by Ted Wood
Robinson grunted. "He don' do a lot of talking, this guy. Me an' him go back a long ways, so he opens up to me when we meet, but he says he pulled his canoe back out of the water and went around them, went back over the portage and skipped on to another lake to the west of them. Went on his way from there."
"Good, so they don't know he saw them."
"Doubt they do," Robinson said. "He's kinda cagey. His canoe is all painted brown so it won't show up. He doesn't want people seeing him, and mostly they don't."
"Sounds like my guys, okay. Thank you, Pete. That's what I've been waiting to hear."
"Figured as much. What're you gonna do now?"
"Head in there, quiet, like he did, see if I can get the kid out." The words came out without thought, but as I spoke, I knew it was what I'd planned all along. Action made more sense than sitting around brooding over Fred.
"How're you planning to get in?"
"I've got the canoe with me," I said. "How far is this lake?"
He laughed. "About two weeks if you're fit. About two hours if you've got a couple hundred for my time."
"You're on. I'll head out there now."
"Nah, I've gotta party to pick up this evening; it'll make it too late. If you still wanna go in the morning, be here around seven."
"See you at seven. And thanks."
"You're welcome," he said formally, and hung up.
Kelso was watching me carefully as I put the phone down. "Good news?" he asked casually.
"Yeah. Thank you. It was. Looks like I know where I'm going to spend my vacation."
SIX
I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing to head into the bush. Having my survival gear along was a start but if I was going to be two weeks' travel from help, I'd need more. To start with I needed precooked foods. I wouldn't be able to light fires to cook anything, a jungle-fighter like Wallace would sniff the smoke from a mile away. I would have to eat prepared rations.
C rations would have been perfect but the only outfitter in town who was open on Sunday didn't have anything like that. So I picked up half a dozen cans of beans and a bag of dog biscuits. They're as good as army hardtack.
When I'd packed I spent a little time thinking about young Michaels. He might react to the pressure of training in one of two ways. Maybe it would be too tough for him and he would be glad to see me. Or maybe, perversely, he would be loving it, anxious to stay on and prove himself to his new buddies. If that happened I wasn't sure what to do. The smart thing would be to try and find out from him when he was due back in North Bay and have his mother there to talk to him. Either that or I could truss him like a turkey and lug him out in my canoe. That had two strikes against it. First, it was illegal. Second, canoes are unstable craft and it would be impossible to move him faster than his buddies could come after me. I could end up dead in some nameless lake.
That thought made me slow down and reassess my reasons for going. It wasn't the money. That was just a bonus. I needed this score to prove to myself I could still do it. Getting past Wallace would help me feel useful if Fred decided to make me redundant.
Wallace and Dunphy were a challenge. Wallace particularly. He was the same age as I was and well trained. I guessed he had been in 'Nam at the same time as me. Going up against him was playing marines, only doing it on turf I knew better than he did. I was born here and my father had taken me camping and fishing from the time I was old enough to sit still in a canoe. To Wallace this was just the boonies. He, and Dunphy, could live here but without empathy. They would use the same gear they planned to use on their assignments. I expected they would have inflatable boats and outboard motors and firearms, but they wouldn't have thirty years of knowing the woods and lakes. I had the edge in experience. I hoped it would make up for their edge in numbers.
I was up at five-thirty, gave myself the last hot shower I would have until I got back out of the bush, then shaved and drove out to Heron's Landing.
Robinson was having breakfast and he poured me a coffee while his wife threw some extra bacon into the pan. She was a carbon copy of him, short and powerful and talkative. Her vocabulary wasn't as graphic but they were well matched. I'd have trusted her to fly me anyplace. They had a large-scale map of the area I was going into and I studied it as I ate. There are towns in the area, on the Ontario side of the border, Temagami, Temiskaming, New Liskeard, except around New Liskeard the terrain was all the same, bush, with very few roads or settlements, especially on the Quebec side. Two hundred miles out there wasn't much on the map except natural features like lakes and hills. It would be rough going, all of it and I would be alone. I folded the map when I'd checked it and handed it back but Robinson shook his head. "Keep it. I've got another."
