Exile Hunter

by Preston Fleming

  Linder lowered his head. “I’d sooner die,” he answered.

  “I believe you,” Yost said. “But that’s not the answer I’m looking for. Do you know the camp saying ‘I’ll die later?’”

  Linder nodded.

  “That phrase originated in the old Soviet gulag,” Yost went on. “American troops picked it up from the Russians during the Manchurian War. In the gulag, the phrase had a purely cynical and fatalistic meaning. But in the American camp system, it got turned around to mean that man has a moral obligation to preserve his own life as long as he can to help others and live up to his own potential. At the same time, he has to respect his neighbor’s choice whether to live or die. The complete phrase is ‘You die first, I’ll die later’ and, in its modern sense, it restores free will and divine providence to their rightful place above survival of the fittest.”

  “That’s all very nice,” Linder responded. But how does all that relate to you and me?”

  “The point is to make sure at least one of us survives to do something useful,” Yost declared.

  “And that something would be to get Patricia Kendall and her daughter out of the camps?”

  “Yes, but to me, what’s important about Patricia is that she’s Philip Eaton’s daughter, not Roger Kendall’s wife,” Yost explained. “You see, I worked for Patricia’s father at the Eaton Company for nearly thirty years. He was probably the finest man I’ve ever known. Though Philip came from wealth, he never acted superior to anyone. When he looked at you, you had his full attention, as if there were no one else in the room.”

  “How did you meet Philip?” Linder asked, recalling that Yost had expressed the need to unburden himself, and sensing that this might be a good time to draw him out.

  “My father worked for Philip’s father, so I started working for the Eaton Company part-time when I was in high school. Phil was in college then and we would be assigned to jobs together sometimes. Years later, I came back and started working as a plant engineer while Phil worked in management. Our paths crossed often back then and we became good friends, though our families rarely mingled. We shared the same politics, though, so when Phil started actively opposing the President-for-Life, I joined the opposition, too.”

  “And is that how you ended up here?” Linder asked.

  “More or less,” Yost replied. “One thing led to another.”

  “But Philip made it to England,” Linder pressed. “Why not you?”

  “We each had our roles in the insurgency,” Yost continued. “His was overseas, in finance. Mine was here, in operations. That’s not to say that Phil ever ran from a fight with the Unionist Party. Far from it. If playing it safe were what he cared about, he wouldn’t have consumed his entire personal fortune and devoted every waking hour to bringing the Party down.”

  “So what’s your purpose in rescuing Patricia Kendall?” Linder asked. “Is it more about helping Philip’s family or about sticking it to the Unionists?”

  Yost laughed. “Ah, therein lies the genius of our future partnership. Now that you’ve entered the game, my focus can be on the fight. While yours is on the fair damsel. You see, Linder, I know more about you than you think.”

  Linder blushed. “And exactly how are you going to wage the good fight as a fugitive in the wilderness?” Linder pressed. “Where will you find the men and the money to pick up where you and Philip left off?”

  “What do you know about the Battle of Cleveland?” Yost asked in return.

  “Plenty. I was there,” Linder replied.

  “Then you know about the safe deposit boxes?”

  Linder gave a knowing smile.

  “Yes, and the missing treasure,” he added. “What can you tell me that I wouldn’t already know?”

  “Whatever you want. I helped hide it away. And I know what’s left.”

  “Holy shit,” Linder sputtered. “There’s more? Where?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the trail tomorrow. Why don’t you get some sleep first? It’ll be your turn at the watch in a couple hours.”

  Despite his excitement, Linder agreed to wait before learning what had become of the missing loot. Moments after lying down beside the banked campfire, he dropped off to sleep. Only after repeated prodding did he awake a few hours later, more eager than ever to hear Yost’s secrets.

  * * *

  Now that more than forty-eight hours had passed since their escape and they felt confident of having evaded their trackers for the moment, the men settled in for a day of rest and recovery. Shortly after sunrise the following morning, they rose again, ate their meager breakfast and prepared to leave the cave. But as Linder went to the cave mouth to urinate in the designated spot, he heard an odd buzzing in the sky above. Within a few seconds, he recognized the sound as an aircraft engine, but with a distinctly menacing quality unlike that of any civilian aircraft he had heard before. He listened closely and felt some comfort that the buzz was low and falling rather than high and rising, which suggested that the craft was retreating rather than approaching.

  A few seconds later, still watching and listening from inside the cave mouth, he noticed a metallic glint in the sky and withdrew at once to warn the others to stay inside. While a drone’s cameras, radar, and infrared sensors were not likely to detect them within the cave, if even one of them strayed outside, he could give away the entire team.

  Yet, with the aircraft at so high an altitude, it was impossible to know whether it was on a reconnaissance mission or was merely a passenger flight. As most of America’s combat and surveillance drones had been lost in the Manchurian War and the remaining ones redeployed to Alaska and British Columbia for coastal defense, the odds were slim of a drone being spared to search for six prisoners missing from the Yukon. At the same time, this was an unpopulated area, devoid of any economic infrastructure and far from normal air traffic routes. So why else would a small propeller-driven aircraft appear now over this spot?

