Whirlwind (31 page)

Ah, Sidewinder! He was the best tracker Schmidt had ever known, better by far than any man under Schmidt’s command, and indeed better than Schmidt himself. True, Britain’s innocuously named Special Air Services, the SAS for short, were beyond question the best-trained commandos in the world as was evidenced by the fact that while America’s Delta Force had gotten all the media coverage in Afghanistan, it was the SAS that had done the heavy lifting.

Even for an SAS-schooled soldier, Sidewinder was uncommonly talented, preternatural in his perception of shape, shadow, silhouette, surface, and spacing those five “s-words” encompassing the stalker’s art.

Who is the deadliest soldier? Let there be no debate: it is the skillful tracker of men.

Sidewinder blue-checked shirt and dusty chinos had sprawled clinging to the G-Wagen’s bouncing hood, eyes roving the route ahead, calling out the course in a raspy Yorkshire accent. “Crushed dung beetle or th’ right. Gee us a sixteen-degree tarn.” “Loose leaves by yon brush, downwind not up.” “Tracks. Deep a’ th’ heel. Walking back’ and th’ cunning buggers.”

Piece of cake.

Sidewinder had led them straight to a pair of faint scrape marks, unmistakable signposts as to where the likely-to-be-late Charles McKenzie had slid over the edge of a cliff.

From there it was but a few minutes of well-practiced drill ropes fastened to the Gelandewagen’s tow motor, rappelling harnesses donned, down the rock wall faster than Charles and Kolodenkova possibly could have climbed. A rather sharply worded order was needed to encourage Samuel over the edge. Weapons, ammunition, radios, and the other necessities of the hunt followed the sweating civilian.

It had moved with military precision, which was the point of the thing. Every man knew his duty as well as he knew the moves he had to make. Schmidt was honored to command them.

Now the ATVs bumped down from above, the Gelandewagen’s motor regulating a swiftly unwinding spool and two high-tensile ropes. The right men and the right equipment all was as it was supposed to be. The mission would be accomplished professionally and with pride’.

He’d send two outriders to the fore. On the ATVs they’d soon overtake the prey. Once the targets were seen and marked, ordinary rifle work would pin them down. Schmidt and the rest of his force would jog toward the sound of gunfire, and then… why then, what hope had an old man and an inexperienced girl against sixteen skilled mercenaries under the command of none less than Johan Schmidt?

One problem, only one: no camo and no ghillie suits. All of Schmidt’s men wore civvies: colored shirts, denims and khakis. That made them easy targets. Charles, being Charles, would have a long gun. Casualties were inevitable.

Regrettable.

“Sir!” Sidewinder trotted back from his recon. His Yorkie accent turned the word into “sah!” Schmidt like that. He asked, “Found their spoor?”

Sidewinder showed brown horsey teeth. He fingered a half-smoked cigarette stub from the pocket of his blue-and-white-checked shirt. Igniting it with a match, he nodded. “Dead easy. Some bugger’s leggin’s took th’ shine off a bush’s leaves near yon brook. Creek sediment’s mucked up. Bit of a bother when they take to water. But ye’ve got a broken spider web upstream the bank, nice top mark that, and some splashes in th’ sand. They’re gone for th’ north.”

“Map,” Schmidt ordered, holding out his hand. He did not bother to look at the aide who instantly obeyed.

Schmidt studied a U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency topographical map, nicely detailed at a half kilometer to the inch. Mitchell Canyon was an eight-inch ribbon disappearing off the map’s southern border, dead-ending to the north. A box canyon, how convenient. While the rutted west road he’d had to travel did not appear on the map, a Navajo highway did. It lay just beyond the canyon’s northern border, no more than six miles from where Schmidt stood. A small side road intersected that highway to the east of the canyon, running a few miles south to what he guessed was an Indian farm village doubtless one of those pathetic clusters of weather-worn trailers and sheet-metal-roofed hovels that were sprinkled all across the Navajo reservation.

Obvious, so obvious. Charles, you disappoint me.

He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “McKenzie and Kolodenkova are running north. They’ll try to “

Something thudded behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. The Honda ATVs had arrived. Up above, high on the rock wall, the shadows of his last two men could be seen, abseiling swiftly down to the canyon floor.

Perfect. In mere moments everyone will be in place. The hunt can begin.

