Skylock (34 page)

Dobruja dared raise his eyes to the rearview mirror. Burned into the greasy bunchgrass, a pair of muddy skid marks disappeared beneath him. Only some knobby root ball or fickle boulder wedged under the truck was even now keeping it from completing the ride.

The Red settled back and took stock of their situation. His weapon was jammed, butt first, against the far door. Just his motion of reaching toward it made the old rover sway menacingly. Likewise, stretching for Wayne's locked wrist did the same.

The catalyst vials and diary were a better bet, though. Still wedged behind his seat, Josef touched both with no threat to their balance. His sidearm, too, remained securely holstered to his hip.

While messy and painful, his injuries were not life-threatening. The truck, though, was a lost cause; the odds of salvaging his captive, not much better.

Josef slowly retrieved and draped the web belt over his head, necklace-style. The journal went inside his shirt. His rifle and passenger were forgotten.

The major then shifted himself about. Left hand and foot went to the door frame. Right, on the steering wheel and brake pedal. The truck seemed to register his preparation, absorbing and magnifying the furtive motions into a single ominous rhythm.

Coiling in his powerful athlete's legs, Josef drew a full breath of thick forest air. He glanced at Wayne, stunned and edging toward unconsciousness.

"Sorry, my friend," he offered. "I can only manage so much."

With that, Josef erupted from the truck. But leaving, the major felt himself jerk aside as his holster snagged a spoke of the steering wheel. Its leather flap popped open and his precious pistol squirted out, taken in quick trade.

An assured landing also vanished and Josef fell short, impacting on the ledge face. His boots kicked frantically for footholds. Feverish hands tore at the gnarled clumps of exposed roots.

Behind, there was a simultaneous groan of complaining metal, as the unbalanced truck shifted about its fulcrum. It dipped left to right, up and down, in ragged seesaw motions.

Still aboard, only now did the situation register to Wayne. Tugging his manacled hand, his eyes briefly flashed about like a trapped animal. Then inexplicably, they stopped. The arm was lowered and the man assumed an oddly serene posture. Father Wayne drew a breath and gazed upward in surrender.

Momentarily righting itself, the vehicle teetered. Josef looked back in sudden hopes it might actually find a stable center. Yet the laws of physics were impatient and the truck upended smartly, and slipped off for the ragged, shadowed depths.

From his uncertain roost, Dobruja realized that his doomed passenger never uttered a single cry. But plastered nearly vertical against the crumbly sand and root-bound ledge, Josef's own survival was still very much in contention.

He felt the loose journal spin and slip dangerously low, inside his untucked shirt. Its mangled wire spine scraped down against his belly, slipping between it and his fatigue pants. The metal coil then snagged the lip of his cotton belt and dangled full weight, in the open.

Dobruja chanced a look below. Both he and the diary hung precariously over an eight-story drop. But securing the book was important enough to risk the effort.

The major loosed a hand. He edged it downward, between cliff and belly, tediously inching toward the notebook. His balance held. Even so, there wasn't clearance enough to quite touch and Josef gently exhaled to make room.

The action also allowed greater movement for the dangling manuscript. It took up a gentle walking sway, ratcheting over the belt's rough cotton weave, one loop at a time.

Now just inches away, Josef thrust his hand down. Snatching fingers scrambled over the text. They skipped hopelessly about its ragged cover and the journal squirted out into space, joining the man and precious truck already lost below.

The failed effort also compromised the major's balance and he felt himself start slowly drawing rearward. From the shadowed depths, however, a fickle breeze stirred. It issued up the stark chasm wall and twirled curiously about the soldier. It caressed his battered cheek and probed the fine muscular tension of his compressed back. Already given so many generous offerings, Fortune smiled.

The breeze nudged Josef toward safety.

An eternal silence hung through the gauzy prehistoric dreamscape. Day again. The remaining night fog was thickening to a coarseness that hinted of retreat. But not soon. And what had thus far condensed only made them more miserable with a heavy, soaking dew.

Arms wrapped wretchedly about himself, Baker trembled with chills as he searched the indistinct woodland. All about, the forest lines were dark, oblique slashes.

"Where d'yah figger the old man's truck is?"

