Red on the River

“Could have been the blushing bride. We do know Stella Harrison is getting married in a few days. My condolences to the groom.”

“Don’t count your chickens, Larsen,” Vienna said.

“It’s one of the three of them,” Larsen continued, ignoring her comment. “Unless you lied about Raine being the one shot earlier. Just because she dropped her pack doesn’t mean you were telling the truth about which of the women was hit.”

Vienna strained toward the sounds coming a distance from them. This was just a bit longer stretch of trail. Still, she heard him tear off something.

“There should be a medical kit in Raine’s backpack. A good one,” Vienna said. “Your arm is probably numb and you can’t use it very effectively at the moment . . .”

“Don’t you worry, honey,” he snapped, his normal calm disappearing for just a moment. “I can defend myself against amateurs like the two of you.”

Larsen was hurting all right. She’d scored two hits on him. They weren’t lethal and probably no more than a couple of flesh wounds. Shabina’s shot had torn the gun from his hand and most likely left him with a broken hand and possibly wrist. His arm had to be numb, and like Vienna, those splinters of rock embedded in the skin had to have stung like hot, angry bees. They might not be scoring a kill shot, but they were picking him apart.

“I was more concerned with you being able to treat your wound. I’m a nurse, remember?”

There was a short silence and then he laughed. His laughter was genuine. Like Shabina and Vienna, he had suddenly found humor in the situation.

“What were you going to suggest? That we call a truce so you could treat my wounds? I suppose you don’t want me to get infected.”

“Sepsis is a nasty way to die, but no, even if you gave me your word that I’d be safe, I wouldn’t trust you. I do have some self-preservation left.”

“Good for you,” Larsen praised. “In another life, Vienna Mortenson, I think I would have gone out of my way to protect you. It’s rare that I wasn’t happy with my boss’s order of who to kill. Don’t worry though, I won’t hesitate. If I have the shot, I’ll take it. I’ve never been much of a bleeding heart.”

“I wasn’t worried, Larsen. I expect you to follow the plan.” She glanced at her watch. The forest seemed eerily silent, but in the distance she heard the sound of helicopters.

Larsen swore. “The cavalry is coming. I see now why you persisted in following me when you’re really too intelligent for such a stupid move. I actually do admire your courage, Mortenson. You’re sacrificing yourself for nothing though. Sooner or later, I’m going to kill all of them.”

“There’s that possibility,” Vienna agreed. “But I could always get you first.”

He gave a snort of derision. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ve got a chance. This isn’t Vegas and a card game. It isn’t a game of chance. This is all about experience, lady.”

She could hear again that he was backing away from them. He would have to get out of the open if the military ended up dropping soldiers into the area to hunt him. Even if the helicopters flew overhead, the soldiers manning their guns would be able to kill him as soon as they spotted him. It wasn’t as if there was adequate cover. His only real chance was to get to the forest and stay out of sight.

She reached out a hand to Shabina and indicated she needed to get on her feet. Her ankle was throbbing with pain, but once she put her weight on it, that pain exploded into agony. She forced air through her lungs and breathed away the worst of it, willing what felt like torture to settle back to the throbbing she’d thought was bad before. She would welcome that kind of pain now that she knew the difference.

“Maybe, Larsen. One never knows. You have some experience, but this is my backyard.” She hoped he wouldn’t be able to resist answering her and she could get a better idea of where he was.

He gave another snort of derision. “You think highly of yourself.”

The voice was coming from even farther away. Quickly taking Zahra’s phone out, she opened the app installed for the mini Garmin to communicate to. Sure enough, it pinpointed Larsen’s location right there on the switchback trail now a few yards from her. It looked to her as if he was approaching the next bend. There would be forest for him to disappear into if she didn’t get him before he got to his destination.

She indicated for Shabina to be as silent as possible and once again began stalking Larsen, only this time, Vienna hurried. She still tried to be as quiet as possible, but she ran toward the curving trail, her weapon in hand.

The moment she got to the center of the curve, she stepped out as far as possible in order to catch a glimpse of Larsen as he ran toward the forest just as she knew he would. Her finger squeezed the trigger without hesitation. She had to make every bullet count so she didn’t just spray the entire area around him when he dove into the higher grass and sampling trees.

Larsen returned fire, driving her back into the shelter of the switchback. Now she didn’t have eyes on him, and he could just wait until she came at him again. He would be taking a chance that the soldiers hadn’t been put into the field already and were hunting him. The intelligent move would be to make his run for it, but she had a feeling his desire to get his job done might make him stay right on the edge of the forest where he could hide from the helicopters but still kill her if she came after him.

She waited, her heart in her throat, for any kind of indication of where he was. The breeze fanned the sweat beading on her forehead. “We’ll be sitting ducks for him if we go out into the open and he’s still there, Shabina.”

“He heard the helicopters. He has to know they’ll be flying overhead in order to check on his whereabouts. Don’t you think he’s smart enough to get out of here? They’ll lock down the trails and move all the civilians. He won’t have very much time in order to leave the area before they send in soldiers to make a sweep. You know they will because of Raine.”

“I think he isn’t worried about getting out of Yosemite. He can live off the land, and he’s probably really good at surviving in the woods. He has Raine’s backpack. She carries survival gear even if he didn’t bring his own.”

Shabina glanced at her watch. “By now, they had to have picked up Raine and are flying her to a hospital. If they listened to you, they’ll have an orthopedic surgeon on standby. You’ve done what you set out to do. You wanted to keep him from having an opportunity to shoot at anyone trying to load her into the helicopter. We can wait here and let the military get him.”

Vienna wanted nothing more than to do exactly as Shabina said. “He said he’d kill all of you and my mother.”

The sound of a bird singing had both of them turning to look up the trail. Shabina sang a few notes as if another songbird answered the first. “That’s Rainier. I’m sure of it.” Even so, she took a stable stance and extended her arms in line with her shoulders, pistol in her hands.

“Shabina, stay behind me,” Vienna pleaded. She was slower trying to move around Shabina.

Shabina refused to give way. She stayed where she was and when the bird sang again, she answered a second time.

Rainier came into view and he looked as if he was heading into a combat zone. He wore a vest and a belt, both dripping with weapons. Zale was behind him, wearing the same type of gear. Both looked grim, and neither even tried to appear as if they were anything but there to hunt and kill a man.

Rainier’s penetrating gaze slid over Shabina as she lowered her weapon. “You injured?” he hissed as he came straight up to her. His long strides indicated he’d shot his leg full of some kind of numbing agent so he didn’t feel the wound he’d had no time to heal from.

Vienna wished her ankle had that same numbing agent injected into it. Then Zale all but yanked her into his arms, holding her hard for a brief moment before he tipped her face up to study the scratches and lacerations from the splinters of rock.

“Where are you injured, Vienna?” His voice was harsh.

“My ankle. I turned it, but I’m able to walk on it.” She tried not to devour him with her gaze, or give in to the sudden weakness she felt. She wanted to fling herself back into his arms, where she felt safe.

“What the hell were you two thinking?” Rainier demanded. His voice was low and sounded like the crack of a whip.

Shabina flinched visibly, but her voice was steady when she answered. “We were thinking Raine needed surgery and every single minute counted if she was going to keep her leg. That meant putting pressure on Larsen so he couldn’t target the medevac team.”