by Ian Rankin
“It’s a scrape,” Jay said.
“A what?” Hestler asked.
“A hide. You scrape away the earth, then lie in the hole. Put some netting over you and you’re hidden from a distance.” Jay looked around, realizing. “He uses this area for his training courses. There must have been a manhunt at some stage. There could be dozens of these spread out across the hills.”
“So he could be hiding?”
“Yes.”
“So maybe we’ve walked right past him; maybe he’s already behind us.” Hestler eased his catch off. “I say we split up, that way we cover more ground. We could be here all night otherwise.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Choa offered. “Get us cold and lost, wet and hungry. Stalking us, just waiting for concentration to lapse.”
“He’s only one man,” Hestler growled. He was still looking around, daring anything to move. Jay noticed Hestler’s MP5 was set to full auto.
“All right,” Jay said, “you two head north. I’ll head south. There are two peaks. We each circle one and RV back at the dinghies. Keep in touch by two-way. It might take a few hours. It won’t be dark by the time we finish. If there’s no result, we think again.”
“Sounds good to me,” Hestler said, setting off. “Sooner we start, sooner we finish.”
Choa gave Jay a doubting look, but set off after his partner.
Jay decided after they’d gone to make straight for the summit of Beinn Mhor. He’d be more of a target, but on the plus side he could take in the country below with a single sweep.
“Just do it,” he told himself, beginning to climb.
“This is fucking unbelievable,” Hestler told Choa. “There were ten of us at the start, how the fuck did we get to this?”
“Search me.”
“Ten against one. He’s fucked us up nicely. I’d like to tear him a new asshole.”
“You think he needs two?”
Hestler turned to Choa. “He’s likely to be shitting himself so much, maybe he will at that.”
Choa said nothing. He knew words came free; as a result people talked too much. Sometimes people could talk themselves into believing they were superhuman. Talking could make you crazy.
The last they saw of Jay he was clambering on all fours up a steep slope. Then they rounded the hillside and lost him.
“This weather is the pits,” Hestler said.
Choa silently agreed. The last time he’d known anything like it was up in Oregon, near the mountains there. Rain so thick you couldn’t see through it. But afterwards, the trees had smelled so beautiful, pine and moss bursting underfoot. There weren’t many trees here. There was practically nowhere to hide, except for these scrapes. He didn’t like the idea of these invisible hides. “We’re a long way from Los Angeles,” he said quietly.
Hestler chuckled. “Killing’s killing,” he said. “Doesn’t matter where you do it or who you do it for.”
“Look,” said Choa, pointing. He had good eyes. He’d been the first to spot the scrape, and now he’d noticed another smallish patch on the ground. When they got up close, it was wet, greasy to the touch. It was blood.
“Bastard’s winged!” Hestler said.
“Let’s radio Jay and tell him.”
“Fuck that, the bastard could be around the next bend. Let’s get him.”
Hestler set off, but Choa held back. He had the two-way hooked to his belt and now unclipped it.
“Got something here,” he said. Then, with Hestler almost out of sight, “Hey! Hold on a minute!” But Hestler kept on going.
“What is it?” Jay’s voice said. He sounded a little out of breath, but not much.
“Blood, very fresh.”
“No way.”
“I’m telling you —”
“I don’t think he’s hurt.”
“One of the grenades maybe?”
“Not the way he swam to shore. I watched him, remember. He clambered up that first slope like a mountain goat.”
“Well, it’s blood.” Choa rubbed some of it between thumb and forefinger. It was sticky and cold.
“Taste it,” Jay said.
“What?” Choa couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Put some on your tongue,” Jay commanded.
Choa looked at his fingers.
“Do it!”
Choa put the tip of his tongue against the blood. He couldn’t taste anything. He licked at it, tasted it, then spat.
“Well?”
Choa spoke into the radio. “Tastes funny,” he said.
“Is it metallic, the way blood is?”
Choa had to admit it wasn’t like that. “Sort of chalky,” he said.
“Like paint?” Jay guessed.
“How did you know?”
“It’s fake. He’s laying a false trail.”
Choa looked ahead of him. There was no sign of Hestler.
“Hestler!” he shouted. “Get back here!”
Then there was a single gunshot. Choa knew better than to run towards it, but he didn’t freeze either. He moved off downhill and circled around towards the noise. He’d switched off the radio so it wouldn’t give away his position. He carried his submachine gun cocked and ready.
There was a body ahead of him, lying in a gully. It looked like Hestler had taken a shortcut. Instead of rounding the gully, he’d headed down into it, which made him easy prey for anyone hiding just over the ridge. What was the phrase? Like shooting a pig in a tub.
Choa daren’t descend into the gully. Besides, the hole in the back of Hestler’s head was big enough and clear enough. He held the radio to his face.
“What?” Jay said quietly. He’d heard the shot.
“Hestler’s down,” Choa said simply.
“What happened?”
“Someone tore him a new mouth, wrong side of his head.”
