He headed back to where he’d left Pia, and she stepped from behind a tree, lowering his rifle as she did so. She had obviously seen him first and kept him in her sights until she recognized him. Could she actually shoot someone? Alex had seen soldiers with outstanding training records who couldn’t squeeze off a round with a human target in their sights.
He explained the problem. He needed a diversion so he could slip across that critical ten feet of open space inside the barn, and the guards had to separate so he could take them out one at a time.
She handed him the rifle, tiptoed to kiss his chin, and marched across open ground to the barn’s front entrance. At the door, she turned and stared at him while opening the front of her parka and unbuttoning the top three buttons of her shirt. Save for the thermal undershirt, her breasts would have been exposed almost to her nipples. Though nothing showed but white fabric, it was suggestive of a desire to be seen. She ran the fingers of both hands through her short-cropped hair and gave him a tremulous smile. Then she opened the barn door and stepped inside.
Chapter 15
Pia strolled into the maintenance barn, leaving the door open enough for Alex to slip through. He could hear the two men inside talking, but their voices were low and their words indistinct.
The murmuring stopped when they spotted Pia. One man, a big-bellied hulk with shaggy, dishwater-blond hair and a matted beard, hid his beer bottle behind the vertical beam against which he had been resting. Looking sheepish, perhaps worried, he scrambled to his feet. The other, a tall, raw-boned man of about forty, kept his seat. A long-necked beer bottle dangled from his fingers. He looked amused.
Alex had bought a ski mask at the equipment rental store when he returned Pia’s practice snowmobile. He slipped it on and, confident that the men were focused on Pia, flattened himself on the ground and wriggled through the doorway. Just inside, he paused in shadows. Overhead lights cut a broad swath between his position and the truck. He dared go no farther until the men turned their backs.
The big-bellied watchman seemed uncertain whether Pia was an interloper to be repelled or management to be respected. With a countrified accent and a Southern drawl, he asked, “Can I do something for ya, miss?”
“You want to do something?” Pia slurred her speech and walked with a swagger, as if she’d had too much to drink. “Like what?”
“Huh?”
She stood close, resting her hands on her hips. “What do you want to do for me?”
Apparently deciding she was a party girl who had strayed down from one of the clubs, he asserted his authority. “Close the door.”
She whirled about and pulled the door shut. Heading for the men once more, she pushed her shoulders back and swayed her hips.
“Hey, girl,” said the other man. Still seated, he raised his beer in a salute. “Where’s your guy?”
“Up the hill.” She peered at the man as if having difficulty focusing. “You sharing that beer?”
Smiling with one side of his mouth, he extended the bottle. He did not move from his position on the floor.
The big-bellied man still looked confused. “You ain’t supposed to be down here.”
Ignoring him, Pia tilted the beer bottle to her mouth and swallowed. She waved it upside down. “Got any more?”
“Get the chick a brew, Greg,” the seated man said. “Hand me one, too.”
“Yeah, sure.” Big Belly—Greg—moved out of Alex’s field of vision.
With Greg looking for beer and the seated man concentrating on Pia, Alex wriggled forward. Another five feet, and the dump truck would shelter him.
Greg muttered a curse.
Alex froze, his torso flattened on the dirt-littered concrete. No protective shadows. Had he been spotted?
No, something else bothered Greg. Peering under the vehicle that separated them, Alex saw the big-gutted guard squatting by a cooler and struggling to free beer bottles. The man cursed again and jerked them free. He wore no side arm, but a rifle leaned against a nearby bench. The only other weapon was a nightstick dangling from his belt. A two-way radio also hung there.
Greg stood with three beer bottles grasped in one big hand. His gaze swept across Alex’s position with no hesitation. He twisted off one of the bottle caps and upended the bottle into his mouth, letting beer gurgle down his gullet as he walked back to Pia. He tossed the empty into a nearby trash can and belched. “Whatchu doing down here?”
His partner chuckled. “She’s looking for action. Am I right, swivel hips?”
“Looking for action.” She could have been simply repeating the man’s words, or she might have been affirming them. She pulled the remaining two beers from Greg’s hand and passed one to the seated man.
He twisted the cap off of his bottle. “Open the lady’s beer, Greg. She’s real thirsty.” From his seated position on the floor, he rubbed the toe of his boot up and down her calf. “Aren’t you, honey?”
“Thirsty, yeah.”
With all his might, Alex willed her to move around the duo. They had to turn away from the door.
She could have been reading his thoughts. She handed her bottle to Greg and headed for the rear of the barn.
“Hold it, girl.” Clutching the bottle in his fist, Greg stepped into her path. “Where you going?”
“Back there.” She pointed toward the parked snowmobiles. “Have to pee.” She walked around him and headed for the shadowy area beyond.
Greg twisted the cap off her beer bottle. Staring into the darkness where she had disappeared, he raised his voice as if she were a long distance away. “So, wha’ kinda party you got in mind?”
