RUN! Page 5

  They will not hunt now. Not in the darkness, when they have already lost a man. They will resume in the morning. When daylight is on their side.

  When the girl was close to exhaustion, he carried her. She was light, frail; she soon fell asleep, lulled by his movement.

  His pace was brutal and would have exhausted ordinary men.

  Five miles later, he came across two fallen trees, both rotting, with a pile of dead leaves and branches collected around them.

  He started to go around them, then changed his mind and looked beneath.

  The tree behind was resting at an angle, the wide base of it propped on a rocky outcrop.

  He laid the girl down gently and thrust a hand underneath the trunk.

  The space was roomy. Large enough to comfortably shelter her.

  He cleaned the opening, made a bed of soft leaves, and woke her up.

  ‘That’s your mattress.’

  She looked at him heavy-lidded and then at the tree trunk.

  She crawled underneath without a word and within seconds was fast asleep.

  He covered her with his jacket and lay down in front of her.

  * * *

  Zeb woke at six am. Streaks of sunlight were streaming down the thick canopy overhead, brightening the forest.

  He lay motionless, checking out his surroundings.

  Trees as far as he could see. The sounds of birds. A chopper hovering somewhere far away, then fading.

  He rose, found rain water in a hollow and washed his face, and returned.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Her voice stopped him as he was inspecting Abbas’s possessions, the terrorist’s HK MP7 slung around his shoulder.

  All he could see were the whites of her eyes as she lay beneath the trunk.

  ‘Zeb Carter. A hiker. I told you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. My dad and I camped a lot. We met many hikers. Not one was like you.’

  ‘Who are you?’ he countered.

  ‘Sara Ashland,’ she replied after a long pause. ‘Dad was Kenton Ashland.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The name rang a distant bell, but he didn’t place it immediately.

  ‘Kenton Ashland,’ he rolled it around his tongue. ‘I think I have heard it before.’

  ‘You would have,’ she said as she crawled out from underneath the trunk and went to where he was pointing, the small pool.

  She cleaned her face, rinsed her mouth, and drank from the canteen of water he thrust at her.

  Abbas’s canteen. Which the killer no longer needed.

  ‘If you followed the news,’ she said, finally completing the thought, ‘Dad was a famous journalist. It was his video and testimony that put Namir away.’

  It came back to him. He recollected the news reports he had followed. The Agency dossiers on the terrorist’s escape, arrest, and subsequent trial.

  ‘He swore he would get Dad. He did.’ She started shivering again, her eyes hollow, empty of any hope.

  * * *

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We came camping yesterday. From Erilyn, where we live. The plan was to stay here till Saturday, return in the evening.’

  He gave her a jacket. She draped it around herself, without any questions.

  Abbas’s jacket.

  ‘Namir came in the evening. I was helping Dad set up the tent, the stove.’

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  Something about her accent. Her looks.

  He looked away and closed his eyes, hearing her words. Thought about the way she rolled some vowels and accentuated syllables.

  ‘“Hello, Kenton,” he said,’ she recalled, crying softly, ‘before torturing him.’

  Zeb made no move to go closer to her. She had a remote look about her, despite her tears.

  Grief. Shock. Anger. Fear. She’s trying to process all of them.

  ‘He cut Dad …’ A gut-wrenching moan escaped her. She fell to her knees and hugged herself, swaying, giving up all pretense of holding it in.

  He let her cry. He let her bawl and rage, her screams lost in the wilderness

  ‘How did you escape?’ he asked her when she was all cried-out and had gotten up to wash her face again.

  ‘I kneed him, the man holding me, in the groin. Dad was close to …’

  ‘You are Iraqi,’ he interrupted her. ‘You are Yazidi.’

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘Your accent. I’ve been trying to place it. Then, your looks.’

  ‘Just who are you, Mr. Carter?’

  He fumbled in his pocket and drew out his sat phone, lifting a finger to stop her questions.

  No signal.

  He frowned and looked at its screen.

  Tried again.

  The same result.

  He brought out Abbas’s cell, fumbled with his sat phone and dropped it.

  As he was bending to retrieve it, he saw a diving eagle abruptly change direction.

  Move!

  He lunged forward and grabbed her.

  Raced deeper inside the forest, ignoring her squawk of surprise.

  Just as a couple of men came into view.

  And fired in their direction.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Escape!

  Desperation gave flight to their feet.

  They flew through the forest, Zeb leading and dragging her behind him.

  Swerving through trees. Zigzagging.

  Rounds slapping into trunks, shredding branches, ripping through leaves.

  A small clearing ahead.

  He shoved her in front of him.

  One step forward.

  Pressuring down with his left foot. Leaping into the air.

  Twisting, turning, to face their pursuers.

  Two of them.

  No, three, as another head appeared between the trees.

  No others in sight.

  The HK leaping into his hands with robotic efficiency.

  A long burst streaking out. Hot lead pouring out at 950 rounds per minute.

  Speeding out at 730 meters a second.

