Not long now, Saul thought. Not long. He wiped sweat from his eyes and concentrated on the opposite edge of the clearing. Any moment, the bushes over there would part. The men would show themselves. I've seconds became ten. Fifteen. Thirty. After what seemed two minutes,
Erika scrambled backward, and Saul knew exactly why. The situation was wrong. The men should have reached the top of the slope by now. They should have shown themselves. He followed Erika, scurrying toward the woman. When the woman opened her mouth to speak, he clamped a hand across her lips and gestured forcibly toward the continuation of the forest. She reacted to the desperation in his eyes and ran, leading them upward through the trees. He could think of only one reason the men hadn't shown themselves. They'd approached the clearing, sensed the trap, and separated, following the rim of trees on either side, trying to get ahead of their quarry. It was possible they'd already done so.
The crack of a gunshot parallel to Saul, on his left, spurred him faster up the wooded slope. The bullet shredded leaves beside him. He heard it--felt it--zip past him. But was the shot meant to force them toward a sniper waiting at the top of this slope? Or was it intended to make them stop and take cover while the three men encircled them? Instincts assumed control. Morion--escape--was everything. Saul understood why
Erika didn't bother returning fire. She didn't have a target, and even if she did, the trees would interfere with her aim. He knew they couldn't even hope that the gunshots would attract help from the village. In Switzerland, mandatory military training required farmers to practice their marksmanship on a regular basis. Gunshots in the Alps were as ordinary as the tinkle of cow bells No one would pay attention.
The air had cooled. Clouds had covered the sky. Drops of moisture pelted his shirtsleeves. He pressed the cardboard packet of photographs and Avidan's diary harder against his chest, grateful for its plastic wrapping. The rain increased, drenching him. He shivered. Black clouds scudded over the mountains, making him realize how dangerous the weather had become. The strain of racing ever higher in unaccustomed altitude could lead to delirium from oxygen privation. Add to that a cold extended rain, and conditions were perfect for hypothermia, a rapid drain of strength and body heat, death from exposure. Three hours, Saul thought. That's the maximum time hypothermia takes to kill. That's how long we've got now. His only consolation was to imagine the similar apprehension of his hunters. Trembling from cold, he reached the top of this farther hill, only to wince when he saw yet another wooded ridge above, obscured by darker clouds and worsening rain. The downpour muffled a shot from his right The bullet slammed against a tree behind him. Propelled by fear, the woman raced ahead. Saul had trouble keeping up with her. She guided them through a maze of obstacles. Higher.
Steeper. We must be at eight thousand feet by now, Saul thought The thin air threw him off-balance. No matter how quickly and deeply he breathed, he couldn't satisfy his lungs. His thoughts began to swirl.
Movement became automatic, a reflexive struggle. Twice he fell, helped up by Erika. Then Erika fell, and he helped her up. His head throbbed.
But the woman, as agile as a mountain goat, scrambled ever higher. He wasn't sure when the trees became less dense, when pine needle-covered ground gave way to more and more rocks and open space, but suddenly his thoughts and vision cleared sufficiently for him to realize that he'd passed the treeline, that only granite and snow-covered peaks rose above him. We're trapped, he thought. We can't go much higher. We'll faint
Or freeze to death. The rain, which had chilled him to his core, had changed to snow. Above the timberline, a June buzzard wasn't unusual; experienced mountaineers took that danger into account and carried woolen clothes in their knapsacks. But Saul hadn't expected to be up here; he was dressed for summer conditions. Far below him, in the untouched village, this sudden far-off storm would have been merely picturesque, but up here, it was life-threatening. Already the snow had accumulated on his scalp. His shoulders were covered, his hands numb.
We're going to die up here, he thought. We've gone so far, even if we turned around and tried to get back to the woman's farm, we wouldn't make it there before we fainted from exposure and froze to death. And somewhere along the way we'd be ambushed by our hunters. The snow obscured the gray of the granite slopes above. But despite the freezing wind, the woman persisted, climbing higher. She's crazy, Saul thought.
