KILLER
ON THE LOOSE
Chapter
6 – Emily Stone
The increasing
fatigue travelled down her arms as Emily gripped the gun.
She anticipated
the assault.
The heavy
gunfire ceased with only a small spray of bullets in several directions around
her before it stopped completely. The men stopped their pursuit; it appeared
they reevaluated their search.
The rising
humidity fought against Emily’s awareness as she quickly wiped her sweaty hands
on her cargo pants. She pressed her back harder against the cool rock to steady
her nerves and focus on the imminent danger.
The landscape
became quiet— unnervingly quiet. The birds were silent, no wings fluttering in
the trees, and the breeze ran out of energy, not a leaf moved. The only
constant thing was the humidity, which remained high and invading.
Emily licked her
dry lips waiting in expectation for the next heavy barrage of bullets.
Nothing.
She tried to
readjust her headset, hoping to hear static or the sound of Rick’s voice, but
she only heard silence. Daring to peek around the rock formation, Emily eyed
the trail of approach.
Where did they go?
She strained to
hear any sound out of the ordinary, footsteps, crunching of leaves, winded
breathing, soft conversation—anything.
What are they doing?
Still staying in
a crouched position, Emily moved carefully from her location to gain a better
vantage. The trees and surroundings looked normal. She stood up straight, still
with her weapon directed and ready, cautiously sidestepping to move into
another area away from the previous path.
She gained
momentum and a confidence, hurrying down a makeshift pathway to view building
location. She knew that she should continue uphill and move west to meet Rick,
but her drive and concern to locate the missing girls overrode strict protocol.
Emily’s internal
conversation was interrupted by shouts—first it was several men’s voices. She
immediately recognized Rick’s authoritative tone. “Drop your weapons and show
me your hands now!” he yelled.
Emily hurried
downhill, careful not to stumble and fall. She ran as fast as she dared to in
order to reach Rick. Disturbing thoughts raced through her mind of what might
happen if she did not reach the location in time.
Reaching the
bottom, Emily saw Rick holding one of the automatic weapons directed at the men—his
shotgun lay on the ground next to him. The men were on their knees with their
hands laced behind their heads.
“Rick,” Emily
said breathlessly. “How’d you…”
“I had them in
my sights after the alarm went off.”
Emily kept her
Glock trained at the men. “Where are they?” she demanded.
The two men
looked straight ahead, not moving, and ignored Emily’s question.
“I said…” she
began as she confronted the first man by pushing her weapon into his face.
“Where are the two girls?”
The man remained
quiet.
“Em, secure
them.”
“I want to know
where the girls are!”
Rick lowered his
tone, “Secure them and we’ll search the property before we alert authorities.”
Emily let out a
breath clearly frustrated. She pulled several plastic zip ties from her cargo
pant pocket and restrained the men—both wrists and ankles. She didn’t care that
she pulled the ties too tight and hoped that it was uncomfortable.
“Keep an eye on
them. I’m going to check this storage building.” Emily knew that the alarm was
deactivated and there was no chance of a repeat of events.
Rick nodded and
stood guard, taking the situation very seriously.
Emily hurried to
the building. She stood at the entrance for a moment, hesitating, before she
moved toward one of the tarps.
She flung back
the covering and revealed various types computer parts. It was not entire
computers like laptops and desktops, but boxed parts of motherboards, internal
drives, memory cards, and various controller drivers.
Emily quickly
documented the inventory with her phone and personally viewed everything in the
storage area. There was no sign of the missing girls or any indication that
they had been there.
She returned to
Rick and reported, “No sign of the girls.”
“What’s in
there?” he asked. “More weapons?”
“No, computer
parts, all kinds,” she stated. She watched for any reaction from the two men.
Nothing.
“What the hell…
why are they storing computer parts in a secure building?”
Emily added, “We
need to find out who is behind this and where the girls are.”
“The bigger
question is what were they going to do with the computer parts and explosives?”
No comments:
Post a Comment