by Greg Isle
I was stepping over a waterlogged branch when I smelled smoke on the wind. I stopped in my tracks, hoping the smell was a hiker's campfire. It wasn't. It was good Virginia tobacco. I held up my hand, but there was no need. Rachel had halted the second she saw me stop.
Without moving my head, I scanned the rocks and trees ahead. Nothing moved but creek water and raindrops sliding off the leaves overhead. I raised my gaze and searched the low limbs of the forest canopy. A poacher in a deer stand was a possibility. But a real hunter would know that smoking a cigarette would kill his chances of bagging a deer, even out of season. I saw nothing in the trees.
Moving my head slightly, I searched the rim of the defile. First the right side, then the left. Nothing. I sniffed the air again. The odor was gone.
Rachel tugged at the back of my belt. "What's the matter?" she whispered.
I turned and saw fear in her face. Be quiet, I mouthed. Stay still.
She nodded.
Another wave of tobacco scent wafted past me, stronger than before. I turned very slowly and for some reason looked up. Forty yards away, a man dressed in black ballistic nylon leaned over the rim of the defile and flicked a cigarette butt down into the creek. My heart clenched, but I remained still. The butt tumbled in the air, a flash of white against green, then hit the water and floated toward us.
The man followed the butt with his eyes. I was certain we were about to be seen, but the man suddenly looked away and took something off his shoulder. A black assault rifle. An M16. He leaned it against a tree, unzipped his fly, and began to urinate off the small cliff. He played like a little boy, aiming his stream for the creek but not quite reaching it. A boy would have been able to reach it. This was a man in his late thirties, and he was wearing body armor.
I prayed that Rachel wouldn't panic. She might not have seen the rifleman at first, but she couldn't miss the long golden arc glinting in the early light. The man stopped urinating with a few desultory flourishes, then shook himself, zipped up, and picked up the M16. As he shouldered the rifle, he looked down the creek, right at us.
I held my breath and waited for our eyes to lock.
The rifleman's gaze passed over us, then returned. He squinted, then looked farther down the creek again. It was the camouflage suits and headgear. He couldn't distinguish us from the background of creek and brush. As I watched, he moved his head to the right in a strange way, as though he had a nervous tick, but then I realized he was speaking into a collar microphone. I heard the faint metallic squawk of a reply but couldn't make out distinct words. Then the rifleman turned and walked back into the trees.
Numb with disbelief, I turned back to Rachel, who was staring at me in confusion.
"What's the matter?" she whispered.
"You didn't see that?"
"What?"
"The guy up there pissing off the cliff!"
Her eyes went wide.
"He had a rifle."
"I didn't see anything! I was watching you. I thought you'd seen a snake or something."
"We're going back to the truck. Now."
Her face had lost its color. "What about the cave?"
"It's blown. They're waiting for us up there."
"They can't be."
"They are. The guy was carrying an Ml6 and wearing body armor. Deer hunters around here look a little different."
"But we've come all this way."
Prickly heat covered my skin. "What do you care?"
"I don't. I mean—that cave just sounded safe."
"It's not."
A new awareness smoldered in the dark of my mind. They knew we were coming. Before my thoughts could go further, I found myself listening with absolute concentration. I wasn't sure what I'd heard, but it was something. A movement that didn't fit the usual sound track of the forest. I cursed silently. The rain that had dampened the sound of our steps was now giving cover to our enemies. Or were they only my enemies?
As understanding flashed into my mind, another faint squawk broke the silence, and I knew there was another rifleman within fifty feet of me. Stepping quietly behind Rachel, I clapped one hand over her mouth and whipped my other arm around her chest, pinning her against me with all my strength. She tried to scream, but no sound passed her lips.
I stood in the creek without moving, water pulling at my legs. Rachel struggled against me. The backpack made it hard to hold her. I was afraid she might bite my hand, but she didn't. That alone kept alive doubt that it was she who had told the NSA where to find us.
