Haley drove the Tahoe through the thick lodgepole pine trees on South Fork Trail, and Nate craned forward in the passenger seat, looking ahead. The river, no more than cold crooked fingers of water probing around boulders, was on their left. He caught glimpses of it through the timber.
“There are tracks on the road ahead of us,” Nate said, “but nothing fresh from this morning.”
Haley didn’t respond. Her face was grim and her mouth set. She obviously didn’t understand the significance of his comment.
“That means that Game and Fish truck went somewhere else,” Nate said. “So maybe we can forget about it.”
“Okay,” she said.
She looked small behind the wheel, he thought. But determined.
Nate looked over as they passed by an outfitter camp tucked up into the trees on a shelf on their right. The camp had a large framed canvas tent, but there were no vehicles around and the door of the tent was tied up. A headless elk carcass hung from a cross-pole behind the tent.
“That’s the fourth camp,” she said.
Nate nodded and ducked down on the seat. Anyone observing the vehicle would see only the driver.
“Talk to me,” he said calmly. “Tell me what you see as you see it.”
In a moment, she said, “The trees are opening. I think we’re getting close to Camp Five.”
Over the last half hour, Joe had worked his way down the mountain carefully, avoiding loose rock and downed branches, and he’d set up behind a granite outcropping laced through the seams with army-green lichen. From the outcrop he could clearly see the layout of Camp Five two hundred feet below.
There were two hard-side trailers parked nose-to-tail in a flat on the other side of the river. The camp was remarkably clean: no debris, coolers, folding chairs, or other usual elk camp indicators. The fire pit, a ring of colorful round river rocks, looked cold and unused. There were no skinned elk or deer carcasses hanging from a cross-pole in clear view of the trailers.
There were two vehicles he could see parked on the other side of the trailers: a late-model white Tahoe with green-and-white Colorado plates behind the second trailer and a dark SUV crossover parked on the side of the first. The second trailer, Joe thought, was a curiosity. Antennae and small satellite dishes bristled from the roof. Then he noticed something blocky covered with a blue tarp on the front of that trailer; no doubt an electric generator. The generator operated so quietly he could barely hear it hum.
The second trailer was obviously the communications center.
He was grateful his handheld radio hadn’t worked earlier. No doubt, they were monitoring air traffic. He hoped McLanahan listened this time and stayed off the police bands.
A few feet from the tongue of the first trailer, Joe noted, were two five-foot pole-mounted platforms. On the top of each platform was a hooded falcon: a peregrine and a prairie.
Joe was pretty sure he’d found Nemecek.
He’d set up his spotting scope on the tripod and trained it on the white sheet-metal door of the first trailer. His shotgun was braced against the rock on his right, and next to it was his. 270 Winchester.
The rock had sharp edges, and it was difficult to find a comfortable position to lie in wait. He shifted his weight from the left to the right and propped up on his daypack to see. When he heard the tick of a loose rock strike another, he assumed he’d rustled it loose with the toe of his boot.
Then he sensed a presence behind him, and before he could roll over he felt a cold nose of steel press into the flesh behind his right ear. He jumped with alarm and a palm pressed square into the middle of his back, keeping him prone.
“Put your arms out ahead of you, Joe, hands up. Don’t even think about reaching for your gun.” It was the voice of his trainee.
Joe did as told without saying a word, and felt his trainee pluck the Glock from his holster. His pepper spray was removed next. Then he heard the clatter of his shotgun and rifle as they were kicked off the outcropping into the brush below.
“Now slowly pull your arms down and place them behind your back.”
Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“Just cooperate, Joe. You seem like a nice guy, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I guess you’ve figured some things out on your own.”
“Surprising, huh?” Joe said.
“Your hands,” his trainee said firmly.
Joe felt the handcuffs encircle both wrists. He balled his hands into fists and bent them inward toward his spine while the cuffs were snapped into place and ratcheted snug. It was a trick he’d learned from a poacher he’d once arrested. Now, when he relaxed his fists and straightened his wrists, the cuffs weren’t tight and didn’t bite into his flesh.
“Okay, now stand up. And don’t turn around or do any dumb shit.”
“That’s kind of a hard maneuver with my hands cuffed behind my back,” Joe said.
“Try,” his trainee said, stepping back.
Joe got his knees under him and rose clumsily. Despite what he’d been told, he turned a quarter of the way around. His trainee wore his red uniform shirt and held a. 40 Glock in each hand-his and Joe’s. Both were pointed at Joe’s face.
