Behind him a black snowmachine came into view, the man driving it struggling to control his vehicle with one wounded hand while fumbling with a pistol at the same time. It was their leader, the one he’d shot before he could kill Julia. Apparently he’d gotten over the shock of his wound. Chapel had a bad feeling about that — he was pretty sure he knew exactly who that man was.
“Into the trees,” Chapel shouted, “lose him in the trees!”
Taggart shook his head. He couldn’t hear a word.
Luckily Julia seemed of the same mind as Chapel. She powered away from the slope, then slid around in a tight bend until they were racing between trees, pine branches smacking off the windshield and making Taggart duck. It was all Julia could do to keep them zigging and zagging between trees and avoid a collision.
Behind them the black snowmachine appeared, lifting up on one skid as it cut the turn too sharply. The driver rose up off his seat, bracing his pistol on the top of his windshield.
Chapel saw a small animal trail up ahead on their left. “Left!” he shouted, over and over, but Taggart was shrugging and Julia didn’t seem to hear him at all. Instead she plowed straight on, weaving and darting through the trees. One branch was low enough to ruffle Chapel’s hair and dump a pound of snow down the back of his collar. The trees seemed to be growing closer together now, the room to maneuver between them even tighter. A bullet scored the paint on their machine, leaving a bright oval of silver as it exposed the metal beneath.
Chapel reached for his pistol, hugging the machine with his knees so he wasn’t thrown clear. He swiveled around at the waist and fired wildly, not worrying about conserving ammunition. It didn’t seem like it mattered much now. With the snowmachine bucking and jouncing under him, he failed to hit the pursuer at all, but at least he made the man duck and kept him from shooting.
“We’ve got to lose him somehow,” Chapel shouted, but no one bothered replying. It was painfully obvious to all three of them. They needed some kind of miracle, some lucky break, or they were all dead.
Too much to hope for.
Directly ahead he could see the trees gave way altogether. So did the ground. The snow ended abruptly and beyond was only sky. They were racing full throttle straight toward the edge of a cliff.
“Julia!” he shouted. “Julia, look out!”
She didn’t even turn around. Didn’t she see what he saw? How could she not? And meanwhile, behind them, the pursuer was lining up another shot. Chapel was pretty sure he wouldn’t miss this time.
There was nothing he could do but watch as the world went into slow motion, as the cliff edge raced toward them and the gunman behind took careful aim. It was going to be close — it was going to be—
The snowmachine hit the cliff edge and for a second, a sickening, horrible second, they were airborne. Weightless. Chapel saw the sky all around him, white and featureless. He felt Taggart rise up from the snowmachine’s seat, felt him start to come loose and go flying off on his own. Chapel hugged at the snowmachine with his knees, using every muscle in his swimmer’s legs, and tried to pull the scientist back down.
And then the snowmachine hit the earth again, hard enough to rattle every bone in Chapel’s body.
They had only fallen about ten feet. On the other side of the cliff was a gentle slope headed downward into a narrow canyon.
Taggart hit the seat hard and nearly spun off. It was all Chapel could do to hold him on to the snowmachine. Julia had lowered her head under the dubious protection of the windshield, and now she raised it again and gunned the throttle.
The snowmachine underneath her gave a whining, coughing sputter. It lurched forward a few dozen feet and then stopped. The engine died. The fall must have damaged something.
The machine was dead.
Chapel craned his neck around to look behind them. Up there, on top of the cliff, the pursuing snowmachine had come to a stop just before the precipice. Its driver stared down at them through his goggles as if he couldn’t believe what they’d just done.
“I was kind of hoping he would follow us over and break his neck,” Julia said, softly.
“What about our necks?” Taggart asked.
“It was the best idea I had at the time. Anybody have a better one, now?” she asked.
Chapel watched the black snowmachine spray ice from its tracks as the driver turned his vehicle and headed away from the cliff edge, presumably so he could find a safer way down and continue the chase.
“How about now we run?” Chapel suggested.
DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, ALASKA: APRIL 15, T+84:59
The canyon was only a few hundred yards wide, surrounded on every side by high jagged cliffs that Chapel knew he would never climb with only one arm. It stretched out ahead of them, curving gently to the north. There were no trees in the canyon, nowhere to hide except for a few big rocks. A broad but shallow stream ran down its exact middle, glittering in the wan sunlight, rippling over a bed of smooth, moss-covered stones. Away from the stream the snow lay three feet deep over the entire canyon floor.
They had no choice. They ran.
The stream took them around the bend of the canyon quickly enough, even though to Chapel it felt like they were just strolling along, taking their time. He could occasionally hear the whine of a snowmachine up on the cliffs as the assassin searched for a good way down into the canyon.
They came around the final bend and Chapel nearly screamed in frustration.
The canyon dead-ended in a little tarn, a glacial lake surrounded on three sides by cliff. There was no way forward.
They stopped running. There was nowhere to go.
Chapel ejected the magazine of his weapon, wanting to see how many rounds he had left. He got a bad shock when he saw the clip was empty. There was one round in the chamber, still, but—
The sound of the snowmachine grew louder and louder… and then stopped abruptly. They could hear the engine wind down and then ping as it cooled in the frigid air. There was no other sound.
“He could be right around that boulder,” Chapel whispered, pointing at a giant rock that shielded the bend of the canyon from view. “Find some cover.”
There were plenty of smaller rocks to hide behind, scattered around the edge of the waterfall. The three of them each found a good sheltering spot and hunkered down.
And waited.
“Where is he?” Taggart whispered.
“Shh,” Chapel said. His eyes scanned the big rock and the ground around it. It was half buried in the side of a massive cliff. A few scrubby pine trees had found anchorage near its top, where scree from the cliff had gathered to form a kind of rudimentary soil.
Along the edge of the boulder a shadow moved. He glanced across at Julia and saw her still peering over the edge of her rock, trying to spot the assassin. He gestured for her to get her head down.
Chapel heard the sound of a foot crunching on snow. The barrel of a revolver peeked around the edge of the boulder. Sunlight glimmered on its silvery metal.
Julia reared up and fired a shot that knocked chips off the boulder. The revolver barrel drew back, out of sight.
The echoes of the gunshot faded away slowly. Only to be replaced by another sound. A kind of dry, wheezing laughter.
“No,” Julia said, louder than she’d probably meant to.
“Ha ha heh,” Laughing Boy chuckled. “Hoo! Ha ha.”
He had followed them all this way. He’d come personally to make sure they were dead. Banks must have wanted to be certain.
Chapel remembered something that gave him a tiny flicker of hope. “You really think you can hit us firing left-handed?” he shouted.
Back at the laboratory complex he’d ruined Laughing Boy’s shooting hand.