The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (21 page)

Before she could approach him, O’Rourke was dragged by the boys back toward the line for the Alpine Slide. She would follow him up, then, and speak to him up on the mountain where there would be fewer people around.

O’Rourke and his sons boarded a tram car which would carry them to the drop-off point for the slide. Hedda rode alone in a car a dozen back from her quarry’s. She wondered if O’Rourke was in danger even now, wondered if the presence of his sons had been the only thing that had saved him. A warning would be necessary after they spoke, just as she had warned Hanley.

By the halfway point in the climb, the sloping angle hid O’Rourke’s car from view. Judging by his head start, he would reach the unloading platform a minute or two before her and then take his place with his sons among those patrons waiting for a run down one of the twin tracks.

The beginning of the tram ride had shown her more of the asbestos asphalt track that swirled and dipped through the mountainside. Closer inspection of the plastic sled hanging from her car revealed wheels on its underside that could be lowered or raised by manipulating a center gear lever. The lower, the faster. Pull the lever all the way toward you and the sled would grind to a halt. Push it all the way forward and the wheels would be forced down flat against the track; the effect would be akin to flying down the mountain.

Hedda could see the unloading platform clearly now, and with that checked the Sig Sauer holstered well back on her hip beneath her light windbreaker, hoping it would not be required. Her tram passed under a sign instructing her to raise the safety bar, and Hedda obliged as her car slid over the wooden unloading platform. A white line told her when to ease herself from her seat, and she followed a streak of white arrows to the right off the platform. Before her, a pair of teenage boys who’d ridden the car immediately ahead of hers grasped plastic sleds from a nearby ramp, and Hedda did the same to blend with the scene.

A pair of long single file lines had formed starting to the platform’s right, composed entirely of sled-bearing patrons awaiting their turn to plunge down one of the Alpine Slide’s twin chutes. Hedda joined the left-hand line and peered ahead in search of O’Rourke’s salt-and-pepper hair.

The line was moving quite slowly. Hedda was close enough to the chutes now to hear the grinding sounds of sled tires being lowered to the slippery asphalt track surface, as riders disappeared around the first bank at regular intervals. Fifteen places ahead in line, a tall man leaned over to tie his sneaker, and Hedda’s eyes locked on the salt-and-pepper hair that had been hidden up until then. She should approach O’Rourke now, while they were safe up here. His sons were in line in front of him, meaning she could even wait for them to begin their drops before making her move.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry.”

Hedda was jostled to the right as a man slid by her toward the front of the line. A parent looking for a child perhaps, she thought, since he wasn’t carrying a sled.

Something made her turn to her rear. Other men had taken up posts through the area of the lines, none with a sled in hand. One met her stare, and his eyes wavered uncertainly, hand creeping inside his jacket.

It was too hot a day for anyone to be wearing a jacket unless they had something concealed within it, as she had.

They had come for O’Rourke!

Hedda discarded her sled to the side and threw herself forward just as the man who had jostled by her yanked out a machine gun. A woman screamed nearby, and O’Rourke swung round. The man fired a burst, and blood leapt from O’Rourke’s midsection. Hedda crashed into the Gunman from behind. He pitched downward, machine gun flying from his hand.

“It’s her!”

“Hedda! …”

The screams reached her ears from behind as Hedda drew her own pistol and lunged toward O’Rourke’s shrieking children. She took them down and covered them in the instant before indiscriminate automatic fire opened up from the gunmen posted amid the lines. The screaming intensified. Bodies dropped everywhere, impossible for her to tell whether from bullets or for cover. She fired six times in rapid succession, aim shunted by the innocent bystanders attempting to flee. At least the children were safe, though, now that the killers had her as a target to focus on.

She could not possibly work her way back to the tram line, leaving only one possible escape route: the slide itself.

To reach it, she had to make the chaos work for her instead of against her. Rising into a crouch, she fired off another rapid burst of six shots and moved toward a sled sitting empty at the top of the track.

