Sharon Dunn - Mistaken Target

“I serve a man with deeper scars than my own,” he said.

“Jesus, you mean.” The name felt foreign on her tongue.

When she pivoted to face Diego, there was a weightiness to his gaze as he studied her, as though he could see straight through her and knew the condition of her own shredded faith. His eyes softened and she thought she saw compassion there.

“Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll stand watch and then we can switch off,” he said.

The mention of sleep made her whole body feel heavy. She slipped down to the floor.

He took off his makeshift poncho and tossed it toward her. “Use it for a pillow.”

She folded the rough fabric and placed it on the floor. Even though the hard floor wasn’t very comfortable, it took her only minutes to fall asleep.

She was awakened by Diego shaking her shoulder. “Your turn to take watch.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She gazed out at the clear sky as she rose to her feet. The rain had stopped. “How long was I out?”

“It’s late afternoon,” Diego said. “Give me an hour’s rest and we’ll head back to the camp.”

Her stomach growled. “Okay.”

Diego’s expression changed as if he sensed something. Slowly, he drew his eyes away from her and toward the window. His back stiffened. A high-pitched popping sound filled the tiny space where they were trapped. Plaster fell off the lighthouse wall. A bullet. They were being shot at.

FIVE

“Get down.” Diego’s arm wrapped around her back and took her to the floor. The impact with the cold concrete sent reverberations through his body.

The dust the bullet had stirred up breaking the plaster settled and the heavy silence enveloped the room. They both lay flat on the floor facing each other, with their cheeks pressed against the concrete.

Her eyes searched his.

He needed to explain, to calm her fears. “I saw movement on the hill closest to us.” So now he knew. The assassin had brought not just a handgun but something that could kill at a distance, as well. The odds were stacked against them.

“So what do we do?” Her voice trembled with fear.

He placed a calming hand on her back. “I guess we have to get out of here and back to the camp. If we can find a way to communicate with the caretaker without putting him in danger, we’ll do it.”

“George has probably left his cabin by now. He told me he spends his days wandering around the camp and out into the woods,” she said.

Diego took in a breath as his mind filled with a sense of resolve. They had been on the run playing defense since this ordeal began. Time to turn the tables. “We’ve got to set some kind of trap for the shooter so it buys us time to get to the camp and find George. This guy’s hunting us. We’ll hunt him.”

Her eyes grew wide. “How?”

“I’m not sure yet.” His mind cataloged through the terrain of the island. There must be some place for an ambush.

She lifted her head. “We can’t go out the front. That’s where the shot came from.”

Her powers of observation under stress were pretty impressive. Diego glanced around the circular room. “We’ll have to climb out one of the windows that faces the ocean.” He crawled across the floor toward the window, careful not to rise up too high and be seen by the shooter.

She came up behind him on her knees. “That’s a long way down and it’s rocky.”

He remembered seeing some rope in a storage closet one flight down. “Stay here and stay low.”

To get down the stairs, he had to stand up and be exposed for a moment. He rose to his feet but crouched. As expected, another rifle shot zinged through the window and into a far wall.

Terror was etched in Samantha’s expression. She crawled on all fours until her back was against the wall closest to where the shooter was. “Hurry,” she said.

He scrambled down the stairs and found the rope. When he returned, Samantha still had her back pressed against the wall, her eyes closed and her knees drawn up to her chest.

He placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

Aware that he risked being shot, he stood up and tied one end of the rope around the center pole. He crouched and dragged the rope across the floor and flung it out the window. It didn’t quite reach the rocks below. They would have about a three-foot fall.

He turned to face her. “You go first.”

She crawled across the floor and grabbed the rope. Heart pounding in his chest, he glanced over his shoulder. He moved so he would be between Samantha and the shooter when she was exposed.

She lifted her leg and crawled out the window. He watched her work her way down the rope. The roar of the ocean pressed on his ears. It bothered him that the shooter hadn’t fired again when he stood up. That meant he might be on the move.

Diego held his breath as he watched Samantha come to the end of the rope. She hesitated, looking at the rocks below and then up at him. He nodded, letting her know she could make the drop. She let go of the rope, landing on her feet.

He took in a breath. Just as he grabbed the rope, he heard the thunder of footsteps up the stairs. His heart raged in his chest as he gripped the rope and climbed through the window.

The pounding of footsteps assaulted his ears. He peered down below at Samantha, who looked up, waiting for him. “Go toward the forest. I’ll catch up with you.”

She opened her mouth as if to protest, then clamped it shut and nodded. He had about ten feet left of rope and then the drop. The assassin, still wearing the black mask, appeared above him.

Diego rappelled off the lighthouse wall, causing the rope to swing. Hopefully, the movement would make him a harder target to hit. He watched as Samantha reached the edge of the forest and disappeared with a backward glance.

He tilted his head. The shooter lined up his shot. Diego let go of the rope and landed on the rocks below. The impact reverberated up his legs. A bullet hit the rocks a foot from him. Salt air filled his lungs.

He made a decision to run around to the front of the lighthouse and enter the forest at a different spot than where Samantha had gone. Why lead the shooter right to her? Adrenaline masked much of the pain from the fall. He entered the forest just as another gunshot stirred the earth in front of him.

* * *

Samantha stuttered in her step when she heard the gunshots. Her heart pounded against her rib cage. What if Diego was shot? She pictured him lying facedown, blood spreading out from his body staining the ground. She gasped for breath.

Keep running. Stick with the plan.

Another shot sounded. This one closer. She cringed and picked up her pace. She willed her feet to keep moving and walled off any thought of what might be happening to Diego. She had only a vague idea of where she should go. She remembered no landmarks from their run to the lighthouse. Her only clear memory was of holding on to Diego’s hand.

She pushed through the trees, keeping one ear tuned to the sounds around her. She thought she detected footfalls. She stopped. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized it might be the shooter stalking through the forest, not Diego. Her feet pounded the earth. The trees thinned. Where was Diego?

She could hear the roar of the ocean again as she stepped out onto the rocky shoreline. Now she knew where she was. Out of breath, she slowed to a brisk walk. Her own footsteps seemed to grow louder as a sense of impending doom settled into her bones. Instinct told her to drop to the ground just as a bullet charged overhead.

Diego seemed to come out of nowhere, his hand suddenly warming her back. “He’s right behind us. Head toward the cover of those boulders.”

Crouching, she ran as fast as she could, diving for the big rocks. The shots stopped as they made their way through the maze of stones and then darted toward a line of brush.