A sudden explosion of action from the brush revealed itself as a spruce grouse. Aziz yelped audibly at the surprise, but that embarrassment was masked by the booming of Grigovich’s Desert Eagle pistol as he fired instinctively at the flying bird. Aziz glared at him with burning eyes, but said nothing. The truth was, he’d nearly fired his gun as well.
They looked hard, but the pine-needle-covered ground registered no discernible tracks of any kind. It took much longer to identify and follow footprints than it took for a fleeing man to make them. McBraden knew enough about tracking to know that it wasn’t reasonable to assume that you could trail anything in real-time; it was just too slow an ordeal.
Aziz’s unrealistic expectations of his chosen tracker had been fostered by Hollywood movies that were written by people who were themselves inexperienced in woods craft. They glossed over the finer points of tracking and survival by simply imbuing them with an air of mystery. If a writer couldn’t explain the details of how a thing was done, he made it into some sort of mystery that was beyond the comprehension of ordinary humans. With no frame of reference beyond that, Aziz had been easy to convince that McBraden’s childhood as a Yooper had somehow made him an expert. The tests he’d put this self-proclaimed master tracker through had all been in an arid desert, where it was child’s play to follow the boot tracks of another man.
Aziz mentally kicked himself. McBraden had already proved himself to be less than competent in a wilderness environment. Being a white-bread, American Christian had made him untrustworthy from the beginning, and now the Arab was becoming convinced that maybe he was a liability. Maybe McBraden should become one of the casualties of this mission.
The same thought was occurring to McBraden. When he’d first met the Muslim at a so-called peace rally in Toronto, it had come almost naturally to make himself look like a mountain man to a person he viewed as just an ignorant sand-nigger—that was a phrase his father had been fond of using. Now it was becoming frighteningly clear to McBraden that he was probably judged to be expendable by the sociopath who’d formed this gang of terrorists.
The reality was that whether he liked McBraden or not, it fell to Aziz to deal with this situation. If he wanted to kill anyone right now, it would be Grigovich for his stupidity in having perpetrated the problem in the first place,
“We don’t have time for this shit,” the Arab said. “There are many ways to draw a scorpion from its hole.” He shot Grigovich a glare. “I should fucking kill you right here,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Philippe,” Grigovich said, hanging his head. Aziz looked at him unfeelingly. The major advantages of having this powerful but stupid man on the team included his dogged loyalty to his leader and his almost natural talent with explosives. The biggest drawback was that Grigovich had a conscience. Aziz did not view that as a positive attribute in this case.
Chapter Nine
THE HUNT
McBraden was right. Rod had gone for the river. He knew that even if his pursuers anticipated his strategy, it would be nearly impossible for them to find him hidden there. All he had to do was avoid making an obvious trail. He knew how difficult even the most accomplished tracker would find it to follow the trail of a single animal in these woods, whatever its species. And he knew how easy it was to outdistance anyone trying to follow him.
The drawback to running the riverbank was the same as the advantage; a picket of densely growing tag alders made the terrain impassable in places, and wet ground strewn with their sun-dried leaves made a crunching sound underfoot. He regretted not being able to use the TOPS Power Eagle machete that rode his hip to assist his passage, but the ringing of its blade on wood would’ve been too loud. Still, thick foliage was an effective sound absorber, and most noises didn’t carry more than a few yards.
Rod’s pursuers had formed a loose line, as if they were trying to spook a deer that was bedded in a swamp. At one point, the guy who seemed familiar with this area had passed close to where Rod had hunkered down behind a low juniper bush. His mind was made clear and sharp by fear, a fear that was honed by knowing that these strangers with pistols in their hands intended to kill him. Rod instinctively reached down to grasp a stout branch with which to defend himself.
His fingertips sank into the rotted wood beneath the smooth bark of an alder trunk, and he realized the futility of using the pithy trunk as a bludgeon against guns. Instead, holding the dead branch at arm’s length so that it wouldn’t spin through the air with a whooshing sound, he sidearmed the branch high above the surrounding foliage and into the brush. It landed on the other side of his pursuers, crashing down audibly through the lower limbs of a white pine.
