Free Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) by Whitley Strieber Page B

for.
    He turned out his light, went to the door, twisted the handle, and raised it onto the storm.
    The wind was roaring steadily now, the snow gushing out of the sky in a horizontal cataract. He took his compass out of his pocket and oriented himself, then turned and closed the door.
    He started off, pushing his way through snow that was two feet deep at a minimum. When he reached the road, he consulted his compass again, then turned and headed toward the town.
    He’d find the Cherokee. He’d survive. He’d get this perp and see him take the needle.
    The wind howled around him, clutching him, shaking him with the full power of nature at its most wild.
    He struggled off toward the town, his compass his only guide.

 
    CHAPTER TEN
    Flynn’s struggled to stay on the road, to see any possible attacker, to somehow make progress against a storm that was like a living creature. He timed himself, hoping that he could get at least a rough idea of when he might be approaching the jeep. He also watched as best he could for the puma or for any other sign of danger.
    When a flicker lit the snow, his first thought was that it was lightning. There was no thunder, though. Then, for the briefest moment, a neat pool of light crossed a drift to his right.
    He reacted by dropping and rolling off the road. He let himself sink into the snow. Face up, he lay absolutely still, breathing as lightly as possible. Heat sensing equipment worked particularly well in conditions like this and he did not want his breath to reveal him to infrared detectors.
    He reached for the Glock with his right hand, Mike’s Special with the left. He’d worked for years to shoot effectively with his left hand, and was able to hit targets firing from it at eighty percent of his right-handed proficiency.
    If anything came at him, he was going to do his best to shoot it and the hell with the police self-identification mandate, this was kill or die. As always in moments like this, he took his attention away from his mind and even his problem, and concentrated it on his body. You’d think that paying attention to the problem was what you needed. But what you needed was a hunter’s form, and that was a physical discipline. As he emptied his mind, cocked silence filled him. His breathing became deep, his heartbeat slowed.
    After a moment, a more intense light appeared, growing at first brighter, then slowly dimming. It was moving up the road, and it seemed to be coming from above, like a searchlight shining down from a helicopter.
    As had been the case at the Hoffmans’, there wasn’t the slightest sound of an engine. A helicopter produces noise in two ways. There’s the engine sound, but the distinctive chopping is caused by the rotor, or wing, breaking the sound barrier for a moment each time the engine drives it forward.
    There was no engine noise. There was no chop. So could this be one of the rumored silent wing choppers the air force had been working on? Was it the air force, then? Could it therefore mean safety?
    No, this same type of aircraft had been used to kidnap the Hoffmans.
    So the perp had a trained lion and a helicopter with a silent wing.
    He waited, breathing evenly, letting the snow settle around him. He was freezing cold but must not allow himself to shiver. His face burned from cold, but he would not move to push the snow away.
    The light flashed down again and again, continuing on past him, growing slowly fainter until it was finally absorbed by the darkness.
    Did the possession of an advanced helicopter mean a defense connection of some sort?
    If he got out of this alive, that would be another line of inquiry worth pursuing. Right now, though, it was all he could do not to let his mind frantically game survival options. From long experience and study, he knew that in conflict the body is a better master than the mind. He concentrated his attention on his senses, mostly his hearing.
    From yoga, he’d learned a practice of containing his body