Let the Music Play - 44. El Vohzd

The cacophonous blast from Brandon’s shotgun echoed through the small ranch house, ebbing to a deadly silence. Helen’s anguished scream was the only other sound as Eric’s body, shoved by the shotgun’s concussive blast, slammed into the unyielding wall and crumbled to the floor, his blood dripping out to trickle across the flagstone.

Dimitri knew that he’d won. Brandon would have to pump the shotgun to reload it, but Dimitri had no intention of giving him the time.

Brandon made no move to reload. Staring in horror at Eric’s blood on the wall, he let the shotgun fall to the floor with a clatter as he glanced down at Eric’s body.

With one bullet and one target left, Dimitri drew a bead on Brandon’s head and squeezed the trigger as Chase, disregarding the knife now in his throat, wrenched his left arm partially free of Dimitri’s grasp. As the cold and deadly steel of the cruel blade sank deeper into his throat, Chase tried in vain to jam his elbow into Dimitri’s ribs, landing only a weak blow that did nothing to stay the knife from its course.

In his improvised headquarters, The Scar studied several maps that he’d draped over bales of hay as he reviewed his plans one final time. He looked up to see an approaching officer. “El Vohzd,” the young and earnest Paraguayan captain said, addressing his newfound leader in the manner he’d been instructed, “Your forces are entering the city as we speak.”

As the first hint of dusk tinged the reddening evening sky, the tanks began to clatter and grind through the streets of Asunción.

Dimitri’s bullet whizzed past Brandon’s ear, clipping a few strands of hair. Dimitri’s aim had been thrown off my Chase’s frantic thrashing, and he knew instantly that he’d wasted a round. Out of ammo, and with the Makarov out of reach, Dimitri took the only way out that he could see. He stopped his slow cutting of Chase’s throat, which had proceeded no further than a shallow cut, deferring for the moment his plan to kill the young drummer. Using his superior mass and strength, Dimitri locked his arms around Chase’s bleeding throat, and with a heave and a yell, sent both himself and his captive hurling towards the bedroom’s picture window.

With a crash and a shower of flying glass, they both landed, still entwined, on the hard ground outside. Dimitri was relieved; he hadn’t known if the window was safety glass or not. Had it been the older, conventional glass, he would have been cut to ribbons. As it was, he’d escaped with some minor scratches and gashes.

Yanking Chase to his feet, Dimitri hauled him the few yards to the waiting SUV, as a dozen bikers approached from the south, though they were still fifty yards away.

Recognizing the captive, Jim barked, “Hold your fire,” as Dimitri, using Chase as a shield, opened the driver’s side door and pulled Chase in on top of him. Dimitri tossed Chase into the passenger seat, and then slammed him on the back of the neck with the handle of his knife. Stunned, almost knocked cold, Chase sagged down in the seat as Dimitri slammed down the accelerator, spinning the SUV in a circle as he hit the button to roll down his driver’s side window and fished the grenade out of his pocket.

The SUV kicked up enough dust that the approaching bikers couldn’t fire at its tires, and also didn’t notice the grenade as Dimitri hurled it through the broken bedroom window. With that task accomplished, Dimitri continued his turn, flooring the accelerator as he raced away.

The gunfire had not gone unnoticed. From the biker’s house, Brody had watched in seething anger as what looked very much like a cop had held a knife at Chase’s throat and stuffed him into the Sheriff’s Department SUV. Brody didn’t like cops at the best of times, and now he had a score to settle with the one holding Chase. Brody saddled up, firing up his Harley while some of his bikers – who had been closer to their motorcycles – roared away in pursuit of the fleeing SUV.

Inside the house, Brandon was still reeling from the thought that he’d actually shot Eric and the realization that Chase had been taken. The black cylinder sailing in through the window barely registered in his stunned mind as it clattered to a halt at his feet.

Eric, still lying on the floor face down, was reaching to slap a hand on his injured arm when the grenade, its fuse softly sputtering, came to rest inches from his nose.

