Necessary Evil

Chapter 15

Kier had to know how they had found him so quickly. Whatever they had done might work again.

He sprinted to within fifty yards of the turnoff to the hut, then jumped into the trees, waiting. Seconds after he stopped, another explosion reverberated in the still mountain air. A familiar voice shrieked his name.

"Kier!"

Now he understood. The impulse to run up the trail was overwhelming, but he did not. Instead he held his fist against his head and waited for the boy's screaming to stop. But it didn't. The voice was that of James Cole, a Tilok teen as tough as they came.

Then it struck him. If James was in trouble, he would never shout in an out-of-control voice. This caricature of hysteria was meant to tip Kier off. James had far more discipline.

Kier tried to imagine the scene up on the hill. As they approached the cave, the lead man would have hit the first grenade. They would have been approaching in a loose, spread-out pattern with the second man at least fifty feet behind the first. After the initial grenade blast, they would be more careful. But they would have seen the cave, the dying fire, and the two empty beds. Finding no more grenades on the trail, they'd enter, believing they were on the heels of their quarry. They would suppose that the beds were still warm from the occupants. Nobody sets a grenade in the middle of his camp.

And that was why the first man in the camp, a little overeager to rekindle the almost dead fire, had tripped it.

Sneaking quietly through the forest, Kier approached the bend where he and Jessie had jumped off the trail to go to the hut. Twenty feet from the little tree with the hollow base, he waited and listened. He heard the choked whispers of excited men. Putting his radio to his ear, he clicked through all six channels. He heard nothing. Either they weren't speaking, or they had changed the code. Just in case they had something to say to him, he turned back to the channel last used at the cabin.

Then he heard a footfall, the faint whoosh of a boot in deep snow. A silent pause distilled his tension. He was waiting between steps. After several seconds, the sound of branches on fabric came from over his left shoulder.

The stalker was very close, just on the uphill side of the trail, apparently moving back toward the cave. James was calling only occasionally now, but when he did, it was the same anguished cry. Kier turned his head toward the nearby sounds, but could see nothing through the tangle of branches. Then came the noise of two quick steps, and Kier's ears filled with his own heartbeat. Taking a deep breath, he reached to his belt, pulling out the silenced. 45. By now the movement was just ahead of him. Several steps brought the man even closer. Maybe he was trying to come back to the path. Standing on the downhill edge of the tunnellike passage, Kier moved his head just enough to get a clear view of the trail in front of him.

The camouflaged barrel of an automatic rifle was the first thing Kier saw. In a moment, the man stepped out of the brush. Not more than five feet from Kier, he stared down at the ground, obviously worried about another booby trap. The hood of his parka hung on his back, so he could listen. Salt-and-pepper hair at the fringe of his helmet indicated the man had a little age.

''Don't move," Kier said in a loud whisper. ''Drop the gun."

After a moment, the man loosed the automatic rifle and it fell to the snow.

"We've got your friend the boy back at the cave. We'll make a deal."

"No deal. What was on that plane?"

"Just a bunch of research that you stole."

"Tell me what you know if you don't want to die."

Just then, the third grenade went off, not more than one hundred feet away on the little trail to the hut. Kier flinched. So did the man. That one would have killed somebody, Kier knew.

"You're gonna die," the man said. "You're pissin' us off."

''How many on this ridge?''

The man wouldn't speak again.

''Put your hands behind your head,'' Kier ordered. He frisked the man, removing all his weapons. There was a silenced. 45, four grenades, his automatic, a field knife, and a smaller pistol on the man's calf. "Facedown in the snow," Kier said, proceeding to pull off the man's coat.

''Take off the shirt and the arctic underwear. Drop your pants to your ankles."

"I'll freeze to death."

"Not if you talk to me."

Kier placed the silenced pistol to the back of the man's head. The man removed his clothes.

"I want to know how many of you there are." Kier shoved him down and kicked snow over the man's bare back, thighs, and buttocks. "If I don't like the answer, I'm just going to invite you to lie there in the snow."

The man said nothing, but began shaking.

"Suit yourself. I guess you won't be needing these." Kier picked up the man's clothing and set them in a pile. "Make a nice fire." Then Kier knelt down and began untying the man's boots. "Toes get frostbite really fast. Bad circulation down there at the feet." Kier yanked off the first boot. "They turn blue and rot. It's not a pretty sight."

He pulled off the second boot, then the thick wool socks, thrusting the man's feet into the snow.

"I'm freezing," the man said through gritted teeth.

