To The Lions - 02 (43 page)

At
the road, seeing no cars coming, Gage used his feet and hands to flatten the
cuts on the shoulder created by the tires and the one destroyed wheel.
 
There were faint gouges in the asphalt, veering
to the right.
 
He used road grit from the
very edge of the asphalt, walking back thirty meters and concealing it as best
he could.
 
He turned, thankful that the
wisps of smoke from the Opel were no longer visible as they had been dissipated
by a stiff breeze.

The
sound of an engine could be heard, revving high, accompanied by the distinct
sound of cutting air.
 
It was a car, and
though he couldn’t see it yet, he knew it was driving very fast.
 
Gage moved backward, just below the weeds at
the edge of the embankment, flattening himself.
 
From his right, from Cercs, came a Mercedes with police markings,
hurtling through the mild curve.
 
The
police weren’t using their siren but the lights on top were on.
 
The car whizzed by, never braking.
 
There were two police officers in the car.

Gage
ran back down to the Opel, finding Angelines sitting on the pine-needle-covered
earth next to the rear wheel.
 
She was
trying to fashion a bandage from a piece of cloth.
 
He moved her hands aside, ripping the pants
suit open and probing the wound with his fingers.
 
She’d taken a bullet on the side of her
thigh.
 
It had been traveling downward
and Gage could feel the exit wound underneath.
 
Fortunately for her the bullet had been jacketed and didn’t mushroom as
it ripped through her leg.
 
Both holes
were the diameter of a pinkie finger but were bleeding profusely.

“Do
you have a knife?”

Her
eyes searched the area, as if she might find one.
 

Please don’t go into shock
,
he thought.
 
Grasping her shoulders and
noticing that her nose was bleeding—from the airbag—he said, “It’s not all that
bad, okay?
 
If we can stem that blood,
you’ll be fine.
 
Wait right here.”

As
he opened the trunk, he processed the timeline.
 
The Cercs police car would be at Berga Prison in another minute.
 
He’d have to assume by that time the Berga
and Gironella police would be there also.
 
Hopefully, coming from such small towns, those police wouldn’t be
assertive because, surely, the Berga prison guards would tell them Capitana de
la Mancha’s car had sped to the north.
 
She’d said that the Manresa Police, with the helicopter, would have
jurisdiction in representation of the territory known as Comarques Centrals.
 
As he yanked the small first aid kit from the
trunk, he looked up at the sparse canopy of pine trees, knowing an air search
would reveal the Opel in short order.

They
would need to be far away by that time.

Guessing
at the timeline with a measure of optimism, he wagered the first cops on the
scene were just now hearing the story.
 

Assume ten more minutes before the
Manresa Police arrive in their helicopter, hopefully making the decision to
land first.
 
Give them ten more minutes
to get their bearings and organize a search, and that’s when the chopper lifts
off again.
 
This car will be spotted in
five more minutes, tops.
 
They’ll
probably use dogs to trail us.
 
That will
take at least five minutes, maybe more.
 
Give the dogs and their handlers two minutes to get the scents, and then
the chase is on.

Thirty-two minutes until the dogs
are here…let’s be pessimistic and call it twenty.

Using
the pair of scissors from the first aid kit, Gage pulled the rear seatbelt out
as far as he could get it, slicing it from both ends.
 
He hurried back to Angelines, taking the cloth
from her and cutting it in two, wadding it into two pieces.

“Hold
these directly on top of each wound.”
 
He
wound the seatbelt around her leg, threading it through the bar on the buckle
to create tension.
 
He eyed her.
 
“You ready?”

She
nodded.

He
yanked.

She
gritted her teeth, wincing fiercely.

Gage
tugged on the pressure dressing, probing around it with his fingers.
 
Satisfied, he pointed to her wrist, where she
wore a fashionable runner’s watch.
 
“Give
me that watch.”
 
He pressed a few
buttons, finding the stopwatch feature, starting it.

“The
police will be here soon.
 
I know you’re
in pain, but I also know you’re a dedicated runner.
 
Look at me!” he said, lifting her chin,
grasping both of her hands.
 
“
Capitana
…Angelines…this is what you’ve
done all that running for.
 
If you want
to see your son, give him the life you talked about, then we have to haul some
serious ass, okay?
 
They’re going to
bring dogs in here and we can forget all that bullshit about going through
streams.
 
We need to create
distance
.
 
Do you understand?”

Swallowing
a few times, she nodded.
 
He helped her
to her feet.
 
She pushed his hands away,
testing her leg.
 
Though she winced, she
gave him a double thumbs-up.

“Head
that way,” he said, pointing north.
 
When
she did, he went back to the car to find her mobile phone.
 
Unfortunately, it had been clipped by one of
the bullets and lay in pieces in the passenger seat.

Running,
Gage caught up to Angelines.
 
As they
negotiated a thicket of briars, she asked where they were going.

“We’re
going to get the money.”

“Then
what?”

Gage
jerked her through the last section of briars and pushed her out in front.
 
“Hopefully the consulate is working in our
favor by now.
 
Otherwise, I’ve got no
frigging idea.
 
Just keep moving and
we’ll figure it out when we get there.”

All
things considered, they made good time.

* * *

Gage’s
time estimate was remarkably accurate.
 
