The Gorge

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Expect the unexpected.

ProVentures had adopted the oxymoronic cliche as a slogan for its line of climbing gear. Bowie Whitlock had to admit the phrase was perfectly crafted to catch the attention of hurried, harried Earth children and the overachieving stoners who were the biggest consumers of outdoor adventure equipment. But the phrase was just as appropriate to being flagged down by a man waving a badge and a gun, as if the rafts had broken the speed limit and the man was playing backwoods traffic cop.

Though Bowie figured the group might encounter hikers, fishermen, and possibly kayakers and canoeists along the way, he hadn’t imagined interacting with them. Bowie, in the lead raft, had intended to simply wave and do the bit about relaxing and floating downstream John Lennon had encouraged in the drug-drenched Beatles tune “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The badge had been barely recognizable when viewed from mid-river simply because it was so unexpected. But there was no mistaking the gun, especially when the man made menacing gestures toward them.

“What is it?” Lane asked behind him.

“I’m not sure.” He gestured to McKay, indicating that he should stop paddling. The second raft was about a hundred feet upstream, too far away to see the man’s gun. Apparently Raintree had lost some of his determined edge.

“He thinks he’s Kojak or something?” McKay said.

“Might be a park ranger.”

The current had eased since the group had launched after the noon break, and even if Bowie had been tempted to float past the man and ignore him, a competent marksman could have easily picked them off like ducks in a kiddie pool. Even if he missed, bullets piercing the rafts would have grounded the whole enterprise. Bowie figured the man must have been a law enforcement officer or he wouldn’t have bothered flashing the badge.

Whether the man was really a ranger or merely imitating one, Bowie felt he had little choice. He stroked the raft toward the dank stretch of shore. When he could see the glittering stones of the bottom, he went over the stern into thigh-deep water and guided the boat with the grab loop. Twenty feet away, and the man said, “All the way?”

“What did you say?” Bowie asked him, one eye on the handgun.

“Nothing.”

From that distance, the badge looked real. Bowie disregarded the obvious question, the one about why a ranger should be standing by a river in the middle of nowhere with a gun in his hand. “U.S. Forest Service?”

The ranger cocked his head as if listening to something in the distance. After a moment, he said, “It’s the only way to fly.”

As a kid, Bowie had been a big fan of Serpico, both the television series and the titular movie. Bowie especially loved the movie version of the experiences of the realistic cop, portrayed by Al Pacino, one of the greatest actors of the last century. Serpico had shaped Bowie’s perception of all officers, because his own biggest criminal offense had been an expired inspection sticker. He tried to picture Serpico flagging down a raft, but couldn’t. This trip had long ago passed the point of reason. This was already Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole, and ten miles of crazy river still lay ahead.

“Sorry to scare you,” the man said. “Special Agent Jim Castle with the FBI. I’m afraid I need to commandeer this boat on behalf of the U.S. government.”

“FBI?” Bowie said.

“You can’t be serious,” Lane said.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Castle said. The guy looked liked he’d eaten a bucket of brass tacks for breakfast and was getting ready to shit brass knuckles. His eyes held a clouded, elusive quality, as if they’d seen something they hadn’t quite believed. He lowered the handgun to his hip, pointing it at the mud. A little comforted, Bowie glanced at Dove’s raft. She gave him a look, one he knew too well and despised.

“We’re on a commercial enterprise,” Lane said to Castle. “ProVentures. We secured all the proper permits.”

“I need the boat.”

“Assignment or vacation?” Bowie asked.

“Government business, like I said.”

“Top secret, no doubt,” McKay said. “Like the hunt for Bin Laden.”

“Not really. I don’t know enough yet to know what’s secret and what’s obvious.”

Castle’s tone was deep and gruff, though more uncertain than other cops Bowie had known. Not a bit like Serpico. Maybe FBI agents were different, removed from public interaction and television cameras.

“I’m in charge of this trip,” Bowie said, feeling Dove’s eyes boring him the way they did when she expected something of him. “I’m responsible for these people. I can’t just let you abandon us out here.”

Castle looked past him to the second raft, which was making its way to shore. Farrengalli greeted the stranger as if he were an old frat brother whose name was lost in a hundred keg parties. “Yo, Otter Face, what’s the deal?”

“I only need one boat,” Castle said.

“Nothing personal, but I’m not sure you have the authority to seize private property. There’s a little matter of the Fourth Amendment.”

“I’m invoking special powers as granted by my superiors.”

Superiors. Bowie loathed that word. Or maybe he was just in denial and had never truly learned humility, even after causing the death of his wife.

No, you didn’t cause her death. That’s second-hand and passive. You were active. You killed her as surely as if you had laced her coffee with arsenic.

This wasn’t a time for dwelling on her death. No time was.

“Are you after a terrorist?” Bowie asked. In the early twenty-first century, the umbrella of terrorism had given broad powers to a range of government agencies, from the National Security Agency’s secret wiretapping down to small-town cops whose uniforms had taken a turn toward the paramilitary with black jumpsuits and jackboots.

“Could be,” Castle said. “But you’re wasting my time.”

“Look, if you leave us here, we’re at risk of exposure and of running out of supplies. It’s a three-day hike to the closest road, assuming we don’t get lost.”

Castle looked toward the sloping forest above, speculative, as if expecting a helicopter to swoop over the horizon. “You’ll be okay.”

“Do you know how to handle white water?”

Castle eyed the craft, which bobbed in the current. “Maybe.”

Bowie’s primary responsibility was for the safety of the crew. He’d failed his wife, and he’d come close to failing himself, but he considered this his last big adventure run. He wouldn’t let it end this way. Especially with Dove giving him the look. “We’re experienced. We can get you there faster, safer, and drier than if you take the raft by yourself.”

Lane, catching on and no doubt calculating the publicity advantages of assisting an “unsung hero,” added, “The ProVentures Muskrat is capable of solo maneuvering, but it’s designed as a tandem craft. We’ll be pushing the weight capacity, but I’m sure the engineers fudged it a little to the low side. You know how engineers are.”

“No,” Castle said. “Not really.”

Lane gave a nervous grin. “Neither do I.”

Raintree, Farrengalli, and Dove Krueger eased their raft beside the one Bowie held. Farrengalli folded his arms and leaned back as if soaking up a sun that had hidden away. “The fuck,” he said. “You’re dicking with my bonus.”

“The bonus applies to everyone,” Lane said. “We all have the same timetable.”

“If Agent Castle here wants to join us, I guarantee we’ll make Babel Tower by sundown,” Bowie said. To Castle: “Where are you headed, anyway?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Farrengalli said as Castle waded into the water and stepped into Bowie’s craft. Bowie looked at Dove. Her eyes were black pools, full of deep, cold water.

Yeah. We’ll make it. And I don’t love you, okay?

He didn’t need to speak. She knew him better than he himself did.

Castle settled behind Bowie, who hollered, “Wagons, ho!” as he dipped his paddle into the water, turning the raft so it pointed downstream toward where all rivers collided into a great sea.