On Deadly Ground (Dan & Chloe Book 2) (17 page)

‘See you Tile.’

Tile jumped back as the pick-up reversed in a spray of gravel. He watched Chloe reversing back across the vacant lot, in a squeal of brakes she spun the pick-up in a tight circle. Tile heard the grinding of gears and then the pick-up shot forwards on to the main road and headed in the direction of the ranch.

Tile rubbed his hands across his face, the three day stubble grating against the coarseness of his palms.

‘Well shit,’ he said to the vacant lot. ‘I mean well shit!’

Tile turned as he heard an engine, his hopes that it was Chloe having second thoughts were dashed when the Sheriff’s department patrol car pulled in to the lot. He watched as the deputy parked it.

Tile grunted.

‘Ah fuck it, what else have you got to do with your life?’

Tile walked across the empty lot and reached the patrol car just as the young deputy swung the door open and started to climb out.

Tile yanked the deputy to his feet and slammed his forehead in to the young deputy’s face. The deputy dropped like a lead weight and Tile quickly relieved the unconscious deputy of his service pistol and the car’s keys.

Tile got in behind the wheel and slammed the door, he started the engine, hit the gas and took off after Chloe.

                                                        *****

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Chloe felt bad about lying
to Tile, when he had helped her slip by the hospital staff she had claimed to be far weaker and in more pain than she had actually been in. She had bided her time until the moment was right.

Now as she pushed the pick-up on in to the red, the pain that she had fully been expecting, hit her and she winced. She glanced down and lifted the shirt from her stomach, the thick bandaging was still white - she hadn’t torn her stitches.

Chloe steadied her breathing as she finally left the town of Rockspur. She pressed the accelerator to the floor and the pick-up gave her another ten miles an hour. She was now at the pick-up’s limit and she concentrated on the road ahead.

Chloe saw the black Mercedes pull out behind her as she rounded a long bend in the road. In the distance she could see orange and red flickering against the dawning skyline and she smiled, she figured Dan had activated the first of their security measures.

The Mercedes was closing on her. Chloe reached for the sawn-off shotgun lying on the seat next to her, she checked that it was still cocked and she switched the shotgun to her left hand and kept the wheel steady with her right.

Chloe eased up slightly on the pick-up and she slowed until the Mercedes was level with her door. She glanced down at the other car and she watched as the Mercedes’ windows started to lower.

Chloe grinned and raised the sawn-off, she put her left hand out of her open window, aimed quickly at the front right tyre and pulled the trigger.

The recoil was immense and she yelped at the yanking pain in her shoulder and stomach, but she managed to hold on to the sawn-off. Chloe whooped as the front right tyre of the Mercedes shredded beneath the powerful spray of the shotgun.

The driver over-steered and the Mercedes began to swerve away from the pick-up. Chloe fired the second load in to the rear passenger window of the Mercedes, she thought she saw a spray of blood from within the car but then the Mercedes was bouncing out to the side of the road and she quickly left it behind.

Chloe emptied the shotgun and she managed to get two fresh cartridges loaded without too much hassle. She rested the shotgun across her naked thighs and once more pushed the pick-up to its limit.

Chloe came around a final bend in the road before the road straightened out for the home stretch, as she came out of the bend she had to slow the pick-up to almost a crawl.

There was debris all over the road. Lengths of shattered trees, some still burning lay all over the road and the ridge to her right was a mess.

It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie - shattered trees and burning stumps and in the light of the flickering flames she could even saw a body part or two. At the bottom of the ridge near the road were two trucks, small delivery types, and both were wrecked from falling debris.

Chloe cleared the last of the obstacles in the road and floored it.

Chloe yelped as the front of the pick-up slammed in to a black-clad man that had staggered out in to the path of the vehicle. The man was quickly lost beneath the truck. Chloe smiled when she felt the truck bouncing over him and she hoped that the tyres had connected with his head.

‘They fucking shot our horses!’

Chloe spotted another man about fifty yards ahead on the right, he was clutching the remains of his left arm to his chest. Chloe altered her trajectory and the pick-up’s front grill smashed in to the man, pulverising his chest, sending shattered ribs back in to his lungs and heart, he was dead before the pick-up bounced over him.

Chloe steered back out in to the middle of the road and continued on towards the ranch.

‘Three miles,’ she said to the empty cabin, she just hoped that she wasn’t too late.

                                                        *****

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

After the desolation of the
ridge Dan had anticipated a full on assault and as he tracked four vehicles swing in on to the dirt track his assumption was proved correct.

Dan looked at the plastic box with the three switches, having used the switches to set off the multitude of explosives up on the ridge the trio of small switches had a second purpose.

Dan pushed all three switches, simultaneously setting them back in to their original positions, and the early morning was once again torn apart as explosives rigged in to the dirt track all went off at once.

Dan missed the first vehicle being blown in half but he did see what happened to the remaining three vehicles - the scope’s capabilities showed the carnage in exacting detail.

The first one hundred yards of dirt track were rigged with remote-activated landmines. The vehicles were met with concussive blasts from beneath, metal and human meat was shredded, and as the dust finally settled, and the explosive concussions faded Dan watched as twisting sculptures of torn metal rained down.

Two vehicles, both small delivery vans were nothing more than twisted heaps and one of the two Mercedes that had turned in from the highway was almost split in two.

Dan watched as the driver’s door was nudged open. Dan tightened his finger on the rifle’s trigger and waited. He watched as the driver staggered from the car. The driver had no arms, just bloody shoulder stumps and Dan eased up on the trigger. He wasn’t going to ease the bastard’s pain.