  Linder waited inside with the others around the dying campfire until the sound was gone. Then he returned to the cave mouth to listen for its possible return. By now the sun was well above the horizon in a cloudless blue sky. While their plan had been to follow the valley south to its end while the terrain remained in shadow, the route offered scant place to hide from aerial surveillance once the sun was up. Instead, Scotty proposed that they cross to the opposite side and climb into the next valley to evade the aircraft, should it return. This, however, would require a steep ascent up a jagged ridge and a traverse across avalanche-prone slopes rather too soon after a major snowstorm.

  They decided the question by secret ballot, each man dropping a light- or dark-colored stone into a mess tin. As the majority favored the climb over another day’s wait, they set out at once across the valley, staying close to large rock formations where they could hide if needed. From afar, the ridge looked formidable. As the going would be steep and treacherous, undertaking it without ropes or any other climbing gear made it a reckless move. But they consoled themselves with the thought that surely no dogs could follow here.

  As usual, Linder and Yost started out last in line, which gave them the opportunity to resume their conversation of the night before.

  “You know, I was in a couple of those downtown vaults after the rebels ransacked them,” Linder began. “I still don’t get how your men managed to escape with so much booty before the National Guard arrived.”

  “You have to remember that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy,” Yost answered. “Our original plan was for the East Side teams to commandeer some Coast Guard vessels and other craft to exfiltrate our men, while the goods would be ferried out to a freighter that was steaming toward Buffalo and the St. Lawrence River. Any vessels that might be used to pursue us were to be scuttled once we were safely aboard the freighter. But it didn’t turn out quite that way.”

  “You mean for the men or for the loot?”

  “The latter, mostly,” Yost replied, slowin
g his pace so as not to slip on the steepening path. “Nearly all the men found their way to their exfiltration points along Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga, where they met boats that took them across the lake to Canada. Even the last troops to evacuate Tower City made it out okay, although some were caught later, after they went into hiding. But as soon as we took the seized assets to our repacking site, it was clear that we had far more than we could transport to the freighter and safely conceal on board. We realized we would have to cache the rest.”

  “Ah, so that’s how the legend of the hidden treasure started,” Linder commented.

  “Yes, nearly all the currency, negotiable securities, and finished gemstones made it to the freighter, along with as much gold as we could handle,” Yost explained. “The rest of the gold, along with assorted jewelry, fine art, and antiques were crated up and taken by boat to the West Side, where they were loaded onto a pair of trucks. Only the crew who packed the crates had any idea of what was inside. My assistant and I then drove the crates from the pier to a prearranged spot outside the city, where he and I blindfolded the loaders who came with us and drove the trucks the rest of the way to the cache site.”

  “Rest of the way to where?” Linder pressed. “Where are the crates now?”

  Yost laughed. “In a place that’s well enough hidden that no one’s found it yet,” he replied, stopping to catch his breath from the climb. “For now, let’s just say that we took it to a farm owned by a close friend of mine. After we put away the crates, we blindfolded the workmen again and headed south to hole up in the green hills of Kentucky.”

  At that moment, Yost interrupted the conversation to wave to Browning and Burt, who had stopped twenty or thirty yards ahead. By now the way had become increasingly treacherous, and from time to time Linder had to help Yost hoist himself up and over difficult spots. When they stopped to rest again, Linder asked more questions.

  “And is that where you were arrested?”

  “No, that happened after I moved up to Canada,” Yost explained. I made the mistake of crossing back into Michigan for an operation and was caught at a roving checkpoint. But by some miracle, the DSS took me for a common smuggler and booked me under my alias ID without a thorough interrogation and without even checking my fingerprints and DNA against their database. They just tossed me into the meat grinder to meet their quota.”

  “Did that happen before or after Philip’s arrest in Beirut?” Linder probed.

  “Before. I had just received a message from Philip a few days earlier, asking me to check out a character named Joe Tanner.” Yost gave Linder a searching look. “Had I been free, I suppose I might have warned him.”

  “I wish you had,” Linder replied.

  But before Yost could respond, Browning shouted out for the two stragglers to catch up and they suspended their dialog to tackle the final portion of the steep climb. Linder’s arms and legs cramped more than once along the way and at times he felt as his lungs might burst. Now and again, Yost made wheezing noises that caused Linder to fear for him. But at last, they reached the ridgeline, where the others awaited, equally exhausted. As the two men lay under the bright sun, a short distance from the rest of the team, Yost moved closer to Linder to finish what he had wanted to say.

  “Our side lost a giant in Philip Eaton,” he said, once he had caught his breath. It may be a long time before someone else comes along who can fill his shoes.”

  “And refill the rebel coffers,” Linder added. “Insurgencies run on money. These days, even the Brits and Aussies are tightening their purse strings.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Yost added. “But what’s so sad to me is that, with the military phase of the insurgency over and done, it wouldn’t be nearly as expensive now to fund an entirely new campaign based on non-violent opposition. “If only we had found a way to bring out more of the money we left behind, the underground dissident movement would have funding for years of non-violent political organizing.”

  “Do you suppose the money is still there?” Linder inquired.

