would he give up and allow that to happen. The last-gasp scenario was his own surrender, but only if it gave Zee a chance to escape—something he’d never share with her. If it came to that, he would make the choice for both of them.
He took the gun and got out, left the vehicle with the engine running, and locked it. The curtains in the back were drawn and would conceal the interior. “They’ll have to assume we’re barricaded inside. It will buy us some time.”
She didn’t answer, surveying their surroundings like he was.
One side of the road harbored a mass of young trees crowded together in a shallow muddy basin, pooled with standing water. The other offered denser pockets of shrubbery and trees that would provide more cover but also slow their escape.
Which way? His side was on fire and his head throbbing. Think, Gideon.
Ahead they saw the gleam of headlights as a vehicle twisted its way along the wooded road toward them. The helicopter thundered overhead, concealed by the canopy.
“They’re coming.” She understood they were trapped.
The aggressors were approaching from the air and land now. The two of them would have to run, but it would be over soon. They could not escape on foot. It would be moments, no longer, before they were captured. His pulse thundered.
Why did it have to end like this? After all they’d survived? And all they had to live for? But for the first time in his life he couldn’t think of a single alternative that would spare them.
Defeated, Gid? Had they survived, evaded, resisted, only to find there was no escape? It was a bitter reality. Why couldn’t he come up with anything?
He’d let Mackenzie down, and the pain of that was an agony worse than the wound.
He took her hand, but before they could leave the road there was a crackling in the branches. Must be yet another team closing in, cutting off their only avenue of escape. He drew her behind him as the foliage parted and he reached for his weapon. Would it even fire properly after being submerged?
His mouth fell open as a familiar woman appeared astride a horse, another horse following with no rider. It took a couple of blinks to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming her up. It really was the stable owner whose horse they’d freed from the damaged stall. Cordelia.
She wore a navy rain jacket and mid-calf boots over her skinny jeans. Her black eyes were smudged with fatigue. Was she working with the others to capture them? He recalled her intensity at the stables, the rage in her features when Al and Jerry arrived and began shooting.
“Come on,” she said. “You two can ride on Lady. Hurry.”
Gideon finally found his voice. “Why are you here? How did you find us?”
“I’ll explain later. Get on,” Cordelia snapped. “They’re going to be here in minutes.”
“We have no reason to trust you.”
Her eyes glowed with intensity. “You’re worth as much to them dead as alive so they won’t hesitate to kill you both. Come with me or die. It’s that simple.”
He tried to absorb it, to understand her possible motives.
Mackenzie tugged his arm. “No choice.”
But would this choice just get them dead quicker? Would it mean hopping out of one grave and into another? Why was she here? And how had she found them?
He could hear the engine noise now and a second vehicle approaching behind the first. Worse yet, he was starting to feel dizzy, sparks dancing across his field of vision.
Mackenzie pulled him after her toward the big mare.
She stuck her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself into the saddle.
She held down her hand to him, and he swung up behind her, momentarily dazed by the pain the movement unleashed.
He thought he was going to hurtle right over the other side to the ground, but Mackenzie pincered his arm under hers.
“Hold on tight around my waist,” she said.
He did, or tried to. His bad shoulder was refusing to function properly, so an awkward grasp was the only thing that kept him seated behind her as they wheeled around.
Cordelia urged the horse speedily away from the road.
There seemed no extreme urgency in Lady as she moved smoothly after her companion.
He, on the other hand, was coiled up with tension as he heard the squeal of brakes.
Two cars stopped on the road within shooting distance of the camper.
Running feet. Shouts.
The horses’ pace was quick and steady, and soon, the thicket sealed off the road behind them.
The helicopter was holding in place, but likely not able to spot their escape under the branches as the dusk deepened, unless they had thermal scanning capabilities.
He figured they’d have a few precious minutes while Al and his cronies problem solved how to breach the RV.
When their ruse was discovered, their pursuers would start a search on foot. The forest was a mess of fallen pine needles and leaves that would conceal the fact that they were on horseback and the direction they’d taken. He hoped.
Cordelia led the way into a tangle of blackberry bushes.
On the other side was a narrow, almost invisible horse trail onto which she turned.
The mare followed, and Gideon was grateful the route required less lurching.
Pain made him dizzy and he kept his arms looped around Mackenzie’s waist as he whispered in her ear.
“We don’t know if we can trust her.”
“I trust her more than Al and Jerry,” she whispered back.
He did, too, but not much more. “Where are you leading us?” he called.
Cordelia didn’t answer.
The nerves in his stomach cinched tighter. The fuzziness in his head grew along with the pain until he was afraid he’d pass out.
He’d lost all bearings as they kept on, one sodden mile after another. As the forest descended into night, the animals navigated by intuition, he supposed. He couldn’t see Cordelia or her horse, but the soft scuff of hooves on wet earth reassured him they hadn’t lost their guide.
An hour stretched into two. He heard no further sounds of the helicopter or any pursuing vehicles. The ache in his side was rising to intolerable levels, so he tried to keep his mind on other things.
Why would Cordelia take the massive risk of rescuing them from under Bullseye’s nose? And how had she found them at the moment they were about to be captured?
He found no answers. An occasional spray of icy droplets kept him alert as they rode on. It was all he could do to maintain his grasp around Mackenzie’s waist to prevent him from toppling off. Twice he blacked out for a few seconds, rousing just before he fell.
When he thought he could not stand the discomfort one moment longer, he felt the horse slow.
Mackenzie pointed to something. Tucked between two towering pines stood a wood-sided cabin gleaming wetly at the end of a raised planked walkway. He blinked to be sure he wasn’t imagining this fairy-tale cottage in the woods, tucked away from the outside world.
It couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred square feet with two windows on each side of a sturdy oak door. A dense canopy overhead would make it difficult to spot from the air.
In the glade next to the structure was a small fenced area with a three-sided shelter, to which both horses immediately turned their noses.
Cordelia slipped easily off her mount and led the animal inside the corral. Mackenzie dismounted, and he pridefully ignored her helping hand, which resulted in him almost collapsing to his knees in a heap.
Mackenzie reached for him, but he forced his spine straight with a grunt. “I’m good.”
With a doubtful shake of her head, she led the mare to join her companion.
Cordelia jutted her chin at Mackenzie and Gideon. “Door’s open. Go on in. I’m going to wipe the horses down and feed them. Be there in a minute.”
He and Mackenzie approached the squat structure, and he did a quick look through the windows. Nothing stirred within. No indication there was anyone inside readying a surprise attack.
Mackenzie clasped him by the arm and helped him heave himself up and over the front step. “We’ve got to check your bandage.”