Chapter 21

SHE LEAPT ON
the sled and shoved it forward along the brief straightaway that led into the slide’s first drop. Jamming the hand lever all the way forward for maximum speed with one hand, she steadied the Sig Sauer with the other and turned back around as the sled jetted down the slide. She drained her clip in the general direction of the gunmen gathering above her, which bought her time to drive the sled into the first curve and out of sight.

She had just steadied herself in a normal riding position when a figure hurled itself with a scream over the track’s side atop her. Hedda saw the man’s knife in time to ward off the first strike and launch a vicious elbow into the face now level with hers. The man screamed again and went for Hedda as the sled slid into a steep drop. Hedda had managed to wedge a leg forward against the lever to keep the wheels lowered all the way, but had yielded position to her assailant in the process. The man rose over her, and when Hedda turned to focus on his knife, his free hand cracked into her chin. Hedda felt her head being forced over into the track whistling by beneath them.

That certainly further fueled her desperation. Her own people were out to do the job they had failed to do in Lebanon.

Hedda fought to jam one hand into the attacker’s face while the other locked on the wrist bearing the knife to keep it away from her body. Trees and bushes sped by, and the sled rolled precariously up on the track’s side, nearly sliding off onto the adjoining turf. The man continued trying to force Hedda’s head down, and she managed to maintain the stalemate. Her advantage was that she was in control of the sled. Steadying her leg against the control lever, she dipped her shoe to the lever’s far side and jammed it toward her instead of pushing it away. Instantly the wheels were pulled back with brakes lowered in their place. A grinding screech found her ears, and her assailant was lifted slightly forward. Hedda was ready for the sudden stop, but the man wasn’t. She twisted out of his grasp and maneuvered on top of him.

Maintaining her control of the man’s knife hand, Hedda shoved his head sideways until it came into contact with the curved track siding. At the same time she jammed the control lever all the way forward again, wheels lowered as the sled dipped into its steepest drop yet. Her ears were stung by the sound of the man’s skull scraping against the asphalt, a trail of blood left in his wake. Straining every muscle, she heaved him off the sled into the brush rimming the track.

By the time Hedda’s sled was moving again at top speed, she heard gunshots behind her. Another pair was pursuing her on sleds, firing at the same time. The shots were errant, though, both because of the movement and the awkward firing positions.

Hedda grasped the lesson in that and reached beneath her for her Sig Sauer. After snapping a fresh clip home, she tucked it into her waistband within easy reach. Then she stood up and found an uneasy balance, as the sled sped into a straightaway where a banner read
SLOW!

Hedda saw that the sides of the track had lowered to almost nothing. Her sled wavered fitfully as she struggled for an uneasy equilibrium with right foot working the control lever. She kept it pressed as far forward as it would go and rode the track standing fully upright like a surfer on a huge wave.

The track banked into a sharp curve that sent her listing almost parallel to the ground. The sled righted in the other direction and Hedda compensated by shifting her weight, gun now steadied in one hand. The pursuers dropped into the straightaway and caught clear sight of her standing form for the first time. The one on her track fired from a crouch with his machine gun, but another curve came up fast and Hedda disappeared around it. When the gunman swung round the same curve, Hedda’s gun was trained on him. A bullet spun the man around and lifted him airborne, and he flew off the track through the air.

Hedda turned forward again in time to shift her weight to jibe with the bends of an S curve that featured a smiling wooden figure between the tracks holding a sign urging
CAUTION!
She swung fast at the sound of wheels speeding down the other side. The other man had risen, too, but was unable to maintain his balance. At the instant he pulled the trigger a sharp curve threw him from the sled, and Hedda watched both sled and rider fly from the track as bullets stitched the air.

Hedda, meanwhile, had no idea where precisely on the track she was. She knew sight of a blue water slide on her left would mean the final stretch was coming. She took a curve hard, and again her sled flirted with the edge of the track. Behind her the grinding
whoooosssssh
from around the bend to her rear signaled another pair of attackers closing fast, one on each track. They broke into the open, and from her sideways standing position Hedda could see both had settled into crouches that permitted them to steady their machine guns across the front of their sleds. The staccato bursts pierced the warm air and echoed along the brush of the mountainside. Hedda did her best to aim through the turns and curves, but the bullets from her Sig were faring no better than the opposition’s automatic fire when it came to hitting targets. Her next squeeze of the trigger brought a click, signaling an empty clip.

