He continued, “Our targets are attempting to reach the end of the canyon, approximately ten klicks north. There’s a road up above the rim. I expect Charles’s plan is to ascend to it and flag down a passing vehicle. He will be at his most vulnerable while climbing out of the canyon. However, it would be my preference to stop him before he makes the attempt. I do not know how well traveled that road is, but there appears…” he slapped his hand against the map “…to be a village or trading post nearby. Three Turkeys it’s called, and there may be sufficient traffic in and out of it —”
“Johan?” How irksome, Schmidt thought. He loathed being interrupted — especially while issuing orders. Nonetheless, the man was a client, and so patience if not deference was due. “Yes, Samuel.”
The bureaucrat waddled toward him. He was in shamefully poor physical condition, exhausted by what had been little more than the sort of training exercise one administers to new recruits. Moreover, he was soiled and unshaven. That was an affront to Schmidt’s standards. Regardless of the circumstances, he insisted that his men look sharply professional. A soldier who takes pride in his appearance is a soldier who takes pride in his work.
More irritation: Samuel was wearing his crybaby expression again — an overgrown infant who needed his diapers changed. The man had become simply insufferable. Last night he’d gone so far as to pull Schmidt aside, complaining of the number of foreign soldiers involved in this mission. Silly civilian that he was, he did not appreciate how difficult it was to recruit qualified American warriors, the best being patriotically if not profitably employed hunting turbaned terrorists in unpleasant climes. Happily, Schmidt explained, there always could be found in the ranks of every nation’s special forces troopers whose excessive zeal discomforted their commanders. If they were trained and motivated, one simply did not care that they learned their skills as Angolan mercenaries, as Bosnia ethnic cleansers, or in one of those surprisingly good training facilities operated by gentlemen of the Muslim persuasion.
“Johan, did you say Three Turkeys?”
Something would have to be done about Samuel’s insistence on calling him by his first name. That simply wasn’t allowed. Least of all in front of the troops. “Yes, I did. Why do you ask?”
“Charlie,” Samuel wheezed, “he has a son. Well, two sons. I think…I’m certain Claude mentioned that one of them is with the Indian Health Service. He said…I know he said…he’s stationed at the Three Turkeys medical clinic.”
No commander worth his salt shows the least dismay when his subordinates are present. Schmidt merely pressed his lips together, coldly collecting his thoughts. “Well, Samuel, that is disturbing news. I’m disappointed you saw fit to keep it secret until now.”
“I…ah…but…”
Schmidt spun on his heel, again facing his men, raising his voice to drown out Samuel. “Belay those orders. It would appear that Charles’s destination is somewhat closer than we imagined.” He consulted the map. “Likely he plans his ascent no more than three miles from here. Our time is shorter than I wished. Sidewinder and Copperhead —” for just a moment he reverted to his native Afrikaans — “…opsaal!”
Slinging rifles across their shoulders, the two mercenaries straddled their ATVs.
“Sidewinder, take the point, follow their tracks. Copperhead, ten yards behind. Find them. Force them to seek cover. Shoot to pin them down, not to hit. I want them taken alive. The rest of us will catch up with you. Do not put yourselves in harm’s way until we’re on the scene.”
“Yes, sah!” Sidewinder gunned a 633 cc engine into a throaty growl.
“You. Asp,” Schmidt now was facing his radio operator, “broadcast an alert to all units. I want them converging on Three Turkeys ASAP. Map coordinates are —”
“No can do, sir.”
Interrupted again! Schmidt felt his temper flare. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon.”
“I tried to establish contact as soon as we reached bottom, sir. This canyon…signals just bounce off its walls. I can’t raise anyone.”
Heat. In his belly. In his chest. The rage was building.
Asp added, “If we had satellite radios, sir, it wouldn’t be a problem. But we couldn’t requisition any. G-4 even sent a request to this gentleman here” — he pointed to Samuel — “…and one of his people e-mailed us back that everything’s allocated to military use. So you see, sir, we’re one hundred percent off-line.”
