Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(99)

It’s not quite enough. I use the handcuffs as entrenchment tools and deepen the trough another three inches, all the way across. It’s hard work, and painful. I try to ignore the ticking clock getting louder with every second that passes, and the liquid sound of the breaths I’m taking, and the pain in my shoulder and side and my throat. Sooner or later, the guy I took the keys from will notice their absence, and he’ll know exactly where to look. I need to be gone.

The inky darkness is my friend as I slither under the heavy door. For a horrible few seconds, I can’t summon the strength to push myself out when I’m halfway through; I have to lie still and gasp for breath and fight against the pulsing red pain. I’m bleeding again. It’s a slow leak. Shut up, you can make it. I push and swallow the groan as my wound presses and scrapes against the edge. Sweat burns my eyes. One more.

I push, and my hips slide under and I roll over and crawl to my hands and knees, then to my feet. I’d been so focused I forgot there was normally a guard patrolling around, but he’s gone, drawn off by the orders that Father Tom gave out at the lake. Day of reckoning. It’s coming for all of us, I think. Me especially if I screw this up.

I limp to the darker end of the building and use the cover to get my breath back and try to form a plan. I need to get to the RV, get on board, drive toward the gates, and honk the horn like mad; Connor will know what it means. He’ll come running, or try. Once I’ve got him, I’m going to ram the gates, and if these assholes get in my way, so be it. That’s their choice. Mine is to save my son.

And they’re going to light up that tin can with MP4 rounds, genius. What’s your work-around? I don’t have one. Plan A had better work, because plan B doesn’t exist. Shit. Well, sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got.

I make it to a stand of trees that marks the edge of one of the fields and stop for breath, and to check the bandage. In the thin moonlight I can see that there’s a big, dark, wet spot on the white cotton. I’m bleeding, all right. That’s another timer clicking down. Move it, Cade. Now.

But I have to wait until I get my air back and the world stops spinning, so I stare at the fields. They’re mostly fallow for winter, except for a small and carefully tended garden. No winter wheat, which would have been helpful because I could have used the cover or . . .

I lean against a tree, and for the first time in what seems like a long time, I smile. Because there is a plan B.

I head for the barn instead of the RV. They keep cows in a small pasture; I smell the cow shit as I pass, though the cows themselves are invisible. I love that smell. Cows mean that the barn has hay.

Hay is an excellent distraction.

I don’t have matches, but I do find a plastic gas can sitting by a tractor; it’s half-full. Good enough. I douse the hay bales. Still no matches, but I grab jumper cables hanging on the barn’s wall and hook them up to the battery on the parked tractor. I touch the clamps and get a nice, fat spark.

Before I ignite the hay, I make damn sure I have my next move in my head. I know where the RV is parked; I saw it on the way here. Simple enough. I hope.

I spark the hay. The gas ignites with a dry, vigorous whoosh. I avoid the ignition wave with a healthy retreat, and as I head out the barn door into the darkness toward the RV, I see the blurry orange glow already starting to rise behind me. The chickens in the coop outside start to squawk. There aren’t any animals in the barn, thank God. Just storage. I don’t want to think about what I would’ve done otherwise, because right now I have a ruthless streak a mile wide.

Survival’s a hardwired instinct.

I’m halfway to the RV, comfortably in the cover of the darkness, when I hear shouting. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but my plan was to draw a good number of them to fight the fire.

That isn’t what happens.

Floodlights blaze on all over the compound. A siren wails—the kind that rises and falls in pitch, like it’s announcing the arrival of a tornado.

Then the noise cuts off, and something else comes over the loudspeaker. Father Tom’s voice.

“Brothers, the day of reckoning is here! Today is the day that the hand of Satan is raised against us, but fear not—our army of saints is called from heaven to fight. God be praised!”

I can hear the distant shouts. Call and response. God be praised.

Christ. The FBI are coming, and they know. What the shit were you thinking, Mike? I want to scream it at him, but I’m exhausted and dirty and bleeding into the dirt, and that RV is way too far away, and I’m way too fucking slow right now to make it. The keys are in my hand. Doesn’t matter.

The compound—at least here, toward the gate and near the main buildings—is lit up like Broadway. I can see Father Tom’s lackeys running to assigned tactical positions. How can Mike not know that anything but a stealth approach is a terrible idea? Maybe it isn’t Mike. Maybe it’s some gloryhound local agent who doesn’t realize he’s about to kick off a brand-new Waco.

It takes me a few seconds to realize that I’ve missed something vital. The lights. The positions of the lights are mostly concentrated near the part where the cultists live and work. But the fence goes pretty far out there. Mike’s not stupid. He’ll know they have to try negotiating; hell, he’s probably been ordered to do it. But he’ll also know there aren’t enough cultists to guard every foot of fence line. The feds are going to make it in, whatever happens up at the gate. All I have to do is stay down and wait. It’s almost comfortable. Or it would be, except that with the barn on fire, I’ve put myself right in the path of anybody dispatched to put it out. I need to move.