Hunting Season (30 page)

“Okay,” he said.

“Go.”

He had wrapped the end of the rope around his hips and belayed it once over his right shoulder. Each time he felt the tension come out of the rope, he pulled gently by backing up the tunnel. He concentrated on the rope, feeling what she was doing: arm pull, hold, ankles, up, grip, arm pull, hold. He kept a steady tension on the rope, more to steady the pipe than to pull her up. He was alert for a slip, because that’s what he expected. She’d get halfway up and then run out of steam. He was ten feet back from the edge now, keeping the tension on.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“A third,” she gasped.

“Rest when you get halfway up,” he said.

“Grip with hands and feet.

Relax the rest of your body. Deep breathing. The pipe and I have your weight.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Acknowledge,” he barked.

“All right. Halfway. Rest. Got it.”

He kept the tension steady, waiting until he felt her ankles grip and then pulling a little to help her. He had to save his own energy in case she slipped.

“Halfway,” she said.

“But I think I’m done.”

“Grip with hands and feet. Deep breathing for two minutes.”

“Okay.”

He tried to picture her as he held tension in the line. The pipe at about an eighty-degree angle, almost straight up and down. She was halfway up the pipe, trying not to spin around on it. That would be a real disaster, because he couldn’t get her over the lip if she was upside down. His own footing wasn’t that solid as he backed uphill. He tried to think of another way to help her, but the pipe was about all they had. He looked around the tunnel for a projection to anchor the rope, but there wasn’t anything visible in the green gloom.

“The pipe stable?”

“So far,” she said.

“Can you climb any farther?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I’m afraid of rolling on the pipe.”

“All right,” he said.

“You concentrate on staying upright. I’m going to pull you the rest of the way. Ready?”

“Very,” she said. Good, he thought. A little wise crack meant she was still in charge of herself. He set his feet, took a second belaying turn around his shoulders, and then pulled back with his arms and his upper body, leaning backward at the same time. The rope moved. She must be 140, 150, he thought, and I’m losing some pull to friction at the lip. He stepped backward, leaning way back so as not to lose ground. Then he felt a slight slack in the line, which meant she was trying to help, probably using her legs on the pipe.

It took him fifteen minutes of excruciatingly slow effort to get her to the lip of the tunnel, and even then, it wasn’t over. In fact, this was the dangerous bit, because he had to get her over the lip, and her whole body would add to the friction.

“Put your hands up on the top of the pipe,” he called. He watched as she slid first one hand and then the other up to the top of the pipe, about four feet above the lip.

“Lock them there. When I tell you, try a chin-up.”

“You’ve got… to be shitting me,” she said. It sounded as if talking was almost beyond her.

“No. Do it. The pipe’s going to go when I pull again. Push off from it, let it go, and then let me do the rest. Now, deep breathing. One minute.”

“Me or you?” she asked.

He almost grinned, except that his whole body was straining to hold her at the top of the pipe. But she had a point. He went into deep breathing, his body bent backward, his knees bent and flexing like springs, his hands hurting where he had the rope, the palms of his gloves actually hot with the pressure.

“Okay, stand by,” he said. He needed her help to get some other body weight over the lip.

“One long pull on the top of the pipe, both hands, then let it go when it moves and stretch out with your arms, like you’re diving. Then we’re done.”

She didn’t answer and her head was hanging down. Her hands were visibly white at the top of the pipe. She was done. He had to go now.

“Pull!” he commanded.

“Pull! Pull!”

He saw her try to pull up on the top of the pipe, and he laid into it, pulling back with all his might, jerking her right off the pipe, which disappeared behind her. Her head, chest, and arms came over the lip, but the heavy part, her lower body, stuck on the edge, just above her waist. Her head was down and he couldn’t see her face. The pipe clanged softly once on something hard and then fell into some water down behind her. She was a deadweight now and he couldn’t move her. He felt the line start to go backward, small tugs toward oblivion down the inclined floor of the tunnel.

