Charles Taylor - First Salvo

The chart lay flat in his lap. He saw where he was and what he would have to do. The map was printed to withstand immersion. And now he silently thanked some cartographic clerk back in the States who’d made sure the job was done right when he transposed the satellite data onto the chart.

Ryng saw the glacial stream that came down near where he now sat, the one they’d seen from the boat before the helo attacked. He stood up to check — a couple of hundred yards away. Using his thumbnail, he marked the rough surface to the meeting point. Twelve, fifteen miles, no more. Nothing like thumbnail navigation.

A couple of miles down the beach, he saw the helo turn out over the water and head back toward its base. But don’t kid yourself. They’re not going to give up that easy. Maybe they’ll go back, but just maybe they’ll swing out and then dash back to see if they fooled you. Remember, there’s no such thing as a dead man until you have a body — or a piece of one! Grab your ass and lead on out of here, but remember that body they want. Better yet, think about a separate arm or leg!

The next instant when he raised his head, the helo had reversed course, returning to his side of the harbor, just as he’d suspected!

With that he started out, moving from one clump of scrub to the next, mindful of the helo which now seemed intent on searching a section of water a few miles farther on. “Thank God you had the good sense to keep these shoes,” he muttered out loud to himself. He could feel the sharp pebbles through his soles, some smooth like bullets, but others, rolled the wrong way underneath all that ice, were sharp as arrowheads.

At the glacial stream, he stopped to check the helo. It was still zipping back and forth on some inane path in an exercise that didn’t make sense. The stream wasn’t at all deep. It was a miniature flood plain, a delta at the base of a tiny glacier now receded back into the mountains. This time of year, it exuded a steady flow of water, but not enough to cut a deep trench.

Gingerly, he stepped out, his eye already on more scrub fifty yards away on the other side. He lurched forward, his foot sinking up to the ankle. Taking a second step, he again sank in. Pulling, the rear foot made a sucking sound as it escaped from the grayish-brown silt. Wherever the water ran, the damn stuff was just mud, he thought. Each step was an effort, the mud clinging, pulling relentlessly at his shoes. It would take twice as long as he’d estimated to get across. If the helo came back…

He struggled on, trying to move faster. But he could only move so fast. The last half-dozen hours had taken their toll. No one could put his body through what his had already done and cut through this stuff like a sprinter.

The water and the mud were cold — ice cold, glacier cold. He could feel the creeping numbness in his feet. Perhaps it would be easier if he couldn’t feel anything. Just plod along, steady pace, no discomfort, perhaps eventually move faster.

He was finally halfway across. No wonder I wanted to get the boat to the other side of this crap before they attacked , he thought. He’d forgotten to look more closely at his map to see how many more of these little streams there were.

Too many and he might as well kiss it all good-bye. It was taking so long it was more like crossing a river.

He looked back out to the helo. Same place. No, wait a minute. He remembered the peak he had been sighting it against. The helo was to the left of that now. As he staggered along, muddy step after muddy step, he watched its perspective change. Damn! He’s headed back this way .

He thought of his tracks and then he thought of a wounded animal in the snow. No shit, Ryng, you should have waited until he got low on fuel and headed back for a drink. Now you’ve got yourself in a hell of a fix! He felt his heart beat faster, partly from exertion, partly from fear, as he attempted to pick up the pace, one sucking, muddy, numbing footstep at a time.

The helo wasn’t racing back. No need to. No one on that godforsaken coastline was going to go anywhere fast. He knew it. They knew it. Shit!

He faltered and stopped for a minute as one of his shoes began to slip off. It would be foolish to leave it behind, just on the off chance that he might get away this time. He stopped, reset his foot in the muck, gripped with his toes, and lifted. The foot came out with the same sucking sound, the shoe still on it, covered with mud, only the small amount of sensation he had left in his feet convincing him that the shoe was still there.

Checking the angle on the helo, he saw it closing in steadily but still not quickly. Perhaps there was a chance to make it. With ten yards to go, he literally dove toward the scrub, arms stretched in front, waving in the air.

And then he was free, his feet suddenly released from the mud. It threw him off balance, and before he could catch himself, he was pitching forward, no longer held up by the thick silt. Putting his hands out, he covered the last few yards on all fours like a crab, rolling under the brush. Breathing with deep, racking sobs from the exertion, he pictured tracks across the mud of that stream pointing out his frail hiding spot — just like landing lights.

The beat of the rotors were sharper than when he awakened before. Now all his senses were alert. Not only did he know where he was and what he was trying to do, he also knew that he’d now covered all of three hundred yards and was cowering under a bit of scrub brush like a dog waiting for the whip to fall. The deep breathing helped. The oxygen, the blood racing through his system, all of his muscles active for a few brief moments, each of these were warning him, making him more alert. Moments before, he had been thinking hypothermia, that slow reduction in the body’s temperature until all feeling and caring disappeared and you gave up. Now there was no intention of giving up. Just don’t be so damn stupid next time — if there is a next time. Don’t try to outthink a helo, Ryng. If you let it go away, it’ll let you go away .

And then it was directly overhead, the rotors again beating the dust and pebbles into his skin with a deafening roar. It banked slightly, passing within yards of the cliff, then swung back over him, crossing the stream toward his first hiding place, then again sweeping back over the stream.

This is it! Ryng thought. It’s following the goddamned wounded beast, the blood in the snow . But it passed overhead again, moving down the shoreline, then out over the water.

Ryng waited, his body immobilized, his brain still unable to ascertain why the helo hadn’t gone into a hover directly above him before blasting wildly with its machine guns. Then the sound drifted farther away. He turned his head. Off over the water, he could see the helo headed in the direction of Longyearbyen. He could tell by the sound of the engine that it was traveling close to full speed. It wouldn’t be back — at least not until it was refueled.

He sat up amazed, shaking his head over his good luck. Then he stood, searching the stream. There were no prints! Looking more closely, he saw that the water, an opaque, milky mixture from the detritus that flowed from the glacier, had quickly covered his tracks. Already the silt was beginning to fill the holes where his feet had been.

With the knowledge that there was no time to ponder his good luck, he turned west, moving off at a good pace. If he were hiking under normal conditions — on flat ground, no mountains, no streams, no tundra — he could cover the distance in five or six hours. He was in good enough condition, but there was that slight problem of mountains and streams and tundra, not to mention the beating his body had taken recently or the probability that helicopters, perhaps more than one, would be back. And there was another problem — the fact that he had no weapons.