Killer View

38

WALT STRUCK THE BRASS KNOCKER SHARPLY AGAINST THE plate on the front door. Despite a career of getting used to it, he was put off by the grandeur of the farmhouse and generational wealth it represented.

Brandon stomped his boots on the porch, trying to feel his feet.

“You sure about this, Sheriff? It’s almost three in the morning.”

“We’re not driving back over here tomorrow.”

“No offense, but you don’t smell so good.”

Walt smacked the door knocker-a brass cowboy boot-against the door again.

Standing beneath the porch roof, they didn’t see a light go on in a second-story window, but the snow behind them lit up from the glow, and Walt stepped back.

The door rattled and opened.

Senator James Peavy wore a pair of blue jeans with a sweater turned inside out. He squinted into the brightness of the porch light. His head of wispy white hair was thin on top, a fact usually hidden by the ubiquitous Stetson.

“Sheriff?” Astonishment. “Deputy?”

“We need a minute of your time,” Walt said.

“You come in here smelling like that, obviously you must,” said Peavy, waving them inside. “Come in.”

The parlor could have been from a homesteading museum. Peavy motioned for them to sit. Walt wanted to stand, but he took a seat on a blue velvet love seat with ruby piping. Brandon took the end of the piano bench, facing into the spacious room. Sheer curtains hung on the windows of air-bubbled, imperfect glass.

Peavy remained standing, an act that infuriated Walt. Perhaps sensing this, the rancher then sat down on the edge of a blue-and-white-crocheted slide rocker. He moved gently forward and back.

“So?”

“Why would Lon Bernie burn fifty head of sheep? And why in the dead of night?”

Peavy’s life in politics mixed with time spent in the great outdoors afforded him a wonderfully expressive face, gracious and kind and handsome. Even half awake, he possessed the countenance of a minister and the composure of a therapist.

“You want to talk about Lon Bernie’s sheep?” he said.

“I’d rather not dance around the issue. Mark Aker’s life is in play. Something’s going on here, and before I tear the lid off this thing I wanted to give you a chance to break it to me gently.”

“So you’re here out of thoughtful consideration, are you? At three in the morning?”

“This was a convenient time.”

“Not for all of us.”

“Radiation contamination,” Walt said.

Peavy scowled, an expression impossible to read as anything but surprise. “Jesus, what is that smell?”

“Help me out here, James,” Walt said. “What’s going on?”

“This is your party.”

“The invitation for me to go to Washington. That was your doing. Why?”

“Because I think you’re underrated, Walt. Sometimes we control the timing of the events in our lives, sometimes not. The vice president is eager for you to serve on a national level. Don’t think this was just me. You have more friends than you’re aware of.”

“One of them’s dead. Another’s missing.”

An uneasy silence. The piano bench squeaked under Brandon ’s weight.

“You called Mark to take care of your sheep.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“I thought it was the hay or grain. Mad cow, or something like that. Come to find out, it’s the water.”

Peavy asked to speak with Walt privately, and Walt told Brandon to stay where he was. He wanted a witness to anything discussed and he said so. Peavy winced, part disgust, part concession.

“Sheriff, if you have a crime to charge me with, please do so. Otherwise…”

“Senator…”

“I understand your concern over Mark Aker. I share it. I know nothing about his disappearance. Do you hear me, Walt? Nothing. As for your suggestion, this other subject, I can tell you this: there is a good deal of money involved when a rancher loses a head or two of livestock. What you’re reporting with Lon, twenty-five, fifty head, that’s not just a backbreaker, it’s a bank breaker. That’s forty-five thousand, plus the loss of the ewe producing for you. Probably a hundred grand, all told. On our margins, that’s your operation, or damn near. Think about that, Walt. Consider that very carefully. It isn’t entered into lightly. You’re assuming the invitation to Washington somehow benefited me. But what if it’s me, or people in high places, trying to protect you? What if that’s how wrong you’ve got this?”

“If there’s a crime, then you’re a victim-Lon Bernie’s a victim. Why won’t you come forward? How can you not come forward?”

The senator arched his brows. “Your explanation, not mine.”

“Then what’s yours?”

“I don’t have one. Don’t need one.”

“Mark came out to these ranches because of sick sheep. He discovered radiation poisoning in the water. He kept his work away from his office because he understood the politics. He tried to warn me about the politics.”

“And you’re not listening.”

“This can’t be you talking, Senator. We’ve known each other forever. I consider us friends,” Walt said.

“If I knew anything about Mark Aker, I’d help you. But I don’t.”

The two men’s eyes met.

“No one is going to help you. I’m trying to protect you, Sheriff. Take the trip to Washington.”

“Protect me?” Walt’s face was scarlet, his voice too loud for the room.

“The Lon Bernies of this world make their own laws. You and I both know a badge doesn’t mean much in this valley. Ironic since we’ve both served the law ourselves. But it’s different over here. You know that. If it wasn’t for the vehicles, it could be a hundred years ago.”

“Maybe they buy off the local sheriff, but I’m not the local sheriff.”

“Worth taking note of.”

Walt stood, took a menacing step toward an unreasonably calm James Peavy, and caught himself, as Brandon rose off the piano bench.

Peavy said, “Maybe by finding Mark Aker you find your answers, I don’t know. But by looking for him, you put yourself at risk, Walt. Hear me on this. Hear me good. This valley isn’t a safe place for you. Go home. Keep to your side of the mountains. You’ll find nothing but trouble over here.”

“But if you’re a victim, why not report it?” Walt repeated, now exasperated. “Since when can someone intimidate James Peavy?”

Peavy didn’t speak again. His expression suggested not resignation but determination, which confused Walt.

He walked to the door and opened it for them. As cold a night as Walt could remember.

39

THE OUTSIDE OF THE ENVELOPE BORE HIS NAME, HANDWRITTEN in a lovely script, although Walt couldn’t actually touch the envelope, as it was sealed in thick, red-tinted plastic. BIOHAZARD was printed on the front in large letters.

The desk sergeant explained that the envelope-hand delivered to the office by Fiona Kenshaw-had tripped the electronic sniffer used on all incoming mail.

Contaminated.

He was working on forty-five minutes of sleep. He’d showered, shaved, changed his uniform, and had eaten the scrambled eggs Lisa prepared for him. She’d slept on the couch, and had let the girls brush her hair and put it into a ponytail, so that she looked somewhat disheveled, as she washed dishes while Walt ate. It felt weird having her in the house. He hadn’t thanked her. Hadn’t said much at all. They’d met eyes at one point during the morning confusion, just before she’d left. Her eyes had said something about feeling sorry for him while all he felt was impossibly guilty. He’d driven the girls to school, because this was their routine. They’d played a word game on the way-the animal game-and Walt found himself not wanting to stop. Maybe just keep driving, his eyes on the two faces in his rearview mirror. When he’d let them out, he’d run around the car to hug them. Both girls appeared embarrassed by the gesture, though neither complained.

“Radiation?” he asked his desk sergeant.

“No! It was indicated as only biohazard,” she said. “The machine doesn’t get specific. If an item alerts for radioactivity, it goes in that box they gave us. Biohazard gets the red bags.”

After 9/11, the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office had received a threatening letter containing a white substance that eventually came back as arsenic but had been believed to be anthrax. The feds had required the installation of the sniffer-a fifteen-thousand-dollar machine subsidized by the federal government-and it had been SOP ever since to test each piece of mail arriving at the office. The letter, bearing Fiona’s unmistakable handwriting, had been the first ever to trip the sensors, and the desk sergeant seemed more excited than frightened by the event.

“You want me to issue a BOLO?” asked the desk sergeant. Be on lookout.

“I’m not arresting her,” Walt said. “She works for us.”

The desk sergeant held her tongue, but her eyes reminded him it was procedure to arrest anyone suspected of attempting to contaminate the offices. It was also procedure to involve the postal inspectors.

He answered that look of hers. “This wasn’t sent through the mail. It wasn’t an intentional contamination, and my guess is, it’s one big misunderstanding. Before we call anyone, I’m going to clear this up.”

“And what do I do with this?” she said, lifting the red bag by one corner.

“Give it to me,” he answered, accepting the bag.

WALT HELD a morning meeting with his two lieutenants, during which he passed along the day-to-day so he could continue working on Aker’s abduction. Nancy called Fiona, and, when Fiona arrived, Walt led her outside, and they walked around the block, circumnavigating the former courthouse and city hall, a grand, three-story brick building built in the late 1800s. It now housed the DMV and county records. He didn’t bother with a jacket; it was already in the upper forties. The early bite of winter seemed to be mitigating, at least at the lower altitudes.

He produced the red baggie from his coat pocket.

“I didn’t want to discuss this in the office. But can you please tell me why you left me an envelope that tripped our biosensors? You might have warned me.”

She stopped abruptly.

“My letter’s a biohazard?”

“I thought you’d given it to me because you knew it was contaminated, that it was related to Mark’s work somehow.”

She told him then about being picked up by Sean Lunn at Hillabrand’s. About spotting the dried mud on the Escalade’s step rail. About how the unusually pale color had reminded her of the dried mud on the rape victim’s clothing.

Walt unsealed and opened the plastic bag, as she explained its contents. He tore open the envelope and saw that it contained both a note and a small amount of a pale brown dirt.

“Roger Hillabrand?”

“The mud was on his car. I was going to suggest that you have the lab compare this to what we found on the girl’s shoes.”

“That’s certainly available to us.”

“Roger-or, more likely, Lunn-drove that car somewhere near where that girl-”

“Tulivich. Kira Tulivich,” he provided.

“-had been.”

“Ohio Gulch or Triumph,” Walt said. “The two most likely spots in this valley where you’d find contaminants: the dump and the old Triumph Mine. But the fact is that Kira Tulivich was at the wedding at Hillabrand’s. You’re the witness on that. Mud on his rails and her shoes-odds are, it’s from his house, or at least somewhere on his property.”

“Everything’s frozen solid and covered in two feet of snow,” she reminded him.

“Maybe not everything,” he said. “You want to help?”

“Of course!”

“Can you get yourself invited back up there?”

“You want me to spy for you?”

“Once we’ve confirmed we’ve got a match, my guys and I can work Ohio Gulch and Triumph, and we will. But ruling out Hillabrand would be the first step in any kind of an investigation. You start with the most obvious: that she was in those shoes, on his property, the night she was raped. The mud may have absolutely nothing to do with anything, other than she attended the reception. You’re not ‘spying, ’” he said, putting it in finger quotes, “you’re eliminating him from consideration.”

“I attended the reception and I didn’t come home with any mud on my shoes.”

“I’m just saying that’s where it starts. If I come at Roger Hillabrand with a request to collect evidence, there will be a line of attorneys at my door ten deep.”

“Okay. I accept. I’ll spy for you,” she said.

“It’s not spying. It’s just looking for some mud. He has a pond up there. But this would more likely be around a hot tub or along the edge of a heated driveway.”

“But contaminated?”

“I’m not saying I have the answers. I’m just telling you where we start.”

“I’m not going to find any mud up there, Walt. It’s frozen solid. The Escalade’s the connection. If you ask me, Roger’s guy, Sean Lunn, was at the same afterparty, the same bar-the same something-as Kira was. He probably doesn’t know it, but he’s the one who can help you. Not that he ever would.”

“Women’s intuition?”

“Don’t patronize me, Walt. Roger will never allow it. He’ll stick his boy on the private jet and send him to Brazil for all eternity rather than get involved with something here that can’t possibly do anything but sully his company’s name.”

“You’ve gotten to know him, I see.”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

Walt felt his face flush. Was he jealous? It struck him that maybe he was.

She spared him further embarrassment. “How long for the lab to compare the two dirt samples?”

“Several weeks, I would think. It’s never fast.”

Her face sagged.

“But we may not need it,” he said. “We already have a sample of the mud from her shoes. We took it at the hospital. I’m thinking all we need to do is run that sample through our mail sniffer. If it kicks as hazardous, that’s good enough for me: that gives us probable cause. We can send it off to the lab, but we don’t need to wait for specific results.”

Fiona nodded. “I’ll bring my camera. That gives me the added excuse to look all around. But it can’t be a hot tub. It’s on the Escalade’s step rail. It was thrown up onto the car when the car was going at a good clip. It’s got to be a road or a driveway, and the only thing that makes sense to me is that the contaminants are salts that keep the ground from freezing.”

“Like I said, that’s Ohio Gulch or Triumph. We’re on it.” Maybe it was the repetition, or her stating so confidently that it was salts keeping the ground from freezing, but, standing there, he suddenly knew exactly where and with whom to begin this discussion.

He’d nearly had his chance a few nights earlier.

40

“DO NOT RAIN,” WALT CHANTED TO HIMSELF, STARING UP through the Cherokee’s windshield. For an area that saw three hundred sun-filled days a year, the skies had picked this particular Monday to threaten, and it was in the low forties-the one time he was out searching for preexisting mud.

He could remember a time, not long ago, when the road out to the landfill had been a poorly maintained dirt track, leading to a giant, unsupervised pit in the ground. But now he drove on asphalt all the way out to a series of excavations, all surrounded by chain-link fence, monitored by an attendant in an entrance booth.

“Hey, Ginny,” Walt said, his elbow out the window, the Cherokee perched on a concrete slab, a vehicle scale large enough to weigh tractor trailers.

“Walt.”

“Just need a look around.”

“Not dumping nothing?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How’re the girls?”

“Wild. More like teenagers every day.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“How’s your mother doing?” he asked.

“Same old same old. Nothing going to kill her.”

“Nor should it.”

“Second cancer in two years, but she’s still doing her own shopping.”

“The way it should be.”

“I hope I’m that strong when I’m eighty.”

“Right there with you.”

“Anything new on Mark Aker?”

“Working on it. Everyone in my department.”

“Is that what brings you here?”

“No. I’m just sightseeing.”

“Yeah. True beauty. And the smell is certainly worth a visit.”

“An aroma coma. May I pass?”

“Be my guest.” She tripped a button that lifted the red-and-white-striped barricade, and Walt drove off the scale and onto dirt. The surface was crushed granite, like nearly every road in the county, rock chips and sand mixed with a good deal of clay, the color of coffee with cream. He was no great judge, considered himself mostly color-blind, but the dried mud on Kira Tulivich’s shoes had been a pale pasty brown, almost gray. The dirt he saw here wasn’t close to that color.

The landfill pits were constantly being dug up, covered over, and redug, bringing every kind of unwanted thing to the surface. He drove into a big, open field of dirt, patches of litter trapped on the surface, leading to a sharp edge, beyond which a well-graded ramp carried the big Caterpillar tractors and loaders fifty feet down into an organized mass of trash and household debris at the bottom.

A light drizzle struck his windshield, and he cursed aloud in the confines of the car.

SEVERAL MILES NORTH of Ohio Gulch, Walt arrived at the turn for East Fork, a valley canyon running east of the highway and parallel to a like-named creek. East Fork represented the dichotomy of the valley, a crossroads where the blue-collar community of Triumph, situated on an abandoned mine site, met the multimillion-dollar homes that bordered the creek. The mine had been dug and exhausted a hundred years earlier, leaving behind vast fields of chemically poisoned gravel and clay tailings so toxic that nothing, not a single weed, would grow. The steppes of tailings, each the size of several football fields, rose in three successive levels, thirty to forty feet high, just as East Fork Road left the affluent neighborhoods behind.

A hippie community had sprung up in Triumph in the late 1960s, squatters willing to risk living on the top tier of the toxic mine tailings. For thirty years, Triumph had been listed as among the nation’s top five most toxic sites on the EPA’s Superfund list. No cleanup money had ever been allocated. Despite health warnings, the residents stayed. As land values escalated, the squatter shacks grew to trailers, mobile homes, and even a log cabin or two. The result was a ramshackle assortment of dwellings whose occupants had reputations as eccentrics, renegades, and, in some cases, outlaws.

Senator James Peavy’s warning echoed in Walt’s ears, though he was much closer to home: people made their own laws. There were places in this county that a uniform felt more like a bull’s-eye than a designation of authority, and Triumph was one of them.

The road rose more steeply on the final approach to Triumph. Remains of ancient mining equipment jutted out of the hill. The road ascended to a cluster of dwellings, a desolate, desperate landscape juxtaposed against stunning views to the west.

As Walt made the drive, he noticed that each terraced steppe changed color. The lowest was a black-gray clay, the middle gray-green, the top grayish yellow. Even half color-blind, Walt saw the similarity to the dried mud on Kira Tulivich’s shoes.

He drove through the neighborhood carefully. He hadn’t been up here in a while and was surprised to see some decent-looking homes interspersed with the trailers. Wood smoke spewed from stovepipes. A few dogs patrolled.

Parked next to a broken-down RV he spotted an old beater Subaru that he recognized as Taylor Crabtree’s. Walt’s office had impounded the car twice. Even from a distance, he could see discoloring along the side of the car.

Now it added up: Crabtree, a repeat juvie offender; his face, a battered mess; now, mud on his car. Walt parked alongside the Subaru. The mud was the same grayish yellow as Kira Tulivich’s shoes.

Walt saw his own face in the reflection off the glass of the driver door, as he stole a look inside: the dark “snow tan” hid any evidence of fatigue or lines of concern, the sunglasses masked his eyes. Only his cracked lips and stubble beard offered a glimpse into the strain of the past several days.

Walt squinted, pushing closer to the glass: on the Subaru’s dashboard was a sticker: KB’S BURRITOS. Kira Tulivich had offered only one, seemingly irrelevant piece of information from the examination table: “KB’s”

Walt broke off a chunk of the mud and bagged it, then slipped the Beretta out of its holster. Walt ducked down alongside the Subaru and triple-clicked the radio com clipped to his uniform’s epaulet. This signaled to his dispatcher a low-voice communication: he or she was to answer in clicks, not voice. Walt reported his location in a whisper and requested backup, using the radio code to signal no lights or sirens. He released the mic’s button and waited.

Two clicks. Backup was on its way.

After two minutes passed, Walt lost patience waiting for backup to arrive. He reminded himself that Crabtree was just a kid.

He edged around the car, crossed to the RV, and put his ear to the door. If the kid dived out a window or climbed out a skylight, Walt would regret not waiting. But he hammered on the door just the same. “Crabtree! It’s Sheriff Fleming. Open the door, please!”

The RV moved and squeaked on its springs.

“Crabtree!” Walt called loudly. “Don’t be stupid.”

The door swung open.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Crabtree wore blue jeans and the denim shirt from Elbie’s. His hands were stained black from work, his hair a rat’s nest. His beat-up eyes were filled with contempt and soured with distrust.

“Yeah?”

“Step outside,” Walt said, backing up. “Okay, now… hands against the RV and your butt back.” Walt frisked him. “Good. Fine.” He holstered the Beretta and asked Crabtree to turn around.

“I don’t know nothing about any guys trying to get people to join anything.”

“It’s not about that,” Walt said.

Crabtree shrugged.

“Do you know a girl-a young woman-named Kira Tulivich?”

“Sure I do.”

The admission surprised Walt. Crabtree was the kind of kid who’d deny everything. “You know her from where?”

“School. From around. You know.”

It started to rain again. Walt ignored it. Taylor Crabtree checked the sky a couple times, shedding more light onto his cut-up face.

“Know her well?”

“Nah. Just know who she is. Her type and me, we don’t exactly mix.”

“Her type? You mean she’s older, or pretty, or what?”

“Rich,” he said. “That’s the way it is at school: us and them. You know?”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Crabtree’s hesitation belied his answer. “I don’t know.”

“You know what we’re going to do, Taylor? We’re going to put a forensics team from Boise on your car. You ever seen CSI? Like that. They vacuum the car. Develop prints. Lift some. Photograph others. They’ll be looking for hair and fibers that connect back to Kira Tulivich. That mud on the car. All that evidence-some of it you can’t even see-is going to bring you down like a ton of bricks. You want to get ahead of this, now is your chance.”

Crabtree wasn’t paying attention. Walt followed his line of sight: spotting a couple of pickup trucks coming up East Fork Road and then, in the far distance, a cruiser. His backup, still a mile away.

Walt thought he could use this. “Running out of time here. When was the last time you saw Kira Tulivich?”

Crabtree refocused on Walt’s stern face.

“When I seen her, I thought it was her, but I ain’t never seen her all dolled up like that.” The boy’s eyes drifted back to the advancing patrol car.

“Forget about that,” Walt said. He radioed the unit to hold off. The cruiser pulled to the side of the road just as the two pickups drove out of sight. “You saw her?”

“I said I did, didn’t I?” Crabtree sounded irritated, and more nervous than a few minutes earlier. “Walking…on the side of the road…”

“Walking? What road?”

“And I stopped to… you know.”

“Let’s assume I don’t know,” Walt said.

“She got in. But she was fucked-up.”

“You knew this how?”

“Because she was fucked-up. Shit, Sheriff. Fucked-up. You don’t know fucked-up?”

“In what way?”

“High. Real high. Barely recognized me. Barely standing up. That kind of fucked-up. Real fucked-up.”

“Intoxicated.”

“No. More than that. High. Boozed-up, yeah, but fried, you know? Spaced. And I say, ‘Get in,’ and she gets in, like it’s cool. You know? With me. I mean, that’s like totally not happening. And I say, ‘Where to?’ And this is, like, I don’t know, the middle of the fucking night.”

“And she was on which road?” Walt asked.

Crabtree looked as if he’d been slapped. “This road,” he said, pointing. “East Fork. Headed down toward the highway.”

“And you were headed where at that time of night? The middle of the night?”

“I don’t know. Don’t remember. Smokes, I suppose? Mountain View,” he said, referring to a gas station quick stop.

“Okay.”

“And once she’s in the car, you know, I see she’s all messed-up. The dress is toast. Her face looks like shit, like she’s been beaten real bad. Her left tit comes out of the dress and she barely notices. Stuffs it back in and looks over at me with these creeped-out, dead eyes. And now I’m thinking she’s loopy because someone hit her too hard or something. Like my moms used to get…And I’m no longer asking her, ‘Where to?’ I’m booking it for the hospital.”

“You took her to the hospital?”

“I dropped her there, yeah. I thought about taking her in, you know, but what was going to happen to me? I’d be talking to you. The way I am right now. And no one would believe me, just like you don’t believe me. That’s how it is with me. That’s how it always is, so fuck that. I just dropped her. Let her figure it out.”

“You came to my house the other night,” Walt said. “The back door.”

“That wasn’t me.” Spoken too quickly, and with his eyes to the ground.

“Were you thinking about telling me about Kira?”

The boy had tipped. He was bursting to tell all. Wished for a quiet room, other circumstances. But Crabtree looked at the cruiser again and the light went out of his eyes. He fumbled for a cigarette. The moment had passed.

“There are a couple things that need to happen now,” Walt said.

“I promise you, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do shit to her, Sheriff.”

“You don’t have to go down for this. But I need more. Did she say anything to you? A name, maybe?”

Crabtree tightened. He took a long drag off the cigarette, and the smoke disappeared inside him. “You look scared, Taylor. Real scared. Of me? Of the possibility of prison? Or something else?”

It took Crabtree a long time to speak. “Something else.”

