Grisha glanced back, wishing Wing would fire the first shot. The only thing in sight was the Cossack. He looked back at the woodsman.
He wasn’t there.
His training instantly took over. Heart hammering, he abruptly knotted down into a crouch.
A blast from behind blew away a fist-sized chunk of the tree next to where his head had been. Grisha threw himself to the side as another blast tore into the space he’d just vacated. He rolled down the slight slope away from the attacker, but toward the Cossack.
The ridge top erupted in gunfire. The Cossack staggered backward under the force of hits and fell to the ground. Grisha leaped up and ran toward cover.
Expecting to be hit or killed at any moment, he grunted in surprise as he reached the relative protection of the forest. He hunched down, eyes flashing about, his breath shuddering in and out. He smelled sour, even to himself.
The air stood still, cooler now than earlier. The temperature would drop tonight, he decided.
He heard Claude call out, “Grisha! Where are you?”
Slowly his eyes moved over every object in his sight. Nothing moved. Where did he go?
“Grisha? You okay?” Nik called from nearby.
“Stay down!” Grisha yelled. “There’s another one over here.”
Movement to his right. Claude edged into the trees like a large cat. Nik eased up behind him.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But he damn near got me, twice.”
Wing suddenly slid up beside him. One of her hands steamed, covered in blood.
“We already got three,” she said, her eyes searching out ahead of them.
“Maybe he moved over and we caught him?”
“Big guy with a huge beard and biceps big as one of your thighs?”
“No. We didn’t get anyone like that,” she said in a low voice.
“There’s one more and he’s in there.” Grisha nodded toward the thick forest at meadow edge. “He’s very good. Well, good enough to make a fool of me,” Grisha said and forced a chuckle.
“You’re not green in the bush. You’re just out of practice.” She looked around and slowly rose to her feet. “C’mon.” She nudged him and moved forward.
He glanced down at her hand. “You’re hurt.”
“Not my blood. C’mon.”
Grisha put three meters between them so a near miss of one wouldn’t hit someone else. They moved quietly ahead with Nik on one side and Claude off on the other. After a hundred meters all four stopped as if on command.
The forest stood in front of them, full of brush, wind fallen limbs, and rocks. Wing moved close to Grisha again and spoke quietly. “Are you sure he came this direction?”
“If he hadn’t, one of you would have seen him,” Grisha said.
“Well, since we haven’t come across him by now, he’s probably escaped,” she said with a sigh. “We need to move on before it gets any later, we have a long way to go.”
“I hope we got the bastard that killed Alex,” Nik blurted.
Wing regarded him coolly. “You didn’t even know Alex. Why are you so eager to avenge his death?”
“Because he was important to you.” Nik angled away from them suddenly, pretending the brush forced his detour.
Grisha hurried back to the windfall where he had taken cover. With his sheath knife he dug the mushroomed slug out of the damaged wood. As they came together on the trail he held it out in his hand for them to look at. Nobody commented.
“Okay, Claude, you take point, I’ll take flank,” Wing said. “Nik, if you’ll keep quiet, I want you back with me.”
They set off toward Denali.
13
Bear Crepov slid Claw back into its sheath, put his rifle on safety, and eased out of the old wolf den. That had been too close. His heart still pounded nearly as much as it had when they came within a meter of where he lay.
He had been prepared to go down fighting. Two close calls in the space of ten minutes. Perhaps he was getting too old to be hunting traitors and DSM
mercenaries. These are well-trained people, he decided.
He walked over to where the Cossack lay frowning at the sky. Surprisingly, the rabble hadn’t shot this fool as soon as they saw him. Three holes in the sergeant’s chest testified to a quick death.
Crepov searched the corpse, found identity papers, six wadded rubles, and some coins. One coin was French-Canadian. He shoved everything into his pockets. After pulling the bandoleer off the Cossack, he slipped it over his shoulder and went off to find his other dead.
Birds broke into song. Good, no more strangers around. Wolverine White grinned at the foliage with twin smiles. White’s own knife still protruded from his throat.
Bear felt a shiver run through him. This wiry English turncoat had been his best friend. They’d done it all together.
He pulled the insulting knife out of the death wound, wiped it absently on his dirty cotton pants, and dropped it in his small pouch.
“I’ll gut every one of ’em for you, Wolverine!” he said with a lump in his throat. “I promise.”
He ambled back down the trail toward the construction site. For a moment he entertained the thought of seeking out the third casualty, but decided not to waste the time. Bukowski had just been a Pole anyway.
“Well, I got one ear for the Czar,” he said to the trail. The Indian at dawn. Too bad he couldn’t get the scum to talk. In a way the Indian had outsmarted him.
As soon as Bear had begun to skin him to loosen his tongue, the Indian had screamed defiantly in their face and thrown himself on the blade. “You have to admire a man like that,” he muttered, lengthening his stride.
14
In the six days it took them to reach the village of Toklat on the Toklat River, Grisha gained weight. Nik tried incessantly to talk with Wing, which made Grisha resentful.
On the second day she had finally stopped and all but shouted, “What don’t you understand about ‘shut up and be quiet’? We have no idea if we are being followed or not. We all have to maintain discipline, even you.”
Nik didn’t open his mouth for the rest of the journey. Grisha felt embarrassed for him, as well as vindicated. Nik had been getting dangerously loud.
The first snow of the season dusted lightly through the trees as they entered the village. A few barking dogs and two men, standing silent as sentinels, constituted their welcoming committee.
“Wing, Claude, we’re glad to see you,” the older man said. “Who are your friends?”
Quickly Wing introduced them to Chandalar Roy and Nathan Roubitaux.
“Chan, here, is the grand old man of the movement,” Wing said.
Chan’s long, white hair hung down his back, tied in a ponytail; wrinkles of many decades crisscrossed his face. Sharp, intelligent eyes closely assessed the new arrivals. A spare and slightly stooped man, he stood half a head shorter than anyone else present.
Wing continued, “And Nathan is—”
“Let them learn for themselves,” Nathan said.
Nathan’s disturbing, piercing eyes glowed from his wide, pock-marked face. His dark, unruly hair stuck out in every direction. He stood half a head taller than Grisha, but probably weighed the same. The word sinewy came to mind as Grisha assessed him.
“Sure.” Wing shrugged. “Any word from Slayer?”
“He is safe.” Chandalar frowned. “Alex is—”
“I know. I heard him die.”
“I mourn with you,” Chan said.
She nodded. “These two are for you to train,” she said briskly. “Claude and I must leave in the morning.”