Sorry for the delay; this chapter took longer to post, but it's a little longer in length in exchange. Thank you to everyone who is reading! Hope you enjoy.
Will flew across the open meadow, pack slapping at his side as he ran. The crawling sensation of being in the hunters' scopes persisted even after he reached the treeline and plunged into it. He resisted the urge to hunch low and scuttle through the brush, instead lengthening his stride. The ground angled down steeply, thick with years of leaf litter and debris. Rocks rolled beneath the soles of his pounding boots, and he reached back with one hand, steadying himself on the incline as he half-slid downwards.
He was leaving one hell of a trail.
He thudded to a halt against a large tree. Adrenaline was pumping through him, making his breath short and his heart race. He leaned his shoulder against the broad trunk and filled his lungs.
Stop. Compose. Assess.
Will looked back up the hill. The trees were definitely thinner in a strip leading down from the middle of the meadow. Branches had been cut back above head-height and underbrush had been cleared so only widely-spaced mature trees remained. On either side of the corridor, the brush closed in again in a thick screen of saplings and mountain laurel.
He couldn't see The Lodge from where he stood, but if anyone up on the porch had binoculars, they might still be able to see him. He had to make this look good.
He rolled around the tree trunk and continued downhill, taking sharp, leaping steps that dug deeply into the ground. He hit a steeper section and let it avalanche him down in a noisy rush, sliding through leaves until the ground leveled out once more. There he stopped and looked back again. He was far down the ridge now, hidden by its steep angle and heavy tree cover. He dropped to sit on the ground.
The subtle pathway continued on ahead of him but was getting narrower, the underbrush encroaching to leave only a faint trail that wound down and around through the thicker forest.
Will unzipped the pack while he oriented himself. Everything he'd been shown was still inside- water bottle, trail food, knife- along with one additional item. A small waterproof case lay in the bottom of the pack. Will popped it open; it turned out to be a mini first-aid kit, holding a few packets each of painkillers, insect repellant and antiseptic wipes, gauze and moleskin blister patches, as well as a half-dozen safety pins and a single pack of matches.
Maybe useful if he was taking a leisurely weekend hike. Not so much for bullet holes in vital organs.
He snapped the case shut and stowed it back in the pack. You never know, Benji insisted at every mission prep, as he packed all sorts of odds and ends. Maybe some of it would come in handy. Will took the last item out of the pack- his one weapon, the knife.
It was a damn good one. Special Forces issue, multifunction with serrated and razor-sharp straight edges. He slid it from its sheath, his hand fitting sweetly around the grip. Solid but not too heavy, perfectly balanced. He hefted it, pushed up to one knee, and took a few vicious swipes with it.
Might actually be able to take down a bear with it.
He sheathed it again, twisting to clip it to his belt, right where his hand fell naturally. He reached back, under his jacket, and pulled the folded sheet from his waistband. Rolled tightly, it just fit inside the small pack. He rose, shrugged the pack on, and adjusted the straps over the jacket.
He'd look for water as he walked.
He took a dozen more lunging, downhill strides, scuffing up the leaf litter in an obvious way. Then he reversed direction and started to climb back up, overlapping the path he'd made on the way down. When he reached the top of the steepest section, he moved to the left, step by careful step, working his way into the woods.
Branches closed around him. Time was passing; it was brightening by the minute, even with the heavy tree canopy overhead. The rising sun was on his right, meaning the trail led had south and slightly east, possibly intending to steer him deep into the center of the property. So Will headed north-west, away from where the Coordinator seemed to want him, and also upward, opposite of the instinctual urge to run downhill.
Leaves crunched underfoot and rocks shifted, threatening sprained ankles as he climbed. Will did his best not to disturb the ground or break branches as he pushed deeper. He didn't know how good any of the hunters might be at tracking; if they were experts at reading signs, he was in trouble.
Next time I do this, I'll be sure to get dossiers on their skills, Will thought sourly. He turned shoulder-first to push through a dense tangle of mountain laurel and the thick, waxy leaves slapped him in the face.
Jane was better at this shit than he was. Light on her feet and graceful, she was downright invisible in the woods when she wanted to be. Last spring in Venezuela... she was never going to get tired of imitating his and Ethan's comical looks of surprise when she'd popped up out of nowhere and knocked that sniper on his ass.
He had to keep moving and hope that if his passage could be read in a crushed leaf or scuffed rock, he was at least one step ahead of the hunters. Losing them so they spread out to search and only encountered him one at a time was his best chance.
"You can breathe easy, the Maestro has arrived!"
