Although she could not see the men behind the high-intensity tactical flashlights, Tam knew that, to a man, they had each removed their fingers from the triggers of their machine pistols. They would not want to take the chance of accidentally loosing a round with their leader so close to one of the prisoners.
She wouldn’t get a better chance.
Tam lifted her bound hands a few inches above her back. It was an awkward position, and she could feel the strain of it in her shoulders, but she put the pain out of her mind, focusing on what would happen next. Her timing would have to be perfect. As LeMans lowered the Makarov, preparing to shoot Sievers in the back of the head, Tam moved like a striking rattlesnake, flexing her body in the middle and snapping her forearms against her backside.
She felt the briefest sensation of pain as the zip-tie dug into her skin, but then the forcefulness of the blow ripped the plastic teeth past the metal ratchet stay. Had the Swiss commandos used tactical flexicuffs, which consisted of two conjoined heavy duty zip-tie collars, designed to mimic actual handcuffs, the maneuver probably would have been unsuccessful, but the simple hardware store cable ties weren’t designed to withstand a sudden forceful blow, and just like that, Tam’s hands were loose.
In the same motion, she brought them down to the ground and pushed hard, springing off the ground high enough that she was able to slide her right leg forward, bringing her knee up until it touched her chest. She planted her foot beneath her, and sprang forward like a sprinter exploding off the starting blocks, aiming herself straight at the kneeling LeMans.
Taken completely by surprise, LeMans tried to raise the Makarov, but was a fraction of a second too slow. Tam swung her left knee forward, connecting solidly with his head, and then kept going, plowing through him like he wasn’t even there.
She expected at any moment to feel hot lead plucking at her body, but her escape bid had evidently caught LeMans’ men off guard as well. Tam knew better than to stop and give them a stationary target, however. She kept moving, pivoting away from the cabins and the unseen commandos with their flashlights and guns, sprinting toward the uncertain refuge of the dark trail leading into the hills.
LeMans shouted something in German and abruptly the air around her was crisscrossed with flashlight beams. She veered left for a few steps, then cut back to the right, weaving to stay ahead of the searching spotlights. Over the pounding of her heart and the thump of her footfalls, she could distinctly hear the sound of bullets whooshing past her, far too close for comfort. There were no accompanying reports—the commandos were carrying suppressed weapons, making it impossible to judge just how far away they were, but ultimately that mattered little. She was still in their range, and all they would need was one lucky shot, and she would be done for.
Less than fifty yards behind her, Billy Sievers was dealing with a different set of problems. He had been hoping that Tam would make a move—counting on it actually—and when she had launched into motion, he had done his best to capitalize on the commotion to make his own escape attempt. The results had been a mixed bag.
As Tam bowled LeMans over, Sievers rolled onto his side, trying to get his feet under him. Before he could do this, one of the Swiss commandos rushed from the shadows beside the cabin and swung his machine pistol like a cudgel, so Sievers instead flipped onto his back and spun his body around so that his feet were between himself and the commando. As the man’s rush brought him closer, Sievers drew his legs up and then struck out with both feet, smashing his heels into the man’s knee. The commando uttered a harsh cry and toppled forward, crashing down on top of Sievers. The impact knocked the wind out of Sievers. Worse, the combined weight of both men crushed painfully against his still-bound hands.
As he gasped for the air to cry out in agony, he could hear the cough of suppressed reports, machine pistols huffing bursts of fully automatic fire. He could also hear LeMans shouting, ordering his men to stop shooting, to chase after Tam. Through the haze of pain, he saw several black-clad figures do just that, racing off into the darkness with their lights bobbing and flashing as they ran.
But not all of them. The commando who had just flattened him was still there, cursing in German as he rolled off Sievers and scrambled back to his feet—or foot rather, since his left leg seemed unable to bear any weight. With a final snarl, he leveled his MP5S at Sievers and curled his finger around the trigger.
“Stop!” shouted LeMans. He had stayed behind, too.
The injured commando’s finger uncurled but the business end of the weapon remained trained on Sievers, who could only gape at the man, mouth open and working like a beached fish as he struggled to draw breath.
