They were taking the longer track down, to come into town from the southeast, but Agent Theroux seemed determined to make short work of the journey. He"d taken every bend expertly so far, but he was driving too fast and casual for her liking. Showing off? Maybe. It was certainly in keeping with this pair"s style.
Wait till Makenzie got a load of these two. More trouble she"d brought into his life.
Curt Redeker"s arm was getting tired. Each time he lowered the gun, he"d find himself lifting it straight back up to keep the clerk at bay. It wasn"t that the guy was making any moves, it was just he wanted him to stay the h.e.l.l away. Out of his face, out of his life, further away than the walls of the store would allow.
Perspiration stuck to Curt like a cold skin. His mind was racing everywhere and getting nowhere fast. What in h.e.l.l was he into here?
He wanted to pace, but he didn"t dare move. Instead he fidgeted awkwardly in the one spot. Daddy never meant to do this, honey. At least he had coaxed the clerk into trading places and he now had a place over by the door. Dumba.s.s wasn"t taking his eyes off the gun and that helped remind Curt who was in command here.
The stolen toys, scattered at the clerk"s feet, looked pathetic. He didn"t want that c.r.a.p any more. So he didn"t really know why, but he said. "Pick it up. All of it."
Perhaps it was just to give him a chance to look out through the pane in the front door. There were notices and such pasted all over it, but he could still get a fair look both ways along the street. Fair enough, at least, to give him the really bad news.
"What"s your problem? Don"t like the look of the weather?"
"There"s soldiers. A G.o.dd.a.m.n Army convoy!" Curt was stunned - and furious. Holy Christ, this couldn"t be happening. No. Suddenly it dawned that the clerk had smart-mouthed him. He raised the gun again. "What in h.e.l.l is going on in this town?"
Kristal and Leela lay huddled in their miniature cave, twins in winter"s womb.
A moment"s extra effort had brought a thin layer of snow down on top of them, then they"d worked swiftly to pack it close and build up a wall, the intention being to leave a narrow slit for air. The vicious storm was upon them long before they"d finished their crude construction.
Kristal kept them at it though, while the blizzard tore the air to shreds outside. The wind didn"t howl so much as it screamed. There was no telling when Its rage would be spent.
"When the people of the Sioux nation hunted buffalo,"
Kristal used the time to try to explain some of her thoughts to Leela, "they used to herd them off high cliffs."
The girl saw the a.n.a.logy immediately. The prospect clearly frightened her as much as it worried Kristal. "Do you think that was what it was doing? Trying to herd us?"
They had to raise their voices to compete with the tempest outside. "I don"t know. I can"t - see very clearly into the storm.
I only know that - whoever or whatever is driving it, they must have the Stormcore. They took it off our fugitive. It"s the only possibility that makes any sense. And it"s the worst of possibilities, believe me."
"But if the Stormcore controls this blizzard, then we should try to take it back."
Kristal studied Leela closely, smiled. She looked outside.
Operation Afterburn had stirred up more than a hornet"s nest, and a share of the guilt was hers. Still, she had no arguments to counter Leela"s simple wisdom.
"Maybe we"ll do just that, soon as we get the chance."
As she watched, she saw the blizzard retreat past their slit-window, as if the mountain had suddenly inhaled. Or the sky perhaps, filling its lungs for another blow.
Kristal had them wait. Nothing returned.
The a.s.sault had left the air all brittle and fragile.
Eventually satisfied, Kristal broke out into that air and beckoned Leela after her. Around them, some of the troops had already emerged onto the blasted embankment. For a moment, Kristal was hesitant to shatter the stillness, but she knew she should check on her squad. She saw her Gunnery Sergeant climbing out of his burrow.
"You tucked yourself in okay, I see, Marotta? Can"t have had much time."
Bob sniffed. "It was tight, but me and Landers made it cosy.
I"m a little rough around the edges, but I"ll survive."
Kristal wished she could say the same for the vehicles. Bits of snowmobiles poked up through the deep banks of snow along the base of the slope.
"Man, you"re lucky to have any edges left," Landers put in.
dusting off his parka.
At least it made a few of the troops laugh.
"Ma"am, best get up here!"
Kristal looked to where stocky Stu Garvey, her second sergeant, had shown some initiative, scrambling up the hill to see where the storm went. She blinked and let go a huge sigh. She was feeling way too tired to go running up there after him. What do you have?"
