Gideon's War/Hard Target (9 page)

“Putting them in a sock and hitting some nosy faggot in the face until he shuts the fuck up.”

The salesman’s tight smile didn’t go away. But after that he had just looked over Timken’s shoulder, as though Timken weren’t standing there at all.

Since then, Timken̵#82Ñ€7;s name had worn off the tiny, shiny ball bearings, and he suspected they probably would no longer mike at three ten-thousandths of nominal anymore. But they suited his needs just fine. He could put them in a pocket or a briefcase. He could take them on a plane without the TSA morons confiscating them. He could take them anywhere. Then when he needed them, he put them in a bag or a sock or a wadded-up shirt. And when he hit you with them you fell down and didn’t move.

His life would have been pretty much over with if he hadn’t been rescued from the wastelands by a man who understood the peculiar nature of his talents. A man who understood that a great nation sometimes had to do dark and ugly things, and that when those things had to be done, Orville Timken could be counted on to come through.

A man named Earl Parker.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WATER CASCADED IN A thunderous rush over the high U-shaped cliff that rose before Monkey’s boat. Sunlight caught the spray from the waterfall, refracting a brilliantly colored rainbow. If not for the circumstances, Gideon reflected silently, this could have been a postcard for some idyllic tropical retreat.

Monkey throttled the engine back. To one side of the waterfall was a tiny strip of beach from which extended a bamboo pier. Behind it was a small cluster of grass huts.

“Is this where my brother is?” Gideon asked.

Monkey shook his head and pointed. “Up there.” The cliff face ran in an unbroken line of white rock as far in both directions as Gideon could see. It was as though the entire surface of the earth had cracked in half, one piece sliding down below the other. The cliff must have been nearly a thousand feet high and was topped by a thin green rim of jungle.

“How do I get up there?”

“Climb,” he said.

“Climb?”

Monkey shrugged, nudged the boat against the rickety bamboo pier, and killed the engine.

“Do you at least know the trail?”

“No,” he said, quickly adding, “And I’m not about to find out.”

Gideon knew that Monkey wasn’t to blame here. This wasn’t his fault. But still, he felt a flash of anger. “You took me all this way and you’re just going to abandon me?”

Monkey gave him a sideways look. “What you expect? You gonna get me killed.” He waved vaguely at the green line of jungle that capped the cliff. “We have a saying . . . Where the river ends, Allah has no power.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

Monkey stared up at the high cliff. “The people up there? They’re not people. Not like you and me. They got no rules, no laws, no right and wrong. No God.”

“Do you at least know someone who can guide me up?”

“Maybe if you had money . . .”

“My brother has money.”

“I don’t see your brother here.” Monkey seemed moderately pleased with the fix that Gideon was in.

“Come on,” Gideon said. “Help me out here. You’re in my shoes, what would you do?”

Monkey continued to stare up at the jungle. “Do what I’m gonna do. Get downriver, hope you reach KM without getting killed.”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve come this far, I’m not about to turn around now.”

Monkey shook his head, as if to say he was done trying to talk Gideon out of his suicidal scheme, then pointed at a cleat on the pier. “Tie us to the pier. Maybe I translate, help you find somebody.”

Gideon had cut one of the mooring lines back in Alun Jong, but there was another one coiled on the bow. He grabbed the end and stepped onto the pier, which felt spongy under his feet, as if it was rotting from within. As Gideon stepped carefully on the bamboo deck, afraid that he might fall through, he heard a roar. He turned in time to see Monkey slamming the throttle into reverse. Before Gideon could leap back onto the boat, it had already pulled away from the pier. Monkey was laughing as he backed the boat up.

Gideon tried holding on to the rope, but the boat was too powerful, and the rope slid through his hands, burning his fingers and palms as it slipped into the water.

“Next time you hold a knife to my neck—” The rest of Monkey’s threat was drowned by the sound of the Mercuries. He spun the wheel, slammed the throttle back into forward gear, and the boat tore a circular hole in the water, accelerating downriver. Within half a minute, the boat was gone, the engine noise lost in the thunder of the waterfall.

Gideon turned and looked at the village. He’d need to hire somebody to guide him to Kampung Naga. Just how he was going to manage that with no money, he wasn’t quite sure. But he’d figure out a way. He had no choice.

