by James Easton
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Max stood by piles of builders’ gravel and some heavy local stone. If they used this spot, they should have a man by the barn, then maybe two in the trees to the north of the road. He asked a couple of guys to go and check that area out.
Eric and Henri were going to be of limited use, but Rafa had sent him nine men. They got to him after ten minutes. He talked to one of the more senior guys for a while, looking at a map on his phone and showing him the other places he wanted to visit.
In the trees, Carolina trained her binoculars on Bullneck, a hundred metres away. He seemed impatient as he talked to the new arrivals. Then he held up a phone showing a map of the area. He was pointing toward the bottom of the screen. Making a circle with his finger.
Carolina checked the same map on her phone. She thought they were going to move around the mountain, checking sites. The map told her she was at the foot of a shallow hill that rose gently for a couple of kilometres, then descended rapidly into an escarpment. The terrain looked varied, a lot of it fairly flat in terms of the gradient once you were up there, but strewn with boulders and gullies. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
When her eyes flicked back toward Bullneck, two of the men in his group were walking toward her.
She ran back in the trees, moving rapidly uphill to the northwest for a minute before she went straight north and set up on a low ridge to watch. Their voices floated through, low, serious, one instructing the other. The trees prevented her seeing them until they drew level with her on her left, fifty metres away.
Carolina lay down in the snow, wishing she had more than two layers on her legs. The ground was hard, uneven, and the undergrowth was laced with brambles. She had a briar in her thumb already. It had worked through her glove.
The men moved across an old creek, and she got a good look at them. They seemed fit. One wore a green cap, the other had a red jacket. Green Cap seemed in charge. He pointed Red Jacket straight up the slope, and worked away from him to his right.
She followed them as they started to bear west, away from her. She glanced at her phone map. The signal had died. She wouldn’t be able to anticipate them as easily if she couldn’t access a map, but she was happy to use her eyes and ears. She liked it out here, with the space and this little workout for her watch and follow skills. The cold air hit the bottom of her lungs. She felt lit up with it, out here in the pines.
They moved through the trees, sometimes dense, sometimes spaced out and taller, the canopy almost like rafters of a great, arched roof, before the men moved onto steeper, more open ground covered in deep snow, working around the hill to the north-west. Carolina tracked them from within the trees, which meant she had to move round, scrambling hard up rock steps and boulders to keep them in sight as they moved straight ahead. They stopped walking, and Green Cap made a call. Red Jacket, with no warning at all, turned and looked her way.
Max stood on a sharp bend in the road and looked down on open ground, then a mass of conifers, then the valley beyond, the roads zigzagging up the hills on the other side. This was a good place. He had four of Rafa’s guys checking it out, the others coming over the hill behind him.
He had the idea that they could park on either side of the road in the shallow bays cut on the bend and do the exchange quickly. Rédoine could stay in his car. Max would pass him the stuff and trust him not to drive off.
He called one of the men back in the trees higher up beyond the road. The signal was poor. “Niko, it’s Max. Can you see me?”
“Yes. Good position. We could have three of us spaced along here, where I am. We’d cover it, OK.”
Eric and Henri were photographing the slopes to the north, off the road. Max told them to walk up to the next bend.
Niko said, “Marc’s telling me something, wait.” A minute passed. “OK, Marc thinks there’s someone up here with us. It’s a woman, in the trees. She tried to avoid him. He’s on her now.”
Max said, “Get to it. How far away are you?”
“Two-fifty metres from you.”
“I’ll send three more guys up.” He waved his arm at the men. Told them via the group phone line to find the watcher. If they found her and there was any danger she was a threat, then she was dead.
Carolina had frozen in a crouch and was looking for Red Jacket through the top of the undergrowth. She could only see Green Cap, seventy metres away. He gathered three men around him after they came up from the left, where Bullneck was. He motioned with his hands, describing an arc. Then he pushed his hands forward, showing how the arc would move.
They started to spread out. It was a sweep formation, for a search. Someone called out. She looked to her right and saw Red Jacket moving toward her.
Shit.
Carolina stepped backward, into some brambles. A briar snagged her shin, and she jerked her foot back, lost her balance, and shot the foot back as she rocked. It landed on nothing.
Trees and sky ripped through her vision. She crashed through the brambles. Her fingers and a heel skimmed something hard. Then the mountain whacked into her back. It felt like the air in her lungs had jumped back to where she’d fallen from.
Her mouth gaped like a fish. Her eyes bugged. She rolled onto her side and air came back in. She spat a little blood into the snow, wondering if she’d thumped her head.
She was beneath a steep, three-metre bank. Voices came over the lip in snippets, moving on the shifting air. Someone passed close to the overhang of brambles that she saw now were hiding her. Maybe. She counted to ten.
Move.
She rolled onto all fours and stood up slowly, checking herself. Her back was OK. Her phone was smashed and dead. She couldn’t stay here. She jogged along the bank for thirty metres, and when the ground levelled out to her right, she kicked and sprinted into the conifers. Soon, the ground was sloping up again.
