Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Boxed Set, Volumes 1-3: Dead in Their Tracks, Counter-Strike, The Kill List

by JT Sawyer

  “As I recall, you were assigned to the Kruger case because of a personal connection with the governor, not because of any burning desire for justice,” said Mitch. “It was all about the news coverage and payout for you.”

  “And I got Kruger in the end, didn’t I—put him behind bars.”

  “I think it was a pretty cut-and-dried case with the evidence,” said Lisa. “Mitch was the one who tracked him down and actually caught him. The rest of the trial proceedings were straightforward from what I remember.”

  “Says the disbarred physician who’s been unemployed since the case,” snickered Nicholas.

  Lisa began flipping the baseball-sized rock around in her palm, scowling at Nicholas.

  “This isn’t getting us any closer to the cabin,” said Julie, who turned and started walking back to the deer trail.

  “She’s right,” said Mitch, pivoting around and resuming his movement up the canyon. “We’ve got miles to cover.”

  Chapter 13

  After two hours of grueling hiking in the unrelenting rain, Mitch stopped and waited for the others to catch up. Julie and Nicholas were the ones still lagging behind and he could see them stumbling along the narrow game trail that wound between two thumb-shaped boulders. At times, he found himself cursing his capacity to fall into the leadership role, especially in the backcountry. Mitch knew he could move faster on his own and wouldn’t have to expend so much mental energy looking out for the wellbeing of the others but he still felt an innate calling to be the sheepdog that watched over the flock. With the soggy conditions and insufficient garb, he saw that the others were showing the early signs of mild hypothermia with what he called the “umbles” —someone who is stumbling, mumbling, and fumbling. Their diminished fine motor skills would deteriorate further and cause them to take a bad fall or make a poor decision resulting in injury. At this stage, their condition was reversible if they could get warmed up and dry out their clothing. The sun was nearly gone and the temperature was already beginning to plummet.

  Lisa moved past the others and approached Mitch, nodding for him to step off to the side of the trail while the others paused to rest.

  “People are gonna start dropping soon from exhaustion and the effects of hypothermia,” she said.

  Mitch let out a crooked smile. “Damn, if you ain’t a mind reader.”

  She brushed a wet lock of hair off her forehead and looked back at the others. “We need to do something now to prevent people from getting to that point.”

  With each of her comments, he felt the silent burden of self-imposed leadership ease up. “Now, if we only had a pack of matches and a deck of cards to ride out the night,” he said with a grin.

  Lisa patted her hands on the pockets of her blue down jacket. “Normally, when I’m out in the wilds, I have pockets full of useful gear with me and could cope with conditions like this but we’re gonna have to make do with what’s around us.”

  Mitch was pleasantly surprised and relieved that someone else in the group seemed to be trail savvy. “Now you’re talking in a language I understand. I agree on every count with you. I’m all ears if you have any suggestions.”

  She pointed to a massive tangle of fallen trees fifty yards distant. “We haven’t come across anything else that looks suitable for shelter since we left that cave. That might be our best bet to get out of the rain for a while.”

  He gave her a nod indicating his agreement. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  They turned around and walked towards the hundreds of evergreen trees that had been sheared in half from a recent windstorm while the rest of the group plodded along behind them. A hundred feet up ahead, near the base of the massive debris field, he veered to his right and walked over to a jumble of logs that were criss-crossed on a steep angle. There were over sixty medium-sized evergreen trees snapped in pieces that formed an archway, as if the forest had interlaced its woody fingers in defiance of the coming flood.

  Mitch placed both hands on the first couple of logs and shoved them with his entire bodyweight. With the immense roof seeming solid enough, he ducked and made his way under the canopy as the others followed behind him. The small alcove of downed trees was barely large enough for everyone to fit inside. Most importantly, the layer of pine needles on the ground was dry.

  “Why are we stopping?” said Brian, who seemed the least fatigued.

  “To rest for a while and dry out—hypothermia is upon our heels,” said Mitch.

  Daryl swigged down the last of his water from the bottle and then looked at it in disappointment. “Too bad we don’t have a lighter,” he said.