Ethan Hunt glanced up at Benji Dunn's dramatic entrance, a slight frown drawing his brows together. "Finally! We've got a really small window of opportunity with this one."
"The George Washington Bridge was a parking lot." Benji unslung his laptop bag and plopped it on the nearest chair. He glanced around Ethan's hotel suite. "Brandt's stuck in it too?"
Ethan's frown deepened. "Isn't he with you?"
"Why would he be with me? I was coming from Boston." Benji reached for the tablet that was dangling, forgotten, from Ethan's hand. "I had just got there, by the way," he added pointedly.
"I'll have a stern word with the Bridge Bomber about not working weekends," Ethan said absently as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through it with quick flicks. "Did he text you?"
"Who, Brandt?"
"Yes, Brandt!" Exasperated, Ethan looked up.
"Nnnnope. Why, was he supposed to?" Benji frowned at the screen before him. "If these timestamps are correct, we have less than 18 hours to get to Key West, get a plan of action, and get set up." He clicked through a few more screens. "Why is this background so sparse? There's nothing about the Crescent City Bridge bomb. Why isn't Brandt here yet to fill it in?"
Ethan looked like he was trying not to grind his teeth. "That's what I'm trying to find out!"
"I thought he was going to be in Maryland. When he sent his mission accept, did he say he was coming in from somewhere else?"
"I, um, didn't get an accept from him."
"No?" Benji's eyes widened with surprise and not a little hurt. "We've been after this guy for a long time. Did he say why the reject?"
"I didn't get a reject from him either. I got your accept, assumed he would too, and sent the rendezvous info to both of you. ATF was messaging me with everything they had on this guy, and I guess..." Ethan looked uncomfortable. "I missed that he never responded."
"Maybe he didn't want a mission involving a bridge where he might end up in the water again. He does get his knickers in a twist over dunkings." Benji set aside the tablet. "Still, that's not like Will." He pulled out his own phone. "He never answered me, ether," he said after a moment. "I was... rather effusive at him that we had a crack at the Bomber in spite of the disruption- again- of my weekend plans. But nothing back. In fact... " He scrolled backward. "...he never replied when I asked how the hearing went. I thought he was driving and couldn't answer and then, well... it slipped my mind."
Benji and Ethan stared at each other. "I'm sure there's an explanation," Benji said uneasily.
"He could have gone off the grid for a while and forgot to check back in," Ethan said but his tone suggested he didn't believe it. He pointed at Benji. "Call him. Call IMF and see when he last scanned in or out of the building." He paused. "Call Jane."
Benji already had his phone up to his ear. "Jane's at her cousin's wedding."
"I know that."
"She won't like it. She said don't call, not even if someone steals the moon."
"Just ask her if she's heard from Brandt." Ethan half-turned and punched a number into his own phone.
"Voice mail," Benji said. He spoke urgently into the phone. "Brandt. Call in. Text me. Call Ethan. Something. Where are you?" He disconnected and dialed again.
"Jane has me blocked on her end," he said when Ethan had finished his own call. "She probably did the same to you. She said she wasn't missing her only cousin's wedding."
"I just need to know if she knows anything about Brandt's whereabouts," Ethan said. "I spoke to Agent James; she was at the hearing with him. She said she invited Brandt to the beach after it was over, but he turned her down, said he was going home." He ran his hand through his hair. "I'll call his condo manager."
"If he's in there with a, er, guest, he won't be best pleased to have someone pounding on his door," Benji offered doubtfully.
"He can yell at me after I get done yelling at him," Ethan replied, already dialing. "She'll call me back," he said moments later.
"Agent William Brandt scanned out of door East-Three of IMF Headquarters at two-thirty-nine p.m. Thursday and has not scanned in since," Benji reported.
"Text Jane." Ethan's index finger was tapping rapidly on the back of the chair beside him.
"She has me blocked, did you miss that part?" Benji snapped.
"Try her mother."
"I don't know her mother's number."
"Well, get it from Jane's records!" Ethan snapped in turn. His phone chirped and he snatched at it. "Ethan Hunt here."
"Brandt's not answering his door," Ethan said once he'd disconnected. "No signs of a break-in. The neighbors don't think they've seen him but he's "quiet and keeps to himself" so they're not sure." He paused. "His car's not there," he finished reluctantly.
"There, see, he probably went away for the weekend," Benji said. "People do, you know. Have lives, take spontaneous holidays..." His voice trailed off under Ethan's gaze. "It's probably nothing," he finished lamely.
