by A S Bond
With camp made in double time, Kyle shook off his sense of foreboding and followed Max out of the trees towards the water. They scrambled over the rocks at the shoreline and perched on a couple of large boulders, where Kyle pulled out a sheet of mapping with their mineral claim marked in red.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s see if we can back up the numbers from the fly-over.” Max switched on a GPS. “You got the coordinates in that?”
“You bet.” Max tracked rapidly through the stored information.
“This area here - “Kyle circled the northern end of their claim around the top of the lake where they were standing- “is where the EM went crazy, with levels off the chart.” He looked at the surrounding hills, shading his eyes from the sun. The aerial electromagnetic survey was a way of measuring the electrical conductivity of rocks, in the hope of finding a valuable mineral deposit, such as nickel. The downside was, they could also pick up water-filled faults, salty groundwater or other worthless features.
“Okay...” Max was focused on transferring data from the GPS onto the small screen of a ‘beep mat, used for reading conductivity levels found in ground that contained metals. “If there’s anything here, this will find it. I’ll start on the level ground near the head of the lake, so why don’t you go and grab some samples from the outcrop along that ridgeline?” He waved toward the place where the land rose into a steep hill, forcing the lake to flow into a narrow ravine as it joined the main river. “Try cutting a channel too, if it looks promising.” He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a hammer and chisel; Kyle took them with a rueful smile.
“Why is it you get the hi-tech stuff, and I get a hammer and chisel?”
“Because I’m the brains, and don’t you forget it!” Max laughed as Kyle walked off, his black hair falling into his eyes, and then he bent over the small screen again.
After several hours of collecting, chiseling and hammering, Kyle sat down to think. It was strange, but there wasn’t any sign of mineralization along this ridge. There were no veins, none of the typical host rocks, and no obvious alterations. Yet the EM readings had been off the scale, suggesting that metals were abundant. He sighed and put the last sample in the bag. They would take the rocks back to St John’s for analysis, and see what that threw up. Or perhaps the metal was bedded several feet down. If so, Max would find it.
He looked at his watch. They would lose the light in just over an hour, so, picking up his bag of samples, Kyle made his way carefully down the ridge. At the head of the lake, where Max was doing the soil sampling, the trees thinned out and the ground became wet and uneven. Kyle was still some fifty meters away when he saw Max on his knees. At first, he thought his friend was kneeling to get a sample, then two figures stepped forward, away from the tree line. One held back, looking down the lake, while the other stood in front of Max.
Kyle saw the rifle before he heard the shot. It echoed around the valley just as the information ricocheted around his brain, which refused to accept it.
Max’s body slumped onto the ground and, for a moment, nothing whatsoever moved. Kyle stopped breathing. Then, the lookout turned and saw him, and Kyle found himself running, without any memory of ordering his legs to move. He simply ran, the bag of mineral samples forgotten. A shot whined past him, making a rock spit dust and shards just as his hand touched it. The trees soon gave him cover, but this forced the two attackers to come after him on foot. Kyle had the advantage though: a fifty-meter start and he knew where he was, sort of. He could only hope those men did not. Who the hell were they?
He didn’t have much time to wonder. The crashing behind him grew louder, and from two different angles. Christ, they had split up. Bastards. Kyle pounded up the ridgeline, his breath ripping through his chest, but his mind was more agile now and an idea came to him as he remembered the deadfall near the summit, where the ridge became a cliff over the ravine.
Kyle glanced behind him. They weren’t close enough to be seen, but he could hear them. The deadfall was straight ahead. Kyle threw himself to the side, into the semi-darkness of a small cave created by a tree’s roots where they had been torn from the ground. He gulped at the cold air, trying to calm his breathing. His gasping could give him away.
A few moments later, the first of the men, a big guy in a lumberjack shirt and insulated jacket, reached the deadfall. He paused for a moment, peering into the gloom of the forest on either side of the tree, looking for a way around. Then he lowered the rifle and began to climb over the tree trunk in his path.
