Dead Man's Land by Jack Patterson (digital e reader .txt) 📕

“Thanks!” Torres said. He didn’t waste a moment, jamming the car into drive and stomping on the gas.

They roared around the bend and skidded to a stop at the junction before pulling over to the side of the road.

Torres got out and snatched his gun out of the console. He knew he couldn’t use it if he wanted to get paid, but it was more for his protection.

Better safe than sorry.

Ortega scurried out of the passenger side with his firearm held upright.

“Put that thing down,” Torres whispered. “We need him alive. We don’t need to start a shootout, especially not here.”

Ortega complied but crept along the road. The sliver of moon overhead didn’t do much in the way of illuminating the road due to the mostly cloud sky.

A slight breeze rustled the leaves overhead while a car engine roared in the distance. But no sign of any people.

“Where could they have gone?” Ortega asked.

Torres shook his head. “Beats me. This place looks like a fantastic hiding spot. This is where I’d go if I thought someone was after me. Dense vegetation. Low traffic.”

“And bears.”

Torres chuckled. “How many times have you heard of someone getting eaten by a bear in Oregon?”

Ortega stopped and shrugged. “Why does that matter, especially if I was the one the bear ate? It only takes one chomp.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe you can even dress yourself in the morning.”

Ortega’s voice went up an octave. “What? It could happen.”

After a few minutes of sneaking around without hearing or seeing anything of consequence, Torres suggested they split up, each taking a different side of the road so they could cover more ground.

Torres looked behind him and noticed the Hummer was almost a half a mile behind them, which would be a problem if they had to drag two men back to the vehicle. He whispered to Ortega that he was going to go back and move it.

Torres sprinted back to the truck and drove it past Ortega, pulling into a clearing just off the side of the road. When he got out he heard water running. He looked down off the shoulder and caught a glimpse of the faint moonlight flickering off the creek below.

He ran back to catch up with Ortega, walking parallel on opposite sides of the two-lane road.

They hadn’t been moving much more than a minute when Ortega froze and whispered. “Do you see that?” He pointed ahead with his gun.

Torres craned his neck to see around the bend. Ortega had a better position to see around the corner, but he held suspect every sighting from his partner.

“What is it?” Torres finally asked, unable to see anything out of the ordinary.

“I think I see somebody.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Don’t do anything until they both come into view.”

“It might be too late by then.” He paused. “Wait. There’s two of ‘em.” Ortega took off running.

“Ortega!” Torres’s whispered plea was a futile one due to the quandary in which he now found himself. He needed to stop Ortega—or else there’d be no chance of catching either one of them. Without any knowledge of the situation, Ortega was rushing into something that might spell doom for their stated objective: capture Vicente Prado. But if he yelled, the men would be alerted and escape. However, if he yelled, the men might also split up and give them the advantage they needed to team up on Prado—as long as they could quickly distinguish which man was which in the pale moonlight.

Screw it!

Torres grabbed his flashlight and broke into a dead sprint after his partner. “Ortega!”

But Ortega kept going until he stopped and raised his gun, firing off several rounds.

“No!” Torres screamed. “Put your gun away!” His lungs started to burn, as did his legs.

Ortega started to run again, further angering Torres.

“We’re coming for you, Vicente Prado!” Ortega shouted.

Torres didn’t break stride until he saw a floodlight switch on outside a house just off the main road. A man stomped out onto his porch and fired his shotgun into the air.

Come on, Ortega. Don’t blow this for us.

Torres pumped his arms and legs even harder. He looked back over his shoulder to see the man with the shotgun now at the edge of the road, his weapon raised high in the air.

“Pipe down before I call the ranger!” the man yelled at them in a gravelly voice.

Ortega kept running and so did Torres—before Ortega dipped down off the road and into the woods.

“They’re over here!” he yelled.

CHAPTER 10

CAL CROUCHED LOW IN THE BRUSH and repeatedly pressed the power button on his phone, hoping to see any sign of life. After a few moments of waiting, the screen remained black. He huffed and shook his head, unsure of what he needed to do to get Prado back to safety.

Their narrow escape from their unsuspecting transport service still had Cal shaking. Stranded in the forest in the middle of the night with two gunmen in pursuit proved to be a far cry from the assignment as it was originally pitched to him.

Ride a bus, poke around, see what you can learn about Cuban baseball.

Though, he couldn’t fault Buckman. How was he to know this simple assignment would be something entirely different

Ride a bus to the middle of nowhere, get stopped and boarded by gunmen, jump out the window, run for your life, hide in a barn, hitch a ride in a flatbed truck, leap from the truck at a stop sign and get shot at.

There were far more boring ways to spend his evening, but journalism appealed to him because of the thrill of the chase—as it related to gathering information to write a great story. For this particular assignment, he never once pondered that the thrill of the chase might include him fleeing for his own life.

Occupational hazard.

Prado sensed Cal’s frustration. “What are we going to do now?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

“We need to get someone to pick us up, someone I