by Thomas Perry
Mallon tried to interpret what he saw. After a moment, he knew. They were scurrying around arming themselves, preparing to slip out into the dark to come for Mallon. The one with the rifle was going to cover them, wait for Mallon to shoot, and then fire at his muzzle flash. Mallon had to try to keep them inside, where they couldn’t get to him. He steadied his aim, took two deep breaths to clear his lungs of the carbon dioxide that would make his hands shake, and squeezed the trigger.
The bang of the rifle’s report tore the air; the recoil made the stock brush his cheek, kicked his shoulder, and raised the barrel. He lost his aim for a moment, but he brought the barrel down and cycled the bolt to chamber another round.
The window was empty again, but he believed he had hit the man. The others, he decided, must be cowering somewhere out of sight. Tonight, ducking down below or beside the window was not going to be an effective tactic. Mallon was aware that if the construction of the main lodge was anything like what he had seen in the cabins, the wall would not even slow a rifle bullet appreciably. His second shot had brought back to him the familiar feel, sound, and smell of a rifle, and he was more comfortable as he aimed to the right of the window frame and a foot above the floor, and fired again. He had no idea whether the shot hit flesh, but he knew there were still no heads up.
He fired his fourth shot, then removed the box magazine and pushed bullets from his pocket into it. He kept watching the doors and the row of windows along the side. The people inside should be trying to scatter into the darkness, he thought. They should be trying to spot his muzzle flash, so they could aim at it and kill him. He clicked the magazine back into the rifle, then used his night scope to scan the ground near the lodge and the woods beyond it. There were still no human beings visible, but he knew they must be watching for his muzzle flashes to find him, so it was time to move. He raised the rifle again and fired a round through the wall high on the left side, trying to place it near the front door to keep them in.
He ran as hard as he could into the woods to make his way up the slope of the hill without being in the open, where he might be seen in the moonlight. He reached the trees, then stopped to reload and fired another round through the back of the building, turned, and continued uphill, just inside the line of trees. It was difficult to run up the hill as quickly as he wanted to, and after another two hundred yards his chest was heaving, and there was a burning sensation in his lungs. He knelt down, fired two more shots at the building, and ran again.
Mallon reached the crest of the hill, flopped down on the grass behind the bush where he had left his second rifle and his lantern, and raised his night-vision scope to his eye. There was no human figure outside the main lodge. Mallon looked at the window. He was much farther away now, but his higher vantage let him see the legs of the first man he had shot, still lying on the floor.
Mallon concluded that he must be dead. He tried to decode what he was feeling about it. For a second, he was almost fooled into imagining that what he felt must be remorse. Then he realized that it was something else: simple distaste for killing. He felt angry that he had needed to do this, that his life had come to this. He cycled the bolt of his second rifle, switched the safety off so he could lift it quickly and fire, then took the magazine out of his first rifle and began to reload it.
CHAPTER 33
Spangler lay on the hardwood floor of the lodge, his eyes and mouth open in a pantomime of amazement. The blood now pooled from above his shoulders to his ankles, still spreading like a cape. After the third or fourth shot had screamed through the wall, somebody had turned the light off, but Emily could still see him. She sat on the floor, her back to the front wall and her shoulder edged against the couch so the bullets weren’t likely to plow the length of it and reach her. She was shaking, and when she turned her head she could feel bits of broken glass falling from her hair.
Emily could not stop looking over at Spangler. From here she could stare past him out the window, but then her eyes would flick downward, because something about the darkness or her terror had made her think she had seen him move. He had not moved. She had been on a lot of hunts now, and she should have known right away that Paul was dead, without anyone telling her. The first bullet had taken him.
At the sound of the first couple of shots, people had jumped. A few had even drawn guns. After a few moments, Paul Spangler had crawled to the window and looked out. Parish had handed Spangler a rifle and said, “Paul, see if you can spot him. Everyone else, get ready to go outside.”
At first, she had thought she’d heard the snap of the shade rolling up and hitting the window. It had been the sound of the single bullet popping the glass. Then there had been the distant pow of the shot. In the sudden silence, Emily had turned and looked at Spangler. The bullet had hit him in the chest. The blood that leaked out on the floor was bright red, like paint. It was coming out so fast. Couldn’t somebody stop it? How could they leave him lying alone on his back like that? She pointed, and called to Debbie, to Parish, to Mary, “Help him! He’s been shot!”
Mary was crawling along the wall toward the other end of the building, but she stopped and frowned in Emily’s direction. “He’s dead, honey. Don’t you see that?” Then she moved on.
A moment later, the shots had begun again, and she’d realized that Mary had taken cover because she must have known they were coming. When the next one simply popped through the wall, Emily at first thought she must be misinterpreting the sight and sound—that something else was happening. But somebody was out there with a rifle, and these flimsy wooden walls stopped nothing.
