Double Image

by David Morrell

  If I can just keep going. The snow’s falling harder. It’ll fill my tracks, he thought. Behind him, heavy splashes told him that some of his pursuers had jumped into the stream, too impatient to wait in line to go hand over hand on the branch. Wails followed, the icy water shocking their bodies. At least some of them will be slowed, Coltrane tried to assure himself.

  But he was also slowing. The forest sloped upward. Gasping for breath, he struggled higher, the pain in his ribs getting sharper. Although he had jettisoned two cameras, he still had two others and continued to fear that something would happen to the film in them. Grabbing one as he ran, he pawed open its back and yanked out its rewound film, only to moan in despair when he dropped the cylinder into a drift. Rushing, he stooped to fumble through the snow and retrieve it, shoving it into the jacket pocket where he had put the others.

  The camera he had just unloaded blew apart, the explosive force throwing him onto the snow. He felt intense heat, then bitter cold along his left side. Nausea swept through him as he realized that a bullet meant for his back had struck the camera, deflected off it, and sliced through his left side. He rolled toward the cover of a fir tree as the far-off crack of a rifle echoed through the forest. He had to find where the shooter was to avoid his line of fire. Struggling to his feet, he risked a glance through an opening in the trees, toward the direction from which he had come. Snow settled on his eyes, making him blink repeatedly. The wind stopped. The snow eased just for a moment, and he shivered at the sight of a bandy-legged, bulky-shouldered man on a ridge across from him, Dragan Ilkovic’s thick features braced against the sights on his rifle.

  Ilkovic fired again, the bullet whizzing past Coltrane, tearing up snow and earth. Enraged, Ilkovic switched his rifle from single shot to full automatic, releasing a burst that went wild as the snow swirled back in greater force. Ilkovic vanished in the storm, and Coltrane felt a bone-deep chill. Clutching his bleeding side, stumbling higher up the slope, he fled the louder noises of his pursuers.

  3

  T HE WIND HAD WORSENED TO A GALE by the time Coltrane reached the top. If not for his injuries, he might have hurried over the crest, in which case he would have died, for the other side of the slope was a cliff, its bottom invisible in the gusting snow. Which way? Right or left? As far as his limited vision allowed him to determine, the cliff continued in both directions. But whichever way he chose, following the ridgeline was predictable. All his pursuers would have to do would be to separate and outflank him.

  I can’t go back the way I came, he thought. He saw an outcrop ten feet below him, squirmed over the edge, ignored the pain of his injuries, and hung to the agonizing limit of his arms. When he released his grip and hit the ledge, he fell to his knees, then his chest, hugging the rock. He feared he was going to pass out.

  But he couldn’t allow himself to give in to weakness. He had to get far enough down the cliff that his pursuers wouldn’t be able to see him in the snowstorm. Pulse racing, he peered over and saw another ledge, but it was farther down than the first one had been. Even hanging by his arms, he would still have to drop several yards, and the force of the landing would almost certainly throw off his balance, plunging him over the edge. As the angry voices rushed closer to the top, he imagined what would happen when his hunters got there. Staring down, their sullen faces would break into smiles when they saw him crouching helplessly ten feet below them. Their grins would broaden when they opened fire. He had to—

  The snow gusted at an object that weighed on Coltrane’s injured shoulder: his remaining camera. He frowned at its nylon strap. If he didn’t get off this ledge in the next thirty seconds, he wouldn’t be going anywhere again. Frenzied, he extended the strap to its maximum length, about four feet, hoping it would hold him. His lungs heaved so much that he feared he might faint when he looped the strap over an outcrop and squirmed down, pretending he was clutching a rope. It wouldn’t get him to the next ledge, but at least it would get him closer. The snow buffeted him. Trembling, he eased lower, the ledge not yet close enough to drop to, almost a body length away. Spasms shuddered through him—because he hadn’t moved his hands to get lower. The strap had done it for him. It had stretched. It groaned. Every impulse urged him to hurry, but he didn’t dare. Any strong motion might cause the strap to stretch to its breaking point. Closer.

