Читать книгу Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 7-9: Buried Alive, Her Last Scream, The Killing Game - J. Kerley A. - Страница 24

Within a minute we were on the Mountain Parkway, Cherry standing on the pedal, the speedometer in the hundred-ten-plus range. We veered on to an asphalt road that was barely a car and a half wide, changed direction on a switchback, climbed a couple hundred feet, swerved off on to a dirt road.

I saw a trio of wooden crosses in the distance, the center cross twenty feet high. Behind them, on a rise of three mowed acres, was a single-wide trailer with a large cross painted in white across its front. A hand-lettered sign said Solid Word Church. A hundred feet behind, at the edge of a woods, was a second trailer, living quarters, a small garden to its side.

A slug thudded into the side of the cruiser.

“Damn!” Cherry yelled. “Get down.”

She aimed the car into a steep drainage ditch beside the road, a few feet of cover. I saw a single-lane bridge two hundred feet ahead, a county-cop SUV and dark FBI cruiser on the far side. The occupants were safe behind a four-foot rock wall. Caudill and the Feds.

We jumped out as a round thudded into the dirt. Cherry pulled up a walkie-talkie, waved it at Caudill. He pulled his own unit from his belt.

“What’s the story, Caudill?”

“We been stuck here since I called you. I’ve got two ambulances waiting a quarter-mile away.”

“Where’s Beale?”

“Hunting squirrel.”

“Who’s in there, Buddy?” Cherry said. “Who’s the shooter? Over.”

“It’s Brother Tanner.”

“Ezekiel Tanner?” Cherry said. “Uncle Zeke?”

Cherry set aside the communicator and stared at the church.

“You’re related to the guy in there?” I asked.

“His father was my uncle’s wife’s cousin’s brother third removed or something like that. I can’t keep it all straight.”

“He’s a for-real reverend?”

“Self-ordained. Zeke has always seemed more sick with the spirit than inspired by it. He used to give the blessing at family reunions. You ever been eight years old and told you’re gonna end up as cooked as the supper chicken, only in the devil’s oven?”

“I had my own problems. You got field glasses in the cruiser?”

Cherry thumbed the trunk mechanism on her keys. I duck-walked to the trunk, lifted the lid. A shot from the church blew out half the light bar as I found a set of high-powered binocs. I scrabbled back to Cherry’s side and peered over the top of the gulley, staying low.

The church-trailer was atop a rising hill, a small rocky creek at the base, a hundred feet from us. A narrow asphalt county road angled the side of the church. Between church and creek and slender lane, the scene was postcard pastoral. Until you saw the big green John Deere tractor tipped into the gulley, its bush hog attachment like a giant lawnmower on its side. The injured operator sprawled beneath the tractor, his right leg red with blood. He wasn’t moving.

Another shot rang out. A headlamp exploded on the tractor, glass raining down on the wounded man.

“AVANT THEE, SATAN,” screamed a voice from the church. “Yea though I WALK through the VALLEY I FEAR NO EVIL!”

It was Cherry’s turn to duck-walk to the trunk, returning with a bullhorn. She aimed the cone over the wall. “Zeke? This is Donna Cherry. You remember me, right? I always loved your preaching.”

“BITCH DEVIL!” the man screamed, punctuating his words with a volley. “SPAWN OF SATAN! WHORE OF BABYLON!”

“Not working,” she said, ducking back down as the guy started talking in tongues. “ARM-A-LACKEE TATALODO. SHEM PAYLA RAS! HARWHALLA DEEM-ADAYDA!”

“He’s losing whatever’s left,” Cherry said. “Mad as a hatter.”

“The guy under the tractor looks passed out,” I said. “Probably in shock.” I gauged the width of the creek, deep-cut banks, the creek a good yard beneath the level of the land.

“I think I can get to the wounded man with the car,” I said. “There’s a rise I can use as a ramp.”

“Jump the creek? No way. You’ll plant the nose in the creek bed. Even if you make it, you’ll have to drive in front of the church. He’ll pop you like Dick Cheney shooting a caged bird.”

I studied Cherry’s car, the big Ford Crown Vic cop cruiser with a roaring four-point-six liter V-8 and the beefed-up frame and suspension. Harry and I had done enough unlikely feats in our succession of Crown Vics that the Motor Pool considered us persona non grata. I scuttled to the cruiser, pulled myself inside, studied a downslope over meadow grass to the creek-jump east of the church, then the two-hundred-foot run to the toppled tractor.

Ducking low, I jammed the gear stick into reverse, pulling out of the cover as the windshield exploded. He had the range. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and heard the big V-8 scream. I roared into the field below the church, the creek rushing at me.

I hit the rise, the car bottoming out, grille lifting in rebound. Airborne. Then: Thunderous boom, shocks breaking, sideways-skidding, passenger door popping open on busted hinges.

I’d crossed the creek.

Now to pass the trailer. I saw the rifle barrel hanging out a front window, ready to pick me off through the open door …

Change of plans. I skimmed the car across the front of the trailer, cheap pasteboard construction versus serious Detroit iron. The Crown Vic peeled open the trailer like a jack plane slicing pine. A tire exploded. The hood popped open. My face filled with steam from the radiator. Tire flapping, I aimed the wobbling vehicle toward the wounded man.

And then I was out and rolling beneath the tractor. Touching the man’s throat. Feeling a pulse, thank God.

I saw Cherry and Caudill racing to the listing trailer with guns drawn. A warning shot, Cherry baying Stay down! The ambulances were moving in. It seemed odd that I didn’t see the Feds.

I stood and was doing fine for about three seconds, until adrenalin buckled my knees and I sat flat on my ass like a swami.