Ice Hunt (7 page)

Perry closed his eyes.
Grendel…
The discovery had only been made today. The steel plaque had been covered in ice and hoarfrost and was easy to miss. It was near the main surface entrance into the buried ice station.

“Greg?”

His mind continued to spin.
How did Washington know…?
Omega’s translator and the
Sentinel’
s own linguistic expert had argued over the plaque’s translation, especially the last word, until finally coming to the same conclusion.

It was the name of the buried base:
Ice Station Grendel
.

“Captain Perry, are you still there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does the word mean something?”

“Yes, sir, I believe it does.” His voice remained tight. Besides the word being etched on the plaque, Perry had seen the same Cyrillic lettering in one other place, on one of the station’s doors…a door before which he himself had posted armed guards.

Until today, he had not known the meaning of the Cyrillic letters stenciled upon that monstrous door.

Now he did.

But he hadn’t been the first.

6:26 P.M.
BROOKS RANGE, ALASKA

Matt led the way up the steep slope, guiding Mariah by the reins. Craig rode on top, hunched down, clinging to the saddle horn. Matt dared not ride double, at least not yet, not until they were headed downhill or at least on flat land. He feared taxing the horse too soon.

Ahead, his four dogs ranged toward the top of the valley. They all had to get out of these steep peaks. Only Bane seemed to sense his master’s fear, sticking close, ears perked.

Matt glanced behind. The sky divers had surely landed by now, but there was no growl of motorcycle engines. No sign of a chase, but the dense forest of spruce and aspen obscured his view.

Already a twilight gloom had settled over the valley, the sun disappearing both into the surrounding peaks and the stacks of dark clouds overhead. Being April, the days had begun to lengthen from the continual dark of winter toward the midnight sun of summer.

Squinting, Matt watched over his shoulder. But there was no telling what was going on. He frowned. Maybe he had been wrong…maybe he had grown too paranoid out here in these empty woods.

Craig must have noticed his concerned expression. “Could it have been a rescue party? Are we running for no good reason?”

Matt opened his mouth to speak—then an explosion took his words away. Both men stared downhill. From the gloom below, a fiery ball rolled skyward. The blast echoed away.

“The plane…” Craig mumbled.

“They destroyed it.” Matt’s eyes grew wide. He pictured Brent Cumming’s body razed.

“Why?”

Matt squinted, thinking. He could come up with only one reason. “They’re covering their tracks. If the plane had been sabotaged, they’d need to destroy the evidence—and that includes any witnesses.” Matt pictured the clear trail of hoof, boot, and paw prints heading away from the crash site. He’d had no time to mask their path.

From below a new noise cut through the forest like a band saw. A motorcycle engine roared to life, growling fiercely then settling to a low rumble. A second soon joined the chorus.

Bane echoed the motors, rumbling deep in his chest.

Matt stared at the weak glow of the fading sun. The clouds were lowering still. They’d get more than a sifting of snow overnight. A fact he was sure their pursuers knew, too, which meant the saboteurs would attempt to run them down before the sun set.

“What can we do?” Craig asked.

As answer, Matt tugged Mariah’s lead and headed for the top of the rise. He had to find a way to delay them…at least long enough until the skies opened.

“Is there somewhere we can hide?” Craig’s voice trembled. He hunched farther over the saddle as Mariah clambered up a tumble of talus rock.

Matt dismissed Craig’s question for now. Foremost in his mind was simply to survive until nightfall. They were at a distinct disadvantage. One horse, two men. Their pursuers each had a snow chopper. Not good odds. Already the rumble of the cycles throttled up as the chase began.

Matt tugged Mariah up to the ridgeline. At the top, a sudden wind gusted from the southwest, frigid with the promise of ice and sleet. Without hesitating, he headed down the slope, toward where he had set up his camp. There was no refuge to be found there, so he weighed other options. He knew of some caves, but they were too far, and there was no certain safety to be found in them. Another plan was needed.

“Can you ride on your own?” Matt asked Craig.

A weak nod answered him, but fear shone in the man’s eyes.

Matt reached and slid his rifle from behind the saddle, then shoved a box of rifle cartridges into a pocket.

“What are you planning?” Craig asked.

“There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just going to use you as bait.” He then bent down to his dog. “Bane.”

The dog’s ears perked up, his eyes on Matt.

Matt pointed his arm down the ridge. “Bane…to camp!” he ordered sharply.

The dog spun back around and started down. The other dogs followed. Matt slapped Mariah’s rump, starting her down after them. Matt trotted beside them for a few paces. “Keep after the dogs. They’ll get you to my camp. Take cover as well as you can. There’s also an ax by the woodpile. Just in case.”

Craig’s face blanched, but he nodded, earning Matt’s respect.

Matt slid to a stop, watching a moment as horse, rider, and dogs trotted down the wooded and bouldered slope. They were soon gone, vanished into the thick woods.

Turning, he climbed back up the trail until he was twenty yards from the ridgeline. He then leaped from the muddied trail of hoofprints to a granite outcropping, then leapfrogged to another stone. He wanted no evidence of his side trail. Once well off the churned track, Matt settled under the limbs of a spruce, tucking into the shadows, shielding himself behind the trunk. He had a clear view to the ridgeline. If the pursuers followed their same path, they would be momentarily silhouetted against the sky as they crossed the ridge and began their descent into the next valley.

