"I thought you said the helicopter couldn't fly this high," Hannah said, pointing.
Neeley pulled her eye away from the scope. The chopper was about a kilometer away to the northeast, and gaining altitude.
"Not with all those men on board," Neeley said, "but with just the pilot and one other man, it looks like it can." She shifted the muzzle of her weapon toward the new threat. As she did so, the three men all burst from cover and dashed into the trees to Neeley's right front, eight hundred feet below. Neeley snapped a quick shot but the round ricocheted off the tarmac and the three were safe under cover.
"Shit," Neeley muttered. She looked back. Hannah had turned over snow in about a dozen places. "Enough."
The helicopter was closing, less than half a mile away. Neeley aimed and fired three rapid shots at the engine. She was rewarded by a stream of smoke pouring out of the cowling.
The helicopter banked left and disappeared out of sight downslope. Neeley turned her attention back to the trees on the right side of the slope.
"All right," Neeley said to Hannah as she broke the sniper rifle back down. "Time to go skiing. We'll head through those trees to the left." She put the gun into the case. "They're on foot and we'll be long gone before they get back down."
Hannah stared at her. "I don't know how to ski."
Neeley froze. "
Why
didn't you tell me that before we climbed up here? Why do you think you hauled those skis up here?"
"You didn't give me much chance to say anything," Hannah said. "It was do this, Hannah, do that. I tried to tell--"
"You've never skied?"
"Never."
"Great." Neeley looked down at the pickup truck, and then across at the trees where she knew the three gunmen were making their way, trying to get in range.
"Listen," Hannah said. "The whole idea of skiing is to get down the hill fast, right?"
Neeley absently nodded, her head filled with tactical considerations. She pulled an MP-5 submachinegun out of the pack and slipped the sling over her neck.
"Then I think this will work," Hannah said.
Neeley finally paid attention and turned. Hannah was kneeling on her parka, the smooth Gore-Tex side facedown in the snow. "See you at the bottom," Hannah said as she pushed off and lay belly down on the material.
"Hannah, don't!" Neeley cried, but it was too late as Hannah accelerated down slope.
"Shit!" Neeley exclaimed as Hannah pulled away. In another hundred yards she would be in range of the men in the trees. Neeley threw on her backpack, strapped the sniper rifle case to it and grabbed the ski poles. With a shove of the poles, Neeley was off. She headed directly for the trees to her right front.
Neeley dropped her poles as she reached the trees, trusting to the edges of her skis and her skill to keep her from doing a face plant into one of the trunks. She pulled back the charging handle on the MP-5.
Hannah was literally flying down the steep slope. She tried digging the tips of her boots into the snow to slow down, but it did little good. She notices little puffs of snows popping up in front of her and momentarily wondered what they were. Then she heard the echoes of the guns going off. Hannah rolled to her left, tumbling off the parka, but her speed was such that she continued downhill, a gaggle of arms and legs and flying snow.
Neeley flashed between two trees almost right on top of the first gunman. He heard her skis on the snow and was turning, but much too slowly as she fired a quick three round burst into his chest, slamming him against a tree, staining it with blood as he slid to the ground.
Neeley bent low at the knees, digging her left ski edges in and turned, hooking around a thick grove, then reversed course in a spray of snow. The other two men were suddenly twenty feet in front of her, turning from firing at Hannah. Neeley pulled the trigger on the MP-5 and nothing happened. She couldn't stop, heading directly for the two men. There was a small ridge between her and them and she pointed her tips straight for it, leaning forward to gain speed but also to make as small as target as possible.
Both men fired as she hit the ridge. She pushed off, into the air and flew right between them. They continued firing but the jump caught them by surprise. Before they could correct they were shooting at each other. The man on the left took several rounds in the chest from his partner. The one on the right took a round in the shoulder and pirouetted into the snow as Neeley crash-landed less than fifteen feet away.
Neeley's feet popped out of the bindings and she rolled, letting go of the useless submachinegun and pulling her Glock out of her coat pocket. The wounded man was on his knees, bringing up the muzzle of his gun when Neeley fired, doubletapping as Gant had taught her. Both rounds hit the man in the center of his forehead and he flopped back into the snow, his blood and brain spreading out below him in a red stain.
Neeley slowly stood. She checked the MP-5. Snow from the turn she had made was jammed in the breech. She looked behind her toward the open slope as she recovered her skis.
Hannah was slowing down but the plowed road was rapidly approaching. Hannah hit the ridge of snow that the plow had left. The impact knocked the wind out of her and she almost stopped but tumbled over the edge onto the side of the road. Hannah lay there gasping for air.
