CHAPTER 80

FOUR MINUTES LATER I was hunched over in brush and snow on the east side of the north–south trail, not twenty yards from the edge of the meadow. Bree was on the other side of the track with a better view of it to the south, hidden so well I could not see her.

Sampson had told us his plan, helped us prepare, run out into the meadow fifty yards, then skirted back toward Bree. He was there somewhere. I’d heard him popping sticks and branches getting into position but could not see him.

We had roughly an hour of light left in the day when the first snowmobile came into the woods about one hundred and fifty yards from us. I shifted my feet, tried to see how much weight I could put on the right ankle.

It barked at me. It was swelling.

But I could brace against it without provoking shrieking, nauseating pain, which told me I had not broken a bone. Probably strained some tendon or—

The snowfall picked up as the sled slipped toward us at twenty, then twenty-five miles an hour. I gripped my improvised weapon with my gloved hands, waited until I’d picked up movement, waited until I saw the rider stand up like a jockey in stirrups, look over the windshield to the meadow, spot John’s tracks, and come faster.

“Now!” Bree shouted.

I yanked up hard on one end of the length of rusted mining cable that had almost broken my ankle. Bree yanked up hard on the other end.

The cable came free of the snow where John had buried it, got above the sled’s skis, slapped off the fiberglass nose, skittered up the windshield, and caught the rider under the chin and across the throat.

His neck snapped.

He was flung off the sled.

His helmet flew through the air.

His snowmobile kept going down the trail and out into the meadow.

I lost sight of it because Sampson leaped from the brush, charged down the trail, and tore the machine pistol from the harness of the Maestro operator, then dragged his body by the harness into the brush.

“Same thing again if we can,” Sampson called softly.

I could hear the next snowmobile entering the woods from the south. Bree and I whipped the cable up and down until it vanished beneath the snow on the trail and waited once more.

This time, however, the sled stopped just out of our sight, idling. Another snowmobile entered the woods, and another, and then four more by my count. They all stopped out of sight, idling as well.

Are they trying to contact the point man? Have to be. And they aren’t getting a response.

Sampson seemed to have the same thought; he ran out of cover, retrieved the dead man’s helmet, put it on, and returned to his hiding place.

Three or four minutes went by before engines revved. One snowmobile and then two turned around and headed away from us.

When they reached the south edge of the timber, they split. One went east. One went west.

John stepped out on the trail, still wearing the helmet, and pointed to it, indicating that he was hearing them. He made a looping gesture.

They were more than alert.

They were circling us.