The Call of the Mild

Chapter Forty

The march had gotten easier as the sun came up and Gus could see the rocks littering the trail instead of blindly tripping over them. But that only made him feel worse. When there was physical pain, when every step was a struggle, his entire mind could focus on the act of putting one foot in front of the other. Now his mind was free to wander, and it kept going back to the same place.

Gus had seen dead bodies before. He’d seen people die. But this was different. The casual executions kept replaying themselves in his mind, and he couldn’t shake the image no matter how hard he tried. It seemed impossible to imagine-one second those people were alive; the next they didn’t exist. Gus hoped he had thanked the servers when they’d brought him dinner last night.

The rest of the marchers were just as somber and just as silent and they walked single file along the trail. Two of the masked gunmen led them down the mountain; the other two trailed them. Where their leader was, Gus had no idea.

They’d been walking for hours now. After the execution of the chef and his servers, the gunmen had corralled Shawn and Gus with the lawyers in one of the tents. They’d allowed the ones who were still in their pajamas a minute to change into hiking clothes, and then they had all set out down the trail.

Where they were being taken, or why they were being taken there, nobody knew. Mathis had tried to ask as they were led out onto the trail, but one of their captors had informed him that the next person to utter a single syllable would be thrown off the cliff. Gus could see Mathis’ hand twitching, as if reaching for the gun he no longer had, but he backed off. Just as well, Gus had thought. He didn’t know if the kidnappers would follow through on their threat, but even if they didn’t, any altercation with Mathis might lead one of them to discover his FBI credentials, and there was no way to predict what would happen then.

Although they’d all been ordered to keep their eyes firmly on the ground, Gus sneaked a look up at Shawn.. They were separated by Savage and Balowsky, whose march had started out as a hungover stagger and only weakened over the hours, and all Gus could see of his friend was his back. That was enough to reassure Gus-and to scare him.

Reassure him because Shawn was a creature of habit and reflex, and for decades any order for silence, whether from an elementary school teacher, a parent, or a police detective, would trigger an avalanche of words. Even if it was in Shawn’s interest to keep his mouth shut, the command to stop talking acted on him like a rubber hammer below the knee; his response was completely beyond any physical control.

But Shawn hadn’t said a word then, and he wasn’t talking now. His head was down; his eyes seemed to be focused, like everyone else’s, on the ground.

What made Gus nervous was Shawn’s shoulders. Even from here he could see how tight, how rigid they were. Shawn was not someone who angered easily; his philosophy of life was that having fun is the best revenge for any ill. But Gus could feel the rage radiating out of those joints, and he didn’t know how long Shawn could keep it bottled up. When he exploded, Gus had no idea what was going to happen, but he didn’t see a happy ending for anyone.

The trail took a hard jag to the left, and Gus saw something he hadn’t seen yet-a tree. It wasn’t much, just a scraggly, struggling little runt, but it told him they’d descended past the timberline, the edge of the habitat beyond which trees are incapable of growing. The trail went inland from the cliff, and now was surrounded on both sides by small, scrubby bushes. Up ahead, however, the bushes were getting taller and taller, quickly turning into towering pines.

At least that meant they’d be in the shade by the time the sun reached its zenith. But it also dashed their best hope for rescue. Like Shawn, Gus had assumed that a helicopter would be arriving sometime early in the morning to pick up the servers and their gear, to bring them either home or to the hikers’ next rest stop. Once the copter landed, the pilot would see the bodies, which the kidnappers had left lying in the center of the meadow, and radio for help. And no doubt start the search for the rest of the party. As long as they were out on the open mountainside, they’d be easy to spot. But once they were under tree cover, no one would be able to see them from the air.

Apparently that was their captors’ idea, as one of the masked men in the lead shouted an order and forced them to walk off the trail and into the tall trees.

After a few minutes of whacking through dense brush, they stepped out into a clearing. It was an almost perfect circle of bare ground dotted with low stumps from the trees that had been cut to form it. A stone fire pit was in the center.

One of the masked men gave a signal, and Gus was slammed up against a tree. Another masked man wrapped a rope around him, tying him to the trunk, then moved on to do the same to the rest of the hostages. Gus risked a glance over at Shawn, who was tied to the next tree, only a couple of feet away. But Shawn was staring furiously down at the ground; Gus could practically hear him thinking.

When the last of the hostages was secured, the four masked men took positions around the fire pit, a small circle inside the larger ring of captives. After a long moment there was a rustling in the brush, and the red-haired man stepped out from between two large trees.

“Doesn’t this look like fun!” he said, smiling cheerfully. “Nothing like a little camping trip to build team spirit.”