She's so afraid of those men she'll scramble up till she collapses, and in the meantime, the men'll realize the danger we're heading into.
They'll hang back. They'll stay below the treeline, take shelter beneath a deadfall, and stalk us when the storm is over. They'll find us frozen where we fell and simply leave us there. In July, after the snow melts, hikers will come upon us and report another mountain accident.
The thought made Saul angry enough to keep following the woman. The flakes cleared sporadically, allowing him to see that the three of them had reached another plateau, this one completely barren. The woman pushed onward. But not toward the next even steeper slope, instead toward a wooden door set into a granite wall. The door had been placed here precisely for conditions such as this--a common Swiss precaution against unexpected storms. The snow gained such volume that he couldn't any longer see the door, let alone the granite slopes beyond it. There wasn't a choice. He and Erika had to follow. But when the woman opened the door, revealing a murky cave beyond, he balked. "The door's two inches thick!" the woman insisted. "Bullets can't go through it! Those men will die if they try to wait us out!"
Saul understood her logic. From years of living next to the mountains, she was conditioned to think of this cave as a refuge. But his own years of training rebelled against enclosing himself. A refuge could also be a trap. What if the storm let up? What if the men decided not to linger beneath a deadfall at the treeline and instead followed their tracks through the snow and besieged the cave? What if the men had carried more than pistols beneath their slightly too large windbreakers?
Explosives, for instance. No! He had to fight the enemy on open ground, free to maneuver. But he couldn't leave Erika unable to defend herself.
Tempted to reach for the rifle she carried, he forced his arms to remain by his sides. 'I'll be back. If you don't recognize my voice, shoot anyone who tries to open the door." Snow clung to Erika's face. The falling temperature had blanched her skin. She squeezed his arm. "I love you." The snow fell harder. "If I knew another way..." he said.
"But there isn't" She opened her mouth to say something else.
He echoed her
"I love you" and, knowing she'd understand, shoved her toward the cave. She acquiesced, darting inside after the woman.
Darkness cloaked her. The door slammed shut with a thud mat was almost inaudible in the wind.
He spun toward the slope below him. With his back turned toward the gusts, he saw more clearly now. Boulders that had been invisible loomed murkily in the storm. Going down, he'd have a slight advantage against his hunters.
They'd be blinded by the snow squalling at their eyes, just as he'd been blinded when he came up. Perhaps that advantage would compensate for his lack of a weapon. They had the advantage of three against one.
The equalizer was the numbing cold. He didn't dare analyze--he had to act Snow stung him harder. It covered the ground, preventing him from judging where he could safely place his feet. He knew that a sprained ankle would be disastrous, but he couldn't worry about it. He had to keep scrambling down the slope, to reach cover before his hunters arrived. He stayed well away from the trail that he, Erika, and the woman had made in the snow. Though the storm was quickly filling in the tracks, they were still apparent enough to provide a direction for his hunters. Of course, the men wouldn't stay in a group. Down in the forest, shots had come from the left and right as the men spread out, trying to outflank their quarry. Obstacles might force them to converge, but wherever possible, they'd keep far away from one another.
Saul would have to maintain a considerable distance fr
om the tracks he'd made coming up. His plan was to descend well away from his hunters, get below them, turn, and stalk them from behind, taking them out, widely separated, one at a time. If he could control his shivering. His shirt and pants were shockingly cold, the wind excruciating. His hands stiffened, his fingers losing sensation. He slipped on a snow-slick slab and tumbled, bumping his arms, his legs, and his back over rocks, jolting to a halt against the trunk of a pine tree at the bottom of the slope. Branches drooped over him, protecting him from the streaking snow. He lay on his back, exhausted, struggling to catch his breath.
