Ben scanned the two sides of the river with his binoculars. Afu, trying to adjust his position so he could see if David was approaching, became visible for a moment, and Ben’s back stiffened.
His heart still pounding. Ben sat patiently, being careful to not expose his position, and the forest was eerily silent. Nothing moved.
Chapter Fifty-Two
By this time David’s legs had become stiff and cramped. His bruises were beginning to deeply ache now that the adrenalin level in his system had dropped to a more normal level, and his ankle was beginning to swell against the cuff of his hiking boot. He dared not move for fear of giving away his precarious position.
The walls of the shallow cave were covered with condensation, and from above his head a steady drip of cold ground water spilled onto him and ran down his back. Involuntarily, he shivered.
A hot wave of fear surged within him when he heard footsteps approaching, and then he heard muffled whispers. It was that strange language again, and he understood nothing they said.
David deduced that there were at least two, maybe three people, and they were very near the narrow mouth of the cave. He buried his face in his arms and breathed in shallow breaths, fearful that they would hear any sound he might make.
Outside, Zaim turned to Jibril and Imad, and whispered, “He cannot have simply vanished. Jibril, you follow the river downstream on the chance that he is heading deeper into the park.
“There is a foot bridge a half mile downstream from here. It crosses the river, but don’t take it. Murad is on the other side, waiting. If Captain Craine had gone that way, Murad would have captured him by now.
“Imad, climb back up the bank and head back to his car. He may have somehow slipped past us in the forest, but I think not. I will work my way upstream, which is the way I think he will be headed. Perhaps I can flush him into Afu’s grasp. Hurry, now. Time is slipping away, and soon campers in the park will be waking and moving about. That will complicate matters considerably.”
Each man moved out in his assigned direction, and in seconds, David heard only the sound of his own muffled breathing. He waited a full five minutes, and then decided he’d better make his move if he was ever going to.
He cautiously crept to the opening of the cave and tried to scan the surroundings, but from inside he had a very narrow field of view. He could see no one outside and hunkered closer to the light. As he neared the cave entrance his scope of the river bank became wider. None of his assailants were visible to him.
He took one step forward, then another, expecting to either be grabbed or brained at any instant. The most frightening point was when he emerged from what had seemed like his crypt. He pictured the men above him on the bank, ready to pounce. Taking two limping steps out into the light, he quickly turned and looked up. To his relief, all he saw were birch trees and ferns.
One silent step after another, David hobbled upstream, pressed against the rock wall of the riverbed as tightly as he could. A hundred yards ahead of him he could see the arches of the bridge spanning the gorge, and he inched his way in that direction. There was a walkway under the bridge deck for hikers, and he knew that if he could make it across, he could easily get to the highway and possibly into the safety of a passerby’s car.
Zaim reached the beginning of the walkway and still had not sighted David. Below, the river raged over broken pieces of boulder, creating a maelstrom of fury. Across the span, he could make out Afu peering from around the thick cover of a balsam tree, and Zaim saw the rising sun glint off the barrel of the rifle Murad was carrying.
Zaim thought, If the Captain came this way, he most certainly continued upstream. Afu would have taken care of him had he tried to cross. He must be trying to make his escape by using the trails above the falls.
Zaim picked up his pace, hoping to reach the high falls before David could reach the more level terrain further upstream.
By this time, David was to the bridge, and its massive steel arches towered beside him. Although he was unaware, while he had been in his cave Zaim had passed him and was now ahead, moving to the upper falls. David placed one hand on the I-beam and curled his fingers around its flange. The steel was cold in his grasp and felt good next to his sweaty skin.
He peered over the edge of a vertical drop. Twenty feet below him was a massive block of basalt rock that had probably been cleaved loose and moved by the ancient glaciers that once covered this land. He wished he could somehow get down into the sheltering shadows of the crevice between the house-size block and the bank.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Stealthily, Deidre and John made their way through the underbrush, not exactly knowing which way to go. Every few seconds they stopped and listened, but any telltale sound was drowned out by the roar of water cascading over the two falls. Step by step they moved forward until they came to one of the many paved hiking trails that crisscrossed the park.
Without warning, they heard the sound of someone running heavily on the trail toward them, and two hikers, a young man and woman, charged into view. Their packs were still on their backs, but the straps to the covers had come loose and items were spilling out as they ran. The terror in their eyes was unmistakable.
They spotted Deidre and John and began to turn back.
“Sheriff,” Deidre shouted out. “Stop! We can help.”
For an instant it appeared as if the two were going to return to the direction from which they came, but then the man reached out and grabbed the woman, preventing her from breaking away. Deidre and John realized they, too, must have looked like a threat. Each had his pistol in hand.
“We’re here to help. Calm yourselves as best you can,” John said as he and Deidre approached.
Before they could ask what the problem was, the young lady stammered, “Man … there’s a man … a gun!”
