Page 57 of Shadow Target

“Willow always packs a .45 pistol in her go bag,” Shep said to Luke.

“Good to know. A pistol only has about a seventy-five-yard lethal range, though. David’s soldiers have M4s and they can hit someone half a mile away.”

Shep nodded, knowing the vast difference, his heart sinking. If they got a clear shot at Willow? He didn’t want to go there. She wasn’t a ground pounder like he was and didn’t have his kind of combat training. Dropping bombs from a combat jet was a helluva lot different than being on the ground in the middle of a firefight.

He heard General Hakym ordering the other two Black Hawks up and into the fray as well. There were six soldiers, plus a three-man flight crew, in each. Never had he wanted a bird to fly faster than right now. He couldn’t lose Willow! He just couldn’t! He watched as Luke went forward and knelt between the cockpit suite’s seats again. He handed his iPhone to the copilot, who punched in the GPS coordinates where the phone showed Willow presently located. Luke turned and spoke once more to the pilot, General Hakym.

“Can you drop us off near her? She’s going to need protection. She only has a pistol on her.”

Nodding, the general said, “As close as we can. She is in heavy forest terrain. After you’re both off, we will fly to the air strip and see if the pickup trucks are still there, or if they are driving around looking for her. I need to get my men on the ground engaging them ASAP.”

“Roger that,” Luke said. “Thanks,” and he clapped the general’s shoulder, and returned to where Shep was sitting. He gripped Shep’s shoulder. “Hang in there, okay? She knows evasion tactics.”

“Plus, she just made a run with me for her life earlier,” Shep growled, shaking his head. “Damn it…”

***

Breathing harshly, watching where she was running down the slope, weaving in and around the pine trees, Willow tried to keep her ears tuned for sounds behind her. She’d skid to a halt, hide behind a wide tree trunk, and then peek back around it, looking for any sign that Tefere was running her down with his cutthroat, murderous soldiers. She knew she’d die rather than be taken alive. No way was she going to become anyone’s sex slave! Looking up through the treetops, into the sky, she could see the huge cloud of ruddy-brown dust still hanging over the one end of the airstrip where she’d crashed the Otter. There was no fire. Just hellacious clouds of dust hanging in the humid air. Her whole body ached. When she’d deliberately crashed the plane, her nylon body harness had cut deeply into her shoulders, abdomen and hips. Her flesh must be horribly bruised in dark purple stripes across her body. She wondered if David was unconscious. He appeared to have been at least dazed by the crash, hanging like a puppet, only stirring limply, wedged between the sharp-pointed spears that had plunged through the co-pilot’s seat. He’d been literally behind bars, imprisoned by those three fence posts. It was the main reason she’d been able to escape so quickly, along with Zere’s final fate, skewered on two of the fence posts through the center mass of his body.

Where were her remaining enemies? Her mind went wild, and she tried to steady her breathing, watching, listening as she ran. Were they onto her yet? Already spotted and were closing in to surround her? Capture her? The thought terrified her even more. The only thing she clung to was the fact that General Hakym was flying a Black Hawk fast in her direction. Luke had her position on his iPhone, guiding them in. Looking up, she realized with further terror that no helo could land anywhere near where she was presently at. The bird needed an open area to land, not a damned forest.

Jerking back around, Willow saw she was within half a mile of the scrubland below. The bird could land there! Looking back, she waffled over the choice. The forest gave her much more safety compared to running out in the open where she’d be easily spotted. Yet, if she wanted rescued, she HAD to go to the scrubland! How she wished for a Kevlar vest! She knew that David’s soldiers carried smuggled M4s, and they could well be using those awful frangible rounds that, once entering her body, would blow apart and rupture her vital organs, killing her instantly, with no chance of surgery to save her. Wiping her face with a shaking hand, she chose her only real option, terrifying as it was, and turned, starting her run, heading down toward the potential kill zone of the scrubland.

The wind whistled past Willow’s sweaty features. She focused on the ground where her booted feet would hit. There were lots of unseen rocks beneath the dry, brown pine needles. She kept slipping, a few times almost spraining her ankle, her arms flailing outward to maintain balance as she ran as if on an invisible, wobbly tightrope. Her lungs burned with every breath, but she had to keep going regardless, or else she was going to die.

Shep! Her heart felt as if it were going to burst with such pain, agony tearing through her, her love for him making tears rush to her eyes. She rapidly blinked them away, running faster, leaping over rocks and small bushes. They’d just made progress with one another! Willow wanted to live, to have that chance to be with him, for them to work through their flaws and make them positives, instead of the negatives that had torn them apart before. She loved him! He was wonderful, deeply wounded, but trying so hard to heal his childhood trauma, to give them a chance at a happy life together. Oh! How could this all be happening right now? She kept up her pace, a slow run, keeping her stride long and cadenced while trying to maintain balance; the hardest challenge of all.

