“Positive,” Brian said, sitting up straight again.
“You could have taken a nasty bump on the head if you'd fainted. You might have fallen against a projection of ice.”
“I distinctly remember being struck from behind.” His voice was hard with conviction. “Twice. The first time he didn't put enough force into it. My hood cushioned the blow. I stumbled, kept my balance, started to turn around — and he hit me a lot harder the next time. The lights went out but good.”
“And then he dragged you out of sight?”
“Before any of you saw what was happening, evidently.”
“Not very damned likely.”
“The wind was gusting. The snow was so thick I couldn't see more than two yards. He had excellent cover.”
“You're saying someone tried to murder you.”
“That's right.”
“But if that's the case, why did he drag you behind a windbreak? You would have frozen to death in fifteen minutes if he'd left you in the open.”
“Maybe he thought the blow killed me. Anyway, he did leave me in the open. But I came to after you'd all left. I was dizzy, nauseated, cold. I managed to drag myself out of the wind before I passed out again.”
“Murder…”
“Yes.”
Harry didn't want to believe it. He had too much on his mind as it was. He didn't have the capacity to deal with yet another worry.
“It happened as we were getting ready to leave the third site.” Brian paused, hissed in pain. “My feet, God, like hot needles, hot needles dipped in acid.” His knees pressed more forcefully against Harry's knees, but after half a minute or so, he gradually relaxed. He was tough; he continued as if there had been no interruption. “I was loading some equipment into the last of the cargo trailers. Everyone was busy. The wind was gusting especially hard, the snow was falling so heavily I'd lost sight of the rest of you, then he hit me.”
“But who?”
“I didn't see him.”
“Not even from the corner of your eye?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No.”
“If he wanted you dead, why wouldn't he wait for midnight? The way it looks now, you'll die then with the rest of us. Why would he feel he had to hurry you along? Why not wait for midnight?”
“Well, maybe…”
“What?”
“This sounds crazy… but, well, I
Harry understood at once. “To a certain breed of maniac, yes, that would make you an appealing victim. Killing a Dougherty, any Dougherty — there's a sense of history involved. I suppose I can see a psychopath getting a real thrill out of that.”
They were silent.
Then Brian said, “But who among us is psychotic?”
“Seems impossible, doesn't it?”
“Yeah. But you do believe me?”
“Of course. I can't make myself believe you knocked yourself unconscious with two blows to the back of the head, then dragged yourself out of sight.”
Brian sighed with relief.
Harry said, “This pressure we're under… If one of us was a borderline case, potentially unstable but functional, maybe the stress was all that was needed to push him over the edge. Like to take a guess?”
“Guess who it was? No.”
“I expected you to say George Lin.”
“For whatever reasons, George doesn't care for me or my family. He's sure made that abundantly clear. But whatever's wrong with him, whatever bee he's got up his ass, I still can't believe he's a killer.”
“You can't be sure. You don't know what's going on inside his head any more than I do. There're few people in this life we can ever really know. With me… Rita's the only person I'd ever vouch for and have no doubts.”
“Yes, but I saved his life today.”
“If he's psychotic, why would that matter to him? In fact, in his twisted logic, for some reason we'd never be able to grasp, that might even be why he wants to kill you.”
The wind rocked the snowmobile. Beads of snow ticked and hissed across the cabin roof.
For the first time all day, Harry was on the verge of despair. He was exhausted both physically and mentally.
Brian said, “Will he try again?”
“If he's nuts, obsessed with you and your family, then he's not going to give up easily. What does he have to lose? I mean, he's going to die at midnight anyway.”
Looking out the side window into the churning night, Brian said, “I'm afraid, Harry.”
“If you weren't afraid right now, kid, then you'd be psychotic.”
“You're afraid too?”
“Scared out of my wits.”
“You don't show it.”
“I never do. I just pee my pants and hope nobody'll notice.”
Brian laughed, then winced at another spasm of stinging pain in his extremities. When he recovered, he said, “Whoever he is, at least I'll be prepared for him now.”
“You won't be left alone,” Harry said. “Either Rita or I will stay with you at all times.”
Rubbing his hands together, massaging his still cold fingers, Brian said, “Are you going to tell the others?”
“No. We'll say you don't remember what happened, that you must have fallen and hit your head on an outcropping of ice. Better that your would-be killer thinks we don't know about him.”
“I had the same thought. He'll be especially cautious if he knows we're waiting for his next move.”
“But if he thinks we don't know about him, he might get careless the next time he tries for you.”
“If he's a lunatic because he wants to murder me even though I'll probably die at midnight anyway… then I guess I must be nuts too. Here I am worrying about being murdered even though midnight's only seven hours away.”
“No. You've got a strong survival instinct, that's all. It's a sign of sanity.”
“Unless the survival instinct is so strong that it keeps me from recognizing a hopeless situation. Then maybe it's a sing of lunacy.”
“It isn't hopeless,” Harry said. “We've got seven hours. Anything could happen in seven hours.”
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
5:00
Like a whale breaching in the night sea, the
In the past thirty minutes, cruising at its maximum submerged speed of thirty-one knots, the submarine had moved seventeen miles north-northeast of its assigned surveillance position. Timoshenko had taken a bearing on
