sudden, icy cold branding burned flesh was bittersweet; it hurt in every fiber of his being, but the torment was also a ringing affirmation that he was still alive, and free.
He could also drink all of this water he wanted to— something he proceeded to do while he anchored himself against the swift-moving current by grabbing hold of naked roots that jutted from the dirt bank.
Still not completely sated but comfortable, Veil pulled himself out of the water and crawled up the bank. He dried himself off with clumps of grass, then dressed in the jumpsuit, which proved to be lightweight but warm. He felt lightheaded now but still bursting with energy which he knew was false, artificially induced by the powerful drug. Already he had begun to think ahead, trying to plan; he knew he must eventually 'crash' as the price to be paid for this energy, and possibly crash very hard. He had to find a safe place to land.
Kneeling on the ground, he loosened the top of the leather pouch and spilled its contents out on the grass. There were at least two dozen sinewy strips of beef jerky coated with a flexible, transparent gel that Veil assumed was a high-concentrate protein and vitamin supplement. There was a tube of an antibiotic, anesthetic skin cream; several packets of coarse-textured brown tablets that were unlabeled and individually wrapped in cellophane; and his .38—loaded.
He stripped off the jumpsuit, smeared salve from the tube on his burned face and body. The sunburn pain began to go away almost immediately as the cream dissolved into his skin. He dressed again, put his revolver in a shoulder pocket of the jumpsuit, then replaced the other items in the bag and drew the drawstring tight. After refilling his canteen he began walking inland, keeping low in the tall grass along the riverbank. Although he knew he was leaving a trail that could be easily followed by almost anyone, his most immediate concern was the danger of being spotted through a Sniper-scope or infrared binoculars; it would certainly not be long before he was missed.
He had an ally in the camp, Veil thought—perhaps. He would take nothing for granted any longer in this strange place, these mountains and this valley, haunted by one man's bizarre obsession. Since, to Parker, it was evident that Veil would die before he told the 'truth,' it had occurred to Veil that the officer had decided to use him as fodder in a Mamba training exercise.
But a loaded .38 made him rather dangerous fodder. Mambas might be able to snatch many things out of the air, but they didn't catch bullets.
Whatever the reason for his freedom, Veil thought, the fact of the matter was that he was free. Now he had to decide what to do with that freedom. He had no idea of how far the compound extended inland, and his only purpose now was to put as much distance as possible between himself and the main installation while he waited to see what the side effects of the drug would be. Then he would have to avoid capture while he tried to figure out a way of getting back to the main Institute complex, assuming that was what he wanted to do, and he was not at all certain that it was. Somehow managing to get out of the Army compound and back to the hospice or Institute was an escape, but not a solution. He would be left back where he had started. After his thirsty conversations with Parker, Veil was convinced that the Army compound was where the answers to his questions lay. The trick was not to die from an overdose of action.
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
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
