Mind Games
Chapter 54
See Chapter 1 for disclaimer
A/N: Many humble thanks for the reviews. Okay, okay, you've talked me into another one. :) I don't think you'll like the cliffie at the end of this one any better, though…
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J. Scott Marsh crouched in the brush as the sound of feet grating on the rock of the trail met his ears. At roughly the same time he heard Don shout through his earpiece, and Marsh looked down at the video monitor to see a section of trail bounding crazily up and down – Don Eppes was running hard up the trail toward the top of the ridge – the ridge that separated Marsh from the brothers. He was shouting Charlie's name, and just then, Marsh looked up as the professor burst over the top of the hill. He was running flat out and missed the sharp left turn in the trail, instead heading straight ahead into the trees and passing within yards of Marsh's hiding place. Marsh paused, frozen for a moment, thinking fast. Dr. Eppes had obviously been spooked by something – perhaps he'd overhead their conversation, and was on the run from his brother. It took him only a moment to decide that his only recourse now was to follow the professor, to make sure they didn't lose him.
He paused just an instant longer, waiting to see if Don Eppes would also come sprinting past him – if he did, Marsh would follow them both. He had a ski mask in his pocket – extra insurance in case he needed to avoid the chance glimpse by anyone who might identify him, and he took the opportunity to pull it on. As he did so, Don flew over the top of the ridge, but his quick reactions identified the turn in the trail in time and he veered sharply left, pounding on down the trail away from Marsh, away from his brother, his footsteps fading in the distance. Marsh wasted no time – the professor was already out of sight in the mist, and he took off down the hill through the trees after him, trying to follow the same line of travel.
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Fear probed through the pain, and Charlie knew he had to move. He somehow backed up onto his hands and his right knee, his body shaking with pain, and managed to pull his left leg out carefully of the hole. The resulting agony wrenched a guttural cry from him, and as soon as his leg was free, he collapsed again on his right side. His left foot was hanging at a strange angle, and he realized dimly through his anguish that walking was out of the question. His ears were roaring and his head was swimming; he was in danger of passing out, but he knew he had to somehow find a hiding place. The bank he was on was rocky and relatively open, but there were some low-hanging pine branches a few yards away. If he could get there, he could hide until Ian, Colby, and David could get to him.
He realized that he'd run the wrong direction. Ian had told him if he needed them he should run back along the trail towards them, but that hadn't been an option. Don had been behind him, near the trail, blocking the way. He only hoped that they were close behind, and of course, they could always track his position… "Oh, God."
It wasn't until then that it occurred to him that they had no way to find him – in his panic, he'd left his backpack behind, and the GPS tracking device with it. For a moment, he was paralyzed by pain and despair, and blackness crept around the edges of his vision. He shook it off, forcing himself to focus. No matter what, if he was to have a chance, he still needed to conceal himself. He reached his arms across the rocky ground, and trembling with pain and fatigue, began to pull himself along it toward the pines.
The movement brought tears of pain to his eyes, and they ran down his cheeks as he stopped, gasping. He was propped on his elbows, head drooping, when a voice said, "Hello, professor."
He jerked his head up, his elbow gave way and he rolled onto his back, biting back a groan of pain. He was staring up at a tall man holding a pistol, who was wearing a dark green ski mask, gloves, and what appeared to be a tan fishing vest. The man crouched beside him and pulled the mask up to reveal his chiseled, good-looking features, and a jolt of recognition shot through Charlie. It was the man from Montreaux's estate – the man that he had seen, and had tried for weeks to identify. The fact that he shown himself was ominous; he apparently had no intention of letting Charlie live to tell others what he'd seen. Charlie held himself rigidly, acutely aware of the gun that was pointed at his chest, an almost physical presence in itself - menacing, a deliverer of death.
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Don tore up the incline and over the top of the ridge, hitting a dense patch of fog and nearly missing the sharp left turn in the trail. This section of trail was fairly level, and ran along the left side of what looked like another sizable valley. It was hard to tell he was even in a valley at first, but as he ran, he could see that some patches of woods were clear enough to tell that the ground sloped away to his right for a good distance before getting lost in the thick fog far at the bottom. To his left, the rest of the hill rose steeply overhead to another ridge. This section of trail was a series of switchbacks; sharp turns back and forth through dense trees, and he ran for a few minutes, expecting to see Charlie around each turn.
