He couldn’t take the chance. He had to move.
Swearing under his breath, Matt slid on his back down the slope, his flight made easier by the thick layer of fallen spruce needles. Without lifting his head, he surfed the slick needles and reached a nearby snowmelt channel, no more than a shallow gully. He slipped into the relative shelter of the trickling waterway. The water soaked through his wool pants, but his patched Army jacket kept his torso dry.
He lay for a moment, listening. The single remaining cycle still idled ominously. But no other sound could be heard. His pursuers were not giving themselves away. Military or mercenary, Matt had no way of knowing, only that they were professional and worked as a team. That meant that the reporter was out of immediate danger. The pair would not leave an armed assailant at their back. They would have to dispatch Matt before continuing on.
Matt considered his own options. They were few. He could escape on his own and leave Craig to the gunmen. He wagered they were more interested in silencing the reporter than him, and he had no doubt that he could disappear into these woods on his own. But this was not a real option.
He had his dogs to think about.
Matt continued crabbing his way down the worn channel. The cold helped dull the panic. Nothing like dumping your ass in ice water to clear the mind.
He moved as silently as he could.
Thirty yards down, the snowmelt channel tipped over a ledge. It was a short drop, seven feet. He rolled onto his belly in the channel and dropped feetfirst over the edge, careful to protect his rifle from the water and the mud.
That was his mistake.
As he fell over the lip, a shot struck the rifle, tearing it from his stinging fingers. In his foolish attempt to protect it, he had held the rifle too high, too exposed, giving himself away. Matt landed hard in a shallow pool of ice melt and cradled his jarred hand.
He quickly searched and found the rifle lying on the bank. The black walnut stock was a splintered ruin, cracked away. He hurried and collected the trashed weapon. The gun itself was still intact, just the stock ruined. Palming the weapon, he ran along the short cliff face. He didn’t bother masking his flight. He shoved through bushes, snapping branches underfoot. The cliff he followed ended at a broken area of rock and tumbled talus, the path of an ancient glacier. The scarp was a tangle of gullies, boulders, and ravines.
Behind him, there were no sounds of pursuit, but he knew the men were closing in on him, racing down the slope to the cliff’s edge, weapons on shoulders, ready to dispatch their quarry.
Spurred, Matt flew faster, sticking close to the cliff face. Ahead, the shadows thickened as the sun crept away and the clouds descended upon the peaks. Night could not come soon enough. He reached the scrabbled terrain and ducked behind a boulder.
He risked a glance behind him. The deep shadows now aided his pursuers. An inky gloom masked the terrain. He studied the edge of the cliff. Nothing. He turned away and almost missed it. A shift of shadows. Matt dropped lower. Someone was climbing down the cliff, half shielded by a fall of rock. Before Matt could raise his ruined rifle, the figure vanished into the darkness at the base of the cliff.
Matt continued to point his rifle, positioning it as well he could without the steadying support of the stock. He held it at arm’s length. The barrel wavered. He could not trust his accuracy.
Up the slope, the single motorcycle engine suddenly roared back to life, growling, throttling, then it was off.
Matt cocked an ear. The other pursuer was heading off to the left, intending to circle around the scarp and get behind Matt again. Closer, the other hunter had vanished away. He could be anywhere. Matt could not trust his position.
Twisting back behind the boulder, he searched the terrain. Few trees grew here, mostly just low bushes, weedy grasses, and scrabbles of reindeer lichen. A swift rocky stream tumbled down through the center in a series of waterfalls. A mist hovered and traced the waterway as the day cooled toward twilight.
He ran down the scarp’s slope, keeping low, aiming for the stream. He had to shake the immediate tail behind him. He hopped and climbed to the stream. With his boots wet and muddy from his previous slide, he left a clear trail across the bare rock.
Once at the stream, he waded into the water, stifling a gasp at the chill. The depth was only up to his knees, but the current tugged at his legs. The rocks were slippery. He fought for balance and climbed upstream, back up the slope he had just fled down. Crouching, he hurried, dragging his legs through the water as silently as possible.
He listened for any sign of the nearby hunter, but the world was filled with the roar of the other motorcycle and the burbling crash of water over rock.
Ten yards up the stream, he reached one of the cataracts, a waterfall over a five-foot drop of rock face. He prayed for one small bit of luck on this long, chilling day. On legs numbed by the icy waters, he stepped up to the cascade of water and jammed his arm through the fall. Many of these cataracts had small spaces behind them as the granite rock face was worn away by the churn of the waterfall that ebbed and flowed with the seasons.
Matt wiggled his fingers.
This one was no exception.
He pivoted around and shoved his back through the waterfall. The bracing flow covered him for a painful breath, then he was leaning against the rock wall, legs splayed to either side, half crouched. The flow of the cataract was a curtain before his face. The cascade was sheer enough to peer through, but it turned the world beyond into a watery blur.
Hugging his rifle to his chest, Matt waited. Now that he had stopped fighting the current and crouched still, the cold bit into him. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, and an ache reached all the way to his bones. Hypothermia would set in quickly. He hoped his trackers were skilled and wouldn’t leave him waiting too long.
As Matt shivered, a memory of another day, another icy waterway, intruded. He had been even colder and wetter then. Three years ago, late winter, an unusually warm spell had everyone in Alaska out, enjoying the unseasonably temperate weather. He and his family had been no exception. A winter camping trip to ice-fish and hike the snowy mountains. Then a moment’s inattention…
Despite the danger now, Matt squeezed his eyes closed against the sudden stab of pain.
He had used a wood ax to break through the ice. He had searched and searched the cold river, almost dying himself from hypothermia, but his eight-year-old son’s body wasn’t found until two days later, far down the waterway.
Tyler…I’m sorry…
He forced his eyes open. Now was not the time to mourn the boy. Still, the water’s icy embrace had awakened the memory. He could not escape it. His body remembered the cold, the icy water. Memories frozen in every fiber of his being were loosened. Unless someone had lost a son or daughter, none could imagine how a mere memory could stab like a dagger: agonizing, blinding, down to the bone.
Tyler…
Movement drew him back to the present. Off to the right, a figure shifted between boulders along the bank. As he watched, old anger trembled his legs, along with a numbing despair that made one fearless.
The hunter had followed Matt’s muddy trail, but he was taking no chances, sticking to shadows. His rifle was slung over his shoulder, but he bore a pistol in one fist. The man had also shed his snowy outerwear and wore only a camouflaged uniform and black cap, easier to hide.
Matt lifted his rifle, parting the fall of water with his barrel. He didn’t point it toward the slinking figure. With his gun compromised, he couldn’t trust a keen shot between the sheltering rocks. Instead, he aimed for the wet bank of the stream, where he had waded into the channel a few minutes ago. Only ten yards away, bare of boulders.