A Different War

by Craig Thomas

  Strickland would disappear forever-He pressed back into the angle of the wall. The Ruger was near his left hand, the Calico suspended on his chest from its short strap. He braced himself and raised his booted feet as if they were tied together, measuring distance, force.

  Glass pricked at his palms as they took his weight… he lunged-jangle of weights, heavy clockwork, the creaking of the case interrupting the clock's tall assurance. It toppled slowly, noisily, alarming the men on the stairs.

  The weights banged against the case like a heart against ribs. Then it fell across the doorway, shutting the door with a slam. Hyams' voice was cut off. Gant was on his feet, two steps taken, before all noise of the glass underfoot was drowned in the clock's bedlam as it struck the floor. Three more steps, into the moment of moonlight and the sense of nakedness, his hand on the window ledge-shots ripping through the door, the deafening noise of the clock's distress drowned by gunfire. Shards of glass and wood drifted down onto him like snow.

  Impact of his knees with the boards of the verandah, ricochets coming through the window. He rolled away then got to his feet, already running before he was upright. Orientated himself in the small clearing, running hunched, swerving and dodging like a footballer in a complex play. There was no shooting behind him before he reached the trees.

  He plunged in out of the moonlight, stopping his flight against the rough hole of a tree. Thirty seconds since Mclntyre's engine note had disappeared into silence. The scent of gasoline still pungent in his nostrils. That way-map in his head, clear as on a screen unrolling in a cockpit. The smudge of the lake, the little dot of Squaw Camp, the place he had left the 4WD, the hiking trail twisting its way down the mountainside.

  He was running through the trees, his arm up against the whip of thin branches. He plunged uphill towards the vantage point he'd used to keep the lodge under surveillance. Forty-five seconds. Mclntyre, headlights blazing, bucking down the hiking trail. He'd never cut him off, never.

  For a moment, he could see the few scattered lights of Squaw Camp through the trees, and the silvered dish of Bonner Lake. Then the forest of lodgepole pines closed in around the car again, and the rear wheels slithered menacingly as he lost the hiking track, then jerked the sedan back on to it. The trail folded itself like a vast, lazy snake around the mountainside, its coils slipping lower and lower till it met the Cascade Lakes Highway at the settlement.

  Mclntyre cursed the wedges of the tree trunks that constantly seemed to spring to attention in the headlights. The hiking trail was determined to lose itself among them, hide away from him. Strickland was holding his seatbelt as he might have done a coat lapel. The indicator needle waggled around thirty, its erratic movements like the measurements of Mclntyre's heartbeat. The driving mirror, the wing mirrors, remained black. Then, as if beckoning, the lake again for an instant through thinned trees, and the lights of the settlement. Three Sisters stretching away northwards, Mount Bachelor, snow-flanked still, to the south. Stars hard and big above the headlights… He realised he had slowed the car, as if to inhale the scene into choked lungs, and accelerated. At once, the car skidded on pine-mush, the rear near side wheel spinning, the engine racing.

  Strickland glared at him.

  "For Christ's sake, Mac-!" It sounded as if they were still field operative and Case Officer.

  "Don't throw up!" Mclntyre snarled contemptuously, righting the car, the sweat cold beneath his arms.

  The trail bent away from the prospect into dark trees again. Their crowded intent seemed malign, angering Mclntyre. The sense of exhilaration he had felt in escape had dissipated in the effort required to negotiate the hiking trail. He'd paid no attention when they had ascended it in the afternoon light, it had been the driver's problem.

  Gant couldn't get out of the trap he'd thrown himself into… He was pinned down, would remain so… Mclntyre would have to alert a backup team when he got to the airfield at Redmond — have to call the pilot on the earphone and get the ship refuelled, a flight plan filed… to where?

  He joggled the wheel in his hands, feeling his palms slip damply on the mock leather Where should he take Strickland? The guy knew the name of the man who'd hired him, the guy Fraser had promised would take care of his future… Now Fraser was dead, and his future was blown out of the water unless he could get Strickland to tell him the name. He was already more than half-persuaded that Gant wanted him dead. To stay alive, he had to trade the name for his survival.