After breakfast we lashed my canoe against one of the pontoons of his floatplane and loaded my gear. He nodded when he saw the rifle. "Don't normally like to see guns outside hunting season," he said, "but you're up against a rough bunch here."
"Shouldn't be any trouble." I minimized, "I just want to see one of their men and talk to him, bring him out if he wants, otherwise leave him to it." I strapped myself in.
"All set?" Robinson asked and when I nodded he began his preflight checks.
We took off and headed north-northeast over the endless string of lakes and the bush that covers all of this part of Canada, from here to the tree line. We passed a couple of lodges within the first five minutes but soon left all roads behind and had the country to ourselves. Except for a few fishermen and maybe a prospector there was nobody below us now.
"How're you planning to get out?" he asked me. "You want picking up?"
"Might be smart. If I do bring the kid out they'll come after me. I'd like to get out faster than I can make it by canoe."
"That's what I thought." He turned and grinned at me.
I pulled the map out of my pocket and checked it.
There was a round lake, two lakes south of the one he'd marked as the prospector's sighting. "How about here?"
"Yeah, Pool Lake. I can land there. When?" I thought about that. I needed twenty-four hours to get from my drop-off point to somewhere close to the camp, maybe another twenty-four to contact the kid, that would take me to Wednesday morning. Then I had to get out, over two portages and into the third lake, possibly with military rifles trained on me. That meant traveling at night, and hoping they didn't have passive infrared equipment with them. Three days in all.
"Thursday morning, first light."
"Okay." He nodded, businesslike. "Same rates okay?"
"Sure." I checked the map. "I'll be on the east shore, close to this point at the north end. But don't land unless you see a fire on the other shore down at the water's edge on this point. Looks rocky, is it?"
"Yeah. This is a new lake, geologically speaking, bare rock on both sides, bush to the water's edge at the north end, where the overburden built up as the ice moved south."
"Okay. Then I'll build a fire on the west side and wait on the east, seven in the morning on Thursday."
"You got it," he said.
We flew on for another hour, then he pointed ahead.
"There it is, Pool Lake. I'll make a circuit, keep your eyes open, see if there's any action, if you don't see anything I'll set down."
I nodded and started watching carefully. It was only a formality, I knew that. If men were down there practicing jungle warfare they would be invisible from the air. I would have been and I knew Dunphy would be. But I had to go in somewhere, so unless I could see boats drawn up on the shore or a fire I would go in.
Robinson made his circuit and turned to look at me.
"Looks clear."
"Yeah. Put me down close to the north end, unless you know where there's a portage somewhere else."
"Not on this lake. But it's red pine bush, clear under the trees, mostly, you shouldn't have too much trouble."
"Okay then, north end, please."
He nodded and turned south again for his run in, setting us down ge
ntly with a noise like heavy fabric ripping under us as the pontoons broke the tiny waves. We slowed and rocked back on the pontoons and then he opened up again and taxied up to within a hundred feet of the shore before turning and cutting the motor back to a slow tick.
I stepped down, over the canoe and unlashed it from the pontoon, settling it on the water, then swung my pack out of the backseat, and my rifle, and stepped down onto the pontoon and dropped everything into the canoe. Then I shook hands with Robinson.
"I'll see you Thursday. An' take care, eh," he said.
I nodded and stepped into the bow of the canoe where my weight would be closest to the center to help keep it balanced. I had two paddles lashed inside and I freed one of them and shoved off from the pontoon. Robinson reached over and slammed the door and turned away, opening up and taking straight off south ignoring the faint wind from behind him.
