Ancient Echoes (43 page)

Jianjun opened his eyes, and fought to clear his head. “He's
going to kill you, Bob, as soon as he doesn't need you anymore. You know that,
don’t you? Think about it. How could he leave you as a witness to murder and
kidnapping and everything else he’s planning? You would have too much power
over him, too much knowledge. I know you aren't smart, but at least you should
have some sense of self-preservation. Even a slug knows enough to try to get
out of danger.”

Phaylor chuckled. “I'll make you so rich, Bob, I have no
worries. You'd never tell because you'd lose your fortune. Don’t listen to
him.”

Bob smiled. “I don’t. But I'll be glad when he's dead.”

“You are a fool!” Jianjun shouted.
“And a
killer.
Security cameras monitored Vandenburg’s building. Are you sure
you avoided every one of them? They’ll see you entering her apartment, and then
taking me out of there at gunpoint. They’ll know who the murderer is.”

Bob's face flushed. “It won’t happen!”

“You know it’s true. You know the old man set you up!”
Jianjun raged.

Bob punched him in the mouth. Jianjun’s head snapped back
and he tasted blood. The sound echoed through the plane.

Phaylor chuckled, but a phlegm-filled cough got in the way
of his enjoyment.

All were quiet as the plane began to descend. They landed at
an airfield near Sun Valley. There, they would transfer to the helicopter Milt
Zonovich ordered soon after his talk with Phaylor.

The Cessna no sooner landed, however, when armed Blaine
County deputies, Idaho State Police, and Homeland Security officers surrounded
it.

The pilot opened the plane’s doors.

The lead deputy boarded the plane, followed by others. He
quickly drew his gun. “Drop your weapons,” he ordered.

“Weapons?
What is this?” Phaylor
demanded. “There must be some mistake. I’m Calvin Phaylor! Do you have any idea
of my influence?
My power?”

Officers placed Phaylor and Bob under arrest.

“John Lee?” the deputy asked, untying Jianjun and noting his
bruises. “Are you all right?”

“I am, now,” Jianjun said. “Yes. I am fine.
Very fine.
So, Homeland Security sent you?”

“That’s right, although their
intel
said you might be here or you might have been murdered. Glad to see it was the
former, and we’re able to free you.”

“Thank you!” Jianjun exclaimed, giving himself an inward
cheer that his plan worked. After discovering that, shortly after talking to
Phaylor, Milt Zonovich ordered a Cessna out of Teterboro, New Jersey, and then
a helicopter in Sun Valley, he put two and two together. Phaylor planned to go
to Idaho to find the gateway himself. Jianjun feared Phaylor might decide to
take him along to help—or kill him so there would be no witness to Phaylor’s
involvement.

For that reason, he wrote a number of carefully worded and
completely untrue emails filled with buzz-words and scenarios sure to excite
terror specialists. He then sent all of them to his most reliable first cousin,
Waymon Li. He asked Waymon to release them to specific people in Homeland
Security if any four hour period passed and Jianjun hadn’t sent him a text that
he was alive and well. Fortunately, his cousin watched the clock.

“With all the bigwigs who have homes or come here for vacation,”
the deputy said, his face beaming, “we’ve trained for situations like this, but
this is the first time we’ve actually used it! Pretty exciting, I must say. We
heard that you’re the son of some muckety-muck in China. No need for this to
become an international incident.”

“I am much relieved to be rescued.” Jianjun stood and bowed
many times while trying not to chuckle over what his father, who worked as an
accountant in Canada, would think of this story. “Very relieved, but I must go,
now.”

“I don’t think so. We’ve got lots of questions, like why
kidnap you? What were they planning to do? Also, considering who we just
arrested”—he looked over at Phaylor—“I’m sorry to say Homeland Security is
going to need a lot of answers.”

Jianjun nodded. If the authorities were confused now, just
wait until they found Jennifer Vandenburg’s body. Having used the police to
free him from Phaylor, he needed to escape them. He wasn't worried. Given all
he and Michael had been through over the years, doing that would be a piece of
cake.

But after that, how was he going to find Michael?