“A rape conviction puts you in the sex offender database. It’ll follow you the rest of your life. People will put posters up on telephone poles near your house. They’ll cross the street to avoid you.”

Crabtree twitched at the mention of rape, his eyes narrowing: he hadn’t known. A weight lifted from Walt. A smile slipped across his face, but he wiped it off with the back of his hand.

“Blah, blah, blah.” Crabtree glanced around again, either afraid to make eye contact with Walt or plotting an escape.

“Don’t try it,” Walt said.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you’re planning.”

“Are we going to do this or not?” He held out his hands to be cuffed.

“Work with me, Taylor.”

Crabtree looked Walt squarely in the eye. “Fuck you and your posters.”

“Please,” Walt pleaded.

“Do what you gotta do,” said Crabtree.

41

THE TERRAIN ROSE UP THROUGH THE TANGLED FOREST, THE dark bark of the trees like burnt offerings against the sparkling, sun-dappled snow. A snowmobile whined as it followed a game trail, its motor straining, its tread spewing ice and elk scat in its wake. The irritating sound grew fainter as it was swallowed by the landscape.

Along that same route stood a majestic fir tree, battle-scarred from a lightning strike forty years earlier. It was split from the first long-dead limb to its four-foot-diameter base. While half the tree had died as a result of the strike, new growth extended up the other half, with gnarly, tightly grouped branches, scarred with veins of charcoal, running like arrows toward the sky. The split gave the trunk a charred, inverted V shape that, at its base, looked like a door to a teepee. It was just wide enough for a man to squeeze through, which was exactly what Mark Aker had done hours earlier. He’d done so without leaving the game path, without causing any prints or impressions that might reveal his hiding place.

Forcing his way through the split in the tree, he’d fallen into the cavity, two feet below the snow’s surface, and onto a bed of leaves. Aker had burrowed down into the leaves, using them as both insulation and camouflage. He passed the coldest hours of the night drifting in and out of sleep, knees to the chest. The buzz of the snowmobile woke him, steadily approaching like a nagging insect. As it tore past his hiding place, he realized that at least for now he was safe. And, though he was regaining strength, if he hoped to save his feet from frostbite, he would have to get moving soon. At some point, he’d have to leave the game trail for deeper snow, even though it would create a path for his captors to follow.

He waited over forty-five minutes for the return of the snowmobile, sunlight blazing on the very tips of the trees he could partially see through. Coats had stripped him of his watch, but he was guessing it was late morning or early afternoon. The horrid machine came back more slowly than it had gone out, Gearbox no doubt at the controls and paying closer attention, attempting to track him. Aker hoped he’d done his job well enough; and when the snowmobile’s whine grew faint, he allowed himself to relax and plan his next move.

42

WALT WAS REELING WITH REGRET WHEN HE TURNED CRABTREE over to booking. The kid was eighteen now; Walt could no longer protect his record.

He ate a muffin to settle his stomach, but the lukewarm coffee chaser only added to his discomfort. Among his many phone messages were several he found impossible to ignore: a pair from Congressman McMillian, inquiring about Walt’s participation in the national law enforcement conference, and another from James Peavy. He couldn’t ignore them. He was an elected official; he needed both the support of his party and his party leadership, especially given that it was an election year.

“McMillian first?” Nancy asked him.

“Let’s hold off on that. Any word from the people out at the INL?” The possibility of radioactive water had led Walt to the obvious call: the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory, a facility covering nine hundred square miles in the center of the state and containing over thirty active or retired reactors.

“I’ve called a couple different people out there. They’ve all refused appointments. They were polite enough about it. But I get the feeling it’s not going to happen.”

“Okay, one more time: get me the director out there.”

“Now?”

“Now.” Walt stood there while Nancy made the call. She was put on hold several times before she eventually thanked someone and hung up. “Unavailable. He’ll return the call when he’s free.”

Walt considered the situation. The smart move would have been for them to take the meetings and calls and issue a string of denials. By refusing him, it implied they needed time to coordinate their denials, and that seemed to him the most advantageous time to strike. “Get hold of Fiona. Find out if she’s available for me later today. It may involve night photography, so tell her to bring the appropriate gear, and tell her to dress warmly.”

“Should I contact the Butte County sheriff and let him know you’re coming?”

“No. Call over to Sun Valley Aviation and see if you can get me a time for a tow.”

Nancy looked up at him quizzically. “The glider?”

Walt smiled for the first time all day.

WALT AND THE PILOT of the towplane coordinated the release of the glider. As the Cessna banked slowly to the right, diving below and away, Walt piloted the glider higher and slightly left.

“It’s noisier than I’d imagined,” Fiona said from behind him.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “I told you: I have no problem with small planes.” Walt had flown gliders since his early twenties, his interest born out of an envy of eagles and hawks and a budget that couldn’t afford renting single-engine airtime.

The glider suddenly caught an updraft off the base of the hills and gained a hundred feet in a matter of seconds, leaving both their stomachs somewhere up on the Plexiglas cockpit cover.

“Still okay?” Walt asked.

“I’m getting used to it.”

He saw the towplane now. It had come fully around, on a line with the Arco airstrip about twenty miles ahead. As arranged, rather than returning to Hailey, it would wait in Arco for them.

“Are we high enough?” Fiona shouted, to be heard over the roar created by wind over the wings. There was no motor, just the rush of the glider slicing through the sky.

“I’m working on it.”

Walt worked the glider into a wide spiral, climbing into an azure sky, carried aloft by thermals generated by the mountain landmass below. Killer view, Walt thought. To their right, the vast central plain of Idaho stretched out like a lake of desert sand, interrupted occasionally by volcanic cones dormant some ten thousand years. So random were these buttes, they appeared artificially placed. They saw bunkerlike buildings surrounded by tangles of pipes and aprons of parking lot. So secret was the work done here, so important to national security, that the entire area was grayed out on Internet-accessed satellite maps. Not even the topography was properly mapped-and it was the terrain and topography that most interested Walt.

Rivers and streams flowed out of the mountains roughly west to east. For Walt’s theory of contamination to hold up, there had to be underground water flowing northwest from the INL. He’d made a quick study of the massive northern Rocky Mountain aquifer that stretched from Canada all the way to Mexico, but it too flowed predominantly south and slightly east. He wanted a bird’s-eye view, to validate or invalidate his theory, but the INL airspace was restricted and those restrictions strenuously enforced.

His decision was to stray over the airspace, what he would call “a regrettable but unavoidable piloting error.” He counted on the evening thermals to hold the glider aloft long enough for him to maneuver into position. Pursuing more altitude, he continued the elegant, half-mile-wide spiral ascent. At eleven thousand feet above sea level-six thousand aboveground-Walt kept the glider shy of an altitude requiring supplemental oxygen.

“Everything ready?

“Yes. Good to go.”

“I have no idea what they’ll do when we enter their airspace, but I don’t see them shooting us down or anything.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

“Get everything you can, everything we discussed.”

“Will do.”

“And if we are forced down, whatever you do don’t surrender your equipment. Under no circumstances will you take that camera off your neck. They will claim all sorts of rights, but I think they’ll stop short of actually physically removing the camera.”

“And if they think otherwise?”

“We’ll move it up a level to the attorneys.”

“And if the attorneys fail?”

Walt said nothing.

“Walt?” she said, trying for an answer. Then it hit her. “Oh! Goddamn you! You wouldn’t stoop to something… You wouldn’t use me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You were the one who told me Roger’s company, Semper Group, is under contract with the government to manage nukes, among other things. The INL is a Semper contract, isn’t it?”

“It is, but-”

“Did you honestly think I’d call Roger for you if you get busted in here? Is that why you asked me along? I’m your safety valve? How self-serving is that?”

“It never occurred to me. I just need photographs.”

“But you didn’t need me to take them.”

“Of course I did.”

“You’re banking on my relationship with Roger to get you out of trouble. It’s despicable.”

“You’re overreacting.” He directed the glider toward the alluvial plain, the sun bloodred as it edged ever closer to the western horizon. “I thought you’d like it up here.”

A difficult silence followed. It was too loud for him to hear her preparing her equipment. She said, “It just so happens that I do.”

Walt smiled to himself, eased the joystick forward, and the glider quickly picked up speed as it dove, racing now into the restricted airspace.

43

ROY COATS BROUGHT THE MAUL DOWN ONE-HANDED, SPLITTING the log in a single stroke and sending a shudder of pain through his wounds. Standing a few feet off to the side, Gearbox eyed the sharpened edge of the maul, as it caught the mottled sunlight.

“I have to meet with her.” Coats spoke cautiously through a clenched jaw. Any movement of his facial muscles sent white pain down his neck and into the scissor wound in his armpit. His unmoving lips resulted in a menacing tone. “She makes the drop, and we don’t give a shit about this guy. Let him freeze out there. But I can’t count on her making the drop. So I’m not leaving here until I know we have a backup in place. That means you’ve got to find him.” Coats wound up the maul and split another log, again in a single stroke.

“As if we haven’t been trying.”

“Find him,” Coats repeated. He took off his glove and gingerly touched where the stove had branded his cheek. There was yellow pus on the tip of his finger. He wiped it off on his jeans. The burn needed medical attention, a primary reason he wanted the vet recaptured. “He’s on foot in a fresh snowfall. We’re on snowmobiles. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“But, with the dogs…” Gearbox said.

“We don’t slow down, waiting for them.”

“But Bill said-”

“Fuck Billy! If the dogs get here, they get here. But every minute he’s out there, he’s farther away. And you know what’s worse? It’s worse if he dies out there. Until I say otherwise, we need him.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Gearbox said.

He cowered as Coats turned slowly. The maul swung like a pendulum at his side.

“We’ve been up and down that track a dozen times,” Gearbox complained. “The game trails too. Without the dogs, we got nothing.”

“Fuck the dogs!” An idea hit him. “Okay,” Coats said, his anger briefly subsiding. “You remember that time we lost the cat over in eastern Oregon?”

“Sure,” Gearbox said, nodding.

“We’re going to do it like that: a pattern search. All we’ve gotta do is cross his tracks at some point. He can’t be far.”

“Okay,” Gearbox said. He didn’t sound convinced.

“I’ve got to keep that meeting with her. Are you listening? If she delivers that drum like I asked, within a week there’s not one person on this planet won’t have heard of the Samakinn. They’ve got, what, ten thousand of those drums stored out there? Twenty? All containing ‘low-level waste,’” Coats said, making finger quotes in the air. “You think they’re going to miss one? It’ll be the first time it’s ever been done. Shit, that kind of thing doesn’t make news; it makes history.”

He couldn’t stop the grin from finding its way onto his face, but, this time, the accompanying agony was well worth it.

44

MARK AKER’S BEST CHANCE TO OUTRUN HIS PURSUERS WAS to find a river, someplace he wouldn’t leave behind tracks or a scent to follow. He used the trees effectively, dodging under the umbrella of green branches that reduced the accumulated snowfall to a dusting. He would cut across the base of a tree, dragging a sprig behind him and erasing his tracks as he went. When the trees were positioned closely enough together, he could make it fifty yards or more without tracks to follow. But eventually he was faced with deep snow again, forcing him to reveal his route. In summertime, he would have been nearly impossible to follow, he wouldn’t have been battling the elements, and he would have had an abundant source of water and food. As it was, he was sweating, cold, hungry and thirsty, and still trying to hold off using any of what he’d stolen from the cabin for as long as humanly possible.

Then came the sound he’d been outrunning all day: the distant whine of the snowmobile. It wasn’t that they were close; it was their determination that ate away at his confidence.

What he saw next intrigued him: a low, inverted semicircle amid a rock escarpment, fifty yards to his right. The formation began low and grew into a collar that wrapped around a small hill. Seeing the rocks rise out of the snow, and that small semicircle of dark in particular, gave him another idea. If he could reach the windblown rocks, he’d leave no trail to follow.

He spent fifteen minutes creating a fake route south to the edge of a copse of trees, before carefully backtracking and returning to where he’d started. Then he worked his way below a cornice where the snow was only an inch or two deep, again dragging an evergreen limb behind him and brushing his tracks away. The effect was outstanding: there was no way to tell he’d headed toward the rocks. He climbed through the escarpment. The farther he made it, the more confident he was that he’d created an effective diversion.

He approached the dark inverted curve, just above the surface of the snow, cautiously, the vet in him having identified the cave from a distance. He crept quietly to the opening, stuck his nose to the hole, and sniffed the air. Excited by the dank, sour smell, he searched the backpack for the concoction Coats had used to subdue him and liberally charged the syringe. With the syringe in his left hand, he shined the flashlight through the hole, daring to stick his head inside.

He trained the light from side to side, working progressively deeper into the narrow hole, picking up the sharp lines in the frozen mud, immediately knowing he’d guessed correctly. What he was about to attempt was suicidal-and few knew that better than a vet-but his choice had been made and he wasn’t going to turn away from it. He carefully dug into the snow blocking the hole, removing as little as possible, not wanting to draw attention to the hole or the small cave it now revealed.

He pushed the pack through and followed, twisting and moving his body to delicately slip between the gap he’d widened. The stench increased exponentially. He was on his knees now, his head tucked down. The space was small, the air thick enough to gag him, a combination of rancid bacon grease and scat. Still holding the syringe, he put his left hand over the flashlight’s lens to soften its beam. He ran the diffused light across the cave’s wall, holding to where the mud floor rose to meet it. Even after two decades of working with animals of every kind, his heart fluttered as he discerned the bear’s coarse brown hair. It was a big black, perhaps six hundred pounds, curled into an enormous mound of slowly rising and falling fur. Its head was tucked beneath its front paws, like earmuffs. The paws themselves were the size of a kid’s baseball mitt, ending in mud-caked, curled black three-inch claws.

Hibernation was not unconsciousness; a bear’s heart rate drops from fifty to ten beats a minute during hibernation, yet the animal retains its senses and can awaken-though slowly-if threatened. By now, the bear had smelled him, was aware of the intruder. Aker had from two to eight minutes, no more than ten, before the bear would rise to defend his den.

He’d misjudged the dose significantly, not figuring on such a large animal. He scrambled with the pack to fill the syringe with an additional 30 ccs, emptying the vial; all or nothing. The bear’s paws slipped off his head and his sad eyes popped open. Awake but barely conscious. Still, the ferocity in those eyes terrified even someone as comfortable around animals as Aker. The scratch marks in the frozen mud and on the rock were warning enough.

He had to squat and finally lie down in the cave’s tight confines in order to reach the animal. One of the bear’s legs twitched. Its eyes blinked open wider. It was late fall; the animal wasn’t yet fully settled into the metabolism that would carry him through the long winter. He was coming awake far more quickly than Aker had anticipated. A giant paw lunged out, though awkwardly and with dull reflexes. Aker tucked into a ball, rolled, and plunged the needle deep into the thick fur coat. He depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe. He left it stuck in the animal, rolling away toward the mouth of the small cave.

The bear blinked behind heavy eyelids. Its front leg twitched, the massive paw clawing the air where Aker had just lain. Several long minutes passed, Aker not knowing if his plan had worked. The bear blinked once again before his eyes eased closed. A hibernating bear maintains a body temperature of over eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Aker rolled, and he pushed his back up against the mass of the sleeping animal. Within a matter of seconds, his back began to warm. Then his legs. Soon his whole body responded, shaking at first, then steadying, as the cold was gradually overcome. The drugs would keep the bear out for several hours. In a state of hibernation, despite its enormous body mass, it might remain unconscious for a day or more.

For the first time since his escape, Aker felt almost safe. He doubted the cave would be discovered by Coats or Gearbox. The chance to rest would strengthen him. Though the cave was foul-smelling, he’d found both shelter and a heat source. He could remain here for at least four hours, possibly longer. At first, he fought off sleep, focusing his attention instead on the mouth of the cave and listening for the sound of the snowmobile. Encouraged as he was, he knew his survival ultimately relied upon Walt Fleming’s efforts to find him. If some form of help didn’t arrive soon, Aker would be forced back into the elements, back into the hunt, where the odds were against him.

45

A FLIGHT OF MIGRATING SANDHILL CRANES APPROACHED OFF the glider’s right side, a ballet of slowly beating wings and outstretched necks easily mistaken for geese or swans from a distance. But, seen closer, they were too elegant for the former and too large for the latter. They moved as a black arrow, an undulating wave, like a single organism against a backdrop of a once-royal-blue sky now flaming out in resignation to a setting sun.

Walt pointed out the formation to his passenger, appreciating her hand then tapping him on the shoulder in acknowledgment, secretly enjoying the brief contact. She seemed to understand this was not a moment to raise one’s voice above the roar of the wings. He liked her all the more for it.

The V drew nearer, as if drawn by curiosity or mistaking the glider for one of their own. The cranes flew close enough that Walt could briefly make out not only the delicacy of their individual feathers rustled by the steady wind of their efforts but the beady stares of their unflinching eyes. They passed, and, like a curtain opening, revealed not the expanse of the desert below, simmering in the blush of dusk, but the menacing, insectlike form of a military helicopter, obscured until that moment.

Startled by the sight, Fiona jumped in her seat, bumping her head against the Plexiglas canopy.

It was a jet-assisted chopper-what Walt thought of as a gunner ship-capable of both tremendous speed and aerial agility. Both men in the cockpit looked like insects as well, as the copilot pointed to the bulbous black headphones mounted over his Air Force helmet.

Walt had purposely changed radio frequencies to avoid being contacted by Air Traffic Control and ordered out of the restricted airspace prior to Fiona taking the pictures. He had forced their hand, necessitating the scrambling of an intercept. But he acknowledged the request with a gesture and quickly reset his radio. He checked in with ATC, announced himself, and was told to immediately switch to yet another frequency, where he could communicate directly with the helicopter pilot.

The anticipated warning was issued with authority: Walt had violated federal airspace; he would land the glider at the Arco/Butte County airport, a tiny strip where the towplane now waited. He could expect to be boarded and detained. The standard “boarded” line brought a grin to his face: the glider’s cockpit barely fit its two passengers; no one would be boarding his aircraft. But the mention of detention was more significant. He planned to withhold his trump card-his status as law enforcement-until reaching the ground. But the carefully worded caution implied the government would exercise its right to search.

“They’re going to look at your equipment,” Walt shouted back to Fiona. “If they find we’ve been spying instead of joyriding, we’ll be in some serious trouble. I don’t want that for either of us. You’d better erase anything of the INL site. Keep the landscapes; we need to justify the gear.”

“How long do we have?”

“They’re escorting us. I need to land right away.”

“But how long?”

“Five, ten minutes. I’ll need to come around for the wind. They’re not going to shoot us out of the sky or anything. Why?”

“Can you make it more like ten?”

“How long does it take to erase some photographs? I would have thought-”

She interrupted. “Walt, I got some terrific shots of that construction site. I’d hate to lose them.”

Ten minutes earlier, they’d flown over an area of excavation, busy with large earthmoving machinery, the hole being dug alongside one of the bunkerlike buildings. The area was a beehive of activity, especially given the late hour: past seven P.M. The overtime work suggested an intriguing urgency. He’d circled the excavation, possibly putting him onto radar. Fiona had run off dozens of shots, including some of the Pahsimeroi Valley to the northwest. Walt wanted time to study the shots, but not at the expense of arrest.

“Not worth it.”

“They’re stored on an SD chip. The thing’s the size of a fingernail. You really think they’re going to search us that thoroughly? I could put it in my bra or something. They are not going to strip-search us.” When Walt failed to respond, she added, “Are they?”

“This is the U.S. military. Who knows what they’ll do? But if they find that chip, especially hidden on you, we would be in the deep stuff. These people don’t mess around.”

She was quiet for a moment, as she considered their options. “What if I encrypted them? I can password-protect the camera.”

“Child’s play for them. Besides, the more we look like we’re trying to hide something, the more heat we’re going to draw. We don’t need that. Erase them. I’ll buy you the ten minutes.”

“And if I can save them?”

“I’m telling you, it’s just not worth the risk. They’ll find them.”

“Not if I e-mail them before I erase them. My phone’s a PDA, Walt. It takes the same SD chip as the camera. You buy me enough time and I can switch out chips and e-mail at least a couple of the shots. They’ll be in cyberspace by the time we land. Keep your eye out for a cell tower. If you see one, try to stay close. I can do this.”

For the next ten minutes, Walt juggled stalling the air patrol’s increasingly heated demands he land the glider with Fiona’s run-on narration of her progress. She switched out the chips and had started e-mailing out the photographs, but the transmission speed of the photographs-all large-graphic files-was incredibly slow over her mobile phone.

Walt landed the glider a little hard-a little out of practice-causing Fiona to yelp from behind him. He rode the momentum off the strip’s lone runway and onto the first of three ramps. The helicopter set down just ahead of them, so close that the wind from the blades pushed the glider around like a toy, driving it back several feet and nearly damaging the tail. The chopper pilot killed the engine, and, as the blades slowed, two white SUVs with federal decals on their doors sped out to meet them.

“Where are we?” Walt called back to Fiona.

“I need more time,” she called out anxiously.

“Forget it. Just erase them.”

“The chip’s out of the camera; there’s nothing to erase. But I can’t erase them off the phone until they’re done sending and it’s taking forever.”

A uniformed officer pounded on the Plexiglas.

“Pocket the phone,” Walt instructed her, as he bent down low to make it appear he was busy shutting down the glider.

“OPEN UP!” the officer hollered.

“They’ll focus on the camera, not the phone,” Walt said, softly enough that the officer wouldn’t hear him through the cockpit dome.

“They will when they see there’s no chip in it,” she countered. “Wait! I’ve got a spare… Okay… okay… Buy me thirty seconds.”

She then bent over to where, in the tight space, her back screened her hands and the camera from view.

The officer pounded again.

“Ten seconds,” she pleaded.

Walt slid open the small triangular air vent on the side of the dome and moved his lips closer. “She’s feeling a little airsick. My passenger needs a moment.”

“Open this aircraft or I’m instructed to break it open for you.”

“Just let her get her sea legs, would you?” Walt pleaded.

“I’m okay,” she announced, sitting up and waving at the officer. She leaned forward, her chin on Walt’s shoulder, and whispered hotly, “The phone is still sending.”

“Purse,” he said, covering his lips as if itching his nose.

Walt unlocked the cockpit releases, and the officer instructed them to climb out of the plane. If caught, Walt thought his badge would bail them out. But seeing how serious these guys were, he wondered if he’d dragged Fiona into something he would soon wish he hadn’t.

She busied herself, collecting her gear.

“Please don’t touch anything, ma’am. We’ll get your belongings for you.”

“You most certainly will not,” Fiona protested. “He was the one flying the thing. It was his idea for a sunset sightseeing date. Why I agreed, I have no idea. Some date! I felt nauseated enough, and then you people came along? Who are you people?”

“You were flying in restricted airspace,” the officer said matter-offactly. He pointed to her headphones. “Did you hear our communication with the pilot?”

“All he told me,” she said distraughtly, still clinging to her purse and camera bag, “was that we were being forced down. And the funny thing is, I probably should be thanking you. I think you just saved me the trip back to Sun Valley.”

“Put the bags down, please, ma’am. Leave them there.”

“It’s my camera,” she protested.

