Chapter 24
The passenger door snapped open.
A bullet ripped through the Jeep.
Eddy screamed and jerked. The policeman was yanked out. She opened her mouth to scream again, but Durrand appeared instantaneously beside her.
“Go!” he yelled. Behind him, the officer was already rising to his feet, lifting his gun, firing. “Go!”
Eddy slammed the Jeep into third. They hit a bump and flew. A bullet pinged off their bumper. Up ahead, two men, both afoot, were racing toward the road.
“Get down!” Durrand ordered and, grabbing her head, pressed it toward the seat. She didn’t try to resist. Neither did she slow down. A bullet winged through the windshield. Durrand grunted. The Jeep bumped.
Eddy jerked upright. “Are you hit?”
“Drive!” he ordered.
She sliced her attention back to the road and gasped. A vehicle was bearing down on them from up ahead. Three men with rifles peered at them from the bed of a pickup truck, arms braced atop the cab.
“Don’t stop!” Durrand ordered and raised a handgun.
Gripping the steering wheel tighter, she stomped on the accelerator. The truck seemed to jump toward them. Bullets sprayed in their direction, pelting the Jeep. The approaching men yelled, or maybe they were her screams she heard as the other vehicle was yanked to the side at the last moment.
They careened past. Metal scraped. The side-view mirror was torn off with a whining protest. Two men were thrown to the ground.
For a moment, every latent instinct she possessed insisted that she stop to ascertain their wellbeing, but terror demanded that she accelerate. Terror won.
Branches ripped at them. Rocks leapt like living beasts at their tires.
“Turn here!” Durrand rasped.
“Where?” There was no break in the jungle.
“Here!” he insisted and reaching for the wheel, yanked them into the trees.
Eddy slammed on the brakes, but momentum carried them through the greenery. They landed with a jolt twenty feet from the road. The engine died.
The silence was absolute.
“Grab your bag!” Durrand ordered.
Eddy blinked, certain they were dead. They must be dead. “We crashed,” she said.
“Vines,” he grunted and pumped the door handle. Nothing happened. Slamming the door with his shoulder, he managed to wrest it open and stumble outside. “Just vines.” Reaching for his backpack, he shoved maps and binoculars inside. “Cover the Jeep.”
“What?” Her knee ached. Her mind felt messy.
“Get out! That’s an order.”
She obeyed without thinking. He was already dragging tattered foliage back into place. She tried to help, but her hands were tingly, her legs unsteady.
“Can you walk?”
“What?” She glanced up at him, barely able to manage that much.
He curled his fingers around her arm. “We’ve gotta go.”
“Where?”
“Down to the highway. We’ll hitch a ride from there.”
She stumbled once, but he pulled her back to her feet. “We have a ride,” she said and half turned toward the Jeep, but he steered her away.
“They’ll have more forces coming up the road. We were lucky to get past the first truck.”
“But we can’t…” She felt strangely teary. “We can’t just leave it.”
He was still steering her downhill. “Would you feel better if I put it out of its misery?”
“I meant it’s our only security,” she said.
“Security’s an illusion.” He glanced behind them, expression grim. “Can you run?”
She nodded, though she may have been taking the question in a more existential way. Theoretically she could run. She had run in the past.
“Let’s go,” he said and picked up a jog.
She followed as best she could, but her legs felt rubbery, her stomach gelatinous. Staggering to a halt, she bent double and threw up beside a towering banyan.
It was several moments before she could straighten.
“You ready?”
She nodded.
After that, it was a nightmare of movement, endurance, and exhaustion.
After what seemed a lifetime, they stumbled onto a road. It stretched before them like a winding viper. Durrand squinted into the distance, breathing hard. The sun was setting. He tugged her firmly back into the shelter of the trees.
“Did we overshoot?”
“What?” She bent double once more, trying to squeeze oxygen into lungs that had threatened to shut down hours ago.
“Which direction to Chaviv?”
“Not sure.” In fact, she had no idea. Terror and exhaustion had consumed any hope of differentiating east from west.
“We have to get a new vehicle.”
She glanced down the road. It was empty as far as the eye could see. “How?”
“You’re going to have to convince someone to stop.”
“What?” She jerked toward him. “Why me?”
He grimaced as if his own lungs were complaining. “I don’t think anyone’s going to care if I show a little leg.”
“You want me to show my—” The idea was so absurd she actually laughed. The sound came out on a tortured wheeze. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Shooting the tires out of a passing car would be counterproductive.” He raised the gun and winced at that slight motion. “And we only have one bullet left. We’re going to have to depend on your sex appeal.”
She blinked down at herself. Her arms were scratched and covered with mud, her clothes tattered. “You’re crazy.”
He exhaled heavily and glanced into the jungle behind them. “You’re overestimating the average male.”
She swung toward him. He’d dropped his pack on the ground and removed his shirt. His chest was taut with muscle and smeared with…
She stumbled back. “Is that… Is that blood?”
He glanced up. “Don’t faint,” he said.
“What?” Her voice sounded hopelessly small to her own ears.
“You’re not going to faint are you?”
“No.” She shook her head. The world tilted a little, but she hardened her voice. “Of course, not.”
“Good,” he said and fainted dead away.