Page 80 of The Death
“I was afraid that would be your reaction. But we’re running out of time.” He started pulling her toward the helicopter. “And now we’ve got to get you away from this damn mountain. Caleb told me that his men had sighted you several times in this area, and I don’t want you falling into Zakira’s hands before I get the chance to show you that it’s okay to occasionally take turns.”
“I like this mountain.” She was getting into the helicopter. “It’s beautiful, and it probably saved my life when I was on the run.”
“Well, I’d prefer you rely on me to do that from now on. If you’ll allow me the privilege. I promise that you can trust me more than those caves or that spectacular waterfall.”
“I know I can,” she said quietly. “Trust is important. And I hope you’ll trust me, too. I realize sometimes I’m a little impulsive, but I’ll always be there to watch your back.” She paused. “And I want to be the one to do it.”
He reached over and touched her cheek. “Then you’ve gotthe job. And may heaven help you.” He started the rotors. “Because I don’t know anyone else who would want to—”
Splat!
A bullet shattered the window in front of them!
“Down!” Dominic shouted as he pushed her to the floor.
More bullets!
Celine heard shouts from the soldiers who were coming up the hill and firing at the helicopter.
“Out!” Dominic was already out of the helicopter himself and dragging her with him until she managed to get on her feet and was running with him toward the woods. “Keep low and head for the deep woods.” He took her arm and half pulled her along the path. “I’m right beside you. I promise it’s going to be okay. I was expecting this, so I set up a few surprises for them to protect you.”
“No festival to make Zakira and Caldwell happy?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. “How disappointing for them.” She could hear the soldiers shouting in the jungle behind them, and her grasp instinctively tightened on Dominic’s. “But it serves them right, doesn’t it? I was getting a little tired of that nonsense.”
“Just keep running. We have to make it past that line of trees for this to work.”
“For what to work?
“We set up a perimeter to slow them down if they tried to launch an attack on our base camp.”
“You have troops here?”
“Not exactly. Run faster.”
More shots rang out behind them, and they could hear excited shouts from Caldwell’s men.
“They’ve spotted us!” Celine said.
“Good.”
A bullet whizzed by them. “Good?”
He led her around a small gully. “Yes. We need them to follow us for another few seconds.”
As they ran past the tree line, Celine spotted a large black object just over six feet tall. Then another. Then another.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Keep moving. You’ll see in a few seconds.”
She heard more voices behind them, and the bullets were getting close to finding their mark.
“Get down!” Dominic pulled her into another small gully and pushed a button on his wristwatch.
“What did you just do?”
Celine heard a mechanized whirring, and she and Dominic peered over the gully just in time to see the black objects swing around and cut loose with a torrent of gunfire aimed back at their pursuers. The men’s excited voices were replaced with screams of pain as the machine guns mowed them down with incredible precision.
Dominic ducked back down and checked his watch. “Each of those sentry guns is equipped with a two-thousand-round magazine. They’re set up with motion sensors for their targeting.”
