The Hunted

by James Phelan

  “That doesn’t mean that this woman spoke to them,” Woods said, looking up at Dylan, who seemed the same size and bulk as the four guys by the Chevy.

  “See there?” Menzil said. “The bike stopped there. There’s the indent from the stand. And then the deeper groove as the tire dug in. And it’s not full of water, as the truck tracks are here, from yesterday’s rain, so it was today. Walker was here, today, and he stopped the bike and got off it and then got back on and left. Headed up Old Pelts Road.” He stopped, looked from the NCIS agents up to Dylan. “How am I doing so far, sweetheart?”

  Dylan didn’t reply.

  “You two can go now,” Menzil said, looking back to Woods and Levine. “We’ve got this from here. Thanks for your work.”

  55

  The track stopped at a round clearing the size of a large bedroom. The compacted ground was covered in a thick blanket of fallen leaves and pine needles. It was slightly elevated from the forest around it, and had a huge towering pine standing sentry at one edge. The bark of the pine to chest height was worn and scarred from buck deer rubbing their antlers on it. There were also a couple of deep scratches high up, from a bear’s claws.

  “There’s other tracks here, on the ground, see?” Squeaker said, pointing to two distinct paths that cut through the small clearing. “One of them could be Murphy headed to his place?”

  “They’re runs,” Walker said. “Deer, rabbits, and whatever else calls this forest home. Not Murphy. Not any human. They’re the tracks of little critters scurrying along the same path, again and again, generation for generation. It’s their highway, their interstate. There’s a lot of good eating to be had for anyone who cares to put a snare along these runs.”

  “So, you’re saying that whoever came in here on the track that we’ve been following,” Squeaker said, waving a hand around the clearing, “that they, what—only had that one way in and out, the one that we just used?”

  “Yes,” Walker said.

  “Why?”

  “Because this is a good hunting spot. It’s elevated. And it’s central to animal traffic—at dawn and just before, it’d be like Times Square here.”

  Squeaker nodded. “So, someone would hike all the way from that crappy off-road path to here, and then back there again?”

  “Yes. I think so.” Walker looked into the forest. Nothing showing, though he knew that a log cabin out here would blend in and could be just fifty yards away and he’d not see it.

  “So, we go back?” Squeaker said. “Find another way?”

  “Maybe,” Walker replied, still scanning their surroundings, taking it all in.

  “Maybe?”

  Walker made his decision. “We’ve got about three hours of daylight left. There’s plenty of dead wood here . . . It’s as good a place as any to make a camp.”

  “But what about finding Murph—”

  “There’s a quicker way to find your cousin than trying out more of these tracks through the forest,” Walker said, putting his pack against the tall pine. He chose a spot in the center of the clearing and brushed it free of leaves with the side of his boot. “We’ll make camp here. Set a fire in the center, here, lace the tarp up against that tree to sleep under.”

  “Really?” Squeaker said, looking around and wrapping her arms around herself as though the prospect of sleeping out in the cold, even for an Ozarkean like her, was a step too far.

  “You’ll be grateful for the tarp when the morning frost and dew settles. We’ll be dry, and I’ll put a big log on the fire at night so that we’re kept warm.”

  “I meant, do you really think that we should make a camp out here?” Squeaker said. “We could go back to the bike, camp there, set off again on a different path at first light?”

  “No, this is better,” Walker said, already with an armful of kindling. “You wait and see—I’ll get us a fire going that will heat through to your bones.”

  “It’ll be seen, the fire,” she said.

  “No, it won’t, not in a forest like this, not unless you’re right up close to it,” Walker said, now loading up with larger twigs and sticks. “But it will be smelled, for miles, because this dead wood will burn fast and hot but with all this lichen it’s going to smoke like crazy.”

  Squeaker looked to the growing pile of wood and said, “You want us to be found?”

  “Yep.”

  Squeaker cottoned-on, said, “You want Murphy to come to us.”

