Against the Wind (26 page)

If she had known this would happen, she would have called Richard Kemp at the FBI as soon as they had talked to Vincent Spalino. But they hadn't imagined that Spalino might get killed.

“What we should have done isn't important,” Jackson said. “Right now we need to focus on how we're going to get Holly and get the hell out of there.”

Sarah suppressed a shudder. “What's our plan?”

“Unfortunately, until we know what we're facing, we'll have to play it by ear.”

Sarah said nothing more and neither did Jackson. Both of them just watched the road, hoped and silently prayed that by some miracle—and Jimmy's and Wheel's help—somehow they would succeed.

 

If there was one thing Dev was good at it was digging up information. He knew people all over the country, kept in touch with old army buddies and had developed a sophisticated network of informants that had been
invaluable over the years. He paid well for information and kept his mouth shut about where it came from.

Which was the reason he knew the name of the guy who was running this operation.

Or at least believed he did.

From the description Jackson had given him and the talk he'd stirred up, his name was Rene Abaz, a hired gun currently employed by Barry Helman and Frank Eldridge, the owners of Hexel Pharmaceuticals. Rene's family had been in this country since the thirties, regular upstanding citizens. His father was first-generation Turkish-American, his mother mostly French, and Rene didn't even speak his family's native language. Still, everyone called him the Turk.

Abaz was smart and he was ruthless, and he was being well paid to cover up whatever it was Hexel was doing. And since money seemed to be no object, he had all the help he needed.

Dev swore softly as the sorrel's steady pace ate up the trail. His instincts had been warning him, but he hadn't known about Abaz until last night and he hadn't figured on how quickly the man would move.

Saddle leather creaked beneath him. He hadn't ridden in nearly two years. Under different circumstances, he would have been enjoying himself, enjoying the ride and the scenery. At the moment, he barely noticed the dark green pines and jagged peaks. He was too busy scanning the rocky slopes in search of movement, anything that might be a sign of trouble.

They were less than half an hour from the summit, had pushed hard to make up for the extra time it had taken them to get on the road.

A squirrel chirped loudly, signaling their passage
along the route. The gelding's ears went up and the horse's nostrils flared. Dev's hand went to the butt of the pistol in his shoulder holster. He straightened in the saddle, felt the comforting weight of Jackson's rifle slung across his back.

Several seconds passed, time enough for another scan of the mountains. No problem, just Mother Nature's warning system. He had learned to pay attention to it when he'd been with the Rangers.

Riding ahead of him, he saw that Gabe had also gone on alert. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, both of them relaxed. He was glad to have his brother along. They were both ex-military, able to communicate in a language that didn't require spoken words. He didn't know much about Jimmy's friend, Wheel Dillon, but Jimmy was as solid as a stand of timber. If Jimmy trusted Wheel, then Dev figured he could trust him, too.

He checked his watch. Almost noon. They were right on schedule. Another quarter mile and they'd leave the horses, go the rest of the way on foot.

It wouldn't be long until they knew what they were up against. Dev felt the familiar adrenaline rush and prepared to do battle in a different kind of war.

J
ackson rounded the last bend. A tall, bone-thin man with an assault rifle stood on a dirt mound at the side of the road where it flattened out in front of the cabin.

“Pull up there and turn off the engine,” the man instructed, pointing to a spot out in the open.

Jackson looked over at Sarah. Her face was paper-white, but her chin was set with determination. He wished he could have left her back at the ranch but there was no way. Sarah loved her daughter more than her own life. She was going after her child come hell or high water. Better to have her with him than doing something foolish on her own.

His mind strayed to the Colt revolver on the floor of the truck beneath his feet and the rifle on the seat behind him. There was no way he could take either weapon with him. He'd have to go in unarmed except
for the knife he'd strapped to his calf, and they'd likely find that when they searched him.

He hoped Jimmy and Wheel had made it to the top of the trail and gotten into position. If they had, he and Sarah might have a chance.

“Both of you! Raise your hands and get out of the truck!”

Jackson looked over at Sarah. He reached out and clasped her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze. It was a helluva time to realize how much he loved her.

He prayed he would get the chance to tell her before it was too late.

 

Dev crouched next to Jimmy. “Dammit, the truck just pulled up in front of the cabin. I was hoping for another five minutes.”

“Gabe's in position. I saw him drop behind that rock to the left of the clearing. Wheel's moving to the right.”

“You okay here?” Dev asked.

Jimmy set his rifle in a notch between two rocks and peered into the scope. “I'm just fine.”