Tonight was partly her fault. She knew this debacle had been caused by her self-indulgence and lack of discipline on the day she had gone out with David Altberg to kill Mallon. She should have fought him for Altberg’s gun, and killed him on the spot. Even if she had not done that, she should have insisted on killing Mallon that night. She stared at Spangler’s ruined body and began to be angry at Parish. How could he have been so wrong? There was absolutely no excuse for picking a target and arranging a hunt and then having the target start shooting the staff. It was ridiculous. She had begun to compose what she was going to say to Parish.
Two more rounds had pounded through the wooden wall. She knew that one hit the couch she was hiding behind, because she felt the vibration where her right arm touched it. This building was no protection: it was a sham, a picture of what safety was supposed to look like. Parish was responsible for that, too.
She looked around for him. Then the shots started again. Each time she heard the bullet punch through the wooden wall and slam into the floor, or hit a metal fixture and ricochet crazily into another wall, she jumped, and remained stiff and trembling. She knew reacting was ridiculous: before her nerves could make her muscles contract, before her brain even received the message that there was a shot, the bullet had already burrowed into something, and the danger was over.
She saw Parish walk past poor Paul Spangler without even looking at him. Next he crouched facing the wall, craning his neck, moving his head one way or another. He was trying to see through a bullet hole in the wall. After a moment he gave up and slowly moved to place his right eye in the lower left corner of the window where Paul had been shot. Two more rounds punctured the wall to Parish’s right. He turned and stayed low as he moved away, but there was the beginning of a smile on his lips. He stopped at the far end of the room and sat down on one of the hard chairs.
“I’ve picked out the location,” Parish announced. Emily looked around to see the reaction of the others, but the only one she could see was Mary. “He’s up on the hill about halfway, at the edge of the trees. I finally saw the flashes when he fired the last two rounds.”
“ ‘He’? You mean this is only one person?” Mary asked. “I thought it was the police or something.”
Parish shook his head. “No, this is just Mr. Mallon.” He looked at Mary and Emily, his expression now confident. “This should hardly be shocking to you. That is not a
deer out there. It’s a man. He thinks, he learns, and he fights. Now we’re past deciding whether or not to hunt him. He knows where we are, and who we are, and how to get to us. We have to kill him, or we’ll be destroyed too. Do you both understand what I’ve said?”
Emily could see Mary’s eye turn to watch her in the dim light, but neither woman spoke.
“Good,” said Parish. “Now we’ve got to go after him. As I said, the muzzle flashes came from halfway up the first hill, at the edge of the woods. The way to get him is to use our superior numbers and firepower. Arm yourselves immediately with every weapon you have, and all the ammunition you can carry. If you have dark clothing you’re not wearing, put it on. You have two minutes.”
Emily hesitated for a moment, then judged that obeying Michael was better than crouching behind the couch. It was the way out, into the darkness and the woods. She had carried a large purse that was like a backpack, and she had a Glock nine-millimeter pistol inside. She crawled to the table where she had left it, took out her pistol, and put it on the floor beside her while she slipped on the black sweater she had brought from her cabin, then picked it up again. She felt so much better with the gun in her hand that she stood up.
Parish said, “I have here some containers of camouflage makeup. Don’t try to make a pattern. That’s for daytime. Smear some on your face, neck, the backs of your hands—anything that’s exposed. Any amount is better than none, and the more the better.”
When Mary handed the flat can to her, Emily took a gob of it on her fingertips. As she rubbed it on her forehead, cheeks, and neck, she whispered, “Paul is dead. Where did Debbie and Ron go?”
Mary shrugged, but said nothing.
“Time’s up,” said Parish. “I’m going outside. The first thing I will do is cut the power to the whole ranch. That will be your signal to leave here. You know where he is, so try to stay out of his line of fire, and move quickly. He will fire his weapon. When he does, we’ll use the flash to locate him and return his fire: all three of us at once. When you have fired, advance to the next protected spot and wait for your next chance. When he fires again, do the same, and move closer. Keep it up until he’s dead. Do I need to repeat anything?”
There was no answer, so he said, “It will work if you keep your heads. See you later.” Then he slipped out the front door.
Emily looked down at her watch and began to time Michael’s progress. It had been thirty seconds, then a minute, two minutes. She looked away and tried to see the expression on Mary’s face, and once again had the same feeling she’d had many times in her life. She was alone and apart, the only one who didn’t really believe, the only one who had doubts and subversive thoughts. She could not see Mary’s face, but she could read her posture. She was waiting eagerly for his signal, tense with the worry not that he might be wrong but that she might disappoint him. She might not move fast enough, or be smart enough, or something.
The lights went out, Mary swung the door open and disappeared, but Emily hung back. Maybe if they were out there stalking Mallon, then the safest place to be was right here. There was the sudden crack of a rifle, some wood chips in the air, and Emily hurried out into the night.
CHAPTER 34
The white lights that ran along the driveway from the gate to the gym went out, but Mallon raised the night-vision scope to his eye and saw the back door swing open. He fired shots at the people coming out, but they came out fast, ran hard, and spread out into the shadows.
