In his digging, he unearthed something else—a rock, lying on its side. It looked strange, and although Hart had to admit that it looked remarkably like the flesh of a face, he couldn't believe that there could be two unexplained corpses lying side-by-side.
Then, he brushed more snow away, and looked upon the face.
For a moment, Hart didn't register exactly what he'd seen. Some part of his brain forgot to tell him that he had not always known who was lying dead at the base of this frozen cliff in the Canadian wilderness. The second he realized it, he tried to forget, clasping his hand over his eyes and holding back the urge to weep, to wail so that his scream would be heard echoing between the trees and rivers, to cry out from beneath the weight of his redemption.
"Christ…" he murmured. "How am I gonna tell Alex?"
He dropped to the ground and lay there for a long time, unsure of what he was expecting to happen. At last, he managed to force himself back up onto all fours, knowing that nothing would save him or Alex other than continuing his work. He continued to push the piles of snow back and forth, looking halfheartedly for the sight that would set his mind off again. But with every snowbank he turned inside out, the less confident he grew, and the more his thoughts strayed to the numb face, her closed eyes…
In frustration, he cried out and hurled the man's body onto its stomach. It crashed several feet down into the snow, and as Hart surveyed the fruits of his labors, his eye caught something that did not belong, but definitely did.
Working rapidly, he pushed the snow aside, and clutched in his dirty, freezing fingers, a small ring of keys.
"Well done!"
The voice came seemingly out of nowhere, and Hart thrust his hand to his pocket, only to remember that he'd brought no weapon.
"Sorry, Hart," Anthony said, grinning repulsively. "I'm holding the guns this time. I'd say you've earned one, though," he added, tossing Hart one of the pistols he was holding. Hart caught it in both hands. "Careful with that. We've only got two left."
Hart could not speak. Who was Anthony? Did he fit into any part of the night?
"Thanks for going after Sarah," Anthony went on. "I wish you'd waited for me, but neither of us like to wait for commands, I know. That's what I like about you."
Hart was still numb. Did Anthony understand that Alex was at this moment dying? Did he know that Sarah was dead? Would he care in either case?
"Where is she, anyway?" Anthony's tone changed, and he looked around the field. "And why the hell are we standing out here? Let's find someplace warm."
"Anthony," Hart croaked, "I can't leave."
Anthony's face hardened. "What's the matter with you?"
I can barely put it together. "Alex—and Ordoñez," he said.
"You met Ordoñez?" Anthony looked Hart in the eyes, and Hart knew that in the depths of his soul, Anthony wanted to know everything. "Hart—where is he?"
Hart pointed mutely to the lake.
Anthony broke into a smile. "Are you serious!? You got him? Way to go!"
Hart thrust out his hand and pushed Anthony away. "It was Alex. Not me."
"Alex. You're joking." All trace of mirth left him. "Where is he? Is he still alive?"
"Not much," Hart said. "But still a little." He extended his arm in the direction of Alex's recumbent form.
Anthony walked grimly over to the body and crouched on the ground beside Alex's head. "Remember what I said?" Not waiting for an answer, he continued. "When he left I said that I'd shoot him in the head if I ever saw him again."
Hart ran, his feet pounding in the snow, and came to a stop by Alex's feet, standing at his full height. "You don't keep promises."
"Maybe," Anthony said, softly. "But I think this time I might like to try."
"Anthony, no! You don't—aren't—"
Anthony extended the arm with the remaining pistol, and turned the chamber with his thumb, making it click solidly. "Dead weight, Hart!" he shouted, his words unreadable, masked with fury. "Good for nothing but slowing us down. Wouldn't you like him to be gone? For good?"
"No!"
Anthony placed the barrel against the side of Alex's head. "I don't know if you can hear me in there, but goodbye, Alex!"
"No!" Hart had aimed the pistol unconsciously, in a split second, directly parallel to where Alex lay. He fired blindly, and the cold handle of the gun was the last thing Anthony knew before he was lifted backwards off his feet and flung through the air, coming to rest at last in a drift of snow.
Hart swung his arm in a wide arc, and let go of the gun, letting it spin through the air. It dropped to the snow, where the wind began to cover it. Then, just as Alex had himself done, Hart lifted the body onto his shoulders, and began running, carrying Alex across the frozen remains of his consciousness.
He tore for the forest, not daring to stop until he saw his salvation, placed his hand on the cool window, slid the keys in and out of the doors, and laid his burden carefully across the back seat.
CHAPTER 28
The End of the Road
There was no fanfare when they crossed the line. Hart kept his foot to the gas pedal all the way in, only easing it off when he saw that they had arrived in the center of town. As quickly as he could, he shut the car off, kicked open his door, and wrenched open the back. He looked wildly around the street.
"Hey!" he called out randomly. "We need help!"
Alex retained none of the ride. His only recollection was a vague sense of having woken in the middle of the crossing into Sawtooth, Saskatchewan, barely able to see the sign rolling past the window before descending again into the dark. That's good, he thought sleepily. That's good.
