Storm Peak

by John Flanagan

  And so far, the three that Mikkelitz had taken had come close enough to tell him that this was not a good idea.

  He was tossing this around, trying to figure his next move when there was a heavier report and something slammed into the side of the Yamaha, rocking the machine on its springs. He recognized the heavier caliber shot of the .38 that he knew Murphy carried, in addition to the automatic. Another shot, another splintering of fiberglass and ringing of metal and the Yamaha rocked again. Then again. Three shots. And three to go.

  Plus four in the Walther. Or five if Mikkelitz loaded it the same way Jesse did the Colt. Either way, too many to risk looking.

  The .38 barked again and again Jesse felt it through the frame of the snowmobile. God alone knew what damage the jacketed slugs were doing to the machine. He could hear liquid dripping somewhere, hissing on the hot metal of the engine. And he thought he could smell gas.

  Then again, this close to a two-stroke, you always could smell gas. Wham! The Yamaha vibrated again. They were carefully spaced, aimed shots. If Mikkelitz was planning to keep Jesse’s head down, the plan was working. He could see the fine detail of the snow right in front of his face, feel the wet coldness of it against his skin. One more shot in the .38, he thought.

  And there it was, slamming into the legshield at the front and, by the sheerest fluke, deflecting down and sizzling into the snow a few inches from Jesse’s face. He flinched violently.

  Silence, broken only by the rising murmur of the wind through the pines and aspens above them. He realized that the .38 had been firing in a definite rhythm, spaced shots, about five seconds apart. Now the five seconds had passed-and another five. And another ten. Jesse had to risk taking a look. By now, the .38 was probably fully loaded once more, so there was no way he was going to put his head up over the Yamaha. He inched painfully forward on his elbows, dragging himself to the front of the snowmobile.

  From here, he could look around instead of over. And, being lower to the ground, he could drop back into safety a damn sight quicker. Tentatively, the skin on the back of his neck crawling, he edged his face around the front structure of the snow bike, raising himself slightly to get a clearer view of the slope below him.

  And felt a chill hand clutch at his guts.

  He understood now what Mikkelitz had been doing while he was firing those spaced shots into the Yamaha. He’d moved the few yards that separated him from Abby. He now held her in front of him, his left arm around her throat. In his right, he had the Walther again. He was watching the spot where Jesse had last been like a hawk, ready to fire if the deputy showed himself again. He didn’t seem to have noticed the corner of Jesse’s face, which was all that showed around the front of the snowmobile.

  Infinitely slowly, Jesse eased the .45 forward. He shrouded the hammer with his left hand to blanket any slight noise and carefully eased it back to full cock. The wave-like sound of the wind in the pines drowned the faint snick-ick as the sear engaged.

  Mikkelitz and Abby were thirty to thirty five yards below him—a long shot for a pistol under the best of conditions. With most of Mikkelitz’s body screened by Abby, there was no way Jesse could take the chance of shooting. As he watched, he saw Abby reaching up with one hand and doing something to her other wrist. He frowned, straining to see what she was doing, and caught a flash of metal, realizing she had been handcuffed to a tree branch and now was undoing the cuff.

  Abby sobbed softly to herself as she unlocked the cuff around the tree branch. That first sight of Jesse as he’d skidded to a halt on the access trail above them had brought a wild surge of hope.

  Then fear had replaced the hope as she saw Mikkelitz realize who it was on the other snowmobile and bring the pistol up to fire. It had all happened so quickly, she wasn’t sure if Jesse had gone to ground before the shot, or if it had knocked him off the snowmobile. For an awful few seconds, she’d thought he was dead. Then she’d seen movement above the saddle of the Yamaha and saw him duck back into cover as Mikkelitz fired twice more.

  She’d been puzzled when he switched guns, slipping the automatic into his side pocket and bringing a short-barreled revolver out of a shoulder holster. Then he’d begun that carefully timed, carefully placed barrage of shots, all the while backing across the slope to where she was, trapped helplessly by the aspen. With the last shot, he’d dropped the revolver back into his parka pocket, replacing it instantly with the automatic. Then he’d bounded behind her, grabbing her throat in his arm, pinning her in front of him. He set the Walther down for a second and produced the key to the handcuffs, shoving it roughly into her free hand.