Choa cut the radio. He needed both hands for his gun. Reeve was nearby. He rounded the gully. There were so many dips and rises in the landscape, he couldn’t see farther than eighty feet in any direction. Reeve could be as close as eighty feet. Apart from the rain hitting him and the wind in his ears, there was no noise at all. No birds, no leaves rustling. The sky overhead was like a slab of stone.
Choa came to a decision which seemed immediately right to him: head back to the dinghies and take one, then paddle away from here. The thought made him feel better. This was Jay’s fight, not his. He felt like Reeve was watching him, even though he couldn’t see a damned thing. His excellent eyesight didn’t work so well in driving rain. A storm was directly over the island. Choa dropped the MP5 and his pistol, then started walking with hands held high above him. He guessed he was heading the right way; away from here seemed exactly the right way.
Reeve saw him go.
He was naked apart from his boots. His clothes were in the backpack, staying dry. He watched for a full ten minutes, then went to pick up the armaments. He scrabbled down the side of the gully and quickly unloaded Hestler’s weapons, leaving them with the body but taking the ammo. Then he found the two grenades, and he took those, too. He liked these odds better now. He knew the Indian had simply walked away from the fight, which was entirely sensible.
Then he heard the music. It was a long way off, but between the squalls, fragments of it drifted to his ears. It was Jay, and he was singing that damned song. Reeve made towards the sound, but he took his time. He knew it wasn’t really Jay—it was the cassette recorder. Jay had recorded himself singing the song over and over again, his voice rising the longer the recording went on.
Reeve had to cross a wide valley between the two peaks, and knew he would be most vulnerable here. There was no sign of Jay, just the music, getting closer now. He edged around towards it, moving in a crouch, backwalking part of the way, staying to the shelter of slopes wherever he could. Until he came to the final slope. The music sounded just the other side of the ridge. Reeve crawled up the slope, hugging the ground.
There was a saucer-shaped d
ip beyond the ridge, and in the center sat the cassette recorder. Reeve lay there for a few minutes, until he could stand the music no longer. He took aim with the MP5 and hit the fat black box dead center.
The box exploded, flames shooting out radially from it. Booby-trapped. Maybe now Jay would come looking.
Suddenly there was another explosion, much closer to Reeve. The ground quivered, and divots showered down around him. For a split second he was back in the scrape in Argentina, and Jay was about to crack.
Now another explosion, very close. He realized what was happening. Jay was in hiding somewhere, and had guessed the direction of Reeve’s burst of gunfire. Now he was tossing grenades in that direction, and they weren’t landing far short of their target. Reeve stood up to see if he could spot the grenades in flight. Smoke from the explosions was being dispersed by the sharp breeze, but pungent tendrils still coiled up from the plastic remains of the cassette player.
Suddenly a figure stood up on the far side of the gully. Naked, body and face smeared with earth, white teeth grinning through the improvised face paint.
Jay.
Sixty feet away and firing from the hip.
Two bullets thudded into Reeve, pushing him off his feet. He rolled back down the slope, just managing to keep hold of his gun. He came to a stop on the gully floor, but knew he had no time to check the damage. He had to get out of the gully. He scraped his way up the other side, cresting the rise before Jay came into view. He just made it. Rain stung his eyes as he ran, feet slipping in mud. Another narrow valley, across a stream . . . he knew where he was going, knew where he’d end up. One bullet had caught him in the left shoulder, the other between shoulder and chest. They burned. The scabbard was still strapped to his right leg, but it slowed him down, so he undid the straps and drew out the dagger, discarding the scabbard.
“Hey, Philosopher!” Jay called, his voice manic. “You like hide-and-seek? You were always chicken, Philosopher! No guts.”
Reeve knew what Jay was doing: trying to rile him. Anger made you strong in some ways, but so weak in others.
But there was no pink mist now, nothing in Reeve’s heart but cool procedure and searing pain. He crested two more rises be-fore he found himself at the chasm, a rupture in the land which ran in a jagged tear to the sea. At high tide, the base of the cavity filled with gurgling, murderous water. But just now it was a damp bed of jagged rocks. It was dark down there, no matter what time of day, whatever the weather above. A place of shadows and secrets never brought up into the light. Reeve walked its edge. He wasn’t scared of it—it was too familiar to him—but he’d seen his weekend soldiers cower in its presence. He picked his spot and waited, taking time to examine his wounds. He was bleeding badly. Given time, he could create makeshift dressings, but he knew time was short.
“Hey, Philosopher!” Jay yelled. “Is this blood real?” A pause. “Tastes real, so I guess it is! Want to know something, Philosopher? I’ve done a lot of thinking over the years about Operation Stalwart. I’ve been wondering why they chose us. I mean, I was fucked up after that fiasco on the glacier. I should never have been allowed off the ship, never mind sent behind enemy lines. I wanted to kill those bastards so badly. And you . . . well, you weren’t popular, Philosopher. You had too many ideas in your head, including your own ideas. You were the Philosopher, reading too much, turning yourself on to anarchism and all that other stuff. As far as the brass were concerned, there was half a chance you were becoming the enemy. See, Philosopher, we were both of a kind—loose wires, expendable. That was always going to be a one-way mission, and it would’ve turned out that way if I hadn’t saved our hides.”