He walked through the tiny village, which was strangely empty. “Hello!” he called. “Is anybody here?”

But there was no answer. In fact there was no sound at all. The place was deserted. The roofs of the houses sagged. Several had been burned to the ground.

Gideon realized that he was very hungry. Almost a day had passed since he’d eaten. He searched the houses and finally found a tin of fruit sitting on a rotting shelf. He tore the tin open and gobbled the peaches hungrily. But instead of satisfying his appetite, it only made him hungrier.

He looked for more food but didn’t find any. He reflected wryly that he could think of better ways than this of taking off the ten pounds he’d gained in Colombia.

When he reached the far end of the village, he saw a small trail heading toward the cliffs, overgrown with vines and fast-growing tropical plants. He pushed his way through vegetation, then began to climb. As he walked, he looked at the map General Prang had gig há€ven him. Staring up at him was the red circle. Kampung Naga, the city that doesn’t exist.

From a distance, the cliffs looked white. Closer, and Gideon found they were composed of a grayish limestone. Foliage seemed to have a hard time growing on the winding trail. There were only a few gnarled trees and occasional clumps of grass sprouting from the rock. At first the cliffs were not really cliffs at all, just very steep hills, eroded into sharp gulleys and ravines.

But the higher he climbed, the steeper the trail became. The limestone was loose and crumbly, and the path narrowed as the face of the limestone grew steeper. Eventually the path was no more than a foot wide, sometimes dropping off for hundreds of feet on either side.

Halfway up, Gideon paused to rest his burning thighs. He ran thirty miles a week—but running on flat ground was not the same as climbing hills. Resting his back against the cool rock, he surveyed the view that spread for miles below him. In the distance he could just make out another small village on a crook in the river. When he and Monkey blasted past the village, it had seemed normal. Now it was on fire, a thick column of smoke rising into the sky.

In the distance he saw a tiny V-shaped wake rippling on the surface of the river. A boat was approaching. Gideon felt a stab of fear. Coincidence? Or was someone following him?

He stood and started up the trail again.

The going was slower now. The higher he went, the more it became like mountain climbing rather than hiking. He could see the lip of the jungle above him. But there were still probably five hundred sheer vertical feet to go. Gideon had drastically underestimated the height of the cliffs. And the steepest part of the climb was yet to come.

Soon he found that he had to keep both hands on the rock face at all times. The rock slid away below him. The only good news was that the temperature had dropped. It was still warm—but it wasn’t the oppressive tropical furnace that it had been.

Occasionally a toehold or handhold crumbled beneath him, the loose rock falling and bouncing and tumbling down the slope. Each time it happened, he momentarily lost his balance and had to claw for purchase to keep himself from following the dislodged rocks down the rubble-strewn face of the cliff.

Gideon tried pushing away the persistent doubts and fears that flitted through his mind—that this mission was foolish and pointless and that he should turn around and go back. If he wanted to find Tillman, he would have to face whatever lay ahead in the place that Monkey feared so much.

He paused again to massage his trembling thighs. The sun was lowering on the horizon and he still had a few hundred feet to go. He looked down. The boat he’d seen earlier was pulling up to the pier. A man leapt out and secured the boat, then several more men followed him ashore. They swept through the abandoned village. Even at this distance, unable to see faces or expressions, Gideon could tell they were moving with purpose, searching for something or someone. He wondered if the surviving jihadis from downriver had followed him all the way up here. But why would they bother going to all that trouble over some muddy, bedraggled foreigner? It seemed odd. Except for the fact that he’d been responsible for the death of several of them. Maybe they just wanted to make an example of him. Or maybe they were looking for someone else entirely.

As he en á€was mulling over the questions and massaging his legs, one of the men pointed up toward the cliff. Gideon heard a distant, barely audible shout. Then the men began running up the trail that led up the cliff. Well, he thought, that was clear enough. They were definitely following him. As they got closer he could see that they were carrying guns.

Gideon gave his aching calf a last hard squeeze, then headed upward. Speculating about why they were chasing him wouldn’t help him escape.