Roland Johnson's body was found two days later, in a ditch beside Interstate 81. A passing vehicle noticed a strange object beside the road, and, possessing that uniquely human mixture of curiosity and suspicion, the population of the car, a man, woman and young child, parked and went to check it out. It didn't take long for the wife to realize that there was a man's leg in the ditch and beat a quick path back to the van, making sure to shield the baby's eyes and leaving her husband to uncover the rest of the corpse and report it to the highway patrol.
Later, the man would testify that Roland's skin was frigid to the touch, and his wife would swear she saw his face frozen in a last look of determination, as if he had forced himself to keep walking even as the interior and exterior of his corporeal form succumbed to the elements. The coroner's report found Roland "unequivocally" dead from acute hypothermia.
"Madness," said one of the police who arrived at the scene. "He'd have to be crazy to hike into a storm like that."
"Either there was some heck of a prize ahead of him," he said later in his deposition, "or there was hell behind him."
Machry folded his paper shut, crumpling it at the crease, and handed it to Dave. "Here," he sighed. "I've read it a hundred times in two days."
Dave eagerly grabbed the local section and began perusing the article, Local Entrepreneur Found Dead. His eagerness vanished by the second paragraph, replaced by a furrowing of his brow. Machry watched him as he read, slightly amused at the progress of emotions across his friend's face. When he was finished, Dave folded the newspaper more neatly than Machry and set it down on an empty spot of the table. "They certainly took some liberties with the details, didn't they?" he said, disappointed and bemused.
"Truth," Machry said, by way of a reply, "is different from fact." Dave shook his head slowly, looking up at the ceiling. "Are you going to sit?" Machry asked. "I hate it when people stand up. Makes me feel like I don't deserve to sit."
"For Pete's sake, Henry, it's your house," Dave replied, drawing a chair to the table and picking up his cup of rapidly cooling coffee. They were in the spacious kitchen of Machry's home, populated by a coffee table, a dominating refrigerator, and white-painted walls lined with kitchenware—a toaster, a blender, a mostly unused stove.
"You said you had something to tell me?" Machry asked, draining a quarter of his
coffee mug it one gulp.
"To show you, actually." Dave reached into the back pocket of his pants and drew out a clipped article.
Machry groaned. "More newspaper?"
"You haven't seen this one, I assure you," Dave said, evidently happy at his ability to surprise Machry. "It's not in the local paper. Front page of the New York Times, though, yesterday. Go on, read it," he insisted, pushing it across the table to Machry, who took it and examined the headline:
OTTAWA POLICE RAID MEETING OF SUSPECTED REVOLUTIONARY GROUP
At approximately 11:51 yesterday, special police units in Ottawa, Quebec, surrounded a downtown office building serving as the headquarters for a terrorist organization known as the Moose Killers. After a spokesman for the group refused to surrender, the police approached the building and were fired on by armed members of the militants. One Ottawa police officer was killed and four wounded, one critically.
According to police, three gunmen were fatally shot, and none were found wounded. Much of the Moose Killer force was apparently able to escape the standoff. Four, including the spokesman and ringleader Edmund McTavish, were arrested at the scene.
Initial investigation into the Moose Killers, who operated from behind a shell corporation called The McTavish Group, portrayed them as an organized crime family. However, more recent surveillance has turned up a complex plan to seize national power.
"The plan was elaborate, but almost airtight," said special unit chief Michel Rodin. "It's scary to think of how easily it could have been pulled off."
The raid on the McTavish group was authorized by decisive testimony from a witness and former operative, Ramon Gutierrez.
Machry skimmed over the rest of the article, then looked up at Dave. "They're not gone, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"It's hardly over. Just because the Moose Killers are on the run, doesn't mean they'll just go away."
"Henry—" Dave said, before cutting himself short. "Can you ever be happy about anything?"
"I can't say there's much to be happy about. Not right now."
"Henry…" Dave began, sounding genuinely concerned. "How are you? I mean, really? That police work can't have been good for you. You've been acting so strange at work lately. It's like…" he paused, searching for a word, "like you're not content to live your life anymore. Like you used to be, and now…you're just not."
Machry sighed again, and turned his head to look out the window, fixing his eyes on a scattering of sun rays bursting through the usual clouds of early spring. "I'm afraid to say you may be right, Dave. I'm calling in sick today anyway. I've got some decisions to make."
"At least you've got time," Dave said. When Machry looked back at him, he was surprised to see Dave's face. It was always difficult for Dave to do anything quietly, subtly, in the shadows. However, what Machry saw on his friend's face was nothing but the tail of a lingering smile; it cast Dave in an altogether different light. "I've got one more article for you."
When Hart opened his eyes, he realized that he had slid forward and was in danger of collapsing onto the floor. Grunting, he heaved himself back up and looked at the clock hanging on the opposite wall: 6:40 A.M. It hadn't felt at all like he'd been asleep for the last two hours—he didn't even remember closing his eyes—but it had been a strange night in the extreme.
