Killer View

by Ridley Pearson

  The engine sound told him the snowmobile was quickly approaching. He would have one chance. He took a full wrap around the thick tree trunk with the loose end of the climbing rope. Drew in the slack to where the rope barely lifted out of the snow impression, a few feet from the tree trunk.

  The snowmobile’s headlight glanced the surrounding branches, as if setting them all afire. Walt could barely breathe. His mouth had gone dry, his eyes stung. He carefully lifted the night vision goggles so the headlight wouldn’t blind him. It took several seconds for his vision to adjust, and, in those several seconds, the snowmobile raced closer.

  There was little time to think this through; he’d acted on instinct alone.

  He made one last adjustment to the loop of rope around the tree. He’d rather catch the driver than the vehicle.

  The white light filtered down through the branches and onto the dull bark of the tree trunks as the whine of the two-cylinder engine grew progressively louder.

  There it was: weaving through the forested obstacle course, a single, blinding headlight.

  Walt couldn’t make out the driver or the snowmobile, only its penetrating bright light. And then it was upon him. All at once, as if it had jumped a hundred feet ahead.

  He waited… waited… then pulled hard on the trailing end of rope, hand over hand.

  The rope popped out and lifted from where he’d buried it in the snow and formed a taut, slanting line leading from the opposite tree, across the track and directly to Walt.

  It struck the snowmobile’s Plexiglas screen, was lifted higher by the contact, and caught the driver in the throat. The snowmobile shot out into the woods as its driver did a full backflip, landing on his head. He punched through the track’s packed snow, buried up to the middle of his chest.

  Walt drew his weapon and hurried to the man. He pulled him from the snow, only to find his neck broken, his head at an unnatural angle. More surprising was the quantity of sticky blood. It wasn’t until Walt found his flashlight that he saw the lacerations-cougar? bear?-across the man’s shoulder and chest. Deep gashes, the flesh of his chest ripped from his ribs. How he’d managed to drive a snowmobile in that condition not only impressed Walt but warned him: Coats and his posse were tough.

  Walt caught up to the snowmobile. Inspected it. Righted it. Dug it out of a snowbank and used its engine to help lift it back to the track. He climbed on.

  Called out on his radio so Brandon could hear. “I’m on the snowmobile. Please copy: I’m riding the snowmobile into the compound.” He waited for the acknowledgment.

  Waited some more.

  “ Brandon? Copy?… Brandon?”

  No reply.

  “Alpha,” Walt called out over the airwaves.

  “Alpha,” came a male voice he identified as Andy Cargill.

  “Give me five minutes. If I haven’t checked in, contact Beta and Delta and begin your advance on the compound.”

  The team leader acknowledged.

  Now all that stood between Walt and the compound were a few hundred yards of snow.

  64

  BRANDON PICKED UP A WHITE GLOW OF A HEAT SIGNATURE in his goggles and ducked behind a tree. Human, not elk or deer. Close: fifty yards or less. The shape was coming straight for him, moving with a surprising quickness given the deep snow.

  Brandon quietly slipped the M4 assault rifle in front of him. He set the trigger to fire in three-round bursts and touched his chest subconsciously to remind himself the vest was in place. His heart sped out of control, and, while he was hungry for a firefight, he was also terrified.

  “Aker!” a male voice cried out from across the field.

  Brandon couldn’t believe the man had called out.

  “I’ve got the wrong end of a thirty-aught-six aimed at that tree you’re hiding behind.”

  The sheriff’s voice interrupted, and Brandon yanked out the earpiece.

  “I know you’re there, and you know you’re there, so why don’t you come out and show yourself? I’d really rather not shoot you, but I will if I have to. We’ve got food and water, and the cabin’s warm. I know you’re there and I know what you want. So what do you say?”

  Mark Aker had escaped. It was the only explanation. The information so surprised Brandon that he gasped, then tried to process what the hell was going on.

