FTER DOUBLING BACK and keeping to the far fringes of the route they had taken, Shaw and the others had managed to reach the house, which was now dark. They had first heard the baying of the hounds nearly an hour ago, but then the sounds had receded. Reggie had fallen into a large rut cut by some ancient glacier’s retreat, but they had managed to pull her out. Rice was exhausted and Shaw had had to help him the last mile or so.

The four stared at the darkened space. There were no trucks parked in front.

Reggie whispered, “Do you think they’re all out helping Kuchin look for us?”

“The guy was in the KGB. It would be crazy not to leave a rear guard,” replied Shaw.

“So how do we do this?”

“Element of surprise. All we have. We have to get some weapons.”

“Is that all?” asked Reggie. “What about your friend?”

“If she’s here we’re taking her.” He turned to Whit. “You take the rear. I’ll work my way towards the front. See anyone, just give a low whistle.”

“That’ll give us away,” said Reggie.

“Well, what’s the option?” snapped Shaw. “I left my walkie-talkie with my machine gun.”

“A whistle will have to do,” agreed Whit.

“What about us?” Reggie said, indicating her and Rice.

“If things go to hell, get away from here. Go in the direction of the water and try to signal a ship from the coastline.”

Reggie did not look pleased by this, but kept silent. It was clear she did not enjoy letting Shaw run the show, but he obviously had more experience in this than she did. And Whit was deferring to him too.

A few minutes later Shaw reached the back door and peered through the glass. He stiffened when he saw her. Katie James was sitting in a chair bound tightly. She appeared to be dozing. He tried the knob on the door. It was locked. No surprise there. What did surprise him was seeing Whit crawling on his belly into the room. He saw Shaw at the window, rose, crab-walked across the room, and opened the door.

“Got in through a window,” he said. “The place looks empty.”

They quickly woke and then untied Katie.

“Where the hell is everybody?” Shaw asked as they exchanged a brief but fierce hug.

“All out looking for you, I guess. They had dogs too.”

“We heard.”

Whit glanced around, his face creased with emotion. “Where’s Dominic’s body?”

“They took it away. I don’t know where. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Whit said.

“I don’t think he anticipated you doubling back and getting past them,” she said.

“Apparently not.”

“What now?” asked Whit.

“Gun safe.”

They found it and spent twenty precious minutes trying to break into it with no luck. Shaw finally threw down the crowbar he’d found in the garage. On the other side of that three-inch door was probably enough firepower to get them out of this safely, and he couldn’t get to any of it.

“Well, it looks like they did anticipate we might come back this way,” he said.

“You think this is an ambush?” asked Whit. “Make it seem like they pulled everybody? Let us get in, get Katie, and then hit us on the way out?”

“Nothing would surprise me at this point,” said Shaw. “But they could have killed us easily enough when we first got here too.”

They searched the rest of the house, but Shaw only came away with two serrated knives from the kitchen. He handed one to Whit.

“Knife against guns?” said Whit.

“Best we can do. Now let’s see if we can find a phone or anything that’ll let us call for help.”

They didn’t. No land line, no cell phone, not even a walkie-talkie or a computer.

“Shaw!”

It was Reggie standing just inside the front door; Rice was next to her.

She said, “Trucks are coming. We have to get out of here.”

They ran to the back of the house and outside. Beams of headlights cut through the darkness. One truck, no idea how many men were inside. Shaw thought quickly. “We need wheels,” he said.

Reggie looked around and pointed to her left. “Whit can take Rice and Katie off that way and hide behind that berm. You and I can double back, grab the wheels, and take whatever weapons if any they have in there. Then we pick the others up and get the hell out of here.”

“Okay,” agreed Shaw.

Whit led Katie and Rice to the raised mound of earth behind the house. Shaw went around one side of the cabin and Reggie the other. Four men climbed out of the truck and headed to the house. Shaw knew they only had at best thirty seconds before they discovered Katie was not there.

He raced toward the truck. Reggie did the same on the other side.

“Shit,” Shaw muttered. They’d locked the doors. He peered inside the window. No keys dangling conveniently in the ignition. He saw no guns either. Reggie joined him.

“Even if I can break the glass, it’s not like you can easily hot-wire cars these days. And—”

They both heard it at the same time. Shouts from inside the house. They’d found out Katie was gone.

“Come on, Shaw!” Reggie exclaimed. “We have to run for it.”

“Go, go,” he said, pushing her off into a sprint.

She looked back once and then was gone around the side of the cabin.

“If we don’t have wheels neither will you,” Shaw said. He used the knife to slash the two right-side tires before running off. Seconds later the front door flew open and the men poured out, guns ready. Some ran to opposite sides of the cabin and fired out into the darkness with their submachine guns. Bullets whizzed over Shaw’s head but he kept going. He doubted they could actually see him. And there was little chance that their MP5s could intentionally hit him at this distance, but they could get lucky. He reached the others and they ran as hard as they could away from the cabin. But they clearly heard the frustrated curses of the men when the truck started and then wobbled forward on the trashed tires.

Shaw leading the way, they made a wide circle around the property and headed back west. Within five minutes the lights from the cabin had disappeared from their vision.

“Close,” said Shaw as they finally stopped running. “Too close and we got zip for our troubles.”

“Where to now?” Rice said.

Shaw answered. “Now we’re behind them. They won’t expect that.”

“Yes they will. They’ll know we’ve been there because she’s gone,” Reggie shot back as she hooked a thumb in Katie’s direction.

Shaw stared first at Reggie, then at Katie, and then back at Reggie. “What, do you want us to take her back?”

Reggie blanched. “Of course not!”

“Then we’ll just have to make the best of it.”

Whit cut in, “And how the hell do we do that? Sneak up and attack them with kitchenware?”

“I thought you’d figured that out. Our goal is not to engage them. It’s to get away and find help. We didn’t get the wheels so now we have to look for an alternate. If I have my bearings right and the coast is over that way, then if we head due south we’ll run into the Belle Strait. This time of year there will be ships coming through that channel going to and from Europe. If we can survive until daylight we may be able to attract the crew on one of them. They can send out a boat for us.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Reggie.

Katie looked at Shaw. “I expect at some point you’ll tell me what all this is about?”

“At some point, but not now.” He gripped her arm. “But at some point, yeah. I certainly owe you that.”

Reggie watched as Katie placed her hand overtop of Shaw’s. Then she looked away.

They had gone nearly a mile when the sound shattered the silence and all their plans ended up for naught.