Schmidt could have let his anger show. It would have been a welcome release. But no. Better to keep it bottled up, stored, reserved. Save it, hoard it, keep it boiling hot until he had his hands around Charles’s throat.
The longer you wait for your supper, the better it tastes.
Charlie believed if any trace of Eden was left on earth, it was to be found in these Arizona canyons.
Parklands of airy cottonwood and dun Russian olive traced the course of a tender brook. A tamarisk grove, willowy branches graceful as ballet dancers in repose, made a green tunnel through which he and Irina raced. It opened to a narrow defile pocked with shallow caves carved by wind and rain for aeons beyond reckoning; inside their depths, carved in stone the color of maple sugar, Charlie caught glimpses of ancient petrogylphs, sun signs and dancing animals, Kokopelli the priapic flute player calling the tune.
His heart sang. Fleeing for his life, Charlie’s heart sang.
With Irina by his side, he sprinted down a wash that wound beneath a jutting overhang striped with desert varnish. White alkaline leeched out of its base, rendering the water in these beautiful bottomlands unpotable for humans.
But the deer adapted. Charlie knew they did. They and the bears and the cougars and all those other creatures blessed to live in secret gardens unknown to humankind.
Men almost never visited Mitchell Canyon. It was too prone to floods to be inhabitable, too remote for tourists, too steep a climb for the neighboring Navajo shepherds.
Oh, to be sure, the Anasazi had dwelt here once. Their fallen castles still stood above the canyon floor. But the Anasazi’s era was a time of more forgiving weather. Nor had the Indian tribes yet raped the high plateaus of their forest cover, tree roots to siphon heavy rains, protection against the floods that now came almost every year.
Humanity moved on, paradise forgotten.
Irina — young ears — heard the sound first. She grasped his shoulder. “Listen,” she said, hesitation in her voice.
Charlie stopped, tilting his head. The rumble of engines was distant, but coming closer. “Dirt bikes,” he muttered. “Or ATVs. We’ve got company.”
He admired the lightning intensity of her glance. No more crazy lady laughing at the thrill of a suicidal climb, she was back on an even keel, studying the terrain with an outdoorsman’s eye. “There,” she said, pointing eighty yards ahead to an eroded cave. “The canyon is narrow. A choke point. I’ll have a clean field of fire.”
Well, that was to be expected. I’ll have a clean field of fire. Not you. Me.
He’d give her a chance. Worst case, she’d miss, and he’d have to take the rifle away from her. Best case, she wouldn’t, and he’d earn himself a few points with the prickly Miss Kolodenkova.
Shoulder to shoulder they broke into a run. The growl of gasoline-powered motors mounted. Charlie figured there were only two, and was thankful for that.
Irina sprang on the balls of her feet, an easy jump to the cave’s rim. The words “lithe” and “beautiful” flashed through Charlie’s mind. They were, he assured himself, an aesthetic and not emotional judgement.
He clambered up the rock beside her, unslinging his Brown Savanna Rifle. God, it was a beautiful thing, light and graceful, only seven pounds, a fiberglass stock that begged to nestle into his shoulder. Less a weapon than a lovingly handmade piece of craftsmanship, it was a tool he begrudged letting out of his hands.
She, clearly a woman of taste, smiled approvingly as she weighed its elegant balance. “This is…” she said, saying nothing more because she did not have the word
s.
He passed her a handful of ammunition. “A work of art.”
She smiled open and true. It came to Charlie that he’d won her. Just then, at that very moment, she — probably not knowing it — had yielded to a simple gesture of trust. Who would have believed it would be so easy a thing? I trust her, so she trusts me. Brother, you should have worked that one out long ago.
Bending at the waist, she plucked two weathered branches off the cavern floor. Sinking into what might have been mistaken for a yoga position, she folded her legs, crossing the branches and resting the rifle into the notch they formed.
Buffalo sticks — the hunter’s classic ad hoc shooting rest.
The butt rested against her shoulder. Her head tilted right, one eye shut, the other gazing down a black Leupold six-power telescopic sight.
“Shoot to wound,” Charlie said.
“I know that.”