Her lungs were torched. Her ribs and kidneys felt all jarred. Nerves flashed like crazy paving in her joints, and pins and needles crackled through the soles of her feet. She had to keep going. Whatever it felt like.
Up ahead, a man in a black ski jacket turned onto her path and moved away from her. Was he with them? She had no way of knowing. And no idea how many there were. She had to outrun them.
She was leaving tracks in the snow.
Max noticed the roads had crested, and they were heading down. He parked and climbed out, saw that they had left a plateau. He found the view up here depressing. Everything white and grey, the dark roads, rocks and the black briars of trees almost looking like scars. The main road ran down to the west and lost elevation quickly. There was a massive cliff on his left. A big V-shaped gully, a couple of hundred metres across, opened out between the road he was on and the cliff, full of huge, sharp boulders and trees. It looked like a place you wouldn’t come out of.
He saw Eric and Henri further down the road and swore when he realised they were sharing a thermos of coffee on a raised bank over a curve in the road, joking about something. It was like being with a couple of kids.
It wasn’t Henri’s fault. The guy was in a jam and wouldn’t be enjoying this. Eric stood to gain big though, and Max wondered if he needed a proper slap. They were supposed to be posing as walkers as they photographed the banks and escarpment further down so he could study the options later and get familiar with it. Not pissing around with coffee.
Max waved sharply at Eric to get back on the road, then returned to his car and started crawling down the hill.
He took a call. The signal was still weak.
“It’s definitely a woman, and she’s running from us, moving north. She’s fast. But so are we.”
Max grunted, thinking. “There’s this massive cliff where she’s heading. Trap her against that. Find out what she’s doing then throw her off. Nico, nobody is to screw her, OK? A pathologist would check. She fell, that’s all.”
“You think we’re animals, Max?”
“Just saying.”
Carolina went under some densely packe
d trees, where the snow was patchy, to break up her trail. She had to stoop. It meant more work. What she wanted was to stop. Take stock and breathe. She knew she could recover in a few minutes. It wasn’t an option. But she did have to know where they were.
She turned around and sat. She could see one coming directly for her, fifty metres away, before he disappeared behind some trees. She heard another call out to him, maybe twenty metres to his left. They were closing in. She started to move again, using her hands like a bear.
Through her effort and the fear came a fragmented realisation of her complacency. The fight last night had been easy, against slobs in a bar. These men were different. They knew what they were doing. This had gone to shit, and it was her own fault.
She felt like she’d covered fifteen kilometres, not three. The terrain made it many times harder. She’d got that wrong too. Her pulse pounded in her skull. How long since she’d been physically tested like this?
Could she double back on them and break their line? Maybe. But there could be more of them behind those she knew about. They’d follow her, get people round onto the road where she’d left her car to come the other way, slowly close down the space. And the subconscious link to the location of her car had gone from her mind. She was close to lost.
The gradient steepened again, heading down, putting strain through her thighs and knees. She went side-on, taking more weight on her back leg. The ground changed under the snow, from forest floor needles and moss to rock and her foot slipped out, fast. She twisted over in mid-air, slapped her gloves and forearms down to break her fall, but her knees cracked into the mountain. She slid two metres before she got any traction with her feet. She pushed up. The pain shrieked in her knees, down her thigh, across an elbow.
She’d stopped just over a small ridge.
One of them yelled, “Where are yoouuuuu?”
Laughter echoing away to the right.
Then one of them was there. Green Cap, coming at her fast.
She rolled over the ridge into the mesh of undergrowth at the bottom with her feet tangling in brambles. She darted through it, getting scratched, scrambled up the next ridge, hooked her foot onto the higher ground and pulled herself over, and stumbled down into the trees. Green Cap swore, bogged down behind her. He shouted, “We got you, bitch.”
Her body was heavy from that burst. She stumbled on, arms across her face, into more branches. Which suddenly disappeared along with the ground.
Carolina’s guts lurched as the earth opening out before her gave her a second of vertigo. She crouched, and looked over the edge. The immediate drop wasn’t high, maybe two metres, down to a wide ledge that ran flat for a short distance, then sloped down sharply, curving around into pine trees where the main drop started. It was a massive escarpment, over a small, frozen lake three hundred metres below her position. She’d seen it on the map. They’d driven her here. She was trapped.
No choice. She wound her legs around, and climbed down to the ledge. The edge – and certain death - was three metres behind her. She picked up a stone the size of her fist.
They weren’t directly above her, but they were close. They were mixing English in with other languages. Their conversation was measured, speculative. They were getting ready to finish it. They’d make her talk, then kill her. Best way to keep her quiet, with nobody to stop them up here.
She pressed herself into the face. A clump of brambles hung down off the lip above her and through that, she saw the black ski jacket, far away. It was Sylvestre.
There was a crumbling sound above her. Rock, roots and dirt gave way. Then a big, loud rush and a man’s arms closed around her and lifted her off her feet. Red Jacket.
