Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(73)

Butler hovered the helicopter, then angled it toward the bank, realizing his mistake in the next second. Back in the shadows of the trees and the peppering hail, Sampson was on one knee aiming a scoped hunting rifle at them.

It must have been one hell of a heavy gun because it left a hole the size of a dime going through the windshield, broke the sound barrier as it went by Butler’s right earmuff, blew through the roof, and hit the rotor housing.

Butler felt the helicopter shudder and the stick turn dull but he did not lose control as he swung the bird away from the riverbank and flew downriver, hoping they weren’t going to have to ditch the chopper in the middle of nowhere.





Chapter





84




“Shoot them again, John!” I shouted as Sampson ran forward in the pelting hail. He cleared the trees, went to one knee, and aimed downriver at the retreating helicopter, already vague in the hail, and fired again. But this time I didn’t hear the tremendously satisfying sound of metal meeting a three-hundred-grain bullet fired from a .375 Ruger at less than sixty yards.

“Missed him that time,” Sampson said as he got up, his forearm shielding his eyes from the wind and the hail. He came over to where I’d taken refuge on the leeward side of a big ponderosa pine.

My heart was still slamming in my chest. “Who the hell were they? The cartel? M’s men?”

“Take your pick,” Sampson said, panting with adrenaline as he turned his back to the tree. “I want to know how they knew where we were.”

I thought about that as the hail finally started to peter out. With it went the wind but not the dark clouds, which were now squatting on the mountaintop across the river from us.

“We forgot to take our batteries out of our phones on our ride up here,” I said. “If M does have NSA-level access, he could have been listening.”

The first drops of rain began to fall as Sampson said, “The cartel could have picked us up if they were monitoring law enforcement activity around the ranch site.”

“Could have,” I said, calm enough to take the shotgun and my camp chair under the tarp. “But a helicopter attack strikes me as more M’s style than Emmanuella’s.”

Sampson followed me under the tarp as the sprinkles became light rain. “Whoever it was, if they can hire a helicopter, they aren’t going to stop.”

“You did some damage, John. I know I did too.”

“They’ll still come at us again,” he said. “I think it’s guaranteed before we reach the pullout. And I screwed us.”

I frowned. “How’s that?”

“I was the one who insisted on being cut off from everything, no sat phones, no SOS devices,” Sampson said. “We should be calling Mahoney and getting an army of FBI agents swarming the area, looking for that helicopter. I mean, someone is going to report a chopper damaged by buckshot and a Ruger round, right?”

“You would think so. But don’t be so hard on yourself about the satellite phone. I was as game for no contact as you were. Maybe even more so. It’s been years since I’ve been truly cut off, and I was very much looking forward to it.”

“Except here we are.”

I nodded. “Different circumstances now. It’s not just an adventure anymore.”

“Life or death.”

“Which means we have to be smart, think ahead,” I said. “We have to go as hard and as far as we can every day.”

Sampson was silent a moment. “Agreed,” he said finally. “We can’t afford the luxury of four more days.”

“Can we do the whole thing in two days?” I said.

“Three,” Sampson said. “I asked the hired hand, and he said with this water level and this amount of daylight, the best you could do from back at Gordon Creek was four days. Maybe two days from here if we get lucky and don’t have to drag the raft.”

Though the rain had lightened up again, the clouds on the other side of the river were getting lower and lower.

“This weather looks like it’s settling in,” I said. “If so, it could keep that helicopter out of the sky tomorrow and we could head downstream early, try to get to Big Salmon Lake. There may be people there camping who have a satellite phone we can use.”

Sampson brightened. “Bauer said there are horse campers up there all the time.”

“I remember,” I said, getting up. “Feel like a shot of bourbon to calm the nerves?”

Sampson smiled. “I was actually thinking more like two shots of bourbon.”





Chapter





85




Around two the following afternoon, in a relentless drizzle, Raphael Durango was wearing rain gear as he climbed down off his horse and did a few deep knee bends to get the kinks out. His four men were similarly dressed but hobbled by the long hours in the saddle. It took a dozen stiff steps before they were walking easily.

They helped unload the mules, taking care of their personal canvas duffels first. They set their bags aside while Tim, Bauer’s nephew, checked their outfitter’s tent down by an old ranger cabin at the east end of Big Salmon Lake, not far from the banks of the South Fork of the Flathead River.

“We’ll get your supplies into the tent and you’ll be good to go whenever you’re ready,” Tim said, helping them carry two folded rafts to the riverbank for inflation.