The Searcher (32 page)

R
ushing now, silent, going only by the light of the moon and no longer worrying about the drop or even conscious of it, they went back up the hill until they came to the split in the path and took the left fork, turning back on themselves down toward the river. Their tracks would give them away but then so would their scent, and their only hope was to get to the water before the men behind them. They loped on, and no matter how hard Webster pushed himself they both knew that their lead was narrowing.

“Do you have a plan?” said Webster, breathing hard.

“I have an idea.”

“Then go ahead and see if it works.”

Hammer hesitated, and then realized there was sense in this.

“You got your gun?”

Webster nodded.

“They shoot, or they get within thirty yards, shoot back. Otherwise let's be quiet.”

They exchanged a look.

“And keep going, for fuck's sake. We're close.”

But he had no idea how close they were; how long until he reached the water; whether what he hoped to find there would be there. He went with great reluctance, wondering whether, far from rescuing his friend, he had merely brought him to a different place to die.

He ran now, glanced behind him continually, risked his footing at every turn of the path. The men behind were gaining on Webster, no question,
and he felt a horrible sickness at the inevitability of the pursuit. He wavered: should he have stayed and shot it out? No. These men, whoever they were, were professionals, and he was a reluctant novice. All he could do was go on.

The river rose slowly beside him, and after five minutes he was close enough to see it rippling over pebbles in the shallows. He shone his flashlight along the bank but saw nothing useful and kept going. Behind him, Webster and the Russians were out of sight, concealed by a collar of land, and Hammer waited with dread for the sound of the first shot.

Then there it was, pulled up onto a little beach that was like a widening of the path. A flat-bottomed boat, hull uppermost, covered in a thin layer of snow. He ran to it and turned it over. It was roughly made of wood and along every joint painted lavishly with tar to compensate for the workmanship; underneath there were two wooden paddles, crossed on the stones.

Hammer dragged it the few feet to the water, leaving it as close as he could without fear of it floating away, threw the paddles inside, and went back to smooth the snow where the boat had been sitting. Then he ran back toward Webster, hardly conscious of his pounding heart, barely wanting to know what he would find round each corner.

From somewhere beyond him he heard Webster's voice in a cry of pain, followed immediately by shouts a little further off. He ran faster still, struggling for purchase on the cold ground, seeing just enough in the dark, willing each turn in the path to be the last. Finally, he found him, trying to stand by pulling himself up on an outcrop of rock. Two flashlights flickered against the blackness behind him, much nearer than before. Hammer put his arm round his shoulder and whispered.

“You OK?”

“My leg. I can't . . .”

“It's OK. Lean on me.”

Webster was almost a head taller, but Hammer was strong, and his blood was flowing, and there was no other way. With their three good legs they set off, Webster against the slope, Hammer by the diminishing drop, a strange lopsided creature hobbling at speed through the night. Webster's weight bore down on him and somehow he held it up. There was no more looking
back; but he felt the men behind him, could almost hear the dogs sniffing and straining. Webster's breath was quick and shallow in his ear.

“Ike, you go on.”

“Bullshit.”

The path widened by the river and Hammer went faster still, using all the strength he could call on, until he was almost carrying his burden, and at last they were by the little boat. He looked behind him and saw the faint glare of flashlights in the sky above the final turn in the path.

“Get in. Stay low.” He pushed the boat into the water.

With Hammer's help, Webster climbed into the boat and lay down weakly on the bare wood. Bending down with his hands on the stern, Hammer ran the boat through the first shallows, and when the freezing water was up to his knees jumped in, rocking the thing violently and ending up kneeling beside Webster. He turned to look, and saw no light; the Russians must be hard by the last turn; at any minute they would appear. He moved to the front of the boat, where it narrowed, and paddled as hard as he could, two strokes one side, two the other, guiding them into the middle of the river, checking over his shoulder all the while.

The waters here were still, and the boat hardly swift, and no matter how hard he worked the brisk escape that Hammer had imagined seemed becalmed. He contemplated jumping out and pushing them into the main channel, where the river raced, but after a few firm strokes the two Russians appeared, one flashlight trained on the ground, the other tracking the path ahead and the river below them. Hammer stopped paddling, crouched down, and let the boat drift. From his pocket he took his gun.

