Storm Force

Even though he’d been prepared for the explosion and the eventual wreck, Shane still jumped at the sound. Seated in the stiff seat, he grabbed hold of the chains secured to the D-ring in the floor between his feet. He lifted a foot and jammed it against the seat in front of him.

Some plan, he told himself. You’re going to be lucky if you don’t get somebody killed.

That wasn’t the plan. The plan was all about escape. For himself and for the men he’d fallen in with while in prison. The man who had rigged the explosion worked in Hollywood doing elaborate movie stunts for guys like Richard Donner and John Woo. All stuff with big explosions and flying cars.

It’s a hell of a lot easier watching a stunt like that than being involved in it, Shane thought as the bus started to flip.

All around him, the prisoners cried out, scared and surprised.

Except for Raymond Jolly. The big man sat braced in his seat, broad face implacable. He glanced at Shane with those dead eyes. “You ready?” he asked.

Shane leaned forward to reach Jolly’s hands and took the lock pick he’d fashioned from a piece of wire he’d snared while the prisoners had been at the hospital. They’d been tested for an outbreak of the latest flu everyone was talking about in the media. Shane’s nose still hurt from the deep swab.

Working quickly, he picked the lock. The cuffs fell open. By the time the bus was sliding along on its side, finally slowing with a deep grinding noise, he had his legs free.

He pushed himself up and checked the driver and the guard. The guard’s attention was locked on the wounded driver. Shane walked across the seats, duckwalking from seat to seat as he used his hands on the seats above him.

Reaching the wire-mesh door, he used the lock pick again. The guard heard the noise a beat too late. Shane opened the door as the guard started to raise his shotgun. Grabbing the weapon’s barrel, Shane shoved forward, closed his hand into a big fist, then hit the man in the face.

The guard stumbled backward, releasing the shotgun.

Grabbing the shotgun, Shane rammed the butt into the side of the guard’s jaw. Go down! Shane thought.

The man’s eyes rolled up inside his head and he sank into a boneless heap.

Shane breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to kill anyone.

“Shane!” Jolly yelled.

Reaching down, Shane took the guard’s keys and tossed them back to Jolly.

Jolly caught the keys and quickly uncuffed himself. He handed the keys to the prisoners next to him, then he made his way forward and joined Shane.

“Gonna have to climb out the window.” Jolly plucked the sidearm from the fallen guard. He grinned crookedly at Shane. “Woulda been better if the bus had fallen the other way.”

“Would have been worse if my buddy hadn’t been able to rig the bus,” Shane pointed out.

“Yeah.” Jolly looked at the two fallen guards.

Shane knew the man was thinking of killing them. Raymond Jolly was a merciless man and had killed before. “If you kill one of them,” Shane said in a calm, non-threatening voice, “I guarantee you’re going to amp up the pursuit. Escaping prisoners is one thing. Escaping prisoners who capped guards while they were helpless is another.”

Jolly hesitated for just a moment, then nodded. “Let’s hit it.” He shifted his attention to the driver’s-side window and surged up.

Shane’s stomach unknotted. He followed Jolly, climbing from the bus. He’d heard the sound of the Jeep colliding against the bus. Now he wondered what had happened to the woman.

He slithered free of the bus, surprised at all the smoke. Then he realized the bus was on fire.

Dazed, Kate fumbled for the cell phone in the floorboard. The Jeep’s engine sputtered and died before she could get the clutch pushed in. She punched in 911 and looked at the spiral of black smoke wafting up from where she had last seen the D.O.C. bus.

When the phone didn’t connect, Kate looked at it. No signal.

She switched the ignition on and heard the engine catch. Then she pressed the accelerator and tried to back out of the swamp. The tires spun, even in four-wheel-drive, and refused to find purchase.

Thinking that the men might be trapped in the burning bus, Kate forced her door open and got out. The swamp water was almost up to her knees. Working her way around the vehicle, she opened the rear deck and took out the fire extinguisher from the other gear she kept on hand. Then she turned and slogged up the muddy hillside to the road.

The bus lay on its side, sprawled two-thirds of the way across the road at an angle. Bilious black smoke poured from the engine compartment.