  “Yep,” Walker said, setting alight a ball of stringy bark fibers in the center of a teepee shape of dry twigs. He blew at the glowing bark and the sparks climbed and the oxygen fed it to flames. The kindling took fast. “I figure a guy like him will come looking, for peace of mind. And then he’ll see us.”

  “He’ll see me.”

  “Yep,” Walker said, standing and setting off to collect bigger firewood. “And that should be enough for him to talk to us. My bet is he’ll go out at or before first light, to check snares and maybe do a little shooting.”

  “Well, just as long as he doesn’t shoot us.”

  •

  “Who do you figure those guys were?” Woods asked.

  “Who cares. It’s their op now,” Levine replied.

  Woods was taking a turn to drive and was averaging about forty miles per hour on the B-road. They were headed northwest, where they’d take a right onto the interstate and go all the way up to St. Louis. From there they’d get a flight back home and be assigned to a new case. “I’m looking forward to getting the hell out of here to someplace warm. I miss California weather. This shit’s cut deep into my bones. My knees have been locked up all week.”

  Levine was silent, watching the scene out her window but not really seeing it. “I’m thinking we should stay on in a hotel in St. Louis for the night,” she said. “In case there’s something we need to help wrap up.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “We’ll call Grant when we get there,” Levine said. “See where that team is at. They may come up with nothing. We may be needed still.”

  “Those guys have got this,” Woods said. “If you ask me, they’re SEALs, or recently retired SEALs, and Grant’s got the NCIS using them to do all this protection work. They’ll find Murphy and take him to safety. Nothing surer. Our work is done. We’ll get a pat on the back for this, you know that? Probably get a few days off. I’m gonna get drunk and remain that way as long as I can. Poolside at some swank hotel where the chicks wear bikinis all day.”

  “Walker’s still out there,” Levine said, detached from her partner’s dreams of a happier time and place. “And Murphy’s cousin, Susan.”

  “A couple of civilians, working their way blind through the forest. So what? Forget them. They’ll be in there all week, looking for a ghost. Or if Walker is part of this, some kind of assassin, he’s no match for those guys we just saw. No match. Those guys we just met—they’ll track and find Murphy tonight. Maybe sooner. Probably have him and his family squirreled away in some resort in Orlando by the morning, where he and the kids can stand in queues and sit on rides until all this bullshit blows over.”

  Levine looked at him. “You really think that?”

  “Sure, why not?” He looked to his senior partner. “Those guys are going in to protect one of their own from some terrorist scum. Hell, they’ve probably found the Murphys already, calling in a helo or Osprey to pluck them all out fast.”

  Levine turned back and watched out her window, seemingly unconvinced. “You really think Walker could be behind all this killing?”

  “Maybe. It’s not our brief,” Woods said. “The boss will have that covered, you know that. It’s probably being handled by the FBI, right? Terrorists, on US soil—that’s their turf. They’ve probably got a hundred Homeland Security field agents in this state alone looking for the bad guys. So, relax a little, okay? We’ve earned it.”

  “Turn the car around,” Levine said.

  Woods glanced at her. “What?”

  “Go back. To
Old Pelts Road.” Levine waited before going on, as Woods slowed the car to the shoulder of the road. “That woman, Dylan. I want to be sure that whoever is tracking these bad guys is aware that she’s the conduit between them and Murphy. Right? She needs to be protected until we know we’ve got Murphy.”

  “She can take care of herself,” Woods said. He kept the car sitting there, pointed away, waiting. “I mean, she could snap the two of us in half as soon as spit. We’ve done our job, and our orders were to hand over—”

  “Tom, do I need to tell you again?” Levine stared at him. “And don’t you want to see who walks out of that forest for yourself?”

  Woods’s wise-ass antics were replaced by a reluctant respect for his superior. He checked the mirrors and made a U-turn, then headed back the way they’d come.

  56

  They had left their SUV behind the parked Harley, the motorbike’s engine manifold still warm to the touch. After an hour’s trek, the point man stopped and raised his hand, and they all came to a halt.

