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“It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.” — Frederick Phillips
Rita
In the forest service helo, squashed between Marshall and Duncan in the middle of a row of jump seats against the rear bulkhead, Rita closed her eyes and swallowed to keep her guts from turning inside out. The hammering of the rotor sent a vibration up her spine that built the foundation for a solid headache on top of her roiling stomach.
The helicopter bounced and wallowed in the mountain updrafts, shaking her insides and turning the coffee in her stomach rancid. Medical contraptions and rescue gear jammed every square inch of extra space, adding to her mild claustrophobia.
Her eyes snapped open at a shout from the front. From the cockpit, Ranger Wells contorted into the bulkhead gap and pointed emphatically to his right. Marshall and Duncan craned forward at the same time she did, all three of them straining to see through the starboard window.
At first, Rita saw nothing but green trees, tan rocks, and red soil. The pilot banked right, and her heart froze. The burned-out hulk of a tiny plane, wings and tail still attached, lay crumpled in a meadow. A long strip of torn earth arrowed from the plane downslope, showing its final landing path.
“That’s ours,” Marshall yelled. Wire-taut, the Ranger captain nearly vibrated in his seat. A grim look pulled at the corners of his eyes, deepening the crow’s-feet. He shouted at Wells, “Set ’er down! We gotta make sure!”
Wells was already motioning at the pilot, and the rotors changed pitch. Rita’s stomach floated as the helicopter dropped, pitching through the air as if the pilot were being docked for every spare second of fuel used. At shoe-top distance, the rescue helicopter flared, and Rita’s stomach bounced the other direction.
“Where did you learn to fly?” she shouted at the pilot, who wore radio headphones and no doubt couldn’t hear her. “Disney World?”
That earned a nod from Duncan, who looked a little pale and clammy himself.
The chopper settled, and Rita was out of her restraints and tugging the door handle before either of her companions could move.
~~~
Luksa
LUKSA PASSED THROUGH a timber arch braced on either side by wood so dark, it looked black. He chose not to examine the dry-rot eating away the edges. The rock tunnel reflected a dull sand color from his flashlight beam. Roughhewn walls and a curved roof indicated the rock had been hand cut with muscle-powered tools.
Occasionally, things skittered away the instant before his light hit them, meaning he never really saw what kind of critters he disturbed. Scrapes in the dust, marked with fresh blood, led him onward. His breathing echoed, harsh and uneven. The ceiling height forced him to stoop; apparently, the mine had been drilled by the seven dwarves when, hi-ho, off to work they went.
But where’s Snow White?
Luksa was so focused on following the trail, he didn’t see the side passage open up until he was three quarters past it. A sense of space tickled his right cheek and jangled the alarm bells. He gulped in a startled breath and spun right.
His light beam swung, jittered, then steadied on a figure slouched against the wall. Black face. Red-rimmed, glittering eyeballs. Pistol muzzle pointed at him.
Fire bloomed from the pistol, and a bullet burned Luksa’s ear.
“Ahh!” he screamed and dodged away. Another bullet shattered the wall beside him. He dove and rolled, feeling the pressure wave of another shot boom in the tiny space. His flashlight spun loose when he hit the ground, the light beam flying in a dizzy circle.
A round clipped the back of his calf, and Luksa scrambled to his feet and ran, deeper into the mine, hunched over to avoid low timbers. Blind, panicked, Luksa stumbled forward, staggering, careening, bouncing off the walls. He wanted distance between himself and that—
The ground fell away beneath him. Flailing his arms, he screamed when he dropped... and kept dropping. Stars flared behind his eyes when he banged his head on something wooden in the darkness. The sensation of falling continued for a moment before Dan Luksa lost consciousness.
~~~
Sam
I SCUFFED TO A HALT, the sound of shots booming from deep in the pit squeezing my chest with greasy fingers. We’d just passed the entrance —called a portal by mining types, I finally remembered—and been swallowed by the darkness. Mack clicked on a flashlight and held it against the foregrip of his tactical rifle.
My shadow capered ahead of me in the halogen beam.
“Keep moving,” Mack growled. He repeated his radio calls for the elusive Two while I shuffled forward. Getting no answer, he cursed a blue streak.
“What’s the matter? Can’t find your buddy?” I chuckled and tried out a Dracula voice. “Maybe zee wampires got heem.”
“You as funny as hemorrhoid.”
“Really? What got up your ass?”
I came to the place we’d camped. Marlon’s sleeping bag lay to my left, bunched up and torn by a couple of bullet holes. The bag I’d rolled out to nap on was to the right, rucked into a pile. No Marlon. Anywhere.