Well, of course she did. When you’ve got a hunting pack on your trail — and Charlie was pretty sure they did — you do your level best to put their scouts on the medevac list. A wounded man slows down the rest of the enemy because every soldier worthy of the name stops to give succor to fallen comrades.
Here they came. Charlie lifted his binoculars, Leica 10×42 Trinovas, sharp and bright with an excellent field of vision. Two of Schmidt’s mercenary thugs rode atop forest-green ATVs — better for this sort of terrain than dirt bikes, which was an unfortunate credit to that South African bastard’s planning abilities.
The front rider wore a blue-checked shirt. Its left cuff turned scarlet as his hand exploded.
Mighty fine shot, Miss Kolodenkova. Shattered the throttle into the bargain. Sent the ATV whirligig over a boulder, up into the air, and down at an ouchy angle. That particular vehicle is not going to be salvageable, and suck on that, Johan Schmidt.
Irina dealt with the second rider before Charlie could move his binoculars. Same shot in the same place, and that man’s arm flew up spitting an arc of blood where his wrist had been. His ATV slewed into the creek. Steam sizzled as its engine hit the water.
Two down. How many more to go? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.
Irina clicked two rounds into the Brown’s internal magazine. “Here is your rifle back, Charlie. I did well, I think.”
“Ha!” he exploded with delight. Then he kissed her on the cheek, and felt perfectly comfortable that it was the right thing to do.
Especially since she gave him a little hug in return.
Now they ran again, but the running was different because they ran as one. He and she were together in this. For this moment, and for whatever came next, they were closer than twins, not two individuals alone in their minds, but an inseparable whole, each part of the other, synchronized in thought, and action, and emotion.
He might have called it “love,” although that was too feeble a word.
Less running than floating, her long hair streaming, slender as the wind — who was the old Greek goddess of hunting? — Diana, she was Diana come to earth, and Charlie felt such pride in her that he could not speak, but rather ran joyfully past pinyon pine and ponderosa, every now and then a Gambel oak thicket, and water birches with their witchy branches where songbirds startled at two animals of rare and unrecognized species.
So green, so green, such trees consecrated a landscape that Charlie thought to be in some sense holy. Here he was young again, his soul alive as it had not been for longer than he cared to remember.
The gnarled remains of an ancient apple plantation were the landmark he sought. Sometime — maybe a hundred years ago because those trees were old trees — a settler had planted them near the canyon’s sole sweetwater spring. Nature favored him long enough for the trees to mature, but she favored him no longer than that. All that remained of the homestead was an orchard too old to bear fruit, and the melancholy stones of a washed-out cabin’s foundation.
Foundation stones…They stored up the sun’s heat, radiating it back at night. Rattlesnakes gravitated to the warmth. And now, at just this particular hour — he glanced at his watch: quarter to nine — they’d be slithering out. Breakfast time for venomous reptiles. Ugh.
Irina understood where they were headed, he saw it in the sharpness of her eyes. She’d picked out the one and only practical route up the canyon wall.
Long ago, the canyon side had caved in, creating a steeply narrow gulch. Centuries of rain washed through the cleft. Each passing storm carved it a little deeper, tumbled a few more boulders into its twisting course — beetling rocks where a man could rest his weight; others he could wrap his fingers around; a slope that could not be walked up, not exactly, but which could be crawled up, hand over hand.
“Drink some water,” he said. She had already begun unclipping a karabiner from her belt. She’d known what he was going to say before he said it. Again he felt so close to her, closer than it was possible for any human to come to another.
After drinking deep, she passed him the bottle. He emptied it. Reluctant to litter a pristine place of beauty, he gave it back to her. Understanding and agreeing, she fastened it back on her hip.
“This is a tricky climb, Irina. I’ll lead. I’ve been this way before.”
“You climbed the trail down before, too. So why —”
“Nope. No one in their right mind would try that.” Her jaw dropped. He relished the moment. “But I’ve climbed this route. Come on, let’s do it.”
