Long Road to Mercy

Chapter 52

She passed a separate mule corral reserved for Park Service use, though she couldn’t see any mules in it now. There was also a sewage treatment plant down here. She headed west, with the campground and Phantom to the north of her. In the darkness Pine could make out the outlines of some tents in the distance, and even hear the echoing of late-night conversation among some of the campers. She walked for a time, her trekking poles methodically tapping the ground as she went. She used them even on level ground. Her knees, back, and hips would thank her later.

After a bit, she slowed her pace and then stopped.

She sat on a rock after checking it for scorpions and snakes. The noise from the river would mask anyone approaching, which she didn’t like but could do nothing about. There were many things one could do nothing about down here. In the Canyon, the environment was the master; humans were merely visiting.

She switched off her headlamp, and ate and drank, replenishing her electrolytes and satisfying her belly. She’d brought her filter with her, and she knew sources of water in the area she was headed to. She took off her shoes again and rubbed her socked feet. The pace down had been hard, but she was supremely fit and had come out in good shape. However, climbing out, particularly if she had to match her pace going down, would be a whole other experience.

Hopefully, she would not have to sprint the whole way with a regiment of bad guys chasing her.

She checked her illuminated compass, because being down here at dark was like being on the water at night. Land and sea looked a lot alike. You had to rely on your instruments. And she had now turned away from the river, so she couldn’t simply follow its contours.

She checked her hiking watch, which also had a thermometer.

Nearly eighty degrees. That meant the next day would be a scorcher. Certainly not unheard-of for this time of year. She had trekked down Bright Angel once, arriving at Indian Garden, which was roughly the halfway point. Along with potable water, restrooms, and shade, there was a thermometer. That day it had registered 105 degrees. There was a sign next to the thermometer that read, YOUR BRAIN ON SUN. At the bottom of the Canyon, the temperature had climbed to nearly 120. She had arrived drenched in sweat, and dehydrated, though she’d eaten and had water and sports drinks all the way down. She’d lain in the shallow part of the creek for about a half hour before she felt like standing once more.

She looked around into the dark. Out there were many beautiful things. Flowers, trees, animals, rock configurations, things you might not ever see anywhere else, no matter how hard and long you looked. But there were also many things out there that could kill you. And one had to respect that.

As she sat there, Pine felt even warmer. The Canyon sometimes felt like a convection oven. The heat seemed to hit you from all directions. Even from inside. Pine looked up. Though the Canyon was nearly eighteen miles at its widest point, the sky was narrowed by the towering walls.

With her index finger she traced the Milky Way. Constellations always gave her comfort. They were always in the same place when you looked up. They were like a friend keeping watch over you.

If only.

She rested for about an hour and then checked the sky again.

The rule of thumb in the Canyon was that night came fast and the dawn arrived slow.

Both results were caused by the Canyon’s massive walls. It was like being surrounded by a sea of five-thousand-foot-high skyscrapers.

She pointed her headlamp on the paper map she had pulled from her coat pocket. It had been on the flash drive. She had already roughly calculated the location of what she hoped would be the cave Roth was looking for down here. She put the paper away, studied her compass, and did some math in her head.

Finished, she sat there and took in the surroundings, steeling herself for what was to come.

Pine had been hiking near the river once when she’d seen something metallic partially submerged in the silt in a shallow part of the Colorado. She’d managed to get it out using one of her trekking poles. It was a long cylinder, and the water had very nearly removed all signs of what it was.

Very nearly.

When she examined it more closely, Pine discovered it was a can of Heineken beer. She had no idea how long it had been in the water after it had no doubt fallen off a passing raft. That day it had been nearly a hundred degrees on the Canyon floor. She’d popped the Heineken open and drunk it. It was the coldest and best-tasting beer she’d ever had.

She resettled on the task at hand. If there was a nuke down here, how had Roth planned to get it out — if that was his plan?

He’d traveled by mule far to the west of either bridge that one needed to cross over the river. And the North Kaibab Trail, which led to the North Rim, was far longer than the trails from the south, nearly fourteen miles from the trailhead to Phantom Ranch.