Ethan was running his hand through his hair again. "Probably," he said unconvincingly. "It just... doesn't feel right. Brandt is Mr. Protocol. He wouldn't just ignore a mission prospect without some kind of reply."
"Maybe he dropped his phone in the loo."
"He'd call in and put himself on reserve contact while he got a new one." Ethan's head jerked up at the same instant Benji yelped and scrambled for his laptop. "His phone! Get a GPS trace on his phone, stat!"
While the trace was processing, Ethan sent out an agency-wide text, asking for any IMF personnel who had had contact with William Brandt in the past twenty-four hours to notify him immediately. Benji glanced up from his own phone's screen. "Jane's mum has me blocked as well. Well, more likely, Jane has blocked her mum from me, but you get the picture. This wedding is rather a big deal."
"She didn't know Brandt would go missing."
"Is he missing? Like... actually missing, not a cock-up?" Benji asked warily.
Ethan stared out the hotel window. "I don't know," he admitted finally. Benji's laptop chimed and they both lunged for it.
Signal Not Acquired said the pop-up.
"Does that mean..."
"...He just has it turned off? No," Benji replied, clicking keys rapidly. "IMF has... ah, here, see?... deep-level GPS encoding built in to the circuits on a micro-scale. It keeps transmitting even when switched off, broken, or if the battery's pulled. The sat nav will stay operational until..." He broke off, a look of dawning horror on his face.
"...Until the phone is destroyed by extreme heat, pressure, or corrosive agents," Ethan finished in a grim voice. He thumbed on his phone on again. "I'm transferring the Bridge Bomber mission to other agents. Brandt is missing. Finding him takes priority."
William Brandt was at that moment still hiking, working his way through steep, wooded terrain. He'd been at it for a good while now; he had a decent internal clock and was keeping a mental countdown to when the hunters would start out after him.
He was going to need water soon, too.
A blue jay screamed raucously and swooped through the branches overhead. Will halted instantly and turned in a slow circle, listening.
Nothing else moved. The forest around him was quiet except for the bird hopping from branch to branch and squawking. Carefully, Will lowered himself to a crouch and after a minute or so the jay quieted and flew off.
He had been the one to set off its territorial instincts, then, not an approaching hunter.
He reached down and burrowed through the leaf layer at the base of an outcropping of rock. Decades of harsh weather had crumbled a spill of gravel from the larger rock; Will sifted through the pebbles, found a rounded one, and rubbed it clean on his pants. He slipped it into his mouth and pushed to his feet again.
Some time later he broke out of the trees onto a broad, open corridor cut straight through the forest. It had been cleared of vegetation in a strip the width of a two-lane road; down the center of it ran the perimeter fence.
He'd found the western boundary of The Lodge's property.
Will paused just inside the treeline. By his estimation it wasn't quite four hours since he'd been turned loose, but there was a damn good chance the Coordinator would have released the hunters early, just for the hell of it.
No sounds save for birdsong disturbed the quiet. He scanned the corridor. To the right- north- would lead back to The Lodge; left- south- down into the property. A dead brown strip along the foot of the fence showed where herbicide had been sprayed to keep the weeds and grass down. Faint tire marks in the grass indicated regular patrols circled the perimeter.
Nothing moved. Will closed his eyes, took a deep breath... and stepped out from the shelter of the trees into the open.
No shots rang out.
He opened his eyes and scanned the area. Took another step. Then another.
Still clear.
Cautiously, he approached the fence. Extra heavy-duty chainlink, a good fifteen feet high. The posts appeared to have been drilled into the bedrock. Coil after gleaming coil of razor wire crowned the top edge.
And then there was the high voltage line.
The thick wire ran down the center of the fence. It looked innocuous, a tether to keep the linked sections from bowing in the wind. But as Will got closer, he could hear a very faint buzzing hum, almost below the level of his hearing. Current like a perpetual lightning bolt streamed through the fence, lethal with the most glancing touch. When he stood directly beside it, his morning whiskers prickled in the static charge bleeding off the fence.
Will backed up. I've seen prisons easier to break out of, he thought.
Short of wings, there was no going over this fence. He looked down at the stony ground. No digging under it, for that matter.
He took another step back, studying the barricade as it stretched off into the distance. It looked meticulously maintained, but maybe somewhere along its length was some sort of weakness or breach. Some small flaw he could exploit to get across into open wilderness, where he'd have more space to hide while he worked his way back to civilization.
Will turned to the left, downhill and away from The Lodge. He had a lot of ground to cover.
"Agent James was the last to talk to him." Ethan was pacing, a look of intense concentration on his face. "What do we have on her?"