Her vision went blotchy. She stopped breathing. He weighed too much, was too strong. The way he had her, she couldn’t swing the stone she held. He pulled her away from the face, toward the edge. No. No. She dug her fingers into his hands, trying for a pinkie to rip backwards. Impossible. She flung her head back to butt him, but he’d tucked his chin into her shoulder. He had her in a vice. He slowed, nearing the edge, trying to control her there.
Think or you are dead. Think.
She let herself go limp. Suddenly. Slipping down in his grip against his smooth jacket, turning into his bicep and biting him, earning more space as he moved his arm away. She kept twisting, kicking her legs, turning herself over so he lost his grip. Carolina smashed the stone into the bridge of his foot as she landed. He howled in pain.
She moved away, spreading her knees and scooting on her haunches, with her head still low.
Get space. Then fight.
She shunted to one side, and back, and came up on a knee. He reached into his jacket pocket. She threw the stone at him. He flinched and dropped a handgun. She dived for it, swiping, and knocked it away. He followed it like he was trying to catch a mouse and went over the edge.
He did not scream. The silence was massive.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Carolina leaned against the face, sucking in lungfuls of air and trying to move beyond the panic and shock of the fight, and listen. She still heard them moving, talking low, but couldn’t make anything out clearly. She was a sitting duck where she was.
She worked across the flat part of the ledge and went down the slope to the side, holding any rocks and branches she could gain purchase on, checking each foothold. She had to find some cover, work her way back up to the ledge later when they’d passed. She knew she could make it back, even if she had to do it after dark.
The voices moved near the edge of the escarpment. Carolina moved further down and saw how the huge ridges of rock curved out. The pines she’d seen seemed to run between the big ridges. She might be able to find a way down. At some point - any point - the seam, steep anyway, could go vertical and the trees could stop. She’d be looking at a sheer rock face. Or freefalling past one.
She heard English. “Someone’s down there. Marc was here. Marc! Marc!”
Her jacket was caught on a branch. She couldn’t reach around to free it, and they’d hear it rip. Carolina unfastened the poppers and went for the trees.
They were big, old trees, growing vertically out of the scree. She sat down with her heels dug in, and worked her way down to the tree directly in front of her, telling herself to test each step. Ease down. Always aiming for a trunk.
She slid a couple of times, more bruises and scrapes, and went hard into one of the trunks. She felt her vest sticking with the sweat down her back. But she kept going. The voices on the ridge faded. The fear notched down. She thought of nothing but the climb. Hand over hand, foot over foot, muttering to herself for company and for clarity. The view through the trees down to the lake told her she was making progress.
She decided to rest for two minutes, wedged sideways against a trunk with her legs folded on frozen pine needles and packed dirt with some loose scree a couple of metres away. The tree there grew at an odd angle where the ground fell away. She inched back, then lifted her binoculars and looked.
Max answered a call.
“It’s Rédoine.”
“I’m looking for a place to meet tomorrow.”
“Where do you like?”
“Lac de Montriond is good.”
There was a pause. “I’m looking at the map. Let’s make it easy. I go west end, you go east end. We walk toward each other, step into the trees, exchange.”
“I’d like to post lookouts on the cliff,” said Max.
“Fine. I will have my guy up there too, if that is ok.”
“We need to be careful my guys know who to look for. I don’t want anyone to overreact.”
“They won’t see him,” said Rédoine.
Self-satisfied prick, thought Max, rolling his neck and looking at the sharp ridges and sheer drops of the cliff. The gullies crammed with trees were almost cosy in comparison. It was frightening.
“OK, well. I may have some men up there. Just to check the cops don’t come over the top and see anyone. Tell your man to
be careful.”
“Cool,” said Rédoine.
Max hung up. He’d be prepared this time. It was hard for the cops to get near this spot at short notice. And if they followed any of Rédoine’s guys again, Rafa’s guys would see them coming in. Henri came over.
“Hey, Henri. This is the place.”
Henri smiled. His face was deep in his snorkel hood. “You can do the deal?”
“Should be done tomorrow. Where’s Eric?”
“He was on the phone, round there.”
“I’m cold. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Carolina lowered the binoculars. She might be halfway down. She moved around the trunk and quickly looked away. She was too late.
You could get ready yourself when you knew what you were going to see. But a surprise like that put up a wall of non-comprehension for a moment and suddenly you were in all the detail, and it turned your stomach.
It was Red Jacket.
He was lying with his head toward her, on his side. Almost like he was asleep. Only the part of his head in contact with the scree was a dark, fractured mess, merging with the surface. A heavy stream of blood had run away from the part of his body hidden from her by his head and his shoulders. The blood looked black and thick now. He’d suffered massive trauma.
She closed her eyes and raised her face to the trees, letting her head sag into her shoulders. She did it knowing that she’d had her rest, and should keep moving, but needing to breathe. When she was more balanced, she opened her eyes. And saw why there was so much blood.
White against red-pink tissue against dark green pine needles: the femur bone protruding from the leg, torn away as he smashed into the trees. The boot still on the foot.
Carolina yelped and stepped back. The stones gave way, a load going out from under her into the drop and taking her with them. She flailed her hand out at a branch silhouetted against the sky. Her grip on that branch was the only thing in her mind as her body flew over the edge.