Political Suicide (17 page)

“So what’s the connection between Brody and the Palace Guards?”

“Just what I said. If someone starts actin’ up and gets on Brody’s bad side, the Guard might pay them a visit, rough them up a little, remind them that they don’t want to be on Colonel Brody’s bad side, and that the next step is they’re out of Mantis.”

“Do you think Brody’s desperate for money to fund Mantis?” Lou asked. “I mean, your outfit has been hit pretty hard by budget cuts that were initiated out of Colston’s office.”

Hector just shrugged. “Probably,” he said. “Everyone’s desperate for money. The colonel’s always complaining that D.C. is squeezing Mantis harder than any other branch of the marines or even the rest of the service.”

“Do you think Brody could have murdered the congressman because he knew about the Palace Guards?”

“I doubt it,” Hector said. “Either way, I sure as hell hope that recording doesn’t get back to the colonel. If it does, I may find myself with a visit from—”

The night exploded with a series of bright flashes and loud pops that came from somewhere down the path to the clearing. The top of the picnic table in front of Lou splintered, spraying fragments of wood into his face. More gunshots … more flashes.

“Run!” Hector screamed. “Split up and run!”

The two men broke for the woods at the same time. They were separated by about a hundred feet, when another shot rang out. Lou saw Hector stumble, then fall, clutching his leg. Lou stopped running and headed toward the marine, but a hail of bullets sprayed snow in front of him.

Hector lurched to his feet, still holding his leg. “I’m all right!” he cried out. “Get out of here! Run!”

Lou watched the marine vanish into the woods.

Then he spotted an opening in the dense underbrush and plunged through it.

CHAPTER 22

Lou stumbled as he reached the woods, but he managed to grab a tree trunk and keep from falling. The icy ground provided all the traction of a hockey rink. Branches lashed out like claws, gashing his face and hands. His foot caught a root hidden beneath the snow and sent him sprawling. He landed heavily onto the hard, packed ground and skidded across the rocks. From somewhere in the distance, he heard more gunfire. Then he heard something else—something that sent him scrambling on all fours, across the frozen snow and hard, packed dirt until he regained his footing.

Voices.

It seemed like there were two men, and they definitely were after him. The woods diffused the sound, making it difficult for Lou to make out where they were.

“I can see his tracks,” a raspy voice called out from somewhere behind him. “Keep the flashlight steady.”

Lou’s only recourse was to keep on running, but his ankle-high hiking boots made every step feel leaden and uncertain. In the icy, blowing night, breathing quickly became a problem. Again and again he had to pause to draw in enough air to push ahead. His lungs burned, and a fearsome stitch had developed in his left side.

“This way!” a man with a Hispanic accent yelled out. “Over here.”

Moonlight would occasionally illuminate a pathway through the woods; then clouds would obscure it, plunging the forest into near total darkness. Lou thought he had put some distance between himself and his pursuers, when the ground beneath him turned steeper. Before he could slow his stride, he was skidding downhill. His right foot caught the edge of a rock and he went down, tumbling at an awkward angle and landing heavily at the bottom of a small ravine. He touched his left temple and felt blood. His shoulder on that side throbbed, and he wondered if his contused knee would hold weight.

The moonlight was gone now, and the darkness seemed impenetrable. Dazed, he hauled himself to his feet. The knee held. Then, from far up the steep slope, he saw two shafts of light dancing erratically off the trees and underbrush.

“Sonofabitch,” he murmured, wondering whether he should use what time he had to hide or to run.

For most of a minute, he remained motionless and listened. From among the rustling winter branches, he heard the distinct sound of rushing water coming from his right—a stream or waterfall. Not the direction he wanted to go. Hobbling, he headed away from the sound, angling along the shallow swale at the base of the hill. Every twenty feet he stopped and listened again. There were no voices from above, but he sensed the men were there. Trying to deal with his tracks, he walked backwards for a time, until he reached some rocky ground. Then he cut uphill and to his right.

Probably fruitless,
he thought.
No, not fruitless … dumb, and a waste of time.

