The naked edge

34

Sweat blended with moisture from the fog and trickled down Cavanaugh's face. He lay on his chest on wet grass, assessing the gloom of the next stand of trees. He was sure that a booby trap waited for him in there, also. He tried to imagine Carl's reaction to hearing the dog's agonized howl.

Carl needs to assume I realize what killed the animal. He also needs to assume that I'll now avoid the trees and any other areas where traps can be easily set. He'll decide that I'll shift to the open spaces. He'll focus his hunt in those areas.

That meant Cavanaugh needed to do the opposite of what Carl expected and go farther into the trees. But first he rolled toward a nearby picnic bench. He crawled under. It was a space that would appeal to someone who wanted to hide his silhouette while looking for his prey. Cavanaugh used the wire to bind the stake to a metal leg, the point projecting outward at head level.

Then, ready with his knife, he squirmed from beneath the table and studied the closer gloom of the trees. Probing with the knife, moving it up and down, then right and left, he crawled past a bush. He waited. He listened. With his peripheral vision, he stared at the fog and the shadows. In the distance, the muffled drone of a car proceeded along West Benton Street. His nerves tightened until the sound was gone and he could again concentrate on the faint noises around him.

He shifted deeper into the trees. Immediately, he froze when his knife met resistance. Something thin and taut. A wire. Moving to the side, he discovered a low branch bent sideways and down. Feeling in the darkness, he found that the wire was attached to a rock that weighed down the branch. A stake was tied to the branch. If Cavanaugh had disturbed the wire, the rock would have shifted, the branch would have sprung, and…

He held his breath-one, two, three. Silently exhaled through his lips-one, two, three. Quietly inhaled through his nose-one, two, three. The technique calmed his heartbeat and steadied his lungs. Then he pushed the rock off the branch. With a whoosh, the branch vaulted noisily past him. Simultaneously, he grunted as if he'd been hit, then crashed against a bush. His groan became faint as he remembered the groans of wounded comrades becoming faint when death claimed them.

Holding his breath again (one-two-three), exhaling (one-two-three), he crawled silently to the edge of the trees, doing his best to make his crouched silhouette indistinguishable from a stump.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

Ten minutes.

A whisper on his right made his heart lurch. "Getting tired of waiting, Aaron?"

The words came from a cautious distance, perhaps as much as thirty feet away, muffled by the fog.

"I'd have joined you sooner," Carl's voice continued, "but I had to check the rest of the park and make sure you didn't bring company like you did this morning."

Cavanaugh's pulse was so rapid that his veins felt swollen.

Something crashed among the trees. Instantly, Cavanaugh squirmed in that direction. He knew that was the one place Carl wouldn't be. The noise was intended as a distraction. Right now, Carl would be hurrying around the stand of trees, intending to enter them from behind while Cavanaugh theoretically remained in place, his attention directed toward the noise.

All the while Cavanaugh squirmed forward, he used his knife to probe the air. Abruptly, he felt the resistance of another wire. At the same time, he thought he heard a slight noise behind him, Carl entering the trees.

He rolled to the side, threw a branch on the wire, heard a whoosh, and relied on that to distract Carl while he snaked to the side of the grove, emerging onto the grass. He sprinted soundlessly onto a soccer field and spun with his knife, waiting for Carl to charge through the fog.

"How do you like the traps?" Carl asked from the murk of the trees. "Makes the game more interesting, don't you think?"

Cavanaugh didn't answer, refusing to be baited into revealing his location.

"I figured, if you can break the rules, so can I. Honestly, don't you feel embarrassed that you brought all those guys to look for me? Can't you fight your own battles?"

Cavanaugh remained silent.

"All that manpower, and they couldn't find me. Aren't you dying to know where I hid?"

A crash among the trees. Cavanaugh flinched. Instantly, he recovered and tightened his grip on his knife, knowing that Carl had used the noise to hide the lesser sounds he made as he hurried from the grove.

Now they were both in the open. In the fog.

"The truth is, I counted on you to betray me again." Carl's voice came from straight ahead. "After all, betrayal's in your nature."

Cavanaugh crouched, making himself a small target while priming his arm muscles to strike with his knife.

"I wanted you to bring help, lots and lots of help." This time, Carl's voice came from the darkness on the right.

Cavanaugh moved in the opposite direction.

"So much help that, when they didn't find me, they'd figure this was the last place in the world to look for me." The voice was farther to the right.

He's tempting me to charge, Cavanaugh thought.

"The only flaw in the plan was the chance you'd feel so ashamed that you wouldn't show up tonight." Now Carl's voice came from the left.

Cavanaugh reversed direction and headed to the right.

"Even though they'll never find your body, they'll be forced to assume I was here." The voice was closer, to the right now.

Cavanaugh stopped moving.

"After you disappear, they'll focus on this area."

Cavanaugh glimpsed a shadow in the fog.

"But of course, that'll be too late. I'll be far away by then."

Taking advantage of Carl's distraction, Cavanaugh charged.

From experience, he knew that the surprising rush would provoke Carl's startle reflex, gaining the second he needed to strike a lethal blow, but as he raced toward the shadow, plunging his knife into flesh, feeling blood on his hand, he realized with sickening dismay that what he stabbed was the dog.

Carl held the corpse in front of him. Before Cavanaugh could pull the blade free, Carl twisted the carcass sideways, wrenching the knife from Cavanaugh's hand. Carl shoved the dead animal at him, knocking him backward, the dog's weight thrusting him to the ground.

The impact jolted Cavanaugh's breath from his lungs. Wheezing, he rolled. Simultaneously, he felt a sharp impact in his right side as a crack and a flash came from Carl's direction. Jesus, he has a gun! He shot me!

Continuing to roll, his lungs wheezing, Cavanaugh realized that the bullet had passed through the dog before it struck him. The bullet had penetrated him but not deeply enough to hit a vital organ. Lunging to his feet, he ran. But now his urgent footfalls were forceful enough to make sounds on the wet grass. He heard Carl chasing him. The collision had been so disorienting that he lost his bearings in the fog. Possibly, he raced toward West Benton Street, possibly toward the creek, possibly toward-

A branch struck his face. The trees! He'd run back to them! As Carl's footsteps pounded closer, Cavanaugh scurried into the bushes. A sudden glow struggled to pierce the fog-from a flashlight Carl held. Frantic, Cavanaugh shifted deeper into the trees.

"I did play fair sort of," Carl said. "The gun's part of a knife. You remember those combination models Lance showed us?" He referred to an antique style in which a barrel formed part of the back of a blade. The hammer was the top of the guard, the trigger the bottom of the guard. "Of course, you can't get much accuracy and power. You got hit with a thirty-two. I expect that won't kill you."

Feeling blood swell from his side, Cavanaugh backed from the searching flashlight and bumped against something that stung his leg. Peering down, he saw a stake on the end of a branch, one of the booby traps he'd sprung.

The weak light pivoted through the darkness and the fog, moving in his direction. He moved farther backward, forcing the branch to bend behind him.

The flashlight beam settled on him.

"You don't look like you're hit bad at all." Carl shifted toward him through the bushes. "Not to worry about taking another bullet. It's a single shot. I don't have another round for it. Always had a fondness for this thing. Two weapons in one. Saves room in my bug-out bag."

Cavanaugh kept backing away. He bumped against a tree trunk.

Holding the oddly shaped knife, a barrel along the back of the blade, Carl stalked toward him. "Hate to do this. A knife against bare hands. But as you're dying, I want you to bear in mind, I'll be going for your wife next."

Carl lunged.

Cavanaugh jumped free of the branch.

It whipped forward.

Carl screamed as the stake plunged into his thigh.