The sound drew the attention of the three men, but elicited no verbal response. The thin man with the narrow mustache and sparse beard held up his left fist, and all movement ceased. Then he spread his fingers wide. In response to that signal, his companions flanked him on either side and sprinted toward the sound. It was impossible to run quietly through that environment, but they made remarkably little noise as they went. Rod wondered at the harmonious way they worked together. That told of training, or at least long familiarity with one another. Were they some sort of outlaw militia group? Maybe a group of sick-minded cultists? Whatever they were, they were dangerous. At least they were moving away from his hiding spot.
As the sounds of his would-be killers faded into the distance, Rod forced himself back to a state of relative calm. His heart was pounding in his chest like a bass drum, and his breathing sounded rough and labored to his own ears. It felt like there was a tight strap across his sternum, squeezing it tightly and making it hard for him to breathe. He closed his eyes, focusing on the splinter of light at the center of his imagination, and then concentrated on returning his respiration to normal. He could hear the three men busting through bush a hundred yards distant, moving away from where he lay hidden on the riverbank. Good. He knew that if he remained motionless, they’d never find him.
After what seemed to be a very long time, but was in fact only a few minutes, the sounds of movement faded back in the direction of where he’d intended to make camp with the class. Rod still didn’t move. He’d employed too many tricks to kill white-tailed deer to be lulled into complacency that easily himself. Sure enough, several eternal minutes later, he heard another person moving in the same direction taken by the others. They’d left a man behind, hoping that Rod would be fooled into revealing himself.
He hadn’t heard another shot, so he presumed that Sue Morgan was still alive. He’d seen Shawn shot in the chest by two of them, and he was certainly dead. The shot that had echoed through the woods just before Shawn’s killers had come charging into the survival camp had most likely gone into Bill Morgan. In spite of himself, Rod began to shake uncontrollably, and tears ran down his cheeks as he was racked with silent, involuntary sobs. His stomach hurt, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Now that the immediate threat to his life had passed, the emotional trauma of what had taken place was exacting a toll from his body and mind. He recognized it because he’d known shock and trauma before, and he knew it was only temporary. It would pass. He forced himself not to retch as he moved quietly out of earshot of the camp.
His backpack and nearly all of his equipment were back at camp with the killers. He took stock of what he had on his person. He had his survival knife, a TOPS Power Eagle 12, with the cargo pouch on its sheath outfitted with a Brunton Tag-A-Long compass, a Blast Match fire making tool, fifteen feet of twenty-pound test-fishing line, and an assortment of fishing hooks contained between two strips of cellophane tape. In one cargo pocket of his BDU trousers was a roll of toilet tissue in a zip-lock bag; in the other, a ziplock bag containing an assortment of old boot laces and a laminated map of the eastern Upper Peninsula. His right hip pocket carried a disposable butane lighter and a pocket-clip Gerber folding knife. His other pocket had his house keys. On the right side of his belt was a Gerber Omnivore LED flashlight; opposite it, a Leatherman multitool
. Around his neck, on a lanyard made from flammable waxed cotton string, hung a Brunton Sight Master compass. His back pocket carried an ESEE survival wallet with his personal identification, and an assortment of survival tools that had come with the wallet—even a polymer handcuff key. He carried no money at all, because he’d never found a use for it in the woods. He felt pretty well equipped for survival, still.
Mosquitoes were becoming plentiful as the day faded toward night. He pulled a handful of feathery-leafed yarrow plants from the riverbank and crushed them between his palms. Then he rubbed the fragrant spicy-smelling juices onto his skin and clothing. The mosquito attacks lessened right away. As he’d told his students, the juices were as effective against biting insects as most store-bought repellents, and remained so for about three days. But when the bugs were determined—as they were immediately following a new hatch—nothing short of being on fire was enough to discourage them.
