Black Canyon Conspiracy Page 17

  He whirled around, heart pounding. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “No, but Prentice is getting away.” She pointed toward the crowd of men around the disabled truck. A single black ATV negotiated the edge of the ramp, lurching toward the canyon rim. Richard Prentice, bareheaded, with a rifle slung across his back, stood in his seat as he powered the vehicle up the slope. “We’ve got to stop him,” Lauren said.

  He was too far away to shoot at the vehicle or the man. He and Lauren would never outrun the ATV. He searched the line of vehicles waiting behind the truck and spotted a side-by-side ATV. He straightened and brushed debris from his clothes, then cradled the rifle and started walking down the slope.

  “What are you doing?” Lauren asked, racing after him.

  He assumed his commanding officer demeanor and marched straight toward the soldiers, who were so intent on the action ahead that they didn’t notice him until he stood beside the driver. “Soldier, I need this vehicle,” he said. “I’m ordering you to turn it over to me at once.”

  The soldier, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, blond hairs sprouting from his chin and acne scars on his cheeks, gaped at him. “That’s an order, soldier!” Marco barked, and hefted the rifle.

  “Y-yes sir,” the man stammered, and slid out from behind the wheel. His companion fell from the passenger side and scrambled to his feet, trying to regain his balance and salute at the same time. Marco slid into the driver’s seat and Lauren raced around to climb in beside him.

  “Hang on!” Marco shouted, and gunned the ATV forward, past the stranded truck, on the same course set by Prentice. The vehicle bucked and dipped, but made steady progress up the slope, gaining speed as they neared the rim.

  “He’s too far ahead!” Lauren shouted over the roar of the engine as they crested the canyon and spotted the dust trail far ahead that marked Prentice’s passage.

  “We’ll catch up to him,” Marco said, and floored the gas pedal. With two people, he had a heavier load than Prentice’s machine, but the side-by-side ATV also had a more powerful engine and was more stable than the four-wheeler Prentice drove. They raced in a straight line, bouncing over rocks and cactus, swerving only to avoid larger trees and boulders. Lauren clung to the handhold, her hat long gone, long hair flying out behind her.

  “We’re gaining on him!” she shouted.

  Prentice looked over his shoulder and saw them drawing closer. He drew a pistol and fired it in their direction, the shots wide of their mark, sailing into the scrub around them. He fired until he was out of ammunition, and then he tossed the gun aside, hunched low over the steering wheel and sped on.

  “What’s that up ahead?” Lauren shouted. “Where is he headed?”

  She pointed to a low line of trees in the distance, taller than the surrounding growth, and interspersed with jagged piles of rock. Marco glanced at the sun. They were heading due south now. “I think it’s the Black Canyon,” he said. “The end that isn’t along the park road.”

  Compared to the Black Canyon, the depression the terrorists had chosen for their camp was little more than a ditch. The steep, jagged sides of the Black Canyon plunged up to twenty-seven hundred feet to the roaring Colorado River below. The national park contained only fourteen miles of the forty-eight-mile-long canyon, though a large chunk of the rest of it was preserved in the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area, also part of the Rangers’ turf.

  But Marco hadn’t spent much time exploring the canyon itself. He’d been too preoccupied with crimes in other areas of the park to pay much attention to the gorge that cut a deep slash across a large swath of southwestern Colorado. Now the remoteness and wildness of the area struck him. They’d long ago left the hubbub of the camp behind, and entered this landscape of deep silence and endless vistas, places no man had set foot in years, even centuries.

  “He’s not stopping!” Lauren shouted as they drew closer to the line of trees that marked the canyon’s rim.

  If anything, Prentice had increased his speed as he neared the rim. Did he think he could jump it? Even if his ATV had been able to clear the one-thousand-foot distance from one side of the canyon to the other, the rocks and trees that crowded the rim would have prevented him from having a clear shot. If he went over the edge, he would be dashed to pieces on the rocks jutting from the walls, long before he reached the water.