Another chuckle from his partner. “Only one kind she’d come all the way down here for.” The neck of his beer bottle slid back and forth through a circle formed by his thumb and index finger. “Anything else she could get from the city shits in the clubs.” He turned his face toward where Pia had disappeared and raised his voice. “Am I right, hot stuff? Them city shits bore you?”
“They don’t know how to party.” She emerged from the shadows with her coat open, her belt unbuckled, and reached for the beer in Greg’s hand.
Scowling, he pulled the bottle out of her reach. A quick glance at his partner, and he began drinking.
Pia turned to the seated man. Face tilted downward, she looked at him through her eyelashes. “Do you know how to party?”
Confident that the men would not turn away from Pia, Alex rolled across the swath of lighted floor to the sheltering truck. Careful not to disturb debris that might crunch or snap, he crouched where he could see around the truck but stayed in the shadow cast by its bulk. He wondered how Pia would get the men to separate, and he worried because the answer seemed obvious.
Greg’s lanky partner levered himself to his feet, adjusted his crotch, and stepped close to her. “Have some of my brew.” He drained the bottle into his mouth and tossed the empty aside. Cheeks bulging with beer, he coupled his lips with hers.
She choked, coughed. Hands on his chest, she pushed him back a few inches. “I love swallowing it. What else do you have?”
Another kiss, this one prolonged, made Alex see everything through a red haze. Pia accepted it passively, her hands hanging loosely at her sides, her body contoured against the man.
“She shoulda brung another broad,” Greg muttered. “I ain’t standing around while you bust your nuts.”
“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar.” With his hands on her shoulders, the lanky man turned Pia so she faced away from him. He slid his hands under her arms to palm her breasts and pull her back against his crotch. His thumbs and index fingers rolled her nipples. “You can take us both. Huh, babe?”
“Not at the same time. And not with an audience.”
“We’ll give you privacy.” Grasping her shoulders once more, he turned her to face the disabled snowcat. “Have another beer, Greg. This won’t take long.”
“Nah.” Greg tossed his bottle into a trash barrel and pulled his belt up o
ver his sagging gut. “This is my watch. I get her first.”
His partner’s voice hardened. “She’s gonna give me a blow job, and I’m outta here. She’ll be all heated up for you, ready to screw your brains out.” He guided Pia around the disassembled snowcat and out of sight.
Alex half stood, preparing to spring at Greg. But the big-gutted guard, mumbling incoherently, turned toward him. Alex ducked back down.
The other man’s voice floated from behind the broken-down snowcat. “You know what to do, honey lips.”
“Wait!” Pia sounded on the edge of panic. “God, it’s big.”
“Kiss it.”
Greg, standing in the middle of the barn, whined like a hungry dog held inches from its dinner. He took a step toward the voices.
That gave Alex the opening he needed. He edged from his hiding place.
A chilling, high-pitched scream shrilled from behind the snowcat.
Alex lunged. His shoulder slammed into Greg’s back.
The big man went down but rolled away. He regained his feet with cat-like agility that belied his fat-layered bulk and protruding gut. Cursing and swinging his nightstick, he charged.
Alex twisted and took a wild blow on his back. With the force of driving legs and swinging shoulders, he drove a fist into the big man’s gut.
Greg doubled over. A rabbit punch sent him plummeting face-first toward Alex’s up-thrusting knee. The knee hammered the guard’s chin and snapped his head back. His mouth slammed shut with a force that sent broken, blood-flecked teeth spewing from between rubbery lips. As limp as discarded clothing, he collapsed.
Intent on mayhem, Alex dashed to the disabled snowcat that hid Pia and Greg’s partner. The shrill keening continued. Crouched low, ready for combat, Alex rounded the vehicle.
He paused in confusion.
The screams came not from Pia but from the man. Curled into a protective ball with his trousers and skivvies around his ankles, he writhed on the floor, one hand covering his face, the other cradling his crotch.
Pia stood over him. Lashing out with her foot, she connected solidly with his kidney. She cocked her boot for another kick.
As Alex approached, she whirled and stabbed at his eye with a stiffened thumb. One of the maneuvers he had taught her.
He slapped her hand, knocking it away, then took a step back and ripped off the ski mask. “Alex. It’s Alex!”
She collapsed against him, her arms clutching for support. Her breath rasped as if she had just crossed the finish line after a hundred-yard dash.
“It’s all right.” He held her. “It’s over.” Tilting her chin, he looked into her eyes. “You okay?”
She nodded and clutched him tighter.
The man on the floor groaned. At some point he had stopped screaming, but Alex hadn’t realized it until he heard the groan.
Pia shuddered. She pushed back from Alex’s chest, but only a few inches. “All right.” She rubbed her face as if awakening from sleep. “We beat them.”
Her victim, still curled into a fetal ball with his trousers and skivvies around his ankles, seemed only semi-conscious. Alex pulled the ski mask back over his face and, using the toe of a boot, rolled the man face up. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
Still moaning, the man cradled his scrotum with both hands. Blood pooled in one eye.