He finally stopped, panting; sweat dripping down his face and neck and mingling with the cool, gathering mist, and faced the awful truth – he'd lost him. Charlie could not possibly be ahead of him; he would have caught him by now. He had to have turned off the trail, and Don's heart sank. Charlie was out there alone, with a killer in the vicinity. His chances of finding his brother in the growing fog were slim, but still panic-driven, Don started back along the trail the way he had come. There were still a few mist-free sections here and there on this slope and the slope across the valley, and his eyes sought them out desperately as he strode back along the trail. Maybe if he looked down into the valley, he would see Charlie crossing one of those spaces. He'd gone only a few feet, when the voice in his head spoke. 'Your brother is down the hill, near the creek. Come down the hill and follow the creek upstream – you will find him.'
He froze; his heart hammering. His worst fear had been realized – the man who had been stalking them had found Charlie first. He realized he was still clutching the knife, and bent and lifted his pant leg quickly, strapping the sheath to his leg. Then he turned, at first moving slowly, then faster with more purpose, as he plunged off the trail into the woods, making his way down the long slope toward the thicker mist at the bottom. He was probably walking into a trap, but he had no choice.
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J. Scott Marsh squatted and surveyed the prone man in front of him, taking in the strange angle of his foot and his obvious pain. The professor had a badly broken leg, and it prompted another thought. The murder would look more believable if Charlie Eppes bore some bruises, as if from an attack by a man gone mad – as they would ultimately believe Don Eppes to be. Marsh wanted it to appear as if Don had cracked under the strain and had a relapse, then viciously attacked and killed his brother and finally shot himself. He had the feeling that if he could push Don Eppes to kill Charlie, then he had a good chance of talking him into suicide. If not, he would have to manage Don's death himself. His eyes roved over Charlie's body once more, then he moved his gun to his left hand and without warning, smashed his gloved right fist into the professor's left cheekbone. The professor's head jerked up and back; and his eyes rolled back in his head. For a moment, it looked as though he was going to lose consciousness but then his eyelids fluttered, and his eyes stayed open. He looked dazed, though, and Marsh stood and watched him for a moment, then looked around for a suitable piece of wood.
He found one under a nearby stand of pine, a thick branch long ago stripped of bark and bleached to a silver color, about the size and hardness of a baseball bat. It was a bit lighter than a bat, but still heavy enough to produce bruises. Marsh walked back over to the professor with the gun in his right hand and swinging the club in his left, a cold, satisfied smile playing on his lips. "You've been quite the annoyance, professor. We thought you were gone, and then you turned up again, like a bad penny." He swung the piece of wood at Charlie's torso, hard, and the professor involuntarily raised his arm to ward off the blow. It connected with his shoulder with a nasty smack, and Charlie choked back a strangled cry of pain. Marsh gave a slight nod of approval. A broken leg, a bruise on the cheekbone, one on the shoulder –
He broke off his mental inventory as motion caught his eye. The sound of the creek muffled the footsteps, but through a rift in the mist he'd gotten a glimpse of a figure approaching, walking along on the opposite bank, still well upstream. Don Eppes. He'd gotten there faster than Marsh had expected, but fortunately Eppes hadn't seen him yet. Quickly, Marsh headed for the pines; then paused. There was a huge tree only a few feet from the professor that would provide better cover, and Marsh slipped behind it and pulled down his ski mask, his finger on the trigger.
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Don moved carefully along the stream, eyes roving from side to side. This section of the valley still had only patches of fog and was relatively clear, but thick clouds rose up the slopes, surrounding them, obscuring the view from the trail above except for an open section near the ridge top. He glanced at a clearing to his left across the stream, which was partially obscured by brush from his upstream angle. He had nearly walked past it before he glanced that way again. Looking back at it from downstream there was an opening in the brush, and he got a full view of the rocky clearing and the prone figure on the ground.
His first thought was that Charlie was dead, and for a moment, time stood still. He stopped short, just staring at his brother across the shallow rushing stream, the sound of it filling his head. Then he was moving, running, stumbling across the stream, very nearly stepping in the same hole that Charlie had, before a voice brought him up short. A man in a ski mask stepped out from behind a tree, partially showing himself and his gun, which was pointed at Charlie's head; and Don froze.