A shaky breath whistled through my nostrils, taking with it some of the tension in my shoulders. Somehow he’d made it down the mineshaft, and Two must have followed him. Now, were the shots fired by Marlon or the other guy?
More importantly, did Marlon take my rifle when he went? I’d left it on my sleeping bag when I escorted Jade to the jump-off point. I could picture it, as plain as a teenager’s pimple, lying there locked and loaded, two thumb-clicks away from full auto. Ahead of me, the tunnel narrowed, and the maneuvering room went from not much to none. I had a feeling if I kept limping down that mineshaft, I wasn’t coming back up.
“What the hell?” I muttered, pretending shock and confusion.
“What?”
I sensed Mack creeping closer, my radar picking up body heat and bad breath. Without looking back, I slammed an elbow into his gut then head-butted straight back. A good shot to the face could blind a man with watery eyes, doesn’t matter how tough he is.
Contact with Mack’s forehead sent a shockwave through my skull. Using the momentum, I powered off my good leg into a full-on belly flop atop my sleeping bag. The hard metal outline of the rifle slammed me in the chest—it had gotten twisted sideways under a layer of goose-down-packed nylon.
Mack cranked off a shot, more out of hope than planning, I suspected. It went wide, and the bullet zinged off the ceiling of the mine.
My fingers slipped blindly along the shape of the rifle until they found the handgrip. I spun the other direction, popping out of the bag like I was unrolling a burrito.
“You dumb son of a bitch,” the BATF agent roared. A bullet punched the air an inch from my face.
Mack fired again. My bad leg took the hit. I wobbled and fought gravity. He fired again, and a bullet punched me under the nipple on my right side. A frozen ice pick stabbed me in the chest. The guy was good. Blinded or not, he was scoring hits.
I buckled to one knee. My left arm hung, useless, and I forced the M4 barrel up, flinging aside the last of the clinging bag.
I screamed in rage and pain, struggling to stay upright. To stay alive.
Mack’s weapon flared again and again. I didn’t see where the bullets went.
My thumb found the safety and pushed it all the way down—two solid clicks. I squeezed the trigger. The muzzle tracked from right to left in an arc of hellish orange lightning bolts. I snugged the rifle’s butt into the crook of my arm and rode the muzzle-climb as it thundered out a solid stream of fire.
My throat was raw, and I realized I was still screaming. I stopped.
Mack tumbled, loose and boneless. The M4 ran dry, and the bolt locked back. My ears rang.
Mack’s light had skittered away. It painted a wall like a stage footlight. Enough light reflected to see the BATF agent lay in a heap. Not moving. A black pool spread from under him, pulsing from the hole in the back of his head. A dark curtain came down, and I couldn’t see anymore.
~~~
LUKSA HAD NO WAY TO tell time. When he woke in blackness, his head splitting from the pain, he discovered his cell phone was smashed to bits. He had no flashlight. No matches. Nothing. He’d lost his pistol somewhere along the way as well.
The lack of light was complete. His eyes strained so wide, seeking even the tiniest glimmer, they began to pulse with a pain of their very own.
He sat in six inches of freezing-cold water. Exhausted from searching his surroundings, he shivered and hugged himself, chafing his upper arms for warmth. Best that he could tell, he’d fallen down a shaft. How far, he had no way of knowing. He picked bits of crumbly wood from his hair; somewhere along the way, he’d clocked his head on a wooden ladder. His ankle screamed with pain, probably broken.
For the first hour after he’d come to his senses, Luksa had screamed for help. He’d nearly torn the lining from his throat, he’d screamed so loud and so long. Nothing happened, and no one responded. Luksa sat in the cold water and shivered.
~~~
FOUR DAYS AFTER LEAVING Mack and Dan behind, John Reed Bartlett hiked out of the Gila National Forest and found US Highway 180. The sun was high, and the day had grown steadily warmer. Sweat soaked his arms as he paced the road’s shoulder, ignoring the whoosh of passing cars. The last thing he wanted was to hitch a ride.
Half a mile from the Gila River crossing, Bartlett had passed a house with a motorcycle on the porch. A hand-lettered For Sale sign indicated an asking price of five hundred dollars, which Bartlett dickered down to four hundred with a helmet thrown in. He paid with the cash in his pocket.
The ancient Honda had soft brakes and near-bald tires, and it smoked a little on acceleration, but it held the road and ate up miles. He made Las Cruces as the sun was going down behind him.