Surely somebody is going to see that, Kate thought. There were enough hunters and fishermen in the area that someone would call in a fire.

She sprinted across the street. The fire extinguisher banged against her thigh at every step. Although the extinguisher wasn’t much, it was all she could think to do. Her mind whirled. The driver and guard would be free, but the prisoners were shackled in the back. She couldn’t bear the thought of watching anyone burn to death.

She attacked the flames in the back immediately, hosing down the smoke and flames with the extinguisher. The white clouds warred with the black smoke. Her eyes burned and watered.

Movement to her right drew Kate’s attention. She turned and spotted a man in an orange jumpsuit coming through the smoke. He carried a fire extinguisher too and helped her spray the flames. In seconds the cold white powder crusted the engine compartment and the flames disappeared.

As she staggered back, almost overcome by the smoke, Kate saw that the prisoner was the blond man she’d spotted through the window. Blood wept from a cut over one of those hazel eyes.

“Guess you came along at a good time,” he said in a deep, resonant voice. Then he shrugged. “Of course, I guess you could say it was a bad time too. Another few minutes earlier or later, you’d have missed this altogether.”

Another prisoner joined the blond one. The new arrival was broad and chunky. His thick-jowled face looked menacing. A thick scar bisected one eyebrow. His hair was oiled and combed straight back.

“You the girl in the car?” the new prisoner growled.

Kate stepped back. “Where are the guards?”

“Guards didn’t make it,” the prisoner grunted. Then he smiled. “Where’s your car?”

Lifting the fire extinguisher to use as a weapon if she needed to, Kate didn’t answer. If the guards were dead and the prisoners were free, she was in a hell of a mess.

The menacing prisoner lifted his arm. He held a pistol pointed at her. “Where’s your car? I won’t ask you again.”

“In the swamp,” Kate said. “It spun out of control across the road.”

The prisoner held out a hand. “Gimme the keys.”

Before the man or Kate could move, the blond man stepped forward and grabbed Kate. He stood behind her and wrapped a hand around her upper body, holding her trapped for a moment, and fished the Jeep’s keys from Kate’s vest.

He held the keys up, dangling them from his thumb. “Got ’em, Jolly.”

The prisoner with the gun smiled. “Good job, Shane.”

Moving quickly, Kate stamped her heel against Shane’s shin, scraping skin with her hiking boot. He yelped in pain, but that was quickly muffled when she slammed the back of her head against his nose. She made a desperate grab for the Jeep’s keys, but Shane closed his fist over them.

Jolly aimed the pistol at Kate.

Moving quickly, Kate threw herself around the end of the bus out of Jolly’s line of fire. Guards didn’t make it. The cold, flat declaration ricocheted through her mind. She was out here alone with escaped prisoners.

On the other side of the bus, Kate ran. Guide work was physically demanding. She exercised and ran every day even though finding the time was almost impossible, keeping herself in peak condition. Her life and the lives of the people who hired her depended on her ability to take care not only of herself but of them as well.

Footsteps slapped the pavement behind her. Curses rang out.

Kate ducked and slid down the muddy hill on the other side of the road from where the Jeep had gone off. A gunshot cracked behind her and leaves fluttered down from the cypress trees in front of her. She didn’t quit running, leaping and dodging through the cypress forest with the sure-footed grace of a deer.

Fifty yards into the swampy tangle, hidden deeply in the brush, Kate stopped behind a tree and glanced back at the bus. Shane and Jolly hadn’t pursued her.

As she watched through the residual smoke coming from the bus’s engine compartment, Shane, Jolly and four other prisoners in orange jumpsuits disappeared over the other side of the road.

Knowing they were going for her Jeep, Kate edged through the cypress forest, working her way forward. Jolly had a pistol, but there might be more weapons on the bus. Once they found out the Jeep was mired in the swamp, they might come for her. After all, she knew the area. If she had a chance to get to the bus and get a weapon—a pistol or a shotgun—she was going to. But if she had to flee farther back into the swamp, she was prepared to do that too.

She halted at the edge of the treeline and listened to the Jeep’s engine catch. The transmission whined, then she heard the wheels grab hold. Evidently with six bodies aboard, the Jeep had found enough traction to extricate itself.

