‘What’s the problem here?’ the first of them asked pleasantly.
‘This,’ said Spike, pointing the Ingram at the man’s chest. The man, to give him credit, saw the problem immediately. It wasn’t our problem, it was his. We took him and his partner in the Chrysler, while Bel drove the Park Service car. A little further out of town, we pulled off the road on to a track in the woods and stripped the wardens of their clothes.
‘Jesus, why did you have to pick on Laurel and Hardy?’ Spike complained to Bel. He was having trouble getting his uniform on, while mine fell off me like washing on a clothes-horse. We’d already tried swapping, but it had been worse.
We tied the wardens up thoroughly, and left one of them lying in the front of the Chrysler, the other in the back. We transferred our stuff to their car, and Bel got into the back, lying down across the seat and covering herself with a tartan travel-rug.
‘National Park Service,’ said Spike, getting into the driving seat. ‘Here to serve and protect the wildlife.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll show them what a wild life really means.’
Then he reversed all the way back on to the road. We took the 101 west. Five miles out of town, the road forked, but we kept heading west on 112. Just after the branch-off, we saw them.
There was a 434 parked by the side of the road, and two men standing beside it. They were as obvious a lookout as we could have hoped for. We debated stopping and confronting them — Spike said it would be a test of our disguises if nothing else. But I prevailed, and we drove past. If we’d put them out of action, their absence might be spotted. And we needed time to set things up. So we left them there, knowing that if they were summoned to the Disciples’ HQ, it would still take them half an hour to get there. I didn’t think we’d need more than half an hour. The way Spike saw it, if we went along with his plan we wouldn’t need more than five minutes.
If you’ve ever seen the napalm attack in Apocalypse Now, you’ll get some idea of the scale he was thinking on.
I crouched in the woods and watched the world through my night-vision scope. Strange things were happening in the Disciples’ compound.
Or rather, nothing was happening.
And that was strange.
It wasn’t that everyone had retired for the night. I got the feeling that most of the cabins were devoid of life. Spike and Bel had gone on a recce and come back with the news that they couldn’t see any vehicles anywhere. Well, I could see one: Kline’s Lincoln. It was squeezed in between two cabins, supposedly out of sight. But I couldn’t see any other cars.
Only one explanation made sense: someone had sent the Disciples away. Now why would they do that? Obviously, because they weren’t wanted. It meant one thing to me: the Disciples didn’t know what was going on, and Kline and his men didn’t want them to know what was going on.
I was concentrating not on the original cabin, the one where I’d been disturbed by Nathan, but on the smaller cabin next to it. This was where the light was burning. It looked like an oil-lamp or something powered by gas, and gave off a halo of yellow light. The pow-wow was taking place in this cabin. I was waiting for the braves to emerge.
Meanwhile I scanned the rest of the compound. It was pitch black, but to my right eye the world was a red filter with a black cross-sight. It was still and quiet. Sound carried a long way out here, and I actually heard a distant rattle as the cabin door opened.
I moved the scope back to the cabin and watched as a man appeared in the doorway. He was one of Kline’s men, and he was smoking a cigarette. Other men filtered out on to the porch and lit up. Provost must be a non-smoker. They’d been in a room with him, and were now desperate. There were six of them. Three I thought I recognised from Oban, and three I didn’t. Provost and Kline must still be in the cabin. The door opened again and someone stepped out.
A woman.
I recognised her by her shape. She was Alisha, Provost’s lieutenant and lover. She accepted a cigarette and stood talking to the men.
They spoke in undertones, but even so I could hear the noise they made, even if I couldn’t hear the words. The men were wearing suits. There would be handguns under the suits, but they were more prepared than that. Two of them had rested their M16s against the wall of the cabin while they smoked. They kept looking into the distance, mostly towards me. But from where they were, I knew they couldn’t see anything. All they could see was movement, and the only things moving were the branches of the trees as the breeze passed over them.
I waited, but Kline and Provost didn’t come out. Nor did they pass in front of the window. I adjusted the scope a fraction, and felt better. The scope was attached to the Varmint, and the Varmint was loaded with its full five rounds. I didn’t have any padding against my shoulder. I didn’t mind if I bruised. Bruising seemed the least of my problems.
I heard movement behind me.
‘Well?’ Spike whispered.
‘I count six men so far. I haven’t seen Provost or Kline, but there’s one woman. So that’s a total of nine.’
‘And seven of those we can take out straight away,’ Spike said.
‘I’d like Kline alive... at least until he’s talked to me.’
‘Then we’d better get a car battery and a couple of electrodes. I mean, he’s not going to talk for the fun of it.’
He had a point. Bel had moved more quietly than Spike. She was the other side of me. All three of us were wearing balaclavas and face-paint: green and black. Just in case they had a lighting system rigged up somewhere. So far, they were relying on darkness. But they could always change tactics and light the forest up. If they lit us up, of course, they also lit themselves up. And we’d be camouflaged. We were wearing green and black jackets and green trousers. We certainly looked the part, even if we didn’t feel it. Spike was in his element, but the markings on Bel’s face only hid the fact that she had lost all colour. Even her lips were bloodless.
As for me, I’d lost the shakes, but I still wanted to play it cautious. This was all new. I wasn’t a mercenary, though I’d hung with them. I wasn’t Action Man or GI Joe. I wasn’t Spike.
‘What about all the regular hippies?’ he asked.
‘They’ve shipped out.’
‘That’s perfect. That’s beautiful.’ He fixed his eyes on me. ‘I got them here, man,’ he whispered. He was holding four short, fat cylinders.
‘So you keep saying.’
‘When are we going to do it?’
I looked to Bel, who nodded. ‘We’re doing it now,’ I said.
‘Well, all right then,’ said Spike, disappearing back into the gloom.
Bel and I stared at one another for a while. I wanted to kiss her, and I think she knew it. But she just smiled and nodded again, then squeezed my shoulder and started creeping away in the opposite direction from Spike.
It was my play now. I rested the Varmint’s stock against my shoulder again and took a look. I knew I had to give Spike and Bel a minute or two. The guards had finished their cigarettes. They were kicking their heels. I liked the way they were lined up on the porch like targets on some fairground rifle-stall. I heard the static crash of a radio, and saw one of them lift a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. I was glad now that we hadn’t hit the men at the checkpoint. It would have meant a welcoming committee.
But then at least a welcoming committee would have prompted action.
I counted up to thirty. Then I did it again.
When I reached twenty-nine for the second time, I started firing. I’m no speed-shooter, remember, but I knew I had to knock down as many of these guards as I could. I wasn’t concentrating on any clever shots, I just aimed to hit the targets anywhere I could.