I crouched as the slipstream hit me and stroked out to the shoreline. There was a tangle of brush at the closest point but a little farther on was a deadfall lying almost submerged. I pulled the canoe alongside and checked the tree to see if it would take my weight. It did and I stepped ashore dry-shod and pulled the canoe around to a bare spot and beached it. Then I slung my rifle, lashed the paddle back in place, picked up the canoe and set out over the spongy duff of fallen pine needles, canting the canoe as far back as I could swing it so I could see ahead of me, seeking the best route. I didn't bother with a compass bearing. The sun was bright and I kept it over my right shoulder as I headed due north. The canopy above me was too thick for much direct light to fall on the forest floor but from time to time I got a glimpse of the shadow of the canoe and I kept to the right of it, walking steadily with that needle showing me where northwest lay.
After twenty minutes I stopped for a breather. I had crested a slight rise and the trees were giving way to rock that was bare except for lichen and occasional blueberry bushes. I set the canoe down, carefully, so that it didn't clunk, and sat beside it, making my plan. I had to stay under cover. That meant staying off the next lake until nightfall. I checked the map again, measuring how far I had to travel. Another thirty minutes of portaging, I reckoned, would bring me to the water's edge. The lake, with no name marked on my map, was about a mile broad at the base and tapered to a point at the north end. That probably meant it would be swampy there so I would check before landing. If necessary I would backtrack a quarter mile, halfway to a point on the west side. The point itself would be a dumb place to go ashore. It looked as if it might be bare, the kind of spot my enemy would use as a landfall if he was exercising on this lake.
I checked myself when I thought "enemy." I was thinking like a marine again. Good. I'd need to be that sharp if I was going to survive a meeting with Dunphy and Wallace—out here where there were no witnesses.
I decided to travel up the center of the lake. It cut down the chance of detection from either shore. My canoe is fiberglass and I don't make a lot of noise when I paddle. Besides, until I got close to the north end I would be too far away from shore to make a good target, even for an experienced sniper. Unless, of course, they had laser sights. How well equipped would they be? Good question.
After my break I picked up the canoe again and set off north. It took half an hour before I caught a glimpse of water ahead. I lowered the canoe and slipped out of my packstraps. The whole load weighed about a hundred and forty pounds so I was glad of the break. I stood there, letting the sweat dry on my body in the gentle warmth. The day was bright but this far north it was cooler than I had grown accustomed to in Toronto and I was glad I'd brought my combat jacket. I would need it when dusk fell.
The ground between the pines was almost completely clear. There was nowhere to hide the canoe so I did the best I could. I dragged it back thirty yards farther and turned it upside down, smothering it with handfuls of duff that I picked up. There was a chance then that it could have been mistaken for a smooth rock sticking out of the forest floor. It wouldn't, not if Wallace had trained his people properly, but I had to hope that they wouldn't be doing business this far south. If their camp was still located at the north end of the lake they would be up there, slugging through the swamp. With Wallace in charge they would probably be living in it, learning how to survive discomfort and come out of it fighting fit and fighting mad.
When I'd covered the canoe I put my combat jacket on and went down to fill my water bottle at the lake and to drink my fill.
After that I moved back and sat with my back to a tree about a hundred yards from the canoe. If anyone found it they would generate all their excitement away from me, giving me a head start in my race back to my pickup point.
It was only about nine in the morning and the day stretched ahead of me, empty, if I stayed lucky. And I thought about the men I would be facing. I speak good French. If one of the recruits saw me I might be able to pass myself off as a prospector. If I was lucky he would let me go. But I would have to be very lucky and the guy would have to be very green. My best bet was to stay out of sight. Once Wallace and Dunphy had me I was in for real trouble. They might not kill me but the least they would do is work me over so I needed a hospital.
The best way to pass time is to put your watch in your pocket and keep your mind empty except for what is going on around you. What I did was watch the birds. An osprey was flying over the lake in lazy circles, riding an updraft that took him one wing flap per circuit to negotiate. Finally he closed his wings and fell on a fish, a bass by the look of it, that he levered away through the air to his lookout tree where he ate and waited, like me.