  Death on steroids.

  All of them went wide.

  But they had the desired effect.

  The terrorists slowed. Ducked behind trees.

  Zeb landed. Swiveled on his foot.

  Joined her. Running fast.

  Then they were falling. Rolling on gravel.

  A startled scream escaping from her.

  His eyes taking everything in. Like a digital camera on rapid speed.

  The treeline had given way to a steep bank. No early warning of it.

  One moment, dense trees.

  The next, a slope of stones and gravel that led to a stream at the bottom.

  A range of mountains in the distance. Snow on a couple of peaks.

  Standing tall. Proud. Arrogant. Uncaring about what happened to mere mortals.

  Zeb dug in his heels. Slowed his descent.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he hissed.

  Her strained face turned to him.

  ‘Trees. Go to the trees.’

  The forest curved around the bank. To their left was the treeline.

  A hundred feet away.

  No shooters in sight at the top.

  They would come, however.

  And he would be ready.

  She didn’t argue. She didn’t question. She got to her feet, stumbling.

  And took off towards the sanctuary of the wilderness.

  He marveled at her ready acceptance of his directives.

  And then remembered she was an Iraqi Yazidi.

  She’s probably seen more death than I have. She knows when to escape.

  Then two heads appeared at the top. Rashly.

  Not expecting him to be there.

  He forgot about her.

  His HK chattered. One man fell. The other tried to get back.

  Lost his balance.

  Rolled down.

  Directly toward Zeb.
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  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Zeb watched the killer tumble, his hands seeking purchase, trying to slow his descent.

  One of his hands got hold of his HK. Started bringing around its barrel.

  And Zeb was on him. Punching him. Batting away his weapon.

  Knuckles shaped like an arrowhead, bursting the terrorist’s larynx. Hauling him up when the third man appeared at the top.

  Using Namir’s man as cover.

  Unleashing his weapon and firing from his hip.

  Making the man duck and disappear from sight.

  Zeb dropped the dead man, and, in a couple of seconds, relieved him of his weapon and the rest of his belongings.

  No such thing as too many HKs or water canteens.

  He counted the seconds in his mind. Threw one last glance to the top.

  No hostile presence.

  Sped toward the trees.

  He ran hard, swerving around bushes, branches slapping his face, until from somewhere before him, a low call sounded.

  ‘I am here.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sara Ashland came from behind a fir.

  Her taut eyes flicked over him. She turned to start running, but he stopped her.

  ‘Wait.’

  We ran for maybe a mile. The bank is behind us. We’re running parallel to it.

  ‘That way,’ he pointed in a direction away from the bank.

  ‘That’ll take us towards them,’ she objected, even as she broke into a lope.

  ‘Behind them,’ he corrected.

  ‘You can carry all those?’ She asked over her shoulder, referring to the killers’ belongings.

  He didn’t answer. Followed close behind her, occasionally looking back.

  There were no signs of pursuit. He didn’t think there would be.

  Namir will take stock. He has lost three men. He will take some time to strategize.

  In his mind, he pictured a map of the wilderness.

  They were between the Middle Fork Salmon and the mountain range.

  They were heading into a trail-less area.

  Firs and pine extended as far as the eye could see.

  If this is new country for me, it’s even more so for Namir. He will not follow blindly.

  He could hear the girl panting ahead, but she didn’t slow down.

  Left, then right, straight ahead occasionally, running where the ground was harder, where no tracks could be left.

  He brought them to a halt after ninety minutes of bursts of running.

  She leaned against a tree and slid down as if her legs had turned to jelly.

  She drank greedily from a canteen he thrust at her, drops trickling down her chin and falling to the ground.

  She returned it with a whispered thanks and closed her eyes, her chest heaving.

  ‘Why did we stop?’

  ‘We were making too much noise.’

  ‘Won’t they catch up?’

  ‘No. They won’t resume the hunt for a while.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Because I would have done just that.

  ‘What’s your story?’ he asked instead.

  Her eyes flew open. ‘You mean, how did a Yazidi end up in America? With her father dead?’

  Bitterness in her voice. The previous night returning to her, now that the adrenaline of flight was wearing out.

  ‘You first,’ she challenged him. ‘I need to know who I am with. No hiker I know does that.’

  Her hand waved in the direction of the bank.

  ‘Are you a killer and rapist? Like them?’

  He kept his face expressionless even though his insides tightened.

  ‘What do you think, ma’am?’

  ‘I stopped thinking since I watched my father die, Mr. Carter. Just last night.’

  ‘Right now, I am just being.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He considered his response, knowing she was watching him closely.

  I’m a Special Forces operative. I work in an outfit called The Agency. Nope, that will sound far-fetched, even though it’s true.

  ‘I am an FBI agent, ma’am. SWAT. I am on vacation.’

  Wind blew through the forest, making the trees sigh and creak. Sunlight pierced through the thick canopy overhead and made irregular patterns on the ground.

  ‘I believe you,’ she said after a long while.

