“Beavers slapping their tales against the water,” he said as he passed.
Lynn decided to brave a comment from the small safety of her flimsy nylon fort.
“Sounds like wishful thinking.”
Sagli stopped for a moment and faced her.
“Does it really matter? Anything out there would be doomed to challenge this group of men—now get to sleep, you will have a hard day tomorrow.”
Lynn watched Sagli disappear into his tent and then his light go out. Just as she was starting to zip up her own flap, she looked once more into the darkness.
“Beavers, my ass,” she said, and then gave out a slight shiver.
Around the camp the night grew still once more, and little did the Russians know that their presence in the valley of the Stikine had just been announced.
The few Russians on guard continued their watch, but now they listened far more closely than before. Most of the veterans of war-torn Chechnya and other embattled places felt as though they were once more in hostile countryside as their survival senses became active, and they knew as all old soldiers knew. They were being watched.
TEN MILES OFF THE COAST OF PUGET SOUND,
WASHINGTON STATE
As the drone of the large twin-engine Grumman thrummed in Jack’s ears, his thoughts turned to his sister, where they never drifted very far away from. He was having a hard time recalling her face. He knew that happened from time to time with others in his life, so he knew he had to think of Lynn in context. Recalling her childhood was the easiest. Her smiling face as he pushed his seven-year-old sister down the hill outside of their parents’ house, trying desperately to teach her the balance she needed to, as in her words, ride a big person’s bike. He remembered being so proud that she kept her balance all the way down the minislope, and then the sheer horror he felt when she wobbled, and then dumped the bike moments before striking the picket fence that lined their front yard. He smiled at the memory. She had bounced up and wanted to go again.
“Colonel, you awake?”
Jack tuned his head, losing the smile and the memory at the same instant. “Yeah, Lieutenant, what’s up?”
Ryan could see Jack’s face in the soft green glow of the mapped-out hologram on the split windscreen. He looked tired, and thought seriously about not asking him.
“Uh, you think you can take over for a while? I have to rest my eyes for an hour or so. During our twelve-hour layover at the Columbia River, I didn’t get much sleep.”
Jack sat up straight in his seat with a worried look on his dark features.
“Don’t worry, Alice installed one really nice autopilot; she’ll fly herself. You shouldn’t have to do anything but monitor the threat board right in front of you, but we’re flying low enough that we shouldn’t be picked up by anything outside of a seagull with Doppler radar.”
“Okay, Ryan, don’t you go far, and if I call, don’t drag your ass getting back here.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan undid his safety harness, and half stood beneath the overhang of the flight controls.
“Tell me, Ryan, does it feel good to be flying again?” Jack asked as he looked at the twin steering wheels of the Y-shaped yoke in front of him as they moved up and down, and left and right on their own.
“Yes it does, boss, we have an old saying in the navy: Just don’t take the sky away from me.”
Jack smiled at the look on Jason’s face. He nodded and then gestured for Ryan to get some rest.
“So, my little Sarah, since my left leg has gone completely to sleep from your nonweight, take my mind away from it and tell me about your Colonel Collins, and his little sister.”
Sarah shook her head. She was tired, but the constant bumping of the ancient plane kept her from relaxing, so she and Farbeaux had kept a steady chatter going since refueling in Oregon.
“Henri, you may not believe this, but until yesterday, I didn’t know Jack had a sister.”
“Would you two be quiet for a while? That damn Frenchman’s voice has a worse tone to it than those ancient piston engines,” Everett said from the tight seat across the aisle. He had an old fedora that he had relieved from Henri’s secret basement pushed down over his eyes.
“Sorry,” Sarah said as Jason Ryan squeezed through the small opening separating the cockpit from the cabin. She watched him as he looked around, and then finding no seat to sit in, started to lie down on a pile of supplies.
“No, Jason, here, take my place,” she said as she stood and removed herself from Farbeaux’s leg. “Believe me, it’s more comfortable than that mountain of camping stuff; that is if you don’t mind Henri hitting on you.”
“Touché, my dear, touché!” Farbeaux said as she stood.
“Jesus, can you people take it outside?” Everett said.
“Here, here,” agreed Charlie Ellenshaw, who had his head propped up against Punchy Alexander’s large chest, who in turn had one leg draped over Will Mendenhall’s lap and two rolled-up sleeping bags.
Sarah apologized and picked her way around the crowded cabin and headed for the cockpit.
“You better keep your hands to yourself; I heard what you Frenchmen are capable of,” Ryan said as he sat hard onto Henri’s leg.
“Oh, you haven’t heard the half of it, Lieutenant, believe me,” the Frenchman said angrily as Jason crushed his leg.
_______
Sarah poked her head through the small curtain that separated the cabin and cockpit. The four-foot entryway was something a hobbit would have a hard time going through, but Sarah figured she and Ryan would have no trouble.
“Mind some company,” she asked, “it’s a tad crowded back there.”
Jack didn’t turn to face Sarah and acted as though he was still reading the hologram readout on the windscreen.
“Hi, babe. No, sit down, silence in here would no doubt be preferable to Farbeaux’s chatting you up.”
