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The four men exchanged words, but Keo was too far away to hear the conversation. Instead, he sat back and watched the two new arrivals disappear into the barn with the other two before all four returned outside about five minutes later, this time pushing a large, heavy, tarp-covered object out into the morning sunlight with them.

At first Keo thought it was an old tractor, or some kind of farming equipment, given its size. That is, until he stared at it through his binoculars.

It was a helicopter with some kind of heavy netting draped over it. He could make out green metal glinting through the holes in the camouflage, and it was pretty clear the machine had wheels that made it easier to move despite its bulk.

“The last flight out is tomorrow. Everyone involved in this area is supposed to be back by then,”
Davis had said.

The last flight back to The Ranch…

Four men became six when two more came out of the barn, but none of them were Mercer. Besides the fact everyone was too young to be Mercer, there was no reason for Davis to lie about the man not being here. But while Mercer might not be here right now, these men knew where he was and how to get there, and right now that was good enough for Keo.

Not all six were armed, but at least two of them were. Even if he could take out both of them from this distance, that still left four to make a run for the barn. Once inside, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be unarmed for very long. And how many were inside right now that he couldn’t see?

So what, then? Wait for them to climb onboard that helicopter and leave?

No, that wasn’t going to work. Not one bit.

Find Mercer. Kill Mercer.

It was a pretty straightforward job. Not a breeze by any means, but he’d had tougher gigs, even if he couldn’t think of them right now.

He got up and backtracked into the woods until he couldn’t see the helicopter and the men pushing it, then turned and began moving right. He circled the clearing, sticking to the natural camo provided by the thick trees and foliage around him. Keo didn’t stop until he was looking out at the rear of the red barn.

He moved back toward the tree line, and crouching, looked out.

The barn was about thirty-five meters in front of him, and from his current angle he couldn’t see the front doors or the two-story house on the other side, but he could make out the nose of the helicopter as it was pushed into the wide-open space where it could power up and take off. He hadn’t spotted anything that looked like an LZ out there—makeshift or otherwise—but a good pilot probably didn’t need one.

He got up and slipped out of the trees and made a straight line for the red building. Closer now, he could hear grunts and voices coming from the other side as the six men put everything they had into pushing the aircraft. Equipped with wheels or not, that thing probably weighed close to 6,000 kilograms or more, not counting however much fuel it still had in the tank. That, he guessed, would depend on how far these men expected it to ferry them.

Keo made the back of the barn without incident but didn’t press up against the peeling red paint. Instead, he stopped just short of it and found a small sliver between two boards and looked in, glimpsing a pair of figures moving around on the other side.

So at least two more bodies. Swell. That made a total of eight, which was still less than he had been expecting, unless there were more hiding in the barn or somewhere out there in the woods.

The barn was big enough to have two stories and Keo tried to look up, but there wasn’t enough of a crack to see anything past the first floor. He moved along the back, searching for another peephole, but didn’t find anything good enough to see through by the time he reached the building’s right edge. The good news was, as soon as he rounded the corner, he spotted a side door.

What were the chances it was unlocked?

He put his hand on the rusted-over lever and tested it by pressing cautiously down with his thumb. The latch moved on the other side
(unlocked!)
without any noise, not even a telltale
clack
. He pulled his hand away and craned his head to eavesdrop on the voices coming from the other side of the building, somewhere between the barn and the main house. They weren’t really chatting up a storm, but there were a couple of ongoing conversations, though the topics eluded him.

Keo faced the side door again and took a breath.

Eight men that he knew of for sure, maybe
(probably)
more he couldn’t see. It wasn’t exactly the ideal situation, and God knew the prospect of shooting it out with eight men was intimidating enough that it made all of this seem like one big suicide run. Only an idiot would barge in there in hopes of getting to someone who wasn’t even present. Only a damn fool would do exactly what he was about to do against such overwhelming odds.

He almost laughed out loud trying to recall the last time someone had mistaken him for anything other than a damn fool.

Suck it up, pal, and get it done. Mercer’s not going to end himself, you know.

