Ramsey's Gold (Drake Ramsey Book 1) (12 page)

Drake and Allie nodded. Jack swallowed again. “All right. Go. Both of you. Now.”

Allie trotted to the rear of the house and Drake moved to the right side, where there were two windows. He could make out the vehicles in the moonlight, but nothing else.

They listened for any hint of movement, but didn’t hear anything. After a full two minutes of this, Jack lifted his rifle and stepped softly to the light switches. He took a deep breath and whispered again. “Here we go.”

The lights illuminated the exterior area of the house for roughly forty feet, and when Jack ducked back to the window, he saw a fleeting human shape running away into the gloom. His rifle sounded like a howitzer in the confined space of the house, the window pane shattered from the first shot, and he fired half his magazine into the night using controlled, steady bursts.

“See anything?” he called out after he’d finished shooting.

“Negative,” Allie said.

“No,” Drake replied.

“I spotted one. Looked like he was carrying a pistol.”

“Did you hit him?”

“Probably not, judging by how fast he was moving.”

“So what now?”

“Two choices. We stay put, call the cops, and hope they arrive before these guys take another run at us; or we make a break for the truck and get out of here.”

“What should we do?” Allie asked.

“I’d say go for the truck. Staying put, we’re sitting ducks. If they cut the power, we’re hosed, because then we’re stuck in the house without options. By the time the police could be out here, anything that could have happened already would have. And there would be a lot of questions I don’t feel much like answering – like what I’m doing with an automatic assault rifle.”

Drake nodded. “Fine. How do we do this?”

“I go first. If I make it to the cab, I’ll signal you, and then you come running and jump into the bed. Bring the guns. Anyone tries to follow, blow them to pieces.”

“Won’t they be waiting for us on the road?” Allie asked.

“If they are, they’re screwed. There’s a second gate about four miles through the property. It lets out on a completely different road. By the time they figure it out, we’re history.”

“And my car?”

“We can send someone for it once we’re safe.”

Allie nodded. “What if they shoot you?”

“Then you barricade the door, call the cops, and blast anything that moves. Besides, I’m betting they’re high-tailing their way out of here right now. If I was sneaking up on a house and encountered not just a tripwire but automatic weapons, I’d be out of there. I thought I caught the flash of a pistol in the light. If that’s all they’ve got, they’d be insane to try to take us on. Remember – they were thinking this would be easy, and now they’re in a war and completely outgunned. Same situation, I’d rather live to fight another day instead of doing a kamikaze run.”

Drake caught Allie’s eye. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

“That’s why I get the big bucks. Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll go to the kitchen door, and when I give the word, shut off the exterior lights. Then, when you hear the engine start, come running and jump into the truck bed. You hear any shooting, you stay put. Understand?”

“Yes,” Drake said from his position at the back of the house.

Allie nodded again. “Be careful.”

“All right. Here we go. Allie, you take the lights. On my signal.”

Jack backed away from the window and, once clear of it, moved quickly to the kitchen door. With a last look at the rear of the house, Allie hurried to the lights, and Drake crossed to where Jack was standing, peering out the glass in the door through a gap in the curtain. Jack reached down and twisted the deadbolt open, and then turned to Allie.

“Now.”

The lights extinguished, plunging the grounds into darkness. Jack swung the door open and stepped into the gloom, then bolted to the truck, which was twenty feet away. He scanned the area, confident that any watchers would be temporarily night blind from staring at the brightly lit house. With his free hand he pulled his keys from his jacket pocket and slid them into the door. The lock made a soft thunk as he opened it, and then he was in the cab, the overhead light having burned out long ago.

The engine started on the first try, a tribute to his regular meticulous maintenance, and then Allie and Drake were running for it. He felt their weight land in the bed, and at the second thunk, put the truck into reverse and accelerated toward the rear of the house.

