Iris Johansen - Chasing the Night

Catherine didn’t argue. She gazed straight ahead and never looked back as they hurried toward the car that had just come to a halt a hundred yards from the grave site.

Kelsov stuck his head out of the window. “Hurry. We may be in trouble. Where’s Quinn?”

“Right behind us.” Catherine jumped into the backseat. “He won’t be long. He had to-He won’t be long.”

Kelsov was cursing. “We can’t wait. I’ll give him two more minutes.”

“You’ll give him as long as it takes,” Eve said. “We won’t leave him. If you do, I’ll personally hunt you down and castrate you.”

The glance he gave her was not pleasant. “So much for your caring, gentle expert, Catherine.”

“Joe has the skull, Kelsov,” Catherine said. “What’s wrong?” Her gaze was on the trees. “Someone’s coming? I don’t see any lights.”

“They’re either on foot or driving without lights, but they’re here. I know these marshes.” He nodded toward the southwest. “They’re coming from that direction.”

“How do you know?”

“The birds. You can always tell by the birds. Right before I reached the car, I heard them screeching and then the sound of their wings as they took off.” His gaze was raking the trees. “The birds in this area haven’t been panicked yet. When they are, we’ll be in real trouble.”

It made sense to Eve. She wasn’t about to try to find any other more innocent reason for the disturbance in the swamp. Not tonight. She reached for the door handle. “I’ll go get Joe.”

“Wait.” Catherine was gazing beyond her. “He’s coming.”

The next moment Joe was diving into the passenger seat. He threw Eve’s forensic case on the floor. “Move! Something’s wrong out there.”

Kelsov gunned the car and it jumped forward. “The birds.”

Joe nodded as he rolled down the window. “Southwest.”

He would be on the same wavelength as Kelsov both in instinct and experience, Eve thought.

Joe went still. “No, not southwest anymore. Listen.”

Screeching.

A flapping of wings.

Here.

The first bullet hit the rear window thirty seconds later.

“Down!”

But Catherine had already pulled Eve to the floor and was reaching in her backpack for her gun. “Not on foot.” She was looking over her shoulder at the tan Volvo racing after them. “How many in the car, Joe?”

“Six,” Joe was taking aim. He fired. “Five.”

Another bullet splintered the driver’s mirrors and ricocheted into the roof of the car.

Catherine was rolling down the window. She tossed off a quick shot before ducking back down. “Four, Joe?”

“Four,” he confirmed. He stiffened. “Move, Kelsov. I don’t like this. I think they’ve got-Shit.”

Eve’s gaze flew to the rear window. “My God.”

A small missile launcher was being aimed at their vehicle by the man in the rear seat of the Volvo.

“Out!” Joe yelled. “Pull over, Kelsov! Everyone out!”

Kelsov didn’t question but skidded to a stop by the side of the road bordering the marsh. He was the first to jump into the muck.

Catherine jerked Eve out her door, and the next moment, she was floundering knee-deep in the mud.

“Joe!” Eve screamed. Where was he? She couldn’t see him.

The car exploded into a fiery mass as the missile hit it.

“No!”

“Easy.” Catherine was dragging her through the mud. “He jumped out the other side. He’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

Catherine was glancing over her shoulder. “There he is across the road. He’s aiming at-Oh, yes. ”

The Volvo’s gas tank exploded as Joe’s bullet hit it. The explosion ignited the missile launcher and the vehicle blew high in the air!

“Yes, your Joe is very much okay.” Catherine’s eyes were glittering with fierce admiration. “Great move. I couldn’t have done better.”

A tribute warrior to warrior, Eve thought.

“Where’s Kelsov?” Joe said as he jumped into the muck and waded toward them.

“Here.” Kelsov called from some distance away. “I was just about to come and rescue all of you. But of course I had to make sure that I was safe first. That’s the only intelligent way to proceed.”

“You’re nothing if not intelligent,” Catherine said dryly as she started toward him. “It was lucky that Joe acted on instinct and not intelligence. It worked out better for all of us.”

“You don’t think that I’d have come back for you?”

“Actually, I do,” Catherine said. “Unless Rakovac was standing between us. Then you’d go after him and let us take our chances.”

“And you wouldn’t?”

“Yes, I’d probably do the same thing.”

“I don’t think so,” Eve said. “Hatred can only twist your character so far. I believe you have the same instincts as Joe and would act on them.”

Catherine looked at Joe. “I’d like to think you’re right, Eve. What do you think, Joe?”

He didn’t answer her. “I think that we’d better get out of this marsh and find a car. Those explosions would have been heard for miles. We don’t know that we’re safe yet. Rakovac might have sent out a second team.” He tucked the forensic case he was still carrying into Eve’s backpack. “Kelsov, if we call Bravski, will he come and get us?”

“Maybe.” He shook his head. “But we can’t trust him not to talk about what he’s doing. It’s safer to get back to the village on our own. Then we can borrow his car to get back to where I dropped off the Mercedes and be on our way.”

“Safer, not quicker,” Eve said. “Six miles, if I remember correctly.”

“You’re not strong enough?” He smiled slyly. “And you were so full of threats of violence to my person when I only mentioned that we might have to leave Quinn. I’ll have no trouble at all slogging my way through this marsh. I might even offer you a hand if you ask prettily.”

“Knock it off, Kelsov.” Joe took Eve’s elbow and half led, half pulled her with him as he started out. “He’s right; we shouldn’t give away our position to anyone. We’ll stay in the marsh for the first few miles to make sure no one else is going to be after us. Then we’ll take to the road. It will make the going faster and easier.” He glanced over his shoulder at Catherine. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” She smiled brilliantly at him. “It takes a lot to take us down, doesn’t it?”

He stared at her for a moment and then slowly nodded. “You’re damn right it does.”

He turned back to Eve and his arm tightened protectively around her. “And we’ll get through this, too. Just keep moving…”

“Good Lord, you all look as if you survived a mudslide,” Kelly said as she threw open the door. “What happened?”

Her description was probably accurate, Eve thought. She could see what Kelsov, Joe, and Catherine looked like, and she must be the same. She had caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror in Bravski’s house where they had “borrowed” his car. Caked mud up to her waist, in her hair, tennis shoes muddy brown instead of white. The smell was almost as bad.

No, worse.

“We need baths,” she said, as Natalie came to stand beside Kelsov. “I hope you have a large water heater.”

She nodded, her gaze never leaving Kelsov. “You are well?”

“I will be when I get clean,” Kelsov said.

“You will have the first bath,” Natalie said.

“No, that wouldn’t be polite. We have guests.”

But Natalie didn’t care about politeness when it interfered with her caring for Kelsov, Eve thought. “We could draw straws,” she suggested.

“Ladies first,” Joe said. “I saw a creek about a mile from here. If you can give me soap, I’ll make do there.”