“We’ll want a look at that,” he said.

“Walt! Do something. You’re the sheriff.”

The officer whipped around his head to take in Walt, who then introduced himself. “ Blaine County sheriff,” Walt added, proffering his ID wallet. The officer examined the wallet, his eyes flashing between his two subjects.

“Are you over here on business, Sheriff?” the officer asked.

“No. Just an evening flight, trying to impress a woman.”

“You really go all out,” Fiona said. “What do you do for the second date?”

Even the officer cracked a smile. He wiped it off quickly. “We’re going to want to talk to you,” he informed Walt. “Both of you,” he said, then looked at Fiona. “If it all checks out, I’m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Fiona cracked open her purse. “May I make a call?” she said, reaching the phone before the officer could move to stop her.

“It’s all to remain in place,” he said, holding out an open palm.

Fiona shot a sideways glance at Walt. She turned the face of the mobile device so that Walt could see it. His view of the colorful menu led him to believe the photographs had completed sending. “Can’t I call someone to come get me?” she asked the officer.

Walt understood then: the photographs had sent, but she hadn’t had time to erase them off the chip. The evidence remained in her hand.

“Apparently not,” Walt answered. “And I think they want your phone.”

As she handed it to the officer, she managed one more look in Walt’s direction-a serious look, one of deep concern. He took this as confirmation of his suspicions: the photographs were still on the phone’s memory chip.

“Maybe they’ll let you call once we get to wherever they’re taking us,” Walt suggested.

The officer didn’t contradict him.

“Who said they’re taking us anywhere?” Fiona complained. “All he said is, they want to talk to us.”

“People like this,” Walt said, “people like me, we always take you somewhere when we want to talk to you.”

Looking at Walt fiercely, she said, “Tell me this was all cooked up to impress me. Tell me this is your screwed-up attempt at a joke.” She then looked at the officer, as if he might confess to the conspiracy.

The officer said, “Afraid not.”

“As far as dates go,” Fiona said to Walt, settling into her role a little too easily he thought, “this one really sucks.”

46

“THE GLIDER’S RADIOS ARE FULLY FUNCTIONING. DID YOU know that?” Walt’s interviewer, a man who introduced himself as Russell Amish, was an unshapely man in his mid-forties who spoke his vowels in a nasal tone and carried a liverish blemish on the side of his neck like an abscessed high school hickey. A man who had once been physically strong, he’d gone soft, like fruit left in the bowl too long. His black eyes revealed a contempt for Walt’s badge.

Walt had met other wannabes: private security employees who feigned authority, wishing their threats meant something. This guy wanted to play the fed when in fact he was merely contracted to Semper, which, in turn, was contracted to the government. He wasn’t powerless-far from it-but Walt’s position trumped his, and both men knew it.

He and Fiona had been separated immediately, put into separate cars and driven out to a nondescript, one-story cinder-block building that carried an American flag out front. It was part of a small cluster of buildings surrounded by a vast expanse of desert. Other buildings looked like parking garages. They might have been entrances to underground tunnels, or storage facilities, or served any number of other purposes. Nuclear testing was a world Walt knew nothing about.

“I believe we call that pilot error,” Walt said, taking a look around the briefing room. Acoustical ceiling. Video surveillance in two corners. A vinyl-topped table that held a cassette recorder.

“I don’t know much about gliders, Sheriff, except that while they’re dependent on wind and air currents to maintain altitude, the wind does not determine direction of flight.”

“We were blown off course,” Walt said. “At right about ten thousand feet, we were caught up in winds out of the north that drove us into your airspace. You must have had me on radar. Check my flight pattern. I was beating upwind ever since, trying to work my way back to the highway.” He paused, searching the man’s eyes to see if he’d checked the radar. “When you fly a sailplane, Mr. Amish, you like having a strip of pavement in sight. Despite the beautiful view your restricted airspace offers, I’ll take the safety net of a flat stretch of pavement under me any day.”

“You were or were not on official business?”

“Was not. I’m out of uniform, Mr. Amish. I’m coming out of a marriage, which I’m sure you’re able to confirm, and,” he said, lowering his voice, “I was trying to get into something new, if you catch my meaning. I was going for the wow factor: Top Gun meets National Geographic. If I hadn’t made her sick, if you guys hadn’t interfered, I might have had a chance.”

“I doubt it,” said Amish. “Not your chances but the story.” He shifted some papers. Guys like him did that just as a matter of habit. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Fleming.”

“Not so far as the crow flies.”

“Your towplane pilot reports you requested a release over Craters of the Moon. You strayed quite far from that release point.”

“Have you ever seen the park from the air? The huge flows of lava, like somebody spilled black ink and it froze in place. You want to impress a woman, Mr. Amish, show her Craters at sunset. Land in Arco. Buy her a steak at the Mel-O-Dee and have the towplane waiting to fly you home. Knocks their socks off, and, if you’re lucky, other pieces of clothing as well.”

Amish fought back a grin. For a moment, Walt allowed himself to believe he was regaining some credibility. But it was a grin of satisfaction, as it turned out, not one of agreement.

“Ms. Kenshaw is your department’s contracted photographer, Sheriff. She boarded your romantic escapade with two camera bodies, five lenses, a light meter, and a variety of filters. And, oh… infrared capability. You flew into our airspace and stayed off com for twenty-seven minutes before being forced down by the Air National Guard. The only photographs on her camera are of what appears to be an assault-a young woman, badly beaten, and some colorful clothing. A prom? A wedding? They’re dated less than a week ago. So what you’re telling me is you brought her up on this ‘date’ to photograph the sunset and she got, what, so caught up in your smooth talking that she forgot to shoot any photographs?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“We are.”

Walt wondered if she could possibly hold up under the scrutiny and realized he should have created a story for them both to stick to. Amish likely knew of his attempts to reach the director by phone. Even so, proof was proof. No matter what Amish believed, he could not prove intent. “The glider’s not much different than a parasail. You’ve never had parasailers over your airspace?”

“We’d rather work with you than against you,” Amish said. “We’re all on the same side here.”

“I’ll take that to mean you don’t want me calling the vice president about it,” Walt said.

“I’m aware of your relationship with Vice President Shaler. I’m aware of your service record. You’re something of a hero, Sheriff. I get that. Doesn’t make my job any easier.”

“You’re retired military,” Walt said. “That’s a burn wound on your neck-chemical, maybe. Desert Storm, I’m guessing. There were compounds used in that war that few of us ever heard about, weren’t there? You don’t strike me as military intelligence, Mr. Amish. You have field experience, I’m pretty sure. Marines, maybe.” There was a flicker in the man’s eyes that was his tell: an ever-so-slight lifting of the eyelids that Walt guessed he’d worked hard to control. “Your boss worked under George the First when he headed up Langley. Your boss’s boss I’m talking about: Roger Hillabrand. He was a Marine, wasn’t he? A big player in Desert Storm. Hired his men to work for him, once he entered the private sector, and formed the Semper Group. So you’re long on loyalty, short on questions. We can spend three or four hours in here and all I’m going to do is lose my chance at Ms. Kenshaw. These are tricky waters because your boss’s boss has a personal relationship with Ms. Kenshaw-and if he had anything to do with our grounding, if any phone calls were exchanged, this is going to look personal. Mixing business with pleasure. Using his power… to derail any attempt at a date. I thought I could take off the uniform, fly her up over Craters, and make a good impression. Maybe score a few points. But maybe Hillabrand thought different. This could be embarrassing. You called in the Air National Guard, Mr. Amish. Over a woman. Why don’t you release us and let me try to salvage what I can of an evening gone horribly wrong and we’ll both forget all about this?”

“Your glider will be impounded until further notice. Our people will take it apart-piece by piece, if we have to-in order to determine there were no cameras hidden in it. I can only assume you think you’re doing good, Sheriff. But we both know that do-gooders typically do more harm than good.”

“I was out on a date. I was trying for some romance. You want to arrest me for that? Guilty as charged.”

Amish’s eyelids flared again. His jaw clenched, as he fought to keep his mouth shut. But Walt egged him on with a shit-eating grin intended to make the man feel as small as possible. Interrogations could go both directions.

“This facility is under constant surveillance,” Amish said proudly. “We are watched”-he pointed to the two cameras in the room-

“recorded, scrutinized, and investigated. We are held accountable to six different federal departments. We report to the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I know it’s easy to see a place like the INL as a conspiracy in progress, given the materials we work with and the secretive nature of the research conducted here. On-site protests and demonstrations remind us of this on a regular basis. We offer up a fine target for the Greens. But this lab lit the first city in the world with atomic-powered light. The nuclear submarine engine was developed and tested at this facility. Critical situations like Three Mile Island were successfully resolved because we had a working facility in which to simulate repairs. This place matters. And if you work here, you can’t pick your nose without a Senate subcommittee hearing about it. We are not a rogue facility. No matter what people like Sheriff Walt Fleming think. There is nothing here that’s going to help you with this murder investigation of yours.” He answered Walt’s expression: “Read the pages, Sheriff.”

Walt wanted to take a swing at the guy, more out of frustration than anger, but it wasn’t going to happen. Amish’s confidence was disconcerting. There was a knock on the door followed by the arrival of a man who leaned into Amish’s ear.

Amish said, “You’ll go home tonight, but we’re not done here. We’ll report this violation to some of those six departments, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing from more than one of them. This was a stupid stunt to pull, Sheriff. You’ve fooled no one.”

If he was being sent home tonight, then they hadn’t found the photographs.

He waited another hour to be released and around nine P.M. was led outside to a vehicle that drove him and Fiona back to the Arco airport, where the towplane waited.

They didn’t speak while in the car and under escort. After having been dropped off, the shuttle vehicle then leaving the airstrip, Walt turned to her.

“So?”

Her lips pursed. She tugged the strap of her camera bag higher onto her shoulder. “I made the call. You know?”

“E-mailing the photos, you mean? Yeah. That was incredibly fast think-”

“The other call,” she said. “How do you think we got off so easily?”

“Hillabrand?”

She nodded spitefully.

“But… they didn’t have us on anything,” Walt protested. “Why drag Hillabrand into this if they were going to release us, anyway?”

“Let me get this right: you’re mad at me for getting us out of there?”

“I’m not mad at you. But they had no evidence.”

“They had us locked up in interrogation rooms. They had my phone. My phone, not yours. All the photographs were on my phone. Besides, don’t give me that: it’s why you brought me along, right? We established that earlier.”

“It’s not why,” Walt countered. “I hadn’t even thought about Hillabrand until you brought him up.”

“That’s not true,” she said.

“It is! I asked you along because I needed photographs shot. If we hadn’t been forced down, I’d have gone in there on foot tonight. To that construction work. But, listen, I never once considered using your… relationship… with Hillabrand to my advantage-our advantage. Your mention of it actually amused me, Fiona. You don’t know me very well if you’d think I’d do such a thing.”

“There is no relationship with Roger. Just FYI. I’d say that pretty much just came to an end tonight. I felt like a teenager calling Daddy. Who knows what he thought. Ten minutes later, we were released. You can thank me later.”

She hurried off toward the towplane, where the pilot was standing by. Walt packed in with her behind the pilot, and they sat pressed shoulder to shoulder for the short thirty-minute flight. She never said a word to him. He tried twice to break the silence but failed. At the FBO in Sun Valley, she marched to her parked Subaru, climbed in, and drove off without looking back.

Walt arrived home, depressed, and wondering if the INL would take legal action. Hillabrand being dragged into it complicated matters.

He parked the Cherokee out front as he almost always did, despite a garage around back. He liked the police cruiser being seen sitting in front of the house. He hurried up to the front porch, concerned-but not overly so-by the front porch light being off and the rest of the house being so dark. He always encouraged Lisa to keep several lights on.

He managed to key open the door in the dark and flip on the lights.

“Lisa?” he hissed softly.

The couch was empty. He usually found her dozing there at this hour. She’d probably fallen asleep next to one of the twins while reading a bedtime story.

“Lisa?” he repeated more loudly.

His chest tightened.

He hurried through the house, carefully opening Emily’s bedroom door first. Empty. Then Nikki’s. Empty. He checked the face of his cell phone: eleven messages. He had assumed them all to be work related; consumed with the events of the evening, he’d planned to answer them once he got home.

He tried the master bedroom.

Dark and empty.

He had the phone to his ear now, the first of the messages replaying. With no way to skip messages, he was forced to endure the mundane while anticipating the worst.

Finally, he heard Lisa’s voice, bordering on hysterical: “Walt? It was Gail. She was… I don’t know… I’ve never seen her like that. She said you two had an agreement about no women. I thought she meant me. I tried to reason, but she just stormed right past me, saying how she was the mother. The girls are fine. She has them. Please call me. I didn’t know what to do, Walt. I didn’t know what to do.”

He threw the phone. It skipped off the dining-room table and hit the window and broke the glass.

Walt hurried to the door; he knew exactly what to do: get his children back. He caught himself on the threshold, reconsidering. The girls had had enough for one night. Gail wouldn’t have taken them to Brandon ’s-that was indeed the agreement.

He stepped back inside, slammed the front door shut, and locked it. Switched off the light so he didn’t have to see how empty it was without them. He heard the sounds of his own labored breathing. He extracted a single truth from the depths of his depression: they’d crossed a barrier, arriving at a finality to the truce that had been maintained for far too long.

47

THE HAILEY LIBRARY HAD BEEN A SUPERMARKET IN ITS former life. Walt came here often enough with the twins, but he still couldn’t shake the memory; he expected to smell fresh coffee and doughnuts. Instead, he passed the front desk and a table displaying NEW ARRIVALS. There was an end cap on the nearest stack devoted entirely to Hemingway. Walt wished the fame and lore of Hemingway could have been attributed to the work of the great writer when he’d lived in the valley, but, instead, most of the fame of the place came from the fact he’d died here. Being known as a place where a famous writer ate the wrong end of a shotgun was nothing but trouble for the county sheriff. Others had come here for like purpose. Not so great to be the trendy suicide locale.

He’d never paid any attention to the library’s conference room. It held an oval table that sat ten, with just enough room behind each chair to slip past. There was a pull-down whiteboard at the end of the room, carrying notes written in pink marker that appeared to have something to do with a book sale fund-raiser.

He didn’t appreciate being made to wait, but Danny Cutter had sounded frantic on the phone, and Walt made it a point to tread lightly with the billionaires and their families. And so he waited. Five minutes melted into ten.

Finally, the door opened.

Danny Cutter had that tanned, outdoorsy thing working for him. He wore blue jeans, a pressed white shirt, and an Orvis outdoor coat, black fabric with a brown leather collar and trim.

“Sorry I made you wait,” he said, shaking hands with Walt only after he’d locked the conference-room door and twisted the blinds closed. “I thought if someone followed me, they wouldn’t see you entering after me, and that just felt better.”

“Someone’s following you?”

Cutter shook his head with a look of disgust. “Who knows?”

“Sit,” Walt said.

Cutter took the chair next to Walt and spoke quietly. “You know about the charges at the hotel? The violation of my parole? Chuck Webb said you knew about it, said it could have been worse-much worse-and that I had you to thank for that.”

“Wouldn’t know what he’s talking about,” Walt said, stone-faced.

“Someone called it in to the Sun Valley police. Said I was drunk or stoned or both. So I ended up under suspicion, and they required a blood test because of the parole and I had coke in my system-coke I have no memory of doing, I might add. And that puts me in violation.”

“Chuck told me most of this,” Walt allowed. “I didn’t know the blood workup was back.”

“None of this matters to you, I know, but the blowback that followed is what counts.”

“What kind of blowback?” Walt asked. He was feeling edgy all of a sudden, like the room was too small.

Cutter glanced nervously toward the locked door. He lowered his voice, forcing Walt to concentrate on his every word.

“I shouldn’t tell you this. I know that. You, of all people. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. But the thing is, they warned me if I violate the NDA I signed I’m shit up the creek. The way my probation reads, you’re supposed to be informed of any possible violations, so I’m taking a big chance, Sheriff. That’s my point: a very big chance.”

“Slow down, please. You signed a nondisclosure agreement?”

“I’ve been bought off. Fifty thousand dollars plus all legitimate expenses arising from the contamination. I was told that if I accepted the money, the parole violation would eventually be dropped, that Trinity could return to production in as little as two weeks, and that I’d be reimbursed for lost inventory and gross revenue for the period in question. All I do is show them our books for the past three months and they’ll average my revenue stream.”

Walt couldn’t help but remember the stench of the burning sheep and Peavy’s reminder of the loss of money that any mass grave would mean for the rancher.

“Who offered you this?”

“No idea. A call to my cell phone. A private number. I tried to trace it. I even called my brother-he owns the cell company, after all. Dead end.”

“A hoax,” Walt proposed.

“The next day, five grand was in my checking account-my personal checking account, not my company account. I checked with the bank: the deposit was cash, made through an ATM. Totally untraceable.” He glanced back at the door again. “Second phone call said the five grand was just to prove the offer was for real.”

“The terms? What did they want from you?”

“They’ll provide a script for me. I’m to stick to the script.”

“And the CDC?”

“Dr. Bezel’s report will apparently support whatever it is I’m supposed to say.”

Walt attempted to process all that he’d been told. Who could control the CDC like that? “Why me, Danny?”

“Why you?” he blurted out, laughing and grimacing at the same time. “I’m already in violation of my parole-this coke thing-which, incidentally, was a total frame job. I’m not saying I expect you to believe that, but the way it happened-”

“I believe it,” Walt said, interrupting. “Tell me about the payoff.”

“I’ve told you everything. Two calls. Sign the NDA. The five grand up front. It all goes away.”

“Who can promise such a thing?” Walt blurted out.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I signed. Are you kidding me? You know the hit I’m going to take? My inventory destroyed. My line shut down. I’m not insured for this kind of thing. Who is? I was sunk. I mean totally screwed. And then this phone call. Fifty K, on top of costs. And they made it clear that if business is off for a while because of this, they’ll take care of me.”

“But… why tell me?” Walt repeated.

“I’ve got to be breaking a dozen laws, right? I had a chance to think about it and I came to you. As sweet as this deal is, if it means another twenty months in prison, I’ll pass, thank you very much.”

“It’s nothing my office would have anything to do with, beyond the parole violation.”

“But that’s the point: it’s a clear violation of my parole, right? Doing anything like this?”

“Enlisting in a cover-up? Yeah. That would be federal time. But it’s apparent that whoever is making the offer has a long reach. It could be genuine. And, how do I say this?” He paused. “You aren’t the only one to receive such an offer.”

“They came after you?”

“Me? No!” Now it was Walt glancing toward the door. He stood and peeked out the blinds. No one. With his back to Cutter, he said, “What’s important to focus on here, Danny, is that whoever is making the offer is the same person, or persons, who set you up for the coke.”

“I know that.”

“And this just escalates things, doesn’t it? I mean, after this, they’ll have you on accepting a bribe, avoiding a CDC investigation-any number of charges. If they want.”

“That’s why I’m here, Sheriff. Did they frame me on the coke thing just to make sure I’d take this offer or am I being set up now to take a bigger fall? Someone’s coming after me, and I’m screwed either way.”

“I don’t have the answers.”

“I’d rather go bankrupt than return to that damn facility.”

“But you agreed to take the money.”

“Yeah, but it’s only the five grand so far. And I’ve come to you to cut a deal. Buyer’s remorse. I don’t care about the money. I’ve told you everything. Honestly, I have. I will keep the money in escrow, not spend a cent of it. I’ll wear a wire, allow you to tap my phones- whatever you want. I do not want to get on the wrong side of this. Now, I understand I’ve already done that,” he added quickly, “but this is my attempt to fix it.”

“If these people can deliver, then I’m no use to you,” Walt admitted.

“They’ve got to be government, don’t they? I mean, who can make such promises?”

“Or big business,” Walt said, speaking what he was thinking, never a good call.

Cutter leaned back in his chair. “You know who it is,” he said, unable to conceal his surprise.

“I don’t.”

“You have an idea.”

“I imagine you do, too,” Walt said.

“But I don’t! Government, as I’ve said. A private firm, no matter how big, can’t guarantee legal charges dropped. Who in the government cares about my company staying in business? This guy promised my probation violation would be expunged. The NDA gave no hint of who was behind it. I don’t have any idea. Honestly.”

“I think we’re done here, Danny. For both our sakes.”

“Done? I’m not done.”

“I appreciate the information. As to the offer, there’s nothing I can do without warrants, and, if I seek a warrant and it gets back to whoever is making you this offer, that’s not good for anyone.” He thought a moment, working the corners. “I’d like to hear from you if they make contact. If you go the informer route, it’s done through the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I could help with that. But if we go to the wrong guy, my guess is the offer will be pulled and you’ll be back in a federal facility. The coke charge was about discrediting you, Danny. They’ve laid the necessary groundwork so that whatever you say in public can be quickly written off as a desperate man making cheap allegations. It’s been very carefully thought out.”

“Yeah,” Cutter said sarcastically, “let’s admire their work.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Since when is the government that smart?”

Walt cracked a smile. He stood up from the chair and said, “Good luck, Danny.”

“I came to you in good faith, Sheriff. You can’t just walk.”

“I’ve got problems of my own, Danny. I have no choice but to walk. You waited too long. I needed to be brought in before you signed the NDA and agreed to take the money.”

Cutter looked devastated.

Walt scribbled out a name. “Andy Hamilton’s in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle. Andy can’t be bought.” He passed the name to Cutter. “Use my name.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

“Tread lightly, Danny. And don’t speak a word of this to Dr. Bezel. I don’t see how, but she may be part of this.”

Cutter looked as if Walt had hit him.

“Do we even know if she’s actually with the CDC?” Walt asked. “I never checked her credentials.”

“Sweet Jesus!”

“Trust no one, Danny,” Walt said. His voice continued inside his head: Not even me.

48

“MAY BE I’M NOT EXPLAINING IT RIGHT.” JOHN BORTON WAS a big, bearish man, with red hair, wide eyes, and an unexpectedly kind and soft minister’s voice. He’d started out as water master for the water district, inspecting headgates on irrigation canals, reporting violations, and locking flows at levels where they belonged. Then he’d served as an inspector for the state’s adjudication process-the redistribution of stream and river water to private landowners-that had taken five years and nearly cost a few lives. Now he was the water master for the central district, and, as such, ruled like a feudal lord over million-dollar ranches and their century-old legal rights to tap into and drain both the surface waters as well as the underground aquifer that flowed for thousands of miles, from British Columbia to Mexico.

His office was small, even by government standards. The water district was housed in a building that also leased space to the Nature Conservancy.

Walt and Borton were leaning on a worktable that held Fiona’s aerial photographs, a satellite image of central Idaho, and a topographical map of a fifty-square-mile region surrounding Craters of the Moon and reaching to the Pahsimeroi Valley.

“Think of it as an eddy,” Borton said. “Just like in open water, but, in this case, it happens to be underground. You’ve got this tremendous flow of water, sometimes thousands of feet below the surface, moving like a river north to south. Huge volume. It pushes up quite close to the surface for much of the route. But we know it always seeks the path of least resistance, as well as the lowest spot it can find. This range,” he said, indicating a spur of mountains that pushed toward the alluvial plain and the desert that housed the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory, “acts as a barrier, just like a levee or breakwater.”