Muzzle flashes exploded from near the barn, and a slug hit the front fender. Jack floored it, knowing that the more distance he gained, the harder he’d be to hit. He twisted the wheel and stood on the brakes, causing the big Chevy to pirouette on the loose dirt. When he’d spun 180 degrees, he slammed the shifter into drive and punched the gas again. The all-terrain tires gripped and the truck shot forward, but not before two rounds pounded into the tailgate. One punctured the rear of the cab, and Jack felt the burn of a bullet – a searing he knew too well. He reached down and felt his hip where the slug had gotten him, and when he brought his hand up, his fingers were shiny with blood. Ignoring the pain, he rolled his window down and called out.

“Anyone hit?”

Allie’s yelled “no” was immediately followed by Drake’s, and he exhaled a sigh of relief and illuminated his headlights, now far out of range of the pistols. The beams found the track, and he pulled onto the two ruts and gunned it for the far side of the property.

Every bounce felt like a hot poker to his hip as he watched in the rearview mirror for any signs of pursuit. He was just about convinced that they’d gotten clear when he saw a glint of moonlight off metal several hundred yards behind them. He sped up and dust flew up from the tires, leaving a thick cloud for the darkened chase vehicle to fight through.

Jack called out again, the wind whistling through the window. “Allie, we’ve got company. Get your shotgun ready. You too, Drake. If they get close, open up on them.”

“What?” Allie cried, unable to hear.

He slowed and repeated his instruction, and when she signaled she understood, sped up again.

Gunfire sounded from the pursuit car, the shots starbursting in the gloom, but nothing hit the truck. Allie sat up with her shotgun and fired at the pursuers, pumped the gun, and fired again. Drake wedged himself against the side of the bed and swung his weapon around and added his to the mix, the boom deafening as the big gun slammed into his shoulder.

More shots barked from the car, but farther back. Drake and Allie blasted away at the bright flashes, and then they saw the red glow of brake lights as the car slowed. Drake kept firing and had almost emptied his shotgun when Allie’s hand grabbed his shoulder.

“Save it. They’ve stopped. Either we hit them, or they decided this was a bad idea. In any case, we’re out of range now. If they come at us again, you’ll need the ammo.”

Drake was gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw hurt. He lowered the shotgun barrel and clicked the safety back on, his eyes never leaving the trail behind them, and stayed that way until they reached the far gate eight minutes later.

Jack pointed the hood at the wire fence and blew through it, and then they were on a gravel road, the more even surface feeling like ice after the jarring they’d received on the track. He accelerated to fifty and then sixty as he put distance between them and the shooters.

Two miles later he saw the intersection for the larger artery that would take them north to San Antonio or south to Corpus Christi. He probed his wound again and came away with more blood. Daring a glance down at the seat, he saw that the cloth next to him was stained red. He knew he’d need to get a dressing on sooner than later, and opted to head north.

Three miles beyond the junction he pulled into a bar parking lot, its life-size neon cowboy sign blinking a garish welcome, and eased to a stop. Allie and Drake hopped out of the bed, and Allie approached the driver’s side window as Drake moved along the passenger side.

“Why are we stopping here?” she asked, and stopped when she saw Jack’s drawn expression.

“I’m grazed. Doesn’t hurt too bad, but I need to get a look at it. See if you can find something we can fix a bandage out of, would you? Doesn’t have to be elegant, just functional.”

Drake opened the passenger side and stared at the blood. “Jesus. You’re hit…”

“Keep your voice down. I know I’m hit. Go inside and buy a bottle of the strongest booze they’ve got. Vodka, preferably. I’ll need to sterilize this.” Jack caught his look. “Drake, I’ll live. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Drake nodded and jogged to the bar entrance while Allie dug through the backpacks and extracted one of Jack’s white undershirts.

“Will this work?”

“Looks like it. We can stop at a drugstore once we’re in San Antonio. It’s only got to hold for an hour or so. Can you drive?”

“Of course I can. You’re the one who got shot.”

“Then I’ll slide over.”

“Okay.”

He took the shirt from her and moved to the center position on the bench seat and tried not to think about sitting in his own lifeblood. Drake returned with a bottle of rotgut vodka and handed it to him. Jack twisted the top off and poured the alcohol on his side, wincing as the vodka did its work, and then loosened his belt and slid the folded undershirt into place over the wound.

