Reckoning

by James Byron Huggins

  Expressionless, Kertzman set the report down with the same casual, disappointed air that he would use if someone were watching him. Then he leaned back, staring at the desk, at the cold cup of coffee, wondering how long it would be before someone else in the Agency tripped Gage's alarms.

  It might not happen for a couple more days. Then again, it might happen in a couple of hours. There was no way to know for certain. There was even a chance they had already done it.

  Kertzman exhaled a deep breath. He'd have to do something, stall the NSA from approaching Allied Air Transport. But what?

  Slowly, as he stared morosely at his littered desk, a plan suggested itself.

  Use a false lead. Give them something to focus their energies on. Then use the time to run this guy to ground before anybody gets wise.

  After a moment Kertzman sighed, nodding. If he was really, really lucky, it might even work. But he needed a week. He needed to put them on the wrong trail for at least a week to pull it off. Even then, he'd have to go through the back door of the investigation to get to this guy. It would be touch-and-go. But it could be done. Carefully, he began to work out the details. He was so deep in thought that Radford's appearance in the doorway startled him.

  "Found anything?" he asked.

  Radford was already halfway across the room before Kertzman recovered his composure. He dropped his feet to the floor, cast a despairing eye over the scattered reports, frustrated.

  "I might," he said, indifferent. "But it sure ain't 'cause you pretty boys are helping me." He looked up sharply. "What are your people doing over there, Radford? I thought ya'll were supposed to be a bunch of hotshot investigators!"

  Radford sat down heavily in a green metal chair, gazed somberly at him a moment. "Look, Kertzman, we're working, OK? What do you have that we don't?"

  Kertzman sniffed, moved his head awkwardly. "I think I know where he might be."

  Radford was intrigued, sat upright. "Where?"

  Kertzman tossed the report to him. "I told you to concentrate on airlines, didn't I?"

  "Yeah." Radford had already opened the report to scan the corporations.

  Kertzman continued, "Turn to page 234. Second column. Expansion Transport. New York."

  Radford found the listing. He looked up. "How do you know?"

  "Everything is happening in New York. All the shootings. Gage needs a home base. He needs a place for equipment. And he's probably got his money invested in an airline. A place he'll stay real close to." Kertzman nodded. "That's it. Has to be. I'll stake everything I've got on it."

  Radford studied the page again. "You know that there's two more airlines on here?"

  "Yeah, I know," Kertzman said casually. "But they ain't what we want."

  "Why?"

  "They're too far away from the city."

  Radford thought about it. Kertzman couldn't tell whether he agreed or not. After a moment the NSA agent raised his head, spoke in a tone of uncertainty.

  "Why does that make any difference?"

  Kertzman shifted. "Gage will live close to his business. He'll need to be close in case things burn down in a hurry and he has to run hard. And he couldn't have driven from the city to Boston or Monticello the other night without getting caught by a cop. The car was too noticeable. Shot to pieces, windows shattered. Wrecked. There was probably a thousand cops between New York City and either one of those other places that would have picked it up."

  "Maybe he ditched it," offered Radford. "Maybe he had another one."

  "I don't think so."

  "Why?"

  Kertzman sighed. "Radford, if he had another one, why would he risk using a car that was registered to the airline? Or registered at all? And if he ditched it, why haven't we found it by now? We would have, you know. Easy. But we haven't because he took it with him. That means he drove it." He shook his head. "No. That car was all he had available. And while he might have driven it to a safe house somewhere in New York without getting caught, there was no way he could have driven it outside the city without being seen. I'm an ex-cop. I know. It ain't possible. Too many cops ain't got nothing to do at three in the morning except look for drunk drivers and hit-and-run suspects."

  Radford seemed to have nodded. He studied the document. "Alright. Now what do you suggest we do?" he asked. "What's the best way to close in on this guy?"

  "Go in slow," Kertzman began. Then he waited a minute, staring hard at the NSA man, obviously deep in thought. Then, "Have you ever hunted a coyote?"

  Radford rolled his eyes. "Please, Kertzman."

  Kertzman raised a hand, gesturing. "No, now, you'll enjoy this one," he added. "Let me tell you how it's done. 'Cause this boy is a lot like a coyote. He's gonna be hard to track."

