The Abduction

DAY EIGHT

Gracie opened her eyes.

She was lying in a warm bed with a blanket pulled up to her chin, and not the scratchy green blanket from the SUV, but a thick soft blanket that felt brand new. The sheets were flannel and smelled clean and fresh. The pillow under her head was firm. The ceiling above her was low, and there was no fan with fancy little lights or sky blue paint with clouds in white faux finish or fancy crown molding like in her bedroom at home. The walls and ceiling were wood, flat wood planks with white mortar in the cracks like between the logs in Ben’s cabin.

The bed was pushed against one wall of the small room. A little window was in the wall above the bed; the sun was shooting a beam of light into the room. A gas heater was glowing blue in the corner. There was no closet, only a hanging rack with some winter clothes. At the foot of the bed was a metal table with a kerosene lamp on it, like the one Dad had bought last summer for the first annual Brice family camping trip. But Mom had gotten a trial and Dad the IPO, so the lamp and the tent and the rest of the camping gear sat piled in the back corner of the garage. Propped up on the table was a new Barbie doll still in the box.

This was really starting to creep her out.

There were two doors; one led into a bathroom. She could see a toilet, but it wasn’t like the marble toilet with matching bidet in her bathroom at home. This one sat low to the ground and had a compartment underneath-a camping toilet.

The other door was closed.

Her closet at home was bigger than this bedroom. But it was a cozy little room, like her room at Ben’s cabin, where she wished she were now, safe and secure with Ben and looking forward to a day in the workshop or hiking the hills or driving into town for dinner. She wished she were safe with Ben. She wanted to cry, but she refused to let the tears come.

Instead, she pushed the blanket back and almost screamed out loud: she was wearing pink flannel pajamas. Like, way pink! What’s with this guy and pink? She vaguely remembered changing into the pajamas but not putting on the thick green wool socks. She knelt up, wiped the moisture off the window, and put her face to the glass; it was cold. Outside, white snow covered the ground and icicles hung on the limbs of the tall trees, but they were not at all like the trees back home. They were Christmas trees. In the distance, among the trees, she noticed a movement… and then a head… and a-wow, a deer tiptoeing through the snow! Bambi! Oh, golly, it’s so cute, maybe later she could feed it and Bambi suddenly shuddered, then its legs gave way and it collapsed. Oh my gosh! Gracie heard an echo, like a loud bang. Bambi just lay there. Then the snow around Bambi turned red; the red spread out and formed a little river cutting through the snow and running downhill. Her eyes followed the red river until a big boot stepped right into it and splashed the red like Sam jumping into a mud puddle. Two men holding long guns walked up to Bambi; a big fat man lifted the deer’s head then dropped it. He was grinning. Gracie fell back onto the bed and dove under the blanket. I’ve got to escape before they shoot me too!

“Patty?” There was a knock on the door. “You awake?”

Junior.

She stuck her head out from under the blanket. “No, but Gracie’s awake.”

“Got hot water for your bath. You decent?”

“As decent as a girl can be in pink PJs.”

The door opened, and Junior entered; he was carrying two big buckets of steaming water and wearing another plaid shirt.

“Did you hit like, a going-out-of-business sale on plaid shirts?” she asked.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“We don’t got no running water or electricity up here,” he said, disappearing into the bathroom, “but I can still fix you a hot bath every week.”

She heard the water being poured into a bathtub.

“Every week? I take a bath every day.”

Junior appeared in the doorway with a big smile. “Just like my mama. I used to fetch hot water for her every morning. Bathtub, that was hers. And all that girl stuff in there.” He paused a moment like he was remembering a good time. Then he abruptly snapped out of it. “It’s yours now. Breakfast be cooked time you’re done. And I got a big surprise for you.”

“Bigger than being kidnapped?”

“Now, Patty, you gotta let that go. What’s done is done.” He gestured around the room. “You like your room? Got it done right before we come for you. Everything’s new-sheets, blankets-hey, you like that Barbie doll? Ordered that special.”

“I don’t do dolls.”

He motioned to the clothes rack. “Got you some winter clothes, too.”

“How’d you know my size?”

“I know everything about you, Patty.”

“Except my name. It’s Gracie Ann Brice.”

His first stern look of the day. “No. It’s Patty… Patty Walker. Same as my mama.” Then, abruptly, he was smiling again. “Make a list of any other stuff you need. I’ll get it next week when I go into town.”

“I’ve got a surprise for you, too-I started my period. I need tampons.”

Junior blushed like Dad that time she had walked in on him naked. “Uh, okay, I’ll, uh, I’ll get some. How… uh… how many do you need-one, two?”

“Hel- lo! A whole box. And I need them today, like real soon or I’m going to bleed all over the place!”

“Oh, shit, don’t do that! Okay, I’ll, uh, I’ll go into town and get ’em today. Uh, write it down, so I know what to ask for.” He walked out, shaking his head and muttering to himself. “Jesus, why didn’t I think of that?”

Boy, talk about diminished capacity. Of course, she had not started her period. They had learned about periods and tampons and all that stuff in health class, but according to Ms. Boyd, she was probably two years away from her first period. But how would mountain boy know that? With no electricity, he couldn’t watch the Discovery Channel. And she wanted him in town today.

Because Ben might be in town today.

Five hundred sixty miles due south, the black Land Rover was doing seventy on I-15 North.

Ben’s hands were shaking. He squeezed the leather-wrapped steering wheel and summoned the inner strength that had seen him through Big Ug’s fan belt beatings at San Bie. He could not fail Gracie.

It was Friday morning; he had taken over the wheel at 0400. John had crawled into the back seat and fallen asleep. That was over three hours ago, enough time to relive a life that had taken Ben Brice from West Texas to West Point, from Duty, Honor, Country to Quang Tri and the china doll. An hour from now they would arrive in Idaho Falls to talk to Clayton Lee Tucker at his gas station. He was the last person who had seen Gracie alive.

John’s cell phone rang. After three rings, John woke, dug the phone out of his pocket, and answered. “Yeah… Who’s this?… Lou?… Cripes, what time is it?… Oh, yeah, it’s later in New York… What?… Utah, I guess…”

“Idaho,” Ben said.

“Oh, Idaho,” John said, pushing himself up and rubbing his face. “I don’t know, Lou, however long it takes… What?… Price is up how much?… Dude, you’re breaking up, we’re in a freaking black hole out here, man… What?… Three billion?… Lou, I can’t hear you… Lou?… Lou?…” John frowned at the phone, then he disconnected. “Thing gronked out.”

He shoved the phone back into his pocket and put his glasses on. He climbed into the front passenger seat, leaned over, and dug into the bag of snacks he had bought on their last gas stop.

“Lou, my investment banker on the IPO. He says the stock is trading at ninety. I’m a billionaire three times over.” He reappeared with an Oreo cookie stuffed halfway in his mouth. “So why don’t I feel like a real man?”

The bathtub had feet like the one at Ben’s cabin. Gracie stepped in, sat down, and slid down until the water touched her chin. The hot water felt wonderful; her skin tingled. She couldn’t remember her last bath. She closed her eyes and went all the way under. When she surfaced, she smoothed her hair back with her fingers. She needed a shampoo.

Next to the tub was a small wood table with fresh towels and washcloths and a silver bucket like the one in Sam’s sandbox except this bucket was filled with little soaps and shampoos with Best Western Inn and Motel 6 on the labels. Gracie closed her eyes and tried to remember, but all she could recall were vague scenes from strange rooms.