He continued, “Our targets are attempting to reach the end of the canyon, approximately ten klicks north. There’s a road up above the rim. I expect Charles’s plan is to ascend to it and flag down a passing vehicle. He will be at his most vulnerable while climbing out of the canyon. However, it would be my preference to stop him before he makes the attempt. I do not know how well traveled that road is, but there appears…” he slapped his hand against the map “.. . to be a village or trading post nearby. Three Turkeys it’s called, and there may be sufficient traffic in and out of it “

“Johan?” How irksome, Schmidt thought. He loathed being interrupted especially while issuing orders. Nonetheless, the man was a client, and so patience if not deference was due. “Yes, Samuel.”

The bureaucrat waddled toward him. He was in shamefully poor physical condition, exhausted by what had been little more than the sort of training exercise one administers to new recruits. Moreover, he was soiled and unshaven. That was an affront to Schmidt’s standards. Regardless of the circumstances, he insisted that his men look sharply professional. A soldier who takes pride in his appearance is a soldier who takes pride in his work.

More irritation: Samuel was wearing his crybaby expression again an overgrown infant who needed his diapers changed. The man had become simply insufferable. Last night he’d gone so far as to pull Schmidt aside, complaining of the number of foreign soldiers involved in this mission. Silly civilian that he was, he did not appreciate how difficult it was to recruit qualified American warriors, the best being patriotically if not profitably employed hunting rurbaned terrorists in unpleasant climes. Happily, Schmidt explained, there always could be found in the ranks of every nation’s special forces troopers whose excessive zeal discomforted their commanders. If they were trained and motivated, one simply did not care that they learned their skills as Angolan mercenaries, as Bosnia ethnic cleansers, or in one of those surprisingly good training facilities operated by gentlemen of the Muslim persuasion.

“Johan, did you say Three Turkeys?”

Something would have to be done about Samuel’s insistence on calling him by his first name. That simply wasn’t allowed. Least of all in front of the troops. “Yes, I did. Why do you ask?”

“Charlie,” Samuel wheezed, “he has a son. Well, two sons. I think… I’m certain Claude mentioned that one of them is with the Indian Health Service. He said … I know he said … he’s stationed at the Three Turkeys medical clinic.”

No commander worth his salt shows the least dismay when his subordinates are present. Schmidt merely pressed his lips together, coldly collecting his thoughts. “Well, Samuel, that is disturbing news. I’m disappointed you saw fit to keep it secret until now.”

“I… ah … but…”

Schmidt spun on his heel, again facing his men, raising his voice to drown out Samuel. “Belay those orders. It would appear that Charles’s destination is somewhat closer than we imagined.” He consulted the map. “Likely he plans his ascent no more than three miles from here. Our time is shorter than I wished. Sidewinder and Copperhead ” for just a moment he reverted to his native Afrikaans “… opsaal!”

Slinging rifles across their shoulders, the two mercenaries straddled their ATVs.

“Sidewinder, take the point, follow their tracks. Copperhead, ten yards behind. Find them. Force them to seek cover. Shoot to pin them down, not to hit. I want them taken alive. The rest of us will catch up with you. Do not put yourselves in harm’s way until we’re on the scene.”

“Yes, sah!” Sidewinder gunned a 633 cc engine into a throaty growl.

“You. Asp,” Schmidt now was facing his radio operator, “broadcast an alert to all units. I want them converging on Three Turkeys ASAP. Map coordinates are “

“No can do, sir.”

Interrupted again! Schmidt felt his temper flare. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon.”

“I tried to establish contact as soon as we reached bottom, sir. This canyon… signals just bounce off its walls. I can’t raise anyone.”

Heat. In his belly. In his chest. The rage was building.

Asp added, “If we had satellite radios, sir, it wouldn’t be a problem. But we couldn’t requisition any. G-4 even sent a request to this gentleman here”

he pointed to Samuel “.. . and one of his people emailed us back that everything’s allocated to military use. So you see, sir, we’re one hundred percent offline.”

Schmidt could have let his anger show. It would have been a welcome release. But no. Better to keep it bottled up, stored, reserved. Save it, hoard it, keep it boiling hot until he had his hands around Charles’s throat.

The longer you wait for your supper, the better it tastes.

Charlie believed if any trace of Eden was left on earth, it was to be found in these Arizona canyons.