  "We are not tracking him, Kertzman. We're trying to arrest him."

  "Yeah, well, whatever. This is how it's done." Kertzman leaned forward in his chair, creating the atmosphere of the hunt with his brightened eyes, gesturing hands, and poised bulk. "The coyote is the wiliest animal you'll ever hunt in the woods. Wilier and smarter than a wolf. Quicker. Even smarter than a bear 'cause the coyote understands men a lot better. Out of all the animals in the Dakotas, like the grizzly, wolf, cougar, or buffalo, the coyote is the only one who's managed to survive since the Old West." He hesitated for dramatic effect. "Do you know why?"

  Dismally, Radford shook his head.

  "'Cause he's learned to adapt," Kertzman continued. "He watches. He studies man. The coyote knows man almost better than man knows himself. And he's a demon to hunt. If you're huntin' one in the summer, when the ground is hard and you can't find any hot sign or scat, you'll have a real hard time."

  "Yeah." Radford nodded. "I can see how all this relates."

  "Just give me a minute," Kertzman added. "It gets better. You'll be glad I talked to you about it." He nodded." 'Cause this boy is a lot like a coyote, you see. Now, normally, he would run in a pack, like his old unit, Black Light. But I think he's mostly alone now. So he's going to react a lot differently to a threat, just like a coyote reacts differently to a threat when he's alone, and not with his pack."

  Radford looked at him with that. "What do you mean, differently?"

  "A lone coyote will respond a lot calmer, a lot slower, to danger. If a coyote is in a pack, they'll all just run away from you. It's the pack mentality. But if he's alone, he'll let you come a lot closer, and he'll move a lot slower."

  Radford stared a moment, almost interested. "Why?''"

  Kertzman shook his head. "I don't know. They just do."

  Radford released an exasperated sigh.

  "Anyway," Kertzman continued, "if he knows you're tracking him, and he will, then he'll keep leading you around. Watching you. Studying you. Trying to find what you're all about."

  "Watching you?" asked Radford.

  "Yeah. Watching you. He'll lead you out across a grassy plain, or up to high ground. Every now and then he'll turn and study you, see how you're moving. Then he'll move another way, testing you, wearing you out. He'll do that for a long time, maybe all day, until he thinks he knows what you're all about. Then, if you're still with him, and he's gettin' scared, he'll head down into a coolie."

  Radford was silent a second. "A coolie?" he asked abruptly. "What's a coolie?"

  Kertzman seemed offended. "A ravine," he said suddenly. "It's, uh, like a chasm, or a little gulch or something. I don't know what you easterners call it."

  "OK." Radford nodded. "I got it. A coolie."

  "Anyway, he'll head down into a coolie. And that's where it'll get tough. He'll go to ground. You'll have to hunt him close. And when you finally get a chance at a shot, it might be a lot closer than you'd like 'cause you might step on him before you see him. Of course, if there's a cave or something, he'll go down into it and then you'll have to go in after him. It can get tough."

  Radford was utterly motionless. "So what are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that this guy is not going to make any sudden moves, not even if y
ou're close. But he's watching your every step. And if you do get close, he's probably going to do something to escape that is almost unnoticeable. Something casual, hard to identify. He knows his terrain, knows how to escape and evade. He won't attract attention to himself, won't be noticed. But, as soon as he thinks it's safe, he'll slide out like a ghost. And then he'll be gone, Radford. Gone. And that's going to be the end of your little investigation. If this guy hits the backwoods, if he heads north into upper Canada where there ain't nobody, not even Canadians, then he's gone for good. You'll never see him. I'll never see him. He'll live off the land with a horse, a thirty-thirty, a knife, and a box of shells."

  "So what do we do?" Radford asked, clearly disturbed.

  "Do background checks on everybody working at Expansion Transport. Everybody. Go in real quiet, real slow. No questions, no investigators. No nuthin'. Do everything through the records, the computers. Keep our distance so he can't see us. If you turn up a dead end on someone, concentrate on that ID. Find out if it's false. Just remember to do everything real quiet. That will be the secret to catching him."

  Radford was looking at the report again.