“You’re a disgrace to the uniform,” Joe said.
“Stop talking.”
“I found Luke Brueggemann,” Joe said, noting a wince of confusion from his trainee in reaction.
“Up there,” Joe said, chinning toward the top of the mountain. “In an old miner’s cabin. You might have seen it on your way down.”
“I saw the cabin. Right after I found your truck stuck in the snow.”
“But you must not have looked inside,” Joe said. “The real Luke Brueggemann’s body is in it. Throat cut by a garrote. Same with Bad Bob and Pam Kelly. All of them dead, but I guess you know that.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” his trainee said.
“You know,” Joe said, “I’m getting pretty hacked off the way you people operate. This is a good place, and you’ve turned it upside down.”
His trainee simply shook his head, unbelieving.
“Did you kill them?” Joe asked. “Like you did Deputy Sollis this morning? Mike Reed might not make it, either, and you know he’s a friend of mine.”
“That was self-defense! That big one didn’t identify himself-he smashed through the door of my room.”
Joe didn’t know enough about the incident to argue. But knowing Sollis, he sensed a grain of truth in the explanation.
“You’re leaving bodies all over this county,” Joe said. “You need to stop. You’ve lost sight of your mission.”
“This is bullshit. There are no bodies. You’re just trying to get the drop on me.”
“I’m not that clever,” Joe said. And his trainee seemed to take that into consideration.
“So what’s your real name?” Joe asked.
“Hinkle,” he said. “Lieutenant Dan Hinkle when I was still in.”
The fact that he gave up his real name so easily, Joe thought, meant Hinkle had no intention of cutting him loose.
“Well, Lieutenant Dan Hinkle,” Joe said, “your boss is a killer. He’s gone rogue. And he’s taken a lot of you good men along with him and he’s murdered innocent people all over my county and terrorized my wife and family. Is that really what you signed up for?”
Hinkle’s confusion hardened into a kind of desperate anger. “Shut up, Joe. And turn around. We’re gonna march down there and see what my boss wants to do with you.”
“I’m not done,” Joe said. “The cavalry is coming. They’re on their way as we speak.”
“I said shut up with your lies.”
“I don’t lie,” Joe said. “You know that.”
“Turn around,” Hinkle barked.
And Joe did. But not simply because he’d been ordered. He wanted to see what was happening in the camp below, because he’d heard the sound of a vehicle coming, headed straight for Camp Five.
Haley said to Nate on the seat beside her, “There are two trailers and two vehicles.”
“Anybody outside?”
“No.”
“Keep going,” he said. “Drive up there with confidence like you were coming home after work. Like you just can’t wait to tell your boss some good news he’ll want to hear.”
He felt her reach down and touch his neck as if for reassurance.
“How far are they?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe five hundred feet?”
“You’re doing great,” he said.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said after a beat. “Someone’s coming outside.”
“Which trailer?”
“The second one. Now two men. Nate, one of them has a long rifle or a shotgun. They’re standing there looking our way.”
“Is he aiming the weapon?”
“Sorta.”
“Is he aiming it at you or not?”
“He’s kind of holding it at port arms,” she said, an edge of panic in her voice.
“Good,” Nate said. “Keep going. Don’t flinch. They recognize the vehicle. They think we’re on their team.”
“Oh my God,” she said, her voice tight. “There’s John Nemecek. He just came out of the first trailer.”
“Keep going,” Nate said. “Smile at them if you can.”
Joe and Dan Hinkle were twenty yards from the bank of the river. There was so little current this high up in the mountains it barely made a sound, just a muffled gurgle as it muscled around exposed river rocks.
The muzzles of both guns were pressed into him, one at the base of his skull and the other in the small of his back. Joe felt dead inside and his feet seemed to propel him forward of their own accord. He thought, There is no way they’ll let me go.
He thought about what he could do to get away. If he were in a movie, he’d spin and drop-kick the weapons away and head-butt Hinkle into submission. Or simply break and run, juking and jiving, while Hinkle fired and missed. But this was real and there were two guns pressed against him. He didn’t know how to drop-kick. And Hinkle was trained and skillful and wouldn’t miss.