LeMans picked himself up, retrieved the fallen Makarov, and stood over Sievers. In some dim corner of his mind, Sievers thought he understood why LeMans had stopped his subordinate from taking the shot. He wanted to use Tam’s pistol, thereby leaving behind a little bit less in the way of incriminating forensic evidence. But the commando leader seemed to have a different motive for the brief reprieve.
“You work for her, no?” LeMans said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
Sievers’ breath finally returned. Through clenched teeth, he said, “I was going to say the same thing to you.”
A smile twitched across the other man’s lips. “Your display of bravado is admirable. One professional to another. But she left you to die, this woman you work for. She is a coward, interested in saving her own skin.”
“Guess you don’t know her like I do.”
LeMans continued smiling as he aimed the Makarov at Sievers. “I think I do.”
Tam hit the dirt as bullets sizzled through the air around her, but she did not stop moving. Instead, she began high crawling over the soft grassy terrain, scrambling on all fours as she searched for cover.
She needed to lose her pursuers, if only for a few seconds. Just long enough to force them to split up and spread out to search for her. Unarmed, she couldn’t hope to take on a group of gunmen, but in a one-on-one encounter, she just might have a chance.
The sound of bullets slicing through the air ceased as the men stopped firing, but she could still hear the men shouting to each other as the lights continued to search the landscape around her. She froze, pressed herself flat lest any movement betray her location, and waited to see what would happen next. The men were still more or less clustered together, moving in a staggered formation toward the trail that she and the others had followed back to the cabins. They were about twenty yards behind her, and if they kept moving in a straight line, they would pass within about fifteen feet of where she lay.
Too close.
Then she spotted something that gave her hope. As the lights roved back and forth, they briefly illuminated a cattle bridge that crossed over a small creek and continued on to the main trail. Merlin’s Cave was on the near side of the creek, further to the east, so they had not crossed the bridge earlier, but she remembered seeing it. The bridge did not interest her; it was a choke point, and she would never make it across without being seen, but the creek was another matter.
She watched the lights sweep back and forth a few more times, waiting for the moment when all of the beams were pointed away from where she wanted to go, and when it arrived, she bounded to her feet and took off running in the direction of the bridge.
Another shout, and the lights swung toward her. She zigzagged a couple times but tried to maintain her visualization of the unseen landscape. If she veered off course by a degree or two or misjudged the location of the creek by even a few steps, instead of providing her with a place to hide, she might very well end up with broken bones or miss the creek altogether.
Now, she thought as she threw herself flat again and continued the rest of the way at a fast crawl. Her estimation was nearly perfect. After crawling just a few feet, the ground fell away beneath her, and she pitched headfirst down a steep embankment. She slid about ten feet, striking half-buried roots and stones before splashing into a shallow rivulet of chilly water.
The cold nearly took her breath away, but she forced herself to lie completely still, lifting her head out of the water just high enough to clear her nostrils. The lights continued to sweep back and forth, but she heard nothing to indicate that the men knew where she had gone.
She waited, counting the seconds with short breaths, fighting to keep her teeth from chattering. The lights grew brighter, closer. One of the men ventured onto the bridge and shone his light down into the creek. The circle of light it cast passed within inches of where Tam lay, but kept moving, giving no indication that she had been spotted. After a few more seconds, the man continued over the bridge and darkness returned.
Moving slowly, careful not to make any noise, she reached down and began untying her shoes. She would need a weapon, and since the Swiss commandos had taken everything else, she would have to improvise. Her fingers were getting stiff and numb, and she fumbled with the knots for nearly a minute before finally succeeding. Then, gripping the laces in her right hand, she began crawling back up the embankment but froze again as LeMans’ voice reached out across the still landscape.
“Agent Broderick. I know you can hear me.”
He was close, maybe within fifty feet of the bridge.
“I have your friend with me. Agent Sievers. He thinks you are going to come to his rescue. That would be a foolish thing to do. You cannot save his life, but if you surrender now, I can promise that you will rescue him from a great deal of unnecessary pain and suffering.”
Tam could see what LeMans was building up to and knew that she didn’t have much time left. Despite the risk of exposure, she started moving again, slithering up to the top of the embankment.