Checking in to a budget motel, Bartlett used the only fake ID he had on him, one made out in the name of Stephen Gibson, and paid for the room with a clean credit card in that name.
“You have a business center?” he asked the chipper Native American girl behind the counter. “With internet?”
“Yes, sir, we sure do.” She pointed it out, and Bartlett nodded his thanks.
He slipped into the leather chair in front of the hotel’s computer and jiggled the mouse to bring the screen to life. Bartlett was very aware of his own sweat stink. After six days without a bath, he reeked.
Well, no matter. He was within minutes of a long shower. All he had to do was move some money from his hidden accounts to his Stephen Gibson account, and he would be set. All the business proceeds from Sugarland Enterprises, after a thorough laundering process, went into offshore accounts so deeply hidden, a team of forensic accounts could make a career trying to find them. With Tommy gone, only he knew the passwords to those accounts. That money would finance his getaway and set him up for a long, long time.
Bartlett typed in the bank’s URL and went through a lengthy dual-authentication process. Once he’d proven to the bank’s satisfaction that he was who he said he was, it allowed him into his account-summary page.
He always got a special thrill when the page loaded and his balance, usually well north of six million dollars, showed up. He used to joke with Tommy about them being the Six Million Dollar Men. His brother, younger and less inclined to television in general, had no idea what he was talking about.
Bartlett grinned and waited for the summary page to load.
“What the hell?” He clicked the refresh button and watched the page reload. Something was probably screwy with the hotel’s web browser. Bartlett stared, his jaw loose and his eyes growing hot in their sockets. No matter which way he looked at it and no matter what he did with the website, the balance stayed the same. Zero.
Eight minutes later, after reviewing the last week’s transactions, he sat back and rubbed his tired eyes. In a weak voice, he mumbled, “That... bitch.”
~~~
THREE DAYS AFTER LAS Cruces, Bartlett rode his tired Honda through the gates of the Pelican Bay Marina in Galveston, Texas. His insides felt hollowed out at losing all the money he’d worked so hard to hide from everybody. The feds, the police, his co-workers... even his accomplices didn’t know the scope of the take he’d stashed offshore. Nobody knew.
But Jade Stone had somehow wormed it out of his stupid brother.
One thing he still had, though, was his boat. There was over two hundred grand in gold coins stashed aboard. That plus a well-stocked bar and some fishing poles were all he really needed to be happy. What was that Frederick Phillips quote? “It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.”
Consider this a hard knock and move on.
Bartlett parked the Honda and left the keys in it. He wouldn’t ever be using the motorcycle again. He strode across the parking lot and onto the plank dock, footsteps booming with determination. The Gulf waters lapped and sloshed against the pilings, bringing a fishy, salty smell with them. The bright, glittering reflection from the water made him squint.
All I need to do is swing by the marina office, settle up the berthing fees, gas up, and I’ll be on my—
“John Bartlett?”
Bartlett froze mid-step and focused on the man in front of him. A polar bear in a rumpled, Western-cut suit was his first impression. Big, dumb, and somewhat simple-minded was his second. The guy had small-town cop written all over him.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Bartlett said with a full-bore grin. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
The polar bear smiled under his gray Stetson. “Ah’m sure you’d like me to believe that,” he rumbled. “Good thing I got me someone knows how to follow the money, else I might never have found this here boat.” The man touched the brim of his hat. “Dolph Ahlberg, Texas Rangers, sir. I’m here to arrest you for, let’s see, conspiracy, fraud, murder—well, shit, about two-thirds the damn penal code. Why bother trying to remember all that fine print?”
Ahlberg leaned to the side and spit a long stream of tobacco juice into the water. Bartlett shifted, settling his weight and letting his hand dangle loose. His pistol rode in a high-rise holster at the small of his back. Not the best place to get to it in a fast-draw competition, but against this guy? You gotta be kidding me. A glacier could out-draw this guy.
“Well, now, Ranger...” Bartlett cranked up his smile to megawatt voltage. Nothing disarmed people like a bright smile and a winning personality. “I don’t know who you think I am, but—”
Bartlett drew. His hand swept back, thumb hooked to lift his shirt, and gripped the butt of his sidearm. With the same motion, he broke the retaining snap and pulled. It was a clean draw, one of the fastest pulls he’d ever attempted.
Two sledgehammers hit him in the chest, side by side over his heart. Bartlett looked down, stunned. His gun thunked to the dock. Two holes, so close together, he could’ve covered them with a silver dollar, pulsed blood from his chest. Until the pulse stopped.