Ahead of him, across the river, three men had emerged from the two trailers. All three were facing the oncoming white SUV and apparently hadn’t seen Joe and Hinkle yet. One of them, tall and fit and commanding in looks and presence, looked like the person Marybeth had described meeting in the library. Nemecek stood ramrod-straight, hands on hips, his head bowed slightly forward as if he was peering ahead from beneath his brow. The other two men, both young and hard, one in all-black clothing and the other wearing a desert camo vest over a Henley shirt, flanked Nemecek. The man in all black carried a semiautomatic rifle.
The three stood expectant, waiting for the arrival of the white SUV.
“They’re just standing there,” Haley said to Nate. “Nemecek turned and said something to the man with the gun and he lowered it. I think Nemecek recognizes me.”
“How close are they?”
“A hundred feet, maybe less.”
“He’s confused for a second,” Nate said. “He wasn’t expecting you.”
“Now he’s turning back around toward me, staring. Nate…” The fear in her voice was palpable.
Nate said, “Floor it.”
The SUV came fast, Joe thought. Too fast. But then the motor roared and the Tahoe rocked and accelerated and he heard Hinkle gasp behind him.
It happened in an instant. The man in black with the rifle shouted and leaped to the side, in Joe and Hinkle’s direction. Nemecek jumped back the other way and flattened himself against the first trailer. But the man in the desert camo was caught in the middle and hit solid and tossed over the hood and roof of the Tahoe with a sickening thump.
Hinkle said, “What the fuck just happened?”
“Got one!” Haley shouted, hitting the brakes before she crashed head-on into the front of the second trailer.
Before they’d completely stopped, Nate reached up for the passenger door handle and launched himself outside. He hit the turf hard on his injured shoulder, rolled, and staggered to his feet.
Yarak.
The man in black who’d dived away scrambled to his feet a few yards away, his face and hands muddy, the rifle in his grip. Nate shot him in the neck, practically decapitating the body before it hit the ground.
Nate wheeled on his heels, cocking the hammer back with his left thumb in the same movement, and finished off the injured operative in the grass.
Then he turned on Nemecek, who was still against his trailer but was reaching behind his back-likely for his. 45 Colt semiauto. Nate could see the impression of body armor under Nemecek’s sweater, but it didn’t matter. The. 500 exploded twice. The first shot shattered Nemecek’s right shoulder and painted the trailer behind him with a crazy starburst of blood, and the second bullet hit Nemecek square in his upper-left thigh, annihilating the bones and dropping him like a bag of sand.
Nate caught a glimpse of Haley as she bailed out of the Tahoe with her rifle. He was proud of her, and his blood was up. He loped across the grass, found Nemecek’s. 45 in the tall grass, and tossed it away behind him. He reached down and grasped Nemecek’s collar and pulled him away from the trailer so he was prevented from rolling under it, then dropped both of his knees on Nemecek’s chest and shoved the muzzle of his revolver under his old commander’s chin.
“Before you die,” Nate seethed, bending down so his eyes were six inches from Nemecek’s, “I need some answers.”
Joe had seen it all, and was stunned by the speed and violence of what had taken place in front of him. He stumbled and nearly lost his footing in the shallow river as Hinkle shoved him across, running now, but maintaining contact with the two weapons as they splashed across.
The woman who’d emerged from the Tahoe, the woman who’d run over the man in desert camo and scattered the others, stood with her back to them, cradling a carbine, looking at Nate hunched over Nemecek near the trailer. She was young but clearly capable, and she looked over her shoulder as Hinkle cleared one of the Glocks and aimed it over Joe’s shoulder at her-the gun inches from Joe’s ear-and shouted, “Hey!”
She hesitated when she saw the two red uniform shirts, didn’t raise her rifle, and Hinkle’s Glock snapped three concussive shots and she went down. Joe instantly lost hearing in his right ear, and it was replaced by a dull roar.
At the sound of the shout and the shots, Nate looked up from where he’d pinned Nemecek to the ground. His eyes darted to the woman on the ground and then up to Joe and Hinkle. Joe had never seen such a murderous look in any man’s face in his life.
“Get off of him!” Hinkle shouted to Nate. “I’ve got your buddy here.”
Nate didn’t move. His expression was ferocious and fixed on Joe.
No, Joe thought. Not at him. But at Hinkle behind him, who peered out at Nate over Joe’s right shoulder. Hinkle aimed the Glock at Nate down his extended right arm, which rested on Joe’s shoulder. The other weapon was still in the small of Joe’s back.
Joe found himself straining hard against the cuffs, as if trying to pull them apart. Because Hinkle hadn’t closed them hard, there was some play. The cuff on his right hand had slipped free almost to mid-thumb, and the steel bit hard. But he didn’t know how he could possibly shed one without breaking bones in his hand. The pain was searing.
