Red Snow

by Michael Slade

  The headlamps exploded like dying stars. As the night plunged back into darkness and the volleys echoed away, a new sound pierced the vacuum like a dentist’s drill. From off in the direction of the golf course, a snowmobile was roaring in fast along the frozen creek.

  * * *

  As near as Dane could tell, his upper arm bone wasn’t broken. Though it bled profusely, the blood didn’t squirt, meaning the gunshot wound had missed the artery. The casualty report from his other arm wasn’t as good. It throbbed so bad that he feared his wrist was cracked. The pain was excruciating as he fumbled to raise the hem of his parka to gain access to his sidearm.

  On his belly, the sergeant had crawled away from the gunfire ripping at his vehicle. By the glow of the headlamps, he could see Rick Scarlett sprawled near the front of his car. A sidearm was no match for the firepower blasting down from above, so Dane knew his survival depended on finding the shotgun Rick had with him.

  Brrrddt!

  Glass smashing …

  Brrrddt!

  Glass smashing …

  Both headlamps extinguished.

  Lack of sight jolted Dane’s other senses to alertness. He felt his heart pounding against the snow and shivered from the chill seeping up into his chest. He heard the crunch, crunch, crunch of snowshoes cracking the brittle ice crust, and he knew the shooter was coming to finish him off.

  Coup de grâce.

  Suddenly, Dane was lightheaded, and he feared he might pass out. Was it the agony of fumbling for his gun? Was he bleeding to death from the wound to his arm? Parched, he licked a scoopful of snow, and the freeze that stabbed him behind his eyes jerked him awake.

  Again, the machine gun erupted, but this was a longer burst. Slugs drilled into the vehicle Dane had abandoned and around to the other car, causing a thump, thump, thump above his head. Then something tumbled off the hood and struck Dane’s skull.

  * * *

  Katt weighed the pros and cons and decided to chance it. The unnerving eruptions of machine-gun fire told her the action was taking place out front of the chalet. She could hear a snowmobile roaring in fast from the other direction, heading downstream from the golf course to this forest behind the house. If the gunmen trudged around back to ambush the rescuer—Katt was certain it was Zinc zooming for the treehouse—she didn’t want to get caught in the open and gunned down.

  She flicked on the flashlight.

  Eureka! There it was! The treehouse, behind a tattered curtain of fluffy white flakes.

  “Come on,” Katt whispered to Becky. “Up you go. The Mounties will be here soon.”

  Then, as she placed the crossbow down at the foot of the tree, Katt saw what had somehow slipped her mind as she’d made her way up the creek and thrashed through the blanket of snow to here.

  The crossbow was still cocked.

  But the pencil—her only missile—was missing from the trough on top of the stock.

  * * *

  “Found them,” Ice Ax heard the Swede report quietly through the plug in his ear.

  “See it?” added the Finn.

  “Yes,” the Siberian answered. His night-vision goggles had picked up the glow of the flashlight beam as his snowshoes topped the bank of the creek. Beneath the webbing of his footwear were the boot holes the kids had left behind.

  “Orders?” asked the Swede.

  “Wait for my command. As soon as the snowmobile passes, rush them.”

  * * *

  The shotgun literally fell into Dane Winter’s hands.

  For a second, he thought he’d been clubbed on the head, taken from above by some stalking assailant as Rick had clearly been. On reflex, his arm went up to protect his brain from the next blow, and that’s when his palm hit the barrel of the shotgun. Rick had either set it down or dropped it on the hood of his car, and the hammering of the bullets had jarred it loose from its perch.

  Dane didn’t wait to see the whites of the gunman’s eyes. He knew roughly where his attacker was from the crunch of his footsteps. Gritting his teeth against the pain shooting up both limbs, he swung the muzzle in that direction and somehow hooked the trigger with his broken hand.

  Bwam!

  Bwam!

  Bwam!

  He pumped three blasts in rapid succession across the driveway up to Gill’s chalet.

