Under Siege (61 page)

Only now did Henry Charon check the luminous hands of hiswatch. Eleven thirty-four.

He carefully left the little cave and moved with sure, silent steps twenty feet around to his right, to a prominence where he could look and listen. He sank to the ground at the base of a tree so he would not present a clear silhouette, motionless, a part of the rock, a dark, indistinct shape in a dark, wet universe.

The glow of the city lights reflecting on the clouds was only thinly dissipated by the naked branches of the trees.

And he heard the noise again. A man, moving slowly and carefully, but moving.

Charon saw nothing. His ears told him what he wanted to know. One man, sixty or so yards away, around the slope and down a bit.

And coming this way. Henry Charon didn’t form hypotheses about who this intruder might be or why he was here. Like the wary wild animal he was, he waited. He waited with infinite patience.

Now he got a fleeting look at the man. A soldier, judging by the helmet and the bulky shape, indistinct among the brush and trees. The man was moving slowly, warily, listening and looking.

But wait! Above on the ridge-another man. Two of them.

He turned his head ever so slowly to acquire the second man. He could hear him but that was all.

The second man was closer than the one lower on the slope. That he had gotten this close without Charon hearing him was a tribute to his skill. The first man was much clumsier.

Charon had a decision to make. Should he wait and see if these men would pass him without detecting him or should he move away? If they were hunting him, which was likely, they would check out this overhang of rock and, if they were halfway competent, find the cave and his gear.

He mulled these questions as an animal would, without consciously thinking about them, merely waiting for his instinct to tell him it was time to move.

The first man he had heard came closer, now plainly

between the trees and rock outcrops. He

Re in his hands.

was right up the slope even with Charon, judging by the sound. Charon did not turn his head. Only his eyes moved.

“Psst. Pssst!” The hissing came from the lower man. He gestured in Charon’s direction, then said in a stage whisper, “There’s some rocks to my left.”

Charon remained frozen. The man who had whispered moved behind the tree that sheltered Charon, but he did not move to reacquire him. The man was less than a dozen feet away.

At this distance Charon could hear every step the man took. He could hear him breathing deeply, as one does when one is trying to get plenty of air and be quiet too. He could hear his clothing rustle. He could hear the gentle, rhythmic swish of the water in his canteen. He even got a faint whiff of the odor of stale cigarette smoke.

The man moved away from Charon’s back, toward the cave. Still Charon remained motionless. Slowly, ever so slowly, he rotated his head to try to acquire the man above him on the ridge. Nothing. The man was behind the trees or just over the rocky crest. In any event Charon couldn’t see him from where he had made himself a part of the earth.

A minute passed. The man behind brushed against the bushes, broke several branches. “Billy! Billy! We got a cave here.” Seconds passed. “Billy! There’s a bunch of stuff in the cave.”

“Say again.”

Now the soldier behind Charon spoke normally. “There’s a cave down here with a sleeping bag and some other stuff in it. Better report.”

As the metallic sounds of a walkie-talkie became audible, Henry Charon moved. He moved straight ahead, back in the direction the men had come from. He kept low yet moved surely and silently and used the brush and trees and rocks to screen himself from the men behind him.

The voices of the two men around the cave carried. They were still audible though the words were indistinct when Charon halted beside the base of a large tree and scanned the terrain.

Other men would be coming up this slope to check out the cave. He had to get well away but he didn’t want to move onto someone who was sitting motionless. So he paused to scan and listen.

He could hear someone down the slope. The person slipped and fell heavily, then regained his feet. He moved steadily without pause, working his way upwards toward Charon. No doubt he was trying to find the cave.

Charon slipped along, staying low.

He froze when he heard the sound of a walkie-talkie. Below, to the left. Another one! He kept going parallel with the ridge line. After several hundred yards the ridge began to curve. Perfect. The road below would also curve since it ran along the creek. Charon turned ninety degrees left and began his descent.