Now that he was out of immediate danger, Rod began weighing his options. He was a half-day’s hike from home, where he could call 911. Cell reception was unreliable out here, and he didn’t own a cell phone anyway.
He figured that after he’d convinced the central dispatcher that he wasn’t out of his mind or drunk, and a deputy found the corpses, they’d most likely jail him. Being an ex-con, he’d automatically be a suspect in the murders once he’d reported them, and the cops would probably arrest him for his trouble. The thought of being handcuffed and forced to sleep on a concrete slab with slobbering drunks, sociopaths, and career criminals was more repulsive than facing the people who’d just tried to murder him.
While the authorities who ruled Chippewa County took a month to make up their minds about whether or not he was a murderer, the real killers would be long gone. Rod had no reason to expect anything good from local cops. They’d already made it clear that being an ex-con made him an undesirable citizen, and they were just looking for a reason to bust him. Besides, the more he thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that they’d believe that a bunch of armed guys would just run out of the woods and start shooting complete strangers. Rod had to admit that sounded crazy—even to him.
Chapter Ten
THE KILLINGS
Sue Morgan was on her knees, her hands tied tightly behind her back with nylon parachute cord, in front of the campfire that Rod had built. She was clearly terrified, but her brain had retreated into a state of numbed shock. Her shattered mind refused to recognize the horrible realities of what her eyes had just witnessed—and were still witnessing.
Her little brother, one of her most constant companions throughout childhood, and through the most joyous and sorrowful periods of her life, lay unmoving in front of her. His eyes, milky with the white glaze of death, stared upward at blue sky they couldn’t see. The right corner of his mouth was wet with drool that was drying in the warm afternoon breeze. She could see the two small holes in the blue plaid material of his shirt, but there was only a hint of congealed blood to reveal that they had gone into the chest beneath. From under his body, though, near his right shoulder, there was a pool of sticky-looking purplish blood. The viscosity of the blood seemed especially awful and surreal to her. Why didn’t it soak into the sandy earth? It should soak into the ground, instead of pooling like that.
A pair of denim-clad legs stepped in front of her, blocking the view of her dead brother. Her eyes slowly followed the legs upward to a military-style belt with a brass buckle, then on to a blue North Face down vest hanging open over a green plaid woolen shirt. They finally stopped on the countenance of Philippe Aziz. She shrank from the sight of his face.
Aziz grinned at her reaction to him as he regarded her with the same dispassion one might display when observing a housefly. He liked to see terror in other peoples’ faces when they looked at him. It gave him a sense of power that was almost sensual. He craved more of that power.
Aziz knelt in front of Sue Morgan and stared directly into her eyes. “Woman, why are you here?” It was a demand for information, not a question. She gazed at him blankly. Her gaze was upon him, but she wasn’t focused on anything.
Without warning, he slapped her hard. Her head spun toward her right shoulder. When Sue’s gaze returned to him, her eyes were clear and full of fresh fear. A stream of bright blood welled from the left side of her lower lip and ran down her chin. Then the lip began to quiver and tears flooded from both eyes to stream down her cheeks. Her gaze focused onto his with the intensity of an animal that knew it was about to be killed.
“Please,” she croaked in a voice that broke with strain. “Please don’t kill me. I have children. . . .”
Aziz smiled brightly, almost benignly—he was enjoying this. He spoke to her in a soft voice. “Dear lady, we don’t want to harm you. It brings us no pleasure to hurt you,” he lied. He laid the back of his hand tenderly against the reddened, wet cheek he’d just struck. “Just tell us about that man who ran away.”
Hope sprang into her eyes. The man before her had seemed to sympathize when she’d told him that she was a mother. He hadn’t actually shot anyone. Maybe he wasn’t like the other three men who stood on the other side of the fire, staring at them with guns in their hands. Maybe this man with the smaller detective-style gun tucked innocuously into his waistband was willing to protect her from those other wicked killers. He seemed to have authority over them, and he seemed more kindly than them. Maybe he’d let her go. Maybe, if she just gave him the information he wanted . . .
