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| Photo by Mom, (Wiki.) |
(Editor's Note: This stuff will be edited. -- ed.)
Dusty Miller
Liam pulled up to the shoreline where a portage trail
led up into a tall forest of pines and black spruce, a pink and grey
outcropping of bald granite looming above that on a high angle.
“Hullo.”
“Good morning.”
Ian Spencer held the boat as Liam got out. Ian was
another lone wolf.
“So you think you’ve found the damned thing?” Spencer
snorted softly. “Or part of it. I guess that’s why they’re paying you the big
bucks, eh?”
Ian was as Canadian as apple pie and Blue Jays
baseball. He was lucky to be getting five hundred a day plus expenses. Holding
dual citizenship, he’d worked in Britain for many years in what was
euphemistically called private security. During the real IRA years, some of
those people were as tough and skilled at counter-terrorism and
counter-intelligence as anyone else.
Ian’s resume was extensive.
Liam liked him well enough and he seemed tough,
capable and confident.
“I’ve got a major part of her. Almost a certainty.”
His morning briefing had said (essentially) that it looked good according to
analysis and why not bring it up.
The radioactivity count indicated possibly the motors,
or at least some part of the reactor. Brief exposure would give an increased
chance of cancer later in life. The suit would only partially shield him.
Getting it out of the mud would take some work.
It was the price one paid for an interesting life.
Ian went back into the bushes and dragged the first of
two long duffel bags out onto the bank. Liam stowed the first one in the bottom
of his boat, well out of sight as Spencer went back for the other one.
He came out of the woods, gasping and cursing.
“Jesus. I sure hope this is worth it to you.” He
cleared his throat and held out a hand, palm up. “What, no tip?”
Liam just nodded and helped him get it aboard. Ian
gave a sour grin and bent to it.
Kimball looked up.
“I’ve asked you to stop calling me that.” The tone was
absent.
Ian shook his head.
There was another boat, a mile ahead of them up the
river, and Liam wanted to get this done. There was a bend in the river and some
overhanging branches, but with the powerful motors on the bass boats in particular,
they could be on them in a minute, a minute and a half at best.
Ian stepped back as Liam dropped the second bag and
shoved it with a good kick into the centerline.
He had one foot in still in the
water. He hopped into the boat with alacrity and Ian shoved the prow off the
beach as he reached for the steering wheel and starter button.
Ian had undergone a long hike, portaging back and
forth, to bring in all of the equipment. He was looking at another long walk
back to his Land Rover. Shorthanded as they were, his partner was home watching
the watchers.
Hopefully Liam could pull this off, while the
opposition was presumably in disarray.
Ian began walking up the steep trail with barely a
look back, almost enjoying himself now that the hard work was done. Sooner or
later it would all have to come out again, of course.
There were places he needed to be. The sound of
Kimball’s motor droned and faded and he took one last look back, seeing nothing
but a patch of blue and a sea of treetops.
Almost anything could happen next. If he didn’t pay
attention, he’d walk smack-dab into a mother black bear with a couple of cubs,
or, what was almost worse—a big mess of poison ivy.
He’d had it once as a Boy Scout, and it was an
experience he would never forget. People got it on their hands and sooner or
later you had to pee.
Blackflies, mosquitoes and other biting insects buzzed
and whirred and clouded his vision. Once off the lake, or off the trail or away
from your camp, you just couldn’t get enough bug spray sometimes.
With ankle
length boots, high socks, and sticking to the trails, he’d been lucky to avoid
poison ivy.
There were also poison sumac and poison oak to contend with,
although he’d never been able to tell the difference. Sumacs and oaks all
looked the same to him, and poison ivy was one of those variable plants. You
never quite knew what you were looking at. With the temperature near thirty
Celsius, and with the humidity climbing, he’d failed to bring enough water. His
canteen was almost dry.
The trail just went up and up and then up again some
more.
His vehicle was a good thirty-five hundred metres from
the water. He’d practically busted a nut getting Liam’s gear to him. His lower
legs, back and shoulders just ached. When he finally rounded the last corner,
he paled to see what someone had done to his vehicle. He stopped dead, jaw
open.
Every light, signal, and sheet of glass had been smashed. Every panel had
been kicked in and dented, scratched, scraped and gouged…the mirrors had been
kicked off as well. The license plate was missing from the front end.
“Shit.” Reaching for his phone, he checked his watch
and then took a quick look up at the sun, wondering how far Liam might have
gotten in the interval.
That movement saved his life. A rotten branch, blue-grey
with lichens, exploded inches from his left ear and it became apparent that
someone was shooting at him with a silenced weapon.
Birds twitted and cheeped as he froze in shock for a
split second.
Smack.
Jesus,
I’m lucky to still be alive—
With no idea of where the shots were coming from, it
was all he could do to pick a direction and fling himself into the nearest
underbrush, clawing at his own little gun.
Smack-smack-smack…no
more.
Since he still had the time to wonder if the phone was
smashed, it would seem he was still alive.
He was really
sweating, now.
It did kind of put the mosquitoes in perspective,
though. The nearest help was an hour away. To talk on the phone was to give
away his position, to try and text a message was to lose that all-important focus.
Whoever was out there couldn’t see him at this exact
moment. The shots had come from off to the right, and the trail, the logging
road, led straight ahead.
It looked like a ticklish tactical picture, with the
number of enemy combatants unknown, at least to the inexperienced eye.
His next move was obvious enough. At least to him. Ian
drew his weapon and began wriggling towards whoever was out there.
The key was stealth and self-control.
The thing was to see the other guy first.
One
shot, one kill, asshole.
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