The looks of suspicion the entire group kept giving him had Mac keeping up a steady stream of explanatory chatter. Bozer often said he was always prone to over explaining himself when he was nervous or afraid and Mac just rolled his eyes. Now he realized it was maybe a little true.
As they followed the path of the recent flood waters, Mac kept talking. He also started formulating a plan. Three bad guys, plus one who was on his way back with prisoners. Only two prisoners, his mind whispered insidiously, setting off another cascade of worry for his partner. Okay, if I can keep them talking long enough for Anton to get back with Ri and Bozer, and I can provide a diversion, the three of us should be able to neutralize the group and, if not secure them, at least get away and get local law enforcement involved. The question is how to do that.
He was distracted from hatching any kind of plot, escape or otherwise, by having to guide the group down a very steep ravine. It was so steep in fact that it felt like active rock climbing in places. Mac could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his sore ribs making him acutely aware of it in the most unpleasant way possible, with every sensation of real height.
Sooo, Mac, remind me why you do this for fun?
Very funny, brain. Hilarious even.
My grandfather was a big believer in facing your fears. He started taking me rock climbing after the first time I freaked out on a ladder helping him paint the trim on the house. He said I might not ever stop being afraid, but that eventually that fear wouldn't stop me from doing what needed to be done. He also liked to quote Winston Churchill. "If you're going through Hell, keep going." That's it. One foot in front of the other until you're out the other side.
When they safely got to the bottom, Mac looked around to orient himself. He almost smiled when he realized the path the crate had taken with the flood waters brought them down and around the gorge, almost circling back to the trailhead. Well, not exactly. It was still miles away, but they were a lot closer to help than they had been when Gio jumped him by their original campsite.
This would be a good place to make a stand.
He was getting glared at again, so he took back up his stream of justifying his thought process around locating their loot to the increasingly ragged and disgruntled group.
"This ravine acts as a natural drainage basin for anything displaced by the flood. So your crate should be here."
The group started looking around.
Trevor, who Mac thought of as the quiet crook, pointed, "There."
Emma practically ran over the cold muddy ground. "There!" She and Trevor tore into the crate. She crowed, "It's all here."
Gio laughed his relief. "Yeah, well, we can celebrate when we get the money back to the car."
Trevor frowned, looking at the crate skeptically. "It'll be tough. We only have three backpacks, and we're a man down."
Emma shrugged and grinned. "On the bright side, 18 million split four ways is much better."
Gio shifted, his shoulders tensing. Sensing they had reached a critical moment, Mac tried his opening volley in the war of getting these guys distracted. Besides, he was almost sick with worry that Anton hadn't radio'd them again. They'd sent an inexperienced thug to collect to inexperienced mountaineers. It had been challenging to get here with him as a guide. "Okay," he said, his voice tight. "I did what you asked. I got you to your money. Now call your man and tell him to let my friends go."
Gio raised an eyebrow and gave Mac an appraising look. "If I said I was gonna kill your friends if you didn't think of a way to get all this money back, by yourself, what would you say?"
Mac's jaw tightened and his gaze hardened. "I'd say that wasn't part of the deal."
Giovanni's expression was grim, determined. "Yeah, well, I'm making it the deal."
Mac's jaw clenched and unclenched. He wasn't in a position to make a move and even if he was he sure as Hell couldn't do it if Anton had Riley and Bozer as bargaining chips.
After several long beats of silence, Gio barked, "Answer me." When Mac didn't immediately respond, he grabbed him by the front of his coat and Neely jerked him off his feet, driving the barrel of his gun into Mac's side. He demanded through clenched teeth, his voice dripping menace. "Can you build something to make moving my money a one-man job?"
Mac managed a defiant glare in return. "Sure?" he said with a little hesitation. Then he nodded. "Yeah."
Without expression or emotion, Gio punched him hard in the stomach and shoved him away. As Mac doubled over coughing and trying not to lose what little was in his stomach, Gio squeezed off two shots, and the remaining members of his crew dropped to the ground, dead before they finished falling.
