Operation: Midnight Tango

“Y-yes, sir.”

The seven men who comprised the prison SORT team shifted uncomfortably in their chairs while their team leader was grilled to a crisp.

“The woman, too?” one of the men asked after a moment.

“She is an accomplice and is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. For God’s sake, she smuggled a firearm into the prison for him.” Underwood’s gaze scanned the faces of the team he’d gathered to hunt down and kill Zack Devlin and Emily Monroe. “All of you saw the security-camera video. She and Devlin have evidently been planning his escape for quite some time. He is armed with explosives, antipersonnel devices and at least one semiautomatic weapon. I don’t need to remind any of you what this man is capable of.”

Nobody had anything to say about that. Underwood had made certain each man on this handpicked team had seen the file he’d built on the infamous Irish terrorist, Zack Devlin. As far as they knew, Devlin had spent the last ten years murdering indiscriminately. Men. Women. Children.

“This is a race against time, gentlemen,” Underwood said. “It is your responsibility to stop this murderer and his accomplice before they kill again. It is your responsibility to bring them back to me dead or alive. Am I clear?”

Silence shrilled for the span of a full minute.

“This briefing is over,” Underwood snapped.

The team members rose quickly, gathered their weapons and gear and filed out the door.

Dr. Lionel was in the process of gathering his notes when Underwood approached him. “Were you able to locate and remove the GPS device before he got away?” Underwood asked.

“It had been implanted just under the skin.” The doctor pulled a sealed plastic bag from the file and held it up. “I extracted it just a few minutes before he overpowered me.”

Underwood took the bag and studied the tiny device. “Looks to be state of the art.”

“It is. But without it, whatever agency he’s working for won’t be able to locate him.”

The lieutenant approached the two men. “Devlin doesn’t stand a chance in a storm like this with seven of my best men tracking him.”

“You had better be right.” Underwood looked at Dr. Lionel. “I do not want our progress on RZ-902 interrupted.”

The doctor nodded. “We’re moving on to the next phase as planned.”

“Excellent. You know how I feel about delays.” Dropping the GPS device on the floor, Marcus Underwood crushed it with his shoe. “I hate waiting almost as much as I hate loose ends.”

Chapter Four

Zack pushed the snowmobile to a dangerous speed, zipping between trees and treacherous outcroppings of rock. The machine beneath him screeched like a mechanical banshee. Wind and snow battered his body and face shield. Even over the roar of wind he could hear the rotors of the helicopter overhead. He could see the spotlight sweeping down like a white tornado. If they were spotted, it would be over. Not only for him but for the woman he’d dragged into this.

Cursing beneath his breath, he punched off the single headlight. Behind him Emily tensed. “You can’t drive this thing without headlights!”

There was no other choice. The headlights made them sitting ducks. Blanketed in darkness, it took all his concentration to steer around the trees and jutting rock. He silently prayed he wouldn’t run them into some immovable object. At this speed, an accident would be fatal.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said.

He remembered from the map he’d studied of the area surrounding the prison that the main road leading to the small, rural town of Salmon was straight ahead. He was familiar enough with law-enforcement tactics to recognize they were setting up a perimeter. That there would be roadblocks. The map had shown a less-traveled dirt road that would take them west into the Bitterroot Mountains. The terrain would be rough, but with a chopper hovering just a few hundred yards away, Zack didn’t have a choice but to take it.

The road forked. Without slowing down or hesitating, Zack veered left. Trees and rock formations blew past as he pushed the snowmobile at a reckless speed down the narrow road. He was putting them in a perilous position, but getting shot at seemed even more dangerous, so he leaned forward and put the pedal to the metal.

There were no towns to the west. Just the vast wilderness of the Salmon National Forest. If they were lucky, they might be able to find a ranch and get to a phone. But even if they did, Zack wasn’t sure whom to call. Clearly someone at the agency had sold him out. He didn’t have a clue who or why. But he was going to find out. And then he was going to take great pleasure in breaking every bone in their body.

Of course, before he could do that he had to stay alive. That meant losing the chopper.

He ducked instinctively when the powerful spotlight swept over them. He twisted the throttle, trying to squeeze more power from the snowmobile, but the engine was running at its peak. Damn it!