  “I’m not showing myself until you do, Aker. And if you don’t come out from back there right now, then I’m going to have to make you, and I’d rather not do that.”

  Brandon considered his options: for the moment, he retained the element of surprise; the longer he dragged this out, the worse his position. But was the man wearing night vision goggles? If so, he’d spot Brandon ’s weapon and start firing. Was he too wearing a vest? How good a shot was he? How powerful was the flashlight he must be carrying?

  He tried to lose the snowshoes, but he was strapped into them and they weren’t coming off. He’d have to bend over to unstrap them and that would mean exposing himself beyond the protection of the tree, unless…

  He turned his back to the tree to lessen his profile. He quickly swatted and loosened the straps of both snowshoes and stepped out. He had to make himself shorter by sinking into the snow-he had six inches on Mark Aker. He slipped the M4 around his back so that only its strap would show. With his feet on firm ground, he had a practiced move, a perfected move-a sudden twist-that could throw the rifle around his body and into his grip. But in snow, and with bulky clothing in the way, he wasn’t sure he could pull it off. He stuffed the gloves into his pockets, wearing only thin liners.

  His hands were shaking, either from the cold or from nerves. He had to regain control; adrenaline had gotten the better of him.

  “Aker, don’t be stupid,” called out the voice.

  Closer.

  The man had moved nearer. Twenty, thirty yards away, Brandon guessed.

  Then, well beyond the man, the distant whine of a snowmobile. It took a second or two to determine it was drawing closer.

  “Water,” Brandon croaked at the man. He was ready now. He had only to step out into the clear and yet every aspect of his training forbade him from doing so.

  “I told you,” the voice answered. “We got water and food. Warmth. A woodstove. Hot coffee. All you got to do is show yourself. Come on.”

  Knowing he might get popped, Brandon took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the tree.

  65

  WALT STEERED THE SNOWMOBILE TO FOLLOW THE EXISTING track, passing a pair of trees where the trip wire had been taken down and pulled to the side. An extension of the same perimeter warning system that Brandon claimed to have tripped.

  Passing this point, he crossed into the enemy camp, driving one-handed. His other hand held the M4, hidden behind the snowmobile’s front panel.

  He slowed. The track curved to the right and rose to meet what was likely a dirt road in the summer. This road showed much more travel than the track he’d just been on, reminding him how outnumbered he likely was. Bracing the weapon at his side, barrel out and ready, he slowed even more as he caught sight of a cabin in his headlight. Behind it, two, possibly more, outbuildings.

  Smoke rose from a stovepipe in the roof. Three windows-two in front, one on the side-bled a pale yellow light. He’d so prepared himself for a conflict that he nearly fired on what turned out to be nothing more than a shadow cast by his own headlight.

  He stopped and shut off the snowmobile and spun a full circle as he climbed off, fully expecting to see a muzzle flash. He shook off his nerves as he realized that the snowmobile’s return must have been expected. It was the only explanation he could come up with to explain the lack of a reception. He darted off into shadow, the only light the pale wash from the cabin. He crept closer, the night vision goggles raised onto his forehead, eyes flickering in every direction.

  He single-clicked his radio com.

  His earpiece sounded with three distinct clicks, silence, then four clicks. Walt tried again: a single click.

>   Silence, followed by three and then four clicks. Two clicks was Brandon -still not reporting. Three and four were Alpha and Beta.

  Brandon was AWOL, injured, captured, or dead.

  He ducked low and crept forward in a long, strong shadow cast by a wall of the cabin. He reached near enough to see a window shade was not just pulled down but sealed-with Velcro?-to the sill and jamb. It was a patch job, and a small amount of light escaped the effort, accounting for the dim yellow glow.

  He forced himself to breathe. He didn’t want to attempt taking the cabin without Brandon, without some backup. But Brandon ’s silence necessitated action. With his back to the cabin-possibly only a matter of inches away from Mark Aker-Walt slipped quietly toward the front, wondering what would come next.