  Menzil was in the middle, with two men ahead and two behind him. He had a Sig pistol in a hip-holster. The four men carried HK416s. Short-barreled assault rifles, carbines really, reliable and rated extremely accurate to 330 yards.

  Initially they had debated whether they would be more effective splitting into two teams, but they’d stuck together. After ten minutes on the first track they had stopped and turned back. A discussion among the four men had ended when one of them walked off down another track and two minutes later waved them to follow.

  He’d found the tracks of Walker and Susan.

  The point man had his hand raised, and soon the other four men knew why.

  They could smell it.

  Smoke.

  •

  Walker dragged the big log onto the fire. It was at least as heavy as he was, and one end had been hollowed out aeons ago and used as an owl’s nest. It spat and crackled as the flames wrapped around its girth and consumed it, first searing the lichen and making it hiss all over as the remaining water vapor bubbled and steamed into the night. It was dark now, and the forest was beginning to wake around them. Bats had flown at dusk hunting the bugs in the air, and critters worked their way through the undergrowth, chasing each other in a death race in which the biggest was often the survivor.

  “Should we sleep?” Squeaker asked, sitting close by the fire and watching as the huge log started to ignite through its hollow core, the fire sucking at the oxygen.

  “You should,” Walker said. “Under the tarp. I’ll sit up, right here, keep watch.”

  “Watch?” Squeaker said. “For what—creepy-crawlies?”

  “It’s more what hunts them that I’m concerned about. Well, that, and whatever it is that hunts Navy SEALs.”

  “Yeah, well, I think I’m safe with you watching out for us against men,” Squeaker said. “But the meat-eaters that roam this forest? With those little popguns you’ve got? I’m not so sure. I’m talking red wolves, feral hogs, mountain lions and black bears. You sure you’re up for the night watch?”

  Walker smiled. “You go sleep. Wrap yourself in the blanket. I’ll keep the fire going—that’ll keep away most of the wildlife. Except maybe the bears.”

  He got up and put all their food trash into the fire. The packaging curled and disappeared in the blue flames of the hot coals. Squeaker shuffled over to the lean-to tarpaulin tent and wrapped herself in the heavy blanket. Walker kept close to her, a slightly offset line between her and the fire. He laid out the two police-issue Berettas, checking again that they were each chambered with a round. Nine-millimeter Hydra-Shoks. Good rounds for killing, Walker knew; the expanding notched jacket and hollow cores made a real mess of internal organs and created at least one big bleed-out wound. Nothing like what the military were allowed to use in international warfare, which was governed by the Hague Convention of 1899. Pistols in the military were a secondary firearm, a next-to-last resort in case the primary weapon, usually an M4 assault rifle, became jammed or ran out of juice and there was no time to reload as an enemy came within twenty-five yards. That’s all a pistol was really good for, as far as Walker was concerned, and even then most soldiers and operators had little regard for the 9-millimeter Parabellum rounds that the military supplied.

  Still, as a secondary weapon, it was better to go for a pistol with regular 9-millimeter ammunition than the tertiary option: the combat knife. Walker had never been a fan, and had never drawn a knife in a combat zone with the intent to kill. He’d used them against those who had brought them to hand-to-hand combat—like Seabass—but never by choice.

  Walker thumbed the safety off the closest Beretta and placed it next to his hip. From his pack he took the small bottle of unlabeled whisky that Dylan had packed for them, and took a pull. It was a dark caramel color, smooth but strong, well over the regular proof. He replaced the lid and settled in. He’d not had a decent sleep for a long time but felt he had this sentry duty covered. The thought of a black bear sniffing around their camp was enough to keep his eyes open until sunrise. The 9-millimeter would be like a mosquito biting a fully grown bear.

  But Walker was wrong; he didn’t need to stay awake all night.

  Because what was hunting them did not wait until sunrise. It preferred to do its hunting at Zero-Dark-Thirty.