“What do you want from us?” Mathis growled from across the circle.

“From you?” the red-haired man said. “Nothing. My brothers and I have everything we could need here. We’ve got the sky above and the ground below. We’ve got nature’s bounty all around.”

“Then let us go, you fat freak.” It was Gwendolyn. Gus was torn between admiration for her spirit and fear that she’d get herself-and maybe the rest of them-killed.

“I said there’s nothing I want from you,” the red-haired man continued, as if she hadn’t insulted him. “I didn’t say there was nothing I wanted at all. After all, you’re lawyers. If I were to sue Manning Timber because they illegally clear-cut thousands of acres of public land and you were to defend them, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that I wanted something from you specifically. You would simply be the vehicle through which I would address my demands.”

“You’re doing this because you’re mad about the Manning Timber case?” Balowsky said. “Because I think most of us would agree that that case was wrongly, even criminally settled based on false information supplied to the court about various members of the environmental organizations that brought suit. In fact, many of us voted to censure the lawyer who was in charge of that case. If you let the rest of us go, we can tell you which one that was.”

“You bastard,” Gwendolyn spat. “You all spent the money Manning paid us for my work. And besides, the strategy was Jade’s. You go after the weakest parts of the opposition first, and then use their failure to bring down the rest.”

“That’s not a license to slander,” Jade said. “You still need to act within an ethical framework based on respect for the other side’s point of view.”

“We were just doing a job for our clients,” Savage said. “That’s how our adversarial legal system works.”

“I understand,” the red-haired man said. “And I don’t hold you responsible for the decision. I just want to engage your services for the next round of negotiations.”

“Then use the phone like everyone else,” Gwendolyn said. “But I can save you the dime. We can’t take your side in the appeal because we’ve already represented your opponent. If you thought it through for one second, you’d realize that, you moron.”

“What my colleague means to say,” Balowsky said quickly, “is that the firm of Rushton, Morelock, while not able to directly aid you in your appeal, will do its utmost to find you the best counsel possible. And if your organization is in financial straits, we would be willing to handle your legal bills, as well.”

“Yeah, those death penalty cases can be expensive,” Mathis said. “And since there’s no chance you’d ever win, no lawyer is going to take your case without payment up front.”

“Will you shut up?” Savage whispered furiously. “We’re trying to negotiate a deal here.”

“I don’t deal with terrorists,” Mathis said.

“That’s really inspiring,” Balowsky said, “until you remember that corpses don’t deal with anyone.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Jade wailed. “We haven’t done anything to you.”

“As I said, you are merely the vehicle through which I am seeking redress,” the red-haired man said.

“It’s about time you’re seeking to get redressed,” Shawn said. “Because that outfit does absolutely nothing for you. And if one more thread snaps on those shorts, we’re all going to wish you had killed us back at the camp.”

Gus stared at Shawn, who was smiling up at the red-haired man as if he were free and his captor was the one tied to the tree.

“What are you doing?” Gus whispered furiously.

“Testing a theory,” Shawn said.

“What theory?” Gus said. “That no matter how many rotten things you’ve done, you’ll still end up in heaven?”

Shawn ignored him. “Tell me, Tubby,” he said, “what’s the next part of your brilliant plan? Because right now all I see is a fat guy playing dress-up and dancing around a campfire.”

“Shawn, stop,” Gus said, fully expecting at least a small percentage of the inevitable hail of bullets to penetrate his own flesh.

But if the red-haired man was offended by Shawn, he didn’t show it. If anything, he seemed amused.

“My plan is done,” he said. “I’ve sent out my demands, I’ve explained what will happen to all of you if I don’t get what I want. All I have to do is wait.”

“Demands?” Savage said. “We’ll give you whatever you want.”

“I already told you,” Mathis snapped. “We do not negotiate with terrorists.”

“I’m not negotiating,” Savage said. “I’m giving him whatever he wants.”

“I’m afraid my demands have to be settled at a higher level than this, although I do appreciate your generosity,” the red-haired man said.

“What is it you want?” Jade said.

“Not much. Just the immediate and permanent end to all logging, hunting, and fishing on all federal and state lands in the country,” the red-haired man said.

“You’re insane,” Gwendolyn shouted. “That’s never going to happen.”

“I really hope you’re wrong,” the red-haired man said.

“There must be something else you want,” Balowsky begged. “We’ve got money. We can buy you your own forest, and then you can keep everyone from logging there.”

“The immediate and permanent end to all logging, hunting, and fishing on all federal and state lands in the country,” the red-haired man said, “or you are all going to die.”