Chapter 37
The return to plan A, energy transfer, had sent the Chinese car into the wall, with the van being an unintended victim of the impact, and the Big Orange Rig getting half buried in the snow.
Joe threw the sturdy vehicle into reverse and backed from the drift.
As soon as they were in the clear, Kurt and Paul jumped out. The Chinese car and the van were buried.
Paul raced forward and began digging in the snow with his hands. Kurt pulled a shovel off the side of the rig and ran over to help.
They went first to the back end of the van, breaking through the snow into the open, and only half-filled, cargo compartment.
Paul dug through some of the snow before stopping. “She’s not here.”
Kurt raced around to the front, digging with the shovel until he found the driver’s compartment.
The snow had broken through the passenger side window and poured into the van, but not enough that it had filled up the entire compartment.
Kurt pulled Ridley out and dropped him into the snow. “She’s not inside.”
“What if she was thrown out?” Paul said, looking back down the road.
“She’s here somewhere,” Kurt said. “These guys were shooting at someone.”
They began to dig in the snow around the van.
Kurt found one of the Chinese men. He took the man’s weapon and then pulled him free, noticing that his foot was a mangled bloody mess.
For a second Kurt wondered if he’d shot himself by accident, but the wound was strange, it didn’t go through and seemed to have come in from the side.
Gamay, he thought. He tossed the stunned Chinese man aside and shouted to Paul.
“She’s under the van. She shot them in the feet.”
Paul dropped down and began digging under the bumper. He paused at a muffled sound. Gamay was shouting at them from inside the snowpack, but the sound was closer to the front of the van.
He moved to a spot where he could hear her more clearly and dug once more, soon finding her outstretched arm. “Hold on!” he shouted, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “We’re going to get you out.”
He dug ferociously and soon reached her face. Snow and ice had stuck to her hair and eyebrows, making her look like an old woman. He brushed it off. “The van is crushing me,” she said. “It’s got me pinned.”
Kurt reached up and began shoveling the snow off the van, tearing through it like a human snowblower. It poured off the roof in all directions, a huge mass of it sliding down the windshield. The springs creaked and the van rose up an inch or two.
As Kurt cleared the snow off the van, Paul cleared the snow from around and underneath Gamay, creating more space. He was soon pulling her out.
She tried to stand, but had no strength in her legs. Paul helped her up. “Let’s get to the rig.” She leaned on him as they marched to the orange vehicle. Joe jumped out to help and they eased her into the back seat, where she could lie down.
—
As Joe and Paul helped Gamay, Kurt returned to Ridley and rolled him over. His blood had marred the snow red, and his face was an ashen mask, but his eyes were open.
“Where’s the damn plane?” Kurt asked.
“Get me to a hospital,” Ridley managed to grunt. “I’ll…tell you then.”
The man was gasping for air.
“You’re not going to make it to a hospital,” Kurt said bluntly. “You’ve been shot in the liver. You’ve lost a ton of blood. The next voice you hear is going to be your maker’s. You want to meet him as a traitor?”
Ridley stared at Kurt. He was so used to lies and deception he doubted everyone and everything. “Go to hell.”
“I might one day,” Kurt said. “But you’re going to get there first. Last chance for redemption. Where’s the plane?”
Ridley said nothing.
Kurt began to walk away. “We’ll find it ourselves. Enjoy the afterlife.”
“Wait,” Ridley croaked.
Kurt stopped and turned.
“It’s on the lake,” Ridley said.
“Which lake?” Kurt said. “There’s a hundred lakes around here.”
“The fish-head lake,” Ridley managed. “Up at the top…”
“Top of what?”
Ridley coughed and brought up a load of blood. He was fading fast. “It’s in…the middle.”
Kurt figured that was enough. If Ridley wasn’t lying, they’d be able to find it. And if he was lying…well, then they were just back where they started.
“Who shot you?” Kurt asked. He assumed the Chinese had tried to grab him instead of paying for the information.
“It was Aaaaa…” Ridley whispered.
The faint utterance of a long a faded on the wind. It was the last sound Ridley made. Whatever might have followed that syllable died along with him.
Kurt looked at Ridley and wondered briefly where his spirit might have gone.
Up or down, or to some spiritual waiting room, where his fate would be adjudicated by powers unknown.
Or maybe he’d merely vanished into the fabric of the universe.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Whatever the answer was, the man was gone, while the problems he’d set in motion lingered on.
Kurt intended to deal with those problems once and for all.
After rifling through Ridley’s coat and pockets, looking for anything that might be useful, he walked back to the Chinese man he’d pulled out of the snow.
The man hadn’t moved. He was in shock, his foot a mangled mess, his leg swelling until the strings of his boot looked like they might snap from the strain.
“Give me your radio,” Kurt demanded.
The man complied without protest.
Kurt checked the volume and pressed the talk button three times to get everyone’s attention.
Pressing and holding it, he spoke. “You’re down two cars.
One of them is on fire in a ditch and the other one’s buried under the snow, halfway up the switchback road.
Some of your men are buried with it. I figure they have about fifteen minutes of air left.
I suggest you come get them before it runs out. ”
A burst of static was followed by Gushan’s baffled voice. “Austin?”
“I’m giving your lieutenant a shovel in case he wants to start digging. But by the look on his face, he’s not going to get much done by himself.”
“Austin?” Gushan said again. “What’s happening? Austin?”
Kurt dropped a shovel beside the stunned Chinese operative and then made his way back to the Big Orange Rig, tossing the radio and the submachine gun off the cliff as he went. He climbed into the passenger seat as Joe got them moving.
They wheeled around slowly on the narrow mountain road, giving Kurt a view of the fjord that stretched away to the south. If Ridley’s dying words were to be believed, the EAGL was out there somewhere parked on a frozen lake.