Kier trotted up the creek now, hoping that Jessie could keep up.
It made no sense, he told himself. They had gone a couple of miles underground. Tracking should have been impossible. Dogs couldn't follow their bodies coated in charcoal and pine scent, even assuming they brought bloodhounds this far into the mountains. Tillman probably was not fooled by the avalanche, lost no time, and had a man or two follow each creek down the mountain. If so, he had an uncanny ability to predict Kier's methods.
Kier heard her breathing and could see her sides heaving. Sprinting up this mountian with all the rubble and loose rock under the snow was physically punishing. Altitude with the resulting lack of oxygen made it worse.
For just a moment he would stop.
"How are you?"
"Maybe I should just end the pain-let you go alone and save the world. I'm holding you back."
"Give me your gun. Everything," he said.
Woodenly, she handed him the M-16, the pistol, and two grenades.
"I need you to give this everything you've got… like at the pond. I'm not leaving you and we're going to jog-even on the ledge."
"No." She shook her head.
"Yes."
He turned up the creek. The pep talk wasn't working. Awakened from a sound sleep, her belly full of food, and now sprinting, no doubt to the point of nausea, she looked wiped out. Probably making her angry was the best medicine.
''I don't know how they let women in the FBI,'' he mumbled.
She grabbed his arm.
"What did you say?"
"I don't know how they let Tillman get past the FBI."
"That's not what you said."
Then he started running up the mountain.
She was almost certain she understood him. It was such a stupid thing to say. Trying to suggest that she wasn't tough or lacked determination just to get her to run up a hill. It was infuriating. After all their talks, how could he resort to this sort of thing? She wanted to tell him to get lost, but she wanted to really skewer him, and he wouldn't slow down. Her chest burned, and killer pain squeezed at her temples. Making her yet more miserable, borderline nausea had begun creeping into her gut. She considered that she might be suffering a mild heart attack. God, she would get even with him.
Slick from the constant wet, the limestone made for ankle-jarring, knee-banging frustration. When they reached the bottom of the chute and her memory of it returned, she gave an involuntary groan.
"Wait here," Kier said.
"Is that a joke?"
Without a word he began scrambling furiously with hands and feet up the edge of the water-filled shoot. He disappeared in the dark shadows of first light. She heard a rock tumbling and then another. Instinctively, she stepped back. When at last she heard a yell she began groping for a line and was almost disappointed when she saw its outline in the gray light. Knowing Kier, she tied it firmly around her waist, managing only through great effort to stay on her feet as he pulled her up.
At last they were on the dreaded ledge. Before they began, Kier looked at her. Dawn was just breaking.
"The cavern is the one place they can't corner us or catch us. Not even infrared will work. Once we go in there, they have to either bring in an army or wait."
"Okay."
She was thinking about how exposed they would be. She forced herself to follow Kier's brisk walk along the ledge until he dropped flat on his face and she almost landed on top of him, lying between his legs, her chin on his butt. Kier looked 360 degrees, then pointed to something that froze her body stock-still.
An M-16 will kill at a mile, although aiming at such great distances was problematic because the bullet traveled in an arched trajectory. Shooting a couple of people at six hundred yards was a simple matter.
There were two groups of men, one on the slope far beneath their ledge and one on the mountainside at their elevation, but behind them. Each group stood perhaps six hundred yards distant. Both groups had emerged from the heavy forest at about the same time. She and Kier had five or six hundred feet remaining to reach the cave, at least half the length of the ledge. The worst part was ahead. It was inconceivable that they would not be seen.
Now they crawled. Sharp rocks grated over her thighs and belly. Nothing could be dislodged; not a single one of the hundreds of golf-ball-sized chunks could leave the ledge. One ping would bring field glasses searching around to their tiny outcropping. Watching Kier, she did as he did. An elbow and a knee moved together, but slowly, carefully, with exasperating precision. There was no option as to where to place her reddened elbows and skinned knees. Using the captured binoculars to study their hunters, Kier moved when the groups moved, stopped when they stopped.
Keeping Kier's pace while maintaining concentration was punishing. Soon Jessie found herself groaning every time an elbow caught the rock or came down too hard. Each little stone that branded a knee became hateful.
Then, in a split second, the glimmer of hope that had spurred her on evaporated. Just ahead of them two more men walked on their very same ledge, toward the entrance to the cavern. Kier and Jessie could not go up, they could not go down, and they could not stay put. If they shot the two in front of them, the bodies would fall and the men below would see them instantly. The near certainty that she would die hid in the darkened corners of her mind, waiting like a cancer to take it over. There would be no need to continue struggling once she accepted it.
For a few seconds, surrender seemed sensible. On further reflection, it seemed fully justified. It was only her innate grit that made her want to go out fighting.
Chapter 24
A strong arm needs a stronger heart.
The two men on the ledge ahead wore camouflage whites. Any moment now, they would turn, check their back trail, and fire. When they did, bullets would start flying from three directions.
For once, Kier did not appear to have an immediate plan of action. Reaching up, she tugged at her M-16. Kier stopped to slip the carrying strap from his torso.
Something Dunfee had told Jessie came to mind. The most brilliant escapes relied on distraction. But how could these men be distracted?
Desperation hatched an idea. Crawling onto Kier's back, she whispered in his ear.
"We need them to drop on the ledge, right?"
"To shoot them without their bodies falling-yes."
Quickly she explained her idea.
Time stretched out. The passing seconds seemed like pearls dropping through honey. At any moment, they might be spotted-and her plan required time. They backtracked twenty feet to a slight bend where they would be less visible. After removing his pack, Kier donned the mountain-climbing harness he'd retrieved from under the cabin, then scampered up the rock face at the point offering the best handholds. He would have to traverse the face of the cliff above the men, using nothing but natural handholds and footholds. If no such climbing aids existed, or if he made a sound, or if the troopers happened to look up, that would be the end.
As he scaled the cliff, Jessie started to strip. There was no sexual purpose in what she did. These men would not be seduced on a rocky ledge or dissuaded from their plan by anything so pedestrian as sex. Of that she was certain. Rather her idea was to appear harmless. A naked person didn't pose danger. In the second or two that it would take for them to take stock of her, she had to convince them that she knew something important, even vital.
Her toes were three or four inches from the precipice. She held herself against the rock. After finishing the shirt buttons, she tried to shed the coats. First the outer arm. Dizzying height froze her mind and her movements. She took one hand from its solid perch, then shrugged her shoulder, slipping off the coat while rocking precariously on the balls of her feet. Her calves began to burn from the squatting.