Sarah squeezed into the pilot’s seat and looked around. The hologram with its see-through detail cast a green and blue glow on her features. She chanced a look at Jack and attempted a smile.
“Anyone trailing us?” she asked just for conversation.
“We had a close one just south of Seattle, but Ryan ducked into a valley just below Mount Rainier, he lost them pretty fast.”
Sarah waited for more, but she saw that Jack wasn’t going to add anything to his answer. She swallowed and then turned her head to the left, a large cloud slid by, almost luminous in its while veil because of the moon. She closed her eyes at her own reflection.
“Jack?”
Jack was reaching over and was turning the small knob on the overhead console that automatically adjusted the altitude because he had seen on the readout that the old Grumman had drifted up by about ten feet. When he was satisfied, he looked over at Sarah and half smiled.
“Tell me you love me,” she said, her eyes boring into his.
The look on Jack’s face wasn’t exactly what she had been hoping for. He bit his lower lip, and then after a second, as though the slight frown had never been there at all, he actually smiled. “You know I love you, and one of the reasons I fell in love with you was your confidence in yourself. You, of all the women I have ever known, didn’t need reassurance on a constant basis. You knew how I felt.”
“You surely don’t have a clue about women, Colonel Collins,” she said, still holding his blue eyes with her own.
Jack chuckled and then nodded. “Okay, I love you, and I hope that makes up for all the other times I wanted to say it, but couldn’t.”
Sarah smiled and batted her eyelashes, which Jack saw and shook his head.
WAHACHAPEE FISHING CAMP
STIKINE RIVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Helena Petrovich waited silently on the long, covered porch of the store. She had been awakened early by the signals throughout the night by the Chulimantan. The constant hitting of the trees and the unrhythmic beat made her toss and turn. It had been almost twelve years since they had heard the beating
of the clubs so close to the camp, and she asked herself why they had ventured this far down from the north. It was causing her a sleepless night.
The beating had stopped about an hour before the sun rose and its rays started reflecting off of the moving Stikine. She had gone into the store an hour before and told Marla it was almost time to get the frozen bait for the Tlingit Indians to start their day fishing. She heard the girl moving around in the back of the store as she sat in her large rocker and listened to the sound of the many fishermen as they walked through the woods on the beaten-down path of a hundred years that wound its way down from the hills and mountains that surrounded the small fishing camp.
She waved and nodded her morning greeting to those that raised their hands to Helena. They were surprised to see her out so early, as she usually was inside getting their bait for the morning fishing. Several of the older Indians knew exactly why she was out that morning—they had also heard the constant thumping of wood on wood throughout the night, and they, as she, had gotten very little sleep.
“Thanks for the help!” Marla said as she kicked the front door open with her arms full of the white butcher’s paper-wrapped bait. Sixteen packages for eight boats.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart—I just didn’t feel up to facing that stinky mess this mornin’.”
“Oh, but it’s okay for me to?” Marla asked as she made her way down the wooden steps.
The old woman didn’t answer as she watched her granddaughter move her small frame toward the river and the waiting fishermen. She smiled to herself as Marla handed out the mornings bait, and laughed and joked with the old Indians, and fended off the sly smiles of the younger ones. After her arms were empty, Marla adjusted the knitted cap she wore and then waved at the fishermen as they shoved off from shore, starting their small engines as they headed up or down river. Marla started back to the store, then she paused a moment and turned toward the tree line. She stopped completely in her tracks, and the old woman could see the girl was sensing something. Marla was so in tune to the river and woods, nothing could escape her knowing that something was different. Helena wondered if the girl had heard the Chulimantan the same as herself during the night.
“What is it?” the old woman called from the porch, standing and letting the rocker sway back and forth by itself.
Marla looked at her grandmother, and then back at the woods to her left. Then she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing I guess—just thought I—oh, never mind.”
Helena watched as Marla started walking back to the store. Her eyes went to the woods where the girl had been looking. She, too, was feeling something—she couldn’t put a handle on that particular cup, but she knew something was indeed watching from the woods.
Suddenly Marla stopped and listened, and then she clapped her hands as she heard a familiar sound coming from a distance. The old woman now seemed to relax somewhat as the same sound finally reached her ears.
“You didn’t tell me Charlie Kemp was coming, Grandmother!” Marla shouted and clapped once more.
Helena shook her head and smiled. Marla loved the visits by the Mounties, especially Kemp. The RCMP sergeant always took her up in the Bell Ranger helicopter and then afterward supplied her with all of the gossip coming out of Vancouver and Seattle. Charlie was only about seven years older than Marla, and every time the girl returned to school, he would almost wilt and fall from the vine. The relationship was innocent enough, at least on Marla’s side of the river, but Helena knew Charlie had a schoolboy crush that would only be called off by time and distance.
Marla put her hand to her brow and blocked out the rise of the morning sun when she finally spied the red and white helicopter as it shot low over the trees with a loud whine of its engine. On the sides of the Bell Jet Ranger were the gold-painted crown of the Canadian government, and on the tail boom read RCMP.