Deidre reached out and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Take a deep breath. You’re safe with us now. Calm down and try to tell us why you were running.”
“We came over the slope on the other side of the bridge,” the man began to offer, but then he had to stop and take another breath.
“Just as we approached the walkway under the bridge, a dark-haired man stepped from around one of the balsam trees. He had a rifle, and our first thought was that he would shoot us. Our only chance was to sprint across the walk and then up this trail. Can you tell us what’s going on?”
Deidre’s eyes widened as her system produced another shot of adrenalin. “Did you see anyone else? It’s important that we know.”
The two hikers looked at the officers with blank stares. Finally, the man responded. “We were too frightened to look around, but I don’t think anyone else was there. At least I can’t remember seeing anyone. But everything was a blur to me.”
“If you continue up this trail and past the main building, you will come to the parking lot. There are three squad cars parked there. If you wait by them, help will be arriving in a few minutes. Whatever you do, don’t come back down this way.”
The hikers nodded and sprinted up the trail to a safer place, articles continuing to spill from their falling-open packs.
“John, David is down by the river and can’t get across the gorge. The problem is we don’t know if he is up or down stream. If you take that path,” she said motioning to her right, “I’ll head upstream. Take it slow. We don’t know who we’ll run into first.”
“But we know at least one of them is by the walkway. The others could be there as well. Let’s both head in that direction,” John argued.
Without thinking, Deidre snapped back, “If they were all by the bridge, the hikers would have seen someone else. My guess is the person by the walkway is only covering one of David’s possible escape routes. There’s probably another stationed at the footbridge downstream.
“We’ll cover more ground if we split up. Now go!”
John was not used to being bossed around, and for an instant his hackles went up, but before he
could say anything he realized she was probably right.
“Deidre, be careful. There are real bullets in their guns.”
A little chagrined, she looked at him and headed up the path toward the bridge.
Cautiously, John began to move in the opposite direction, and in a few seconds she was no longer in sight.
Deidre was alone in the most dangerous situation she had ever experienced.
Step by step she descended along the trail leading to the base of the bridge and the near side of where the pedestrian walkway started. Suddenly, she was startled by a scraping sound and a dull thud. She heard a loud moan coming from the direction of the river.
David, grasping the bridge girder and looking down into the crevasse below him, was uncertain of what he should do. He had no idea what had happened to his pursuers, and he tried to calm his thoughts so he could reason out what should be his next move. He shifted his weight from his aching ankle to the other.
With no warning, what had seemed to be a solid rock ledge crumbled beneath his foot and he felt his hand torn away from the solid support his fingers had been wrapped around. For a sickening instant he clambered to find sure footing, but then he was falling through space for what seemed to him to be many seconds. Then blackness.
Zaim had moved several yards upstream along the bank, sure that at any second he would spot Captain Craine attempting to elude him and the others. He spun around at the sound of rocks falling followed by a muffled thud. Before he could react he heard a moan rise from the river gorge that made the hair on the nape of his neck stand upright.
David opened his eyes and tried to clear the fog from his brain. He had no recollection of where he was or what had happened. He looked up and at first thought he must be inside a chimney. Columns of rock towered above him, and through the channel they created he saw the blue sky high above. He tried to put the pieces together and wondered why he was lying on his back inside a fireplace.
Excruciating pain seeped into his consciousness, and he reacted with a loud cry, a mixture of a scream and a moan. He raised his head as best he could and looked at his leg. It was bent at a crazy angle as though his thigh had an extra joint, and his foot was pointing in a direction not in line with the rest of his leg. The sight sickened him and he turned his head to the side and vomited. David ached all over, and each breath he took required an effort to overcome the pains shooting through his ribcage.
Deidre was the first to reach the bridge abutment, and she could see the marks on the bank where someone had fallen over. She approached the edge and looked down. There was David lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom. She could see that he was barely moving, and she heard his moans above the sound of the running water going over the falls.
David regained his senses for a moment and looked up. Peering over the edge of his chimney was the outline of a person. All he could see was a silhouette outlined against the bright sunlight behind it and the blue sky. He could make out a gun in the right hand of the person. The darkness of unconsciousness started to close in from the sides of his vision, but before everything went black, David heard a gunshot. Then he became unaware of the world around him.
Deidre, looking down on the man she was supposed to protect, did not see Zaim come around the point of rock upstream from her. He couldn’t be sure what had happened, but he could assume. The woman sheriff was intent on what was below her, and from the sounds bouncing from the rock walls, someone was down there and whoever it was must have been badly injured. It must be Captain Craine, he deduced.
Zaim was not going to wait to see what happened next. He couldn’t wait, and reflexively, he raised his rifle and aimed at Deidre. He hurried his shot a bit as Deidre turned. The rifle cracked, and the pungent smell of gun smoke hung in the air. For Zaim it was as if time went into slow motion. He saw Deidre spin around from the impact of the bullet and saw her collapse to the ground.