She emptied one of the shampoos into her hand. The scent reminded her of Mom’s bathroom; they had had their only mother-daughter talk while Mom soaked in the big Jacuzzi tub one night after a verdict. Mom had poured a whole bottle of stress relief pellets into the water and soon the entire bathroom smelled of eucalyptus. Gracie sat on the floor while Mom lay back against a head cushion, closed her eyes, and offered motherly advice: “Grace, men are like dogs. They can smell fear on a woman. Never let them smell your fear. Never let them see you cry. Act tough even when you don’t feel tough. Curse. Don’t get mad, get even. If a boy doesn’t take no for an answer, kick him in the balls.” But she didn’t give her any advice for when she was kidnapped and taken to a cabin in Idaho by a crazy mountain boy.

Gracie stayed in the bathtub until the water lost its heat. She stepped out and dried off with one of the towels. Laid out neatly on the vanity were a silver comb and brush with a matching hair clip, a toothbrush and paste, and a small baby powder.

Baby powder never felt so good.

She opened the bathroom door and caught a chill. She wrapped her arms and hurried over to the clothes rack and quickly dressed. This was so strange. All the clothes were her size: long underwear, heavy corduroy pants, plaid flannel shirts, wool socks, and hiking boots. She probably looked like a total dork-“Pretty in plaid? I don’t think so.” The boots were kind of neat, though.

She tied the laces and stood. Mountain girl. She stepped to the door, put her fingers around the knob, and turned slowly. It opened. There was no lock on the door. She opened the door slightly and smelled breakfast cooking. She wished she were back at home and Sylvia was cooking in the kitchen. When she stepped out of the bedroom and into a long rectangular room, she knew she wasn’t.

Tables and chairs were scattered about the big space, maps and charts hung on the walls, big metal containers with U.S. ARMY stamped on the side were stacked high against one wall, and a ratty old couch sat in the middle of the room. A door at the far end opened and Junior appeared. He shut the door quietly behind him then turned and saw her.

“Why, don’t you look pretty?”

“What’s in those Army boxes?”

“Ordnance. Why’d you cut your hair so short? You do look like a boy.”

“Soccer season. What’s that?”

Junior walked over to the kitchen area. “What’s what?”

“Ordnance.”

“Oh-grenade launchers, explosives, ammo, detonators, napalm, that sort of stuff. Breakfast is ready.”

Junior had set two places with paper plates, plastic forks, knives, and cups, and napkins on a small folding table. He was cooking on a little gas stove; there was a brand new one just like it in the back corner of the garage at home. He picked up a black skillet with a rag and slapped scrambled eggs and a slab of meat on her plate. She was really hungry.

“Mama taught me to cook,” he said.

She sat down and tried the eggs. He cooked pretty good eggs for a boy. Junior joined her at the table. She had a mouthful of scrambled eggs when Junior bowed his head and folded his hands.

“Dear Lord, thank you for this here food. And thank you for bringing Patty here.” His head raised up. “Let’s eat.”

She swallowed. “God didn’t bring me here.”

“Sure He did.”

“Hel- lo, earth to mountain boy-God doesn’t kidnap children.”

“No, He don’t. He just showed us the way.” He chewed with his mouth open. “God wants us to be together.”

He smiled and reached over and put his hand on hers; she felt something she didn’t want to feel. She jerked her hand away.

“Ya think?”

“Yep, I think.”

Gracie cut into the meat and put a piece in her mouth.

“So you followed me all last week?”

He grinned. “Yep.”

“Watching me at school and recess and practice?”

“Yep.”

“And you called me, didn’t you?”

“Yep.”

“And hung up every time?”

“Yep.”

“So you were just waiting for a chance to grab me?”

“Yep.”

“Why after the game?”

“ ’Cause your mama wasn’t there.” He pointed at the meat with his fork. “Eats good, don’t it?”

She assumed “eats good” was mountain-speak for “tastes good.” She nodded. “Sausage?”

“Venison.”

“What’s that?”

“Deer meat.”

Gracie spat out the ball of meat.

Clayton Lee Tucker spat a stream of brown juice into a brass spittoon. His cheek bulged with a big wad of chewing tobacco and his face was wrinkled like used aluminum foil. His skin was darkened a shade from the grease; his black glasses sat lopsided on his bulbous nose; his hands were gnarly. Ben knew what a drunk looked like in the morning; Tucker didn’t fit the description. And he didn’t look like a man given to seeing UFOs in the Idaho sky. He was examining the blow-ups and Gracie’s photo.

The Tucker Service Station, located just off Interstate 15 in Idaho Falls, was a beaten-down place that smelled of gasoline and grease, a throwback to the days when you could get your car repaired at a gas station and it didn’t cost four bits to air up the tires. A telephone company truck was parked outside.

Tucker looked up and spat again. “Ain’t no doubt about it,” he said. “That’s the girl.”

John collapsed into a chair. Ben said, “What about the men?”

“Can’t say for sure, not from them pictures,” Tucker said. “But that’s the tattoo, I’m sure of that.”

Ben removed his jacket and rolled the left sleeve of his shirt up to expose his Viper tattoo.

“This tattoo?”

Tucker spat then angled his head to sight in the tattoo through his bifocals. “How come you got the same one?”

“Mr. Tucker, why didn’t you tell this to the FBI?”

“They never called.”

“No, sir, I mean the FBI agent who came here Wednesday morning and showed you these pictures.”

“Ain’t no FBI been here. First time I seen them pictures.”

“An FBI agent didn’t ask you about these men and the girl? You didn’t talk to him about UFOs? Tell him you drank?”

Tucker was clearly taken aback. He spat. “Only time I talked to anyone about the girl was when you called me. Hell, my phone’s been out of order ever since.” He picked up the phone and held it out to Ben. There was no dial tone. He gestured outside. “Phone company’s fixing it now, said the line was cut clean through. Figured kids.”

“Did the men say where they were headed?”

“The north country. Vehicle was burning oil like a refinery, asked me could it make another five hundred miles. No way, I says, rings is burned up, lucky it made it this far. Oil gets in the combustion chamber, bad news. Sent ’em down yonder to the motel.” He gestured down the access road. “They drove down there, big fella come back, left the truck. I got in about six the next morning-that’d been Monday-started tearing that engine apart, finished late that night. Big fella picked it up the next morning-that’d been Tuesday. Paid cash.”

“Idaho plates?”

“Yep.”

“Five hundred miles north of here, but still in Idaho?”

“That’d put ’em right near the border, up in the panhandle.”

“Where they grow Christmas trees?”

“Yep.”

“Where it’s snowing?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve got a map,” Ben said.

Ben spread the Idaho map out on the counter. Tucker said, “You know, I seen something on TV about them militias and Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, how they got camps in the mountains up north.”

“Any particular place?”

Tucker leaned over and put a finger on Idaho Falls and ran it north, tracking I-15 then 90, all the way to Coeur d’Alene; his finger left a slight trail of fresh grease on the map. Then his finger turned north, on state highway 95, all the way to “Bonners Ferry,” he said, tapping the map.

“She’s alive, Ben.”

Back on the highway, images of his daughter were racing through John’s mind like a DVD on fast forward; his heart was trying to punch through the wall of his chest cavity.

“I gotta call Elizabeth.”

He dug the cell phone out of his pocket.

“Son, we don’t need to be pulled over by the highway patrol, not with what we’ve got in this vehicle.”

“What?” John’s eyes dropped down to the speedometer. “Shit.” He had the Rover doing ninety. He pulled his foot off the accelerator. When the Rover and his heartbeat were both down to seventy-five, John glanced over at Ben. “You were right.”