Benji clicked away from the progress screen of the GPS trace he was running. "She's clean. Former field agent. Served with distinction, Central America mostly. Two citations for bravery. Transferred to Research and Analysis fifteen months ago when her partner started trying for a baby. She and Brandt were trading notes on close calls in the field due to tech inadequacies, and put together a presentation for Oversight." He paged through screens. "Iron-clad alibi for the time Brandt vanished- she and her partner had friends in to paint the nursery. She was in her office all Friday morning and then left at noon for a beach house on the Eastern Shore. She's there now with a dozen IMF co-workers."
"Okay." Ethan was still wearing a path in the carpet from the window to the table the laptop rested on. "I've got someone from Forensics heading over to Brandt's townhouse to process it. They'll let me know what they find."
The computer pinged, and Ethan leaned over Benji's shoulder. "Where's his car?"
"Uhhh, no signal located."
"What does that mean? Destroyed, like the phone?"
"Cars don't get the same deep-level tagging as the phones do- too many large systems needing replacement over time. No, it means someone found and pulled the locator from his car; it's not that difficult with a good scanner. Which means it could still be out there somewhere, we just don't know where."
Ethan curled one hand into a fist and bounced it against his leg. "What about surveillance?"
"Not much." Benji shook his head. "Footage of the hearing..." Video played at high speed as he fast-forwarded through it. Brandt was at the table down front, growing visibly more annoyed as the hearing progressed, to go by the hunched set of his shoulders. "...and the corridor afterward." Benji slowed the speed for the few moments of Brandt and James talking, then separating. No one followed Brandt out the door. "And here's the parking lot." Static images, taken from a camera high atop a light pole, flicked past, showing Brandt coming down the walkway and getting in his car, then driving away.
"Play that again," Ethan demanded, and Benji complied, hitting a key so the parking lot sequence repeated. "Why did he turn left? The exit to the Beltway is right."
"He always takes a long way home via back roads on Thursdays," Benji answered. "Says it 'mellows him out'. Just on days we can leave early," he added hastily, as if Will's choice of homeward route was somehow improper.
"That's how they got him," Ethan muttered, watching Brandt's car pull out of its space, cross the nearly empty lot, and once again turn left and move out of range. "Someone knew his routine. You said back roads? Ten to one they ambushed him on a deserted stretch."
"We can have someone drive the route. Even with the GPS disabled, its previous activity should be stored in IMF servers..."
"Do that. See what turns up."
The short grass gave way to bare stony ground and Will was soon scrambling down rocky crags, catching hold of thin, twisted trees that grew out of crevices to keep his footing. The fence continued on, between now-sparsely wooded cliffs, with no sign of vulnerability. Will had moved away from it, closer to the treeline, so he didn't accidentally stumble into it on the rough ground. He'd seen a rabbit dead at the base of the fence where it must have come in contact with the mesh.
Further along, he passed beneath a stubborn oak tree clinging to the rocky incline; several large black crows were perched in the branches, and they launched into the air with irritated croaks as he approached. They were still circling and cawing overhead as Will went past the withered carcass of another crow at the bottom of the fence; it too must have touched it and been instantly killed.
The enclosure had to be pulling a monumental amount of power to keep the entire surface electrified like that.
A memory teased at the back of Will's mind. He rolled the pebble in his mouth, thinking. Something about the length of the fence versus the strength of the charge, and the single wire that carried it...
His boot suddenly shot from under him. Will flailed, barely catching himself before he crashed down hard.
Idiot. Don't lose your situational awareness.
A skin of moss had grown over that section of rock. Ahead, ferns were sprouting out of the spaces between the tumbled rocks and the sparse tufts of grass were a longer, more lush green.
Water. Finally.
He scrambled down the slope, past rocks that gleamed with moisture; lower, it had collected into small rivulets. At the base of a protruding bulge of moss-covered boulder, he found a pool of seepage, half-filled with rotting leaves.
Will dropped to his knees and shrugged off the pack. The water bottle had a filter built into the cap; he unscrewed it and raked aside the wet leaves. Once the bottle was filled, he replaced the cap, flicked open the nozzle, and drank.
He emptied the bottle completely; the water was cold, and tasted, not unpleasantly, of moss and leaves.
It was getting warm now that the sun was climbing the sky. Will tipped over to sit on a dry patch and loosened his jacket. He dug the sandwich out of his pocket- it was squashed and grease had turned the paper napkin translucent, but he finished it off in four bites.
The hunters were in the woods by now whether they'd been held to the appointed time or not. Will balled up the napkin and jammed it deep in his pocket.