  * * *

  For a split second, both lenses of the Norwegian’s goggles registered the muzzle flash. Then just one. The shotgun pellets had all but torn away the other half of his head.

  The force of the scattershot whirled the Iceman around on one foot like a figure skater executing a spin. The jerking of his trigger finger let loose a final spray that ripped into the trees along the driveway and brought several branches crashing down.

  Had the Austrian not ducked as soon as he heard the shotgun, he’d have fallen victim to friendly fire. Flat on his belly in the middle of the driveway, he arched his head and raised his Uzi, using his arms for a tripod, then blew a full magazine of slugs at the shotgun’s position.

  Brrrddddddddddddddddddt!

  * * *

  Katt was boosting Becky up the ladder to the treehouse when the snowmobile roared by on the frozen creek. The rungs were slippery with snow and ice, so the child’s boots released a chunky cloud on Katt’s head.

  The booms of the shotgun mixed with the snarls from the machine gun and echoed upstream. Shivering, she watched as Becky was swallowed by the trapdoor above, and she was about to scramble up herself when the red beam of a laser hit the trunk near her face.

  As Katt turned to face death, a longer machine-gun blast echoed back from the battle out front.

  * * *

  Zinc heard the noise of the shotgun through the radio plug in his ear. His attention was focused on what he could glimpse in the lights of the Ski-Doo. The beam of Katt’s torch was smothered by the snowfall as he whipped by.

  “Dane, it’s Zinc,” he broadcast. “Are you still on the driveway leading up to Gill’s place?”

  “Yes,” replied the sergeant.

  “I can’t see where I am. I’m relying on you. Shout when the sound of the snowmobile goes by.”

  “Now,” said Dane before the words had died away.

  Angling the skis to the left, the inspector cranked the throttle. The snowmobile left the frozen creek for the slope up to Gill’s property. As the tread churned up the grade, Zinc leaned his weight into the hill to keep from flipping over. Squinting into the light, he searched for the spot where a bridge spanned the creek, and when he spied the gap in the trees, he aimed the Ski-Doo for it. Another rev of the engine and he was up on the road below Gill’s chalet, where the driveway climbed her property.

  The next machine-gun blast stuttered in stereo. Zinc’s earplug relayed the noise captured by Dane’s mike, while the sound in his other ear came directly from the Uzi.

  * * *

  The Icemen were closing in from three directions. With her back against the tree and the laser dot sinking with her heart, Katt slithered down until the roots stopped her.

  “One in my sights,” said the Swede. “Permission to fire?”

  “A pistol shot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the beam?”

  “Bull’s eye on her heart.”

  “Permission to kill, but don’t mangle the head.”

  The Swede had his finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze, when naked fangs filled his field of vision and he was knocked off his feet by a hundred-pound leaping beast.

  King of the Royal Mounted

  When the Swede was a boy, his father had taken him to hear Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Composed to cultivate musical tastes in children, the symphony was performed with a narrator, and each character got its own instrument and theme.

  An oboe for the duck, a clarinet for the cat, a bassoon for Grandpa, strings for Peter …

  And three French horns for the wolf.

  Grandpa scolds Peter for leaving the yard and venturing off to the meadow. “S
uppose a wolf came out of the forest?” he chides. Later, that happens, and when the duck waddles out of the pond, the wolf gulps it down.

  Eventually, Peter captures the wolf and leads it to the zoo in a victory parade. The symphony ends with the narrator telling kids, “If you listen carefully, you can hear the duck quacking in the wolf’s belly, because it was swallowed alive.”

  To this day, the sound of a French horn reminded the Swede of a wolf. And now here he was, like Peter’s duck, being eaten alive by this beast.

  “Fan ta dig!” he cursed.

  In addition to the laser sight, the Iceman’s handgun had a tactical light. Accidentally, the light got switched on. As the “wolf” shook the killer’s wrist to make him drop the weapon, the beam jerked back and forth like a Star Wars lightsaber in a drunk’s fist. To make it easier to see, the soldier of fortune shoved the parka hood off his head, baring the balaclava.

