No, if Payne was going to take out Holmes, he had to do it from close range with a great deal of finesse. It was the only way to guarantee his own safety.
Payne pulled the Glock from his belt and studied the back of the truck, hoping to find something useful. The bed was bare except for a tool chest, a tire, and a thick military blanket. Payne thought for a moment, trying to figure out how he could use any of these things to his advantage, when an idea hit him. He could use the blanket to obscure Holmes’s vision.
With a quick tug, Payne slid the blanket across the bed and readied it for use. All he needed to do was toss it over the front of the—
“Oh, my God!” Payne mumbled.
He stared at the object on the other side of the truck and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. How had he been so blind when he first climbed aboard? How could he have missed such a large lump under the blanket? It just didn’t seem possible.
But there it was. Or more accurately, there he was. The captive who’d been pulled from the Devil’s Box before Payne had been placed inside. The man was handcuffed, unconscious, and lying no more than five feet away.
Payne crawled across the truck bed and tried to examine him, hoping he was still clinging to life. His skin was red and blistered, not only from severe sunburn but also from insect bites. Even though his eyes were responsive, they were lethargic—possibly from dehydration or an illness of some kind.
“Hang in there,” Payne whispered.
He glanced at the open terrain of the surrounding field and realized that he needed to make his move immediately. He didn’t want to abandon the sick prisoner, but if he struck now, he knew there was no chance of the truck slamming into anything solid.
“Everything’s going to be fine.”
Stretching the blanket in his two hands, Payne crawled toward Holmes. Although pain ripped through his biceps as he worked, he realized that he had to use his left arm to complete the job. There was no other choice.
Taking a quick breath to ease his agony, Payne thrust his arms through the broken back window and arched the blanket over the face of the stunned driver. Holmes instantly released the steering wheel and used both of his hands to tear at the thick blanket, but Payne wasn’t about to give in. In fact, he felt like a rodeo champion clinging for life on the back of an angry bull.
“Stop the truck!” he demanded. “If you want to live, stop the truck now!”
Holmes responded by pushing on the gas pedal even harder while screaming, “Fuck you!” through the rough cloth of the blanket.
The vehicle’s speed continued to increase until Payne yanked on the blanket again, this time in a series of rapid bursts. “I . . . said . . . stop . . . the . . . truck . . .
now
!”
Realizing that he had to do something, Holmes finally gave in to the request, but not in the way that Payne had been hoping for. Instead of easing his foot from the gas pedal, Holmes slammed on the brakes as hard as he could, trying to free himself from his captor. The sudden shift in the truck’s momentum did the trick. Payne flipped over the top of the roof like a drunken gymnast, legs and arms flailing in every direction while trying to stop his slide. But nothing could prevent him from tumbling in front of the screeching truck.
WHILE shaking off the effects of the ATV crash, Jones pulled himself to a sitting position and studied his immediate surroundings. He saw two four-wheelers, both of them damaged and overturned, and the closest one to him was on fire. Using the light from the blaze, Jones checked himself for blood but was surprised to find very little. He had an assortment of scrapes and bruises, but he didn’t have any open gushers like he had feared.
After rubbing his eyes for several seconds, Jones climbed to his feet and looked for the other driver. He wasn’t quite sure who he was looking for—his head was still groggy from the accident—but reasoned if there were two vehicles, there should be two bodies.
At least, that seemed to make sense in his current state.
Jones wandered to his left and stared at the flaming wreckage, making sure that no one was on fire. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”
There was no response.
Jones limped to the second ATV, the one that he’d been driving, and pushed it over onto its wheels. Although it was dented and scratched, Jones didn’t notice any major damage. There were no obvious leaks or stray parts lying on the ground, and despite the collision the wheels seemed to be intact.
“Takes a licking and keeps on—”
A deep growl broke Jones’s concentration. He immediately stared in the direction of the noise and searched for the source.
“Hello?” he shouted, but this time with a little more apprehension.
Once again, there was no response.
As he studied the darkness, Jones placed his hand on his belt and felt for the cold touch of his gun. He was thankful when his fingers curled around the rough texture of the handle. It gave him a burst of confidence.
“Who’s out there?” he demanded.
Another growl. Softer, angrier.
Jones took a few steps forward, holding his gun directly in front of him. He was in no mood for games and planned on punishing the first person he came across. “If you’re out there, I recommend you answer me. Otherwise, I have a bullet with your name on it.”
He took another step, moving closer to the source of the sound. The light of the fire helped show him the way. In fact, he relied on it.
“I’m telling you!” he warned. “You’re really pissing me—”
But Jones wasn’t able to finish his statement. In fact, he nearly choked on the words as he tried to say them.
Bennie Blount was sprawled on the ground, twisted and contorted in a puddle of his own blood. Hovering above him, like a monster from another world, was Tornado, its face and claws dripping with the liquid that surged from the open wounds it had created.
When the animal saw Jones, it lifted its head and growled in an effort to protect its dinner, and when it did, chunks of flesh dropped from its mouth and fell onto the red dirt below.
The bloody display made Jones nauseous, yet it only added to his determination.
He instantly raised his Glock and pointed it at the snarling beast.
Bang!
The first shot entered the animal midshank, knocking it away from Blount amidst a series of yelps. But Jones refused to stop. He wouldn’t be content until this creature had died.
Bang!
The next bullet ripped through Tornado’s hip, sending a spurt of blood into the air and onto the ground where the dog collapsed with a loud thud.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Tornado danced spasmodically as Jones pummeled its body with shot after well-aimed shot, making sure that this beast would never breathe again.
Jones sneered. “Tell Cujo I said hello.”
CHAPTER 56
WHEN
Payne opened his eyes, he was unable to see anything except two blazing orbs of light, one shining on either side of him. He tried leaning forward, using his good arm to lift him from the ground, but the front bumper of the truck restricted his movement.
