Authors: Jason Elam
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 6:45 P.M. MDT SILVERTHORNE, COLORADO
Riley leaned over Khadi’s shoulder. It was all he could do to put the scent of her hair—a fragrance reminiscent of sipping
piña coladas on a Hawaiian beach—out of his mind and focus on the monitor.
Khadi was saying, “You can see here our four quadrants—two at the rear of the cabin and one on each side. Right now it’s just
set up for standard view, but if you flick this switch here, the cameras switch to night vision.”
The blind spots behind and on either side of the cabin had been the biggest concerns for Riley and Skeeter. They had the trip
flares set up, as well as motion detectors. But without a visual, they were still flying blind. Skeeter had had the good sense
to mention that concern to Khadi before she came up. And Khadi had had the good sense to bring up a duffel bag with a monitor,
four cameras, and a lot of cable.
It had taken since yesterday afternoon to finally work all the bugs out of the system, but now the team was able to see all
around the cabin. “Excellent, Khadi. Thanks.”
Khadi turned to Riley. The proximity of their faces made it hard for him to hear her words. “So, does that mean you’re glad
I came?”
There was an earnestness in her eyes that made Riley settle himself back into his chair. He and Khadi had been avoiding any
real conversation since she had gotten here. The full impact of missing his dad’s funeral on Tuesday had really hit him hard
yesterday. That, combined with the ambiguous nature of their relationship, had left both Riley and Khadi walking on eggshells.
Looks like one of those
shells is about to crack.
“You know I was glad to see you.”
Khadi’s humorless chuckle made it clear that she knew no such thing. “You picked a heck of a way to show it.”
“Come on, Khadi, you know it’s . . . complicated. Any minute now we could be attacked by people wanting to kill me.” Glancing
at her shoulder, where he knew below the thin, black, cotton T-shirt was an ugly scar less than six months old, he said, “I’ve
already seen you become collateral damage once for helping me out. I’d never forgive myself if that happened again. And then
there’s that other stuff. . . .” Riley could tell by the way she looked to the floor that she knew exactly what he meant.
“Right, the ‘other stuff,’” she said quietly. “You know, if there was one thing I wish I could take back, it would be that
‘other stuff.’”
“Yeah, but it’s not that easy. Besides, it’s more than just what happened at the coffeehouse. It’s the whole situation. You
deserve more than to spend your life holding on to a relationship that we both know can never be. You know that I am so convinced
of my Christianity that I will never change. And you . . .”
Now Khadi looked up and said with simulated bravado, “And I . . . I am a Muslim. It is what I was born; it is what I live;
it is what I will die.” Khadi shook her head and softened her voice. “I know all that, Riley.” Reaching over to take Riley’s
hand in hers, she continued, “I also know that since I’ve met you, my life has changed. I’m different—better. I’ve never met
another man like you, a man for whom I’d willingly lay down my life. I guess what I’m saying is that I can’t imagine going
through life without you being part of it. And . . . I just need to know if you feel the same way.”
Riley’s heart started racing, and a light sweat broke out on his forehead. He had never had a woman talk to him like this
before.
What do I say to her? She is the perfect woman, except . . .
Is that
‘
except’
really enough to keep us apart? Can I really go on
denying my feelings for her? Lord, do You really want us apart? I mean,
it’s
possible that I could be reading Your Word completely wrong,
isn’t
it?
Or am I now just trying to find a way to justify what my
heart’s
telling
me to do? I just have a hard time believing that You would have brought
this incredible woman into my life, only to force me to keep her at
arm’s
length.
Look at her, Riley. This strong woman is placing her life in your hands.
What are you going to say to her? Whatever it is, you better make it good,
because whatever you decide will probably determine your relationship
from here on out.
Riley reached out and lifted Khadi’s face. Her damp brown eyes were filled with hope and fear. At that moment, Riley couldn’t
imagine not staring into those eyes for the rest of his life. He placed his hand on her cheek and said, “Khadi, you know I’m
not good at expressing my feelings.” He let out a long sigh. “But if anything happens to me up here, you need to know that
I . . . I . . . I don’t hear the dog.”
“What?” Khadi looked totally confused as Riley quickly stood up.