His vision grew fuzzy. With agonizing effort, he forced his eyes to focus, his body to respond He sat painfully up, pushing at the pine limbs, about to stand... And halted when he saw motion, a dark figure creeping upward past scattered storm-obscured trees. The figure--a man, his dark windbreaker and trousers evident now--stopped often, aiming his handgun from side to side before him, then glancing right, toward what must have been another member of his team, though Saul couldn't see the other man. The cold metal of his handgun must be painful in his grip,
Saul thought His fingers might not respond if he tries to shoot. But with an inward groan, Saul changed his mind. The snow gusts lessened briefly, just long enough for him to see mat the man wore gloves. He remembered the woman's description of the hiker-priest. That man's left hand had shown a pale circle on the middle finger where a ring had recently been removed, Saul began to wonder if that ring would have matched the bright red ring he'd seen on the left hand, middle finger, of each of these men as they'd stalked up the lane toward (he farmhouse.
He remembered something else the woman had said--that the hiker had shown unusual caution about his hands, wearing gloves whenever possible.
Just as these men had taken care, even in summer, to carry gloves in their windbreakers. Were these men associated with that hiker? Were they priests, just as the woman suspected the hiker had been? Priests who carried guns? Who stalked him like professionals? Who were obviously prepared to kill? It didn't seem possible! The woman must have been mistaken! What would priests have to do with the disappearance of Erika's father and of Avidan? Religion and violence?
They were incompatible.
The wind changed direction, lancing through the pine boughs, stinging his eyes. He shivered, envying his hunters for the jackets and gloves they wore. The repeated impacts of his tumble down the slope had numbed his joints. He felt caked with ice. No time. Don't analyze! Just do!
His hunter crept closer. Saul eased behind the tree trunk. Pressed against the ground, he saw his hunter's shoes and trouser legs pass next to the tree. He imagined the man scanning right and left, then up the slope. But the shoes paused. They turned as if the man were looking at this tree. Saul clenched his teeth in dread, expecting to see the man peer beneath these boughs and fire. Instead the shoes shifted forward again, the man proceeding upward. Saul wriggled after him. The gusts increased with such intensity that the man became obscured. It had to be now! Saul rose to a crouch and lunged. The force of his attack jolted the man to the rocky slope. Saul landed with a knee on his target's spine, grabbed the man's head, and jerked up with all his might. His hunter's spine snapped just before his larynx gave. Despite the shrieking wind, Saul heard the sickening double cracks. His hunter trembled, whistled through his teeth, and suddenly stilled. In a rush, desperate not to be seen, Saul dragged the body down beneath the cover of the pine boughs. He fumbled to peel off the corpse's leather gloves.
His own fingers-- swollen and numb--didn't seem to belong to him.
Putting the gloves on his hands was even more difficult He had to cram his fingers beneath his armpits, trying to warm them into flexibility.
But his armpits too were achingly cold, and he knew he was close to the danger point If his temperature dropped any lower, he'd lose consciousness. For a disorienting instant he fantasized about the heat of Israel's desert. He reveled beneath an imaginary blazing sun.
Abruptly he became aware again of the terrible wind, of the snow-shrouded slope. Appalled by the symptoms of altitude sickness and hypothermia, he compelled himself to strip the corpse of its windbreaker and put it on. The jacket's protection was minimal, but compared to his thin shirt, the added layer was luxurious. He scurried to the edge of the pine boughs, glanced to his right, toward where the remaining two men would probably be creeping upward, and darted forward, reaching the spot where he'd attacked. He pawed through the snow and gripped the pistol his victim had dropped. But his first finger refused to obey his mind's command, wouldn't squeeze into the trigger guard. He slapped one gloved hand against the other, trying to make them pliant, his efforts useless. From the wrist down, he had no sensation. He shoved the pistol beneath his belt and retreated down the slope, stopping when he reached a dense line of trees. Using them for cover, he stalked toward his right, toward the other men, trying to get behind them. Soon they'd notice that the man on their left flank was missing. They'd investigate. In his weakened condition, without the advantage of surprise, he'd have little chance of subduing both of them together. He had to confront them singly, before they realized they were being hunted. Flakes streaked harder. After what he judged was fifty meters, he came to fresh footprints in the snow. They led upward. He followed, emerging from the trees, suddenly unprotected. Above, amid a squall, he saw the back of another figure. Mustering strength, he lunged. By now, the gloves had returned some warmth to his hands, making them flexible enough that he could grip the pistol, though his fingers still weren't agile enough to fire it He slammed its barrel savagely against the crown of the figure's head. The tip gouged deeply into bone. Hot blood pelted his face. The figure moaned. Saul struck again, with greater force. The figure toppled, shuddering. Saul struck again. And again!
