“When I rush them, you go that way.” He nodded along the slope, the direction they’d been running earlier. “Run and don’t look back.”

Danica shook her head. “No, this isn’t going to work—”

“If you get enough lead distance it will. They’ll be busy with me for at least—”

“I’m not talking about me. What you’re going to do isn’t going to work—”

“There’s nothing to argue, and no time anyway.”

“Sam—”

“On three. One—”

“Listen to me—”

“Two—”

A jackhammer explosion of sound came out of the darkness, from somewhere high up the slope—above themselves and the two remaining attackers. It sounded like automatic rifle fire.

Dryden jerked his head around toward the noise.

Danica did the same, and saw a pair of muzzle-flashes through the trees, thirty yards up—pulsing like high-speed strobe lights.

“Those are M4s,” Dryden whispered.

A second later the gunfire stopped, and from the same direction came a man’s voice, loud and sharp:

“Weapons down, now! Get them down! Show us your hands!”

A second voice followed: “Do it! We will fucking kill you! Do it right now!”

Though it seemed clear the commands were not aimed at herself or Dryden, Danica saw him set the pistol aside on the ground. He rested both his hands on the bark of the deadfall, up in plain view, while keeping the rest of himself shielded by it. She rolled toward the trunk and did the same.

A moment later she heard boots scraping and thudding as the newcomers made their way downhill. She heard a soft hiss of static and then a voice, speaking quietly as if into a radio headset. “Subjects contained. All teams to my position. Twelve-eight.”

The static hissed again and then cut out.

Dryden sat up slowly into full view, raising his hands to shoulder level. Danica followed his lead. She stared over the fallen trunk at the wooded slope, back across the expanse she and Dryden had traversed in their sprint.

From this direction she could see everything clearly—the forest stood in silhouette, backlit by the burning SUV and the tree above it, maybe a hundred yards off along the hillside.

The two surviving attackers were fifty feet away, both of them on their knees with their empty hands raised.

The men with the automatic rifles descended into view in careful steps, keeping the weapons trained.

In the glare of the distant firelight, Danica could just make out certain details of the newcomers: men in their twenties or thirties, lean and fit, wearing dark blue windbreakers. As they came to a stop just above the subdued attackers, the nearer of the new arrivals turned and surveyed her and Dryden where they sat.

“Either of you hurt?” the man asked.

They shook their heads.