“I don’t hear the dog! Come on,” he yelled as he grabbed his Tavor and ran toward the front door and Skeeter. “Skeet, what’s
up with the dog?”
“The thing stopped barking about a minute ago—real abrupt-like.”
“The dog is a little under a quarter mile straight out the door, so that puts at least part of the assault team to our front,”
Khadi said, finally catching up.
As if to confirm Khadi’s point, one, two, three trip flares suddenly launched fifty yards from the front of the cabin and
shot into the sky.
“Skeeter, go back and make sure the rear of the cabin is locked up. Khadi, see if you can pick up anything on the monitors.
Go!”
While Skeeter and Khadi ran off, Riley threw the chair away from the front window, squatted down, and tried to pick up any
movement outside.
Abdullah Muhammad almost lost his step when the ground abruptly slanted. However, he had been over the path he was running
so many times now that he was able to catch himself and continue forward.
The last thing he had needed was that dog breaking free and getting mixed up in everything. Putting a silenced round from
his sniper rifle into the Rottweiler—that obnoxious creature that had been the bane of his existence for the last four days—had
been one of the most satisfying moments since this whole crazy second life had begun. However, he fully expected that satisfaction
to be eclipsed in the next ten minutes when he saw Riley Covington stretched out on the ground.
Coming upon a tree to which he had tied a red ribbon, Abdullah cut left. He kept running. Everything was about timing now.
The Cause had been able to give him all the money and weapons he needed. What they couldn’t supply him with were more people.
“You have shown yourself to be a creative and resourceful warrior. You can figure out how to kidnap one man,” they had told
him.
Stupid
fools! What I needed was cannon fodder to draw fire while I snatched
up the football hero.
Instead, Abdullah had spent three days plotting and planning—trying to find just the right moment to kill the big bodyguard
and capture Riley. Unfortunately, the right opportunity had never come, and now the woman was with them.
Well, if capturing Riley for your
little propaganda videos was Plan A, unfortunately for you, I have moved
on to Plan
B—
kill them all!
There was a Plan C, but Abdullah hoped he didn’t need to go there. Too much risk and not enough control made that a less desirable
option in his mind.
So make this happen!
You’ve
been watching;
you know their defenses! There may be three of them, but
you’ve
got the
upper hand! The timing is
perfect—
twilight, when the shadows are long,
making your camouflage most effective and their night vision useless. And
the plan is
perfect—
pick them off one by one. This is your day; take it!
Another red ribbon told Abdullah he was fifty yards from the back of the house. He carefully stepped over the wire for the
trip flare and crouched down. Slowly, he made his approach.
As he neared the tree line, he looked at his watch.
3-2-1-NOW!
On the opposite side of the property from where he waited, an alarm clock told a small motor to begin whirring. The motor
was nailed to a tree and had a narrow metal rod sticking out from it. The rod began to spin, taking up the slack on three
thin wires. As the wires grew taut, they pulled the trip lines that they had been attached to, sending three flares up into
the evening sky.
As soon as they launched, Abdullah ran forward toward the back of the cabin. He had one chance to get this right. As he reached
the rear deck, he pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and threw it through the kitchen window. He bolted back to the tree
line, then made his way around to the front—to the perfect hiding place from which he could drop the inhabitants of the house
one at a time as they escaped the soon-to-be-burning cabin.
Riley heard breaking glass from the rear of the cabin. Skeeter yelled, “Willy Pete!” Then he cried out in pain. Instantly,
Riley was up and running toward the kitchen.
“Khadi, cover the front!”
“Willy Pete? Who’s Willy Pete?” Khadi asked as the two passed.
Riley kept moving but called out, “It’s a white phosphorus grenade! It means that this cabin is going to be in flames in about
ten minutes at the most!” Riley was all too familiar with white phosphorus, an agent useful because of its incredible ability
to burn, from his time in the military. He knew the moment the WP contacted air, the chemicals would burn at 5000 degrees
Fahrenheit, igniting and melting through anything it came into contact with.
Riley was almost at the kitchen when Skeeter came running out. He was holding his smoking left arm out in front of him. “Pach!”
he called.
