by Ilsa J. Bick
She was, however, alone and still alive, which meant they didn’t see her as a threat.
She didn’t get why. Anyone willing to brain her wouldn’t be shy about simply shooting and then leaving her body on the trail or, better yet, dumping her from a ridge. The elements, time, and animals would do the rest.
The question, then ... why was she still alive?
“Considering the alternative,” Jack said, “I count this as a plus.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” she murmured. Interesting. She had been out ... but Jack hadn’t. What did that mean? Maybe nothing. It wasn’t as if her ears stopped working just because she was asleep. The brain simply stopped noticing most noises. Some were even incorporated into dreams. Same with smell, taste, even sight. A person’s senses didn’t shut down completely. Perhaps Jack hadn’t either. If not, what had he been doing while she was out?
“My job, Kate.”
And what was that? He was a phantom lover, her Jiminy Cricket. Her guardian angel.
“Exactly. Watching over you. Doing what needs doing.”
“Doing what, Jack?” She thought of the night on the rocks, how Gabriel had appeared with her rope. How Jack warned her Gabriel was spying. How, though? How could he know that, do that? Every person registered a myriad of sensations, gathered information, only some of which a person kept or hung onto. The world was simply too cluttered otherwise. So, was her awareness of Gabriel’s presence because Jack registered that, or she did?
“Later,” Jack said. “Something’s up, honey. Chicago left not long ago. He took Oz and that other guard.”
“Do you know where they were going?” How did Jack know this?
She could sense his shake of the head. “But the odds are better now, Kate. There’s only Wynn, the dog, and Chili Mac.”
She didn’t want to hurt the dog. She thought Wynn might be all right, too.
“I understand, but you can’t let that cloud your judgment. Honey,” Jack said, “we need to go.”
We. Not she. He sees himself as separate, distinct. He knows things I don’t know.
He did things, too?
She was not going to solve this now.
The plasticuff snapped with a single hard twist of her right wrist. Her left hand throbbed as blood flooded back and she grimaced against needles of pain. When she tried to sit up, nausea swirled, the sensation like water circling a drain, and her vision wrinkled. Guh. Swallowing back bile, she hung her head and waited for her stomach to settle. They’d clocked her but good. Would that mess with her circuitry, the nanobots? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if Vance and the DARPA boys strapped her to a chair and took turns with a baseball bat. And Jack is still here. Inching a hand to the back of her scalp, her fingers tangled in hair matted with tacky blood. She was lucky she wasn’t sneezing her brains out through her nose.
As she reached for the paracord knotted around her ankles, she heard a muted crunch of snow outside the tent. A man-sized shadow slid along the side of her tent facing the fire.
“Wynn,” Jack said.
But no Dax. Why not? Wynn’s shadow merged with Chili Mac’s for a second. She couldn’t parse the words but heard the question in Chili Mac’s tone before he moved off.
What was going on? Skin fizzing with tension, she watched Wynn watching Chili Mac go. She couldn’t parse anything from either Wynn’s scent or his posture. Was he coming to finish her off? That would explain why he’d left Dax behind. The dog liked her.
Shit. No time for subtlety. She jerked her ankles apart, tearing the paracord in two before snatching the broken cord and stuffing that into a pocket just as a ball of cold air filled the small space and Wynn pushed into her tent.
“Oh,” he said when he saw her sitting up. He sounded surprised. “You’re awake.”
She was silent, unwilling to give him anything, waiting for him to make the first move. She’d moved around to face the entrance and now sat with her hands behind her as if still cuffed. Without a headlamp and given how she’d arranged herself, he wouldn’t know about the paracord either. Interesting, too, he’d decided against a headlamp. Maybe he did his killing better when he didn’t have to look into a person’s eyes.
She didn’t have that problem.
“Listen.” His eyes were glittery, and sweat shone on his face. He stank of nerves. “Listen, I’m sorry.” The tent was small, the ceiling low, and he was crabbing over now, left hand cupping something by his thigh. “I’m really sorry.”