Joe willed Nate to look at him, to look into his eyes…
Nate shifted his glare from the shooter holding Joe-the man who’d shot Haley-to Joe. His friend’s face was white with pain. Had he been hit?
Then he saw Joe relax slightly. He was trying to get his attention and tell him something without speaking. There was blood on his right ear.
Joe deliberately looked down at the top of his boots. Then slowly back up again.
Nate understood. Joe was going down.
Joe saw the look of recognition in Nate’s face and suddenly buckled his knees. As he dived forward, he bent his head down and set his shoulders for the fall.
There were three nearly simultaneous explosions, and Joe hit the ground so hard he was able to use the force of his body weight to wrench his hands apart.
Behind him, Hinkle’s body was thrown into the river from the impact of a. 50 caliber round plowing through his chest and out his back. But his last reaction was to fire both pistols. The one aimed at Joe had hit somewhere in the mud. Nate was hit, and it rolled him off Nemecek.
Joe writhed in the grass and dirt. White spangles exploded in front of his eyes from pain. Although he’d been trying to free his right hand, it was his left that had somehow been wrenched through the steel claw of the cuffs from the fall, breaking bones along the way. The pain in his left hand was sharp and awful and made him gasp for air. His injured hand felt like a boiling needle-filled balloon on the end of his arm.
He wasn’t sure if he blacked out for a moment, but when he opened his eyes he could see, at ground level, John Nemecek crawling through the grass, using his left hand and right leg. Nemecek’s face was a mask of anger and pain.
Joe raised his head slightly. Nemecek was going for the semiautomatic rifle dropped by the man in all black before Nate killed him.
Behind Nemecek, Nate lay on his side, his eyes open. He looked conscious.
Joe grunted and rolled to his hands and knees. His left hand was white and strangely elongated. The slightest pressure on it hurt like nothing Joe could recall. He looked around for a weapon. Hinkle had dropped two somewhere.
But when he looked over his shoulder, Nemecek was a few feet away from the rifle.
With his good ear, Joe heard Nemecek say, “Five shots, Romanowski. I counted.”
There was a dull black glint in the grass, and Joe closed his right hand around the grip of one of the Glocks. He rose up on his knees, swung around, and aimed it at Nemecek as he crawled.
Joe was a notoriously bad shot with a handgun. He qualified annually by the grace of God and a forgiving firearms instructor. He wished he had his shotgun, but he didn’t, and he croaked, “Freeze where you are, Nemecek.” His own voice sounded hollow and tinny to him.
Nemecek paused and looked up with contempt. His shoulder and leg were a bloody mess, and his face was pale and white. He was bleeding out and knew it. And Joe apparently didn’t scare him.
Like a wounded animal, Nemecek grimaced and crawled toward the rifle. As he reached for it, Joe started firing. Every third or fourth shot, it seemed, hit home. The impact rolled Nemecek to the side and when he tried to scramble back to his knees, he’d go down again. Joe didn’t stop squeezing the trigger until the slide kicked back and locked. Fourteen rounds. He’d emptied the magazine. Spent shells littered the ground near his knees.
As Joe lowered the Glock, he saw, to his terror and amazement, that Nemecek was crawling again toward the rifle.
Joe heard someone speak but couldn’t make out the words. He looked over to see Nate standing, bracing himself against the trailer. He was shaky. His empty revolver hung down along his thigh. Joe could see blood on the side of Nate’s coat.
“I said, He’s wearing a vest. ”
In response, Joe held up his empty handgun.
The two exchanged looks for a second. Neither, it seemed, was capable of stopping Nemecek before he grasped the rifle.
Then Joe remembered. He tossed the Glock aside and reached down into the front pocket of his Wranglers with his good hand. His fingers closed around the heavy. 500 round Nate had left in his mailbox.
“Nate,” Joe said, and tossed the cartridge through the air. Nate reached up and speared it.
Nemecek had made it to the rifle now, and was pulling it toward him with his left hand. He gripped it and swung the muzzle up.
Joe watched as Nate ejected a spent cartridge, fed the fresh one into the wheel, and slammed the cylinder home.
With a single movement and a sweep of Alisha’s black hair, Nate swung the weapon up.
Although the concussion was probably loud, Joe only heard a muffled pop.
Nemecek’s head snapped back, and the rifle fell away.