  66

  ROY COATS ATTEMPTED TO SORT OUT THE EVENTS OF THE past few minutes, his mind racing. He had little to go on beyond a single gunshot and, minutes later, the tripping of the perimeter wire.

  Had he checked with Gearbox after hearing that gunshot? He couldn’t remember. His brain had just about lost its wheels, the pain too great. He squinted and tried to recall what had happened.

  He remembered speaking with Newbs about the perimeter wire. And just now the snowmobile-that would be Gearbox-had returned to camp.

  There was a loud, uninterrupted ticking going on in his head. The top of his mouth itched. He had to relieve himself.

  Had he talked to Gearbox or not?

  He picked up the walkie-talkie and called out for his man. Waited. No answer came.

  Why such a long time between the return of the snowmobile and Gearbox knocking on the door?

  “Gearbox?” Coats shouted loudly enough for his voice to carry through the walls. “Get your ass in here and explain-”

  His command was cut off by the sputter of semiautomatic weapons fire. Two hundred yards.

  Coats processed the most important part of that information: semiautomatic. Their AKs had been customized by Rupert Folkes in Jerome to be single-shot and full automatic; they weren’t rigged as semiautomatics.

  At the same moment, the doorknob turned without knocking. His guys were trained to show him the respect of announcing themselves.

  Coats snatched the.45 off the table and delivered three rounds into the cabin door before the damn pistol jammed. Pissed off at the self-loads, he hurled the gun across the room at the door before instantly regretting his action.

  He looked around for another weapon.

  The smell of cordite filled his nostrils. Blood trickled from the broken scab, as he stood painfully from the chair.

  Another quick burst of semiautomatic fire.

  The camp was under attack.

  67

  ONE OF BRANDON’S ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOVIE SCENES WAS in Indiana Jones, where Harrison Ford, faced with a sword-wielding Egyptian, simply ignores the flamboyant swordplay, pulls out his sidearm, and shoots him. Stepping out from behind the tree, hands in the air, he waited for the man shouting at him to show himself. Once he did so, Brandon gave it all of about five seconds before lunging to his left with a hip check, the momentum from which carried the M4 around his body and straight into his open hands.

  He squeezed off a semiautomatic burst-three rounds-and watched the guy’s kneecaps explode. The guy went down like a folding chair, his weapon flying out of his hands and catching on a branch stump sticking out from the trunk of the tree he’d used as shelter. The gun strap caught under his chin and snapped his head back as he fell, so that he bobbed like a puppet; his obliterated knees folded, so that he looked like both legs had been crudely amputated. The gun then disengaged from the branch stump, and the man fell face-first into the snow, which swallowed him like sea-foam.

  Brandon saw all this dimly, in the haze of a partial moon, knowing enough to make for cover as the rifle dropped down into the snow and on top of the man.

  Brandon dove.

  The fallen man fired at him.

  Brandon returned two more quick bursts and got lucky: a piece of the man’s head took off like a frightened bird.

  The dead guy, his skull open, sat up on the injured knees, waved his hands frantically like a drowning man searching for a rope, then fell forward again before Brandon could get off another shot.

  Brandon came to standing in the lee of a wide fir, lowered the night vision goggles, and confirmed the kill.

  Ugly.

  His hands were trembling; he felt frightfully cold all of a sudden.

  Just then he heard three pops from the direction of the compound. Forty-five Magnum. It wasn’t the sheriff’s gun.

  68

  WALT LAY FLAT ON HIS BACK, HIS CHEST HOT WITH SEARING pain. Two of the three shots had scored; the third had narrowly missed, so close to his left ear that he’d heard its whistle. Keeping the gun aimed at the cabin door, he wiggled off his left glove and felt for his chest, his fingers worming into a hole in the Kevlar vest where the bullet was still warm. The other was embedded in his radio. The pain when he breathed was unrelenting due to a cracked rib, and it took him a moment to fully understand-to believe-he wasn’t on his way out.

