Uncertain Justice

Chapter 30

He'd be commanded to get on his stomach and spread his arms out to the sides. Then, a big officer would put his knee on Miles' back or on the back of his neck while he twisted Miles' arms behind him. The cold steel handcuffs would be snapped around his wrists and Miles would be marched off to a grimy prison cell.

A frown wrinkled his tired forehead.

A protest stirred.

He hadn't come all this way to give in meekly. There was only one thing left. He would find a good place to dig in and fight ... but he couldn't win. He knew that. Things were going to come to an end for him a lot sooner than he'd thought.

He rummaged in the backpack for a minute, unable to find the big revolver immediately. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation with the inanimate objects in his pack, Miles began to pull things out to find the weapon and ammunition. His hand touched a large folded plastic sheet and he pulled it free to get at the hard lump he could feel beneath.

He stopped, freezing into immobility as he sat with the plastic sheet in his lap. He knew what he held was important but he was too tired to figure out why.

He had grabbed one of the two heavy-duty survival blankets in the pack. Larger and heavier in construction than the flimsy Mylar plastic sheets sold as solar blankets, these were made of a heavy grade insulated material that was reusable. One of his blankets had a bright orange outer cover, the other had a camouflage top side, but the inside of both was a silvery surface designed to conserve the body heat of the individual wearing the blanket. Either one could save the life of someone who had no other source of warmth. He tried to think it through.

The survival blanket reflected body heat back to the individual wrapped inside it. He couldn't remember how much was returned to the survivor, but it was a lot. If the blanket kept heat inside instead of letting it spread out it in all directions ... what? What did that mean? Frustrated, he went over it until his exhausted mind stumbled on the answer.

The blanket kept heat in ... it didn't allow heat through ... it could be used as a shield from the infrared system on board the helicopter. Or could it? Maybe ... it just might.... He was energized with sudden hope.

"s**t!" Miles started at the sound of his own voice. He looked around to see if anyone was there to hear. There would be some heat loss ... he tried to think through the problem quickly ... of course there would be. Nothing was a hundred percent effective. If he laid flat on the ground and covered himself with the blanket, hot spots would develop at the edges.

Instead of a human shape, the helicopter crew would find a nicely defined rectangle on the ground. That was no help at all. If he had a way to get rid of that excess heat though ... some way it to dissipate it....

...Like with running water? The creek? He tried to find fault with the reasoning. It might work ... it could. Hell, he didn't have anything better to try and time was running out. Miles began to stuff things back into the pack as fast as he could. He could hear the chopper coming closer. Cops would be searching on foot beneath it.

He hoisted the pack over his shoulders. Facing into the wind, he held one side of the camouflage blanket in his hands and let the material cascade behind him over the pack. He gathered the corners at his neck and held them there with his left hand.

Jumping into the thigh-deep water, he began to walk downstream. He would be crawling soon enough--the blanket couldn't cover him completely if he stood--but for now, he needed to gain some distance. Under his breath, he berated himself for having wasted so much time sitting on the bank.

Moments later, he tripped over a stone in the creek bed and sprawled in the cold water. At first, it was refreshing and wiped away the fog in his mind. Then it was just cold and miserable.

He wrestled the pack off and eased it into the water beside him. He began to crawl, trying to keep his mouth and nose above the surface. He flinched when the noise from the helicopter suddenly increased.

When the chopper was nearly overhead, he turned to face upstream and let the backpack settle to the bottom. Allowing the current to stream the blanket out behind him, he yanked the top end over his head and pulled the corners under to capture a bubble of air between the fabric and the surface of the water.

With his left knee on streambed and laying on the pack with only his eyes and nose above the water, he tried not to move under the blanket. He hoped the emergency blanket was covering his feet to make them invisible too. If not ... well, maybe they were far enough below the surface for the water to disguise their heat signature.

The helicopter was terrifyingly close. The wind generated by the rotors tossed heavy limbs on the trees lining the stream around as if they were twigs. Flashing navigation lights created weirdly colored patterns and fantastic shadows on the open ground between tree trunks.

The frantic WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP of the rotor blades whipping through the air at a velocity close to the speed of sound was a throbbing physical force that invaded his body. His heart sped up in an attempt to match the frenetic beat of the blades. The pounding became intolerable. He crammed a hand into his mouth to stifle a scream and finally lay in the freezing water, able only to endure.

After an eternity, the noise and smashing pressure eased. Exhausted, he stayed under the blanket until he was sure the chopper wasn't going to come back soon. Wearily, Miles began crawling downstream again with the emergency blanket over his shoulders and dragging the pack behind him. The flow of cold water rinsed the dog's blood off his clothing, dispersing it until it no longer stained the water but he didn't know that. He was too exhausted to have cared had he known.

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