He reached for the rusted-over lever a second time, steeling himself for the charge. He’d have to take out the two inside first, then move toward the open front doors and waste the ones pushing the helicopter. Most of them, anyway. He’d need to keep at least one of them alive for interrogation, preferably the pilot. But he wouldn’t necessarily know who the pilot was unless the guy was wearing some kind of flight suit, which would be a dead giveaway, but unlikely.

Oh, fuck it. Now you’re just stalling.

He sighed, thought,
This one’s for you, Jordan
, and pushed his thumb down on the lever a split second before a big chunk of the already rotted wooden door in front of him cratered. Splinters exploded and filled the air
(Gunshot!)
, every single piece seemingly gunning for his face.

Keo’s mind screamed,
Gunshot! Where the hell did that gunshot come from?
even as he spun and started dropping to the ground

It was a man, and he was wearing some kind of ghillie suit that would have made him blend effortlessly into his surroundings just beyond the tree line if not for the rifle in his hands. The muzzle was pointed in Keo’s direction, and the reason Keo hadn’t heard anything resembling a gunshot meant the weapon had a suppressor—

Keo dived left at the last second even as the man fired again, the second round smashing into the wall an inch from his head, so close that the sound of the weapon drilling through the vulnerable wood
(Thwack!)
and disappearing into the barn was the only noise the shot made. He had thrown himself down to avoid the bullet without thinking and had to stick out his hands—with the AR-15 clutched in them—or else he would have smashed face first into the ground.

There was a loud
boom!
from behind him, and Keo didn’t have to look back to know someone had just kicked the barn’s side door open. Not that he could have looked to be sure, because he was still falling—

He hit the ground, spun onto his back, and grimaced as the second rifle slung over his back dug into his flesh
(Should have left it behind, dammit!)
, but the pain vanished quickly and was replaced by blinding fury when a steel-toed boot slammed into his side. He was pretty sure one of his ribs cracked. If he was really lucky, it would just be one.

He glimpsed figures flashing across his line of vision, blotting out the sun above him, just before the stock of a rifle cracked over his face.

There goes the nose again.

He tasted blood in his mouth and felt his rifle being yanked out of his hands as if he were some old man incapable of holding onto anything, then another boot (or was it the same one?) landing a second kick, but thankfully this time it only glanced off his thigh. It still hurt like a sonofabitch, and it was all he could do to grit his teeth to keep from crying out.

He waited for more, but his punisher had apparently decided that two (Or was that three? Four?) was enough and backed away, leaving Keo to lie on his back staring up at a glowing orange ball. At least it was warm and sunny this morning. He could think of worse ways to go—somewhere cold, for instance.

God bless freaky ass Texas weather
, he thought with a wry grin.

“What are you smiling at?” a voice said. Female. Partially amused, but mostly confused. “I don’t think you should be smiling right now.”

“You sure that’s a smile?” a second voice asked. This one was a man and wasn’t nearly as pleasant-sounding.

“Looks like a smile.”

“Hard to tell with all the blood…”

Keo shifted his sight from the sun to the first silhouetted figure looming over him. For a moment he thought it might have been Marcy again, but it couldn’t have been because she was a collaborator and these were Mercer’s men. Or had he stumbled across the wrong group of people? Had Davis lied to him after all and sent him to his death?

Clever, Davis. Real clever, you jackass.

“You missed,” the man said. It didn’t sound as if he was directing the accusation at Keo. “Twice.”

“It’s the suppressor,” a second male voice said. “Threw off my aim.”

“Riiiight.”

“I’m serious, man.”

A third silhouette flanked the first two, except this one seemed to have the outline of a…bush? No, not a bush. He was looking at a ghillie suit…the guy with the rifle who had taken the shots at him.

“He’s seen better days, that’s for sure,” Ghillie Suit said. “Damn, look at that face.”

“That’s my bad,” the other man said.

“You did that?”

“Had to make sure he stayed down.”

“I think you made sure.”