  But it might need time to make him see things that way… so, where to take him?

  He glanced across at Strickland. The man was quiescent, withdrawn; almost detached. He jerked the wheel again as the trail bent away and dropped, and the headlights bucked wildly, as if terrified. An animal glanced aside into the trees, a deer or something.

  I'll watch out for you!" he shouted as the engine note rose and fell like a protesting wail.

  "You got to trust me, Strickland."

  "Why?"

  "Because the guy back there Gant he wants to kill you. You screwed up his family, his career—" Strickland tossed his head, flicking his long blond hair away from his face.

  "He wants to know, Mac just like you," Strickland jibed.

  Mclntyre braked gently. The rear offside wheel rose over a rock and settled. A momentary glimpse of the shining lake, the headlights staring out into empty air, then the trees again.

  "Sure. But I'll keep you alive if you tell me. We can cut a deal. I want the name of the guy who hired you. Gant wants you doing hard time for what you did to him and Vance. Think about it—" They were over halfway down the mountainside now, had to be. The headlights gleamed back from the tree trunks. Then there was maybe a forty-minute drive on good roads to Redmond. He had to decide what flight plan should be filed, call the pilot. Fear of pursuit fell away. The lake was closer, the lights of Squaw Camp brighter. Strickland had no other real choice. He'd come to see it that way, in a while. But as yet, the guy didn't seem about to fold up. The Preacherman would still take a lot of persuading to give Mclntyre the name. He wasn't even grateful he was still alive, for Christ's sake!

  Mclntyre loosened his grip on the steering wheel. It would come out right. He had Strickland, the man belonged to him, not to Gant or the mysterious employer-wheels ping He righted the sliding car confidently, almost relaxed. The headlights gleamed out through another brief gap in the trees. Bonner Lake was bigger, even closer, shining in the moonlight. It was coming out just right-The car's headlights glared out through the trees far below him, then became muted again. He could not catch his breath, could not admit that it might be too late.

  From the outcrop where he had paused, he plunged into the trees again, catching foggy glimpses of the Three Sisters, other whitened mountains, the moon gleaming on Bonner Lake. All the time trying to ignore the weariness of his body, the strange, thudding fragility of his heartbeat.

  They were much too near the lake already… The realisation, pounding in his ears like the noise of his blood, could not be admitted. Thin branches whipped at his face and hands and the ground seemed to snag and pull like mud at his boots and ankles. He swerved and dodged through the trees, the slope steepening ahead of him, dropping blindly downwards. There was no trail, just the sense of his descent to guide him.

  He blundered out of the trees on to the scratch of the hiking trail.

  Vaguely saw tyre marks, the signs of a skid. The trail wound away down the mountainside, marking the way that Mclntyre had gone. He'd crossed the first of the tracks just the first and the car was already nearing Squaw Camp. He plunged into the trees, his blood pounding more loudly than ever… then he heard something else. A wall of sound He cannoned away from a narrow tree hole, winded. He forced himself on, his hand touching a chain set in rock as the trees parted suddenly like a curtain being drawn. There was something ahead of him, blocking his path… The waterfall arched out over the descending slope which led around the outcrop.

  It confronted him like a high, impenetrable wall,
gleaming in the moonlight as if it was an enormous steel shutter. The chain was slippery to his touch, moss-covered.

  Ferns decorated the rock face. The din of water and the visual assault threatened to engulf him. The clock in his head ticked on, measuring the distance between himself and Mclntyre as it increased, became hopeless. His breath came in exhausted, heaving gulps. Too late The main hiking trail avoided the outcrop and the waterfall, but the mountain had thrown it like a barrier across his line of descent. He edged forward, unnerved, the noise intensifying, his moon shadow creeping beside him, enlarged and more fearful. The chain clinked against the rock each time he shifted his grip. Spray dashed into his face, daunting him, like the sense of time slipping away. The cascade arched out over the trail he had to be able to pass behind it, otherwise the chain wouldn't be there… His shirt and jacket were sodden, his ears deafened by the sound. The waterfall seemed no more than twenty or thirty feet across. The knife-scratch of the trail had to continue on the other side.