He could abandon the fenceline and head back into the deeper woods, where he could play cat-and-mouse with all three hunters while trying to set up some sort of ambush.
He could look for the so-called safe-zone cabin, not that he believed the Coordinator would actually honor his claim that Will was off-limits if he made it there.
Or he could continue to follow the perimeter, watching the fence for a weak spot. As long as he kept to the edge of the treeline, he'd be less visible than marching down the center of the cleared strip and he could still move quickly.
Eventually the fence would loop back to The Lodge. There were armed guards there, but also ingress points, and once inside, potential cell phones, weapons he could liberate. A hostage in the Coordinator's daughter.
He remembered the sound of the car the previous night. Potential escape vehicles as well; Will might have been a self-imposed desk jockey after Croatia, but he could still hotwire a car in under sixty seconds flat.
He bent over and refilled the bottle, then scooped water into his hands and poured it over his head and down his collar. He pushed to his feet.
He could only spend so long playing hide-and-seek with the hunters, but for now, staying ahead of them was his best bet. Will hitched the pack into place and kept walking.
"I think I've got something!"
Benji tilted back the laptop screen as Ethan bent over his shoulder. A long list of dates and times filled the left column, followed by a column of alpha-numeric designations. One line of data was highlighted.
"What is it?"
"Brandt's license plate." Benji looked pleased for the first time since he'd breezed through the hotel door. "I took a chance on running it through every database accessible to IMF. Got a hit on it here- " He tapped the line of text and it expanded to fullscreen. "Philadelphia International Airport long term Economy lot. Entered at 6:19 p.m. Thursday. Has not exited."
Ethan snapped upright. "Pack up."
"We're going?"
"We're going. Have Forensics tow it to a local field office impound and start processing, and we'll ultimately meet them there to see what they pulled on it and on Brandt's townhouse. Get the security feed from the Parking Authority, too; we'll see who dropped the car off while we pick up Jane."
Benji was already shoving things into his laptop bag. "Jane's at her cousin's wedding."
"Yes, I know- and in New Hope, Pennsylvania. It's on our way."
"She said..."
"I know what she said. I also know what she will say if we don't tell her the situation. She can decide what to do after we debrief her."
The fence made a right angle turn to the left, heading back into the heart of The Lodge property. There wasn't much else to see- the terrain had leveled off again and there was a wider triangle of mowed grass, and a thicker, taller post at the fence corner with a box covering the charged wire as it made the turn. The trickle of water Will had been following had increased to a narrow stream that ran off into the woods.
He paused there long enough to swap out clothes- jacket and thermal off, shirt stowed in the pack, and then camo jacket back on over the t-shirt- and to swallow one of the power bars and a gulp of water and to refill the bottle. He turned and started down the bottom edge of the perimeter.
He'd gotten a good way along when he heard it- the distant screech of an agitated bluejay. It kept screaming, sharp cries that pierced the still summer air.
Move, Will told himself once it finally quieted.
He kept up a strong, steady pace, alert for further disturbances, until he saw something different about the fence ahead. Just a minor difference- a flat box fastened to the mesh at about shoulder height. Like the box at the corner post, the wire that carried the electric current led to it, but otherwise it was completely featureless- no handy 'Power Off' switches or buttons or levers.
And the memory he'd been trying to recall earlier suddenly shook loose.
Mexico, outside a prison where an asset IMF wanted back was being held. A fence ringed the perimeter- tall dense chainlink, heavily electrified. Too deadly to cut while live and not enough time to find the shut-off in the security bunker. Benji had surveyed the system, said he knew a hack, and proceeded to pop open a square, flat box attached to the fence.
"Relay boxes are spaced periodically around the perimeter," he'd explained rapidly as he worked. "There's so much juice running through this thing, it would burn out the contacts trying to make an uninterrupted circuit of this length. The relays shuttle the power between them, kind of bounce it back and forth in sections." He'd cut a piece of wire from his kit and coiled it into a twisted loop. He'd held the loop up to Will. "When I drop this over these two leads, it'll trigger a closed feedback loop that'll short out the section of fence between this box and the next one."
He'd shaken out his wrists and poised over the relay's innards. "It's only temporary, so get ready with the cutters. You have sixteen seconds from the time I drop the short until the fail-safe kicks in and re-powers this section."
Same kind of fence. Same overly-powerful current and extended length.
Same relay box.
Benji had had conductive wire and snips and a monitor to verify the current was off, and he'd had an extra pair of hands in Will. They'd gotten the section of fence neutralized, cut, folded back, and the team through it, all before the deadly voltage had surged through again.