“But you said the flow of the water is north to south,” Walt reminded. “And the elevation of the Pahsimeroi is higher than the desert. My interest is whether water could get from here,” he said, indicating the desert, “to here.” He pointed to the center of the Pahsimeroi Valley.

“And, logically, that’s impossible. How can water run uphill?” Borton dragged the satellite image closer. “But some rivers flow to the north in the Northern Hemisphere, don’t they? And so do some aquifers. In this case, it’s the result of a subterranean fault and a promontory.” He pointed out a mountain spine on the satellite image. “This looks like a weather map, but these gray swirls are actually the underground water-part of the Northern Rocky Mountain Intermontane Basins system-that exists thousands of feet below the surface and is one small part of a freshwater source that stretches from Canada all the way to Mexico. The Big Lost River disappears completely under the desert here and doesn’t resurface for hundreds of miles. But the force of that downward pressure has the same effect as a narrowing river: increased speed. That pushes a great quantity of water west and around this underground promontory. The flow is further restricted by faults on both sides, and, with nowhere to go, it flows north for nearly seventy miles, until most of it is absorbed into the more porous strata of the upper Pahsimeroi.”

For security reasons, the satellite image had grayed out the surface topography of an area that included the INL, but Walt pulled Fiona’s photograph alongside the image and visually compared the two. The long, feathered flow that was the rogue branch of the aquifer curled and turned directly beneath the area where he and Fiona had spotted the after-hours earthmoving equipment. For a moment, he just stared.

“This help any?” Borton asked, made uncomfortable by the long silence.

Walt looked up at the man, then back to the various pictures. “Does the water in the aquifer ever reach the surface of the Pahsimeroi Valley ’s floor? Is it part of the groundwater?”

“That’s a much bigger question,” Borton said, running his stubby finger across the satellite image, “because there’s a constant surface flow north to south-all the winter melt slowly finding its way down through sediment and into the valleys. But that water can prove itself seasonal and intermittent, as we know, and the reason this gets more complicated is that some of the ranchers have drilled very deep wells. Those deeper wells, eight hundred to as much as ten thousand feet, are directly tapping into the aquifer, not the surface water. It presents a particularly difficult issue for us.”

“Do we know the locations of those deeper wells?” Walt asked.

“We would have a list of at least some of them in the state, because they’ve been the subject of adjudication.”

Not once had Borton asked what any of this was about, though Walt sensed his curiosity.

“How hard would it be for me to get hold of that list?” Walt asked.

“It’s a public record,” Borton returned quickly, having anticipated the request. “I don’t have those documents here, but the state water board should have copies.”

“That helps.”

“I do happen to have computer access,” Borton said with a twinkle in his eye. “And a printer. But any data that proved useful to you would have to eventually be sourced elsewhere. It didn’t come from me, Walt.”

“Understood.”

Borton glanced around the quiet office. “Wait right here,” he said.

49

WHEN WALT’S ATTEMPTS TO REACH GAIL FAILED, HE RESISTED using the power of his office to find her, knowing any such personal use would be held against him. Instead, he sought out his divorce attorney, Jan Wygle, in an attempt to get his daughters returned.

As he sat in the officer’s reception, an NPR report out of Boise caught his attention.

“Today, the state senate’s environmental impact committee will hear public comments on the Semper Group’s management of the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory. Conditions of Semper’s contract with the federal and state governments require semiannual review of health and safety issues in the workplace. Semper took over management of the nuclear facility from the troubled General Industries two years ago and was instrumental in the fifty-square-mile facility’s third name change in just six years. More now from our Capitol correspondent, Lisa Laird.”

The reporter continued the story, reminding listeners of the controversial shipments of overseas nuclear waste to the INL. Said to be for temporary storage, much of the Japanese and Korean low-level waste had been held in drums above ground in central Idaho for nearly a decade. Semper was said to be in negotiations to extend the program by accepting Russian low-level waste. Walt’s ears pricked up when Hillabrand’s name was mentioned. He was to be the committee’s chief witness, testifying at three P.M. A public forum.

He faced a two-hour drive or a thirty-minute flight. His first phone call was not to Nancy, nor to Barge Levy, who he hoped might fly him over to Boise now that his own pilot’s license had been suspended. It was instead to Danny Cutter. His request caused Cutter to invoke a moment’s silence on the other end.

“You want what?” Cutter had asked.

“You heard me right,” Walt answered.

“I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“Find a way,” Walt told the man. “Both our futures may depend upon it.”

WALT ARRIVED AT the statehouse in Boise wearing a crisp, heavily starched uniform, his shoes and belt polished to gleaming, his hardware sparkling. It was three-twenty by the time he slipped through the door of the hearing room, where a dais held five state senators, four men and a woman. The room’s interior was a magnificent throwback to the grand statehouses of the nineteenth century: aged mahogany and walnut panels, a marble floor, and brass chandeliers. Roger Hillabrand sat at a long table, front and center, with his back to the main doors, the fabric of his suit shining. He took no notice of Walt’s entrance.

The same could not be said for James Peavy. The dignified-looking rancher sat on the aisle in the fifth row of bench seating. He wore his trademark Stetson, a blue blazer, and a white oxford. He glowered at Walt. There was no mistaking that look. He shook his head faintly, like a reminder of his prior warning, and his eyes tracked Walt, as he found a seat.

Most of the hearing centered on the proposed expansion of the so-called temporary storage of offshore low-level nuclear waste, and, when the hearing was thrown open to public comment, the room became hostile toward Hillabrand. At last, the chairman relieved Hillabrand by stating that the floor was closed to questions regarding that particular issue, and the room emptied quickly. There were fewer than ten people in attendance when the chairman opened the floor to any other questions for Mr. Hillabrand and Semper’s management of the INL.

An environmentalist beat Walt to the microphone, asking what Hillabrand intended to do about a high fence that was interfering with the winter movements of an established elk herd.

Hillabrand turned around to address the questioner and, in doing so, spotted Walt. There was a pronounced hitch to his movement, like a film having been cut and spliced back together.

A minute later, Walt stood at the aisle microphone and introduced himself to the committee, all of whom he’d met on other occasions. He carried copies of maps, photographs, and a time line of his own investigation to the dais, then offered Hillabrand copies.

The committee chair fingered the documents and then leaned into his microphone. “Sheriff Fleming, Mr. Hillabrand comes here in good faith. He is not on trial.”

“I’m aware of that,” Walt said into the mic.

“This is a hearing. We’re just getting Mr. Hillabrand’s semiannual report and his appraisal of the condition of the facility and where it’s going over the next six months.”

“Yes.”

“If you have a public comment, then-”

“I do, Senator.” Walt turned slightly to address Hillabrand. “The witness is under oath?”

“He volunteered an oath at the start of his report,” the senator answered. “It is by no means binding or legal.”

“Be that as it may, I would hope it counts for something.” He looked directly at the witness. “Mr. Hillabrand, would you please view the photograph labeled ‘B’ and answer this question?” Photo B depicted the aerial view of the massive earthmovers, working alongside one of the newer INL buildings. “Are you aware of any current threats to health, including any spills, leaks, or mishandling of nuclear waste at the INL, recent or not?”

There were not enough people in attendance to throw a murmur around the room, but clearly the question caught everyone on the committee by surprise.

“I will answer the question,” Hillabrand replied confidently. “But, first, I would ask if the committee is aware of your having been detained by INL security just last night, Sheriff, and if this questioning of yours is being done at the hand of politics, in an attempt to salvage the damage last night’s incident will have upon your current reelection campaign?”

“Sheriff?” the chairman asked.

“This has nothing to do with politics, Mr. Chairman.” Walt never took his eyes off Hillabrand, whose bitten-back smile bordered on arrogance. “I have a follow-up question or two, if Mr. Hillabrand only will answer the first.”

The chairman seemed intent to not allow this to be a duel between Walt and Hillabrand. “The committee would like to set the record straight as to your detention. Did this, in fact, take place?”

“It did. Yes, sir. My glider was accidentally blown off course and intercepted by INL security. We were forced to land, questioned by INL security, and later released without charges.”

Hillabrand snorted into the microphone. Without permission from the chairman, he waved the photograph high in the air and said, “Carrying him conveniently over our facility, I see. I feel it important to inform this committee that the existence of this photograph is a violation of federal law and that the viewing of this photograph will likely require investigation.”

The statement surprised Walt. Hillabrand had just thrown Fiona under the bus. Walt had hoped that Fiona’s involvement with Hillabrand might mitigate how seriously he intended to prosecute the photography.

The committee turned in on itself for internal discussion. Indiscernible whispering floated through the room, as the steam radiators popped and clanked. Walt felt desperate to at least get his first question answered, though it now seemed obvious that Hillabrand was willing to lie.

“You said you would answer the question,” Walt reminded.

“I’m unaware of any spills or leaks or any health threats posed by our operations at the INL.”

“Have you or any of your employees,” Walt asked him, “had contact with, or offered payments to, Lon Bernie, James Peavy, or Daniel Cutter in exchange for their silence, their participation in a cover-up concerning contamination of groundwater in the Pahsimeroi Valley?”

This question sent the committee into gasps and further consultation; harsh glances at both Hillabrand and Walt. Someone left the room behind Walt, and, within seconds, a dozen spectators hurried inside, including a few reporters, judging by their busy notepads. The chairman took notice of the arrival of the press, cupped his mouth, and went back to whispering to his panel members.

“Sheriff Fleming,” the chairman finally said, “while this committee respects and applauds your service in law enforcement in the great state of Idaho, we do not feel that this is the proper forum for your line of questioning.”

“Isn’t this a hearing on environmental impact?” Walt asked.

“It is.”

“My position, Mr. Chairman, is that the INL, under Mr. Hillabrand’s governance, has contaminated an eddy in the Northern Rocky Mountain Intermontane Basins system, the deep groundwater beneath the Pahsimeroi. I have personally witnessed the burning of over fifty head of sheep. What rancher would dispose of his sheep by fire, Mr. Chairman? Buck-Senator Oozer-you run sheep. Have you ever burned any?”

Buck Oozer shook his head no.

“I also have medical records for two employees of Trilogy Springs bottling who were admitted to a hospital in Salt Lake City and, after extensive testing, were determined to be suffering from radiation poisoning. You can see on this map,” Walt said, stepping toward the dais, “the relative proximity of-”

“Ask the sheriff,” Hillabrand said, raising his voice and interrupting,

“if he’s an expert in radiation poisoning. If he has ever heard of radon, an underground source of radiation known to riddle the sediments of central Idaho.”

“Radon does exist, Mr. Hillabrand, and has existed for thousands of years-millions, I suppose. But it doesn’t just turn itself on. These ranchers have had no problems until very recently. Now there’s sickness all around that region.”

“If there has been depredation of livestock and sickness in employees of bottling companies,” Hillabrand said to the chairman, “don’t you think we’d have heard about it before now? Is a county sheriff our best source for such accusations? Are you an expert on such matters, Mr. Fleming?” He turned around. “There’s James Peavy, right back there. Why doesn’t the chairman ask the Honorable Senator Peavy if his livestock is suffering from radiation contamination?”

Peavy stood.

The chairman looked bewildered. He mumbled, “It’s not in our purview to treat this like a trial, Mr. Hillabrand, Sheriff Fleming. It’s a hearing. Your complaint is noted, Sheriff Fleming, and it will be looked into. Sit down, please, Senator Peavy.”

Peavy sat, but his apparent willingness to testify registered with the committee.

The chairman asked, “Are there any other comments from-”

“He’s paid off Senator Peavy,” Walt said. “Just as he’s tried to pay off Daniel Cutter to remain silent about the sickness out at his bottling plant.” The gallery stirred. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, but taking note of my complaint is not enough. There are lives at stake here.”

“The accusations are baseless!” Hillabrand said. “Totally and utterly baseless!”

“Sheriff Fleming,” the chairman said, “please sit down!”

Walt held his ground. “Baseless, Mr. Hillabrand?” Suddenly, it was just the two of them in the room.

“Completely.”

Walt held up a finger to buy himself a moment and returned to his seat.

“Finally,” the chairman said, loud enough to be heard.

“I’m not done!” Walt said, digging into his briefcase. “Mr. Hillabrand!” He threw something toward Hillabrand, who reached out and caught it one-handed.

“A twenty-ounce bottle of Trilogy water, identified as part of a two-week run, all of which has subsequently been held off the market, quarantined, because of possible contamination. Since you’re so sure the aquifer has not been poisoned by a leak at the INL, have a glass of water. Convince me.”

Hillabrand looked at the bottle, at Walt, and then at the dais. A reporter in the back stood up and shot a photograph of Hillabrand holding the bottle. When Hillabrand next met eyes with Walt, his own had hardened. He broke the seal on the cap and poured himself a glass.

“Don’t drink that,” Walt said, running toward the witness table. “It really is from the quarantined run. That is contam-”

But Hillabrand put the glass to his mouth and began to drink.

Walt knocked the glass out of his hand. It shattered on the floor in front of the dais.

Hillabrand brushed spilled water off his tailored suit.

“Are you crazy?” Walt asked Hillabrand, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Why’d you drink it? I took readings on Lon Bernie’s sheep: they’re so hot they should glow in the dark. I have an expert on the aquifer confirming there’s an eddy that passes directly under the INL and then turns north into the Pahsimeroi. It… is… over.”

“If you’re right about any of this, would I risk this?” Hillabrand upended the plastic water bottle and chugged. Walt fought him and managed to get it out of his hand. Walt recognized Sean Lunn from Fiona’s description as Lunn rushed the table. Hillabrand waved the man off.

Walt threw the water bottle to the floor, where it spun, discharging its contents.

“That’s good enough for me,” the chairman said. “You’re done, Sheriff. In fact, this hearing is over. Our next public hearing will be in approximately three months’ time. Good day!”

Walt and Hillabrand, both breathing hard from their struggle over the bottle, were locked in a staring contest.

“Why?” an exasperated Walt said to Hillabrand. “You know what that did to Cutter’s employees. I know you know.”

Hillabrand steadied his breathing. “Buck’s office,” he whispered. “Ten minutes.”

Hillabrand stood, still brushing water off his suit. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

Lunn waited alongside like a well-trained dog.

“You think you can bribe me too?” Walt said, just as softly.

Hillabrand stopped brushing and glared at him.

“Hopefully,” Hillabrand said.

50

BUCK OOZER’S OFFICE SMELLED PLEASANTLY OF PIPE TOBACCO. A wide partners desk sat between two flags, with a credenza pushed up against the only wall with windows, sunlight spilling over the tall leather chair and flooding the desktop.

Oozer was nowhere to be seen. Only Hillabrand and Lunn occupied the office, as Walt entered.

“I’m going to ask Sean to check you for a wire,” Hillabrand said.

“The hell you are.”

“Or we cannot do this,” Hillabrand said.

“I’m not wearing a wire.”

“Then you won’t mind. Also, Sean will take your briefcase, cell phone, radio, and portfolio in the hall with him.”

Walt studied him, deciding it did him no good to fight. He didn’t happen to be wearing or carrying a wire. He took off his belt, which held everything from a gun to a pair of handcuffs and a flashlight, eased it to the floor, and raised his hands.

Lunn ran an airport wand around him, asked him to remove his watch, and then pronounced him clean.

Hillabrand gave a nod, and Lunn carried Walt’s briefcase and portfolio out of the room. Lunn pulled the door shut with a convincing click.

Hillabrand stood, with his back to the flickering gas fireplace. For several minutes, neither man spoke.

“Where to start?” Hillabrand began.

“I’d settle for something resembling the truth,” Walt answered. He carried his heavy belt over to a chair and placed it on the seat. The two men remained standing.

“It’s pretty cut and dried for you, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is,” Walt said, still seething over Hillabrand’s manipulation of the hearing. “You drank that water.” He still couldn’t believe it. “You knew it was contaminated and yet you drank it.”

“It occurred to me you might be bluffing.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I forced myself to vomit just now,” Hillabrand confessed. “Hope-fully, that helps.”

“And if it doesn’t? If you’re contaminated?”

The man shrugged. It struck Walt as oddly arrogant, as if what made two people sick could have no effect on him.

“You can’t hide this forever,” Walt said. “I’m not going to be the only one to figure this out.”

“Have it all figured out, do you?”

“Pretty close, I suspect.”

“Another government contractor raking in the millions in fees and covering up his mistakes as fast as he can backfill.”

“Something pretty close to that, yes.”

“Let me clarify some things,” Hillabrand said. “The death of the vet, Randy Aker, not us. His brother going missing, not us.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“You will.”

“I don’t think so. No.”

“You might want to sit down.”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you really see fifty head of sheep burning?” Hillabrand asked.

“Yes. You were sloppy.”

“Me? I don’t think so. It’s the damn ranchers over there. You want a glimpse of America a hundred years ago? Drive two hours east of Hailey. Jesus, what we have to put up with.”

“Must be a real hardship.”

“Read that,” Hillabrand said, pointing to Oozer’s desk, where a fax was positioned to face Walt. The hairs on his arms and neck rose, as he identified the federal government letterhead.

“It’s an NDA.”

“Yes. A federal nondisclosure agreement,” said Hillabrand. “Airtight. They’ll take your firstborn if you so much as think about what you’re about to hear. That’s right: it’s worth careful consideration.”

Walt read the opening paragraph. “I’m not signing this. I can’t use whatever you tell me.”

“Who said I’d tell you anything?” Hillabrand countered.

Walt looked between the man and the document on the desk. “It’s dated today.”

“It was faxed here about five minutes ago.”

“You work fast.”

“You’re kind of forcing my hand, Sheriff. I’d just as soon the hearing had stayed on the train shipments.”

Walt thought he understood. “There are no shipments from Russia,” he speculated.

Hillabrand didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“You created that-the new shipments-to keep that hearing where you wanted it: well off the recent events up there.”

“I signed one of those,” Hillabrand said, indicating the document. “I can’t go any further unless you join the club.”

“I’m not a big one for clubs,” Walt said. “The last thing I joined was Costco.”

“Just the same.”

“Why would I ever agree to sign this?” Walt asked. “I have ninety-nine percent of this in the bag. I don’t need this.”

“To know the truth. Your precious truth.” Hillabrand shifted in front of the fire. “And so I can tell you everything I know about your missing friend.”

Walt felt his face flush. “But signing this prevents me from acting upon it.”

“No, I don’t think that will be the case. I can almost promise you’ll be able to use that information. But one thing ties to the next, and… there you have it.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“But you will. Some will be prosecutable, some won’t.”

“Let me guess which part won’t,” Walt said.

“I understand how it’s in your nature to be suspicious. Rightly so. I’m not asking you to be someone you can’t be. And I’m not even asking you to trust me because I believe at this stage that’s beyond your instincts. Am I right?”

“You think I wouldn’t sign this even if it would mean saving Mark Aker?” Walt asked rhetorically. “You think I’m too…suspicious… proud… whatever?”

“Distrustful is the word, I think.”

“I’m certainly that.”

“It’s not that I can help you with Aker. Not really. But I believe it might help you to know what wasn’t done, who isn’t behind it, because sometimes that can lead one in the right direction. As an investigator, you must understand that better than most.”

“Yes, we call that misinformation,” Walt said sarcastically.

“But it’s not, you see? Once you sign that NDA, I won’t have to lie to you any longer.”

It was difficult for Walt to see Hillabrand as the victim of the government the way Hillabrand wanted him to. The portrayal seemed unlikely and insincere. He wanted to believe he could find the truth on his own-that he already had most of it-but the truth could take time, and Mark Aker had all but run out of it.

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and signed the document.

“Hand it to me, please,” Hillabrand said, taking no chances Walt might try to destroy it, burn it in the fireplace, once he had the truth.

Hillabrand carefully folded the document and slipped it into his suit coat’s inside pocket. He then stared at Walt and Walt stared back.

“It wasn’t a spill,” he said. “And it wasn’t my company’s money.”

“You paid off the ranchers to cover their losses, the same way Danny Cutter was made a similar offer.”

“My company made those arrangements, but the money comes from the taxpayers.”

“If not a spill, what, leakage? Seepage? Or what?”

“You’re still so determined to see me in a particular light you can’t quite wrap your mind around it, can you? What if I’m considered innocent until proven guilty? That would be a novelty.”

He was right: Walt had seen Semper, and Hillabrand in particular, as the perpetrators. He’d had little choice but to do so. The INL director’s rebuffs had been the icing on the cake. But now the existence of the NDA made itself felt: perhaps no one had agreed to meet with him because they’d been bound by the same contract.

“Sabotage,” Walt mumbled, stunned by the way the events suddenly looked so different when considered in this light.

“A domestic terrorist attack,” Hillabrand said, his voice low, his words carefully chosen. “Not a bunch of crazy Muslims. A bunch of crazy rednecks.”

Walt felt a sickening dread in his belly. “The Samakinn.” Walt recalled the alert that had been sent.

“You’ve heard of them?”

“Only recently.”

“They targeted a well-secured facility with the remnants of forty-two reactors spread over an area the size of Manhattan,” Hillabrand said. “They attacked an outlying building and caused a rupture. Thankfully, small, but it’s still radioactive material. We think it was accomplished by four people, maybe less. This comes at a time when this administration is in back-channel negotiations with Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran on their nuclear policies. We’re trying to dictate policy in order to control world safety. The last thing this administration needs is to be seen as a government that can’t secure its own fissionable material. When the breach was discovered, the administration informed us this would not go public. Any blowback would be covered by them. Thankfully, it happened in a mostly uninhabited area. The substrata contamination flowed north into the Pahsimeroi. It wasn’t until the livestock became ill that we even understood the degree of the sabotage. We’ve been working around the clock to repair the damage ever since. Thankfully, the few ranchers affected are patriots. They signed the same NDA that you did, took some money for their troubles, and kept their mouths shut. Two things we didn’t see coming.”

“Mark Aker and Trilogy water,” Walt said.

“We should have known about Trilogy. That was a horrible oversight on our part. We didn’t even know that bottling facility existed. Very stupid of us.”

“The ranchers had contacted the vets before you got to them.”

“Aker saw how sick the livestock was. He was in the midst of trying to help when we had to ask the ranchers to turn him away. They made excuses that they’d switched to a local vet. And that might have stuck if the local vet had been made to play along. But Aker must have run into him, or followed up with him, and the lie was exposed. And Aker came looking.”

“But then Randy Aker was your doing,” Walt said.

“My people say no. Perhaps to protect me, but they say it wasn’t us. Our best guess is that it has something to do with the Samakinn. They left a note, long since in the hands of the FBI, a rambling manifesto about the wrongs of the country. They want their message heard. You know the drill.”

“And by covering up any news of the leak… the sabotage,” he corrected, “you’ve pissed them off.”

“A dozen miscreants don’t dictate how this country is run. They called some newspapers to make their claim. We fielded some calls as a result. We denied any mishap, as did the administration. No harm, no foul. Another group of wackos making unsubstantiated claims. No damaging articles ever ran. The Samakinn blogged about the spill on the Internet, but without any kind of proof…”

“Which is where I come in,” Walt said. “Why should I believe any of this? An NDA isn’t proof of anything.”

