Page 113 of Critical Mass
“If that’s true, then why are we running?” Her voice sounded squeaky as the question left her lips.
“Because there are people who want to hurt you. I need you safe.”
What sense did that make?
The helicopter touched down, its rotors kicking up dust and debris. Two pilots were visible in the cockpit, neither of them looking at the passengers.
Professional. Paid to fly and ask no questions.
“Please,” Natalie shouted over the noise. “If you love me, if you ever cared about me, don’t let whatever’s going down at that warehouse happen. People will die, Dad. Thousands of people.”
CHAPTER
SIXTY-THREE
Hudson needed a vehicle.
He scanned the service area and landed on a golf cart parked near the gardener’s shed. The keys had been left in the ignition—because who would steal a golf cart from a secure estate?
A desperate security agent with no other options, that’s who.
Hudson sprinted for the cart, climbed in, and turned the key. The electric motor hummed to life—quiet, but not silent. The security team would hear it soon.
He floored the accelerator, such as it was, and the cart lurched forward. Not fast—maybe fifteen miles per hour—but faster than he could run in his current condition.
The service road curved toward the main drive. Hudson could see the front gate ahead, closed and guarded. No way through there.
But he didn’t need the gate. He needed to get off the property, get to a phone, reach his team.
Hudson yanked the wheel left, sending the golf cart bouncing across the manicured lawn toward the perimeter wall. It was eight feet tall, stone and mortar, designed to keep people out.
Or in.
The cart hit a flower bed and nearly tipped, but Hudson held on, steering toward a section of wall where tree branches hung over from the neighboring property.
Behind him, security vehicles roared to life.
Fifty feet to the wall.
Forty.
Hudson heard engines gaining, shouts to stop.
Thirty feet.
He was going to make it. He had to make it.
Twenty feet.
The golf cart’s motor whined with the strain of crossing rough ground.
Ten feet.
Hudson stood up in the moving cart, balanced on the seat, and jumped as the cart hit the wall. His hands caught the tree branch, his momentum carrying him forward and up. The branch bent dangerously but held.
Below, the golf cart crashed into the wall with a crunch of plastic and metal.
Hudson pulled himself up into the tree, ignoring the screaming protest from his injured ribs, and scrambled along the branch toward the property line. Security guards reached the wall beneath him, but by then he was already on the other side, dropping into the neighbor’s yard.
