Twenty-two

I was swallowed by the dark as I plunged into inky shadows of the trees. I reached back and savagely rubbed my head. The moon had not risen, or had already set, and with just the stars for light I was fleeing into a Cimmerian night.

I ran as hard and as far as I could without looking back, drifting ever so slightly to my left so as not to move in a straight line. In these conditions, I’d be impossible to track, even though the ground was muddy and certainly held my footprints—but I couldn’t see Stern risking a flashlight. The small camp fire had been muted and obscured, but a bright light flashing in the forest ran the great risk of attracting attention. If he was chasing me, and I had to assume he was, all he could do initially was go after me on the assumption that I’d bolt like an animal—in a straight line.

Finally, I could run no more. We were at a much lower altitude and the air was richer, but there was a limit to my stamina. Winded and hurting, I stopped behind the largest tree trunk I could find and stood with my hands braced on my knees, breathing deeply, trying hard not to make a sound, knowing that I wasn’t succeeding. When I’d finally caught my breath I risked a look back, using the night vision trick of staring to the side of where I actually wanted to see. I changed my focal point every few seconds, detecting nothing.

The wind had all but ceased, I realized. That rustling in the trees I’d heard earlier was gone. I held my breath and listened. Nothing.

Had he not pursued me? Had I broken free? For a moment I considered whether or not that was even possible. Would Stern just let me go? It made a certain sense once I’d got away from him. Blundering around in the dark like this made him an easier target for ground forces on the prowl. Hunkered down at his camp site was a lot less risky.

But letting me go was a greater risk. I’d soon be beyond his reach in the darkness. I’d work my way to one of the major routes and by dawn or shortly thereafter and would soon establish contact with one of the U.S. military teams searching the mountain. I’d be able to confirm that Stern was still alive and tell them about the camp sites pre-positioned for his use, give them a general idea of where he was. They’d flood the area with all the manpower and technology they could muster. He’d have no chance at all.

No, I had to be stopped, and Stern had to get me—if he could.

I set off again, moving more slowly and as quietly as possible, continuing to curve methodically to my left. So Quentin Stern was dead and this man, whatever his name was, had taken his place like a doppelgänger—only in physical form. His demeanor this last hour had been so radically different from the character he’d played over the years, I could sympathize with the personal struggle it represented. They’d taken a perfectly normal toddler and turned him into a monster, a monster who had tried to find a normal life, to break free from the emotional and instinctive shackles they’d welded onto him.

His break for freedom, in the form of killing the President of the United States, struck me as all but suicidal. The Secret Service and U.S. intelligence agencies would never give up searching for him. He’d find no peace. He should have seen that, found another way.

But maybe there was no other way. Maybe the day they took him to the charm village his fate was sealed, and that all that really remained was to play it out. Tolstoy wrote that such a fate was true for all of us in our lives, but that it is only more apparent among the powerful and famous. We are all just pawns in a game that fate determined for us before we were born.

I stopped again, caught my breath and, from cover, looked back. To my amazement, I could see the powerful beam of a flashlight playing across the ground, striking the trees and brush, setting the area behind me aglow in short bursts as Stern risked the light to find and kill me.

My tracks were easy enough to see in these conditions once he’d made the decision to use the flashlight. There was no reason for great silence now. I bolted off, running as hard as I could in the darkness, sometimes falling over low brush or fallen trees, once running head on into a standing tree and nearly knocking myself out. I ran just this side of panic, fighting to keep control of my thoughts, all the while constantly arcing slowly to my left, running down the mountain in a wide curve.

I could keep running, hoping that the need to follow my trail would slow Stern just enough for me to stay ahead of him for good. Or I could stand and fight.

Neither option held any appeal. For one, I had no idea if I had the stamina to keep this up. Though I was running with all my energy, it seemed to me that I was sluggish and uncoordinated. When I’d caught sight of the light behind me I’d been shocked it was so close. I’d been certain I was further ahead of him than that.

Making a stand held no greater appeal. He’d be armed, and even if he was unwilling to risk a firearm, he had knife, while I had nothing. And if he was willing to risk the flashlight in these conditions I could not assume he wouldn’t risk a gunshot.

In the end, as so often happens in the kind of combat of which this was a microcosm, circumstances determined my actions and made the decision for me. I fell hard, tripping over a dead branch, and wrenched my knee. When I managed to get to my feet I saw I could scarcely put any weight on my leg. Any thought that I could outrun Stern was gone.

I hobbled forward, knowing that with his training as a tracker he’d realize at once from my footprints that I was injured. Though my eyes were completely adjusted to the black, what little starlight filtered to the forest floor gave me only the dimmest impressions of the way in front of me. I knew what I needed and tried to discern it without success. From time to time I glanced behind me and now could see the light, a specter pursuing me in an ancient forest.

I fought off the panic that comes with defeat. Every soldier in leadership knows this experience, and part of his training is to clear his mind of it. Every dire situation has alternatives, and it is his role to pick the best one. To do that, he must not panic.

Finally, I thought I had it. I limped into a particularly heavily forested area with a cluster of undergrowth and fallen debris. I leaned down, searching the ground beside me until my back screamed in agony. At last I found what I wanted. Clutching it to my breast I ran as fast as I could, now in a straight line to the extent the terrain allowed.

I stopped, gathered my wits and energy again, then finally leaped to the side as far as I could. I moved away from the route I’d taken then slowly and quietly backtracked until I was in place for my ambush.

