Lurking behind the screen of snow, the trees were her only guide, shining in her headlights like streaks of silver frost on a charcoal window.
Beside her. the hostage mumbled, head rolling like a seasick pa.s.senger on rough waves.
Emilie could only afford a fraction of a glance, but it was enough to start her wondering why she was still keeping the woman with her. h.e.l.l, it wasn"t for the company.
In fact, Jacks realised, she was a liability. Another direction to focus on, when she could barely concentrate on the one that counted. And just having her there, was a reminder of all her holier than thou speeches. All that righteous flame burned Emilie"s gut.
Like the government were the good guys, and the Army were safe from whatever was out there. So they, they, like the Army, were out for the blood of Emilie Jacks. Jacks snorted. like the Army, were out for the blood of Emilie Jacks. Jacks snorted.
No reason why the hunted couldn"t use a decoy as well as any hunter.
Slowing up some more, she reached over the slumbering hostage for the door-release.
Head down, Derm and some of the squad in his wake, Morgan Shaw was about to step up to the CPV and check on O"Neill, when the familiar bulk of Makenzie"s police truck drew by.
Shots were singing out sporadically around the town, percussion to the wind"s tuneless lament. A coy-dog cull was under way, as a direct by-product of Morgan"s minor deceit.
Morgan didn"t mind so long as the folks kept busy and there were no accidents.
He stepped out and waited as Kenzie rolled down his window. The impatience in his brother"s eyes was so evident for a moment Morgan thought he was ill.
"You"re not telling me you got a call-out? Somebody"s cat stuck up a tree?"
Makenzie"s eyes were narrowed tight against the windblown snow and he managed only a colourless smile. "Nothing like.
Listen, I have to find the Doc."
"You do?" Today was full of surprises.
The wind was blowing hard, streaming the flakes into vaporous plumes, like the frigid breath of some Norse G.o.d.
The town"s perimeter vanished behind scudding clouds of chill smoke.
"Well, I wish you luck, big bro. He made for the Wentz cabin. There was a shooting."
"Yeah, I heard."
Morgan leaned close in to the quarterlight. "Kenzie. it"s a h.e.l.l of a drive "
"I"ll make it. Just take care of my town while I"m gone."
Morgan shook his head and grimaced, watching the vehicle recede into that gusting maelstrom, past which there was no suggestion of existence. And he felt the distance between himself and his brother more keenly than he had in years.
Leela"s trust in Kristal did not extend to the machine she was driving. She rode high, as though they were not properly anch.o.r.ed to the ground, and but for the fact they somehow remained upright, it felt like they were riding a boulder in a landslide, the way they b.u.mped and crashed down the forested slope.
Kristal"s grip on the wheel looked the equal of a Voc"s, solid and unrelenting. Every so often she would compensate for a bad bounce with some minor nudge of the wheel.
Leela stared into the blizzard through which they appeared to be falling. Flakes died softly on the windscreen, despite the speed with which they were hurled out of the night.
Suddenly they broke from the trees and spun wildly onto a broader trail, freshly furrowed. A new tension seized Kristal, and Leela knew their prey was close.
There: up ahead and crawling around a bend, a man-made smudge on the specked canvas. It was the fugitive truck, one door flapping open like the broken wing of a lame bird.
Kristal jammed one foot down hard. Leela grasped around for a handhold.
Ray Landers was dead on his feet, but on balance he figured he"d rather be standing guard in the cold than intruding on that poor woman"s grief. Pathos was Garvey"s field of expertise, so maybe he"d see the woman okay. Meanwhile Landers could stay out of Garvey"s way.
Ray"s thoughts were still out there in the void, wondering about Marotta"s last moments. Since they"d had their orders from the Kristal Witch to abandon the search and head straight here, it was somehow easier to think that way: if the big guy was dead, it felt a little less like desertion. With all they had found when they"d got here, death was getting to be a theme.
A shout went up.
Landers trotted around to the nearest sentry. Jen G.o.dzinski, with her blanched freckled cheeks, nodded over at the western flank.
Jeez! Talk about a ghost rider. Landers shouldered his M4.
