Whirlwind (30 page)

Less agreeable was the condition of a poppy-red Cadillac Escalade. One of the helicopter’s tail rotors had sheered through its front fender and was spectacularly to Charlie’s eyes embedded in the engine block.

As for the rest… Well, hell, Charlie reflected, a posse of twenty men with shotguns would have trouble doing that much damage.

Irina, cheeks smudged and clothes gritty, pulled at the Escalade’s door. It dropped to the ground. She fumbled inside, found the water bottle, and drank deeply before passing it to Charlie. “Now what?” she asked.

Charlie swallowed once, twice, three times. It was cold and good. A beer would have been better, maybe. But water was just fine. He stood for a moment studying the landscape, then answered, “We need to be on the other side of Mitchell Canyon. It’s too far to walk around the north end. Only way to get where we’ve got to be is through it. Mile and a half that way…” he pointed east”.. . and we climb down. Three miles or so up the canyon, and we climb out. I’ve been there before. I know the way.” He smiled fiercely. “You up to it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

That’s my girl! “Nope. Those guys in the helicopter will have radioed for backup. Probably a couple of busloads of goons are headed our way from both directions on this road. Unless you feel like re-enacting Custer’s last stand he lost, you know we go cross-country.”

She reached back into the ruined Cadillac, pulling out a four-foot-long matte-black bolt-action rifle. “Who carries this?”

“Me. That’s an Ed Brown Savanna gun, and I’ve always been envious to own one. The kid who got it for me… well, I was so downright delighted, I tipped him extra.”

“Perhaps I am a better shot than you.”

Charlie laughed. There wasn’t any pride in her voice, she was just stating the facts. “If it comes to it, we’ll see. Now sling a couple more bottles of water and all the ammo you can find into my war bag, grab your own kit, and let’s make tracks.”

Irina picked two pistols off the ground, flicked their safeties on, and muttered, “Whatever you say.”

Charlie wasn’t fooled. “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead, what?”

“Go ahead and say what you really mean.”

She smiled like a lioness. “Whatever you say. For now.”

I am not frightened, Irina told herself. I have done harder than this. To which, unwanted, a mocking voice appended, On a combat course. With safety nets.

Angry, she shook her head. I can do this! I can!

Not you, girl, you’re not good enough…. She’d swallowed hard when she first saw it the land sloping down gently, peach sand specked with flowering purple Rocky Mountain bells, an apricot-hued boulder beneath which a weary hiker might rest, tortured junipers nestled in shallow crevices, a terrain that would have been most pleasing to the eye had it not disappeared into hollow emptiness, nothing to be seen until, a mile away, the striated walls of a canyon side rose out of cool morning shadows. That was the other side. The one that had to be climbed up once this side was climbed down.

“Do you need to catch your breath?” Charlie, relaxed and looking like he was born in this place, squinted over his shoulder.

He was belittling her again. She reddened. “A ten-minute run is nothing.” “Good. I see dust kicking up back toward the road. Company’s coming.” Irina peered warily over the precipice’s edge. Straight down, more or less.

A sheer drop but for a few craggy outcrops. To the north, the canyon was terraced, a rust-colored staircase for titans, each step ending in a hundred-foot drop. To the south, sheer ochre rock shot through with mica sparkling in the morning sun.

He expected her to be hesitant, apprehensive, uncertain. She did not intend to give him that particular satisfaction. “I hope the climb is not too strenuous for a man your age.”

His answer was a snort that and a smile so knowing that she ground her teeth.

He began trotting north, a leisurely jogger’s pace, his feet picking out the easiest path among lichen-pocked stones and water-carved pits, each as smooth as her mother’s kitchen bowls. She kept step close behind him, he with his eyes studying the clifFs jagged edge. He’d said he had been here before. He said he knew where he was going. She had her doubts.

“Ah!” a grunt of discovery. She followed his eyes, seeing only eroded stone so red-orange that it reminded her of tangerines. The ground was littered with sullen grey pebbles. Miniature cactus, clawed like tiny kittens, sprouted in the sand. In the sky, turning and turning, a turkey buzzard hovered. She heard no sounds but the sigh of wind. Suddenly, surprisingly, it came to her that there was an enormous beauty here, peace as well, if only one had the time to accept the gift.

