7

 

Lee watched the needle on the speedometer for a few seconds. It remained above seventy miles per hour. After exiting I-5 in race-car driver fashion, Jennifer drove away from the interstate on Highway 159. Her quick exit bought at least fifteen minutes.

By that time, they would be well on their way to the Kerbyville police station. If the gunmen found them, he and Jennifer would hide, because there were no sure places to reach a phone.

“That last time we cut between the two semis…” Jennifer’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“We got through—between—them. But…I don’t see how. There wasn’t enough room. I turned in front of the truck because I had no other choice. Did you pray…or something?”

“It was more like ‘or something.’”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I screamed out a prayer about that time.”

“I didn’t hear you scream.”

“That’s because it was a silent prayer.”

“Well, I’m sure glad you screamed that silent prayer, because I turned into the right front fender of the truck. We should have been full of holes by now…or part of the semi’s grill.”

“We could still end up full of holes if we can’t get to Kerbyville or, failing that, find a good hiding place. But prayer isn’t magic. It depends entirely on the One to Whom we pray.”

“I’ve got some questions about that ‘to Whom we pray’ part—maybe for later…assuming there is a later.” Her voice sounded different, softer. “But right now, what should we do?”

He stared out his window and rubbed his chin. “We need to change directions before they locate us. You’ll see a small county road in less than a mile. Turn left onto it, cut your lights, and…please slow down until your eyes adjust. You should be able to drive without the headlights advertising where we are.”

Her alto voice went soprano. “But how can I—”

“Don’t worry. Your eyes will adjust in a minute or two. When you can see well enough speed up to a comfortable pace. The road is straight for a few miles, until we reach the mountains. We’ll do fine without lights as long as a deer doesn’t jump in front of us.”

“You seem to know this area well. But you didn’t really drive around here without your headlights, did you?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh…no. I mean yes, I do know this area well. But my buddies and I only drove without our headlights to—well…only when we needed to.”

Jennifer eyed him like his grandmother used to after he’d admitted to some childhood atrocity.

He cleared his throat. “This is where my best friend and I raised Cain while we were growing—”

“I don’t doubt that.”

Was that a smirk or a smile?

“I hiked, hunted, and fished just about everywhere within thirty miles of here. There’s the road. Go left.”

Jennifer turned onto the county road and cut the headlights.

Lee’s loud sigh came as an echo to Jennifer’s. Was the worst over? He prayed it was.

Jennifer stared down the moonlit road ahead of them. “Lee, this is your domain. What do we do now?”

“If no headlights appear we can take this road all the way to Kerbyville. Their police force is small, but it’s a good group of guys. I know a couple of them. They’ll help us. But we—”

“I don’t like buts, Lee.” She cut in. “They always seem to introduce something very unpleasant.”

“I know, but…uh…however, we still need a contingency plan…just in case those goons stumble across our trail.”

“So what do you propose if we can’t make it to Kerbyville?”

“There are several roads leading up into the hills. There are places up there where no one could possibly find us. Hiding will buy us time to get help, or time for help to get to us. After my call to Joe and the car bomb, someone should be looking for us. But—”

Jennifer’s head jerked around towards him.

“Jenn, this is a necessary ‘but.’ If we see anyone behind us, even in the far distance, we have to assume it’s the goons. In that event we’ll take the next road left into the hills.”

With the headlights off the instrument-panel lights brightened to daytime intensity. They lit Jennifer’s squinting frown.

“Next question…I haven’t had any time to think about this until now, but how do you suppose they got to us so quickly? One minute we discovered the hacker’s locations, the next they bombed your car.”

“You removed the Trojan and ended its transmissions, right?”

“Yes, I did that a few minutes before we left. That stopped the communications. Also, my software pinged the actual machines the hackers used. Let’s see…that was maybe twenty minutes or so before I removed the Trojan. They could have detected both events. But I still don’t understand how they got to us so quickly.”

“I’m guessing Ram had some local contacts, in addition to the remote hackers. If they could communicate in near real time it would account for their quick retaliation. Either Ram is still here, or before he left, he warned his friends at the local goon club to watch out for signs they had been detected and told them how to handle any threats to their investment.”

“So we were a threat?” Jennifer voice softened. “I don’t feel like a threat.”

“Yes, I guess so…rather, I was. Ram knew I would be involved in any investigation of security breaches in our development environment. He counted on me focusing on the classified data. When we went farther than that…” He stuck his index finger into his chest. “…I became their target. I parked my car near the bushes on the east side of the parking area. They could have gotten to my car without Randy spotting them. But they didn’t know about your involvement until I ran to your car in the parking lot. That’s a good thing, or your car might have been blown up, too. But I’m sorry to have gotten you involved in this, Jenn.”

“If I hadn’t gotten involved everything would have been just fine, wouldn’t it?” She spat the words at him. “They wouldn’t have detected our discovery of their plot, so no bombs, no guns, and no danger for either one of us.” Her voice crescendoed. “But National Aerospace computers would have remained compromised. The only other scenario that keeps me in the clear is you get blown up in your car and their plot is successful.” She paused. “Now which scenario do you prefer, Lee?” The look she flashed him cut like a knife, giving a whole new meaning to looking daggers. Her logic was impeccable, but all that emotion—where did it come from?

