The suspect rode directly toward Tomahawk Lake.
Ellory was still ahead of me, and I wished I had a way to radio in our position because with the snow falling as thickly as it was, it would be hard to follow our trail.
I hit the ice and felt the engine whine as I squeezed the grip and leaned into the wind.
On the flat surface of the lake, throttling all the way, it didn’t take me long to hit 70.
But I wasn’t gaining on Ellory or the suspect.
Then 80.
It’d been years since I’d pushed a sled to these speeds, and I could feel a thread of apprehension run through me as I passed 85. I tried not to think about what wiping out on the sled at a speed like this would feel like.
The speedometer fluttered to the maximum speed of 90, then edged past it.
The far end of the lake was approaching fast, and the suspect aimed his sled for the flowage that led to the Chippewa River. Ellory looked like he was gaining on him.
They disappeared into the marsh.
Slowing to make the turn, I let go of the throttle but still nearly flipped as I cornered around a tree and swung back onto the trail that wound into the frozen marsh.
I tried to evaluate, with each of Alexei’s turns, his most likely destination.
The national forest.
Maybe the Chippewa River.
The swirling snow decreased the visibility, but I could see the taillights of the sled that Ellory was riding a couple hundred meters ahead of me on the trail that led into the national forest.
Marsh grass flicked under the sled, whipped past me.
With the limited visibility and the number of trails in the national forest, if Alexei made it to the forest surrounding the Chippewa River, we might never catch him.
No longer worrying about the speed, I kept my eyes on the taillights in front of me and whipped along the serpentine trail through the frozen marsh.
And then they were at the woods.
A moment later, so was I.
I hopped onto a well-used trail. Positioning my snowmobile into the tracks, I felt the ride smooth out.
Ahead of me Ellory slowed, then disappeared around a sharp downhill bend.
I followed, but only too late did I see the fallen tree that blocked half of the trail, thick branches bristling across the path.
I swerved to the left to avoid it and felt a branch snap across my neck and shoulder, almost throwing me from the sled. My neck stung, and the snowmobile thrashed and fishtailed, but I held on.
Straightened out.
Sped up.
Alexei was heading for the Chippewa River.
A stand of pines rose in front of me, and though I saw the taillights flicker through the trees on the far side, I couldn’t tell if Ellory and Alexei had gone right or left around the trees.
I chose right.
Chose poorly.
For a moment I lost the trail, and as I swept into a small meadow, I saw an eight-foot drop-off just ahead of me.
There is no good way to stop a snowmobile.
Speed up and jump it, or swerve and roll the sled!
Speed up or swerve.
Swerve No.
I sped up.
You do not want to do this!
But I did it.
I squeezed the accelerator and was going 60 when I left the edge of the drop-off.
The snowmobile took to the air, giving me a strange sense of weightlessness even though I had six hundred pounds of machine humming beneath me.
But in a fraction of a second I realized the skis hadn’t been positioned squarely when I left the ground, and I wasn’t going to land on the trail but smash into a looming oak to my right. I dove off the sled, tumbled violently through the snow, and heard the deafening sound of impact even before I turned and saw the snowmobile, smoking and crumpled at the base of the tree.
In real life, crashed vehicles don’t typically explode like they do in movies, but I didn’t want to chance it. Bruised, sore, and more than a little disoriented from the fall, I managed to scramble to my feet and get away from the wrecked machine.
Great, now you owe Sean a snowmobile.
Tossing my helmet to the side, I whipped out my SIG. Scanned the area for Ellory and Chekov.
At the top of the hill a hundred meters away I could just barely make out the two stationary snowmobiles. I ran in the direction of the sleds as fast as I could, but the forest was blanketed with nearly two feet of dense snow, beneath another rapidly forming layer of fresh powder, making any kind of progress exhausting.
Neither Ellory nor the suspect was in sight.
No gunshots. Good news.
As I crested the hill I saw the Chippewa River sixty meters below me, frozen except for a stretch of open water on our side of the river. It was along the shoreline’s outer bend where the current would have been fastest and deepest. From my college river rafting days I knew that swift water never freezes, even when it’s supercooled in weather like this. A ghost of frigid fog hovered above the churning waves.
The suspect and Ellory stood on the edge of the riverbank. Ellory appeared dazed and wasn’t resisting Alexei, who was standing beside him, grasping the collar of his coat and somehow supporting him with only one arm.
But Alexei Chekov wasn’t looking at Ellory. He was staring up the hill, directly at me.