Crawling out of the tiny cave after a twenty-minute struggle with her clothes, and then having to stuff them with leaves, didn't improve Jessie's mood. Kier nodded his greeting.
'We will gather more food, eat, and sleep tonight. Then try to make it to a very wild place by tomorrow evening.'
She groaned. 'We will have to build a new hut?'
'There is already a better hut. You'll see.'
'Man, it's cold.'
Kier looked her over. ''If you're cold, then your clothes need more leaves.'
'I can barely move as it is.' She demonstrated her stiff-legged walk to his stony stare and concealed amusement. 'So what did you learn with all the homework?'
At that moment an explosion shattered the mountain's solitude. Echoes reverberated. Kier reached in the hut for the four blankets, stuffing them in the bag. He plucked up two of the automatic weapons, handing one to Jessie. She felt her pockets for the ammo, checked her pistol, then took two of the remaining four grenades.
Moving almost parallel to the false trail that Kier had laid from the main cave, then angling in toward it, they slipped through the trees, their automatics ready to fire. He turned and stopped.
'They tripped a trap grenade I set. I need for you to go way down the trail,' he said. 'If anybody gets to you, kill them.'
'What trail? There is no trail except in your brain. It's been snowing all morning.'
'There'll be an indentation in the snow where I tromped it down last night. I went a few hundred yards past where we turned off to go to the hut. You'll see it, near the granite cliffs, up near the ridgetop. If you don't find it, I'll find you. If I don't come, follow water downhill.'
Chapter 15
There is no good way to deal with a skunk.
Kier had to know how they had found him so quickly. Whatever they had done might work again.
He sprinted to within fifty yards of the turnoff to the hut, then jumped into the trees, waiting. Seconds after he stopped, another explosion reverberated in the still mountain air. A familiar voice shrieked his name.
'Kier!'
Now he understood. The impulse to run up the trail was overwhelming, but he did not. Instead he held his fist against his head and waited for the boy's screaming to stop. But it didn't. The voice was that of James Cole, a Tilok teen as tough as they came.
Then it struck him. If James was in trouble, he would never shout in an out-of-control voice. This caricature of hysteria was meant to tip Kier off. James had far more discipline.
Kier tried to imagine the scene up on the hill. As they approached the cave, the lead man would have hit the first grenade. They would have been approaching in a loose, spread-out pattern with the second man at least fifty feet behind the first. After the initial grenade blast, they would be more careful. But they would have seen the cave, the dying fire, and the two empty beds. Finding no more grenades on the trail, they'd enter, believing they were on the heels of their quarry. They would suppose that the beds were still warm from the occupants. Nobody sets a grenade in the middle of his camp.
And that was why the first man in the camp, a little overeager to rekindle the almost dead fire, had tripped it.
Sneaking quietly through the forest, Kier approached the bend where he and Jessie had jumped off the trail to go to the hut. Twenty feet from the little tree with the hollow base, he waited and listened. He heard the choked whispers of excited men. Putting his radio to his ear, he clicked through all six channels. He heard nothing. Either they weren't speaking, or they had changed the code. Just in case they had something to say to him, he turned back to the channel last used at the cabin.
Then he heard a footfall, the faint whoosh of a boot in deep snow. A silent pause distilled his tension. He was waiting between steps. After several seconds, the sound of branches on fabric came from over his left shoulder.
The stalker was very close, just on the uphill side of the trail, apparently moving back toward the cave. James was calling only occasionally now, but when he did, it was the same anguished cry. Kier turned his head toward the nearby sounds, but could see nothing through the tangle of branches. Then came the noise of two quick steps, and Kier's ears filled with his own heartbeat. Taking a deep breath, he reached to his belt, pulling out the silenced. 45. By now the movement was just ahead of him. Several steps brought the man even closer. Maybe he was trying to come back to the path. Standing on the downhill edge of the tunnellike passage, Kier moved his head just enough to get a clear view of the trail in front of him.
The camouflaged barrel of an automatic rifle was the first thing Kier saw. In a moment, the man stepped out of the brush. Not more than five feet from Kier, he stared down at the ground, obviously worried about another booby trap. The hood of his parka hung on his back, so he could listen. Salt-and-pepper hair at the fringe of his helmet indicated the man had a little age.
''Don't move,' Kier said in a loud whisper. ''Drop the gun.'
After a moment, the man loosed the automatic rifle and it fell to the snow.
'We've got your friend the boy back at the cave. We'll make a deal.'
'No deal. What was on that plane?'
'Just a bunch of research that you stole.'
'Tell me what you know if you don't want to die.'
Just then, the third grenade went off, not more than one hundred feet away on the little trail to the hut. Kier flinched. So did the man. That one would have killed somebody, Kier knew.
'You're gonna die,' the man said. 'You're pissin' us off.'
''How many on this ridge?''
The man wouldn't speak again.
''Put your hands behind your head,'' Kier ordered. He frisked the man, removing all his weapons. There was a silenced. 45, four grenades, his automatic, a field knife, and a smaller pistol on the man's calf. 'Facedown in the snow,' Kier said, proceeding to pull off the man's coat.
''Take off the shirt and the arctic underwear. Drop your pants to your ankles.'
'I'll freeze to death.'
'Not if you talk to me.'
Kier placed the silenced pistol to the back of the man's head. The man removed his clothes.
'I want to know how many of you there are.' Kier shoved him down and kicked snow over the man's bare back, thighs, and buttocks. 'If I don't like the answer, I'm just going to invite you to lie there in the snow.'
The man said nothing, but began shaking.
'Suit yourself. I guess you won't be needing these.' Kier picked up the man's clothing and set them in a pile. 'Make a nice fire.' Then Kier knelt down and began untying the man's boots. 'Toes get frostbite really fast. Bad circulation down there at the feet.' Kier yanked off the first boot. 'They turn blue and rot. It's not a pretty sight.'
He pulled off the second boot, then the thick wool socks, thrusting the man's feet into the snow.
'I'm freezing,' the man said through gritted teeth.
'Not yet, but soon.' Kier kicked more snow over the man. 'You ever see a man who's lost half his foot to frostbite? Hobbles around-can't keep his balance. One guy I heard of actually lost both feet. And your nose and fingers will probably go in the next thirty minutes. Notice how they're going numb now? Already feels like dead flesh, doesn't it?'
'If I talk, can I get up and put on my clothes?'
