CHAPTER 88

I WAS FIFTY YARDS to Bree’s and Mahoney’s south, and the jamming must have temporarily been cut because the janitor’s anguish, every whimper and moan, was broadcast loud and clear over my helmet radio.

Over that, I heard Malcomb say, “Toomey?”

“Janitor’s a goner, M. Sorry. Bug out. Bug out now.”

The broadcast went to static as the jamming resumed. I got up over the lip of the packed road and scrambled to Sampson, who looked at me with glazed eyes. “What took you so long?”

“Another time,” I said, switching my headlamp to full power. “Where’s the hit?”

“Left side, low. Been pressing snow into it. Can’t see what else is going on.”

As I searched for the blood-clotting kit, Bree turned on her headlamp and started toward us. Behind her, Mahoney waved his headlamp toward the north.

The headlights of the Mounties’ snowmobiles came on and raced toward us.

“Here comes the real cavalry,” I said. I pulled out the kit.

Bree and Mahoney reached us as I opened Sampson’s parka and lifted his vest, sweaters, and blood-soaked long underwear. Bree and I shone our headlamps on John’s abdomen and saw a bullet wound oozing blood. It wasn’t gushing, but it smelled sour.

I reached around his back with the blood-clotting cloth, felt for the exit wound, and was surprised to find none. Then I felt a bump.

“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” I said, bringing the clotting agent around and pressing it into the entry wound. “Bullet’s still in you. I think it caught part of your small intestine, but there’s no huge exit wound. You’ll live.”

“If we get him out of here fast enough,” Mahoney said as the Mounties’ sleds arrived, their headlights making the scene as bright as a baseball field under sodium lights.

The EMT rushed to John’s side. I stood back to let her work on him. Officer Fagan and Captain Olson came over to us, their helmet visors pushed back.

Mahoney said, “We’re going to have to send someone out of their jamming range to call for a chopper and reinforcements.”

I said, “I heard over my radio that Malcomb was sending more men out here, but I’m questioning that now.”

Olson said, “Why?”

Bree said, “We heard someone tell Malcomb to bug out.”

“They’re a long way from nowhere to be bugging out,” Fagan said, smiling at me.

I smiled back at her. “I want to hear how you survived another time, Officer. Captain Olson, I think you should send men to cover the entrances to that mine.”

“I don’t know the entrances.”

Bree described the old mining building with the steel sliding door and pneumatic elevator, and I told him about the switchback road on the other side of the butte that led down to the camouflaged retractable-door system. “I saw at least twenty snowmobiles in the bay there,” I said. “And a big Sno-Cat, and a four-seater helicopter that’s loaded up on a dolly. My bet is he’s not sending in reinforcements. Malcomb and what’s left of Maestro will try to run.”

“And soon,” Bree said.