"Well, Don," the man said pleasantly, "I see you've come to finish him off." It was then that Don looked down and saw that Charlie's eyes were open; he was alive, but lying rigidly, trembling as if in pain. His left cheek was an angry red with a small blue center; the kind of nasty, deep bruise that would turn black later. That wasn't the source of the intense pain however; Don stomach lurched with nausea as he got a glimpse of Charlie's left leg, the limp foot hanging from a shin twisted at an impossible angle. Broken – and it looked bad. Don swallowed, his head buzzing from the current, trying to get a grip on the situation. His hand itched to pull his gun from its shoulder holster, but the man was watching every move, every expression; and he was protected, half-hidden by the trunk of the tree. Don needed to play along until he could find an opportunity to pull his gun and get off a good shot.
He pretended to look around them, ignoring the man and his gun. The buzzing sensation had increased, the effects ramped up by the rush of emotions and adrenaline, and he tried to fight it down, tried to maintain control. "Are you sure we're alone?" he asked, hoping to God that the answer to his own question was 'no,' praying that Ian, Colby, or David were near.
Don turned back to look at the man and caught him shrewdly appraising him, and at his feet, he could see Charlie's devastated, hopeless expression. The look of pain on his face had intensified, and Don knew that Charlie had been desperately holding onto the possibility that Don was still on his side, and he'd just dashed those hopes. The expression in his eyes was almost more than Don could bear, and he was thankful that the man was too busy to be looking at the monitor, because right now his emotions would surely give him away. 'You know I'm kidding, Charlie, please, know I'm just playing along.' He said it silently, with the fervor of a prayer, and then the man abruptly tossed him something.
Don caught it automatically, and he could see a flicker of satisfaction in the man's eyes. It was a club-sized piece of bleached wood, and as Don looked at it the man said, "Go ahead, hit him. I know you want to."
Don stared at the wood blankly, his stomach and mind churning together in a sickening senseless morass. The bastard wanted him to hit Charlie, to club him while he lay helpless on the ground. The man edged closer – still not quite out from behind the tree trunk, but near enough for an easy shot - the barrel of his gun trained on Charlie's head, his eyes watchful. He was testing him, Don realized, and he straightened and stepped over Charlie's prone body, and then turned to look down at his brother, hefting the branch. He needed the man to relax his guard, just for a second or two... Charlie's eyes held his, tortured, bright with unshed tears of pain and betrayal, and Don lifted the club. His face was impassive, but his eyes implored, 'Don't move, Charlie, don't move…'
He brought the club down hard across Charlie's body, pretending to hit his right hip, but making sure that the head of the branch hit the ground next to Charlie's body, letting the ground absorb the brunt of the blow. Still, he caught a bit of Charlie's hipbone and Don could see him flinch. Charlie shut his eyes tightly, as if he couldn't bear to see what was coming, and at that moment, Don felt something snap inside his head. The constant barrage of current, the unbearable tension, the ugly scene, the rush of emotion and adrenaline had finally broken through his mental defenses, and he could feel the rage mushrooming inside, taking over…
He was seized with an almost irresistible urge to act, to lift the club again and smash it into the body at his feet, to beat the figure beneath him into a bloody pulp, and for a moment he teetered there on the edge of the abyss, fighting for their lives in the battleground of his mind. He clenched the club, his knuckles white as his brain raced, and as he looked down at Charlie lying helplessly on the ground he was seized with the vision of his brother as a child, in the garage, backing into a corner, a plea in his dark eyes. It was the recurring dream he'd had when he'd been programmed, something that had never even happened, an image produced by his tortured mind, but the image was powerful – a visual rendering of his brain's final attempt to reassert itself, and somehow, it was enough. It broke the haze of rage obscuring his reason, and at least for that brief moment, the battle was won; Don could feel the hatred receding as he regained control.
He looked at the club and could feel bile rising in his throat, and without looking at the man, tossed the branch to the ground. It landed between them, near the man's feet. Don was breathing heavily, the sickening scene and the emotion that went with it had shot his adrenaline level through the roof, and he was sure he looked somewhat deranged. He needed an excuse to get to his gun – he still had to play along. He shot a sideways glance at the man, and said, in a thick voice, "Screw this. Let's just kill the little bastard."