Along the path the two Russians went, quickly but paying thorough attention to the ground, until they were barely twenty yards away, and above the soft babble of the river he could hear them talking. Like the Georgians who had held Webster, they appeared military but wore standard winter clothes: woolen hats, bulky jackets. Where the path widened they stopped to inspect the ground where the boat had been left, and where the footprints they had been following ran out. One shone his flashlight up the slope above, and the other began to sweep his across the river in the direction of the boat.

Lying as low as he could, Hammer looked over the side, raised his gun, and wondered whether he had any chance of hitting a man at this distance, in the dark, while moving. Hardly moving; but then he felt the boat's front end swing round, and the rippling of the water grow louder. The current was taking them; the boat settled into it, gaining speed, and Hammer ducked down out of sight.

The flashlight swept over and past them, lighting up the trees on the far bank, and Hammer briefly thought that their low craft had been mistaken for a piece of driftwood, or not seen at all. But the light swung back and came to rest on them, in the same moment that a voice shouted from the bank and a shot ripped through the air above their heads. Before Hammer could collect himself the wood by his ear splintered and tore, and a third shot followed it, hitting the boat below the waterline. Hammer recoiled from the noise and the shock of it; Webster held his hands behind his head, his forearms over his ears. Icy water started pouring in.

“Motherfucker,” said Hammer.

They had distance on their side, and the advantage was growing, but the boat gave no protection and a single decent shot might do for either of them. He raised his head, aimed, not carefully, and fired twice before dropping back down. The men were running along the bank, failing to stay level but still close enough. Three more shots came and one hit the boat, passing straight through an inch above Webster's thigh.

“Jesus!” said Webster. “We need to shoot the fuckers.”

Not a chance, thought Hammer, though he didn't say it. But he peeked again, and fired twice at the source of the light that still held them. A different sort of shouting followed.

“They didn't like that,” said Webster, leaning up on his arm and firing twice, waywardly. Water was streaming into the boat, which was now sitting dangerously low. Two shots whistled by, so close Hammer could imagine their flight through the air.

“Do that again,” said Hammer, as Webster sank back beside him. “I need a second.”

Webster collected himself, then raised himself up and shot, twice again.
In that instant Hammer shone his flashlight downstream and in a flash lit up the bank. They were near to it now, a mere ten yards, but the current was speeding them along and drawing them no closer. He clicked off the flashlight.

“And once more, when I say.”

A second passed, and another. Hammer could hear the men running on the far bank, cursing and slipping.

“Now. Hold on.”

Webster lifted his head and fired. Hammer stuck his paddle deep into the water and the boat, swinging around it, headed under the trees on the bank. The fear Hammer felt was physical. It was in his arms and his legs, in his exposed back as he raised himself up and grabbed for one of the low branches that overhung the water. He found one and, while the boat carried on its course beneath, held on somehow, losing and then righting his balance and bringing the boat in to the shore before it could get away from him. A bullet splashed with strange softness into the shallow water.

In one movement he jumped out, pulled the boat under the cover of the trees, and beached it, scraping it onto pebbles.

“Come on.”

Webster, still lying down, fired a final shot and at an awkward crouch followed his friend.

“Up,” he whispered. “Quickly.”

Hammer took him by the arm and guided him up the slope. The Russians seemed to have lost sight of them; the flashlight beam flitted along the bank, back and forth.

“Keep going.”

The wood was dense here, and soon there was no light from the moon. Hammer felt his way, bringing Webster after him. When they were sure that they were hidden, they stopped and sat.

“You're a genius,” said Webster, with the last of his breath. His voice was thin, pained.

“If your friends had hidden their boat I'd be a dead genius.”

They were silent for a while. Hammer's trousers stuck to him, and
whenever he moved were freshly cold. The white light searched the trees then stopped for a moment some way beneath them. A shot sounded. The light moved on, further away upstream. Another shot.

“What now?” whispered Webster, picking up pine needles and letting them drop through his fingers onto the ground. Their eyes grew a little used to the dark.

“We walk,” said Hammer.