As the Ranger set down in almost the same spot as the Russians helicopters the day before, Marla ran to the door and pulled it open. She screamed aloud, she was so happy at seeing Charlie Kemp. The young sergeant didn’t even wait for the turning blades to stop before he had thrown off his headset and jumped from the pilot’s seat, and then smiling and yelling himself, picked the young girl up and twirled her around.
As Helena watched from the porch railing, she smiled, and then saw that Charlie wasn’t alone. She was stunned to see the commander of the RCMP station at Jackson’s Bluff, Captain Dar Wilcox, climb from the backseat, and he also had Corporal Winnie Johnstone in tow. Three men in all—that meant they had taken Helena’s call very serious indeed.
“Well, well, Captain Dar, why do we have the pleasure of having the commander of the northern territory to our humble camp?” Helena asked as she moved to the opening in the porch where she waited at the top of the wooden steps.
Dar Wilcox removed his green bush hat and looked around the camp. He had a serious look on his tanned face.
“Damn, did those Indians already start their day?” he asked as he wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.
“Just missed them, why?” she asked as the captain bound up the stairs and put his arm around the old woman and hugged her to him.
“Well, with that call of yours, I don’t want anyone running into these fellas until we can find them and check out just what their story is, aay?” He looked around and then finally down at the old woman. “Just how in the hell are ya, Helena?”
“Tolerable, Dar, just tolerable, I’ve been enjoying Marla’s company lately.”
Wilcox looked down at Charlie and Marla, who were laughing as they approached the store with Corporal Winnie Johnstone in tow.
“Looks like you’re not the only one enjoying her company,” he said as he finally released her. “You did good calling us. Speaking of which, Winnie, get in there and let the base know we arrived alive, and we’ll keep in contact from time to time.”
“You plan on staying a while, Dar?” the old woman asked as the other mountie stepped onto the porch.
“Yeah, maybe a day or two. Figure after we find out what those Russian boys are doin,’ we might throw a line into the river and see what we can take back home with us.”
“That’s good, Dar, real good. I know how hard you Mounties work,” Helena said with a jab in the captain’s rib cage.
“You better watch it, us Canucks don’t take to joking about our work!” he said as everyone laughed.
As they entered the store, several dark shadows moved from the deeper parts of the surrounding woods and finally made their presence known to the sun and river.
Captain Darwood Wilcox sipped his coffee while leaning against the store’s long counter. He smiled as the blond-haired and blue-eyed Charlie Kemp showed Marla the magazines he had brought her. Hell, the captain thought, the damn things are only two months old. He shook his head and then shouted into the back room.
“Well, Winnie, did you get ahold of them?”
Winnie Johnstone stepped from the back room, followed by Helena. The old lady shook her head.
“Yes, Captain, told them we may be a few days up here and that we’d call in if there was trouble.”
“Dar, I don’t believe you’re taking this thing as seriously as you should. These fellas . . . well, let’s just say they didn’t look like the salt of the earth.”
Wilcox sat the coffee cup on the counter and smiled at the old woman. “Ah, you worry like a mother hen, prob’ly poachers is the most we’re lookin’ at here. If they’re as heavily armed as you say, we’ll observe only, and then call in the big boys. We overfly ’em with the Ranger and let them know the Mounties are still here.”
“Oh, great, you’ll overfly ’em with that old rickety Bell Ranger while they have brand-new Sikorskys parked around here,” Marla said as she finally tore herself away from Charlie, who in turn watched her walk away appreciatively.
“Oh, I think we can handle them, don’t you, Charlie?” Wilcox asked, frowning at the way he was looking at the young girl.
�
��I can outfly anyone or anything in the northern territory,” he said as he finally stopped looking at Marla’s butt.
“Cap’n, we have company here, you better look at these old boys,” Winnie said as he stood at the large plate-glass window.
Captain Wilcox turned and walked the few paces to the window. He immediately saw six men standing by the RCMP helicopter, and then his face went flush as one of the men opened the pilot’s side door and reached into the chopper. He reappeared a moment later and gently closed the door.
“What in the hell do them fellas think they’re doin’, they can’t—Winnie, go tell them to get away from government property.”
The corporal looked back at the captain. “Cap, have you seen what those boys are carryin’?”
Wilcox saw immediately what his man was talking about. What he hadn’t noticed in his cursory look at the men was that each one was holding an automatic rifle. He counted three AK-47s and three automatic weapons the likes of which he had never seen before. They were all dressed in camouflaged green and black fatigues, just like the ones he and his men were wearing. Then he gasped and straightened as one of the men emptied a full magazine into the engine compartment of the Ranger. The holes appeared in the housing as if by magic.
Helena grabbed Marla by the shoulders and pulled her to the side of the counter.
“You get up to Warriors Peak, and you stay there until you hear from me that it’s okay to come home. You hear me?”
Marla was staring at her grandmother with wide eyes. She could only nod her head that she understood, as her eyes flicked from Helena to Charlie and Winnie as they unholstered their nine-millimeter weapons from their belts. Then she saw Captain Wilcox do the same.
“Charlie, go with Marla, make sure she’s clear out the door before this mess gets too ugly, then get in the back and call Jackson’s Bluff and tell them that we have a situation up here.”
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 23