A memory of an old war movie raced through his brain, and Eric, with his left arm already in motion, swept up the grenade and continued the motion of his arm, whipping the cylinder as hard as he could through the open bathroom door, towards the bathroom window.

With a fraction of a second remaining on its fuse, the grenade smashed into the single-glazed window. It hit hard, with more than enough force to break the glass. The grenade, which still retained most of its momentum, arched towards the ground as soon as it had passed through the fragmented pane.

The fuse detonated the grenade’s eight ounces of TNT while the grenade was still a foot from the ground. The concussive force mainly bounced off the building’s sturdy wall, though it was enough to shake the structure. The blast wave shattered the remaining glass, sending a shower of pieces lancing into the bathroom ceiling.

Brandon crouched down to Eric, gasping, “I didn’t mean to shoot you; I thought I swung the barrel far enough past before I pulled the trigger.”

Climbing to his feet, Eric slammed his hand against his wounded arm to stanch the flow of blood as he said, “You just barely caught me. I don’t think I’m hit bad. I ain’t complaining either; I thought you’d have to do it for real.” Realizing that Brandon hadn’t been aiming to kill, and not yet having felt the wound on his arm, Eric had played dead by collapsing on the floor, letting his shotgun fall within easy reach.

Brandon snatched up his shotgun and chambered a round as he glanced out the bedroom window, listening to the guttural snarl of Harley’s roaring away in pursuit. Stating the obvious, he said, “He’s got Chase. We’ve gotta go after them!”

In unison, it dawned on Eric and Brandon that they hadn’t heard a word from anyone else in the room. In growing fear, they both whipped their heads around to look towards the kitchen.

Racing for the road, Dimitri tried to decide what to do. He’d seen the explosion outside the building, and assumed that his grenade hadn’t made it inside. He knew that Brandon, at least, was still alive. Therefore, he had to admit to himself, his mission had been a failure. Glancing at his captive, he knew he had the means to lure Brandon to his death, but that thought was pushed aside as Dimitri focused on his more immediate need: escape and evade.

Dimitri had left the landscaping truck a mile to the north. However, the bikers he could see scrambling for their Harleys on the adjoining property made any hope of changing vehicles unseen a futile one for the moment. His decision made, Dimitri whipped the SUV to the right as he reached the road, knowing full well that in so doing he would pass the driveway to the biker’s property. He wanted them to come closer still, and eased off the accelerator as he roared past in a cloud of dust, heading south.

The first wave of bikers roared out of their driveway in pursuit, the closest just yards from the SUV. Dimitri slowed down a little more, allowing the bikers to bunch up behind the SUV as he retrieved a grenade from its box. He used his teeth to pull the pin from the cylindrical grenade, keeping the spoon in place with his fingers. Taking one more glance over his shoulder, he opened his hand, allowing the grenade’s spoon to snap open, igniting the fuse. Waiting a second and a half so the timing would be right, Dimitri dropped the grenade out the open window, letting it fall onto the rutted road, obscured from view by the clouds of dust.

Eric’s shocked eyes fell first on Jon, who was staggering to his feet, his face contorted in pain as he clutched his left shoulder. Eric began to dash towards his wounded brother. He’d barely taken a step when his eyes tracked to the left, coming to rest on Helen, slumped against the wall, clutching her abdomen, in a dark pool of her own blood.

Seeing that Jon, though clutching at a his bloody shoulder, was up and moving, Eric and Brandon raced to Helen’s side, shotguns in hand. No sooner had they arrived than the back door was kicked open, and the first thing they saw was the barrel of a gun.

Brandon, his adrenalin still pumping through his veins, thought they were again under attack. Bringing his shotgun up, he saw at the last possible moment that it was one of Jim’s bikers.