  “Unlock it,” he rasped in her ear, grabbing the pistol from the snow again. She’d tried to insert the little key into the cuff around her wrist and he’d rapped the pistol hard against the side of her face. Her jaw ached and her teeth buzzed where the metal had slapped her.

  “Not that one. The other one,” the voice in her ear snarled. She could feel his breath, hot against her neck. Hand trembling, she fumbled the key into the lock and unsnapped the cuff. Her arm, pinned above her head for the last ten minutes or so, dropped limply. For a moment, she considered tossing the key away. He seemed to read her thoughts.

  “Go right ahead,” he told her. “I don’t need it to refasten it. You just need it to get yourself loose again.”

  Numbly, she realized he was right. He tightened his arm around her throat, set the gun down again and reached around for her to hand him back the key. It took only a few seconds, then he had the gun back-except now it was jammed painfully into the soft hollow under her right ear, grinding against the jawbone.

  “Deputy Parker!” His voice was hoarse and loud, right beside her ear and she flinched with shock. He waited but there was no sign of movement from the other snowmobile. He called again.

  “Parker! Look what we’ve got here,” he yelled. Now Abby thought she could see a slightly lighter patch of … something … beside the front runners of the other snowmobile. She tried not to react but realized she must have made some involuntary movement of her head. Or maybe Mikkelitz just saw it for himself.

  “Come on, Deputy,” he called again. “I can see you there, playing peek-a-boo around the front of that old snowmobile. Now stand up and show yourself like a man.”

  “Don’t do it, Jesse! ”The warning was torn from her almost before she realized she was going to call it. Again the pistol rapped sharply against the side of her jawbone, and the arm tightened around her throat till she gasped for air.

  “Shut up, whore,” he grated in a lower tone, right in her ear. “You speak again and I’ll blow your fucking head off, okay?”

  She couldn’t speak. The pressure on her throat was so tight that it was all she could do to breathe.

  “Okay?” he repeated, rapping again with the pistol. This time, she felt some sharp projection on it tear the skin of her face, and warm blood started to trickle down her jawline. Still unable to speak, she gagged, choked and tried to nod. She could hardly manage that either with his arm locked around her throat. But the attempt seemed to satisfy him. He called to Jesse again.

  “Now here’s the way of it, Deputy. ”You make one move toward me and this is one dead TV star. Understand? I even think you’re trying to move on me and I’ll put a bullet in her pretty little blond head—mess up all this fine blond hair with blood and brains and bits of bone. You understand me?”

  “Let her go, Mikkelitz.” Jesse’s voice carried clearly to them. Calm. Matter-of-fact. Unworried. “Just turn her loose and maybe we can talk.”

  The killer was taken aback for a moment at the use of his name. Then he laughed sarcastically. “So you figured that out, did you? But that doesn’t mean you can start giving the orders. I’ll decide what happens here.” He lowered his voice and said to Abby, “That boy just doesn’t know when he’s holding a losing hand.”

  He allowed his grip on her throat to loosen slightly and she gulped air gratefully, her knees sagging from the shock and the frig
ht and the near strangulation of his hold on her.

  “Turn her loose,” Jesse called again. “I’m warning you. I’ve got a bead on you here and I’ll shoot.”

  “Well, you go right ahead,” Mikkelitz offered. “You take your best shot, Deputy. And it had better be real good unless you want to chance hitting your little friend here.”

  Silence from up on the hill. Abby knew that Mikkelitz had called Jesse’s bluff. The deputy’s threat was empty. At this distance, he simply couldn’t take the chance. Mikkelitz was right. The chances were that any shot from Jesse would hit her.

  And suddenly, she remembered what had happened to Jesse down in Denver, remembered why he’d quit the Denver PD and knew he could never take a chance like this, even if she wanted him to. Mikkelitz laughed again. This time it was a derisive snort of triumph.