"You bitch!" a man's voice caught her attention from the other side of the road near the Suburban. The first man Neeley had wounded was pulling himself around the back of the truck, his wounded leg leaving a trail of blood. All Hannah had eyes for was the large gun in his right hand. He centered the muzzle on her forehead and was pulling the trigger when a small black hole appeared on his chest. It was quickly followed by several more. The sound of a gun being fired rolled downslope.
Hannah slumped back against the snow and looked to her rear. Neeley was skiing down, her pistol held with both hands leading the way. She halted just before the road with a swift turn to her left, spewing snow over the edge onto Hannah.
"
Next
time, don't do anything until we agree on a course of action," Neeley hissed.
"You never told me the course of action until it was too late," Hannah said, dusting snow off her sweater.
Neeley was trembling as she popped out of her bindings and joined Hannah on the road. "Damn, Hannah, that was close."
"Let's get out of here. Now." Hannah walked toward the pickup ignoring the body and Neeley followed.
Once they were in and driving back the way they had come, Hannah reached across the cab and poked a finger in Neeley's shoulder. "Next time you decide to set up an ambush, tell me, OK?"
"All right." Neeley sighed, and then looked over at Hannah. "Listen, I'm just not used to explaining--" she paused as Hannah yelled: "Watch out!"
The helicopter was astride the road in front of them, less than sixty feet away on a bend in the road. The pilot was just as startled by their appearance, looking out his door at the truck. Another man was standing in the cargo bay, a submachinegun in his hands.
Neeley automatically brought her foot off the gas toward the brake, and just as quickly slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. The V-8 engine roared and the truck accelerated.
The man with the submachinegun put the stock in his shoulder and was aiming. He was getting ready to pull the trigger when he realized the truck wasn't slowing down. He dropped the sub and turned to jump, just as the front grill of the truck smashed into the side of the chopper.
Neeley slammed on her brakes as they hit. The impact neatly bounced the lightweight chopper off the road and into the abyss on the far side of the turn. The gunman went flying out further, into open space.
Neeley and Hannah stepped out of the stopped truck and followed the course of the helicopter down. It was over a thousand feet to the valley floor below. Neeley blinked as she heard the whine of engines and the blades on the falling aircraft slowly started to turn.
"No way," she muttered. And there was no way the damaged engine could get up to speed in time. The chopper hit bottom in a blossom of flame.
"Let's go," Neeley said, getting back in the truck.
They peeled rubber around the turn.
"What about the money?" Hannah asked.
Neeley didn't say anything for fifteen minutes, until she pulled into a roadside parking area at Beaver Ponds, a nature walk area well away from the scene of their recent battle. She grabbed the PVC pipes with the money and got out of the truck.
"Stay here," she ordered Hannah. "I'll be right back."
Neeley had learned the art of caching from Gant who'd been taught it at the Special Forces Qualification course at Fort Bragg over two decades ago. He'd shown her that it was a much more complicated skill than simply digging a hole in the ground and chucking something in. The first concern was to make sure that whatever was cached would be recovered in useable condition.
The next priority was to find a good spot to put the item. Neeley looked about. Approximately fifty meters away she spotted a pine tree that towered over the other trees. Neeley shot an azimuth to the pine from the corner of the parking area. 47 degrees magnetic. She drew the parking lot on a piece of paper and an arrow, labeling the direction. She then stepped out the distance to the pine, using the pace count Gant had worked out with her-- every seventy-two strikes of her right foot equaled one hundred meters. It was thirty-one right steps to the pine. Neeley labeled the arrow with forty-five meters.
From the base of the tree she looked about. The pine needle floor was perfect. Neeley put the pipe down. She stepped out four paces from the tree due south. She laid a garbage bag down on the ground and carefully began the hole. First she slid a piece of cardboard under the needles and scooped them up intact, putting it off to the side. Then she removed the topsoil and placed it on the plastic bag. Each different layer of earth was placed on the plastic in piles, to be put back in the same order it came out. Neeley dug a three foot round hole, down almost three feet. She put the tubes in. She replaced the dirt, making sure to put the top layer back on last and then slid the needles back on top. A bit of careful rearranging and it looked undisturbed.
Neeley put the dirt displaced by the PVC piping into the garbage bag and brought it back to the truck, tossing it in the back. She transcribed the map she had drawn into a Special Forces cache report format as Gant had taught her.
