the Second Horseman (2006) Read Online Free Page A

his ear, securing it with the tape, and pushed the answer button.
    "Hello?"
    "Get going, Brandon. Move away from the clearing and start bearing left."
    "Who is this? Daly? Why are you doin g t his to me? I --"
    "Shut up! There are twelve men with dogs and guns coming across that clearing righ t n ow. They're not coming to catch you. They're coming to kill you. Is the earpiece secure? Did you use the tape?"
    The voice came from someone smart and decisive -- definitely not Daly or anyone who would hang around with him. Brandon opened his mouth to give whoever it was a piece of his mind but then realized he didn't really have anything to say. Instead, he touched the earpiece and confirmed that it was stuck on.
    "It's in there."
    "Then get moving."
    He didn't. "How do I know you're not just trying to get me to keep going so it looks like I escaped --"
    "As opposed to how it looks now, Brandon? Listen to me very carefully. You're a smart guy -- we both know that. But right now you're cold, tired, and confused. So you can do what I tell you and let me get you out of this, or you can stand around asking stupid questions until somebody shoots you."
    Brandon hesitated. "I can barely see to walk in here and those guys will have lights---
    "Quit whining and start moving, goddammit!"
    The truth was that the upside to the best plan he'd come up with on his own was spending the next twenty-five years inside. And while prison hadn't been as bad to him as it had to some, he didn't see growing old there. Better to get shot, maybe.
    A moment later, he was on the move, getting tangled, slapped, and jabbed by branches and sliding uncontrollably down steep banks all at the behest of the disembodied voice in his ear.
    "Bear left a little more -- about eleven o'clock."
    Brandon smashed a shin into a jagged rock and stopped, bending at the waist again but managing not to vomit. There was nothing left in his stomach.
    "Why are you stopped? Get moving!"
    "I'm stopped because I'm tired, soaking wet, freezing my ass off, and probably being led into a fucking ambush . . ." He thought he heard the excited barking of a dog rise above the storm, and he spun around, staring into the darkness.
    "Fine. Good luck to you," the voice said with a tone of indifference that sounded pretty convincing over the static-ridden connection.
    "Wait!" Brandon shouted, cringing at the sound of his own voice. "I'm going, okay? I'm going."
    He started forward again, bearing left and cursing himself for his pathetic flash of pointless defiance. Even Kassem would have seen through that bluff.
    "Okay, you're doing good, Brandon. Keep your pace up. You've only got about another minute."
    "To what?"
    The question was ignored. "Can you see a light in front of you?"
    "No."
    "Keep going."
    He did as he was told, stumbling forward and looking for a hint of anything unusual. Another thirty seconds and he caught sight of something. It was too dim to make out if he looked directly at it, but his peripheral vision could just pick it up.
    "I think I see something. It's kind of greenish --"
    "Go toward it! Double time!"
    "Okay, I'm --"
    The phone went dead.
    Brandon stopped short. "Hello? Hello!"
    He hadn't trusted the guy on the other end of that line, but at least it had been a human voice. Now, in addition to being frozen, lost, and hunted, he was alone. His teeth began to chatter as he pulled the phone from his pocket and confirmed tha t t he line was dead. "Shit!"
    He looked over his shoulder, but could only see blackness. They couldn't be far behind though. The forest was thick enough that he probably wouldn't see their lights until they were just about on top of him.
    Turning back toward the glow, he pushed forward, feeling his heart rate rise still more as he came to the edge of a small clearing. He half expected to find Daly standing there with a .44 Magnum, grinning ear to ear.
    Wrong again.
    The light was coming from a single glow stick hanging in a tree. But that wasn't all.