Instinctively, Riley pulled his long knife out of its belt sheath. He grabbed Skeeter’s arm and slammed it down on the dining
table. In the middle of the man’s dark forearm Riley spotted what he was afraid he’d find—a glowing dime-sized hole with smoke
spiraling out of it. “Hold on,” he said to Skeeter as he took his knife and sliced a three-inch chunk of flesh out of his
friend’s arm.
“Argh!” Skeeter swung with his other hand, shattering the back of a dining chair.
Riley closely examined where he had pulled the deep plug out of Skeeter’s skin, looking for smoke. He knew that if any of
the WP was still in there, it would continue burning all the way through the bone.
Satisfied, he said, “Sorry, bro,” as he snatched a cream-colored fabric placemat off the table and tied it around Skeeter’s
arm. The blood immediately soaked through.
Riley could smell the hot, dense smoke of the WP that was starting to fill the cabin, but the cloud was beginning to take
on a new odor—burning wood. He didn’t dare go look at what was happening in the kitchen—one look at the bright glare of the
shell could permanently damage his retinas. The only escape was out the front of the cabin. He took hold of his friend’s sweating
face and said, “Focus, man! You in the game?”
Skeeter’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and Riley could see the anger in them.
Riley gave him a slap on the cheek and said, “Let’s do this!” The two men ran together to the front of the house.
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 7:07 P.M. MDT SILVERTHORNE, COLORADO
Abdullah used a rope to pull himself into the tree. Once up, he settled into a crook between two large branches. His sniper
rifle was strapped to his back. He pulled it off and pressed his eye to the scope.
Scanning the cabin, he could see smoke beginning to pour from the rear windows to his left. However, there was still no sign
of movement to the front.
They’ll
come; just be patient. They
don’t
have another option.
Suddenly, the front door swung open. Abdullah’s trigger finger twitched, but he stopped himself from pulling back. Then the
windows from the rooms on either side of the door shattered. The front door was right in the middle of the crosshairs on Abdullah’s
sight.
What are you doing,
Covington? Come on, let me see your face.
I’ve
got a
little present for
you—
your girlfriend and your houseboy,
too. You know
you’ve
got to come out, so
just—
A shape flashed across his sight. He pulled the trigger but saw only wood from the doorframe splinter. Immediately, gunfire
fanned from the two windows, but Abdullah didn’t worry about it. He knew he was too high and at too extreme an angle to get
hit by the cover fire.
Looking up from his sight, he saw Riley running full speed up the steep incline of the driveway. Cursing, Abdullah spun the
rifle to the right and began firing. Riley dove to the ground, rolled, and then popped back up and continued his flight. Abdullah
could see his shots kicking up asphalt and dirt as Riley juked and dodged his way to the dirt road and into the woods beyond.
No! It
wasn’t
supposed to happen this way!
Abdullah thought as he slid down the rope and onto the ground. His M16A4 was propped against a tree. He grabbed it and began
running along a path parallel to Riley’s, still keeping himself well inside the woods.
Well, not to
worry. This is how I wanted it from the beginning.
It’s
one-on-one now,
Covington, and you are overmatched!
The last time Riley could remember running this fast was after an interception against the Bay Area Bandits. Unfortunately,
the enemy now was much more dangerous than some adrenaline-hyped fullback.
Where’s
the bullet going to hit? Will it be a body shot, so I can feel
my insides scrambling? Or maybe a leg, dropping me so someone can come
up and finish me off at close range?
While those thoughts were going through his brain, the same words were coming out of his mouth over and over again: “Lord,
help me! Lord, help me! Lord, help me! Lord, help me!”
Khadi and Skeeter had fought his plan. “It’s a suicide mission and you know it!” Khadi had argued.
“Man, you don’t even know where the
hajjis
are. You could be running right into them,” Skeeter pointed out.
“That’s if you even make it that far! Right now, every gun is pointed right at this door. They’re just waiting for us to come
out.”
“That’s what’s going to make this work,” Riley said, sounding confident, but only half-believing his words. But the phrase
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” kept running through his mind, and he knew
he had no choice.
Lord, take me if You have to,
he had prayed,
just let me save my friends.
“They’re expecting us to come straight out, guns blazing! But if you guys give cover fire while I go out full-bore on a diagonal,
I just might make it to the woods.”
“‘Just might’ is not good enough,” Khadi had said.
