Killer Mountain

by Peter Pinkham

  The second brook, draining into the Pemigewasset River, originates in two different places on the southwestern flank of Mt. Field, at the foot of a cliff.

  It concerned Cilla that Kurt had only weakly protested the change to Mt. Field. But then the reasons she gave him were pretty strong and hard to counter on the spur of the moment.

  They’d taken Crawford Path down to Route 302 and crossed the highway to where the A - Z Trail began. Todd was surprised by Cilla’s insistence on bringing up the rear, but she wasn’t going to let Kurt get behind her. The sight of the rifle swinging from his shoulder made her uneasy, but she could see no way to get it from him. Would he use it? The Nutcracker had shown little antipathy to killing. Would Kurt?

  It came from the east, and they heard it before it became visible.

  “Chopper,” said Todd, sounding like Radar O’Reilly in the old M*A*S*H series.

  It appeared suddenly from behind the mountain.

  “Get behind trees!” ordered Cilla.

  “The bad guys?” asked Todd with excitement. The plane was hovering a hundred yards away.

  “It’s not military,” said Kurt.

  “What’s that on its side? Looks like an eye.”

  “I should have guessed it,” said Cilla slowly. “They’ve hijacked a traffic spotter.”

  “Yeah! Sure, that’s the WEYE plane, `eye in the sky!’”

  “The only kind of civilian plane allowed in the air.”

  “So that’s how they’ll spread the pods,” said Kurt.

  “Then we can’t stop them,” said Todd.

  “Maybe.” Britton raised his rifle, sighting along the barrel.

  What was he planning to shoot? Cilla grabbed the barrel, bringing it down. “If the pods are aboard and it explodes...”

  Kurt stared at her but slowly lowered his rifle.

  “It’s coming down,” said Todd.

  “Where’s it going to land in all these trees?”

  As they watched, the helicopter sank out of sight behind the evergreens.

  “Let’s get up there,” said Cilla, setting as fast a pace as she could through the deep snow. The saddle floor did not lend itself to speedy travel. Snow covered blow-downs and other hazards, and in some stands of pines the trees grew so close together as to almost deny passage.

  “There it is,” whispered Todd with excitement.

  The copter had landed in a small opening in the woods, which appeared to have been recently cleared. Its blades had been shut down, and three figures were in conference outside the plane. The person bundled in the warmest clothes was stepping into snowshoes.

  “We need to get nearer,” said Cilla trying to make out if one was Frank.

  Keeping trees and undergrowth between them and the three, they crept closer. The plane had landed in an area near the foot of a shoulder of Mt. Field. Cilla had no real plan, but when they reached the edge of the clearing, she gathered them together.

  “Now what?” said Todd.

  “We walk up to them. We’re just a party of snowshoers. Kurt, leave your rifle here. They won’t expect any problems, and we don’t want to create any prematurely.”

  She held her breath. But Britton merely leaned the weapon against a tree. As soon as her army of three cleared the woods, the men broke off their conversation. One climbed back in the plane. The other two watched the group approach.

  “Morning,” said Cilla “Taking the easy way, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Backpacking by helicopter.”

  “Oh. No, we...uh, we’re from WEYE and we’ve been checking out the traffic situation in northern New England.”

  “Find any?”

  “Any what?”

  “Traffic.”

  “Oh hell, you caught us. We’ve been going twenty hours a day. Needed a break. Crow here decided to do some snowshoeing.”

  The groups were just feet apart. The speaker was young, no more than early twenties. The other was in his thirties and dressed for the outdoors. Was it Frank inside? Cilla leaned on a ski pole.

  “You picked a good day for it.” She had to see that third man. The younger man was looking at Cilla with astonishment.

  “Don’t I know you?” he asked.

  “Maybe. I meet a lot of people.” Cilla stared back at the man with steady eyes.

  “Alexandra Sturgis? Is that you?”

  “Sorry. Wrong lady. Somebody looks like me?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure. What would Alexandra be doing here?” He wasn’t convinced.