Ben just nodded and held his hand out. “Here.”

John handed the phone to Ben. “Home number’s on the speed dial, push-”

Ben rolled down his window and defenestrated the phone. John watched in the rearview as the phone bounced on the highway and splattered into pieces.

“Cripes, Ben! Why’d you do that?”

“Because from now on, we don’t call home, we don’t call the FBI, we don’t call anyone.”

“Why not? We need to tell them she’s alive!”

“They already know it.”

“How? We just talked to Tucker.”

“John, I didn’t need Tucker to tell me she’s alive. I knew that. But he told me something I didn’t know.” He turned to John. “The FBI lied about coming to see him.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means they know she’s up here.”

“Why would the FBI lie about Gracie being alive in Idaho?”

“Because they don’t want us up here, getting in their way. That’s why they cut Tucker’s phone line. They’re after the men that took Gracie, but for some other reason. And they’re willing to sacrifice her to get them.”

“ Sacrifice her? You mean… Jesus… What could those men be doing that’s so bad the FBI would sacrifice Gracie to get them?”

Four hundred miles due north, Junior said, “Lemme clean up this mess, then I’ll show you your big surprise. After that I’ll show you around my mountain, before I go to town to pick up your, uh, girl stuff.” He smiled real big. “I mean, our mountain.”

Gracie gave him a weak smile then wandered around the room; she was trying to sort things out.

This was way strange. Mountain boy kidnapped her, but he treated her totally nice. Cozy bedroom, hot bath, new clothes, good breakfast-well, except for eating Bambi.

Gracie pointed at the door that Junior had come out of earlier. “What’s in there?”

He smiled. “Your big surprise.”

Uh-oh, Gracie thought. The bridal suite. She quickly continued her tour. On the short wall by the kitchen were photographs, pictures of a woman, a girl really, with an older man who looked like Junior and a small boy who was Junior.

“That’s my mama,” Junior said from the kitchen.

“Wow, she was beautiful.”

“Yep. She died real sudden when I was just a kid. She’s buried out back.”

“You buried your mother in the backyard?”

“ No… the major did.”

She turned the corner and started down the long wall: more photographs, one of the man who looked like Junior with medals on his uniform and a green beret on his head, like the picture of Ben on her desk. His nametag said WALKER. And photos of soldiers in a jungle and in a city with pretty women who looked like Ms. Wang, the math teacher; they were smiling, but their eyes were sad.

And Junior was real considerate for a boy. He actually knocked on her bedroom door before entering! That never happened at home. Mom just barged in whenever she felt like it.

Next on the wall were big knives and a fancy sword and a leather cord strung with shriveled up… ears? That is so totally gross! She pulled her eyes off the ears and looked at the map of the United States that was next on the wall. Various places were marked in black, with dates and names: Kelly, Epstein, Goldburg, Garcia, Young, Ellis, McCoy.

And Junior swore he didn’t touch her or look at her and said he’d kill anyone who tried to. Which seemed strange for a kidnapper. Like, if he didn’t take her for that and he didn’t take her for money, what did he take her for?

Next to the U.S. map was an aerial photograph like the one Dad had shown her of their neighborhood-Catoctin Mountain Park, the label read-with everything marked: the entrance, a big lodge named Aspen, smaller cabins, stables, swimming pool, skeet range, bowling alley, gym and sauna, horseshoe pit, chapel, heliport, trails, security checkpoints. That would be a really cool place to go camping. Maybe they could take their postponed first annual Brice family camping trip there. Black lines were drawn from each security checkpoint to a smaller photograph tacked on the wall, photos of little buildings and soldiers with rifles and dogs on leashes. Wow, they’re way serious about making sure everyone paid their camping fee! Another black line was drawn from the entrance location to a photograph of the entrance with a big metal gate and the name of the place in white letters on a board hanging between two posts: CAMP DAVID.

This was all like, really weird, but she couldn’t help thinking that maybe Junior wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Our mountain, he had said.

She realized he was standing next to her. When he smiled, he was kind of cute, except he needed some major dental work. He put his arm around her shoulders and she didn’t move it. She pointed to the leather cord on the wall.

“Are those-”

“Ears. The major, he cut ’em off dead gooks. Give them to me for Christmas, back when I was about your age.”

“And I was hoping for new soccer shoes.” She gestured at the maps on the wall. “What’s all this?”

Junior pointed at a red flag with a half-moon sword and a hammer and the face of a man with a wispy little beard and said, “Commie flag from North Vietnam. That’s Ho Chi Minh hisself. And that’s an NVA helmet, and those black pajamas, that’s what the VC wore. That’s the major’s Bowie knife and his Colt. 45s.”

“What are all these photographs, the Camp David map?” She pointed. “I know that name, McCoy. What’s all this for?”

“Oh… we’re gonna kill the president.”

Three hundred miles to the south, John smacked the steering wheel hard enough to hurt.

“How are we gonna save her, Ben? How are we gonna find her without the FBI’s help?”

“They’re holed up in the mountains,” Ben said.

“How do you know?”

“That’s where a good soldier would be.”

“A soldier? ”

Ben nodded. “John, I don’t know why the FBI wants those men-maybe they’re racists or Nazis or just nuts-but I know why those men want Gracie. I wasn’t sure until Tucker ID’d the tattoo.” He paused. “It’s about the war.”

“The war? ” John almost laughed. “Ben, you gotta let the war go.”

“I’ve tried. It won’t let go of me.”

John decided to humor Ben: “Okay, so what’s Gracie got to do with your war?”

Ben stared blankly for a time. Then he said, “There was a massacre, in sixty-eight, in the Quang Tri province of South Vietnam. American soldiers murdered forty-two civilians.”

“So?”

“So I was there.”

“You didn’t…”

“No, I didn’t.”

“My father?”

“No.”

“But our unit did. Viper team. The big man at the park, he had a Viper tattoo-he was there. He killed those people.”

“ You knew that guy? ”

“Yeah, I knew him.”

“Why didn’t you tell the FBI?”

“Because I knew that if he had Gracie, the FBI couldn’t stop him. No one can stop a Green Beret… except a Green Beret.”

“But you didn’t tell the FBI, so they closed her case.”

“That’s a good thing, John.”

“ Why? ”

“Because the men who took Gracie won’t be expecting me.”

John thought that through, not sure whether it was a plan or the delusions of a drunk.

“Okay, so that guy killed a bunch of people in Vietnam a long time ago-what’s that got to do with Gracie?”

“I reported it… the massacre.”

“What happened?”

“The Army court-martialed those soldiers on my testimony.”

“And?”

“They’re taking their revenge.”

John laughed now. “ What? Forty years later, they’re coming back for revenge? That’s a long time to hold onto a grudge, Ben.”

“How long have you held onto the bullies?”

They drove in silence for several miles, then John said, “Did my father die there?”

“Yes, he did.”

“How?”

“John, some things are best left in the past.”

“But it’s not in the past, is it? Not if it got my daughter kidnapped eight days ago.” He waited for Ben’s response, but none came. He looked over at Ben. “I’m entitled to know, Ben.”