“UNTIL WE COME up with a way to
protect ourselves,” Michael said when the group gathered after a restless
night, “we're sitting ducks if they come after us.”

“Sam Black and Arnie Tieg had rifles when they first picked
us up,” Melisse said, “and they had ammo clips. One day they headed northeast
from the village with the rifles, and when they returned they no longer carried
them. I saw some caves out that way when Rachel and I were picking tubers. I’d
look there.”

“Give me directions to find the spot,” Michael said.

“I'll join you,” Jake added.

“We should all go,” Charlotte suggested. “I don’t like the
idea of splitting up.”

“No,” Jake told her a little too quickly, a little too
abruptly. “It’s going back near the compound, back to danger. You, Lionel, and
Quade need to put your heads together with that book and the philosopher’s
stones and look for any hint on getting us out of here.” He looked hard at
Quade, as if to say he knew Quade had a lot more information than he shared so
far.

“I told you I can’t help,” Lionel complained. “It’s not my
area.”

“You’d rather return to the village with us and look for
guns?” Jake asked.

Lionel blanched and fell silent.

“I should go with you, Sheriff,” Melisse offered.

“Michael and I can handle it,” Jake said. “I'd rather you
stay and protect the others. If this camp is attacked, you'll be most useful
here.”

“I know what you're doing, Sheriff.” Melisse held her head
high. “Don't cut me out. It's my job to go into danger.”

“I understand that,” Jake said. “But you may be needed right
here.”

He didn't know how prophetic his words would be.

o0o

By late afternoon, Michael and Jake still hadn’t found the cave
with a stash of guns. They hadn’t found any cave at all.

“Should we give up?” Jake asked. “I’m worried about leaving
the others alone all this time.”

“There’s only about an hour more of daylight,” Michael said.
“We should take advantage of it. In any case, it’ll be dark before we get back
to them.”

“You’re right,” Jake said. “If we can only find those
rifles, we’ll be a credible fighting force.”

“Bring 'em on,” Michael said with heavy irony.

“Careful what you wish for.”

“That's the story of my life, damn it.”

Dusk fell as they continued their slow, cautious search.
Jake glanced back to tell Michael it was time to give up. A red laser spot
danced on Michael's chest—a high beam rifle scope had him in its sight.

Jake lunged and knocked Michael off his feet as the high
piercing sound of a rifle shot whizzed by. A rock Michael had been standing in
front of shattered.

A half second later, multiple rounds of rifle fire sounded.

Dirt and debris exploded around them. Jake groaned as he and
Michael scrambled for cover.

“You're hit!” Michael stared at the gaping wound on the
sheriff’s thigh. Jake had seemed invulnerable to him.

They dropped to their stomachs and rolled into a dry creek
bed offering a slight depression in the contour of the land. There, Michael
fired back with the Remington, while Jake used his knife to cut and tear off
material from his shirt to make a tourniquet for his thigh. The bullet had
missed his femoral artery or he would have quickly bled out.

Gunfire stopped altogether for few moments. Then shots came
at them from three new positions.

Jake drew his Smith and Wesson. With dizzying agony he
balanced on his good knee, his wounded leg outstretched. Waves of blackness
swept over him as he fired blindly at the enemy. As he struggled against passing
out, each wave became more difficult to fight. “I don't know how much longer I
can hold on,” he murmured.

“Don't give up now, Sheriff!” Michael gripped his shoulder,
his words harsh. “Concentrate on all who need you. Charlotte, Melisse, Lionel,
Rachel, Brandi,”—he saw movement and shot at it—“even Quade and me. Hang on!”

Jake nodded, determined. More gunfire sounded and the two
began to work their way backwards, away from the heavy assault, finally making
a labored run to a more secure position behind a cluster of jutting rocks.

Jake reached shelter, but the effort cost him. The
adrenaline rush that propelled him to safety abandoned him, and he slumped
over.

Michael aimed his weapon in the direction of the attackers'
oncoming sounds and fired wherever he detected sound or movement, desperate to
hold their position.

Volleys of gunfire came at him with such force and frequency
that he found himself pinned down, unable to leave the security of the rock
face to return fire. Not that it mattered. He had so little ammunition
left,
the fight would soon be over.

