Page 20 of Close Pursuit

Alex climbed onto the flat boulder beside their tent. The laboring girl reached up and, with Katie hoisting from below and him pulling from above, they got her onto the outcropping. What scrub grew up here was sparse and mostly dead this early in the spring. They had to rely on rocks and terrain for what little cover they could find.

Seeking cover and ways up the nearly impassable terrain, Alex doubled back to them often when one route crumped out and he had to find another. Katie put an arm around the girl’s shoulders to steady her as they moved a few dozen yards up the steep slope. Without the warning, the girl bent over, breath hissing between her teeth and grasped her swollen belly.

Alex looked over his shoulder impatiently as Katie and the girl fell behind. He slid back down the gravel-strewn slope to them, pistol in hand, to wait out the contraction. Finally, the girl exhaled and nodded. They resumed picking their way up the hill.

But it was slow going. Too slow. Theyhadto put more distance between themselves and the tent.

During the girl’s next contraction, Katie looked over her shoulder down the valley. She couldn’t see the unidentified, definitely military, patrol headed their way, but she could feel it as surely as she felt the girl’s fingers digging painfully into her arm. A few more panted breaths and the girl nodded once more.

They were able to go maybe fifty feet up the mountain between each contraction. It was agonizingly slow, particularly when the gun emplacement near the village lit up once more. This time, the Special Forces soldiers down the hill fired back a half-dozen weapons in a wide arc that went right past their tent.

They were maybe a hundred yards from their shelter when another contraction gripped the girl. This one drove her to her knees. “I have to push,” the girl grunted.

“Not yet,” Alex snapped under his breath.

“Now,” the girl responded.

Katie whispered frantically to her, “You’ll die if we have to leave you out here. Walk with me just a few more minutes. Then we’ll find a place to hide and you can push to your heart’s content.”

“I can go no further,” the girl moaned.

“Keep her quiet, or we’ll all die,” Alex bit out.

“I’m trying,” Katie retorted, panic climbing her throat.

The girl’s contraction passed, and Katie heaved her to her feet. They made it only a dozen yards before the girl collapsed again, groaning into her hand pressed over her mouth.

Shouting erupted below them. Katie looked down as a burst of flame lit the night. The soldiers had just torched their tent. Cold terror washed over her. What if they hadn’t left when they did?

We’d be dead right now.

The rebels-who-were-not-just-rebels had probably mistaken it for a local headquarters of some kind. At least they’d destroyed the evidence of a western doctor being in the area. That was a small blessing, Katie supposed.

The more immediate problem, though, was the wash of firelight now illuminating the entire hillside.

“Get down,” Alex ordered, yanking Katie and the girl down behind a waist-high boulder. A barrage of machine gun fire raked the mountainside, and chips of flying stone zinged past close enough to make Katie flatten herself on the ground.

Fear like she’d never known before roared through her. They were going todie. The three of them were barely armed, had no gear, and their only escape was up a forbidding mountain that only a seasoned climber—or a mountain goat—would attempt to scale.

Another drone flew past, barely higher than eye level, raking the ground with gunfire from a pair of machine guns mounted on its belly.

The girl’s hands clamped around Katie’s elbow just then and squeezed so tight the circulation in her hand felt entirely cut off. “Uhh, Alex,” she whispered. “Our girl’s going to deliver pretty soon.”

Alex bit out two words succinctly. “Don’t. Push.”

“Can’t…stop…” the girl ground out from behind clenched teeth.

“It’s normal to feel an urge to push. But youcanignore it. You have to.”

“We have to keep moving,” Alex whispered, “We’re not out of the line of fire, and the patrol will sweep the area looking for whoever was in that tent.”

They would never outrun highly mobile soldiers. Katie shook her head in disbelief and denial, but it made no difference. He was right. She told the panting girl, “Crawl if you have to, but keep moving. Do you understand me?”

“I can’t,” the girl wailed under her breath.

It was becoming a familiar refrain, but Katie replied fiercely, “Find a way. I’ll drag you if I have to.”

Katie had to give the girl credit. She pushed up to her feet, moved her burka aside, and staggered up the hill after Alex, using her hands for support on the steep hillside. She fell to her knees twice, and each time Katie bodily lifted the girl back to her feet. The next time they dove for cover, though, the girl’s breathing changed. An element of really sharp pain entered her gasping breaths.

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