Doctor Who_ Drift Part 9

Riding frozen rapids. Squeezing all the speed out of the snowmobile. Kristal would have willed it to fly if she could.

Even on the expanding borders of h.e.l.l, there was a certain terrifying poetry to Kristal's situation. Leela's arms locked around her waist, Kristal found her courage sh.o.r.ed up by the added responsibility she felt for her pa.s.senger. Nature's destructive forces make children of us all, she thought; so what, then, were any of us in the face of the supernatural?

Behind them the storm played predator.

Zooming into view on her left, she saw Landers, up on one knee with the rifle slammed against his shoulder. She didn't hear the discharge as he launched a round from the M203 grenade launcher far over her head. Then she was zipping between two shallow foxholes and glimpsed Marotta in one of them, his machinegun braced to fire the moment the other snowmobiles had pa.s.sed him by.

She glanced aft to spot the blast. The eruption was negligible, a cough in the cloud front, like it had swallowed nothing more than a harmless pill. The storm carried on tumbling over the rise like the fallen walls of Jericho.

Kristal hadn't expected much more. She wanted some sign though of the effects on the forces driving that wintry smoke-screen. That was over-optimistic, maybe, but she could rely on Marotta to give it his best shot before following them.

Leela shifted her grip. The foxholes slipping far behind, Kristal aimed her eyes front - and saw they were running out of level terrain. Kristal shouted back. 'Hold on!'

Chill wind gnawed at her cheeks.

She thought hard about the storm's rate of advance, next to their own. She also thought about how the Plains tribes hunted buffalo. All right, she concluded, we're through running.

One final glance back, and she could hear the guttural spit and crack of the machinegun above the other rifles. She didn't know what good it could do, and had to tear her gaze free from the icy vortex to focus on her driving. She managed a quick signal for the three snowmobiles to follow her lead.

Then, praying it was a slope and not a cliff, she made sure the accelerator was at maximum ready for when the ground dropped away.

Leela's hold nearly squeezed the breath out of her.

The vehicle cut the lip of the hill and took to the air, taking half a ton of broken snow with it. The engine whined in panic and they were flung like ammo from a catapult. They hit just as hard too, the impact jarring Kristal's every nerve.

She fought to swing them round, the vehicle's b.u.t.t backing into the snow until the engine suddenly cut out. Finally, Leela lost her balance and Kristal felt herself dragged off her saddle, sliding on her back some few feet down the snowy slope.

The prow of the snowmobile peered timidly up from its burrow, like a gopher checking the coast was clear. Of course, Kristal knew it wasn't.

Three more snowmobiles fired themselves over the brow of the hill in quick succession, skiing down the incline with a deal more control than Kristal had managed. Kristal didn't have time to get all compet.i.tive She sprang to her feet.

'Leela, you okay?' Kristal said. Leela gave a dazed nod.

hauling herself up. 'I wanted to stop, but not quite like that.

Sorry about that.'

Satisfied her freshest recruit was okay, Kristal launched herself onto her knees and started shovelling snow with her hands. She was pleased to see Leela pitching in, no questions asked, and she shouted across at her troops as they were dismounting. 'Get busy! We need to be under the snow before that storm hits us!'

'Under the snow?' asked Leela anxiously. 'Is that not dangerous?'

'Not if you know what you're doing.' Kristal kept shovelling, sorry she was too busy to offer any more rea.s.surance.

Fortunately, Leela was giving it her all on the digging as well.

'We can bury ourselves or we can wait for that thing to do it for us.'

Looking at the gouge they'd taken out of the slope, Kristal stayed Leela's efforts and reached into her pack for two smoothly rounded grenades, and one more for luck. She packed them together deep, eggs in a nest, and looked to make sure the troops were doing likewise.

There was no gunfire to be heard over the rise - which might mean Marotta was on his way.

'How will we know when the storm has pa.s.sed over?'

'Trust me, we'll know.'

Kristal yanked the pins and hauled Leela into a dive. The crater blew out like an ice volcano and she listened to the snow falling back to earth in chunks. When she looked up she was relieved to see Marotta's crew riding the last two vehicles into view. Further along the steep bank, a second explosion punched another hole.

When the snow settled they would at least have somewhere to hide. a.s.suming the storm had no eyes to find them.

The town built itself around her out of snowflakes and pale shadows. The wind followed her on the last stages of her trek, but Amber never got the feeling it was helping her along. The main feeling she was getting was of being watched all the way and she kept daring whoever it was to just step the h.e.l.l out and show themselves. All this white was getting to be worse than the dark in her room at nights.

Pa.s.sing along the main street, she hurried her pace as she crossed the side road by the church. Ahead, figures moved behind all the white spray paint.

Some were gathering in small knots a respectful distance from the vehicles parked in front of the hotel. Others were getting busy unloading. Something exciting had come to town at last.

Amber found a whole new reserve of energy at the thought.

She ran the final stretch.