  The strap broke. Scrabbling against the cliff face, he felt the wind shove him into space. He fell, clawed at the rock, and landed, half on, half off the ledge. The wind struck him harder. His gloves lost their grip. Slipping over, he tensed in panic, his stomach soaring toward his throat as he anticipated his impact on the rocks far below. With startling abruptness, he jolted to a stop much sooner than he expected, his legs buckling, his body collapsing. It took him a moment to realize that he had landed on another ledge. He might have passed out. He couldn’t tell. One thing he did know was that, as he lay on his back, blinking upward through the thickening snow, he couldn’t see the top of the cliff, which meant that he couldn’t be seen, either.

  But he didn’t dare rest. The snow might lessen at any moment and reveal him. He had to keep moving. Another wave of nausea swept through him as he forced himself to sit up. When he peered over the side, his vision cleared enough for him to see that the next ledge was only four feet down. Wincing, he lowered himself onto it. The next time he peered down, he discovered he was on a slope that led to the bottom.

  The snow rose above his ankles. Shuffling through it, his legs kept threatening to give way, but he refused to let them surrender. I have to get the film out of here, he urged himself. The air dimmed, the snow becoming gray, his vision narrowing, his thoughts blurring. When he stumbled into a fir tree, its icy needles stinging his face, he realized that he must have been walking half-asleep. He could barely see his hand in front of his face. If he didn’t find shelter, he was going to freeze to death. Sinking to his hands and knees, he crawled weakly beneath the drooping boughs of the snow-laden fir tree. In the space under them, he reached ground that was bare except for fallen needles, and he had just enough room to slump with his back against the trunk. The bark smelled sharply of resin. Except for that, in the gathering darkness, hearing the wind outside, he had the sensation of being in a tent.

  He passed out.

  4

  A SMOTHERING BLACKNESS SURROUNDED HIM , so absolute that he feared he’d gone blind or was in hell. Immediately his pain jerked him fully awake. Muffled, the shrieking wind seemed far away. It was night. The dense blanket of snow on the needled branches made the air around him feel heavy, compressed. He licked his dry, cracked lips. Completely disoriented, racked with pain, he feared he was going to die in here.

  He took off his right glove and mustered the strength to reach under the left side of his jacket. There, his sweater and his thermal underwear were soaked with a warm sticky liquid. His gentle touch made him shudder. The wound seemed as long as his hand, as wide as a finger. The deflected bullet had gouged a furrow along his side. And kept going? he wondered. Or was it still inside him? Had it hit only fat, or ruptured the abdominal wall?

  He had never felt so powerless and alone. His feeling of isolation increased when he reached for the comfort of a camera and recalled that he had started out with four of them and not one of them remained. But I had the fourth camera with me on the cliff. Didn’t I take it off the strap and cram it into a pocket? In dismay, he pawed at the jacket but didn’t feel the camera. What he did feel were three cylinders of film. The fourth camera and, more important, the film inside it were lost to him.

  He fought to rouse his spirit. Hey, I saved the other three rolls. That’s still a lot. If I can get them out of here . . .

  The sentence didn’t want to be completed.

  Yes? he asked himself. If I can get them out of here?

  Are those photographs worth dying for?

  This time, he didn’t hesitate. Are you kidding me? The UN inspection team is desperate to get its hands on evidence like this. The film will prove
that the atrocities committed here were much worse than anyone imagined. That bastard Ilkovic will finally have to pay for what he did.

  Maybe.

  Coltrane felt uneasy. I don’t understand.

  Oh, the photos you took are shocking enough to get Ilkovic convicted, all right. But what if the politicians become involved and declare an amnesty for the sake of peace in the region? What if nothing changes? Are your pictures worth getting killed for?