  Hidden in the Swede’s boot was a combat knife. As the beast tussled with his arm for possession of the gun, the mercenary reached for the blade. Pulling it free, he pushed away the jaws to get at the “wolf’s” belly. Then he drew back his hand to sink the steel into the animal’s gut.

  * * *

  Bullets buzzed around Dane’s head like hornets at a nest. Slugs peppered the abandoned vehicle to his right, made Swiss cheese of the Rover above him, and thudded into Rick’s body. After firing the shotgun, the sergeant had rolled behind the corpse for cover.

  “I’m at the bottom of the driveway,” Dane heard Zinc say through the plug in his ear. “There was only one gun in the last volley. Blow into the mike if you agree.”

  Dane blew.

  Talking would expose his position.

  “When I say ‘Now,’ do something to draw the gunner’s fire. Show me where he is.”

  * * *

  The Finn could see the teen huddled at the base of the tree. It was a reaction common to those facing death. The doomed curled up in a fetal ball, leaving life in the same position they’d occupied in the womb.

  Like the Swede, the Finn was currently armed with his pistol. The dog’s attack had knocked the Swede from his lead position, and while he dealt with the hound, the Finn had rushed Katt. He could see Ice Ax at the edge of his vision, with that pointed hammer raised to strike.

  “Light her up,” the Siberian ordered, “and shoot her through the heart. Then hold your fire and cover me while I find the brat. She can’t be far away.”

  The Finn liked to see the fright in the eyes of those about to die, so he pushed back his hood and goggles to peel away the night-vision glow, and switched on the pistol’s tactical light to illuminate his quarry.

  The teen blinked.

  A deer caught in the headlights, thought the Finn.

  * * *

  You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

  The dog masters at the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre had taught Napoleon well. As top of his class in the apprehension of dangerous suspects and the protection of his handlers, he performed his duty by biting the hand that threatened Katt, without thought for himself. That’s why he overlooked the knife peril to his gut, and why he was in danger of joining other K-9 heroes on the National Police Dog Monument.

  You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

  Years ago, Napoleon had been in this same situation. A hit man by the name of Corkscrew was about to kill DeClercq. Leaping, the dog had smashed through glass to take out the punk, but he got knifed in the abdomen in the process. With the German shepherd bleeding in his arms, Robert had staggered through driving rain to the nearest road to flag down help. Luckily, the driver who screeched to a halt was the son of a nearby doctor. Napoleon’s life was saved on the kitchen table of the doc’s home.

  Now, as the dog shook the hand back and forth to free the weapon, the light beam hit the blade. The sight of the shiny steel brought it all back—the pain, the rain, the long recovery—and Napoleon reacted. Man’s so-called best friend has no sense of fair play. At heart, he’s an opportunistic predator. A wolf.

  Napoleon went for the throat.

  Turning his head and yawning as wide as both jaws would stretch, he gulped up the Swede’s neck and bit down as hard as he could. His fangs sank into the soft flesh of the Iceman’s jugular vein, and when the dog tore with all his might, the Swede’s throat came with him.

  Vertebrae peeked through the gaping hole in the mercenary’s now red balaclava.

  Black Ice

  Katt wasn’t blinking from the sudden glare of the tactical light. What the Finn mistook for her being blinded by the beam was actually Katt squinting to take aim without the aid of the scope on the crossbow.

  Take aim?

  In sliding down the tree trunk, his prey wasn’t curling up in a fetal ball as he’d thought. Instead, Katt had been reaching for the crossbow nestled in the drift beside her. During the seconds the Finn was shoving his hood and night-vision goggles away from his face, she had lifted the crossbow to firing height. The arms of the bow were still cocked to shoot.

  Shoot what?

  True, the colored pencil was missing from the trough on top of the stock. Necessity, however, is the mother of invention. Winter had strung not only the eaves of Gill’s chalet but also the rungs of the ladder to the treehouse with icicles. In boosting Becky up the tree, Katt had been hit by a chunky cloud.