A moment later, the Jeep roared back on to the road with Shane at the wheel. The tires slung mud off, found traction again, then dug in.

Kate watched in disbelief as her Jeep accelerated and disappeared down the road. The adrenaline hit her then, strong and savage, and took away nearly all her strength. She leaned against a tree and shuddered, hoping that someone had seen the smoke and was coming to investigate.

She couldn’t stay here. She had a client with buck fever and she had to pick up Steven and Hannah from Miami International Airport in a few hours. Taking a breath, she steadied herself and started for the overturned bus.

Chapter 2

Kate paused beside the bus, breathing hard. Slow down, she told herself. The men inside this bus have been convicted of armed robbery, drugs, murder and rape. You can’t just charge in there. But what about the guards? She sighed. She couldn’t let anyone burn to death.

During her guide experience—with her dad and on her own—she’d had several close calls. Snake bites and other injuries to clients as well as herself topped the list. And she’d ended up being the medic for her dad and her siblings when they’d gotten hurt. Taking care of people was just second nature to her.

She studied the bus, wondering how best to handle the situation. No matter what she did, there was some risk. At least it didn’t look as if it was going to catch on fire and burn again.

“Is the bus gonna explode?” someone yelled from inside.

“Man, why didn’t those guys cut us loose while they were at it?” someone else griped.

“Can anyone reach the driver? He’s got a set of keys on him.”

“Dude,” someone else said, “I think that guy Jolly or one of his cabrons took the key ring.”

Kate jumped up and caught hold of the edge of the bus, then hauled herself up. The men inside the bus saw her through the windows and started screaming for help, wanting to know if the bus was on fire. They beat on the windows with their free hands, the other hands manacled to the D-rings in the floor. Several of the prisoners yelled at her, urging her to get inside and set them free. Some of the comments bordered on suggestive. Kate ignored it all, hoping she wasn’t going to find the guards dead.

The driver’s window was open. Kate looked inside and saw the uniformed guard lying spread-eagled across the bus doors that were now flat to the street and unable to be opened. The guy was in his fifties, heavy-set and balding. She couldn’t help thinking he was somebody’s husband, somebody’s father, maybe even somebody’s grandfather. But she had no idea how she was going to get him out of the bus if it caught on fire again.

Holding on to the edges of the window, Kate let herself down into the bus. She knelt beside the fallen guard. Blood covered his face, still leaking from a deep laceration on his forehead. Bleeding’s good, she told herself. Bleeding means the heart’s beating. He’s alive. But he had to stop bleeding to stay that way.

The wound wasn’t going to stop bleeding on its own. It was too wide, too deep. Judging from the look on his head, he’d have a concussion at least, but something short of a skull fracture, she hoped.

“Hey!” one of the orange-jumpsuited prisoners called out. “Hey, chica! Get his keys! Get us out of here before we burn up!”

Several other prisoners echoed the demand/plea. A few of them were crying or praying.

“You’re not going to burn up,” Kate stated. She reached under the dash and freed the large first-aid kit secured there. Sorting through the supplies, she found a gauze pad and a roll of adhesive tape. She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and cradled the guard’s head in her lap. Working quickly and from experience, she wrapped the wound, fashioning a turban that would compress the laceration and help aid the clotting to stop the bleeding.

“Damn you, woman!” someone swore. “You can’t just leave us in here to die!”

Kate didn’t take the verbal abuse personally. Being a single woman in what was essentially a man’s profession drew a lot of ire and harsh speculation as to why she did what she did. A lot of men felt threatened. None of them seemed to understand or accept that she just loved being part of the world her father had introduced her to. There was a real freedom in being a guide, in staying out in the wilderness where she wasn’t under someone’s constant scrutiny.

“You’re not going to die,” Kate said, not looking at them. They were captives, chained to the D-rings mounted in the floor. Most of them had to stand now, or sit on the opposite seats because they were at the end of their chains.

“This frickin’ bus is on fire, lady,” someone snarled. “Look at all the smoke.”

“Was on fire,” Kate said calmly. “I put it out before your buddies stole my vehicle.”

“Jolly ain’t no buddy of mine,” someone said. “That bastard had this whole thing wired, this escape an’ all. Blew up the bus. An’ he didn’t invite nobody else in on it.”