  “No?” he called. “Not ready to shoot? Well, okay. Now I’ll tell you how we’re going to play this. You toss that gun of yours out into the snow where I can see it. And you do it NOW!”

  Again, Abby flinched as he yelled the last word in her ear. Jesse didn’t move, didn’t show himself. She willed him not to throw the gun out. At least, as long as this impasse continued, she had a chance. Someone might come. Help might be on the way. But she knew if he tossed out his gun, there was nothing to stop Mikkelitz simply getting on the snowmobile with her and riding away.

  The gun ground into the soft hollow beneath her ear again and she gasped with the sudden pain. Mikkelitz’s voice had risen in tone. There was a higher-pitched sound to it now. “Now come on, goddamn it! You toss that gun out or we’ve got us one dead TV star! You’d better believe me!”

  Gratefully, she felt the pain and the pressure ease as the gun was removed from her neck. Her relief lasted only a second or so, because suddenly she felt the muzzle pressed against the fleshy part of her calf and then, unbelievably, there was a sharp bang and a burning, searing pain and a mule kicked her in the leg, right where the gun had been. She sagged, her leg giving way underneath her, and tried to scream. But the arm was tight around her throat again and she could manage only a choked little moan. She felt the warm blood rush on her leg and realized, without fully believing it, that Mikkelitz had shot her simply to make a point.

  “Abby!” Jesse’s voice was frantic. He half rose from behind the snowmobile and she could see him clearly for the first time. She sobbed with the pain and the shock, then stumbled forward as Mikkelitz shoved her toward the Polaris, all the while staying behind her.

  She understood nothing. She was centered only on the pain and the shock in her leg. For a few moments there was no reason, no thinking, no intelligence. Just her and the shock and the pain.

  And in those few moments, she felt Mikkelitz clamp the other end of her handcuffs around the grab handle once more. And once more, she was trapped, without any means of escape.

  Jesse watched helplessly as Abby was shackled to the Polaris. Mikkelitz had remained behind her throughout the maneuver. Now he sank to one knee so that Jesse’s view of him was blocked by the little vehicle and Abby’s body. There was still no chance of a clear shot. As he crouched behind his own snowmobile, wondering what to do next, he heard a faint metallic snick, then the unmistakable sound of the Walther’s action being rapidly worked back and allowed to slam forward. He realized that Mikkelitz had loaded a fresh clip into the automatic.

  Jesse knew that if he stalled much longer, the other man would carry out his threat to kill Abby. The sheer indifference, the way he’d placed the automatic against her lower leg and fired, was more than enough to convince him. It had been a totally casual, totally callous act. Assessing the situation, he realized that Mikkelitz had nothing to lose. He could break the stalemate by killing Abby and he’d still be on level terms with Jesse. If it came to a shoot-out between them, there was no telling who’d come out on top. Only one thing was certain: Abby would be dead. After that, it was an even money throw of the dice for Mikkelitz. He could afford those odds and the consequences. Jesse couldn’t.

  And as he realized it, he knew he was going to have to do as Mikkelitz said.

  “So now,” Mikkelitz was saying, “we all know I’m serious. So let’s get rid of that gun I see there in your hand-and my, what a big gun it is.”

  Jesse remained irresolute. He saw Mikkelitz place the Walther against Abby’s jawbone again, saw her wince and her eyes screw shut with the pain and the fear. There was a psychological element to the threat as well, he realized. As much as death, Abby would be in fear of the total disfigurement that would result from a bullet to that part of her face. Even if it didn’t kill her, she’d be maimed and horribly disfigured for life.

  “Come on, Parker.” There was an edge in Mikkelitz’s voice now. An ugly, angry edge because things weren’t going his way. “Let’s have that gun. And let’s have it now!”

  Jesse saw the hand holding the Walther drop a little, so the slug would angle up through the jaw, through the roof of the mouth and into the brain. A killing shot, he realized, then remembered that Mikkelitz had worked as a paramedic and so could be expected to have a working knowledge of human physiology. The gun-hand fingers flexed and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the other man was about to squeeze the trigger. Abruptly, he jerked his right arm in an underhand toss, sending the Colt spinning away to bury itself in the snow.