Will had a knife, a few safety pins, and his bootlaces.
He looked up at the fence rising above him. He also had razor wire to deal with. But if he could get past the fence, it'd be worth it.
He started to shrug out of the pack.
In the distance behind him, a crow croaked out a loud warning call. It was followed by a cacophony of squawking as other crows took up the agitated chorus. Something- or someone- had disturbed the small flock Will had passed earlier.
He'd picked up someone on his trail.
Will gave one last conflicted look at the relay box. He didn't have enough time to gimmick the thing- from the sound of it, the hunter wasn't all that far behind him.
There would be other relays along the fence, and- possibly- other chances to disable one.
He abandoned the open corridor and plunged back into the brush. The ground was wetter there; springs and runoff from higher elevations had formed small streams and marshy patches. Will found a rocky creek bed and stepped into it so he didn't leave footprints in the soft mud.
A low ridge of drier ground cut through the trees. He left the creek bed to climb along it, heading up into the forested hills once more. The sun moved higher in the sky and he paused long enough to mop his face and swig from the bottle. The blackflies were getting bad, too; he started to slide the pack from his shoulders so he could fish out the bug wipes, but below and to the right he heard a bird break from cover and take flight, ripping through the underbrush with a drumming beat of wings.
A grouse, flushed from a roost by something nearby.
Will shrugged the pack back on and kept going.
He kept at it through early afternoon, climbing hills, zigzagging off through the trees for a time, then climbing more. Every time he thought he may have given his tracker the slip, some small sign indicated he or she was still behind him- the alarmed screech of a squirrel, a sudden silence falling, birds abruptly taking wing in a startled flurry.
Near the top of the long hill he'd been climbing, he came to another barren stone stretch. For a moment he paused, heart thudding with exertion; he could skirt the open area, staying under heavier cover, or he could risk the exposure, making a run straight up the clear slope and over the top to put a little distance between himself and his pursuer.
If he was going to set up some kind of ambush, he needed the time and distance to do so.
Will stepped out from behind a tree and started up.
One-two-three-four-five quick paces and he'd gotten his stride, a bent-forward straining run up the stone face of the hill. Sparse, twisted pines offered scattered shelter, but Will didn't bother with their scant protection- he just barreled on in a straight line to the top of the ridge.
He nearly made it unseen.
Mere steps from the top, a rifle cracked behind him, the report rolling across the hills. The shot barely missed him; if Will hadn't planted his foot just at that second in a twisting step to gain traction, it would have drilled squarely into the back of his skull. As it was, he felt the bullet sear past his cheek and spatter into the boulder in front of him.
Stinging chips of rock sprayed his face. Will flung himself aside, adrenaline flooding in and propelling him toward his only cover- a single, bent evergreen. Vaguely, over the roar in his ears, he heard another shot crack- this one ripped into the tree, shredding a rain of needles into his eyes.
Will flattened to the ground, scrambling on his belly to the top of the ridge. Boots digging in frantically against the rough ground, he threw himself over the crest and rolled down the far side. Still in motion, he pushed up, sharp stones cutting at his hands and knees, and took off in a bent-over sprint for the trees. He hit cover at a dead run and plunged deeper, abandoning stealth for speed.
He had minutes at the most before the hunter gained the top of the ridge and could fire down at him.
He ran, branches whipping as he tore by. Some part of his mind recognized he was making a hell of a racket, leaving a trail even a Cub Scout could follow. He dodged into the shadow of a large tree trunk and crouched, heaving for breath.
Silence. The woods closed in around him, heavy and dense. His heart was nearly choking him, and Will swallowed, pulled in a strained breath and held it to keep from gasping aloud.
Still quiet. His neck tingled with the sense the hunter was behind him and gaining, but he forced himself to remain motionless, to listen and to analyze.
Up. He should go back up, now, before the hunter overtook him. He/she would be expecting him to continue down the mountainside in a blind panic.
Will rose and lunged downward for another few dozen paces. He broke off the brittle branch of a witch hazel tree and then kicked at a fallen log half-buried in debris, spilling its rotting innards onto the forest floor.
And then he cut left, stepping with care and working his way horizontally, beginning to move in a broad arc back up toward the ridge crest.
A narrow gap opened in the trees as he climbed, sunlight slanting down in bright slices. Another small creek, formed by winter runoff from the summit. Will eased forward, ducking, practically crawling, until he reached the creek bed. It was nearly dry, a rocky strip winding through the trees and larger boulders. If he could navigate it without clattering the rocks out of place, he wouldn't leave prints.
