The Descent From Truth (6 page)

She opened her mouth, extended her tongue.

He placed two tablets on its tip and held the cup to her dry, cracked lips while she swallowed noisily. “More?” She nodded, and her usable eye burned into him as he held the refilled cup to her lips.

Sometime during the night, her bladder had let go. The cabin reeked of urine. Not likely she’d gotten any sleep. Even with the ibuprofen, her head would feel like it was being squeezed in a vise.

Nothing more than she deserves, Alex thought as he cooked oatmeal and made coffee, stealing glances at her while he worked. He laced the oatmeal with sugar and powdered coffee lightener and shoveled the overly sweet, rapidly coalescing goop into Frederick’s mouth directly from the pan. He ate half of what remained when Frederick refused more. Spoon in one hand, pan in the other, he approached Pia.

She clamped her lips and turned her head away.

He grunted and set the pan aside. By cutting leg holes in his nylon backpack, he converted it into a child carrier. An adjustment to its straps permitted him to wear it on his chest. As a test, he strapped it on and seated Frederick in facing him. Satisfied, he set the boy back on the floor and checked his utility belt, making certain the items attached to it—knife, canteen, cartridge holder, first-aid kit—were secure.

Frederick crawled to Pia and pulled at her legs. “Pee,” he whined. “Pee.”

She did not speak, but whenever Alex glanced her way he saw her one-eyed gaze following him. He had no choice but to leave her trussed. Otherwise, she would head into the frozen wilderness and die of exposure. Maybe he shouldn’t care, but he did.

Essential survival items that had been in the now-empty backpack—compass, flashlight, flares—went into his pockets, along with raisins and dry cereal from the cabin’s pantry. He warmed a pan of melted snow on the butane cook stove. Neither he nor Pia spoke while, holding her face steady by cupping her chin, he dipped a washcloth in the heated water and swabbed away the matter that had oozed from her split forehead into her eye. He built up the flame in the fireplace and put on the largest log from the woodpile.

With Frederick’s feet and legs wrapped in torn-off strips of blanket, Alex bundled him in blanket remnants. “You look like the Michelin man,” he said, and settled his now-bulky charge into the modified backpack.

At the last moment, he hesitated and set the boy back on the floor. He placed a cup of water and several ibuprofen tablets on the table by the couch and spread all the available blankets over Pia’s legs, leaving the excess material in her lap so she could pull it higher if the room got cold. By adjusting the tether that held her wrists to her neck, he gave her enough slack to reach the blankets, ibuprofen, and water. But he tested to make sure she could not reach the binding that looped around the rear of the couch and linked her ankles to her neck tether from behind. He rinsed the face cloth he had used to cleanse her eye, folded the cloth loosely, and placed it on the end table by the water and ibuprofen.

“That’s it.” He stepped back. “You’ll have to tough it out ’til the cops get here.”

“Please,” she said, her voice as rough as sandpaper and barely above a whisper. “Please, do not give my baby to those people.”

“Are we back to that? First you’re his mother, then you’re his nanny. Now you’re his mother again?”

“They took him from me. Look at him, Alex. Both Mr. Koenig and his wife are blondes.”

“Koenig’s an old man. His hair’s white.”

“Study Frederick’s face. Do you not see me in his eyes? His chin and his mouth?”

The similarities were uncanny, he’d grant her that. Good enough to get away with claiming to be the kid’s mother if Alex hadn’t learned the truth. The way she had attacked him, trying to kill him with that skillet, she clearly didn’t want to go back to civilization and prove who she was. He turned away, tossed Frederick in a maneuver that brought a cry of delight, and stuffed the boy’s blanket-clad feet through the leg holes in the backpack. With his parka snapped around both of them and the diaper bag tied to his waist, he gripped his rifle in one hand, his snowshoes in the other, and headed for the porch. At the door, he turned for a final glance at Pia.

She had set her mouth in a stubborn line. The eye that had been plastered shut was closed. She stared at him with the other. When she saw him looking at her, she spoke again. “Watch over him, Alex. Someone wants to harm him. Don’t let them.”