"Smoke, ma"am! lip at the cult place, far as I can make out."
He glanced back down at her. and suddenly he seemed impossibly far away. "Looks like that house is on fire."
Kristal closed her eyes. Fire and ice sounded too much like a ritual trial, a rite of pa.s.sage. And she didn"t think she was up to pa.s.sing one of those right now.
Chapter Eight.
No more than a hundred yards or so into the woods and Joanna was bitterly exhausted, drained far more by what she"d seen than the physical exertion. Somehow, when her captors shoved her face down in the snow, she figured they weren"t giving her a rest break.
She felt the weight as the woman jumped onto her back and started tugging both of her arms behind her. "You"re going to tie me?" Joanna couldn"t believe it. Maybe they hadn"t noticed her uniform patches. "I"m a doctor. Don"t you want me to treat your friend?"
The woman carried on looping rope tightly around her wrists. Joanna lay still, aware of the doc.u.ment folder crinkling inside her coat. They"d come back to torch that place, most likely looking to destroy evidence. So if they found the folder now they"d probably just tear it up and feed it to the wind.
"You can treat him later. Meantime, we get moving."
Joanna was hauled to her feet, the bonds pulling at her arms. Once she was up, she was shoved on her way again.
She could hear the complaining breaths of the wounded man behind her and it occurred to her she might have read the woman"s motives all wrong. She was insane, forcing her partner into a march in his condition; and the aim of torching the evidence seemed too much like the product of a reasoning mind. Ambitious, but not crazy.
"Why did you come back to the house?" she asked, keeping going and facing front like a good girl.
"Shut the chat."
That was the woman again. Giving all the orders, letting her know who was boss. Well, she and her partner could go to h.e.l.l. Joanna decided.
Where she really wanted to be was back at the house, looking after Falvi. A faint wave of nausea swept over her as she relived the horror of that moment. It was vividly-preserved, a photograph in her mind. Everything that happened after it was a detached blur. A three-round burst into the abdomen: it was a picture that couldn"t be erased. So instead she started to a.n.a.lyse it, estimating the severity of the wounds and tracing their progression with every step she took away from where the sniper had fallen. McKim had Eastman, a trained combat medic, on his squad; but Falvi needed a field surgeon.
Better still, a hospital.
Joanna shut her eyes and bit her lip. Running through the procedures wasn"t doing anyone any good. All she could do for the present was make the best of a bad situation. Learn something, maybe. She had the thought that, after all, her situation wasn"t so terrible.
Walking on. at least one psycho pointing a gun at her back, she had been taken prisoner, but Paul Falvi was being held hostage by an altogether different captor. And the deadline for his life had already been set.
Ben McKim was practically in mourning. He had to keep reminding himself that n.o.body had actually died. Yet.
One second he"d been ducking back from a shotgun blast that threatened to bring half the ceiling down, the next he"d seen the intruders herding Joanna up the stairs. He"d eased into the room after them, stepping on crumbled plaster, splintered wood and broken gla.s.s, the stench of alcohol and gasoline drying the inside of his nose and mouth. The shots had stalled him in the middle of the room.
He"d gone for the steps, taking them one at a time with forced care and patience. All the while his breathing was accelerating.
Then the bottle with the flaming tail, like a brown comet, had flown past him to shatter on the floor below - and splash liquid fire all over the bas.e.m.e.nt room. Other bottles exploded a moment later and the roar of a fast-growing inferno chased Ben McKim up the steps.
Outside, he"d found the big bear of a cultist dragging Joanna further off, the woman backing up and warning his squad off with the AK; and blood-red petals blooming in the snow around Paul Falvi. The look in Joanna"s eyes said it all: she didn"t want anybody else getting hurt on her account.
And the way McKim saw it, the house could go to h.e.l.l.
Falvi was yelling: "Barnes can take them, sir! She can take them both, I swear. Let her do it!"
But Ben McKim just swallowed and did like every other trooper in his squad: they kept their guns on the retreating fugitives every yard of the way; even after they"d disappeared behind the trees and the white curtain beyond.
Then it was over and they were into the aftermath.
McKim told Falvi to take it easy, but he had to step back to let Eastman do her best - and to escape the accusation in the wounded sniper"s eyes. He glanced over at Barnes, to see if it was there too, but she reserved her attention for Falvi.
