Whirlwind (32 page)

Mighty fine shot, Miss Kolodenkova. Shattered the throttle into the bargain. Sent the ATV whirligig over a boulder, up into the air, and down at an ouchy angle. That particular vehicle is not going to be salvageable, and suck on that, }ohan Schmidt.

Irina dealt with the second rider before Charlie could move his binoculars. Same shot in the same place, and that man’s arm flew up spitting an arc of blood where his wrist had been. His ATV slewed into the creek. Steam sizzled as its engine hit the water.

Two down. How many more to go? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.

Irina clicked two rounds into the Brown’s internal magazine. “Here is your rifle back, Charlie. I did well, I think.”

“Ha!” he exploded with delight. Then he kissed her on the cheek, and felt perfectly comfortable that it was the right thing to do.

Especially since she gave him a little hug in return.

Now they ran again, but the running was different because they ran as one. He and she were together in this. For this moment, and for whatever came next, they were closer than twins, not two individuals alone in their minds, but an inseparable whole, each part of the other, synchronized in thought, and action, and emotion.

He might have called it “love,” although that was too feeble a word.

Less running than floating, her long hair streaming, slender as the wind who was the old Greek goddess of hunting? Diana, she was Diana come to earth, and Charlie felt such pride in her that he could not speak, but rather ran joyfully past pinyon pine and ponderosa, every now and then a Gambel oak thicket, and water birches with their witchy branches where songbirds startled at two animals of rare and unrecognized species.

So green, so green, such trees consecrated a landscape that Charlie thought to be in some sense holy. Here he was young again, his soul alive as it had not been for longer than he cared to remember.

The gnarled remains of an ancient apple plantation were the landmark he sought. Sometime maybe a hundred years ago because those trees were old trees a settler had planted them near the canyon’s sole sweet water spring. Nature favored him long enough for the trees to mature, but she favored him no longer than that. All that remained of the homestead was an orchard too old to bear fruit, and the melancholy stones of a washed-out cabin’s foundation.

Foundation stones … They stored up the sun’s heat, radiating it back at night. Rattlesnakes gravitated to the warmth. And now, at just this particular hour he glanced at his watch: quarter to nine they’d be slithering out. Breakfast time for venomous reptiles. Ugh.

Irina understood where they were headed, he saw it in the sharpness of her eyes. She’d picked out the one and only practical route up the canyon wall.

Long ago, the canyon side had caved in, creating a steeply narrow gulch. Centuries of rain washed through the cleft. Each passing storm carved it a little deeper, tumbled a few more boulders into its twisting course beetling rocks where a man could rest his weight; others he could wrap his fingers around; a slope that could not be walked up, not exactly, but which could be crawled up, hand over hand.

“Drink some water,” he said. She had already begun unclipping a karabiner from her belt. She’d known what he was going to say before he said it. Again he felt so close to her, closer than it was possible for any human to come to another.

After drinking deep, she passed him the bottle. He emptied it. Reluctant to litter a pristine place of beauty, he gave it back to her. Understanding and agreeing, she fastened it back on her hip.

“This is a tricky climb, Irina. I’ll lead. I’ve been this way before.”

“You climbed the trail down before, too. So why “

“Nope. No one in their right mind would try that.” Her jaw dropped. He relished the moment. “But I’ve climbed this route. Come on, let’s do it.”

The first thirty yards were loose scree and fist-sized cobbles, easy enough. After that it was solid rock all the way; climbing it would be only slightly less difficult than trying to scale a building side. Charlie wedged his left foot in a cracked boulder the size of small truck. He pushed up, hooking his fingers over its crumbling rim. Sliding up the fissure, he levered his body waist high to the top. Irina, not as tall as he, couldn’t find purchase for her fingers. Charlie lowered his hand, took hers, pulled her up.

They clambered up a natural stair step of unnatural steepness. Charlie paused, remembering the way. You’ve got to sidle around here, off to the left I think. Yeah, that’s right, aw, hell, this next part is bad news.

A slab the size of a house roof tilted crazily against the canyon wall. Wind and water had etched thin ridges into its face. If you took your time and watched your step, you could use those furrows as finger holds and toeholds. It wasn’t easy, but he’d done it before.

He did it again.