Then lowered it again, even before Jen had raised her sights. The figure on the snowmobile was a strange shape, but not scary strange.
The scarf securing the floppy hat to the head like some hobo"s Easter bonnet was the ultimate giveaway. Landers slung his rifle and hurried up to welcome the Doc. "Yo, Scientist Guy, what the h.e.l.l brings you to these parts?"
The Doc brought the snowmobile pretty smartly to a halt.
He grinned, but not entirety happily. "You haven"t happened to see a young lady with limited social graces go by?"
"You"re talking about your girlfriend, right?" Landers marvelled at the devotion this guy showed to his lady: driving up a mountain to find her in this crud-storm Maybe he should take notes. He gestured to where the path of the truck was being steadily erased. "The fugitive went thataway. Doc, and I think your lady went after them with Kristal. n.o.body tells me nothing though, so you"ll have to take your chances."
Thank you. Private Landers. It"s something I tend to do naturally."
The Doc made as though to doff his hat, like a gent, but then appeared to remember the thing was lashed down like a tarp He opened the throttle and rode on into the storm.
It was the warm proximity of another human being, in consort with a blast of icy air, that woke Joanna up. But as hazy realisation dawned that the being was Emilie Jacks.
Joanna fought for consciousness the way a drowning man fights to reach the surface.
Jacks" palm was like a rock pushing against her chest and the pa.s.senger door gaped open beside her. Groggy from a dozen hangovers. Joanna threw out her hands, one finding her opponent"s face and pushing back and the other latching onto Jacks" arm. Barred from her full senses, Joanna had only desperation in her favour.
That and the way Jacks wasted energy in raw screams.
Whereas Joanna shoved with everything she had, pressing Jacks against the driver"s door.
Then it was as if that single shift had overbalanced the entire vehicle. A sudden slide and a tug on her stomach told Joanna they had left the ground behind. The truck nosedived and their wrestling match was suspended abruptly, the crash sending them into a deafening roll; they were trapped in a crippled dryer, blowing cold as it tumbled.
As she felt consciousness slipping, Joanna dug in her mental claws, riding it out until a religious stillness descended on the truck"s interior. She couldn"t focus, but she registered that Jacks was preoccupied, wiping a b.l.o.o.d.y river clear of her eyes.
That, she surmised, was the good news.
A blurred picture of the windshield told her it had been badly shattered. But when she looked a second time, the hairline cracks seemed a little too white. Gleaming like diamond twine.
It was dumb, impossible. She was hallucinating.
But Joanna stared at the intricate webs of ice extending inside the cab.
Chapter Sixteen.
They would be travelling light this time. Time and the weather were against them. Makenzie would be too if he knew. And Martha"s need to act and never once - please Lord, don"t let me - stop and think was against them most of all.
She"d warned Mak not to take too long to reconsider, and almost in the same moment she"d given herself no time for that at all. Out into the night, she"d moved like the storm, furious and giddy with the headache of the century.
Somebody brushed past her, too busy to register her let alone apologise. She was fired up to shout at the guy, but saw only the broad retreating shoulders of the CIA agent.
Parked across the road was the agents" 4WD. He must have been fetching something.
Head bowed, Martha raced through the wind and seized hold of the door release. The door swung open, and Martha grinned like she"d found an exit from h.e.l.l.
Her skull was still fit to burst, but the ache had evolved into purpose, and she threw herself into it, riding it like a wave. Nudging the car door closed, she ducked back across the road in a half-run, thankful her small stature would help her go unnoticed in this friendless place.
She marched into the store, breathless, tearing her hood down and searching about. Probably Hal was out scouring the town for coyotes with the rest of the amateur hunters.
Didn"t matter. She grabbed a cardboard box. then set about collecting a few essentials from the shelves with a haste that bordered on random. When she was done she took a time-out, planting the box at her feet.
Next minute, she was scrawling out a note and her credit card details for Hal. Picking up her box, she carted it out into the storm, and part of her sank like plunging mercury.
Maybe she was the dumb Southerner everybody reckoned.
She"d spared herself a charge of looting only to commit Grand Theft Auto.
A twitch of satisfaction, heavily ironic, played at her mouth as she finished loading her goods into the back of the 4x4. 4x4.