"Not yet, but soon." Kier kicked more snow over the man. "You ever see a man who's lost half his foot to frostbite? Hobbles around-can't keep his balance. One guy I heard of actually lost both feet. And your nose and fingers will probably go in the next thirty minutes. Notice how they're going numb now? Already feels like dead flesh, doesn't it?"

"If I talk, can I get up and put on my clothes?"

"Tell me how to fix this radio and I'll think about it."

"They'll kill me if I do that."

"The nose. The fingers. The toes. And guess what else goes? You're lying on your belly, you know."

The man cursed in long, elaborate phrases that seemed to have no end. Kier had never heard anything quite like it. "All right, all right. Press star, then punch the year 1776 into the key pad, then the date 07-04-76, then star again."

Kier did as instructed.

"I don't hear anything."

"It's because nobody's talking. Now can I get up?"

Suddenly, the Indian boy's screams took on a calmer, but more robust tone. James Cole was in real pain now. The boy's agony carried in his cries.

"What are they doing to the boy?"

"Probably ripping off his nails with a set of pliers."

"Call and make them stop or you're dead."

"Won't do any good."

"Do it." Kier held the radio to the man's lips and gritted his teeth through the boy's next scream.

"Base, this is Oregon."

"Go ahead, Oregon."

"Stop with the boy or I'm dead."

There was a pause.

"Say again, Oregon."

"Stop with the boy or I'm dead!"

"Sorry-" Something cut the man's voice off. There were muffled choking sounds over the radio, then quiet.

Kier grabbed the radio and listened, but heard nothing except static.

James Cole let out a war whoop that rang through the forest. Then there was only the silence of the falling snow.

"Guess we can go back to the number of men on this mountain," Kier said, mystified as to how the boy might have gotten free. It was unthinkable that James could have overcome a trained soldier, especially since they would have had him in cuffs.

"Ten went up this ridge of the mountain, but only six went up this fork of Hobbs Ridge with the Indian boy. Brennan thought you probably wouldn't go someplace a lot of people know about. They called Brennan and the other four on the radio when the grenade went. They're split in pairs. One pan-is at least four hours away. The other is more. Now let me up."

Because of his shaking, the man's words were almost unintelligible.

"You said this ridge of the mountain. What about the other ridge to the northwest and the ridge to the southeast?"

"At least three on each, nobody on the back side of the mountain yet. Of course, that doesn't count the law. Soon you're gonna be a fugitive, you know. The story is you're a thief trying to get rich off other people's research."

"Who do you work for?"

"Oh, come on. They're gonna tell a grunt like me? I'm a mercenary on contract. I work for the colonel back down the mountain. Who he works for, I don't know and I don't care."

"What's the colonel's name?"

"Goes by Brennan, but nobody uses a real name."

"Who does he report to?"

"I don't know. Guy doesn't come around much. Think he goes by Grant."

Kier sensed that the man wasn't giving him everything. Saying nothing, he began pushing even more snow on his captive.

"No," the man said, sounding panicked.

Kier withdrew his knife and held it to the man's Achilles tendon.

"Please, don't cripple me here on the mountain."

Pressing, Kier drew blood.

"All right!" the man said. "Brennan and Doyle report to a guy who goes by the code name Grant, General Grant. Brennan called him 'Mr. T' once, then shut up real fast. That's all I know."

"So where is Mr. T?"

"Johnson City. I don't know."

Kier kicked more snow, then stepped on the man's feet, driving them deeper.

The man half screamed. ''Last night they found a lady named Donahue. Let her go, I guess. Command station's at Donahues'. General Grant's in Johnson City. Or maybe at that clinic of theirs. That's all I know."

"Tell me everything you know about the general-Mr. T."

"He's rich. Got a company of some kind, and he's a big hunter they say. He was out looking at the tracks you left. He's got the clinic over by the reservation. I don't know any more than that. He talks to Brennan and Doyle, not me. I lied about the law. They're scared of the law until we find those volumes. I swear that's all I know."

"Tell me about the clinic."

"I've only been there one time. I don't know."

"What did you do there?"

"Nothing just… moved stuff around."

"Tell me exactly."

''Took papers from the wreckage there by snowmobile. Most of it was all burned, but what was half burned or still readable, we put in boxes and took there."

"Where exactly did you put these boxes?"

''I don't know. I'm telling you I was blindfolded to get down there. It seemed like a basement-it was all concrete. Now let me up or I'm gonna die."