Suddenly, a burst of bark flew off from a nearby pine, nearly blinding her. She fell, hand against her face. Slamming hard into the earth, she rolled. Scrambling to her feet, she saw two other pieces of bark exploding at chest height from the trees right where she’d fallen. Oh, no! Breathing raspy, lungs hurting, she lifted her head and saw one of David’s soldiers standing far up the slope, M4 pointed down at her, doing the firing. There was no way her pistol could make that range and take him down before he got her. Just as she recovered her footing, she fell again, grunting in pain. A hidden rock had twisted her ankle. Crawling around, rocks bruising her legs and belly, she moved to the next tree trunk that was wide enough for cover, keeping her head down, anxiously on the lookout for more enemies. They knew where she was, now…

Fear shot through Willow, and she leaped unsteadily to her feet, finding her balance, using the protection of the tree’s girth behind her, run-limping as hard and fast as she could, teeth gritted, ankle screaming, throwing caution to the wind.

More gunfire.

Tree bark, like shrapnel, exploded all around her. It cut into her neck, back and the rear of her arms.

She couldn’t stop now! They knew where she was! Up ahead, was the scrubland. She had to make it there!

Over the booming of the M4 behind her, she heard the chop, chop, chop of a helicopter. It had to be the Black Hawk! Looking ahead, up into the sky, she saw three black dots racing toward her. Shep was on one of them. What could they do? Would they be able to land in the scrub? Then charge up this hill at David’s men coming down it? Or what? Willow’s mind spun but she didn’t know. Teeth clenched, white-hot pain in her ankle, she lowered her head, running as hard as she could toward the open land.

A bullet sang past her ear. It sounded like a ‘CRRRAAAKKKK’!

Wincing, she redoubled her efforts, adrenaline pouring through her bloodstream, all her fight or flight hormones online, giving her speed and endurance to escape her enemy. The scrub was close! So close! She was running, running, almost there as one of the Black Hawk helicopters suddenly began its landing descent in a helluva hurry. Giving a cry, Willow waved her arms above her head just as she hit the scrubland, screaming at them, yelling, “I’m here! I’m here!”

Terror threatened to squash hope as she looked sideways and saw three soldiers in the scrub about half a mile to her left. They were running toward her with M4s up ready to fire. She dodged in and around the brush, stumbling, catching herself. She realized David had put his men in a pincer maneuver to find and trap her. Looking to her right, she gasped. Half a mile away, to her right, three more men appeared out of the woods, running toward her. They were coming fast from three directions to capture her.

NO!

She raced toward the Black Hawk, the slope much steeper, more vertical than before. The helo touched down a quarter mile ahead. The door opened and two men bailed out in full military gear. Black Hawk Chopper Two split off low and thundered to her left, heading for the men in the distance. Chopper Three banked off to her right, going after the other group. The hard, thumping rotor wash kicked up loose brush, dirt and grass a hundred feet into the air, whirling the mess around, momentarily hiding Willow from her enemies closing in on her. The loud engines of the helicopter that had disgorged the two men running up the hill toward her roared and the blades whirled faster and faster as it took off, clawing the air, rising into the sky, heading straight up the mountain toward where the soldier was firing at her.

More bullets zinged past, dirt exploding in geysers around her. She tripped over a root and went flying headlong down the hill. Willow tucked her body into a ball, her arms around her drawn-up knees, bracing for the brutal impact. She slammed into the earth, rolling, hitting a huge, brushy tree, coming to a sharp stop.

“Stay down!”

Gasping, she remained flattened on the rocky ground beneath the bush. That was Shep’s voice! And as she looked up at the two men charging up toward her, she recognized him and Luke. Giving a little cry of relief, Willow hugged the earth, more bullets plowing through the bush above her. There was nowhere to hide! Nowhere to go! She saw the sweat on Shep’s frozen features, the hard line of his mouth as he lifted the M4, firing up the hill at her pursuer. Luke took the men to the right of her. Shep, one threat neutralized, then swung, taking on the men charging in from the left.

There was a storm of roaring, ear-splitting sound. Willow saw, to her relief, they had on Kevlar vests, making them far more protected than she was. The heavy sound and vibration pummeling her as the Black Hawk roared overhead added to the massive explosion of firepower all around her on the ground. The blasts from the rotors kicked up massive clouds of dirt, striking her, blinding her from the massive dust cloud.

Shep reached her first, dragging her around him, sheltering her from bullets, leaning over her.

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