pdf - Eye of the Storm.PDF (25 page)

Keely let out the breath she'd held after that last shot and slumped on the floor behind the driver's seat. "Shut the windows, Tweetie. It's freezing in here." She could have done it herself, but her hand shook too much. "I think that has to go down as my best shots ever."

Lacey helped her into the seat behind the driver and fastened the seat belt. "God, that was amazing. I mean, I knew you were a good shot, all the guys said so, but from a swerving car at high speed. Jesus." The older woman took the gun Keely still cradled against her chest and placed it on the floor, then sat back in her own seat. "I texted an SOS to Sanctuary while I was bent over. Quinn texted back that the helicopter is coming to get us."

Tweeter pulled into a lay-about. He kept the engine running and turned to look at Keely. "Damn good shooting." He frowned and reached over the seat to stroke a finger down her cold, wet cheek. "You okay?"

Keely patted his hand with her trembling one. Adrenaline overload had her shaking like an aspen in a high wind. "Yeah. Fine. Let's avoid doing that again for awhile. My stomach can't take all that motion." She coughed and swallowed, fighting the nausea with sheer willpower. She reached through the split between the front seats for her Pepsi, still safely snuggled in the cup holder in the console and took a few sips. "God, I needed that."

Picking up the gun Lacey had taken from her, she automatically checked the weapon, ejecting the partially filled magazine. She took the full one Tweeter handed her and shoved it home, then set the safety and put the gun next to her feet in case she needed it again. "Got any extra ammo? So I can reload that magazine?"

"Keely, you look green." Tweeter crawled over the console and got into the back seat with the two women. "Maybe you'd better lie down."

She shook her head. "Think, big bro. What were those assholes really doing?"

Tweeter nodded. "I know what you're thinking. I agree. We need to get off this road."

Lacey looked from one to the other. "What? Weren't they going to drive us over the edge?"

"No, they could have done that at any time. They were herding us. Someone is waiting on us further up the road. Get back in the driver's seat, Tweetie—we need to go back the way we came. Lacey, get ready to give the chopper coordinates for the pick up."

She looked out into the winter wonderland covering the rough terrain. It was snowing harder now, the wind picking up. Her stomach clenched at the worsening conditions.

God, any later and she wouldn't have been able to make the shot. To add to her gut's discomfort, her neck itched like someone was watching them.
Well, hell.
"My gut and itchy neck say we need to get out of here now, Tweetie."

"Shit. Fuck. Damn. I never bet against your itchy neck." He pulled up the area map on the GPS. "We can take a small forest access road and meet the chopper at…” He read the coordinates off to Lacey who typed them into her phone connected to Sanctuary's communication systems by a satellite relay that only the NSA knew about. Keely was really glad she worked out the deal with the NSA: She'd find the DoD turncoat and SSI got to piggyback on the NSA satellites for communications in the middle-of-nowhere-Idaho. The fact that they also optioned her for other NSA work was just fine. She did most of her work on the computer and it would be something to do while she stayed at home and raised Ren's child.

"They're in the air and on their way." The tension in the older woman's voice was tighter than the skin on a movie star's butt.

"We're out of here." Tweeter put the car in gear and backtracked a mile or so to the ranger access road leading to a fire tower and the only flat land that could accommodate the jet helicopter. The Hummer handled the off-road drive easily.

"What will we do with the Hummer?" Lacey said.

"We won't all be going on the helo." Keely closed her eyes against the terrain moving up and down with the vehicle's rough motion. She was queasy and knew it was a combination of the pregnancy and the adrenaline overload. "You and I will be on the chopper, and Tweetie and some of the guys will go after whoever is waiting to ambush us between here and Sanctuary." She sighed. "If I weren't feeling so sick to my stomach and just frick-fracking tired, I'd argue with Ren about it."

"But you won't, Imp."

"No. I'm carrying his child, and the doctor warned me this pregnancy could have issues since I did get pregnant so quickly after going off the pill."

"You didn't fucking tell me that." Tweeter glared at her in the rearview mirror.

"I would've. But we had to get home, and I wasn't planning on the fun and games."

She glared back. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"That Ren will hear about all this before he puts you on the helo?"

"No, but that will probably happen."

"No probably about it. If you don't tell him everything, I will. He needs to know."

