“Where?”
He pointed toward the house. “I go this way, you go there. Sign me what you see.”
She slipped into the bush.
He circled around the side of the house. Through the trees that were still bare of leaves, he could see a Peak rover in the clearing and two men, immobilizers at the ready, advancing toward the house. One of them, making no attempt at stealth, said, “Looks like someone lives here.”
The two men reached the house and moved around it to the rear door. One of them called out, “Hey, the door’s at the back. Get over here.”
Two more men appeared from the other side of the house. Darius glimpsed Ilona. She signed, “Two.”
“Same here. Four in all.”
Even from this distance, he could see the tightness of her face, the anger in her posture, and he knew she could see the same in him.
The Peaks pushed the door open and went inside.
She signed, “Can take them.”
“No. Four. Too many.”
“Can take them.”
“See what they do next. I go storage shed. Can hear them.”
He slipped through the bush and hid himself at the side of the outbuilding. Several minutes later, the four Peaks emerged and stood by the front door.
“Weird. Nobody ever comes up here. Didn’t even know this place existed. Good thing we were sent on this exercise because we’d never have found it. Somebody lives here.”
“They won’t for long. Burn the place down.”
“Not yet. You two stay here and wait for them. We’ll take the rover down the road, so they won’t see it. Call me when they come. One of them’s probably a woman. Might as well have some fun.”
“Then we burn it down.”
“What’s with you and fire? Okay. Then we burn it down.”
Two of the Peaks walked back to the rover while the other two entered the house. A minute later, the sounds of a motor started, fading as the rover moved back down the road.
Darius crept to Ilona and signed what the men said. Her face grim, her eyes slits, she signed, “Can take two. Might as well have fun.”
Darius signed, “Here is what we do.”
She crept toward the house and positioned herself beside the open door, while he moved further into the bush and drew his throwing knife. He called out in a voice he knew would carry to the house, “Whooee, honey. Great hunt. We’re gonna eat well today. Hey, did you leave the door open? Is there someone in the house?”
The two Peaks burst through the doorway, immobilizers at the ready. Darius’s throwing knife caught the first one in the chest. Ilona’s hunting knife slit the second one’s throat.
He ran to the house and checked their pulses. There were none. Ilona’s face was flat, dark. He signed, “We have to get out of here.”
“Why? We can take others when come back.”
He shook his head. “Not just two. If cannot call on radio, will get more.”
“Immobilizers. Can use them.”
“You know how use one? Ilona, no choice. Must get away before others return.”
She looked at the house. Their home. The place they found each other. “This place never ours anyway.”
They stuffed their packs with clothes, matches, candles, and what food they could gather. Darius jammed a few of his special books into his pack when the radio came to life. “Hey, Carl. What’s up? Any sign of whoever lives there.” A minute later, “Carl. I don’t read you. Answer.” A pause. “I’ve called for backup. We’re on our way.”
Darius signed the message to Ilona. The two started down the trail when he stopped. She signed, “Got to go. Fast.”
“Need money.” He pulled wallets from the bodies of the two dead Peaks and ran toward her stuffing some bills into a pocket before he tossed the wallets into the bush.
They ran, their feet pounding the roughness of the trail to the clearing. They charged across it to the path that led to the railway, dashing into the bush just before the Peak rover screamed into the clearing. In the distance, the roar of a second rover.
They scrambled down the path, reached the train tracks, and ran along them until they came to a stretch of rail where the right-of-way spread out on both sides of the tracks. They slid into the bush, readied their weapons, and waited.
Darkness came with no sign of anyone else. They hunkered down in the night, not daring to light a fire. The next day, after a fitful night’s sleep, he signed, “Can’t go back to house.”
She nodded. “Probably burned it.” There was no regret in her expression, no pain at the loss, yet he knew how to read her well enough to tell she was grieving and angry. So was he. And yet there was another reaction. Relief.
Relief? Their house had been burned down, their comfortable life destroyed, and he was relieved? Their comfortable life. The seductive lure of contentment. The enemy of his purpose. Perhaps this was a prod from fate. To shake him from complacency back to vengeance. And it had worked. Vengeance had been reignited.
She signed, “What now?”
“We catch next train. It moves slowly.”
“When it stops?”
“We jump off. When train goes, we walk down tracks to spot where we get onto next one.”
“Is slow.”
“You in a hurry?”
About a month later, the sun higher in the sky, the air scented with spring growth, the nights warming, the train they were on emerged from the mountains and moved across a flat plain beside a wide, muddy river, a scattering of buildings in the distance. They had arrived at the West Coast.
26
THE DECLARATION
Television sets across the country went blank. “We interrupt this program to bring you an announcement from the Government of Canada. We have just been informed that the government has prepared a response to the rioting taking place in our cities and towns. We have been asked to broadcast the formal statement from the Prime Minister.”
The camera focused on a man standing at a podium, others grouped behind him. He said, “My fellow Canadians, we are in dark days. There are forces at work in this great country that would tear it apart. We have seen rioting, violence, sabotage. Police officers have been killed. Innocent bystanders attacked. Just one year ago, a mob killed a corporate executive and his wife. These are not the actions of a civil society, as we believe Canada is.
“My government cannot stand idly by and do nothing while our citizens are under attack. One of our responsibilities is the safety and security of all Canadians. We will not shirk from that duty.
“But this country is faced with a crisis the like of which we have never encountered in our history. Never have our cities been torn with riots. Never has our infrastructure been sabotaged. Never have so many engaged in civil disobedience. This is unprecedented.
“Our police forces are overrun. Our military can’t engage our own citizens, even despite their violence. This situation demands solutions that, in normal times, would be unthinkable. But these are not normal times. It is not enough to think about solutions, we must act on them. My government is prepared to do whatever is necessary to restore peace and civil behaviour throughout the land.