Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

76

ATLAS

We rotated sleeping and an hour before dawn, we started again. It was exhausting work. Diving, lifting and hauling crates of heavy gold was tedious and depleting but we doggily pressed on. The security contractors hadn’t organized a search party until dawn and so far they weren’t anywhere close to us. West was keeping us apprised of their locations. We were enroute to the pickup location to drop another load off with Mads when West came over comms sounding concerned.

“There’s a plane inbound to the landing strip,” he said.

“Let me know what they do,”

I said, picking up the pace.

“Okay, that’s a lot of men,”

West said. “You guys need to get out of there.”

“How many?”

I demanded in irritation.

“Thirty.”

“Safe to say we pissed them off,”

Lachlan said around a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“There should be another road about ten yards on the right—take it,”

West said.

Lachlan veered off when the overgrown track appeared and we wove through the trees. The ground was uneven and bumpy making our pace slow considerably.

“There’s a potential new extraction point a few miles down this road but you’ll have to carry the crates several hundred yards—it’s too dense for the truck,”

West said.

“Copy that.”

“Oh shit,”

West said.

“I really don’t like hearing you say that,”

Nyx grumbled.

“They have dogs.”

“Ah man, I’m telling you right now I’m not killing any dogs,”

Nyx griped from the back of the truck.

We reached the end of the road, although I wouldn’t call it that because as we got deeper and deeper into the woods the truck scraped trees and finally landed in a rut and Lachlan couldn’t drive any further.

“End of the line,”

Lachlan said, turning the truck off.

I jogged through the trees behind North to check out the clearing West directed us to. It was small and slightly boggy but it would work. We spent the next hour shuttling crates and stacking them in the clearing for when Mads would come pick us up. As we worked, clouds rolled in and I looked up when the first drops of rain hit me.

“They’ve picked up your trail,”

West said. “You have about twenty minutes before they’re on you. I think they know about this place—they’re breaking into groups to swing around. Oh shit—”

“West—”

Nyx growled.

No answer. They must have taken out the drone.

“We need to lead them away from here,”

North said. “Lach, Nyx—continue moving the gold. Be ready for Mads—Knight, Atlas, with me.”

We crossed over our trail several times to hopefully disorient the dogs and Knight set a few trip wires. The forest here was dense and horrible for long range. Someone could be almost on top of you before you saw them with the way the trunks crossed and overlapped when you tried to see deeper into the woods. I heard the barking before I saw the dogs.

Two explosions thundered through the trees in quick succession.

Then we were getting shot at.

I got separated from Knight and North. Pain bit into my side but the adrenaline soon dulled it and I quickly shot two men coming up through the trees.

“Mads is here! Back to the bird!”

Lachlan shouted over comms.

I turned to head back to the extraction point when a dog hurtled through the trees towards me, catching me off guard. Somehow I avoided the gnashing teeth and quickly climbed up into the dense canopy of the nearest tree. I hopped to the next tree, then the next until the dog was left behind.

“Atlas, where are you?”

Nyx’s voice sounded strained over comms.

“One of the fucking dogs treed me,” I panted.

I sprinted through the forest, only to come up on the enemy at the treeline. I quickly took out as many as I could before I had to skirt around to find cover. Thunder crashed and I hadn’t even noticed how dark the sky had become. Being under the dense forest canopy had shielded us from the weather but now I saw the truth: the storm was here.

I crouched at the edge of the trees as the rain fell harder. The rest of the men were already in the helo and there was a rope dangling to the ground with at least half of the last load of gold not loaded into the netting. I could make it if I went now.

I looked down the treeline and dread settled in my gut.

Oh no. I gave up on the idea of making the rope.

Instead, I raised my rifle, hoping I could get the shot off in time.