  “Yeah, we could roast up the yummy marshmallows I brought along,” said Nicholas with a snide look as he kicked a pinecone at Daryl’s leg.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Mitch, reaching into his coat pocket for the batteries and salvaged wire from the speaker. He knelt down and cleared away a swath of pine needles then dug a fist-deep depression in the loose soil.

  “Had to do this once in survival school in the military—make fire by improvised methods. It’s worth a try.” He laid one of the nine-volt batteries on its side then took a short section of wire out and examined it. He looked up at the others, who were huddled around their crude shelter, staring with glassy but hopeful eyes at the earthy depression as if there was already a blazing fire. “Brian, use that knife to strip off the coating on the ends of the wires on both sides. The rest of you start gathering any dry bark, grass, and small twigs from the undersides of the branches. Ideally pine and spruce as those are resinous woods and will burn even when damp.”

  “I’m a writer not a naturalist,” said Julie. “How am I supposed to tell the difference between all these trees?”

  “Just use your nose,” said Lisa, who had broken off a handful of sap-covered twigs. “The evergreens always smell like Christmas trees, the oaks and aspens don’t.”

  As the others went to work, Mitch pulled out the headlamp that he had obtained from the pack and shined it onto the work area between his knees. He grabbed a palm-sized piece of flat stone and set it down then removed the .357 from his waistline. Opening the cylinder, he pulled out two of the bullets, placing one in his pocket and the other on the stone. Using a small rock with a pointy edge, he began tapping at the joint between the copper bullet and the brass casing. The drugs had cleared out of his system several hours ago and he was feeling more clear-headed but his fatigue kept causing him to refocus his attention on the job and he found himself pausing every few taps to make sure his blows were precise. He didn’t need to accidentally slip and strike the primer at the end, which would cause the ignition of gunpowder inside the casing and send the bullet outward into the crowd around him. A pair of pliers would have made this job a lot safer but for now he was relegated to this bizarre task of using ancient tools to procure a modern fire starter.

  A few minutes later, he liberated the round from the casing. He gently dumped the thimble-sized amount of black gunpowder onto the rock just as Brian squatted down beside him with the stripped wire.

  “You must’ve been some kinda Eagle Scout,” said the older man in a gravelly voice.

  “Never made it to Eagle, actually, though I was in the scouts for three years.”

  “Where’d you learn all this stuff then—about the tracks and trees and stuff?”

  “I was in the Special Forces for a number of years and before that I grew up on a working ranch in the desert.”

  “Desert, huh. You can have that shit—all those scorpions and snakes. I like the Rocky Mountains just fine.”

  Mitch emitted a faint smile, understanding the sentiment but craving to be at home in his beloved Arizona as they spoke. Lisa and Daryl dumped a pile of thin twigs and wads of crushed inner bark into the firepit and then went back to gather more. Mitch extended his hand out towards Brian, gesturing for the wire. Then he wrapped one end around the two battery terminals, letting a four-inch section of exposed wire jut out into the miniscule batch of gunpo
wder.

  “This will probably take a minute for the juice to flow into the wire and heat up enough to ignite the pile,” he said, grabbing a handful of the bark and shoving it next to the edge of the powder. “At least in theory,” he said, raising an eyebrow. He reached for the knife and used it to sharpen the tips of two eight-inch-long saplings.

  “What are those for?” said Brian.

  “Just some improvised fighting tools, probably not unlike the shivs and shanks the prisoners make where you work.” When he had finished sharpening the ends, he tucked them into his beltline where he normally kept his fixed blades. He had always believed that a knifeless man is a lifeless man and sought to keep several blades on him at all times.

  Julie brought her pile of twigs over and set them down, her teeth chattering as a few beads of water dripped off her bangs. Mitch was concerned about her wellbeing the most as she was clearly suffering from the cold conditions. Anyone that became injured would only slow their progress forward and, though he wasn’t fond of the woman, he wasn’t about to abandon her in the wilds. She’d surely be dead by morning from the elements.

