“What the hell is that for?” he asked himself.
He examined his surroundings. He knew this area fairly well, which was to his advantage. The hill range had two peaks, Hecla to the north and Beinn Mhor to the south, each at about two thousand feet. Reeve had managed to go unnoticed for whole weekends when tracked by up to a dozen men, and he’d only had part of this wilderness to play with. But now he had to assume he was up against professionals.
This time, he really was playing for his life.
Creech was out of sight. Reeve knew Jay wouldn’t bother with him anyway: he couldn’t afford to lose one-third of his force. But just in case, Reeve bided his time until Jay and his men could see him clearly. He pulled on trousers, socks, and boots, and tied the arms of his shirt around his neck, so it flapped like a cape. It would dry quicker that way. Then he picked up his backpack and pistol and headed into the hills, making sure his pursuers could see the direction he was taking.
He heard the bullet crack behind him but didn’t slow down. His pursuers were carrying MP5s; Reeve knew the things were as accurate as rifles up to about a hundred yards, but he was well out of that range. They were just wasting ammo, and soon realized it. Reeve came to the top of the first rise and turned his head to watch. They were close to the shore now. He had maybe four or five minutes on them.
He started running.
TWENTY-FIVE
JAY WAITED TILL THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT before leaping out of the dinghy onto land. He was still fairly dry, and wanted to stay that way. The others didn’t mind splashing into the knee-deep water, clambering over the rocks onto land. They brought the inflatables with them, and weighed them down with rocks so they wouldn’t be blown back to sea.
“Do we split up?” Choa asked.
“Let’s stick together,” Jay said. “If it becomes necessary later, we can split up.” He had torn a page out of their map book-the one showing the Western Isles-but it was a driver’s map, not a walker’s. It didn’t tell him much about the terrain except that they were a long way from civilization.
“Let’s go,” he said, folding the map back into his pocket. “Choa, check your ammo clip.”
Choa had been the one who had blasted away at Reeve, on the principle that if you could see your target, you were as well to have a go at hitting it. Choa had never used the MP5 before. He’d liked firing it so much he was itching to fire it again. He held it ready, safety catch off.
“Space out,” Jay told his men. “Let’s not make any easy targets. Choa, you watch our backs, in case he comes around us.”
“You don’t think he’ll just run?” Hestler asked.
“It would make sense,” Jay admitted. “He’s wet and most probably tired. He knows the odds. But I don’t think he’ll run. He wants this over as badly as I do.”
“No matter who wins?”
Jay looked at Hestler. “No matter who wins,” he said. “It’s playing the game that counts.”
They marched in silence after that, Jay using hand signals to show when he thought they were bunching up too much. They didn’t march in a line, but spread themselves out, making a more random pattern which would be harder for an enemy to hit. Jay wondered if Reeve had a plan. Reeve’s house was only five or so miles distant; it made sense that, running an adventure center, he’d know these hills better than they did. He might know them very well indeed.
Jay knew it was three against one, but taking everything else into account, those weren’t ideal odds. He wished he had an Ordnance Survey map of the area, something that would give him a better idea of what they were up against. But all he had were his eyes and his instincts.
And the knowledge that Gordon Reeve had almost got them both killed.
The rain started again, like mischievous needles jabbing the skin. They walked into it face-on. Jay knew Reeve wouldn’t keep moving in a straight line; that direction would take him to civilization too quickly. He’d be circling around at some point, either towards Hecla or Beinn Mhor. If there had been three men with him, Jay would have split the group in half, a two-man patrol in either direction, but he only had two men left. He didn’t regret killing the Chicano, not for an instant, but another man would have been useful. He had Benny and Carl’s word for it that their brother Hector, plus Watts and Schlecht, were lying dead back at the scene of the explosion. Jay had promised to come back for the two injured men. He wasn’t sure if it was a promise he would fulfill.
He’d been right about one thing: the phony anthrax signs had been crazy. The Philosopher had known what he was doing. Creech had been allowed to know about them, and had spilled his guts to Jay… and Jay had been tricked into thinking he knew something important. They’d been a ruse, nothing more, the real trick had been the trip wires. He guessed now that his own unit had stopped just short of encountering one.
Nice, Gordon-very nice.
Jay and his two men came to a high point and looked into the deep valley below. There was no sign of Reeve and no visible hiding place. But Choa, with his hunter’s eyes, spotted something, a dark shape against the hillside. They approached cautiously, but it was just a groove in the earth, maybe a foot deep, six feet long, and a couple of feet wide.
“It’s a scrape,” Jay said.
“A what?” Hestler asked.
“A hide. You scrape away the earth, then lie in the hole. Put some netting over you and you’re hidden from a distance.” Jay looked around, realizing. “He uses this area for his training courses. There must have been a manhunt at some stage. There could be dozens of these spread out across the hills.”
“So he could be hiding?”
“Yes.”
“So maybe we’ve walked right past him; maybe he’s already behind us.” Hestler eased his catch off. “I say we split up, that way we cover more ground. We could be here all night otherwise.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Choa offered. “Get us cold and lost, wet and hungry. Stalking us, just waiting for concentration to lapse.”
“He’s only one man,” Hestler growled. He was still looking around, daring anything to move. Jay noticed Hestler’s MP5 was set to full auto.
“All right,” Jay said, “you two head north. I’ll head south. There are two peaks. We each circle one and RV back at the dinghies. Keep in touch by two-way. It might take a few hours. It won’t be dark by the time we finish. If there’s no result, we think again.”
“Sounds good to me,” Hestler said, setting off. “Sooner we start, sooner we finish.”
Choa gave Jay a doubting look, but set off after his partner.
Jay decided after they’d gone to make straight for the summit of Beinn Mhor. He’d be more of a target, but on the plus side he could take in the country below with a single sweep.
“Just do it,” he told himself, beginning to climb.
“This is fucking unbelievable,” Hestler told Choa. “There were ten of us at the start, how the fuck did we get to this?”
“Search me.”
“Ten against one. He’s fucked us up nicely. I’d like to tear him a new asshole.”
“You think he needs two?”
Hestler turned to Choa. “He’s likely to be shitting himself so much, maybe he will at that.”
Choa said nothing. He knew words came free; as a result people talked too much. Sometimes people could talk themselves into believing they were superhuman. Talking could make you crazy.