Although the struggle between the two
men had been professional in the beginning – Sam was a contracted
antiterrorist expert and Gaudet an assassin and international
criminal for hire, the subject of one of his investigations –
it had turned personal when Gaudet began killing people Sam cared
about.
After a time Sam clicked the radio
again; this time he got nothing in return. Next he did a radio
check. Nothing.
Silence was trouble. Men retreating
into the forest were trouble because he didn’t understand
it and the worst sort of enemy was one you didn’t understand.
Pulling himself out of the sleeping
bag into the cool air brought him to full alert.
Sam straightened Harry’s blanket,
getting half of it under him and half on top. “Shush and
stay.”
Harry scrunched down.
Sam took three steps back, put on his
field pack, his Special Forces MSA Gallet TC2000 helmet complete
with night vision and headlamp,
and then hefted his M4 combat rifle fitted with an underbarrel
flashlight and an M 203 40mm single-shot grenade launcher. On
his hip he wore a Heckler & Koch .45-caliber MK 23 SOCOM pistol,
twelve-round clip, with laser aiming module and sound suppressor.
“Stay,” he whispered again, adding a hand signal.
He knew the dog would not move.
Sam forced himself to walk slowly into
the forest. If Gaudet were active, he would expect Sam to check
on Paul first, so Sam made instead a giant circle in an unexpected
direction, following the spotted owls.
He donned the nightvision goggles,
which created a world of strange and subtle shadows. Branches
hung everywhere and in places logs crisscrossed into windfalls,
but Sam managed to pick his way around them. He stayed low to
the ground, looking for signs of other men on foot, until he saw
a lowland area ahead. It was wet with slow-flowing water in the
rainy season. Traversing it without sloshing and making sucking
sounds would be difficult, so he moved up toward the steep-sided
rock-strewn canyons until he reached a hardscrabble path that
he could use in silence.