“Damn straight.” Then, “Is that what I think it is?” The man crouched briefly before straightening back up, this time with a familiar white wire dangling from between his fingers. “Aw, shit, it’s Davis’s iPod, isn’t it? What the fuck’s he doing with Davis’s iPod?”

“I guess now we know what happened to him and Butch,” Ghillie Suit said.

“You think they’re dead?”

“I don’t think they gave it to him out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“Is he alone?” the woman asked.

“As far as I know,” Ghillie Suit said. “Could be more hiding in the woods.”

“I swore the nightcrawlers found us last night,” the other man said. “They might have sent their human lackeys to check. You think he’s a collaborator scumbag?”

“Maybe,” woman said. “Spread out; make sure he doesn’t have any friends hiding out there.”

The man who wasn’t Ghillie Suit left and Keo heard a radio squawking, but that was quickly drowned out by the sound of a machine roaring to life. First slowly, then gradually gaining speed and power until it was all he could hear and the ground under him began trembling, pebbles dancing near his right eye.

The helicopter. Wait for me, boys!

He must have grinned a second time, because the woman said, “There it is again. What’s so funny?”

He thought of a joke Danny had once told him about a priest, a rabbit, and a horse walking into a bar, but when he opened his mouth to tell it, the only sound that came out was a slightly labored wheeze.

“I guess not!” Ghillie Suit said. With the noise continuing to grow in the background, the man had to shout to be heard. “What’re we gonna do with him?”

“I don’t know yet!” the woman shouted back. She crouched next to Keo and her face slowly came into focus.

Not completely, but enough for him to know she wasn’t entirely bad looking.

“What’s he doing sneaking around out here by himself?” the woman asked, though Keo wasn’t sure if she was asking him or Ghillie Suit, or just talking mostly to herself.

Maybe I should ask her out for drinks. Get to know one another…

“He looks like he’s going to be way more trouble than he’s worth,” Ghillie Suit said.

“Maybe,” the woman said, standing back up. “We can always just throw him out of the hatch later if he becomes a pain in the ass.”

Or not.

5

GABY

“
R
EADY
, kid?”

“No.”

“On the count of five…”

“Danny, I’m not ready!”

“One…”

“Not yet!”

“Two…”

“Danny!”

“…four…”

“What happened to three?”

“Go!”

She would have cursed him if she had the chance, but by the time his
Go!
echoed in her ears, the pickup’s tires were screaming and the smell of burning rubber filled her nostrils as the vehicle slammed to a stop in the middle of the road. She threw her body into the door, one hand jerking at the lever, praying she had timed it just right, because otherwise she was going to go
splat
on the pavement—

The door snapped open, rusted hinges working overtime, but was soon lost against the overwhelming squeal of tires under her and the quickly approaching engines of the two vehicles behind them. Her feet didn’t so much as touch the road as they graced it, and she was racing forward. A sheet of abandoned newspaper crumpled under her boots, the sound like gunshots despite all the other noises swirling around her at the moment.

The road out of Gallant, Texas, was a two-lane street separated by fading yellow lines, and their vehicle had turned slightly left as it skidded to a stop and she lunged out. That pointed her right toward the shoulder and the row of cars on the other side. They hadn’t made it very far out of town before Danny came up with his (not so) brilliant plan. She would have argued to keep going and hopefully lose their pursuers among the side streets, but Danny hadn’t given her any choice.

Her heartbeat thundered against her chest as she ran for all she was worth, the M4 clutched in her right hand, her left swinging back and forth as if that would somehow make her go faster. She couldn’t help herself and tossed a quick look to her right and down the street just as she crossed the shoulder.

They were still coming—both of them. The Jeep that she had seen on the I-10, which may or may not have been tracking them since Port Arthur, and the big black truck with the dark uniformed man perched behind the towering cab. It wasn’t the size of the second vehicle that made the pit of her stomach drop. No, it was the mounted machine gun. Gaby had seen what one of those things could do, and the thought of being on the wrong side of it made her run faster and
faster.