  Trail—? A ledge of rock along which he and his shadow moved with a helpless, unnerved caution. He was blinded by the spray. The sense of his feet and their shuffling movement forward seemed remote, not to be trusted.

  The moon and his shadow disappeared… as did the chain. The water banged on his head and shoulders, trying to knock him to his knees in surrender. He was chilled to the bone. The water was silvered with moonlight. The cave behind the cascade seemed immense, featureless. He moved on fearfully, his foot slipping on a wet rock. He slid one foot carefully in front of the other, unseeing, deafened by the noise. His hands were stretched out in front of him to balance his body, to be ready to adjust-foot slipped again. He fell to his knees as if the noise and darkness had beaten him down. He wanted to scream. The noise that now enveloped him intimidated, appalled… He struggled to his feet and moved on. First step, second, third-behind him, suddenly.

  The world no longer entirely composed of water and noise. Moonlight.

  His shadow rejoined him on the ledge of rock as he grabbed at the reappearing chain.

  He staggered away from the cascade, around the outcrop until the trees closed around him again and he could hear his heartbeat above the noise of the waterfall.

  The mountainside dropped away steeply once more. He hesitated. The lake was a faint sheen of light through the trees, but his bleary, clearing vision could not locate headlights.

  Then he saw them.

  The headlights of Mclntyre's car were swivelling round, hundreds of yards below him, as they emerged from the trees. They were no longer bobbing with the undulations of the hiking trail but shone out clearly towards the lake. Mclntyre had reached the highway, was turning on to it. Gant had been beaten. The Calico weighed heavily on his chest, the rifle hanging limply from his left arm. Yes… The headlights had steadied, like a poised runner, then they accelerated below him, confident, shining out along the strip of the blacktop as it threaded itself beside the shore.

  Too late… He could not stop them now, Mclntyre was clean away, Strickland with him. He had the only proof… Gant was shivering with rage, with the sense of being beaten. He wanted to raise his head and howl at the moon like an animal in his desperate frustration, raise his head-raised the Ruger, flipping up the waterproof lens cover of the thermal-imaging sight. Through the eyepiece, the headlights of Mclntyre's car seemed like grey strips of rolled steel on the tiny video screen. The car, enlarged as it was, was at the extreme range of the rifle. But it was his only chance. The car was a rectangular box behind the headlights, its windscreen another tiny TV screen on which there were two shadows, escaping him, as he moved the rifle, tracking them-squeezed the trigger, again and again. The windscreen shattered.

  The headlights of the car wobbled like torches held in drunken hands…

  Gant felt a fierce elation fill him. He raised his arms in a salute as the car below him visibly slowed, lurching from side to side on the highway, the headlights glancing off trees, off the water's edge.

  Slowing all the time… Then it left the road, the headlights nose-diving towards the water, slipping into it, so that they gleamed out feebly as they began to drown. He could hear the protest of the car's engine, its revs far too high even though it hardly seemed to be moving. He watched it slip into the water eagerly, directionlessly.

  He'd stopped them… only to drown He was running, wildly. Heard himself growling through his teeth as he crossed the hiking trail. Then trees again, and darkness, after a brief glimpse of the headlights becoming more faint, bleary. The roof of the car was still above water.

  Black desperation prodded him on, taunting him with the sense that it was too late to save Strickland, that he was already dead in the car that was slipping beneath the lake. He cannoned off the hole of a lodgepole pine and blundered on, a deer startled out of his path, alarmed by his noise and flailing arms.

  A brief glimpse of the lake from an outcrop of bare rock. He couldn't see the car, its headlights had vanished beneath the water' No he heard himself shouting. It was an elongated, unending noise that seemed to want to empty his lungs as he ran. His body was difficult to hold upright, propelled only by the arms he waved violently, futilely.

