Chapter 7 - THE MINE ROAD
The abandoned mine road was little more than two muddy tracks beneath pine trees.
Rain had turned the ground black and slick. Ethan drove without headlights, following fresh tire marks visible through night-vision goggles. Rachel sat beside him wearing a borrowed protective vest over her cream sweater.
Agent Vance's team approached from the west.
A state tactical unit moved toward the border crossing.
The kidnappers had fewer than twenty miles before reaching wilderness too wide to seal completely.
Ethan found the truck near an old silver-processing station.
Its doors stood open.
Blood marked the passenger seat.
Rachel touched it with a gloved finger.
"Not much. Could be from a cut."
They heard an engine deeper in the forest.
A second vehicle.
Ethan raised his radio.
"Movement northeast. They're transferring."
Gunfire answered from the trees.
The windshield cracked.
Ethan dragged Rachel behind the engine block as bullets struck metal.
"Stay down."
A man shouted from the ridge.
"Walker! Toss the phone and the evidence drive onto the road!"
Ethan recognized the voice.
Daniel Kessler.
The man who had been arrested at the airport was not Kessler.
A substitute had used his identification.
The real Kessler had remained inside the investigation.
Rachel whispered, "How?"
"Someone helped him."
Kessler shouted again.
"We only want what you stole!"
Ethan glanced toward Rachel.
"The drive isn't here."
"I know."
They had uploaded copies to multiple federal servers hours earlier. Kessler either did not know or did not believe it.
A woman's cry came from the processing station.
Lacey.
Rachel looked at Ethan.
"We have to reach her."
Ethan studied the terrain. A drainage channel ran beneath the road and emerged near the building.
He gave Rachel the radio and drew a route in the mud.
"You stay behind the concrete wall. When Vance arrives, tell her there are at least three shooters."
Rachel nodded.
Then she grabbed his sleeve.
"Come back."
"I will."
"That's not a promise soldiers get to make."
"No."
He touched her face.
"It's one husbands do."
Ethan crawled through the drainage channel while Rachel kept Kessler talking over the radio.
"You threatened a nurse and kidnapped a waitress," she said. "This is your grand plan?"
Kessler laughed.
"My plan was to let your husband destroy himself. Cole was too stupid to follow instructions."
"You told Cole about Falcon One."
"I told him enough."
"Why Lacey?"
"She saw a payment exchange she didn't understand."
A shot struck the concrete above Rachel.
She did not flinch.
Inside the processing station, Ethan found Lacey tied to a chair. Travis Cole stood behind her with a pistol.
Travis looked nothing like his uncle now. Sweat covered his face. His hand shook.
"You ruined everything," he said.
"You assaulted her," Ethan replied.
"She lied."
Lacey's eyes filled with rage.
Ethan kept his voice calm.
"Let her go."
Travis pressed the gun against her head.
Ethan shifted slightly.
Travis followed the movement.
That was the opening.
Lacey drove both feet backward into Travis's knee.
He stumbled.
Ethan crossed the room before the pistol steadied. He struck Travis's wrist, turned the weapon away, and drove him to the floor.
Outside, automatic gunfire erupted.
Agent Vance's team had arrived.
Kessler fled toward the border in the second vehicle.
Rachel saw the headlights burst through the trees.
She ran to Lacey and began treating the cut on her forehead while Ethan joined the pursuit.
The mining road narrowed above a ravine.
Kessler's vehicle lost traction on a sharp turn and slammed into a tree.
He crawled from the wreck holding a pistol.
Ethan approached through rain and smoke.
Kessler raised the weapon.
"You should have followed orders in Yemen."
"You should have told the truth."
"I built your career."
"You buried my men."
Kessler fired.
The bullet struck Ethan's vest and knocked him backward.
Rachel screamed from the road below.
Ethan rolled behind a boulder.
Kessler advanced.
Then Sheriff Cole stepped from the trees with a shotgun.
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He had escaped federal transport during the confusion.
And the weapon was aimed at Kessler.