She stopped abruptly, nearly skidding where caterpillar tracks had squashed the snow to slush. These guys were carrying rifles: soldiers, wow! She watched some of them and moved slowly around the back of the nearest trailer, hitched to the big ugly tracked vehicle. The tarpaulin was still in place, and Amber thought about peeling the corner back to peek inside.

'Hey, get out of there, kid,' a man's voice startled her.

Sandpaper skin and coyote eyes, the guard herded her out of the gap with his rifle. Kyle, his uniform-tag said. She peered into the mouth of the large tube under the barrel, but she decided, no, the guy was scarier.

Amber ducked onto the sidewalk and scowled back at him when he wasn't looking. Then she walked sullenly along the line of trucks, smiling secretly because of the excitement stirring inside her. This was great, the best ever.

No. No, it wasn't.

Voices had been carrying on in the background all the while. One was louder than the others and now she was closer she could hear him above the noise of the soldiers and the unloading. What was more, she could see him, not far along, in a face-off with a dark-haired soldier.

'I'm doing my Job Job, Kenzie,' the soldier was answering back.

'You might try doing the same. These townsfolk of yours are getting mighty restless, looks like.'

There were other soldiers standing around him and she guessed he must have been as important is he acted. He was shorter than Makenzie. but just as solid and he stood right up to him, didn't so much as notice Makenzie's size.

Amber could have told him how smart-a.s.s gibes never dented Makenzie.

'I'm not asking you to broadcast your secrets over town, Morg, but I have a right to know!'

She edged a step or two closer. As she did so, she noticed the other man. Not Not a soldier, she couldn't tell what he was supposed to be. He was outside the group. Even he wasn't as big as Makenzie, but somehow he towered above all of them. a soldier, she couldn't tell what he was supposed to be. He was outside the group. Even he wasn't as big as Makenzie, but somehow he towered above all of them.

He watched everything from under his silly hat, but didn't seem very interested in the argument.

'You're taking over this town, bro, and jamming our streets with your G.o.dd.a.m.n trucks and suddenly I see myself having to go round to every door and tell everyone how my kid brother has everything under control. "Oh yeah, I remember little Morgan - he made Special Forces, didn't he?" That's all I'll hear, and none of them will mind that you left us all behind because you thought we were all too d.a.m.n small for you. Or that you won't lend me any of your men to help with the search.'

Makenzie's brother, Morgan. Of course. She could see that flame in their eyes now, too much like her heart whenever she saw her Daddy. Angry - love. Her eyes stung and her mouth curled as she remembered a torrent of stuff.

She was aware of the tall man then and the fact that he'd noticed her. Makenzie hadn't even seen her. The man smiled.

She quickly glanced away.

She realised she'd missed some of the fight, and Makenzie's brother was biting back: 'You could have made yourself a different bed, bro. But you stayed in Dad's and now you step into his boots every morning, grew up to be just like your old man, a big cop in a small town. Well, I have my orders, and my people are here to help me do my job by doing theirs. And that doesn't include searching all over the mountains for a few civilians who took a wrong turning or went out trekking completely underprepared.'

'You knew some of these people!' Makenzie roared back in his brother's face, and by now their fight was the centre of the town. Makenzie's thick finger stabbed at Morgan's flak jacket and Amber wondered if he bullied his brother like he bullied everyone else.

Everyone around looked uncomfortable at all of this. Amber hated it.

'Yeah, I'm a small-town cop and I'm short on manpower.

But you know what, I'm starting to think maybe I wouldn't need so much if you hadn't brought your big-city government projects out here and screwed things up for the rest of us.'

Makenzie's arm flew out like a spear to indicate the troops carrying jagged artefacts into the hotel. 'Does this have anything to do with that cult up there? Your people been stirring them up - or what?'

'FYI, Kenzie, I can tell you all we have in that truck are the pieces of an Air Force jet that crashed on Mount Shaw. End of story, or it will be when we've found the rest and the small matter of the pilot. I don't know if I count myself lucky or not we haven't found him yet. But the guy was a patriot and a hero and I'd expect you to understand that.'

Through all of the speech, Amber could see Makenzie gearing up to explode. It was as if everything his brother said just burned his fuse, like the way everything she said or did made Makenzie shout in her face. Suddenly, she couldn't stand the thought of him answering back. She could feel the idea of his voice like a pressure in her head.

'I know where you can find him,' she said. 'I know where you can find the pilot.'

Amber was amazed. Her small voice had stopped everything.

A mess. A b.l.o.o.d.y mess.

It was the way these things always turned out and if he could only get out of this alive, he'd he laying the blame on Jacks. She'd got them both back into the house, which was clever or plain lucky, but if it got them both killed then Mitch reckoned it was neither.

The moment the patrol had pa.s.sed around the front of the house, they'd crawled out of the woods. Mitch with his hood down because he was sweltering despite the cold and wet.