A new tack, another lie. He stepped onto the porch and strapped on his snowshoes. That should have been the last he saw of her, but the specter of her ravaged face and defiant expression stayed with him as he trudged across the sunlit expanse of glistening snow that sloped gradually toward the Warrior River Gorge. Pushing back at guilt that dogged him for hitting her so hard, he reminded himself that she had been the aggressor, that her determination to make off with Frederick could have led to the kid’s death in the frozen wilderness.

As he approached the gorge, Alex’s introspection gave way to thoughts about how to negotiate the icy slope. It was too steep for a direct descent. He would have to maneuver obliquely, looking for footholds. Perhaps soothed by the rhythmic movement as they approached the gorge, Frederick had fallen asleep. Alex prayed that the nap would last until they reached a place where the river, too swift elsewhere, stilled enough to ice over. He prayed also that the ice would be thick enough to support the two of them.

Chapter 7

Even though Alex knew the area, his first glimpse of the Warrior River Gorge always awed him. At three hundred yards, it appeared as a massive rent in the earth. As if an all-powerful landscaper had grown impatient, the terrain abruptly dropped thirty-odd feet to a narrow shelf lined with evergreen shrubs. Beyond the shelf, the ground fell away too steeply to be visible.

From the shelf, the slope down to the river was steep but negotiable over a mile-long stretch. Alex’s problem was that first thirty-plus feet. He hiked along the lip of the gorge until he found a gully that started as a tiny break in the snowpack but deepened as it approached the lip. He eased down into the gully to a point where it sloped abruptly to meet the shelf. Here the drop-off was only about twelve feet, but the line of evergreens that formed a protective fence along the shelf thinned.

If he moved Frederick around to his back, Alex could slide down to the shelf on his stomach and grab an evergreen to avoid slipping over the edge. At least, he hoped he could. Worried that he was burning too much daylight, he settled in the snow and anchored himself by digging his heels into the icy sheet under the loose powder. He pulled off the thermal mittens he wore over his gloves and unbuckled the backpack. “Just shifting you to the rear for a little while,” he said, trying to soothe Frederick. “When we get down to the river, we’ll travel face to face again.”

Frederick chose the moment of transfer to throw a temper tantrum. The wild kicking and squirming cost Alex his grip on the backpack.

Knowing he was going to drop it, he batted the pack so that it hit the snow uphill from him. Twisting like a wrestler trying to avoid being pinned, he grabbed it as it started to slip by on its way to the bottom of the gorge.

The move unanchored him from the ice. Belly down, feet first, he began sliding.

Gripping the shoulder strap of the backpack with one hand, he clawed at the snow with his other, trying to grasp something—anything—to arrest their slide. Twisting sideways, he angled his body to increase the likelihood of finding a handhold.

He became airborne for a moment and then landed with a jarring thud. His foot hit something solid—a root or a rock protruding from the shelf. He kicked hard and stretched his free arm, grasping for the trunk of a small evergreen. Got it!

Arresting his fall caused his body to swivel. His legs dangled over the edge of the shelf. Not enough strength left to pull himself up with one arm, but if he turned loose of the backpack it was bye-bye Freddy.

His fingers and forearm burned from holding onto the sapling. He couldn’t hang on more than a few more moments. Then both of them would splatter on rocks along the river at the bottom of the gorge. Praying that the evergreens were close enough together to keep Frederick from slipping between them, he flung the backpack up onto the shelf so that the boy, on his back, slid across the snow behind the tree line.

Using both arms, he muscled himself back up. He reached for the next shrub and then the next, pulling until he was behind the protective row.

Frederick regained his breath before Alex did. The boy’s howl announced his survival.

“That’s it, kid,” Alex shouted as he rested for an additional moment. “Let it out. Tell the world we made it.”

With Frederick once more strapped to his chest, he cut down, stripped, and sharpened a slender evergreen. Using the makeshift pike as an anchor, he worked his way along the face of the gorge. An hour later, he stood on the bank of the frozen river. Frederick must have worn himself out howling and kicking on the way down the wall of the gorge. He seemed content now to loll in the pack, his head resting against Alex’s chest.

