David Baldacci - Divine Justice

Knox, Stone and Abby were suddenly grabbed and told to stay still. The two guards ran ahead and Stone could hear scraping sounds, large things being moved and the grunts and curses of the men doing that heavy moving.

Up ahead the darkness suddenly turned a bit lighter.

Tyree pushed them forward. Stone and Knox exchanged a glance. Neither knew exactly what was going to happen in the next few seconds. Stone kept as close to Abby as he could. If need be he would shield her with his body. He strained against the cuffs, trying to free himself. They probably only had a few seconds left.

They ducked down and came out into a moonlit night. Freedom at last from Dead Rock. Except for the cuffs and the men with guns surrounding them. And except for the fact that their lives were about to end. Stone could hardly believe that what many men with special skills had tried to do and failed, a pudgy warden from a backwater hole-in-the-wall was going to succeed in doing. Kill him. And yet as he glanced over at Abby, he felt far worse for her. The truth was he should have been dead long ago. He had done things that he deserved to die for. But not Abby. It shouldn't end this way for her. And he told himself he would do everything in his power to prevent the woman's life from ending violently here on this high rock.

Stone glanced around. They appeared to be in the middle of mountainous forest, but as his eyesight adjusted he was able to make out a wide path that had been cut through the heavy brush.

Tyree took ahold of Stone's arm and propelled him forward. He tripped over a rock and fell awkwardly to the ground. He rose to his knees and looked at the warden.

"They have this place completely locked down."

"There are ways out of here that I know that nobody else does. You don't think I didn't plan for something like this?"

Knox looked at the guards. "Must've been more guys than this involved. You just going to leave the others for the feds?"

"What do you care? You'll be dead," Tyree sneered.

"Would it sound really stupid if I said you'll never get away with it?" said Stone.

"Yeah, it would."

"How about if I said it?"

Tyree and the others whirled around to see Alex Ford step from the shadows of the trees, his gun aimed at the warden's head. When the guards pulled their weapons, a bullet sailed over their heads and the men froze.

A wisp of smoke floating from his gun's muzzle, Harry Finn moved forward while Reuben leveled a shotgun at the men. Annabelle and Caleb stepped out of the woods and stood next to Reuben.

Tyree suddenly pulled Abby toward him and leveled his pistol at her head. He said, "You folks better back the hell off or this lady is dead."

"Put the gun down, Howard."

Tyree jerked at the sound of the voice and then looked for its source. His gaze stopped and held as Lincoln Tyree stepped from the tree line. "Put it down, Howard."

A smile eased across the warden's plump face. "You know you were never any good at telling your big brother what to do. Now why don't you stop playing detective and just go on back down to your little town and pretend you know what you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing, big brother . I'm arresting you for enough stuff that you're the one's who's gonna end up at Dead Rock."

Tyree jammed his pistol against Abby's neck, causing her to cry out in pain. "Maybe you didn't understand what I said. If you don't back off, this lady is going to die."

"Put the gun down," the sheriff said again. "Killing her gets you nothing. It's over."

"Gets me nothing? Nothing? I tell you what it gets me. Satisfaction."

Alex said, "Last chance. To all three of you. Weapons down, now!"

"Go to hell," screamed Tyree.

He started to pull the trigger. But his gun never fired because Stone slammed into him, knocking the pudgy man off his feet, his pistol flying away.

"Run, Abby," screamed Stone, as he struggled to get up.

Tyree stopped rolling and sat up. Unfortunately, he'd stopped right next to his gun. He snatched it up and aimed for Stone's head.

The shot rang out and the round caught Tyree in the forehead. For a second or two the warden didn't seem to realize that he'd been killed. Then he fell on his back, his eyes staring up to the sky, the guard towers of Dead Rock visible in the distance, though he couldn't see them anymore.

Alex shouted, "Where did that shot come from?"

No one had time to answer that question because another man emerged from the tunnel and opened fire. And the weapon he carried was an MP-5 submachine gun that laid down a solid wall of fire all across the tree line. Stone had been in position to see this before anyone else. An instant before he fired he had gotten to his feet, lunged and tackled Abby as she was trying to run for cover.

Alex, Reuben and the others fell to the dirt as rounds zipped past overhead, shredding tree bark and anything else in their path. Ripped leaves rained down on them like snowflakes.

Sheriff Tyree yelled out as a round caught him in the leg. He fell heavily to the earth, grabbing at his thigh.

Stone glanced at the mineshaft opening. It was one-eyed Manson wearing a neck brace now along with the eye patch trying to kill them all.

God, I should have finished the son of a bitch when I had the chance.

Knox had thrown himself behind a large boulder, while George and his buddy had run off toward the woods. His buddy didn't make it very far because one of Manson's errant rounds caught him square in the back and he fell facedown in a wash of blood.

Stone got up and ran with every ounce of speed he had. He made a flying tackle on George and both men went down hard. Stone was still handcuffed so he couldn't hit him with his fists. He did the next best thing. He head-butted George flush in the face and the guard fell limp under him. Stone flipped over and, using his cuffed hands, tore at the leather pouch on George's belt. His fingers closed around the key. He felt for the opening and unlocked the restraints. He grabbed George's gun but looked down in dismay. The pistol had landed on a rock and the trigger had snapped off.

A moment later Stone ducked down as MP-5 rounds roared overhead and Abby screamed.

"Abby!" Stone slid like a snake through the dirt and rock, his clothes ripping and his skin tearing as he made his way frantically back to her. He'd done this exact same maneuver a thousand times through the jungles of Southeast Asia, yet never for a reason more important than now.

On his belly too, Knox had dragged himself over to the dead Tyree. He wrenched the gun from the dead man's hand and slid back toward where Stone was heading.

Manson was barely ten feet from Abby. He stopped again to slam in another clip. Alex, Harry and Reuben opened fire, but Manson had wisely taken up cover behind a large rock outcrop. When he came back out with fresh ammo his firepower would overwhelm them at the shortened distance. But clearly Abby would be the first to die.

"Oliver!"

Stone looked up at Knox's shout.

Still cuffed, Knox held up the gun between his feet and Stone nodded. Using his feet like a catapult Knox tossed and Stone caught. He had bare seconds.

"Stay down, Abby," he warned.

She frantically dug into the earth with bleeding fingers, trying to get as low as possible.

A second later Manson stepped out, the muzzle of the MP-5 searching for and finding her lying feet from him. Alex and the others had no line of fire because of the chunk of mountain lying between Manson and them.

Stone had no direct line of fire from where he was either. The first rule of the sniper was that any unintended movement of gun and shooter would spoil the shot. Steady hand, breath exhaled, heartbeat in the sixties and weapon locked in position against a stable surface-that's how one killed successfully. And Stone had mostly followed those rules in his career as the best assassin the U.S. ever had.