  “Where’s your equipment?” asked Todd. The two turned toward him. “You going to let Mr. Crow have all the fun.”

  “Gil don’t know how to handle the back country,” growled Crow. The younger man put his head back in the plane. Cilla, who’d been watching for danger signs, was taken by surprise when he turned around with a pistol in his hand.

  “Hands clear of your bodies! Check them for weapons, Crow.” He waved the barrel at the other man. “This girl is Alexandra Sturgis. They call her Loni.”

  “Hold on,” said Kurt Britton. “You’ve made an error. This is Cilla Rogers. We have identification.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Todd, taking off a glove and reaching inside his parka. “I don’t know...”

  Crow suddenly swung at Todd, catching him on the side of the head and knocking him on his back in the snow.

  “Todd!” exclaimed Cilla. Britton hit Crow a harder blow.

  “Hold it!” ordered Gil, waving the pistol. “That’s enough! Next time I use this!”

  Britton let his arms hang by his sides.

  “He was just reaching for his wallet!” Cilla knelt beside Todd, who showed no signs of consciousness. “He’s hurt!”

  “Lady, stay away from his pockets! Stand up!”

  “He needs help, you baboon!”

  “Stand up or I shoot!”

  Cilla faced him from her kneeling position. “An unarmed woman?”

  “And get paid for it. I’ll give you three. One, two...”

  With a roar, Kurt Britton flung himself at Gil, as the pistol fired, whether from reaction to movement or carrying out his threat to kill her, Cilla couldn’t be sure. The bullet caught Britton on the right chest, spinning him around, but his forward progress landed him on top of the man with the weapon. There was another report, and both fell to the ground. Crow, still groggy, had a pistol in his hand and was trying to get up. Cilla grabbed the weapon and bent it back, trapping Crow’s finger in the trigger guard. He grunted with the pain; she bent harder, something snapped and the pistol came free. He swung at her with his left hand, catching her on her cheek. She was staggered but didn’t lose her balance. She reversed the weapon and hit him hard on the head. He collapsed. She glanced at Todd. Still out. Gil was on his knees. He’d taken off his gloves and was digging for his pistol from under an inert Britton.

  “Hold it,” she ordered moving close to him.

  “You won’t shoot.” He smiled sardonically up at her, daring her to pull the trigger.

  Cilla hit him in the throat with the pistol. He choked and grabbed his neck.

  “Now move away from Kurt.” She turned her fallen mountain manager over. He was alive, but breathing noisily. I’ve wronged you, she thought. Even disarmed you...The man in the plane! She turned, and as she did her arm was dealt a harsh blow, and the pistol spun away. The third man picked it up, glanced at Crow who was out cold and Gil, making rasping sounds as he tried to get air. Neither Todd nor Kurt was moving. It was a tableau for how Cilla imagined the Russian steppes would look, as left by a retreating army.

  “Enough,” said the man to Cilla. “I won’t hesitate to use this. Gil, are you all right? Can you still fly this thing?”

  There was murder in the young man’s eyes as he got shakily to his feet. His throat was damaged, perhaps permanently. He was having great difficulty breathing but between gasps was able to force out words in a squeaky voice. “Damn...right. We’ll get...it up...couple thousand...feet ...drop th
e bitch off.”

  Cilla’s heart was in her shoes. Not from the threat, though she knew it was real. The third man wasn’t Frank, and her last chance to find Hudson had disappeared.

  Chapter 40

  John Krestinski wore a watch, but seldom found need to look at it. Today he’d often caught himself glancing at his left wrist. He stood at the window of the FBI offices in Boston’s Government Center looking out at the odd sight of streets full of cars and empty of people. The city had shut down. The governors’ talks - given by each of the six governors every half hour on their local television stations - advised all the region’s citizenry to stay home. As noon approached, doors were barricaded and New Englanders sought out the room in their house with the fewest windows. A brisk breeze sent an advertising poster cartwheeling over car roofs toward Faneuil Hall. Across the harbor Logan Airport was quiet at last. The final flight out had been at ten-thirty and nothing was coming in.

