John Gilstrap - No mercy

She switched on a flashlight to illuminate a path. “It’s been a while. I like it, but it makes the field agents nervous as hell.”

“Nobody wants the director to get in trouble on their watch,” Jonathan said.

After thirty yards or so, Irene brought them to a stop and lowered her voice. “Okay, let’s hear it. I know you have a plan, and that it’s carefully choreographed, so let’s just get to it.”

Jonathan had always appreciated Irene’s bluntness. He turned to Will. “Remember your promise,” he reminded. Then to Irene, he said, “Step one. You make sure that the Hughes family is left alone, and that the pursuit to find them guilty of murdering anyone ends now.”

Irene shook her head. “I don’t think you-”

“I’m not done,” Jonathan said. “Step two. You prepare whoever you need to prepare for the fact that my friend Will here is going to write a blockbuster story about Carlyle Industries and their secret contract to produce bioweapons in violation of God only knows how many treaties. Once that secret is out, there’ll be no need to kill people to keep it.”

Irene glared at the reporter, who seemed newly energized as he hovered a microtape recorder in the air between them. “Anything else?” she snarled.

“Oh, come on, Irene, you know you find this to be as much a relief as a pain in the ass. The truth will set you free.”

“Anything else,” she repeated, this time more as a statement than a question.

“Two more,” Jonathan said. “First, you make known to the world what the Green Brigade was up to, and how it was transformed by Ivan Patrick from a well-meaning environmental group into the self-serving paramilitary wolf pack that it is today. If you dig a little, I guarantee that you’ll find a history of illegal weapons sales, and I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that that very kind of sale was what ultimately created this mess.”

“Which leaves one more,” Irene prompted.

“Yes, it does. I want you to treat my friend Will here as the designated historian for all that transpires from this. Let’s see about getting him a Pulitzer.”

Hands on both hips, she shook her head in disbelief. “All this havoc, all these dead bodies, and no accountability. That’s what I’m hearing.”

Jonathan chuckled, knowing he’d won. “Your glass is always half-empty, Irene.”

Irene appealed to Gail. “And what about you Sheriff Law and Order? What are you going to do?”

Ga driven earlier in the day. At this altitude, they could see several miles of road length, so it couldn’t possibly take long.

But as Jonathan watched over Boxer’s shoulder, the screen betrayed nothing.

“Wait a second,” Jonathan declared, landing a hand heavily on Boxers’ shoulder. “Go back.”

“To where?”

“To the cabin. To the trail at the top of the ridge. The Hugheses said they didn’t know where it went. Maybe Ivan does.”

“Or maybe he sees this as the perfect time to find out,” Gail added.

Boxers didn’t bother to reply. He kicked in a load of tail rotor and spun them around like a top to head in the other direction, damn near throwing them all to the deck. As the passengers yelled their protests, the pilot laughed. “God, I love my job,” he said.

They rose to 500 feet as the nose dipped and the rotors pulled them faster and faster back toward the cabin. As the house and the barn passed below them, Jonathan saw the scope of the destruction. The blood had cooled enough to become less visible, but the bodies had not. He fought the urge to count them. That seemed somehow wrong.

Soon the tableau of destruction was gone, and they were again cruising over the unending expanse of trees.

Jonathan and Boxers saw the truck at the same instant, and they pointed together. “There,” they said in unison. The truck was driving faster than was prudent, given the road conditions. Even from this altitude, with very little magnification of the image, they could see the SUV barely hanging on as roots and potholes bounced it around.

“Any ideas how to stop it?” Boxers asked. “Looks like he’s got a real road to connect to in about three miles. At his speed, that gives us about seven minutes to think of something.”

Jonathan and Gail looked at each other. Her shrug matched his absence of ideas.

He turned to survey the equipment they had available. The seat and deck of the Blackhawk were strewn with the flotsam of the raid on the cabin. He saw helmets and a few extra Kevlar vests. Like good soldiers in any outfit, of course, no one had left a weapon behind; but at least they had Captain Courageous’s Glock. It was something. Not much, but something. He slipped it into pouch pocket on his thigh.

His eyes settled on a pile of coiled rope, and then he knew what he had to do.

“You know this is crazy, right?” Boxers asked over the intercom as Jonathan made his final preparations.

“Welcome to today,” Jonathan mumbled. In the roar of the rotor noise, no one heard him. He looked to Gail. “You’ve got to be his eyes,” he said.

Gail nodded, but her expression belied her wholesale agreement with Boxers. This was crazy.

Jonathan went on, “He can’t look ahead and down at the same time.”

“I’ve fast-roped before,” Gail said. “HRT, remember?”

“Humor me,” Jonathan said. “Given the stakes, I want to say it all out loud. Watch for speed and altitude. Box should be able to keep me in the slot, but the rest will be up to you.”

“I’ll handle it,” she said. But she wished she could think of a better way.

“You can’t second-guess my hand signals,” he said. “If I signal to release the rope, you release it, understand?” He’d already set the rope to release on its own if it got snagged. Since it was his crazy idea, “What are you doing!” Out the starboard side cargo door, she watched, horrified, as the lead vehicle skidded sideways in the road, and the one behind it T-boned it hard. Together, their momentum carried them into the side of the chopper with barely a bump.

The trussed-up FBI agent’s eyes were the size of hockey pucks, somehow befitting his skin, which was the color of ice. “He’s fucking crazy!” the agent yelled.

Gail was about to agree when she realized that she hadn’t seen the half of it. Boxers heaved himself out of the pilot’s seat and out onto the road, where he strode to the third car in the approaching line-a Nissan pickup that hadn’t hit anything, but had stopped sideways in the road nonetheless-and opened the driver’s door. She could neither see nor hear the negotiation, but the driver seemed more than happy to surrender his seat.

Gail understood what was about to happen, and she scrambled out of the chopper to join him. Until the very last second when he stopped to let her in, she wondered if Boxers might just run her over.

To keep his arms and legs from being broken, Jonathan hugged them close to his body, like a cannonball off the high dive. The very, very high dive.

Branches tore at him and buffeted him as he fell through the canopy, but even as his gut screamed at him with every impact, he reminded himself that they were keeping him alive. Without something to break his momentum, a fall from this height offered little chance of survival, and virtually none of escaping without injury.

When the ground slapped him, he howled with agony. He’d been torn by bullets before, but the mind mercifully takes the edge off memories like that. It felt as if someone had packed his appendix with hot coals. He paused at the base of his tree and tested his legs. Everything seemed to be intact. Somehow, he’d managed to hang on to the Glock all the way to the ground.

He forced himself to his feet, listing to his wounded side, and tried to get his bearings. Out here in the dark, the burning truck might just as well have been lighthouse on a calm sea. He headed that way.