  "You know," he said, absently, "there are probably over eight thousand people working at this company. Background checks are going to take at least two weeks, maybe three. That's if we use the entire NSA staff and the FBI indexing of fingerprint terminals. Of course, this much work is going to tie up all of their terminals. The FBI won't be happy."

  "So what?" said Kertzman, raising his eyebrows. "Let it take two weeks. I'm certain he's there. I know he's there. I can feel it. Tell Carthwright I'm absolutely positive. And it's better that we close in on this guy sudden and catch him quick than fumble around and let him see us coming. Then he's gone for good. And you'll have to pay the price for losing him. 'Cause I told you to go slow."

  Radford started. That had touched his heart. "Well, I don't plan to fry because of this guy, Kertzman, I'll tell you that." He moved for the door. "We'll do it this way. It might take a little while. But at least it's a start."

  At the door he hesitated. "Hey, Kertzman."

  Kertzman looked up.

  "How can somebody just vanish for years at a time?"

  Kertzman shrugged. "Easy."

  "How?"

  'It happens all the time, Radford. There's been people on the FBI's Most Wanted List for twenty, thirty years, and the FBI doesn't have a clue. And those aren't even people who know what they're doing. They can't even hold Gage's coat. He's trained to get lost, and stay lost. He can manufacture phony ID, and he's probably got dozens of undocumented false IDs from his days in the Agency. He can be whoever he wants to be. He's got the money to set up one false identity after another, and establish flags in the first several layers to alert him if someone's poking around. This guy is a pro, Radford. He's not going to make a mistake."

  Radford stood in silence a minute, staring at him. "But you said he's not perfect. He'll make a mistake somewhere."

  "Yeah," Kertzman allowed as if his pride were challenged. "Somewhere."

  "Good," Radford replied, "because this can't go on much longer. Heads are going to roll if it does."

  *

  TWENTY-NINE

  It was a white, bitter winter cold, and it seemed like it was all there would ever be; a still, silent, depthless cold force that starkly smothered the hills surrounding the cabin.

  Sarah took another sip of coffee, stared through the wide, plate-glass window towards the tree line, where two small distant figures, barely visible, moved easily through the barren stand.

  Sandman stepped up beside her, holding his own steaming mug. He had just come in from the cold, having taken a turn at guard duty.

  "Cold," he boomed heartily. "Cold out there. Ain't fit for man nor beast."

  Sarah glanced at him, smiled, cozy in her black flannel shirt that she had bought on a discreet trip into Monticello. She'd also purchased an extra pair of jeans and boots. It was warm, rugged clothing, fit for the forest, or the cold. She focused again on the tree line. It had been three weeks. Gage had come around within two days of Sandman's injections of antibiotics and the saline IV. In another week, she had removed the sutures, over 200 of them. Now, two weeks later, he had begun moving over the hills with Chavez, patrolling, seemingly as strong as he ever was. But something was different with him, ever since he had healed. Sarah's face hardened in concentration as she studied the faint form on the hills, leading the lean shape of Chavez, moving with grace through the gray stand of timber.

  Sandman was speaking. "You alright?"

  "Sure. I'm fine. How do you think Gage is?" She hoped that her question wouldn't arouse suspicion in his mind.

  "Oh, he's gonna be fine," Sandman said. "He's as tough as they come. And his cuts weren't that bad. Like you said, it was that venous cut on his forearm that did the real damage, threw him into shock. Anyway, I never did see a man so hard to kill. He's been through stuff that was a lot tougher. At Norfolk in '82 we went through drown-proofing at advanced scuba school. Now that was tough.

  “They tied our hands behind our backs, threw us in a fifteen-foot pool, told us to survive. If we could. No gear, no airtanks, no nuthin'. Stay alive, they told us. For six hours. We'd kick our way to the surface, get a quick breath, then sink right back down to the bottom again cause we couldn't use our arms to tread water. Gage was right there, stayin' alive, laughin' about it. He'd look at me on the bottom of the pool, smiling. We'd hold our breath as long as we could, kick to the surface again, get a quick breath, sink to the bottom again. For six hours." He shook his head, whistled softly. "The instructors told us it would make us drown-proof. Unkillable. 'Cept a couple 'a guys did drown. The DIs brought 'em back, but they were out of the unit after that. That's how it worked. If you died, you were out of the unit. No second chances."