This was the moment Kyle had hoped for and his fingers tightened around a rock by his feet. Creeping from the tangle of roots, he raised the rock. Some sixth sense made the man turn, but it was too late and the rock thudded against his brow. Kyle hadn’t been quick enough the stop his attacker firing off a round, though. It missed him by an inch, but the sound attracted the second man, who raced towards Kyle from the left, trying to get a clear shot through the trees.
Kyle dropped the rock and took off. He cleared the deadfall in a single leap, and sprinted towards the sunlight marking the end of the treeline at the top of the ridge. Cursing, the man behind him ran too; with one hand on the fore grip of the rifle and the other on the stock, he used the weapon to push his way through the forest. But as he crashed through the spruce boughs, he didn’t see the large branch being held back under tension, until it was too late.
When Kyle let go of the bough, it sprang forward and smacked his assailant directly in the mouth. Kyle saw a satisfying spurt of blood as the man fell backwards. Following up on his advantage, Kyle went after him, throwing a punch at the handy red target. Pain sizzled up his arm like an electric shock. The attacker hit the ground, but he used his rifle to trip Kyle, who landed heavily. This gave the man, who was lighter and shorter than his accomplice, a chance to get in a punch of his own.
The force of the blow threw Kyle backwards and two things went through his mind simultaneously. The first was the realisation that that this guy was a professional, which meant that he, Kyle, was in some serious shit.
The second thought was an image of Max on his knees, and unexpectedly, the fear left Kyle in a heartbeat. Now, he was just plain furious.
Adrenaline fuelled his fury as he let out a sound, half yell, half scream, and threw himself at his attacker, knocking the rifle to one side. His only chance with a killer like this was to get in close. Kyle threw punch after punch, heavy and fast. His youth and stamina were a temporary match for the man’s strength and skill, but the blows merely held off the inevitable, and soon a hand gripped his throat, squeezing. Six inches away, a pair of almost colourless eyes bored into his with all the dead menace of a great white shark.
Kyle’s punches weakened and the edges of his vision were beginning to darken, when he realized how close they were to the edge of the cliff. In a final effort, Kyle dropped his entire weight down to the left, dragging the man with him and breaking the grip around his throat. Rolling towards the edge, Kyle took an upper cut to the jaw, but he used his attacker’s own forward motion to tip him over the edge. The man flung up a hand, catching Kyle’s ankle.
The man’s weight almost dragged Kyle over the edge too, but he grabbed the nearest branch in a reflex action. It held, and he kicked wildly at the fingers around his ankle with his other boot.
“No way, you fucking bastard!” he screamed.
It wasn’t a big cliff, but high enough to do its job and the man’s shriek was cut short as he hit the rocks just below the surface of the rapids.
Kyle stood, swaying and staring blankly down at the water and the twisted body below, when he heard the sound of a spruce bough being pushed aside. He spun around and saw the man he had struck with the rock running low through the trees, the rifle pointed straight at him. A shot rang out as Kyle began to run, but it was too late; the denim on his right thigh began to darken with blood. He kept on going, as he zig-zagged randomly away from the gunman. The downward slope gave him speed—too much speed, as more t
han once his injured leg gave way and he half fell, almost tobogganing on his haunches down the hill through the pine needles.
Shots whined all around, but few got close, and soon Kyle hurtled out onto the flat ground at the head of the lake. Running over the uneven terrain was agony, as the impact of the bullet in his leg began to make itself felt. Kyle clutched his thigh as he half ran, half staggered, towards their little Cessna.
The plane: His only way out of this nightmare.
Kyle avoided looking over to where Max’s body lay in a bloody heap as he splashed through the water, turning the lake’s shallows red with blood, and threw himself into the open cockpit door. He didn’t have time to wonder why the door was open, when they had left it firmly closed to deter bears. He lay across the seats, gasping for air. The adrenaline began to subside, and the pain in his leg became so bad, it took a moment for Kyle to realize broken glass covered the seats. Then he understood why the door had been open: The controls had been smashed to pieces.