  His attention was diverted back to his work area as a hissing sound emanated from the gunpowder and a single rivulet of smoke began swirling up followed by an intense burst of white-hot flame. He quickly brushed the pile of fine bark onto the heat source, watching the fibers ignite. Then he judiciously began applying small twigs in a semi-circle onto the flames along with a pinky-sized piece of pine sap he had scraped off an overhanging branch. The resin acted like low-grade fuel and increased the heat output. The log shelter around them was bursting with the pungent smell of sizzling pine within minutes. Amidst the crackling wood, the shelter was filled with silence as everyone cast primal gazes into the flames. Mitch began piling on some finger-sized kindling then a few forearm-sized branches gathered off the ground behind him.

  “Aren’t you worried about the ceiling catching on fire?” said Lisa.

  “That’d be a good signal fire—maybe somebody would see it from a distance,” said Daryl.

  Mitch flung a few pinecones onto the conflagration and scooched back a foot. “We probably shouldn’t let it get any bigger than this, even as wet as it is outside.” He crossed his legs, wrapping his arms around his shins. “And to answer your question, I’m guessing there’s no one around this area for miles due to this canyon being closed off for the flooding operation.”

  Mitch looked around at the others and could see the fear quelling in their eyes now that the fire had thawed them out a little. If they weren’t staring at each other or the flames, they would glance up at him as if expecting him to issue an order or impart some advice. He realized, by default or perhaps unconscious design, that they viewed him as a trail guide. All he wanted was to be out of this canyon and to have Dev in his embrace. Dev, how I miss you. If only you were here with me now—better yet, if we were in some cozy cabin away from the world. He thought of the fragrant aroma of her hair as he held her in his arms; her lithe figure as he caressed her curves; and those almond-colored eyes that could unravel his soul. He took in a deep breath, letting his mind linger over the soothing memory of her lovely face, then he straightened his posture and held his chin up, looking at each person as he spoke.

  “As the grip of the night and the cold increases, focus on the one thing that matters most in your life, whether that’s a loved one or your faith—whatever that is for you, keep it in your sights. That’s the guiding force that can help get you through this. For myself, no one will keep me from the person I love, in this life or the next. I plan on seeing the sunrise tomorrow and the one after that.”

  A few of them sighed and clenched their fists while others simply nodded in agreement and then lowered their heads. Mitch heard Julie muttering a Hail Mary while Brian merely stared into the flames.

  Nicholas stepped into the firelight and began clapping his hands. “Very uplifting, Pastor Mitch. You plan on shacking up here until morning when room service knocks?”

  “Why are you such a dick?” said Lisa. “You are always the first to criticize but don’t man up with any solutions.”

  Nicholas began digging the tip of his muddy shoe in the ground then flicked some dirt in Lisa’s face. Brian leaped forward and shoved him against a moss-covered log. “That’s as far as you go, shitbag. You’re excess luggage out here as far as I’m concerned. I deal with pieces of garbage on a daily basis that have more character than you.”

  Nicholas shoved the man’s hand off his chest and stepped to the side. Then he let out a wicked laugh. “What are you all holding out for—playing summer camp in this little lodge? We’re all fucking dead. You think we’re getting out of here? Whoever planned this is either stalking us right now or plans to whack us when we get to that cabin.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” said Julie. “I mean about them stalking us, shadowing our every move.”

  “If these are tracking devices in our backs, then that wouldn’t be hard to do,” said Daryl. “They would know where we’re at during every move.”

  “I disagree with this FIGJAM,” said Mitch, pointing to Nicholas, who tilted his head in confusion at the word.

  “It means ‘Fuck, I’m Good, Just Ask Me,’” said Brian, who began to chuckle.

  “I haven’t seen any other signs of passage in this canyon since we all came to,” said Mitch. “I think they dropped us off and departed, knowing they could track us via GPS in this canyon with only one route to walk.”

  “A chokepoint,” whispered Daryl, who had moved closer to the fading flames.

  “But they can’t predict every move we might make between this morning and now,” said Lisa. “I mean, what if we found a route in some side canyon to climb out of here—something they missed. I’ve come across those kinds of trails before on my own hikes in places like this.” Lisa rubbed her hand along the back of her neck, saying each of her words slowly while glancing over the faces of each person. “Unless one of them was right here in this group.”