Pine looked out to the west. The Hermit Trail was in this direction. Not in nearly as good a condition as Kaibab and Bright Angel, it was actually designated as an unmaintained trail by the Park Service. Yet there you ran into the same problem: Roth was on the north side of the Colorado and the Hermit Trail was on the south side. And there was no way to cross the river, allowing him to access Hermit Trail.

And how heavy was a nuke anyway? Could you carry the damn thing out? Didn’t they weigh thousands of pounds?

But maybe that wasn’t Roth’s plan. Maybe he was just down here to disarm it, where it was. And then alert folks to it.

She looked upward.

Or how about a chopper to take it and him out?

Much farther down the river there was a put-in and take-out helipad spot for tourists called the Whitmore Helipad. It was mostly used for those coming from the Vegas area. But that was the West Rim of the Canyon, near Black Canyon, which was nearly a hundred miles from where Pine currently was. Roth could never have made it that far with a nuke.

So a chopper flying in here after dark would have to come across one of the rims, dip downward, fly between the Canyon walls, and then land at a designated spot, pick up Roth and the bomb, and head back out. If they were spotted, the Park Service might have sent up a chopper of its own or at least contacted local and federal authorities to find out what was going on. But a chopper designed for nighttime excursions over rough, enclosed terrain would certainly be up to the task.

Maybe a military-style chopper? Like the one that had taken away the Priest brothers? Was that why the Army was involved? Were they looking for the nuke, too? Was Roth actually working with them? Should she hike back up and go to them with what she knew?

But Pine knew this really wasn’t an option. Her fellow feds had been acting weird on this all the way through. The two guys at the airport, if they were feds — and she strongly suspected that was the case — were planning to murder them.

I can’t trust my own people.

It was a gut-wrenching admission.

She hiked to the spot where they had found Sallie Belle. The ground was fairly level here, and there was clearly enough room for a chopper to land. She looked around for evidence of damage or disruption caused by the chopper’s skids or its prop wash. The thing was, in the Canyon things settled back down, or critters came out and made marks and moved things around. Plants grew, water trickled, the wind blew, the rains washed away traces.

There was nothing.

She looked due west, and then to the north.

One would think that every inch of the Canyon had been explored by now, but Pine knew that the vast majority of visitors saw the Canyon only from the South Rim. And from that vantage point, only about 4 percent of the Canyon was visible. The folks who ventured down here had permits to camp in certain spots, and they were told to keep to certain well-marked trails. Almost none of them ventured out into the wild. Even the rafters would go only so far up any of the side canyons, because it was damn rugged and snakes and other biting creatures lurked everywhere. Pine had one ranger tell her that while he’d been there thirty years, he’d only set foot on a small portion of the Canyon.

Pine felt her spirits collapse. Was her plan getting chewed up in the face of the reality on the ground? Did she really think she was going to come down here and, in just a few hours, find Roth and the cave and the nuke?

But she shook off these thoughts and regrouped.

Side canyon. It had to be a side canyon where Roth would have gone. That actually would line up with the navigation points on the flash drive.

She checked her watch. Another hour before the light would start coming. She set out.

The Canyon flattened out near the Colorado; the river had seen to that, of course. Yet when one veered away from the water, the land quickly steepened and there were a great many side canyons down here.

Thirty minutes later she reached the first one. After exploring it as best she could by foot, she pulled out a pair of night optics from her pack and surveyed the rest of the area.

The next moment Pine went into a crouch and slipped her Glock from its holster while she trained her optics onto the entrance to the side canyon.

She had heard the clink of boots on rock.

To her experienced ears, they were not the casual footballs of hikers. The footsteps were too stealthy, not that any sensible hikers would be exploring a side canyon in the middle of the night.

She slid to the right and took up position behind a boulder.

Ten seconds later three men appeared from out of the dark.

She saw them clearly through her optics.

She was pretty sure they weren’t rangers.

Pine had seen many rangers.

But she had never seen any of them wearing full body armor and combat helmets, and holding M4 assault rifles.