Dev used his binoculars to scan the area below. “There's a man about ten o'clock, sixty yards out. Another a little left of your three.”

Jimmy used the scope to locate the threat. “I got 'em.”

Dev started moving as the pickup doors opened and Jackson and Sarah slowly climbed down from inside, their hands raised into the air. Jimmy, Wheel and Gabe were all in position and so far none of them had been spotted.

Then a rifle shot roared, echoing into the hills. Rock
chips flew, and Dev caught a glimpse of Wheel slamming backward, his cowboy hat spinning into the air as he hit the ground and lay unmoving.

Son of a bitch.

The crackle of a walkie-talkie split the quiet, letting the bad guys know Jackson and Sarah were not alone. It was bad news for all of them, but at least it gave Dev the shooter's position. He started moving in that direction, keeping low as he darted between the sharp-edged rocks.

In the clearing below, all hell had broken loose. A burst of rapid gunfire followed Sarah as she ran to the back of the pickup. Jackson ducked behind the door of the truck, reached beneath the seat and retrieved his revolver, dodging and weaving past a series of bullets that struck the ground as he ran to the rear of the Ford. Crouching next to Sarah, he aimed his big Colt .44 and took out the guy firing the assault rifle, who ran for cover off the mound.

Dev moved silently, making each step count as he came up behind the first shooter. Locking an arm around his neck, he twisted, dropping the man to the ground before he knew what hit him.

It wasn't something he liked doing, but at least he hadn't forgotten how.

He crouched and used his binoculars to check on Wheel, saw that Gabe knelt beside him, working to stop the flow of blood from what appeared to be a shoulder wound. Dev headed toward the cabin in search of Holly while Gabe moved Wheel under cover and ducked back out of sight.

Dev had nearly reached the cabin when he glanced
toward the rear of the truck and saw that both Sarah and Jackson were gone.

He spotted Sarah behind the thick trunk of a downed pine tree and Jackson running along the bottom of a shallow gully that bordered the road. Jackson disappeared out of sight and Dev started moving, silently praying that his brother and his lady would be all right.

 

Sarah's heart raced. A shot tore into the trunk of the fallen tree in front of her and she ducked out of sight. Her breath froze as she spotted Jackson to her left, moving toward a man with a thin blond beard armed with what looked like a machine gun, scanning the area with the muzzle, searching for a target.

Sarah trembled as she watched Jackson creep closer, coming up behind the man and wrapping an arm vise-like around his neck. Jackson pressed his pistol against the side of the blond man's head and ordered him to drop his weapon, which fell to the ground with a noisy clatter. Then Jackson slammed his revolver down hard on the blond man's head and he collapsed into the dirt.

Sarah's heart pounded as her terrified gaze swung to the cabin. Holly had to be inside. She wondered how many more men were in there with her daughter. The shadowy outline of a figure appeared for an instant behind the window, but dropped quickly out of sight.

Jackson was heading for the cabin door. He jerked to a halt and dropped down into the rocks as the door swung wide and the tall, dark-skinned man Sarah recognized from the parking lot stepped into the opening, holding Holly up in front of him like a shield.

Sarah's stomach knotted with fear for her little girl. She stifled a terrified sob and forced herself to remain
where she was instead of rushing into the clearing to beg the man not to hurt her daughter.

 

“Put down your weapons! Do it or the child is dead!”

Gripping his Colt in both hands, the barrel leveled at the man who held Holly, Jackson stepped out into the open. Holly's abductor held her flush against him, one arm locked around her waist, his pistol pressed against the side of her head.

“Do it, or I kill her!”

Jimmy stood up but continued to hold on to his rifle. Wheel staggered to his feet, his rifle steadied against his hip. Blood soaked his shirt and dripped onto his jeans.

“Where are you, Sarah?” the black-haired man called out as if they were old friends. Jackson recognized him as the guy who had accosted her in the parking lot.

“If you want your daughter to live, you'll come forward. Now!”

Sarah came out from behind the fallen log, her jeans and shirt covered with mud and dead leaves. Her face looked even paler than it had before, and her legs were shaking as she hurried to Jackson's side.

“Now…like I said, drop your weapons. Tell your men to throw down their guns, Raines. Do it or the little girl dies.”

“Do it, Jackson,” Sarah begged. The terror in her voice cut into him like a blade. But if they gave up their weapons, all of them would die, including Sarah and Holly.