She stuck her tongue out at him. He laughed. "And what I was getting at before you took a detour is that someone is still spying on us at Sanctuary." She looked out the window at the trees lining the narrow track leading to the fire tower. "Or someone is watching our comings and goings then following us. They could've followed us to Couer d'Alene, then set this up for the return trip."

"Maybe we should've taken the helo?" Lacey suggested.

"Hell, they'd have just sabotaged the helicopter in Couer d'Alene to keep us on the ground." Tweeter pulled into a parking area for the tower. There was just enough of a clearing to land the jet helicopter. "Lacey, tell them we're here."

Lacey, her lips thinned to the point of disappearing, entered the message. "They're five minutes out." She looked from Keely to Tweeter and back. "What do the bad guys want? To kill us? Or to capture Keely?"

Tweeter looked over the seat. "Depends on who was chasing us. In this instance, it looked like they wanted Keely; that was a herding maneuver. If we hadn't taken them out, we'd have found a roadblock with firepower down the road."

"So who's behind this latest attempt?" Lacey asked, her brow furrowing. "The traitor or Trujo?"

"I don't think this is the DoD traitor. He wants me dead." Keely rubbed a hand over her tired eyes. "I think this maneuver smells more like Trujo. He lured Ren out of Idaho by sacrificing those two men who attacked me, knowing we'd track them to Florida and him. Then his men waited for me to leave the security of Sanctuary. I'm just so pissed I fell for the money trail; in hindsight, it was too easy. Ren is gonna ream us all new assholes." She sighed and leaned her head back. "I'll never get to leave Sanctuary again, not until after the baby is born."

Lacey sat up and gasped. "Who's that coming up the trail?"

Both Keely and Tweeter turned to look where Lacey pointed. "Shit. Shit. Shit,"

Tweeter said, "Get out of the car and inside the tower base."

Two vehicles followed them up the access road, their lights signaling their approach.

"Dad would kick our butts if we approached an enemy with lights running." Keely opened the rear driver's side door.

"Hey, let's be glad Dad didn't train these fuckers." Tweeter armed himself with a submachine gun he pulled out from under the driver's seat. "Lacey, take this." He handed Quinn's wife his sidearm, which he'd pulled from the holster under his jacket.

Keely was happy to see Lacey knew what to do with it. She picked up the submachine pistol and snagged the extra ammo for it Tweeter had under the seat.

"Let's get settled in and take these fuckers out." Tweeter retrieved a bag out of the back of the Hummer then led the way to the tower which had a cabin at the base for rangers to sleep over during fire season. He shot out the lock with another handgun he'd pulled from the bag, then ushered her and Lacey inside.

"Tweetie, I need to be the one to climb up." She knew he meant to get above the enemy and pick them off. "I'm the better shot. Hand me the sniper rifle you have in that bag."

Her brother frowned but quickly assembled the weapon he'd already begun pulling out. "There's not much protection up there. You'd be better off down here behind the mattress and the walls. No telling what they'll be shooting."

"They don't want me dead, if my guess as to who's behind this attack is correct." She was betting her life and theirs on it. "So, I imagine they'll try to wait us out." She headed for the interior stairs leading to the first exterior platform level. "Plus, the helicopter will be a sitting duck. I need to take as many of them out as I can. Demoralize them, maybe chase them off. I won't let them take pot shots at Ren and the guys."

He didn't argue against her conclusions. "Shit. Ren will kill me."

"Better than Ren being dead. Once he calms down, he'll admit I'm the better shot.

You and Lacey can lay down cover fire for me."

Tweeter slammed his hand on a door jam. "This sucks, sis." He handed her the sniper rifle.

"Ren thinks Tweeter's going up into the tower." Lacey smiled grimly, holding up her Blackberry. "I sort of lied."

"Thanks." Keely started to climb, the sniper rifle slung across her back, extra magazines zipped inside her fur vest.

"Hold it, sis." Tweeter slipped a headset on her, the receiver in her ear and the microphone hugging her cheek. "It's just us on this frequency—for now. Once the guys realize we have ears, they'll single out our frequency." Which meant Ren would know who was on the tower, shooting at the enemy. Well, it wasn't like they could keep it from him forever.

"Thanks. Wish me luck."