The biker saw the guns coming to bear and jumped back out the door, his own urge to fire stifled by his recognition of Brandon and an unyielding sense of self preservation. He yelled out, “I’m a friendly, hold your fire,” and took a deep breath as he re-entered the house. Two other bikers charged in behind him a moment later, all three men coming to a halt just inside the door, staring in horror at the carnage around them. The blood and gore from the two deputies made it plain that they were far beyond any earthly means of help, and Jon, though seriously wounded, had joined Brandon and Eric at Helen’s side. Seeing that Helen was losing massive amounts of blood, Eric glanced around for a towel. Finding none, he shucked off his shirt and eased it under Helen’s arm, trying to slow the loss of blood. One of the bikers, who had been an army medic years before, rushed to aid Helen, though his first glance told him that the effort was likely to be in vain.

Helen, slipping into the first vestiges of shock, fought off the clawing numbness as she looked at her three boys. She’d seen enough to know that Dimitri had taken Chase, and she knew what had to be done. Drawing a painful, ragged breath, she said, “Go after them, save Chase. There’s no time, just go, now.” Seeing the hesitancy in their eyes, and knowing that they didn’t want to leave her side, Helen added, as her voice fell to a ragged whisper, “There’s nothing you can do for me. Jon can stay with me, he’s hit bad too. Brandon, Eric, I want you to go, right now.”

Eric’s eyes met Helen’s, and in spite of his grief, he knew that she was right. His goodbye was simple, a soft caress that left a smear of his blood from the base of her ear, to her chin. Without a word, though his heart felt like it was being ripped in two, Eric tore himself away as he set his jaw in resolute defiance, before standing and snatching the keys to the Jeep from a kitchen drawer.

Jon, in agony from his shoulder, looked up from Helen to watch as Eric and Brandon dashed for the front door. Fearing for Chase’s life, and thirsting for revenge, Jon yelled out the one thought that would settle both issues, “Kill that guy, just kill him!”

The one thing that Dimitri had failed to compensate for was the grenade’s forward motion. It didn’t slow down as much as he’d anticipated when it hit the road, but instead it bounced along, moving almost as fast as the SUV. As a result, it wasn’t as far behind the SUV as he’d planned when its fuse ran out.

With a thunderous clap that hammered at the eardrums of everyone nearby, the grenade detonated halfway between the SUV and the pursuing bikers, sending out a powerful shockwave. The two leading bikers took the brunt of it, the blast throwing them backwards off their Harleys. The bikers further back had varying luck, some lost control, others, further back yet, fishtailed and regained control, barely, only to run headlong into their fallen comrade’s bikes, which were obscured in the dust kicked up by the blast.

A shockwave’s power is measured in overpressure: pounds per square inch. The more square inches, the more of the shockwave’s power will be absorbed. An SUV is far larger than a motorcycle and rider; it is also fairly flat, further increasing its blast vulnerability from behind. These factors all played a role as the shockwave from the grenade, which had detonated less than a dozen feet from the fleeing SUV’s rear bumper, slammed into the vehicle. Dimitri ducked as the glass from the rear window blew forward, and the SUV, shoved hard from behind, began to fishtail.

The loss of control was near total; Dimitri couldn’t stop the vehicle from beginning a sideways drift, skidding off the road into a field of grass. The shockwave’s impact had shattered the rear window, but that wasn’t all. The pressure had been considerably higher than the thirty pounds per square inch contained in the SUV’s rear tires. As a result, the tires had momentarily buckled, parting company with the rims for a brief instant, loosing the air out of both. The vehicle teetered to a stop, and Dimitri spun the wheel and hit the gas, intending to get back on the road. He felt the mushiness and vibration, along with a thumping from the back end, a sure sign that he had two flat tires. That, he knew, made his escape plan impossible. He patted his pocket, feeling the reassuring mass of the nuclear trigger. If he was cornered, he planned to use it. By his way of thinking, there was no reason not to.

