The Return Of Dog Team by Johnstone William W

Author:Johnstone, William W. [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2012-08-29T07:00:00+00:00

Nine

The sound of the wind was constant, sometimes rising in pitch to a high, thin wail; sometimes dropping to a low, sobbing moan; but mostly maintaining a kind of continuous, humming drone.

It reminded Kilroy of the sound of an oud, a traditional stringed instrument of Afghanistan. He’d heard it played around the campfires of tribal allies while on missions in that fractious land. Played with a bow, the oud produced an effect in him that went from irritating to, ultimately, near hypnotic—though still somewhat irritating.

A new note sounded in the mix of the wind’s midnight moaning. Kilroy’s ears tingled with it, and his pulse quickened.

Vang Bulo must have heard it too, for at the same moment he stiffened, standing motionless on the flat-topped rock. Something hard and intent showed in that stillness, an internal vibration like a hunting dog on point.

Kilroy spoke into the communicator. “Hear that?”

“It’s them,” Vang Bulo said, after a pause.

The newcomers could be heard before they could be seen. A signature sound of motorized vehicles preceded them. The sound was not uniform, for the engines did not operate at a steady rate. The noises rose and fell, depending on the difficulty of the terrain that the vehicles were traversing. This was rough, uneven country. Even the hard-packed brown clay of the gorge floor was textured like a washboard. Then, too, the twists and turns of the pass affected the motorized din. The vehicles’ growling thunder echoed, booming, along open straightaways and was muffled by the limbs and shoulders of massive rock formations.

A trick of the landscape caused the oncoming din to fall off into near soundlessness just as the first set of headlight and searchlight beams thrust into the mouth of the corridor opening on the Rock of the Hawk.

The flat top on which Vang Bulo had kept his vigil was empty, untenanted, the big man having already taken cover. Firefly lights floated above the ground at the east end of the passage. They came on, resolving themselves not into a pair of headlights, but instead into three larger orbs and two lesser orbs. A puzzling configuration, until further nearness caused them to reveal their nature. Each was a single headlight mounted on the handlebars of a motorcycle. Three motorcycles in all, riding in advance of the other vehicles.

The bikes rode in triangular spearhead formation, with the lead bike being followed by a pair of two-rider jobs with sidecars. The sidecars were fitted with searchlights whose beams jutted out from them at varying angles. Headlight and searchlight beams both slashed across cliffside walls north and south of the pass.

Kilroy said, “I’m suspending communication now.”

Vang Bulo rogered that.

Kilroy couldn’t risk an untimely message interrupting his concentration while he lined up the shot. He unplugged the earpiece, eased the headset off his face, and switched off the comm unit. Its plastic armature folded down to something about the size of a cigarette, which he dropped into an inside breast pocket of his utility vest. Behind the three motorcyles came a jeep with four men in it.

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