Browne went through the procedure at the steel door into the nitro building, telling her to put the blindfold on, to turn around. He waited, unlocked the door, and shone the flashlight at her. She was right where she was supposed to be. He stepped in and put the food sack down. He didn’t bother to pick up the remnants of the last food delivery. The big room smelled fusty and stale, and the stink of sewage was more pronounced.

“It’s almost over,” he said, not knowing exactly what he meant by that.

She did not reply. He thought for a moment.

“I have two options,” he said.

“I can either take you with me as a hostage or I can simply leave you here when I go.”

“Take me where?” she asked.

It was the first time she’d spoken to him, and it surprised him. Her

tone of voice was not what he had expected. There was a matter-of factness about it, almost a tone of defiance. His first reaction was not to tell her anything, but then, why not? She would either be with him in the truck, suitably subdued, or she’d be mewed up here in this concrete building.

No, wait: He couldn’t leave her alive—if they searched the whole facility for the missing security people, they’d search all the buildings. So he either had to kill her outright or take her with him. He considered the prospect of simply pulling his gun and killing her right now. He shook his head. No, he’d kept her as a bargaining chip, and that’s what he would use her for. He rehearsed his mantra: The two boys killed themselves when they stumbled into Jared’s traps. They should not have been here. The flash flood had killed them.

“To Washington,” he said.

She didn’t answer at first, then coughed and asked him why.

“With a hydrogen bomb.”

“Bullshit,” she said immediately.

“No individual can make a hydrogen bomb.”

“Oh yes I can. In fact, I have.”

“It takes a fission device to trigger a hydrogen bomb,” she said.

“You’re going to tell me you made one of those, too?”

“I have made a hydrogen bomb,” he said.

“But it’s not what you think.”

“I’ll bet,” she said.

“What do you want with me?”

“You are insurance. A hostage, in case things go wrong. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“If you’re taking a hydrogen bomb to Washington, you’re going to kill lots of people; I’m supposed to believe you’ll spare me?”

“That’s different,” he said, shining the light around the interior of the building, making sure she wasn’t trying to distract him from something she’d set up.

“This is personal, and as far as I’m concerned, this is an entirely legitimate target. You blundered into this by accident, which is the only reason you’re still alive.”

“Where’s the other one?” she asked.

“The one who likes to see me naked.”

Browne felt a surge of anger. Goddamn Jared.

“Don’t worry about him anymore. His part in this is over, and he won’t be going along. Pm taking the bomb to Washington.”

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Why don’t you go away, so I can eat.”

“I will. But we may be leaving soon. If you cooperate—no, if you simply go quietly—I’ll let you live. If I get cornered, I’m going to

trade them you for me. If you won’t go along, I’ll put you out in one of the underground field magazines to starve. If you tell me one thing and then do another, I’ll be forced to cut your throat and pitch you out onto the highway.

Think about it.”

He switched off the flashlight and closed the steel door. Outside, the night was still, only the faint buzz of insects from the nearby woods breaking the silence. He looked at his watch; he had a few minutes before the retort needed changing. He turned away from the power plant and walked up the main street for three blocks, turned right, and then walked down a side street and across an open area of hard-packed dirt to a low lying concrete bunker that was fenced off from the rest of the industrial area. A dusty sign on the bunker read mercury-contaminated

SOIL;

keep out. He looked around and then opened a walk-through gate in the chain-link fence and went through. There were two doors to the bunker:

one big enough to admit a front-loader tractor, and the man-sized door on the other end. He unlocked and stepped through the man-sized door, closing it behind him. He switched on his flashlight and checked through his getaway stash. Not even Jared knew about this. This was one of two supply caches he had prepositioned in the arsenal. This one was for his run to Washington. There was some cash, a gun, a fuel-delivery manifest from the company whose name was on the truck, and some spare clothes in a duffel bag. He gathered up what he needed and closed the bunker up again. Then he walked back down the dark side street to the power plant and went inside. He wished Jared was here to patrol against intruders, although there was no sign that anyone was out there.

Janet felt the rope slipping back and tried to do something, anything, but her muscles were turning to jelly and she couldn’t force another ounce of strength into her hands. Her hips and bare legs were dangling out over the ledge and the lip of the tunnel was cutting into her middle. Her attempt to hoist herself on the end of the pipe had been a total failure.