"I'm going to uncover your mouth," I whispered. "If you scream, I'll cut your throat."
Chapter 21
When I let go of Rachel, she whirled in the creek, her face a mask of terror and fury. Then she saw the knife in my hand, the Gerber I'd bought at Wal-Mart.
"Walk," I told her. "Back down the creek. You know how to do it."
She stared at me a moment longer, then turned and started over the rocks. I sheathed my knife and unslung my bow. I would stand little chance against a man with an Ml6, but if I saw my opponent first, I might get off a quick shot.
"Stick close to the right wall."
She moved to the right, quickly picking her way from stone to stone. As I followed Rachel down the steep watercourse, my mind filled with questions I should have asked her before but hadn't. That first day, when she'd awakened me from my dream about Fielding's death . . . how had she unlocked the door? I'd locked it after the FedEx man left, yet I'd awakened to find the door banging against the chain latch as Rachel yelled my name. And finding my house without me telling her my address? I know someone in the UVA personnel office, she'd said. The university would have been warned about giving out information on a Trinity principal. And the surveillance plane over the highway? How had they known which of the thousands of cars between Chapel Hill and Nags Head to train their laser on? One phone call from Rachel while I was unconscious could have given them the Audi, the Nags Head cabin, everything.
As for Oak Ridge, she could easily have called them from the Wal-Mart in Asheville, when I'd posted her by the door. She hadn't known about Frozen Head then, but she did have a cell phone. With a little nerve, she could have called the NSA when she got out of the truck last night to pee. On the other hand, I still remembered leaping into the hallway of my house and finding an assassin pointing a gun at Rachel's back.
She paused as she came to a deep channel in the creek. I moved close behind her in case she fell or tried to run. As we negotiated the channel, I thought back to how I'd chosen her. Skow had resisted my going to a non-NSA psychiatrist, but had he resisted vigorously enough? Friends at UVA had told me Rachel was the best Jungian analyst in the country. Had Geli Bauer been walking in my footsteps, talking to everyone I talked to? Had she briefed Rachel before my first appointment? How could Geli have compromised her? An appeal to patriotism? Blackmail? There was no way to know.
I reached out and grabbed Rachel's pack. The creek had leveled out. The road wasn't far away.
"We're close to the truck," I said softly. "Veer left here, and don't step on any branches."
She looked back at me, her eyes still furious. "You don't really think—"
I poked her in the back. "Walk."
She picked her path through the dripping trees with surprising agility. After about forty yards, I grabbed her pack again, then scanned the trees ahead.
"David, you don't think I betrayed you."
I nodded. "No other explanation."
"There has to be."
I peered between the wet trunks, searching for anything out of place. "They might have figured out Oak Ridge, but not Frozen Head. I could have picked a dozen other spots in the mountains around here."
She held up her hands helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you. I haven't spoken to anyone."
"How did you get into my house that day? The first day?"
"Your house? I picked the lock."
"Bullshit."
"You think so? My father was a locksmit
h in Brooklyn. I grew up around the trade."
Her explanation could be a facile lie, but it had the outrageous ring of truth. "What's a Chubb?" I asked off the top of my head.
"A high-quality, British-made lock. I also know what a spiral tooth extractor is. Do you?"
I had no idea. "Turn around and keep walking. The truck's a hundred yards ahead."
Rachel turned and walked quickly through the trees. With my bow unslung, I had to be more careful. The bowstring seemed to attract briers, and the broadhead I was holding along the shaft of the bow kept catching on branches and shaking water onto me.
Suddenly, I heard a swish like a big buck leaping through wet foliage. Then I saw a flash of black between two trees.
"Freeze!" barked a male voice.
Rachel stopped, her back just visible between two glistening trunks. Beyond her stood a man wearing black nylon and a bulletproof vest. He held an automatic pistol, and it was trained on Rachel's face.
"Where is he?" asked the gunman.
"Who?"
"You know. The doctor."