“Wow!” he gasped, noticing that most of his body was underneath the frame of the vehicle. “Thank God for tall wheels.”
Using the grille for support, Payne scrambled backward, freeing himself from the undercarriage as quickly as possible. He realized he didn’t have time to plan anything elaborate—Holmes would be looking to strike hastily—so Payne decided to follow his gut. And it told him to attack.
With quiet confidence, Payne lowered his right hand to his hip and grabbed his Glock. As his finger curled around the trigger, Payne glanced under the motionless vehicle, looking for Holmes’s feet. If he had seen them, he would’ve blasted them immediately, but Payne’s search turned up empty.
That meant that Holmes was either inside the truck or on it.
Since the front windshield was missing, Payne knew he’d have an unobstructed shot if Holmes was in the front seat. He realized, though, that the windowless space would be far more beneficial to his opponent. The gap would give Holmes more room to maneuver inside the cab and an extra way to escape. But Payne wasn’t about to let
that
happen.
No, the only way that Holmes was going to get away was through Payne, not through a window. Unfortunately, that was what Holmes had in mind.
While recovering from the sneak attack, Holmes noticed Payne’s silhouette on the ground ahead, created by the headlights. The shadow gave Holmes all the information he was looking for: Payne was still alive and directly in front of the truck.
Without delay, Holmes slammed his foot on the gas, launching the truck forward at full speed. Payne, using his well-honed instincts, sensed what was about to happen before it actually did. With mongooselike quickness, Payne fell backward onto the hard ground. A split second later, the truck roared above him, its high undercarriage protecting Payne from injury.
The instant the truck had passed, Payne flipped onto his belly and burst forward like a sprinter at the start of a race, but he quickly realized that the vehicle was too far ahead for him to catch it. Stopping immediately, he aimed his Glock at the truck’s back tire and discharged three quick rounds in succession. The second and third bullets hit their mark, piercing the right wheel and causing Holmes to temporarily lose control of the truck. The vehicle fishtailed, skidding sideways on the dew-filled grass, but Holmes didn’t panic. He coolly compensated for the loss of air pressure, allowing the back end to straighten itself out, then continued forward as fast as the vehicle could carry him.
“WHERE the hell have you been?” Levon Greene growled. He had been standing by the boat for several minutes, impatiently waiting for Holmes’s return. “I was getting ready to leave you.”
With a look of annoyance on his face, Holmes stepped from the heavily damaged truck. “Where the hell have I been? I’ve been doing your dirty work, that’s where I’ve been!” He opened the back of the truck with a slam, then climbed onto the tailgate. “If it wasn’t for your selfishness, we’d already be far from this place, somewhere in the gulf by now. But no! You just had to have your pet slave, didn’t you?”
Greene moved forward, glancing into the back of the truck. He wanted to make sure that Holmes had returned with Nathan. “He’s gonna fetch you a lot of money, so I don’t know what you’re so pissed about.”
Holmes glanced down at the slave and gave him a swift kick in the midsection. He was completely fed up with Greene’s shit, and he needed to take it out on somebody.
“You don’t know what I’m pissed about? Well, let me tell you! You brought two MANIACs to my island, then when they got loose, you ran and hid while I was forced to deal with them!” Holmes pulled the slave toward the back of the truck and waited for Greene to take him. “I mean, this is
your
guest, not mine. So why did I have to risk my life to get him?”
Greene shook his head at Holmes’s ignorance. “Because I’m the one with money. If your name was on the bank account, then I’d be doing stuff for you. But I’m the one with the cash, so you’re the one with the job.”
PAYNE knew he had a lot of ground to make up—probably too much to do on foot—so he decided to take a chance. He wasn’t sure if his four-wheeler had survived the vicious jolt from Holmes’ truck, but he decided to run back to the crash site and find out. Thankfully, the gamble paid off. The Grizzly had overturned, but it worked just fine.
After putting it on its wheels, Payne jumped on the ATV and rocketed ahead with a touch of the accelerator. The green and black vehicle reached top speed as Payne urged the machine to catch Holmes. If Ariane was taken from the island, he knew the odds of finding her would go down significantly. It wouldn’t be an impossible task—hell, Payne would devote his entire life and all of his resources to finding her—but he knew it would be quite difficult.
“Come on!” he implored, digging his heels into the ATV. “Go faster!”
But the vehicle was going as fast as it could, vibrating rapidly from the strain. The darkened scenery of the Plantation whipped by in a blur. The trees, rocks, and animals were all a part of the landscape that Payne ignored. His full concentration, every thought in his throbbing head, was focused on the love of his life and the bastards that had taken her away.
Oh, they would pay. They would fucking pay!
But he had to catch them first.
IT wasn’t until the hydroplane eased into the warm water of the inlet that Holmes was finally able to relax. Until that moment, he was certain that Payne or Jones would appear at the last possible moment to foil his escape. But as he glided from the marsh’s rugged shoreline, his anxiety started to fade.
He had faced two MANIACs in battle and lived to brag about it.
As the boat moved farther into the swamp, passing groves of cypress trees and several curious alligators, Greene noticed the difference in Holmes’s appearance. His partner’s face no longer looked haggard, and his body no longer looked beaten. In fact, he actually seemed to lose years as the boat continued forward.
“What’s your deal?” he wondered. “You look like a new man.”
“Feel like one, too.” A full smile crossed his lips for the first time in hours. “My gut told me we weren’t gonna make it. I don’t know why, but something warned me about Payne and Jones.”
“What did it say?”
“It told me that they were gonna be our downfall.” Holmes took his eyes off the water and cast a paranoid glance back at the shore. “But I guess I was wrong, huh? We beat Mr. Payne-in-the-Ass once and for all.”