Peter heard the other two agree and the noise of getting up and checking weapons. Holding his flashlight along the short barrel of the AR-15, he switched it on and swept the group with automatic fire. It was all over in five seconds. All the would-be terrorists were down. They wouldn’t be building any more bombs.

He remembered there were four RVs and one Ford pickup at the ambush site. He quickly checked to see if any of them could be used. All had fire damage and shot up tires. There was only one good inflated tire in all the vehicles. He found spots of blood in the pickup. No bodies nearby. The blood was on the passenger seat.

Peter thought, Yuri wouldn’t have been driving. It was not his style. Yuri and Horace must have been the only ones in the pickup. Horace sure as hell wasn’t wounded. Not the way he nearly killed me. It must be Yuri who got hit. No vehicles left the valley once our attack started. Yuri must have left on his own. Able to walk but bleeding. Probably not too bad. Felt he could send Horace to have a look around while he waited somewhere along this unused fire or logging road. I may still have a chance to get him. But getting Terry out is first.

Peter slapped a fresh magazine into the AR-15 and started running at a ten-minute mile pace up the valley. The three men he had just killed thought everyone else was dead, but he took nothing for granted and didn’t use his flashlight. He ran straight to the RV near the tents that wasn’t part of the rush to exit the valley. A quick check showed no damage, no bullet holes and no flat tires. He switched on the ignition, leaving all lights off. The interior lights were already covered with duct tape. The fuel gauge showed three quarters of a tank. Using his belt knife, Peter cut out two of the seat belts and put them around his neck. All looking good. Now to get Terry down the cliff.

Peter used the in-place repelling rope to walk up the cliff face. Bernadette was waiting for him. She hugged him when he stepped on the top of the drop off. “God. The gunfire scared me. I was debating coming down when I heard noise around the RV below us. Figured that had to be you. What’s all that stuff hanging around your neck?”

“That, my lady, is the going to be the harness we use to lower Terry down this little cliff. Is he ready to go?”

“Yes. Do we just walk away from both of the campsites?”

“Not much choice. I’ll clean up this one a bit and cover over our fire site. It’s possible no one will find this camp and our observation hide. The other campsite is a problem. I don’t think the police can track any of the things left there to us. But we left a bunch of fingerprints there. Especially on the tarp, cooking pot handles, and packaging of food items. If we don’t get it cleaned up now, it will be too dangerous to go back there later. If it’s found, some smart person will stake it out for a few days. For now let’s concentrate on getting Terry in the RV. Has he been awake much?”

“Not as much as I would like. He’ll wake up when we start to move him.”

“Help me get this improvised harness of seat belts on him. I don’t think it will put any pressure on his chest wound. But I’m worried about pressure on his groin wound.”

“Do your best and I’ll pad it well,” Bernadette said. “How are we going to get him to the edge of the cliff?”

“Fortunately, it’s not far. We’ll put my jacket under him and use the seat belt harness to drag him. He’s too heavy to carry without a risk of opening his wounds. We can move slowly to the cliff’s edge. Once there I’ll come back to the camp site and do some clean up and backtracking.”