Stern, I reminded myself, wasn’t stupid. He’d know that was one of my choices. And once he realized I’d injured my leg he’d be on the lookout for it. But running was no alternative, and so far, at least, his flashing light hadn’t drawn any attention from help. I had to make a stand if I was to live. I knew that—but so did he.

I breathed deeply, trying to catch my breath before he was close enough to hear me. I watched the way I’d come, and within a few seconds there it was, the flashing light, moving left then right, always directed at the forest floor, sweeping toward me a fast clip.

He’d be here any second.

I could hear Stern, as he was making no effort to be quiet. He knew I could see him, so what was the point? I lifted the large branch I’d found and hefted it in my hands wishing it was stouter than it seemed. It was the only weapon I’d been able to find in the time I had.

As happens in these situations, Stern was on me before I realized just how close he really was. One instant the light seemed as far away as ever, the next it was sweeping past me and I could hear the sound of his boots on the ground, the snapping of twigs, the movement of brush as he pushed by. Then he was there, not four feet away from me, and without hesitating I stepped forward, swinging my club with all my strength.

It struck branches above me and his light whipped at me, shining in my face just before the club struck home. Stern was mentally braced for this and had time to move, so I hit him on the shoulder rather than the head, and the heavy branch I was swinging, snapped in two from the force. He stumbled, then staggered—but didn’t fall. The light stayed on me and was a blinding wall behind which I could see nothing. I lunged at him but caught him to the side and was unable to take him down. Instead, I lost my grip, went by him, falling into the mud, instinctively rolling the moment I was down.

Without hesitating, Stern was at me, the flashlight falling to the ground. There was no gunshot. Instead in the surreal luminescence cast across the forest floor I made out the glint of a knife blade.

I rolled again, then again, until something blocked me. I pushed myself to my knees, but before I could attempt to get on my feet he was there with the knife. Neither of us said a word. I could hear my own breathing and the motion of his body in the brush, again the sound of his boots on the ground. He lunged with his right hand, and I went for his arm with both hands. He jerked the knife back, taking a slice at my arms and hands as he did. I felt the sharp pain on my right forearm.

I pulled back, waiting for the next assault, as I no longer had a weapon to use against him. Almost at once he stabbed again, but not as far as before, and I jumped aside. We danced in an awkward shuffle. He knew I was weaponless, but he also knew I had training. The odds were very much in his favor, but if I could get control of his knife hand, the outcome would become anything but certain.

In the strange light, I could see him probe tentatively, testing my reaction, hoping I’d stumble and give him his chance. I moved to forestall him. Then he lunged again, and this time he was through my defenses before I could react. The pain in my side was excruciating. I involuntarily cried out.

But as Stern pulled his hand back to come in for fatal stab I managed to seize his forearm. Then, in the oldest judo move I knew, I dropped to the ground slammed my two feet into his stomach and, with every ounce of power I had in me, threw him up and behind me in a great toss. I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, clutching my burning side.

Stern had slammed into a tree and was stunned, struggling to get onto his hands and knees. I hobbled forward, suddenly realizing how badly my knee had been injured, and before he could recover his knife which had fallen from his hand, I kicked him in the face.

I wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped, and what should have been a knockout blow or even a killing one simply stunned him. I fell from the effort, and as I staggered to my feet again I saw him recover. His hand was reaching into his clothing and I knew he’d come out with a handgun.

I turned and ran.

I’d never thought I could outrun Stern, not from the first. In the back of my mind I had run with a purpose when it turned out that I couldn’t. I’d kept curving my route more sharply for more than one reason and now my instinct told me I was close. But hobbling long with my bad knee, my side burning in pain, blood streaming from my forearm, I doubted I had time.

I didn’t know how long it would take Stern to be after me, but it wouldn’t be long now, and this time there’d be no outrunning a bullet. The only satisfaction I could take was that between the flashlight and the gunshot, one of the Special Forces teams in the area would be drawn to the action. If I could manage to make him fire the weapon more than once, so much the better.

With my one good leg I was moving as quickly as I could, mentally gauging my run as I struggled to close the circle. I lumbered along, tree branches and brush snapping into my face, intuitively still working my plan. My greatest fear was that I’d fall and before I could regain my feet Stern would be on me. I didn’t risk looking back. It made no difference how close he was. All I could do was to keep moving forward.

This was all a long shot. In these conditions, in the pitch black, amid the trees and away from any trail I could follow, on the slope of the mountain, in my condition, I had almost no hope. But I kept on, my lungs aching in pain, hot blood streaming from my side and down my arm, my hand sticky from the stuff.

Then I was there. I stumbled across the small area, over the all-but-dead fire and collapsed in front of Stern’s lean-to. I fumbled around and lay my hand on an FN. I’d been certain he hadn’t taken them both. As it turned out, in his rush after me—and most likely thinking that he’d not use any firearm—he’d left them behind.

Behind me I heard crashing. I spun on my back, slipped off the safety, hoping to God there were still rounds in the magazine, I worked the slide just as Stern entered the camp site. He sensed my motion, realized where I was, then dove at me, instinctively calculating I’d had no time to make a weapon ready.

He was wrong.

I pulled the trigger and held it down as bullets laced across his head and body, then kept the trigger down as he collapsed in front of me, firing until the last bullet was gone and the man I’d known as Quentin Stern lay dead at my feet.