When the sun had passed behind me and was throwing shadows at ninety degrees from the angle I'd noticed when I sat down, I broke out the dog biscuits and crunched a few of them, washing them down with water from my canteen. I spun it out until dusk, then walked down close to the water.
I still couldn't see anything but now, at dusk, the wind freshened. I stood and listened to it, trying to shut out the hiss of pine needles clashing together, listening for man sounds. And suddenly I heard them.
They were faint, so faint that I realized they were traveling most of the length of the lake, which was funneled toward me by its shape. There were three of them, three times the r-ri-rip of a triple gun shot. It meant three things to me. First, I was in the right place. Those were battle sounds, not hunting shots. Second, Dunphy was teaching his men the British combat technique. Limeys don't hose anything down. They fire a couple of quick shots on every sighting, making their ammo count. And third, because the shots came in triplets it probably meant they were equipped with ultramodern automatic weapons, the H. & K. probably, set up to fire three shots on every trigger press. I was where I should be, and I was in danger. These guys had enough equipment to leave me dead.
I passed the last half hour of daylight by protecting my supplies. The ammunition I had with me: .38 for my pistol in the right pocket of my combat jacket with the gun on top of it; .308 for the rifle in the left. I also filled both breast pockets with dog biscuits. Then I took a line out of the pack and tossed it over a branch. That took time. Red pine doesn't have branches close to the ground, like a maple. The lowest was thirty some feet over my head but after a dozen tries I managed it and then tied my pack on and hoisted it ten feet clear of the ground where no bear would be able to tear it up.
By now it was almost dark and I carried the canoe quietly down to the water's edge and waited. It was cool but I didn't wear the combat jacket. If the canoe tipped I would have to swim a half mile and you can't do that with pockets full of hardware. I tied it to the life jacket and put it into the stern of the canoe. Then, when darkness finally settled on the water, I pushed off softly onto the blackness of the water and headed north.
As I paddled I kept listening for more gunshots but there was no sound anywhere except for the lonely yodel of a loon and the soft swish of my paddle. I glanced from side to side as I paddled, making out the tree line on both shores, keeping them equal in size, trying to stay o
ut in the center as far as possible.
After half an hour I could see the trees meeting ahead of me and I paddled slower, taking care not to clunk against the side of the canoe. I was wondering whether the trainees would be out on a night exercise. It seemed likely. The shots had come late in the day. That could mean they were playing at ambushes, one group stalking another in the darkness, a game they would have to play for real when they headed south on their assignment. I wondered too if they had heard the aircraft. The wind had been blowing from them to us and Robinson had kept low when he circled the lake but the roar of an aircraft engine carries a long way over water. Up here there were not many other sounds to drown it out.
When I judged I was three hundred yards from the north shore I turned in to the west, halfway to the point, taking the extra precaution now that I knew for sure there were men around. The darkness was almost total but my night vision is good and I was able to find my way to shore without running onto a rock or tangling myself in the deadfalls that reached out into the water.
When I reached shore I sat for a moment, listening to the silence. Nothing was moving and I pulled the canoe broadside to the water's edge and stepped out onto a spongy mass of roots. It sagged under my weight and my left foot went into the water but I was wearing running shoes, the best thing for canoeing, so the water didn't bother me. I got out and picked up the paddle and my rifle and then hoisted the canoe by one of the cross braces and dragged it silently over the duff until it was clear of the water and I could carry it into the trees where there was a tangle of low branches.
There was nowhere to hide the canoe so I lifted my jacket out, turned it over, and slipped the paddle underneath. I put my jacket on, grateful for the extra warmth now that I wasn't using any energy. The hard part was about to begin.
SEVEN
Now that I was ashore, alone, close to the enemy, I felt a bit like the dog that caught the car. What now? Sure I was in position to get the job finished, but the danger almost outweighed the advantage. I still had to locate the mercenaries without being seen, then isolate young Michaels and try to talk sense to him. And I wasn't sure he'd listen. He might just whistle up his buddies instead for a pickup game of kick the messenger.