Page 58 of Shadow Target

“Stay down! Crawl behind this tree trunk! Hide behind it!” he yelled above the roar.

Her knees were badly torn up, blood running down her legs as she scrambled and clawed, trying to get to her feet, wobbly, off balance. Shep gripped the fabric of her blouse, between her shoulder blades, lifting her up into a crouch. She wavered, weak and disoriented. He placed himself in front of her, a shield, shoving her behind the tree. He released his hold on her shirt, firing rapidly at the men running from the left toward them, their rifles winking. She ducked beneath the scratchy branches, zips and cracks screaming through them, then hit the deck again and crawled in on her belly, hands grasping for purchase on the black rocks until the width of the trunk somewhat protected her. Bark was flying, exploding, all around her. She jerked a look to her right, saw Shep kneel, M4 up, firing at the charging soldiers closing the distance on them.

She watched as the Black Hawk that had swung to the right suddenly plummeted downward, going for a swift landing. David’s soldiers began to fire up at it. But the helo was so damned fast coming in, gusts of over one-hundred mile an hour wind tearing at them from the whirling blades, that it knocked the enemy off their feet, scattering them like bowling ball pins. Six soldiers offloaded, bailing out of the helo, instantly firing at David’s soldiers still trying to get their feet under them. Within seconds, all three of them dropped, dead. Gasping, her eyes rounding, Willow sobbed in relief. Shep leaped to his feet, going in front of the tree, and flung himself prone on the ground, firing up the hill. From where Willow saw at least three new arrivals charging down at their position, firing wildly. Bullets were singing everywhere. She ducked, keeping her head behind the trunk of the tree, praying that Shep wouldn’t be killed.

To her left, she heard the slow, consistent firing of an M4 and knew it had to be Luke. Only SEALs fired like that. And when they did, even if they were running full speed, they hit their targets. She couldn’t see anything through the thick branches, but suddenly, the firing stopped. The third Black Hawk disappeared to her left, but the branches didn’t allow her to see much at all of it after that. It sounded as if it had landed! There was no further gunfire. Had Luke dispensed with all three of David’s soldiers, first? It wouldn’t surprise Willow. SEALs were known for their deadly accuracy.

Shep saw the last man fall up the slope. The only sound he heard was from the two Black Hawks, both on the ground now, blades whirling fast, and he saw the general’s men running to the unmoving bodies of David’s soldiers. A sudden movement caught his attention. There, no more than a quarter mile away, he spotted Tefere David. He was running away from the area! Racing between the trees toward higher ground and the airstrip, trying not to be seen by the general’s men. David was trying to escape!

Shep had no way to tell anyone in time. He leaped to his feet, yelling to Willow, “Stay where you are! I’m going after David!” and he dug the toes of his boots into the rocky surface as he sped off.

Willow gasped. She jerked her head around, peering between two thick branches, catching sight of the tall, lean thug. He was running like a gazelle, leaping over small logs, heading out of sight of the two zones now under friendly control where his own soldiers were presently either dead or being captured. Realizing no one saw David except Shep, she hurriedly pushed and wriggled her way out from beneath the bush. Getting to her feet, she swayed, caught herself and took shaky steps around the bush, watching Shep running hard after David. Looking around, she realized she wasn’t within shouting distance of either Luke or the other soldiers. Had anyone else seen Shep race away? Hurrying around the bush, to her left, she spotted Luke a good quarter of a mile away, working with the general’s soldiers, going through the pockets of David’s dead soldiers for any useable intel.

There was no way to reach him in time! And then, she remembered her iPhone! Shrugging out of her go bag, she set it on the ground. With shaking hands, she unzipped it, struggled for precious seconds to find the cell phone, and grabbed it. Standing up, she punched in Luke’s number and prayed it would work despite the broken screen.

“Yeah?” Luke growled.

“Luke! It’s me, Willow! Shep is chasing David! He’s up to your right, halfway up the hill! He’s trying to make an escape between the airstrip and this second Black Hawk to the right of me! Can you help?”

“Hold one sec,” he said.

She saw him race about a hundred feet away from the other men, looking in that direction.

“Yeah, got him!”

“Can you help Shep?” she pleaded hoarsely.

“Yes! I’ll also call the general. He’s landed up on the airstrip. He has six men with him. I’ll give him the info. Thanks! You just sta…”

Her phone went dead. She realized its power had died. Looking up, she saw Luke on his own phone, presumably now filling in the general. Twisting around, she saw Shep weaving in and out of the trees getting closer and closer to their nemesis. David would blind fire indiscriminately behind him with the M4, and was shooting on the run to boot, so he was widely missing Shep… so far. Feeling her heart tear open with fear for Shep’s life, she realized there was nothing else she could do. Breathing in raspy gulps, pressing her hand against her heaving chest, she watched the race between the two men. In a matter of a minute, they would disappear around the hill, and she’d lose sight of them. Wanting to cry, wanting to help him, feeling horribly useless, unable to protect Shep, she didn’t want to stay put. There were no more of David’s soldiers firing at anyone. They were either dead or being zip-tied.