Once they'd reached the old trucks, they were up and running to the bas.e.m.e.nt hatch.

Jacks was dead quiet on the doors, give her that . Just as silent going down the steps, sinking into the dark.

Mitch was supposed to wait, stuck out in the open until she'd finished her recce. He hadn't liked that bit, watching for trouble along each approach. Anyway, he got to slow his breathing some, until she'd motioned for him to come on down.

That was the other bit he hadn't liked: trusting her judgement.

Especially as she was down there holding a gas can like a crazy pyromaniac b.i.t.c.h. Still, he'd made five steps down and was going okay. The gig was going so smooth, he was starting to get suspicious, edgy. Sure enough, she'd signalled a warning, pointed at the doorway.

Mitch still had the wind in his ears, but he could hear voices.

Jacks mouthed instructions at him and he could see she was getting sore as h.e.l.l with him as he took his time getting it. When he did get it, he thought she was more nuts than ever. Folks probably let her watch too many Chuck Norris movies as a kid. Mitch shrugged and retreated up a step so he could get a better leverage on one of the doors. Heaving thirty or forty degrees towards him, he let it drop with a bang then started back down the steps.

The Army hadn't been a long time coming after that.

First, the woman swung in to cover him and as he saw his own shadow on the floor. Jacks batted her in the side of the head with the jerry can. Then Mitch got the idea maybe he'd been used as a decoy like poor Crayford, but the thought was broken by the sight of the other officer at the doorway - and Mitch reacted too quickly, blew away half the doorframe.

From there on in, that was all he was doing: reacting, his thinking always a second slow.

Mitch threw himself into the middle of the room. The chopped whistle of suppressed SMG-fire chased him, exploding bottles and parts of the shelf behind him. He hit the floor rolling, pumped his shotgun and brought it up to fire.

Another burst from the SMG was killed by a retort from Jacks' AK-47, and this sudden hammer-pain broke over his ribcage.

He jerked on the trigger, heard the blast faintly. As a cloud of ceiling plaster showered down in front of the doorway, so the real pain filtered through. His head went for a short swim and he felt the wetness pouring out of him. Mitch fired another shot, vaguely aware it was wide.

Just as well: Jacks was ducking in under the cloud of plaster and dragging the Army woman onto her feet. She must have dropped the jerry can, but he didn't remember hearing it hit the floor. He pumped another sh.e.l.l into place, wincing hard and trying not to think about the warm blood spilling inside his clothes.

The stench of gasoline hit him like a dose of smelling salts.

'Get off your a.s.s. Lagoy! We're leaving!'

Jacks had the woman officer in a fierce arm-lock, jamming the AK's barrel under her prisoner's chin. She shoved the hostage over to him before he was properly on his feet. He took a firm hold of his new charge, wheezing with the effort.

Jacks fired once into the doorway, then she was rescuing a bottle from a shelf by the stairs.

Nice. This mess was about to get a whole lot messier.

Falvi was there, waiting for them.

The whole mountain must have heard that AK. and he was already out by the rusted trucks. That left him a very short run to the bas.e.m.e.nt doors and when he saw the gunsmoke sailing up out of the entrance, he planted himself off to one side and trained the pistol on the opening.

The patrol was coming around the house at a fast trot, fanning out nicely.

'Hi, b.i.t.c.h,' Falvi greeted the woman as she emerged, coming up into his line of sight.

Jeez, this woman was hard as a statue, near bald with dead marble eyes.

'I don't think you want to do that, kid.'

'What do you know, what I want or not?'

She gave a confident nod back towards the bas.e.m.e.nt entrance. A gorilla of a guy was pushing Joanna Hmieleski out ahead of him. Falvi took careful note of the shotgun. The Lieutenant was looking right into him. eyes loaded with an appeal, and he eased himself back a pace. This was going to take tact and timing.

'Maybe I can take you and and your boyfriend,' he challenged, getting the bald b.i.t.c.h thinking. your boyfriend,' he challenged, getting the bald b.i.t.c.h thinking.

'Don't pretend,' she said.

And she shot him in the gut.

'Storm's closing in.'

Martha realised her simple observation was a perfect summation of the turn her life was taking today. Even the inside of the 4WD seemed gloomy and overcast, although that hadn't stopped the agents replacing their shades as soon as they'd started down the mountain. They sat up front.

Agent Theroux at the wheel, while Martha sat in the back with the rest of the cargo: a couple of briefcases, papers, binoculars, a flash-looking camera, a slimline laptop and some other gadgetry The temptation to leaf through the papers was strong, but Agent Quartanuu's reflection was a permanent fixture in the rear-view; and there was no telling which way her eyes were aimed behind those shades.

Outside, there wasn't a whole lot to see. Only the storm, lashing at the treetops higher up the mountain and whipping up a whirlwind of snow.

Some of it was already pelting the windshield and the wipers were going like a couple of rapiers in a duel. She wondered if the weather might get to town ahead of them.