THE FIRST GLOW OF sunrise peeked
over the mountains. Melisse had kept watch all night while the students,
Charlotte, and Lionel slept in a relatively secluded and secure culvert.
Melisse guarded the group’s south flank and Quade its north.

Anxiety and a sense of hopelessness gripped her. The night
before, as the group hiked, they heard the sound of high-powered rifle fire in
the distance. They assumed the mercenaries found Jake and Michael. She prayed
the two located the cave with weapons before that happened. But when the men
didn’t return by nightfall, dread became despair.

The small group pushed on. They had managed to hide from both
the mercenaries and the villagers for a day, but she doubted their luck would
hold out much longer.

Something moved not far from her.

She crept cautiously toward the movement, then lay down flat
in the scrub and waited.

Two strangers approached dressed in black tactical gear, and
ball caps. They carried semi-automatic weapons.
The mercs.

Three bullets remained in her Beretta.

She waited.

The men crept closer, but she still didn't act. A head shot
would be the best way to stop them, but the hardest to make. She weighed her
options. She didn't relish the thought of dying out here, not when she had so
much to live for. Thoughts of her pretty little daughter, Marianna, came to
mind, but she pushed them aside. She had no time for them now. The possibility of
sidling back, out of the killers' view, waking Charlotte and the students and
running appealed to her, but it wasn’t possible.

Heart pounding, she watched the mercs. They stepped into the
open now, just as the sun peeked over the horizon, casting a whitish-pink aura
over the land. They crouched, careful. She hadn’t moved for a long while so
they had no idea she was there.

The sky was too beautiful for anyone to die under, she told
herself.

Then, her training kicked in. She aimed, adjusted as she
remembered Michael’s caution about bullet trajectories, and fired.

She hit the first man in the middle of the forehead. He
dropped, instantly dead.

The other man ran as she turned the pistol in his direction.
Her shot went wide.

He fired as he ducked, but his foot caught a rock and the
split second he wobbled caused his spray of shots to go wild.

As he fell, she aimed a little to the left, calculating that
he'd catch himself and correct in the opposite direction. She squeezed off her
third and last shot. He fell.

She'd beaten the odds.

Adrenaline rushing, she waited three full minutes. She heard
and saw nothing more, so she crept toward the dead mercs to take their weapons.
She assumed Quade and Charlotte woke the students and set them running at the
first sound of gunfire. She would have to move fast to catch up to them, but
the mercs rifles, and anything else useful they might be carrying, would serve
them all well.

She reached for the first merc’s M-107 when a rapid burst of
firepower roared. Bullets tore at her back and side, knocked her sideways, and
spun her around.

She
fell
face up, looking at a
pastel sky, at the start of a beautiful new day, before her eyes no longer saw
anything at all.

THE SOUND OF GUNSHOTS woke
everyone, shattering what little spirit and hope remained in the university
group.

“Oh, God!”
Rachel cried, and turned
toward the sound. Without weapons, they couldn’t help Melisse.

“Move it!” Charlotte said. She slipped the backpack with the
book over her shoulders. “Leave everything else. Now! Go!” She hoped Melisse
could hold off the shooters long enough for her to get the students safely
away.

Before long, Brandi gave out. She cried, and tried to keep
moving, but her body simply didn't have the strength. Her legs buckled, her
muscles quivered, and she gasped for breath.

Charlotte and Quade tried to help her, but Brandi was too
tired and too heavy for them to handle. She slowed the group down, endangering
everyone.

“She can’t go on,” Charlotte said. “I'll stay with her. They
won't kill us.”

“No, please. I'll try,” Brandi wailed.

“It doesn't matter,” Lionel whimpered. “We're all lost.”

“It does matter!” Quade insisted. “Only Brandi stays. These
men won't waste a bullet on her. Out here and alone, they'll consider her already
dead. They'll continue past. If you stay, Charlotte, they’ll threaten and
eventually kill her just to get you to cooperate with them. When Michael and
the sheriff return, we’ll come back for Brandi.”