Chasing Gold

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alicia saw Austin twist the wheel again, making the back end spin around. This didn’t harm the gunmen, but it did save his life. Bullets thudded into the side of the car rather than the front, embedding into the metal or passing straight through. Crouch ducked and dived after him, getting ready to act. Austin threw open the passenger door and scrambled over. Alicia raised her weapon and sighted it on the gunmen.

It was a desperate situation.

Russo fired high, hoping to add to the distraction. Alicia screamed at him to fire on the chopper, but then a man appeared at one of the doors, hanging out with a large machine gun in his arms. The initial rattle was deafening, and its bullets tore a track through the asphalt between Alicia and Crouch.

Almost everyone stopped exactly where they were. The exception was Crouch, who dragged Austin out of the car and then pointed him toward Alicia. The young man started to backpedal slowly as Crouch stopped and raised his hands.

Russo sighted on the new gunmen, just like Alicia, to even the odds.

“We want the banner!” a voice cried out. “The rest of you can leave!”

Crouch turned and shouted: “Give them the damn thing. It’s not worth getting killed for.”

The four new gunmen then passed right by him, guns lowered, and pulled Terri and Cutler to their feet. Without a moment’s pause they began to shove the two thieves in the direction of the chopper.

“Hey,” Crouch shouted. “That’s not what we agreed. Take the bloody banner, leave those two.”

“They come with the banner,” a man called. “That’s the deal we have with them.”

Alicia watched the thieves’ faces closely. The stark fear registering there was telling. No matter how they may have phrased it, it seemed the man was telling the truth. Crouch hesitated as the thieves were marched toward the chopper with no protest.

“Wait,” he said, and for the first time Alicia saw how dangerously alone he was, just ten meters from the idling chopper.

“Wait… you don’t need them. They did their job. You have the banner. What could you possibly need from them now?”

“You talk a lot.” The man aimed the huge machine gun toward Alicia and Russo now. “Shut your goddam face.”

Russo nudged Alicia. “I think I could take him out before he gets off a shot.”

Alicia gauged the distance. “Now’s the time, Robster, while the gun’s aimed at us. What could possibly go wrong?”

His lips stretched into a tight smile. “Words a soldier lives by.”

It all happened very quickly. Russo hefted his gun, took half a second, and then fired. His shot flew true; the bullet slamming into the machine-gun-man’s arm and making the weapon tumble to the floor.

“Get their leader!” a screamed snarl rang out.

Two of the four gunmen herding Terri and Cutler grabbed them by the necks and dragged them viciously up to the chopper, brooking no protest. The banner crumpled and creased between them, and they were forced to unclip it before shoving it onto the chopper.

The other two gunmen ran hard at Crouch, guns up.

Their boss didn’t dare move, arms still high in the air. Austin crawled around the front of the car, but had no weapon. Alicia expected him to run foolishly at the man anyway and fired her own gun in his direction, warding him off.

Russo shot at the two gunmen.

Crouch ducked. One gunman was wounded in the arm, but kept coming. They grabbed Crouch and heaved him back toward the chopper, where the doors were already open. Alicia started to run now, shooting the injured gunman and watching him fall to the floor, writhing in agony from two bullet wounds. Crouch struggled in the other’s grip, but the man smashed the side of his weapon into Crouch’s temple, stopping any dissent.

Alicia focused on the gunman.

Another, having secured the thieves aboard, now leaned out of the chopper and laid down a hail of random gunfire. The bullets scattered far and wide and high in the air, but everyone ducked due to the indiscriminate savagery of it.

Crouch fell to his knees just once, and screamed out at the top of his voice: “I’ll make it work! Chase the gold! Long way to go. Chase the fucking gold!”

Alicia sprang up, leaping forward instantly in an effort to reach Crouch. Her gun was firing constantly, and one of her bullets came close to killing her own boss, because it slammed into the man dragging him into the chopper, broke his spine, and sent him tumbling down to the hard asphalt.

Still, hard, strong hands and arms dragged Crouch into the already rising chopper.

Russo focused on the pilot, but Alicia pulled his gun down so that its barrel aimed only at the floor. “Don’t,” she said. “You could cause a crash and kill them all.”

“But…” He let his voice tail off, knowing she was right.

The chopper rose up, now with Terri Lee and Paul Cutler aboard, with Michael Crouch aboard, and with at least some of the men who’d planned the attack on the Smithsonian and the mall today, quite clearly on board.

They also had the Star-Spangled Banner, that incredible symbol of American fortitude and freedom, with them.

Alicia turned to her dejected, heart-broken crew.

“Get it together,” she said. “This isn’t done yet. Not by a long way.”

“What can we do?” Caitlyn watched the chopper rise into the night as if seeing her hopes drifting away.

“We chase that damn helicopter.”

Austin screeched up in the little car. “Get in!”