He assumed that the Mambas were more than deadly fighting machines; they would be trained to track, and track very well. So far, he'd left behind him what amounted to an eight-lane highway; now it was time to mine that highway with a bit of consternation and confusion.
He stopped dead in his tracks, then stripped off his jumpsuit and rolled the pouch and canteen in it. Then he began walking backwards along his own trail. After he had retreated twenty yards he hopped sideways onto a rock, and from this perch dove down the incline of the riverbank. He rolled into the water and, holding his bundle above his head, let the current carry him another forty yards downstream before he grabbed a root and hauled himself ashore on an area that was an extended rock shelf. He dressed "wet" so as not to disturb the surrounding grass, smeared his face and hair with mud, then walked up the rock shelf, which extended up and over the bank.
Suddenly he began to tremble violently, and almost lost his balance. His vision blurred and the muscles in his stomach knotted, doubling him over with pain.
Drug reaction.
Veil sat down hard on the stone. Grimacing against the pain of the cramps in his stomach, he fumbled with the drawstring on the leather pouch. He opened the pouch, reached in, and withdrew one of the packets of brown pills. Without hesitation, he put one in his mouth and washed it down with a swallow of water from his canteen. Within moments he was better, and in less than five minutes the muscle spasms had completely vanished and his vision cleared.
Although he was not hungry, he forced himself to eat one of the strips of beef jerky—and found it so good that he promptly ate two more. Then he rose and, keeping to stone and hard-packed gravel whenever possible, started across the width of the valley.
Dawn found him on the opposite side of the valley, resting in a thick copse of trees. And thinking.
Veil was in superb condition. He continued to rest throughout the morning, sipping water and eating the fortified beef jerky. He still had attacks of cramps and blurred vision, but the spells became steadily less severe, less frequent, and were of shorter duration. He knew that it would take days, perhaps weeks, for his body to fully recover from his two-day ordeal, but by mid-afternoon he felt strong enough to put the plan he had formulated into action. He would have preferred to stay in hiding for at least another day to free himself even more from dependency on the drug and its debilitating side effects, but he had begun to experience a strong sense of urgency. The fact that he had escaped with the aid of a secret ally in the compound had to be making his enemy extremely nervous, and Veil wanted to give the man as little time to plan and act— or escape—as possible.
Veil emptied the leather pouch. He put a few of the pills in the pocket with his gun, then proceeded, with the aid of a sharp rock, to separate the patches of leather that made up the pouch along their seams. These he knotted together into a single strap that was almost a yard long. At one end of the strap he tied the drawstring. Then, moving very slowly and carefully, he again started inland.
A half hour later he found the precise terrain he had been looking for. He took a few sips of water and threw the canteen away; he would not be needing it any longer. Then he began moving toward the center of the valley, purposely leaving a subtle but nonetheless visible trail that he knew could be followed by a skilled tracker. He went ten yards past a tree with thick foliage and low-hanging branches, then stopped and carefully back-tracked to the tree. He took one of the pills as a precautionary measure, then swung up into the branches of the tree, squatted down in the V between a limb and the trunk, and waited.
He had anticipated advanced tracking skills, cunning, and stealth in the Mambas, had, in fact, been counting on these skills and was on constant alert; still, he almost missed the Mamba who had picked up his trail. The man, expertly camouflaged, was only fifteen yards away when Veil spotted slight movement in the tall grass and a flash of metallic gray that would be a machine pistol.
Then the man froze; from the angle of the Mamba's camouflaged cap, Veil could tell that he was studying the tree. Veil remained perfectly still in his position on the opposite side of the trunk. After a minute or two, the Mamba began moving again.
Veil dropped soundlessly to the ground, then stood with his back to the trunk and his .38 held up next to his right ear. He counted slowly to twenty, then spun out into the center of the trail he had made and aimed his pistol at the spot where he judged the Mamba's forehead should be.
His timing was virtually flawless. He found himself standing directly in front of the green-eyed, pock-faced Mamba who had studied him so intently in the commons area; the barrel of Veil's gun was no more than three inches from the Mamba's forehead. The man instantly froze and gave a little grunt that was half fear, half disgust.
"That's good," Veil said in a flat voice. "Stay that way."
"Fuck you," the Mamba replied evenly. But he did not move.
"We're on the same side, pal."
"You say."
"I don't want to even hear you fart, much less move the wrong way. I don't want to kill an American serviceman, but I will if I have to."
"You've already killed one. Dan Gurran was a friend of mine."
"Well, dear old Dan was trying his damndest to kill me, and I assure you that he wasn't a friend of yours. No matter. I'd like to point out that I haven't killed you—yet. That seems a strong argument for my good intentions."
"Don't try to bullshit me, Kendry. Whether you kill me or not, you still won't be able to get out of here. You probably think I'm more valuable to you alive than dead. You're wrong. You can't use me as a hostage. You think this is a Boy Scout camp?"
"Very carefully, now: Flip that weapon in the air, grab it by the barrel and hold it out to me. If I don't like the way you do it, I'll splatter your brains and soothe my conscience by reminding myself that you're not a Boy Scout."
The Mamba, eyes fixed on Veil's gun, did as he was told. Veil took the machine pistol in his left hand and broke open the magazine against his left thigh. He flung the pistol in one direction, the magazine in another.
"Now your knife," Veil said curtly.
The man shook his head. "I don't have one."
Veil made the man remove his boots and pull up his pant legs; there was no ankle scabbard. When the man pulled up his jacket and shirt, nothing showed but bare midriff.
"Lie down on your belly," Veil commanded. "Arms and legs spread-eagled."
Again the Mamba obeyed. Veil knelt down on one knee between the man's outstretched legs and pressed the barrel of his revolver against the base of the man's spine. He knew that for a man like this Mamba, the thought of ending up paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the rest of his life would be more frightening than death.
"You and I are going to have a little chat, my friend," Veil continued easily.
"If the price of my life or legs is information, you may as well start shooting right now," the Mamba said in a voice that was thin but steady. "I'm not going to tell you anything."
"Wait until you hear what I have to say. We—and I'm talking about two Americans, as well as two human beings— have a problem here. I think you're really going to want to help me solve it."