T
hey didn't walk so much as slip, scramble, grope from one tree to the next.

Before, they had been within half a mile of the border, but they had just gone at least a mile in the wrong direction. A mile and a half, thought Hammer, was really nothing—he ran three times as far each morning, even on a gentle day—but he didn't run with an injured companion, in almost full darkness, along a steep slope through a stiff mesh of dry branches, and after half an hour he was scratched and exhausted. The only benefit of it was that Webster, beside him, could stagger from tree to tree without falling.

After a while it felt safe. The Russians fired three more shots into the woods, each one far away and speculative. When they stopped and listened, Hammer and Webster could hear their pursuers talking, discussing what to do next, and eventually saw them by the light of their flashlights making their way back in the direction of the helicopter.

Hammer checked his watch. Half past twelve. Six hours since he had left Diklo, and heaven knows how many more until his return. He wondered whether he might leave Webster here and come back for him later when everything was calmer, but dismissed the thought. It was rash, illogical. Things would not get calmer. His lot was set.

To mark their progress, and to give Webster hope, he devised a schedule. They would walk for twenty minutes and rest for five. They still had some food left, and a little water. If they ran out, he could always drop down to the river and fill their bottle. They would be OK. There was no hurry.

That was one of the lies he told Webster; he kept to himself his visions
of Vekua's return to the village, his calculation that it would make sense for her to keep Natela alive, his fear that his ability to figure these things out had long ago deserted him. While they made their slow way through the brush every part of him was straining to be with her, but he didn't let it show. When it had been Webster at risk he had felt fear, but not like this. This started in his chest and spread up into his throat and down through his body; it consumed him.

His other lie was about their journey, and how far they had to go. Perhaps it was a mile and a half to the border, but it was another mile at least up to Diklo and he had no idea how far they would have to go before they could cross the river back to the other side. He knew of no more boats.

Two lies, then, and one unspoken subject. Very plainly, the Russians had come to kill them. For a while it hadn't been convenient, or appropriate, but now their time had come. Something had changed, and as they went Hammer did his best to make sense of it.

Across the river on the opposite bank were the four Russians—three, perhaps, if one had been hit. By now, if they had any sense, they would have alerted the soldiers in the border station high up above this point, and they would be coming down through the trees to block the way. It was a long way down, but unless they were as drunk as Vekua had made out, which he doubted, they would make good time.

There wasn't long. Hammer kept pushing forward, quietly encouraging Webster, supporting him when he could. Their only advantages, as far as he could see, were the darkness and the density of the trees. Little else.

Now he kept one eye on the ground above him, and scanned the darkness for any sign of light. Each time he looked there was just blackness. Not ahead, not above, not below, except when a glint of moonlight reflected from the water found its way through the trees.

And then there was something. The merest glow on the hill, a faint flickering movement up the slope some way ahead. Hammer stopped for a moment, pleading fatigue, and watched it carefully. It was coming down and toward them, not quickly but with a steady inevitability.

“We have to go,” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“Look up there.”

The glow was hardening into two distinct lights.

“Fuck. Which way?”

“Ahead. There's nowhere else. Quick and quiet as you can.”

Twigs crunched under their feet and sometimes Webster struggled to contain a stifled cry of pain. Whoever was coming for them was making easier work of the terrain, and before long it became clear to Hammer that unless he had underestimated the remaining distance; they were about to be cut off. To go back was hopeless: there was no shelter there, nowhere to hide, just hundreds of miles of mountain and wilderness. They could try to cross the river again, but he had no idea how, or how to get past the Russians on the other side. And above them was a climb steeper than Webster could attempt, even if they'd known where it led. No. Their only chance was to go on, to push through, to pray that somehow they made it across. And with each minute, no matter how hard he willed it, he saw the odds lengthen irrevocably.

There was no resting now, but when he was certain that they would be blocked he stopped and waited for Webster to catch up. The flashlights were close, perhaps fifty yards up the slope and another hundred ahead. They had five minutes, at most.

“How many bullets have you got left?” said Hammer.

“I have the box.”

Webster was gasping for breath and the words barely came out. In the deep night his face was as pale and insubstantial as the moonlight on the river.