  It was quarter past twelve, fifteen minutes after the Nutcracker’s deadline. He felt he was sitting on the edge of an active volcano. The National Guard search had turned up a lot of interesting equipment, like the illegal waste disposal system discovered by Joel’s squad, that at another time would have inspired letters to the editor from those fortunate enough to have municipal sewage lines running by their doors, but nothing remotely resembling a dispenser of deadly frozen pods.

  A knock and the door opened. Sally Koppel, his secretary, wearing a gas mask and carrying one for the agent.

  “I guess it’s time, isn’t it,” said Krestinski wryly. “Hate these things; cut you off from everything.” He put the mask on and went out into the large room outside. Not with a bang, he thought.

  Chapter 41

  The helicopter hovered over Mt. Field. As it rose, Cilla could see Todd just getting to his feet in the deep snow. He’ll be okay, she thought, and he can get help for Kurt. She had her own problems. Crow had been revived, and the looks he and Gil gave her were not friendly.

  “I...meant it...Groper...open the...door.” Gil rasped from the pilot’s seat.

  “You can’t just throw the girl out. We check first.” Groper was the third man and acted in charge.

  “So...check! Use...radio.”

  “He’s not going to be happy Crow didn’t set the markings.”

  “I’m not going to hike around that mountain with a busted hand!” Crow held the injured member with his left hand.

  “It’s only a finger.”

  “I’ll give you a finger...!”

  “Kaff…kaff...call...damn it!” gasped Gil.

  Groper used the radio. In a moment a voice came over the speaker. “What are you doing on the air? What’s happened?”

  “Problem. Crow didn’t...”

  “Stop! Watch your language! He hasn’t completed his task?”

  “No. He’s...injured.”

  “Did any of it get done?”

  “No, we were met by...others. Have one as passenger. A woman. Some one you know.”

  There was silence for a minute. Even with radio distortion, Cilla knew that voice. Cabral. Better known throughout New England as the Nutcracker.

  “Dark hair, mid-twenties?”

  “Right. Gil suggests we let her off at our present location.”

  “No. Unless she is the other, the one who looks like her.”

  Again silence. How does he know `our present location?’ thought Cilla. Nothing was said about that. Does he know we’re in the air? Sounds like it. Which means he must be close enough to see us!

  “Bring her here. I can tell them apart.”

  “You really want us to come there? Won’t...”

  “Do it. I’ve taken care of the shift guy. The next one’s not due for two days.”

  Gil banged the seat in frustration, but turned the helicopter east, heading directly for the frozen top of Mt. Washington. There was little loose snow for the blades to swirl about as the machine settled between the ice-sculptured buildings. Cabral was here? Cilla was hustled out of the aircraft by Crow and Groper, followed by a coughing Gil, and into the structure that sat on the northwest corner of the highest peak in northeastern United States. Known as the Yankee Building, she, Kurt and Todd had passed within a hundred yards of it yesterday afternoon, just before the storm. Inside were living quarters, packed with electronic equipment, and a bigger room, partly used for storage, where sat the man half of the six states was hunting and the other half fleeing, looking not at all like the monster envisioned by the media. At five foot ten with rimless glasses, he could have been a meteorologist with the Observatory. Maybe a Texan if one judged by the wide brimmed hat that sat on the table next to him. The menace was in his whispering voice. “Who screwed up?”

  “Can I talk?” Groper looked around the little apartment.

  “Yes. Only Frank’s here, sleeping in the dark bedroom upstairs.”

  Frank! A small measure of hope.

  “We had just let Crow off to lay out markings when this woman and two men attacked us. Gil shot one of the men, but Wonder Woman here broke Crow’s finger and did some damage to Gil’s throat.”

  “The Rogers woman,” said Cabral in his soft voice, his eyes on Cilla. “Loni wouldn’t - hell, she couldn’t do things like that. The man Gil shot, is he dead?”

  “Not yet...”

  “And the other?”

  “He was just coming around.”