Through the trees he saw the glint of light reflecting on the asphalt when he was still twenty-five yards away. His progress was slow now, glacial. He flitted from tree to tree, looking and listening. It took him three minutes to get across the creek, which was small but full.

Then he got down on his stomach and crawled toward the road.

The roadside was brushy with dead weeds and briars. Charon lay prone, listening.

Nothing.

Ever so slowly he raised his head. He was beside a crooked little tree that had all its branches tilted toward the road. The bare branches formed a partial canopy that left him in deeper darkness. He scanned right and left, smching the shadows.

Another minute passed as he tried to satisfy himself that no one was nearby.

He rose to a crouch and trotted across the two-lane asphalt toward the brush beyond.

p

The shout came from his right, a surprised, half-choked cry.

Henry Charon sprinted toward the waiting darkness. The impact of the bullet tumbled him. He rolled once and regained his feet, his left side completely numb. He pined the brush and charged into it and kept going as a bullet slapped into a tree just above his head and the boom of a second shot rang out, He hadn’t even heard the first one.

There was no pain. Just a numbness that extended from his armpit to his hip. He could still use his left arm, but not very well. The rifle was still in his right hand. He hadn’t lost it, thank God!

He attacked the hill in front of him, driving on both feet, fighting for air, not caring about how much noise he made.

They would be coming, that he knew. He had no illusions. No more than sixty seconds had passed before he heard the swelling noise of an engine coming down the road, then the squeal of its tires as the driver braked hard to a halt. Henry Charon went up the slope with all the strength that was in him.

The soldier was so nervous when Jake Grafton got out of the car that he couldn’t stand still. He hopped from foot to foot, pointing up the slope.

“I shouted for him to haft but he didn’t so I shot and he fell and got up and kept running and I shot again and dear

“Show me.

The soldier led him to the spot where the man had fallen. Jake used his flashlight. He followed the soldier’s pointing finger. Specks of blood on the brush. “What’s your name?”

“Specialist Garth, sir.”

“You hit him.” Jake pointed his M-1 6 at the ground and fired three shots

evenly qmrt. “You stay here,” he told the soldier: “and tell your lieutenant to get people on the streets up

there.” He gestured toward the ridge he faced. “I think there’re streets and houses up there.”

“Yessir,” Specialist Garth said, still swallowing rapidly and wetting his lips. “I hope-was

“You did right. You did your duty. Tell the lieutenant.” Jake strode back to the car and tossed his that in. “Toad, go down about fifty feet to the right. Rita, fifty feet left. We’ll go up the hill. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“What about me?” Jack Yocke wanted to know.

“Stay here with the car.” The lieutenants were trotting to their assigned position. “Better yet, drive the car around and meet us up on top.” And Jake turned and plunged into the brush.

Fifteen feet up the hill he regretted his impulse to have comyocke help. Having a car driven by an unarmed man waiting and ready for a desperate wounded man with a gun when he topped the hill wasn’t the best idea Jake had had today.

Too late Jake Grafton turned around. Yocke was already driving away.

“Damn.” Jake used his flashlight. He held it in his left hand and held the rifle by the pistol grip in his right, ready to fire. The trail in the wet earth was plain. Occasional splotches of blood.

If luck were a lady, this guy would be lying unconscious fifty feet up the hill bleeding to death. But Grafton had long ago lost all his illusions about that fickle bitch. The wounded man was probably tough-as a man could be and would keep going until he died on his feet.

He’s going to need a lot of killing, Jake Grafton told himself as he paused to scan the dark forest with his flash.

At the top of the hill was a chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire. Behind it was a lawn and trees and a huge twostory house with lights in three or four of the windows. The fence was an im ossible barrier for Henry p Charon, who was blecdin and beginning to hurt. He looked left and right, then went right on impulse. He

moved quickly, still able to lope along although the shock of the bullet was wearing off.

The next house had a six-foot-high wooden fence, still too much for Charon. He kept going until he came to a small two-rail accent fence. He was across it and trotting across the lawn when he heard a car go by on the street.