  “I see no reason why it wouldn’t be,” Yost asserted. “If you and I can get to it, we might have a decent shot at taking it out the same way we did last time. Now that you’ve slept on it, are you still willing to partner up with me?”

  “How could I refuse? But knowing my background, why would you ever trust someone like me?”

  Yost waved off the objection with a smile. “Good men learn and grow,” he observed. “If there’s anyone I’d trust to recover Philip’s war chest and put it to good use, it’s you, Warren. Now, let me show you how.”

  * * *

  Once the men recovered their strength under the sun’s gentle warmth, they began their traverse across the snowfield that descended into the next valley. After taking just a few steps, however, Scotty stopped and borrowed Sam Burt’s long wooden staff to poke a hole through the snow’s icy crust. Then he cut a shaft with a knife to expose the layers beneath. Browning looked expectantly over Scotty’s shoulder as the old man crumbled the mix in his gnarled hand and muttered a few words that only Browning could hear.

  “The snowpack is unstable,” Browning repeated aloud. “The snow layers haven’t bonded. We’ll have to string ourselves out, at least ten meters between men, to avoid putting too much stress on the surface layer. And take extra care to stay in the track made by the man ahead of you, okay?”

  The men agreed and the file order was changed, with Scotty and Browning going first since they knew the most about snow conditions. Rhee and Linder went next because they were physically fittest. And Burt and Yost, as the slowest, went last.

  A half hour later, with Scotty moving cautiously in the lead and barely fifty meters from reaching the far edge of the snowfield, Linder looked up to see Rhee step off the beaten track and wait for Linder to pass him.

  “You go ahead. I need to take a leak,” Rhee muttered without making eye contact.

  “For God’s sake, Mark, get back in line. You could get us all killed,” Linder exclaimed.

  “Screw yourself, we’re almost across,” Rhee replied.

  “And what about the scent your piss will leave for the dogs?“

  “No dog is going to follow us up that cliff, dude,” Rhee answered, pointing back toward the ridge.

  But no sooner did the words leave Rhee’s lips than a crack appeared in the snow beneath his feet, shearing off a slab of snow that began sliding down the mountainside and drawing in the snow resting above it. Though the first four men in the file stood above the shear line, Burt and Yost remained below it and now they bore the full impact of the onrushing snow. All six of them were carried tumbling downhill, accompanied by a roar like that of a speeding locomotive, and came to rest buried up to their chests in the rapidly congealing mass of snow. But as Yost had been on the steepest part of the slope when the avalanche hit him, he was taken faster and farther than any of the others.

  Five of the six men emerged from the mess and dug each other out within minutes in order to pursue the search for Yost. Fanning out in a standard search pattern, the five paced the area for over half an hour, probing with walking sticks and sometimes with bare hands. Rhee seemed particularly shaken by losing his ex-foreman, and perhaps driven by remorse, probed harder and deeper than anyone.

  But before long, the low sun set behind the ridge they had just climbed, casting them into deep shadow. Scotty pointed out the change and reminded them that they had one more ridge to climb before sunset to avoid spending the night out in the open.

  “But he’s got to be down here somewhere,” Linder insisted, out of breath from the exertion. “He was the last one to cross. Let’s climb back up the slope and rework the far edge of the debris field.”

  As if on command, Rhee set off immediately for the top of the debris field.

  “We’ve been at this the better part of an hour, Warren,” Browning replied evenly, approaching Linder and putting an around his shoulder. “Even if he’s close enough to the surface where we c
an get to him, he hasn’t had any air and his body temperature will have plummeted. It would be a miracle if he were still alive.”

  “Depends how you define death,” Burt argued. “Chilling the body actually helps protect it from oxygen shortage. Avalanche victims and people who drown from falling into icy lakes have been revived hours later.”

  “Maybe he found an air pocket,” Linder added, thrusting his arm through the newly formed crust and removing it to create a cavity. “It would be wrong to give up till we do all we can to find and revive him.”

  While Linder spoke, Browning and Scotty conferred quietly a few paces away. When Linder fell silent, Browning addressed the team.

  “All right, then, so maybe we find him,” Browning conceded in a voice devoid of emotion. “And let’s say we’re able to get him breathing. Even if we did that, and by some miracle, Charlie managed to wake up again, he’d be in no shape to climb. So how would we carry him over the next ridge? And if we wait here until morning, what if the drone comes back? The reason we decided to take this route in the first place was to avoid being spotted from the air.”

  “That’s just a hypothetical,” Linder countered. “The fact is…”

  “The fact is, we haven’t found Charlie’s body and we’re running out of time. If we don’t find shelter by nightfall, Charlie’s sacrifice will be meaningless. I say, let’s offer a prayer for his soul and move on. Charlie would understand that.”

  Burt stopped probing the snow with his walking stick and gave Linder a discouraged look.

  “Will’s right,” he conceded. “It’ll be dark soon. We need to keep moving.”

  Though Linder surrendered in the end to Browning’s reasoning, he simply could not bring himself to believe that Yost was dead. At some deep level, he just could not make sense of it. Though he joined the prayer for Yost, he refused to grieve.

  S14

  It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. Dietrich Bonhoeffer