Almost at once there was ragged gunfire, three muzzle flashes from different directions. Chips of bark from the trees above and behind him rained down, and he heard bullets thudding into the grass on the hill ahead of him. Mallon ducked down, his rifle empty. He left the rifle on the ground under the bush, took up the loaded one, crawled down the back of the slope a few feet, and slipped into the woods.
The next phase was going to be more dangerous, but he had known from the beginning that it would come. He had shot two people, and judging from what he had seen during the brief time while the window had been lit, he believed that left five who were alive and unhurt. It was a simple puzzle: anyone he met in the woods was an enemy. Anyone else meeting someone in the woods had four chances that it was one of his friends, and only one chance that it was Mallon.
He kept moving down the hill toward the buildings until he found a spot where several twisted old California oaks with trunks the size of a man’s waist had clumped together, two of them with forked trunks. On his first trip through, he had noticed this spot because it was such good cover. He sat down with his back to a tree to wait for the hunters.
The night was quiet, the leaves on the trees hanging still and dead in the windless air. Mallon remained perfectly still, his rifle across his lap, and listened. He knew that anyone else in the woods would be walking, climbing toward the spot where he had last been seen. Mallon would stay here, looking like part of a tree, or like a shadow.
It was a long time before the first footsteps reached his ears. The soft carpet of pine needles in the evergreen grove had made their movements silent, but now, as they came nearer to Mallon, their feet crushed dried oak leaves and their pant legs whipped through the low weeds and wild plants that grew in the wider spaces between the oaks.
Emily looked to her right to be sure that she was in line with Mary, and far enough away from her. Mallon was not turning out to be what everyone had expected him to be, and Emily was beginning to think he was likely to put a bullet between somebody else’s eyes. As they had walked up the first few yards at the bottom of the hill, Emily had begun to listen for the shot. The best that could happen was that they would get Mallon to fire at one of them too early and miss, and the flash in the dark would reveal him. Staying far apart and moving was really the only tactic they could use in this situation of pistols against a sniper rifle. During the few seconds after he fired, Mary and Emily would pour about twenty rounds into Mallon’s hiding place from both sides.
As Emily climbed in the dark woods, she found herself revisiting a thought she’d been having for about a week. It had started the night when she had served as the scout for Markham and Coleman. She had begun to suspect that it was time for her to move on. No, that was not true. She had begun to suspect that a long time ago. Watching those two perform had made her admit to herself that it was getting to be urgent. The disaster on the beach with David Altberg had made the impression stronger, but since then she had been so busy, so tied up with the problem of covering and cleaning up the mess, that she’d had no time to think.
She had gotten no sleep the night after the Altberg debacle. Two days later, she’d had to begin following Mallon to Los Angeles. He had kept her awake most of the night with his antics. She had been on the telephone for all those hours with two sets of amateurs, telling Kira and the boys where to wait for Mallon and holding Markham and Coleman back. She’d had no time when she was alone, awake, and rested to consider what she had been doing and make a decision about the future.
That had always been her main problem, she admitted. She was too passive, too reluctant to make her own decisions. Ten years ago, at the age of nineteen, she had gone all the way out to Arizona just because her boyfriend, Danny, had asked her to. Then, even though she had been terribly unhappy about Phoenix and about him, she had not thought of another plan and carried it out. She had simply stayed there until Mary had come along and brought her to the hotel to meet Michael.
She had been contented enough with her life after that, but somehow ten years had gone by. In one more, she would be thirty, and she still had no real direction in her life. She was better off than she had ever been before. She had improved physically from the constant exercise she’d gotten, and she had banked a lot of money. She could go somewhere and start over again. She looked up the hill at the cabin where she, Mary, and Debbie had kept their belongings. The one beside it was Spangler’s. That, she conceded, was probably what had really set her to thinking tonight. She didn’t want to die like that. S
he had to find something new. But what would it be, and where did she want to go?
It was really a question of getting herself to say good-bye to Michael.It was going to be difficult after all these years of trying to please him. He would know that the reason was that she had lost faith in him. It would not matter what she said; he would know.
Mallon very slowly raised the night-vision scope to his eye and turned it on: there were two luminous human shapes with glowing eyes, both carrying pistols. They walked slowly, about a hundred feet apart, at least two hundred feet from where he sat. He let the scope hang from his neck and very slowly raised the rifle to his shoulder. He judged that the one on the right was the greatest threat because the brush on that side was thickest and afforded the best cover. He aimed the rifle using the crook of the double-trunked tree in front of him as a rest, and fired.
He stared ahead as he cycled the bolt, trying to keep his eye on where the other one had gone, losing sight of the shape in the dark. A second later, someone fired. The shots were wide and high, but he saw the flashes. He aimed at the spot just as that one ran for a new hiding place. He raised his aim to the person’s chest, tried to lead him, and fired, then cycled the bolt again. He knew he had missed.