“No, it’s not.” He paused. “I thought you might go there.” He walked over to the office door and opened it, murmuring to someone on the other side. A young woman entered, and glanced at Walt as she crossed behind the senator’s desk. She spoke on the phone for several minutes while working the senator’s computer. Walt and Hillabrand waited in silence.

When the aide spoke, Walt thought it was to him. But it was, in fact, to the computer.

“Are we ready?” she said.

“We’re good on this end,” a voice returned.

Hillabrand moved to the door and waited for the aide, who motioned for Walt to take the chair.

She said, “You don’t have to do anything. Just sit.”

Walt moved around the desk to see the face of a twentysomething man on the screen.

“Sheriff Fleming?”

“Yes,” Walt said, sliding into the comfortable chair.

“Stand by for Vice President Shaler.”

The man vacated the screen. Walt saw only a set of drapes and some framed photographs. The ski mountain in the nearest photo was all too familiar to him.

Walt glanced over at Hillabrand, who stood half out the door. “Hopefully, you’ll believe her. I’ll be waiting just outside.” He pulled the door shut.

“Walt?”

She had sneaked onto the screen while Walt had been distracted with Hillabrand.

“How great to see you!” she exclaimed.

“Madame Vice President…”

“Enough of that, Walt. It’s ‘Liz,’ and you know better.”

“You look well.”

“I am, thank you. And you? You look tired.”

“I know your time must be limited. I was just speaking to Roger Hillabrand. He said you might clarify some of this.”

“Everything I presume Roger has told you is accurate, Walt. We were attacked, and we’ve had to play hardball to protect current negotiations. Its important for you to know that both houses have been briefed through committee. There is no cover-up taking place. It may take twenty-five years and the Freedom of Information Act for any but a handful of people to know about this incident, but that’s how the game has to be played sometimes.”

“They tried to frame Danny Cutter on a drug charge,” Walt said. “Is that protocol?”

“I can’t speak to specifics. I have heard that, in certain instances, pressure points were determined and taken advantage of in order to ensure full cooperation. They have to make absolutely sure that everyone will sign the NDA and cooperate fully. They can’t risk anything short of that. If a witness hesitates, there has to be backup. Some of this behavior is despicable, and I apologize for that. I’ve expressed my displeasure at some of the tactics used.”

“My wife? My children?” Walt suddenly saw Gail’s intrusion differently.

“What about them?”

“Never mind.”

“Tell me. Please.”

“It’s unrelated.”

“It may not be, Walt,” she said. “Please, tell me.”

He briefly explained Gail’s claiming the girls for herself-this after leaving the marriage because she felt overwhelmed by motherhood. It hadn’t added up until just this moment.

“I’m wondering if she didn’t get an anonymous phone call implying some kind of failure on my part. I’m wondering if there wasn’t some behind-the-scenes look at my divorce papers.”

“Walt, I would never condone such a thing. I want you to know that. The president and I are briefed regularly about the situation out there but certainly haven’t heard all the details. Nothing about what you claim happened to Danny Cutter, and most definitely nothing to do with you. I can, and will, make some calls.”

“A thing like this,” Walt said, “the sabotage, it can’t be contained. Not once it’s in the water. You know that, right?”

“Do you mean the news of the event or the contamination itself?”

“Both.”

“As to the contamination, it was minimal. There’s a tremendous volume of water we’re dealing with. Levels are well off of where they were two and three weeks ago. Another two weeks, we’re told, and we’re in the clear.” She pursed her lips as her attention was drawn offscreen. “As to the spread of information, we believe it can be contained, has to be contained. We need your cooperation, your assistance, in seeing that happens.”

“I signed the NDA, Liz. I’m not going to risk a stay in Leavenworth. I won’t say anything.”

“It’s more than that. It’s Mark Aker. We need to extract him before he’s forced to publish something that could be damaging.”

“Publish?”

“Maybe Roger didn’t tell you everything. What the Samakinn seek most is notoriety. Credibility. They believe credibility comes through verification, confirmation the sabotage was effective.”

“Scientific proof,” Walt said. “Like a veterinarian’s report on the sheep.”

“The sabotage is under investigation. The Samakinn must have had inside help. Roger’s people have been working twenty-four/seven with the Bureau, attempting to turn up the mole. Our information is that the Bureau has surveillance in place. They are ready to strike. We both know what happens to Mark Aker if he’s anywhere near them when that strike occurs.”

“I need whatever intel’s available,” Walt said, sitting forward in the chair.

“I’m not privy to the details. It’s too far out of my area of operations.”

“But you said yourself, Mark has to be extracted.”

“There’s a genuine fear of Ruby Ridge here, Walt. It’s one of the things holding the Bureau back. If they make this into a standoff, the Samakinn win the press coverage they so desperately seek. It’s a no-win for us. And that’s got all of us looking at alternatives. But if Mark Aker’s out of the equation, there’s a lot more leeway. There’s still time for you to help us fix this.”

“I have nothing,” Walt said. “I can’t do anything without something to work with.”

“Work with Roger. Cooperate with him, Walt. He’s not the enemy. That’s the purpose of this call: to try to bring you two closer together. His people have their suspicions, suspects. Maybe between the two of you…”

Walt had focused on Hillabrand as a suspect for too long to now reverse himself and make him an ally. Just the suggestion of working with him turned Walt’s stomach: the man had pursued Fiona, possibly in order to monitor Walt; he’d denied knowledge of Randy Aker’s death, which seemed unlikely.

Worming inside him was the realization of how misplaced his suspicions had been, how biased he’d been against Hillabrand’s big money, how eagerly he’d labeled Semper the corporate villain, the ranchers as easily compromised accomplices. Senator Peavy had tried to steer him toward Washington, had repeatedly said how he was trying to help Walt, and Walt had reacted negatively, immediately distrusting the man. Perhaps the plan had been for Shaler to seek him out in person and explain the events. It all played out so differently now.

“Listen,” Liz Shaler said, “I’ve got to go. But I want you to think about everything I’ve said. Follow your instincts on this, Walt. I’ve always trusted your instincts.”

“Thank you.” But he was questioning his instincts, and her praise only drove home that point.

“We need to pool our resources, find this group, and extract Mark Aker. Nothing short of that is acceptable.”

“Agreed.”

Even over a webcam, there was a look to Liz Shaler’s eyes that would haunt him. A fierce determination that flirted too close to fear. A take-no-prisoners defiance that mixed with the terror that any mention of radioactivity brought. She seemed to be telling him, without words, that if Mark had to be sacrificed for the “greater good,” then that was what was going to happen.

51

ROY COATS LIVED WITH THE PAIN. THE DOC HAD STOLEN all the serious meds; aspirin hardly helped. He felt his best when sitting quietly by the woodstove, the brand name of which was reversed on his cheek in angry blisters. The wound in his leg left him a cripple; it was a caked, spongy mass of scab and infection. His armpit wound was less of a concern. It hurt far less. But if he tried to venture outside into the biting cold, his face lit up in pain. He waited-impatient, hurting badly, and foul of mood-ready to tear the head off the next thing that came through the door.

The required knock on the cabin door won his attention.

He grunted loudly, admitting whoever it was. The burn’s infection kept him from speaking much. He could move his lips enough to get a few words out, but that was it.

The doorknob turned, and Newbs poked his head through, then stepped inside cautiously.

“’Bout time,” Coats said.

Donny Newbury was twenty-three but looked thirty due to the width of his round face and the thick scrub of a beard that he wore. He ducked his head, coming through the door, and filled the cabin with his wide shoulders and barrel chest.

“I brought Shilo,” Newbury said. He eyed Coats warily and stayed close to the door. “A collar and the radio gear. Fresh batteries, like you said. If you’d told me in time, I coulda brought something for… your face and all.”

Coats grunted. He took everything that had happened to him as a test. “What about Lakely?”

“Not happening,” Newbury said, tensing, in case it provoked something unexpected from Coats. “He went to the Mel-O-Dee, like you said. To meet that scientist girl for you. To make the deal and get the drum of waste and all. But it was fucked-up, Roy. I kept watch, like you said. From my pickup. He was in there too long, you know? He was going to drop the stuff and get her keys, or whatever, and make the switch. But it was fucked-up. The thing is, he shoulda checked the makes in the parking lot. Doesn’t take a fucking genius to spot the SUVs. At the Mel-O-Dee? Are you kidding me? Pickups and maybe an old Caddie or two. But spanking brand-new SUVs?”

“Get to the point,” Coats said painfully.

“Feds. I could see the flashes in the window. Fucking serious firefight. Couldn’t have lasted that long unless Lakely had gotten himself hunkered down. He put up a good fight. When it was over, the ambulance arrived. Only one ambulance there in Arco, so two of the body bags went in the back of a pickup. Three in all. Lakely, one of ’em, because he never walked out or nothing. But shit, Roy, he gave ’em hell, I’ll tell you that. And there was plenty of wounded on top of the other three.”

For Coats, the room wouldn’t stop spinning. Blood thumped at his temples and rang in his ears, and he thought his head might explode.

“The drum,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

A fifty-five-gallon drum of contaminated waste. Enough for a dirty bomb. His dirty bomb. Enough to make the world take notice. He’d have had the front page of every newspaper in the world. The Samakinn would have been heard.

But now he’d lost the drum. He’d lost Lakely.

“The girl?”

Newbury shook his head.

He’d lost the girl.

“But just because I didn’t see her come out don’t mean nothing.”

The feds had the girl. How much did she know about him? How much had he revealed in his lame-ass attempts at conversation? Most important of all, had she seen his truck? Did she know about his truck? If she’d seen his plates, he was done. Gone. They’d be on him like flies on shit.

It was all down to the doc. Again. They had to find him.

“You and Gearbox split up. Gearbox’ll take Shilo. You take the old road. We need the doc.”

They both heard the approach of the snowmobile. A moment later came the knock on the door.

“Huh!” Coats grunted.

Gearbox entered, looking half frozen.

“Newbs’ll fill you in,” Coats said. “You find the doc and you bring him back here. He’s gonna write that letter. We can still pull this off.”

He glanced down at his swollen leg. Maybe the doc could help with the leg. He could hardly move the thing without the scab cracking open. He needed some stitches.

If the doc hadn’t stabbed him, it would have been him in the body bag instead of Lakely. Everything happens for a reason.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” he managed to say. “Find the doc and bring him back here.”

Then he caught sight of himself in the window’s reflection and understood why Newbs had been staring so intently: the blisters had torn open, spewing a yellow fluid down his cheek. It looked as if his face was melting off.

52

WALT WENT THROUGH THE JAIL’S PERIMETER DOOR SHOULDER first, following the shiny spot beneath the comb-over belonging to his deputy, Jimmy Magna, who everyone called “Magnum.” The forty-five-year-old county jail suffered from poor design. Its security doors were like hatches on a submarine. At twenty-eight inches wide, they were so narrow that the stretcher carrying Taylor Crabtree had to be angled to fit through. The young man was missing a couple of front teeth, and his dislocated right shoulder was in a sling. Otherwise, he’d been lucky. Inmates didn’t look kindly on those accused of molesting girls young enough to be their daughters.

“You okay?” Walt asked Crabtree as the stretcher was maneuvered through a second doorway. He’d have done anything to reverse the beating the boy had taken. He’d warned his jailers that Crabtree was at risk and was pissed at the obvious neglect that had occurred.

“I want out of here,” Crabtree said through a swollen cheek.

“We’ll figure something out. We’re going to get you to the hospital first. Maybe a dentist.” Walt was eager to question the boy further, to look for a possible link to Sean Lunn and a way to pressure Hillabrand, but the injuries came first. He had to hold himself back from in any way delaying Crabtree’s medical care.

“I’m not going back in there,” the boy said.

“It’s not how it works,” Walt said. “We’ll get you isolated somehow.”

“Please,” the boy said. It was more than a word; it was an apology, a confession, something he hadn’t spoken to anyone in years.

The plea revealed a contrite Taylor Crabtree. Walt had hoped remorse existed somewhere inside the boy. He understood the importance of the moment. If Walt delayed the medical care, and Crabtree later filed a grievance, Walt would face review. But he sensed an opportunity.

“When we get him out,” Walt instructed his deputies, “unstrap him. Let’s get him into the Sit room and put some ice on that lip. Have the ambulance stand by.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” Crabtree complained.

“Procedures,” Walt explained. “You’re in the system now. There are ways we have to do this.”

“Fuck the system.”

“That’s how you got in here,” Walt said, “but it’s not how you get out.”

THE SITUATION ROOM smelled of sweat, coffee, and doughnuts. Just as an athlete recognized the particular smell of locker rooms, any cop could identify the combination.

Crabtree sat nursing his mouth with a baggie of ice.

“This is not supposed to happen in my jail,” Walt said.

“What if I change my mind and decide to talk to you?”

“I could tell you it would make a difference, depending on what you had to say, but, honestly, Taylor, I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t know what, if anything, will help your situation right now. You’ve built a long sheet. A judge is going to review all that. You’ll be seen as one of those kids that can’t turn the corner and get your act together.”

“But I can. Ask Elbie.”

“I believe you. And I’ll be happy to speak on your behalf, but the system is fairly unforgiving. If we could get you back into the Alternative School and if you stayed there. No more stupid stuff. Maybe a judge would be more lenient.”

“Can you ask Mr. Levy if I can try again?”

“If he takes you back at the school, what’s to say you’ll toe the line?”

“Ask Elbie. I’m reliable. I’m never late. I don’t cheat on lunchtime or anything.”

“I’ll speak to Barge.”

Crabtree nodded, holding the ice gingerly. “I lied about Kira.” He threw it out there.

“Before you dig yourself in any deeper,” Walt said, “let me tell you a couple things I know. First, you didn’t pick up Kira Tulivich on the side of the road. Second, I know she was in your car and that you dropped her at the hospital, as you’ve said. Third, that bruising on your face-it’s still faintly there-wasn’t Kira’s doing and it wasn’t a snow-boarding accident. There are no indications she resisted.”

Crabtree’s eyes widened with surprise. Or maybe it was concern that he had little to offer Walt now.

“We have no evidence connecting Kira to your trailer. We found no drugs in your trailer. It seems unlikely you’re the one who doped her. So what happened to her and where it happened remain a mystery to me, but I now know why it happened, and I think there’s a possibility I know at least one of the parties involved. So whatever you do, Taylor, don’t lie to me, because I’ll likely know you’re lying and that’s not going to help anything.” He paused, giving the boy a few seconds. “And if you don’t say anything, that’s okay too. Better to not say anything than to try to slip something past me. You get that?”

The boy nodded.

“So should I call the ambulance guys in?”

He shook his head.

“You’re afraid.” Walt could see it on the boy’s face. “Of what, retaliation? By who?”

Only Crabtree’s eyes moved. A quick, surgical strike, locking onto Walt.

“Who?”

Crabtree didn’t answer.

“It’s natural for a young man in your situation to gravitate toward a group. A gang? Are you in with the Mexicans?”

He coughed up a laugh. “Oh, sure.”

Walt said the next thing that came into his head. “The Samakinn.”

Crabtree’s face froze.

“I want you to think very carefully, Crab,” Walt said, feeling a rapport developing. “Association with the Samakinn is not, in itself, a crime. Participating in certain activities may be, but if you get in front-”

“You don’t fucking get it, do you?”

“I’m afraid not. Help me out, Crab. I want to get it.”

“Shit.”

“The bruises. The ones you already had when I saw you at Elbie’s. Did Kira give you that face?”

“I did not do anything to Kira.”

“And you did not get those bruises snowboarding.”

“I rescued her.” His eyes, unflinching and bloodshot, glared at him. “You’ve got it backwards, Sheriff. I’m the one that saved her.”

“Okay? From?”

“Them. Coats and the other guy.” He broke the eye contact. “He lives up there, you know? Triumph. Coats does. He and his dogs. Fucking dogs never stop barking. But is anybody going to complain about it? No way…”

“Roy Coats,” Walt said. Coats was one of the last true mountain men left in the area. A tracker. Some said illegal tracker. He’d been accused more than once of using collared dogs to track down mountain lions for anonymous clients. Walt rolled around the rumors surrounding Randy Aker and poaching. Coats? Fish and Game had tried to bring charges against Coats several years back. He hadn’t heard the name since then.

“I saw him take Kira out of a dog crate. Back of his pickup. This was really late at night. Snowing bad, and he’s got her in a dog crate.”

Walt looked around. He longed for a tape recorder and yet didn’t want to put Crabtree off his statement. Pulling a notepad from his shirt pocket, he said, “I’m going to write some of this down.”

Crabtree nodded. “He dragged her inside.”

“How close is his place to yours?”

Walt’s nephew, Kevin, had taught him well about when a teen shifted into avoidance mode. Crabtree’s eyes went to a cigarette burn on the edge of the table. His shoulders folded forward. Walt’s impatience and his lack of sleep almost got the better of him. He nearly marched around the conference table and took Crabtree by the shirt and shook some sense into him. But he’d learned self-control a long time ago, had learned to make these interrogations-confrontations-less personal. Crabtree wanted to improve both his current situation and his future. Walt could play the catalyst, if he could get his own frustration out of the way.

“Can you see his house from your mobile home?” Walt asked, his voice calm and collected.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“ Taylor…help yourself out here. You can do this. It’s the right thing to do. Forget about you for a minute. Think about Kira. You’re helping Kira. You want to help Kira, right?”

The look on his face showed anger and frustration. Walt knew all about both. “What?” Walt said.

“I can’t tell you.”

“You have to tell me.”

“But I can’t.”

“Okay, how about this? We start the clock right now. Anything you tell me for the next five minutes is off the record. It never happened. I never heard it.”

“That’s a cop game. You ever seen Law and Order? I know all about cop games.”

“Four minutes,” Walt said, looking at his watch. “No tricks. I give you my word.”

Crabtree looked Walt up and down. Something about Walt’s promise resonated.

“Coats isn’t there much. He hunts with the dogs, I think. Maybe has some other place. Not there much at all. But the dogs… a lot of them stick around. And there’s this girl… watches the place for him. Takes care of the dogs. Smoking-hot, this girl.” He dared a glance at Walt, who tried to convey no opinion in his expression. Crabtree was apparently going to leave it there.

“A good-looking girl,” Walt said.

“Asked me to take care of the dogs for her one time her mother got real sick and she couldn’t stick around. I said sure. And she gave me a key.”

Again he paused. Again, it seemed as if he wasn’t going to continue.

“A key to Coats’s place.”

“Correct,” Crabtree said.

“And you helped her out by feeding the dogs. Does this connect with Kira, Taylor? I’m a little short on time.”

“I put a pair of webcams in there.” His head was hung in shame.

Walt’s heart raced in his chest. He looked around for a glass of water. There wasn’t one.

“Inside the house.”

“His cabin, yeah.”

Walt’s jaw dropped. He sucked up his surprise, cleared his throat, and tried to sound as normal as possible. But, inside, he was both churning over the invasion of privacy and jumping at the thought that Taylor Crabtree might have witnessed the assault. Depending on if he ever found Mark Aker, depending on his condition, proving the abduction could be difficult. But a witness to a sexual assault, a rape, tried and convicted in Blaine County, could put Coats away for most of his adult life. It would be a poor trade-off but one that Walt would be happy to have in his back pocket.

“ Taylor, I understand that your concern here is prosecution over the existence of the webcams. It’s a legitimate concern, given your being expelled from the Alternative School for the same offense. If we charged you, a judge wouldn’t like that at all. But I can guarantee you-guarantee, Taylor -that that will not be the case here. If you witnessed what I think you witnessed, those charges will never be filed. Not only that but others will be lessened or eliminated. But most of all, I need you to be honest. Do you get that? Absolutely honest. The slightest embellishment will hurt everything.”

The boy nodded. “I have hours of DVDs,” he said.

“Of?”

“The girl. In the shower. Dressing. Undressing. In bed. She had a boyfriend who… you know. He came over a lot when she was there. And they… you know.”

“You recorded it,” Walt said, his voice shaking slightly. He couldn’t hold himself back. “The assault, Taylor? Crab? Did you record the assault?”

“I didn’t burn it, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m not exactly what you’d call a techie.”

“It’s on my hard drive. I’ve got like fifteen hours on my hard drive.”

Fifteen hours. “Including the assault.” Walt made it a statement.

Crabtree nodded, clearly ashamed. “How do you think I got in there to get her? You think I was going to take on those guys?” Walt noted the plural. “But they took a break. Jesus… the things they did to her. Poor Kira. But I got her out of there and into my car. And I was in such a fucking hurry, I planted my face into the car door as I opened it. I was carrying her. Bashed my face into the door.” He reached up and touched it. “It fucked me up bad. Was me who needed the emergency room. Drove like mad. Got her to the hospital. They never figured it out. That it was me helped her. Yesterday, when you came by, I wasn’t afraid of your cop car-”

“The pickup trucks.” Walt remembered them.

The kid nodded again. “I keep expecting a knock on the door and someone crushing my head in. Coats is fucking out of his mind. He’ll kill me, he figures out it was me. All I want is those cameras out of there. They’re still in there. Get it? He’s gonna find them at some point and then I’m, like, totally fucked.”

“I can probably help you there,” Walt said, his head spinning from the information. “The night of the assault, Coats had company?”

“Yeah.”

“A black Escalade? The guy’s in his late thirties. Pretty buffed out. Dresses well.”

The boy looked stunned. “How could you know that?”

“It’s my job, Taylor,” Walt said, and then mumbled to himself: “It’s my job.”

53

“WHY AM I BEING MADE TO WATCH THIS?” FIONA ASKED, standing alongside Walt in the sheriff’s office command center. The door was shut and locked, the television’s sound turned down low, so that Kira Tulivich’s agony remained contained within those walls.

“I’m sorry,” Walt said, “but you’re my photography expert.”

“They should be hung. No, castrated with a kitchen knife, then pulled, limb from limb, drawn and quartered. And even that would be too good for them.”

On the screen, Coats and an unidentified male took turns violating Kira Tulivich. The horror played out in the grainy black-and-white of Taylor Crabtree’s webcam, his computer having been confiscated from the RV he used as shelter.

“You may be able to spot a frame we could enlarge or something, to give us a better look at the second man.”

“It’s not that at all, is it?” she said accusingly. “What is it with you, Walt? Always having hidden agendas. Never admitting them. Why don’t you just come out and say you think it’s Sean Lunn?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Oh… give me a break.”

“Is it?”

“That’s what I think, yes. Does anything I see here confirm it, make me absolutely certain? No. But you won’t even speak his name.”

“I can’t,” Walt said, winning a surprised look from her.

“You need me as a witness?” she speculated.

“I need to identify the second man. Yes. That could prove extremely helpful.”

“So you don’t mention his name because, if you did, it could be construed later that you led the witness.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m sorry.” She ran her fingers through her hair and tilted her head back. She had an elegant neck, long and regal. “I confuse the professional with the personal, don’t I?”

“It’s easy to do.”

“So why don’t you?” she asked.

Tulivich was held in place by Coats. She let out a horrible scream. Fiona looked away. “Well, if anything will put you off sex, this will.”