He could see the man's eyes framed in the holes of the ski mask; and the intensity in them was replaced by a thoughtful look. Don took a chance and reached inside his jacket with his right hand as the man carefully bent and retrieved the club, his eyes still on Don and his gun still on Charlie. Just as Don pulled out the Beretta, the man tossed the piece of wood back at him, towards his right side, and Don quickly transferred the gun to his left hand so he could catch the club. Now the gun was out but in the wrong hand, and the man stepped back behind the protection of the tree trunk, his gun still trained at Charlie's head.
"Hit him again."
Don was still in a situation where he had to make some kind of move to get a shot off, and furthermore, he had to shift his position to get a good one. He played for time, moving slowly, casually, swinging the club, shifting around to Charlie's feet so he could get a better angle on the man behind the tree; then he deftly switched hands, so that the gun was in his right and the club in his left. He immediately pointed the gun at Charlie, trying to keep the man off guard until he could get a clear shot. He could see Charlie's chest heaving with emotion and pain, but the sound of his breathing was drowned out by the noise of the nearby creek.
He fumbled for something to say that would explain why he wasn't either hitting or shooting, and directed the words at Charlie, trying to sound as nasty as he could. "You don't deserve to live, you little traitor, after what you've done." 'Shift a little more left, step back so you can bring up the gun…,'
"You're nothing but scum. So what do you think, Charlie? Should I shoot, or should I let you suffer a little longer?" 'God, Charlie looks bad, looks like he's going into shock…you know I don't mean that, buddy, you gotta know… Back another step, flatten the angle of your arm by backing away – then it won't be such a large movement to bring it up and hit the man – damn, if he'd only step out from behind that tree a little more…'
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Ian, Colby, and David shot over the top of the ridge and flew down the trail for several yards before Ian brought them to an abrupt halt. "We're not going to catch them," he panted. "They could be anywhere in these woods. We need to go back up on the ridge while there are still some patches of visibility and try to get a line of sight." He sprinted back up the way they had come, David and Colby behind him, and at the top of the trail they stopped. Ahead, they looked back down into the little hollow of out which they had just come, and to their left, a rocky outcropping stretched, the highest viewpoint over the valley that they had just reached. Without a word, Ian led the way across the rocks to the precipice and they took positions on the edge. Colby and David pulled out their binoculars, but Ian pulled his rifle from its case and assembled it quickly, expertly, and then used the scope as a magnifier, looking through at the sections of woods that weren't yet obscured by the fog.
It wasn't the experienced tracker or the military veteran who spied them first – it was the city boy, David Sinclair. "There they are!" he exclaimed, as he trained his binoculars down into the heart of the valley. "One o'clock -," he broke off abruptly, still staring through the binoculars, and Colby caught a look of disbelief on his face.
Colby instantly trained his own field glasses on the area, scanning quickly until he saw them, and his heart nearly stopped. "Charlie's down," he said, his voice cracking.
Ian shot both of them a quick perturbed glance as he adjusted his scope then put it to his eye again, and as he found the Eppes men, he saw the reason for Sinclair and Granger's distress. Charlie was down, and Don Eppes was standing over him, pointing a handgun at his chest. There was someone else, Ian realized. "There's another man to Don's right – he's partially hidden by that big tree, but he's got a gun on Charlie, too." For a split second they sat there in stunned disbelief, and then Ian spoke again, his face grim. "Looks like Don lied to us – he must have been under the man's control, maybe for some time now."
"But how?" argued Colby. "Those devices they put in were supposed to keep that from happening."
"Maybe they are," said David, desperation in his voice. "Maybe he's just playing along."
"Or maybe Dr. Janovic lied to us to save his hide and he never put the devices in," retorted Ian. His eyes narrowed, and he pressed his face closer to the stock of the rifle. Don was raising his gun, leveling his arm, slowly moving the gun up from Charlie's midsection toward his head, as if to prepare for an executioner's shot. "We don't have a choice; I need to take him out. Get on the radio; tell Masters to get a team out and cordon off a radius around Don's GPS - the other man's probably going to run as soon as I take this shot. Tell Masters to get a medical evac going, too, as close as they can get to this area."
He shook his head impatiently and jockeyed a little for position; there were branches in the way, and swathes of mist moving across his field of vision, and he didn't have the best view. Don had stopped moving, however, and obviously had gotten himself in a position to take the shot, and there was no more time. Ian Edgerton put Don Eppes in his crosshairs, and pulled the trigger.
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End Chapter 54