  “He’s going to drive right over the rim.” Lauren covered her eyes with her hands.

  Prentice skidded toward the rim, gravel flying up from his tires. At the last possible moment, the ATV came to rest in a tangle of scrub oaks and piñon. Prentice dived from the driver’s seat and began running toward the rim. “Does he think he can climb down?” Lauren asked.

  “I think he’s running for cover,” Marco said. “He plans to pick us off from there.” He sped up the machine and took it to the edge of the rim, gravel flying from under the front wheels when he braked to a stop, ricocheting off the canyon walls as it fell.

  Prentice’s first shots whistled in the air around them. Marco shoved Lauren out of the ATV and dived after her. They rolled and scrambled into the cover of trees, then took up a more secure position behind a pile of boulders. Prentice continued to fire from his own position a hundred yards farther west, bullets thudding into the trunks of nearby trees or cutting chips from the rocks.

  Marco unslung the rifle from his shoulder and handed it to Lauren. “Can you fire at the rocks around him, just to keep him occupied, while I sneak around the other side?” he asked.

  She took the weapon and stared at it. “I don’t think I could hit anything. At least not on purpose.”

  “You don’t have to hit anything, just occupy his attention while I move into position.”

  She gripped the gun more firmly and nodded, her face pale, her eyes determined in spite of her fear. “All right. I will.”

  He shifted into a better stance to make a run for it when she started firing. She put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. When he sent her a questioning look, she leaned forward and kissed him, directly on the mouth and hard enough to bruise his lips. “Be careful,” she whispered, then turned away, steadying the gun in front of her, ready to fire.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He hadn’t expected that kiss, Lauren thought as she pulled the rifle’s trigger and sent the first of a barrage of bullets in Prentice’s direction. Maybe he didn’t think this was the time or the place for kissing, but she wasn’t going to let him leave her without some way of letting him know how much he meant to her.

  She didn’t want to think it might be the last chance she’d have to kiss him. They’d survived so many last chances in the past few days. Surely they could make it through a few more.

  The gun frightened her, but as she tapped the trigger over and over she began to gain confidence. She sighted down the barrel and aimed the shots to Prentice’s right or left. She couldn’t really see him, only the flash of his own gunfire as he answered her. He didn’t seem to realize they’d changed shooters. She’d lost sight of Marco almost as soon as he’d left her; she prayed he was all right.

  Suddenly, she glimpsed him on the rocks above and behind Prentice. She held her fire and stared at him. He crouched like a tiger waiting for a chance to jump. She took her finger off the trigger, waiting.

  Prentice continued to fire at her, then silence. Was he out of ammunition? Or had he finally figured out something was going on? She raised the gun and pulled the trigger again, but the response was only an empty click. She was out of ammunition. Why hadn’t she made Marco show her how to reload?

  She turned her attention back to him in time to see him leap, a superhero without a cape. Prentice screamed and almost immediately the two rolled from behind the obscuring rock, each grappling for a hold on the other. Lauren stood to watch, the rifle dangling useless in her hand. Surely Prentice was no match for the younger, trained man. But desperation must have given him strength. He fought back hard, refusing
to surrender.

  The two men rolled farther away from the sheltering rock, but closer to the dropoff to the canyon. “Be careful!” Lauren screamed. She took a few steps toward the struggling men. Prentice’s face was crimson, his mouth contorted in a grimace as he clawed at Marco’s face with one hand and shoved at his shoulder with the other.

  “Marco!” she shouted, but he gave no indication that he heard her. His face was set in a stony expression of determination as he thrust one hand under Prentice’s chin and shoved, forcing it back at an unnatural angle.

  They were only a foot or so from the dropoff now. Lauren screamed as they rolled again and came to rest inches from the edge, Prentice straddling the younger man, driving Marco’s head over and over again into the rock.