Charlie stretched out his hand. “Give me my war bag and your purse. No way in hell can we carry them down.”

Fetching a handful of loose karabiners from the bag’s bottom, he used them to clip water bottles to his belt loops, and to hers. He stuffed a box of Homady .30-06 cartridges into his left pocket, six nine-millimeter pistol magazines into his right pocket, and slung a pair of black Leica binoculars around his neck. She, in a man’s denims, slid four spare magazines for her own guns into her pockets, then silently accepted the wickedly long Buck hunting knife he offered her.

“One pistol each. Give me your second one.” She obeyed. Charlie dropped two handguns and her purse into the bag, zipped it closed, and, spinning like an Olympic hammer thrower, hurled it off the cliff. “If we find it down below, we take it. If not, we do not go looking for it.” He had his khaki shirt off, was knotting the right sleeve around his money belt; the left dragged in the dirt. “This is the best I can do. It’ll dangle maybe ten inches under my feet. If you feel yourself getting into trouble, grab it. It’s a Filson; it can take your weight.” To which he added, a worried look in his eye, “Whether I can is another question entirely.”

He was going over! But there was nothing here! Flat, wind-polished sandstone without so much as a crack into which she could wedge her fingers. It was madness. She couldn’t stop herself from shouting, “You are insane! There is no “

“Trust me.” He tightened his rifle bandoleer around his chest.

She trusted no one. Once, perhaps, she had. But that was long ago, and when her father said those words, she soon discovered that the only person she could trust was herself.

Charlie continued, his voice low and serious. She forced herself to listen. No power on earth could force her to believe. “The Anasazi, the old-time Indians, they were cliff dwellers, built their adobe fortresses all up and down these canyons. Back then, life was war to the knife all against all. So they chose the most inaccessible spots, the places where no enemy could creep up on them from below, sneak down on them from above. There are ruins right beneath us, big ones, maybe housed a hundred and twenty people who planted their crops here on the plateaus. Came up by day to work them. Went down by night for safety. And the way they went up and down the way they moved through all these canyons was by cutting trails into the virgin rock.”

Irina stared into the abyss. The cliff wall fell away, an almost imperceptible slope, terrifyingly steep. Far, far below broken scree bordered the tangled tops of dusky olive trees. “There is no trail here.”

“See where the stone is gouged out there looks like natural erosion, but it isn’t. Those are handholds. You’re lightest, you go over first. Hang on tight, probe with your feet. You’ll find the recesses the Anasazi carved; they’re spaced maybe two, two and a half feet apart. Take it easy. Test each one. Don’t put your weight down until you’re sure it’s solid. The wind and rain have had centuries to work on them. They can crumble like burnt toast. Be careful. And like I said, if anything goes wrong, grab for the sleeve of my shirt.”

“You are a crazy man. I will not do this.”

And he with his unspeakably infuriating grin replied, “You’re not afraid, are you?”

I am not frightened. I have done harder than this. On a combat course. With safety nets.

She shook her head. I can do this! I can!

Irina slid over the edge.

Hixhilaration.

Nothing nothing! was better than putting yourself to the test and triumphing. Irina reveled in her mastery flawless control of muscle, of breath, and, most important of all, of mind.

The least mistake would fling her into empty air. A hundred and fifty meters, gravity’s prisoner, she’d die a wet pulp on a rocky canyon floor. For this reason, fear was irrelevant. She felt not the least hint of its touch. Her thoughts were elsewhere. The texture of sandstone. The salt sweat running down her cheeks. The whisper that preceded a gust of wind, and the tensing of her fingers as she braced herself against it. The delicate caress against her toes as she probed for another thousand-year-old handhold, sliding her foot into its shallow stirrup.

She wore size seven shoes; the ball of her foot barely fit into those ancient notches.

Press. Press ever so gently. Feel windblown sand slide beneath your feet. Has the rock rotted and crumbled? Will it bear your weight? Lower yourself a little more, test it, do not act in haste.

It held. She lowered herself another two-thirds of a meter.

Pure euphoria. Risk it all, risk it with every step. Every centimeter is a victory. Every victory brings joy.

She was centered only on this, the apex of physical achievement. Her mind and body were one, transfigured in mutual elation, a unity collaborating with exquisite grace to master the unmasterable.

