Burnt Sienna

Immediately he grabbed the microphone from the dashboard’s two-way radio. “Keep after them! Block their route!”

The machine guns in the other vehicles began shooting into the smoke.

“Damn it, don’t shoot to kill! I want them alive! Use your bullets to block their route!” Instantly he changed to another frequency, contacting Potter at the château.

Potter’s voice crackled from the radio. “The second helicopter has arrived.”

“Bring it. I’ve found them.” Bellasar blurted directions to where he was. “I’m activating a homing signal. Follow it.”

Dropping the microphone, Bellasar drew his pistol and hurried from the vehicle. “Spread out!” he ordered the guards. “They’re hiding up there in the smoke! As far as I know, Malone isn’t armed! You don’t need to shoot to kill! Find them! Bring them to me!”

Preparing to hurry down into the gully and up the other side, Bellasar took a second to admire the two vehicles beyond it as they sped up the slope on his left, veering among bushes and boulders, easily handling the rough landscape. The sound of their engines was solid and powerful. Five minutes from now, Alex and the second helicopter would arrive. Bellasar would order the pilot to hover over the wreckage. The downdraft from its whirling blades would disperse the smoke, making it easy to find where Sie

13

Coughing so hard that he feared he might vomit, his eyes watering from the smoke that swirled around him, Malone heard the vehicles roaring up the slope toward Sie

Hunched next to him behind a boulder, Sie

“What?”

“This boulder.”

As the vehicles charged closer up the hill, Malone suddenly understood. The smoke thi

Harder! Groaning with effort, Malone felt something in him thrill as the boulder shifted.

More! The boulder tilted, rolling, gaining momentum, rumbling out of sight through the smoke.

They raced toward another. Desperation fueling their strength, they got it rolling faster than the first one and immediately rushed to another and then another, crisscrossing the slope, protecting both sides of the flaming wreckage.

The combined rumble reminded Malone of thunder. But the thunder became distant. The boulders were taking too long. They must have passed the vehicles and continued toward the bottom. At once, a crash of rock, glass, and metal echoed from below. A second crash was even more violent. Before the engines died, Sie

Gagging, he left the smoke, but he was too distracted to enjoy the sweet, clean air he sucked into his lungs. The crest of the slope was only thirty yards ahead, but it might as well have been a mile. He had no way of telling how damaged the vehicles were. He didn’t dare waste time looking behind him to check. If the machine guns haven’t been disabled, we don’t have a chance, he thought.

Indeed, he did hear gunshots, but they were single fire, not from automatic weapons, and the bullets were ricocheting off rocks below him. That meant the gunmen were aiming as if they were on level ground. To hit a target moving uphill, they had to aim slightly above what they were shooting at, letting the target rise into their sights. But they would soon make that adjustment. Of that, Malone had no doubt.

Sie

What sounded like superfast bumblebees sped past his legs. One of them nicked his jeans and stung his left calf. Racing harder, he stared toward the top. He swore his eyes were playing tricks. Everything seemed to become magnified, the crest suddenly close before him. He saw Sie

14

The crunch of metal and the shatter of glass sent a wave of nausea through Bellasar. His sick feeling quickly changed to the most intense fury he had ever known. His engineers had assured him that these vehicles could withstand an attack from assault rifles, grenades, and even a glancing hit from a rocket. But the boulders had crushed the front of the cars and bounced up to strike the bullet-resistant windshields, smashing through and crushing the men in the front seats.

Bellasar screamed in outrage. With the men from his car and the survivors who lurched from the other cars, he fired toward Sie

Cursing, Bellasar leapt back into his vehicle. The men with him barely had a chance to jump in before he rammed the gearshift into reverse, tore up dirt backing away from the gully, spun the steering wheel, and sped up the slope.

But the incline steepened, and the ground became more uneven. The engine, strained to its limit, could no longer propel the weight of the reinforced body. The more it slowed, the more Bellasar pressed the accelerator, until, with a bang that shook the vehicle, the transmission failed, the vehicle rolling backward. Bellasar stomped the brake pedal, twisted the steering wheel, and yanked the lever of the emergency brake. Slamming a fresh magazine into his pistol, he charged out and ran for the top.

15

As Malone reached the cover of the olive trees at the bottom of the slope, he risked a precious few seconds to catch his breath and check behind him. But any hope that Bellasar might have been left back there was destroyed when he saw the tiny figures of men hurry over the crest. At their lead, his suit and tie somehow more threatening than the rugged clothes of the guards, his broad shoulders and strong chest unmistakable, was Bellasar.

Malone raced on. The olive trees were dense enough that he couldn’t see Sie

All the while he and Sie