Taking deep breath, Kyle forced himself upright and looked straight down the barrel of the rifle.
The chase was over.
Chapter 6
The wooden hatch clattered back onto the deck as Scott stood on the cabin steps and stuck his head out into the evening air. The tide was out and gulls fought and screamed over titbits in the muddy sand.
He carried a cell phone. “Can you hear me now?”
“Getting there. Try the crow’s nest.”
“How do you know I’m onboard a boat?”
“Secret spy skills.”
Scott looked up and smiled. “You can hear the rigging in the breeze,” he said, looking at the ropes as they snapped and flapped against the mast.
“Sounds more like a force 10 gale. And besides, during those four days we spent in that desert sweat-box, I don’t think you stopped talking about your damned boat even once. We were planning to shoot you just to get some rest.”
“Hey, I forgot what a funny guy you are!” Scott’s brief time overseas - in fact, his only posting outside the country- was three years ago, when he acted as temporary extraordinary liaison to MI6. It had left two permanent impressions; the first was that he preferred intelligence analysis to the sharp end of the business, and second, that should he ever be in a tight corner, there was none better than David to have his back.
Scott said, “I hear you’ve been kicked upstairs and you’re out of the North African game.”
“True. I’m a desk jockey now, just like you.”
“Your talents are wasted in London.”
“And right now my talents are telling me you didn’t travel out to the bay on a Sunday night just to sit on a boat and catch up on old times with me.”
“Ok, you got me.” Scott paused. “David, has a gentleman by the name of Jean Maynard ever attracted any attention from you guys?”
“American?”
“Yes, but...well, I’ve been doing some digging and it’s not common currency, but his French Canadian mother is neither French nor originally Canadian; she’s a French-speaking transplant...from Algeria.”
“Now I understand.” The humor was gone from David’s voice. There was a silence at the end of the line, which stretched until Scott was about to ask if David was still there, when he heard, “It’s not a name I know, Scott. But I can take a look around, see what I can see. Anything in particular to point me in the right direction?”
“Well, he’s a billionaire, with lots of business interests.”
“I’ll look. Has this got anything to do with that debacle in Afghanistan last week?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Instinct. We lost some of our own in that, too, remember.”
“Oh, you mean the journalists.”
“I do indeed.”
Scott glanced up as a black SUV slowed to a stop at the end of the beach. Squinting against the low sun, he relaxed when a door opened and two kids jumped out, running and shrieking towards the busy gulls.
“Yeah, it might.” Scott climbed out onto the deck, and he watched as the tide began to turn, each distant wave pushing rivulets of water further ashore. Fingers of foam ran over the mud and washed around the Painted Lady’s solid keel.
“It’s unfortunate timing,” David said.
“What is?”
“This new front in the war. It’s going to make next year’s drawdown of troops look like a defeat. For all of us. Especially a president looking for re-election.”
“What are you saying? That this attack is someone’s way of making sure Campbell doesn’t get a second term?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Or?”
“Or Campbell is backed into a corner over this thing, and is looking for a good excuse to get back in the game. Win a war, win the country. “
“That would be...” Scott struggled to find the words. “...grounds for Impeachment.”
“Who knows.” David’s tone was suddenly brisk. “This is just speculation. What we do know is that we need to get ahead of this thing, whatever it is, and Maynard may be key to that.”
“OK.” Scott’s mind was reeling. “Let me know if you turn up anything.”
“I’ll add it to the six beers and fifty quid you already owe me.”
“If you get me the goods on this, I’ll buy you enough beers to last the rest of your life.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Just one thing...”
“Yes?”
“Keep this to yourself, for now. Someone doesn’t want me to look under this particular rock - “
“Which makes you very keen to pick it up and see what crawls out. No problem.”
