Page 87 of The House of Cross

The sleds stopped. The drivers looked around.

I peered through the telescopic sight. As Fagan had said, they had automatic weapons hanging from chest harnesses.

I heard other machines and looked northeast along the tree line. The other four sleds were leaving the woods in the far corner, headed south.

A northwest wind had picked up, spinning snow devils across the landscape. I looked to my right far off the knoll, trying to spot Fagan toward the rim of a canyon she’d said was right there, no more than five hundred yards away. In the rising wind andblowing snow, it was impossible to make out for certain. I was on my own until the Mountie came back in range.

My eye went back to the scope, and I moved it on the first rider. My finger went to the trigger. Given that we had already been shot at, I believed I would be acting in self-defense. As far as I was concerned, there was no legal issue if I was forced to shoot under those circumstances.

But a hunting rifle against machine guns?

Was I better off running? Without Fagan and with darkness coming?

The lead driver of the three pressed the ignition on his sled. He started fast, following in our tracks, but slowed some two hundred and fifty yards from me, caught in that blinding late-afternoon sun and swirling snow.

CHAPTER 65

THEY WERE GOING TOround the knoll in a matter of moments. They were going to see where our tracks had split and where I had gone uphill.

I felt I had no choice at that point. I flipped off the safety and slowly swung the gun and scope to the lead driver; I saw the crosshairs cover his chest at two hundred yards and squeezed.

The trigger was crisp and light. The shot came as a surprise to him.

I knew he was dead even before I’d run the bolt and saw the second driver trying to get off his sled and find cover. I shot him through his left side before he could dismount.

The third driver sprayed bullets uphill in my direction, forcing me to duck while I ran the action again, and I started to easeup over the top of the stump. But then I heard his machine at my nine o’clock and realized he was trying to flank me, trying to come around the knoll.

I spun around and took five quick bounds back down the hill. I threw the rifle over the handles of my snowmobile and found the third driver in my sights. He saw me and tried to get his gun up.

But he was less than a hundred yards away. My shot caught him square and hurled him off his machine.

My heart slammed in my chest. My breath came in gasps.

I’d just killed three men. Or women. I didn’t know. And I’d been forced to do it for reasons I did not understand.

But then, standing there in knee-deep snow in the bitter-cold aftermath of a gun battle, it hit me. I did understand. And I knew who they were.

They had never been tourists. They were Maestro soldiers.

And they’re protecting that mine!I jumped onto my sled, shoved the rifle in the scabbard, and started the engine. I swung the nose of the machine around and gave it throttle, meaning to head straight downhill.

But it drifted sideways in the deep snow, pushing me toward the third driver’s snowmobile. I went with the drift, realizing I could get his weapon and ammunition. I stopped next to his idling machine and found him dead on his back.

I refused to raise my visor; I pulled a knife from a sheath on the harness and cut free the gun, a short-barreled H and K nine-millimeter, and three high-capacity backup clips. I’d no sooner returned to my snowmobile when I heard rapid-fire shooting.

My helmet radio crackled to life.

“Cross, they’re on me!” Fagan yelled. “I’m heading south.”

“Coming!” I twisted the throttle, spun southeast, and barreledthat way through the loosely set trees toward another rise in the terrain, this one dominated by a massive, needleless snag of a fir tree.

I caught sight of Fagan about three hundred yards away at my ten o’clock, heading toward that dead tree that seemed to claw at the sky. Four Maestro sleds were suddenly at my eight o’clock at an equal distance, three hundred yards and closing on the Mountie.

They were too far to shoot at her with the short-barreled submachine guns. And they were moving at such high speed, I doubted I could hit one of them if I stopped to use the long rifle.

“I’m close to you, Fagan,” I said. “Off your right shoulder. Satellite phone?”

“Negative on the call. Batteries all but shot.”

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