Her pursuers’ automatic weapons provided them with a much fuller sweep, and Hedda presented an easier target for them than she would have wished. She took advantage of a thickly wooded area rimming the track to reload her Sig and was ready when she re-emerged into the open.

Twisting to her rear, Hedda snapped off a series of rapid bursts as her opposition’s automatic fire fought for a bead on her. One of her bullets ricocheted off the asphalt track siding and grazed the enemy on her track. His sled wobbled fitfully, and he was pitched headlong over the side, thumping across the ground. The gunman across wavered as well, and again Hedda widened the gap between them.

Hedda knew he had no choice but to go all out to catch her, and she elected to let him. She negotiated through an especially difficult bank turn to the left and chose it as her spot, since it would come equally as hard for the gunman speeding her way.

His sled rolled up and nearly over the track’s edge as he swung into the bank. Hedda saw his body wavering from side to side in the last instant before she fired the final two bullets in her clip. Impact tossed the man upward into the air from the track, while incredibly his sled held to its position and continued straight on, slowing by itself.

Hedda ejected the spent clip and extracted a final one from her jacket pocket.

The squealing approach of a sled running with wheels all the way down on the adjacent track alerted her to yet another attack. She turned and saw a large man thundering for her, machine gun in hand. If her count of the men atop the mountain was correct, this was the last one she’d have to contend with. He opened fire, and one of his bullets bounced off the asphalt and stung Hedda’s wrist, numbing it. She lost her grip on the fresh clip she had yet to slide home into the Sig. It fluttered in the air, and she snatched at it futilely before it dropped to the ground behind her. There would be no outgunning this final adversary now. Outrunning him seemed equally impossible.

The track! Think of the track!

It swerved to the left toward the blue of the water slide en route to the final straightaway leading to the foot of the mountain. She caught glimpses of the crowd fleeing in a panic brought on by the gun battle. Cars thundered from the parking lot. Sirens wailed, drawing closer.

Hedda realized where her only chance lay and crouched low, readying her legs to spring as she wrapped the hand she could still feel around the control lever. She didn’t need to look behind her; her ears told her everything she needed to know about the enemy’s position.

Bullets singed the air above her, and a few pounded the asphalt at the lower rim of the track. Above her, the attacker dropped into the sharp turn that banked into the final straightaway, machine-gun fire drawing a closer bead.

Now!

She jammed the control lever toward her, brakes meeting the asphalt surface with an ear-wrenching screech. She braced herself to avoid the violent forward thrust of stopping short and rose to stand erect as the gunman whizzed toward her. Her sudden stop had spoiled his aim, and he worked frantically to diminish his own speed.

Hedda leapt when the man’s sled drew even with hers. Impact drove both of them through the air, their progress stopped when they slammed into the rim of the water slide. The machine gun was still held to the man by a strap slung round his shoulder, and he fought to gain control of it again. Hedda had expected him to do precisely that. She wedged the gun against his body with her numb hand and pounded his face with her other. The man managed to twist away after the third blow, slippery and lithe as a snake as he tore himself from Hedda’s grasp, almost free.

The sounds of water rushing by in the slide gave Hedda the idea for her next strategy. Grabbing hold of the man’s hair, she yanked violently and propelled both of them all the way over the rim into the water slide itself. The pair, inseparable now, crashed down the jetting currents with Hedda on top and the man struggling to relocate the trigger pinned beneath him.

Hedda ignored the gun; grasping a thick handful of the man’s hair, she bashed his head against the frame of the water slide. Then she twisted it around so that his face was pressed into the swirling waters as they dipped and darted through the S-like design. Hedda kept the pressure up with all her might, the man’s flesh taking the brunt of the contact with the water slide’s bottom. They hit the pool at the slide’s end hard, and Hedda jammed the man’s face down one last time to force as much water into his lungs as possible.