The Ninth Day (10 page)

Emma shrugged. “There are too many cameras to allow me to slink away unnoticed. Even if I could quietly disable one, they would be alerted once it went off line. Blowing it up has the same effect. The key point is that they won’t see the crucial information, which is the direction I take over the fence.”

“That will never work,” Oz said.

Emma put her hands out. “It’s all I’ve got.”

“I have a better idea.”

Emma paused. “And that would be?”

“I’ll block the camera. Hijack its frequency and play them a fake tape. You can leave from the ranch, and they’ll never see you go, because they’ll be otherwise occupied.” He hoisted the bag off his hip to show her. “I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I’m pretty sure it will work. I have everything I need to do it right here.” Emma walked over and flipped the top off the bag to peer inside. What looked like a metal laptop was all she saw.

“That’s all it takes to block the cameras?”

Oz shook his head. “Not
all
of the cameras, just those that sit within twenty or thirty feet of where I place this, so you’ll have to pick your location wisely.”

“Let’s get to the ranch. We can try it there.”

“After you,” he said. They walked toward the parking lot where the ever-present white van sat, as well as Oz’s motorcycle. He climbed on and she moved behind him. More shrieks came from the pool.

“Think they’ll notice the sound of the engine?” Emma asked.

“Doubtful. They’re pretty far into party mode now.”

They headed to the ranch, the darkness broken only by the flickering headlight. They made it to the carport and killed the engine. A camera placed high at the ranch house’s corner glowed red, but it was pointed away from them.

“Ready?” Oz said.

Emma nodded. “You have no idea how ready.”

“Then let’s go.” Oz reached into the messenger bag and pulled out a small, portable DVD player and his laptop computer. He connected the two, turned on the DVD and waited. The screen sprang to life, and showed an image of the ranch house’s yard. The only movement was the flitting of insects as they shot through the glow thrown by a lit porch light. Oz pointed at the screen.

“That’s what the guards are seeing right now. I’ve rigged the player to send a wireless signal, and I’ve set it to use the same frequency as the security cameras.”

“Where did you get this?” Emma said.

Oz smiled. “I asked Serena if she had any portable DVD players. Told her I wanted one for my room to watch a movie. She gave this to me, and offered some discs from La Valle’s personal collection.”

“Does this mean that if I walk across the lawn, they won’t see my image, but just this?”

Emma pointed at the screen.

“No. That’s live. If you walk into the frame, they’ll see you do it. Once I start the player, the movie will play and the security cameras will pick up that image instead of the yard.”

“Are you sure?”

Oz nodded. “You’ve heard of people in a neighborhood who have their baby monitors set to the same frequency? One picks up the signal from the other’s house and, bingo, you get an image of whatever the other monitor is viewing. This,” he indicated the player, “is going to do the same thing. Except they won’t see the interior of a room, they’ll be seeing the movie.”

“What did you pick?”

Oz gave her a sly grin. “La Valle had an extensive porn collection. I figured once they saw it, they wouldn’t be in any great hurry to run out and stop it.”

Emma laughed. “That’s brilliant.”

Oz nodded. “I hope so.” He sobered. “When do you want to leave?”

Emma took a deep breath. She put a hand on his arm. “If I make it to the village, I’ll call for backup. Just stay out of sight as much as you can until they arrive.”

Oz nodded. “I can’t wait.”

She jerked her chin at the player. “Hit it.”

Oz pushed “play.”

The image of a writhing couple came into view on the screen. Emma didn’t stay to watch, she inhaled and took off running.

Chapter 13

E
mma sprinted into the yard and ran across the lawn, heading to the fence. A quick glance at the camera on the pole showed that the red light still glowed. She felt her heart skip a beat, but she ignored the fear that wanted to grab at her. She could only trust that Oz’s plan was working and the guards were seeing the couple, not her.

She leaped onto the lowest rail, threw her leg over, landed on the other side, and dug her heels into the ground to catapult herself forward. She stumbled once when her foot dropped into a small depression in the ground, but recovered her balance and kept going, dodging brush and cactus on one side, and darting through a small stand of trees. The moon glow was weak and nowhere near enough to reveal every little divot or hole, but enough to allow her to dodge larger obstacles. Once she cleared the trees she picked up the pace to a speed that felt faster than her familiar training pace. A large beetle of some sort, like a June bug, smacked into her cheek. She did her best to ignore it.

The first hill loomed ahead. Emma glanced right and left, looking for a cut through, but the hill face extended on both sides as far as she could see. The ground rose straight up, starting at a forty-five-degree angle, but rising to a nearly sixty-degree angle at the top, with no visible trail. Shrubs, a few cactus, and a couple of meager trees dotted the hillside, but she would be exposed for the duration of the climb. Loose gravel, larger rocks, and deep, soft dirt covered the ground, providing no real footing. Her feet sank into the loose topsoil and skittered downward before she was able to dig the tips of her shoes into a small depression. She continued upward, and began to feel the burn in her calves as they took the brunt of her weight at the canted angle. On the next step her treads failed to grab and she slid downward three feet. She leaned forward and kept going. The climb grew steeper, but she kept the pace, hustling up the hill.

An alarm rose through the night. Emma looked back, dismayed to see the large, circling spotlight flash in the distance. La Valle’s men were well trained. She’d only gained fifteen minutes at the most. She started calculating the time it would take for them to reach the foothill. In a Jeep, five minutes, maybe ten, maximum. While they’d have to stop at the base, they could simply look up and see her making the climb. With a decent rifle they’d pick her off. She needed to get to the top and over before they made it there.

