“Thank heavens you didn’t just leave me there,” Cliff said.

“I did that once before. Not again.”

“Did you have any trouble clearing the roadblocks?” Chet asked.

“No. Travis was at Nicole’s when I came in the house. He gave us a helpful, though somewhat unwilling, hand and pulled all the units into Shalev. We left him sleeping peacefully on Nicole’s living-room floor. In fact, if you hurry, it may help you get back in with less trouble.”

Back in? Nicole was still reeling from seeing Dr. Cameron alive and had been having trouble following anything coherently for the last two minutes.

“Good,” Cliff said. “Come on, the horses are over here in the trees.”

“Did the ranch owner suspect anything?” Eric asked.

“No. We just told him we were off to a very early start, headed for the high country. We’ve got two good riding horses and a pack horse. Everything is loaded, all set to go. Use those pain pills and antibiotics in the pack. The ultimate irony would be to get infection in that incision and die.”

Eric laughed shortly. “Right.” He took Nicole’s elbow and firmly guided her as Chet and Cliff walked to where the three horses were tethered.

“Have you got the cutters?” Eric asked.

Chet reached into the saddlebags of the nearest horse and retrieved a heavy set of bolt cutters.

So that’s how they got the wrist computers off. Nicole stared as Chet turned back around and stepped next to her and Eric. She tried to jerk away, but he was too fast for her, and his fingers dug into her flesh. “Just relax, Nicky,” he said easily. “All we want to do is make you free.”

She gave a short, bitter laugh. “Then let me go.”

“All in due time.” He turned her arm over, and Chet inserted the band into the jaws of the cutter.

“The minute this is cut, they’ll have a fix on us,” Cliff said, even as the computer started its shrill buzzing, “so we’re going to have to move out of here fast.”

The cutters snapped sharply, and the wrist computer dropped into Eric’s hand. He released Nicole’s arm, spun around, and flung the buzzing object smashing into a tree. “There. Now you’re free from the Major’s all-seeing eye. Let’s get Cricket and get out of here.”

She rubbed her wrist, and the bitterness made her voice almost a whisper. “It isn’t the Major who’s taken away my freedom.”

CHAPTER 19