detect.
Kier took her aside. "You saw the bio-packs in the tail section. It could be—"
"We might have a disease. Or several diseases. I know, I know."
"If we've been exposed to something dangerous—"
"I won't go near Claudie or the kids."
"Or anyone else."
"I understand contagious."
"We don't have time to go all through this. You've got to keep Miller cuffed and backtrack his trail so you aren't obvious. I'm sure you'll be angling sharply away from Claudie's. Eventually, you should come to the stream. Turn and head down it. Stay in the water and don't leave a single track. You'll come to the bridge at Claudie's driveway and our vehicles. Don't wait for me. Hopefully, all these soldiers will be converging on the plane. Give Claudie and the kids the truck. Take the Volvo and go as far as you can to the north, away from Johnson City. They won't expect that."
"Where are you going?"
"After you—as soon as I can. I'll find something to drive." Then, carrying the M-16 across his chest just as Miller had done, Kier trotted away with more misgivings than he let show.
He was a healer trying to do a warrior's job at a time when he had hoped the world had outgrown warriors.
Chapter 5
To catch a rabbit watch his hole, not his track.
—Tilok proverb
" S tubborn damned Indian."
Jessie watched him run, marveling at the way he let the brush slip past him with long sure strides, even in the snow. Except for the obvious trail in the drifted mounds, he was as elusive as a wild creature in the forest gloom. He disappeared from her sight after running just forty or fifty feet.
She shuddered with cold, then fear. Putting together all that she had heard, and the little that she had seen, the man was the oddest mixture of scientist, mystic, and naturalist that she had ever met. Unfortunate that he lacked so in people skills.
Claudie said that when Kier was young he turned wild for a short time, running with a group of Indian radicals who undertook the survivalist way of life. They were socially aloof, a law unto themselves, fascinated with guns and knives and living off the land. They even plotted to take over the county seat, but it never got that far, despite the fact that Kier and his friends had obtained a frightening array of military hardware. Kier's rebellious phase had something to do with his father's death years earlier, but Claudie never understood the details. Fortunately, before Kier and his band did any irreversible damage, Kier's grandfather convinced him to break away from the group. If Claudie was to be believed, the only vestige of that experience that lasted was Kier's practice of the martial arts.
Beneath the forest canopy it was almost dark, the waning light turning everything a somber gray, which would linger in deathly, freezing, colorless, joyless tones. A purgatory if ever there was one, she thought, until the sun went down and it turned to hell.
Letting memory comfort her, she could almost feel her gray cashmere sweater, see the pearls that lay across it, smell the coffee, feel a yellow pad under her hand, and hear the soft hum of her computer, as soothing as a mother's heartbeat. She lived in seventy degrees, with carpets and Coke machines, bottled water, potpourri air freshener, ionizing filters, the gentle humor of intelligent colleagues, great challenges, but no danger. This freezing forest was not her world.
There were of course things that seemed worse than physical danger. Take Frank, her boss. A man you thought you could respect, a strong guy, a guy who by some miracle seemingly hadn't let the system, or criminals, steal his sensitivity. A man who was clever by anybody's definition, and wise about pain and cynicism and people, beauracratic or otherwise. Someone you could trust—someone she had trusted. Someone so smooth that he could explain how it was that he could have adulterous sex with another Bureau employee and still
Kier took her aside. "You saw the bio-packs in the tail section. It could be—"
"We might have a disease. Or several diseases. I know, I know."
"If we've been exposed to something dangerous—"
"I won't go near Claudie or the kids."
"Or anyone else."
"I understand contagious."
"We don't have time to go all through this. You've got to keep Miller cuffed and backtrack his trail so you aren't obvious. I'm sure you'll be angling sharply away from Claudie's. Eventually, you should come to the stream. Turn and head down it. Stay in the water and don't leave a single track. You'll come to the bridge at Claudie's driveway and our vehicles. Don't wait for me. Hopefully, all these soldiers will be converging on the plane. Give Claudie and the kids the truck. Take the Volvo and go as far as you can to the north, away from Johnson City. They won't expect that."
"Where are you going?"
"After you—as soon as I can. I'll find something to drive." Then, carrying the M-16 across his chest just as Miller had done, Kier trotted away with more misgivings than he let show.
He was a healer trying to do a warrior's job at a time when he had hoped the world had outgrown warriors.
Chapter 5
To catch a rabbit watch his hole, not his track.
—Tilok proverb
" S tubborn damned Indian."
Jessie watched him run, marveling at the way he let the brush slip past him with long sure strides, even in the snow. Except for the obvious trail in the drifted mounds, he was as elusive as a wild creature in the forest gloom. He disappeared from her sight after running just forty or fifty feet.
She shuddered with cold, then fear. Putting together all that she had heard, and the little that she had seen, the man was the oddest mixture of scientist, mystic, and naturalist that she had ever met. Unfortunate that he lacked so in people skills.
Claudie said that when Kier was young he turned wild for a short time, running with a group of Indian radicals who undertook the survivalist way of life. They were socially aloof, a law unto themselves, fascinated with guns and knives and living off the land. They even plotted to take over the county seat, but it never got that far, despite the fact that Kier and his friends had obtained a frightening array of military hardware. Kier's rebellious phase had something to do with his father's death years earlier, but Claudie never understood the details. Fortunately, before Kier and his band did any irreversible damage, Kier's grandfather convinced him to break away from the group. If Claudie was to be believed, the only vestige of that experience that lasted was Kier's practice of the martial arts.
Beneath the forest canopy it was almost dark, the waning light turning everything a somber gray, which would linger in deathly, freezing, colorless, joyless tones. A purgatory if ever there was one, she thought, until the sun went down and it turned to hell.
Letting memory comfort her, she could almost feel her gray cashmere sweater, see the pearls that lay across it, smell the coffee, feel a yellow pad under her hand, and hear the soft hum of her computer, as soothing as a mother's heartbeat. She lived in seventy degrees, with carpets and Coke machines, bottled water, potpourri air freshener, ionizing filters, the gentle humor of intelligent colleagues, great challenges, but no danger. This freezing forest was not her world.
There were of course things that seemed worse than physical danger. Take Frank, her boss. A man you thought you could respect, a strong guy, a guy who by some miracle seemingly hadn't let the system, or criminals, steal his sensitivity. A man who was clever by anybody's definition, and wise about pain and cynicism and people, beauracratic or otherwise. Someone you could trust—someone she had trusted. Someone so smooth that he could explain how it was that he could have adulterous sex with another Bureau employee and still
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