Bouncing back onto the road, Dimitri glanced back to where the bikers lay. Some were getting up, but none were yet on their bikes. In the distance further back, he could see over a dozen more, closing in fast. Dimitri floored the SUV as the rear tires began to shred, desperately trying to think of a way out of his dilemma.

As he rounded a curve, taking him out of sight of the bikers, the answer presented itself to him; the side-road leading to his mine shaft and lookout. Dimitri whipped the SUV onto the dirt track, racing for the cover promised by a copse of trees which obscured a curve a few yards ahead. The flat rear tires provided a rough and perilous ride, but Dimitri took the curve, interposing the trees between himself and his pursuers. He pressed on, bounding along the rough track as fast as he could, as the trail began to climb, becoming steadily rougher.

Jim, standing outside, finished his call to one of six bikers who’d been heading for a bar in Telluride. Reaching them just as they neared the airport, he’d given them the news and had them turn around. That, he hoped, would pin the fleeing SUV between two forces of bikers; one ahead and one behind. He just hoped it would be in time to matter.

A blur of motion to his side caught Jim’s eye, and his head snapped around in time for him to see Brandon and Eric leap into the Jeep

Eric took the wheel, not thinking of his wounds. Jamming the key into the ignition and twisting it, Eric gunned the engine and roared out of the carport. Jim saw them tear by, and ran for a nearby Harley, jumping on and riding in pursuit.

Eric had both hands on the wheel, and Brandon saw the blood begin to flow again from Eric’s wound. Peeling off his shirt, Brandon knotted it around Eric’s upper arm in effort to slow the bleeding.

As they approached the road, Eric looked both ways, trying to figure out which way to go. A motion in his rear-view mirror caught his eye: Jim, waving towards the south. Eric whipped the Jeep to the right, trying to set aside what had happened at the house. He knew he had to concentrate on getting his brother back alive. There would, he darkly suspected, be plenty of time to grieve later.

Unable to take his eyes off the road, Eric felt the pain from his arm and asked, “How bad am I hit?”

“Looks like a couple of pellets hit you, one made a cut and the other went right through. That one’s bleeding the most. It should be okay for a while if you keep my shirt on it,” Brandon replied, wondering if he’d ever see Chase or Helen alive again.

Back on the road, the first of the bikers – those who had righted their bikes after being knocked down by the grenade – roared by in pursuit, passing the entrance to the dirt track as they rode hell-for-leather towards Telluride.

Brody, leading a dozen bikers from his club, brought his bike to a halt amid the carnage of men and machines wrought by the grenade. After detailing a few of his guys to take care of the wounded, he paused to check in via phone with the guys coming up from Telluride. He received the troubling news that there was no sign of the fleeing SUV ahead. Nodding to himself, Brody motioned for six of his club members to follow and set out in pursuit, riding slowly.

His Army training had included a fast course in tracking, which Brody put to use. The SUV’s tracks were easily distinguishable from those of the Harleys on the dirt road, and as Brody pressed on, taking his time, he saw the SUV’s tracks change, the tire prints becoming wider as the tread marks in the center faded out. He smiled to himself, knowing that he was seeing the signs of two flat tires. He knew that the SUV could drive for miles on its rims, but it wouldn’t be fast. The bikers ahead would have intercepted it long before now, he reasoned, so that meant... there, he could see, a rough dirt track on the left, and the SUV tracks turning in. Motioning for his riders to halt, Brody came to a stop as he killed his engine, and the others followed suit. In the sudden silence, Brody could hear the distant mutter of an engine ahead. That gave him all the confirmation he needed.

Topographic maps of the area were among the first things Jim had provided, and Brody was fairly sure the dirt track dead-ended. Pulling out his map, he confirmed it, and began to study the terrain. Within seconds, he was sure that the SUV was trapped. Under other circumstances, he’d have gathered his forces and roared up the trail in pursuit, but not with a hostage at stake. He had his doubts whether Chase was still alive, but had to assume that he was.

