LITMIR.BIZ

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red cooler. We have to take it to the FBI,” said Brian.

      “That so? Where is it now, exactly?”

      Brian seemed to have realized that he faced a wolf in sheep’s clothing because he rested a hand on his neck and rubbed before speaking.

      “Back by our tents,” he lied. “I’ll get it for you.” He turned to go.

      The man with the aviator glasses motioned for the pilot to follow. The copilot lifted his hand to signal the shooter. The rifleman raised his weapon and Dalton took his shot, dropping him like a sack of rags.

      By the time Dalton swung his pistol away from the dead man, the copilot had Alice in front of him, using her as a human shield.

      “Come out or she dies,” said their leader.

      He didn’t, and the man shot Merle and Richard in rapid succession. They fell like wheat before the scythe.

      From the brush where Brian had disappeared came the sound of thrashing. Dalton suspected the teen had made a run for it.

      The copilot dragged Alice back toward the chopper, using the nose cone as cover, as he shouted to the pilot. Another shot sounded and Alice fell forward to the ground, shot through the head.

      “Kill whoever is shooting. Then find the sample,” said the copilot.

      “The boy?”

      “No witnesses.”

      Dalton leaned toward Erin and whispered, “When they find that cooler, they’ll kill us. You understand?”

      She nodded.

      “Run!”

      Erin didn’t look back at the carnage. Instead, she fled down the trail toward the river. Dalton had a time trying to keep up.

      At the bank of the Hudson, Erin finally came to a halt. She folded at the waist and gripped her knees with both hands, panting.

      “They killed them. Just shot them down,” she said.

      Dalton thought he’d heard his wife express every emotion possible from elation to fury. But this voice, this high reedy thread of a voice, didn’t seem to belong to Erin.

      “Where’s Brian?”

      He wouldn’t get far with two trained killers on his trail.

      Erin, who had just belayed into a river and rescued a wounded man. Who had led this group here to disaster. Who had just watched three more people die. The first deaths she’d ever witnessed.

      A sharp threat of worry stitched his insides.

      She straightened, and he took in her pale face and bloodless lips. He felt a second jolt of panic. She was going into shock.

      “Erin.” He took a firm hold of both her elbows and gave a little shake. “We have to go now.” Her eyes snapped into focus and she met his gaze. There she was, pale, panting and scared. But she was back.

      “Brian,” she whispered and then shouted. “Brian!” He appeared like a lost puppy, crashing through the brush, holding one bleeding arm with his opposite hand.

      Behind him came the pilot. Dalton squeezed off two shots, sending his pursuer back into cover.

      Erin and Brian crouched on the bank as Erin removed a red bandanna from her pocket and tied it around the bullet wound in the boy’s arm.

      She closed her mouth and scowled as a familiar fierce expression emerged on her face.

      “Those animals are not getting away with this.” She glanced toward the trail. His wife was preparing to fight.

      “Erin, get into your kayak. Now.” He tugged her toward the watercrafts.

      She paused and looked at her pack and the paddle already in place for departure. Then she glanced at him.

      “You knew?”

      “Suspected.”

      She clutched Brian’s good arm. “He can’t paddle with one arm.” She wiped her hand over her mouth. “And you don’t know how to navigate in white water.”

      True enough.

      The kayaks each held only one person. Dalton took another shot to send their attacker back behind the tree.

      “He’ll have to try,” said Dalton.

      “Get in, Brian. I’ll launch you.”

      Tears stained the boy’s pink, hairless cheeks, and blood stained his forearm, but he climbed into a kayak. Erin handed him a paddle and shoved his craft into the river.

      “Now you,” she called to him.

      He knew what would happen when he stopped shooting. They’d be sitting ducks on the river.

      “I’ll be right behind you.”

      “Dalton. No.”

      “You promised,” he said.

      Brian was already in the current, struggling to paddle.

      “Go,” he coaxed, wondering if this was the last time that he’d ever see her.

      She went with a backward glance, calling directions as she pushed the kayak into the Hudson.

      “Get to the center of the river and avoid the logs. Hug the right shore going into the first turn and the left on the second. How far are we going?”

      “Get under cover.” They would be sitting ducks on the river once the chopper was airborne. He needed to kill that pilot.

      “Got it.”

      He moved his position as the pilot left cover to fire at what he assumed was three kayakers.

      Never assume. Dalton took the shot and the man staggered back to cover.

      Body armor, Dalton realized.

      He caught a glimpse of the man darting between the trees in retreat. He took another shot, aiming for his head, and missed. Then he climbed into the kayak. Erin’s graceful departure had made the launch look easy. His efforts included using the paddle to shove himself forward, nearly upending in the process.

      He moved by inches, shocked at how much his abdomen ached as he felt the grass and earth dragging under him. The river snatched him from the shore. He retrieved his double-bladed paddle, glancing forward to catch a glimpse of Erin before she vanished from his view. The pitch and buck of the river seemed a living thing beneath him, and this was the wide, quiet part.

      He used his paddle to steer but did not propel himself forward. The river began to churn with the first set of rapids. He rocketed along, propelled by the hydrodynamics of the surging water.

      Above him, the sky blazed scarlet, reflecting on the dark water like blood. Erin had never seen a dead body. Today she had seen six.

      As if summoned from the twilight by his thoughts, he glimpsed Erin on the far bank, towing Brian’s kayak to shore. He tried and failed to redirect her.

      Erin reached the rocky shore and leaped out, holding both crafts as Brian struggled from his vessel. He didn’t look back as he ran into the woods and vanished.

      Dalton shouted as he slipped past her, using his paddle in an ineffective effort to reverse against the current.

      He still splashed and shouted when Erin appeared again, towing an empty kayak. She darted past him, her paddle flashing silver in the fading light. She took point and he fell in behind her, mirroring her strokes and ignoring the painful tug in his middle that accompanied each pull of the blade through the surging water. She hugged the first turn just as she’d instructed him and he tried to follow, but swept wider and nearly hit the boulder cutting the water like the fin of a tiger shark.

      She glanced back and shouted something inaudible, and they sped through a churning descent that made his stomach pitch as river water splashed

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