Frederick started crying, and she seemed to come unfrozen. She pushed away from Alex and cuddled the baby. “Are you okay?” she asked, glancing back at Alex.
“I’m fine.” She had blown a chance to escape, had put herself and Frederick at additional risk, to save him. He had neither the words nor the leisure to express his feelings. “I’m fine,” he said again, and focused on their tactical problem.
As he studied the terrain between the boulders and the forest, another helicopter appeared: the big Sikorsky that Silver Hill used to transport supplies. It settled briefly on high ground above them and disgorged three riflemen. Then it took off, hovered, and landed on the snow below them, just short of the tree line. Three more riflemen climbed out and took up positions there. The two-person Bell, which had been hovering all the while, climbed high above the trees and disappeared in the direction of Silver Hill.
Six riflemen, and Alex was low on ammunition. The men below would block access to the shelter of trees while the three on high ground became stalkers. Alex saw no way out.
Pia no doubt understood the hopelessness of their situation, the inevitability of death or capture. Yet her voice carried a hard edge that refused to accept defeat. “What should we do?”
She was right. They had to do something, no matter how untenable the alternatives. Alex studied the terrain once more. No vegetation or large rocks for cover, but the gully narrowed and deepened closer to the trees. Two minor gullies split off from it. They looked shallow, less than shoulder height on Pia. The men below them could spot any movement in the primary gully and would note attempts to break out over level ground. But their view into the shallow tributaries, which ran at roughly forty-five-degree angles to the primary gully, was partially obstructed.
“Put on your snowshoes,” he said. “It’s time for a hike.”
Instead of asking how they were going to walk past six men armed with rifles, Pia bent to the task. “Ready,” she said, standing again at his side.
Alex slipped his backpack onto his shoulders. “I’ll move across to those rocks.” He pointed to a boulder-strewn area partially hidden from the men below. “That will distract them. When the shooting starts, crouch low and head for that gully.” He waved toward the shallow offshoot on their left. “Once you’re in the gully, if you stay bent way over, they won’t see you.”
“Then what?”
“Keep moving. Always downhill. Even if you’re spotted, they won’t shoot. It’s clear from radio traffic that they won’t risk hitting you. Whatever happens, stay in the gully and keep walking.” He gave her a look meant to be intimidating. “No more heroics.”
“What about you? Did Theo tell them not to shoot you?”
“Don’t worry about me.” He detected resistance in the tightening of muscles around her eyes. “Just do what I say.”
Her stubborn look hardened. “What will you do?”
“I spent a big chunk of my Army career practicing escape and evasion.”
Her expression told him she wasn’t buying it.
“I’ve done all I can for you.” He put as much ice in his voice as he could muster. “On my own, I can get away. Burdened with you guys, I’m as good as dead.”
That stopped her. She chewed her lip for a moment. “If we get away, what should we do?”
“Keep hoofing down the gully ’til it dumps into a waterway. Then follow it, always downhill.” He touched her face, traced her lower lip with his thumb. He fully expected it would be the final pleasant moment of his life. “Don’t give up. If you stay on your feet, you’ll find a cabin or a road.”
“Okay.”
“Do you understand what you’re to do?”
“Yes.” Moisture glistened in her eyes, but her voice firmed.
“If you hesitate or lose your nerve, it’s all over for you and Freddy. And I’ll be long gone.”
“I can do it.” Her tears spilled over and made twin rivulets down her cheeks. She shouldered her backpack, straightened Frederick’s blanket-rigged cloak, and secured him in the bed-sheet remnant that still hung as a sling from her neck—apparently worn out from crying, Frederick whined but did not resist. Grasping the stolen rifle, she positioned herself for a dash to the rocks.
Alex crouched like a runner on starting blocks and powered himself out from behind protective cover. Eyes fixed on his goal, he sprinted to the largest boulder in the field of scattered rocks.
His move caught the gunmen by surprise. No shots rang out for several seconds, then a volley echoed. Bullets caromed off his new shelter as he belly-flopped into the snow. On his stomach, with his rifle resting across the crooks of his arms, he elbowed his way through the snow between low, scattered rocks.
He looked for Pia and grunted with satisfaction—no sign of her. But if the men realized too soon that she had left the shelter of rocks around the lone tree, they would radio the helicopter, still perched in the clearing below. It could pick her up before she reached the forest. The same thing would happen if they spotted her in the gully.
Everything depended on keeping their attention riveted to him for the next few minutes. He raised up enough for his backpack to be seen, then flattened himself amid the low-lying rocks.
The maneuver worked too well. A hail of bullets whined and thumped around him. Splintered rock fragments splattered the side of his face, and he felt the warmth of oozing blood. Sprawled on the snow-covered ground and wearing his camouflaging bed sheet, he made an elusive target, but a lucky shot or a ricochet would eventually find its mark. Even though moving increased his exposure, he had to find shelter. A few feet ahead, a narrow ridge jutted where an ancient glacier had pushed aside rocks ranging from fist-sized to small boulders. With a fatalistic grunt, he resumed crawling.