Scott locked down the hatch, ready to leave for the city. Sunset was a memory now and the night sky clouded over. The darkness brought with it a change in the weather. His yacht leaned drunkenly against the rickety landing stage, and he stepped across to the timbers with ease. As he slung his small backpack over his shoulder, he felt a momentary vibration. Frowning, he stooped down and rummaged through the bag for the cell.
The backlit screen showed one new message, number unknown. Scott clicked on it.
You were right to ask about M; going up to Okak, NL to check out business interests. Back soon. Denzel in loop. Will stay in touch. B
Chapter 7
The Dash 8 cargo plane touched down at Goose Bay airport and Dexter Adams stepped off with a handful of other passengers. All sport fishermen, he concluded, looking at their tackle boxes stacked on the damp runway. The Labrador morning was less chilly than he had expected this far north, but a light drizzle made him turn up the collar of his jacket nonetheless and, shouldering a large carryall, he walked quickly towards the terminal.
Outside, a single cab waited, its engine running. A minibus pulled up, clearly intended for the fishermen. There had been no one else on the flight.
“Beaver Creek Waterdrome, please.” said Dex, tossing his bag onto the rear seat and taking the passenger seat himself.
“Oh, aye.” The driver nodded briefly and swung out onto a highway, empty save for a passing logging truck. He seemed to sense Dex’s reluctance to chat, which arose more from tiredness than unfriendliness, and left him to stare out the window as they headed through town towards a forested horizon.
There wasn’t much to see. Goose Bay had been built in 1939 on a delta at the head of the Hamilton Inlet as little more than a military base, which later spawned the town itself. It was a small place with a comically oversized airport, maintained thanks to the continuous presence of various NATO forces. They liked to use the vast, largely unpopulated spaces of this north eastern province for special training in skills such as ultra-low flying for fighter planes, and precision bombing; things made awkward in the busy, crowded spaces of western Europe and America.
It was a short five miles to the lake that called itself a ‘waterdrome,’ and Dex saw a few pretty wooden houses flash past the window. As they pulled up he sighed,
stepped out of the cab and walked towards a wooden jetty
“Hi, there.” A man came towards him. Fifty-something and thinning on top, he wore overalls and wiped his hand on his pants before offering it to Dex. “I’m Jake Montagnais.” The smile was friendly and genuine, the handshake firm
“Dexter Adams, we spoke on the phone about the rental. Did my deposit come through okay?”
“Sure did.” Dex figured Jake was the mechanic, secretary and owner of this tiny outfit. They walked over to a small concrete block building on the lakeside, clearly the company office. “We got all your details, your deposit and your license here...” Jake flicked through a pile of papers on the shabby desk and picked one out, squinting at it through thick glasses.
“Now this little Cessna we got for you takes 59 gallons and burns at 13 gallons an hour. Your flight plan says you’re going to Tasisuak Lake?”
Dex nodded. “And then a hop further up to Umiakovik Lake. Maybe.”
“That’s a two-hour flight, so you got plenty in reserve.” Jake gave him a sideways glance, taking in Dex’s lean build and neat blonde hair, uncalloused hands and newly bought plaid shirt and jeans. “You’re not going for the fishing, then?”
“No.”
“It’s pretty rough country up there. We usually just get the fishermen and the prospectors making the trip. You know what you’re getting into?”
“I think so. So what are lake conditions like?”
Jake ripped off a sheet from the fax machine and handed it to Dex, leaving oily fingerprints on the edge. “Not bad, easterly, force two or three north of Voisey Bay. No rain until later in the week. You should be fine for the return trip before the weather breaks.”
They walked outside, where the drizzle had stopped, making way for a sun that was surprisingly hot on Dex’s face. It seemed like years since he had last felt the sun. Another hemisphere, another life. He closed his eyes briefly, revisiting the past week of endless plane flights from his laboratory in Southern Chile to here, in northern Canada. It was a mishmash of airports, snatched sleep and rushed, worried calls with family he hadn’t seen in months, years. Shit. He opened his eyes again and tuned back into what Jake was saying as he led the way down the jetty to a four-seat floatplane bobbing on the shoreline chop.