Not as sorry as you’re going to be. A fleeting glint, and she knew, instantly, what he was trying to hide. In her mind’s eye, she saw how this would go down: lash out with her strong right hand, grab his throat, crush his windpipe.
Only one thing bothered her. Shooting her would be so much easier. She had to believe all these guys had plenty of practice. And why call off Chili Mac? A kill order wouldn’t be a secret.
“Sorry about what?” she asked.
“Kate,” Jack said, “don’t screw around. Finish him.”
She was fast enough if it came to that. “What are you sorry about?”
“This whole damn thing.” And then Wynn was bringing his left hand around.
“Kate!” Jack began.
She was already moving, her right hand flashing out. Wynn let out a startled gasp as she grabbed his left wrist and twisted. At the same time, her left arm pistoned. She felt the solid slam of bone against the flat of her hand as she smashed the point of Wynn’s chin. Wynn’s head snapped back, his teeth coming together in a hard thuck. Off-balance, Wynn toppled backward, his grip loosening on the knife that spun to the ground. Right hand still firmly around Wynn’s left wrist, she let his weight propel her up and forward, and then she was swarming over his body. Planting her knees into his shoulders, she pinned him flat. Snatching up his knife, she dug in with her right hand to clamp the ridge of his windpipe, so fragile and so easily fractured, between fingers tight as a vise.
And then she hesitated.
Because he wasn’t struggling. He wasn’t fighting her.
“You ... don’t ... understand.” Each word rode on a strangled grunt. “Came to ... Didn’t ... don’t ... want ... hurt.”
“Kate?” Jack asked as she loosed her grip just a smidge. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer Jack. Instead, she fixed Wynn dead in the eye.
“What don’t I understand? What did you come to do?” As he opened his mouth, she brought the point of his knife to within a hair’s breadth of his right eye. “Lie, and I’ll know it, and I’ll pop out your eye and crush your throat before you have a chance to scream.”
She saw the knowledge that she meant what she said settle into his features. He nodded. His Adam’s apple hitched and slid against her palm in a swallow.
“I came to get you out,” he said in a harsh, rusty whisper. “We have to run, Mac. We have to run, right now, while we’ve still got the chance.”
15
A mosquito ... no, it was a bee, a damn huge bumblebee dive-bombing his left ear. No matter what he did, which way he turned, Kujo couldn’t escape the thing.
That a bee bothered him at all was a mystery. At that moment, he was hoofing it up dun-colored foothills, on point, on his way into yet another Afghan village. Didn’t know the name of this one, didn’t care. They blurred, felt the same, one endless nightmare of gunfire, suspicious eyes, mangled flesh, ravaged lives. It went almost without saying there was not a flower in sight, no poppies in the barren fields below, and the air was hotter than an oven. Ripples of heat made the mountains shimmer and waver on the edge of coherence as if conjured in a timeless dream.
Ahead, Six was off-leash, nose to the ground, working his search pattern. The rest of the squad paced them a respectful fifteen feet behind. Because Kujo was alternately watching his dog and scanning the earth for anything out of place—a glint of metal, a small pile of rubble that did not belong—their job was to watch his butt and save his ass while he and his dog did their lev
el best to avoid having them all become only so much kibble. Of course, it was summer—it was always summer in Afghanistan, when it wasn’t freeze-your-ass winter—and hotter than hell, the grit blasting his cheeks like fine sandpaper. Bolts of sun, heavy as molten lead, weighed on his shoulders.
So, what was a bee, a damn bee, doing in a place like this, anyway? Kujo kept swatting and always missing, and why wasn’t it going away, what the hell was happening here ...?
With a moan, Kujo cracked an eyelid. Afghanistan vanished, a mirage of the past, melting back into a cauldron of memories—some good, many bad. He lay on his side. His bed was warm, and so was the room. Spooned against his back, Molly breathed in the soft, slow cadence of sleep.
And yet that damn bee was still there, incessantly buzzzing ... and flashing, too.