The first thirty yards were loose scree and fist-sized cobbles, easy enough. After that it was solid rock all the way; climbing it would be only slightly less difficult than trying to scale a building side. Charlie wedged his left foot in a cracked boulder the size of small truck. He pushed up, hooking his fingers over its crumbling rim. Sliding up the fissure, he levered his body waist high to the top. Irina, not as tall as he, couldn’t find purchase for her fingers. Charlie lowered his hand, took hers, pulled her up.
They clambered up a natural stairstep of unnatural steepness. Charlie paused, remembering the way. You’ve got to sidle around here, off to the left I think. Yeah, that’s right, aw, hell, this next part is bad news.
A slab the size of a house roof tilted crazily against the canyon wall. Wind and water had etched thin ridges into its face. If you took your time and watched your step, you could use those furrows as fingerholds and toeholds. It wasn’t easy, but he’d done it before.
He did it again.
More than forty feet of climb-crawling at a vertiginous angle — he couldn’t go straight up; there weren’t enough handholds. He had to slide across naked stone, sandy grit abrading his shirt as he clung to the slab’s uneven surface. Tilting his head to look for the route was not an option. The only way to negotiate the rock was by touch. He’d learned that lesson the hard way — how long ago? — years back when young Scott, a first-year medical student, had been a summer intern out here. Mary had climbed with him that day. He smiled at the memory of her whipcrack voice. “Charlie McKenzie, I’m nearly fifty years old and I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.” Ah, but that had been a good — a perfect — day.
Just like this one.
“You okay, Irina?”
“I am right behind you.”
He rolled himself onto the top of the slab, again stretching a hand out for her. The bullet whistled over his left shoulder, percussing harsh and sharp into sandstone.
“Sonofabitch!” He jerked Irina up over the edge, tumbling her down behind it and out of sight. He followed. A bullet pinged above him.
Crouching low, Irina whispered, “I did not expect them to come so quickly.”
As he’d scuttled for cover, the Brown Savanna gun’s bolt had dug painfully into his back. He kneaded the sore place, knowing he’d have an ugly bruise. “No need to whisper. Nobody’s near enough to hear. And they haven’t come for us, not yet.”
A third bullet cut the air, grazing the top of the slab, whining into a patch of juniper clinging to the canyon side.
“But they are
shooting at us!”
Charlie shook his head. “There is no ‘they.’ It’s one man. If Schmidt’s whole mob was down there, it would be rapid fire, and lots of lead in the air. Put enough bullets into the rocks where the enemy’s hiding, and one of them is bound to ricochet into your target. The guy who’s shooting at us isn’t trying to hit us on the bounce; he’s just trying — successfully I’d say — to make us keep our heads down.” He flinched as another shot slapped into the stone above him. “He’s spacing his fire — one round about every ten seconds. He wants to keep us pinned here until his buddies catch up with him.”
“But who —?”
“One of the men you shot. One of the ATV riders. Not both of them, or they’d be firing more rapidly.”
“I hit both.” Her voice sounded defensive.
“That you did. But one of them has bandaged himself up and followed on foot.”
A crack of shattered stone, and a small hail of grit. Charlie glanced up at the bullet mark. He looked back at Irina, preparing to ask her for ideas on just how the hell to get out of this mess….
Wait a minute. Something’s not quite right here. He looked back up at pockmarked rock. Now what could that be? Come on, McKenzie, something’s nagging your subconscious. What is wrong with this particular picture? You’re supposed to be good at this sort of thing — figuring out what’s what, and then using it to skunk your opponents.
He waited, silent and patient. The next bullet hit more or less when he expected it. Grains of sandstone puffed into the air, raining gently down on his head.
I’ll be damned.
He scrambled forward, scanning the ground. Soon enough he found what he was looking for.
He plucked it — still hot — between his fingers, holding it out to Irina. Her eyes widened. Charlie smirked. “Seventeen caliber long rifle,” he drawled. “Look at the holes it gouged in the sandstone. You couldn’t put your pinkie finger in them. Our friend down below is shooting at us with a goddamn squirrel gun.”
She was confused. She didn’t see it. “Schmidt wants us alive,” he explained. “Or at least you. He wants to find out what you know about Whirlwind.”
Whirlwind Page 25