Cars would mean police or soldiers. Charon went around the house and paused behind a huge evergreen to survey the area and catch his breath. He probed the wound with his hand. Bleeding. Behind him on the grass he could see the trail where he had come. Whoever followed would see it too.

The car that had gone by was not in sight, so Charon ran out onto the street and veered right. Pavement would show no tracks, although he was probably dripping blood.

He needed a place to hole up and dress the wound. Or to die if the wound was too bad. That was a possibility of course. He had seen it happen hundreds of times. A wounded animal would run for miles until it thought it had escaped its pursuer, then it would lie down and quietly bleed to death. Sometimes he had come up on them after they had lain down but while they were still alive. If they had lain too long they could not move. The shock and loss of blood weakened them, caused them to stiffen up so badly they couldn’t rise. He wouldn’t lie that long. He would be up and going before he got too weak or stiff.

But where?

He heard another vehicle, or perhaps the same one coming back, and darted down the first driveway he came to. The house was dark. Great.

He went around the garage and circled the house.

There might be a burglar alarm. Or a dog. He would have to take the chance.

He used the silenced pistol on the door lock. It took four shots, but finally it opened when he pushed against it with his shoulder and turned the doorknob.

He closed it behind him and stood listening. The darkness inside the house was almost total. He waited for his eyes to accommodate, then walked quietly and quickly from room to room.

Apparently empty. With the pistol in his hand he ascended the stairs.

The master bath was off the big bedroom. It lacked windows. He closed the door behind him and turned on the light.

His appearance in the mirror shocked him. The coat was sodden with blood. He stripped it carefully. God, the pain was getting bad! He had difficufty getting the sweater and shirt off, but he did.

The wound was down low, entry and exit holes about six inches apart, a couple inches above his hip point and around on his back. He could only see the entrance hole by looking in the mirror. No way of telling what was bleeding inside. If his kidney or something vital were nicked, he would eventually pass out from loss of blood and die. And that would be that.

As it was, all he could try to do was get the external bleeding stopped. And it was a bleeder.

How much blood had he lost? Easily a pint, maybe more. He felt lighthearted. There was no time to lose.

He snapped off the light and went out into the bedroom where he stripped the sheets from the bed. Back in the bathroom with the light on he used his knife to cut the sheet, then tore it into strips which he painfully and slowly wrapped around his abdomen.

This would work. If he could get the bleeding stopped he co move.

Jake Grafton followed the trail to the street. He stood there with Toad and Rita and surveyed the wet asphalt with his flashlight. The blood drops were quickly dissipating as the rain intensified. Jake began to trot. Jack Yocke pulled alongside. “Rita,” Jake said, “go get the captain and the troops. Get them on trucks. Hurry.” Obediently she jumped into the car, which sped away. A hundred yards later the blood spots were gone. Jake Grafton stopped and stood panting as he looked aroun “Where do you think he went?” Toad demanded.

“dunno.”

Jake used the flash again, shining it on the lawns and shrubs and tree trunks. “Probably in one of these houses, but he could have kept going. We’re going to have to get the troops to surround this area and search it. If we can get them in position quickly enough, we can bag this guy.”

“You think this man is the amsin?”

Jake didn’t answer. It was a possibility. One thing was for sure-whoever it was didn’t want to stop and chat.

From the bedroom window Henry Charon saw the flashlight on the street as he searched the closet for clothes. He pulled out some men’s shirts and tried one on as he watched the two figures on the street. Much to big disgust, the man of the house was a fatty.

The second bedroom down the hall bore evidence of a male presence. A radio-controlled plane hung from the ceiling, some large posters of tily clad pinup girls adorned the walls. Charon checked the closets. Yep. And the shirt fit. He rooted until he found a sweater and added that. The jeans were a little big, but he had a belt.

And there was a decent coat. Not a parka, but a warm one with a Gore-Tex surface.

When he had his boots back on, he went back to the master bedroom for the weapons and rucksack. Those two outside had walked fifty feet or so north and were obviously waiting.