“It’s the best we have. Listen, Khadi, in ten minutes this whole cabin will be burning. I’m not thrilled about this. But I’m
the one they want. If they see me go, hopefully they’ll come after me. That gives you two a fighting chance of getting out
of this. If we just do what they’re expecting, I think we’re all dead.” Turning to Skeeter, Riley said, “You understand me,
don’t you?”
Skeeter nodded his agreement, but there was still rage in his eyes. “Yeah, I hear you.”
Riley turned back to Khadi. “I’ve made my decision. It’s how it’s going to be.” Then he put his hand around the back of Khadi’s
neck. “I’m going to make it, Khadi. I have to; we’ve got a conversation we need to finish.”
Thirty seconds later, Riley was running out the front door into the great unknown.
What was I thinking?
he asked himself now as he jumped a fallen tree. Once he made it into the woods, he realized he had no idea where he was going;
all he knew was that he was trying to get there fast.
Truth be known, he hadn’t really expected to make it this far. Any moment now he expected to see some Middle Eastern guy jump
from behind a rock or an old tree stump and finish him off. But so far there was no one.
Just as he was feeling like his plan might work after all and he could disappear into the trees, his foot caught something
and he flew to the ground. Fifteen feet to his right, a flare shot into the air. “Oh, come on! What are the odds?” he said
disgustedly as he jumped up and began running again.
Suddenly, wood from the trees around him began splintering up into his face. He could feel blood beginning to trickle down
below his right ear. “Lord, help me!”
Just when Abdullah thought he had lost Riley, the flare went off. A smile spread across the assassin’s face. He cut left and
soon saw his quarry. Having abandoned his rifle back at the tree, Abdullah let loose with his assault weapon. Covington kept
running.
They were going downhill now, both trying to keep their footing while running full-speed. Every ten seconds or so, Abdullah
let off another burst.
If I could just get him on level ground!
The rough terrain was causing him to shake so much that he knew he could never hope to catch Riley with anything but a lucky
shot. Time passed, and still Covington kept running.
Up ahead through the trees, Abdullah could see they were coming to another dirt road.
Perfect!
That’ll
give me a flat place to stop and
get a clean shot in.
But then Riley did something unexpected. He burst through the tree line, jumped feetfirst as he reached the other side of
the road, spun, and opened fire. Abdullah dove for a tree, hitting it with the full force of his speeding body. Something
snapped in his side. More bullets whistled around him, forcing him to lie flat. When the firing stopped, he looked up to see
Riley back on his feet and running away.
No!
Abdullah tried to get up, but his broken ribs weren’t the only damage. Pain screamed from his right calf, and when he looked
down he could see blood soaking through his pant leg. He again tried to get up, but then dropped himself. Pine needles poked
the back of his neck, and the scent of earth filled his senses.
Conserve your energy,
he thought.
You’ve
got a long hike ahead to your car.
You’ll
still get him.
Remember,
there’s
always Plan C.
Reaching into his pocket, Abdullah pulled out an orange prescription bottle and dropped six Percocets into his mouth.
Just ride
the wave. Soon enough,
you’ll
be good to go.
Abdullah lay back while his brain turned off his pain sensors one by one. Soon he was asleep.
Riley ran for another ten minutes before he finally allowed himself to believe that nobody was following. Stopping, he leaned
his body against a tree, gasping for breath. His lungs could feel every inch of the 9,000-foot elevation, and his muscles
were screaming out in protest. He tried to walk off the cramps that were setting in, but his legs gave out from under him.
He lay on the rocky dirt, sucking deeply for air.
He assumed Skeeter and Khadi were all right. He hadn’t heard any gunfire other than what had been fired at him.
Who would have
believed that stupid plan would actually work?
He smiled weakly as he watched the sun dip below one of the high peaks. The sweat evaporating from his body reminded him that
with the setting sun would come falling temperatures. Mustering all his strength, he pulled himself to his feet with the help
of a nearby aspen.
He took one step, then another, then another. And soon he was slowly moving down the hill.
Downhill’s
the way to go,
he thought.
If
I keep going down,
I’ll
run into Silverthorne or Dillon Lake or something
familiar. If I can find either one of those,
I’ll
find safety and Skeeter and
Khadi. . . . Yeah, and Khadi.