Kate let that pass without comment. The prison pecking order wasn’t her concern. Finished with the wounded guard, satisfied that she’d done all she could do under the circumstances, she turned her attention to the second guard.

He was younger, probably twenty-four or twenty-five. He was slim and good-looking. Or at least he would have been if it hadn’t been for the massive swelling on the side of his face. Somebody had hit him really hard.

Reaching into the first-aid kit, ignoring the continued caterwauling of the prisoners, Kate took out an ammonia capsule and snapped it under the younger guard’s nose. The acrid stink caused Kate to choke and cough, but it woke the guard.

He came around fast, jerking his head to get away from the ammonia. He cursed and reached for his pistol but found only an empty holster. His eyes were wide and frightened as he looked up at her.

Kate looked at his prison ID, noting the picture and the name. If something had been planted on the bus to cause the tire to blow it, it could have been an inside job. Just because the guy was wearing a prison guard uniform didn’t mean he was a good guy.

“Bill,” Kate said in a neutral voice. “Bill Maddox. Can you hear me?”

“Huh?” Maddox blinked at her. Awareness gradually seeped into his eyes. He touched the side of his face. “Damn but that guy can hit.”

Kate held up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Maddox looked and blinked. “Two.”

She smiled at him, feeling some of the control returning to the situation. “Good. You’ve been in an accident, but you’re going to be fine. Do you know what happened?”

“Yeah. Something on the side of the bus blew up. Pete lost control and we flipped. By the time I recovered, Shane Warren was out of his seat, off the chain and through that security door. He hit me before I could pull my weapon.” Bill shook his head slowly. “I’ve never seen somebody move that fast in my life.”

“Can you sit up?”

He managed it with help and Kate left him propped against the top of the bus.

“I’ve got to try to get help,” Kate said. “Your friend needs someone to look after him.”

“Where’s Pete?”

Kate pointed at the older guard crumpled against the doors.

Maddox started to get up, then his legs turned rubbery and he sat back down hard again. The prisoners jeered at him, making fun of his inability to stand.

“Easy,” Kate said, looking him in the eye. That was important to a shock victim, she knew. The victim had to feel that he could take care of himself. “You’re probably a little lightheaded right now. After everything you’ve been through, that’s to be expected. Just go slow and you’re going to be fine.”

Leaning back, Maddox started taking deep breaths.

“Breathe slowly,” Kate made herself say calmly. She knew she sounded much more calm than she felt. She’d practiced sounding that way during stressful situations. She demonstrated till he started breathing that way too. “You breathe fast like that you’re going to get your blood too oxygenated, you’ll hyperventilate and you could pass out. That won’t help Pete.” Give him someone else to take care of, she thought. That way he’ll stop worrying about himself so much.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks. Are you a nurse?”

Kate checked an immediate impulse to ask him why he thought she couldn’t be a doctor. She made herself smile reassuringly. “No. But I’ve done a lot of first aid.”

“How did you get here?”

“I saw the accident happen. Thought I’d stop by and lend a hand. Unfortunately, some of the prisoners managed to escape and stole my Jeep.”

Maddox looked into the back of the bus. “Who?”

“Somebody named Jolly. Another guy named Shane.”

Maddox cursed.

“There were four other guys,” Kate said, “but I didn’t get their names.”

Looking back through the prisoners, Maddox said, “Phil Lewis, Monte Carter, Deke Hannibal and Ernie Franks. They were the ones that helped Raymond Jolly pull the Desiree Martini kidnapping.”

That rang bells. Desiree Martini had been the twentysomething heiress of Gabriel Martini, the international shipping magnate who operated out of Miami-Dade. The kidnapping had taken place a few months ago. The last Kate had heard, law-enforcement officials had “feared the worst” and the ransom money hadn’t yet been recovered. Jolly had stashed it someplace before the FBI had apprehended him.

“We need to call 911,” Kate said. “Let them know we’re out here.”

“Sure.” Maddox pulled his cell phone from the holster on his belt. He checked it, shook his head and immediately regretted that. “No signal.”

“It happens down here in the low areas,” Kate said. “Let me borrow it and I’ll hike up on one of the hills. See if I can get a signal there.”

