Ken Douglas - Death Glitch

She dropped to the ground next her savior and he was her savior, she knew that to be true. The men in the chopper had come for her. Old Mansfield Wayne had sold her out. It was the only thing that made sense. She hadn’t seen the gun, but anybody who could shoot the way the bleeding man on the ground could, who acted so fast, so calmly in a crisis, was a truth teller when it came to men in helicopters wielding Mac 10s.

She reached for his neck, put a couple fingers on a carotid, felt a pulse.

He groaned.

“ Hey, can you hear me?” She couldn’t hear the sound of her voice. His ears had to be ringing, too. If she couldn’t hear herself, he couldn’t hear her either. She knew moving him was dangerous, but if she didn’t get him out of here pronto, he’d die.

She didn’t know if she could lift him into the car without his help. She lowered her mouth to his ear, shouted, hoping he could hear her through the deafening ringing.

“ I need you to stand up, only for a second. I’m going to use a fireman’s carry to try and get you into my car. Do you understand me?”

He moved his hand. Good enough, she’d take that for a yes.

“ I’m going to roll you onto your back.” She grimaced, because she knew it was going to hurt him, but she had no choice. She grabbed him by a shoulder, flipped him over. With him on his back, she fisted his field jacket by his upper chest and pulled him up into a sitting position, then with a strength she didn’t know she possessed-and she worked out, was in shape-she got up and pulled him to his feet. He put an arm on her shoulder, struggled to hold on as she wrapped an arm around his waist.

With her free hand, she grasped his wrist and raised his right hand above his head as she knelt in front of him and pulled him onto her shoulders, by bringing his arm around her neck and over her shoulder. Now the big man’s legs were dangling over one of her shoulders, his head over the other. She moved her arm from around his waist, bringing it to the back of his knees as she stood up.

He was heavy, but she was strong.

She moved around to the passenger side of the Jag, thankful the top was down and she dumped him like a sack of potatoes into the passenger seat. She hoped there were no broken bones, hoped she hadn’t hurt him too badly, as she hurried around to the driver’s side of the car.

Once in, she started the car and pulled away from the burning semi. About a quarter mile away, she did a Y turn, pointed the Jag west, hit the accelerator, shifted into second at thirty, clutched and slammed the stick into third at sixty as she flew by the ball of flame that was the helicopter and the big man’s truck.

She hoped this guy could hold on till she got to Medford, because they were in the middle of nowhere now, no hospital to be found and she wouldn’t be looking for one in Yreka. He was going to have to make it till they got to Medford, lots of hospitals there. Izzy Eisenhower was there, too. And there was no doubt in Lila’s mind that Mansfield Wayne had betrayed her and that pissed her off.

He must have decided if he turned to his behind the scenes, black ops contacts that he could get his hands on Eisenhower for a whole lot less than the five million he was offering her.

The man had a chance to be young again and he was looking to do it on the cheap and apparently that meant getting rid of her. Fifteen minutes ago she was willingly doing his bidding, but he’d double-crossed her. Now she had a new mission in life. Save Izzy Eisenhower and send Mansfield Wayne straight to Hell.

Izzy came out of a dream fog, checked the clock. Three fifteen. She hadn’t been asleep long and she hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours before she’d hit the bed, but she felt as rested as if she’d been under the covers all the night long and halfway into the day.

She sat up, decided she didn’t need to drink the wine after all and that she didn’t need a workout. Apparently, all she’d really needed was a few hours rest. That and a shower. However, she was mindful of what the girl at the desk had said. She should use the green towels provided at the indoor pool and she should wipe the bathroom down. Good advice, because she had her own reasons for not wanting to leave any traces of her stay behind.

Under the covers. Whoops, she’d promised she’d sleep on top of them, but somehow during her slumber she’d kicked her shoes off, pulled back the covers and slipped between the sheets. She didn’t remember doing it, but she did remember how cozy she’d felt. Odd.

“ Hunter.” She looked around the room, didn’t see the dog, till he came in from the living room part of the suite. “There you are.” She smiled. “You gonna be good while I go and get some towels?”

She expected a woof response, because the dog was smarter than any animal had a right to be, but he only stared at her.

“ Come on, not gonna talk?”

Silence.

Then it hit her.

“ Right, no dogs allowed.” He couldn’t know that, could he? Maybe, he was one smart dog. “Okay,” she slipped a shoe on, “I’m gonna be right back.” She put on the other shoe, left the room, headed down the hallway to the lobby and the pool off to the right.

At the lobby, she saw the girl who’d checked her in.

“ Hello, Emily,” Izzy waved at the girl.

“ Uh, hello.” She offered Izzy a forced looking half smile.

“ Something wrong?”

“ No.”

“ I’m just gonna get those towels from the pool.”

“ Okay.”

Izzy used her key card to get into the pool, smiled as she entered the warm room. There were children frolicking in the pool, adults in the Jacuzzi. The humidity was almost tropical. Too bad she didn’t have a bathing suit, she’d’ve loved to get in the water, do a couple laps, soak in the Jacuzzi, feel safe.

She picked up a couple towels, headed back to her room. Back in the reception, she waved at Emily, who gave her a little wave back. Izzy met her eyes, saw fear and she wondered if Emily had been speaking in the past tense when she said she’d been in an abusive relationship, because right now she was giving off the aura of a battered woman. She wanted to ask the girl if there was anything she could do, but she had her own problems and they were pressing.

Back in her room, she decided to check the news before she took the shower. She flipped through the channels, found Nick Nesbitt anchoring his daily CNN report. She had the sound off, was about to turn it up, when her granddaughter’s picture flashed on the screen.

She gasped, dropped the remote. She gasped again when she realized it wasn’t Amy, because the eyes were brown, not blue like Amy’s. As she’d feared earlier, somebody knew exactly what had happened to her, knew enough to fake a photo of Amy, to change the eye color. She was in more trouble then she’d thought and she’d thought she was in trouble deep.

She had to get out of here, get on the road. But to where, she didn’t have a clue.

Lila had been driving hard, driving fast for the past three-quarters of an hour. A couple miles past the flaming wrecks, she stopped, got out, made the man in her passenger seat as comfortable as she could, raised the ragtop.

“ Shit,” she muttered. With everything that had been going on-the helicopter crashing into the semi, the wounded man who’d shot it down-her adrenaline had been sparking on overdrive, the only thing she could think about was the task at hand. Now that she was safely away, she saw the damage to her car. The back of the Jag looked like it had been through a war. It was covered with dings, divots and scratches where debris from the explosion had hit it. One of the taillights was broken.

“ Someone’s going to pay.” She wasn’t muttering now. She was mad.