The Old Man(71)

They restarted their engines and resumed their search. Then the radio operator called Wright, and they stopped again. He said that the snowmobile with the damaged ski was repaired and realigned, but now the engine was malfunctioning. The engine would start, but then it would cough and sputter and stall. They had better assume it wouldn’t be fixed in time to be of use. Wright ordered the driver and his companion to try to drag the malfunctioning snowmobile to a place where they could load it onto the pickup truck.

Julian’s hope grew as the two remaining snowmobiles inched along the trail through the forest, sometimes hooking around the narrowest spaces and then finding no way to rejoin the trail. Sometimes they would begin to speed up, but then bounce over roots or rocks that made it too dangerous to continue in a straight line, so they moved in arcs in and out of the forest, taking up more time.

Wright drove to a stop and turned off his snowmobile. He said to Julian: “That rock was a trap. The ski tracks went right by on either side of it. That old man didn’t learn to move through snow in Libya. Has he ever served in country like this—maybe with the Tenth Mountain Division?”

“He lived in Vermont for a long time,” said Julian. “Maybe that’s where he got good at this stuff. I haven’t seen his military records.”

“You chased him for a year without ever seeing his records?”

“I don’t even know his name,” said Julian. “This mission is about as secret as it can be.”

Wright stepped a few feet away, unzipped his snow pants, and urinated near the trees. He said, “Just a day ago we were in Yuma receiving a briefing. We were to hunt down a military traitor in California who had committed several murders. We were ordered to do it using plain unmarked gear with zero help from any civilian authority, and no contact with local police. We were told we’d be meeting a man from army intelligence who would be our source of information.”

“I guess they meant me.”

“But you don’t have much information, do you?”

“Not much. I don’t think they want either of us to know much more than we do. I can recognize him if I see him.”

“That’ll have to be good enough.” Wright zipped up and walked back to the snowmobile. There was a radio call from the other snowmobile. Wright said, “We’ll be right there.” They climbed back on their snowmobile and made their way to the spot ahead where the other two men had stopped.

The snowmobile driver had come through too fast, with his eyes on the ski tracks. A limb bent back and rigged as a trap to swing into the opening between two trees had hit him across the forehead. The two men were examining the limb that had hit him. Wright looked at Julian. “What do you think, Mr. Carson?”

Julian saw the chance to introduce doubt and uneasiness. “That’s the kind of thing he’d do. I don’t know the details of his record, but in his day just about all the combat was in jungles. They used snares and bungee stakes and tiger pits.”

“He could have killed me,” said the injured man.

“He could have, but he decided not to,” said Julian. “The way they did it was to add a sharpened ten-inch stick at a right angle to the branch so when it hit you it would kill you. It’s a warning. We may not see the next one either, and that one could be placed so it’ll break a neck or spear one of us. He knows how to do it.”

Wright leaned closer and spoke so only Julian could hear. “I do not relish having any of my squad killed out here in the woods by some crazy traitor.”

“I don’t want that to happen either,” said Julian. He was secretly rejoicing. The old man had given Julian another opportunity to slow the team down and make them cautious.

Wright had a solution. “All right. The tracks are still headed due east. We’ll get out of the woods, go east in the open, and try to pick up their tracks again. Keep up, and don’t slow down. We don’t want to give him an easy shot.”

The two men mounted the other snowmobile, and the driver started it. The engine whirred, caught, and roared to life, but then there was a horrible noise. There was smoke coming out of the air intakes on the hood and out of the exhaust, and the engine stopped. Julian knew that the plug at the bottom of the chain case had finally vibrated enough to fall off and the chain oil had leaked out. The chain had heated up and failed.

The driver opened the hood, stared uncomprehendingly at the smoke, fanned it out of his face, and then reached for the chain case and recoiled from the heat.

Julian stayed where he was, but put his hand on the pistol in his pocket. “Wow. I thought that engine sounded funny.”

Wright looked at the engine and nodded. “Yeah, you did.” He turned to his two men and said, “Damn. Where the fuck did you guys rent these snowmobiles? They’re absolute crap.”

Wright got back onto his snowmobile. “Okay. Take the cargo sled off that piece of junk and hitch it to the back of this one. Do a good job, because there’s nowhere else for you to ride.”

The two soldiers attached the flat sled and then sat on it. The front man held on to the towrope and the other held on to him. Wright moved slowly at first, out onto the open snow. He tentatively added speed, but when he reached about fifteen miles an hour, one of the men called out: “Sergeant Wright!”

Wright looked back and saw they were getting bounced around too much to hold on any longer. He slowed down drastically.