Noah gasped and tried to sit up before he even stopped to assess whether he should. As soon as he tried it, he realized he shouldn't have.
His feet were bound with zip ties, and so were his hands.
No problem, he thought. He had a way out of that. The question was, who was around him? And how many people had he just inadvertently alerted that he was awake by the stupid manner with which he'd jerked up and probably gasped. He’d definitely been knocked out. Maybe he should just be grateful that he wasn’t dead.
Slowly, he leaned back trying to fade into the background. Maybe the hunters hadn’t noticed he was alert. He couldn’t tell.
Through slitted lids, he scanned the area, hoping that no one looked his way.
There were five of them sitting around a small heater that made no glow or open flame. In the dark, he searched their outlines, trying to see if any of them was Murray Marks.
Westerfield had shown him a picture of their prime suspect, but he’d also pointed out that the picture had been taken before Marks spent time in prison. Noah had seen a second photo taken during his prison stay and before his escape. However, any smart man in hiding would do his best to change his appearance. Marks was far better than smart.
Unfortunately, none of these men seemed to be the one they were looking for.
Objective one was done. None of these hunters had paid any attention to him. He had to assume they didn’t realize he was up.
His next task was the zip ties. If he could move without anyone seeing, he could get rid of them in a few seconds. But he was confident that at least one of them would notice.
He was on to Plan B, the slow version.
Being propped against a tree in a small clearing didn't help him go unnoticed. Noah wondered if his team had figured out yet that he was missing.
They must have. Worst-case scenario, it had taken them a few minutes rather than a few seconds to realize he'd been kidnapped. The bigger question was, were they coming to rescue him? He wasn't actually part of their unit. He hadn't been on the property before. He didn't recognize Murray Marks.
He realized he might be their expendable piece. Though he was confident that they wouldn’t just leave him, it was also possible they were using him as bait. Even so, he wanted his hands and feet free in case he had to jump up and run.
With small furtive twists of his wrists and a few slow rolls side to side—which revealed that, of course, his gun was missing from his hip holster—Noah tested how far he could move.
They must have knocked him out hard. He remembered the arm around his throat and the fading light. But had they given him something more? Or had this camp been nearby, and he’d really only been out for a few moments? Either way, they’d had time to strip off his vest, leaving him vulnerable. But maybe not entirely screwed.
He wiggled his foot and was happy when he felt what he was hoping for. He’d learned several years ago on the job to stuff an extra shoelace down under each insole in his shoes.
More than once, he’d pulled out a handy-dandy shoelace to jury rig something. Now he knew it could be life and death.
His next job was to carefully get to his shoe. His feet were a good twenty-plus inches from where his hands rested. Should he move slowly or quickly?
There were no good answers, so he picked a speed somewhere in the middle. Twisting his knees to one side, he pulled his feet up close. The tight constraint of the zip tie on his ankles suddenly hurt. It probably had hurt all along, but he hadn’t noticed until now. He wondered again just how long he'd been left here.
As he pulled his ankles in, he slowly looked up, checking for the position of the sun.
Not too long, he decided. The chokehold blackout had likely only lasted several minutes. That was good. He wouldn’t need to eat soon—a bonus in case he was on his own. These a-holes had likely stolen all the food stashed in his pockets, too. They’d pulled his gun and knife and his ammo and his other gun. At least they hadn’t gotten his shoelaces.
The odds were that he was about to be rescued, but he felt he couldn’t afford to wait, just in case he was wrong. What if the rest of his team had been picked off, one by one, and taken different directions? That thought was a gut punch. Maybe they were waiting for him to rescue them…
With his feet now pulled up near his hands, he slid one finger inside along the arch and under the edge of the insole. It took several tries to hook a loop and pull the shoelace out. He would need to rethink his design to make this easier next time, but at least now he had what he needed.
Shoelaces were much stronger than people gave them credit for. It's why they were taken away from prison inmates. A person could hang himself with a shoelace. And, there was one other thing they were really good at…
Still with his eyes half closed, still hoping no one saw him, he went to work.
There was, of course, every possibility one of them was watching him and laughing. It didn’t matter, he had to try. Leaning back against the tree, Noah stretched his legs out in front of him again. Not so fast as to get noticed, but not so slow that should someone look over they might see he wasn't in his original position.
The whole time he’d been plotting, they’d been talking. Noah had tried to listen as he worked, but he hadn’t made out much except talk of food and which awful army meal they hated most. With one slow movement of a finger, he pushed one bound end of the shoelace under the zip tie holding his wrists and slid his hands to the side.
As he began pulling the lace back and forth, he caught a few words. They began to speculate when they would move again.
“Two days, three days?”
“Today,” one of them answered, though Noah didn’t think there was much “today” left.
“That was a good shot yesterday!”
Were they celebrating taking out the wolf yesterday? They tossed a few phrases around that Noah didn’t understand and he kept working on the zip tie.
Holding tension down on the shoelace was hard with his hands bound, but he made it work. Tugging the lace back and forth, he listened as the group in front of him took credit for another two murders.
He’d heard from Will just this morning that two more of his unit had died yesterday. Noah didn't know how he could use this information, but his heart ached for the old man.
These idiots in front of him were soldiers. Will was running a unit of his family.
He continued to saw away with the shoestring, feeling the give at one edge as the zip tie began to wear away.