“We can't get past them. I'm going to climb for a bit, get above them, then take them out.”

Webster said nothing.

“It's OK. They can't see us and I can see them. Give me your gun. You have this one.”

Webster felt in his pocket and handed the gun to Hammer, who took it with that same thrill of repugnance and excitement.

“Stay right here,” he said, but before he could set off up the hill he heard a sound, a hiss, somewhere close below them.

“Was that you?”

The sound came again, closer, oddly human in this bleak place. Hammer's finger found its way inside the trigger guard of the gun, and he squinted down to the river. There was a shape there, a solid blackness against the general dark, and it was moving. Beside him, Webster stiffened. Hammer gripped the gun.

“Ike.” The hiss had become the quietest whisper, and Hammer took a moment to realize who it had to be.

“Come on,” he said, and took Webster's arm.

Irodi waited for them to reach him, and then without a word set off down the hill, skipping noiselessly over the ground and sliding between the trees. After a minute he stopped and waited for them, pointing toward the border. He said something softly in Georgian, and Hammer realized that they were standing on a path that went wide and clear and level about twenty yards above the river. Somehow, in their rush up from the river, they had missed it.

“Oh good,” said Hammer, and checked Irodi on the arm as he was about to set off. More light reached them here, and drawing Webster to him he showed Irodi his injured leg.

“OK,” said Irodi, understanding at once, and without hesitating squatted down and gestured for Webster to come to him. As he approached, Irodi pushed his shoulder into Webster's groin and stood, lifting him off the ground as a father might a child. Over his other shoulder was slung his antique rifle.

“OK,” he whispered, and started walking, so fast it was almost a run. Hammer jogged just behind him and watched the hill for the flashlights, which were now so close he could see the branches they picked out as they swept the wood.

When it seemed only a matter of moments before they must be discovered, Irodi slowed, and held up his free hand to caution Hammer. Carefully he let down Webster, motioned with a flat hand and some emphatic pointing that the two of them should wait here and then continue, and darted up into the woods. Hammer and Webster watched the two soldiers descending inevitably. For an instant, one appeared in the flashlight beam of the other,
and Hammer saw olive green combat trousers and a thick green military jacket. When they drew level, they would scan the path, and when that happened the only thing preventing their discovery would be the trees they were crouching behind. Taking only shallow breaths, guns in hand, they waited.

From somewhere above them came a noise like a dry branch snapping; it took Hammer a moment to realize that it was a shot. The two soldiers, briefly panicked, stopped and turned, frozen, half expecting a second shot that didn't come. One extinguished his flashlight and shouted at the other to do the same, and they disappeared. From the other side of the river voices shouted in Russian and the two dogs started to bark.

For half a minute all was still. Then the beam of a single flashlight streaked across the wood and went out again. Hammer could hear whispering, urgent voices. There was movement, and again the thin band of light flashed over the trees, from a different point, and another shot sounded, fuller and louder than the first. It was met with a third from deep in the woods, and this time the two soldiers both fired, without aiming, up the slope.

Hammer tapped Webster on the arm and together they set off, Hammer in his own exhaustion supporting his friend as best he could. From the darkness above them came scraps of scared conversation and the familiar sound of twigs breaking underfoot, then more shots. They kept going, quietly and steadily, hardly daring to look anywhere but ahead, and to Hammer it felt like crossing the landslide: that each step might be the last. On the opposite bank they could see men milling uncertainly round the helicopter, looking in their direction, evidently trying to decide what to do.

But step followed step, until at last they were well beyond the guards, and the confusion in the woods was behind them. The two Russian guards had begun by moving cautiously toward the sound of the gun, but now they seemed fixed to the spot, as lost and helpless as Hammer and Webster had been only minutes before. Shots still rang through the trees but the answering fire was less intense. They went on, yard by yard, a good distance, until
a silent presence came running through the trees to their left and dropped onto the path beside them.

“Sakartvelo,” said Irodi, putting his hand on Hammer's shoulder.

“Thank Christ for that,” said Webster, letting Irodi take over from Hammer in supporting him.

“What did he say?”

“Georgia. This is Georgia.”

“Ask him for me,” said Hammer. “How's Natela?”