I nocked the arrow and slowly raised my bow.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Rachel said. "I'm out here shooting a wildlife spread on deer."
The lie sounded effortless. Was she signaling the gunman with her hand?
"Where's your camera?"
I pulled the bowstring to full draw against my right cheek and peered through the peep sight. Rachel's body partially blocked my shot, and I didn't want to shift my weight for fear of making noise.
"I lost it in the creek," she said. "Are you a game warden?"
"Red Six to Red Leader," the gunman said into his collar radio.
"I'll tell you!" cried Rachel.
I leaned to my right, straining for a shot.
The gunman looked up from his radio. "All right. Where is he?"
Some bulletproof vests will stop a bullet but not a knife point. A razor-sharp broadhead should pierce what a knife would, but if it didn't, Rachel's face—or mine—would disappear in a cloud of red mist. I aimed for the V of the gunman's throat, just above the top of his vest.
"What will you do if you find him?" Rachel asked.
"That's not your problem."
"Red Six," crackled the radio receiver in the man's ear, loud enough for us to hear. "This is Red Leader. Repeat your message."
As he reached up to key his radio, Rachel screamed my name, and I loosed the arrow.
Rachel's scream masked any sound of impact. For a moment I was afraid I'd hit her. She'd fallen to her knees, but the gunman was still standing and holding his pistol. Why hadn't he fired? Had my arrow passed him without a sound? My bowstring was silenced. I jerked another arrow from my quiver and tried to nock it with shaking fingers.
"Red Six, this is Red Leader. This better be good."
I expected a pistol shot, but instead I heard a heavy thud that I instantly recognized. When I looked up, the gunman was gone. I'd heard deer fall like that after a spine shot. First came the sing of the bowstring, then the knee-buckling impact and the cement-sack thud of a clean kill. The delay was what had thrown me. This man had hung in the air like a statue, unwilling to die.
"This is Red Leader, respond immediately."
Rachel's face was streaked with tears. As adrenaline poured into my system, I shoved her aside and looked down. The black-clad man lay flat on his back. The broadhead had pierced his throat and punched through his cervical spine. He couldn't have remained standing more than a second with that injury, which only proved how subjective time was in the heat of action.
"Get in the truck," I told Rachel.
"Where is it?"
"Thirty yards on. Move!"
She staggered over the fallen man and disappeared into the trees.
"Red Six, this is Red Leader, what the hell are you doing? "
I heard someone else talking through static. ". . . goddamn no-count radios. Go find the son of a bitch. Tell him we got coffee up here. That'll bring him."
The dead man's eyes were open but already as cloudy as antique glass. I picked up his automatic and stuffed it into my jumpsuit pocket. Then I got to my knees and hefted his corpse over my shoulder. I had to grab a thick branch to pull myself to my feet, but I managed it, and then began trudging toward the truck. Anyone within a hundred meters would think Bigfoot was lumbering through the forest.
Rachel was waiting by the truck, her face almost bloodless. I staggered to the side of the pickup and dumped the corpse into its bed. When she pulled at my sleeve, I spun her against the truck and untied the sleeping bag from her pack. This I unzipped and threw over the dead body. To anchor the opened bag, I tossed both loaded backpacks on top of it.
"Get inside," I snapped.
She did.
I climbed into the truck bed to retrieve the ignition key from my backpack, then got behind the wheel and backed out of the trees. Twice I hit patches of mud I thought would bog us down, but by slowly rocking the truck, I managed to get clear of the woods. The SWAT team must have heard the truck's engine by now. I hit the accelerator and headed back toward the Brushy Mountain State Prison.
Only after I'd covered the first mile did I look at Rachel. She'd set her back against the door and was watching me as she would a violent patient.
"What's your story?" I asked. "How did they get to you?"
She said nothing.
When we reached 116, I didn't turn toward the penitentiary but toward Caryville, where the road intersected I-75.
"You think I've been telling them where we are?" Rachel asked.
I nodded.
"Why would I do that?"
"Only you know that."