  Lauren looked at the rifle in her hand. If they had swapped places, Marco would have saved a bullet to shoot Prentice. But even if she’d had the ammunition, there was no way her aim was good enough to be certain she could hit the billionaire and not Marco. She dropped the rifle and stooped and picked up a large rock. Maybe she could get close enough to hit Prentice in the head...

  With a grunt, Marco shoved upward, hurling Prentice off him, back away from the canyon rim. Both men scrambled to their feet, legs planted, arms at their sides in a wrestler’s pose. “Don’t come any closer,” Prentice said. “I’ll jump and I’ll take you with me.”

  “You’d kill yourself just to get back at me?”

  “I’d kill myself to save the mission,” Prentice said.

  “The mission is already lost.” Marco took a step sideways, away from the rim, but Prentice didn’t follow. “The Rangers are on their way. They know about your plot. You’ll never succeed. Come with me. At least then you’ll have another chance to talk your way out of trouble.”

  “You’re wrong! We will succeed!” He wore the dazed, wild-eyed expression of someone who wasn’t fully present.

  Marco took a step forward; Prentice a step back. His back foot teetered on the edge, loose rock falling, before he regained his balance. “Don’t come any closer,” he warned.

  “Richard, don’t do this!” Lauren could keep silent no longer.

  He looked at her, his expression softening, some of the wildness leaving his eyes. “We could have been so good together,” he said. “I would have given you anything you wanted. No one would have dared to say a word against you if you were my wife.”

  “I didn’t want that kind of life,” she said. “I didn’t need someone to protect me.” She only needed someone to love her and to accept her as she was. Someone like Marco. Her gaze shifted to him. He thought he was too dangerous and dark for her, but he didn’t realize how much they had in common. They both had things they regretted in their pasts, troubles that would never entirely leave them. But they also had faith in each other. Together, they were both stronger than they were apart.

  Movement out of the corner of her eye distracted her, and then a strange, animal yell raised prickles of gooseflesh along her arms. She glanced over in time to see Prentice hurtling toward Marco, a long, sharp stick held in front of him like a lance. Marco doubled over to take the blow on his shoulder, then charged forward, knocking Prentice off his feet. Marco grabbed at the older man as he fell, grasping a fistful of shirt, bracing both feet to haul him back from the edge.

  Lauren would never forget the sound of the fabric tearing, or Prentice’s screams as he hurtled over the edge, screams that echoed over and over through the still air as he fell.

  * * *

  “OFFICERS ON THE SCENE arrested thirty-four men and confiscated more than three hundred pounds of explosives, dozens of automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Roadblocks around the canyon captured another dozen men and trucks and additional explosives and weapons.

  “Authorities say the group, which called itself the True Patriots, had plans to blow up five major dams, fourteen highway bridges and five major water-treatment plants, and other intelligence indicates they had also targeted airports and telecommunication towers. Captain Graham Ellison with the FBI, a key figure in the investigation, said at a press conference yesterday if these terrorists had succeeded in carrying out their plans, the destruction would have resulted in the loss of hundreds, even thousands of lives, billions of dollars of damage to major infrastructure, and disrupted life for millions of citizens for the better part of a year. The repercussions would have been felt well into the next decade.

  “Investigations are ongoing into the group, though evidence points to billionaire Richard Prentice as a driving force behind the organization, and its chief financier. Prentice died in a struggle with law enforcement while attempting to escape the terrorists’ training facility.”

  Lauren’s voice broke on the last words. She took a deep breath and faced the camera with what she hoped was a calm look. “This is special reporter Lauren Starling. For more on this developing story, stay tuned for my special one-hour report tomorrow night on True Patriots, True Terrorists.”

  The red light on the camera went out and she breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in her chair.

  “Great job, Lauren,” her producer, Mitch Frasier, said.

  “You were terrific.” The regular evening anchor, Bradley Eversly, patted her shoulder. “Good to see you back on air.”

  She accepted more congratulations from others, then retreated to her dressing room to remove her heavy on-air makeup and change into more casual clothes. Her phone rang as she was brushing out her hair. “Hey, we saw you on TV,” Sophie’s voice greeted her. “You looked fantastic.”