Dan continued to watch until the driver dropped to his knees where he remained, the driver’s head dropped forwards until his chin rested on his chest, he didn’t move.

Dan surveyed the rest of the area and watched as the last Mercedes rolled to a halt on burning tyres. It was the only vehicle that had survived, flames flickered from beneath the hood but overall it was still in reasonable shape.

Dan guessed that the vehicle had been reinforced and he assumed that Baxter would be in this vehicle.

The rear doors of the Mercedes were opened and Dan could hear the sound of machine gun fire. Through the scope he could see flames exploding from the muzzles of the weapons. At a distance of almost a mile Dan knew that the shooters were just making noise, laying down suppressive fire, they had no hope of hitting him.

Dan waited and his patience paid off and he pulled the trigger.

What felt like minutes, but was only a second and a half, passed and Dan smiled as the man’s head he had been aiming at ceased to exist. Unlike in films, there was no fine crimson spray of blood, no neat little entry hole (that was all cinematic bullshit), in the real world, a bullet fired at that distance, from a rifle like the one Dan was using, the effect was overwhelming in its brutality. The round would hit with the force of a sledgehammer connecting with an egg after a full swing and the effect was the same. The man’s head was ripped in to a hundred pieces, the force of the round striking was so powerful that the man’s neck was torn away from the man’s shoulders.

Dan watched the whole thing unwind and he grinned at the final result.

Dan caught movement and saw a second man take off running, heading up the dirt track towards the highway.

Dan inhaled, he exhaled - breathing out half of the air he had inhaled.

He pulled the trigger and waited.

The bullet found its target, drilling through the man’s lower back, separating the legs from the body as the bullet’s velocity and concussive power tore through flesh and bone.

Dan scoped back on the car and he watched as it erupted in a huge fireball, the car folding at its middle.

Dan checked the dirt track looking for movement but apart from the flickering flames nothing moved.

Dan left the rifle on the porch’s decking and pushed himself up on to his knees. He put a hand on the railing and eased himself to his feet. Dan pulled one of the Glocks from his shoulder rig. He stepped down from the porch, he could see the ridge still burning and out on the highway he saw fresh headlights nearing the turn-in. He turned back to pick up the rifle.

The first three rounds caught Dan between the shoulder-blades, the vest’s armour plating stopped the rounds from killing him, but the hits still hurt and their force sent him crashing forwards on to the steps.

Dan fought to get his breath and he managed to roll on to his left side.

The fourth round went in to the exposed flesh of his side, and as he fought to breathe Dan knew that the round had pierced his lung, he cried out and fell back on to his back.

The fifth round took him high in the right shoulder and his gun fell from his hand and Dan yelled out his anger and frustration.

The sixth and seventh shots slammed in to his chest and he felt ribs breaking beneath the impacts of bullet hitting steel plate.

Dan coughed up blood and he struggled to get at his remaining Glock. He didn’t have the strength and he heard two more shots, at first he couldn’t feel where they had hit him, then the screaming in his stomach started and he knew, that just like Chloe, he had been shot in the gut.

‘Motherfucker,’ he managed softly.

He lowered his good arm and his hand felt the tear in his abdomen low on the right-hand side. He felt lower until his fingers felt arterial blood spurting from high on his right thigh.

Dan knew that he was done, his femoral artery was pissing out blood like a broken fire hydrant.

Dan found himself starting to chuckle.

He pushed his fingers and thumb in to the wound in his thigh, he felt the artery spewing away his life, and he pinched the artery between his thumb and forefinger.

Dan had known pain over the years but this was like nothing that he could have ever imagined and it took all of his grit and determination to hold the artery clamped shut between his finger and thumb.

Before he died he wanted to look upon the man that had killed him. Dan slowly turned his face until he saw the short balding man in a silver shark skin suit step in to his field of vision.

Despite the excruciating pain Dan couldn’t help it and he began to laugh, each bawl of laughter sent lances of pain shooting through his body.

Dan began to cough, he spat blood, and finally he said, ‘I don’t believe it, I’ve been killed by a fucking mobster cliché.’

‘Laugh it up asshole,’ Baxter said. ‘I gotta admit you sure put on a show, damn when those trees went off I swear I pissed myself, do you know how much this suit cost me?’

Baxter was six feet away and he kept his pistol aimed firmly at Dan.

‘I guess you didn’t see me coming across the field, guess you were too fucking busy blowing up my fucking cars, my fucking men!’

Dan coughed up even more blood.

Not long now.

‘No, you got me,’ Dan croaked and then he smiled up at Baxter. ‘But I still get to see you die.’

‘Is that right asshole, you’re the one lying there in a pool of blood and piss with your guts hanging out.’

‘That’s a SigSauer P226,’ Dan said after another coughing fit.

‘Yeah so?’

‘Nine round clip.’

‘What?’ Baxter said.

Dan chuckled at the fear he heard in the man’s voice.

‘Nine shots asshole.’

Baxter laughed, ‘I got more clips and you ain’t doing shit.’

‘Not me...
her
!’ Dan managed to nod his head towards the long dirt track.

Baxter turned and he saw a pick-up bouncing up the dirt track, it was a hundred yards away and now he could hear the engine. He reached in to his pocket and found a spare clip.

Baxter released the empty clip and fumbled a fresh one in to the pistol’s grip. He pulled the slide back chambering a round and raised the pistol towards the pick-up.