As night falls over Indochina on 17 Dec 68, SOG team Viper, twelve Green Berets fresh off a successful covert incursion into Laos, descends the limestone facade that is the Co Roc Mountain and crosses the Xe Kong River back into South Vietnam; they are five klicks south of the DMZ in the Quang Tri province. Intelligence reports indicate that Communist forces are now entering South Vietnam directly through the fourteen-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone. SOG team Viper’s orders are to interdict the enemy at the Seventeenth Parallel. It is Indian territory, a Vietnamese Communist stronghold, where no regular Army forces dare tread. Of course, there is nothing regular about SOG team Viper; so they venture forth into the night. But, as they say in Vietnam, the night belongs to Charlie.

The major is walking point, leading his team silently through the jungle single file when his voice suddenly breaks the silence.

“Am-bush!”

The soldiers hit the deck a split second before all hell breaks loose, enemy fire incoming from every direction. They walked right into an ambush by a far superior force. They’re pinned down in a crossfire with no avenue of escape. If not for the major’s keen instincts and sense of smell-his nose picked up the pungent scent of a Cambodian cigarette favored by the VC-the VC would have twelve more Americans to add to their daily body count report to Hanoi.

Flat on their backs, AK-47 rounds cracking overhead and ripping through the jungle foliage and leaves falling like confetti, the Green Berets take turns emptying their clips at the enemy, just to let the VC know they’re still alive and to give the major time to come up with a “go to hell” plan-a new plan when the original plan goes to hell, like now.

Which he does.

“On my lead,” the major says to his men, making a sharp hand signal toward the west. “Jacko, Ace-claymore our back trail.”

Captain Jack O. Smith, who is never far from the major’s side, and Captain Tony “Ace” Gregory crawl off to the northeast and southeast. The major moves closer to his newest disciples, only seventeen days in-country, and says, “Brice, Dalton, when I move out, you boys act like hemorrhoids and stick to my ass.” And he smiles. Under fierce and likely fatal attack by the VC in a dark jungle in Southeast Asia, Major Charles Woodrow Walker smiles. His young disciples think, That’s why he’s a living legend.

And they know what it was like to have followed into battle the great generals they studied at West Point-Lee or Grant or Patton or MacArthur or Eisenhower. The major is the first to hit the ground when inserted and the last to leave the ground when extracted; he walks point, the most dangerous position; he would die for his men, and they for him. He has survived over one hundred covert missions into Laos and Cambodia and North Vietnam; most SOG team leaders don’t last a dozen. He is a warrior-god.

To Ben he says, “Let this be a lesson, Lieutenant. We should’ve taken out the old woman before she had a chance to rat us out to the local VC.”

Back at the river they spotted a lone figure down on the bank and the figure them. “Take him out,” the major said to Lieutenant Brice, the team’s sniper. Ben put his scope on the figure and saw that it was just an old woman filling water jugs. He informed the major. “Then take her out,” the major said. “But, Major, she’s a noncombatant. She’s so old, she probably can’t even see we’re Americans.” The major looked at him, shook his head, and said, “Move out.” Thirty minutes ago, Ben Brice had felt good about saving the old woman’s life.

The two captains return. “Charlie’s gonna eat some lead,” Captain Smith says with a grin. The captains emplaced claymore mines behind their escape route; when the VC give chase, the claymores will stop them in their tracks. A small rectangular plastic box, its business side embossed with FRONT TOWARD ENEMY so some doped-up draftee doesn’t take out his entire platoon, the M18A1 claymore antipersonnel mine is a particularly effective killing device; upon detonation by remote control or tripwire, the claymore sprays seven hundred steel balls in a sixty degree pattern, killing anyone within fifty meters. The balls can literally cut the typical hundred-pound Vietnamese Communist in two.

The major loads new clips into his twin. 45s. The veterans of the team pull two hand grenades each. As tracer rounds zip through the darkness overhead like a fireworks show, Brice and Dalton look at each other and nod nervously.

“Let’s kill some gooks,” the major says. From his backside, he hurls two grenades. The others follow his lead. The noise of the grenades exploding is deafening; the surrounding jungle is suddenly shrouded in white smoke. Every other grenade was a Willie Pete, a white phosphorus grenade. They were warned in training against throwing phosphorus grenades where the burning smoke could envelope them, but apparently there is an exception when surrounded by the enemy.

The Green Berets are suddenly up and running all-out to the west, directly at the VC, who can’t see them coming; Major Charles Woodrow Walker is leading the charge with a. 45 in each hand and Brice and Dalton tight on his ass. As they hit the enemy line, they unload on the startled VC; the major fires both. 45s simultaneously. Ben fires his backup weapon, the Uzi. They hear the claymores detonate behind them and the death cries of the Viet Cong.

No one looks back. The Americans run through the dark night, barely able to see the man in front of them, following only the sound of hard breathing and boots pounding the turf. For fifteen minutes they run.

“Halt!”

The major’s voice penetrates the dark. His hands grab Ben and yank him out of the path of the incoming. The others arrive and take cover. No one laughs; no one talks. Ben silently thanks God for the major, then his heart skips a beat: Where’s Roger?

The major’s thoughts aren’t far behind. “Where’s Dalton?” he whispers to Ben.

“He was right behind me.”

“Jacko,” the major says, “check it out.”

Captain Smith nods and disappears into the night. Thirty minutes later, he returns.

“They got him, Major. Heading north.”

“Goddamnit!” The major stands. “Saddle up.”

They head back to the ambush point, their minds playing out the consequence of violating one of the three absolute rules drilled into every SOG team member from day one: never let yourself be captured by the VC.

They track the VC through the jungle and into a hamlet. Entering the hamlet, it is apparent the VC were here; the fear shows on the peasants’ faces. The Americans sweep the hamlet, searching every hut and hiding place for signs of Dalton or the VC. The peasants huddle together; mothers clutch their children. They are cooperative but tense, as one would expect when confronted by eleven big and heavily armed American soldiers in the middle of VC territory.

“No VC! No Yank!”

In the center of the hamlet, an old man stands next to a big pot cooking over an open fire; it is the community pot of nuoc mam, a pungent fish sauce the Vietnamese pour over rice. He stirs the sauce with a long wood utensil. He seems scared to death and is barely moving his utensil. The Americans find neither Dalton nor VC.

Captain Smith’s voice rings out. He’s picked up the VC’s tracks leading out of the hamlet and into the adjacent jungle. The Green Berets give chase, aware they’re probably running directly into another ambush or booby traps or “Holy shit!”

— Dalton.

Ben Brice brings up the rear and comes upon his teammates standing shoulder to shoulder, their backs to him. One thought captures his mind: it must be Roger. He prepares himself to face death again, then he pushes his way through to the front. And in that moment, his life is forever changed. His romantic West Point notions of war and warriors are forever dispelled. His childlike vision of good and evil is forever altered. His innocence is lost. And so it is, when one confronts the evil in man.

Lieutenant Roger Dalton, U.S. Army Green Beret, hangs from a tree by his ankles, naked and disemboweled, his intestines hanging down into the small fire the VC built so the Americans could better see their handiwork. His genitals are missing. As is his head. The only sound is that of the fire sizzling with each drop of his bodily fluids. They know it’s Dalton by the fresh Viper tattoo on his left arm and the dog tags intertwined in the laces of the boots sitting below the body, a typical precaution in case you stepped on a land mine and had a leg blown off; the dog tags allowed the medics to rejoin man and leg, if not literally at least for the body bag. But it was not a precaution against decapitation by the VC. The major’s face is grim.

“This is why we kill gooks.”

After a long moment, Warrant Officer Nunn asks in his Southern drawl, “But where’s his head, Major?”

The major’s expression changes as if he had a revelation.

“Goddamnit!”

He pivots and runs back toward the hamlet. His men exchange confused glances, then they chase after their leader. Ben Brice looks at what remains of his best friend and throws up.