Neeley copied the report onto the lower part of the paper and then quickly tore it in half. "Here," she handed the scrawled copy to Hannah who had watched her in silence.
"What do I do with this?" Hannah asked in surprise.
"Isn't it obvious? If something happens to me, dig the money up."
Hannah shook her head. "Neeley, I'm touched, really, but you don't know me. We only met a few days ago."
Neeley held out the report. "I know you better than anyone on the planet. Besides, you knew your husband for years and what did that get you? I want you to have the report Hannah and that's all that matters."
Hannah took the report. "What now?" she asked.
"We go to the airport."
Hannah and Neeley stepped out of the airport parking lot shuttle with a surprisingly light load. They couldn't very well haul everything with them so they had spent most of the past hour cleaning and oiling and carefully repacking the guns in the back of the truck.
They had then left the truck in long term parking at DIA where it would not be noticed for months at least, given the volume of vehicles that went through that lot. They didn't have enough clothes between them for one person to be out of style in France, much less two. Neeley had offered the limited contents of a back closet that she described as having a few things. It turned out to be skiing apparel, a wet suit, and some stuff Emma Peel would have loved. So now they were searching for their gate in the jumble of Denver International Airport wearing a lot of tight black clothing. Hannah noticed that when your butt was poured into black ski pants, men hardly noticed ragged nails. Neeley was wearing a one-piece cat suit with a wide black belt that she said she had only worn once before: to crawl through a long narrow pipe. Hannah believed her.
They had an hour before the flight so they stopped at the European Cafe on Concourse B and had a combination of the last five meals they had missed. For the first time in years, Hannah ate her fill without counting fat grams. She and Neeley looked fit and healthy, their tummies as flat as boards and their complexions glowing from exercise and the sheer stress of imminent death. Neeley spent most of the lunch in disbelief that Hannah wasn't sore from the climb and the incident in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Neeley made all the flight arrangements at the counter. She knew she was on the right track, but she wondered if they would live long enough to find Gant's cache.
Then she excused herself from Neeley to make a phone call. She took a stack of quarters and sat down at a pay phone. She pulled out the 212 number that Gant had given her.
She dialed it and the operator told her how much she needed to pay. Neeley slid the coins in, then the phone rang. It was picked up on the third ring.
“Yo!” a voice boomed into Neeley’s ear.
“Is this Joe?”
“You did the dialing, sweetie. You make a mistake? And you got the advantage because I don’t got a fucking clue who you are.”
Despite the harsh words, the tone was light, the accent clearly New York City.
“I’m a friend of Anthony Gant.”
“My little Tony! How’s he doing?”
Neeley closed her eyes tight. “He’s dead.”
“Fuck.”
A long silence reigned. Then the voice came back, all lightness gone. “How?”
“Cancer.”
“Mother of Mercy. That’s a bad way to go. You the woman he’s been with these past ten years or so?”
“Yes.”
“You there when he died?”
“Yes. I buried him.”
“Good. That’s good. He wasn’t alone. His mother know?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t told anyone but you just now.”
“Then his brother doesn’t know either. OK. Damn. I guess I’ll have to tell her. And Jack. That ain’t gonna be good.” There was a short pause. “But you’re calling for another reason, right?”
“I need a little help. Gant said I should call you if I needed help.”
“Did you visit the Bronx recently?”
“Yes.”
“You done good there. Helped me out what you done. What you need, sweetie?”
“Passports.”
“When and where?”
“I’ll be landing in Atlanta in about four hours. Then heading to France.”
“A passport got a short shelf life these days,” Uncle Joe said. “You can get out of the country and have maybe forty-eight hours, but then it will be hot.”
“That’s good enough.”
“You coming back?”
“I hope so.”
“Good. Good. I’d like to meet you some time. Tony was a good boy. A good man. I’m glad you were there for him. OK. Here’s the deal. There’s a guy who owes Gant from their time in the service. He does the best. Real deal. Checks out. But I can’t guarantee that the names used won’t roll into the system. Like I said, maybe forty-eight hours, then someone’s going to see your name. Maybe quicker if your name is hot and on a list. I don’t know if that’s good or bad for you, but I’m just telling you like it is.”
Neeley knew it was bad, but she also knew they had no choice. She hoped they could get to France and back within forty-eight hours. Neeley quickly copied down the instructions Uncle Joe gave her. He ended by telling her to call him when she got back in country and thanking her for being there at the end for Gant.
Neeley didn’t talk to Hannah as they waited to board. On the plane, Neeley scanned the other passengers, wondering which one was the shadow. It could be anyone, Neeley decided, even one of the crew. Given the stricter security, she would have to wait until France to arm herself and that made her nervous.