Brody turned to face the sound of an onrushing Jeep. Eric maneuvered the Jeep past the first of the bikes and began to accelerate, when Brody held up a hand, motioning for him to stop. The Jeep ground to a dusty halt with its passenger side facing Brody. Brandon cranked the window down and asked in a frantic voice, “How far ahead are they? We’ve got to catch them!”

Shaking his head and then flicking a thumb towards the dirt trail, Brody replied, “They turned off here, and that track looks like it dead-ends. More of my guys are on the way. When they get here we’ll head on up. I’ll take the point, and when we spot the son of a bitch, I’ll send some guys around, using terrain for cover, to flank him. We only need one clean headshot to take that cop out.”

Eric, shouting across Brandon, said, “That’s no cop. I recognized him; he was with Jerry in Australia. I’m going with you; that’s my brother he’s got!”

Brandon’s nod told Brody that he’d have both of them along. He could also see that there was no point whatsoever in arguing.

Lieutenant Phelps, still walking westwards, had not heard the gunfire due to the interposing hilly terrain. He continued his report to Edwards Air Force Base, oblivious to the carnage at the ranch. His call also served to convey the mistaken impression to Edwards that all was well.

Back at the ranch, the former army medic had tried to slow Helen’s bleeding and had elevated her legs, but there was little else he could do. He had grave doubts that anything could be done to save her; she was fading fast. Barbra held Helen’s clammy hand, murmuring, “Stay with me babe, just hang on.” Joe put an arm around Barbra, trying to comfort her, but feeling the sobs she was stifling.

Jon paced nearby, using his wadded-up shirt as an improvised pressure bandage on his shoulder while he talked with a Sheriff’s Department dispatcher on a phone held awkwardly by his angled neck. At first, the dispatcher had not believed the report of two dead deputies, but reading off their names and telling the dispatcher where they had been assigned ended that. The dispatcher, after putting Jon on hold for less than a minute, returned to give him some welcome news. Jon turned to tell everyone in the room in a loud voice, “A medivac helicopter is coming; they said it should be airborne any time now and should get here in under ten minutes. The Sheriff’s Department is sending some men but they are coming by road and should be here in half an hour.

Jon returned to Helen’s side, only to see that her eyes were closed. Feeling an emptiness, accompanied by a deep sense of foreboding, he glanced at the former medic, who shook his head with a sad, barely perceptible motion.

At the far end of the old mining road, the struggling and battered SUV ground to a halt at the rockfall which blocked it. The SUV was almost dead. With its oil pan shattered on a rock a few hundred yards back, its engine was hot enough to seize. Noticing that his passenger was coming too, Dimitri stuffed the two remaining grenades in his pants and grabbed Chase by the arm, yanking him out of the SUV over the driver’s seat. Dimitri had parked at an angle to the road, and reached in to release the parking brake. The SUV, still in neutral, began to roll backwards as Dimitri stepped back, still clutching a dazed Chase by the arm.

The SUV picked up speed on the steep shelf road until its left rear wheel cleared the edge of the drop-off. With barely a sound, the vehicle careened over the precipice. It raised a cloud of dust and a cacophonous racket as it tumbled down the rocky mountainside, its shattered remains coming to rest in the steep ravine a few hundred feet below. Dimitri peeked over the edge, unable to see the SUV due to the dust it had kicked up, and hoped it would be good enough. There was nothing else he could do, so he aimed his empty revolver at Chase’s head and snarled, “One false move and you die. Get moving, keep in front of me, but no more than five feet or I shoot.”

Shoving Chase hard, sending him crashing to his knees on the sharp fragments of rock that made up the trail around the rockfall, Dimitri gave Chase a kick to get him to hurry. With Chase stumbling in the lead, shaking his head to try and clear it while desperately trying to think of a way out, they walked up the remaining track. A hundred yards from the ridgeline, they arrived at the old mining drift. Dimitri shoved Chase inside, and fumbled for a flashlight from the Sheriff’s Department utility belt he still wore. Flicking it on, he shoved Chase again, heading up the gently sloping shaft.