Crouching to one knee, Matt wrapped his rifle’s sling around his wrist, positioned the walnut stock against his shoulder, and took aim down the barrel. He was confident he could take out one of the riders at such close range, but could he take out both of them?

From over the ridgeline, the grumbling of the two engines grew closer and closer, a pair of maddened animals on the trail of prey.

Kneeling now, blood pounding in his ears, Matt recalled another time, a decade ago, another life, being holed up in a mortar-blasted building in Somalia. Gunfire all around. The world reduced to green shadows and lines by his nightvision goggles. It hadn’t been the firefights that unnerved most men. It was the waiting.

Drawing a slow breath through his lips, Matt forced himself to relax, to say loose and ready. Tension could throw off one’s aim better than poor marksmanship. He let his breath out, centering himself. This was not Somalia. These were his woods. The crisp scent of the crushed spruce needles under his knee helped sharpen him, reminding him where he was. He knew these mountains better than anyone.

Across the ridge, the noise of the motorcycles ratcheted up, filling the world with their growls and sputters. Matt made out the sound of branches breaking under the studded tires.
Close…
He moved his finger from the trigger guard to the trigger and leaned closer to the rifle, his cheek against the wooden stock.

The wait grew to a timeless moment. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat rolled down his right temple. He had to force himself not to squint one eye. Always shoot with both eyes open. His father had drilled that into him when deer hunting back in Alabama, reinforced later by his boot camp sergeant. Matt breathed shallowly through his nose, concentrating.

Come on…

As if hearing him, a cycle shot over the ridgeline at full throttle, catching Matt by surprise. Rather than riding cautiously to the top of the rise, the rider had gunned his cycle and flew high across the ridge, his tires lifting free of the ground.

Matt shifted his hip, following its course. He squeezed the trigger, the rifle blasted, answered immediately by the ping of a slug on metal.

The airborne cycle fishtailed. He had struck the rear tire guard. Rider and cycle struck the ground askew, bounced once, then cartwheeled into a tumble. The rider leaped free, rolling down the slope and into dense bushes.

“Damn it,” Matt mumbled. He kept his gaze fixed on the ridgeline. He had no idea if the first rider was unharmed, injured, or dead, but he dared not take his attention from the ridgeline. There was still the second cycle. Matt levered the spent cartridge out the side of the rifle and snapped the next one home, wishing for his old M-16 automatic from his Green Beret days.

He covered the top of the rise.

His hearing, after the rifle blast and tumbling crash of the first cycle, was confused. The grumble of the second cycle echoed all around. Movement to the left caught his eye. He swung his rifle in time to see the second cycle shoot over the ridge a short distance down from the other.

He aimed, more desperately than with any true marksmanship, and fired. This time there was not even the ping of slug on metal. The cycle landed smoothly, the rider tucked hard between the handles of his bike, then both disappeared behind an outcropping.

Matt fell back behind the spruce’s trunk. He popped the spent cartridge and cranked another in place. These were no amateurs. They had anticipated an ambush, sending the first cycle at breakneck speed over the ridge to draw his attention while the second wheeled around from the other side.

Crack.

A limb of the spruce shattered a foot above Matt’s head, pelting him with splinters. Matt slammed lower, sliding to his back, rifle cradled over his chest. A rifle shot…it had come from the direction of the first rider. So the bastard wasn’t dead.

Biting back panic, Matt kept his position. The sniper must not have had a clean shot at him; otherwise he’d be dead. The splintering blast had been an attempt to flush him out. The sniper must have gained his approximate position when Matt had fired at the second cycle.

“Damn it…” Matt was now pinned between them: one rider down to the left in the bushes and the other still on his cycle among the stones.

Matt listened, gasping between clenched teeth. The growl of the other cycle had died to a steady rumble. What was going on? Was the man waiting? Had he abandoned the cycle, leaving it idling, while he snuck into better position?

He couldn’t take the chance. He had to move.

Swearing under his breath, Matt slid on his back down the slope, his flight made easier by the thick layer of fallen spruce needles. Without lifting his head, he surfed the slick needles and reached a nearby snowmelt channel, no more than a shallow gully. He slipped into the relative shelter of the trickling waterway. The water soaked through his wool pants, but his patched Army jacket kept his torso dry.

He lay for a moment, listening. The single remaining cycle still idled ominously. But no other sound could be heard. His pursuers were not giving themselves away. Military or mercenary, Matt had no way of knowing, only that they were professional and worked as a team. That meant that the reporter was out of immediate danger. The pair would not leave an armed assailant at their back. They would have to dispatch Matt before continuing on.

Matt considered his own options. They were few. He could escape on his own and leave Craig to the gunmen. He wagered they were more interested in silencing the reporter than him, and he had no doubt that he could disappear into these woods on his own. But this was not a real option.

He had his dogs to think about.

Matt continued crabbing his way down the worn channel. The cold helped dull the panic. Nothing like dumping your ass in ice water to clear the mind.

He moved as silently as he could.

Thirty yards down, the snowmelt channel tipped over a ledge. It was a short drop, seven feet. He rolled onto his belly in the channel and dropped feetfirst over the edge, careful to protect his rifle from the water and the mud.