The moon appeared, lighting his bare torso. It was criss-crossed with cuts from branches, but that wasn’t going to slow him down. There was a snarl on his face as he launched himself at me, hurling himself forward, arms outstretched. He knew all about close-quarters combat, knew I couldn’t use the knife once he got me in a hug.
I dived sideways, falling as I did. I heard him grunt as he missed me. There was a cracking sound. I got to my feet as quick as I could. He wouldn’t miss a sitting target. But when I looked, he was standing very still, his arms hanging by his sides. Then I saw why. There was a low branch sticking out through his back. He’d speared himself on a hemlock.
‘Thank Christ for that,’ I said. Then I switched on the torch and found my pistol, sticking it back into my trousers. I considered burying the body, but knew it wouldn’t be easy. At least leaving him here, any coroner might be persuaded of a bizarre accident. It certainly didn’t look like murder. I shone the torch into his face, and saw the resemblance to his brother immediately.
‘Hello, Nathan,’ I said.
I was shaking as I drove back to the campsite. I hadn’t been so close to death before. I’d never seen that much fresh blood close up. I’d seen Max of course, but Max’s corpse hadn’t been warm. The picture of Nathan Kline would stay with me long after my victims’ had faded. I didn’t think liquor and a holiday would ever wipe out Nathan’s staring face.
Clancy and Bel were still awake, awaiting my return. When they saw me, they knew something had gone badly wrong. One side of my face was swollen, bruising nicely. My chest hurt, and I was still limping from the kick to my thigh. My hair was tangled with sweat, and my clothes were smeared with earth.
‘I need to get to a hospital,’ I said.
‘There might be something at Port Angeles.’
‘This is sort of specialized,’ I said.
‘Michael’s got haemophilia,’ Bel explained.
‘It’ll have to be Seattle or Tacoma,’ Clancy decided.
So we packed everything up by torchlight. Or rather, they did while I stayed in the car. A couple of campers complained about the noise, until Bel explained that we had an emergency and had to get someone to hospital. I’d been hoping she wouldn’t say anything. Now we had campers out looking at me like I was a zoo exhibit. I kept my head bowed so they wouldn’t see the bruises. I knew most of the campers would be gone by morning, when Nathan’s body would be found. But the police could find them elsewhere in the park and ask them about tonight. And now they’d be able to tell all about a man with his head hidden from them, a sudden need to break camp in the middle of the night.
Things, I thought, had taken a very bad turn.
We got out of there and Bel apologised.
‘I just didn’t think,’ she said.
‘That’s okay.’
Clancy was driving. There were no ferries that he knew of, not this late, so we headed south on 101 and picked up I-5 through Tacoma to Seattle. There was a hospital not too far from our hotel. We had to go through the usual American bureaucracy, details taken, disclaimers and waivers signed, and of course they wanted to know how they’d get paid, before a doctor took a look at me. He wasn’t a haemophilia specialist, his first few questions were all about what had happened.
‘A fight outside a bar,’ I told him.
‘You’re not supposed to get into fights.’
‘That’s what I told the guy who hit me.’
Eventually he gave me a dubious all-clear, but told me to come see a specialist in the morning. I paid cash back at the desk and Clancy drove us back to the hotel.
The night staff didn’t say anything when Bel asked for the room key. Maybe they’d seen wasted-looking people before, turning up in the wee small hours wearing hiking outfits.
We broke into a bottle of tequila Bel had bought, and I put some ice into a towel for my bruises.
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Clancy. ‘You say his name’s Nathan Kline?’
‘That’s what it said on his file.’
‘You think he’s some relation of Kline’s?’
‘There were facial similarities.’
He shook his head. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
‘And whatever he was, he wasn’t my idea of a “disciple of love”. He knew unarmed combat like I know rifles. I’m lucky we were fighting at night. In daylight he’d have killed me.’
‘So what does that make him?’
‘Ex-military, something like that. Maybe CIA or NSC. All I know is that it makes him dead.’
Bel was staring at me, so I turned to her.
‘I don’t feel great about it, Bel, but this time it was him or me. And I didn’t kill him, a tree-branch did. But I would have killed him. And he’d have killed me.’
‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m glad he’s dead.’ Then she went back to her drink.
Clancy didn’t go home. He slept in a chair, while Bel and I took the beds. We talked some more, and finally settled down to sleep as the sun was rising. I probably slept for an hour, maybe a little more. Then I went into the bathroom, closed the door and turned on the light. I looked like I’d been in an accident with a timber-lorry. My chest and thigh were purple with shades of mauve and black. My eye had closed up a little as the flesh below it swelled. It was tender to the touch, but at least I hadn’t lost any teeth.
I didn’t think I was going to die. Haemophiliacs rarely die these days, not if they look after themselves. But I’d go back to the hospital anyway and have a proper check done.
I went down to the lobby and out into the fresh air of a new day. Only in my head it was still the middle of the night and I was out in the woods, being taken apart by a crazed jungle-fighter. I tried not to limp as I walked. I’d changed into some clean clothes. There were a few early risers about, driving to work, or shuffling through the streets examining garbage. I headed for the waterfront to do some thinking.
I didn’t doubt that Nathan was Kline’s brother, which tied the Disciples of Love very closely to the NSC. But a question niggled: did anyone at the Disciples know Nathan’s real identity? And come to think of it, what was so important that Nathan would go undercover for nearly eight years to protect it? They might have discovered his body by now. They might be contacting the police. If they didn’t contact the police, that would be a sign of the whole cult’s complicity. I knew I had to go back to the peninsula to be sure.
I also wanted to investigate Nathan’s house on Hood Canal. If I wanted to do it, I’d have to do it fast, before Kline got to hear of his brother’s all-too-suspicious demise.
‘Great day for it,’ a woman told me as she pushed a supermarket shopping-trolley over the train lines. A train had just crept past, holding up the few cars. It carried wood, thousands of planks coming south from Canada. We’d both watched it roll inexorably past.
‘Great day for it,’ she said again, waving to me as she moved away.
We went out for breakfast and ate huge blueberry muffins, washed down with strong coffee. I told Clancy and Bel I wanted to go back to the peninsula.