Upon reaching his gear, Dimitri shoved Chase again, hard, sending him sprawling amidst the rocks a few yards past the gear. Snatching up an AK-47, Dimitri covered Chase and reloaded the revolver. With that done, Dimitri tried to think up a plan.

Chase, staring at the looming barrel of Dimitri’s assault rifle, eased himself up off the shaft floor and edged over to sit against the tunnel side. He checked his wounds, mainly minor scrapes and gashes from his falls and a bloody, though superficial cut on his neck. Not much caring anymore what fate befell him, he narrowed his eyes in spite of the gloom and asked, “What do you want?”

Dimitri was in a quandary. He could kill his captive and escape on foot into the mountains, but he knew that at least one band member was still alive back at the ranch. If they had yet to disclose what they knew to the authorities, there might still be a way. However, Dimitri reasoned, if they had told what they knew, there was little point in taking further risks, given the odds, and better to just kill the captive and be done with the situation. Knowing that the likely survivor was his captive’s boyfriend, Dimitri knew he had a way to lure the lead singer to his doom. However, before trying that, there was one piece of information that he needed to obtain.

Drawing his knife as he knelt beside Chase, Dimitri traced the tip over the tan, bloodied skin of Chase’s throat and asked in a calm voice, “What have you told the authorities? I need to know, right now, or I will begin to cut until you crave death.”

Disregarding the knife at his throat, Chase shook his head. “Go fuck yourself. You made Brandon kill my brother. You won’t let me live, and I have nothing to live for anyway.” Chase meant every word he’d just said; he had no doubts that Brandon would be unable to live with himself after killing Eric. Chase hadn’t seen what had happened to the others in the room, and in his mind’s eye he found himself watching, over and over, as Brandon fired the shotgun at Eric. With a shudder born of grief, Chase felt sure that he could never look into Brandon’s eyes again without feeling some vestige of hate. Looking into Dimitri’s eyes, he craved one thing only: revenge. Short of an opportunity to get that, he didn’t care if he lived or died.

Appraising his victim, Dimitri smiled coldly and withdrew what appeared to be a cell phone from his pocket. “Very well, let me see if you care about people, millions of them. You are aware what occurred in Australia, I’m sure. This is a trigger that controls some identical bombs in the United States. If I speed dial number four, Los Angeles will be destroyed. Number five destroys New York.” Chase’s eyes opened wide at the mention of those two cities as Dimitri continued, “Now, unless you answer honestly, one of those two cities dies. Would you care to choose which one? Or would you prefer to tell me what I need to know? Remember, I have had your ranch under observation and I also have other sources. Lie, and a city dies.” Dimitri, near exhaustion due to lack of sleep, hadn’t bothered to lie to Chase regarding which cities the bombs were in. He wanted to see the drummer’s reaction, and he planned to kill Chase within minutes.

Shivering as he envisioned mushroom clouds rising over the ruins of Los Angeles and New York, Chase wondered for a moment whether it was true. Given that they already suspected Jerry of being involved with the nuclear weapons, and all that had occurred, Chase decided that he couldn’t risk millions of lives. He was about to tell Dimitri the truth when another thought occurred; someone had to stop the man in front of him, somehow, or the cities could still die. Mistakenly assuming that Dimitri had seen General Bradson’s arrival in the tilt-rotor, Chase lowered his eyes as he said, “We wanted to, but not yet. Our manager doesn’t trust the authorities ­– that’s why we have bikers protecting us. She told the general who flew in to fuck off.” Making a guess, and hoping that the ploy would work, Chase added, “We tried to get the cops to listen to us about what happened to our plane, but they wouldn’t. Only after that one guy tried to attack us and was killed did they show up to try to protect us.”