The major and nine angry, armed, adrenaline-charged Green Berets arrive back at the hamlet and run directly to the old man at the community pot of nuoc mam. He heard them coming; he is crying, for he knows his fate. The major shoves the old man aside and grabs the wooden utensil. He stirs in the pot then uses the utensil and his razor-sharp eleven-inch Bowie knife to fish an object out: Roger Dalton’s head, his eyes wide open, his mouth wider and stuffed with his genitals.

The major’s face contorts in rage and he lets out a feral scream that echoes against the jungle walls surrounding the hamlet. Then he turns to the old man and yells, “No VC? No VC?” His hand flashes past the old man’s face, as if he were going to strike him but missed. The old man’s face registers surprise, then blood appears along a thin line across his throat. He falls. The major slit the old man’s throat with the Bowie knife.

Lieutenant Ben Brice is using his Bowie knife to cut his best friend’s body down and blaming himself-if he had obeyed the major’s orders and taken the old woman out, Roger would still be alive-when he hears gunfire from the hamlet. It’s as if God whispered in his ear: he knows instantly what is happening.

He leaves his friend and runs backs to the hamlet, fighting his way through the hot steamy jungle, until he comes upon a massacre he cannot stop and a china doll he cannot save.

John’s tears stained the smooth Alpaca beige leather.

He had pulled the Land Rover off the highway shortly after Ben had begun retelling the massacre at Quang Tri. Now his forehead rested on the steering wheel.

“The major was the greatest man I’ve ever known,” Ben said. “Brilliant, natural born leader, completely without personal fear, an absolute belief that America was destined to defeat Communism in the world. He could have been one of the greatest soldiers in history.”

A deep sigh.

“Maybe when a man fights evil every day for so many years, he becomes evil. Maybe a man can’t be around that much hate without hating. I fought the hate. The major… the hate consumed him. He became the evil he was fighting.”

“Where is he now, the major?”

“He’s dead.”

“We were ordered to war but not allowed to win the war. We were ordered to kill but court-martialed for killing. We were ordered to defeat Communism in Southeast Asia only to see Communism win at home.

“Thirty years of Communist rule over America and what has our once great nation become? An immoral society that is unworthy of its military. Civilians who demand freedom for free. Politicians who promise peace and prosperity at no cost, an all-expense-paid life devoted to the pursuit of happiness. Politicians who refused to do their duty but now call on the military to fight foreign wars when their political ambitions are thereby served. That is America today.

“Each of us-soldiers in the United States Army-took a solemn oath to defend this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And defend it we did-the Cold War is over, the Evil Empire is no more, Communism is defeated. But now the threat to America comes from within. From domestic enemies. From those among us who want an America subordinate to the United Nations, subject to international laws and courts, who want to dismantle the American military-because we are the last defense of America. We cannot allow that to happen. I will not allow that to happen. Not while I can still pull the trigger.”

Seven Days in May starring Major Charles Woodrow Walker.

FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson was viewing an old grainy videotape of the court-martialed war criminal Major Charles Woodrow Walker. He was handsome, a charismatic speaker, and the leader of a plot to overthrow the United States government. He commanded a personal army of former soldiers. He was operating under the radar, back before 9/11, back when the Bureau’s domestic radar screen was filled not with Islamic extremists but with homegrown hate groups-Aryan Nation, National Alliance, the Order, the Klan, skinheads, the right-wing militia movement: a bunch of dumb-ass white boys who so hated blacks and Jews that they had retired to the mountains of Idaho and Montana to live without electricity or running water or blacks or Jews. But while the Bureau concerned itself with weekend warriors who couldn’t overthrow their own town councils if their lives depended on it, completely undetected were Walker and his soldiers, real warriors trained by the U.S. government to overthrow other countries’ governments. Walker was a clear and present danger to America: a pissed-off Green Beret can be a nation’s worst nightmare.

And the Bureau might never have learned of Walker’s plot until the military coup began if this videotape had not been sent to the FBI twelve years ago with an anonymous handwritten note that read: Patty Walker said if I don’t see her for three months, the major done killed her, and I better mail this. So I am. The package was postmarked Bonners Ferry, Idaho. The Bureau put a team in Bonners Ferry. They alerted local law enforcement and hospitals. They searched for Walker’s secret mountain compound but without success. So they waited to get lucky.

Two years later, they did.

Walker strode into the hospital in Bonners Ferry with his dying son in his arms. The hospital treated the boy and called the Feds; the FBI arrested Walker without incident and airlifted him to the maximum-security prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, to await trial for treason.

A trial that never took place.

Walker’s men took a high-ranking government employee hostage and threatened to send the hostage back in pieces unless Walker was released. FBI Director Laurence McCoy refused-until he received the first installment. McCoy released Walker, who then disappeared into Mexico. And there his life ended. Three weeks later, Major Charles Woodrow Walker died of a heart attack.

Washington had overnighted the entire file on Major Walker-the videotape, photographs, and background reports of Walker and his followers. Their military careers were classified just like Colonel Brice’s. There was no mention of Viper team or a Viper tattoo. The last item in the file was a copy of his New York Times obituary. Jan sat back. Her revenge theory didn’t wash.

Major Charles Woodrow Walker had been dead for ten years.

Bonners Ferry, Idaho, population 2,600, sits along the south bank of the Kootenai River twenty-four miles from the Canadian border, 1,800 feet above sea level, and nestled among three mountain ranges with peaks reaching 8,000 feet into the big sky. The original inhabitants of the “Nile of the North,” as this fertile river valley became known, were members of the Kootenai Nation, whose local residency dated back to prehistoric times. The white man came to this part of Idaho on his way to Canada during the gold rush of 1863; he stayed to harvest the tall timber that covered 90 percent of the land. A century and a half later, the Kootenai tribe owns the town’s only casino, the descendants of the gold rushers grow Christmas trees, and northern Idaho has become a haven for racists, neo-Nazis, and right-wing antigovernment zealots.

Only the latter fact did Ben know when he parked the Land Rover in front of the Boundary County Courthouse. He and John stepped through the icy slush and walked into the three-story white stone structure. They located the sheriff’s office; inside, a plump middle-aged woman sat at a desk behind a waist-high wood partition. Behind her desk was a door marked SHERIFF J. D. JOHNSON. On the wall next to the door were framed photographs in each of which appeared a tall rugged man with progressively less and grayer hair-and one photograph when the man had a full head of black hair, in a place Ben knew all too well.

“Here to pay a fine?” the woman asked.

“No, ma’am,” Ben said, “we’re-”

“File a complaint?”

“No, ma’am-”

“Service of process?”

John planted his hands on the partition and leaned over. “Cripes, lady, we’re looking for the freaking Nazis that kidnapped my daughter!”

The woman stared at him over her glasses. “O-kay.”

The door behind her opened, and the man in the photographs appeared, wearing a uniform like he had worn one all his life.

“Louann,” the man said, “I’m occupado tonight. Tell Cody he’s in charge.”

He noticed Ben and John; he glanced back at the woman.

“Sheriff, these gentlemen are here about some Nazis,” she said as if it were a routine request.

The sheriff gave Ben and John a law enforcement once-over-they probably appeared ragged, almost twenty-four hours on the road-then came around the partition. He walked with a slight limp. Ben stuck out his hand.

“Sheriff, Ben Brice. And my son, John.”

The sheriff’s hair was combed neatly and he smelled of cologne, as if he had just freshened up in his office. He shook their hands.