"If I'd wanted them to find you, I could have betrayed you long before now."
It started to rain again, big fat drops that splatted like bugs on the windshield. I switched on the wipers and slowed down.
"Maybe they didn't want to capture me until you'd got all the information you could out of me. Did you call them from Wal-Mart?"
She looked at me with scorn. "When that guy with the gun asked me where you were, I could have told him you were right behind me."
"You knew I had an arrow pointed at your back."
Frustration tightened her face. "Think, David. I could have hit you in the head with a rock just now. While you put that corpse in the truck."
"I'll think later. Right now I have to run."
We drove in silence for a while, heading toward the deep divide that marked the line between Morgan and Anderson Counties. A bridge appeared ahead. Despite the rain, there wasn't much water under it, but the gorge was deep, cut by years of water flowing from strip mines higher up. About a third of the way across, I pulled the truck close to the rail and stopped.
Taking the key out of the ignition, I got out and climbed into the bed of the truck. The sleeping bag covering the corpse was soggy with rain. I kicked it aside, wrestled the corpse onto my shoulder, then stood and heaved it over the bridge rail. It crashed through some branches and hit the rocks below. The sleeping bag was bloody, so I tossed it over as well. Then I got back into the cab and drove on, staying right at sixty on the twisting road.
"I didn't know you had that in you," Rachel said in a dead voice. "I can't believe you're the man who wrote so movingly about compassion and ethics."
"This is survival. Everybody has it in them. You included."
"No," she said quietly. "I won't kill."
"You would." I looked her full in the face. "You just haven't been put in the right situation yet."
"Think what you want. I know myself."
The road was gradually straightening. I accelerated to seventy and shut Rachel out of my thoughts. I felt alone again, as alone as I had on the day Fielding died. I hadn't realized the degree to which Rachel had been a comfort. The hardest thing to accept about her betrayal was that it meant she had never seen me as anything more than a patient. A sick and deluded man.
A wave of heat rolled th
rough me, leaving deep fatigue in its wake. I hoped it was a postadrenaline crash, but the ringing vibration in my teeth told me otherwise. I would soon be unconscious. And this time I couldn't trust Rachel to take care of me.
"What's the matter?" she asked, looking intently at me. "You're weaving over the center line."
"Nothing."
"Get over! You're in the wrong lane."
I jerked the wheel back to the right. Maybe the strain of dumping the corpse had made me especially vulnerable to an attack. There was nothing gradual about this one. I had to stop the truck.
"Pull over!" Rachel yelled.
Trying desperately to keep my eyes open, I swerved onto a small logging road and managed to cover about a hundred yards before I had to stop. I got the truck into park, then pulled the dead man's automatic from my jumpsuit and aimed it at Rachel.
"Get out."
"What?"
"Get out! And leave your cell phone in here. Do it!"
She looked out the window as though she were being asked to leap off a cliff. "You can't just put me out here!"
"I'll let you back in after I wake up. If you're still here."
"David! They'll find us. Let me drive!"
I jerked the gun at her. "Do what I said!"
She laid her cell phone on the seat, then climbed out of the truck and closed the door. Her dark eyes watched me through the rain-spattered glass. As I leaned over and locked her door, the black wave rolled over me.
A city gate stood high before me, a plain arch in a wall of yellow stone. People lined the road, some waving palm fronds and cheering, others weeping. Men held a donkey for me, and I climbed upon its back. The symbolism was important. There was a prophecy to fulfill.
"This is the eastern gate, Master. Are you sure?"
"I am."
I passed through the gate on the donkey's back. I heard horns blowing. Roman soldiers watched me with wary eyes. Women ran into the street to touch my robe, my hair. The faces in the narrow street were hungry, not for food but for hope, for a reason to live.
The road vanished and became a columned temple. I sat on the steps and spoke quietly to a large group. They listened with curious, uncertain faces. The words they spoke were not the words in their minds. The words in their minds were all the same: Is he the one? Is it possble?