Page 71 of King’s Ransom

‘Audrey . . .’ I breathed, spinning.

Two more pistol shots rang out.

Then louder gunshots.

Deeper, puncture-like whumps.

The sound of a 7.62mm gun.

I leapt out of the grave and raised my borrowed pistol.

‘You keep digging and open that coffin,’ I said. ‘I gotta go help Audrey.’

‘Wait—’ Garrett began.

But I was already running as fast as I could toward the bridge.

I bounded through the snowy graveyard, hurdling headstones, sweeping around mausoleums.

I hustled down a snow-slicked hill, ducking under tree branches before rounding a bend and, in the falling snow, I beheld the covered bridge.

It was maybe eighty feet long, box-shaped, with a triangular wooden roof and X-shaped struts on its flanks. It was shrouded by a canopy of the tall trees that arched over the icy river at the bottom of the hill.

I could see Audrey and Xiao crouched in darkness in the middle of the bridge, huddled against the wooden struts on its right-hand side.

Well, Xiao was crouched.

Audrey lay on her back, while he was bent over her, pressing down on her torso with one hand—CPR? Or maybe putting pressure on a wound?—at the same time as he fired at something at the far end of the bridge . . .

. . . the large black Spiderhawk military drone that had been at the penthouse earlier.

Now it was here, silhouetted in the square of dim light at the far end of the bridge, firing its 7.62mm cannons at them.

The military drone’s gunfire literally shredded the struts of the old bridge.

Xiao took cover behind his wooden upright.

I never stopped running as I reached him, firing hard at the drone with my compact Smith & Wesson.

Blam!-blam!-blam!-blam!

I must have hit it in a critical spot, because for a moment the big black drone wobbled awkwardly in the air.

Now standing over Xiao and Audrey, I kept firing, hitting the drone repeatedly near its rotor blades.

Xiao joined in.

Impact sparks flashed all over the drone.

It lurched again as more of our shots hit its rotors and suddenly it dropped to the ground.

No sooner had it touched the ground than some evacuation protocol must have initiated inside it, for then it took to the air, whirled and fled away into the darkness.

Xiao kept firing at it long after it was gone.

I slid to my knees beside Audrey and yanked open her FBI windbreaker.

Blood oozed from her stomach, creating an expanding red stain in the fabric of her white shirt.