“J. D. Johnson. What’s this about some Nazis?”

Ben held out Gracie’s photo. “My granddaughter’s been kidnapped.”

The sheriff studied the photo. “The girl down in Texas.” Then he answered Ben’s unasked question. “NLETS, law enforcement Teletype.”

“We think she’s up here,” Ben said.

“Thought the abductor hung himself?”

“He was the wrong man.”

“FBI seems to think he was the right man.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Unh-hunh.”

The sheriff scratched his square jaw; his fingernails sounded like number-six sandpaper on his day-old beard.

“And you figure some Nazi-type brought her up here?”

“We were told a lot of them live in this area.”

The sheriff sighed. “That is a fact.”

“She was in Idaho Falls on Sunday evening, positive ID, with two men wearing camouflage fatigues, heading north five hundred miles in a white SUV with Idaho plates.”

“Well, that’d put them right about here, wouldn’t it?”

“Look, Sheriff, if you could give us a few minutes of your time, look at a few photos…”

The sheriff shrugged. “All right, Mr. Brice. First thing in the morning.”

“Could we do it now, Sheriff? It’s an emergency.”

“It’s also my anniversary. Taking the wife to dinner, and I gotta pick up this little bracelet I got for her…” He turned for the door. “Oh-six-hundred, Mr. Brice.”

He had his hand on the doorknob when Ben said, “You were a slick driver at Da Krong?”

The sheriff stopped dead in his tracks. His leathery face rotated around; he had a quizzical expression.

“On the wall,” Ben said.

The sheriff walked over and lifted a framed photo off its wall hook. “Me and my warrant officer. He came home in a body bag.” He paused, his eyes still on the photo; his rough fingers gently brushed dust from the glass. He cleared his throat and turned to Ben. “J. D. Johnson, captain, Marine Corps.”

“Ben Brice, colonel, Army Green Berets.”

12 Feb 71. Captain J. D. Johnson is piloting the UH-1D chopper transporting seven Marines to a battle zone near the Laos border in the Da Krong Valley. He’s flying lead slick in a V formation with four other birds. His. 45-caliber sidearm hangs between his legs to protect his privates from ground fire. He’s running sixty knots at twelve hundred feet. He has done this hundreds of times and come home every time.

He spots the green smoke marking the landing zone. He brings the Huey down in a steep descent and hears the accompanying gunships firing rockets into the surrounding trees; they’re prepping the landing zone, running a racetrack loop over the LZ so that cover fire is continuous during troop deployment.

Another hot LZ.

He sees tracer rounds coming at his ship. His door gunner opens fire with the M-60. Thirty seconds to drop the troops and get the hell out. He comes in fast, flares the nose to slow his air speed, and hovers three feet off the ground as the troops un-ass the bird from both sides; there are no doors on these slicks. The all clear and he dips the nose to gain speed to pull out. Just as he clears the trees, the chopper explodes. When he wakes, he hears voices speaking Vietnamese.

Captain J. D. Johnson is a POW.

Night has descended over South Vietnam and he’s wondering if his warrant officer made it out alive. He’s bound and sitting in the corner of an earthen bunker carved out of the hillside; he took a bullet in his left leg. From his limited knowledge of Vietnamese, he gathers that a platoon will take the captured American to an NVA base camp in Laos tomorrow.

By the next night, he is in Laos; it’s the first night of a three-day march to the NVA base camp. He’s sitting up against a tree; his hands are bound behind him. His leg is broken and the wound is infected. He’s sweating profusely from the fever and his mind is getting clouded. Except for the guard sitting a few feet away, his captors are sleeping in gray hooches and hammocks strung between the trees, completely unconcerned that their American prisoner might attempt an escape.

J. D. Johnson, from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, never figured on dying in some damn jungle in Laos.

The guard suddenly slumps over without a sound; blood streams from his throat. J.D.’s hands fall; his bindings are cut. A face appears before him- Jesus! A goddamned Indian! He is lifted like he weighs fifty pounds instead of one-ninety and slung over a bare shoulder. They walk silently between two NVA soldiers snoring in hammocks.

All night they walk, his head bobbing at a smooth rhythm, his eyes seeing only the trail beneath the Indian’s bare feet as they travel through the jungle; his mind comes in and out of consciousness, wrapped in a blanket of fever.

When he wakes, dawn is breaking. As is the sky. A patch of blue up above. And an American voice beside him, calling for a Medevac: “I say again, Johnson, J. D., Marine…”

His vision is blurred; he shakes his head, but the fever grips him like a vice. Who are these people? He tries to focus on the American. He’s a soldier. He passes out again.

He comes to, the THUMP THUMP THUMP of a chopper coming out of the hole in the clouds, a red cross on a white square on the chopper’s nose: a U.S. Army Medevac. Tears come into his eyes. J. D. Johnson was not going to die in some damn jungle in Laos, at least not today.

He is lifted from the ground and the sound of the chopper grows louder. His face is not against the bare brown chest of the Indian but against the American’s fatigues. He sees the blades rotating above him and he hears more American voices “Goddamn, you’re the one they talk about! Green Beret colonel living in the jungle with the Indians! You’re a fucking legend!”

— and he’s being lifted into the chopper. He grabs the American’s fatigues, and with all the strength left in his body, he pulls his face next to the soldier’s chest, to his nametag, and he makes out a name he will never forget: BRICE.

“If you’re white and pissed off at the world, chances are you call Idaho home.”

The sheriff was leaning back in a squeaky swivel chair behind his metal desk; he had changed his mind and decided to talk with them now. Ben and John sat in metal chairs on the visitors’ side of the desk.

“State’s become a damn mecca for those people-white supremacists, skinheads, militias, neo-Nazis-every goddamn kook in the country’s moving to Idaho, living on a mountain and hating everyone don’t look like them.” He shook his head. “People used to come here to fish.”

He handed the photos back to Ben.

“We got a bunch of them living around here, Colonel, but I’ve never seen no one looks like these two. The ones left stay up in the mountains for the most part. They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them.”

Ben gestured at the Boundary County map on the wall behind the sheriff.

“Any idea where their camps are?”

The sheriff stood and stepped to the map.

“Thirteen, fourteen years ago, before they had real terrorists to deal with, FBI was waging war on these guys. They set up a command post here, flew surveillance over the mountains looking for their camps. Thirteen hundred square miles in Boundary Country, lots of room to hide. The Feds identified four camps east of town, seven west, all off unpaved roads. This time of year, you need a four-wheel-drive to get up the muddy roads ’cause of the snow melt. And even if you get up there, you won’t see much from the road. The camps are up in the mountains, blocked out by the trees. If your girl’s in one of those camps, finding her ain’t gonna be easy. And getting her down damn near impossible.”

The sheriff put a finger on the map.

“FBI tried to bring one of those guys off Ruby Ridge in ninety-two, got a marshal killed. Brought in the Hostage Rescue Team even though there weren’t no hostages, put eleven snipers on that mountain, told them to shoot on sight. They did. Killed the guy’s wife. Shot her in the head while she was holding her baby. Government ended up paying him three million bucks.”

“Any place they hang out when they come to town?”

“Place just south of town, Rusty’s Tavern and Grill, but don’t eat the food. Beer joint. Some gals. Rough place, but we leave ’em alone long as they don’t shoot each other.”

Ben stood. “Sheriff, I appreciate your time. My apologies to your wife.”

“Thirty-four years, she’s used to me being late.”