  Abby watched it land and disappear into the soft powder. Her last vestige of hope went with it. The adrenaline flooding her veins was working now to disperse the shock and the reaction to the pain. In the contest between fear and shock, fear won.

  Earlier, she’d guessed that they were heading for the Storm Peak weather station. Somehow, she had to let Jesse know. Somehow, she had to give him the chance to catch up with them again. And if she’d guessed wrong? She thrust that thought aside. She had to be right.

  The gun dug into her again, into her back this time, and she was propelled toward the Polaris.

  “Pull that starter cord and get this motherfucker going,” Mikkelitz ordered.

  He was still close by her, still screened by her body. He couldn’t be totally sure that Jesse didn’t have some kind of holdout weapon. A lot of cops carried them, he knew—a little short barrel .22 in an ankle holster maybe. Or maybe one of those two-shot .38 over-and-under derringers they were making again these days, copied from the old .41 Remingtons they used to carry on Mississippi riverboats. Now that Jesse was disarmed, for a moment he’d considered just walking up there and letting him have it—a .32 slug right in the face. But he couldn’t be sure that the deputy wasn’t waiting for him to do just that.

  He’d settle with him another time, he thought, when he was sure of all the angles involved.

  “Pull, fuck you!” he screamed at Abby. She’d tugged on the starter twice. But there was no answering kick from the engine. No sign of life. Not even a stutter. He racked his brains. The motor had been running sweet as pie just before the deputy had arrived. He’d cleared the flooded carburetor and gotten her going. He’d …

  Then he remembered. To clear the carburetor, he’d turned off the fuel tap, to stop further fuel flowing in on unsuccessful attempts. When the engine had finally fired, he’d neglected to open the fuel tap again. The motor ran for a few seconds on the gas in the carburetor and the fuel lines, then simply cut out as it was starved of fuel.

  He shoved the reporter to one side, leaned past her and found the tiny lever. He twisted it through ninety degrees to allow the fuel to flow, thumbed the rubber priming pump two or three times to get things started. Then he shoved Abby back into position.

  “Now pull!” he ordered her. She leaned forward, sobbing quietly, to seize the plastic molded handle on the end of the starter cord. She pulled once and this time the engine caught, stammered, then died. One more would do it, he thought exultantly. He slapped her again with the stubby muzzle of the Walther to urge her on. She stumbled, fell against the little snow vehicle, then dragged herself up again, her weight on her uninjured le
g. She looked up the hill to where Jesse still crouched behind the Yamaha. She could see the fury of helplessness etched in every line of his face and she called quickly, “Jess! I’ll always remember skiing the bumps with you!”

  She cringed instantly, knowing Mikkelitz would hit her again. She felt almost triumphant when he did. She’d seen the puzzled look on Jesse’s face. She knew that the message didn’t make sense to him, knew that, because of its lack of sense, he would grasp the underlying meaning.

  Or hoped he would.

  “Shut up, bitch, and pull that rope,” Mikkelitz ordered her.

  This time, the engine fired, stuttered, recovered and settled into a steady throb. Mikkelitz shoved her against the snowmobile so that she was forced to swing her injured leg over the saddle. Then he swung aboard in front of her. He was turned back through forty-five degrees to watch Jesse standing on the trail above them. He quickly brought up the Walther and snapped off a shot at the deputy. Jesse saw the movement and dropped prone behind the Yamaha, which was exactly what Mikkelitz had intended.

  He shoved the Walther into the shoulder holster that had previously held the .38, clunked the Polaris’s drive into gear and accelerated away through the trees.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  As the snowmobile’s engine note faded into the trees, Jesse stumbled downhill through the soft snow to the spot where he’d thrown his gun.

  The spot was easy enough to find. The heavy Colt had left a deep mark in the surface of the snow. The gun itself took a little more time. It had sunk about two feet deep. He retrieved it, scrabbling in the soft snow till he saw a glimpse of the blued metal, then digging it out. It was caked with snow and he’d need to clear it before he tried using it.