At that instant, above and ahead of him, he saw the shafts of light once more, cutting through the blackness. He whirled and, ignoring the stabbing pain on the side of his knee made worse by the unevenness of the terrain, he headed back toward the running water. The stream was wider than he had expected—more a river lined with ice and snow, moving rapidly from his right to his left, rippling across nearly submerged rocks and boulders the size of refrigerators. He peered ahead, getting what help he could from his cell phone’s display light. The wind was to his back, and several times the voices were carried down to him.

Clearly, the two men were more adept at moving through the winter forest than he was. The debate of what to do next lasted only a few seconds. Prying a stout branch from the snow, he broke off the dead twigs and braced himself as he stepped into the frigid water. In an instant, his boots had filled and his socks became sodden. The numbness was sudden and utterly unpleasant. Rather than go directly across, he followed the flow, using his branch for balance and praying he could stay upright.

One step … then another … and another.

Oddly, he found himself flashing on nights in his college library, memorizing an endless list of organic chemistry formulas, knowing that if he studied for twenty-three hours, somebody at another table was studying twenty-four.

Discipline. One step. Another. One formula. Another. Discipline.

Carbocation with three valence electrons is carbenium … with six is … is what?…

His distracted thinking seemed to keep the burning numbness in his feet at bay. Gradually, he angled for the far side of the river. The longer he could stay in, the better chance he had. The water reached his knees. If he fell over now, he was dead. Simple as that. And if the water became much deeper, he was going over.

Concentrate.

Oxidation plus carbocation is … is what? How in the hell did I ever pass?

The water level held just above his knees. His jeans were soaked to the groin. At a bend, he risked a glance backwards. The lights were there, still some distance away. How much of a trail had he left? How much more could he take? Standing in the middle of the river, Lou crouched behind a boulder and watched as the beams cut irregular paths through the darkness.

“I got tracks here,” he heard one man say.

“He might have followed the river,” said the other.

“Or he might be in it.”

“Let’s separate. You head up the hill. I’ll go this way. Fire if you’ve got him spotted.”

Lou risked a relieved breath. Two against one were not odds he embraced, but one on one? At least he had surprise going for him. Surprise and the water.… And Emily.

He stood and kept working across the river. His knee and shoulder ached and the water burned but, one step at a time, he was moving. He checked back again. Judging by the single flashlight beam, maybe fifty yards separated him and his pursuer. The water level had dropped back to his knees, but the slippery rocks were a constant challenge. Still, he was feeling increasingly comfortable moving ahead.

Mistake.

Without warning, his boot skidded off a mossy rock and he pitched forward into the water, arms extended. His knees slammed down into the rocks lining the bottom. His ankle took the torque from the fall and twisted unnaturally. For a moment, Lou feared it might have broken, but he got back to his feet, now totally soaked and beginning to shiver. After a few hesitant attempts, he managed to put decent weight on the foot. A sprain.

Once again, he was on the move, but traveling at a much slower rate this time. His lungs were again on fire, and the agonizing stitch had returned to his side. From behind, he heard splashing.

Keep moving … keep moving.…

The shivering had become ferocious now. Hypothermia was taking over. It probably wasn’t going to help much, but he had to get out of the river. At that instant, there was a gunshot.

“You out there?” The raspy voice called out, taunting him through the dark. “I’m gonna find you, an’ I’m gonna kill you.”

Two more pops. Though the gunman may have been shooting blindly, a branch to Lou’s right splintered. He was ten feet or so from the bank. Ignoring the numbing cold, he forged ahead. Now, without his support stick, he was slipping with each unsteady step. Ahead, he could make out what seemed to be a broad clearing of some sort—a field. Then he realized that the blackness wasn’t a field at all.

It was a lake.

CHAPTER 23

Lou hauled himself onto the bank of the frigid river and stumbled across to the shore to what seemed like a nearly circular lake, frozen as far out as he could see. It was impossible to be certain of the circumference, but Lou would not have been surprised if it were a mile or more. He tried to will himself to stop shaking. Was he better off with or without his freezing, water-soaked clothes?