Aziz saw the hope come into her eyes, too. Good. That was what he’d intended. Let this pampered, white, American bitch think she was going to go home safely when this was all over. He relished the control he had over this pale, simpering whore of a capitalist. She’d probably be willing to pleasure them all to gain her freedom. The thought made his loins burn and he felt himself becoming erect.
He changed the subject to dispel the physical sensations he was feeling.
“What is your name, dear lady?” he asked as sweetly as he could.
She sniffed back a sob and looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “Sue. Sue M-Morgan.”
“Sue, I need you to tell me what you were doing here. Who was the man who ran away and left you here all alone?”
It was true, that dirty bastard Elliot had run off and left her here to face these murderers. She sniffed again. “He’s a survival instructor from Paradise named Rod. Rod Elliot. I’d never met him before. It was my husband Bill’s idea. . . .” Her voice trailed off and she started to sob. “Bill . . . Where is my husband? Have you seen him?”
Aziz stifled a grin. He had complete control over this woman now. Surely, she’d heard Grigovich’s shot—the 50-caliber had echoed through the woods like a cannon. But she was grasping for the hope that he offered. Not having seen the body, she chose to believe that her husband was still alive.
“Sue, is your husband a brown-haired man wearing Raichle hiking boots and a green Columbia jacket with a hood?”
She brightened. “Yes,” she said in a voice that was two octaves higher than normal. “Do you know where he is? Have you seen him? Is he all right? Oh God, tell me that he’s okay.”
“He’s safe,” Aziz lied smoothly. “My associates have him. Now tell me about this survival instructor.”
“Oh God, he’s safe?” Aziz nodded. She continued, eager to please now. “His name is Rodney Elliot. He’s a survival instructor who runs Black Bear Survival Adventures on Whitefish Point. I don’t know him. My husband made all the arrangements.”
“Where is this Rodney now, do you think? Where would he go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re not from around here.” She looked with terror at Richarde, who had advanced a few steps closer. “Oh Lord, please believe me.”
Aziz did believe her. She was too scared to lie. But that didn’t make a difference. Without warning, he grasped her right ear in his left hand. Pulling it away from her head, he began sawing it off at the apex of her skull with a Spyderco Native foldi
ng knife that he’d drawn unnoticed from his pocket.
Sue Morgan stared at him for a full second with her mouth gaped open, and eyes wide in frozen astonishment. Then the ear came free, and Aziz held it in front of her face, dripping with bright blood. Her emerald stud earring reflected the setting sun from its severed lobe. Then the pain registered, and a scream of agony and primal fear erupted from her open mouth. Her eyes followed involuntarily as Aziz threw the detached ear into the fire, where it sizzled and bubbled on the red coals. She could feel hot blood streaming down her neck. Grigovich and McBraden were staring in horror at what Aziz had done. Richarde seemed unmoved.
Aziz turned away, grinning in spite of himself. Sue Morgan kept screaming and sobbing that she had told him all she knew. Good, this woman’s screams were what he’d intended. That son-of-a-bitch survival instructor was doubtless still within earshot, and Aziz counted on his hearing the woman’s screams. A man who made his meager living as a small-time survival instructor was probably in that business for reasons other than money.
This Rodney guy was likely an idealistic fool who thought he could make the wilderness a safer place for his clients. That type of man was probably seeking grace from a life that had known considerable misery. He probably needed a reason to feel noble, and he wasn’t likely to abandon a woman who’d been in his charge to the likes of themselves. Aziz was counting on this idiot to make some sort of attempt at rescuing her from their evil clutches, and he was determined to see that that attempt was fatal for the would-be rescuer. Either way, his team had to move on to finish the main mission, and the woman was a liability they couldn’t afford.
The Mackinac Incident Page 6