The spotlight swept over them again, only this time it held.

“They’ve spotted us!” Emily cried.

“Not for long,” Zack fired back. “Hold tight.”

He swerved right and for an instant they were hidden beneath the canopy of pines that grew along the road. But the spotlight latched onto them again when they burst from the cover of the trees.

Snow being kicked up from the chopper’s rotors blinded him, but Zack held the handlebars steady and managed to keep the snowmobile on the road using the treetops as his point of reference. The chopper was flying low and bearing down on them, getting closer and closer….

Suddenly a bullet blew a hole through the Plexiglas windshield. Fear notched up into cold, hard terror at the realization there was at least one sharpshooter on board the chopper. And that he and Emily were in his crosshairs. He didn’t know if there were enough trees up ahead to provide ample cover. If he didn’t do something quickly, they would be shot….

Then the windshield exploded. Plexiglas blew back, pelting his face shield and chest. Through the driving wind and snow Zack spotted an opening in the trees off to his right. “Hang on!” he shouted and drove off the road.

The snowmobile bumped over some fallen logs and snow-covered rocks the size of basketballs. He felt Emily tighten her grip. Even through the pandemonium of the out-of-control ride and the knowledge that certain death was only a tiny miscalculation away, Zack vowed to keep her safe. She might be employed by Lockdown, Inc., but he didn’t think she was involved with the RZ-902. She sure as hell hadn’t asked for this.

A rock the size of a Volkswagen came at them seemingly out of nowhere. Zack turned hard to the left. The snowmobile tilted at a precarious angle, but he leaned into the turn and managed to keep it upright. He glanced behind him, looking for the chopper, and saw with some surprise that it was nowhere in sight.

“Do you see the chopper?” he shouted.

“I think it went straight when we went into the trees,” Emily answered.

That wouldn’t last long. Chances were, the Lockdown people were equipped with night-vision equipment. They probably had infrared technology, as well, which worked much the same way only using body heat instead of light. In the snow, he and Emily would stand out like neon beacons.

Zack glanced down at the gas gauge, which had been on E since leaving the prison maintenance building. The best he could hope for would be that they had enough to get them out of the immediate area.

The trees had opened up and Zack drove the snowmobile like a madman. Even though the headlights were off, he could see that they’d entered what looked like an old ski slope. The terrain was sloped severely, but it was clear of trees for the most part. He took the snowmobile up the mountain at an angle.

The snow was coming down in earnest now. If the bad weather continued, there was a good possibility the chopper would be grounded. If they could reach a house or flag down a passing motorist, they might just get out of this alive.

The hope evaporated like a snowflake in the sun when the snowmobile jerked violently. Too late Zack saw the looming cliff. He applied the brake and yanked the handlebars hard to the right. Snow spewed high into the air as the big machine pivoted. To his left he saw the black vastness of space, but they were still on solid ground. For a moment he thought they were going to make it. Then the snow crumbled beneath them.

“Jump!” he shouted to Emily.

The warning came too late. The snowmobile plummeted downward. The engine whined as the machine went into a free fall.

Emily screamed. The terror in her voice pierced him like a dagger. He wanted to turn to her, tell her he hadn’t meant for this to happen. He hadn’t meant for her to get hurt….

Then the snowmobile tumbled into a nosedive, and Zack couldn’t do anything but pray.

EMILY WASN’T SURE how or when she’d lost her grip on Devlin; she’d been holding on tightly just a moment before. Now she was flying through the air, barreling toward an inevitable impact that would surely kill them both. Damn convict. If she’d had a gun, she would have pulled it out and shot him.

She slammed into the ground hard and lost her breath. She heard a crash nearby, then the world went silent and still. For several seconds she lay there, trying to get oxygen into her lungs. When she opened her eyes, she saw heavy snow swirling down. The tops of the pines were swaying. She could hear the wind whistling through the branches.

She’d fallen into deep snow, which had cushioned her fall. Shifting slightly, she took a quick physical inventory and ascertained she was relatively injury-free. Groaning, she rolled onto her side, sat up and looked around.