Enemy Way Read Free Page B

dark and light shadows dotted the terrain making the familiar appear more sinister than it ever would in daylight.
    As they drew close to the site of the accident, red flares burning on the highway marked the location. Jeremiah Crow looked at the scene below, then veered to the right for the promised low orbit of the area. “Lookslike an accident, all right.”
    Ella followed the beam of the chopper’s searchlight. A single black sports car was tipped over on its side, but there were no skid marks on the road leading up to it. There was no sign of spilled oil or gasoline on the pavement either. “No. There are several things that aren’t quite right,” she said, pointing out what she’d noticed.
    Neskahi’s police unit was parkeda little farther down the road, and the sergeant was crouched by the figure lying on the asphalt. Just a few feet away were two civilians, both wearing jackets.
    Ella fought the sudden chill that enveloped her. “There’s trouble here. I can feel it.”
    “If I aim the searchlight right into their eyes, the people down there will never see you leave the chopper.”
    “Go for it.” Ella took her pistolfrom its holster, and placed it in her jacket pocket. The feel of the cold metal against her hand was reassuring.
    “I’ll land between the civilians and the police car, but move fast. Whatever else is happening, the person on the ground appears to need some very real help. There’s a lot of blood around the body.”
    “Just remember to stay in the aircraft, and keep the blades turning until I signal.”

    Just before the hovering copter touched down, Ella jumped out. As promised, the two civilians were pinned by the spotlight, trying to shield their eyes.
    Ella circled, keeping below the road bed as much as possible. The sagebrush was taller downslope, fed by runoff from the asphalt. As she got close, she could see that the figure on the road was just a stuffed dummy made out of old clothes, andthe blood was probably red paint or something like tomato sauce. Ella stepped out onto the road behind the pair.
    The engine noise and prop wash from the chopper was drowning out the sounds she was making, but Ella still approached cautiously, her weapon out and ready. The civilians were both looking down toward Neskahi, and at the same time trying to shield their eyes from the glare of the spotlight.

    “Why in the hell doesn’t he turn off that light?” The person on the left, a woman, yelled. Ella recognized the voice from earlier that day. It was Barbara Baker.
    Neskahi, who’d avoided looking at the helicopter with its blinding light, turned toward the voice, and saw Ella standing less than ten feet behind the couple. He avoided any expression of recognition, but his body tensed, a signal toElla. “Maybe it was something I said. Why don’t you set down your weapons and surrender now?”
    The man cursed, bringing a sawed-off shotgun out of his jacket. Neskahi leaped up, grabbing the man’s weapon and yanking it up into the air as he kneed him in the groin. The shotgun went off with a roar and the man lost his grip on the weapon.
    The woman yanked a pistol out of her pocket, but beforeshe could bring it to bear, Ella was there. She kicked the weapon out of the woman’s hand, spun around, and knocked the surprised woman down with a well-aimed kick to her sternum. When the woman looked up again, she was staring into the barrel of Ella’s nine-millimeter pistol.
    “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe,” Ella hissed, her glance darting over to Neskahi, who now had the shotgun aimed at thewoman’s partner. The man lay groaning on the pavement. “You okay, Sergeant?”
    “No problems here.” The sergeant retrieved his own handgun from the man’s jacket pocket, then handcuffed him and hauled him to his feet.
    Ella turned and gave a thumbs-up toward the helicopter.
    “Get that damn searchlight off me, will you?” The man turned his head away from the helicopter, which had finally shut