  Everyone went silent as each person began swiveling their heads and staring at the others around them.

  “That’s a pretty bold assertion,” said Daryl.

  “You’re saying one of us in this Lincoln Log cabin is the one who killed Mulhere and dumped us here?” said Nicholas, who started walking towards the entrance. “This just keeps getting better. I’m going to get some firewood.” Before leaving, he stopped to look back at Mitch and then Lisa. “When Batman and Wonder Woman figure out who the bad apple is, give me a holler.”

  “You actually think one of us is Kruger or connected with him?” said Julie to Lisa.

  “Who said anything about it being Kruger for sure—wouldn’t that make a nice mystery story for you to write about?” said Lisa.

  Julie scowled, canting her head towards her. “Don’t even go there, bitch. In case you hadn’t noticed, each of us is intimately connected with the man—both men.” She leaned back on one hand. “Is there someone else I’m missing who had the motive for doing this? Oh, wait—maybe it was your fiancé you mentioned because he’s having second thoughts about enduring life with you.”

  Lisa shot forward and belted the woman with her open hand across the right temple then moved up and drove a fist into her face, glancing her knuckles over Julie’s pale cheek. “Because of you, I lost my fucking job.”

  The journalist tumbled back onto the pine needles as the three men sprang into the melee and broke apart the enraged pair before Lisa could get off another blow.

  “Cool it,” yelled Mitch as he yanked Lisa back towards the entrance. He held her arm and ushered her out into the rain.

  “You know she had that coming?” shouted Lisa, who flicked Mitch’s hand off her.

  “I’m not gonna disagree but we need calmer heads right now if we’re going to get through this.”

  He could hear Daryl and Brian inside, trying to calm Julie and inspect her injuries. Mitch had felt a sense of respect for Lisa from the first moment h
e met her. He couldn’t put his finger on it but he felt a mild connection to her, maybe because she had grown up in the West or because she was just tough as hell. He wasn’t privy to all the details of her medical malpractice but wondered how such an independent and intelligent woman like her was ever tied up in all of this. His hunch from working as a field agent with the FBI was still jabbing away at his gut though and he also suspected that there had to be someone in the group who was mixed up with the puppet masters outside the canyon.

  The assumed GPS trackers in their epidermis and the mystery pack with the topo map weren’t enough to maintain momentum to reach the cabin before the waters flooded the canyon. Someone in this group had to make sure they stayed on track. He doubted it was Nicholas—he was too self-loving to place himself in the wilderness where his lotiony hands would get dirty. Despite her recent outburst, Lisa just didn’t fit the bill of a scheming killer. Daryl seemed the least likely as he was older, retired, and had spent years tracking down the paper trail on Kruger. That left Brian and Julie. The latter came across as too physically fragile and out of her element in the backcountry. She would probably die out here if left alone. Then there was the sinewy warden. Brian was very capable of physically enduring great hardship—both mentally and physically given his livelihood. He also had no prior connections to anyone else in the group. Mitch kept wondering if he had been bought by the older Kruger or was being extorted somehow. Then again, any of the others here could’ve been offered a sum of money or coerced into being complicit. Mitch took a deep breath, his mind racing over the possibilities. Still, Brian is the only person that had no previous relationships with anyone here. It has to be him. In spite of their initial confrontation, Brian had sidled up to Mitch and taken on a supportive role in helping others. Is he trying to deflect attention away from himself by playing the good cop? His heart raced at his next thought. What if he is Roan Kruger? He’s’ just old enough to fit the bill—he could be claiming he’s the warden. Then again, Nicholas and Daryl are almost the right age too. Nah, their backgrounds are well known. His head was swirling from the jumble of theories. He glanced back at Brian, who was dabbing a cool garment over Julie’s swollen cheek. It has to be him. Mitch knew from years of mantracking that when you came across a confusing array of tracks along your subject’s trail and lost the route, intuition as well as scientific reason played a huge factor in trying to regain the trail and deduce the path ahead. Right now, with not enough supportive evidence, he had to feel his way and assume that Brian was the villain in their fold.