  Coltrane didn’t have an answer. Again, he groped for the reassuring touch of a camera. A homicide detective friend of his had once joked that Coltrane felt about cameras the way police officers did about backup guns—naked without one. “Come to think of it,” the detective had continued joking, “cameras and guns both shoot people, don’t they?” But it wasn’t the same at all, Coltrane insisted. His kind of shooting didn’t kill people. It was supposed to make them immortal. That was the reason he had become a photographer. When he had been twelve, he had found a trove of photographs of his dead mother and had fantasized that they kept her alive.

  Those pictures of his mother had been beautiful.

  As shivers seized him and his consciousness faded into a place that was despairingly even darker, he managed one last lucid thought.

  Then why have I been taking ugly pictures for such a long time?

  5

  H EARING A RUMBLE , he woke in alarm. His first panicked thought warned him he was about to be smothered by an avalanche. But the moment he raised his head, trying to move, the pain that radiated from his left side almost made him pass out. The rumble increased. As his consciousness fought to clear itself, he understood that he had to be wrong, that the ridges here weren’t steep enough for avalanches. Besides, the rumble seemed to come from below him rather than from above. It didn’t make sense. What was causing the noise?

  Find out. Spots swirled in front of his eyes as he placed his hands on the ground, barely aware of the fir needles under his knees. He crawled from beneath the snow-covered boughs, the glare of sunlight off drifts nearly blinding him. The air was shockingly cold, pinching his nostrils.

  When he squinted below him, he feared he was hallucinating, unable to make himself believe that he was on a hill above a road, that the rumble came from a convoy of tanks that had NATO markings. He wobbled like a tightrope walker, struggling for balance as he waved his arms and waded as fast as he could down through snowdrifts, which wasn’t fast at all, but it didn’t matter, because the lead tank’s driver had seen him and was stopping, soldiers jumping out as he fell and tumbled to the bottom, the soldiers blurting German as they rushed to help him.

  Three days later, against a UN doctor’s orders, he was on a plane home. From hell to the City of Angels.

  TWO

  1

  A S C OLTRANE TWITCHED FROM A NIGHTMARE that was indistinguishable from the trauma of his wide-awake memories, he seemed to have been running forever. He fell from the impact of the bullet that shattered his camera, rolled desperately to avoid Ilkovic’s line of fire, and flinched as hands grabbed his shoulders, pushing him.

  A moan escaped him. His eyes jerked open in a panic, the hands continuing to press him down, a gentle voice whispering, “Ssshh, it’s only me. It’s Jennifer.”

  “Uh.” Sweat slicked him. His chest heaved.

  “You’re home. You’re safe.”

  “. . . Uh.”

  “You were having a nightmare. I had to grab you before you rolled out of bed.”

  Coltrane’s heart hammered so fast that he feared it would burst against his ribs. His tongue felt dry and thick. “. . . Jennifer?” In the shadows of what he now recognized was his bedroom, he peered up at her. Still disoriented, he seemed to see her through an imaginary viewfinder, framing her lovely oval face, her light blue eyes, and the dark worry behind them. His gaze lingered on her appealing curved lips, her smooth tan cheeks, and her short blond hair that resembled corn silk.

  His heartbeat no longer made his chest feel swollen. At last, he seemed to be getting enough air. He eased back onto his pillow.

  “Here.” Jennifer reached for a glass of water on the bedside table. Adjusting a straw, she placed it against his parched mouth. He took several deep swallows, luxuriating in the wonderful coolness, ignoring the drops that rolled down his chin.

  “Guess I’m the last person you expected to see, huh?” Jennifer asked.

  Coltrane didn’t know what to say. The last time he had seen her was six months ago when they had broken up.

  “Daniel sent for me,” she said.

  Coltrane nodded, the motion aggravating a headache. Daniel was a friend who lived in the town house next door.

  “When you showed up at his place this morning, you really spooked him. He took care of you during the day, but he’s working nights at the hospital, and he needed somebody to watch you.” Jennifer smiled awkwardly. “He phoned me at the magazine.” She hesitated, then made a mock salute. “Nurse Nightingale reporting. Unless you can find somebody better, I guess you’re stuck with me.”

