Retribution

by Kristine Williams

  "Okay, you ready to get out of here?" Jim had finished his breakfast and was kicking the still hot wood around, spreading the embers. "Let's follow this stream down, that way we'll have plenty of water near by. It should take us all the way out."

  Blair nodded and got up, following Jim as they crossed the stream and walked along the opposite bank where the ground was more flat. The quick run through the ice cold stream made him grit his teeth. Blair let Jim walk slightly ahead of him so he wouldn't block his view in any way as he kept an eye, and hopefully an ear, out for trouble. The sun was climbing higher but it wasn't taking much of the chill out of the air. He was cold, but as he and Jim were so similarly dressed, and Jim didn't seem affected by the temperature, Blair didn't want to say anything. He was used to Jim's 'do what I tell you , when I tell you', and found it easier to get through situations like this doing exactly that.

  They walked on for several hours with Jim leading the way, and Blair trying very hard not to jump at every sound. So much time had passed with no trouble that Blair was taken totally by surprise when Jim stopped suddenly, holding out his arm to stop him.

  "What? What is it?" Blair kept his voice low, looking around.

  "It was there, for just a minute."

  "What was there?"

  "That sound." Jim said, looking around. "Like a buzzing in my head."

  "Brackett?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  "Is it still there? Do you hear anything?" Blair stopped scanning the trees, he couldn't see anything, and concentrated on his partner. "Could you get anything from it? Direction, intensity, anything?"

  Jim shook his head, frowning. "No. Nothing. It wasn't there for long, then it stopped." He looked around again. "It took me a minute to notice it."

  "Okay, try smell, Jim. See if you can pick up his scent." Jim looked at him for a second, then rolled his eyes and took a long, slow breath through his nose.

  "No. Nothing...wait." he repeated the action. "There is something. I'm not sure what it is."

  "Can you describe it?" Blair tried to help.

  Jim took another breath. "Yeah, it smells like...like cat pee."

  Blair laughed a little. "Did you say, cat pee?"

  Jim nodded as he took another wiff. "Yeah, cat pee. But with more musk in it." He stopped smelling and wrinkled his nose. "Must be a cougar or something."

  Blair glanced around again. "How far away?"

  "I don't know. Not close. Come on, let's keep going."

  Blair fell in step behind Jim again. "So we know Brackett is here. But what is he doing? Why turn on the white noise, then turn it off?" Jim just shrugged and kept walking. Blair decided to keep quiet. He knew his friend was thinking the same thing. Neither one of them had an answer, and his voicing their concerns wasn't helping Jim's concentration any. But the fact that Brackett was there, and close enough to think he needed to block his presence from Jim, made him nervous. As much as he wanted to know what they had been brought up there for, he really wasn't in much of a hurry to have Brackett show them the answer. He'd much prefer it if Jim would just figure it out, catch this guy, and get them home.

  Jim stopped so suddenly, Blair bumped into him again.

  "What?" Blair froze, trying to back up just enough so as not to tip Jim over without actually moving.

  "There, see that wire?"

  Blair tried to peer around the taller man's shoulder and caught a glimpse of the thin metal wire stretched across their path. Jim's finger followed the wire as it wrapped around a tree, then threaded up the trunk, and attached itself to a small crossbow.

  "Brackett?"

  Jim nodded. "He must be in front of us, setting these little surprises." Jim pushed Blair back a few steps, then found a stick he could set the trap off with. "Otherwise, he couldn't know which way we were coming down." Jim tossed the stick and they both watched the crossbow fire, sending it's arrow into the tree opposite, just about chest level for Jim.

  Blair shuddered, wondering how many of those they might have simply walked past already, not tripping off out of sheer luck. But, Jim had seen this one right away. It must have been the first. "God, Jim. He's hunting."

  "Yep. We are going to have to try and confuse him somehow." Jim looked back in the direction they had come.

  "How? Walk back up the way we came? Jim, he'll just follow us."

  "No. It would take us days to go up and over." He looked back at the trap and past it, down the hill. "Okay, we keep going, carefully, until we come up with something."

