Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

"I'm going to uncover your mouth," I whispered. "If you scream, I'll cut your throat."

When I let go of Rachel, she whirled in the creek, her face a mask of terror and fury. Then she saw the knife in my hand, the Gerber I'd bought at Wal-Mart.

"Walk," I told her. "Back down the creek. You know how to do it."

She stared at me a moment longer, then turned and started over the rocks. I sheathed my knife and unslung my bow. I would stand little chance against a man with an Ml6, but if I saw my opponent first, I might get off a quick shot.

"Stick close to the right wall."

She moved to the right, quickly picking her way from stone to stone. As I followed Rachel down the steep watercourse, my mind filled with questions I should have asked her before but hadn't. That first day, when she'd awakened me from my dream about Fielding's death… how had she unlocked the door? I'd locked it after the FedEx man left, yet I'd awakened to find the door banging against the chain latch as Rachel yelled my name. And finding my house without me telling her my address? I know someone in the UVA personnel office, she'd said. The university would have been warned about giving out information on a Trinity principal. And the surveillance plane over the highway? How had they known which of the thousands of cars between Chapel Hill and Nags Head to train their laser on? One phone call from Rachel while I was unconscious could have given them the Audi, the Nags Head cabin, everything.

As for Oak Ridge, she could easily have called them from the Wal-Mart in Asheville, when I'd posted her by the door. She hadn't known about Frozen Head then, but she did have a cell phone. With a little nerve, she could have called the NSA when she got out of the truck last night to pee. On the other hand, I still remembered leaping into the hallway of my house and finding an assassin pointing a gun at Rachel's back.

She paused as she came to a deep channel in the creek. I moved close behind her in case she fell or tried to run. As we negotiated the channel, I thought back to how I'd chosen her. Skow had resisted my going to a non-NSA psychiatrist, but had he resisted vigorously enough? Friends at UVA had told me Rachel was the best Jungian analyst in the country. Had Geli Bauer been walking in my footsteps, talking to everyone I talked to? Had she briefed Rachel before my first appointment? How could Geli have compromised her? An appeal to patriotism? Blackmail? There was no way to know.

I reached out and grabbed Rachel's pack. The creek had leveled out. The road wasn't far away.

"We're close to the truck," I said softly. "Veer left here, and don't step on any branches."

She looked back at me, her eyes still furious. "You don't really think-"

I poked her in the back. "Walk."

She picked her path through the dripping trees with surprising agility. After about forty yards, I grabbed her pack again, then scanned the trees ahead.

"David, you don't think I betrayed you."

I nodded. "No other explanation."

"There has to be."

I peered between the wet trunks, searching for any¬thing out of place. "They might have figured out Oak Ridge, but not Frozen Head. I could have picked a dozen other spots in the mountains around here."

She held up her hands helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you. I haven't spoken to anyone."

"How did you get into my house that day? The first day?"

"Your house? I picked the lock."

"Bullshit."

"You think so? My father was a locksmith in Brooklyn. I grew up around the trade."

Her explanation could be a facile lie, but it had the outrageous ring of truth. "What's a Chubb?" I asked off the top of my head.

"A high-quality, British-made lock. I also know what a spiral tooth extractor is. Do you?"

I had no idea. "Turn around and keep walking. The truck's a hundred yards ahead."

Rachel turned and walked quickly through the trees. With my bow unslung, I had to be more careful. The bowstring seemed to attract briers, and the broadhead I was holding along the shaft of the bow kept catching on branches and shaking water onto me.

Suddenly, I heard a swish like a big buck leaping through wet foliage. Then I saw a flash of black between two trees.

"Freeze!" barked a male voice.

Rachel stopped, her back just visible between two glistening trunks. Beyond her stood a man wearing black nylon and a bulletproof vest. He held an automatic pis¬tol, and it was trained on Rachel's face.

"Where is he?" asked the gunman.

"Who?"

"You know. The doctor."

I nocked the arrow and slowly raised my bow.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rachel said. "I'm out here shooting a wildlife spread on deer."

The lie sounded effortless. Was she signaling the gun¬man with her hand?

"Where's your camera?"

I pulled the bowstring to full draw against my right cheek and peered through the peep sight. Rachel's body partially blocked my shot, and I didn't want to shift my weight for fear of making noise.

"I lost it in the creek," she said. "Are you a game warden?"

"Red Six to Red Leader," the gunman said into his collar radio.

"I'll tell you!" cried Rachel.

I leaned to my right, straining for a shot.

The gunman looked up from his radio. "All right. Where is he?"

Some bulletproof vests will stop a bullet but not a knife point. A razor-sharp broadhead should pierce what a knife would, but if it didn't, Rachel's face-or mine- would disappear in a cloud of red mist. I aimed for the V of the gunman's throat, just above the top of his vest.

"What will you do if you find him?" Rachel asked.

"That's not your problem."

"Red Six," crackled the radio receiver in the man's ear, loud enough for us to hear. "This is Red Leader. Repeat your message."

As he reached up to key his radio, Rachel screamed my name, and I loosed the arrow.

Rachel's scream masked any sound of impact. For a moment I was afraid I'd hit her. She'd fallen to her knees, but the gunman was still standing and holding his pistol. Why hadn't he fired? Had my arrow passed him without a sound? My bowstring was silenced. I jerked another arrow from my quiver and tried to nock it with shaking fingers.

"Red Six, this is Red Leader. This better be good."

I expected a pistol shot, but instead I heard a heavy thud that I instantly recognized. When I looked up, the gunman was gone. I'd heard deer fall like that after a spine shot. First came the sing of the bowstring, then the knee-buckling impact and the cement-sack thud of a clean kill. The delay was what had thrown me. This man had hung in the air like a statue, unwilling to die.

"This is Red Leader, respond immediately."

Rachel's face was streaked with tears. As adrenaline poured into my system, I shoved her aside and looked down. The black-clad man lay flat on his back. The broadhead had pierced his throat and punched through his cervical spine. He couldn't have remained standing more than a second with that injury, which only proved how subjective time was in the heat of action.

"Get in the truck," I told Rachel.

"Where is it?"

"Thirty yards on. Move!"

She staggered over the fallen man and disappeared into the trees.

"Red Six, this is Red Leader, what the hell are you doing? "

I heard someone else talking through static. "… god¬damn no-count radios. Go find the son of a bitch. Tell him we got coffee up here. That'll bring him."

The dead man's eyes were open but already as cloudy as antique glass. I picked up his automatic and stuffed it into my jumpsuit pocket. Then I got to my knees and hefted his corpse over my shoulder. I had to grab a thick branch to pull myself to my feet, but I managed it, and then began trudging toward the truck. Anyone within a hundred meters would think Bigfoot was lumbering through the forest.