Executive Privilege Read Online Free PDF Page A

mall to the farmhouse and Walsh had been upstairs for about a half hour. She finished her calculations just as the front door opened and Walsh stormed out. Dana snapped a few pictures. Walsh turned back to the house and talked to a man who was standing in the doorway. She was bent forward slightly and her fists were clenched. Her anger traveled up the hill on the crisp, night air but Dana was too far away to make out what she was saying.
    Dana shifted the lens to the man in the doorway. She could see his shirtsleeve and part of a pants leg but she couldn’t see his face. One of the guards got into the driver’s side of the car she had followed from the mall and Walsh threw herself into the backseat. As the car drove off, Dana used the cell phone to report that Walsh was probably heading back to the mall. While she talked, she kept an eye on the front door in hopes that the man Walsh had been with would put in an appearance. Just as she was finishing her report the man stepped out of the house. Dana dropped the phone and aimed her camera. The man turned his face in her direction. He was too far away for Dana to make out his features clearly, but something about him was familiar. She snapped off a quick shot and was going to take another when a branch snapped.
    Dana froze for a second before rolling behind the tree against which she’d been leaning. The crackling of more leaves told her that someone was headed her way fast. She guessed it was a guard who was patrolling the woods and felt like a fool for assuming that the only guards were stationed around the house.
    Dana peeked around the tree and spotted a man carrying an MP5 moving toward her. She cursed under her breath and stuffed the cell phone in her pocket as she ran through her choices. She was armed but she wasn’t going to shoot the guard. Under the circumstances, it would be felony assault or cold-blooded murder. She couldn’t run without being seen and he was so close he’d hit her for sure even if he was a lousy shot. When she realized that her choices boiled down to surrender or resistance she flashed back to the basement.
    Dana felt light-headed and began to shake. Her flashbacks weren’t memories. They were more like a dream in which what you dreamt seemed real. Dana could smell the dank odor of mold on the basement walls and the foul water that pooled against them. Worse still, she could smell the sweat coming off the men who had held her captive.
    Whenever the flashbacks occurred, Dana forced herself to take deep breaths. She did that now because she could not afford to be paralyzed by fear. The deep breathing distracted her long enough for the guard to disappear from view. Dana panicked as she scanned the forest. The man reappeared, closer now and definitely stalking her position. When he moved behind another tree, she inched away. The guard dashed toward the spot where she’d been sitting moments before and stopped, shocked that she was gone.
    Dana ran, zigzagging through the underbrush to give the guard as difficult a target as possible. The guard raced toward the sounds Dana made in retreat. She knew he’d catch her soon or get close enough to take a shot, so she slid behind a tree, hoping that the guard’s heavy breathing would mask the fact that she wasn’t making any more noise. When the guard ran past her tree Dana smashed the flashlight across the back of his skull. He dropped to his knees and the gun discharged, spraying tree trunks and bushes. She wrenched it away and hurled it into the woods. The guard struggled to his knees, and she hit him again. He collapsed just as snapping branches, crackling leaves, and muted gasps from the base of the hill told Dana that the other guards had heard the shots and were speeding toward her.
    Dana broke out of the trees and vaulted the fence. She’d guessed where her car was and she was only off by a few yards. She wrenched open the driver’s door, threw the camera and flashlight onto the passenger