Mac coughed again, but forced himself upright, demanding, "Why?"
"All right." Gio nodded with seeming satisfaction, once again leveling his weapon at Mac. "Do it, then."
"You're shivering," Mac observed.
"So?"
"This is gonna take a while. We should build a fire so you can dry off and warm up before we pack this out of here. It's going to be slow going."
"Fine," Gio tilted his chin at the brush and branches all around them. "Do that. Then get a move on. We'll move it all as soon as you're ready."
Seeing only one way out of this, Mac got to work.
0-0-0
Not too far off, the gunshots stopped Bozer and Riley cold. They were marching ahead of Anton at a brisk pace when they froze.
"Get a move on," he barked at them, as though those gunshots couldn't possibly be a matter of concern for any of them.
They trudged a little further in the misting damp before Bozer couldn't keep his thoughts to himself. "Where the hell is Jack?" he hissed in worried frustration.
"Up ahead somewhere." She glanced back over her shoulder.
"I know that!" he groused. "I meant why hadn't he gone all Delta Dalton and rescued us?"
"You two, be quiet," Anton snapped.
Riley's glare would have cut the man dead had it been any sharper or more disdainful, but she decided there was no percentage in arguing with a guy pointing a gun at her back.
They marched along in silence for a long while. As the approached the ravine Gio had directed Anton to, the trees thinned a bit and Riley started grinning.
"What are you smiling about?" Bozer whispered.
She tilted her head ever so slightly off to the left. "We're okay."
Bozer casually squinted at the trees. "Huh?"
"Jack."
"I don't see …"
"I thought I told you two to shut up," Anton growled.
"Shutting up. No problem," Riley returned.
Riley caught Jack signaling that he was going to circle back behind them and she nodded almost imperceptibly.
Jack, for his own part, was glad that aging knees and a couple of recent rough solo missions, courtesy of Oversight, that his stealth was everything it had ever been. It was as uncomfortable as it ever was to see a woman he'd probably think of as his little girl until his dying day with some piece of shit pointing a gun at her back. And he was worried for Mac, too. Jack would, in his more vulnerable (and possibly drunken) moments tell you that he loved Mac just as fiercely and would probably even take his loss harder due to everything they'd been through together and the complexity of their relationship; their codependency, if Ri and Bozer were to be listened to.
Mac was different though. Jack has it in his head that Mac would be miserable with some safe sane life somewhere. And somehow that made it easier to see him doing the crazy stuff they did everyday. Those gunshots from a while ago had his blood running cold though. He had enough of an idea where the rest of them were, meaning where Mac was. He'd followed them this far only to let the big guy with the gun lead them to Mac.
They edged down the precarious ravine, the stones think with fresh precipitation. Jack nearly slipped and gave himself away twice. He could see smoke in the near distance, allowing him to zero in on his exact destination.
He managed a quick, damn near suicidal, course correction that got him down into the relatively level ground at the bottom of the ravine. He ducked for cover behind a huge mossy boulder and waited.
Riley passed in front of him first, followed almost immediately by Bozer. When the big hunk of muscle following them got even with his position, Jack launched himself at the guy, with every ounce of strength he had.
The fight for the gun seemed to happen in simultaneously slow motion and fast forward high speed. Jack as dimly aware that he was bleeding again from the knife wound, but that was a secondary concern to getting the weapon away from his opponent.
When another gunshot rang out closeby, Jack heard Bozer's exclamation, "Mac!"
Then he heard Riley's coolheaded, "C'mon!" and the sound of them both taking off running in that direction. That's my girl, he thought with grim satisfaction. He didn't need to tell her that if he and Mac both needed help, he'd expect her to help Mac. The kid could hold his own in a fight, but he was more brains than brawn. Jack was born to fight. He thrived on it.
Both men somehow wound up back on their feet and Jack channeled his middle school footballer self and swung into the other guy in a messy ill placed tackle.
Then the gun between them went off.