Amid a continuing bullet storm, he gained the shelter of the rocky ridge. Scanning down the mountainside with his binoculars, he located the men the helicopter had disgorged there. Still farther down, he spotted the grounded helicopter. The men were out of rifle range, so he could concentrate on those in the rocks above. He had to keep them pinned down while Pia and Frederick escaped along the gully.
By stacking loose rocks, he constructed a parapet with a rifle port. Using his binoculars again, he searched out the three riflemen on high ground. If the men below him decided to move up, his flank would be exposed. He had to trust that they would stay put to cut him off in case he made a dash for the trees.
Having fixed the location of his targets, he rested his rifle barrel on the crude stone parapet and fired methodically. He had to make the men keep their heads down until Pia was well away. The tree line was no more than a couple thousand yards down the mountain, but her offshoot gully ran nearly parallel to the forest. She would have to travel at least a mile to find shelter. The longer he held the gunmen at bay, the better her chances.
He fired until both of his ammunition clips were empty. After reloading one with his last cartridges, he studied Pia’s escape route through his binoculars. He missed her at first but spotted her on the return sweep. Barely visible in her white camouflage sheet, she crouched low and moved fast.
She had traveled far enough down the gully that he doubted the men above him could see her even if they gave it a careful going over with binoculars. He swung back around and focused on their positions, but his subconscious refused to make the shift. Had something else, somebody else, been moving in the rocks below?
Chapter 20
Alex aimed his binoculars downhill once more, focusing on Pia and scanning back along the shallow gully. There it was: movement on the gully’s lip, perhaps fifty yards from where she scurried downhill. One of the men below was creeping forward. Farther along the primary gully he spotted the other two, also moving up. The men on the high ground must have radioed that there was a chance to flank the quarry while Alex concentrated on them.
He could track the men and pin them down when they got closer, maybe drop them. But they might spot Pia and Frederick.
Another swee
p with his binoculars revealed that Pia had seen or heard the men and was frozen in place. If she remained still, there was a chance they would slink on up the gully, away from her position. But if she panicked, tried to run, the movement would betray her. If Frederick decided to complain, his cries would attract attention.
The men were still beyond the effective range of Alex’s rifle, so he could do nothing to help. “Steady, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Keep your cool.”
She flattened her back against the gully’s rim. As Alex watched through his binoculars, she ripped the front of her camouflage sheet, opened her coat and shirt, and gave Frederick a breast. That would pacify him. If the men kept moving, if they concentrated on Alex, they wouldn’t notice her. But they needed an incentive to focus uphill, to keep advancing.
To create that incentive, he had to become more conspicuous. He peeled away his camouflage sheet and scrambled higher onto the piled rocks that were his shelter from the men above. To help those below fix his position, he fired several shots in rapid succession. Then he began moving, crawling sideways along the rocks to make himself easier to spot.
The possibility of a bullet in the back made the flesh between his shoulders burn. Moving incessantly, he shifted directions at random to make himself less vulnerable while remaining visible. He didn’t dare turn to see if the men were advancing. That would tip them to his knowledge of their strategy and might cause them to retreat into the gully with Pia. But the way he was exposed, a marksman with a high-powered, scope-equipped rifle could take him out.
For perhaps two minutes he heard nothing from the ravine, no shots indicating the men were trying their luck from that distance, and no shouts that would tell him Pia had been spotted. Then came an insect-like whirring and a dull thud as a bullet buried itself in the rocky soil near his head. Further delay would be his death warrant.
With a prayer that Pia had moved on down the gully, he rolled off the embankment and out of sight. Neither the riflemen nor Pia were visible when he peeked over a protective boulder. He swept the area with his binoculars but still saw no one. Either she had been caught and dragged silently away, or she had escaped and the men were somewhere in the rocks with him.
Perched just short of the tree line below him, the waiting helicopter resembled a gigantic, somnolent insect. Through his binoculars, Alex saw the pilot clearly. He appeared to be dozing.
Alex wanted that helicopter. And he had to take it without injuring the pilot so severely that the man couldn’t fly it. Otherwise, with their mobility, their radios, and their reserves, the gunmen would run him aground. The most he could hope for was to stall them long enough for Pia to get away. But with only three cartridges left in his rifle, he was doomed unless he captured the chopper.
He stowed his binoculars and scrambled farther down among sheltering rocks. If the men below were in the rocks with him, they would advance slowly, wary of an ambush. He had some time, but no way to tell how much.