  57

  Menzil’s team waited until the time of night was perfect for the task ahead. They didn’t all have night-vision equipment, just two sets between them, but just enough light penetrated the forest from the fire and their eyes had long since adjusted to the scene. The four men worked in pairs, right in close, just behind the foliage of the clearing, from where Menzil hung back twenty yards. This was their end of the op. The pointy end. The grunt work. It had taken them over two hours to get this close, edging their way forward on their stomachs, brushing their paths clear of any twigs that might be dry enough to make a snapping noise.

  In position, they waited until 3am to make their final move.

  •

  Walker’s eyelids were heavy. He wished he had coffee, hot and strong. He ate the last strap of jerky at midnight, then another of Dylan’s sandwiches at 2am. The bread was homemade, the outer crust chewy and hard, and the inside dense with rye and grains. At 02:30 he went for a leak, behind the big pine tree. At 3am he was standing by the fire, stoking the flames to ensure that oxygen made its way to the brightly glowing coals.

  That’s when it happened, and Walker heard the movement only just before he saw it.

  •

  Levine headed out of Dylan’s house in a hurry and bent over the rail of the front porch to empty herself of all she had eaten that day. She kept retching until her throat was sore and dry and her eyes watered.

  Woods had gone around the back of the house, after they’d been unable to rouse Dylan. Levine heard him make the discovery about a minute after she did; she heard him let out what she’d describe as a whelp and then he trudged through the place, the wooden boards creaking under his heavy forlorn footfalls.

  He joined her at the rail.

  “Jesus,” he said, over and over again, hyperventilating in the dead-cold mountain air.

  Silence fell between them. Night had long set in by the time they’d arrived here and used their flashlights to illuminate the scene, along with the headlights.

  “I guess we now know why the power was out,” he said. “They must have cut it, before going in and . . . attacking her.”

  Levine was silent.

  “Walker, right?” Woods said. “It must have been. He’s probably got this Susan girl tied up on the back of the bike he stole; comes here, Dylan won’t talk, won’t say boo about Murphy or his location . . . so Walker does that . . . to make her talk.”

  Levine remained silent.

  “I mean, she was telling us the truth, then, when we drove through here before, right?” Woods said. “That she’d not seen Walker? Somehow we got here before him. That track Menzil pointed out could have been made by an
yone, right?”

  Levine’s hands were tight on the handrail, her knuckles white from the pressure.

  “I’ve read Walker’s file,” she said. Her voice was shaky. “This isn’t him.”

  “You think this is some random coincidence? Some insane murderer passed through in the last few hours, since we first showed up?”

  Levine was silent again.

  “Who, then? The kill team that are after Murphy—you think they’re on scene now?”

  “We’ve seen who did this,” Levine said, standing upright, something resolving in her that made the shock and revulsion make way for professionalism born out of exposure to the worst. Yet nothing could have prepared her for that sight. “We saw them. Five men. They got here and we handed this woman, Dylan, right on over to them.”

  “What . . .”

  “They did this, Woods,” Levine said, looking him in the eye. “Those five guys who were here. You saw them. Four were killers. And the Menzil guy. They did this.”

  “They’re working for Grant. No way would they do that.”

  “Maybe. How do we know that for sure? Maybe those guys killed Grant’s real crew. Maybe they’re in a ditch somewhere off the road, looking just like Dylan.” Levine watched Woods. “And now they’re out there, after Murphy.”

  Woods said, “And Walker?”

  “He’s involved in this too, until we learn otherwise.”

  Woods’s shoulders were hunched, his arms loose by his sides, his face lax. “What do we do?”

  “I’m calling Grant.”

  58

  McCorkell left the meeting at the FBI’s Counterterrorism Center and met Hutchinson at the curb.

  The FBI man said, “How’d it go?”

  “Good news and bad,” McCorkell said.

  “Start with the good,” Hutchinson said, walking beside his boss.

  “You and Somerville are stuck with me for the duration of this investigation into Zodiac.”