  Sarah laughed. "It sounds tough, alright."

  Sandman nodded. "Yeah, and Qualifying Week in Delta was tough, too. Runnin' thirty miles a day. Just miles and miles and miles of runnin' in them big ol' heavy boots and fatigues. Enough to drive a man insane. Less than two hours of sleep a night for seven days in a row. Crawling through the mud all day long. All night long. No bath all week. We had bugs in our ears, hair, everywhere. They wanted to find out what we were made of, if we could pull off missions. Each day was worse than the last. They made us wear red helmets so that if we died in the mud fields they could find our dead bodies."

  Sandman paused, looked at her expressively. "Who could come up with something like that? You know, that was crazy." He waited a moment, considering his own question, continued. "Anyway, after that we had bomb defusal. After we'd been awake for seven days, after we'd run over two hundred fifty miles without a break, after cold and heat and every other kind of misery was forced on us. If we messed up defusing one of them weird little bombs and blew ourselves up, then we were out of the program. It didn't matter that we hadn't slept, that we'd just run two hundred miles, or that we hadn't had no good food." Sandman's face grew even more animated with the memory. "Noooo! And it wasn't, like, if we wanted to try it again, we could get another chance. No, they only gave you one chance to defuse this thing that was probably designed by a rocket scientist." He waited a minute. "Man, it was tough. Everybody, even Gage, was 'bout half-dead. Even ol' Chavez was draggin'."

  Sandman hesitated a moment, a rare thing. "01' Chavez," he added after a pause, "he cracks me up. He smokes cigarettes like a chimney and he can run all day long. And he takes these little bitty steps." Sandman started to shuffle with the words, as if to depict the image, then stopped, his right leg stiff and awkward, before continuing. "Yeah, he uses these little bitty steps, his tiny ol' feet just flying and he could run us all into the ground. I couldn't believe it. Never seen anything like it. Never."

  Sarah wondered how long Sandman could keep talking without running out of something to say.

  "Well," he added suddenly, surprising her with what followed. "I guess I'll get some rest before
I go out there tonight. I've got first watch and we only got three hours before dark."

  "Thanks, Sandman." Sarah turned towards him. "Thank you for everything."

  "Ah, Ol’ Sandman's just here for the fun." He smiled and winked. Then he turned, limping into the back of the cabin.

  Sarah felt completely alone. She had long lost sight of the shadowy figures in the woodbine.

  Gage had told her that he owned almost 100 acres of the wilderness area, enough to assure him of continued solitude. So she knew the two men could be anywhere in the ridge, or even further back, towards the road. She heard another sound behind her, turned and saw Malachi setting down a load of chopped firewood. With a stiff fluidity of movement that only barely revealed his advancing years, he stacked the wood beside the fireplace, then looked up, smiling, and moved toward her. He dusted bark and woodchips off of his thick woolen sweater. She didn't attempt to hide her troubled fear.

  Malachi nodded and reached down to take her in his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  "Something's wrong with Gage," she said softly, voicing her fears for the first time.

  "Yes," the old man replied, holding her. "I know."

  Sarah eased away, shook her head, crossed her arms, and turned to stare out the window. "I'm worried," she said. "What do you think it is?"

  "No one can know for certain," Malachi said. "I would think that even he does not know what it is."

  Sarah turned her head slightly to look at him. "What do you mean?"

  Malachi glanced at the woods. "I mean that something has changed within him. Or it might be said, something within him remains wounded or broken. His body is fine. The worst part of his injury has healed but his soul is still wounded. The true injury he suffered was far more than physical."

  "But he's a fighter," Sarah said steadily. "That's what they've made him. He's trained to never give up, to never quit, no matter how bad it gets. It was driven into him by the kind of conditioning that kills people if they don't have the strength to overcome. Sleep deprivation, pain overload. It's all just a form of brainwashing, to make people what you want them to be. Fighters. Soldiers. The military is an expert at it. They made him a survivor. And he's the best there is. He's fought his way back from death a hundred times."