A Time of Predators

As it developed, there were no observers on the beach. Curt covered the thirty yards to the dimes by wriggling on his belly, even though no heads appeared at the lighted cabin windows. Once in the reeds, he stripped off the wet-suit, put on the clothing he had carried in a small waterproof bag he also had taken at Preston’s: black turtleneck sweater, black Frisko jeans, steel-toed climbing boots, his commando knife stuck through his belt in the small of his back.

He worked his way silently through the myrtle trees toward the chive, one foot at a time, all senses alive in the near-darkness. By the chive he squatted down. One: locate the enemy snipers, which already worried him. Why hadn’t they been watching the beach? It suggested either that they’d already spotted him, or that they had an incredible lack of respect for the terrain. That worry aside, once the sentries were located, he had to disable the Triumph parked so invitingly out in the open and then find and disable the second car that would be parked somewhere behind the house.

An incautious scuff of city-bred shoe on gravel froze him into immobility while Julio’s dark shape passed close enough for Curt to reach out a hand and trip him up. He didn’t. Instead he listened to Julio and Champ talking, gritting his teeth over Champ’s delight at “doing” Debbie. Now he knew not only who they all were — Rick and Heavy and Julio and Champ — he also knew where they were. And then Julio and Champ disappeared around the corner of the cabin, giving him the Triumph.

He raced silently across the open to the car; as the kitchen door closed behind them, he already was sawing through the tough black rubber of one tire. He slashed all four, was into the clump of bushes the two sentries had quit within two minutes of their departure. He kept right on, around the corner of the house opposite the one they had used, and into the evergreens shrouding the bedroom windows. Here he found the station wagon, which he cautiously hooded to slash and jerk every wire he could reach. He also smeared grease on his face to darken it.

Unless Rick, the apparent leader, was totally ignorant, a sentry would be back out directly. Curt was right. He heard the kitchen door open just as he lowered the Chevy’s hood. From the rear corner of the cabin, he watched Champ’s dark form return to its vigil in the bushes. Curt could have slit his throat right there, but the plan called for the lights next.

He moved back past the bedroom windows, around the front of the cabin under the living-room windows, up tight against the siding so he could not be seen from above. At the fuse box he inched the small metal door open, then paused for a full sixty seconds while he mentally rehearsed his sequence of moves. The moon, rimming the cloud banks with silver, soon would burst from behind them; he wanted to be in cover then.

Knife gripped gingerly between his teeth, he pocketed the two spare fuses from the box. He set one hand on each of the connected fuses, then quickly twisted them out. Darkness inside, voices inside raised in question. Curt jammed the fuses into his pockets, and with the knife slashed out a two-foot section of now-dead wire above the box.

A fast sprint, right down the side of the cabin past the kitchen door, right out across the open to the Triumph. Two yards from the car he dove in a front-shoulder roll which brought him up in a crouch in front of the car, out of sight of Champ. Without a pause he ran right on, silently, in a crouch, with the car between him and Champ. He darted into the myrtle bushes, threw away the fuses, squatted to watch.

It took Champ a full sixty seconds to make his decision, to loom up very big in the moonlight beside the car and begin snuffling around it like a dog by a hydrant. It appeared that the predators were not at their best in open terrain. Curt had to actually shake the bushes to attract Champ’s attention. Once he had it, he went to the base of the cliffs. Yes. It looked like an easy ascent. He heard Champ’s yelling for Rick, and started up. A little dicey, maybe, if they had a gun, but he knew how tricky shooting in the moonlight was. And he had to entice them after him, had to make them come to him.

Curt was nearly to the ledge when Rick started firing. Eight shots, 32-caliber by the sound of them, none even close. On the ledge, he looked down: the one with the pistol had been firing from the far side of the clearing, wildly, at a range of better than fifty yards. No wonder the slugs all had been impossibly wide!

Curt looked down. Only one coming now. The big one called Champ. Four minutes, about. The others, in a dark group, started back toward the cabin, incredibly enough — unless they were going to reload the pistol — then detoured to the Triumph. Actually flashed their light at the flattened tires, thus destroying their night vision.