What the fuck was she supposed to say to that?
He was already wearing his harness, but he tucked one of her Jumar ascenders into each of his cargo pockets, she assumed so they wouldn’t clink together on the harness. Then he pulled a bight from the big rope into a figure 8 descender, ran it around the bottom, and clipped it into a locking carabiner on his harness. From the way he screwed down the lock and checked it, she could tell he’d definitely done this before.
He smiled, held a finger to his lips, took the bottom rope and wrapped it around the small of his back. He was left-handed, she noticed. Then he stepped backward off the Perch and down toward the ground, slowed only by the friction of the rope through the descender and the pressure of the rope around his body.
June watched him slide down the rope, thinking he’d missed something, skipped some step. Then she realized he hadn’t attached the ascenders’ safety lines to his harness.
Their locking carabiners lay on the wide branch at her feet.
5
PETER
Where the hell is this chick? Is she some kind of ninja or what?”
One of the men held an electronic device in one hand. He turned in a slow circle, looking from the device to the rugged landscape and back to the device.
Another stood with his foot on the bloody corpse of Mr. Griz. “Hey, somebody take my picture.” He held the unmistakable form of a compact semiautomatic rifle, maybe a Steyr or a Heckler & Koch. Either one a very good weapon, and expensive.
“Yo, shut up,” said a third man, a similar rifle slung across his chest, studying the remains of Peter’s gear spread around the base of the sapling he’d climbed. “I’m telling you, I think this goddamn bear ate her.”
The man with the device kept turning, kept looking. His rifle was slung across his back. “What, it swallowed her whole? Where’s the bones? Where’s the remains?”
A fourth man stepped deliberately around the perimeter, eyes out. He had a different weapon, with a fat barrel and minimal magazine, something out of a sci-fi movie. Like the other three men, he was dressed in hiking clothes so crisp and new he might have stepped out of REI and onto the trail. Four big internal-frame backpacks lay against a fallen trunk, out of the way. They were new, too.
Peter hung at the bottom of the rope, one foot in the loop, sixty or seventy feet up, at the edge of the fog. The wind didn’t penetrate the lower canopy, and their voices were soft but clear in the hush. Peter couldn’t see their faces, just the tops of their heads.
He didn’t want to see their faces.
If he could see their faces, they could see him.
Peter was mostly worried about the guy at the perimeter. He was the one most actively searching the landscape. It might occur to him to actually look up.
Peter reached into his left pocket for an ascender. It was a simple device, basically an aluminum handgrip with a channel for the rope. The channel had a locking mechanism so the rope would only move in one direction. Push it up the rope, and the grip would hold while you pulled yourself up. Much easier than shinnying up hand over hand like he’d done earlier that day.
He held the lock open and set it on the line. Closed the lock with his hand fully engaged to dampen any sound. These men would definitely notice a metallic click in this environment.
They were hunters. Serious people.
Hunting Riot Grrrl.
Four on one. Not exactly fair.
What had she done to attract their attention?
They weren’t trying to pass for government, like she’d said they’d done before. They were trying to look like backpackers, although with all that new gear they might pass as tourists. The assault rifles gave a different kind of impression. But that’s what the backpacks were for. To hide the weapons until they were deep in the forest.
And the handheld device. Some sort of locator.
So they had funding, and technical support.
They were definitely pros.
Riot Grrrl was in serious trouble. And now Peter was, too. But it wasn’t his first time.
Peter got the second ascender locked in place. He looked up. Did he see Riot Grrrl’s pale freckled face looking down at him?
He should have the ascenders’ safety lines clipped to his climbing harness, in case one of them slipped. They would have let him rest, too, on the way back up. But he’d left them behind. He was afraid they’d jingle on his harness.
He started climbing, slowly. The ascenders made a faint sound as the rope slipped through the mechanism. Zizz, zizz, zizz, zizz. Making his way back up, a foot at a time. His arms were already tired. Suck it up, Marine.
“C’mon, take my picture.”
“Don’t be stupid. You want photographic evidence that you were here?”
“Shut up,” said a fourth voice. “All of you, shut up.”
Peter stopped. He hung by his hands, maybe ninety feet off the ground. Not quite hidden in the fog.
It would have been nice to be able to hang from his harness, and rest.