it, the thought of it ramming into a tree or plunging into a swamp wasn’t appealing.
No, if Payne was going to take out Holmes, he had to do it from close range with a great deal of finesse. It was the only way to guarantee his own safety.
Payne pulled the Glock from his belt and studied the back of the truck, hoping to find something useful. The bed was bare except for a tool chest, a tire, and a thick military blanket. Payne thought for a moment, trying to figure out how he could use any of these things to his advantage, when an idea hit him. He could use the blanket to obscure Holmes’s vision.
With a quick tug, Payne slid the blanket across the bed and readied it for use. All he needed to do was toss it over the front of the—
“Oh, my God!” Payne mumbled.
He stared at the object on the other side of the truck and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. How had he been so blind when he first climbed aboard? How could he have missed such a large lump under the blanket? It just didn’t seem possible.
But there it was. Or more accurately, there he was. The captive who’d been pulled from the Devil’s Box before Payne had been placed inside. The man was handcuffed, unconscious, and lying no more than five feet away.
Payne crawled across the truck bed and tried to examine him, hoping he was still clinging to life. His skin was red and blistered, not only from severe sunburn but also from insect bites. Even though his eyes were responsive, they were lethargic—possibly from dehydration or an illness of some kind.
“Hang in there,” Payne whispered.
He glanced at the open terrain of the surrounding field and realized that he needed to make his move immediately. He didn’t want to abandon the sick prisoner, but if he struck now, he knew there was no chance of the truck slamming into anything solid.
“Everything’s going to be fine.”
Stretching the blanket in his two hands, Payne crawled toward Holmes. Although pain ripped through his biceps as he worked, he realized that he had to use his left arm to complete the job. There was no other choice.
Taking a quick breath to ease his agony, Payne thrust his arms through the broken back window and arched the blanket over the face of the stunned driver. Holmes instantly released the steering wheel and used both of his hands to tear at the thick blanket, but Payne wasn’t about to give in. In fact, he felt like a rodeo champion clinging for life on the back of an angry bull.
“Stop the truck!” he demanded. “If you want to live, stop the truck now!”
Holmes responded by pushing on the gas pedal even harder while screaming, “Fuck you!” through the rough cloth of the blanket.
The vehicle’s speed continued to increase until Payne yanked on the blanket again, this time in a series of rapid bursts. “I . . . said . . . stop . . . the . . . truck . . . now!”
Realizing that he had to do something, Holmes finally gave in to the request, but not in the way that Payne had been hoping for. Instead of easing his foot from the gas pedal, Holmes slammed on the brakes as hard as he could, trying to free himself from his captor. The sudden shift in the truck’s momentum did the trick. Payne flipped over the top of the roof like a drunken gymnast, legs and arms flailing in every direction while trying to stop his slide. But nothing could prevent him from tumbling in front of the screeching truck.
WHILE shaking off the effects of the ATV crash, Jones pulled himself to a sitting position and studied his immediate surroundings. He saw two four-wheelers, both of them damaged and overturned, and the closest one to him was on fire. Using the light from the blaze, Jones checked himself for blood but was surprised to find very little. He had an assortment of scrapes and bruises, but he didn’t have any open gushers like he had feared.
After rubbing his eyes for several seconds, Jones climbed to his feet and looked for the other driver. He wasn’t quite sure who he was looking for—his head was still groggy from the accident—but reasoned if there were two vehicles, there should be two bodies.
At least, that seemed to make sense in his current state.