Page 139 of South of Nowhere

She flung the door open.

Choking, Annie Coyne stumbled out.

Colter called to her, “Stay low and get to the command post.”

Coyne oriented herself and began to stagger there.

The officer started in that direction too.

“No,” Colter said. “Stay with me, Starr. Better shooting vantage.”

He was watching Bear’s F-150 pickup skid into downtown and race for the bridge over the spillway. It was a tough shot for their pistols and there was a risk they’d hit one of the houses that Bear sped past—houses that might be occupied by remainers.

He and Starr stood down from firing.

Then the man was over the bridge and disappearing into the forest on the road that led up to Route 13.

As soon as that happened, the corporals started firing toward the southern hilltop, basically covering shots to keep Colter and Starr down and stop them from hitting Bear’s truck when it emerged. Clearly, their operation had gone to hell and they needed to escape.

Colter and Starr crouched, though the slugs came nowhere close.

She placed a call—sheriff’s department again—and told whoever answered that the shoot-out was ongoing and they needed to get a roadblock on the south end of Route 13.

Colter didn’t disagree but he believed that would probably not be their escape route. He told her, “I think their plan is to head down one of the mining trails to a clearing, a chopper’ll pick them up. We have to stop them here, now.”

“You think they have a…Never mind. Whoever they’re workingfor has money. Ofcoursethere’s a helicopter.” She squinted at the Expeditions. “Okay, grilles and tires. Here we go.”

Colter nodded at his small pistol. “Not much good at this range. Shoot some pennies for us.”

The officer grinned, then did something that he’d never seen. She stepped back a few yards, walked behind a tree and rested her left hand on a branch, palm up, and placed her right, holding the pistol on it. You always fired a long gun on a rest, a pistol rarely.

There followed a stunning fusillade of shots from the big weapon. A pause between each one to reacquire, but no more than a second. Soon the slide locked back and she reloaded. He noted four extra mags. Twice what most cops carry.

“Glad I’m not a coin downrange from you,” he said, shouting since they were both partially deafened.

The grille of one vehicle was perforated and steaming, and two tires of the other were flattened.

Bear’s pickup—their escape vehicle—remained hidden in the brush; Starr had no target toward it.

Olsen and the fake corporals were now trapped on the east side of the highway, hunkered down behind the SUVs, which were nothing more than bullet-resistant barricades at this point. One of the men started across, shooting as he went but Starr fired his way—Colter let go a couple of rounds too—and the fake corporal dropped. He probably didn’t get hit, but his mind had been changed. He crawled back under cover.

Tolifson shouted, “CHP called me. They’re on the way. But they’re saying thirty minutes.”

A puff of smoke appeared from a tangle of brush behind which Bear’s truck was hidden. A big slug—a hunting-rifle bullet—suddenly snapped over Colter’s head.

He and Starr dropped.

Dirt kicked up behind them.

It would be the rifle Bear had used to shoot Ed Gutiérrez. And he clearly knew what he was about when it came to weapons.

Two more rounds followed the first. A pause.

Olsen and the corporals started across the highway but Starr rose quickly and fired, driving them back.

She dropped just as one of Bear’s slugs slammed into a tree very close to them, and two more followed, digging up dirt a few yards from them.

Another pause. Another trio of shots. They were getting closer.

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