Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [72]
But, knowing what he knew now about Casa del Diablo and its connection to the guy in the White House, he figured he would never be going on a mission for the Company again anyway. Those days were over and done with. He would have a target on his back for the rest of his life….
Unless they could somehow get the truth out and convince enough people to believe it.
They could worry about that later, Ford told himself. Right now his only concern was their immediate survival.
Parker said, “Fargo! Where the hell did Earl go?”
Ford looked along the creek, but didn’t see the little scientist. Earl had been moving fast, but not fast enough to get completely out of sight.
Then an arm emerged from a clump of brush and dead limbs against one side of the bank and waved frantically to them.
“Guys! Guys! Over here!”
Ford and Parker ran to the brush and pushed it aside. Behind it was a depression that erosion had hollowed out of the bank. It was too shallow to be called a cave, but Ford thought it was big enough so that all three of them could crowd in there.
They did. Ford and Parker pulled the dead brush back in place in front of them. Their bodies shielded Earl, who was pressed against the hollow’s rear wall.
“Careful,” Earl said in a strained voice. “I’ve still gotta breathe back here.”
“Pipe down,” Ford whispered. “Not a sound, understand?”
They stood there in complete silence. Using the iron discipline they had learned from years in a dangerous profession, the two agents slowed their breathing until it was inaudible.
A few moments later, they heard footsteps crunching through the sand not far away. The searchers were still above them on the bank. The footsteps grew even louder, until they were right above the hollow.
Then, while the three men hidden there held their breath, the searchers moved on.
Not for long, though. The footsteps stopped, and a man’s voice said, “You’re sure they came this direction?”
“I heard the splashing as they ran along the creek this way,” another man replied.
“Then where the hell did they go?”
“I don’t know. Let’s climb down there and see if we can find any tracks.”
They wouldn’t find what they were looking for, Ford thought, because they had already gone farther than their quarry. But when the killers realized that, they would probably double back.
He and Parker looked at each other. This would probably be their only chance to get the drop on the would-be assassins, and they knew it.
The sounds they heard told them that the men were climbing down the bank about twenty feet to the left. When they heard feet splashing in the creek, they looked at each other again and nodded.
With a splintering of dead limbs, they burst out of the brush and leveled their guns at the two men.
Unfortunately, the men didn’t have their backs to Ford and Parker, but at least they were half-turned away. The split-second delay in being forced to turn and raise their automatic weapons gave the two agents time to fire. Shots blasted from the pistols.
They had expected the pursuers to be wearing flak jackets, so Ford and Parker both went for head shots. They drilled their targets, sending slugs coring through the brains of the two men. The killers flopped bonelessly into the creek, polluting the water with the blood and brain matter that seeped from the holes in their skulls.
More footsteps pounded on the bank above them. There had been three enemies left, not just two. Ford cursed as he and Parker swung around and lifted their guns. The third flak-jacketed killer had already slid to a halt and his finger was tightening on the trigger of the assault rifle he had pointed at them.
Earl burst from the brush and flung a broken tree limb at the man just as he fired. It was a good throw, right at the man’s face so that he flinched involuntarily and the bullets from his gun whipped through the air above Ford and Parker. The two of them fired at the same time. Their bullets,