She could see several pinpoints of light scattered across the open landscape. As expected, the searching commandos had indeed split up, spreading out to cover more terrain. But which one was LeMans?
“A demonstration then.”
The voice had come, not from one of the lights but from the darkness. She stared in the general direction, orienting on the sound until she thought she could make out an irregular silhouette against the night sky.
Lord Jesus, she prayed, let that be them. Then she started moving.
“In sixty seconds, I will put a bullet through his right foot. Then I will begin counting. Sixty seconds after that, I will shoot his left foot. I will keep doing this. Feet, knees, hands, elbows, every sixty seconds, until you surrender yourself to my men. I can make your friend’s last few minutes on earth last a very long time, Agent Broderick. It’s up to you. Tick tock.”
He paused, and Tam froze again. As long as he was talking, she could count on his voice covering up the faint rustle of her body moving through the grass. She waited a few seconds more, hoping that he would resume his taunts, but when he did not, she started moving again. The clock was running down, and she couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
Tick, tock.
“Time’s up, Agent Broderick. The next sound you hear will be your friend screaming.”
A light flashed on, partially revealing the prone form of Billy Sievers. The illuminated area shrank to just a small circle around his feet as LeMans brought his machine pistol closer to his target.
In that instant, Tam knew, LeMans would be blind to everything happening outside that circumference of brilliance. In the time he had given her, she had managed to creep past him and was now about ten yards behind him. His silhouette was unmistakable. Throwing the last of her caution to the wind, she sprang to her stockinged feet, covered the remaining ten yards or so in three quick bounds, and dropped her field-expedient shoestring garrote over the killer’s head, pulling it taut with such force she could feel it all the way up to her elbows.
LeMans immediately let go of his weapon and began clawing frantically at his throat, but any chance he might have had to slip a finger in between the strangling cord and his neck had already passed. Before he could change tactics, Tam rammed her knee into his back, which not only dug the string in deeper but bore the Swiss commando forward, slamming him face down onto the ground alongside Billy Sievers.
LeMans thrashed desperately for a few more seconds, then went rigid as oxygen deprivation took its final toll. Tam just kept pulling tighter, barely even noticing when his struggles ceased altogether.
“Tam,” Sievers hissed. “Cut me loose.”
The urgency in his voice brought her back to the moment. Further away, the shouts of other commandos were audible. They knew something was wrong and it was only a matter of time before they came to investigate.
She released the makeshift garrote, allowing LeMans’ lifeless body to slump on the grass, and quickly patted him down. She felt an oblong shape in one pocket that could only be a folding pocket knife and drew it out, fumbling to get her fingernail on the edge of the largest blade. In the ambient illumination cast by the tactical flashlight on the discarded machine pistol, she could see the knife’s red plastic body marked with a distinctive shield and cross.
A Swiss army knife.
Naturally, Tam thought.
The stainless-steel blade finally swung out and clicked into place. She bent over Sievers and, working more by feel than sight, found the zip-tie holding his wrists together. A quick snick of the blade cut them apart, after which she closed the blade and slipped it into her pocket.
Sievers shook his arms a few times to restore his circulation then scooped up the MP5S. He immediately switched off the tactical flashlight, plunging them once more into darkness but also hiding their location from the other commandos. The nearest man was a good fifty yards away but moving cautiously back in their direction. Sievers aimed his weapon at the approaching figure but did not pull the trigger. If the situation escalated into a firefight, the odds were still against him and Tam.
“I think we can make it back to the car,” he whispered. “But there’s one straggler between us and it. Better gun up, just in case. I think your Makarov is on his belt.”
Tam nodded and resumed searching the dead man until she located her pistol and two spare magazines for the machine pistol which she passed up to Sievers. She also found a key ring with a single plastic sheathed automobile key.
As she stood up again, she glanced down at the dark, motionless lump one last time and muttered, “That was for Kasey, you son of a bitch.”
She was about to add another mental IOU to the swear jar but then thought better of it. Instead, she simply added, “You can keep the shoelaces.”
Sievers looked down at LeMans as well. “Tried to warn you.”