Glenn Beck - The Eye of Moloch

With a single glance upward the hunt would have ended differently. At less than twenty paces, though, a hiss from the two-way radio on his belt gave the hunter away.

Prey and predator then met eyes at the same instant, each frozen in momentary disbelief at this unexpected turn of events.

Hollis was pinned among the branches in his hiding place; there was no room to swing the long barrel of the shotgun around. The man on the ground backed away, calling out for the others and firing wildly at full auto as he retreated. Amid a storm of flying lead and splinters Hollis drew his pistol from the back and fired into the heart of the fray until the magazine was emptied.

At length the echoes faded and the deep woods grew quiet once again. He climbed down, reloaded, and set out to see if their fight was really done.

The other man had succumbed to his wounds by the time Hollis found him, but he hadn’t died too quickly. He’d crawled to a sly lair in the heavy brush to lie in wait for the approach of his enemy. He’d lost consciousness just that way, still waiting, and bled out from the effects of a damned lucky shot in the dark.

And then, the third and last of them.

This last one was smart; he’d done his job right. Hollis had picked up the two-way handset from the second man’s body and listened for a while, until it became clear that the enemy had wisely gone to radio silence. His two compatriots would be directly tracking the sniper, the last man had likely reasoned, so in the event that they failed he would choose instead to find his quarry’s destination—his rendezvous point with the other, unarmed escapees—and then take them down all at once, by surprise.

The traces of a group bearing a wounded man were easy enough to follow, even at a prudent distance from their path. Still, the man hadn’t lapsed into carelessness. He was wary and took cunning precautions against pursuit, though he had little reason to suspect he was followed. It took hours, in fact, not only to find him, but to catch him briefly unprepared for a hostile confrontation.

Near to his goal, less than a mile from the dim glow of a sheltered campfire up ahead, he’d stopped to rest and drink some water. That’s when Thom Hollis stepped from the shadows behind him.

“I got you cold, son,” he said.

The man had begun to turn toward the voice before stopping himself, his weapon still hanging at his side. A half-moon had risen as the night progressed, and by its pale filtered light it was the youth of this man that was most immediately apparent. His features were strong in profile but not quite fully mature, with that first sparse attempt at a beard that some adolescent rebels will try on at their first opportunity.

For seconds more he didn’t move. Neither of them did; both knew well enough by then how this would end.

“I can’t let you go,” Hollis said quietly. “And I ain’t taking prisoners.”

Chapter 5

Once Hollis had caught up to the others it took only a few minutes to take stock of their situation. Anyone inclined to count the blessings of this tattered band of fugitive patriots would find only this one: by all evidence their enemies had indeed elected to hold off until dawn before marching forth to wipe them off the face of the earth.

Scattered communications on the salvaged radio seemed to confirm this, although since the other side would know their frequencies might be monitored, this chatter could be part of a ruse. Despite that possibility Hollis believed what they said, and for one good reason: these men weren’t quite as stupid as they looked. They had no need to risk rushing headlong into the dark. Their already decisive advantage would be even greater in the daylight. With such an overwhelming force behind them the next day’s search-and-destroy operation would be a turkey shoot, and they knew it.

For the remainder of that night very little time was spared for rest and reflection. Wounds were tended to the crude extent possible in the absence of sterile supplies. Fresh water proved easy enough to find, though food was limited to what raw provisions of nature could be gathered in the depths of a bitter night in early spring. With those necessities tended to, Hollis took the watch and let the others try to sleep as best they could. As for himself, he couldn’t remember even the last brief nap he’d had, or the last meal that had been more than a squirrel’s portion. He’d never yet found the far limit of his endurance but he could feel complete exhaustion getting close.

In the morning, they took stock and prepared to press on.

The only shred of a map still in their possession was a worn pocket trifold that had been pocketed during that brief stay with the Pierce clan. It looked like a hunter’s crib sheet, hand-traced from a legitimate chart and only crudely annotated with landmarks, spot-elevations, deer paths, and a mark for due north. Hollis spent a few minutes with this map to get his proper bearings, and for a welcome change what he discovered wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They were days late and off course to be sure, but they also weren’t so awfully far from where they’d planned to be before this latest trouble began. Whatever their chances, the best prospects lay ahead; they needed to get themselves under way immediately.

Before they left the campsite all visible evidence of the overnight stay was carefully erased, buried, or camouflaged. The path forward was simple enough: Molly and the others would start onward—seven walking and one dragged by two others on a makeshift stretcher—while Hollis took up the rear guard.

He’d given the handmade map and the only compass to the forward group. If they got too far beyond him he would find his way by the transit of the sun and the seat of his pants. There was little craft or subtlety to the travel scheme. They would head northeast, as the crow flies, toward a now-belated rendezvous with some regional allies of the organization. For the sake of speed it was a straight-line excursion, though along the way they would try to employ any natural features of the terrain to make themselves more difficult to overtake.

Despite the urgency to move, at the insistence of one of the more pious group members the ten of them elected to join hands and squander a few precious minutes in a prayer circle. Hollis declined to partake in this delay, choosing instead to devote his full attention to the threatening hush from the forest behind them.

That’s why he was able to hear a sound that didn’t belong, and how he recognized the dry mechanical whisper of its approach, faint and very distant though it was.

Helicopter.

Perhaps the others had heard it, too, because their circle was soon broken with a hasty benediction, and they were off.

As he followed, always watchful for signs of the inevitable pursuit, Hollis set about brushing out conspicuous tracks while periodically stepping off to fabricate decoy paths that might lead less experienced woodsmen astray. Naturally, if the enemy came with air reconnaissance, or even if they simply brought along dogs to aid in their hunt, most of these diversions would be for naught.

The hard fact was, in all likelihood they were fleeing down a one-way road to nowhere. The near strangers Molly had been hoping to meet would have little reason to risk waiting this long in the open, especially if they’d gotten word of how badly things had fallen apart for her out here. Even if those supposed allies were still waiting, with such primitive tools of navigation the odds of actually finding them were slim to none, much less of evading capture along such an obvious route. But there was no backup plan, and the group had all agreed that this path seemed to be their best hope among bleak options.