  “I can’t think of anybody better.”

  Jennifer’s smile was now filled with pleasure. “Can I get you anything? Daniel said I should give you Tylenol for your fever. And this antibiotic. Your wound’s a little infected.”

  “Whatever the doctor ordered.” Coltrane swallowed the pills, then took several more sips of water. His body seemed to absorb the fluid instantly.

  “How do you feel?” Jennifer asked.

  Coltrane tilted his right hand from side to side, as if to say, Not so good.

  “Daniel told me what you told him. There are a couple of blank parts. You can fill them in later. When you get your strength back. That’s all I want you to concentrate on—getting better.”

  “Need . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “The bathroom.”

  “Put your arm around my shoulder. I’ll help you stand.”

  When Jennifer pulled off the covers, Coltrane realized that he was wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt. His shirt hiked up, making him conscious of the bulk of the new bandage that Daniel had taped over the stitches on his side. There was dried blood below the bandage, scrapes on his stomach, and bruises on his legs.

  Coltrane leaned on her.

  “Can you manage by yourself?” Jennifer asked as they entered the bathroom. “Should I stay here with you?”

  “I’m fine.” But Coltrane lost his footing, and Jennifer had to grab him.

  He sank to the seat. “Not my best profile, I’m afraid.”

  “Just do what you have to.”

  “I’m okay. You can wait outside.”

  “You’re sure?” Jennifer asked.

  “Thanks.”

  “As long as you’re certain you won’t fall on the floor.”

  Coltrane nodded, watching her start to leave the bathroom. He whispered her name.

  She looked back.

  “I mean it,” he said. “Thanks.”

  2

  I ’ VE BROUGHT TWO PRESENTS FOR YOU ,” Jennifer said the next evening, “but the first one doesn’t count.”

  Curious, Coltrane watched her bring her left hand from behind her back. She set down a copy of Southern California Magazine, a photograph of the windmill electrical generators outside Palm Springs on the cover. “The latest issue. I’ve made a lot of improvements. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with it since . . .”

  “I haven’t missed an issue.”

  Her light blue eyes glittered.

  “Even when I’ve been out of the country, I had it forwarded. It kept my memories warm on a lot of cold nights. If this is the gift that doesn’t matter, I can’t imagine what you’ve got behind your back in your other hand.”

  Jennifer showed him a flat, stiff object, about eight by ten inches, gift-wrapped. She watched intently as he shook it.

  “Doesn’t rattle. Feels like glass. I wonder what . . .”

  She watched him pull open the wrapping. But the discomfort on
Coltrane’s face at what he saw caused her anticipation to change to confusion. “Your third Newsweek cover,” she said. “It came out yesterday. I thought you’d like it framed.”

  Coltrane somberly studied the stark black-and-white image of the backhoe dropping bones into the pulverizing machine while Dragan Ilkovic watched with satisfaction. “. . . Thanks.”

  “You don’t sound as if you mean it.”

  “It was very thoughtful of you.”

  “Then why aren’t I convinced?”

  The room filled with silence.

  “What you told Daniel about how you got wounded,” Jennifer said. “I already knew some of it—from the CNN interview you did while you were in the hospital over there.”

  “That’s why I snuck out of the hospital and caught the first plane back to here. After CNN tracked me down, I knew it wouldn’t be long before a lot of other journalists would be swarming around me. I had no idea the UN would release the photographs so quickly. I couldn’t bear talking about them.”

  “You unplugged your phone.”

  “It kept ringing. I couldn’t sleep. A half a dozen TV talk shows asked me to be a guest.”

  “People think you’re a hero.”

  “Please.” With distaste, Coltrane set the framed Newsweek cover aside. “I was lucky to survive.”

  “You’ll get another Pulitzer Prize.”

  “I hope not. Not for those photos. It didn’t take a genius to get those pictures, only a damned fool who was willing to lie in a hole in the ground for a day and a half .”