Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [71]
Ford nodded slowly. “Yeah, yeah, I see where you’re going. No wonder finding out about it shook you up.”
“I may be a weasel, but I’m still an American,” Earl said with a note of pride in his voice.
Suddenly, Ford yelled, “Hang on, Brad!” He jammed on the brakes and hauled hard on the steering wheel, sending the rear end of the pickup slewing around. The truck went into a sideways skid and came to a stop about two feet from the edge of a sheer drop-off where the dirt road ended. The road had been going up a slight rise, so Ford hadn’t been able to see the drop-off until it was almost too late.
He twisted around in the seat to look through the broken window into the pickup bed. Parker was still back there, clinging to the side of the pickup with a slightly wide-eyed look on his face. “What the hell!” he said.
“We’ve run out of room to run,” Ford said. “Last stop, everybody out!”
CHAPTER 30
The dust cloud swirled over the pickup and began to thin as Ford and Earl climbed quickly out of the cab and Parker jumped down from the bed. Out here in the middle of nowhere, it was quiet enough so that the growl of the SUV’s engine as it powered toward them was shockingly loud.
Ford saw the black vehicle. It was about three hundred yards behind them and coming fast. The drop-off wasn’t too deep, only about a dozen feet to a narrow creek that twisted across the countryside. He saw what was left of some thick posts that indicated a bridge had crossed the creek at some time in the past. It must have been swept away by a flash flood, he thought, and was never rebuilt. What remained had been left to rot.
“Get down there,” he told Earl as he and Parker crouched behind the pickup bed and leveled their pistols at the onrushing SUV.
“What?” Earl yelped. “There’s no trail.”
“Then jump! It won’t kill you. Take off up the creek.”
“What about you two?”
Parker said, “We’ll slow those bastards down. Go, Earl!”
Earl swallowed hard, sat down on the edge of the bank, and slid off. Ford heard him thud to the ground at the bottom of the drop-off but didn’t turn around to look at him.
“You land all right, Earl?” he called.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I’m okay.”
“Then get the hell out of here!”
The two agents opened fire. They knew their shots were hitting the heavily armored SUV, but it was like throwing pebbles at a runaway locomotive. The SUV didn’t slow down.
“Get ready to jump,” Ford warned.
“Yeah,” Parker said. It would be like on the Indian Point bridge back in Corpus.
Only it wasn’t, because the driver of the SUV suddenly braked, too, and brought his vehicle sliding to a halt with the passenger side toward the pickup. Someone inside kicked the door open and the chatter of an automatic weapon ripped through the air.
Ford and Parker ducked as the slugs pounded into the pickup. Ford knew it was a lot harder to make a vehicle’s gas tank blow up than the movies made it appear, but when the sharp reek of spilled gasoline filled his nose, he knew the tank had been holed and it was only a matter of time until a spark set it off.
“Jump!” he said.
He and Parker whirled around and leaped off the edge of the bank. Behind them, a ball of flame erupted and engulfed the pickup. That was yet another vehicle he and Parker had gotten blown up, Ford thought as he landed in the shallow creek and went to his hands and knees, feeling the heat of the blast on the back of his neck. They were racking up quite a score in automotive destruction.
The sound of splashing made him glance to his left. Earl was running away down the creek with desperate speed. Ford and Parker went after him. They heard the men from the SUV shouting above them.
“Sounds like … just two of them,” Ford said between panting breaths. “Stop and … make a stand?”
“They’ve got us … outgunned,” Parker said. “Better try to give them the slip.”
What Parker said was true. All they had were the two pistols. The guys after them had automatic weapons and a grenade launcher, for God’s sake!