"Did they tell you about a virus or bacteria-danger of infection from the plane?"

"Huh?"

"Yeah, huh. They had an infectious-disease freak show on that plane, with viruses and bacteria and a few special things developed by the geniuses who hired you. I could have been exposed to something."

"You're bluffing."

"Why do you suppose Mr. T's ass is so far away? Have you seen him get near the plane? Why would I make this stuff up?"

"That would explain the suits. We didn't go near the pieces of the plane. Some other guys with special suits did. You… you touched my clothes."

"If I was you, I wouldn't take them back. Or I'd make sure I got medical treatment. Maybe you'd like to take the clothes from the guy just down the hill here. He hasn't been near me.''

"You bastard. I can't even wear my boots."

"Quite right. With any luck the dead guy didn't get his feet blown off. Then again, maybe he did."

"Look, I'm freezing. I got to get up."

"Talk to me."

"Listen, you gotta let me up. I can't feel things anymore." The man's voice had risen to a shriller pitch.

"How did you guys get to the crash site so fast?"

"Damn it, I don't know this stuff."

"Your balls are gonna look like purple plums unless I get some answers."

"Savage. Bastard." Kier waited while the man swore epithets more vociferously than before. "Have you no human bone in your body?" the soldier said through gritted teeth, his whole body convulsing as he tried lifting his middle out of the snow. Kier put his foot on the man's buttocks, holding him down.

"We were waiting for the plane to drop something. It was to drop a… a… bunch of pods. It wasn't supposed to crash. We don't know why that happened."

"What was the plane supposed to drop?"

''Something for a damn experiment. And a bunch of papers, that's all I know. They don't tell us."

"You must have surmised."

"Look, I don't know."

"You guessed. You speculated."

"I'm gonna die, mister," the man cried, obviously starting to break.

"What did you imagine?"

"We thought maybe… it was some military experiment. Something to sell to the military… worked out by the government. And then there was… something to do with the Indian reservation."

"Why did you think that?"

"Because they seem to know a lot about the Indians, that's why."

Kier's blood ran cold. Every Tilok on the reservation was a potential guinea pig-including his own mother.

"Be more specific. What do they know about the Indians?"

"Well, they had us go to a mink farm and take some minks. In the middle of the night."

"What did you do with the minks?"

"Brought them to the lab."

''How many of you were involved in this?''

''Just me and another guy. They said they thought the natives might have gotten something from the minks. We just went and got about five. It was for some kind of test."

"What kind of a test?"

"One of the science types whispered about a test. 'When the test was done,' he said. And we had supplies for a few days. I swear to you, I don't know-they told us nothing except what I already told you." The man shook so badly he seemed to be convulsing. ''Then more men came. We were supposed to get stuff dropped from the plane. I swear to God that's everything I know."

"There was a fancy black box on that plane. It had lab summaries. Why do they want it so bad?"

"There were s- s- six volumes. Number five and six are still missing. They're going nuts over Volume Six especially. I don't know why! Le- le- let me up. Please!"

"Tell me Mr. T's name. You must have heard something."

"Tillman, I think. Tillman, damn it."

Fortunately, the dead man lived up to his name-"Texas." He was big, with boots that would suit Kier's purposes. Apparently Texas had tripped the wire, then looked in horror to see what he had done. Since it had taken a moment for the grenade to blow, it had caught him in the face, with the result that there wasn't much of the head left. Blood was everywhere, and the clothes riddled with shrapnel.

"I have some disappointing news for you."

"What?" the man said, standing on the dead body to try to keep his feet out of the snow.

"You're going to wear his boots, and my shirt."

The man just stared vacantly.

"Don't take it so hard. If I've got a virus or bacterial infection, it's inside me. It's my breathing on you or touching your skin after I've blown my nose or wiped my ass that could kill you."

Kier gave the man the boots with no socks. Then the man put on Kier's shirt. Kier took his captive's outer clothes, which were tight but wearable.

"I don't have time for the truth-or-consequences test. So we'll cut straight to the good stuff. You are going to get on this radio and say exactly what I tell you. If you say anything else, I will shoot you instantly. If you do it right, I'm going to let you run straight down this mountain in those oversized boots. You say exactly the following:

''The Indian stripped Texas. He's headed down the mountain. I'm circling."

After the man uttered the words, Kier took back the radio.

"Run. And if I were you, I wouldn't come back here. Your friends are jumpy. They'll shoot an ordinary shirt in a second."

At that the man fled at a gallop.