Gideon’s pursuers quickly closed the gap between them. He estimated that when he first spotted them, they had been more than a thousand yards away. But because they were on the flatter part of the trail, they were moving much faster than he was. Soon they would be within three or four hundred yards. And when they were—

The first bullet pinged off the rock and ricocheted with a noise that sounded like something out of an old cowboy movie. But the shot was nowhere close. Gideon guessed that his pursuers were carrying AK-47s with iron sights. Unless they were serious marksmen, he was in little danger at this distance. But once they were within two hundred yards, he’d be in trouble.

Gideon waited for the second shot. It didn’t come. He figured they were being smart, conserving their ammo until they’d closed the gap a little more. Once they got close enough, they didn’t have to be great marksmen to hit him. Gideon started climbing faster, in rhythm with his own quickening heartbeat. He realized that his legs no longer hurt. The fight-or-flight endorphins were powerful painkillers, better than aspirin any day.

He glanced back over his shoulder. The lower portion of the trail wound back and forth across the face of the cliff, passing directly beneath him. When his pursuers reached that point, he would be inside their kill zone. He had to think of something. Fast.

He scanned the steepening face of the cliff. An outcropping of rock about twenty yards ahead would give him cover until his pursuers passed directly below him. He scrambled upward as fast as his body would take him, until one of his footholds gave way under his weight and he only managed to keep from falling by catching his weight with his right hand. The broken rock fell away below him and disappeared. He held on with his one hand, spread-eagled on the rock face. The slightest motion might cause his grip to fail. He froze. He felt himself breathing steadily, his heartbeat slowing, and his mind clearing—and felt an acute focus he’d never experienced before. In front of his eyes a tiny sprig of lichen clutched onto the limestone.

Be the lichen.

He heard the words in his head. Literally: be the lichen. He almost had to laugh. It was as if his own personal Yoda was whispering to him from some unseen perch. But it made sense. Lichen had no hands or feet, rooting itself to the rock with its entire structure. Gideon relaxed, allowing his own body to mold to the irregular contours of the rock face. When he felt his center of gravity balanced, he began snaking his left hand upward, then his knees, his feet, and even his chest—trying to find another hold so he could relieve the strain on his right hand.

A bullet smacked the rock three yards to his left, and a little below him. The report of the AK followed, a sharp crack.

Another bullet struck the rock just below him. A third to his right.

He moved spid faá€erlike, finding one foothold, then another, until he’d clambered up the last ten or twelve feet and over the outcropping. A steady rattle of gunfire chased him, then ceased.

Gideon lay with his face pressed against the rock. Several small boulders scattered on the escarpment left just enough room for his body. He took a few deep breaths, then rolled over and looked up. He was no more than fifty yards from the top. There was a definite rim where the cliff ended and the jungle began. Serious jungle. Full-on triple-canopy rain forest. If he could make it to the trees, he could find cover. Two hundred yards from the trail and he might as well be two hundred miles. They would never find him. Never.

But right now he was pinned down.

If the jihadis were smart, they’d send half their guys up the cliff and keep the other half in position below. If he tried to make the last fifty yards, they would pick him off. And if he stayed where he was, they’d cover and advance for one another until one of them could kill him at close range.

Gideon peered over the ledge. The pursuers were smart. Two men were already working their way up along the narrow path while the remaining four stayed behind, their weapons pointed right at him. Seeing this, Gideon ducked just as a volley of gunfire smacked against the downslope side of the outcropping.

He made a quick assessment of his worsening situation. The rock behind which he had found cover was no more than three feet wide and ten feet long. Enough to protect him as he lay on it, but not enough to shield him once he started climbing. The rubble on top of the outcropping consisted of two boulders as large around as his body and several smaller rocks that were roughly the size of bowling balls.

An idea came to him, born of that purest and most primitive animal instinct—survival.

He shifted his weight behind one of the bowling ball-size rocks and pushed it toward the edge. It rolled with a grinding noise until its own weight carried it down the slope. Gideon heard some warning cries as he peered over the edge and watched one of the men below dodging the boulder, which narrowly missed him as it crashed at the base of the cliff.

Gideon pulled his head back, registering a strange disappointment that he hadn’t hit at least one of them. But at least he’d confirmed his theory: his attackers had been so concerned with the falling rock that they hadn’t shot at him.

He looked up at the cliff again. The next fifty yards weren’t too bad. He couldn’t exactly sprint up. But he figured he could make it in twenty or thirty seconds.