  “It felt good to be back,” she said. “A little strange, too. Where are you? It sounds noisy.”

  “Oh, Rand and I are at the airport. That’s the other reason I called.”

  “Oh?” Lauren smoothed on pale pink lip gloss and checked her look in the mirror. She’d lost a little weight after her ordeal in the park, but she looked pretty good, considering.

  “We’re headed to Vegas. We’ve decided to elope.”

  “Oh, Sophie!”

  “Now, don’t be mad. We’re hoping you can fly out and stand up with us at the wedding. Rand’s trying to get hold of Marco, too, but so far he’s not having any luck.”

  “Rand doesn’t know where Marco is?”

  “He said he took a couple of days’ leave, but wouldn’t say why. He must have his phone switched off. You haven’t heard from him, have you?”

  “No.” A cold blackness pinched at her stomach at the words. She hadn’t heard or seen anything from Marco since that day at the canyon rim. Helicopters full of soldiers and law enforcement had swarmed in shortly after Prentice went over the edge. One group had led her away for questioning while Marco had disappeared in a crowd of others. In the week since, she’d often thought of calling or texting him, but wasn’t sure what to say. She told herself if he’d really wanted to talk to her, he’d have made the effort.

  “So will you do it? Can you get away for a few days and come to Vegas?” She realized Sophie had continued talking to her while she’d been lost in thoughts of Marco.

  “Oh, sure, I can get a few days off, now that the special is wrapped up. When is the wedding?”

  “Whenever you get here. I’ll call you later with more details. We have to board the plane now.”

  Sophie hung up and Lauren ended the call, fighting the sadness that threatened to overwhelm her. She should have been thrilled for her sister, excited about the prospect of a wedding, happy at the positive turn her life had taken. She was working again, as a special correspondent for the number one station in Denver. The public was starting to see that all of Richard Prentice’s accusations against her had been false, and that he was the real villain of this tale. Though they might never prove it, the Rangers suspected Prentice was behind the threatening notes, the sabotage of her car and the other attacks on Lauren after she escaped from Prentice’s ranch.

  She should have been happy, but she couldn’t get past this emptiness she felt. Maybe bei
ng bipolar made her more susceptible to these black moods, but she had a sense that anyone in her situation would have been blue. The man she loved was avoiding her, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  She left the station and drove the short distance to her new apartment in Denver’s fashionable lower downtown area. She was crossing the parking lot to her front door when a tall, muscular man stepped out of the shadows. She caught her breath and almost dropped her keys, fighting the urge to run—though whether her legs would take her toward him or away, she couldn’t be sure.

  “Hello, Lauren,” he said.

  “Hello, Marco. I didn’t know you were in Denver.” Amazed by her own strength and composure, she moved past him and began unlocking the three locks on the door to the apartment. Her ordeal with Prentice had definitely made her more security conscious.

  “I came to see you. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  He followed her into the apartment, which had seemed spacious enough before, but now seemed too small with him in it. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?” she asked. She set down her purse and rearranged a trio of candles on the table by the door, suddenly nervous, avoiding his gaze but feeling him watching her, like a caress, hot against her chilled skin. She swallowed, trying to find the words she needed to say to him. Her feelings for him were so mixed up, she didn’t know how to even begin to approach the subject.

  “I don’t need anything.” He put his hand on her arm. “Except to talk to you.”

  She felt weak-kneed at his touch, on the verge of tears, though whether tears of relief, sadness or joy, she couldn’t tell. Or maybe the tears were just a sign of hysteria, of her frayed emotions finally giving way. Her skin burned where his fingers brushed against her, and once again she mustered all her willpower to move past him to the beige leather sofa fresh from the showroom. She sat and smiled up at him, composed and aloof. She wouldn’t break down, not in front of him. Better to let him think his rejection had not affected her than show him how much she hurt. “How are you doing?” she asked.