The scars on Clay’s face crinkled as he smiled at the woman with the shotgun. He shouted so she could hear him. “Kelly Jones from Wyoming, you’ve just made it onto my Christmas card list. Shootin’ like that will win you a coconut.”
“I’m not sure if I got any of them inside, but I’m pretty sure I ventilated their ride for them.”
“You hang on to the Remington and do the same if anything else unexpected shows up on our tail,” said Clay. “Here’s a few spare shells to keep you going. That’s the last of them, so pick your shots.”
“A packing crate full of these would make me feel much better,” said Kelly.
As she stretched her arm into the cab for the extra cartridges, Clay could not help but notice the deep rope burns on her wrist. “A-men to that. Be sure to make each one count.” He glanced at Celine. “You hangin’ in there?”
Celine responded with a weak smile then looked over into the back of the vehicle. She reached in between the two seats. When she retracted her hand, it was stained crimson. “Marco?”
Clay could offer no words of false comfort. He knew the chances of Marco Kenner surviving his grievous wound lessened every minute that he was denied professional medical attention. The complications caused by leaking stomach acid and bile mixing with blood and other tissue were horrendous, if he lived.
Celine cupped her face in her hands. Her body took on a slow shudder.
A confusion of emotions rolled over him. The cold thrill of the fight was now tempered with a sense of grim responsibility for each of these young lives. Celine remained his prime focus, but the unfolding situation had grown into something else, something more complicated. “We have to keep going. I can’t do much more for him. I’m sorry.”
Two bright spots of light appeared again in the rear-view mirror. With a little more clearance space on either side of the vehicle, Clay continued to test the capability of the pickup. The rumbling vibration changed to a more even tone as the wheels found asphalt. The pursuing lights seemed to enlarge. He knew they were drawing closer. “Kelly!”
“I see them, cowboy.”
Clay gave a tight-lipped smile as Kelly wedged herself low against the tailgate. “I’d rather be back there shootin’ with you.”
“I’m sorry, Clay. We should never have come down here.”
“None of this is your fault, Celine.” The glow of the lights seemed to fill the mirror. “It’s just that when I’m on my own or with Danny, I don’t worry so much when the bullets start flying, but this is a different ball game altogether.”
“Did you never worry when you were in the army?”
“Hey, nobody wants to get shot, but you go in knowing that’s the hazard of the job.”
“But out here you’ve got me and a school-bus-worth of extra bodies to worry about.”
“Different time, different hazards,” said Clay, again glancing in the mirror. The pursuing vehicle was almost upon them, maybe only five or six car lengths behind. Kelly was still hunkered low. These kids continued to surprise him. She knew enough to pick her shots. Only they weren’t kids. He had to stop thinking of them in that way. Most seemed to be between eighteen and twenty-five. At their age, Clay had been a serving soldier in the Rangers. That had been his choice. It had been a hard life but a good choice. These were not Rangers, however, these were college kids, caught in a nightmare, traumatised by the horrors they had endured in the compound. Years of therapy probably lay ahead for many of them, yet that wasn’t Clay’s worry. Ranger training had taught crisis priority, to deal with clear and present danger first. The approaching vehicle full of cartel shooters was as dangerous as could be imagined.
Kelly, still using the tailgate for cover, unloaded on the vehicle. Boom-boom-boom! Three shots in rapid succession. Clay watched as the vehicle dropped back momentarily then swung to one side, so it followed at his offside tail. Ahead, Danny and Ghost slowed as they took a full left turn. They were back on the main road.