  Blair followed again, keeping quiet this time so his friend could concentrate on keeping them both alive with no distractions.

  * * *

  Jim was getting more and more frustrated with himself. He should have seen that trap sooner, before he was about to walk into it. His vision had mostly cleared up the night before, but he was till noticing the occasional flash of black spots. Just what kind of drug had Brackett used? Blair seemed completely recovered. He tried to concentrate his sight without overdoing it, so he could also try and listen for the static. Blair had suggested that he listen for what he couldn't hear. Where he came up with some of these things, he had no idea. He had to admit, his partner was well traveled, and wasn't stupid. But, he also had a knack for coming up with a quick and believable lie when the need presented itself. He had heard something over the roar of the helicopter, when Blair tried to get the pilot to take them back, about his having flown Cobra's in Desert Storm. The fool at the controls must have believed him. Then there was the story about the spiders in his beard. Jim never told Blair he heard that one, either. He didn't like to remember that day much. He should have been there, right behind them, but that brat in the elevator. Then he'd had to run up eight flights of stairs. When he heard the gunshots, his whole world stopped for a moment. Had Blair just been killed? Shot in the head, instead of the vest? Had Zeller been too close for the vest to stop the bullets? Was he using armor piercing ammo? Jim could still bring back the ice cold feeling that filled his chest at that moment. Almost easier than the sensation of extreme relief when Blair woke up, hurting, but alive.

  They walked on, carefully, moving farther down the mountain. The trees were growing more dense and it was getting harder to see any great distance, so he changed his focus to smell. Occasionally the stench of some carcass, or animal waste ssaulted him and he would reel back, eliciting a question from Blair.

  "Whoa, Jim. Maybe smell isn't the best sense to work on here." Blair said after Jim found a skunk somewhere off in the distance. "How's your hearing? Still cutting in and out?"

  "Not as much. I think it's clearing up." Jim was still walking, but had turned to listen to Blair. Then he heard it, not too far off. "Wait a minute." he held up a hand to quiet his friend. "Our little stream just found a bigger one." He motioned to Blair and they changed direction slightly, moving more to the left as the sound of the river increased. They had only traveled a few minutes when Jim stopped suddenly, putting out an arm to keep Blair from walking off the edge he had just discovered.

  "Oh man, that's some drop." Blair had grabbed Jim's arm and now stood, leaning forward just slightly, trying to peer over the cliff they were perched on at the raging river below. "Look, Jim, over there."

  Jim followed Blair's gesture and saw the suspension bridge a few yards farther down. He scanned the bridge, focusing on the structure. He couldn't see any sign of tampering, or that anyone had crossed before them. "Let's go have a look." They picked their way along the edge, moving closer to the bridge. Once there he scanned it again, searching for any sign that Brackett had been there before them. He had to have been, but Jim couldn't see anything on the bridge, or on the other side.

  "Well?" Blair asked, looking down at the river about one hundred feet below. "Do we cross?"

  Jim looked back into the woods, then over the bridge again. Brackett was no idiot. He must have known they would come this way. He had known which way they were going this whole time. "I don't like this." Blair was inching clo
ser to the edge, looking down. God, did he have a death wish? Or just a severe lack of self preservation?

  "Jim, I don't see much choice. If there's a bridge, it's probably here for a reason, and it's going down, off the mountain. I'm betting it's the quickest way out of here. Any sign of Brackett?"

  Jim shook his head, looking around them. Then he heard it, behind them in the trees. "Wait." he paused, listening, then saw several birds take flight above the trees several yards down, on their side of the bank. "I hear something on this side."

  "Then let's get on that side." Blair said, pulling on Jim's arm. "Come on man, if we can get across, then take this bridge out, we could be home free."

  Jim looked over the bridge again skeptically.

  "Come on Jim, if Brackett's here, I'd rather be there." Blair was pointing across the canyon.

  "Okay. Kept a hand on that guide wire and keep your eyes open." Jim instructed, stepping forward. "If he's been here already, it could be rigged."

  Blair was stepping onto the bridge and now paused, looking at Jim.

  "It's your call, Chief. Say the word, and we'll go back the way we came."