Walking backward to create tracks pointing uphill instead of down, he moved toward where he guessed the advancing riflemen would be. When they crossed his path, the direction of his tracks would indicate that he was retreating, being pushed uphill toward those on the ridge. Realizing that stress would warp his judgment of time and distance, he made himself keep moving down the slope even though instinct screamed at him to take cover and wait.
When he dared go no further for fear of bumping into the advancing trio, he backed into a crevice that seemed a logical place to have been hiding. By tromping randomly about, he tried to foster an impression of successive position shifts. Then, burrowing deep into snow that had drifted against the rocks, he covered himself and his equipment, fashioning an under-snow air pocket in the process.
With luck, the men would pass him by. Then he could break for the tree line and try to waylay the helicopter pilot. Without luck, he was one dead drifter. His first indication of failure would be a bullet.
Lying there buried in snow, he became acutely aware of his own body. He felt blood coursing through pulse points, heard it rushing past his eardrums. Body odors trapped in the snowy cavity assailed his nostrils: stale sweat and something else, the smell of fear. No use telling himself it wasn’t there, that he wasn’t afraid to die. He could taste as well as smell it. He remembered the taste—acrid, metallic, lingering—from his first combat experience. It had never returned until now, but he recognized it.
Why now? Half a dozen firefights had put him fleetingly at death’s doorstep since that first, horrifying flare-up. Each time, his emotions, perhaps overdosed on adrenaline, idled in neutral until the fireworks fizzled. Reactions—cold sweat, uncontrollable tremors, sour breath—were never far away, but they waited for the calm after the brain-scrambling insanity of combat. What had changed the martial equation so dramatically?
To ask the question was to admit the answer: life had become precious. Pia and Frederick had made it so.
How long had he been waiting, buried in this cold, white grave? He eased an arm around and pressed the button to illuminate his wristwatch. Three minutes. It seemed much longer.
No way to tell whether the men had passed his position or were still advancing. If he surfaced too soon, he would pop up directly in their path. Wait too long, and they would realize they had passed his position, would double back to search for him. Give them two more minutes, he decided. To calm himself, he concentrated on the second hand of his watch.
Two minutes. He pushed aside the snow and strained for some clue—a voice, the rustle of clothing, the clang of equipment—that would reveal an enemy presence. He heard absolute silence. Rifle at the ready, he clawed his way out of the snow and looked in all directions. Nothing.
No time to reconnoiter. He would have to trust that the men had passed him. They would soon catch on and circle back. Worse, they might radio the helicopter pilot.
Camouflaged once more in his sheet, he snowshoed across open ground, lugging his backpack, rifle, and stubby cross-country skis. With action, his fear and sense of helplessness began slipping away. His back was exposed to the men on the ridge, but they would be looking for him among the rocks.
He plopped into a shallow gully and made a quick sweep of the ridge with his binoculars. Nobody visible. The men up there were under cover, or they had moved down into the rocks with their buddies. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out what he had done.
Aiming his binoculars downhill, he saw that the helicopter pilot still napped. Alex clambered over the gully’s lip and headed for the aircraft, jogging awkwardly on his snowshoes. The flat, open terrain around the chopper offered no cover. As he approached, chatter among the men in the rocks became clearly audible on its radio. Their conversation, all in Spanish, proved hard to follow, but the tone revealed growing frustration.
Alex touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Wake up.”
The pilot yawned. “You get ’em?”
“Yeah, I got him.” Alex pressed the frigid sharpness of his knife against the man’s neck. “Don’t even twitch, unless you want blood all over this nice cockpit.”
The pilot froze, staring straight ahead. “I just fly the man’s whirlybirds. I don’t fight for him.”
“I’m a bit keyed up,” Alex said. “You try anything stupid, I’ll slice before you can blink.”
“I ain’t gonna do nothing stupid.” The pilot sounded calm, but through his hand on the man’s shoulder Alex felt coiled-spring tension. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Eagle Two,” a voice on the radio said. “You awake?”
“Answer that call. Do it right, and you have a new lease on life.”
Careful not to move his throat sideways against the knife, the pilot pressed the microphone button on the helicopter’s control stick. “This is Eagle Two. Everything’s quiet down here.”
“The buck must be somewhere between us,” the radio voice said. “Take your chopper up, see if you can flush him out.”
The pilot cut his eyes toward Alex an
d caught his nod. “Roger, I’m taking it up.”
“You might live to see your grandchildren yet.” Alex shrugged his rifle off his shoulder, slipped one arm free of his backpack, and shifted hands with the knife to free the other arm. “Make a pass over the rocks. Let’s get a fix on your buddies.”
They gained enough altitude for Alex to look down on the men. All six were easy to spot. “Tell them there’s nobody else in the rocks. Say you’re checking the gully, then fly that way.” Alex pointed down Pia’s escape route.
The pilot managed a smile. “You suppose you could back off a tad with that blade? You cut me now, we’re both dead.”
The Descent From Truth Page 16