Running from the top of the house, she"d been last on the scene. That had to sting.
While he waited for the word on Falvi, McKim held conference with his sergeants. Mike Lester and Kurt Bederman. to get the full picture on what had happened. They moved a few yards out from the flames lapping greedily at the back of the house. McKim listened intently to each man"s report, determined not to hear each new explosion from the bas.e.m.e.nt. At least he"d read Joanna right: according to the sergeants she"d ordered everyone to back off. Even as the woman whipped up her Molotov, they"d done precisely nothing.
It made McKim feel even worse about having done the same.
Watching the house burn, he reached for his radio and almost wished he was still inside.
"What is this, your job includes interrogating ten-year old kids now?"
"Take a break. Kenzie. I"ll buy her a soda. This is an interview, not an interrogation."
"No. No way. She"s my responsibility and you"re not putting her through a ton of questions. She can"t possibly know anything anyhow. She makes stuff up, it"s what she does."
The Doctor looked bored, not merely because he was bored, but because he wanted to make a show of it. He huffed moodily and wandered away from the renewed argument. Idly he produced his crumpled bag and held it out to the side, under the child"s nose.
"Jelly baby?"
"No thanks"
The Doctor blinked. There was a first time for everything.
"Oh, go on," he urged. "you"ll only hurt their feelings, you know."
There was a pause, as the Doctor pretended to survey the street. The unloading operation was nearly done, which promised some useful work for his attention. He heard the rustling as a small hand dipped inside the bag.
"Do you know," he ventured, with all these coyotes around.
I"m surprised no-one here has heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
"I didn"t make it up."
"Well, that"s precisely my point. Neither did he."
The Doctor flashed her a grin, pleased to see she was frowning uncertainly, as though trying to work him out. Of course, no one had ever worked him out past the seventh decimal place before, but he would be the last one to underestimate a child"s intelligence. This girl, small as she was, held the wisdom of three times her years in her eyes.
"You know," he went on, "everyone tells stories, for one reason or another. I"ve had to tell them myself from time to time. I mean. I try telling people I travel through time and s.p.a.ce in a blue box, but they never believe me. Don"t you hate that, when people never believe you?"
"I-"
The Doctor tipped his head disarmingly and thrust out his hand. "I"m the Doctor, by the way. You can call me Doctor."
The girl glanced past him to where the argument was going on, before eventually accepting the handshake. "Amber," she said. "Amber Mailloux."
"Do you know what I think?" suggested the Doctor. "I think we should go and take a close look at this aircraft they brought down from the mountain. There"s a man called Corporal Pydych who"s supposed to be helping me. He"s probably inside the hotel with all the pieces. Shall we go and sec him, and you can tell me about what you saw on the way.
Hm?"
The Doctor ushered her gently in through the hotel entrance. He was sure n.o.body would even notice their absence, at least for a few minutes.
"Excuse me, d"you mind? I"m trying to make a call here."
Morgan Shaw held the mic up and pointed at it to make sure his brother got the point. What did he think he was doing, sticking his head in at the door? This was the Command Post Vehicle, for crying out loud.
Morgan had been so grateful when his comms officer, Kev O"Neill, had come trotting out from the CPV with the message that McKim was trying to reach him. He"d broken off the discussion with Kenzie immediately and headed for the vehicle.
The radio was much more powerful in there and he wanted to make sure McKim got his instructions loud and clear. More to the point, he would be free from Kenzie.
The report from McKim contained nothing to be grateful for however, and now Kenzie was barging his way onto his his CPV CPV when he was trying to reach Kristal.
"Good. You can call for some more men," was Makenzie"s sour recommendation.
"Kenzie, get the h.e.l.l out of my vehicle, or I swear I"ll-"
"Silver Surfer, this is Wildcat. Come back."
Morgan held his stare on Makenzie a moment longer, before lifting the mic Kristal was coming through like she was in a frying pan and he needed to concentrate. "Kristal, I got you. What"s your position?"
He listened to her summary of the manhunt and everything that had followed. If it hadn"t been for the wounded man and Joanna"s abduction, her report would have beaten McKim"s hands down. And if it had been anyone but Kristal giving the account, he would definitely have had them repeat it at least twice. Still, the Stormcore was involved and that meant pretty much anything was possible.
"We"re heading back to the cult place on foot. There"s smoke-"