More than forty feet of climb-crawling at a vertiginous angle he couldn’t go straight up; there weren’t enough handholds. He had to slide across naked stone, sandy grit abrading his shirt as he clung to the slab’s uneven surface. Tilting his head to look for the route was not an option. The only way to negotiate the rock was by touch. He’d learned that lesson the hard way how long ago? years back when young Scott, a first-year medical student, had been a summer intern out here. Mary had climbed with him that day. He smiled at the memory of her whip crack voice. “Charlie McKenzie, I’m nearly fifty years old and I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.” Ah, but that had been a good a perfect day.

Just like this one.

“You okay, Irina?”

“I am right behind you.”

He rolled himself onto the top of the slab, again stretching a hand out for her. The bullet whistled over his left shoulder, per cussing harsh and sharp into sandstone.

“Sonofabitch!” He jerked Irina up over the edge, tumbling her down behind it and out of sight. He followed. A bullet pinged above him.

Crouching low, Irina whispered, “I did not expect them to come so quickly.”

As he’d scuttled for cover, the Brown Savanna gun’s bolt had dug painfully into his back. He kneaded the sore place, knowing he’d have an ugly bruise. “No need to whisper. Nobody’s near enough to hear. And they haven’t come for us, not yet.”

A third bullet cut the air, grazing the top of the slab, whining into a patch of juniper clinging to the canyon side.

“But they are shooting at us!”

Charlie shook his head. “There is no ‘they.” It’s one man. If Schmidt’s whole mob was down there, it would be rapid fire, and lots of lead in the air. Put enough bullets into the rocks where the enemy’s hiding, and one of them is bound to ricochet into your target. The guy who’s shooting at us isn’t trying to hit us on the bounce; he’s just trying successfully I’d say to make us keep our heads down.” He flinched as another shot slapped into the stone above him. “He’s spacing his fire one round about every ten seconds. He wants to keep us pinned here until his buddies catch up with him.”

“But who-?”

“One of the men you shot. One of the ATV riders. Not both of them, or they’d be firing more rapidly.”

“I hit both.” Her voice sounded defensive.

“That you did. But one of them has bandaged himself up and followed on foot.”

A crack of shattered stone, and a small hail of grit. Charlie glanced up at the bullet mark. He looked back at Irina, preparing to ask her for ideas on just how the hell to get out of this mess…. Wait a minute. Something’s not quite right here. He looked back up at pockmarked rock. Now what could that be? Come on, McKenzie, something’s nagging your subconscious. What is wrong with this particular picture? You’re supposed to be good at this sort of thing figuring out what’s what, and then using it to skunk your opponents.

He waited, silent and patient. The next bullet hit more or less when he expected it. Grains of sandstone puffed into the air, raining gently down on his head.

I’ll be damned.

He scrambled forward, scanning the ground. Soon enough he found what he was looking for.

He plucked it still hot between his fingers, holding it out to Irina. Her eyes widened. Charlie smirked. “Seventeen caliber long rifle,” he drawled. “Look at the holes it gouged in the sandstone. You couldn’t put your pinkie finger in them. Our friend down below is shooting at us with a goddamn squirrel gun.”

She was confused. She didn’t see it. “Schmidt wants us alive,” he explained. “Or at least you. He wants to find out what you know about Whirlwind.”

“I have told you, I know nothing.”

“And I’ve told you, I’m not the one you have to convince.”

“But-“

“But nothing. A pro doesn’t use a . 17 to kill a man. It’s not enough gun. The only reason why that lad down there is using a small-caliber rifle is to …” Charlie drifted into silence. A hypothesis was tickling the back of his consciousness. Yeah, that’s the question. That and his marksmanship. That evil little mongrel is one ofjohan’s people, and Johan’s people simply do not miss their targets. All at once same as usual because that was the way it always happened his hypothesis crystallized. He felt a grin form on his face, and knew it was the kind of grin that showed his teeth.

Good news: I’ve got a theory. Bad news: there’s only one way to put it to the test.

Charlie stood, straight and tall, an easy target in plain view.

Irina gasped. “Get down, Charlie! Get down! He will “

Three quick shots, one left, two right. Neither of them close enough to make him blink. “No, he won’t.” He ducked back down, hypothesis confirmed. “That man is under orders to not hit us. If he wasn’t, right now I’d be using your tweezers to pick the bullets out of my hide.”

“I do not carry tweezers.”

The very thought seemed to offend her. “Didn’t think you did. Okay, let’s do a little creative thinking. When I watched that guy you shot through my binoculars, I saw he had a long gun slung on his back.”

“They both did. I saw them through my scope.”

“No magazines jutting out the bottom, though?”

She closed her eyes, visualizing what she had seen. “No. I do not think so.”

“Me either. You can buy a forty-round banana clip for any small-caliber rifle, but only gun nuts do that. A man who knows what he’s doing wouldn’t be caught dead with one. So let’s make a little guess here. Let’s guess he’s got a built-in bottom-loader trapdoor magazine like my… our… Savanna Gun. And let’s guess that it takes … hmm … how many? … let’s guess seven rounds.” He lifted the binoculars over his head, passing them to her. “I want you to spot for me. I’m the sniper. You’re the partner. You know the moves, correct?”

“I know all the moves, Charlie.”

“I never doubted it for a moment.” He smiled at her, pure affection. “All right, get ready. When I give the word, stand up, find that sinner, and tell me where to aim.” So saying, Charlie raised his head above the rock. A bullet’s whine welcomed him. He ignored it. Head and chest visible to his enemy, he scuttled left. The shooter fired again, high and to Charlie’s right. Charlie kept moving. Another round exploded in front of him, this time at eye level about three feet ahead. No question about it, Schmidt’s gunman was trying to send him a message.

Charlie bent over, duck-walking a few steps, then raised his head again. That produced two more shots, his enemy trying to persuade him that he was facing triangulating fire and had better lie low. Charlie knew better. He bobbed his head down, then back up. Two more bullets slapped home. Unless I’m wrong about the seven-round magazine, now’s the time.

“Do it, Irina! Do it!”

Tall and proud and straight and fearless, she stood with the binoculars at her eyes, weaving a zigzag search across the canyon floor. Charlie silently counted a seven-round magazine being recharged. One bullet Two bullets. Three bullets. Four bullets. Five

“Five o’clock.” She was calm about it, exactly what you wanted from your sniping partner. “The ruined cabin. Left corner.”

Ah, yes, there you are, you sweet thing. He was damnably well concealed, prone against heavy foundation stones. Nothing showed except the thinnest ribbon of a blue-and-white-checkered shirt, a hard target but it would have to do. Charlie caressed the trigger and felt the sweet bounce of the butt against his shoulder.

“A hit.” She kept her voice low, doing her job just the way it was supposed to be done. God, he loved the way she handled herself.

Deep breath, Charlie, and level the barrel, squint through the telescopic sight, get the crosshairs on your mark again because one bullet is rarely enough.

There he was and he was arched with pain. Distant, distant, you could barely hear it, although the man no doubt was shouting at the top of his lungs, “Aw, fookin’ hell!” I creased his side. Maybe skipped my shot across his ribs. Won’t even slow down a tough guy like that

Charlie’s second shot shattered his enemy’s elbow. That boy is out of the game.

“Charlie,” Irina said, no little awe in her voice, “Charlie, that was amazing.”

Yeah, well, yeah, it was. On the fly. One hundred and fifty yards. A snap shot from the shoulder. Who’s king? I am king! “All in a day’s work, darling. Now let’s get our fannies out of here before the posse shows up.” Did I just call her darling?

They scrambled away from the slab. The next few minutes’ climbing were easy easy being a relative term because it largely was hand over hand, using outcrops as rungs on a crazy man’s ladder. Charlie didn’t like it one little bit. They were too visible, their backs inviting targets, no cover anywhere. The sweat on his forehead had little do to with exertion.

Made it. What’s next? If memory serves, a short run through that dry wash. He was feeling pretty good about things right now.

There were boulders everywhere, a whole nation of boulders, giant fathers and three-foot-high toddlers, this was the place where boulders came for their holiday vacation.

Charlie scrambled around them, picking his route so that, most of the time, he and Irina were shielded from being seen by anyone beneath them. Once they had to shin a mottled grey pillar like a tree trunk a short climb, but uncomfortably exposed. Charlie’s back itched while they ascended, and he detected a certain hastiness in his movements.