The two middle-aged men, soldiers of a forgotten war, shook hands; they considered embracing but resisted. Ben and John were at the door when the sheriff spoke again.

“Colonel, if you don’t mind me asking, what would a couple Nazi-wannabes living in Idaho want with your granddaughter?”

Ben paused a moment, then he said, “To settle an old score.”

The sheriff studied Ben; he nodded. “One more thing, Colonel. Most of those fellas are just dumb-ass white boys couldn’t spell cat if you spotted them c and t, lucky just to find their way home at night. But there’s a few who ain’t just playing soldier. You go looking for your girl, you be ready.”

“I am.”

A slight smile from the sheriff. “I expect you are. And Colonel… thanks. For back then.”

Ben nodded. And a thought occurred to him. “Sheriff, there wouldn’t be a chopper for hire around here, would there?”

“Matter a fact, boy down by Naples got one. Dicky, we use him for search-and-rescues when a tourist gets lost hiking in the woods. I’ll give him a call.” He turned to his phone but stopped. “Tell you what. Meet me here at oh-six-hundred, we’ll drive down there together. Little air recon might do me good.”

“Oh-six-hundred,” Ben said. “We’ll be here.”

“Check your time, Colonel. We’re on Pacific time up here.”

The sheriff stood, walked over, and opened the door.

“You know, Colonel, one good thing about you hunting your girl without the Feds.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t gotta worry about them getting her killed.”

“You just missed him,” the store owner said, “not half an hour. Boy didn’t know a tampon from a Tootsie Roll.”

He laughed at his own words. The General Store on Main Street had been in his family for over fifty years. It was a place where you could buy food, fertilizer, clothes, and tampons.

“Like a boy asking for rubbers. Hands me a little piece of paper with the name on it”-the owner leaned down under the counter; Ben could hear him rustling in a trash can-“yep, here it is.”

He bumped his head on the underside of the counter, then he reappeared, rubbing his bare scalp with one hand and holding out a scrap of white paper with the other. Two words had been written on the paper- Tampax tampons — and under the words a happy face had been drawn.

“That’s her handwriting,” Ben said.

“And her happy face,” John said.

The owner ducked his head slightly and said, “Am I bleeding?”

Ben shook his head. “Can you describe him?”

“Blond hair, blue eyes, about your height but stockier, maybe twenty-five. I see him a half-dozen times a year. Strange bird.”

“How so?”

“What he buys-girls’ clothes, pink pajamas, Barbie doll…”

“Gracie doesn’t do dolls,” Ben said.

John gritted his teeth: “Bagbiter.”

“No, he didn’t want a bag. Stuck the box under his coat like it was a girlie magazine and left… say, that reminds me. Few months back, he bought a Fortune magazine. I remember ’cause he didn’t look like an investor. May still have the one.” He bent over again and rummaged around below the counter. “Yeah, here it is.” He came back up with the Fortune magazine. He looked at the cover picture of John and then at John. “Say, that looks just like you.” He glanced back at the cover. “That is you.” He opened the magazine to the story with the Brice family portrait. “I was standing right here reading your story when he just snatched it out of my hands.”

“Notice which way he drove out of town?”

“North. He was parked right there where you are. Pulled out and headed north, sure did.”

Ben thanked the owner for his time, and he and John turned to leave.

“Oh, one more thing,” the owner said. They turned back. “He’s missing a finger. This one.”

The owner was pointing at the ceiling with the index finger of his right hand.

Ben and John stepped outside. They were canvassing the town, showing the photos to every business owner on Main Street. The general store was their fourth stop.

Ben said, “He didn’t buy tampons for a dead girl.”

“Tampons,” John said. “I didn’t think she was there yet.”

“She’s not. She just wanted him in town.”

“Why?”

“Because she knew I’d… we’d come for her. She’s a smart girl, John.” Ben faced north; the glow of the sunset was dimming now. “And she’s out there somewhere.”

Gracie hadn’t heard noises from the other room for hours now, since Junior had knocked on her bedroom door and begged her to come out so he could explain why they had to kill the president. She had refused, so he had said he was going into town to get her “girl stuff.” She had heard the truck roar off. Junior was gone. Now was her chance to escape. If she could escape, Ben wouldn’t have to drink more of his whiskey to forget killing Junior and Jacko.

She moved everything from in front of the door to her bedroom. She cracked the door and peeked out. The big room was empty. She came out slowly.

“Hi, sweetie.”

Gracie jumped at the voice behind her. She whirled around. A big fat ugly man was now standing between her and the door to her bedroom: the man that killed Bambi. His breath smelled of alcohol; his body odor could stop traffic.

“You ever touch one of these?” the fat man asked.

Gracie looked down to his hands cupped by his crotch. He was holding his penis. It wasn’t all wrinkly and limp like Dad’s that day in his bathroom; it was purple and swollen up like it was going to pop. It was plenty big enough to hurt a girl her age. She recalled Ms. Boyd saying something about erections, that a boy’s penis becomes hard in order to penetrate a girl’s “You touch this bod and Junior’s gonna kill you!”

“Well, Junior ain’t here right now, is he?”

She now recalled Ms. Boyd’s advice from sex ed class. She pointed a finger at the man and said, “No! And no means no!”

He just laughed. “Not to me it don’t.”

She made a mental note to tell Ms. Boyd that “no means no” doesn’t work so well with big fat ugly men on a mountain in Idaho. Finally, she recalled her mother’s advice: If a boy doesn’t take no for an answer, kick him in the balls. Gracie assumed that advice applied to big fat ugly men. So she kicked him in his balls, her best Tae Kwon Do kick with the hiking boots-but the fat man only yelped and waved his hand around. From the look he gave her, she had only succeeded in making him really mad. There was only one thing to do now.

Run.

The cold air shocked her as she hit the cabin door. The fat man would never have caught her if she hadn’t slipped on the ice. His hot breath hit her neck like a blow dryer. His hands grabbed at her clothes. Her feet were dangling.

“Come on back inside, girlie. Bubba ain’t had no virgin since-”

She heard a dull thud and the fat man groan. He released her, and she fell to the ground. She looked up to see Junior swinging a shovel and hitting the fat man in the head again.

“Bubba, you son of a bitch!”

Bubba went down to his knees; his eyes were glazed over and his head was bleeding. Junior’s face was wild; he was swinging again when Jacko grabbed the shovel from behind.

“Now don’t go and kill our only munitions expert, Junior,” Jacko said. “He’s just drunk.”

“He’s out!” Junior yelled. He kicked the fat man named Bubba in the stomach. “Get the fuck off my mountain!”

Junior threw a set of keys at Bubba. He grabbed the keys, crawled away to a safe distance, and then got to his feet and stumbled over to an old pickup truck. He got in and drove fast down the mountain.

“Oh, Junior, you saved me!”

Patty hugged him real tight. Tears were in her pretty blue eyes. Ever since Junior had seen her picture in that magazine, he knew they had to be together. And now they were.

“I was so scared! I was like, oh my God, he’s gonna rape me, where’s Junior? And there you were-you were totally awesome!” She wiped her eyes on his shirt. “Ooh, I love your shirt. Plaid’s my favorite.”

She looked up at Junior like that Mary Ann girl looking at the professor on that Gilligan show he had seen at the motel. Then she said three words that brought tears to Junior’s eyes.

“You’re my hero.”

She hugged him again, burying her face in his chest. Junior’s heart was about to bust, he was so damned happy. Her hugging him, that made it worth losing Bubba and his explosives skills. Patty pulled back and squeezed his biceps.