  “Then you go back and take care of them! Are you out of your minds leaving witnesses? Have you forgotten why we’re doing this? You and Gil.” He nodded at Groper. “I’ll splint Crow’s finger.”

  “The girl...,” croaked Gil.

  “Yes, the girl.” Cabral looked thoughtfully at Cilla, who had been absorbing the importance of being Loni.

  “I guess there’s no point in hiding it any longer, ” she said. “I am Loni Sturgis.”

  “Sure you are,” said the Nutcracker. “So would I be if my option was sky-diving sans parachute.”

  “Ask Frank. He knows me.” Frank had certainly seen her last, and would at the very least be uncertain.

  “Knows you well?”

  “Enough to tell you who I am.”

  “So, lock her ...in the room ...with Frank,” croaked Gil, a light coming into his eyes. There were chuckles and grins from the others that took Cilla by surprise. What ...?

  Cabral had been watching her closely. “I see you’re not familiar with our colleague Frank’s reputation. That surprises me...Loni.”

  “Do it!”

  “Ease off, Gil. Loni, Loni, Loni. You’re making me wonder. Frank comes to us with quite a résumé, as someone who knows him as well as you should be aware.”

  “He carves...initials on babes,” Gil with a grin of anticipation.

  “Frank isn’t really one of us,” explained Cabral with his eyes on Cilla. “Poor fellow’s first experience with a woman was apparently a losing one. Now...”

  “He signs them,” finished Gil with satisfaction. “With a knife.”

  “Once he bore down a little too hard. Fortunately it was in Mexico, and the border wasn’t far.”

  “Enough...talk.”

  Cabral reached a decision. “Take her pants off.”

  As Gil reached eagerly for her from the front and Crow behind, Cilla attacked. She caught Gil with a hard kick between his legs and brought an elbow back to Crow’s stomach. With no wasted movement, she launched herself at Groper with a chop to the side of his neck. Something crashed on her head, and she fell. Only half-conscious she felt someone unzipping her parka.

  “The pants, get her pants off,” Cabral’s voice came through the fog. Someone sat on her; another pulled down her ski pants. She tried to struggle, but couldn’t breathe from the heavy body on her chest. Her lungs fought to pull in air. She thrashed her legs as she felt hands tugging at her long underwear. Then someone was between her legs holding them down and something touched her thigh.

  “Okay,” said Cabral. The weight went off her. “Let her up
.”

  Cilla tugged at her clothes. They hadn’t taken them off, just down.

  “It’s the Rogers girl, that scar on her thigh. Fun games later, she’s not going anywhere, but those other two might. Groper, you and Gil bury them where they won’t be found till the snow melts.” A rifle appeared in Gil’s hands, and the two headed for the door. “Crow, help me tie her up. We’ll put her in the penthouse. There’s a telescope there, Mrs. Rogers, at a window that looks right out at Mt. Field; you can watch the sport.”

  It was one measure of Cabral’s humor that she was bound spread-eagled to projections from the walls of the third floor room in front of the window, with the small telescope right in front of her face, but the ropes were so tight she couldn’t move her arms or legs an inch in any direction. The window was right next to the third floor door, and Crow was able to bang it against her when he went out. He then propped it open – presumably so they could hear her when she begged for mercy.

  Another little barb was Cabral’s comment about her “watching the sport”; she couldn’t reach the instrument to change it from its present focus on the Lakes of the Clouds AMC hut and, looking out the window, realized that the location of Todd and Kurt on Mt. Field wouldn’t have been visible even if she had been able to move it.

  Her head was still full of cotton. The window was none too clean but she glimpsed the helicopter becoming a speck as it flew over the frozen, wind-swept sea monster that was the northwesterly spur of the Presidential Range, into a darkening sky. At the end of that cold, black and white, serpentine row of mountains would come fire from the sky. Kurt’s wounds meant he was out of it; Todd would be the only defender, him with Kurt’s rifle at the edge of the clearing. Todd would have to make do with it. Cilla felt he had a good chance; neither of those in the plane was dressed for pursuit on the ground, and they weren’t aware that Todd and Kurt were armed.