Hell. Reaching a hand to his nightstand, Kujo swept up his cell. He knew instantly from the feel it was his second cell, the one only Hank Patterson and his fellow Protectors used. A glance at the screen, though, and he frowned. He didn’t know this number.
From his place on an oval rug close to Kujo’s side of the bed, Six peered through the darkness, the silhouette of his massive head cocked at an inquisitive angle: Wassup, boss?
Beats me, buddy. As he swung his legs to the floor, there came a crinkle of sheets, a creak of the mattress, and then a muffled “Mummphhfff?”
He couldn’t have said it better himself. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured, brushing his lips against Molly’s hair. She smelled like lemons.
Cell in hand—still vibrating, so whoever was on the horn really wanted him—he padded out of the bedroom. Six followed, his nails softly ticking against hardwood, his limp a little more noticeable because of the chill. Kujo quickly minced downstairs, the steps cold against his bare feet. At the base of the stairs, he turned right into a great room with a stone fireplace and comfortable overstuffed furniture opening up to his right. The lingering aromas of wood char and venison chili scented the air.
He stabbed the phone to
“This is not Hank Patterson, Mr. Kuntz.” The man’s voice was smooth and deep and carried an unmistakable air of command, a tone that suggested this was a man no one refused. “My name is Colonel Vance. We’ve never met. Hank Patterson suggested I cut to the chase and call you directly.”
“Yes, sir?” Kujo could almost see this guy. He would be fit, middle-aged, silver-haired. Blue eyes, he decided, or maybe as gray as the clouds of a gathering storm. Six wandered over to lean against Kujo’s left leg. Dropping his free hand to the dog’s head, he said, “What kind of job? What’s going on, sir?”
“Nothing good, and time is not our friend,” Vance said. “I need you and Six, Mr. Kuntz, especially Six—and I need you both right now.”
PART EIGHT:
TIME IS NOT YOUR FRIEND
Time was not his friend, and he was running out of what little he had left. If he couldn’t get dry, if this fire wouldn’t start, if he didn’t find some way to stay warm, he wouldn’t have to wait for a grizzly.
Weak from pain and lightheaded from blood loss and the cold, Hank struggled to generate a spark to ignite a small mound of magnesium shavings and gunpowder and a cotton ball soaked in petroleum jelly he’d embedded in a nest of dried pine needles and moss. The problem was, he couldn’t hold his hands steady anymore. He’d noticed his limbs getting balky as he shaved magnesium and then hitching as he tapped out several bullets to get at the powder in their casings. Scraping a striker knife against flint took all his concentration. He ached all over, not just from the fall but the cold: a bone-deep chill tightening the muscles of his neck and shoulders as the wind and wet clothes conspired to steal body heat. He was shivering now, too, almost uncontrollably. More than anything else, the shakes made it hard to control the force of his strikes or the direction in which the very few sparks he managed to generate flew.
He crouched at the entrance to a low-slung shelter of branches and forest trash mantled beneath an emergency blanket he’d pulled from his pack and weighed down with wood. What he’d found was a debris shelter, of a sort, made of downed pines that had fallen some time back and then snarled to create a low cavity upon which more debris had fallen. Over time, the pines’ needles dropped, creating a cushion against the damp so the floor was relatively dry. The entrance was so low, he’d belly-crawled. By then, he was on hands and knees anyway, his pelvis throbbing with pain, and soaked almost to the bone.
Job one was to get as dry and warm as he could, which meant a fire. Fortunately, fuel was near at hand; deeper in this small mountain of deadfall, much of the wood was dry. He would’ve preferred different wood, though. While pine flared well, resin could lead to uncontrollable bursts of flame and showers of sparks, but he couldn’t do anything about that.
The entrance to his little cave opened downwind. Another stroke of luck. Piling up thicker lengths of wood, he covered them with his second emergency blanket, and now he had something to reflect back heat. The third blanket, he wore.