Parklands of airy cottonwood and dun Russian olive traced the course of a tender brook. A tamarisk grove, willowy branches graceful as ballet dancers in repose, made a green tunnel through which he and Irina raced. It opened to a narrow defile pocked with shallow caves carved by wind and rain for aeons beyond reckoning; inside their depths, carved in stone the color of maple sugar, Charlie caught glimpses of ancient petrogylphs, sun signs and dancing animals, Kokopelli the priapic flute player calling the tune.

His heart sang. Fleeing for his life, Charlie’s heart sang.

With Irina by his side, he sprinted down a wash that wound beneath a jutting overhang striped with desert varnish. White alkaline leeched out of its base, rendering the water in these beautiful bottom lands un potable for humans.

But the deer adapted. Charlie knew they did. They and the bears and the cougars and all those other creatures blessed to live in secret gardens unknown to humankind.

Men almost never visited Mitchell Canyon. It was too prone to floods to be inhabitable, too remote for tourists, too steep a climb for the neighboring Navajo shepherds.

Oh, to be sure, the Anasazi had dwelt here once. Their fallen castles still stood above the canyon floor. But the Anasazi’s era was a time of more forgiving weather. Nor had the Indian tribes yet raped the high plateaus of their forest cover, tree roots to siphon heavy rains, protection against the floods that now came almost every year.

Humanity moved on, paradise forgotten.

Irina young ears heard the sound first. She grasped his shoulder. “Listen,” she said, hesitation in her voice.

Charlie stopped, tilting his head. The rumble of engines was distant, but coming closer. “Dirt bikes,” he muttered. “Or ATVs. We’ve got company.”

He admired the lightning intensity of her glance. No more crazy lady laughing at the thrill of a suicidal climb, she was back on an even keel, studying the terrain with an outdoorsman’s eye. “There,” she said, pointing eighty yards ahead to an eroded cave. “The canyon is narrow. A choke point. I’ll have a clean field of fire.”

Well, that was to be expected. I’ll have a clean field of fire. Not you. Me.

He’d give her a chance. Worst case, she’d miss, and he’d have to take the rifle away from her. Best case, she wouldn’t, and he’d earn himself a few points with the prickly Miss Kolodenkova.

Shoulder to shoulder they broke into a run. The growl of gasoline-powered motors mounted. Charlie figured there were only two, and was thankful for that.

Irina sprang on the balls of her feet, an easy jump to the cave’s rim. The words “lithe” and “beautiful” flashed through Charlie’s mind. They were, he assured himself, an aesthetic and not emotional judgement.

He clambered up the rock beside her, unslinging his Brown Savanna Rifle. God, it was a beautiful thing, light and graceful, only seven pounds, a fiberglass stock that begged to nestle into his shoulder. Less a weapon than a lovingly handmade piece of craftsmanship, it was a tool he begrudged letting out of his hands.

She, clearly a woman of taste, smiled approvingly as she weighed its elegant balance. “This is…” she said, saying nothing more because she did not have the words.

He passed her a handful of ammunition. “A work of art.”

She smiled open and true. It came to Charlie that he’d won her. Just then, at that very moment, she probably not knowing it had yielded to a simple gesture of trust. Who would have believed it would be so easy a thing? I trust her, so she trusts me. Brother, you should have worked that one out long ago.

Bending at the waist, she plucked two weathered branches off the cavern floor. Sinking into what might have been mistaken for a yoga position, she folded her legs, crossing the branches and resting the rifle into the notch they formed.

Buffalo sticks the hunter’s classic ad hoc shooting rest.

The butt rested against her shoulder. Her head tilted right, one eye shut, the other gazing down a black Leupold six-power telescopic sight.

“Shoot to wound,” Charlie said.

“I know that.”

Well, of course she did. When you’ve got a hunting pack on your trail and Charlie was pretty sure they did you do your level best to put their scouts on the medevac list. A wounded man slows down the rest of the enemy because every soldier worthy of the name stops to give succor to fallen comrades.

Here they came. Charlie lifted his binoculars, Leica 10x42 Trinovas, sharp and bright with an excellent field of vision. Two of Schmidt’s mercenary thugs rode atop forest-green ATVs better for this sort of terrain than dirt bikes, which was an unfortunate credit to that South African bastard’s planning abilities.

The front rider wore a blue-checked shirt. Its left cuff turned scarlet as his hand exploded.