She sniffed and drew a gloved finger across her upper lip, looking about and waiting for the guilt and fear to overpower her and tip her back into indecision.
But no. G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Melvin Village. And G.o.dd.a.m.n you too, Makenzie Shaw. She made a dam of her teeth against the threat of tears. She was back on her own now and there was no great wounding guilt, but there was plenty to fear to make up the difference Not of prison. Why fear prison when you were breaking out of h.e.l.l?
No, what she feared most was the storm and how much she was going to hate herself for what she was going to have to do to her baby. Again.
She had more than the wind to fight as she forced herself back across the street to the hotel.
Leela had used nets before, trapping the larger grazers that rooted through the jungles of her homeland, then pouncing from the branches to wedge a blade in behind the armour that rendered spears and crossbows impotent. Down the slope before her, a net of ice had been cast over the front of the renegade truck.
But the net was in constant motion, threads forming and reforming, barbed and forked in countless directions as though seeking entry through the metal hide of the vehicle.
The net"s frenzied attack was all the more fearful for its silence.
Leela sprang a pace down the slope, preparing to brace the pistol as she had been instructed. Kristal stopped her with a shout and ran instead for the rear of their truck.
"Whatever we are going to do we should do it quickly!" Leela warned.
From this angle it was impossible to tell if the crystal vines had found their way in yet, but Leela could see front portions of the truck being eaten away as the tendrils multiplied and struck out at the air like frozen whiplashes. Fissures of ice coursed all over the surface of the wrecked truck, cracks in an eggsh.e.l.l.
She backed up the hill to help Kristal.
And saw a figure coasting up on a snowmobile. She called out to Kristal. but the scout barely glanced around, and instead untied the two metal cans from the cargo frame.
"Quick thinking. Lieutenant Wildcat!" the Doctor commended her loudly, hopping off the snowmobile the moment it had halted. He strode up, ready to take charge, and Leela all but sagged with the sense of relief. She trotted up to join them as the Doctor came swooping in like a bird of prey, to s.n.a.t.c.h up the discarded rope that had secured the cans to the rack.
"Old rope! Never underestimate its value, Leela!"
"Doctor," Leela"s relief turned to frustration, "we haven"t much time! This snow is evil!"
"Well," he squinted down into the teeming mesh of ice fibres, branching and dividing all over the stricken truck.
"Ordinarily I wouldn"t say a spot of inclement weather would be anything to grumble about, but in this case you might be right! You just might be! Now, Lieutenant Wildcat, will you pour or shall I?!"
"Doctor!" Kristal was suddenly handing Leela both cans.
Now you"re here. I"ll try to commune with it!"
The Doctor"s expression was an instant prohibition, of the sort Leela had seen before. "I really wouldn"t do that, if I were you! No matter how much we might want to, I don"t think any of us can even begin to communicate with this creature!"
"No, I know that. But I might distract it long enough for you to cut a path to the truck!"
"All the same, I wouldn"t advise it, Lieutenant! I wouldn"t advise it at all!"
Leela caught something dark flashing between their respective gazes.
Whatever it was, it was apparently something with which the Doctor couldn"t argue. While Leela puzzled over its significance, she was adjusting to the weight of the liquid slopping around inside the cans. And she wrinkled her nose: they gave off a strong smell of "tailpipe".
"The Doctor will tell you what to do!" Kristal squeezed Leela"s arm encouragingly, making the pressure felt through her gloves and the coat"s padding.
The simple gesture turned the hairs on Leela"s neck cold.
What are you going to do?"
"Open my mind," said Kristal, and she knelt straight down in the snow, shutting her eyes just a shade too late to conceal the fear that possessed her.
The Doctor was advancing along the road with one eye on the crashed truck below.
Leela stared down at their enemy, with the feeling she was facing it alone.
Morgan Shaw narrowed his eyes and only just resisted closing them altogether, looking instead along the line of civilian vehicles queued up behind his small military convoy.
There were nearly a dozen now - some with chains looped around their tyres, others with roof-racks piled up like Native American funeral pyres. Appropriately enough.
There wasn"t going to be any evac. Not out of this place.