“You made your point, Ms. Akihara.”

The frown lines disappeared. Her voice grew soft. “So, it’s back to Ms. Akihara, now?” Did her voice just quiver?

Distracted by Jennifer’s emotions he ignored the question. Though she was still a mystery to him he preferred Jenn, the person, even though the left side of his brain tried to give him logical reasons why he shouldn’t. He feared he was beyond reason now.

“Jenn,”—he made a point of saying her first name—”the problem is we know enough to expose much of their organization, the drug cartels, as well as the terrorists. I’m certain Ram was one of the terrorists. Their local contingent needs to respond quickly and they will err on the side of overkill.”

“Overkill?” Her voice grew loud again. “Is that possible? Isn’t just kill enough?”

“I doubt it. If they don’t deal with us before we contact the police they have to start their plotting all over again from square one, from some other place, and with a whole new approach. With what’s at stake they won’t give up the chase.”

“What’s at stake…” She paused. “All those weapons systems National Aerospace makes. They could potentially compromise all of them making the U.S. vulnerable to…” She shook her head as she stared down the road. “No. I don’t suppose they’ll give up. And being the good terrorists they are, they have guns, explosives, and who knows what else.”

“And in my humble opinion, we’ve seen and heard far too much of guns and bombs tonight.”

“More than enough for a lifetime, as far as I’m concerned.” Her voice softened again. “Are you hurt, Lee? After the explosion, and then getting hit with glass when they shot out the back window and the second round of shooting…are you really OK?”

He worked the fingers on his left hand. “My left hand throbs a little, but no bullets hit it. I’ve got a nasty abrasion on my right arm from the explosion knocking me down. But all things considered I’m in pretty good shape.”

The dashboard lights illuminated Jennifer’s wrinkled nose as she looked at his head. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a redneck?”

“That’s the last thing anyone would call me. What do you mean?” He chuckled and put his hand where she was staring. The back of his neck felt rough. “Is that really—”

“Yes, Lee, blood. And it’s pretty gross.”

“I guess I am a red neck. The shrapnel from those shots into your car’s back window sprayed the back of my head. Scalp cuts bleed a lot even when they’re small. You know what happened when I was a kid? I cut my head wide open on—”

“I would prefer not to hear about it.”

“It’s your loss,” he quipped. “What about your car? Do the gauges indicate any problems with the fuel, the engine, or anything else?”

Jennifer scanned the dashboard instruments. “The car looks fine best I can tell. But I was worried they might hit a tire or—”

“Or us, maybe?”

“That too, but evidently you screamed at God and got His attention.”

“Maybe. But I prefer to think of it as God having some unfulfilled plans for us. Maybe He thinks we both need some more time on planet Earth.”

“That’s an interesting thought. Why do you suppose He wants us to have more time? To expose the plot?”

He had another hypothesis to offer, but it was too soon to test it. “Maybe…or perhaps you and I—Jennifer?”

Her eyes widened. “What is it?”

A light flashed in the periphery of his vision. He turned and stared behind them. “Have you been hitting the brakes in the turns?”

Jennifer pounded her forehead with her palm. “Stupid, stupid. How could I have done that?”

“It’s OK. I didn’t think about it, either, but the car that just turned onto the county road behind us may have. We have to assume it’s them.”

“So, country boy, what does the contingency plan look like from here?”

“Why don’t you slow a little without hitting the brakes and then slip your transmission into low. That will slow us down further. Turn left onto the dirt road that’s coming up in a few seconds. If we had our choice of roads to take this is the best one we could choose.”

“Are you just trying to make me feel better about advertising where we are?”

“No, Jenn.”

“So, it’s Jenn again?” Despite their precarious situation, Jennifer flashed him a smile.

He ignored the question. But, Jennifer herself—she was impossible to ignore despite the danger. Neither did he ignore her smile when he addressed her informally. She was right. He did want her to feel better—to feel good. But more importantly, he wanted to keep her alive.

“Jenn …you didn’t blow it tonight. What you did behind the wheel was amazing and you did it with our lives hanging in the balance. Not once, but over and over again. Holten Creek Road is the best road for us tonight because it leads to the best place to hide. You’ll see. Now let’s roll along slowly and hope they don’t turn in behind us.”

She rolled onto Holten Creek Road.

In silence they scrutinized the county lane behind them.

“Look, Lee. They’re going by.”

“They are. But they slowed as they passed the road.”

Jennifer’s frown returned. “Without me pushing on the brakes there’s no way they could have seen us is there?”

“Only if we kicked up some dust when we turned in and their lights happened to pick it up. They’re probably just slowing at every crossroad to take a look. Why don’t you roll up to the top of the next hill and try to stop with—”

“I know, without using the brakes.”

