David Morrell - The Protector

But the heat was so fierce that he couldn't possibly survive if he got any closer to it. The fire moved faster, forcing him to retreat with increasing speed as bushes in the gully burst into flames and gave the impression of chasing him. In that calculated, on-the-edge-of-death pattern, Cavanaugh shifted with the fire, moving as it moved. His vision blurred. His skin felt parched. He'd never been so thirsty. But he couldn't think about any of that, for in addition to keeping pace with the fire, he had to concentrate on the edges of the blaze to his right and left, watching for the gunmen. He assumed that they had separated to form a perimeter around the fire, keeping pace with it as he was, except they'd maintain a safe distance while they hunted for anyone the thermal sensors in the choppers failed to notice.

Pursued by fire as further trees and bushes burst into flames, Cavanaugh reached a more uneven part of the gully. His knees bent. He forced them to straighten. His chest fought to take in the little air available. His knees bent once more, and this time, he lost his balance, toppling, no longer rolling smoothly. In the shadows at the bottom of the gully he banged his side against a boulder, winced, and started to come to his feet, only to tense, making himself motionless as a man holding a submachine gun emerged from trees ahead on Cavanaugh's right, following the edge of the fire.

A sharp crack of blazing wood made the gunman spin to look behind him. In that instant, Cavanaugh dove to the side of the gully, toward a narrow space between the boulder he had banged against and the gully's dirt slope. He pressed himself down, desperate to merge with the terrain, hoping that the soot blackening his clothes and face would make him appear no more than another boulder or a rotting tree trunk.

If you're hiding, never look directly at a man who's searching for you, Cavanaugh's instructors had warned. The hunter might notice the glare of your eyes, or else the intensity you radiate might make him sense, rather than see, he's being stared at. Keep your gaze slightly away from him. Study him from the side of your eyes. Use your peripheral vision to keep track of his movements.

Cavanaugh did that now. Staring toward the opposite side of the gully while concentrating his peripheral vision on the right, he saw the blur of the gunman's silhouette descend into the gully. The gunman paused, as if studying the progress of the fire. Cavanaugh braced himself to shoot if the man showed any interest in the boulder Cavanaugh tried to hide behind. The man paused a moment longer. Too long. Cavanaugh was just about to pull the trigger when the man climbed from the gully, and continued along the edge of the fire.

The flames got closer. Pressed down by the accumulating heat, Cavanaugh squirmed forward past other boulders, straining to gain some distance from the fire behind him but unable to proceed with any speed lest the gunman glance back into the gully and notice movement. The heat became so intense that, as Cavanaugh breathed through his mouth, trying to get as much air as he could, his tongue and throat felt burned.

Above him, the three helicopters remained spread out like the points of a triangle, continuing to search for the human-shaped thermal pattern of any fleeing survivor. Feeling heat on the soles of his shoes, nearly overcome by the close flames behind him, Cavanaugh squirmed faster through the boulders. He was too low to be able to see if other gunmen approached the gully. All he could do was try to solve one problem at a time, and at the moment, his biggest problem was how not to get burned to death.

He came under an outcrop of earth, which past storms had formed when flash floods raged along the gully and tore a hollow along its side. Abruptly, dirt trickled onto him from the roof, the earth of which was held together by roots. His muscles compacting, Cavanaugh again stopped moving and imagined a gunman above him, aiming his weapon, scanning the edge of the approaching fire. He worried that the man's weight would collapse the roof, that his hunter would drop on him. More specks of dirt fell as the man shifted his weight. The specks pelted the back of Cavanaugh's head.

Fighting not to cough from smoke drifting toward him, Cavanaugh prepared to shoot if the man descended into the gully. Then the smoke became so thick that Cavanaugh had to hold his breath. But the man above him had to be holding his breath also, Cavanaugh knew. The smoke would soon force the man to move. The question was, Would the man move before Cavanaugh had to? During the arduous training Cavanaugh had received in Delta Force, he had once held his breath for four minutes in a room filled with tear gas, but that had been years earlier, and no matter how determined he was now, he doubted that he could hold his breath that long. Plus, he didn't know if the man above him wore some kind of mask that filtered the smoke.

Seeing the flames get nearer, almost overpowered by the heat, Cavanaugh realized that in a very few seconds, if the man didn't move, he was going to have to roll from his hiding place and shoot, then run farther along the gully so he'd be able to breathe.

And then what? Would other gunmen hear the shots and rush toward this sector? Even if they didn't hear the shots, the man would be expected to use the radio microphone on his helmet to maintain regular contact with the helicopters and the other members of his team. When the man didn't report on schedule, the other hunters would become suspicious and head in Cavanaugh's direction.

So would the helicopters. As Cavanaugh kept holding his breath, spots beginning to swirl in front of his eyes, it seemed that the helicopters were already heading in his direction, so suddenly loud did they become. They were descending toward the trees.

The man standing above Cavanaugh said something Cavanaugh couldn't distinguish. The man was evidently speaking to his radio microphone, his tone urgent. The next moment, Cavanaugh heard heavy footsteps pounding the earth, rushing away. More dirt fell. The thunder of the helicopters became even louder.

Cavanaugh couldn't hold his breath any longer. The spots before his eyes thickening, he bolted from the hollow. Scrambling to escape the dense smoke, he passed one boulder and then another, reaching clear air, and filled his lungs. Despite its warmth, the air was cooler than any he'd drawn in since he'd left the bunker. His vision became focused enough for him to see the orange ripple of flames within the smoke that he'd left. But what he concentrated on, aiming his weapon, were the rims of the gully, toward which he prepared to shoot if any gunmen showed themselves.

None did. To his right, the close roar of the helicopters made him peer warily over the slope's rim. The fire showed the helicopters a hundred yards away, above the trees. The gunmen seemed to be magically levitating toward hatches in the choppers, although they were actually being drawn up by power-driven cables. It was one of the smoothest extractions Cavanaugh had ever seen. In what felt like no time at all, each of the helicopters raised five men, and even before the hatches were closed, the helicopters pivoted, veering past the fire, heading west toward the denser sections of the mountains. Their thunder receding, they vanished into the darkness. Then the only sound was the roar of the blaze, which Cavanaugh was now free to get as far away from as he could.

Staggering away, reaching cooler air, he heard explosions that rumbled from the direction of the bunker. Obviously, the fire had detonated the munitions inside. He plodded past more boulders, over fallen tree limbs, through dense bushes and intersecting evergreen boughs. His loss of blood made him so weak that he was tempted to sit and rest, but he had to keep moving, had to muster all his discipline to put more distance between him and the fire. A new sound now intruded. In the distance, he heard a faint, shrill, high-pitched wail that gained volume, coming nearer. An approaching siren. No, he told himself. Several sirens. No doubt the state police and emergency crews. From a narrow paved road that went through the nearest town, eight miles away, they'd be rushing up the barely noticeable tree-flanked dirt lane that led to the bunker, which they didn't know existed but which they'd have no trouble finding now because of the fire.