Going to the door, I had another look around, and then set off. From the heights the day before, I’d seen an area where the forest seemed less dense. If there was any civilization in this godforsaken land, it was that way. The bearing was 170 degrees, well away from where I’d sent my pursuers. I ran across the open ground at medium pace. Sprinting might have attracted attention and, besides, I didn’t want to put too much pressure on my suspect knee. I had an anxious minute before I made the tree line-I was panting more from apprehension than fatigue.
When I was about fifty yards inside the forest, I stopped and buried the second rifle and pistol under a thick layer of pine needles. I was on my knees with my head bent when I heard the male voice.
“Keep very still or I’ll drill you a new asshole.”
I did as I was told, cursing myself. The man I knocked out had identified himself as “unit eleven.” A unit consisted of more than one person. The best I could hope for was that there weren’t more than two.
“Get your hands up! High!”
“All right,” I said, my tone as reasonable as I could manage while I slipped the combat knife from my belt.
“Shut up or you’re dead!”
I considered pointing out that his superiors might not want me dead, but decided against riling him further.
“Stay on your knees and turn around. Slowly!”
I obeyed, feeling the forest mulch soak my trousers. The first thing I noticed was that my captor didn’t have a walkie-talkie or a compass, at least not anywhere obvious. The second was that he was very young, his face dotted with pimples.
“What did you do to Hans?”
I played dumb. “I don’t know any Hans,” I said, the knife now up my sleeve.
“A guy dressed like me?” His tone was less aggressive. He took a step forward. “What’s that you were burying?”
I ran through the permutations quickly. He obviously hadn’t seen me at the cabin or with his partner, assuming Hans was the guy I’d jumped. If he hadn’t seen the rifle and pistol, he must just have come upon me by chance.
“Shit,” I said apologetically. “No, really. I always go early in the morning.”
He stared at me, taking in the compass round my neck. “Where did you get that?” he said, jabbing the rifle’s muzzle at me. “Is it Hans’s?”
I decided to jack up the pressure. “Oh, now I get it. Hans was the pussy I kicked the crap out of.” I gave a harsh laugh. “You won’t be seeing Hans again.”
The youth’s cheeks flared and he moved closer, the rifle thrust even closer toward me. One more step…
“If you’ve hurt Hans, I’ll cut your balls off,” he said, a malevolent glint in his eyes.
I suddenly realized that, even though he was very young, someone had worked hard to bring out the worst in him.
I grinned. “You sure that won’t seriously piss off your superior officers?”
“You can live without balls.” Then he took the step forward that I’d been waiting for. I grabbed hold of the rifle with one hand, wrenching it out of his grip. At the same time, I let the knife slip into my hand. In a second, I had the blade at his throat.
“But you can’t live without your throat,” I said, breaking the skin above his Adam’s apple.
“Fuck you, you piece of shit,” he yelled, spraying my face with spittle.
“Keep your voice down,” I warned, jabbing deeper.
After a few more seconds, the resistance went out of him and his body slackened.
“What’s your name?” I asked, my voice softer.
“Fuck you.”
“Rank?”
“Fuck you.”
I laughed. “Serial number. No, don’t bother, I’ve got the message.” I looked at the letters on his cap badge. “How about this? What’s NANR?”
This time I’d pressed the right button. “North American National Revival,” he said with undisguised pride.
“What’s that?”
He stared at me, but kept quiet.
“Bad move,” I said, pressing the blade against his neck. Blood began to drip.
The young man whispered something and I leaned forward to catch it. The first word began with f and the second with y.
I made good progress through the forest after I’d gagged the young man and tied him to a tree with strips from his jacket. I’d buried the rifles, pistols and other equipment I’d taken from him and from Hans in a heap of needles a good distance from where he was. I wondered how long it would be before he was found, and was thinking that perhaps I’d finally got out of the zone controlled by the men in gray when I was distracted by the sudden sounds of a large animal crashing through the trees.
A German shepherd came pounding around a tree trunk, its jaws wide and worryingly speckled with foam. I went into automatic response mode and ran straight at the dog rather than waste time trying to bring a weapon to bear. The creature blinked its eyes, but it was too late for it to alter course. With a flick of my hips, I slid past it, having a flash of performing the same maneuver on a muddy pitch with an oval ball in my hands. I kept on running till I came to a thick tree trunk and took cover behind it.
Looking around the trunk, I saw the dog coming back in my direction. Then its ears pricked as a low voice came through the forest.
“Prince!”
I estimated the man to be about twenty yards to the animal’s left. It ran toward him with a yelp. I wasn’t clear whether the handler was aware of Prince’s recent engagement with the enemy. I waited where I was, finger on the trigger. It was still aching from the rat trap, but I reckoned I could take out man and dog if I had to.
The German shepherd was leaping about, trying to make the dumb human understand what was going on. A gray uniform came into view. I stared. The handler was a woman. And she was stunning, with auburn hair in a plait beneath her cap and a full figure beneath the uniform, which fitted more tightly than did the men’s. Her voice was deep and hoarse, the kind that raises hairs on necks. Shooting her in cold blood wasn’t an attractive prospect.
Then I heard a crackle of radio static. She had her walkie-talkie turned up loud.
“Base, unit seventeen. Report, over.”
She put the device to her ear. “Unit seventeen. All clear. Over.”
“Proceed to loggers’ cabin. Unit eleven nonresponsive. Confirm. Over.”
“Unit seventeen, confirm heading to cabin, over.”
“Exercise extreme caution, seventeen. Remember, target is to be immobilized, not terminated. Base out.”
I watched as the young woman left in the opposite direction. Pity. Then again, I hadn’t had to terminate her or the German shepherd. It was only after I’d been under way again for about a quarter of an hour that I remembered what had also struck me about the beautiful young woman. She bore a strong resemblance to the guy I’d dealt with in the cabin-the one called Hans.
Something else occurred to me: I seemed to have a very well-developed sense of self-preservation.
Two hours later, I was striding down a slope through the trees. The idea that I was leaving something important behind had filled my mind again. Although I hadn’t heard any pursuers since the woman had turned back, my mood had darkened when it should have done the opposite. I remembered Lucy, my daughter. Where was she? Could the bastards at the camp have her? I stopped in my tracks. Then I thought of the words she had used in the cinema-you-know-who. The problem was, I didn’t know who. I closed my eyes and tried to call up that mysterious individual, my assumed partner. I caught a glimpse of blond hair and-
The roar of the engine rang through the forest. It was directly ahead of me. I immediately started running in that direction. The sound of revving continued as I got to the tree line. There were only a few yards between me and the rear of a trailer loaded with massive tree trunks.