“Why? What’s in them?”
“I... I can’t tell you exactly. It’s a weapon, it’s a very dangerous thing. We can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“If it’s a dangerous weapon,” Grofield said, “it was already in the wrong hands. What is this weapon?”
“I honestly can’t tell you.”
“Then I honestly can’t help you,” Grofield said. “Good-bye, Vivian, it’s been varied.”
“Wait!”
He waited, watching her. He could see the indecision on her face, despite the darkness. He didn’t help, he just waited, and finally she said, “It’s germs.”
“It’s what?”
“Disease germs,” she said. “Laboratory produced disease germs.”
“You mean like in germ warfare?”
“Yes,” she said.
“For God’s sake! What kind of—”
“Look!”
He looked. The plane was turning around. Way back there it was ponderously wheeling about, and as he watched, the floodlight hit him square in the eye.
Twenty-Two
Grofield said, “Could they have the canisters so soon?”
“No, it’s impossible, they’re hidden. Only a few people even know where they are. And I’ve been watching, and only one man got on that plane. Not carrying anything.”
“Going back to report,” Grofield said. “Climb on the back here. It won’t be comfortable, but it’s the best I’ve got.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get the hell away from here before that plane arrives,” Grofield told her. “It’s coming this way, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
There was more light now, with the plane’s beam facing this way, and he could see the startled look that crossed her face. “Oh! Yes!” She clambered onto the pile of goods stacked on the skimobile’s rear seat, clutching Grofield’s shoulders to hold herself steady.
“You set?”
“I think so.”
He started off, heading at an angle to the left, the more quickly to get out of range of the plane’s light, and everything would probably have been all right if they hadn’t hit the bump, a jagged step caused by an old buckling of the ice. But they did hit it, hard, and the machine jolted, bouncing Grofield up and down and throwing Vivian completely away. He heard her yelp, felt her hands leave his shoulders, and when he had the skimobile under control again and looked back she was lying on the ice back there, just starting to roll over and get up.
He wheeled around, making as tight a turn as he could, and saw beyond her the plane trundling this way, coming uncomfortably fast. And how her green ski pants stood out against the surrounding darkness.
They stood out too well, in fact, because just as Grofield pulled to a stop beside her and started to help her aboard again the plane suddenly veered, bathing them in direct light.
“I’m sorry!” she shouted.
“Wrap your arms around my chest!” he yelled back. “If you go again, you’ll have to take me with you!”
She half sat and half knelt on the pile of provisions, her arms around his chest from behind, and he scooted the skimobile around in another tight turn and began to run away from the plane.
But not fast enough. He could see the light getting brighter and brighter around him, see their shadow getting shorter and shorter out in front of him. He could even hear the roar of the plane over their own noises, and he already knew it when she screamed in his ear, “They’re on top of us!”
“Hold on, for Christ’s sake!” he shouted back, and veered sharply to the left. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the lumbering wing, like the wing of a huge predatory bird, so close he nearly passed under it. For a few seconds he was heading into darkness, and then the light swung into place behind them again. But not so close as it had been before they’d swerved. So the plane was faster, but the skimobile was more maneuverable, so maybe the only question now was which of them would run out of gas first, and he had an unhappy feeling he knew the answer to that one.
Then she let him know that wasn’t the only question after all, because she yelled in his ear, “They’re shooting at us!”
“How do you know?”
“I see the flashes! They’re shooting out the window in the pilot’s compartment. A pistol, I think.”
“Make yourself small,” he suggested. “And hold on, we’re going to the right this time.”
“I’m holding.”
She was, too, almost too hard for him to breathe, but this was no time for minor adjustments. He said nothing, just veered to the right, and once again was rewarded with a few seconds of relative darkness before the light gleamed on his back once again.
But he couldn’t go on like this, dammit, being chased all over the lake by an airplane. If they ever did catch up, they’d just run him down, but in the meantime they could score a hit with one of their pistol shots, and in the long run he’d wind up out of gas. So something had to be done.
All right, what did he have? He thought about the equipment he had lashed to the back seat, and briefly considered somehow turning one of the spare cans of gasoline into a Molotov cocktail, but the acrobatics involved in getting it out from under Vivian while they zigged and zagged around the lake seemed prohibitive, so he reluctantly abandoned the idea. It would be nice, though, to blow the damn plane up.
All that was needed, actually, was to get away from it. Let it fly away, about that he didn’t care. And if somehow he could get to the shore, that would be the end of the chase. The plane could follow him around out here on this flat ballroom floor, but on the rolling hills of soft snow ashore the plane couldn’t possibly go. They’d have to take off, and at night they’d have a hell of a time finding him from the air. So the object of the game was to find a shore somewhere.
And meantime, the plane was getting closer again. He shouted, “Hold on!” and veered to the right once more. But this time, instead of just going off at a forty-five degree angle, he kept around in a tight U-turn, knowing he could turn well inside the plane’s turning radius. He saw the distant red smudge that was the fire at the lodge, and kept turning, shouting to Vivian, “Let me know when the fire’s directly behind us!”
“All right!”
He could see the plane’s tail assembly to his right now, the plane being very cumbersome at this business of turning a complete circle. He clenched his teeth and leaned into the curve and kept going around.
“Behind us!”
He nodded briskly and straightened out, and shot away, leaving the plane barely more than halfway around its own turn.
“Oh good good good!” she was yelling. “Oh they’re way back! Oh you’re beautiful beautiful beautiful!”
“Stop hitting me on the head!” he yelled. “Hold on or you’ll fall off again!”
So she held on, and Grofield leaned over the handlebars, and when at last the plane’s light picked them up again it was no more than a gray smudge. Grofield smiled into the rushing darkness, knowing he’d found the slingshot for this Goliath. The bigger they are, they harder they turn. The plane might catch up with them again, but he’d just pull the same stunt and be on his way again. And sooner or later he’d have to find this goddamn lake’s farther shore. After all, every lake in the world has a farther shore. Even oceans have farther shores.
“It’s getting closer again!” she hollered.
“I know! I can see the light!”