Slowly, or so it seemed to him, David regained his senses. His pain was still as intense as it had been, and he marveled that he was still alive. He tried to focus on the bank above him, and as his eyes adjusted, all he saw was blue sky. The figure with the gun in hand had disappeared, and he wondered if he had been hallucinating. He wretched and vomited. By now the pain had totally enveloped him. Again, David lost consciousness.
Chapter Fifty-Four
From high up on the point of rocks above the trail, Ben had an open view of the walkway under the bridge. To his right he looked down on the footpath, and he could see the base of the bridge. His view upstream was obstructed by a dense clump of white cedar, but that didn’t bother him. He reasoned that David or his pursuers would be coming from the downstream direction.
Ben scanned the visible area with his binoculars: the trail as far to the right as he could see, the base of the bridge, the walkway. As he focused on the patch of balsam trees on the far side, two hikers, a young woman and her male companion strode over the ridge and headed down the trail, walking confidently toward him.
As they passed the dense stand of conifers, Ben was startled to see Afu rise up from his position with a rifle in his hands. At the same time the hikers looked directly at the armed man in the bushes. Their utter surprise and fright registered with Ben, and he raised his rifle, placing the crosshairs of the scope on Afu’s chest.
The couple ducked and burst into a mad sprint across the bridge, reaching the near side in only seconds. At the same time Afu cowered back into the trees. The hikers raced up the trail and out of sight. Ben’s heart rate settled down somewhat, but he was now decidedly more alert.
Before he could completely gather himself, Ben heard more footsteps approaching from the downstream direction, and in seconds he recognized David cautiously moving up the trail. Something was wrong with his gate, and he limped as though his leg or ankle had been injured.
Ben steadied himself, looked through his rifle scope into the stand of balsams across the way. If Afu showed himself, Ben was determined to stop him from injuring David.
He saw his former teacher hobble up the trail, then stop by one of the bridge supports, and David looked over the side at the gorge below him. In horror, Ben watched the footing give way beneath David’s feet, and he helplessly watched him catapult into space and disappear from sight. He heard a dull thud followed by a cry that was something between a scream and a gut wrenching moan.
Before Ben could move from his vantage point, he saw Deidre rush out of the trees and to the bank where David had been standing. He saw her look over the edge and pause. Then, from the one direction he was unable to cover, Ben heard the deafening roar of a rifle, and simultaneously saw Deidre spin and fall to the ground.
Seconds after David had fallen Deidre reached the edge of the bank and stared down at the crumpled heap lying on the rocks below. She was so shocked and intent on what she saw she had no awareness of Zaim coming around the point of dense cedars.
Without warning, she felt something slam into her chest on the right side. Then she felt more than heard the shock wave of a rifle blast. The impact twisted her around and slammed her to the ground. For an instant, nothing made sense, and she tried to find what it was that had struck her. Then she realized her right arm was numb and not working.
Deidre was only partially aware that her face had been pushed into the graveled path when she fell, and with her good hand she tried to brush the chunks of small rock away that were imbedded in her skin. She was confused that she couldn’t seem to find her face. Through glazed eyes she looked up and saw a figure standing over her.
She saw Zaim raise his rifle and aim it at her head. She heard him curse her.
“You had to get in the way, didn’t you?” he said, his voice sounding distant and echo like to Deidre. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he continued, his voice almost calm.
“Someone must pay for what was taken from me. It might as well be you.”
Zaim’s finger began to tighten on the rifle’s trigger, but before he could squeeze it, Deidre heard t
he roar of another gun, and Zaim pitched forward, lying so close to her on the ground that she could almost reach out and touch him. She heard him mumble something as he lay bleeding on the path.
Another shot came from the same place as the last one she had heard, but in her stunned condition, its retort hardly registered.
Before she lost consciousness, Deidre sensed someone sliding his arms under her and cradling her in his arms. She opened her eyes for a moment and saw John bent over her. Then all was black.
Instinctively, from atop the rocks where Deidre had him stationed, Ben trained his scope on a thick stand of cedar trees to his left, and he caught a glimpse of someone moving toward the fallen Deidre. He followed the sound more than his sight until he saw Zaim burst into full view on the trail.
The dark-haired man rushed over to where Deidre had fallen and raised his rifle, ready to fire another shot. Ben could see his mouth moving as though he were saying something to her. Zaim’s contorted face, the fear in Deidre’s eyes, and the crosshairs of his scope centered on Zaim’s chest all became clear to Ben in the same instant.
He squeezed the trigger and felt the recoil of his rifle jolt back against his shoulder.
Chapter Fifty-Five
John was pushing his way over the brush-choked bank downstream from the bridge. The red clay under foot and the steepness of the slope made for slow going, and he had to test each step he took or risk sliding in a crashing avalanche of arms and legs to the bottom. The sharp retort of a high powered rifle jolted him to a stop. The sound echoed off the steep river banks and seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Convergence at Two Harbors Page 21