“I want them both to pay for this, Fiona. Not just Coats. Coats…I’m going to take care of Coats.”

“Do you have him?”

“No.”

“Know where he is?”

“No. We do know the Bureau had a confrontation with a man believed to be a member of the Samakinn-an extremist group, part Ted Kaczynski, part Aryan Nation. A second suspect, a woman, is in custody. She’s a meth addict and is proving difficult to deal with. We have a description of a man that’s close enough to Coats to do the trick. It’s all very fluid.”

She dared to look at the screen again. “Jesus… I can’t take any more of this. That poor girl.”

Walt had not taken his eyes off the screen. “Yeah. How ’bout there?” he asked. He used the keyboard’s space bar to stop the video. Used the mouse to back up the footage. “Is that a mirror on the wall? Is that his face in the mirror?”

“It’s too grainy,” she said. “You’ll never get anything. This is incredibly low resolution, Walt. Really poor. Even with enhancement, you’re going to need a shot that’s very strong.”

They watched another thirty seconds, Fiona needing to look away repeatedly.

“Wait!” she said.

Walt paused the video.

Fiona leaned forward and pointed not at the man’s face, but the pants crumpled at his knees. “Look. The back belt loop. It’s ripped. Attached at the top but not the bottom.”

Walt craned forward. “How did you ever see that?”

“I was trying not to look at what was going on.”

He played a short segment repeatedly. Sure enough, the belt loop flapped loose. It was seen only briefly, but there it was on video.

Walt said, “It’s not enough to win a warrant. I can’t say because of that it’s Sean Lunn. I need to see Sean Lunn in those pants. That would give me probable cause for a wider search. It’s not much, even at that.”

“But you’re going to search the cabin, aren’t you?”

“Awaiting a warrant. The judge is golfing down in Twin Falls. It’s still warm enough down there to keep the courses open. One of my guys-we’re working on a phoner warrant.”

“Am I coming along?”

“That’s the third reason you’re here and why I asked you to bring your gear.”

“I’m still mad at you, you know?” She said this proudly.

“I know.”

“Roger hasn’t called.”

“I may have been wrong about him,” Walt said. It came out as a confession, which was not the way he meant it.

“Your timing could be better.”

“I’m a work in progress, Fiona. I don’t have any of it figured out. But losing Mark like this… I know it all has to do more with friendship than we think. More than I understand, at least. It’s what’s important at the end of the day. Right? I need to find him. Dead or alive, I need to know. I don’t understand exactly. I screw up a lot of stuff, but I intend to keep working on my friendships. Starting with you. At some point. I don’t want you mad at me.”

She glared. A hostile, unforgiving look that showed Walt just how far he had to go.

“Okay,” he said. “I get it.”

“You know why I really hate you?” she whispered.

“I didn’t even know you did.”

“It’s because I can’t stay mad at you.” She pushed her chair back. “You’d better turn that off because I’m leaving the room.” Standing by the door, she dug around in her purse and came up with a business card. “Sean Lunn,” she said, waving it. “The night he was trying to talk me onto the corporate jet. Said to call if I needed anything. So I’ll call him. The thing about men? They pretty much wear the same thing all the time. What do you want to bet he shows up in those same pants?”

“You’d do that?” Walt asked.

“I thought you said it’s all about friendship?” she questioned.

“I thought you hated me.”

“You’re not a very good detective, Sheriff. I’m sorry to have to tell you.”

54

THE WARRANT WAS CALLED IN FROM THE TENTH GREEN by Judge Dan Alban. Within twenty-five minutes, Walt had six of his eight available deputies in strategic positions surrounding Coats’s house, including a sharpshooter positioned up a hill among the ruins of the defunct mine. This kind of deployment wreaked havoc on his department, as it left only two on-duty deputies to patrol a county roughly the area of Rhode Island.

The house was situated so that its detached one-car garage blocked it from view of the other houses and abandoned RVs scattered around the sterile wasteland of pale gray mine tailings. It stood off on its own, out of sight, surrounded by an abnormally high post-and-rail fence topped with a single strand of taut razor wire. The front gate carried two inauspicious signs: BEWARE OF DOG and NO SOLICITING.

Walt and his deputy, Bill Noland, led the way as they pushed through the gate and approached the house at a run. Noland, who was in his late twenties, carried a four-foot stun stick for use on the dogs, if necessary. Walt carried a “flash and bang,” a white-phosphorus stun grenade. Both men also had their Berettas out and at the ready. Behind them came two more men, one carrying the ram, a three-foot, seventy-pound steel maul capable of disintegrating most doors.

Walt tried the doorknob: locked.

The ram took out the hardware and the door swung open. Walt tossed the grenade inside and his team turned their backs. The flash and bang would momentarily blind, deafen, and typically physically stun anyone within the confined space where it detonated.

His team charged through the door, led by Noland. Walt brought up the rear. The space was small-a living area, a bathroom, and a single bedroom. It all looked familiar to Walt from the webcam video.

“Clear!” his men announced as they inspected the closets and rooms. They moved on to stun-bomb a crawl space, the hatch for which was found cut into the floor in the bedroom closet. It too proved to be empty.

By the time his men reconvened in the central living area, Walt had the two webcams in a pouch on the inside of his windbreaker.

“We’ll get that door closed as best as possible. Bring in Fiona and forensics. We’ll watch the road-both directions-and keep the house under round-the-clock surveillance. Questions?”

“Sheriff?” It was Noland, calling from the galley kitchen.

Walt faced the refrigerator, where a number of postcards, bill reminders, and hand-scrawled notes had been attached with various pieces of a magnetic poetry set.

| energy | and | persistence | conquer | all | things |

“It’s Benjamin Franklin,” Walt said, consumed by the subtext: Roy Coats was a determined man.

“Not that,” Noland said. He pointed to a photocopied collage of snapshots. Handwritten at the bottom, it read: “Thanks for the guiding. Happy hunting!-Ralph.” The center picture showed three men with rifles in their hands, standing in front of a rustic cabin. The cabin was small, with an outbuilding on the right in the photo. Walt picked Coats out immediately, recognizing him both from the driver’s license photo he’d pulled and by the fact he was the biggest among the three: a burly man with a full beard who looked as if he hadn’t showered for weeks. The rifle he held was smaller than those held by the others, a modified.22-a dart rifle, Walt guessed. The small-gauge rifle Walt had heard on two separate occasions, losing a friend both times. The center photograph was surrounded by five other snapshots, three of which featured the cabin or what appeared to be its outbuildings. In each of the three, the landscape rose in the background; and, in two of these, the background was jagged mountains.

“Plain-sight search,” Walt told his deputy. “I want any other photographs of this cabin we can find.” He tapped the collage. “I want property tax records for every county in the state, starting with ours and working out through connecting counties, cross-checked for anything owned by Coats. Get on the horn and get that started. It’s damn good work, Noland.”

“Yes, sir.” Noland hurried off, a slight spring to his step.

Walt studied each of the photos carefully. When combined, they presented about three-quarters of a panorama. But it was the two that showed the distant mountains that most captivated him. His index finger traced the line of the peaks against the cobalt blue sky. There were ranges he knew the look of by heart, though admittedly only from one or two angles, typically from a road or similar perspective. Put him on the opposite side of the same range and he wouldn’t recognize it. It didn’t come as a surprise that he couldn’t identify this particular range, though it was certainly a frustration.

Again, Walt traced the silhouetted line in each of the photos where the mountains met the sky.

“Maps!” Walt called out, a little too loudly for the small space. He stood and addressed his small team. “I want any maps, any photos. We’re abandoning plain-sight search. I want everyone wearing gloves. We toss the place, but neatly, gentlemen. Carefully. And put back everything the way you find it.”

He caught himself holding his breath as he watched his men take to the search, a little too eagerly as always.

Coats stood in the center of the middle photograph.

55

WALT DIDN’T LIKE TO THINK THAT CHANCE PLAYED A ROLE in his work. He’d spent too much time in continuing education seminars, field exercises, and classrooms to put much credence in the flip of a coin or happenstance. But, more than that, it was the issue of control. He’d been trained to control the investigation, not to allow the investigation to control him. So as he entered the women’s side of his decrepit jail-two cells on the northeast corner of the small cellblock-and found Taylor Crabtree engaged in a video game, he fought to accept that a possible solution to this investigation could just materialize out of thin air.

A local film star had donated his son’s outdated PlayStation and a dozen games for the entertainment of the inmates. Crabtree was engaged in combat with guns blazing, a pair of headphones over his ears. Walt could hear the dull zing and pop of explosions through the headphones. He caught a glimpse of the screen, a small computer monitor. It showed a landscape like Afghanistan, rugged high desert; it showed a distant mountain range, angular against a bomb-flashing sky.

The thing was: that landscape looked impossibly familiar. Not all that different than many parts of Idaho.

Walt grabbed the cell bars with either hand.

He knew how to find Coats’s cabin.

THE COMMAND CENTER ’S scarred oval conference table held four computers, including the one confiscated from Crabtree’s RV. Walt studied the intent faces of the four boys at the keyboards: Crabtree; Walt’s nephew, Kevin; a boy of sixteen named Wilder; and one other, Jason. Jason and Wilder had been recruited from the Alternative School by Crabtree; he knew them to be serious gamers.

As he passed Kevin, Walt ruffled his hair and patted him on the back. The idea had come to Walt as he’d witnessed Crabtree at the PlayStation, the Afghan mountain ridges slipping past. The boys were all currently using the satellite imaging software, Google Earth, in an attempt to reconcile the distinct ridges seen in the refrigerator-collage photographs with the true Idahoan landscape. The boys, experts with either a joystick or mouse, could place themselves into Google’s virtual landscape, tipping the horizon, zooming in or out, and even spinning a full three hundred and sixty degrees around a single point, while attempting to match the skyline in the photos to the satellite imagery.

With thousands of mountain peaks to compare, this task might have proved interminable, but Crabtree had further contributed with a simple observation: four of the peaks were snow-topped. Three of the four photos were time- and date-stamped, as was the postcard itself. A phone call to the Forest Service, followed by a second call to the National Interagency Fire Center, in Boise, which tracked snow cover, put the elevation of the snow line at nine thousand feet on the day the snapshots had been taken nearly a year earlier.

Walt’s staff had narrowed the candidates by marking all mountain peaks over nine thousand feet on a topographic map; they narrowed it further by color-coding any ranges that contained three such adjacent peaks within a twenty-mile radius.

Now, with twenty-one circles drawn on the map in overlapping rings, the boys were working the computers, using Google Earth, trying to match horizon for horizon-the photographs to the computer screens.

It would have taken Walt’s deputies hours to understand and control the Google software; the boys were at it in minutes. He walked around the table, watching over the boys’ shoulders. To the untrained eye, the images moved quickly. It felt as if he were flying down to ground level and spinning around, eyes wide open. More than once Walt wanted to tell the kids to slow down, but their eyes worked differently than his, their motor control tied to the mouse or joystick: where he saw a blur, they saw distinct images.

Forty minutes into the experiment, Crabtree used a look to call Walt to his side. The boy raised his finger to the screen, pointing out several peaks. Then he pointed to the same peaks on the enlargements of the photographs from the collage.

“Uh-huh,” Walt said, noting the similarities. Excitement rose in his chest, but he said nothing more. There had been five false alarms prior to this.

“These shacks,” Crabtree said, indicating objects in two of the photographs, “are here… and here.” He pointed to the screen, helping Walt to spot the small geometrical shapes created by roofs, mostly hidden beneath the abundance of conifers. Two triangles. A piece of a rectangle. They looked like little more than shadows. Walt would never have seen them.

“And these shots,” Crabtree continued, “look to me like they were taken back here. There’s a field about a quarter mile behind the cabin. This creek is on one side.”

Walt’s nephew, Kevin, was out of his chair, also looking over Crabtree’s shoulder. He picked up a coordinate and then quickly found the same location on his screen. Walt stood between the boys, watching the two screens fill with images. Kevin’s locked onto a view that perfectly matched one of the snapshots, while Crabtree obtained a perspective where the computer-realized mountain peaks on the computer matched point for point with those in the photograph.

“Write down the coordinates,” Walt said.

He leaned into Crabtree and whispered, “Don’t look now but you just bought yourself a free pass.”

56

BY TWO P.M., WALT HAD NOTIFIED THE FBI THAT HE WAS leading an exploratory team into a remote area of the Challis National Forest. He did this out of necessity: he needed the Bureau’s assistance in arranging air support and he hoped to gain political backing for his decision to hold back the information about the raid from the Challis sheriff, as he feared there was a mole in that office.

The timing of this announcement was critical. He made it far enough in advance of the operation to allow the Bureau to feel included but not enough time for the Bureau’s direct participation. Having recruited a team of eighteen by cherry-picking the various police and sheriff departments in the valley, he had assembled a formidable group. But the final decision of who was to accompany him on the lead attack had yet to be made.

The eighteen did not fit well around the command center’s table. Half of the men were standing. Walt directed the group’s attention to a PowerPoint presentation put together by Nancy.

“Our challenge,” he said, now halfway into his briefing, “is accessibility and, therefore, timing. There are no roads within six miles of the cabin. In the summer, there must be trails, but that doesn’t help us. You either know your way in or you don’t. Given the probability of a hostage and the physical layout of the terrain-note the surrounding hills-there’s no easy way to advance assets on the ground without risking being seen or heard and therefore putting the hostage at risk. For this reason, we will divide into three groups-Alpha, Bravo, Delta-and take a different approach.

“Snowmobiles can be heard nearly two miles off in the backcountry, as many of you know. Helicopters, well beyond that. For this reason, and because we anticipate sentries, teams will abandon the snowmobiles in these three locations,” he said, pointing to the screen, “and snowshoe in from there along these routes. The leaders will have GPS coordinates to follow. These routes are through difficult terrain but take the teams away from the most likely routes used to access the compound. We expect those routes may be under guard or even trip-wired.

“I, and one other, will be flying in, in a glider, just ahead of you, in an effort to secure the hostage in advance of a possible firefight.”

“So the feds gave it back?”

Walt didn’t catch who’d said that. A half-dozen heads hung, to mask snickers.

“My glider happens to have been confiscated, yes,” he allowed. “But Luke Walen’s stepped up and offered his. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll continue the briefing?”

The heads came up and a sense of mirth filled the room. He didn’t mind it coming at his expense. He thought they might pay more attention now.

“We will land here, in this open field, and proceed on foot, north-northwest, toward the cabin. If possible, using infrared, I will have identified the number and position of warm bodies down there, providing intel that should aid your advance. Radio traffic will be limited. Just remember: at least two, hopefully three, of us are friendlies. We’ll bring a vest for the hostage, but do me a favor and verify your targets.”

A nervous chuckle passed around the room.

“The individual team leaders will brief you on your group’s route and your role in the operation. Some of you are perimeter control, some a strike force, and some are holding back for extrication. There’s a shock and awe component to this that I want you to all be aware of: once our attack has begun, at least one helicopter, possibly two, will secure the airspace above the compound. They’re there to help get us out, but my hope here is also to confuse and intimidate the enemy. Our teams need to be braced for that. We don’t want anyone made jumpy or trigger-happy by the noise and chaos that follows. Questions?”

Walt fielded a dozen routine questions. It was to be a night raid. Some of the team would be wearing night vision equipment; others would not, and the mixture made clarification important. He appreciated the nervousness and tension that filled the room; better that than overconfidence. He still had to pick his partner for the attack. Together, they would attempt to reach the cabin and rescue Mark Aker, or at least position themselves to do so, ahead of the main assault. It gave Mark the best chance of survival and hopefully would preempt his being used as a bargaining chip.

Walt scanned the group for the right person. Then, through the glass, he saw Tommy Brandon enter the building and approach reception. Brandon, who had likely aided Gail in the abduction of his daughters. He was wearing street clothes, not his uniform. He’d removed the sling.

Walt excused himself from the team, turning it over to his deputy, and met Brandon in the foyer. For a long moment, the two just stared at each other.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Brandon said.

“I want them back,” Walt said.

“I think she knows that.” Brandon hesitated. “Look, I want to help on this.”

Walt took a deep breath. “What about the arm?”

Brandon showed he had range of motion, though it clearly hurt him to move it. “I’m fine,” he said. “Good enough, at least. I want to be part of this.”

“She had no right,” Walt said. “Did you drive her?”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“We talked about it, if that’s what you mean. I told her to talk to a lawyer. She didn’t want to hear that. She was all freaked-out about you having a girl in there. You know how she is.”

He looked the man over: Tommy Brandon, the deputy he wanted in the glider with him; Tommy Brandon, his wife’s lover, a man he wanted nothing to do with.

“How are you in small planes?”

“I hate ’em.”

“Good. Get dressed.”

57

FIONA KENSHAW HAD BEEN GREETED WITH SUSPICION, AS she arrived at the Tulivich’s front door. Someone-from the hospital, perhaps-had leaked to the local press that the sheriff had interviewed their daughter, Kira, in connection with the Mark Aker disappearance, and so the family had put up with several unwanted visitors over the past week.

Fiona’s county employee ID, which she carried in order to enter and photograph crime scenes, put off those suspicions and granted her access. A few minutes later, she was on a leather couch, in front of a log fire, awaiting Kira. The girl looked sheepish and shy but not at all bruised or damaged.

The date-rape cocktail had blocked her memory of the assault, she explained, though she still ached all over, leaving her feeling like she was inhabiting some other girl’s body. There were some follow-up doctor visits yet to come, and counseling had been recommended, though she couldn’t figure out why she would get counseling for something about which she had absolutely no memory.

But for all her claim to remember nothing, Kira had a sullen look, her eyes distant.

“I won’t stay long,” Fiona said. “And I should be clear that I’m not here in any official capacity. I wanted to see how you’re doing and to wish you well. And the sheriff wanted me to pass along that, as it turns out, you’ve played an important role in a very high-level investigation.”

“Seriously?” She feigned interest.

“Small change, I know, but I thought you might want to hear that something good came out of what happened.”

“Something good for other people, you mean?” Delivered with an ice-cold assertion.

“I know it’s not much.”

“What am I supposed to say: happy to do my part?”

Her mother entered the room, trying to appear hospitable-a failed effort.

“I’ve got it, Mom,” Kira snapped. “We’d rather talk alone.”

The mother pursed her lips, and retreated. The exchange sent shivers through Fiona.

A victim was like a pebble in a pond, Fiona realized; the ripples traveled out a great distance.

Kira whispered to Fiona, “I can’t brush my teeth without one of them hovering over me. It’s like I’m on suicide watch or something.”

You probably are, Fiona thought.

“You actually came here to try to make me feel good about what happened?” Kira said incredulously.

“Of course not! Nothing like that. I came to give you these,” she said, handing Kira five photographs from the wedding.

The girl flipped through them. A smile flickered across her face, quickly wiped away by a realization. “Ancient history,” she mumbled. She blinked repeatedly. “It’s weird. I remember this like it was a year ago.”

“That’s someplace to start.”

Biting her lip, Kira studied the photos more slowly. “This one of the bouquet…”

“I didn’t take that one. I threw it in no charge.”

“That’s you.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t remember you there.”

“I was working. Not exactly dressed for the occasion, as you can see.”

“You caught it.”

“Technically, no. But that’s how the umpire ruled.”

Another smile. Small victories.

“Can I keep these?”

“Of course. They’re for you.”

“Thank you.” She made a point of meeting Fiona’s eyes.

“There’s one other thing. I’m not sure I’m allowed to tell you this, but that’s never stopped me before.” She winced. “And it’s really none of my business. I should say that right off the top. But your family is obviously of some means, and, well, it’s one of those things I feel compelled to do. You know? Have you ever felt that way? Despite your better judgment?”

Kira nodded.

“Good.” Fiona collected her thoughts. “There’s a boy named Taylor Crabtree.”

“That loser?”

“You know him.”

“I see him around. I don’t know him.”

“Well, that’s the point, I guess. He’s the one who rescued you.” She watched this sink in. “From the cabin. He’s who drove you to the hospital.”

“That dork?”

“The same.”

“But why? How?”

“He saw you… abducted. He was able to get you out. No one knows this, by the way. He might be hurt, or even killed, if word got out, so I’m trusting you on this.”

Kira nodded. “I understand. I promise.” She looked around the room in an effort to avoid Fiona. “I just don’t get it. Taylor Crabtree?”

“He’s had a rough time of it. Lousy family scene. Tough conditions. Has found his way into a lot of trouble.”

“I know all about it. A friend of mine was at the Alternative School with him.”

“He works at Elbie’s down in Hailey.”

“You’re thinking some kind of reward, aren’t you?”

“Maybe not quite that obvious. A letter from your father would do a lot. A job that’s better than changing tires. Something to give him a leg up. Then again, maybe it’s not appropriate. I felt obliged to let you know about his role in it. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I am not writing a thank-you note.”

“You do, or don’t do, whatever you feel is appropriate.”

“He actually got me out of wherever they had me?”

“He did.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t him that-”

“We are,” Fiona answered.

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Taylor Crabtree?”

“The word hero is tossed around a lot. The real heroes are often the most unlikely.”

“He saved my life.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Oh my God.”

“Anyway… I should be going. It’s good to see you up and around.”

“You did this just because you felt sorry for him?”

“I did it because I had to. Because guys like Taylor Crabtree are often seriously misunderstood, and I know my attitude toward him changed a lot when I heard what he did. I had formed a pretty strong impression of him because of a previous situation-”

“The webcam stuff?”

“No, before that, actually. And this being a small town and all… A person like you could help turn opinion around-among his friends, I mean. Not now, of course, but maybe when it’s all over.”

“When will it be over?”

Fiona said nothing.

“For me,” Kira said, “it feels like it’ll never be over.”

“It’s early yet. But, honestly, that’s the kind of thing a counselor can help a lot with.”

“You’d know all about it, would you?” Kira said sharply.

Fiona waited until the girl dared to meet her eyes. It took a long minute.

Then she said, equally firmly, “I was in a very destructive relationship before I moved here. I went through some of what you went through but without the drugs. I came here today, in part, because no one ever came to me. No one ever knew what was going on. What was happening. I needed someone to talk to, but I was too scared. I thought it would change people’s opinion of me, lose me my friends. Ruin everything. And then one day I realized I was ruined beyond anything mere opinion could change. And I took action. I promised myself that if I ever even thought someone was going through what I went through, I would intervene. I would do something. I don’t know exactly why I came here. You don’t need me. But maybe I need you. I needed to tell you it gets better, a little better, day by day.” Kira was crying now, her head hanging, her hair falling forward. “You feel it was somehow your fault. A way you acted. Something you wore. That you asked for it. But that’s bullshit. And I’m here to tell you that you have to push those voices from your head.”

Kira was sobbing now. “I feel so… dirty.”

“Talk to someone, Kira. It’s so much better if you talk to someone.”

The head bobbed.

Fiona breathed differently; Kira was the first person with whom she’d shared any of this. It came as a huge relief and terrified her at the same time. Some secrets were more dangerous than others.

“You waited to tell me,” Kira said. “Why? Why didn’t you just tell me this first?”

