Cold Vengeance Read Online Free PDF Page A

left.”
    “Aye. The old Coombe Hut.” Without another word the gamekeeper turned and began tramping through the grass, moss, and heather, the bloodhounds with their handler hurrying to keep up. He walked fast with his head down, his short legs churning, walking stick swinging, his shaggy hair like a white halo around a tweed cap perched on top.
    For a quarter of an hour they moved in silence, interrupted only by the snuffling and whining of the dogs and the murmured instructions of their handler. As the clouds thickened again and a premature gloaming fell over the moors, some of the men took out powerful flashlights and switched them on. The beams lanced through the cold mists. Esterhazy, who had been feigning ignorance and confusion, began to wonder if they hadn’t gotten lost for real. Everything looked strange and he recognized nothing.
    As they descended into yet another lonely hollow, the dogs suddenly stopped, snuffled all around in circles, and then charged forward on a scent, straining their leashes.
    “Easy, now,” the handler said, pulling back, but the dogs were too excited and began to bay, a deep-throated sound that echoed over the moors.
    “What’s with them?” Balfour said sharply.
    “I don’t know. Back. Back!”
    “For God’s sake,” shrilled Grant, “pull them back!”
    “Bloody hell !” The handler pulled on the leashes but the dogs responded by lunging forward, in full throat.
    “Watch out, there!” cried Grant.
    With a scream of pure terror the handler suddenly went down into a quagmire, breaking through a crust of sphagnum, slopping and struggling, and one of the dogs went in with him, the baying turning into a shriek. The dog churned, his head held up in terror.
    “Stop your struggling!” Grant hollered at the handler, his voice mingling with the cries of the dog. “Lean back!”
    But the handler was in too much of a panic to pay attention. “Help me!” he screamed, flailing away, splattering mud.
    “Bring the hook!” commanded Balfour.
    A member of the Special Services team had already dropped his pack and was untying a rod with a large rounded handle on one end and a broad loop of rope on the other. He snapped it out like a telescope and knelt at the edge of the bog, wrapped the rope around his waist, and extended the end with the handle.
    The dog yelped and paddled.
    “Help me!” the trapped man cried.
    “Grab hold, ye damn fool!” cried Grant.
    The high-pitched voice seemed to have penetrated and the man grasped its meaning. He reached out and grabbed the handle at the end of the rod.
    “Pull!”
    The rescuer leaned back, using his body to leverage the man out. The handler clung on desperately, his body emerging slowly with a sucking noise, and was dragged onto firmer ground, where he lay shivering and gasping for breath, covered with clinging muck.
    Meanwhile the dog was shrieking like a banshee, churning and slapping the bog with his front legs.
    “Lasso his front quarters!” shouted Grant.
    One of the men already had his rope out and was fashioning it into a loop. He tossed it toward the dog, but it fell short. The dog struggled and screamed, his eyes rolling white.
    “Again!”
    The man tossed it again, and this time it fell over the dog.
    “Tighten and pull!”
    He pulled but the dog, feeling the rope around his neck, twisted and struggled to avoid it, letting it slip off.
    Esterhazy watched in mingled horror and fascination.
    “He’s going under!” said the handler, who was slowly recovering from his fright.
    Another man readied a loop, this one tied with a slipknot, lasso-style, and he crouched at the bank, giving it a gentle toss. It missed. He pulled it in, loosened the noose, prepared to toss it again.
    But the dog was going down fast. Now only his neck was above the muck, every tendon popping, the mouth like a pink cavern from which came a sound that went beyond a scream into something not of this world.
    “Do something, for the love of God!” cried