On a horse it would be a bit longer, because they’d need to saddle up before riding out. That would chew up at least twenty minutes, and then it would take ten more to make it to the base of the hill. Better for her initially, because she would be over the top before they got there and out of rifle range, but worse in the long run, because they would continue their pursuit. Her heart pounded in a fast rhythm—equal parts exertion and fear. She was closing in on the summit, and slowed to a climbing pace as the angle steepened. She pushed with her feet and clawed with her hands, inching her way higher. She heard the sound of an engine rising and then cutting out when it bounced into the air and presumed it was a Jeep or all-terrain vehicle lurching over the small hills that dotted the area before the massive rise.

She didn’t look back, didn’t waste the time. She propelled herself upward even faster, her legs burning with the exertion. Now the angle was such that she could grab at the brush with her hands while staying relatively upright. Her left shoe lost traction and she went down on one knee, banging her kneecap onto a small stone. She winced at the sharp pain, but straightened out and kept moving.

She was ten feet from the peak. The engine noise filled the air. She glanced back to see the headlights bouncing, thirty feet from the hill’s base. It was an ATV, with an open carriage, a roll bar and two passengers. One held a gun with its butt on his thigh and the long muzzle pointed to the sky. The noise stopped. Now it comes, Emma thought. She strained up, only three feet from the summit. She flung herself to the side, straight left. A rifle shot cracked through the air and bits of dust from a hit only two feet away flew into her face. She propelled herself upward, uncoiling in an explosive push the final two feet, and crawled over the ridge.

She was back on her feet and racing down, now reversing her weight distribution so that she leaned back into, rather than away from, the hill. The pounding on her shins increased threefold, as she slammed downward with both her weight and the force of gravity, but she’d trained enough to know that her legs would survive it. She reached the bottom in half the time it took for her to climb to the top. At the base the ground leveled out. The next hill sat over three hundred yards ahead, and she began to sprint toward it. No sound came from behind her.

She pushed her speed up a notch, racing over the uneven ground and up and down two small rises before she pulled her compass out of her pocket and pressed on the glow button to check her direction. She was running dead south. Right where she wanted to be.

She heard nothing behind her. Not the sound of alarms, motor engines, yells, or even other animal calls—only the crunching noise made by her shoes as they hit the dirt and stones in a rhythmic cadence. Her breathing evened and she felt her body settle in. This was the best part of a run, when everything functioned as a unit. She knew that any minute a feeling of well-being would wash over her, and her mind would detach and grow peaceful as though she was meditating. In her current state of conditioning, she could maintain this pace and feeling of ease for the next two hours.

The clouds scudded across the sky, and the moonlight bathed the area. Emma dodged a small cactus with only inches to spare. The light stayed constant. Another bug hit her face, and the crunching noise of her footfalls continued. Small potholes and divots covered the ground. If the guards reverted to horseback they would be required to go slowly on the flats in order to avoid having the animal step directly into a hole. Emma doubted any rider would simply race an animal over the terrain. The odds of the horse landing in a depression and snapping a leg were too high. Emma stumbled, regained her footing, and barreled to the next hill, powering into the rise. This one remained at a steady climb the entire way up, and she was at the peak and over with much less exertion. Still, she heard nothing more behind her. My God, could it be this easy? she thought.

She ran for forty-five minutes, scrambling over each hill and running flat out over the fields. After another twenty minutes she saw the occasional light from a farmhouse. In the distance in front of her the village’s clustered buildings were pinpoints, growing larger. It was nestled in a slight valley, and Emma was on the rise above it, and able to see the boundary lines where the houses began in earnest. Now other noises mingled with the sounds she was making. Out of the darkness came the sharp report of a gunshot.

Emma’s heart skipped and she felt her nerves jangle to the fore. She snapped to attention and raised her speed a notch. Her arms pumped faster and her breathing labored for a minute. Once again it evened out as her body settled into this new, faster pace. She strained to hear above the noise she made as she ran, doing her best to pick up all ambient sound that might indicate pursuit. There came another shot. This time it was clear. It came not from behind her, Emma was sure, but from the direction of the town in front of her. She slowed for the first time in an hour. Several more shots rang out, followed by the boom of an explosion. Emma saw a flash of fire. The village was under attack.

She heard a mixture of voices and screaming from the area in front of her, the sound carrying on the wind, but still faint in the distance. She kept running forward, but now she wasn’t sure what to do. Her original plan had been to find the nearest bar, ask to use the phone, and call Banner, the one man she knew could mobilize a crew to assist her. She hadn’t counted on running into hell.

Another explosion ripped through the night, and to Emma it felt as though the earth shivered with the impact. This time she saw the fire leap up into the air along with flying clods of dirt and what looked like cement from a building. She could see forms fleeing, their shadows lit by the flames. The rattling report of a semiautomatic gun firing round after round cracked through the air. Sweat from her armpits ran in rivulets down her arms, not so much from the exertion, but from the fear.

She hit an asphalt road and turned onto it, notching her stride up a bit now that she knew she was unlikely to trip on a small hole. The gunshots continued, both in front of her and to her right. She veered left, and back off the asphalt, hoping that direction held more security for her.

Another road appeared, this one running perpendicular to the first, and she stepped onto it. More gunshots, but this time it sounded like the shooter was to her right. She kept on the road, and again picked up her pace, taking advantage of the even terrain. She hoped to be on the other side of town before whoever was shooting decided to expand their horizons and turn her way.

What worried her the most was the complete lack of vehicles on the streets. It was as if the townspeople were already dead. The gunshots continued in earnest, with so many reports that it was clear there were several shooters. The screams were increasing as well. Emma could hear the guttural voices of men, whether the shooters or some other people, she couldn’t tell. Two more explosions rocked the town, the second spewing bits of boards into the air. Now Emma could see a few people running, darting out from between the houses and racing down the road.