“I’m still scared. Of him. Of the truth. Of men. Don’t think you can do this by yourself. Memory or no memory, you can get better faster if you let someone in.”

Fiona stood.

“Will you come back?”

“If you want me to.”

Kira looked up, her eyes wet. “I think I’d like that.”

Fiona forced a smile. “Me too. Be seeing you, then.”

58

BRIEFLY, WALT WAS WITHOUT CONCERN. SITTING IN THE pilot’s seat of the glider had this effect on him, gave him a sense of quiet and peace. But then a flurry of radio traffic brought him back: first Brandon complaining about the updrafts, then the pilot of the towplane double-checking the release point as both pilots attempted to measure winds aloft by checking their heading against their actual track over land. Walt asked to be hauled farther north. He was cautioned against this delay by the tow pilot: daylight was bleeding out of the sky, forming a gray haze below, and making what promised to be a challenging landing all the more difficult.

Walt wanted the straightest approach possible. He consulted a handheld aviation GPS, premarked with the lat-long identified by Crabtree. He had one shot at the snowfield a half mile behind the compound. It would be an ugly landing at best. If he missed the field entirely, there would be no second chances. It was all trees and mountains past that one field-a jewel of flat in a narrow valley situated between the tall spines of two ranges. He hadn’t told Brandon any of this, only that they were using the glider to approach silently. Eighteen deputized men were by now waiting on the far side of two different passes, some of whom had begun to advance on foot; the rest would follow by snowmobile on Walt’s command.

The logistics of the strike were as complex as they were dangerous. A week of preparation would have been preferable to a matter of hours.

“I think I’m going to barf,” Brandon said from the seat behind.

“There’s a bag in the seat pocket. Just remember to remove the oxygen mask.” Walt smiled. Some things were worth the wait.

His radio crackled and a male voice called out his tail numbers. Walt confirmed. The man introduced himself as “a friend from the east,” reminding Walt that they were on an open radio frequency that could be monitored by pilots and ground stations alike.

FBI, Walt thought.

“We have confirmed heat signatures,” the voice said.

Walt processed the information: the FBI had tasked a satellite capable of infrared and had obtained a heat signature from the compound. It was active, not shuttered for the winter. People were down there.

“Three bogies,” the voice said.

Good odds, Walt thought.

“Roger that,” Walt said. “Thanks.”

“Was that what I think it was?” a distraught Brandon inquired.

“We’re going in,” Walt said. He eased the joystick forward and the nose of the glider tilted almost imperceptibly. He had one chance at a landing.

In the dark.

In the mountains.

“When I say, ‘Brace for impact,’” Walt schooled, “lean forward and clutch your chest to your thighs. Don’t attempt to look out or sit up until we’ve come to a complete stop. It’s going to be a hard landing.”

“Why does that not sound promising?” Brandon interrupted himself with another spout of vomiting.

“We’re going in,” Walt said.

59

THE ANNOYING AND ALL-TOO- FAMILIAR SOUND OF A SNOWMOBILE roused Mark Aker from a deep and unintended sleep. Even as he drew himself from his slumber, he could tell the vehicle was moving toward him, not away. His back was to the hibernating bear. The cave no longer smelled bad to him, which informed him he’d been there a long time and had slept much longer than he’d intended.

The bear had wedged itself into the cave’s extreme recess, with little space between the rock, root, and caked mud that it was backed up against. Mark lay in front of the bear, facing the mouth of the cave. His watch face had lost its luminescence. He had no idea what time it was but was guessing evening. He was hungry and thirsty and had to relieve himself, but didn’t dare move for fear of disturbing the bear. The experience of cozying up to a hibernating bear might have once been a grad school dream of his. Now it seemed surreal. He wouldn’t have believed such a story if he’d heard it himself, and yet here he was…

Dogs. Barking.

The snowmobile had gone silent. What he heard now sent a chill through him, for he knew Roy Coats owned and trained hunting dogs. Scent dogs. Dogs that could follow a mountain lioness for miles- days-into the wilderness. The handler tracked and followed the dogs by radio collar to the prey, which was typically pinned up a tree. Mark was now convinced that he was the prey; he was the one pinned.

The barking grew louder and more ferocious. The dogs were on a scent-his scent, more than likely. And whereas a human being on a snowmobile might not make anything of a dark shadow that turned out to be a cave entrance, the dogs would follow their noses straight to it.

Mark had been around animals all his adult life. As a vet in Idaho, he’d seen cases that would have never made it into medical school textbooks and would not have been believed if they had. He was more exposed to animals in the wild, or the results of confrontations with such animals, than an average vet. And because of this, he could foresee the events of the next few minutes. They played out before his eyes on the darkened walls of the cave, as if a projector were running. And he didn’t like what he saw.

As if reading his thoughts, the bear stirred as the barking drew closer.

Mark had a decision to make, and neither choice was viable. If he stayed where he was, the bear would shred him when coming awake; if he fled, the dogs would either tear him to pieces or tree him.

But if he could climb over the bear, getting away from the animal’s keen sense of smell, then the noise and the scent of the dogs might hold the waking bear’s attention. The hungover animal would be far from alert as it awakened. Bears did not see well. With the bear facing the mouth of the cave, Mark thought it just might work: what the animal first saw and heard as it awakened would become its focus.

The barking, incredibly close now, lifted the hairs on the nape of Mark’s neck: the dogs were charging up the hill.

Coming right for him.

60

THE GLIDER WAS TOO LOW, BUT THERE WAS NOTHING TO do about it now. With no source of thrust, only the wind and its forward momentum kept it aloft. The lower he flew, the darker it got. He’d circled once above the narrow field, just to the north of the small frozen river, spiraling down toward the treetops, over a sea of gray-green spires accented by the white carpet at their feet. It felt as if a cloak had been thrown over the narrow valley; the sun had left here hours before. And where the sky still glowed a pale blue, the earth beneath it was giving up on twilight.

There was no such thing as a missed approach, no second chances at a landing. He got one chance and this was it.

As he reached the near side of the field, Walt eased the joystick back, lifting the nose while avoiding a complete stall. For a moment, the glider seemed to stand still, its tail actually brushing the very tops of the tall pines.

“What was that?” Brandon panicked as the sound of the contact reverberated through the frail frame.

Walt’s focus remained on the field before him, a gray wash of indiscernible length, its surface impossible to read. If he judged this wrong…

The beauty of the glider landing in snow was that there’s no superstructure supporting the wheels; a glider lands on a very small nosewheel recessed in the frame and an even smaller wheel below the tail, meaning it is well streamlined for a landing in snow.

“Brace yourself,” he called out.

Walt held the nose up as long as possible, then eased the glider down into the snow with a lunge that rapped both their heads against the Plexiglas dome. His feet automatically pushed both pedals forward, attempting to brake, but it was his right hand on the joystick controlling the flaps that served that purpose. Snow streamed over the nose, blinding him. The right wing struck something, turning the glider sharply. The glider bounced and groaned and barely slowed, Walt convinced its light frame would come apart.

It submarined and then jumped up, actually lifting fully off the snow before smashing back down and finally grinding to a stop.

“You okay?” Walt said.

“Shit… shit… shit…” Brandon managed from behind him.

Walt shut down the electronics; he had no idea how they’d ever get the glider out of there, but that was the least of his worries. He popped open the dome, checked his GPS, and hand-signaled Brandon toward the far side of the field. Brandon gave him a thumbs-up and climbed out. The two men separated without a word.

Walt dug into his pack for the night vision headset. Though not fond of the technology, he appreciated the results: he could see far more clearly and much farther, the electronic landscape black and an eerie green but vivid. For now, he wore the contraption, not thrilled with the way it limited peripheral vision.

It took him a moment to distinguish what he heard: not coyote, not wolf, but a dog’s barking. Maybe two. Well away to his left-south- quite possibly across the river.

Then another sound: snowmobile.

Had his own guys jumped the gun and raided the cabin ahead of his signal? If Mark Aker was indeed out there, his life had just been put in great jeopardy.

Then a second thought flashed through his mind: had Roy Coats somehow seen the glider or been warned in advance of the raid?

Trudging on snowshoes, Walt hurried in the general direction of the cabin, ignoring the barking for now. If Mark was being held in the cabin, then the existence of the snowmobile meant one less man to guard Mark.

He would cut around to the east of the compound, leaving Brandon to approach from the northwest. Careful not to fall, he picked up his pace, believing time was suddenly in his favor.

61

BRANDON MOVED CAUTIOUSLY, THE LANDSCAPE AHEAD OF him green and black through the night vision goggles. A slight glow of greenish white in the sky ahead suggested the cabin-the exhaust from a woodstove, more than likely. But judging distance accurately was difficult, and, though he’d trained with the goggles, he had no idea if that glow was a hundred feet away or five hundred yards. Worse, the forest was immature, a victim of a massive forest fire a decade earlier, resulting in a mixture of towering dead tree trunks and a dense undergrowth of twenty-foot pines, bramble, and piles of decomposing slash from the earlier fire. Finding a way through it was challenging, due to the thick undergrowth. Had it not been for the GPS, Brandon would have lost his way. Instead, he found himself forced to take a long way around to the cabin because of a spine of rocky hill that separated the cabin from the field where they’d landed the glider.

His trailing leg felt the tension, though too late. The snowshoe had caught on something. Looking down, he saw the trip wire pull free and go slack.

He quickly took five long strides and dove into the snow, covering his head, expecting an antipersonnel mine to blow. He waited for a count of five. Then ten.

No explosion.

So the trip wire was a perimeter warning device.

He’d just officially entered the compound. And now, due to his stupidity, they knew he was here.

He placed his glove to his throat and squeezed, initiating radio contact with the sheriff.

“I tripped a wire,” he said. The radios were digital; there was no way any communication between the task force would be intercepted.

“Roger that.” The sheriff’s voice, calm and collected.

“I’ve got some highlights at tree level.”

“Three hundred yards north-northeast of my position,” the sheriff said, confirming he’d seen them too.

“North-northwest for me,” he said, checking the GPS, “so we’ve got good angles.”

“Find some high ground. Or some place defensible. Let them come to you. Stay in radio com. If you hear them coming, let me know. I’ll create a diversion and bring in backup. Keep ’em guessing.”

“Roger that.”

“No heroics.”

“Out,” Brandon said. He felt lousy for tripping that wire. The sheriff might feel obligated now to bring in the others. Their arrival would make Aker’s situation all the more tenuous.

The purpose of Brandon and Walt advancing the raid was to capitalize on the element of surprise. They had to squeeze the cabin from two directions to be effective.

There was no way he was letting up his end. He wasn’t one to go against orders, but he did so now, knowing full well the sheriff wasn’t going to wait. He wasn’t going to let him go in there alone.

THE PREY RETURNS, the narrator’s voice said inside the head of Roy Coats as he saw the LED flash on the wall-mounted box, indicating a perimeter breach. A hunter’s patience is his greatest asset.

He wanted this to be fun.

He leaned forward and grabbed for the walkie-talkie. His leg stung, and he worried he’d busted open the scab again. The damn thing wouldn’t stop bleeding.

“Newbs. Area three’s been tripped. Looks like the doc’s coming back home for some reprovisioning.”

“I’m on it,” Newbs reported.

“Let me know when you have him.”

Starved and dehydrated, the prey returns to camp, driven by the uncanny will to survive. Having foraged for nearly two days, he sees the camp as his only hope and reluctantly returns to his keeper. But the hunter is aware of the return. His patience has paid off. He will be only too happy to welcome him back.

62

FOR ALL HIS STUDY, ALL THE READING HE’D DONE, MARK Aker was shocked to witness firsthand how a bear-even a drugged bear-could come out of hibernation so quickly. As the bear sat up, Aker slipped farther down behind it so that, had the creature lay back down, it would have crushed him.

The bear fixed its attention on the mouth of the cave and the barking just beyond: a dog had reached the entrance, jutting its snarling snout in and out of the cave, teeth glaring, while held back by the cave’s pungent odors, the dog’s persuasive survival instincts.

The blinding darkness prevented Aker from actually seeing the bear glance back toward him, but there was a moment’s hesitation, followed by the sound of the animal’s sniffing, when Aker knew he’d been found out. The bear had definitely smelled him, but, distracted by the dog’s ferocity, had turned in that direction.

Then light caught the top of the cave-a flashlight-silhouetting the massive bear as it charged and swiped. The dog yipped and howled. The beam of the flashlight wavered.

“Shit!” he heard a man shout, also incredibly close.

A single gunshot rang out, followed by the man’s sickening wail, as the bear lunged farther from the cave. Another cry, more desperate.

Coats, or Gearbox, had followed the dog too closely, had approached the cave too quickly, had been stunned to discover a bear instead of the escaped veterinarian.

As the bear broke out of the cave, Aker followed closely. The man-Gearbox, judging by his size-had dropped the flashlight. It was blood-covered. The bear was lumbering off in the direction of the road, far faster than his simple movement implied, but too drugged, or wounded, to pursue with much enthusiasm.

The dog was gored at the neck, lying in the snow. The blood surrounding the fallen flashlight was not the dog’s. The quantity of spilled blood implied the bear had gotten a fair piece of Gearbox as well.

Weak with fatigue and hunger, and stiff from his lack of movement, Aker picked up the flashlight and trained it on the dog, then in the direction of the noises. The bear was still in pursuit of Gearbox, who was himself surprisingly fast and able on snowshoes. If Aker had any chance to get away, it was now.

The bear might have been wounded by the gunshot, but, if so, it had only made it more angry.

Aker looked down at the wounded dog again and found himself unable to leave it there to bleed out and die.

He bent down, hoisted the dog over his shoulders, and, holding the animal’s legs around his neck, made his way through the close-set rocks, knowing the terrain would discourage the bear from following. All the bear wanted was some sleep.

In a moment, the snow would get too deep for just his boots. Twenty yards from the cave, he realized he had no snowshoes, but he was not about to turn back. The bear would return at some point, the drugs contributing to its bad temper. For now, he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the cave as possible.

He heard the sound of a snowmobile’s engine turn over. Again, and then it caught and roared like a motorcycle. He switched off his flashlight, not wanting to reveal his location. The headlight from the snowmobile swept through the woods and illuminated the side of the hill. Aker stood stone still.

The snowmobile made a half circle and then accelerated into the darkness, its engine’s high-pitched whine receding along with it.

63

WALT CAME UPON THE SNOWMOBILE TRACK AT NEARLY THE same instant he heard the single report of a powerful rifle. Adrenaline charged his system the way only gunfire can. His hand went to his pistol as he moved in the direction of the sound.

A pair of lights flared in his goggles. A good distance away. He could not put together what was going on but hoped Brandon was not the target of that report. His fears were settled by Brandon ’s voice in his ear.

“Your twenty?” Brandon ’s voice said.

“On a snowmobile track, still north of the cabin. The gunfire was several hundred yards northeast of me. I’ve got a possible heat signature from the snowmobile. Hold your position.”

“Yeah…”

Walt knew that tone.

“Your twenty?”

“I didn’t exactly hold position. I should be closing in on the cabin shortly.”

“Those were orders.”

“I wasn’t going to hang you out to dry, Sheriff. Besides, I had to shut down any chance of a getaway. We reviewed all this stuff.”

“That was prior to the trip wire.”

“It is what it is. Was that shot thrown at you?”

“Doubtful.”

“Not at me.”

“Hear this, Deputy: HOLD YOUR POSITION! I’ll get back to you.”

“Out.”

Walt saw a second, hotter flare of light through the goggles, and, when coupled immediately with the sound of a snowmobile starting, he understood what had to be done. He jumped off the track, threw his pack on the ground, and unclipped the eighty-foot climbing rope from it. The rope was gray with a red twist, which required him to bury it after tossing a decent length across the track. He moved fluidly and efficiently, living for such moments, for he was briefly free of all else; no thought entered his mind that didn’t directly have to do with stopping the snowmobile. It was its own weird kind of ballet, police work; a combination of efficiency and purpose. Walt secured the bulk end of the climbing rope to a tree, punched the slack rope down into the soft snow as he crossed the track, and reached the other side charged with excitement.

The engine sound told him the snowmobile was quickly approaching. He would have one chance. He took a full wrap around the thick tree trunk with the loose end of the climbing rope. Drew in the slack to where the rope barely lifted out of the snow impression, a few feet from the tree trunk.

The snowmobile’s headlight glanced the surrounding branches, as if setting them all afire. Walt could barely breathe. His mouth had gone dry, his eyes stung. He carefully lifted the night vision goggles so the headlight wouldn’t blind him. It took several seconds for his vision to adjust, and, in those several seconds, the snowmobile raced closer.

There was little time to think this through; he’d acted on instinct alone.

He made one last adjustment to the loop of rope around the tree. He’d rather catch the driver than the vehicle.

The white light filtered down through the branches and onto the dull bark of the tree trunks as the whine of the two-cylinder engine grew progressively louder.

There it was: weaving through the forested obstacle course, a single, blinding headlight.

Walt couldn’t make out the driver or the snowmobile, only its penetrating bright light. And then it was upon him. All at once, as if it had jumped a hundred feet ahead.

He waited… waited… then pulled hard on the trailing end of rope, hand over hand.

The rope popped out and lifted from where he’d buried it in the snow and formed a taut, slanting line leading from the opposite tree, across the track and directly to Walt.

It struck the snowmobile’s Plexiglas screen, was lifted higher by the contact, and caught the driver in the throat. The snowmobile shot out into the woods as its driver did a full backflip, landing on his head. He punched through the track’s packed snow, buried up to the middle of his chest.

Walt drew his weapon and hurried to the man. He pulled him from the snow, only to find his neck broken, his head at an unnatural angle. More surprising was the quantity of sticky blood. It wasn’t until Walt found his flashlight that he saw the lacerations-cougar? bear?-across the man’s shoulder and chest. Deep gashes, the flesh of his chest ripped from his ribs. How he’d managed to drive a snowmobile in that condition not only impressed Walt but warned him: Coats and his posse were tough.

Walt caught up to the snowmobile. Inspected it. Righted it. Dug it out of a snowbank and used its engine to help lift it back to the track. He climbed on.

Called out on his radio so Brandon could hear. “I’m on the snowmobile. Please copy: I’m riding the snowmobile into the compound.” He waited for the acknowledgment.

Waited some more.

“ Brandon? Copy?… Brandon?”

No reply.

“Alpha,” Walt called out over the airwaves.

“Alpha,” came a male voice he identified as Andy Cargill.

“Give me five minutes. If I haven’t checked in, contact Beta and Delta and begin your advance on the compound.”

The team leader acknowledged.

Now all that stood between Walt and the compound were a few hundred yards of snow.

64

BRANDON PICKED UP A WHITE GLOW OF A HEAT SIGNATURE in his goggles and ducked behind a tree. Human, not elk or deer. Close: fifty yards or less. The shape was coming straight for him, moving with a surprising quickness given the deep snow.

Brandon quietly slipped the M4 assault rifle in front of him. He set the trigger to fire in three-round bursts and touched his chest subconsciously to remind himself the vest was in place. His heart sped out of control, and, while he was hungry for a firefight, he was also terrified.

“Aker!” a male voice cried out from across the field.

Brandon couldn’t believe the man had called out.

“I’ve got the wrong end of a thirty-aught-six aimed at that tree you’re hiding behind.”

The sheriff’s voice interrupted, and Brandon yanked out the earpiece.

“I know you’re there, and you know you’re there, so why don’t you come out and show yourself? I’d really rather not shoot you, but I will if I have to. We’ve got food and water, and the cabin’s warm. I know you’re there and I know what you want. So what do you say?”

Mark Aker had escaped. It was the only explanation. The information so surprised Brandon that he gasped, then tried to process what the hell was going on.

“I’m not showing myself until you do, Aker. And if you don’t come out from back there right now, then I’m going to have to make you, and I’d rather not do that.”

Brandon considered his options: for the moment, he retained the element of surprise; the longer he dragged this out, the worse his position. But was the man wearing night vision goggles? If so, he’d spot Brandon ’s weapon and start firing. Was he too wearing a vest? How good a shot was he? How powerful was the flashlight he must be carrying?

He tried to lose the snowshoes, but he was strapped into them and they weren’t coming off. He’d have to bend over to unstrap them and that would mean exposing himself beyond the protection of the tree, unless…

He turned his back to the tree to lessen his profile. He quickly swatted and loosened the straps of both snowshoes and stepped out. He had to make himself shorter by sinking into the snow-he had six inches on Mark Aker. He slipped the M4 around his back so that only its strap would show. With his feet on firm ground, he had a practiced move, a perfected move-a sudden twist-that could throw the rifle around his body and into his grip. But in snow, and with bulky clothing in the way, he wasn’t sure he could pull it off. He stuffed the gloves into his pockets, wearing only thin liners.

His hands were shaking, either from the cold or from nerves. He had to regain control; adrenaline had gotten the better of him.

“Aker, don’t be stupid,” called out the voice.

Closer.

The man had moved nearer. Twenty, thirty yards away, Brandon guessed.

Then, well beyond the man, the distant whine of a snowmobile. It took a second or two to determine it was drawing closer.

“Water,” Brandon croaked at the man. He was ready now. He had only to step out into the clear and yet every aspect of his training forbade him from doing so.

“I told you,” the voice answered. “We got water and food. Warmth. A woodstove. Hot coffee. All you got to do is show yourself. Come on.”

Knowing he might get popped, Brandon took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the tree.

65

WALT STEERED THE SNOWMOBILE TO FOLLOW THE EXISTING track, passing a pair of trees where the trip wire had been taken down and pulled to the side. An extension of the same perimeter warning system that Brandon claimed to have tripped.

Passing this point, he crossed into the enemy camp, driving one-handed. His other hand held the M4, hidden behind the snowmobile’s front panel.

He slowed. The track curved to the right and rose to meet what was likely a dirt road in the summer. This road showed much more travel than the track he’d just been on, reminding him how outnumbered he likely was. Bracing the weapon at his side, barrel out and ready, he slowed even more as he caught sight of a cabin in his headlight. Behind it, two, possibly more, outbuildings.

Smoke rose from a stovepipe in the roof. Three windows-two in front, one on the side-bled a pale yellow light. He’d so prepared himself for a conflict that he nearly fired on what turned out to be nothing more than a shadow cast by his own headlight.

He stopped and shut off the snowmobile and spun a full circle as he climbed off, fully expecting to see a muzzle flash. He shook off his nerves as he realized that the snowmobile’s return must have been expected. It was the only explanation he could come up with to explain the lack of a reception. He darted off into shadow, the only light the pale wash from the cabin. He crept closer, the night vision goggles raised onto his forehead, eyes flickering in every direction.

He single-clicked his radio com.

His earpiece sounded with three distinct clicks, silence, then four clicks. Walt tried again: a single click.

Silence, followed by three and then four clicks. Two clicks was Brandon -still not reporting. Three and four were Alpha and Beta.

Brandon was AWOL, injured, captured, or dead.

He ducked low and crept forward in a long, strong shadow cast by a wall of the cabin. He reached near enough to see a window shade was not just pulled down but sealed-with Velcro?-to the sill and jamb. It was a patch job, and a small amount of light escaped the effort, accounting for the dim yellow glow.

