Nine-twenty-two.
'How am I doing?' he yelled.
'We're about ten miles from the place. It's just over the next ridge.'
'I can't even see the next ridge,' Hawk said.
'It's eight or nine miles ahead of us. He can't be far ahead of us, not with the road conditions the way they are.'
'I thought we'd pick him up before this,' Hawk answered. 'He must be driving like a madman - if he's coming here.'
'He's coming here,' Vail answered with finality. 'He just stopped off in Winthrop long enough to satisfy his blood lust, claim another victim.'
'I think we missed him,' Hawk said.
'We ain't missed him,' said St Claire. 'Marty's right, been right all along.'
'You having one of your nudges?' Flaherty asked without taking his eyes off the road.
'This ain't a nudge, it's a reality,' Vail said, imitating St Claire's gruff voice. Their laughter eased the tension.
Flaherty leaned forward, the binoculars tapping the side window. 'I got some tracks,' he said.
'Where?' the others asked, almost in unison.
'Right under us. They're blowing off the road, but there's a car somewhere in front of us. Can we get lower?'
'This thing don't do well underground,' Hawk answered. But he dropped down another fifty feet.
'See anything?' Flaherty asked Vail.
'I can't see that far up the road. I'm not sure how close we are to that ridge. Maybe we ought to gain a little altitude. I can't tell exactly where we are on this map.'
'There it is,' said Flaherty.
They peered down in front of the chopper. Through the rushing snowflakes a car was visible racing through the storm.
Flaherty said, 'It's black… I can't tell the make, but it's a two-door.
'Gotta be the son-bitch,' St Claire said. He stuffed a fresh wad of tobacco into his cheek.
'We're coming up on that ridge,' Hawk said. 'We could be a couple hundred feet short.' He pulled back on the throttle, easing the chopper's speed.
'You're right on top of him,' said Vail. 'Slow her down a little more.'
Hawk cut the power a little more. He was heading for the ridge at about fifty miles an hour.
Below them, Stampler heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. He looked out the car window. It was no more than a hundred feet above him. To his right was another ridge, thick with pine trees. Ahead of him he saw a turnoff. A faded sign said:
KC&M
HILLSIDE DIVISION
Stampler hit the brakes and almost lost it. The car skittered across the road, showered up snow as it ripped through a low drift, and then swung back on the road. He got the car under control and turned into the road. A wooden horse was stretched across the entrance. Stampler tore through it, showering bits of wood into the trees. The macadam road was pitted by disuse and bad weather. He was having trouble keeping the sedan on the road. But he was climbing up the side of the ridge, forcing the chopper to gain altitude.
But it didn't. He could hear it, chung, chung, chung, chung over his head. The car skewed beneath him, its wheels spinning helplessly on the snow-packed road. He lost control, slammed on the brakes, and sent the car into a wild spin. It teetered on the edge of a ditch, then spun out the other way and plunged off the road. Stampler saw the trees hurtling towards him, crossed his arms over the steering wheel, and put his head against them as the car swiped one tree and crashed into the one beyond it. The bonnet flew up and shattered the windshield. Stampler's arms took the brunt of the blow. Numbly, he felt for the door handle, pulled it back, and tumbled out of the car. Small whirlwinds of snow spun around him and he looked up. The chopper was fifty feet over his head. He dived into the trees and started running.
Hawk looked around at the forest that encroached on him. Tree limbs reached treacherously out over the road.
'I'm not sure I've got enough room to put down here,' he yelled. 'But it's a helluva lot safer than trying to follow him up this damn mountain.'
He lowered the helicopter slowly to the ground. The rotors thrashed at the tree limbs, snapping them off, scattered the debris into the air. Hawk eased it down, felt the skids hit the ground and settle in.
'Okay, we're down,' he said, and Vail, Flaherty, and St Claire scrambled out. Vail vaulted the ditch and took off after Stampler, with Flaherty close behind. St Claire wasn't as lucky. He slipped on the muddy bank and fell, twisting his ankle.
'KeeRIST!' he yelled. Vail turned, raced back to him.
'Just get goin',' St Claire said. 'It ain't broke. Here, take this.'
He pulled the .357 from under his arm and handed it to Vail. When Vail hesitated, St Claire said, 'Hell, you might not use the damn thing, but it's one helluva good scare card.' Vail took the gun and ran off into the forest.
Stampler stumbled out into a clearing, gasping for breath, clutching at the pain in his side. He was in front of the shambles of a wooden office building, boarded up and rotting. He stared around at the snowy landscape. His gaze settled on the muscular steel framework of a lift. It was vaguely familiar, the relic, now idle and rusted. A large sign said:
CLOSED
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
KENTUCKY COAL AND MINING COMPANY
Even obscured by snow, the place began to take on an air of familiarity. Memories began nibbling at his mind and with them a gnawing sense of apprehension. In his mind, he heard the sound of the lift clinking and groaning as it lowered men into the guts of the earth. Blackened faces and haunted eyes filtered through his flashback like demons in a nightmare.
He remembered awakening on his ninth birthday, seeing the hard hat with the ominous lamp on the front perched on the chair beside his bed, and the fear that went with his 'present'. He remembered shrinking down on the bed, trying to keep from crying, knowing that on this day he was going down into the hole, that fearful pit, for the first time; being so terrified, he threw up on the way there; and the boss man standing right where he was standing now in front of the office, looking down at him, grinning, telling him today he was going to become a man. 'Stampler!'
Stampler turned and, there, across the snowy clearing, stood Vail. Perhaps fifty yards away, on the opposite side of the clearing. From the corner of his eye he saw another man emerge from the forest, a younger man, who joined Vail. They stood and waited for him.
Stampler started across the clearing, past the ghostly silhouette of the lift shaft, heading for the opposite side of the clearing, the snow squeaking underfoot as he made his way across a low mound that separated him from his nemesis. 'Stampler!'
Vail raised his hand. He was aiming a gun at him. The other one, the younger one, also had a pistol, but he stood with his gun hand lowered at his side. The ground seemed to groan underfoot. Vail aimed the gun over Stampler's head and fired a shot. Its thunder echoed through the trees and snow showered down from the limbs. Stampler stopped, glared across the white expanse at Vail.
'You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you, Counsellor?'
'Don't kid yourself.'
Stampler leered at him. 'Know what it's like, now, don't you, Marty? Blood for blood. We're not that different, you and me.'
Vail did not answer. He pondered the question, thinking about the carnage of the last twelve hours; about Abel and Jane fighting for their lives; about Shoat and Dr Rifkin and a good cop and poor Molly Arrington, innocents all, sacrificed on Stampler's altar of vengeance. And about Rebecca, who had planted the seeds of Stampler's hate and also had the blood of Alex and Linda on her hands. Five people dead, three in just half a day, and two gravely injured. And of all his targets only Vail had escaped the madman's wrath.