Tightly holding Geri, dozing in his arms, Trennt shivered too.

"Seems like we came across further north, maybe. Might have to backtrack to find it."

A rattle sifted down the fog washed hillside. Geri tensed, waking, but they all remained silent, waiting for a repeat of the sound and hoping it was just a passing animal.

Seconds later the brush clattered again. And with it came the noise of loose footing. Working at a determined pace, the steps were thoroughly human. Thankfully, the noise was moving away. Its source would soon be gone.

But a final slide of gravel cascaded down toward them. At its apex a lone, hobbling shape broke through a clear spot in the fog. Grabbing at jerky handholds in the snarled weave of branches, a figure noticed them and paused.

Dobruja.

His feet slipped badly in the mushy hillside. Limping along with a gait every bit as lame as their own, he struggled to keep his balance. Half his face seemed smeared with mud or darkened by a large bruise.

Trennt's eyes found his immediately. A quick twist of surprise flared on his ruined mug and the major was gone. New effort drove him back the way he'd come and higher into the heavy mist.

Geri felt a quiver radiate through Trennt. His shoulders tensed, then he slumped beneath the crushing yoke of restored duty. Her fingers gently restrained him.

"Let it go," she urged in a whisper. But the stiffening of his body said that could not be.

Trennt's eyes eluded her. They raised, instead, to the fog, training on the whirling thick curtain blending shut in the Russian's wake.

Geri's continued silence remained a plea for him to stay. Yet even so, her grip relaxed.

Trennt climbed to his feet and issued a final directive.

"Baker, head straight west. To the shoreline and south. I'll check this out, then find the truck and catch up."

He raised Geri to her feet, gently kissing her.

"You keep her safe for me," he ordered and, not looking back, started off.

Three hours had passed. Trennt broke through a snarling tangle of fireweed to the base of yet another tremor-fresh scarp. Twice since starting, he'd heard brontides. But nothing more had happened and he moved along.

The air, which had earlier been a chilling nuisance, now offered soothing comfort to his frazzled leg muscles. He rubbed them a time while scouting the line of determined footprints still leading him on.

Again, Trennt forced his body ahead and his misgivings behind. Still upward and after. Pulling at bare root braids and rocks, his corded arms slowly drew him ahead. Bad enough, having traded a sweet dream for a filthy chore, but not a quarter mile back, an aching question had also been answered.

He'd found Top's mangled truck, belly-up. Beneath it, a virtuous man, crushed to death and left discarded. And once again, there was no time to spare for a burial—only time enough to remove his own safari shirt and place it over the silent bloodless face.

Trennt pushed upward. The weary tendons propelling him caught and skipped like frayed cables, one excruciating step after another.

Finally, he crested the scarp. But having arrived, his aches gave way suddenly to a quick flash of even more powerful hunter instincts. With eyes gone huge and flat, Trennt cast a scouring glance across the hundred-plus feet from this ledge to a lesser twin.

He knew his quarry was still ahead. Yet his scalp pricked in warning from a new and invisible presence off his flank. He saw nothing though and returned to scout the silvery-green path of trampled grass before him.

A change of wind brought new smells. The sea, very close now, loomed brisk and refreshing, leavened with vitality. But his ill-timed distraction cost Trennt a misstep and he buckled under a twisted ankle.

The joint flamed and gave way, dropping Trennt to his rump in the sandy cliff-top grass. He clenched and kneaded the ligament and flesh—fast growing stiff as a hunk of old statue.

Damn it! He couldn't fold now. Had to keep going. Get to his feet before the leg swelled and left him lame. He straightened halfway with certain difficulty.

"American!"

The shout curdled Trennt's blood and brought him fully erect. From the breeze-stirred treeline stepped his adversary. The web belt of mud-caked vials hung about the major's shoulder in plain sight. But the man possessing them was no longer the steely-eyed hunter of yesterday. Now, just a survivor. Damaged goods, same as himself.

Dobruja's left cheek was shiny purple with swelling. His eye, changed to a sunken black slit, was set in tight billowing flesh. He moved into the open, favoring his right shoulder, yet obviously inflated with a certain exhilaration at this ultimate confrontation.

