David Dun: Unacceptable Risk

"I'm a dead man," Paul said before he was cut off.

"Gaudet," Sam said.

The response was garbled.

The radio on Rollin's belt came to life, a barely audible voice saying something Sam couldn't quite hear.

"Girard. Whoever. I can trade you Rollin for Paul. And I know you don't care about Rollin, but you might care about what he could say to the authorities."

"No!" Rollin cried. "He'll kill me."

"Just a minute." Sam turned off the radio. "Then you bet ter help me figure how to trick the bastard."

"There are seven of them," Rollin said. "Not five."

"What else did you lie about?"

"Nothing. They'll be coming here now. They knew my GPS coordinates. God, I need more morphine."

Using all his strength, Sam dragged the stretcher up the side of the canyon a hundred feet and parked Rollin in a thicket. At the hilltops it was growing light. He placed two syringes full of morphine in the man's trembling hands and kept the last two. He rather doubted he would see the man alive again. As he turned away, he remembered one more thing he should ask.

"Did you ever hear of a Frenchman named Georges Raval?"

"Never."

Sam ran along the canyon wall, and as it started to flatten near the house, he slowed down. They would be corning without lights so as not to make themselves sitting ducks. Paul had been halfway around the house; Gaudet would send the others and stay with Paul, his ticket out.

Sam went straight toward Paul's hiding spot, slowing when the GPS showed him within fifty yards.

Then he realized the flaw in this approach. Gaudet always left when his plans went awry. That meant he would send his men to kill Rollin and then order them to leave because they had lost the element of surprise and their odds had worsened considerably.

Damn. There was nothing he could do. He had to try to save Paul even if the chances were nil. With a sense of utter futility he continued on until he found Paul's dead body tied to a tree. The Kevlar vest was on the ground indicating he had probably been held at gunpoint. He had also been evis cerated, a method Gaudet had used once before on one of Sam's men. Gaudet's process was a shadow of one taken from medieval times where they went beyond merely piling intestines on the ground and actually cooked them in a fire while the victim lived. Sam forced himself to study his friend's body. The incision was unlike the one other similar job per formed by Gaudet. This time the incision was high and long and began at a partially disguised hole in the sternum. Judging from the edges it was a bullet hole. A wave of relief went through Sam as he realized that the bullet had no doubt hit the heart or the aorta and would have caused near instant death or at least unconsciousness. So the evisceration was a brutal afterthought like a calling card or a cruel attempt to convince Sam that his friend's suffering had been without parallel. Paul was dead or unconscious when they did this.

Gaudet had left him a one-word note: ventouse. As best as he could recall from his times in France, the word meant "sucker."

Sam moved away, his movements stiff as he processed the horror. He could not hide from the agony of losing Paul by pushing it from his mind. Such things needed to run their course or they would return in unexpected ways. He allowed the feelings of deepest disappointment and despair, followed by incredible, careless rage. Like all such feelings they would pass in time and give way to determination. Pure and simple he had to kill Gaudet.

In what he knew would be a vain effort, he ran back to the hillside where he had left Rollin. Even at a distance the man looked like a corpse. Sam felt unsettled and knew not to ignore his instincts. It would be a mistake to assume Gaudet was gone, even though that fit his pattern.

He made his way up the hill with great caution. The duff was sodden and dense and a little like mulch, making for quiet footsteps. Then he heard someone coming fast, charg ing through the brush rather than coming around it. It wouldn't be the Tilok rescue team, not yet, and not that noisy. Sam squatted and raised the M4, flicking the switch into the auto matic fire position.

A hat became visible and, amazingly, he recognized it. It was quite distinctive, festooned with fishing flies that in the predawn light looked like blurred dots. The hat belonged to Matt, his neighbor and friend down the road, a naturalist sort of a fellow, big into the outdoors. He killed a deer now and then for meat, gathered a lot of edibles from the forest, and smoked his fish the old Indian way. He was a good man, helpful with his neighbors on the mountain, and personally rugged. In this situation Matt could be a real asset, although Sam knew he wasn't a soldier. But Sam also remembered Rollin's strange remark about neighbors. Sam kept low in the event Rollin was right or in case Gaudet's men remained in the vicinity. As he waited, he scanned Matt with the starlight scope on his rifle.

Matt's expression was unusual, his mouth in a flat line, tense and determined. Perhaps he'd already had an unpleasant run-in with Gaudet's men. Or maybe he was a murderer in the making. Indeed, he carried a rifle of his own. When Matt was perhaps fifty feet distant, Sam heard a second per son also moving fast.

Apparently, Matt heard the same footfalls and stopped moving up the hill, dropped to one knee, and assumed a fir ing position. He made no attempt to find cover. He raised his Ml4, looking prepared to shoot whatever emerged.

A bald head appeared, moving in and out of the trees and cover. It was another neighbor, James, also a good man, although Sam didn't know him as well. He lived a few miles away. James also carried an automatic weapon, which was s tranger still, since James was strictly a fisherman and not a gun enthusiast. James carrying a combat rifle seemed more than suspicious.

Matt aimed at James as he emerged from the brush, fin ger on the trigger.

What the hell?

"Matt!" Sam shouted. Matt whirled and fired from the hip, peppering the tree that served as Sam's shield. A couple of the bullets made it through the edges of the trunk, causing Sam to pull in his elbows and squat. More shots came from below.

"It's me! Sam!" The bullets came faster and closer. Both men were shooting, but the bullets had stopped slapping the tree. Sam risked a peek around the tree only to find Matt and James shooting at each other. James was down and wounded, but still firing, and trying to crawl up the hill. Matt had found cover behind a black oak.

"Stop it," Sam shouted. "Let's talk."

Immediately they redirected their fire at Sam.

Bad idea. As they advanced on his position, Sam ran straight through a patch of huckleberry and behind another tree-lucky he hadn't caught a bullet. He ran back up the hill, figuring he would outrun them.

Passing Rollin, he saw that someone had shoved the stick all the way into his innards and shot him in the head.

Sam moved on and climbed to a small bench where large rock formations offered better cover. There he waited to see if his neighbors would follow. In minutes they were a hundred feet below him. Once again he turned and ran, moving farther up the hill, knowing he could get away but wonder ing what the men would do if left alone together. They were acting like men possessed. Sam couldn't imagine restraining or capturing them in this unnatural mind-set.

Sam would climb the mountain, then circle back, find the Tiloks, and determine what to do next. With a group of clever trackers they might trap and disarm the men before they hurt somebody. For just a moment he listened to make sure they were following, but now there was silence. He waited for minutes, but nothing moved.

Perhaps it was a trap. He made a gradual arc, descending the hill until he came opposite from the spot he had last heard his neighbors. Slowly he crept forward on his belly over slimy leaves, moving inches every minute. He knew to be patient. It took him half an hour before he caught a glimpse of the spotty camo of Matt's hunting clothes. Matt was on the ground, on his back. Sam crawled closer. Open-mouthed, the man shook in convulsions. Quickly Sam approached and found blood seeping from the corner of Matt's mouth and his body still convulsing. Sam checked his pulse: racing. Then it slowed and the convulsions ceased. Matt con tinued to breathe on his own, so Sam secured his hands to gether, left him, and found James several hundred feet down the hill. He'd been shot multiple times and crawled until he'd died-a great waste of a good man.