He forced himself to breathe. He didn’t want to attempt taking the cabin without Brandon, without some backup. But Brandon ’s silence necessitated action. With his back to the cabin-possibly only a matter of inches away from Mark Aker-Walt slipped quietly toward the front, wondering what would come next.

66

ROY COATS ATTEMPTED TO SORT OUT THE EVENTS OF THE past few minutes, his mind racing. He had little to go on beyond a single gunshot and, minutes later, the tripping of the perimeter wire.

Had he checked with Gearbox after hearing that gunshot? He couldn’t remember. His brain had just about lost its wheels, the pain too great. He squinted and tried to recall what had happened.

He remembered speaking with Newbs about the perimeter wire. And just now the snowmobile-that would be Gearbox-had returned to camp.

There was a loud, uninterrupted ticking going on in his head. The top of his mouth itched. He had to relieve himself.

Had he talked to Gearbox or not?

He picked up the walkie-talkie and called out for his man. Waited. No answer came.

Why such a long time between the return of the snowmobile and Gearbox knocking on the door?

“Gearbox?” Coats shouted loudly enough for his voice to carry through the walls. “Get your ass in here and explain-”

His command was cut off by the sputter of semiautomatic weapons fire. Two hundred yards.

Coats processed the most important part of that information: semiautomatic. Their AKs had been customized by Rupert Folkes in Jerome to be single-shot and full automatic; they weren’t rigged as semiautomatics.

At the same moment, the doorknob turned without knocking. His guys were trained to show him the respect of announcing themselves.

Coats snatched the.45 off the table and delivered three rounds into the cabin door before the damn pistol jammed. Pissed off at the self-loads, he hurled the gun across the room at the door before instantly regretting his action.

He looked around for another weapon.

The smell of cordite filled his nostrils. Blood trickled from the broken scab, as he stood painfully from the chair.

Another quick burst of semiautomatic fire.

The camp was under attack.

67

ONE OF BRANDON’S ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOVIE SCENES WAS in Indiana Jones, where Harrison Ford, faced with a sword-wielding Egyptian, simply ignores the flamboyant swordplay, pulls out his sidearm, and shoots him. Stepping out from behind the tree, hands in the air, he waited for the man shouting at him to show himself. Once he did so, Brandon gave it all of about five seconds before lunging to his left with a hip check, the momentum from which carried the M4 around his body and straight into his open hands.

He squeezed off a semiautomatic burst-three rounds-and watched the guy’s kneecaps explode. The guy went down like a folding chair, his weapon flying out of his hands and catching on a branch stump sticking out from the trunk of the tree he’d used as shelter. The gun strap caught under his chin and snapped his head back as he fell, so that he bobbed like a puppet; his obliterated knees folded, so that he looked like both legs had been crudely amputated. The gun then disengaged from the branch stump, and the man fell face-first into the snow, which swallowed him like sea-foam.

Brandon saw all this dimly, in the haze of a partial moon, knowing enough to make for cover as the rifle dropped down into the snow and on top of the man.

Brandon dove.

The fallen man fired at him.

Brandon returned two more quick bursts and got lucky: a piece of the man’s head took off like a frightened bird.

The dead guy, his skull open, sat up on the injured knees, waved his hands frantically like a drowning man searching for a rope, then fell forward again before Brandon could get off another shot.

Brandon came to standing in the lee of a wide fir, lowered the night vision goggles, and confirmed the kill.

Ugly.

His hands were trembling; he felt frightfully cold all of a sudden.

Just then he heard three pops from the direction of the compound. Forty-five Magnum. It wasn’t the sheriff’s gun.

68

WALT LAY FLAT ON HIS BACK, HIS CHEST HOT WITH SEARING pain. Two of the three shots had scored; the third had narrowly missed, so close to his left ear that he’d heard its whistle. Keeping the gun aimed at the cabin door, he wiggled off his left glove and felt for his chest, his fingers worming into a hole in the Kevlar vest where the bullet was still warm. The other was embedded in his radio. The pain when he breathed was unrelenting due to a cracked rib, and it took him a moment to fully understand-to believe-he wasn’t on his way out.

Then he rolled and pushed himself up to standing, knowing what it felt like to be hit by a bus. Keeping the thicker logs that formed the cabin wall between himself and the shooter, he ducked and twisted the doorknob and threw the door open.

“Sheriff!” he announced.

Where the hell was Brandon?

Now, in the very far distance, came the mosquito buzz of approaching snowmobiles. Both teams were converging on the compound from a mile out.

Walt struggled for breath. Every movement caused blinding pain. He stood, banged off the door, throwing it fully open to make sure no one was hiding behind it, and then pushed himself into the doorway, fell to his knees and rocked forward, his gun gripped in both hands.

Clear.

The.45 was on the floor to his right. He grabbed it, ejected the magazine, and tossed both halves out the door into the snow.

He used the furniture as screens, flipping the only table and hiding behind it, then working past the woodstove to the only doorway. Trying to draw a deep breath and then regretting it for the agony it caused.

He turned the doorknob. Tested the door. Swung it open.

A bunk room: two bunk beds, meeting in the near corner. No closets. Clothes on hooks on the wall.

Clear.

Open window, the blind undulating in waves, still in motion.

Walt poked his head out the window, then quickly back inside. Right. Left.

Clear.

He followed out the window.

A confusion of tracks in the snow.

But one line of tracks called to him above all others, leading directly to a shed fifteen yards behind the cabin. The right leg was wounded and trailing badly, dragging behind, the left leg doing all the work. Walt thought this explained why the shooter-Coats?-had not rushed the cabin’s front door to finish the kill.

Walt pulled down the night vision goggles and the landscape before him came alive in monochromatic green and black. But it was as if someone had turned on a searchlight: he could see not only the shed and the corral next to it but well beyond to a stack of chopped wood.

His weapon extended, his arm braced and steadied, he punched his way through the thick snow toward the shed, the beat of his heart painful in his bruised chest.

Where was Mark? Did they have him in the shed? Had Coats moved toward his bargaining chip?

A sound from behind turned him. He dropped to one knee, swung the gun around, and took aim: the figure stood over six feet tall, with shoulders as wide as a truck. Walt blinked, and he eased his finger off the trigger.

A bear. A big bear raised onto its hind legs. Ten, fifteen yards. Even through the goggles, Walt saw the foaming saliva spilling from its mouth. An angry bear. A mad bear. And then: the dark spot on its shoulder. A wounded bear.

He could try to kill the bear, though it would take most of the contents of his magazine, and the bear would likely maul him before actually succumbing. It took a perfect heart shot to drop a bear. Walt had heard stories of direct hits to the skull that glanced off without effect. He turned and ran for the shed. He didn’t need a rearview mirror to know the bear was following at a gallop.

He blew through the shed door and slammed it shut, turning and once again dropping to one knee. The eerie black and green played out through the goggles, depicting a garage and slaughterhouse in one. It was cluttered with tools and sacks, tires and lumber. An enormous dead cow hung from a block and tackle, its long black tongue swollen and drooping toward a dirt floor where a slimy mass of afterbirth and a fetal calf lay cut open and splayed. The smell was suffocating-not even the cold could freeze out death.

The entire wall shook behind him as the bear collided. Past the hanging cow was an old tractor or truck on blocks, reduced to a steel skeleton and surrounded by parts. He heard the wheeze of his own painful breathing and then another crash as the bear bid for entry. The thing hit the door so hard that a shovel fell from the wall and clanged into some fuel canisters.

Then silence.

The front half of the rectangular shed was clear, meaning if Coats was in here he was hiding back amid the remains of the tractor. Walt stood and moved carefully forward, keeping his back to the wall, staying as close to it as possible, without getting his feet caught in the tangle of clutter. Several seconds had passed without an effort from the bear, but Walt found himself stealing glances in that direction, where the door hardware was now splintered and partially torn from the jamb. He crept a few more paces forward in the churchlike silence.

Glass shattered behind him. Walt turned in the spray and squeezed off two shots, expecting to see Coats, but it was the bear’s giant mitt that swiped at him through the broken window, five grotesque claws tearing through Walt’s shoulder and into his muscle. Walt fell into the dead cow, starting it swinging, slipped in the slime on the floor and scrambled quickly to his feet. By the time he did, there was no sign of the bear, only two splintered holes in the log wall where his wild shots had landed.

The chain holding the swinging dead cow creaked like a clock slowly winding down.

He briefly lifted the goggles, wishing he could do without them, but the difference was astonishing: the shed held only a faint glow of moonlight. Back in the world of green and black, he moved cautiously toward the tractor, stepping toward the center of the room to avoid a pile of clutter.

He stood there, panting from the rush of the bear attack, his shoulder throbbing, working the goggles left to right, searching out the hidden recesses and hiding places while anticipating a surprise attack.

Behind him, the swinging cow slowly twisted and spun as its metronomic ticktocking wound down. Unseen by Walt, the crude knife slice running down the center of the gutted animal twitched open and a human hand slipped out. Then another, this one bearing a bloodied meat hook. The gap widened to reveal the feverish face of Roy Coats.

Walt heard the icy crack of the cow carcass opening and spun.

The meat hook sank into his right hand. His gun dropped. His body followed the sinking weight of the hook as he screamed. The goggles bounced off his head. He crashed onto the dirt floor, his bruised chest sending shock waves of pain racing through his body.

Coats struggled to free the hook, but it had penetrated the meat of Walt’s hand and did not come loose. The two men were briefly connected by the hook, Coats unwilling to let it go, Walt unable to shake it loose. Walt, on his knees, punched out with his left hand and hit something spongy. The man wailed and released the meat hook.

Walt grabbed hold of the hook, gritted his teeth, and pulled it free. With his left hand, he sank the hook into Coats’s chest just as the man raised his head. His left arm was not nearly as strong or coordinated as his right, and, though the hook hit Coats, it did little more than graze him.

Walt punched the man’s leg in the same spot again and then kicked up, as Coats craned forward. He caught the man’s chin and heard the cracking of teeth.

Coats somehow had the hook now. He swung out at Walt, who scrambled back-one swipe, two-narrowly missing him. Walt collided with a pile of junk, and here came the hook again. He blocked it with a length of pipe seized from the pile. The hook came free.

Walt smashed the pipe into the man’s ankle and Coats screamed again.

The shack shook; it sounded like an earthquake.

Walt saw the gun: five feet to his left.

He dove for it.

Coats threw a knee into Walt’s face, stumbled forward and inadvertently kicked the gun away. It disappeared in the darkness into a pile of debris along the wall. Walt scrambled to his knees, swinging the pipe and connecting again. Then he pulled himself to his feet.

Coats backed up, away from the pipe, his right leg dragging awkwardly.

Walt staggered forward, barely conscious, his right arm and hand useless.

Coats snagged a fallen shovel and swung it madly into Walt’s left side. The blow knocked Walt into the hanging cow and he spun to fend off the next attack. The shovel glanced off the frozen cadaver.

The door broke from its hinges and crashed to the floor-first a rectangle of moonlight, which was then blotted out by the massive presence that filled it. The bear charged the first thing it saw: Roy Coats.

The shovel was lifted high but fell to the floor, handle first, the blow never delivered.

Walt heard the tear of clothing, followed quickly by the bubbling slobber of Coats attempting to cry out. But his cheek was no longer part of his face and his left eye was missing.

Walt knew better than to run for the door: he didn’t want the bear substituting him for his present target.

Hands on the cow, he realized where to hide and pulled himself into the frozen womb, the sounds of terror continuing in a relentless stream until Roy Coats was silenced forever and the bear wandered off and out.

69

AS FIFTEEN OF THE BACKUP DEPUTIES SEARCHED FOR MARK Aker, he stumbled into camp of his own accord.

Walt’s wounds were being tended to in the cabin as word arrived.

“Sheriff!” Brandon said from the doorway in a voice so urgent that Walt jumped up as one of his team attended his hand.

Brandon led Walt around to the side of the cabin and whispered, “He was just… standing there.”

Mark Aker was, in fact, standing between the shed and the woodpile in two feet of snow, an animal draped over his shoulders and held by its feet around his neck. A dog, Walt saw on closer inspection.

“I approached,” Brandon informed him, “but he stepped back, saying your name over and over. He’s in shock, or worse.”

“Mark,” Walt called out. “It’s me.”

“Sheriff Walt Fleming,” Aker called out again, as if he hadn’t heard. He took another step back.

“Your flashlight,” Walt said to Brandon. “Shine it on me.”

As the light struck Walt, revealing a scarred and battered man, Aker started walking toward him. Walt held a hand out, stopping Brandon from meeting him. Mark was clearly in shock or had hypothermia, skittish and unpredictable.

Aker fell to his knees, a few feet from Walt. At least, that was what Walt thought. In fact, Aker had only gone to his knees to unload the dog. With the dog now in his arms he stood, with difficulty, and passed it to Brandon.

He turned and faced Walt. “What took you so long?”

“The cabin’s warm. We have a medic.” Walt motioned toward the cabin.

“Coats?”

“Dead.”

“You found the test tube?” Aker was moving toward the cabin now. Brandon stood there holding the dog, wondering what to do with it.

“I could have used a note along with it,” Walt said.

“Needed to buy myself time.” His voice was distant. Walt realized they were losing him.

As they led him inside the cabin, Aker began to shiver uncontrollably in waves that bordered on seizures. The medic began an IV, as they undressed him and wrapped him in wool blankets. Forty minutes later, he and Walt were Life Flighted out and flown to Boise for medical attention. Aker slipped into unconsciousness on the way and could not be revived. He remained in a coma for three days when, miraculously-or so the doctors said-he sat up, fully alert.

Walt never left the man’s bedside, running his office and writing reports from room 317.

It wasn’t until Aker regained consciousness that they were finally able to contact his family, all of whom had been holed up in a Holiday Inn in Ogden, Utah, on Aker’s orders.

They might have arrived sooner, had the press gotten hold of the story, but not a sentence had been-or would be-written about the events of the past weeks. A task force of federal agencies had descended upon all concerned to debrief Walt and his team, requiring their signatures on nondisclosure agreements.

The rights of a few for the good of the many, Walt thought.

A cover story was invented for Mark Aker that involved his family’s desire for privacy and his father’s fictional heart condition. The efficiency and thoroughness of the government surprised everyone involved; even Danny Cutter had been silenced by its efforts, not an easy task.

THREE WEEKS LATER, the first rumors began to circulate around the valley. Walt declined comment but knew the stories had helped with his reelection.

On a wintry Halloween night in Hailey, limping and unable to use his right hand, he accompanied Gail escorting the girls as they went house to house in town. While the girls waited in line at a busy house, Gail spoke to him for the first time since “Hello.”

“If you want them back…”

“Of course I do,” Walt said. He knew it would come to this; Gail had never been comfortable as a mother. The excuses would follow next.

“I may have overreacted,” she said.

The girls returned, displaying their goodies; Emily got a chocolate bunny she was especially proud of. Walt wondered if it was left over from Easter and wanted a look at it.

They walked as a family down the street to the next house, Walt marveling how uncomfortable he felt in Gail’s company. The girls hurried to the next door.

“I don’t like who you’ve become,” he said.

“I know.”

“I don’t want the divorce to screw up the girls.”

“I seem to screw them up without even trying. Why I can’t do this, I have no idea.” She looked across the street where there was nothing to see, but it kept her face averted.

“Quite a pair,” he said.

“We aren’t a pair,” she corrected. Then she apologized.

“They need us both,” he said. “We need to work this out.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I’d rather we work it out than the lawyers. I don’t want lawyers deciding what’s right for the girls.”

Gail didn’t say anything, saved again by the arrival of the girls. The trick-or-treating continued for another forty-five minutes. Snippets of conversation passed between them but none with any content. The mention of lawyers had broken the spell or they’d simply run out of things to say. Over a decade spent together, and they couldn’t find five minutes of things to talk about.

The girls looked anxiously at Walt, then followed their mother to her car. But she stopped them, withdrawing a small overnight bag and handing it to Walt. Emily’s eyes brightened. Nikki took her father’s hand. Gail stared dully at the three of them, forced a grimace of a smile, and, kissing the girls, climbed behind the wheel.

When Walt got home, he put the girls to bed, taking extra time to read to them, wishing he didn’t have to turn off the light.

Returning to his own bedroom, he stopped and looked around. He emptied her closet. Set four black garbage bags of clothes out on the back porch, but that barely scratched the surface. He took off his wedding ring and put it in a drawer with some cuff links he never used. He drank two beers in front of the television and fell asleep in the chair.

70

THE DRIVE UP TO HILLABRAND’S MOUNTAINTOP ESTATE REMINDED Walt again of the man’s power and position, of the enormous wealth in Sun Valley and how carefully one had to tread. He was greeted by an aide and shown inside, exceptionally aware that Sean Lunn was nowhere to be seen.

Hillabrand met him in the living room, with its panoramic views of Ketchum and Sun Valley. He’d lost his tan, replaced by a gray pallor.

“You look better than I’d have expected,” Walt lied.

“Looks can be deceiving. I’ve seen the worst of it. It was only the one glass, after all. I’m told my liver will scar and I’ll pay for it later in life. For now, they say I’m recovering, though it doesn’t feel like it.”

“I was wrong to put you in that position. That’s what I came to say.”

“Yes, you were.”

“So… it’s done.”

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s all I had.” Walt turned to leave.

Hillabrand stopped him. “You ignored James Peavy’s warning. Why was that?”

“I don’t know. I guess it egged me on more than discouraged me. It led to the discovery of the sheep pit. I’m trained as an investigator. What can I say?”

“People like Coats… We can’t let five or ten people have that kind of effect on our country. That has nothing to do with democracy. It’s vile and wrong.”

“Where does warning innocent people about contaminated water come into play?” Walt asked.

“I know you don’t believe it, but we had that pretty well under control. If you tested it now, you wouldn’t find a trace of that spill in the aquifer. We were buying time. Trilogy Springs… that was an oversight. A costly oversight. A mistake that cost us dearly. I don’t have any excuses for it.”

“I thought I had you,” Walt admitted. “It never for a minute occurred to me the INL could possibly be the victim.”

“The real victims were the ranchers,” Hillabrand said. “They were willing to stay quiet to benefit their country.”

“They were willing to stay quiet because you paid them to,” Walt said. “And there’s the rub.”

“How’s that?”

“You, and a couple of others in Washington, convinced yourselves that what you were doing was for the good of the country.”

“Yes. And your point?”

Walt hesitated and looked around the sumptuous room with its stunning views.

“What makes you any different than them? The Samakinn? Weren’t they doing the exact same thing?”

Hillabrand began to speak but bit back his words. Then he said, “But we’re the good guys.”

Walt slipped the DVD out of his pocket and placed it down. “Are you so sure? I want you to watch this. I want you to look real closely at the guy with Coats, the guy doing the girl. I’ll expect Sean Lunn to turn himself in to me within twenty-four hours. If he doesn’t, then it’s a manhunt. And I will personally see that this entire story gets into the papers, NDA or no NDA. I’ll take my chances.”

Hillabrand handled the DVD, flipping it over. He looked into Walt’s fierce expression. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll look at it.”

Walt thought about that: a man with enough power to make a suspect simply walk through his office door.

“Coats worked for Lunn,” Walt said. “Lunn hired him to take down Mark Aker and find out what Mark knew. When that went bad, they targeted Mark’s assistant.” Walt pointed to the DVD, as if Hillabrand could see poor Kira Tulivich. “At some point, Coats turned against him, seeing Mark as an asset to his own cause. But don’t you see what that means?”

Hillabrand’s face went red, his neck veins bulging. “No, Sheriff. What does it mean?”

“If Coats worked for Lunn, then he worked for you,” Walt said. “It was your money.”

Hillabrand rolled his eyes trying to dodge the accusation. “If Sean Lunn did as you say, it was without my knowledge. He went rogue. He probably thought he could earn points with me by handling this himself. It happens. I would never condone such methods. Not ever.”

“That may or may not be true,” Walt said. “The courts will sort it out. But given the events, exactly how does that make you the good guys?”

He turned and left Hillabrand in the living room, in the middle of his private panorama, the indicting DVD pinched between his fingers.

71

SHE AGREED TO MEET ON HER TERMS. SHE CHOSE A BENCH on the snow-covered bike path, overlooking a turn in the Big Wood River. Behind them, the traffic on Highway 75 hummed a little loudly for the picturesque setting. They sat shoulder to shoulder, closer than he’d expected. Some mallards came and went on the river below, their wings etching V’s on the darkly moving water.

“Hate me?” he asked.

“This isn’t seventh grade, Walt.”

“For some of us it still is.”

“I… There are things… I visited Kira, and it brought up some stuff.”

“I wasn’t using you and your relationship with Hillabrand. I know what you thought, but it wasn’t true. When you mentioned it, it made some sense, but that wasn’t how it was to begin with.”

“I want us to be able to work together.”

“Of course.” His voice cracked, belying his attempts to keep his feelings out of this. Her words sounded so final.

“Thank you.”

“What about a dinner… sometime?” He added quickly, “If it was seventh grade, it would have been a movie or an ice-cream cone. At least give me some credit.”

“Being your photographer is good. I like the work a lot.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

She watched a great blue heron fly the length of the river until it was nothing but a speck.

“There was someone,” she said. “Before I moved here. Two, nearly three years ago now. It wasn’t good. I ran away by coming here. All it took was talking to Kira to remind me. Which is a long way of saying a cup of coffee, sure. A movie, maybe. But not dinner. Not for a long time. Not with you, not with anyone.”

“A person’s got to move on.”

“Remind me of that after your divorce is final.”

He drew in a breath of sharp, cold air.

“Out of bounds,” she said. “That was awful of me. I’m so sorry. That’s just it, you see? I don’t even know myself.”

“When you get to know you,” he said, “you’ll find you like you a lot.” He added, “I do.”

“Some wounds heal from the outside in and some from the inside out.”

“Who said that?” Walt asked.

“I just did.”

A fly fisherman came around the corner of the river in his waders. He worked the far, snow-covered bank, his casts a thing of beauty.

“Freaks,” Walt said.

“Aren’t we all?” she asked.

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

They talked for a while about the confiscation of her photographs and computer, and how she still had the images from the glider on an SD card in her camera. They weighed the rights of the individual versus the rights of a democracy and argued semantics for a while.

It was the arguing that made Walt feel better. There was comfort in disagreement.

“So none of this ever happened,” she said, after a long bout of silence.

“That’s what I hear.” He added, “Only I didn’t hear it from you.”

She smiled. He warmed up a little.

The fisherman caught something. They heard his cheer well up the ridge where they sat. The fisherman extracted the catch from his net and turned it loose back into the river.

“Catch and release,” Walt said. “I guess now I understand it a little bit better than I did before.”

“Before what?” she asked. Then she gave him a look.

“Exactly,” he said.

Note: The government’s INL experimental nuclear facility has existed in central Idaho under a variety of names for the past fifty years. The atomic submarine engine was developed there, as was the world’s first nuclear-generated electricity. There is a cold fusion experimental lab active today at the facility. Over two dozen reactors have been opened and closed over the years. No civilians know exactly how many reactors remain operational or how the decommissioned reactors rate in terms of safety requirements.