HE WENT OUT the back door, moved as slowly as he could across the parking area, onto the grass, through a carpet of pine needles, along to the edge of the woods, almost to the river. When he sensed the water, he turned left, into the woods, where he ran into a tree. He couldn’t use the night-vision glasses because they’d ruin his night sight. Just have to take it slower. He moved, inches at a time, taking baby steps, one hand out in front, through the edge of the trees.
Raines spoke in his ear. “They’re landing. They’re seventy-five yards south of you-or west, or whatever it is. I’m going to pull the guys on the land side, bring them down to the cabin. If you’ve got a problem with that, click- otherwise, go on.”
Virgil moved deeper into the woods, felt the land going out from under him. A gully of some kind, a swale, running down toward the water. He moved down into it, felt the ground get soggy, then he was up the far side: couldn’t see anything.
At the top of the swale, he found another tree, a big one. The position felt good, so he stopped.
Raines: “Virgil, I’ve got you stopped. If you’re okay, give me a click.”
Virgil found the radio talk-button and clicked it.
Raines’s voice was calm, collected, steady: “I got a heat mass moving out of the boat, one still in it. Now I got two, okay, they spread out a little, I’ve got four heat masses moving up on the bank. They’re grouping again. They’re stopped. Bunch, you’re behind them. You’ll be shooting toward Virgil if you shoot past them-see if you can move further away from the river and toward the house. Looks like they’re gonna stay along the bank. One guy is still in the boat.”
Raines: “Bemidji guys, you’re right on top of each other, do you see each other? Give me a click if you do.”
Raines kept talking them through it, the Bemidji cops and Jarlait closing on Virgil, the heat signatures by the river hardly moving at all. Raines finally said, “Okay, everybody stop. I think these guys are waiting for a little light. Bemidji guys, Virgil’s about fifty yards straight ahead of you. Virgil, the four who got out of the boat are still in a group, they’re maybe fifty yards straight ahead of you. Bunch, you’re good. Wait there, or someplace close. Looks a little lighter out there… sun’ll be up in an hour.”
THEY WAITED, nobody moving, soothed by Raines. “Everybody stay loose, stay loose…”
Virgil first imagined that the sky was growing brighter, then admitted to himself that it wasn’t: a common deer-hunting phenomenon. Then it did get brighter, slowly, and Virgil could see the tips of trees, and then the tips of branches, and then a squirrel got pissed somewhere and started chattering, and the woods began to wake up.
“They’re moving,” Raines said. “They’re coming in two plus two. Two are going further up the bank, two are coming right at you, Virgil. They’re closing, you’ll see them, if you can see them, in about a minute… Rest of you guys, don’t shoot Virgil. Bunch, the second two are as high on the bank as you are, you’re behind them, they’re moving toward the cabin… Virgil, you should see them anytime.”
Virgil sensed movement in front of him, thumbed the radio button, said as quietly as he could, “Rudy, I’m gonna yell. Your guys may move.”
“I think they heard you-they stopped,” Raines said in Virgil’s ear. “Christ, they’re not more than twenty-five yards away.”
From out in front of him, a woman’s voice said quietly, “Virgil?”
Virgil eased a little lower down the slope of the gully, thumbed the radio button so everybody could hear him, and said, “Mai-we’re looking at you on thermal imaging equipment, and on visual cameras up in the trees. We can see all of you. We’ve got you boxed, and there are a lot more of us than there are of you. Give it up or we’ll kill you.”
There was a heavy thud as something hit the far side of Virgil’s tree, and Virgil realized in an instant what it was, and flopped down the bank and covered his eyes and the grenade went with a flash and a deafening blast, and a machine gun started up the hill and Virgil thought,
More gunfire, and then Bunch shouted, “I got him, but I’m hit, I’m hit, ah, Jesus, I’m hit…”
Raines said, “Virgil, you’ve got one not moving in front of you, one moving away.”
Jarlait: “I got the one in front of Virgil, I had him dead in my sights.”
Raines: “We got one moving down to the water, Jarlait, if you move sideways down to the water you might be able to see them, you might have to move forward… Virgil, you can move forward… Paul, can you and your guys get to Rudy? Can you get to Rudy?”
Queenen said, “I can hear him, but where’s the other guy, is he still there?”
“He’s not moving, he may be down, I’m going to illuminate with the IR… okay, I can see him, he looks like he’s down, he’s on his back, if you go straight ahead you should get to Rudy… Rudy, I can see Rudy waving… Rudy, the guy above you is moving, but not much. He’s crawling, I think, can you see him?”
And Queenen said, “Is Rudy moving? Is Rudy crawling, I can see a guy crawling-” Rudy shouted, “No,” in the open, and Queenen opened up, ten fast shots, and Raines, his voice still cool, said, “I think you rolled him.”
JARLAIT SHOUTED, in the open, “I can’t see them.”
Virgil moved. The light was coming up fast, and he went forward, and Raines said in his ear, “Virgil, I can’t tell if the guy in front of you is down, but he’s not moving at all. The other one is down at the water.”
Virgil moved again, fast dodging moves from tree to tree. Raines called, “You’re right on top of him, he’s just downhill.”
Virgil saw the body: Phem, with a rifle. He was lying on his back, looking sightlessly at the brightening sky, the last he would ever have seen; his chest had been torn to pieces.
Virgil could hear Mai’s voice, calling out to somebody, the tone urgent, well ahead, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. Vietnamese?
Queenen: “Okay, the first guy’s dead… Larry, watch me, I’m moving over to the left, you see me? Watch right up the hill there… I’m gonna make a move here.”
A few seconds, then Queenen: “Okay, the second guy is dead. Rudy, where are you?”
Raines called: “They’re moving, they’re on the water… they’re moving fast…”
Virgil heard somebody crashing along the riverbank, assumed it was Jarlait, and then a long burst of automatic-weapon fire, interspersed with tracers, chewed up the riverbank and cut back into the woods and he went down.
Raines: “Louis, are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Jesus, they almost shot me.” His breath was hoarse through the walkie-talkie; another old guy.
Another long burst, then another, and Virgil realized that somebody-Mai? -was loading magazines and hosing down the woods as thoroughly as possible, keeping them stepping and jiving until they could get down the river, in the boat, to wherever their vehicle was.
He left Phem and hurried forward through the trees, crashing around, knowing he was noisy, and another burst slashed and ricocheted around him, and he went down again, and somebody shouted, “Man,” and then, on the radio, “That last one… I’m bleeding, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”
Virgil thought,
Virgil turned and jogged through the woods, fifty yards, a hundred yards, Raines calling into his ear, “I’m gonna lose you in a minute, Virgil, they’re already off my screens… I’m losing you…”
Virgil ran another fifty yards, to a muddy little point, risked a move to the water. The morning fog hung two or three feet deep over the water, wisps here and there, and Virgil saw only a flash of them, three or four hundred yards away, heading into the Canadian side, around another bend in the river; they disappeared in a quarter second, behind a screen of willows. No sound-they were using a trolling motor. He put his aim point a foot high, where he thought they’d gone, and dumped the whole magazine at them. When he ran dry, he kicked the empty mag out,