“Wow, you’re buff, Junior. Totally studly. Hey, look, I’m real sorry about this morning, getting so upset and all. I mean, it’s not like we’re Republicans, for crying out loud. I’m sure you have a very good reason to kill the president.”

“He ordered the major assassinated.”

“The major your daddy?”

“Yep.”

“Well, there you go. That’s a totally good reason. I mean, who could blame you for being a little PO’d?”

“Now we’re gonna return the favor.”

“Nanna always says, What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I’m not real sure what that means.”

He took her hands. “Patty, are you ready for your big surprise?”

He glanced over at the bedroom door by the kitchen; her eyes followed his and then turned back real fast.

“Well, yeah, sure, but, um, why don’t you show me later, after dinner maybe. Show me around your mountain first. I mean, our mountain. Before it gets dark.”

“Well, okay, I guess it can wait.”

“Sure it can.”

He smiled; she said our mountain. “Sure, okay.”

Patty got a funny look on her face. “Uh-oh. Did you get my tampons?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Junior went to the kitchen table and returned with the box of girl stuff. “Here.”

Patty took the box and said, “I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared into her room. Her talking about that girl stuff so straight out- period, tampons, bleeding — made Junior real uncomfortable. He never figured that would be a regular topic of discussion; he hoped it wouldn’t. A few minutes later she came back out.

“All better now. And, hey, sorry about calling you a numb-nut, during the road trip.”

“Aw, heck, honey, I been called a lot worse.”

Junior leaned down and cupped her pretty face. Then he kissed her forehead.

“Patty, I dreamed of this day-”

“Yeah, Mrs. Boyd told us about those kind of dreams in health class.”

Damn, there she goes again.

“Huh? Oh, no, I didn’t mean that.”

“Whatever. Let’s go see our mountain.”

She smiled real big at him, and he forgot about the tampon talk by the time they got outside.

“Lemme think here,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and turning in all directions as he thought of the best place to start the tour of their mountain. What would most impress Patty?

“Oh, I know, I’ll show you the creek first. It’s my favorite place in the whole world. Hey, you ever seen real bear tracks?”

He turned back, and she was gone.

See ya! What a loser! Does he really think I’m going to marry him? The bridal suite-that’s his big surprise? As if.

Gracie was running down the mountain like she was running down a soccer field on a breakaway and holding the tampons like relay batons. She was making good time on the dirt road, even though there were muddy patches she couldn’t see until she slipped. But she managed to stay on her feet each time. The sun was down; the road was getting darker and harder to see as it wound through the trees and down the mountain. She caught a glimpse of the main highway below; she was getting close. She saw a car drive by.

“Help me!”

The sound of her breathing was now joined by another sound-a truck. Junior was coming. She had to get down to the highway… The truck noise was gaining on her… She turned on the speed, tricky going downhill… What’s that in the road?… Some kind of metal plate, like they use when they repair the streets back home… The noise behind her was closer now… on top of her… She took a quick check behind her and her foot caught the edge of something and She went tumbling and the tampons went flying; she hit the ground hard and rolled over and over until her head hit something. Then the world was black.

When Gracie opened her eyes, her head ached, she was cold, and she was in a new place. A tight place. A box. She could see trees above. A face appeared over her. Junior. And she realized what he was doing to her.

“Please, Junior, I’m really sorry! I won’t run again, I promise! Don’t do this to me, please! ”

Junior’s face was hard.

“I’m sorry, too, Patty, ’cause you ruined my big surprise. Now I gotta teach you a lesson. Night or two down there, you won’t run again. The major, he used to put me down there when I needed to get my head on straight, and it didn’t do nothing bad to me.”

“Oh, no, nothing bad at all-you’re just some kind of freaking psycho!”

Then it was dark.

Downtown Dallas after five was a ghost town, especially on a Friday night. The lawyers and bankers had retreated to the suburbs for the weekend, gone home to mama and the kids. FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson had only an empty apartment waiting for her, so she was running the deserted streets of downtown, not an advisable venue for most joggers. But then, most joggers don’t carry a. 40-caliber Glock semiautomatic in their waist pack-well, this was Texas; maybe they did.

She had missed her lunch-hour runs every day this week. She needed exercise. Running cleared her mind and allowed her to think. So far she had thought her way into a dead end.

The revenge theory just didn’t hold water. Yes, Colonel Brice had a Viper tattoo. Yes, the man at the park had a Viper tattoo. Yes, Brice had served on Viper team under the command of Major Walker. Yes, Brice had testified against Walker and the other Viper team soldiers. But that was almost forty years ago. And Major Walker was dead. She had to face facts: there was simply no connection between Major Charles Woodrow Walker and Colonel Ben Brice and Gracie Ann Brice’s abduction. There were only coincidences-coincidences the size of a goddamned whale, but coincidences nonetheless.

Four miles and her body felt good again. She had exited the federal building on the western edge of downtown, run east on Main Street, slowing to check out the Neiman Marcus window displays in the day’s last light-she always liked shopping with her mom at the Mall of America when she was a kid-and then to the freeway. She turned north to Ross Avenue, then west past the I.M. Pei-designed symphony center and the Museum, then south a few blocks, then west on Elm Street, past a skyscraper shaped like a rocket ship and one with a hole in the middle of the damn thing- what’s the story with that? — and now into Dealey Plaza, past the School Book Depository and to the grassy knoll, unchanged in forty years, to the exact spot where an American president was assassinated She stopped short.

She turned back and looked up at the sixth floor window of the School Book Depository. Crouched in that window-a much greater distance than she had realized-Lee Harvey Oswald had aimed a bolt-action rifle at a moving target and fired three shots in six seconds, putting two bullets within a nine-inch diameter, the first shot in Kennedy’s neck, the third shot in his head. Standing here now, seeing the shot required-three shots, no less-she shook her head. No way. The Feds took the easy way out. They never looked past the obvious connection And it hit her: she had committed the same sin.

Jan was back in the federal building in under five minutes, running past the security desk with a quick nod to Red, the night guard-she felt his eyes on her backside-then up the elevator to the third floor and down the corridor of the silent FBI offices, her pounding feet and heart the only noises. She opened her office door, turned on the light, went over to her desk, opened the Walker file, flipped the pages fast… her eyes raced down each page for names… names of AUSAs… Assistant United States Attorneys… prosecutors on the Walker case ten years ago…

“Oh my God.”

She found a name: Raul Garcia. And another: James Kelly. And a third: Elizabeth Austin.

Elizabeth was sitting in the nearly dark den of her mansion and drinking hard liquor. She now understood Ben Brice.

Kate had said he drank to escape the past. To forget so he could sleep. How much would she have to drink to escape her past? To sleep. To not think of the past that had brought her to this present. To this day. To this life. A life without Grace.

Ten years ago, she had arrived in Dallas armed only with impressive letters of recommendation from the United States Attorney General and the FBI Director attesting to Elizabeth Austin’s legal brilliance, incredible determination, and remarkable courage under extreme personal duress. She was thirty years old, just married, two months’ pregnant, and running from her past as fast and as far as possible. Dallas, Texas, had seemed far enough.

Five years before that she had just graduated from Harvard Law School; she had turned down the Wall Street firms for a job with the Justice Department. She wanted to be one of the good guys. She wanted to put the bad guys in jail. She wanted to use the rule of law to make people safe, so no other ten-year-old girl would ever suffer her father’s murder.

But she hadn’t been safe.

Her daughter hadn’t been safe.

No one was safe.

Evil does not obey the rule of law. Evil makes its own rules.