Up or down? Up would take him away from the tracking hunter, at least for a short time, but might also bring him near the other two hunters, who had to have been drawn by the gunfire. Down would send him the original direction of his furious flight. The tracker might be waiting for him.
Or Will might be able to follow him.
He couldn't keep dodging and hiding forever- he'd be on the defensive non-stop and they'd eventually wear him down.
Going on the offensive, on the other hand, would be going down fighting.
The pulse pounding in his ears was starting to subside. Will took a deep breath and released it and headed down, again.
The adrenaline rush had left him shaky, and even in the heat of the day he felt cold. He moved carefully while his nerves settled, stopping often to sweep his gaze across the surroundings and strain his ears for any sign of other humans. The forest was eerily quiet- the gunshots had startled the wildlife into silence.
He flexed his hand until the tingling in his fingertips had faded and then quietly drew the knife. It would do absolutely nothing against the range of a rifle, but he felt better with it in his hand.
The creek bed deepened where water had poured over a shelf of rock and carved out the softer earth below; Will climbed down into the resulting gully. The depth of it had allowed water to remain puddled while the rest of the creek dried up, so he crouched to cup water in his hand and splash his sweating face and neck.
It was only because he was huddled below ground level that he saw it- a flicker of movement through the trees, low, between the slender bare trunks of a spicebush. He crouched lower. Another flicker, not of a leaf waving in the breeze nor a shifting of sunlight and shadow. No, it was a camouflaged pant leg, belonging to someone stepping slowly and deliberately through the trees below. Will reached down and scooped up a handful of mud, smearing it down his face while hunching lower so his own motion wasn't visible. He inched his arm up so his sleeve shielded his hair, and then risked a peek over the gully's rim.
It was the impatient hunter. Young- younger than he had appeared from the porch- and broadshouldered, he didn't look impatient any longer, only deeply focused. Will stayed frozen; he breathed shallowly and only his eyes moved, shifting to keep the tracking hunter in view. Step by careful step, the tracker eased up the hillside, scanning the ground. His rifle was cradled easily in the crook of his elbow, ready to snap up in the space between heartbeats.
Will watched him go by, only a stone's throw away. Still too far to rush him or throw the knife and expect to land a lethal hit in the neck or eye. In miniscule increments, he shifted to keep the hunter in sight as he passed. There was no chance he could creep up behind him silently enough to attack; Will let him go.
The tracking hunter moved on until he was swallowed by the trees.
Will waited for a full five minutes, counting them out in his head. Moving with exquisite care, he unlocked his knees and rose, retreating down the creek bed.
The terrain dropped steeply again and he slid down what must have been a small waterfall in wetter weather. In the shadow of the falls, he stopped, dug the camouflage thermal shirt out of the pack, and tied it around his head to hide his hair. There was another small pool at the foot of the falls; he added to the layer of mud on his face and hands.
The sun was brighter ahead. The forest opened out onto a pocket meadow, a small glade tucked between the gorge Will was following and a rise of rocky cliffs on the far side. Long grass swayed in the breeze. The lower edge of the meadow ended abruptly at a steep drop-off, where the soft soil of the field had been eroded by the rushing water of the creek below it. Flat slabs of shale were sliding down the face of the drop-off, one resting crosswise over the creek bed like a stone bridge. Will cautiously put a foot on it, but it wobbled, so he pulled back to climb around the heavy stone.
He inadvertently brushed the dirt wall below the meadow as he climbed down past it, and winced when it crumbled a bit and sent a small patter of dirt to the rocks below. He froze and looked up, straining to hear if the tiny avalanche had attracted attention...
And noticed that the whole underside of the meadow was beginning to collapse.
The creek was eating away at the base of the bank, eroding it until the dirt above slid down in unstable slabs. The rushing creek would carry away the fallen dirt, leaving the rocks behind in a tumbled pile and forcing the water current ever closer to the bank, where it repeated the process. At the moment, with the creek dry from a long summer, the process was stalled.
Leaving a shelf of thick, matted grass overhanging the front edge of the embankment with no dirt supporting it, the roots dangling a good ten to twelve feet above Will's head.
And in a sudden flash, he had an idea.
It wouldn't take much to destabilize that dirt bank. Some digging, pulling aside rocks buried for millennia in the dirt, finishing the work started by the creek before it dried up for the season.
And if someone were to walk out across the meadow, right to the edge to climb down where Will had passed, their weight would collapse the overhang and send them landsliding to the rocks below.
