by JT Sawyer
Everyone scrambled around, desperately plucking dead standing twigs and anything else that could ignite quickly. Mitch squatted down on top of a flat slab of basalt that was as big as a canoe then he removed a bullet from his pocket along with the 9-volt battery and wire from the night before. As he proceeded to work, he kept looking up intermittently at the others working in the distance, each of them ducking into the brush to gather kindling.
A few minutes later, he had the gunpowder extricated from the brass casing and began preparing the wire around the battery terminal again. The noise of the plane had faded and then disappeared altogether. Mitch looked up and searched the heavens for movement but it was gone. We should probably stay put here for a little bit and see if it returns. This may be the only decent spot that’s open enough to get a column of smoke up through the trees.
He glanced back down the choked valley but didn’t see any of the others. Mitch stood up and jumped down off the slab, trotting forward to where he’d last seen Julie. He saw her tracks in the mud, the clear narrow imprint of the toes showing clearly. With the weather improved, it was the first time he’d been able to make out a crystal clear track on the ground since this ordeal began. He paused in mid-analysis as he saw Julie stumble forward, holding one hand on the back of her head. Her eyes were wild and a crimson bead trickled down behind her ear.
“Brian killed Lisa with a rock then tried to strike me down.” Her legs buckled as she fell into Mitch’s arms.
He lowered her to the ground and kept his eyes trained on the path she had just come from. Brian—why did he use a rock if he had that knife?
“Where is he?”
Julie kept her hand pressed into her head. “He ran off when he saw you coming this way.”
“And Lisa?”
Julie pointed over her right shoulder as she started to weep. “He just struck her down as she turned around. He’s an animal.”
Mitch stood up and walked ten feet ahead to where a small cluster of bushes gave way to an oval gap in the foliage, keeping his peripheral vision trained on Julie. Splayed on the rocks face up was the former doctor, the front of her forehead askew with bone splinters and brain tissue spread on the rocks beside her. Dammit, Lisa. Though he’d only known her for the past twenty-four hours, he felt a small pang of loss for the good woman she was. He looked at the head wounds and knew she had seen her attacker coming. Mitch scanned the mud and saw Julie’s tracks next to Lisa’s while larger boot prints twenty feet away indicated that Brian had sprinted off in the opposite direction. There was no way he could have struck Lisa. Julie is the killer! Brian must have witnessed the attack and took off running before she could move on him.
Chapter 22
Returning to Julie’s location, Mitch saw that she had buttoned up her shirt collar around her neck to cover the supposed wound. How is she connected to Kruger—she’s a journalist for Christ’s sake. But also someone with the heart of a killer. She can’t be doing this for money.
“Did you find anything?” she said.
He wasn’t sure how this was going to unfold or how many men she might have waiting at the cabin. He rubbed his chin and maintained his look of sadness for Lisa. “She was a good woman. Brian is someone that I’ll deal with when we catch up to him. We should keep moving forward before he gains any more distance on us.”
“What if he’s waiting along the trail?”
“My guess is that we won’t have any surprises until we reach the cabin. That’s supposed to be the end game all along, isn’t it?”
“Right, we should be careful as we get closer.”
Mitch pointed to the trail. “Why don’t you lead on? I wrenched my ankle back there.”
Julie nodded and then sat up, moving past him back to the rock-strewn pathway. He studied her as she walked. Her gait had become more fluid, her foot placement smooth as she floated over the uneven trail with ease. She rarely looked back to keep tabs on Mitch and had gained fifty feet of distance from him while constantly glancing at something she had removed from her pocket.
Chapter 23
Ninety minutes later, the helicopter circled around a small meadow a mile away from the old horse-packing trail that led down to the cabin in Animas Canyon. The pilot set it down and Roth, Dev, and Brenner jumped out, scanning the forested ridges and cliffs in the distance. Roth leaned back in to the pilot, telling him to kill the engine and wait for their return as they could be gone a while.
