Chương 3
Warren shoved Sebastian down as the guards fired toward the ridge. Ranger barked, Theo dropped flat, and leaves snapped from branches above them.
“Hold fire!” Warren shouted. “No target, hold fire!”
Silence returned in pieces.
The wounded man’s eyes remained open. Blood ran into the leaves beside his face.
Sebastian crawled toward Theo.
The boy had one arm around Ranger’s neck. His expression was empty for a moment, the way a room looked after someone carried out the furniture.
“Are you hit?” Sebastian asked.
Theo checked Ranger before himself. “No.”
“Look at me.”
Theo did.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
Warren moved to the dead man and took the ruined radio, access card, and phone. “Shooter had elevation. Probably suppressed movement after the first round. He had a clear angle on this guy, not on us.”
“He was cleaning up,” Sebastian said.
“Or keeping him quiet.”
“That is cleaning up.”
Warren signaled the guards forward in pairs.
Theo stood, brushing leaves from his hoodie. His fingers shook harder now.
“Micah went toward the rock cut,” he said.
Warren stared at the ridge. “That’s where the shooter went.”
“Yes.”
“We wait for the east team.”
“No,” Theo said.
Warren stepped closer. “Listen to me. You did what you had to do. Now trained men take over.”
“They’ll walk on the trail.”
“That’s the purpose of a trail.”
“Micah leaves trails where he doesn’t go.”
Warren’s mouth opened, then closed.
Theo pointed to a strip of red cloth tied low on a sapling. “That means danger.”
Sebastian looked at the boy. “How do you know the difference?”
“High means follow. Low means don’t.”
“Where did he go?”
Theo turned in a slow circle.
Ranger sniffed the dead man’s sleeve, recoiled, then pulled toward the creek.
Theo picked up his bag.
“This way.”
They left the false trail behind.
The route along the creek narrowed until the men had to turn sideways between rock and water. Sebastian’s shoes filled with mud. His suit jacket caught on briars. Warren said nothing about either. Radio static thickened beneath the stone ridge, making communication useless.
The path ended at a rusted storm pipe half concealed by ferns.
Theo knelt. “Micah?”
No answer.
Ranger forced his nose toward the pipe and whined.
Theo crawled inside.
Sebastian grabbed the back of his hoodie. The boy twisted around, startled but not frightened.
“I go first,” Sebastian said.
“You won’t fit.”
The pipe was three feet wide.
Sebastian removed his jacket and handed it to Warren. “Then I’ll discover that myself.”
He went in on his hands and knees.
The metal smelled of rainwater and old rust. His shoulders scraped both sides. Behind him, Theo whispered to Ranger, telling him to stay. The dog whined again but obeyed.
Ten feet inside, the pipe opened into a concrete maintenance chamber.
Micah lay against the wall.
He was thin like Theo, though adolescence had lengthened him without adding weight. His red flannel shirt had been torn into strips, some used as trail markers, another wrapped around his left thigh. Blood had soaked through it. His face was pale beneath freckles, and one nostril was crusted dark.
A revolver lay near his hand.
Sebastian entered the chamber and moved it away.
Micah’s eyes opened.
He tried to sit up. “Theo?”
“I’m here,” Theo called, crawling past Sebastian.
Micah grabbed the front of his brother’s hoodie with both hands. For a few seconds he said nothing. His breath shook against Theo’s hair.
Then he pushed him back and looked him over with angry urgency.
“I told you the gate. I told you find the gate and stay there.”
“I found it.”
“You were supposed to stay.”
“They came with me.”
Micah looked past him at Sebastian.
Recognition arrived more slowly than it had in the dead man’s face. Micah’s gaze moved over the black trousers, white shirt, dark tie, then settled on Sebastian’s expression.
“Ruby’s father?”
“Yes.”
Micah leaned his head against the concrete.
“She’s alive.”
Sebastian felt the chamber tilt without moving.
“Where?”
“Pump house when I left. They had a van behind it. She was tied, but she could talk. One guy kept telling her to shut up.”
“How many?”
“Four at the house. Then two followed us. Maybe another driver.”
“Who took you?”
Micah looked at Theo.
“We saw them coming through the drainage cut,” he said. “Ranger heard them first. One man carried Ruby. She dropped a shoe. I thought she was hurt, so I followed.”
“You thought five armed men carrying a child might need your help?” Warren asked from the pipe entrance.
Micah stared at him. “They weren’t wearing signs.”
Warren almost answered, then seemed to decide against it.
Micah continued. “They stopped at the pump house. I got close enough to see her through the broken vent. She saw me. I put my finger to my mouth.”
“What did she do?” Sebastian asked.
“She stopped crying.”
That sounded like Ruby. It made him proud and sick at the same time.
“One of the men went outside to smoke,” Micah said. “I waited until he walked around back. I tried the vent. It was loose. Ruby gave me the bracelet through the gap. Said her dad would know it.”
Sebastian reached inside his jacket. The white cloth was damp from his body.
“Where did this come from?”
Micah’s eyes stayed on the bracelet. “My first-aid kit. Theo gets cuts.”
“You wrapped it.”
“I didn’t want it scratched.”
The care of it hurt more than blood would have.
“What happened after she gave it to you?” Warren asked.
“Ranger barked. The smoker saw us. We ran. They split up.”
“And the gun?”
Micah glanced toward the revolver.
“One of them dropped it when Ranger bit him. I picked it up.”
“You fired the first shot?”
Micah nodded. “Into the air. I thought it might scare them.”
“It told us where you were,” Theo said.
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“You make bad plans.”
May you like
Micah closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
The exchange was so ordinary that Sebastian had to look away.