He couldn't stop himself. He struck, pulping bone until in a crimson drift the man lay quiet Saul pivoted toward his right, straining to see the third man. He rushed along the slope, squinting through gusts, desperate for a glimpse of dark slacks and a windbreaker. But fifty meters farther, he still hadn't found his quarry. Has he already gone up the slope? Did I pass below him? Saul glanced toward the crest, unable to see it in the storm. If he's above me, I'd have passed his tracks!
No, he has to be farther along this hill! But twenty meters farther, still failing to glimpse the man or his tracks, he came to a sudden stop. A terrible suspicion filled him with panic. They wouldn't have stayed this far apart. I made a mistake. The first man I killed--he wasn't on their left flank! He was in the middle! Somewhere behind the along this slope, the third man, the one who was really on the left flank, must have noticed he's alone! He'll find the marks in the snow where I killed his partner! He'll find the body! He'll search for me!
Saul whirled to stare behind him. appalled by the unavoidable trail he'd left in the snow. All the third man had to do was follow the footprints till they led him to...! A handgun cracked, a bullet nipping Saul's sleeve. He dove to the snow and rolled down the slope, ignoring the impact of rocks beneath him. The handgun cracked again, its bullet kicking up snow. Saul reached the bottom of the slope and scrambled to his feet, bearing a third crack from the handgun. He didn't dare stop, didn't dare let the man pin him down. With his frozen hands, he wouldn't be able to return fire. The man would merely circle till he had a clear aim and shoot Saul from a safe distance. Saul raced on. Exertion in this unaccustomed altitude made him afraid he'd vomit.
The trees became more frequent, less far apart. He charged down a farther slope. The man wouldn't follow directly along Saul's tracks but instead would stay to the side, to avoid a trap. Counting on that strategy, Saul veered away from the man, scrambling through a gap between boulders. He saw a dead branch projecting from a drift and yanked it free. He ran back up the slope, in the direction from which he'd come, hoping a line of bushes would conceal him. At the top of the slope, he angled back toward the man. His intention was to make a wide circle, get behind the man, find his tracks, and stalk him. In a moment, he c
rossed his own tracks and entered the enemy's territory. The falling snow transformed afternoon into dusk. Objects as near as ten meters were indistinct. He crept from tree to tree and suddenly found his pursuer's tracks. He calculated his next moves. By now, the man would have reached Saul's own trail, would have seen where Saul stopped descending and doubled back. The man would realize the likelihood mat
Saul intended to circle behind him. The man would hurry back this way to intercept him.
Clutching the jagged branch he'd picked up, Saul glanced along his pursuer's downward trail. He saw a clump of boulders the man had passed and approached them, staying within the tracks his enemy had made. When he came to the boulders, he leapt as far as he could, hoping the new imprints would be sufficiently spaced from the trail he'd just left that his hunter wouldn't see them in time to realize that Saul was hiding among the boulders. Braced in a cleft, he imagined the sequence he willed to occur. His hunter, coming back this way, would ignore his own tracks and keep staring ahead in search of Saul's. By the time he came abreast of these boulders, he'd be able to see where Saul's tracks intersected with his own farther up the slope. Briefly distracted, the man wouldn't be prepared for an immediate attack. So Saul hoped. There were many variables he couldn't control. Suppose the man didn't retrace his tracks exactly but instead moved beside them, passing these boulders on the left instead of the right. It was difficult enough for Saul to concentrate in one direction, let alone both. Or suppose the man followed Saul's tracks where they circled back up the slope. In that case, the man would approach these boulders from ahead, not behind, and
David Morrell - League of Night and Fog Page 20