  That’s how she’d got the idea.

  As she’d turned to face the threat behind the laser beam, the teen had snapped an icicle off the rung closest to her. By slotting it into the trough, she’d rearmed the crossbow with black ice. A flick of her thumb released the safety catch on the bowstring, and when the Finn paused to enjoy the look of fright on her face, she pulled the trigger and let the icicle fly.

  Shew!

  The missile struck the Finn in the eye and snapped back his head. It cracked through the bone of the socket and sank into his brain. Before he even hit the ground, the warmth of his gray matter had begun to melt the ice.

  * * *

  With the lights out, Zinc was flying blind. Sometimes you had to rely on instinct and the lay of the land. The slope down from the chalet was mottled with trees. Back when Gill was building, a bulldozer had cracked a rock, releasing an underground stream. The water filled a hollow to create a pond, the overflow from which was channeled into the creek. A path arced down the far side of the property to link the chalet with the pond. Zinc chose that route up the hill.

  Vroom!

  His camouflage couldn’t be better. The journey so far had caked both man and machine in white. Only by constantly wiping his ski goggles was he able to maintain his sight. Now, in the dark, camouflage would be his best defense if the gunner surveying the landscape had night-vision lenses.

  Veering to the right carried the Mountie off the driveway and onto the pond. Again, Zinc was using flatness to guide the way. How thankful he was for that pooled water. Land could slope—and here it did—but the pond could not. The trick was to sense where the path branched away.

  Here, he guessed … and was right.

  Vroom!

  Like a racecar speeding around a track, the Ski-Doo circled toward the far property line and then curved back. It was a miracle Zinc didn’t slam into a tree. In seconds, his trajectory would take him across the driveway. The man with the machine gun was somewhere ahead. Dane was downhill with the shotgun. Undoubtedly, the machine-gunner had heard the Ski-Doo churning toward him. With pistol in hand, Zinc zoomed in at a right angle to the driveway.

  This was it!

  Do or die!

  “Now!” he barked into his mike.

  * * *

  The Remington shotgun held four shells. Dane had already pumped three shots up the driveway. Had Rick fired, Rachel would not have been perplexed about what had happened to him. So that meant a single shell remained.

  Too many slugs had missed Dane for his luck to hold out. Only in action movies did the good guys never get killed.

  When Zinc shouted “Now!
” through the plug in Dane’s ear, the cop shot to live, not to kill. His orders were to provoke the gunner’s fire so the inspector could home in on his position. To that end, Dane clenched his teeth against the pain and used all his wounded strength to heave the barrel of the shotgun straight up in the air.

  Bwam!

  When the muzzle flared at that height, it made it look as if Dane was standing up. The shooter evidently thought so, for the Uzi erupted once more, and the sergeant hunkered down behind Rick’s body to weather the barrage.

  * * *

  The shotgun boomed, and the Uzi stuttered in response.

  Through the haze of snow and darkness, Zinc saw the machine gun spit light. Multiple muzzle flashes streaked across the night. A slight jog of the skis and he was on a collision course with the gunman. Flicking a switch pooled the Ski-Doo’s headlight beams around him. The Iceman reacted to the blinding glare by craning his head toward it. A white balaclava in a white hood faced Zinc. To someone looking through night-vision goggles, the glare of the beams would rival the searing of the sun.

  The Uzi swiveled.

  Before the Austrian could fire, Zinc hurled himself off the saddle. He was still in the air when his Smith began ejecting casings. Holes reddened the pale mask like smallpox. The Ski-Doo’s momentum plowed it across the gunner. No reaction. The Uzi nuzzled into the snow and lay as still as the man.

  * * *

  How foolish to underestimate the daughter of a cop.

  Ice Ax felt nothing but contempt as he watched the Finn go down. That was the trouble with using sadists on military missions: they broke stride to savor the thrill of the kill.