  ‘Just like that? Why? I could be lying to you.’

  ‘I know you killed someone in the night. When you said we needed a gun. I heard the shots. And then today, I saw what you did on the gravel.’

  ‘So?’

  * * *

  ‘I woke sometime in the morning. After you had put me under that tree trunk. I was watching you for some time. You are a killer, Mr. Carter.’

  ‘Zeb. You know a lot of killers, ma’am?’

  ‘Please drop that ma’am nonsense. That’s another reason why I believe you. Some FBI people came to visit our home a while back. They were older than you. I was maybe ten or eleven. All of them ma’am-ed me. Ma’am this. Ma’am that.

  ‘You forget where I came from, Zeb,’ she said, returning to his question. ‘I have known killers all my life.’

  ‘I was just a little girl when I saw an ISIS man behead a group of Yazidis.’

  He removed a couple of power bars from the dead man’s pack and offered one to her.

  Her face was all hard planes and angles, the muscles in her cheeks and neck working as she bit and swallowed.

  ‘You are different, however. You are not like any of the terrorists I have seen.’

  He waited for her to explain, but she didn’t. She carried on as if there wasn’t anything more to be discussed about him.

  ‘I am from Mosul,’ she carried on. ‘I didn’t know who my folks were. Our pir, priest, took me in. I lived with several families. We fled to the Sinjar Mountains when the ISIS atrocities increased.’

  Another bite. A drink of water.

  ‘There, Dad found me. He was reporting for the New York Times.’ Her face softened. ‘I don’t know what he saw in me. He was alone. Had no one. I was the same. We bonded so well, it was like he was my father.’

  ‘He brought me to the U.S. when I was ten years old. I started a new life. I don’t know who he bribed, or how much, but I got my citizenship three years ago. He used to call me his princess. Because I changed his life. He certainly changed mine.’

  Her voice broke off into a sob.

  She finished the bar and emptied the canteen, her eyes unfocused, her lips trembling.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘You sound like an adult.’

  ‘I have lived an adult life. I have seen more of life than most grown people do.’

  He thought about her timeline. ‘You came to the States the same year he reported on Namir?’

  ‘Yes. He brought me over here, first. Then he went to Beirut, where he came across Namir in that church. He was still with the Times then. Once the story exploded, he got all kinds of awards. A Presidential medal. We moved to Erilyn. He wanted a life for us away from the spotlight.’

  ‘Why Erilyn?’

  ‘His hometown. His father was alive. Is alive. He wanted to live close to him. We had a good life. And now …’

  ‘You get along with your grandfather?’

  The teenager in her surfaced. She could barely control an eyeroll. ‘Gramps? I love him. He lives three blocks away from us.’

  ‘Then, I will take you to him.’

  ‘You are forgetting something,’ she snarled, her anger returning. ‘Namir and his men. I am a witness. They won’t rest until they kill me. And you.’

  He shrugged. ‘I am forgetting nothing.’

  ‘We will go through them.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Zeb pictured a map of the region in his mind as they walked.

  A hundred and twenty miles from the mountains. Erilyn is to our northeast, hundred and thirty miles away. The
Middle Fork Salmon River is in between.

  My camp’s to our south. Stanley’s closer. Some other towns, too. But they are small. No police presence.

  They would have to cross the Middle Fork Salmon River. Several creeks. Rugged terrain. Forests and some open flats. Not many trails.

  He had dropped his sat phone at the tree trunks. Lost Abbas’s phone, too, when fleeing from the bank. They had one water canteen and a few power bars between them.

  He took stock of his weapons: his Glocks and several mags for them, the two HKs and fifteen mags.

  Just that, with twenty terrorists hunting them.

  Twenty-one originally, including Namir, he corrected himself. Now eighteen.

  That reminded him. He dug into his pocket and brought out the wallet of the man he had killed on the bank.

  Emin Khider. The name leaped out at him from the identity card. The card had an organization name on it and an address. A Saudi Arabian business, from the looks of it.

  He stopped and frowned.

  Abbas had some currency in his, but nothing to identify him. Khider … Why does Namir have Saudis in his group?

  ‘Did Namir say anything? Why he had come? His plans?’

  She leaned against a tree and wiped sweat away from her face. ‘No. Just that he had waited a long time. To kill Dad. Why?’

  He showed her the identity card.

  ‘He’s Saudi?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said grimly. ‘It’s a fake. That other man, yesterday night. They called him Abbas.’

  ‘They came as businessmen?’

  ‘Yeah. But I don’t think they came for your father alone,’ he replied, grimly. ‘That many men. It would be a risk. Namir is planning something else.’

  ‘We have to tell someone,’ she stood upright, worry and urgency in her face.

  ‘No phones … wait.’ He patted his pocket and brought out a black cellphone. ‘This belonged to Khider.’

  ‘Use it.’

  ‘No. I now know how they found us at those tree trunks. Why my sat phone didn’t work.’

  ‘How?’