72 Hours (A Thriller) (12 page)

He dropped down off the top edge of a retaining wall that had been constructed to build up and level off the back lawn of a multimillion dollar estate.
 
The terrain extending out beyond the retaining wall into the woods was much more rugged.
 
Trees were uprooted and boulders had been plowed up out of the earth and lay exposed.
 
Remnants of the days when the land had been razed to create space for development.
 
Archer made his way through the wrecked timber and the debris field of massive rocks.

He ducked behind a curtain of foliage as he heard heavy footsteps tromping through the nearby underbrush.
 
Moonlight streamed through the treetop canopy.
 
Archer saw movement.
 
He readied the knife.
 
A shape moved between trees.
 
Archer’s vision had acclimated to the darkness well enough for him to clearly make out a human form.
 
The man was angling across his path, making an effort to move stealthily but failing miserably.

Archer silently lifted his foot and took a long stride forward, reducing the distance between them by half.
 
The guy pushed past vines and saplings, snapping twigs and leafy plants underfoot.
 
Archer could hear the man’s heavy breathing.

Archer pounced like a leopard, taking the man off his feet with a leg sweep and catching him from the opposite direction with an elbow driven into the soft flesh beneath his chin.
 
The only sounds were a gush of air and the impact of the body with the forest floor.
 
Then Archer was on top of him, hand to his throat, the blade of the knife held to the bridge of his nose.

Archer squinted in the dim moonlight.
 
He saw no weapon.
 
Only a camera strung from the man’s neck.

Soji blinked away sweat and stared wide-eyed up at the man who had blindsided him.
 
He was convinced he was about to die and couldn’t believe this was how it would all end.
 
But instead of cutting his throat from ear to ear, the man clubbed him with a backhanded fist, and Soji’s world went black.

A minute later, Archer came to the lip of a steep clay embankment.
 
The ground at the edge of the slope was dry and brittle.
 
It sloped dramatically down and away.
 
This was the ravine.
 

Through the darkness and gloom he could make out only vague dark shapes and silhouettes.
 
There were fallen trees, their root systems upturned and thick with dirt clods.
 
Dead, dry vegetation sprouted at random from the clay embankment.

Archer sent a call to Lindsay’s cell.

She answered, “Mr. Archer?”

“I’m above the ravine.
 
Do you see me?”

“I think so.
 
I think I see someone.
 
Maybe raise an arm over your head.”

Archer lifted his left hand, waved it side to side.

“Yes, I definitely see you,” she sighed with relief.

“Good.
 
Now, help me locate you.”

“I’m on the opposite side.
 
About fifty feet to your left,” she whispered.

He squinted in the darkness, studying the opposite slope of the ravine.
 
Then he saw a flash of movement and was able to pick out the vague human forms of mother and daughter huddled together.
 
He had found them.
 
And for the moment at least, they were alive.

CHAPTER 29

Falling into the ravine had probably saved their lives.
 
The sides were steep.
 
The footing treacherous.
 
Tough to get down.
 
Nearly impossible to climb back up.
 
The roving bands of thugs would have come right up to the edge, taken a good long look, then turned away to search elsewhere.
 
A few might have tumbled in, then quickly scrambled back up one side or the other.
 
But by some stroke of incredible fortune, no one had noticed Lindsay or Ramey clinging to a sturdy sapling that had grown up through the hardened clay.
 
They hunkered together, partially camouflaged by the brittle, barren skeletal structure of a dead bush.

Archer dropped down on his hip and made a controlled slide down the slope.
 
Dust kicked up and the brush among the undergrowth rattled and crunched.
 
It was even steeper than he had estimated.
 
He reached the bottom and crossed to where he was looking up at them.
 
He began clawing his way toward them.

A small white face glanced up at him from a tangle of brush.
 
Wyatt had come to rest two-thirds of the way down the slope, his fall arrested by the dense foliage.
 
He looked terrified the way any twelve-year-old would in his shoes.

“You OK?” Archer whispered.

Wyatt swallowed.
 
Trembling.
 
Then he nodded, “Yeah.
 
Just all scratched up.”

“I’m going to get you out of here.
 
All three of you.
 
Okay?”

Wyatt nodded.
 

Archer could hear shouting in the near distance and plenty of commotion.
 
There wasn’t much time.

“Let’s get you on your feet.
 
We’ve got to hurry.”

Archer grabbed the boy under the arm and lifted him out of the brush.
 
Wyatt was covered in dirt and leaves.
 
He was trembling.

“Thanks,” Wyatt said.

“Stay here and keep out of sight,” Archer told him.
 
“I’m going to climb up to your mother and sister.”

Wyatt nodded, then obediently shrank away into the shadows as best he could, watching as Archer clawed his way up the slope of dirt and roots.

Archer shoved the Beretta down the back of his pants so he could work with both hands and angled up the slope toward them.

He was within arm’s reach when they heard heavy footfalls pounding through the trees above them.
 
Archer had one hand clasped around a thick, partially exposed root, and he froze. The footfalls hurried closer, the sounds of men rushing to the edge of the ravine.