Lee twisted in his seat to look behind them. “We’ll be able to see all the way back to the county road from up there. Let’s wait on the hill and if they don’t show up any time soon it means they drove over the mountain. With them on the other side we can turn around and take an alternate route to Kerbyville.”

“How long do you think we should wait?”

“Not more than thirty minutes. More than that and the pre-dawn twilight will make us too visible en route to Kerbyville, especially if they stop on the pass and use it as a lookout.”

“Lee…” Jennifer paused.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been wondering about what you said—that maybe God had a purpose for us surviving tonight—something left for us to do.”

“And what do you think about that idea?”

“In my job I’ve noticed how easily I get bogged down in the details of network traffic analysis—so bogged down I sometimes miss the big picture—the really important thing I’d never want to miss. Maybe it happens in life as a whole.”

At this awkward juncture, was God opening a door?

Lee shot a prayer-arrow heavenward and stepped into the opening. “I know what you mean. It does seem to happen in life, too. I’ve just forgotten about God at times, because of all the distracting details of life.”

Jennifer twisted in her seat to face him. “Why do you suppose that, almost instinctively, we start calling out to Him when serious trouble comes? It’s almost like we evolved that way for self-preservation.”

“Wouldn’t that be survival of the fit-less? What I mean is…calling out to a non-existent being for help wouldn’t do much to preserve us. I think a personal God wants to have a relationship with the people He made. Perhaps He uses danger, or other attention-grabbing events, to start the conversation.”

“Maybe. But many people, like the goons chasing us, aren’t good. They are the epitome of evil. Why would God want to have a relationship with anyone evil?”

God had swung the door wide open.

They needed to wait here for a few minutes more to allow the gunmen to cross the small mountain range on the county road. In case the goons turned around at the base of the mountains, Lee kept an eye on the road behind them while he continued the discussion. “I can’t completely answer that question. But if we’re honest with ourselves there’s some amount of evil in all of us. We’ve all lied, cheated, and perhaps stolen at some time. God would need to create a plan to reconcile relationships with people who just don’t measure up to the standards for a relationship with a good God. Reconciling the relationship between a good God and imperfect people is the very heart of Christianity.”

Jennifer glanced at the gear shift handle. Her finger traced its contours. “But the amount of evil in the world still bothers me. Why would a good God even allow it to exist? It’s hard for me to believe God created the terrorists who are chasing us.”

He watched her nervous finger. “God didn’t create terrorists. He created people. Some, like Ram, of their own free will, have chosen to be terrorists. We can’t pin the blame on God.”

She looked down again and her frown returned. “That’s logical…I guess. But evil people like the gunmen chasing us just seem to contradict the existence of a good God.”

“I agree, unless you first understand love.”

Jennifer looked into his eyes again.

“Think about it this way, Jenn. If God wants a loving relationship with people, how love-based would it be if people had no choice—if they were just forced to love God? I mean, if you were God and you wanted me to have a loving relationship with you, you would have to give me the freedom to choose you, or reject you, right?”

Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it. She looked down at the gear shift and her eyes narrowed. The frown faded as she raised her head. They each peered into the other’s eyes for a moment, and then Jennifer averted her gaze.

Trying to decipher her reactions, he first thought Jennifer realized she had never personally chosen God. Then he became concerned he had chosen unwisely by making the analogy personal between the two of them. While he vacillated between his two takes on her response a third thought came to mind.

They were being followed again. A car just turned onto the dirt road and moved slowly their way.

Jennifer must have seen it too, because she hit the ignition before he could speak. “What now, Lee? This is your old stomping grounds.”

He locked his gaze on the approaching vehicle. “They’re moving slowly. Let’s do the same. Keep your speed under fifteen miles-per-hour and—”

“I know. Don’t use the brakes.”

They rolled down the backside of the hill. Despite the lurking danger Lee was surprised his mind seemed focused and sharp. Thankful for the moment of clarity he planned their escape.

Rubbing his chin he tried to recall the distance from the hill to the base of the mountain directly below the mountaintop spire—the mountaintop he’d played on countless times as a kid. It was about one-half mile.

They were one mile in on Holten Creek Road. If the gunmen drove towards them at twenty miles-per-hour he and Jennifer would reach the spot below the spire with a three-minute lead. In three minutes he could put nearly four hundred yards between them and the goons. In the big Douglas fir trees on the mountainside that distance should provide protection from gunfire.

Four hundred yards.

It would have to be enough.

“Jenn, speed up a little. When I say stop, hit the brakes, cut the engine, then slide over and get out on my side. Try not to leave obvious footprints showing where we’re going. We’ll be running off to my side of the road through some bushes.”

“When is this all going to happen?”

“In about forty-five seconds. Just remember this. If they were going to find us this was the best place for us to be in the entire county, except perhaps the Kerbyville Police Station.”

“I think you’re an incurable optimist, Lee Brandt.”

“Maybe…but see the big tree on the right?”

“I see it. Is that where we stop?”

“Yes. Crank the wheel to the right and try to block the road with your car. It might make them think we went up the road on foot, but we’re going up the mountain, instead. Do it now.”