  "No, it's fine. Let's go for it." Blair held on to the right guide-wire as Jim instructed. The wires were independently attached at either end, and he hoped if the bridge did come apart, maybe the wires wouldn't.

  Jim nodded, taking hold of the wire on the left, and they stepped out onto the bridge.

  The other side was a tantalizing fifty feet away, but Jim didn't let them rush the distance. He kept scanning the bridge, looking at the wooden planks, the thickly cabled wires, looking for any signs of tampering. He was convinced Brackett had been there, but whether or not he would take out the bridge, he didn't know. He just might want them on the other side. Blair looked down at the river far below now and again, but never faltered in his step or mentioned the height, so Jim continued. They were halfway across when he heard the flash that ignited the charges on the opposite bank.

  Part 4

  * * *

  "Hold on!" Was all he managed to say before the bottom of the bridge fell away. The planks under their feet fell away with great speed, gravity carrying them to the river below. His grip on the wire was the only thing keeping him from following. Quickly he glanced over at Blair, relieved to see him similarly suspended, one hand gripping the cable on his side.

  "Jim! What now?!"

  They were each hanging by just one hand, on opposites sides of what had been the bridge. Four feet of open air separated them, and four feet of heavy chain bound them together. Jim looked at the far bank, trying to gauge the distance. They had about twenty feet to go, and the cables were holding, but one handed was not any way to travel across a cable.

  "Okay Sandburg, you're going to have to come over here."

  "What?!" Blair looked up at his hand, then over to Jim. "How?"

  "Start swinging with your legs, then when I tell you, let go and swing over here. You'll use your left hand to grab this side."

  "You're kidding, right? Jim, there's no way. Why don't you swing over here?"

  "Look at the bank, Chief. On your side the tree is right up against the edge. On my side, we stand a chance of climbing up." He paused, looking back at Blair. "Now come on, this isn't getting any easier."

  "Jim, if I miss, I'll take you down with me."

  He could hear the concern overriding the fear in his friend's voice. "It's okay, Blair. I won't let you miss." He pulled on the chain and started Blair swinging.

  "Okay. But if this doesn't work, the last thing you're going to hear is I told you so." Blair used his legs to increase the momentum.

  "On three." Jim said, watching him swing.

  "This really sucks."

  He was going to have to raise his right arm up so Blair could catch the cable with his left. "One." His partner had the ability to be fearless when the need arose, for that Jim was grateful. "Two." Jumping from a plane, into a jungle, with no training what-so-ever was no small feat. "Three!"

  Blair let go exactly when Jim said to, reaching up with his left hand for the cable. He had over shot the jump and for a split second, missed the wire. But as he began to fall lower, his outstretched hand made contact, and he grabbed the cable, then pulled his right hand up.

  "Okay?" Jim asked, eyeing him. Blair just nodded. "Let's go. Just slide your hands down, don't try to overhand it." Jim was now able to grab the wire with both hands, letting the chain dangle against the back of his head as they both slid along the cable, towards the other side. It seemed like forever before they reached it, and Jim's hands were raw from the cable. The tree that it was attached to was several feet back from the edge, allowing Jim to stay on the wire until he was far enough in to just drop onto solid ground. He turned and pulled Blair in to land beside him.

  Blair hit the ground and kept going, laying down gratefully on the ground and examining his hands. "Man. I used to like suspension bridges."

  Jim smiled as he looked around, finally seeing the small holes in the ground where the charges had been set. "He's been on this side."

  "What?" Blair sat up. "Dammit. Jim, you have got to stop listening to me."

  Jim shook his head and sat down next to Blair, looking at his own red, sore hands. "It's not your fault, Chief. I could have said no." He looked up.

  Blair thought for a moment. "Jim, he's hunting us. Setting traps ahead of us. But what if he isn't ahead of us? What if he set these traps before we even got up here, and he's herding us in the direction he wants us to go? And we can't find him because instead of looking for him, we're trying to out guess him."