Finding his pack had been good, though his elation had quickly guttered. Either he’d forgotten to zip the pack or perhaps he’d done so only halfway. Whatever the case, the majority of his survival gear was gone. All he had left was a water bottle, three emergency blankets, two power bars, a length of paracord, a roll of duct tape. His wine-stained duty shirt, a pair of socks. A toiletry kit, woohoo; he’d die well-manicured. His whistle and a Baggie of cotton balls smeared with petroleum jelly rounded out what was left.
All this was still better than nothing, but only if he could get a fire started.
Come on, come on, please. His hands shook so badly, his blade didn’t glide over his flint but hitched and tickticktickticked. A few paltry sparks sprayed in an ineffectual scatter.
Shit. He decided to take a break. Not a long one. Just a minute, maybe two. Mindful of the wood sticking out of his back, not wanting to endure another snag—when he’d low-crawled into this place, he’d misjudged and the bolt of agony that detonated in his back forced a scream and then a spume of watery vomit—he carefully lowered himself onto his left side.
Curled up like a snail, in the grip of shakes as bad as the worst fever he’d had in his entire life, Hank clutched his emergency blanket to his throat and watched as dusk stole over the valley. He could no longer see the snow falling, but he could hear it: the peculiar glassiness of ice striking ice. He was in too much pain to be sleepy just yet. For that, he was almost glad. If he fell asleep without starting a fire, he was dead.
Reaching for his pack, he searched for his wallet, which he’d tucked inside. If he had to keep dragging himself around, he’d worried he’d lose it if he kept it in a pocket. Then, too, if worse came to worse, animals might scatter whatever he had in his pockets and then identification might get tricky. Besides, looking through his pictures would keep him awake, make him feel better. Earlier, he’d thought of using the photographs for tinder then rejected that even though most were of family and replaceable.
Others, the ones of Pete in Afghanistan, were not. Looking at Pete and Soldier proudly standing with a display of the various armaments they’d found on patrol made him smile.
Then he came to the snaps of Pete—and Samir. Two showed his brother with an arm draped over the young woman’s shoulders. They were relaxed, smiles on their faces, though Samir’s grin seemed a little shy. In one shot, she’d reached a slim hand to her hijab as if to twitch the fabric a little closer, the better to hide herself. Anyone looking could be forgiven for thinking they made a fine couple.
Hank lingered over the last two pictures, the ones with his brother, Samir—and the baby. Everyone was laughing, even Halima, who was swaddled in pomegranate-colored linen that brought out the startling blue-green of her eyes.
The
color always reminded Hank of Flathead Lake, south of Kalispell. Not far from Sarah’s house, actually. He’d taken Sarah there for a picnic roundabout June the year before. Spur of the moment thing: Flathead’s waters were still so icy his feet had numbed in five seconds flat when they’d waded out as Soldier and Daisy splashed after sticks. He’d insisted on following the lake around to a mom-and-pop place on the southern shore which sold Lambert cherries to die for. He and Sarah ate so many his tongue was fire-engine red for a whole day afterward. A good time. A nice day.
God. A lump pushed into his throat, and the photos broke apart and fractured as his eyes filled. He should’ve told Sarah about Samir and Halima. If he got out of this, he would. If he didn’t … Jesus, who would get word to Samir? Worse, what if Sarah saw these? Would she understand?
One disaster at a time. He slotted the pictures back into his wallet. No way he was burning any of these.
He rested another few minutes—five, by his Timex, which was stillll ticking. You watch. They’ll find my bones, and the damn thing will still work.
Getting to hands and knees took a monstrous degree of effort, and his stomach rebelled but brought up only a thin stream of yellow fluid that burned his throat. Five more minutes. He closed his eyes then as quickly opened them again when he felt his mind beginning to spiral down into the dark. Give it five more minutes, and then you can rest again.
Quaking from head to toe, he dragged his striker over flint again and again and again. When a spark, bright as a comet, finally jumped into his tinder nest, he was too lethargic, too stupefied to realize at first. For a second, he watched as the pile of magnesium caught with a pffft, like the flare of a match; his gunpowder ignited a fraction of a second later; and then his cotton ball sprouted a tiny flower of flame.