Hannah was talking to a woman seated across the aisle. She was leaning into the open space to the irritation of the other passengers who were still finding their seats and putting away luggage.
Neeley watched in fascination as Hannah continued to chat with her new found friend. If Neeley leaned a little closer she could catch pieces but it seemed to be meaningless talk. They finally stopped for take-off and once the plane was airborne, they seemed to forget about each other.
Hannah pulled some cream from the tote to rub into her ragged cuticles. Neeley watched her in silent wonder. She looked so normal despite all that had happened in the last few days. "How do you do that?"
Hannah turned in surprise. "What do you mean? This?" She motioned with her cream colored fingertips.
"No, well, partly. I mean how do you do all these normal things? Like talk to that woman and do your nails with all this stuff going on?"
Hannah continued massaging her nails. She was thoughtfully using her thumbnail to push back the dead skin around the half moon of her nails. "I do day-to-day living well. I've had to."
Ignoring Neeley's confused expression, she continued. "My parents died in a car crash when I was six. There was no family for me to go to since they were both orphans. I guess they were drawn to that aloneness in each other, but sometimes I see it as very selfish: to have had a child who had no real connection to anyone. When they died no one was responsible for me except some bureaucrats, the ones who step in and take care of children like me.
"I was lucky in a way. My first foster parents were decent enough. No hanging me upside down in closets or anything, but they were joyless people. They did day-to-day living as if life is a series of tasks that you just finish, not for any particular reason other than you can't live any more if you don't do it right.
"It was a very quiet way to grow up, if you can call it growing up. Sometimes I think I just got physically bigger and that was the extent of my maturing. Because I had done the right thing for so many years I was able to go to college. I met John in my second year and that was the end of Hannah as a coed.
"By then I was too dependent to see my own life as an opportunity, an adventure. I took the security and direction he offered and helped him make his life the center of our lives. Men like John need women like me; anchors to boring reality, partners in the mundane."
Neeley shook her head. “Hannah, if you believe that your personality was basically fixed and John married you for that reason, then how can you allow for what happened between you and him?”
"What do you mean?"
Neeley tugged on the tight jumpsuit to find a more comfortable fit. "It's pretty obvious, isn't it, that if John had married you for your placid acquiescence, he would have told you about his past. Why should he hide all that if you're the obedient little wife living vicariously through your successful husband?"
Hannah shrugged. "I was the obedient wife. I just existed."
"What changed?" Neeley asked. “That’s not what you’ve been the last couple of days.”
"Besides you coming into my living room with a gun? And John getting killed?" Hannah didn't pause for an answer. "The change really happened before that. When I truly accepted what John had done to me when he split, taking everything, that was all too much. I got mad. Angry. Pissed. I could have lived with all the wasted years being his wife but the son-of-a-bitch should have been grateful for that. Disappearing the way he did and leaving me with nothing; acting like it had all been nothing, now that was going too far. Something snapped in me."
"You want to know what I think?" Neeley said. "I think you just existed until someone like John came along and programmed you. Maybe we're a lot alike. Maybe most women are like this-- the way society, despite its proclamations to the contrary, wants us to be. Notice that they still make Barbie dolls and in the Super Bowl it’s the guys on the field and the women on the sidelines swinging the pom-poms. What’s the female equivalent of the Super Bowl? You don’t see a stadium full of women watching the Miss America Pageant.
“It's like you have a computer just sitting there. It's a good piece of equipment, works fine, no glitches in the hardware, but there's no program loaded in. So along comes some guy needing a computer to support him in living his life. Depending on who they are they're going to have their own software.
"The accountant has his tax stuff, the lawyer's got all the case history stuff and an architect would have some cool drawing software. The point is that now the computer only has the ability to do what they need it to. It could have done anything but instead it ends up very specialized. That’s the way it is for so many women."
Hannah nodded. "Is that what happened to you?"
Neeley cocked her head sarcastically. "No, actually my childhood dream was to be a professional assassin with no identity."
"Sorry. Sometimes I forget you kill people, you're so nice to me."
Neeley turned to look out the window. Nothing but clouds and blue skies. "I never forget."
"But remember," Hannah said, "computers can be reprogrammed. I think what John did to me blew a fuse and I'll never function that way again, making someone else more important than me." She reached out and put a hand on Neeley's arm. "But now you'd better get some rest. We've got a lot to do in a little time and I have a feeling France is going to be a pain in the ass if the last couple of days are any indication."