Flashback

Chapter Twenty

On the hill that overlooked the small hut, there was a triangular clearing formed by three ancient pines. The limbs of the largest had bent under the weight of snow. Tolsdorf, the woodsman, was braced in a familiar wedge halfway up the trunk. His deer-hunting rifle rested in a notch convenient for surveillance of the hut and its small hinterland of piled wood.

Tolsdorf was as still as the tree. He felt twenty years younger. He had gathered his wits to a single point: his left eye, open on the rifle’s burning green image intensifier. He breathed through his nose. He was not too cold; rather, the cold of this night had entered him and calmed him.

He had been settled against the trunk for more than four hours and was now ready to climb down and call this night done. But, in the instant before he looked down to place his feet, he heard a new note in the sounds of the forest. The new note did not belong.

Sure enough, she came from the south-east. Her footfalls told him that she was no native of the forest or the snow. She was easy to locate with the rifle. Her arms were outstretched like bird wings, aiding balance, whiskers for tree fronds in the dark. Everything about her confirmed that she was the help Tolsdorf had been waiting for.

At first, her physical weakness puzzled him. How would she be able to fight the Ghost? Could it be that her purpose was to bring the killer here, nothing more? Tolsdorf tried to arrange the discrete elements of his knowledge as though they were playing cards in a hand, but his concentration—narrowed to that green, blazing disc—was not equal to it. The scattered pieces were little more than knucklebones. They told him nothing beyond his fears.

He felt for the bar of chocolate in his hip pocket, broke off a piece, and chewed slowly as the woman crossed the stream. He saw only part of her face beneath her hood. She stopped. Looked around. Looked at Tolsdorf, who she could not possibly see. Tolsdorf smiled. The lower spike of his three-point crosshair rested on her chin.

And then she was gone into the hut.

Tolsdorf’s bristling at this trespass was, he noticed, both automatic and useless. The sensation made him smile. So I am not dead yet. I am still connected to something of the world. There is still meat on the old bones.

Behind this feeling was one of excitement.

It is happening. The Ghost is coming.

Tolsdorf did not know how long he would have to wait. He knew to expect that this man was following the girl. But at what remove? Might he be biding his time? How strong was his knowledge of the forest? Could he read the forest like Tolsdorf could read it? Did he know that Tolsdorf waited, armed?

These questions itched at him. He was no man to answer them. He was old and wily, but no strategist.

A second, discordant note rang through the empty air. It was dulled by the snow but Tolsdorf’s heart accelerated again.

‘So soon,’ he whispered.

The sound of his voice surprised him, and its disagreeable edge of satisfaction. This would not be easy. He would need to play this like the most serious of hunts. This was not deer. This was the Ghost.

It was no less than fifty metres to the hut. The air was empty. Fresh snow might fall soon, but for now Tolsdorf could see the hut in great clarity. Intensified. Raging green: the halos of the doors and windows. The moving fringe of branches at the eaves. And there: twenty metres beyond the woodpile, the unmistakable brilliance of fluorescent material.

As Tolsdorf eased his index finger through the hole in his glove, the fluorescence—two horizontal strips, perhaps—moved slowly down. It could only mean that the person wearing the jacket had crouched. Were they taking cover? Had Tolsdorf been seen? He doubted it. The man had crouched because he was cautious. Perhaps he had just caught sight of the hut.

The overall range was less than seventy metres. Tolsdorf did not hesitate, though part of him was doubtful, still trying to read the knucklebones of this moment. Was it not foolish for the Ghost to approach the hut wearing such conspicuous clothing? But the man had no reason to suspect that Tolsdorf even existed, let alone had an open shot from an elevated position.

The bullet left the gun with little fuss. The noise, though terrific, was absorbed by the snow-covered trees. Only a familiar tinnitus remained in Tolsdorf’s ears, buzzing like those questions—rattling bone-like—and he still could not read the future, still could not be sure whether he had won or lost.

Tolsdorf knew that the bullet had passed through the left breast pocket of the jacket. He watched his target shift down (a man slumping to his knees) and forward (a man collapsing, dying on his face).

He slid the rifle’s bolt. He did not regret the kill. By habit, he remained in his tree. He discovered a need to urinate, to drink, and to sleep. The quietened drives of his body were clamouring. However, he did nothing but curl his finger back into his glove, to warmth. The unanswered questions faded now, as all questions must fade. Never was his age further from his thoughts. In his chain of duty since overturning that smoking piece of fuselage, every link had held. He was proud.

After a time, Tolsdorf climbed down the tree. The movements were economical. His feet found well-remembered places and his hands, taking no weight, passed from friend to friend until he dropped the last half-metre into soft snow at the base.

Tolsdorf slipped the rifle from his shoulder. He was prepared to shoot from the hip else club with the stock. He approached the hut. He stepped slowly. New questions arose. What if the man was wearing body armour? What if the jacket had been a decoy?

He glanced at the hut. He wanted to talk with this woman. She must have answers—some, at least.

There.

A touch of yellow-orange in the gloom. Tolsdorf had been favouring his left eye, which had kept its night vision, but now he stared at the jacket, both eyes open, and all the demons of his doubt and helplessness returned.

Question: What made you think you were good enough?

The jacket had been sprung on a low branch. It still bobbed from the impact of the shot. The bullet hole had drilled perfectly through the green cross on the lapel. It was the jacket of an emergency worker.

Before Tolsdorf could formulate a thought beyond contempt at the ease of this defeat, he made out a shape in the darkness. A man was standing less than five metres away. As Tolsdorf turned his rifle, the doubts rose again. Why didn’t the man move?

Something struck Tolsdorf in the belly before he could fire. He looked down and swore. His rifle had been broken in two. He was holding each half. The stock dropped from his left hand: there was no longer any power in his grip. He looked up helplessly as the man stepped forward. Sudden moonlight highlighted the essentials of his expression—curiosity, pity—and Tolsdorf felt his anger return.

This could still be a victory. He could undo his foolishness and

mirror, mirror

defeat the Ghost just as Saskia

the corpse

had told him.

‘It can only work once.’

‘How?’

on the wall

Tolsdorf turned, holding his belly, and poured the remainder of his life’s worth into his legs so that they might carry him to

mirror, mirror

the

on the wall

No more. A second bullet, silent, struck his back before he had reached the space beneath the hut. It was like the darkness coming in.