“There. That should do it,” he said. He pulled his belt free before re-strapping it around his upper waist so it would hold the shirt in place. “Let’s get moving.”

Drake had stepped away from the truck and was peering beneath it. When he returned to the passenger door, he had a grim expression.

“We’ve got a problem. A bullet must have hit the radiator. Looks like we’ve lost most of the coolant.”

Allie slid behind the wheel and looked at the dash. The temperature gauge was three-quarters to the red. She turned to look at Jack, who shrugged.

“We can stop and get more water later. Right now, keep the speed down and an eye on the gauge. It’s cool enough out that we should be able to make it. As long as it doesn’t get much hotter, we should be okay. But sitting here, it’s not getting any cold air blowing on it. Let’s go.”

Drake climbed in and shut the door after himself, trying to stay away from Jack so as not to jostle his wound. Allie reversed out of the lot and pulled off. San Antonio was a good hour away, assuming they made it.

Allie settled in at fifty, and the temperature needle crept upwards before stopping a few millimeters below the top of the range. Drake studied Jack’s profile and saw he was sweating in spite of the chill.

“I don’t understand one thing. How did they find us?” he asked.

Jack winced. “Do you have another cell phone you didn’t tell me about?”

“Of course not.”

“Damn. Then it must be Allie’s. I don’t have one. That’s the only possibility. Nobody knew where we were going. They must have put two and two together and somehow gotten hers. I should have thought of that.”

“They’re tracking my phone?” Allie asked.

“I think so, honey. Pull over.”

She did and raced around to the bed to retrieve her cell from her bag. When she had it, she returned to the cab and removed the battery. “What do I do now? Is this good enough?”

“Nope. Put it on the ground and run it over. And the first road we come to heading south? Take it. They’re tracking us, so they know we’re on this road. Probably thinking we’re headed to San Antonio. So now we’re not going to do that. We’ll head to Corpus. If necessary, we’ll hotwire a car to get there if the truck gives out.”

Drake could see the conflict in her eyes as she placed the phone on the asphalt and returned to her position behind the wheel. She pulled forward and heard a sickening crack as it shattered, and then the rear tire rolled over it. She braked and put the truck in neutral, and got out again to inspect her handiwork.

She was back in ten seconds. “It’s history.”

“Good girl. Now let’s make ourselves history as well.”

Back on the dark two-lane road, they came to an intersection and took a right, and found themselves driving through more farmland, the engine in the danger zone as they drove south. Drake looked through his window at the landscape moving by and considered that they’d crossed an important point of no return. There was no way to pretend that this was all a big mistake or that Jack had been unduly paranoid. The Russians were on their tail and wouldn’t stop until Drake had found the treasure, or died trying.

Which it would be was anyone’s guess. But he didn’t intend to go down without a fight.

They’d find he was tougher to take out than they’d assumed. He might not know everything there was about guns, but he’d dropped enough felons to feel confident in his abilities, and he could always learn to shoot better.

Now he just needed to figure out how to survive in a hostile jungle while looking for an impossible-to-find lost city, and he’d be golden.

He took another look at Jack and was glad the man was on his side.

Maybe they actually had a chance. Between the three of them, maybe it could be done.

He sighed, tired, the adrenaline burnt out of his system, nothing left but fatigue. He rubbed his eyes, and when he looked up again, he was no longer hesitant about what he was going to do.

If there actually was a Paititi, he’d figure out how to locate it, Russians or no Russians. He had the journal, so he had an edge, even if it was a slim one.

The question was whether it would be enough.

Chapter Fifteen

Vadim and Sasha trudged down the road, their rented sedan dead a mile behind them, the windshield shattered from a shotgun blast, the driver-side front tire flattened. Vadim’s face was bleeding from safety glass that had sprayed across his cheek, and Sasha had his tie wrapped around his left arm where he’d been nicked by a few shotgun pellets that had winged their way through the car.

“What now?” Sasha asked in gruff Russian, his breath steaming before him.

“We find a vehicle. We take it. Then we continue until successful,” Vadim said angrily. “What do you think we do?”

“I was thinking about how the girl’s phone stopped transmitting. Looks like they worked that one out.”