Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(84)

The ache in my diaphragm had faded by the time I heard him moving down the hill in my direction, no doubt his gun up, sweeping the area where he’d last seen my head and chest.

When I heard him get close, I looked back and up to where the embankment met the trail. Then I adjusted the butt of the shotgun’s stock against my belt and tilted the muzzle up a good thirty degrees before relaxing my head against the embankment.

I did not want to but I closed my eyes so I could listen better. A full minute passed before I heard a boot make a squishing and sucking noise as it settled into the mud up on the path, which was no more than five feet wide. I took a deep breath and let out a quarter of it before settling.

Ten seconds later, another boot squished and sucked mud, then another.

He’s coming with confidence, I thought, only to have him stop for twenty seconds, then thirty seconds. I wanted to breathe, to sniff in just a little more air, but I was scared he was close enough to see my boots and lower pants now. Any twitch and he’d shoot.

Forty seconds.

My grip on the shotgun in that odd position began to slip. I was going to have to breathe. I was going to have to—

Squish. Suck.

Fifty seconds.

Squish. Suck.

I opened my eyes to slits, saw him appear over the top of the embankment.

His gun was pinned to his cheek and aimed at me, looking for signs of life, when I squeezed the trigger on a load of double-aught buckshot.





Chapter





100




On the east side of the river, Sampson had not moved position since the two bursts of machine-gun fire and the two pistol shots had gone off in the thick patch of trees a hundred yards north of his position. He was lying prone over the top of a hummock of dirt, looking through binoculars at scattered live trees and standing burned trunks between him and the heavier timber.

He started at automatic-weapon fire from across the river, his heart racing, his stomach souring. Alex was engaged.

Sampson turned his binoculars westward and focused on the big piece of timber where he guessed the shooting had come from. A second burst of gunfire confirmed it.

Sampson tried to dissect the woods opposite him but could make out nothing. He swung the binoculars back to study the timber patch out in front of him.

He went back and forth this way for ten minutes before hearing a single blast that sounded more shotgun than rifle. When he looked over there, his grin surfaced and then broadened with every second that passed without automatic gunfire.

Sampson shifted the binoculars back to his side of the river, to where the trail met the woods a hundred yards out, and saw nothing. He panned them slowly left and locked.

Right there, not sixty yards away, stood the mammoth black guy who’d ridden shotgun during the first helicopter attack. How had he not heard him? How had he not seen him?

Sampson was six nine and weighed two hundred seventy-five pounds, but this guy was big too, six foot six easy and pushing the upper two hundreds.

Massive. Solid muscle. A Goliath.

And Goliath was dressed and equipped for modern war, right down to the black clothes, the black gun, the Kevlar vest, and the goggles he wore.

Those can’t be night-vision, Sampson thought. They’ve got to be thermals.

Goliath started to swing his head.

He’s going to peg my heat signature in this rain!

Sampson dropped the binoculars and shifted to get behind the bear gun. He moved too fast. M’s man jerked his head Sampson’s way.

Before Sampson could flip off the safety on the Ruger, Goliath leaped sideways and started sprinting downhill off the trail and in an arc through the trees, firing short bursts at John. Rounds smacked the front side of the hummock and blew mud in his face.

Sampson swung the barrel of the bear gun after the running man. He fired and missed, hitting a stump just behind the giant.

Ducking down, John ran the bolt on the .375 just before Goliath responded with another burst that chewed up the front of the hummock he was hiding behind.

When Sampson peeked again, Goliath was still running like hell and across the hill. When John had first seen the giant, he had been at Sampson’s eleven o’clock. Now he was at ten o’clock and showed no signs of slowing.

Sampson swung the gun after him, fired, and missed again. Nine o’clock.

What’s he doing? Where’s he going?

Sampson ran the bolt a third time, looking past the running Goliath all the way to seven o’clock, and understood. There was a ridge about seventy yards out that climbed and ran west toward the river. He was going for higher ground.

Sampson knew he’d have to reload after this next shot and wanted to make it count before Goliath could get the advantage and shoot down on him.

Keeping both eyes open, John swung the .375 after the running giant a third time, found the man’s left side in the sights, moved the crosshairs just ahead of Goliath, and tapped the trigger. The bear gun roared.

The heavy bullet hit the giant in the ribs below his shoulder.

Dead before he knew it, Goliath did a twisting somersault, bounced off the trunk of a burned tree at the base of the ridge, and crashed to the ground, unmoving.





Chapter





101




I pumped the action on the ten-gauge, got upright on wobbly legs, and looked over the top of the embankment at the dead guy on the trail. He was on his back and unrecognizable.