“I can do it.” Maddox tried to get up again but couldn’t manage it. Ruefully, he handed Kate the phone. “I’ll just stay here and take care of Pete.”

“You do that,” Kate said.

“What should I look out for?”

Kate stood and shoved the phone into her pocket. “Keep his head elevated. That’ll relieve some of the pressure and naturally help slow the bleeding. If he throws up, don’t let him breathe it in. Turn his head and get it out.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Should be cake.”

“Cake,” Maddox echoed doubtfully.

“I’ll be right back as soon as I get through to someone.” Kate climbed up and caught hold of the window. She heaved herself out and dropped over the side of the bus. She forced herself to jog, not run, not allowing herself to give in to the panic that throbbed inside her.

She had to run a quarter-mile to reach a rise. Even then she only had one signal bar showing. But when she punched 911, she got right through. As she explained the situation—giving her location and knowing the phone GPS coordinates would back her up—she looked back at the overturned bus. A thin trickle of black smoke continued to pour from the engine compartment. The quiet of the Everglades made everything she saw feel surreal.

She couldn’t help wondering where Raymond Jolly and his cohorts had gotten off to in her truck.

“Hell of a mess you got yourself involved in, Kate.”

Standing to one side of the accident site, Kate watched Sheriff Harvey Bannock walking over to her. “Didn’t exactly have this on my schedule either, Sheriff.”

Bannock smiled and wiped the back of his wattled neck with a handkerchief. “Damn, but it’s humid.” He looked to the south where the ocean lay only a few miles away. “Supposed to be blowing up a storm out there that’ll be on us soon. They’re calling it Genevieve.”

“That’s what Dad said.”

“How come the bad ones always get those sexy names?”

Kate shook her head and watched as the prisoners were led from the overturned bus into another one under the close supervision of shotgun-toting prison guards. Several of the prisoners had complained of medical problems, insisting they needed to be taken to a hospital and not back to the prison. Besides the prison bus, there were several sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and a few of the local reporters. Miami had even sent a news helicopter.

Bannock was a thickset man who’d been sheriff in the county for twenty-five years. His florid face came from too much drinking, but he ran a tight ship. His iron-gray hair was neatly clipped and he wore a jacket over a Colt .45 he’d carried as an officer during his tours through Vietnam. He looked like somebody’s grandfather with his jeans and cowboy boots, but the mirror sunglasses and no-nonsense attitude were all cop.

He was also a good friend to her and her dad. He threw a lot of out-of-town business her way with recommendations and business connections he had. Sometimes Kate thought it was because he felt sorry for her, but Bannock always insisted it was because he could trust her to treat people right and not overcharge them or allow them to poach or indiscriminately kill.

That reminded her of the Mathis party Tyler Jordan had called about.

“You okay?” Bannock asked.

“I’m fine,” Kate said.

“You look a little jacked.”

“Maybe a little,” Kate admitted.

“Prison guard Bill Maddox said you took care of everything inside the bus.”

“Is the other guard going to be okay?”

“The EMTs had him talking. They tell me he’s going to be fine. Part of that’s because you bandaged him up. A few stitches, a stay at the hospital tonight for observation, he’ll be home this time tomorrow.”

Kate glanced at her watch. So far she’d been at the site for almost two hours. She still had Mathis to deal with, and guessed that Tyler Jordan was probably beside himself right now. He might even be prompted to quit. She sighed. All she needed was to be left shorthanded with Steven and Hannah coming so unexpectedly.

“Problems?” Bannock asked.

“I have a client who’s turned the site I put him on into his own private shooting gallery. Tyler called me this morning. I was on my way out there when this happened.”

“I’ll send a deputy around when I can. Where’s the site?”

Kate told him.

“Don’t know how soon I can get a man there,” Bannock said. “We’re battening down the city, getting ready for this thing. But I’ll have him there as soon as I can.”

“I appreciate it.” Kate was antsy, feeling the need to go burning through her.

Bannock wiped his sweating face. “I’m gonna cut you loose, Kate. Ain’t no reason for you to hang around here. If I have any more questions, I’ll give you a call or come by.”

“Thanks, but since they took my Jeep, leaving’s not exactly an option.”