Taking the point, a hundred yards out in front, Brody led the way up the old mining trail. He’d given himself the most dangerous mission; serving both as advance scout and bullet bait. He knew the risks but pressed on, manhandling his heavy bike up the rock shelves and outcroppings of what had once been a road. His instructions had been simple; three Harleys were to follow a hundred yards behind. A larger force of a dozen bikers was further back yet, Brandon and Chase with them, and Brody had ordered them via phone to halt at the end of the ridge. The plan, such as it was, was for Brody to locate the attacker and then send an attack force on foot over the ridge in a flanking maneuver. The main drawback in his plan, so far as he was concerned, was that he’d be unlikely to be the one who killed the son of a bitch they were hunting.

Seeing the rockfall blocking his way, Brody brought his Harley to a halt and clicked off the engine. He could see the vestiges of a trail skirting around the rockfall, but though he figured he had a fair chance of getting his Harley around it, he knew there was no way to get an SUV past. That meant he’d lost them, somehow. Swearing under his breath, Brody glanced at the ground, looking for signs. The trail was mostly loose rock at that point, but in a few places, dirt had collected. Brody saw fresh tire tracks in one, and after backtracking a few yards, he found more. What bothered him the most was that the tracks from the damaged rear tires were overlain by the ones from the intact front tires. That meant the SUV had been going in reverse. Breaking into a jog, Brody trotted downhill, his pistol at the ready. His eyes opened wide in surprise when he saw tire scuffs at the edge of the drop-off. Fearing the worst, he glanced over the edge. Below, on the steep rocky mountainside, he could see bits of glass and a side-view mirror. Squinting to see down into the ravine at the bottom, he spotted a single tire, still attached to the crumpled remains of the upside-down SUV.

Wasting no time, he began running down the road, and as soon as the other bikers were in view, he waved for them to hurry.

As soon as the riders had brought them to a halt, Eric and Brandon jumped off the back of two Harleys, leaving the riders behind as they raced to Brody’s side. With a sad look on his face, Brody lead them back up the road as he said, “They went over the edge. We’re going to have to climb down, but I don’t think there’s much hope.”

Steve, Wilde, and Zeke arrived with the second swarm of Harleys, running up just in time to hear the news. Wilde stared down the craggy slope, judging it to be a seventy degree grade, and said, “We can freeclimb this. Stay here, we’ll be faster on our own.”

Smiling and feeling a sense of relief, Dimitri paused to consider what to do next. His captive had mentioned nothing about the shipping, and he had shown an expression of surprise at the intentional mention of bombs in Los Angeles and New York. That, Dimitri judged, meant that the band had not put the pieces together, and that meant there still might be time. Dimitri shoved Chase over, face down, jamming his knee into Chase’s back as he slammed the handcuffs from McClatchity’s belt onto the drummer’s wrists, locking them behind his back. Dimitri began to rifle through Chase’s pockets, and soon found what he sought; Chase’s cell phone. Taking it, Dimitri grabbed Chase’s arm and yanked him to his feet.

With the flashlight glaring in his eyes, Chase could barely see his phone in Dimitri’s hand. Dimitri flicked it open and turned it on. Smiling, he saw the entry for Brandon and selected it for dialing. It was then that he discovered that he had no signal and realized that it was due to being deep underground. Glancing down at Chase, Dimitri was torn between the thoughts of gutting him immediately, or waiting in case he needed him. Dimitri hauled Chase to his feet, and shoving him towards the entrance to the mine shaft.

A few feet back from the entrance, Dimitri saw that he had a signal. Bringing Chase to a halt by slamming him against the side of the mine shaft, Dimitri dialed Brandon’s number.

© 2008 C James

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Many thanks to my editor EMoe for editing and for his support, encouragement, beta reading, and suggestions.

Thanks also to Shadowgod, for beta reading, support and advice, and for putting up with me.

A big "thank you" to to Bondwriter for final Zeta-reading and advice, and to Captain Rick for Beta-reading and advice.

Special thanks to Graeme, for beta-reading and advice.

Any remaining errors are mine alone.