Alex tested the ice with one foot and then put his full weight on it. It seemed solid. Holding his homemade pike parallel to the frozen surface, he took a deep breath and ventured farther out. If he broke through, there was a chance that the ends of the pole would lodge on still-solid ice and give him a shot at climbing out of the water. Not that it would do much good. Water-soaked and with no source of heat, he and Frederick would freeze to death in short order. The thought kept him moving as fast as he dared on the slippery surface. Only when his feet were solidly planted in snow on the far shore did he breathe easily once more.

Scaling the opposite face of the gorge proved less tricky than descending the first, both because this side was less steep and because he had perfected his technique with the sharpened pole. But gravity working against him made it more physically grueling. Barely able to navigate on shaky legs, he reached the top, collapsed in the snow, and rested until worry about waning daylight propelled him to his feet.

With the pale sun dropping behind mountain peaks, he snowshoed along the shoulder of U.S. 50, almost too tired to move. He heard the roar of an approaching snowplow and fired off his flare to alert the driver, who would be concentrating on keeping the plow’s blade against the concrete highway. As the plow approached, Alex stood in its path and waved his arms.

“You folks all right?” the driver asked after ushering him inside.

“Just cold and tired.”

“Where’s your vehicle? Anybody in it?”

“We were in a cabin on the rim. Hiked down. Do you have a phone I can use?”

The driver handed Alex a phone. “Summit Texaco’s about seven miles. I was just talking with ‘em on the radio.” He put the snowplow into gear. “Road’s clear behind us, so whoever you’re calling shouldn’t have any trouble picking you up.”

Frederick seemed to have recovered from his outrage during their trek. Alex cuddled the little boy in his lap with one hand while using his other to punch numbers on the phone to contact Silver Hill. Flanagan came on the line, and Alex gave a bare-bones outline of events.

“Great job, Bryson,” the supervisor said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Koenig’s people will decide how to break this to the media and the cops.”

The snowplow operator had let the vehicle slow to a crawl. Mouth open, he shifted his eyes repeatedly between the road and his passengers. “That’s the Koenig boy?” he said when Alex flipped the phone shut and handed it back.

“In the flesh.” Alex shifted Frederick so he faced the snowplow operator. “Say hello to the richest kid in the country.”

* * *

Silver Hill’s blue-and-silver helicopter met them in Summit Texaco’s parking lot. During the flight to Silver Hill with Frederick in his lap, Alex tried to concentrate on Pia’s lies, on the stolen cell phone, and on her attempt to brain him with a skillet. His mind returned doggedly to her concern for Frederick’s comfort and safety, to her determination in lugging the boy to the cabin despite obvious exhaustion. His last thought before the helicopter settled on the landing pad at the resort was the panic, the concern in her voice upon their first meeting, when she pleaded, “Don’t hurt my baby!”

Chapter 8

At twilight, Theo Faust called off the search for Pia and Frederick. With all tracks leading from the wrecked limousine obliterated by back-to-back storms, the search team had set up a pattern of expanding squares around the vehicle. By sunset, they had covered the entire area within which Pia, lugging Frederick, could have walked before the storm hit. She had fallen into a ravine or collapsed from cold and exhaustion, Faust decided. Either way, the bodies were snowed under and would not be recovered until spring thaw, if ever.

Dealing with Pia’s certain death was bad enough. He dreaded having to tell Dominga Koenig that he couldn’t find Frederick’s body as proof that the rival for her husband’s fortune was dead. How was he going to—

A phone call interrupted his brooding. Flanagan, the obsequious redhead who supervised local security, came on the line.

“We found them, Mr. Faust. Seems one of my boys picked ‘em up and sheltered them.”

“Sheltered? You mean they’re okay?”

“The kid is, sir. My guy hiked out with him. A chopper’s on its way to get them.”

“Just the kid?” Faust bristled at the thought that he’d lost Pia and still had to deal with Frederick. “What happened to the girl?”

“She put up a fight, got banged around pretty good. My guy left her hogtied in a cabin up on Black Oak Ridge.”