Speaking took him some effort. Still, Josef's English remained impeccable.

"I see you are alone, as well."

Trennt nodded. "I am."

"I have a proposal."

"I'm listening."

"It is not proper for two professionals such as us to waste time and strength chasing each other. Let us finish the matter here and now, on a field of personal honor." Dobruja grinned appreciatively. "Looking at our equally deplorable conditions, I would say neither of us has the advantage. Would you not agree?"

Trennt didn't answer. "I found our truck," he said instead. "And the man you took from us. Just so you know. He wasn't a researcher. He was a priest."

The major shrugged pragmatically.

"And the unfortunate casualty of an automobile accident, I'm afraid. But let us pursue more important things."

Josef removed the bandoleer and offered it enticingly. With a quick snap, he flung it to the flinty dust midway between them.

"To the winner, go the spoils."

For a time the men merely regarded each other. Reluctant combatants hunched over in the teetering sway of weary apes, stale air worked through their slack mouths. Neither possessed strength enough for a long fight, but both were matter-of-fact about the prize set between them.

The Russian lunged forward. Trennt met his charge. They collided with the awkward ferocity of grade-school wrestlers in a flurry of bared teeth and labored grunts. Greasy hands flailed for a grip. Their exhausted struggle took on the appearance of a sloppy, pathetic dance.

Aware of Trennt's weakened ankle, Dobruja focused on it. He pulled and twisted, craftily widening his adversary's stance. Finally, he felt the proper shift in weight and levered Trennt around and down in the dirt.

Trennt kicked his good leg straight back into the major's gut and scrambled quickly out of reach. They separated and regrouped.

"Good move," congratulated the Red. "Perhaps the next round won't go so well."

Taking stock of himself, Trennt knew the man was right. His ankle was unreliable. His vision, blurred. And his skull throbbed with the fevered beat of temple-high drop hammers. He gazed mournfully at the bandoleer and Josef's cold, wolfish grin.

"Come on! Come on now, Yankee man!"

Trennt realized the only way to end this matter was through total and absolute abandon. But his heart ached. What for so long would have been welcomed as a rightful penance, now crushed down on him in excruciating loss. His soul filled with a new anguish—the bitter irony of an unrealized and forsaken dream.

Trennt drew his breath slowly and tightened his stance. There was no time for rehearsing. Just get it done. Head down, he came on.

The major read his charge and braced for a simple kick and shove. Yet at the last second, Trennt's courageous rush became a cheap dive for the prize.

Dobruja threw his eyes wide in realization and alarm. His shock erupted in a rolling scream of denial.

"NO!"

Josef chased after his retreating foe. Just steps ahead, Trennt scrambled determinedly toward the ledge. Bandoleer clutched tight, he mule-kicked at the hands struggling to restrain him. A half dozen flailing snaps landed on Dobruja. But the man endured them all to snag a pant leg.

Down went Trennt.

In a moment the major was on him from behind, one arm about his neck, and the other grabbing at a loose tangle of bootlace, working the injured foot painfully backward.

Trennt managed a wild, roundhouse elbow to the man's swollen eye. The major spat a lizard's hiss in pain, but kept his grip. He fired a retaliating punch into Trennt's kidneys. A second, third, and fourth.

Trennt had no further intention of fighting back. He'd committed every last ounce of strength to making the cliff edge and struggled on tortoiselike, dragging both men slowly forward.

Josef's unobstructed punches landed harder and faster. A karate chop to the base of Trennt's skull finally dislodged the bandoleer. Trennt felt it leave his hand as his face plunged forward into the grit.

In his exhaustion, he hoped vainly that the belt had somehow fallen over. But its broad coarse weave soon dragged down across his face. It skipped off his chin and clamped viselike about his throat.

Behind it, Dobruja levered in a maniac's grip. Trennt could feel his neck bones pop and his windpipe flatten. The edges of his sight dimmed. His consciousness bled off and retreated to a wobbly orbit somewhere high above. Oxygen-starved brain cells went wild, fast-forwarding through snapshot glimpses of his life.

Paying out like slack chain through a runaway pulley, random slices of boyhood times flashed by. The army. His life as a woodsman, husband, and father.