Where Will would be waiting for them.
Theoretically.
Will craned his head back. He'd need a track leading across the meadow, right up to a rock that was just poking out of the bank, making a convenient-looking jump down from the top. A couple of deep boot prints in the soil below that, making it look like he'd leapt down from point to point, and he'd have an enticing trail.
He yanked the pack from his back. There was no time- if he was doing this, he was doing it now, immediately, before the tracking hunter looped back once more in search of him.
Will trotted back up the creek bed until he was in the trees above the meadow, then cut to the edge of the forest. He snapped a few branches as he went, kicked over a mossy stone to expose its clean underside. Now was the riskiest part- he had to run across the open field, in clear view of anyone watching.
He didn't give himself time to think; he took off with long strides, tearing his boots through the tall grasses. At the drop-off he glanced back; a thin but clear path showed where he'd crossed. He jumped over the bank, landing first on the rock- it tilted, tipping forward under his weight- and then at the bottom, leaving deep prints right at the edge of the creek.
And then he moved into the shadow of the bank and got to work. At about waist-height on the bank, he carved at the dirt with the knife, slicing deep and then scooping the loosened dirt aside and behind him, where it would be out of sight at first glance. He worked backward across the wall, stabbing and scooping, gouging at the ground and then rolling the clods and rocks aside.
The sun was lowering toward the horizon when he paused; he had a trench carved into the bank, elbow-deep and about two feet high. A few places were deeper, where he'd dug great slabs of shale out of the dirt and tipped them to the bottom of the creek bed to lie in a jagged tumble. He stood up to stretch- his back was starting to ache with a hot twisting- and a small clod of dirt broke free about a foot above his head, gathering more dirt as it tumbled down the embankment.
The overhang was destabilizing.
Any more digging and the whole thing might collapse before anyone set foot on it above. Will wiped the knife blade on his pants and bent, stiffly, to retrieve the pack. He retreated down the creek bed a few paces, to a large boulder jutting out above the forest floor. He wiped his streaming face, treated himself to a deep drink of water, and rubbed his filthy hands over his face, grinding dirt into his skin. Re-tying the shirt over his hair, he settled into the lee of the boulder to wait.
He didn't hear the hunter coming. The birds did, though, and the forest, which moments before had been alive with chatter, fell silent around him. Will leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, fingertips of his left hand resting on the ground, the knife balanced in his right. If this didn't work, he was going for the hunter anyway. He had the element of surprise and he had desperation in his favor.
He still didn't hear the hunter approach, didn't hear him move across the meadow to the edge of the drop-off. The first hint Will had of him was when the tracker looked over the embankment and saw Will's boot prints at the bottom. He stood for a few seconds, a dark silhouette against the blue sky above the meadow, gazing out across the forest below him. Will didn't move, even to duck lower; any movement, however slight, would be a deadly giveaway.
The tracker stepped forward, boot landing on the grassy overhang.
And with no dirt beneath its matted grass cap, it collapsed.
The hunter grunted out a startled exclamation, instantly stifled. His left leg shot downward as the whole rim of grass fell away beneath him and he lurched sideways, trying to counterbalance. The front of the bank quivered; the hunter dragged his left leg up and released the rifle cradled across his chest to hang by its strap while he windmilled his arms, seeking purchase.
The collapsing sheaf of grass rolled down the bank, dragging dirt with it. The hunter jumped as it fell, aiming for the only stable-looking thing before him- the half-buried rock a few feet down. He landed square, lurching backward and grabbing at the bank behind him to keep his balance as the rock, already loosened from Will's weight earlier, teetered dangerously. He straightened with effort, his face dark with anger...
And the dirt beneath the rock gave way, tipping it forward completely and spilling the hunter head-first down the incline. He somersaulted in a deluge of dirt as the entire face of the embankment split off and caved in over him.
Will was already moving. The cascade hadn't even abated before he was leaping across the tumble of dirt and rock and grass, knife clenched in a death grip. The hunter was belly-down at the foot of the embankment, twisted among the rocks of the creek bed. The big boulder- the one he'd jumped on- had fallen across his lower back.
Despite being pinned, he was pushing up on his elbows, raising his head and shoulders and trying to heave the rock from his back. He caught sight of Will in his peripheral vision and snapped his head around, right hand straining down his side, fingers searching...
Will recognized someone going for a gun when he saw it. He threw himself across the remaining distance, landing astride the tracking hunter's back, grabbed a fistful of the man's hair in one hand, and wrenched his head back.
He sliced his throat before the hunter could so much as wheeze out a warning call.
tbc