organized under pressure. I, on the other hand, was neither. Not only did I share the blame for this fiasco, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of Stark’s breath hot on my neck.
“Where does this lead?” I shouted to the driver.
“Dunno. We’re northeast of Mount Washington. There’s not a hell of a lot around here. Field and forest is all I know.”
I radioed McNaughton. “P-One from P-Two. Can you position some men where this trail hits Route 16? We might get Stark.”
There was no argument. I heard him give the orders.
“I think we’re in better shape than we thought,” the driver suddenly shouted.
“Why?”
“If he was a real hot dog on that machine of his, he wouldn’t be sticking to this road-he’d be in the woods.”
I looked at his profile and saw him smile-the happy hunter.
I was less thrilled. As I saw it, I was lurching across the countryside like some Keystone Kop with a mysterious cripple out front and a slippery homicidal maniac on my tail-maybe. The fact tha The fact Cioffi was not the Evel Knievel of the snowmobile set was of little comfort.
The radio crackled and announced that Klesczewski and a trooper had been dropped off at the trees at the foot of the mountain road. More men were “continuing pursuit.”
I looked out the side window at the slow parade of passing trees. Hotshot or no, I couldn’t imagine that a man on a snowmobile couldn’t outdistance a Sno-Cat as if it were standing still.
“Jesus.” The driver threw the controls and sent us into a grinding, sliding halt. Off to the right was the first Cat, lying on its side, wedged between two trees. McNaughton and one of his men were climbing out of the cab.
I opened my door and McNaughton got in beside me and yelled at the driver. “Get around that and head down the slope to the right. The son of a bitch cut off the road.” He jabbed his radio key. “All units. P-One and P- Two are now on same vehicle.”
We moved forward a couple of yards. A skimobile’s thin imprint sliced between the trees bordering the road and vanished down the steep, treeless slope beyond. The driver continued on until he came to a similar gap wide enough for us. He turned the Cat and paused at the edge.
“Go, man, go.” McNaughton was half-crouching by the door next to me, his eyes glued ahead.
The Cat lurched up and over the bank and plunged with a sickening shudder straight down the slope. Despite the seat belt, I slammed both my hands against the dashboard to keep my teeth from being buried in my kneecaps. McNaughton ended up pressing against the windshield. The Cat’s engine noise climbed to a scream, the gearbox began a high-pitched whine, and the snow burst from the thrashing caterpillar treads like foam from a tempest- tossed ocean. There was no room for any more sound, but as I glanced at McNaughton’s face, I could see he was shouting into the mike.
The roller-coaster dive lasted for what seemed like an hour-probably two minutes. At its bottom, we found a half-buried wooden fence, and caught between two of its broken rails was the red snowmobile. Our driver killed the engine and wiped his face with his glove.
The sudden quiet impressed us all. Without a word, we opened our doors and swung out onto the treads. Dimly, high above, we could hear the other Cat laboring up the mountain road. The smashed snowmobile was alone.
“I guess he couldn’t stop in time,” McNaughton said quietly. He spoke into the radio, bringing everybody up to date.
In the meantime, his trooper reached back into the cab and brought out three pairs of snowshoes and handed a couple to us across the roof. We all sat down on the treads to put them on.
Far below, to the right, came a series of shots, first two sharp and high-pitched, as from two stones rapped together, followed by the mechanical rattle of a machine gun.
“Holy shit,” McNaughton murmured. We looked at each other and waited. Several minutes passed during which we heard the other Cat pause at the top of the slope.
The radio crackled. “Officer down. We need help. This is P… Shit, I don’t know. Move it.” It was Klesczewski’s voice.
“P-Four from P-Seven. We’re on our way.” I recognized Tyler.
I reached inside the cab and unhooked the transmitter. “P-Four from P-Two. What happened?”
“A second snowmobile blasted through us. He caught Reynolds right in the chest. It looked like a Mac 10. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m real sorry, Lieutenant.”
“What about the shooter?”
“We got off two shots, but it was like fighting a hail storm. He’s on your tail now.”
“Okay. Hang tight.”
I heard the other Sno-Cat start up again and cautiously edge its way over the lip of the mountain. “Why not leave them there as a rear guard?”
McNaughton shook his head. “They’re too thin-better we team up.”
I finished attaching my snowshoes and hopped off the Cat. There is a fraternity among cops despite the bickering and class distinctions.
The saying goes that if a cop is in a jam, he can count on any other cop to at least try to pull him out of it. So I felt sorry for McNaughton. I was also mad as hell it had taken one of his men’s lives to catch his full attention.
They also say that when you’re maddest, it’s usually because you screwed up. Whoever “they” are, they’re right. I, more than anyone, knew how determined Stark was. And yet I’d allowed most of this to happen.
I was standing over the red wreckage of the snowmobile when the second Cat clattered to a halt. Stan Katz appeared at my side in a couple of minutes, carrying my shotgun. I hadn’t realized until then that I’d run off without it.
“Thanks, Stan.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I jerked my thumb back at the second Sno-Cat. “How’d you manage to hitch a ride?”
He smiled thinly. “They still think I’m a cop.”
“You may have to do more than pretend, the way things are going. We’ll need every gun loaded.”
He nodded. “So I heard.”
A momentary silence passed. We could hear the others talking behind us-that and the sound of ammunition being loaded.
“This thing’s a real mess, isn’t it?” he finally added. His voice was quiet, even comforting.
“It’s not our finest hour; I’ll give you that.”
“A failure to communicate, as the saying goes?”
“Let’s just say they fucked up; I fucked up; we all fucked up.”
Katz smiled'›Katz s again. “You’ll never be a MacArthur with lines like that.”
McNaughton stepped into our stillness. “Any tracks?”
I nodded to a crooked line of oblong holes that trailed away from the broken machine. McNaughton swung his snowshoed feet deftly over the fence. “All right, gentlemen. Captain Gunther and I will form the middle. I want a line with ten foot intervals off to either side.”
“What about Stark?” I asked, it seemed for the hundredth time.
“If we get Cioffi, we’ve got a bait for Stark.”
It made sense, as everything had before it-only my trust in sense had gone out the window. I was also troubled that with the arrival of the second Cat, there were only six of us.
“I think we should wait for more people,” I said.
“I don’t.” McNaughton’s voice was flat. “I don’t want to lose the bastard now.”
We spread out, shotguns in hand, like gentlemen at a country shoot, and started off across the snowfield. To both sides of me, I could just perceive the ghostly outlines of my neighbors but no further. I relied on them to be