Though the police chopper was actually a civilian helicopter, used only
during rare emergencies, it was under the directive of the Policía de Manresa and,
just as he’d hoped, they landed just outside the gates of the prison as they
listened to the briefing from the shaken guards at Berga.

Six
policemen were marshaled in a small circle near the inner gate that Angelines
had barreled through.
 
No one questioned
the head guard, a man named Pilopes, as he detailed a story that involved an
American prisoner armed with a homemade bomb who managed to disarm several
guards and gain access to a firearm.

“Injuries?”
the senior policeman, a detective from Manresa, asked.

“Yes,
several, one of them being a prisoner with smashed testicles.”

That
drew a host of raised eyebrows.

When
they’d first arrived, Pilopes had briefed the policemen on the situation,
telling them that they suspected the American prisoner had taken their captain
hostage, and that she was under duress as she’d driven the escape.

“About
the captain,” the senior man said, clearly puzzled.
 
“How did she get her car all the way inside?”

Pilopes
nodded, a mirthless smile coming over his face.
 
“This is exactly why I always warned her against such a thing.
 
She insisted her car be allowed inside, for
many years, so she wouldn’t have to walk from the parking area.
 
She is a prima donna.”

The
senior policeman eyed the guard towers.
 
“You were shooting from that tower?” he asked, pointing to the one near
the busted outer gate.

“Sí,
jefe
, our guard was.”

“Even
though your captain was in the car and you felt she was being held
hostage
?”

There
was a pause as the guards looked at one another.
 
Finally, Pilopes said, “We were shooting at
the tires.”

“Did
you hit any of them?”

“Sí.
 
One tire that we know of.”

“Do
you have the security video of them leaving?”

Pilopes
shook his head.
 
“The bomb damaged our
servers which are just outside of the captain’s office.
 
The video may be intact but it will be some
time before we know.”

“Fine,
then.”
 
The senior man turned to the
police.
 
“Until we gain benefit from the
Mossos d’Esquadra
, which could be
another hour, I want both cars to head north while we go by air.
 
If we can spot their car, we’ll direct you
from our view.”
 
He pointed to a truck
that had stopped outside the fence.
 
“That’s Manuel and his dogs.
 
In
case the American has bailed out—and it’s quite possible since the tire was
allegedly shot—you make sure his truck stays with you.”

There
were only a few questions, which the detective answered as they walked to their
respective vehicles.
 
He stopped them as
he motioned the pilot to rev up the chopper.

“If
you see the American and can get a clean shot, kill him.”

Chopper
lifting off, the Catalonian posse set out after an American murderer supposedly
named Gregory Harris.

* * *

Following
his sense of direction and the topography, Gage had plowed straight north to
the Baells Reservoir.
 
Though he’d felt
inclined to offer Angelines assistance, he made the decision to let fear be her
motivator.
 
So, instead of constantly
waiting on her, he pressed forward, making her push beyond the boundaries of
her pain tolerance.

They
arrived at Señora Moreno’s lakeside empire nearly a kilometer west of Justina’s
cabin.
 
Rather than take the gravel road
that led around the lake, Gage followed the road from a distance of a hundred
meters, finally stopping when the cabin was in sight.
 
Angelines soon moved beside him, sucking
great quantities of air and gently massaging her leg above the pressure
dressing.

“How’s
the leg?” he asked, happy to see that her nose had stopped bleeding.

“It
hurts like hell,” she snapped.

“Well…you’re
still alive.
 
That’s the cabin where the
money is,” he said, pointing.
 

“Is
that her car?”

“Yeah.”

“Can
we take it?”

“Let
me think about that,” he said, peering into the sky through breaks in the
trees.

“Or
why don’t we just get the money, then do something to throw off our scent?
 
Then we could break into one of the other
cabins and wait out the search.”

“No
way,” he said.
 
“That wouldn’t work.
 
They’d have us inside of an…
shhh!”
he suddenly hissed, raising his
hand.

The
sound was growing, alternating through the high pines.
 
It was the familiar whomp-whomp-whomp
thudding of a helicopter’s blades beating the air.

“They
found the car.
 
Damn!
 
Come on,” he said, crossing the gravel road
without reluctance.
 
Gage stepped up the
two wooden steps and, hardly slowing, planted his guard’s boot on the doorknob,
shattering the doorframe as the door thudded inward.

Gage
stepped inside, finding a note sitting on top of a sealed cardboard box.
 
As he lifted the note, he heard Angelines let
out a scream.

Gage
turned, finding an aged man brandishing what looked like an awful lot like an
old M14, aimed squarely at his face.
 
Behind the man stood another man, aiming a beautiful side-by-side
shotgun at Angelines.

“Qui diables és vostè?”
the man with the rifle growled at Gage.
 
It meant, “Who the devil are you?”

* * *

The
hotel room was consistent with the Martel chain.
 
Clean and modern, with lots of chrome and
angles, it held the faint smell of detergent, probably from the linens.
 
Justina felt repulsed by the little man’s
rancid coffee breath and obnoxious roaming fingers.
 
At the front desk, as the clerk’s eyes were
diverted while he prepared the electronic key, Redon had clasped Justina’s
breast before leading her hand down to his own inadequate rigidity.
 
It had been all she could do to force a
smile.