As she climbed, a voice shouted from the outside. "
Hola,
you in the cabin. You can't get away. We have your vehicle blocked. We want Keely Walsh. The rest can go free."

"Yeah, sure, right, and I believe in the frick-fracking tooth fairy." She muttered, cautiously sticking her head above the first level platform's floor. She slithered onto the metal decking and remained low.

This platform was about twenty feet in the air and should provide some good shots.

Once again she blessed the men of SSI for having weapons with high-caliber bullets. She could take out an armored vehicle at eight hundred yards with the ammo in the sniper rifle. A few assholes would soon become kibbles and bits with the type of firepower she had. She'd take the vehicles out first. Trujo's men would regret picking on a pregnant, hormonal woman.

Her dark clothing allowed her to blend into the metallic structure of the fire tower.

The platform had a railing that would allow her to shoot through the slats. She belly-crawled to the side where Trujo’s men had parked their vehicles, blocking the trail out.

Using the night vision device—or NVD as her Dad liked to call the scope—she zeroed in on the lead vehicle's engine, then found the second vehicle's engine. Looking down, the trajectory for the shot was an easy one hundred yards away. The wind had died down, so no trouble there.

Now to find the mercs. She peeked through the scope again, and found a group of them hovered around the back of the Sanctuary Hummer. The NVD's image enhancement was to military specifications and gave her an excellent view of what they were doing.

"Frick-fracking hell."

"What's wrong, sis?" Tweeter's worried voice came over the headset.

"They're pawing through our things. My new lingerie! Perverted bastards."

Tweeter snorted back a laugh. "What's the head count?"

"Hold on a sec, Tweetie." Were all the bastards fingering her bras and thongs? Or had some stayed with the vehicles? She wanted to know where all the targets were before she started shooting. She swept the scope back to the enemy vehicles, soon to be hunks of worthless metal, when she gasped. "Trujo is here." She'd recognize his features, even though they were colored an eerie green due to the NVD. The bastard was just getting back into the lead vehicle.

"Well, shit." She heard Tweeter telling Lacey to inform their team. "The State Police are on their way. Ren called them. Also, a second Sanctuary chopper is on its way with heavier ordnance."

Keely knew that meant air-to-ground missiles. One way or another, Trujo wouldn't get off this mountain alive. She was going to make it sooner.

"I have eight human targets and two engine blocks to blow. I'm ready to take out the vehicles, no wait, I've got a guy sneaking up on the cabin." She aimed at the guy's head.

He had to go before the vehicles and Trujo. The bastard was getting too close to Tweeter and Lacey's position. "Give me cover fire so they won't realize where the kill shots are coming from."

They'd figure it out eventually, but by then there wouldn't be as many left to shoot at her. She was a sitting duck; the only protection she had was the metal platform and some metal slats. Armor-piercing rounds would pass through the steel in this tower like a hot knife through butter. She could be wounded or worse.

"Covering your ass now." Tweeter's voice came across the headset.

As Lacey and Tweeter lay down cover fire, Keely took her head shot and got the guy making his way to the cabin before he could respond to the other gunfire. She got one other guy who made the mistake of zigging instead of zagging. "Six bad asses and two vehicles to go."

As her two allies continued to spray the area with bullets, Keely concentrated on the lead vehicle in which Trujo sat, protected, or so he thought. When she was satisfied she had a clear head shot, she took it. He fell from her sight. Then she took another guy out as he responded to the shot she'd put into Trujo. The drug lord could be wounded or dead, she couldn't worry about it. In the spirit of keeping all the bad guys on this mountain, she took out both the enemy’s vehicles’ engines. Steam billowed from the radiators. Their Hummer was blocked by the disabled vehicles and would be of no use to anyone trying to escape. "Four bad asses left. Vehicles are toast."

"Keely, stand down. Ren is preparing to buzz the area. Protect yourself, baby sis."

"Got it, big brother. You cover your and Lacey's asses."

Staying low, Keely moved away from the front of the platform and got behind the central iron staircase. Not much more protection, but she wasn't where she'd been and that was the best she could do. She needed to stay available in case the four baddies tried to take down the helicopter. Besides only a couple of stray shots had come to her level, so the people on the ground still didn't realize she was up here.