She was alive? To give his emotions a chance to adjust, Faust took two deep breaths, holding each for a count of three. He had reconciled himself to her death when Dominga decided they should have an “accident” on the road to Silver Hill. Now, he could figure a way to get rid of the kid without losing her.

“When Mr. Koenig’s people release a statement,” he cautioned Flanagan, “news hounds will be on us like flies on garbage. Remember, no comments from anybody. Not even to acknowledge the facts. Get back to me when the boy’s helicopter is inbound.” He clicked off and phoned his boss.

“Good job, Theo,” Koenig said when Faust told him the search had borne fruit. “See that the child gets whatever medical attention he needs. Arrange a room for him at the lodge with a nurse and a bodyguard.”

“What about the girl?”

“Keep her away from the authorities and the press, and ship her back to Lima. She is of no further use to me.”

Long after the phone call ended, Koenig’s answer resonated in Faust’s mind. The old man probably knew about his interest in Pia. Had that closing comment— “She is of no further use to me”
—
been an invitation to take charge of her once more?

Yes, he decided after thinking about it, that was exactly what Koenig intended. He had in effect made a gift of her. A reward for a job well done.

Quite a difference from the Army. Faust’s relationship with military brass had been rocky from the time he earned his commission. In contrast, the stars seemed to have been perfectly aligned when he met Koenig. Conveniently, the man who introduced them—a Variant Corporation security lieutenant on leave while pulling an Army hitch—had gotten zapped in the same battle that cost Faust enough mobility in his lower leg to derail his career. He accepted a pension for partial disability and stepped into the vacant slot at Variant Corporation.

Then came the labor strife on that pipeline project, Dominga Koenig’s idea to arm rebel stragglers and pay them to obliterate the striking workers, and her decision to make Faust her “go-to” guy—although she sometimes teasingly referred to him as her boy. He handled that pretty much the way he had handled growing up in the wrong part of town and the way he had survived in the Army: Always be respectful but suspicious of people in authority. Assume they never have your best interests at heart. Understand that you are being used, and seek to use them in return.

Meanwhile, he had a lifestyle he had never dreamed of in Waycross or even during his Army years. And he had his own private army in the form of Shining Path remnants hiding in Peru’s nearly trackless backcountry. They had proven useful several times since he employed them to solve Koenig’s pipeline labor problem. And they had grown eager for more action, hungry for the cash and equipment it brought. They looked to Faust for guidance as well as logistics.

After this Colorado trip, with the technology he was procuring for them, they would become as formidable a fighting force as they had been in the 1980s, before American training and equipment enabled the Peruvian military to decimate the rebels’ ranks and drive the survivors into jungle and mountain hideaways. They wouldn’t be strong enough to take over the country, but they could dominate
Ancash
and
La Libertad
provinces, where Peru’s rare-earth minerals were located, and that was all he needed.

Dominga Koenig’s scheming, her access to her husband’s wealth and connections, had made it possible, but Faust was putting the pieces together. And he would—

His phone’s buzz pulled him from his musing.

It was Flanagan. The resort’s security honcho said a helicopter was inbound with Frederick on board.

“Send a van to the landing pad with a bodyguard and a nurse,” Faust instructed. “Also, send a van for me. And that guy you recently hired, Alex Bryson, send a helo to pick him up.”

“Bryson, sir? You want to see him?”

“He works for you because I put him on the payroll. Bring him in.”

“He’s the one who caught the kidnapper. He’s on the inbound chopper.”

Fresh elation flooded Faust as he waited for his ride to the helicopter landing pad. Dominga would be pissed when she learned the kid was still alive, but they had some time in which to wrap up that mission. Meanwhile, he’d win points with her husband for salvaging his “project.” He’d have Pia back, and he was about to be reunited with the angst-ridden soldier he took under his wing while commanding Special Forces in the Peruvian backcountry. He had become a surrogate big brother to Bryson, and the young soldier repaid him by saving his life when Faust caught a piece of shrapnel in that final, furious firefight with guerrillas. In Lima, Faust had a first-class job for his protégé. It would be great to have his only real friend under his wing once more.