Dev’s phone vibrated and she cupped her hand over the screen to study the text Petra sent. Facial recognition indicates that the woman with Kruger in old picture matches up with attached photo. Dev scrolled down and saw a brunette woman in her forties. She gasped, remembering the author’s photo in the book she’d picked up at the Bayfield gas station. Julie Gonzalez–she’s in on this!
Roth unslung his rifle and walked past Dev, then led the way down the overgrown trail. A quarter of a mile in Brenner spotted a tan Toyota Land Cruiser hidden in the bushes. Dev glanced at the tires and could see the mud had already dried on the vehicle. If she had learned anything from Mitch about tracking it was to pay attention to how different soil types dry out in a variety of settings and temperatures. Dev pointed to the ground outside the driver’s door, where two sets of boot prints departed from the SUV, heading down the trail.
She was nowhere near Mitch’s skill level at interpreting such field signs but she could tell that the men had arrived after the rain stopped around sunrise based upon the sheer amount of mud on the windshield and because there were no rain pock marks in the footprints.
They encircled the Toyota, noticing a pair of bolt cutters inside and some discarded food wrappers.
“Sure ain’t dayhikers,” said Brenner. “The road into this place is gated a few miles back and then has a considerable amount of barbed wire around it.”
“Would you permit me to have a sidearm at this point?” said Dev to Brenner. He hesitated and then reached for his Sig-Sauer but Roth stepped between the two.
“You’re shitting me, right? You ain’t giving this foreigner a sidearm.”
“Look, she handled that German fellow at the cabin just fine. If she spent time in the Israeli military then she’s got firearms training. We can use another shooter, Ed, since you decided to hamstring our manpower on this trip.”
“Not on my watch.”
Dev pushed past them both and continued down the trail. “Never mind—we’re wasting time and Mitch and the others might not have much of that left.”
The two men followed behind with Roth eventually overtaking Dev’s stride and asserting himself in the lead position. As they neared the rim, the footprints faded. Dev squatted down to scan the ground for signs just as she heard a dull thud impact Brenner to her right.
He fell back with a single gunshot wound in his left shoulder, above the bulletproof vest. Roth darted a few feet over to an outcropping of jagged rocks then began firing his M4 at a lone figure thirty yards away.
Dev crouch-walked over to Brenner and could see his eyes rolling back in his head as shock overtook him. She heard a few bullets zing into the trees behind her and knew she needed better cover. She grabbed Brenner by the back of his vest and started dragging him into the woods. Once she was out of the line of fire, she yanked the trauma kit from his vest and tore out an Israeli bandage, thrusting the large gauze pad onto the wound. “You can thank my country for their fine medical products later.” He was half-conscious, shrieking in pain. She grabbed his other hand and placed it over the gauze. “Keep pressure on this until I get back. That looks like it was probably a .308 round or other large caliber so you’re gonna be in a world of hell.” She elevated his feet and removed his M4 and two spare magazines then swung in a wide arc away from where Roth was engaged in shooting at the distant assailant.
She trotted through the forest, stopping periodically to check on the enemy, who was holed up beside a cluster of bulldozed aspen trees. The staccato of gunfire between the two men continued as sh
e sprinted. Dev closed the distance quickly, taking a firing position at the enemy’s three o’clock. After checking the scope on the sheriff’s rifle, Dev flicked off the safety and steadied her finger on the trigger. With the man’s head bobbing up and down as he fired from his hiding spot eighty yards distant, she took aim and focused her breathing. A second later, the man’s skull splintered apart above his ear and he slumped forward.
Roth’s weapon went silent and Dev saw him skirt along the edge of the meadow, making his way over to where the dead man lay. “Idiot; there were two sets of tracks—so two shooters.” She scanned the terrain for more hostiles then got up and walked over to where he was inspecting the body, keeping her rifle at a low-ready.
“Hell of a shot,” she said, knowing it was the result of her effort but wanting to momentarily distract him with his misplaced achievement.
She shoved the limp figure over with her boot then knelt down to inspect the disfigured face of Marcus. “This has to be one of the three Stasi guys who flew into the Denver Airport a few days ago.”