Jackson glanced around the clearing, stalling for time. The rest of the gunmen were all injured or dead.
He knew there was at least one more man out there on his side of the fight, someone who had ridden in with Jimmy and taken out at least one of the gunmen. In the rocks to his right, a man rose up, a rifle resting against his shoulder. Jackson recognized his brother, Dev, and a fresh shot of adrenaline poured through him.

“You shoot the girl, Turk, you're a dead man,” Dev said. The barrel of his rifle pointed at the gunman's head and it never wavered. “Holly's your only way out of this alive.”

Sarah made a little whimpering sound.

Following Dev's lead, Jimmy and Wheel held their positions. So did Jackson, though the fear in the little girl's eyes and the terror in Sarah's face made it the hardest thing he had ever done.

“Give it up, Turk,” Dev shouted. “You don't, this isn't going to end well for you.”

“I've got the girl. You'd better remember that.” And then he started running, holding Holly up in front of him to keep the men from firing, moving in such a way none of them could get a clear shot without risking the little girl's life.

All of them started moving, following the pair as they raced across the clearing and disappeared behind a row of pines that stood between the cabin and Alpine Meadow.

“Holly!” Sarah cried out, stumbling as she ran after the man with her child.

Jackson raced ahead of her, moving fast, narrowing the distance between him and Holly's captor. That was when he heard it—the
whop whop whop
of a chopper. It was preparing to lift off, not landing, so it couldn't be Sheriff Weber. The chopper had brought the kidnappers
up to the cabin and as soon as the man named Turk reached it, he would be gone.

Jackson ran faster, his heart pounding in rhythm with his running feet, desperate to stop the man from boarding the chopper with Holly. The blades were spinning when Jackson burst through the row of pines into the clearing, the dark-skinned man racing for the door of the helicopter.

As the chopper began to lift off, Turk dropped the child and reached for the door. A shot roared from somewhere in the rocky terrain to the right and a bullet slammed into Turk's chest. Blood gushed through the hole in his shirt as he went down, his pistol landing in the grass a few feet away.

Jackson just kept running, keeping his head low beneath the whirling blades. He grabbed Holly and cradled her protectively against his chest, then turned and raced away from the chopper. Dev and Jimmy ran forward, their rifles aimed at the glass bubble where the pilot worked the controls.

Jimmy fired a single shot through the glass just missing the pilot, who put his hands up. The helicopter began to sink back down into the deep green grass. The engine turned off, and the rotor blades began to slow.

Sarah raced toward her daughter. “Holly! Holly!”

“Mama!”

As soon as they were a safe distance from the blades, Jackson set the little girl on her feet and she rushed into her mother's open arms. Both of them started crying. Relief hit him so hard his eyes began to burn. Jackson watched the two people he had come to love so much, alive and clinging to each other, and a lump swelled in his throat.

He turned away and when he did, he saw Gabe walking toward him, his rifle slung over one wide shoulder. Relief was etched into his face. Dev was right behind him.

Both his brothers had come to help. Jackson clenched his jaw against the fresh rush of emotion that seeped into chest.

“How'd you know?” he said to Gabe, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder.

“We didn't. Dev and I talked last night. He had a hunch trouble was about to come down. I figured a little trip to Wyoming wouldn't hurt. I guess he thought the same thing.”

For the first time since that morning, Jackson smiled. “You two always did have a good sense of timing.”

They walked over to where the pilot stood next to the chopper, covered by the rifle Wheel held in his hand, Gabe's makeshift bandage wrapped around his injured shoulder. A few feet away Jimmy knelt next to Turk, who lay bleeding and unconscious. Dev found some rope in the chopper, and he and Jimmy tied up the rest of the gunmen. Kneeling next to Turk, Gabe tore open the man's bloody shirt to check the wound in his chest.

“I didn't kill him,” Gabe said to Jackson. “I figured the way things were going you might need him.”

Gabe was a crack shot. If he'd wanted the man dead, he would be. But his brother was right. There was still the matter of Hexel Pharmaceuticals and whatever they were dumping in the Dry Creek Mine.

The company still posed a threat that needed to be dealt with. Jackson hoped the FBI would be able to solve the problem.

Dev left them there and went to check out the cabin. His blue eyes looked hard when he returned.

“Bastards wired the place. From the way it looks, they meant for the three of you to be in there when it blew.”

“You disarmed it?”

He nodded. “It's safe now.”

Jackson looked at his two brothers, and gratitude for the family he had been given filled his chest. His gaze went to Sarah and little Holly, who still hung on to each other in the meadow. They were part of his family, too.

He loved them both and he wanted them with him. He just hoped he could make Sarah see.