Walt shut down the electronics; he had no idea how they’d ever get the glider out of there, but that was the least of his worries. He popped open the dome, checked his GPS, and hand-signaled Brandon toward the far side of the field. Brandon gave him a thumbs-up and climbed out. The two men separated without a word.
Walt dug into his pack for the night vision headset. Though not fond of the technology, he appreciated the results: he could see far more clearly and much farther, the electronic landscape black and an eerie green but vivid. For now, he wore the contraption, not thrilled with the way it limited peripheral vision.
It took him a moment to distinguish what he heard: not coyote, not wolf, but a dog’s barking. Maybe two. Well away to his left-south- quite possibly across the river.
Then another sound: snowmobile.
Had his own guys jumped the gun and raided the cabin ahead of his signal? If Mark Aker was indeed out there, his life had just been put in great jeopardy.
Then a second thought flashed through his mind: had Roy Coats somehow seen the glider or been warned in advance of the raid?
Trudging on snowshoes, Walt hurried in the general direction of the cabin, ignoring the barking for now. If Mark was being held in the cabin, then the existence of the snowmobile meant one less man to guard Mark.
He would cut around to the east of the compound, leaving Brandon to approach from the northwest. Careful not to fall, he picked up his pace, believing time was suddenly in his favor.
61
BRANDON MOVED CAUTIOUSLY, THE LANDSCAPE AHEAD OF him green and black through the night vision goggles. A slight glow of greenish white in the sky ahead suggested the cabin-the exhaust from a woodstove, more than likely. But judging distance accurately was difficult, and, though he’d trained with the goggles, he had no idea if that glow was a hundred feet away or five hundred yards. Worse, the forest was immature, a victim of a massive forest fire a decade earlier, resulting in a mixture of towering dead tree trunks and a dense undergrowth of twenty-foot pines, bramble, and piles of decomposing slash from the earlier fire. Finding a way through it was challenging, due to the thick undergrowth. Had it not been for the GPS, Brandon would have lost his way. Instead, he found himself forced to take a long way around to the cabin because of a spine of rocky hill that separated the cabin from the field where they’d landed the glider.
His trailing leg felt the tension, though too late. The snowshoe had caught on something. Looking down, he saw the trip wire pull free and go slack.
He quickly took five long strides and dove into the snow, covering his head, expecting an antipersonnel mine to blow. He waited for a count of five. Then ten.
No explosion.
So the trip wire was a perimeter warning device.
He’d just officially entered the compound. And now, due to his stupidity, they knew he was here.
He placed his glove to his throat and squeezed, initiating radio contact with the sheriff.
“I tripped a wire,” he said. The radios were digital; there was no way any communication between the task force would be intercepted.
“Roger that.” The sheriff’s voice, calm and collected.
“I’ve got some highlights at tree level.”
“Three hundred yards north-northeast of my position,” the sheriff said, confirming he’d seen them too.
“North-northwest for me,” he said, checking the GPS, “so we’ve got good angles.”
“Find some high ground. Or some place defensible. Let them come to you. Stay in radio com. If you hear them coming, let me know. I’ll create a diversion and bring in backup. Keep ’em guessing.”
“Roger that.”
“No heroics.”
“Out,” Brandon said. He felt lousy for tripping that wire. The sheriff might feel obligated now to bring in the others. Their arrival would make Aker’s situation all the more tenuous.
The purpose of Brandon and Walt advancing the raid was to capitalize on the element of surprise. They had to squeeze the cabin from two directions to be effective.
There was no way he was letting up his end. He wasn’t one to go against orders, but he did so now, knowing full well the sheriff wasn’t going to wait. He wasn’t going to let him go in there alone.
THE PREY RETURNS, the narrator’s voice said inside the head of Roy Coats as he saw the LED flash on the wall-mounted box, indicating a perimeter breach. A hunter’s patience is his greatest asset.
He wanted this to be fun.
He leaned forward and grabbed for the walkie-talkie. His leg stung, and he worried he’d busted open the scab again. The damn thing wouldn’t stop bleeding.
“Newbs. Area three’s been tripped. Looks like the doc’s coming back home for some reprovisioning.”
“I’m on it,” Newbs reported.
“Let me know when you have him.”
Starved and dehydrated, the prey returns to camp, driven by the uncanny will to survive. Having foraged for nearly two days, he sees the camp as his only hope and reluctantly returns to his keeper. But the hunter is aware of the return. His patience has paid off. He will be only too happy to welcome him back.
62
FOR ALL HIS STUDY, ALL THE READING HE’D DONE, MARK Aker was shocked to witness firsthand how a bear-even a drugged bear-could come out of hibernation so quickly. As the bear sat up, Aker slipped farther down behind it so that, had the creature lay back down, it would have crushed him.
The bear fixed its attention on the mouth of the cave and the barking just beyond: a dog had reached the entrance, jutting its snarling snout in and out of the cave, teeth glaring, while held back by the cave’s pungent odors, the dog’s persuasive survival instincts.
The blinding darkness prevented Aker from actually seeing the bear glance back toward him, but there was a moment’s hesitation, followed by the sound of the animal’s sniffing, when Aker knew he’d been found out. The bear had definitely smelled him, but, distracted by the dog’s ferocity, had turned in that direction.
Then light caught the top of the cave-a flashlight-silhouetting the massive bear as it charged and swiped. The dog yipped and howled. The beam of the flashlight wavered.
“Shit!” he heard a man shout, also incredibly close.
A single gunshot rang out, followed by the man’s sickening wail, as the bear lunged farther from the cave. Another cry, more desperate.
Coats, or Gearbox, had followed the dog too closely, had approached the cave too quickly, had been stunned to discover a bear instead of the escaped veterinarian.
As the bear broke out of the cave, Aker followed closely. The man-Gearbox, judging by his size-had dropped the flashlight. It was blood-covered. The bear was lumbering off in the direction of the road, far faster than his simple movement implied, but too drugged, or wounded, to pursue with much enthusiasm.
The dog was gored at the neck, lying in the snow. The blood surrounding the fallen flashlight was not the dog’s. The quantity of spilled blood implied the bear had gotten a fair piece of Gearbox as well.
Weak with fatigue and hunger, and stiff from his lack of movement, Aker picked up the flashlight and trained it on the dog, then in the direction of the noises. The bear was still in pursuit of Gearbox, who was himself surprisingly fast and able on snowshoes. If Aker had any chance to get away, it was now.
The bear might have been wounded by the gunshot, but, if so, it had only made it more angry.
Aker looked down at the wounded dog again and found himself unable to leave it there to bleed out and die.
He bent down, hoisted the dog over his shoulders, and, holding the animal’s legs around his neck, made his way through the close-set rocks, knowing the terrain would discourage the bear from following. All the bear wanted was some sleep.
In a moment, the snow would get too deep for just his boots. Twenty yards from the cave, he realized he had no snowshoes, but he was not about to turn back. The bear would return at some point, the drugs contributing to its bad temper. For now, he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the cave as possible.