As she went to stand, she felt the barrel of Roth’s rifle pressing into her back. “Could be; frankly I don’t give a shit who he is. What I do care about is that he’s gonna give me the perfect alibi. You see, you and Brenner got whacked by this guy in a fierce battle just before I capped his ass.” He stood back a foot, chuckling. “Hell, this is going to solve a lot of my problems. You’re just like Mitch, stirring up a shitpot of trouble and then thinking you can just walk away—well, not this time.”
Dev turned around to face him. “So all of this was for those counterfeit plates in your possession—you were the one who stole them?”
“I didn’t steal jack shit, little lady. Kruger was a wanted criminal. Hell, an opportunity to snag a payload like that comes along in this town—ah,” he paused, fluttering his eyelids, “how about never. With the plates, I can put in for early retirement. No more dealing with weekly calls to investigate another deadbeat dad who skips out of town with his kid or serving a warrant for some thug who robbed an ATM user at the mall.”
Dev heard a bullet zing past her head and thud into an aspen just beyond Roth’s right shoulder. His eyes went wide as he looked beyond Dev, moving his rifle aside enough for her to lunge and grab the barrel with both hands. She yanked it violently up, hearing the bone in his trigger finger snap as his grip loosened. Dev twisted the rifle away as she sent a boot into his kneecap. With the M4 secure in her hands she smashed the rifle butt into his face, flattening his nose and sending him down to the ground.
With Roth partially subdued, she swung around long enough to check on the other shooter. It was Brenner, staggering across the field, his pistol in hand. Was he shooting at me or at Roth? Is he in on this too?
Chapter 24
After a series of sinewy bends in the path, Mitch saw the dilapidated old cabin ahead. The twelve-by-fifteen shack was backed up against the cliff and had a small water trough beside it that collected runoff from a spring at the base of the rocks. The windows were all broken out and the door was ajar. Lying in the entrance was Brian, whose chest was impaled by a large rebar spike that was attached to a springloaded device inside the doorway. Damn, he must’ve bolted after he witnessed Julie killing Lisa. He probably tripped that device when he shoved the door open.
Mitch stopped in his tracks at the edge of the treeline while Julie walked up to the porch.
“Roan Kruger would be proud of you, Julie—if that’s your real name,” shouted Mitch from the cusp of the forest. “Is he just your puppet master or something more?”
Julie slowly turned and stood with her feet shoulder width apart, her hands on her hips. She arched her head back, staring at the clouds, then sighed.
“Roan was my uncle actually.” She ground her boot over a black beetle, crushing its body on the tawny rock. “When did you figure it out?”
“Not until after Lisa’s death. Your and Brian’s tracks didn’t match up with what you were saying. Then when you saved my ass off that ledge this morning—your iron grip was somewhat suspect for a writer with delicate red fingernails.”
He took a step forward. “Why did you rescue me? Clearly you could have watched me die right there. Then that would just leave Brian and Lisa to walk into this trap.”
“I had planned to kill you last all along but had just sent Nicholas on his flight when I heard you coming. When I saw you slip and realized it might end right there for you, I stepped in—your death couldn’t be random.” She smiled, showing her white teeth amidst her tan face.
Julie moved forward a few steps, placing her feet down with great deliberation, like a puma stalking its prey. “Plus, by saving you I removed any doubt from your mind about me being the one who orchestrated all of this.” She leaned to her right, resting her weight on one leg while grinning. “You were the most competent person amongst the group and I knew you’d take the initiative as leader, unlike the other sheep. Oh, Mitch, you were the glue that held it all together—just like when you hunted down Anton last summer.” She fluttered her hands in the air. “You were the star then too, even though you shunned such limelight afterwards. Do you know how hard it was to dig up everything on you? So many federal firewalls to hack through for my European operatives; that cost me and my uncle a helluva lot.”
“Speaking of the old man, is he waiting up top to take you to brunch after this?”
