He’d been right about one thing: the phony anthrax signs had been crazy. The Philosopher had known what he was doing. Creech had been allowed to know about them, and had spilled his guts to Jay… and Jay had been tricked into thinking he knew something important. They’d been a ruse, nothing more, the real trick had been the trip wires. He guessed now that his own unit had stopped just short of encountering one.
Nice, Gordon-very nice.
Jay and his two men came to a high point and looked into the deep valley below. There was no sign of Reeve and no visible hiding place. But Choa, with his hunter’s eyes, spotted something, a dark shape against the hillside. They approached cautiously, but it was just a groove in the earth, maybe a foot deep, six feet long, and a couple of feet wide.
“It’s a scrape,” Jay said.
“A what?” Hestler asked.
“A hide. You scrape away the earth, then lie in the hole. Put some netting over you and you’re hidden from a distance.” Jay looked around, realizing. “He uses this area for his training courses. There must have been a manhunt at some stage. There could be dozens of these spread out across the hills.”
“So he could be hiding?”
“Yes.”
“So maybe we’ve walked right past him; maybe he’s already behind us.” Hestler eased his catch off. “I say we split up, that way we cover more ground. We could be here all night otherwise.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Choa offered. “Get us cold and lost, wet and hungry. Stalking us, just waiting for concentration to lapse.”
“He’s only one man,” Hestler growled. He was still looking around, daring anything to move. Jay noticed Hestler’s MP5 was set to full auto.
“All right,” Jay said, “you two head north. I’ll head south. There are two peaks. We each circle one and RV back at the dinghies. Keep in touch by two-way. It might take a few hours. It won’t be dark by the time we finish. If there’s no result, we think again.”
“Sounds good to me,” Hestler said, setting off. “Sooner we start, sooner we finish.”
Choa gave Jay a doubting look, but set off after his partner.
Jay decided after they’d gone to make straight for the summit of Beinn Mhor. He’d be more of a target, but on the plus side he could take in the country below with a single sweep.
“Just do it,” he told himself, beginning to climb.
“This is fucking unbelievable,” Hestler told Choa. “There were ten of us at the start, how the fuck did we get to this?”
“Search me.”
“Ten against one. He’s fucked us up nicely. I’d like to tear him a new asshole.”
“You think he needs two?”
Hestler turned to Choa. “He’s likely to be shitting himself so much, maybe he will at that.”
Choa said nothing. He knew words came free; as a result people talked too much. Sometimes people could talk themselves into believing they were superhuman. Talking could make you crazy.
The last they saw of Jay he was clambering on all fours up a steep slope. Then they rounded the hillside and lost him.
“This weather is the pits,” Hestler said.
Choa silently agreed. The last time he’d known anything like it was up in Oregon, near the mountains there. Rain so thick you couldn’t see through it. But afterwards, the trees had smelled so beautiful, pine and moss bursting underfoot. There weren’t many trees here. There was practically nowhere to hide, except for these scrapes. He didn’t like the idea of these invisible hides. “We’re a long way from Los Angeles,” he said quietly.
Hestler chuckled. “Killing’s killing,” he said. “Doesn’t matter where you do it or who you do it for.”
“Look,” said Choa, pointing. He had good eyes. He’d been the first to spot the scrape, and now he’d noticed another smallish patch on the ground. When they got up close, it was wet, greasy to the touch. It was blood.
“Bastard’s winged!” Hestler said.
“Let’s radio Jay and tell him.”
“Fuck that, the bastard could be around the next bend. Let’s get him.”
Hestler set off, but Choa held back. He had the two-way hooked to his belt and now unclipped it.
“Got something here,” he said. Then, with Hestler almost out of sight, “Hey! Hold on a minute!” But Hestler kept on going.
“What is it?” Jay’s voice said. He sounded a little out of breath, but not much.
“Blood, very fresh.”
“No way.”
“I’m telling you-”
“I don’t think he’s hurt.”
“One of the grenades maybe?”
“Not the way he swam to shore. I watched him, remember. He clambered up that first slope like a mountain goat.”
“Well, it’s blood.” Choa rubbed some of it between thumb and forefinger. It was sticky and cold.
“Taste it,” Jay said.
“What?” Choa couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Put some on your tongue,” Jay commanded.
Choa looked at his fingers.
“Do it!”
Choa put the tip of his tongue against the blood. He couldn’t taste anything. He licked at it, tasted it, then spat.
“Well?”
Choa spoke into the radio. “Tastes funny,” he said.
“Is it metallic, the way blood is?”
Choa had to admit it wasn’t like that. “Sort of chalky,” he said.
“Like paint?” Jay guessed.
“How did you know?”
“It’s fake. He’s laying a false trail.”
Choa looked ahead of him. There was no sign of Hestler.
“Hestler!” he shouted. “Get back here!”
Then there was a single gunshot. Choa knew better than to run towards it, but he didn’t freeze either. He moved off downhill and circled around towards the noise. He’d switched off the radio so it wouldn’t give away his position. He carried his submachine gun cocked and ready.
There was a body ahead of him, lying in a gully. It looked like Hestler had taken a shortcut. Instead of rounding the gully, he’d headed down into it, which made him easy prey for anyone hiding just over the ridge. What was the phrase? Like shooting a pig in a tub.
Choa daren’t descend into the gully. Besides, the hole in the back of Hestler’s head was big enough and clear enough. He held the radio to his face.
“What?” Jay said quietly. He’d heard the shot.
“Hestler’s down,” Choa said simply.
“What happened?”
“Someone tore him a new mouth, wrong side of his head.”
Choa cut the radio. He needed both hands for his gun. Reeve was nearby. He rounded the gully. There were so many dips and rises in the landscape, he couldn’t see farther than eighty feet in any direction. Reeve could be as close as eighty feet. Apart from the rain hitting him and the wind in his ears, there was no noise at all. No birds, no leaves rustling. The sky overhead was like a slab of stone.
Choa came to a decision which seemed immediately right to him: head back to the dinghies and take one, then paddle away from here. The thought made him feel better. This was Jay’s fight, not his. He felt like Reeve was watching him, even though he couldn’t see a damned thing. His excellent eyesight didn’t work so well in driving rain. A storm was directly over the island. Choa dropped the MP5 and his pistol, then started walking with hands held high above him. He guessed he was heading the right way; away from here seemed exactly the right way.
Reeve saw him go.
He was naked apart from his boots. His clothes were in the backpack, staying dry. He watched for a full ten minutes, then went to pick up the armaments. He scrabbled down the side of the gully and quickly unloaded Hestler’s weapons, leaving them with the body but taking the ammo. Then he found the two grenades, and he took those, too. He liked these odds better now. He knew the Indian had simply walked away from the fight, which was entirely sensible.