downstairs corridor.
The gas should have hit the S-18 guards in the rooms each side and seeped upstairs about the same time. But a guard from one of the rooms came out only seconds after the pellets had been thrown — perhaps he’d heard their faint skittering along the floor even through the closed door — and instantly he was heading for the stairs and shouting.
A door opened the other side with another two guards who decided to head in their direction at the back, but didn’t make it far: one collapsed halfway along the corridor, and the other, staggering, managed to get one hand on the door before Roman decided it was too close for comfort. He stepped from the shadows and shot the guard through the face from two foot away.
Immediately the guard fell, Roman’s ears were keened sharp to movement upstairs: footsteps at the front of the house, the sound of a door sliding open. And when he heard the faint creaking of boards on the front deck, he started sprinting around. The rest followed five or six yards behind.
By the time he’d got around to the front of the house and could pick out shapes clearly from his jolting grey-green vision, the running figure was at least seven yards clear of the bottom of the veranda steps on the far side, heading towards the nearby trees and bushes: Donatiens! At any second he’d be lost amongst them.
Roman steadied for a second, levelled and fired — and saw Georges duck down for a second and disappear amongst the foliage. Roman wasn’t sure whether Georges had been hit, or was ducking to weave through the branches.
Roman ran on. His breath fell hard, almost deafening inside the gas mask; and as he realized it was smothering practically every other sound, he ripped it off and threw it. No danger of gas this far from the house, and listening out for Georges’ movements was now the best guide: the tree foliage was too thick for him to see much.
No fallen body in sight as Roman hit the trees: he’d either missed or only clipped Georges. But as Roman started pushing and weaving his way through, it suddenly struck him that it was immaterial. Georges wasn’t going anywhere! The trees stretched for no more than forty yards before hitting the edge of the lake wrapping around. Then there was at least a hundred yards of frozen lake before the next landfall.
As soon as Georges started to cross it, Roman would have a clear shot at him. He wouldn’t be able to get away.
Georges struggled to get his head clear.
He’d been close to black-out by the veranda door and had taken deep breaths of the cold night-air, finally managing to raise and stagger out. He gradually picked up stride, but still his head was fuzzy, his step uncertain. He’d stumbled and almost fallen down the last few veranda steps in his haste — then at the edge of the trees when he heard someone behind and a shot zipped through the leaves only a foot away, again he almost stumbled as his legs turned to jelly with fear.
A nightmare race: he desperately needed to gain more distance, but the more his lungs gaspingly pumped his run rather than cleared his head, still hazy and spinning from the gas, the closer he came to blacking-out.
He thrashed his way frantically through the branches and shrubs. As another shot zipped close-by, he realized that his pursuer was either firing blind towards the sound of his movements or had caught a momentary glimpse of him.
Georges stumbled on, saw the clearing ahead. But as he burst through and came to the edge of the frozen lake, he stopped. It was too long a distance for him to be in the open, vulnerable. It was then that he noticed the small jetty with a power boat and snowmobile thirty yards to his right. Sound of rapid footsteps, tree branches flaying behind him. He bolted towards the jetty.
His breath rasped heavy, he had to strain his hearing to pick up the position of his pursuer. His chest ached with the effort, and his legs threatened to give out again in the last few yards; he practically fell on the snowmobile, frantically fumbling: button dead-centre on the handle bars, pull-chord to the right.
Sound of his pursuer flaying through the last few bushes. Georges pressed the button and pulled the chord, but it didn’t start.
His pursuer appeared through the bushes, and with the gas mask now removed Georges could see that it was Roman! There was a suspended moment between them, Georges watching through his breath vapour as Roman orientated and finally fixed on him.
Georges pulled again, and this time the engine roared to life. But Roman was already raising his gun, aiming.
Georges revved quickly, leapt on and started speeding away. The first bullet whistled close by when he’d gone barely five yards, but the second hit: Georges felt it like a mule kick to his left shoulder, spinning his steering off for a second before he straightened again. The third came quickly afterwards, hitting the metal at the back of the snowmobile, and the fourth whistled clear again — by which time he prayed he was too distant for a clear shot.
Still he kept in the same hunched forward position for at least another seventy yards, teeth gritted against the pain of his shattered shoulder, before he raised up slightly and risked a look back at Roman’s position.
It took him a moment to pick out the figure in the weak moonlight: gun held limply at his side, breath heavy on the air as he stared bemusedly towards him. Georges couldn’t resist smiling, then laughing, and as he sped along the ice in no time it became a raucous whoop for joy with the sudden release of tension.
Over half a mile to the far ring of trees, and by then…
Georges thought nothing of the slight jolt at first, but it was the crack and heavier tilting as the snowmobile landed from the bump he’d hit — snow-covered tree branch or whatever — that was more worrying.
Then, as one of the skis caught against the edge of the ice, suddenly everything was spinning and Georges felt the solid thud of the ice against his side and the snowmobile jamming against his left leg. He lay there for a second, breathless, trying to orientate. But as he felt his trapped leg getting wet and saw the snowmobile tilt further and start to slide away from him, he suddenly realized with panic what had happened: the ice had cracked and he was sinking through it!
He frantically tried to scramble away as the snowmobile slipped deeper into the water — but its sheer weight tilted the severed ice block to a sharper angle, and Georges felt himself sliding inexorably with it. The water was like an icy hatchet hitting his groin. Georges clawed desperately at the ice, but it was like trying to grip onto wet glass.
The icy water rose swiftly, taking Georges’ breath away, and at the last second he thrashed his arms against the water to stay buoyant — but the suction of the snowmobile submerging seemed to draw him under as well, and he felt the water fill his mouth and lap over his head for a second before his flailing arms were able to bring him back up again.
He spluttered and spat, grappling desperately for the first solid ice edge. He grabbed on to one block, but it moved. He bobbed down again for a bit, only just managing to keep his mouth clear of the water, eyes frantically scanning as he thrashed around. He could feel his body rapidly numbing, all sensation going from his nerve-ends. If he didn’t get out fast, he wouldn’t make it!
He grappled on to one more loose chunk before finally connecting with a solid edge. But as he started to lever out, his spirits sank. He could see that Roman was only fifty yards away, and fast closing! He’d obviously started his sprint as soon as he saw the snowmobile get into trouble.
If he didn’t hurry, he’d get clear only to be a sitting target! The pain was excruciating with his wounded shoulder, he had to lever and slither mostly on his right side; he was breathless with the strain before finally sliding his torso onto the ice like a landed seal. But as soon as he raised up and put weight on his left leg, he felt it buckle and the pain shoot up through his body — then remembered it getting jammed under the snowmobile.
Georges felt any last hope slip away in that second. And as he hobbled pathetically away and heard Roman’s footfall rapidly closing in behind, he wished he hadn’t bothered. He should have just let himself sink back below the icy water: at least he’d have robbed Roman of the satisfaction of shooting him.
THIRTY-SIX
Faint flicker of the eyes. Just for a second.
