“Now you know. Get the hell out of here as fast as you can. They’ll steal your plane if you don’t.”
He didn’t answer, but started the engines and talked to the tower. Ike turned to go off the plane and looked through the plane’s small front window at people emptying from two Suburbans and Suretta’s vehicle, all in a hurry to get to the plane. “Go! They’re coming right now!”
Ike flew down the stairs as the plane revved up. The pilot pulled up the door and stairs, then taxied on the runway, accelerating as it did.
He looked for Hunter and spotted her, standing outside the Jeep, looking at Suretta and her henchmen.
Ike slipped between the hangers and worked his way to the rear, coming up beside the groups and Hunter, slightly to their left.
Kelly hid in the floorboard of the Jeep, listening to sounds of the rapidly departing plane as her heart beat faster. She’d counted seven men, plus Suretta and Paco. The children and Ramona remained in Suretta’s vehicle, along with Nadine, who held a pistol pointed at Ramona’s waist. There was no way Hunter and Ike could beat that many. All these people had guns, too. Kelly spotted two of the men with stubby rifles like half-sized machine guns, and all of them wore pistols. Hunter and Ike needed to leave.
Kelly opened the door on the Jeep and stood outside the vehicle, saying to Hunter, “There’s too many. Let’s drive away!”
Hunter reached for the driver’s door when the men with machine guns cut loose and bullets banged into the front of the Jeep. Hunter turned the key and nothing happened. The men advanced as they worked to put in new magazines. Ike came up beside Kelly and said, “Hunter, let’s go. We can make another plan.’
She looked at Suretta for several moments, and Suretta glared back. Hunter said under her breath, “Shit.” She hurried to join Ike and Kelly, and they raced to the rear of the hangers, with Ike in the lead. He hopped the ranch fence separating the airport from the next place to it, and Kelly and Hunter followed.
Suretta watched them for a few seconds, and when they ran further into the ranch pasture, she said to the others, “Stay on the roads, run them down if you can. Paco, take Nadine’s place and send her to me.”
Paco nodded and trotted to Nadine, telling her what Suretta wanted. She slid out of the seat and let Paco inside to guard Ramona as she hurried to be with her boss.
He kept his pistol in his hand but didn’t point it at her. Anita sat in Ramona’s lap looking wide-eyed and frightened. The other girls were in the back and terrified into silence.
Paco and Ramona watched through the vehicle’s windows as Suretta and Nadine ran after the other three. Ramona said a silent prayer for Ike and the Kincaid woman and the young girl wo had befriended Anita.
Ike stumbled a bit, tiring as they ran over rocky ground covered with thin soil and a scattering of short, rounded mountain cedar bushes. His head pounded with every footstep.
Hunter took the lead and said, “I’ll go slower, but if you need help, tell me.”
Ike nodded, his face feverish. “I’ll keep up.”
Kelly didn’t have a problem keeping pace since she enjoyed running, but this was different because bad people were after them. She glanced back and felt a thrum of fear in her chest as she saw Suretta take several trotting steps and hurdle the four-foot-high, barb-wire topped fence separating the airport from the ranch pasture, and then wait for Nadine. They weren’t all that far behind.
Hunter talked over her shoulder as she ran, “We’ll stay on the edge of this hill, then go over the next one, and from there we’ll go back across the airport runway and onto the golf course.”
Ike nodded, his face grim and his lips thin in the effort to run.
Kelly sped up to stay beside the struggling man, and to be closer to Hunter. As they went around the edge of the small hill, she lost sight of Suretta and Nadine, but she knew they were coming, and fast.
Going up and over the next hill was almost too much for Ike, but he continued, his breath rasping and ragged. Kelly thought she might have to catch him if he collapsed so she edged to within a foot of his side as they ran.
Hunter descended the slope and said, “Going down will be easier, but don’t stumble, there’s lots of cedar stumps and branches scattered around here. When we hit the bottom, stay in the cedars and go straight to the fence and back across to the airport property.”
When they hit the bottom of the hill and moved among the cedars, Kelly heard the clacking of kicked stones from the slope as Suretta and Nadine pursued them. She glimpsed them once, and Nadine looked tired, but Suretta moved like a machine, relentless.
Hunter reached the fence and found a sagging portion that she held down to help Ike across, then Kelly. They trotted across the open area and heard angry yells from behind, but they didn’t look back this time.
As Kelly ran, she moved behind Ike and saw a dark spot on the tail of his untucked shirt where the bag from his neck drain had been. It was torn, and the smell hit Kelly and made her wrinkle her nose. It was of something wrong, of infection in the wound, and she knew what it was because she saw the angry redness around where the tube came out of Ike’s neck. It was infected, and Ike was sick from it.
She started to say something, but realized there was no time to do anything about it but to try and escape their pursuers.
Hunter said, “Not much farther and we can slow the pace. Can you make it, Ike? Are you okay?”
“I’m right as the mail,” he said, quoting a Doc Holiday line from the movie, Tombstone. Sweat filmed his face and his eyes were fevered.
“Hang on,” Hunter said. She led them to the fence dividing the airport property from the golf course and crossed it, then helped Ike across as Kelly crossed further down to save time. She led them into a low area toward the water hazard and out of sight of their pursuers. “Sit down, you can rest for a minute while I watch.”
Ike went down and lay on his back, breathing heavily. Kelly worried he might die any second.