Archer was in a precarious position, clinging to the tree root with one hand, the toes of his shoes digging into in the clay of the steep slope.
 
With his free hand he grabbed for the Beretta.
 
Sweat trickled into the corner of one eye.
 
He raised the gun above his head, sighting it along the lip of the ravine, waiting.

Suddenly they appeared.
 
Four men, halting at the edge, breathing hard.
 
Small men.
 
Short and slender.
 
Young, barely out of their teens.
 
At least one of them carrying a gun.
 

The man with the gun spotted Archer.
 
Raised his arm to aim, but too late.

Archer put two rounds in his forehead without hesitation.
 

The man folded to his knees and them tumbled over the edge of the ravine, sliding headfirst halfway down the slope before some part of his body snagged on a natural formation protruding from the clay.

The Beretta ejected the 9mm shell casing, and within a fraction of a second Archer had aligned the sights on the next man in line.
 
No time to think or assess.
 
He pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 30

The gun bucked.
 
The blast caught the second man in the chest and punched him onto his back.
 
The remaining two thugs turned to run.
 
Archer fired two more shots but heard the frantic sounds of both survivors retreating into the night.

The four shots sounded like enormous explosions in the dark amphitheater formed by the slopes.
 
Both mother and daughter flinched, losing their hold and coming loose, sliding on their backsides past Archer to the floor of the ravine.
 
Archer turned and followed them down.

“Can everyone walk?” he said without preamble.

They nodded.

He glanced up one end of the ravine, then down the other.
 
North or south?
 
He had to make a choice.
 

Archer pointed north.
 
“That way.
 
Go!”

They moved single file along the trough at the bottom of the ravine.
 
The ravine was a fold in the mountain between two ridges.
 
Archer knew it would wind around through the hills for a good distance and eventually spit them out at a road.
 
They would follow it for as long as they could.
 
Like tunneling to freedom.

They ran as best they could.
 
Tripping, stumbling blindly through the near total darkness.
 
A massive fallen tree blocked the path.
 
Roots upturned from the earth on one end, a sprawl of dead branches on the other.
 
Archer had no real idea how far they had traveled on foot, or how much distance they had put between themselves and the mob.
 
Then he heard the sounds of voices.
 
The mob was coming.

Archer assessed the fallen tree.
 

“Kids, can you go under?” he asked, kneeling to clear away leafy clutter from beneath the trunk.
 
There was a maximum of ten inches of clearance.

Wyatt didn’t hesitate.
 
He fell flat on his belly and began squirming his way to the other side.
 

“Don’t get stuck, sweetie,” Lindsay called after him.

They could hear him grunting.

Archer turned to Ramey.
 
“You’re next.”

She nodded at him.
 

A moment later Wyatt called to them from the other side, “We both made it.”

Archer turned to Lindsay.
 
“Up you go,” he said.
 
He formed a stirrup with his hands and she stepped into it.
 
Then he hoisted her up.

The girth of the trunk was broad.
 
It felt solid and abrasive against her bare arms and her exposed midriff where her blouse hiked up.
 
She struggled for a handhold, her fingertips digging into the dry, dead bark.
 
She clawed her way to the top, boosting herself beyond Archer’s reach.
 
Then she eased down the other side and dropped to the ground.
 

Archer called to them.
 
“Get moving.
 
I’ll catch up.”

They didn’t argue.

He turned and saw dark silhouettes looming at a bend in the channel.
 
He wouldn’t know how many of them there were until it was too late.
 
He couldn’t take on more than a handful at a time with just the Beretta, and yet if he got caught as he was crossing over the tree he’d be too exposed and he’d be a dead man.
 
A decision had to be made.

He backtracked about forty feet and took shelter beside a partially exposed boulder on the east side slope of the ravine.
 
He had to lie on his back with his head flat against the slope to not be seen.
 
He lay with his legs apart, holding the Beretta with both hands at his crotch.
 
Sweat dripped from his chin to his chest.
 
All he could do was let them come to him.

They reached the fallen tree and immediately began searching for a quick route to circumvent it.
 
Archer had little more than silhouettes for targets.
 
He aligned his sights on the midsection of the silhouette nearest him.
 
Then he fired.

The first man dropped and Archer pivoted a fraction of an inch and continued right down the line, taking them out like metal cutouts at a practice range.
 
The muzzle flashes from the barrel of the Beretta lit up the darkness like lightening.
 
Archer ripped off four shots and dropped the first four targets without flaw.
 
Then the remaining men made a desperate scramble to scatter.
 

Archer continued to fire.
 
The Beretta bucked in his hands.
 
In the darkness, one of the rounds caught a thug at the base of the skull as he ran, exploding vertebrae at the top of his spine.
 
He folded to the ground like a rag doll.

The remaining two attempted to return fire with a large caliber handgun and a shotgun, fired haphazardly, aimed nowhere near Archer’s position.

The muzzle flash from the shotgun provided Archer with a nice target.
 
He leveled the Beretta and fired twice.
 
The thug took a 9mm round in the upper chest, shattering his breastplate, and the second took one in the throat.