“You told me to punch out their eyes.” Pia made a jabbing motion with her thumb, as Alex had when demonstrating combat techniques. Fingers curled, she rotated her hand. “You said twist their balls and jerk.”
“It’s okay. You did all the right things.”
He hugged her again, and she seemed content to nestle in his arms, standing amid the havoc they had created. Alex, however, worried that someone would investigate the noise. He released her and searched the barn’s walls and shelves for rope. He found none but discovered rolls of duct tape.
“Here you go.” He tossed a role of the tape to Pia.
She caught it. She was functioning again.
With another roll of tape, he bound Greg’s arms and legs. Pia did the same to Greg’s partner.
Alex started to toss aside his roll of tape but reconsidered and stuck it in his coat pocket. He pulled the two-way radio from Greg’s belt and hooked it to his own. “Let’s choose our getaway vehicles.”
He checked the fuel and oil levels on two of the newer-looking snowmobiles and grunted with satisfaction. They had been serviced before being stored for the night. He cranked the engines and, while they warmed, stowed his and Pia’s backpacks and the watchman’s rifle. Revving the engine slightly for supplementary power, they pushed one of the vehicles out of the barn and downhill to a heavily wooded area. “Too loud,” he said when Pia suggested riding instead of pushing. “The noise in the barn could have come from party-goers, but nobody would be out on a snowmobile this time of night.”
They moved the second snowmobile to their hiding place. Alex checked the watchman’s rifle, saw that it had a full clip. He handed it to Pia and smiled wryly, remembering his earlier skepticism about her capacity for violence. “Don’t shoot unless your life is in danger. We’re kidnappers, not killers.”
He cautioned her to stay with the snowmobiles. “Whatever happens, no matter what you hear, don’t move.” She was well hidden, and it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon her. “If I’m not back by sunup, start one of the snowmobiles and get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 16
Alex made his way back to the maintenance barn and found ignition keys for the snowcats, labeled according to the big yellow machines’ painted-on numbers. When his chosen vehicle had warmed and was purring smoothly, he drove it to the power station.
Two rooms. The first appeared to be a combination supply and break area. It held a table and chairs, refrigerator, and microwave. Its walls were lined with shelves packed with boxes and mechanical parts. No one there. An ear-splitting din from the next room identified it as housing generators. The noise rendered stealth superfluous.
He used the barrel of his rifle to ease open the door to the generator room. A man wearing protective ear covers dozed with his chair tilted against a wall in front of two generators, each the size of a garbage truck. Alex pressed his rifle against the man’s temple and snatched off his ear protectors. Following mimed directions but moving with glacial slowness, the man stretched out on the floor. Duct tape rendered him immobile.
Alex studied the room’s array of switches and levers and figured out how to shut down the generators. Overhead lights dimmed as the turbines slowed. They stilled, and pitch blackness forced him to rely on memory and touch to find his way out of the windowless building in eerie silence. He swept his gaze across the moonlit mountain and saw only shadows where lights had blazed and shimmered. Silver Hill was experiencing a total power outage.
He rushed back to the snowcat. A third of the way up the road to the village, driving as fast as he dared on the winding, narrow lane, he spotted headlights coming downhill, flashing, fading, and reappearing as they rounded sharp curves and raced past stands of trees, but growing ever brighter. He dropped his snowcat into a lower gear. When the approaching lights rounded a final turn and sped directly toward him, he stopped on the frozen trail. The other vehicle, also a snowcat, began slowing. Alex ripped off the ski mask, rolled down his window, and waited.
“What’s going on?” asked a voice from the other snowcat. The machines idled side by side, pointing in opposite directions.
“Fire in number two’s main transformer,” Alex said, thankful that the snowcat’s dark interior made his features indistinct. He could only hope the man wasn’t an electrician; the explanation was strictly ad-lib. In case the guy didn’t buy it, he clicked off the safety on his rifle. “Grid shifted to number one, the circuit breakers popped. If I put it back on line without that transformer, we’ll lose both generators.”
“Fix the damned thing. We got VIPs on the hill tonight.”
A little of Alex’s tension drained away.
The man obviously knew no more about electricity than he did. “No way I’m gonna monkey with it. That’s fifty thousand volts. We gotta get a power jockey up here.”
“Where you headed?”
“I called in the problem. Boss said hightail it up the hill, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Alex put his snowcat into gear and moved on up the trail. He held his breath until the other driver backed and turned to follow. They would send someone else to check the power station before long, and getting the generators back on would be simple. However, a few minutes were all he needed.
He negotiated a sharp curve that sheltered him from the trailing snowcat, cut his lights, and swung into roadside undergrowth. With both hands griping his rifle, he waited for the other vehicle to pass his turn-off. Would they notice his tracks leading into the brush?
The Descent From Truth Page 13