  Then he rolled and pushed himself up to standing, knowing what it felt like to be hit by a bus. Keeping the thicker logs that formed the cabin wall between himself and the shooter, he ducked and twisted the doorknob and threw the door open.

  “Sheriff!” he announced.

  Where the hell was Brandon?

  Now, in the very far distance, came the mosquito buzz of approaching snowmobiles. Both teams were converging on the compound from a mile out.

  Walt struggled for breath. Every movement caused blinding pain. He stood, banged off the door, throwing it fully open to make sure no one was hiding behind it, and then pushed himself into the doorway, fell to his knees and rocked forward, his gun gripped in both hands.

  Clear.

  The.45 was on the floor to his right. He grabbed it, ejected the magazine, and tossed both halves out the door into the snow.

  He used the furniture as screens, flipping the only table and hiding behind it, then working past the woodstove to the only doorway. Trying to draw a deep breath and then regretting it for the agony it caused.

  He turned the doorknob. Tested the door. Swung it open.

  A bunk room: two bunk beds, meeting in the near corner. No closets. Clothes on hooks on the wall.

  Clear.

  Open window, the blind undulating in waves, still in motion.

  Walt poked his head out the window, then quickly back inside. Right. Left.

  Clear.

  He followed out the window.

  A confusion of tracks in the snow.

  But one line of tracks called to him above all others, leading directly to a shed fifteen yards behind the cabin. The right leg was wounded and trailing badly, dragging behind, the left leg doing all the work. Walt thought this explained why the shooter-Coats?-had not rushed the cabin’s front door to finish the kill.

  Walt pulled down the night vision goggles and the landscape before him came alive in monochromatic green and black. But it was as if someone had turned on a searchlight: he could see not only the shed and the corral next to it but well beyond to a stack of chopped wood.

  His weapon extended, his arm braced and steadied, he punched his way through the thick snow toward the shed, the beat of his heart painful in his bruised chest.

  Where was Mark? Did they have him in the shed? Had Coats moved toward his bargaining chip?

  A sound from behind turned him. He dropped to one knee, swung the gun around, and took aim: the figure stood over six feet tall, with shoulders as wide as a truck. Walt blinked, and he eased his finger off the trigger.

  A bear. A big bear raised onto its hind legs. Ten, fifteen yards. Even through the goggles, Walt saw the foaming saliva spilling from its mouth. An angry bear. A mad bear. And then: the dark spot on its shoulder. A wounded bear.

  He could try to kill the bear, though it would take most of the contents of his magazine, an
d the bear would likely maul him before actually succumbing. It took a perfect heart shot to drop a bear. Walt had heard stories of direct hits to the skull that glanced off without effect. He turned and ran for the shed. He didn’t need a rearview mirror to know the bear was following at a gallop.

  He blew through the shed door and slammed it shut, turning and once again dropping to one knee. The eerie black and green played out through the goggles, depicting a garage and slaughterhouse in one. It was cluttered with tools and sacks, tires and lumber. An enormous dead cow hung from a block and tackle, its long black tongue swollen and drooping toward a dirt floor where a slimy mass of afterbirth and a fetal calf lay cut open and splayed. The smell was suffocating-not even the cold could freeze out death.

  The entire wall shook behind him as the bear collided. Past the hanging cow was an old tractor or truck on blocks, reduced to a steel skeleton and surrounded by parts. He heard the wheeze of his own painful breathing and then another crash as the bear bid for entry. The thing hit the door so hard that a shovel fell from the wall and clanged into some fuel canisters.

  Then silence.

  The front half of the rectangular shed was clear, meaning if Coats was in here he was hiding back amid the remains of the tractor. Walt stood and moved carefully forward, keeping his back to the wall, staying as close to it as possible, without getting his feet caught in the tangle of clutter. Several seconds had passed without an effort from the bear, but Walt found himself stealing glances in that direction, where the door hardware was now splintered and partially torn from the jamb. He crept a few more paces forward in the churchlike silence.