  Seeing as how the route they took after waking up was the only one that would lead them down. And down was the only logical route when you were trapped on a mountain. Following a river was standard military survival. He figured Brackett was behind them that first night, then moved ahead while they slept. At the bridge, he could have set a remote charge to cause enough noise that would make both of them think he was on their side, making them want to cross the bridge that had been rigged already. He scanned the forest again, wondering if Brackett was in front of them, farther down, or behind them, ready to follow. He couldn't see much in the dense woods on that side. And Brackett probably counted on that, too. Blair swore softly and Jim looked at him.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Jim, if I could get out of this thing, you could go after Brackett. I'm only holding you back here."

  "Sandburg, I told you that's no good. You're going to hurt yourself." He pulled Blair's hands apart and looked at his left wrist. "You are not holding me back, Chief, you're--" Blair's sudden intake of breath matched his own. "Dammit Sandburg." he'd pushed the shackle as far up his friend's arm as he could, revealing the red, bleeding wrist. "Haven't learned yet, have you?"

  "I was getting close." Blair replied, wincing as Jim examined the wrist.

  "Close to what? Getting this off, or listening when I tell you it's not going to work?" Jim examined the damaged tissue, then tore a piece of his shirt tail off and tried to make a bandage that would keep the metal from touching the raw flesh. "This is not your fault, Chief. We're in this together, and that's the only way we'll get out of it." he wrapped Blair's wrist, then gently lowered the metal band back down, trying to shove the cloth in under it. "We outsmarted Brackett once before. We can do it again."

  Blair shook his head, trying to pull his hand away as Jim forced the cloth in. "We didn't out smart him. Ow!. You over powered him. And you could do that again if we could get these off."

  "No. No good. I can't find him, remember?" he released Blair's arm and looked around. "No, we just keep heading down, until we figure something out. He's enjoying this, which means he's going to make a mistake soon. Then we'll get him." Jim stood and reached out a hand to pull Blair to his feet, then they headed off.

  It was late afternoon when they finally came to a more clear area, where Jim could see more than just green bushes and large trees. He had been keeping alert, using
all of his senses to look for traps along the way. After several hours past the bridge they had seen no more sign of their hunter. Jim was beginning to think Brackett planned the long intervals to get them both to drop their guard. Blair hadn't said a word in the past three hours, except for the occasional cough, and Jim wasn't sure if it was to help him concentrate, or out of a sense of guilt. He tried to get him to talk once or twice, but it was hard to get his friend to open up, and watch their step at the same time. That was probably what Blair was doing, keeping him focused on the task at hand. He knew when Jim was focusing and never broke his concentration. He also knew instinctively when Jim was zoning out. Something no one else seemed to notice, not even Simon. Blair was walking slightly ahead of him now, and had been blocking his view of the ground just in front. He heard the trip wire an instant before it released, and saw the heavy branch coming straight at them both.

  * * *

  "Jim!" Blair had felt the shove from Jim's hand on his shoulder at the same time the branched brushed right over his head, striking the taller man in the temple. Blair was taken down with him by the pull on the chain as Jim fell to the ground, unconscious. "Jim!" He landed on his knees beside him, and saw the gash on the left side of his head. "Jim, come on." he jumped across his friend and examined the wound. "Jim, answer me." It was bleeding badly, so Blair pulled out the piece of Jim's shirt that he had stuck under his shackle and used it as a pressure bandage. "Jim...Jim come on. Don't do this to me, please." He was looking around, trying to see if Brackett was anywhere near. If he saw Jim go down, he just might move in and finish Blair off. "Dammit, Jim." he couldn't tell how hard the branch had hit, but it was hard enough to knock the larger man out completely. It couldn't be good. How hard a blow did it take to give a concussion? He wanted to stop the bleeding If only he could find... "Yes." Blair spotted the flower he was looking for just off to their right. By straining as far as he could, he was just able to reach it. Head wounds bled a lot, he knew that, but he didn't like the look of this. Blair tried to tear a strip off of the bottom of his own shirt to make a bandage that would hold the bits of yarrow to the wound, but the heavier fabric wouldn't start a tear. So he used Jim's, as it was already torn, and pulled off a strip long enough to tie the small bandage in place.