Above her Charlie, he as lithe and muscular as she, called out little encouragements. His shirtsleeve, an unnecessary precaution, really, dangled not far from her face. She glanced up, not often; he was doing fine. On the whole,

she ignored him. He was not what was important. All that was important was the deed and her self-imposed imperative that she execute it flawlessly.

In some sense she wished she could continue forever. In some sense she was disappointed when her feet reached a razor-thin ledge.

Bottom of the climb. She’d descended a hundred meters of sheer rock. From here on the path was a childishly easy walk, a half-meter-wide trail hewn out of virgin sandstone. It cut down the cliff, not sloping steeply, five switchbacks before it reached the canyon floor.

Charlie was beside her. “You okay?” he asked.

“That was fun.” Her skin tingled fresh and bright. She almost wanted to run the rest of the way.

“Take a deep breath, Irina. You’re on an adrenaline high.”

“Do not tell me that,” she snapped. He was spoiling it, casting a shadow over the joy she felt.

“Right.” His eyes were narrow. She loved the deep lines around them. He was an exceptionally handsome man. How had she not noticed that earlier?

He continued. “I’ll lead from here.”

“Catch me if you can, Charlie!” and she danced down the ledge, pacing herself to keep just beyond his reach.

The fall, when it came, was neither long, nor hard, nor painful. She lay laughing among dappled grasses beneath the adobe walls of a millennium-old ruin.

|ohan Schmidt did not smile, although he was tempted. The spectacle of a plump-bottomed Washington bureaucrat vomiting in terror was, by any definition, amusing.

Samuel, that unfortunate desk jockey, had reacted predictably poorly to descending a five-hundred-foot cliff, child’s play though it was with two brawny Nigerian mercenaries belaying the ropes, and a third rappelling at his side. Now he was on his hands and knees, wiping his lips with a handkerchief as white as his face. It was, Schmidt acknowledged, a deliciously droll sight. The troops were having trouble controlling themselves. He shot them a warning glance. Their grins faded to thin-lipped seriousness.

It was useful for people such as Samuel, the people who paid the bills, to see what the work was like. Not until they were up close and personal with field personnel doing what field personnel do best did they genuinely understand the value they received for their money.

“Give him water,” Schmidt ordered. Samuel glugged a canteen’s contents down too fast, then started puking again. Predictable. Such was the sort of behavior you expected of civilians.

He turned his attention elsewhere. Almost all of his men were now at canyon’s bottom. Two remained above the scarp, working the ropes as they lowered a pair of Honda ATVs that would, quite soon now, bring this time-consuming affair to its predestined conclusion.

Charles, Charles, there’s a butcher’s hill to pay. Good men are dead, and the time has come for you to settle a debt due for decades.

The girl, as well. Kolodenkova. She owed him a certain price. Cottonmouth, who had died in his arms, was more than a comrade. They had consoled one another, he and she; in difficult times and in troubled circumstances, they’d gifted each other with solace and oblivion. That so fine a woman, a born warrior, had gone to her grave burned black at the bottom of a ravine … Schmidt felt his anger rise. Anger was good. Anger befitted a soldier. But it was better to husband and hoard it, saving it for the moment when it served its purpose best.

He turned his thoughts elsewhere.

How far ahead were Charles and his companion? Ten minutes. Perhaps a little more. It made little difference. Be it ten or be it twenty, their lead was no advantage not with two all-terrain vehicles on their trail.

It would have been better to overtake him up on the plateau. However, the best that could be done was to follow him at a slightly faster pace than poor aging Charles could run. In this regard, Schmidt’s Gelandewagen had proved its mettle, crossing (although not easily) a deep drain ditch so that it could follow in the fugitives’ tracks.

Follow slowly, given the terrain and the G-Wagen’s load.

Three other trucks bearing additional troopers had arrived from the north. Those men had to be packed into Schmidt’s already crowded ofF-roader. Happily, one of those trucks towed a trailer bearing two Honda ATVs, four-wheeled motorcycles with balloon tires that were capable of making good speed over even the most broken ground.

Eighteen people in total, sixteen skilled fighters, a bitterly complaining national security advisor, and Schmidt himself. Two men had mounted the Hondas. Another five rode on the G-Wagen’s roof, two more on the sideboards, the rest crushed in the Gelandewagen’s cabin… the rest except for Sidewinder.