She lowered her head, driving her tongue into her cheek like she was drilling a hole. “Unfortunately his last dialysis treatment was three months ago when we began finalizing the details of this operation and he couldn’t cling to life any longer. My uncle died some time ago but, like you said, he’d be proud.”
“So you used his reputation to fan the flames of this and to rally his men, I suppose.”
“His men are all loyal to him though none of them know that he is dead. Once this is over, I will eliminate his old team and start anew.”
“And the journalist façade you’ve maintained all these years—why take on something so public, risk exposing yourself?”
“It was my Uncle Roan who insisted on providing me with a formal education and encouraged me to become a journalist, given my penchant for incessantly writing horror stories from an early age. He created my new identity long ago. With my connections in the media, it was the perfect cover. I could move between countries covering stories for my paper while handling my uncle’s business transactions abroad. He even suggested writing the definitive book on the manhunt for Anton so we could control the presentation of information.”
“So Roan had his own version of a sleeper assassin embedded in this country for use when he needed it—very clever. And if Anton hadn’t been in that car wreck on that fateful night outside Durango last summer, we probably wouldn’t be standing here and all these people you killed, their lives wouldn’t have intersected in this canyon.”
“My cousin was reckless—I loved him dearly but we were both driven by different forces. He was the only family I really had once my own parents died.” She stopped moving and narrowed her eyes. “You should know what that’s like though—when the world crushes your soul and takes all that you once loved. You hold on to those few people around you that understand your pain and remind you of the ashes you were born from. But, Anton never had his father’s calculated mindset like I did. Fast cars and augmented women were what motivated him.”
“And you—is revenge your only game? What happens to Julie the killer after all of this—pen a murder mystery? Isn’t the world going to wonder what happened to the seven of us who were all connected to the Kruger case?”
“With my uncle’s resources—his funds, safe houses, and contacts—I can call my own shots, take on my own assignments and then disappear as he did between jobs. I plan on starting over somewhere other than LA—God, you people and your obsession with celebrities. That city sickens me.” She pressed a hand to her black-and-blue cheek from the blow delivered by Lisa around the campfire. “And besid
es, the things they can do with plastic surgery nowadays are amazing compared to those awful Hollywood bubblefaces they created a decade ago.”
Julie placed her hand in her pocket and began fiddling with something, moving closer to him. “As for all of you in this canyon, the floodwaters due to scour this place tomorrow will erase any signs of your presence. The world will be left with a great mystery that people will be writing about for years.”
“And you’ll sit back and watch it all unfold while sipping a martini in some beachside retreat.” Mitch slowly lowered his right hand, placing it near the improvised wood shank he had hastily carved last night.
“Something like that. As long as it doesn’t involve being out in the woods anymore.” Her eyes traveled along his face. “This is the part I’ve looked forward to the most.”
Before he could yank out his weapon, she removed a Bersa .380 pistol from her coat pocket. Mitch rushed forward, closing the distance and jamming the gun at her chest. She responded by driving her fist towards his jaw but he swerved to the side and then head-butted her. The force sent her toppling backward while the pistol was flung under the cabin porch. Instantly, Julie sprang up and ran at Mitch with a jump kick that caught him in the shoulder and sent him reeling into the trunk of a large oak tree. He met her next incoming roundhouse kick with an angular step, deflecting her leg with his elbow and then wrapping his arm around her shin. He drove the toe of his boot into her supporting calf, sending her to the ground, then slammed his foot into her ribs. Julie shrieked in pain but rolled off to his left, coming up with a handful of mud that she flung in his face. The move distracted him long enough for her to close the gap with a right hook to his temple. The blow felt like a hammer and he was surprised by the strength of her attack. Mitch raised his cocked arm, causing the next punch to graze off his wrist, then he crashed his elbow down along her cheek while coming up from underneath with a savage uppercut into her lower jaw. He heard the sound of teeth chipping as she arched back, resembling a warped piece of driftwood. She tumbled to the ground, a foot away from the pistol.