The voice sounded maybe a hundred yards away. Two-thirds of a yard per stride . . . Reeve started counting, at the same time snaking his way back up the slope, listening intently for any clue as to the line Jay was taking. He guessed he would simply follow the trail of blood.
Reeve was just below the crest now. Suddenly he heard a grunt as Jay started to climb. In a few seconds he would crest the rise, Reeve just the other side of it, hugging the land. Reeve stopped breathing. Jay was so close, not even six feet away.
Reeve concentrated all his energies, closing his eyes for a moment, finally taking a deep breath.
“Hey, Philos —”
He threw out his good arm with all his strength, plunging the dagger through Jay’s boot and into his foot. As Jay started to scream, Reeve yanked his ankles away from him, hurling him down the slope. Jay could see what was at the bottom of the slide and tried digging his heels, elbows, and fingers in, but the ground was slippery and he just kept on sliding. Reeve was sliding, too. The force of his momentum when he’d hauled Jay over the crest had sent him into a roll. His shoulder banged against the ground, almost causing him to pass out. Below him, he saw Jay slip three-quarters of the way over the precipice, his hands scrabbling for purchase. Reeve was rolling straight towards him. They’d fall into the ravine together.
Reeve struck out with his right hand, the hand which still held the dagger. The blade sank into the earth, but started to cut through it, barely slowing his descent. He twisted the blade so the meat of it was gouging into the wet soil. It was like applying a brake. He jolted to a stop, his legs hanging into space. He found the edge with his knees and started to pull himself up, but a hand grabbed one of his ankles. And now Jay’s other hand let go of the lip of the ravine, and he used it to gain a better grip on Reeve, hauling himself up over Reeve’s slippery legs while their combined weight started the dagger cutting through the earth again, so that as Jay climbed, Reeve slid farther over the edge.
He waited till Jay was preparing to slide farther up; while he was unbalanced, Reeve rolled onto his side, shrugging Jay off and at the same time lashing out at him with his feet. For an instant they were side by side, the way they had been that final night in Argentina, their faces so close Reeve could feel Jay’s breath against his cheek.
“Well,” Jay panted, trying to grin, “isn’t this cozy? Just the two of us, like it was always meant to be.”
“You should have died back in Rio Grande,” Reeve spat.
“If we’d stayed in that damned trench, we’d have died,” Jay hissed. “You owe me, Philosopher!”
“Owe you?” Reeve was clawing at the ground with the fingers of his left hand, feeling pain shoot through his shoulder. When he had a good handhold he started to ease the dagger out of the ground.
“Yes, owe me,” Jay was saying, readying to pull them both over the edge and onto the rocks below.
Reeve raised the dagger and plunged it into Jay’s neck. Blood gurgled from Jay’s mouth, his eyes wide in amazement as one hand went to the wound. He lost all grip and started to slide over the edge.
Reeve watched him go, the head disappearing last of all, eyes still wide open. He didn’t hear the body hit the ground. Reeve let out a roar which echoed down the chasm walls and up into the sky. Not a roar of pain or even of victory.
Just a roar.
“All debts repaid,” Reeve said, digging the dagger back into the ground, and for some reason he saw Jim in his mind, content.
Then he started slowly, carefully, to climb back up the treacherous slope, not relaxing until he was at the top, his head and trunk hanging over the crest of the rise. He closed his eyes then and wept, not feeling the pain in his shoulder or the chill damp ground robbing him of his core temperature, degree by willful degree.
TWENTY-SIX
THERE WAS A LOT OF MESS still to be cleared up: Gordon Reeve knew that. The police might or might not accept his story. It sounded pretty farfetched when he thought about it. But he had Jim’s computer file, and soon he’d have the documents to go with it, as soon as he could arrange a trip to Tisbury.
As for CWC itself and Kosigin . . . he didn’t know what would happen. He only knew that something would. The same applied to Allerdyce and Alliance Investigative. He didn’t really care anymore. He’d done what he could.
He made his way ba
ck home and staggered indoors. He knew he should clean his wounds, make fresh dressings, call a doctor. But he sat at the kitchen table instead. He wanted to phone Joan, wanted to tell her it was all right now, that Allan and she could come home. He wanted that most of all.
He wasn’t sure what they’d do after that. Go back to the old routine? Maybe. Or maybe he’d dig up some of their land, turn it into a vegetable garden . . . go organic, and worry less that way. He didn’t think so, though.
He started to laugh, resting his head on his forearms.
“I’m one of Nietzsche’s gentlemen,” he told himself. “I’ll think of something.”
Ian Rankin is the #1 bestselling mystery writer in the United Kingdom. He is the winner of an Edgar Award for Resurrection Men, and he is the recipient of a Gold Dagger Award for Fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons.