“Beach the boat.”
“She’s not built for that.”
“Then get us as close as you can and drop anchor. We’ll wade ashore. Boots off, everybody!”
Choa was studying the pocket-handkerchief beach. Jay asked him what he thought.
“He’s been here since last night,” Choa said. “He’ll be ready. If it were me, I’d pick us off as we go ashore.”
“I don’t see him.”
“Like I say, he’s had time to get ready.”
“You mean camouflage?” Jay accepted the point and brought his binoculars up to his eyes. He scanned the horizon slowly, carefully. “He’s not there,” he told Choa, handing him the binoculars. Choa peered through them.
“Maybe,” he said, “we should circle the island in the boats, see if we can spot anything. He could’ve booby-trapped the beach. No footprints, but with this wind and rain that’s no surprise. Any footprints would be erased in minutes.” Choa had a deep molasses voice, and looked like he knew his stuff; he came from a race of hunters and trappers, after all.
But Jay shook his head. “He won’t play it that way.”
He couldn’t say why he felt so sure.
They tied the motorboat to the larger vessel and dropped anchor. “You’re coming with us,” Jay told Creech. “Don’t want you buggering off and leaving us.” Creech seemed resigned.
With trousers rolled up, they waded ashore, boots tied around their necks, packs on their backs, the first men in the water keeping their guns aimed at the beach, the men to the rear carrying the three large cases.
The rain was blowing almost horizontally as Jay gathered his troops around. “Remember,” he said, “there are signs warning of anthrax. They’re a bluff, so don’t be surprised if you stumble across one, even if it’s been well hidden. Okay? Let’s get off the beach.” He looked around, his eyes finding the nameless Chicano. “Stay here with Creech. Don’t let him near the boats, understood?”
“Understood.”
The rest of them set off towards a narrow trail which snaked up from the beach. The trail divided into two, and Jay split his men into two units.
The Chicano waved his friend good-bye, and turned his gun on Creech. “This is horrible country.”
“You get used to it,” Creech said, heading for the shelter of the step. It formed a nice windbreak, so that if you crouched down you were completely protected. The Chicano didn’t sit beside him—he had to keep watch—but he didn’t stray too far either. He paced the beach, alternating between keeping a lookout for Reeve, and keeping an eye on Creech. He knew they’d finish off the man eventually, probably as soon as they got back to the mainland. The youth shivered and shrugged his shoulders. He was freezing, and he noticed that Creech’s jacket looked warm.
“Hey,” he said, “you don’t need that. Give it to me.” And he used his gun instead of “please.” Creech shrugged off the brown corduroy jacket. The Chicano had to put his gun down to put the jacket on. “Move and I kill you,” he told Creech, who held up his hands peaceably. The Chicano placed his gun on the sand and stood up.
As he stood, he saw something incredible. The earth at the top of the step opened up and a man sprang to life, for all the world like a zombie. The man sprang forward and leapt on the youth, knocking him backwards. The young man wrestled to get his pistol out of its holster, then stopped suddenly, intent on the hilt of a dagger which was protruding from his chest.
Creech leapt to his feet, mouth open in a silent scream.
Gordon Reeve stood up and looked down at the youth, whose hands were fluttering around the grip of the knife like moths around a flame. Reeve placed a foot on the dying man’s stomach and pulled out the dagger, blood spewing out of the slit. Creech turned away and threw up on the sand. The Chicano’s eyes were starting to close when Reeve wiped the knife clean on Creech’s jacket.
It had taken him some time to find the perfect spot, and then longer still to dig his foxhole. He’d used a collapsible spade, brought from his workshop, first scraping off a three-inch-deep layer of topsoil and grass. And when the hole was finished, and Reeve installed in it, he’d placed the section of turf back, convinced he was invisible.
He’d been in that hole the best part of ten hours, fearing trench foot as the water table rose and the rain kept coming down.
“One down,” he said now.
“Th-there are t-ten altogether,” Creech stammered, wiping his lips.
“I know, I saw you arrive.” Reeve stared at him. “And I heard Jay talking about those signs we made.”
“Ach, Mr. Reeve, I had to say something. I was shite-scared, I admit it.”
“It’s okay, Kenneth. I knew Jay would find out about them.”
“What?”
“He was expecting a trap, and you handed him one. He wasn’t so ready for another. Come on.”
“Where?”
“Back to the boat.”
Creech managed to let out a yip of relief. They waded into the water and were halfway to the boat when there was a roar from the island. Jiminez had come back to check on his friend. Now he was sprinting towards the body, yelling something in Spanish at the top of his voice.
“Hurry!” Reeve urged. As if Creech needed telling. They grabbed for the side of the larger boat and hauled themselves in, Creech finding an energy he hadn’t used in years. There was a sudden explosion behind them, and Reeve turned his head to see smoke rising into the sky, and earth raining down all around.
“Looks like someone stumbled on one of my surprises.”
He’d run trip wires across both paths. The explosive charges were big enough to take out two, maybe three men if they were close enough together. Only one explosion though; the other party had stopped short of the trip wire. They must have heard the scream and turned back towards the beach. They were starting to appear. Two ran straight to the water’s edge, firing as they ran.
Creech started the engine. It was still warm and started quickly. Reeve dealt with the anchor by slicing the rope with a single hack of his dagger.
“Let’s go!” he yelled.
They went, the motorboat trailing after them. When they were out of the range of bullets, Reeve ordered Creech to cut the engine. Creech had to be told twice; even then he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Why?”
“Because I want to watch.” Reeve had a backpack of his own, and took from it a small pair of powerful binoculars. Jay seemed to be talking to his men as they stood around the cooling body. From the looks on their faces, Reeve knew he had scored an important victory. They didn’t look angry or set on revenge; they looked horrified. Doubts would now start to enter their minds. There were four of them, including the Hispanic-looking youth who’d run onto the beach first. Four. Which meant the explosive had been tripped by a unit of the remaining five men. The Hispanic had recovered a little and was yelling at Jay, waving his arms at him accusingly. Tears were streaming down his face.
Reeve moved the binoculars and saw the survivors of his little group come staggering down onto the beach. There were only two of them, both spattered with blood and badly wounded. One man had a branch sticking out of his leg; the other looked to have lost an ear. They were the only two to emerge.
Reeve took a moment to slip his boots back on before putting the binoculars back to his eyes. Jay was standing on the beach, his own binoculars trained on Reeve.
And he was smiling.
The smile seemed to anger the Hispanic youth still further. He turned Jay around so they were face to face. Reeve saw what the young man, so close to Jay, could not. He saw Jay’s hand go to the holster, saw him ease the gun out. Saw him take a step back, raising his gun hand, and blow a hole in the young man’s forehead. Then Jay turned around again, so he was looking towards Reeve.
Reeve got the message.
“What’re they doing?” Creech said. “Shooting each other?”
“Getting rid of excess baggage,” Reeve corrected him grimly.
r />
Through the binoculars, he watched Jay order the two uninjured men remaining to open one of the cases. The two others, the ones injured in the blast, were huddled together, seated on the sand. Jay looked towards them, but wasn’t about to offer any comfort. He was more intent on the metal case. Then Reeve saw why, and saw, too, why Jay had been happy Reeve and Creech had stuck around.
A grenade launcher.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
“What is it?” Creech came to the side to see. “What are they doing?”
“Get us out of here,” Reeve said quietly. His voice fell away as he saw the contents of the other cases.
Two small dinghies, gas-inflatable, and the paddles to go with them.
Creech was at the wheel. The beach faced the South Uist coastline, and Creech was headed there in as straight a line as he could navigate.
“Can they hit us at this distance?” Creech yelled.
“Depends what model of launcher they’ve got. Knowing Jay, it’ll be a good one.”
Reeve could do little but watch. It wouldn’t help, but he wished he’d brought the dead man’s Cobray with him. The success of his own “trap” had led him to underestimate Jay. The bastard wasn’t stupid.
“Proper planning,” Reeve muttered. Jay had taken charge of the grenade launcher. He was crouched by the water’s edge, one knee on the sand, his eye busy at the sight’s crosshairs.
“Here it comes,” Reeve said, watching the wisp of smoke as the first grenade was launched. It flew past the boat and hit the water a hundred yards ahead.
“That answers your question,” Reeve told Creech, who was now steering wildly, serpentining the boat and throwing Reeve about.
A second grenade came over, landing short of their boat but hitting the motorboat full on. There was an explosion, wood and metal rising into the sky above a pall of black smoke.
Creech let out a shriek. Reeve thought he was panicking, until he saw the jagged point of wood protruding from his shoulder. Reeve went to help him, but the boat started circling. He had to get them out of range. He pulled the splinter out of Creech’s shoulder with no ceremony, then pushed Creech aside and gripped the wheel tight, setting them back on course.
Another grenade just reached the boat, hitting it aft and blowing a hole in the wooden structure. Water started pouring in.
“Can you swim?” Reeve asked Creech, who nodded, his teeth gritted against the pain. “Even with one arm?”
“I’ll be all right. How far are we from land?”
Reeve looked up. The answer was less than half a mile. He took his boots off again and put them in his backpack, zipping it tight. It was waterproof, and didn’t weigh very much. As a last resort, he would ditch it and trust to his dagger, which was in its scabbard attached to his leg.
“Come on then,” he told Creech, “let’s go for a swim.”
They swam away from the sinking boat. Creech couldn’t help but look back at it, watching the hull tip, seeing barnacles and wood that was in dire need of repainting.
They swam together. Reeve couldn’t see, but he guessed Jay would be setting out in the dinghies by now, bringing his two remaining men with him. Reeve had taken seven men out of the game.
But at a price.
They were swimming across the current, which made half a mile seem like three times that. Creech grew quickly exhausted, and Reeve had to help him. This is great, he thought, just what I need. Lying in a foxhole all night, and now a half-mile swim pulling an injured man with me.
Meantime, Jay would be paddling, not straining himself. The odds were turning against Reeve all the time.
He eventually pulled Creech ashore. Creech wanted to lie down and rest, but Reeve hauled him to his feet and slapped his face a couple of times.
“You’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. Creech’s leg wound, the slice the Chicano had given him, had opened up again. They were six or seven miles shy of the nearest village, but Reeve knew there was a croft to the south, maybe three miles distant. “Keep to the coast,” he told Creech. “Don’t try crossing the hills. Okay?”
He waited till Creech had nodded. The man made to stumble away, but Reeve grabbed his arm. “Kenneth, I’m sorry I got you into this.”
Creech shrugged free and started to walk. Reeve watched him go, trying to feel something for him. But the soldier had taken over. Creech was a casualty; that didn’t mean you had time for flowers and sympathy. It was sink or swim. Really, Reeve shouldn’t even have helped him ashore. He should have conserved his own energy, which was what he did now. He took off his wet clothes and wrung them out, then lay them out to dry. They wouldn’t have time to get really dry, but the wind might help. The things in his backpack were almost completely dry, which was good fortune. He trained the binoculars on the din-ghies. There were two men in the front one, only one in the second. The man with Jay looked grim with a large black beard, the man paddling alone looked American Indian. Reeve scanned the boats for armaments: pistols and submachine guns; no rocket launchers that he could see. Nothing heavy. But there was something on Jay’s lap . . . He’d thought at first it was a transmitter, but saw now that it was a cassette player.
“What the hell is that for?” he asked himself.
He examined his surroundings. He knew this area fairly well, which was to his advantage. The hill range had two peaks, Hecla to the north and Beinn Mhor to the south, each at about two thousand feet. Reeve had managed to go unnoticed for whole weekends when tracked by up to a dozen men, and he’d only had part of this wilderness to play with. But now he had to assume he was up against professionals.
This time, he really was playing for his life.
Creech was out of sight. Reeve knew Jay wouldn’t bother with him anyway: he couldn’t afford to lose one-third of his force. But just in case, Reeve bided his time until Jay and his men could see him clearly. He pulled on trousers, socks, and boots, and tied the arms of his shirt around his neck, so it flapped like a cape. It would dry quicker that way. Then he picked up his backpack and pistol and headed into the hills, making sure his pursuers could see the direction he was taking.
He heard the bullet crack behind him but didn’t slow down. His pursuers were carrying MP5s; Reeve knew the things were as accurate as rifles up to about a hundred yards, but he was well out of that range. They were just wasting ammo, and soon realized it. Reeve came to the top of the first rise and turned his head to watch. They were close to the shore now. He had maybe four or five minutes on them.
He started running.
TWENTY-FIVE
JAY WAITED TILL THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT before leaping out of the dinghy onto land. He was still fairly dry, and wanted to stay that way. The others didn’t mind splashing into the knee-deep water, clambering over the rocks onto land. They brought the inflatables with them, and weighed them down with rocks so they wouldn’t be blown back to sea.
“Do we split up?” Choa asked.
“Let’s stick together,” Jay said. “If it becomes necessary later, we can split up.” He had torn a page out of their map book—the one showing the Western Isles—but it was a driver’s map, not a walker’s. It didn’t tell him much about the terrain except that they were a long way from civilization.
“Let’s go,” he said, folding the map back into his pocket. “Choa, check your ammo clip.”
Choa had been the one who had blasted away at Reeve, on the principle that if you could see your target, you were as well to have a go at hitting it. Choa had never used the MP5 before. He’d liked firing it so much he was itching to fire it again. He held it ready, safety catch off.
“Space out,” Jay told his men. “Let’s not make any easy targets. Choa, you watch our backs, in case he comes around us.”
“You don’t think he’ll just run?” Hestler asked.
“It would make sense,” Jay admitted. “He’s wet and most probably tired. He knows the odds. But I don’t think he’ll run. He wants this over as badly as I do.”
“No matter who wins?”
Jay looked at Hestler. “No matter who wins,” he said. “It’s playing the game that counts.”
They marched in silence after that, Jay using hand signals to show when he thought they were bunching up too much. They didn’t march in a line, but spread themselves out, making a more random pattern which would be harder for an enemy to hit. Jay wondered if Reeve had a plan. Reeve’s house was only five or so miles distant; it made sense that, running an adventure center, he’d know these hills better than they did. He might know them very well indeed.
Jay knew it was three against one, but taking everything else into account, those weren’t ideal odds. He wished he had an Ordnance Survey map of the area, something that would give him a better idea of what they were up against. But all he had were his eyes and his instincts.
And the knowledge that Gordon Reeve had almost got them both killed.
The rain started again, like mischievous needles jabbing the skin. They walked into it face-on. Jay knew Reeve wouldn’t keep moving in a straight line; that direction would take him to civilization too quickly. He’d be circling around at some point, either towards Hecla or Beinn Mhor. If there had been three men with him, Jay would have split the group in half, a two-man patrol in either direction, but he only had two men left. He didn’t regret killing the Chicano, not for an instant, but another man would have been useful. He had Benny and Carl’s word for it that their brother Hector, plus Watts and Schlecht, were lying dead back at the scene of the explosion. Jay had promised to come back for the two injured men. He wasn’t sure if it was a promise he would fulfill.
He’d been right about one thing: the phony anthrax signs had been crazy. The Philosopher had known what he was doing. Creech had been allowed to know about them, and had spilled his guts to Jay . . . and Jay had been tricked into thinking he knew something important. They’d been a ruse, nothing more, the real trick had been the trip wires. He guessed now that his own unit had stopped just short of encountering one.
Nice, Gordon—very nice.
Jay and his two men came to a high point and looked into the deep valley below. There was no sign of Reeve and no visible hiding place. But Choa, with his hunter’s eyes, spotted something, a dark shape against the hillside. They approached cautiously, but it was just a groove in the earth, maybe a foot deep, six feet long, and a couple of feet wide.