Despite the cold air in the tunnel complex, her eyes were stinging with sweat and she was having trouble breathing. The rope slipped back another quarter of an inch. He was losing it. She was going to fall, all the way back down into the black waters of the siphon chamber.

“Can you lift your legs?” Kreiss called through clenched teeth. His voice was filled with strain.

“W-what?” she asked stupidly. She’d heard him just fine, but she didn’t understand.

“Your legs—can you lift a leg, get a knee over the edge?”

She tried, but the angle was wrong. Her knee just bumped into the hard concrete, and she crumpled back against the unforgiving wall. Her center of gravity was still below the lip. She knew she did not have the upper-body strength simply to pull herself over. But the effort gave her an idea, a last, desperate idea.

“Wait,” she said, bending in the middle so as to get her feet flat against the wall.

“I can’t wait. I can’t hold you much longer.”

“I’m going to straighten out my legs and then lock them,” she said, hoping Kreiss would understand. She didn’t have energy to waste talking.

“As the rope comes back. Then I’ll walk up the wall as far as I can. I think I can do it.”

“Go ahead. Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll give you some slack.”

“Just hold what you’ve got,” she said. She didn’t want him to let go, he was losing ground as it was. As the rope jerked back toward her in quarter-inch increments, she planted her feet firmly against the concrete and willed her legs to straighten. She would have a very brief window of opportunity to fly-walk up the wall, after which, she’d just have to let go and drop. She wondered how deep the water was down in the big chamber.

She forced her eyes open but could not turn her head. Her left leg straightened out first, then her right. She locked her knees, but she was still bent like a hairpin. She would have to let him lose more ground.

She gripped the rope as hard as she could with her left hand and then quickly wrapped the loose end around her right wrist three times. She took up the strain on her right wrist and hand and did the same thing with her left, then equalized it. It gave her a much more solid grip, but then she realized she was losing circulation in both hands. Mistake. Big mistake, but there was nothing to be done. She had to go for it, and do it now, angle or no angle. She slid her right foot up two inches, and then her left foot. It was hard, very hard, and her arms felt like they were coming out of their sockets. She did it again.

“Hold it if you can,” she grunted.

Kreiss didn’t answer from up above, but the rope seemed to steady. She moved her feet again, getting the hang of it now, slide up, hold, slide the other one, hold. Breathe, she told herself; don’t forget to breathe. She was hanging out like a wind surfer now, forcing herself to ignore the void below her and concentrating on the green swatch of concrete right in front of her. Her wrists were burning, but her hands

were beyond sensation. She slid her feet again and realized she was close, only about two feet to go before they would reach the edge. Slide, plant it, bend the knee a little bit as her back flattened some more, slide the other one, plant it. Hold the fucking rope, Kreiss. Don’t let go; don’t let go. Thank God I’m barefoot….

And then she felt the toes of her right foot engage the smooth steel edge of the lip. She twisted slightly on the rope, trying to get a foot over. Wrong move. She had to get the other foot up to the edge first, then simply pull herself vertical hand over hand.

But she couldn’t go hand over hand because her hands were completely wrapped in the coils of the rope, and paralyzed besides. She gave a small cry of total frustration and looked up the slope at Kreiss, who was barely visible except for the oval patch of white that was his face. She tried to speak, but her lungs were bursting with the effort of holding herself at the edge, her feet pinned against the cold steel, while the rest of her body hung out like some mountain climber enjoying the view. She was trapped, unable to go either up or back without falling. One of them had to do something, but she didn’t know what.

Then Kreiss moved. He must have seen her predicament, because he locked his feet and leaned back hard, up the slope of the tunnel, so that the angle of the rope straightened. It produced a small tug, but it was enough to bring her body more vertical. He leaned some more, until his back was at nearly the same angle as hers, and suddenly she was able to simply step up into the tunnel. Kreiss sat down hard with a grunt as Janet sunk first to her knees and then down onto her shins and forearms. She resisted a temptation to kiss the concrete. Then Kreiss was there, unwrapping her hands and wrists.