To his right, twenty feet away, there was a dilapidated boathouse. Its roof had partially caved in and the windows were smashed out. Dense cobwebs filled what eaves there were, and tall weeds had taken over the surrounding ground. There was a rotting rowboat, long past any ability to float, propped up against the side of the shack closest to him. A basketball-sized boulder set on the upper gunwale held it in place.

The wind had picked up intensity, swaying the tall trees until they groaned like stiffly moving joints. The odds on there being something in the house to wrap himself in were small, but it was worth checking. He had to move quickly, though. The boathouse was the first place the man heading downriver to kill him would check. Incredibly, the door to the place was firmly closed and secured with a rusty bolt. Lou rejected the notion of forcing it open and instead peered into the darkness through what had been a window. After its prolonged submersion, his cell phone and its light were useless.

From what he could see, the place was empty.

Time was running out. Lou was shivering mercilessly. The only plan he could conceive of was to drag himself along the lakeshore and get shot.

At that moment, still some distance away, he heard branches cracking. It was almost over for him. Trying to run had as much chance now as having his cell phone light up. Then he glanced over at the rotting boat, and the glimmer of an idea began to take shape. A feint—one of the moves Cap loved to use in the ring.

Silently, using all his strength, Lou set the huge rock aside and flipped the rowboat upright, cushioning the landing with his shoulder. Some wood splintered off, but for the most part, the sorrowful craft remained intact. He shoved it to the lakeshore and slid it out onto the ice, which creaked but held firm.

Now for the feint.

Moving on his knees and pushing the boat ahead to keep his weight distributed, he eased across the ice. There was a restless cracking, and a strained creak, but again, no give.

“Hey, brother,” the voice called. “You’re running out of room. How about you don’t make it hard on yourself? I promise I won’t.”

Five more yards onto the ice. Then another five. He was twenty yards from shore now. The ice seemed set to give way, but his chips were on the table. Lou turned the boat ninety degrees, then gingerly removed his parka and threw it on the ice not far away. In the ring, the move would have been equivalent to dropping his right hand and dipping his right shoulder, announcing that the next blow was going to be an uppercut from that side, when the real punch was going to come from the left.

Then, crawling on his belly military marine-style, he eased back to shore. He hauled the boulder to the far side of the shack and tested that he could lift it. Knees … belly … chest. The rock was lighter than the 225 pounds he pressed in sets of ten at Stick and Move, but it was absolute dead weight, and it seemed like chest high was the limit here. When the final moment came, he would have to do better than that … or die.

Kneeling by the boathouse, Lou felt his adrenaline rush begin to fade, and once again his teeth were chattering. He peered around the corner toward the woods. At that instant, a dark shadow moved cautiously from the forest, a flashlight in one hand, and a handgun in the other. Lou pulled back and flattened against the wall.

“You here, brother?” the man called out.

The ground crunched as the killer approached the wall where the boat had been. Through the window above him, Lou saw the flashlight beam scanning the inside. He clenched his jaws and willed his teeth to remain quiet.

More crunching. The beam swung toward the lake, then out onto the ice and onto the dark silhouette of the rowboat. Finally, the light stopped on Lou’s parka.

“You ain’t fooling me, bro. I know you’re behind that boat.”

He stepped out onto the ice and fired two shots. Lou could sense him checking around his feet, following the tracks he had left.

“I hit you yet? Don’t worry, I will. I’ll come right out there and shoot you between your eyes.”

It seemed like the gunman was firing a semiautomatic pistol, but Lou had no idea the number of rounds the weapon held. What he did know was that the diversion of the boat and the parka was occupying the man’s focus and confusing him. One cautious step at a time, the gunman moved onto the lake. A quarter of the way, Lou guessed.… Now maybe half.

Lou hoisted the boulder to his chest and moved forward. He could feel the adrenaline of fear pounding in the muscles of his chest and arms.

The gunman fired three more times.