Alex had been saved by the chance of a passing insomniac, a citizen of Sawtooth taking a late-night walk on the wide main street. He had said that he knew the location of a small clinic, which served as the town's hospital, and Hart let him take the wheel of Jean le Potard's car. They arrived after five tense minutes, and, with help from the stranger, Hart carried Alex into the ward, where a doctor and nurse were working the night shift. The doctor examined the wound and the nurse changed the blood-soaked bandage, but the doctor admitted that he didn't have the tools to remove the bullet.
"You call yourselves a hospital!?" Hart remembered shouting.
The doctor rubbed his eyes slowly, and looked up, his face filled with pain. "We're not a hospital. Just a clinic. You must have noticed—we're too isolated out here to have up-to-date medicine."
Hart had shouted, and was considering a resort to intimidation when the doctor said he'd radio an ambulance helicopter from the nearest hospital. The helicopter arrived a short time later, and the doctor told the pilot that he was "relatively sure" Alex would survive the trip. Hart hadn't even considered the possibility that Alex might not wake up. It was a one-outcome situation for him—anything other than his friend's recover was simply outside reality.
After watching the helicopter take off from the roof, the flattest surface the pilot could find, Hart thanked the insomniac and stepped back into the car. The cool leather seats and fancy dashboard struck him as garishly out of place in the night and his entire life. Potard's rented silver Mercedes was something he would never have approached, had he been given the choice. Even so, he allowed himself to ease slowly into the driver's seat before starting it again.
The Sawtooth doctor had shown him a map and pointed out where to go if he wanted to follow the helicopter—the town of Cold Lake, on the opposite side of the water from where they had been. It took Hart about two hours to arrive there.
And so, there he was, getting intermittent reports as Alex was moved from surgery to the ICU. Now that he was awake, his thoughts began drifting again, inevitably sailing back to the bloody field beside the lake, to the body he had left lying there.
He had almost begun to doze again when he was startled into wakefulness by a gentle shaking of his shoulder. Irritated, he looked up into the eyes of a masked surgeon.
"Can you tell me what's going on?"
"We can," the surgeon said, lowering his mask. "He's going to live."
Hart was unaccustomed to the feeling of relief, but could only describe it as one of the greatest feelings he'd ever experienced. Relief was different from happiness—it had nothing to do with leaping for joy, smiling, thinking good thoughts. Relief was the happiness of someone who knew exactly what was behind him, and ahead, and welcomed the good news wearily.
"We did some repairs to the bone and patched up the skin as best we could. He'll need to stay here for another day, though. But you can go and visit him now," the surgeon was saying. "Right down that hall, in the recovery ward."
"Yeah," Hart said. "Thanks."
"You know, kid, I really admire what you've been doing," the surgeon added. "Bringing him here, waiting all this time. Are you two brothers? Cousins or something?"
"No," Hart replied, standing up. "I met him a week and a half ago." Then he left, leaving the bemused surgeon in the waiting room to puzzle over this parting phrase.
Alex, wearing a hospital robe and with an uncomfortable-looking IV in his arm, appeared to be asleep when Hart entered the room. Not knowing exactly what he should do, he contented himself with sitting in the cushioned wooden chair between the two beds, the other of which was unoccupied. He shifted in the chair and wondered how long he would have to wait. As he watched, however, one of Alex's eyes opened slowly, then both of them. He caught sight of Hart, who looked back uneasily.
"Where am I?" he murmured, barely coherent.
"You're in a hospital," Hart said, "in Cold Lake. The town."
"My leg—" Alex whispered, his voice suddenly clear with worry.
"It's all right," Hart told him, trying to sound calm and gentle. "They got the bullet out. You'll be fine."
"What about—Sarah!" he breathed, tensing. "And—Anthony—he's not here, is he?"
"They're all right too," Hart told him. He hadn't made a conscious decision to lie; he just knew by instinct that Alex was in no condition to take bad news. "They're in Sawtooth."
"Sawtooth," Alex murmured, testing the word on his tongue. "Sawtooth. I can't even remember how long I've waited to hear that." He let out his breath and relaxed his muscles. For a moment Hart thought he was going to sleep again, but then he muttered faintly, "Why did you help me?"
"It's not—" Alex made a feeble attempt to rise, but dropped back onto the mattress. "It's not that I don't appreciate it. I just want to know why."
Hart was silent.
"I mean, I never trusted anybody. You trusted Anthony, and you trusted me…how does that kind of mind work? What was it that made you help me?"
"Want the best answer I have?"
"Anything helps."
Hart fidgeted in his chair. "I wanted to pay you back."
Alex pushed his pillows backwards against the headboard on the bed, and sat himself up against them. He smiled wryly. "What for?"
Cold Snow: A Legal Thriller Page 33