  He tripped, collapsing exhausted, rolling down the slope, the Calico bruising him, the rifle lost… Too late The surface of the blacktop was hard, jolting him into stillness, numbing one arm, knocking the breath from his body. The highway, he realised he had reached the highway, and forced himself to his knees. He looked round him desperately. The surface of the lake shimmered with moonlight, undistressed, peaceful. There was no sign of the car, or of where it had entered the water… He lurched to his feet and staggered to the shore. Treadmarks in the moonlight, on the narrow grass verge, indentations across the brief, pebbly shore… Calm water had closed over the roof of the car, drowning it.

  Nothing disturbed the tranquillity-until he plunged into the water, wading out into the chill of the lake. The water passed his thighs, stomach, chest. He shivered as it robbed him of the heat of his exertions. Swallowing air, he ducked beneath the surface into sudden, icy darkness. Swam blindly, praying… The moonlight was a faint, ghostly light above him. His chest began to tighten, his throat bulge with the effort of holding his breath. A yard to right or left and he would never see the car… The headlights would have shorted by now, the engine would have stopped. It was here, somewhere, just feet away, somewhere… His chest ached, his arms flailed wildly as if he was still running rather than trying to swim-touched something. Right hand. Something hard… He gripped it, straining to make it out. Driver's mirror… he ducked into the ragged gap where the windscreen had been. The driver Mclntyre was dead.

  Passenger? He thrust his head further into the car, his lungs bursting. A white, bloated face moved feebly. Gant reached in and unbuckled the seatbelt that was trapping Strickland. The man was still now, as if he had finally blacked out. Gant pulled — his breath expelled itself involuntarily with the effort and he began swallowing water and Strickland came free like some octopoid creature that had been anchored to the car. Gant had hold of his shirt as he felt the bonnet of the car beneath his feet. He thrust away from it with his remaining strength, pulling Strickland after him up towards the ghostly shimmer of the moonlight.

  His head broke the surface of the water like that of an otter and he gasped down air, coughed water. Fought the air into his aching lungs, even as he clutched Strickland against him. Gulped air again and again, as if it would be snatched from him.

  He swam awkwardly, pulling the lifeless body with him, the dozen or twenty yards until he could stand upright and haul himself and the inert Strickland across the pebbled floor of the lake. Then he flung the body down on the shore, pouncing on it as if he wished it further harm. The shirt, pants, flesh seemed unstained with blood. He pumped the man's arms grotesquely, angrily. Strickland had cheated him… He had blown it, trying to stop the car. Mclntyre was dead, Strickland was drowned-turned him over. The night air was cold, Gant felt his own body
shivering and the lifelessness of the body beneath his own as he straddled it, pummelling at the man's back, squeezing his lungs, pumping in the silence… Strickland coughed. Water dribbled from his gaping mouth. An eyelid fluttered, then Strickland's lungs began pumping of their own volition as he choked air into his body. Retched, choked again, continued breathing, lying on his stomach, face twisted to one side.

  Gant rolled away from him, exhausted. Satisfied. Heard his own heartbeat become calmer, quieter. As his night vision improved, he saw or believed he saw the black pinpoint of an otter head breaking the calm stillness of the lake's silvered surface.

  He sat watching the unmoving otter. Perhaps it was similarly watching him.

  The sound of Strickland's raucous, regular breathing and his quiet groaning were the noises of success. They seeped into his weariness, strong as liquor, warming him.

  POSTLUDE

  Directors, dealers through holding companies,

  Deacons in churches, owning slum properties,

  Alias usurers in excel sis the quintessential essence of usurers,

  The purveyors of employment, whining over the 20 p.c. and the hard times…

  And the general uncertainty of all investment…

  Ezra Pound, Canto XII

  1st June, 1999

  The Special Branch officers were downstairs, being served cups of tea by David's housekeeper. There were two anonymous saloon cars parked outside in the morning sunshine of Eaton Square. He and David Winterborne confronted one another, Aubrey taking a certain, tangible pleasure from David's discomfiture. The Home Office official, Baird, remained in his selected corner of the large drawing room, just beyond a stream of sunlight from one of the tall windows, as if he possessed no interest in either of them.

  This is, as I said, all very unofficial, David. For the moment, at least."

  Winterborne, unwarned of their early arrival, was already dressed and breakfasted.