The Black Hawk that had landed to her right was taking off! The blades whirling faster and faster. She saw Luke leap on board, the door sliding shut. Within seconds, the bird was up and thundering laterally up the slope, its pitch nearly vertical, nose skimming just above the ground, tail rotor high in the air, blowing a hurricane of debris out behind it. The chopper passed thirty feet above her, the rotor wash knocking her on her butt. Willow hit the ground with a loud ‘omph!’ The vibration and wind currents from the powerful black helo thrummed through and around her. Pebbles and dirt slammed into the exposed skin of her face, neck and arms. She choked, scrambled to her feet in awe as the bird gained altitude, hot on the trail of Shep and David. It was barely fifty feet off the ground! It took some great flying to do that, and she knew it. Luke was on that bird. That made her feel better. She put her hand above her eyes, shading them as the sun rose on the eastern horizon, her heart hammering. Every cell of her being screamed that Shep survive this! She began to limp in the same direction the Black Hawk was flying. There was no way she wasn’t going to try and find Shep!

Shep ran hard, his whole being focused on Tefere David up ahead, weaving, ducking and bobbing, keeping up with the Somali who was like a graceful gazelle, running and never tiring. He could feel feel the tightening of his calf muscles, knowing that he wasn’t in the kind of shape that his mortal enemy was, but what gave him the endurance, the drive, was the knowledge that if he didn’t capture or kill this bastard, he’d keep going after Willow. David was like whack-a-mole; they’d foiled him, and weeks later he’d popped up again, boarding Willow’s aircraft, trying to kidnap her again. David would not stop trying until he was successful. That is what drove Shep to call on every bit of strength, every reserve his body knew of, to catch up with him. Not caring if David killed him or not, Shep raced forward, slowly decreasing the gap between them.

Behind him and to his left, he suddenly heard all kinds of gunfire, the whapping of Black Hawk blades, shouts and more firing. No time to look. He HAD to get David! The land was changing as they moved around the hill. It was nothing but thick woods and Shep knew no helo could land to help him. If these had been DAP, Direct Air Penetrator, Black Hawks? They could have found David by infrared and drop a hellfire missile on the bastard, blasting him into oblivion. But it wasn’t a DAP; it was merely a transport helo with no firepower on board, except for the men it carried.

Suddenly, David went down, the M4 flying out of his hands. He’d burst out of the thick undergrowth and come out in a small clearing, a circle of grass, and had tripped badly over something unseen.

Shep raced toward him, gripping his rifle, holding it up. He saw the man flounder on his back, as if stunned by the fall. David’s rifle was too far away for him to reach. Gritting his teeth, Shep surged forward, his whole existence pinned on the Somali struggling to turn over. If only he could get to him first!

The toe of his boot slammed into a hidden root. Grunting, Shep suddenly flew forward, his own M4 sailing out of his hands. The power of the hit was so hard that it flipped him over and he landed on his back, the air knocked out of him.

Stunned, Shep could hardly breath. He lay there trying to gasp, like a fish out of water. No! This couldn’t be happening! Where had his M4 gone? He saw David get to his hands and knees, glaring at him, no more than twelve feet away. He was grinning lethally at Shep as he started crawling toward him.

Dammit! Shep grunted and forced himself to roll over on his side.

Getting himself to his hands and feet, he realized David had a deep head wound. Blood trickled down his jaw, dripping into the grass as he moved closer. Shep glanced frantically around. Where was his rifle? He couldn’t find it!

David got to his feet, wavering, wobbling, hands out to keep from falling again, still walking one unsteady foot at a time toward him, death in his eyes.

Shep saw his enemy draw a long, wickedly curved knife from a sheath on the side of his belt. He instantly recognized it as a trademark weapon these terrorists carried: A scimitar knife blade. It was a sharp, deadly crescent, twenty inches in length, three inches wide. The blade glinted dully, looking well-used. Rolling over, Shep unsnapped his own knife: a Marine K-bar, a lethal, straight-bladed, seven-inch knife that could saw flesh on its way in and on its way out of an enemy’s body with the serrated razor teeth along half its spine. He gripped the knife hard by its leather handle. Cursing, he used almost every ounce of his energy to get to his feet, still gasping, still trying to catch his breath. He was just at the rim of the clearing of ankle length grass. For whatever reason, David did not turn and run toward his M4 that had been flipped into the center of the circle, barely visible in the heavy grass. Maybe he didn’t see it? Couldn’t find it? Shep was relieved in one way; never bring a knife to a gunfight.

A snarl lifted David’s bloody lip. “You are going to die, American pig!”

Shep had one chance only to make him a liar: A long blade was good at a distance in that the knife bearer had to lift his arm high and away from his body to make the kind of sweeping cut the scimitar blade was made for. It was not a stabbing knife; it was a cutting knife. His K-bar was only seven inches long against the twenty inches of the curved scimitar blade. But his Marine Corps combat knife, and the long years he’d carried it over in Afghanistan, trained in its use, were all it came down to now as he walked toward David, eyes on his chest.

Shep’s stride was confident, suddenly steady, and he ate up the distance between himself and David, who stood grinning fiendishly, slowly raising his scimitar blade, ready to sweep it downward, and cut through the skin, flesh, tendon and bone of Shep’s body.

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