by James Phelan
And Walker had one of only two sets of night-vision goggles. And that meant he had just over three hours of darkness that he could use to his advantage.
Now he just had to find a way to Murphy’s cabin in the woods. And somewhere along the way he had to figure out what to do about these three capable guys.
61
“Agent Woods,” Assistant Director Grant said over the agent’s phone. “How are you holding up?”
“Nothing some therapy can’t fix,” he replied. They were stopped at a roadside diner while Levine used the restroom. “And maybe a paid holiday. Somewhere sunny and warm. With nothing bloody in sight.”
“Okay, I think we can sort that out,” Grant said, a smile evident in his voice.
“You texted me to call when I was alone?”
“That’s right,” Grant replied. “Now, Tom, I want you to listen to me very carefully, and keep this to yourself, because I believe that your senior partner may now be operationally compromised. You read me, Agent Woods?”
“Yes, sir . . .”
“Good. Now, here’s what I want you to do: get Levine to St. Louis at all costs, and keep her there, as focused and stress-free as you can, until I give you further instructions.”
“Got it, boss.”
•
Walker decided that Reece had to go first. It was nothing personal, but he had the other set of night-vision goggles, and he was closest in behind Walker. There was another operator right after him, Stokes, following close for the limited visibility in the dark night, moving more through hearing his teammate ahead than seeing him. Menzil was fourth in line, and then the third of the ex-military operators, Duncan, took up the rear. The last man carried a backpack, the sheathed barrel of a sniper’s rifle poking out one end.
The track that Walker took them along was man-made, but it did not feel as fresh as the track that had led to the clearing. It was an offshoot of that track, fifty yards back toward the spot they’d all come from. Walker hadn’t bothered with it when he and Squeaker had headed for the clearing, because it was obvious that it had not been used in at least a week. There was the occasional footprint and broken branch, but nothing worn into the ground that would show it to be a path used more than once or twice. But he followed it. It headed along a ridge in the hillside, the ground underfoot turning to bare loose rock in places where small landslides caused by heavy rainwater and fallen old trees had cleared paths down to a creek in the gorge below.
Walker moved at a comfortable pace. Reece was never more than three steps behind him; he slowed when Walker slowed, stopped when he stopped, moved as he moved. Clearly he had done this before, plenty of times, probably in the mountains of Afghanistan, which weren’t so different from the feeling here except that the air there was thinner and the cold was different. There, the cold stung your lungs and cracked your lips and burned your eyes dry. Here, it seeped into your joints and ached away at old injuries and wrapped around your spine like a slow-moving glacier.
“Pit stop,” Walker called, halting.
Reece pulled up without a word.
They’d been moving for an hour, and although Walker didn’t need the break he did need to take every opportunity he could find. He turned his back to Reece and took a few paces to the edge of a drop-off and pissed with the breeze that flowed down the mountainside.
He heard Reece unzip. He saw with his night-vision goggles that the guy was in more urgent need of this break than he was. Walker had maybe six, seven seconds of Reece being distracted, his mind on the task of relieving himself, his attention and hands elsewhere. Stokes was five yards back, stopped and taking a water flask from his pack. The path was too narrow for Walker to see past him. Stokes was near-blind in the dark, and his eyes glowed wide in the iridescent green of Walker’s night-vision.
Walker didn’t zip up his pants or take his hands from the region. He simply turned to Reece, took one backward side-step to close the distance and planted a boot into his back. Reece flew off the edge of the mountain pass and was turning through the air to face them and yell and bring up his HK on its shoulder strap as though to fire at Walker while he fell through the air—when he hit a branch of a sturdy pine. It was a mid-back impact and Reece never saw it coming. It had been a sixty-five foot drop. The sound was a heavy thud; the big branch held, but Reece’s spine didn’t. Walker saw him, through the green vision, fall from the branch, head-first, slowly, his feet disappearing in a whipping motion as his legs cartwheeled over the branch. That was the last he saw of Reece.
But not the last he heard. The sound of the guy smashing down through another sixty or so feet of intersecting branches was incredible, as loud as a rock concert in the still mountain air.
One down. Three to go.
62
Stokes charged at Walker, HK raised at where he imagined his head to be. Menzil and Duncan were right behind him.
“Hands!” Stokes screamed at Walker.
“Okay,” Walker said, zipping up his jeans and raising his hands above his head.
“Where’s Reece?” Menzil demanded.
“He went over!” Stokes said. The guy was pointing animatedly over the ravine.
Menzil looked down into the black fall.
“He’s over the fucking edge!” Duncan said.
“Reece!” Menzil yelled over the edge of the ravine. “Reece!”
The sound echoed through the gorge and Walker could see that Menzil regretted it as soon as the sound escaped his lips. When no response came from their disappeared cohort, Menzil shoved by Stokes with his firearm raised and closed on Walker.
“What did you do?” Menzil said.
“Nothing,” Walker said. “I was taking a leak. Reece was too, and he must have lost his footing—he fell, hit a tree on the way down. All the way down. Surely you heard it. Boom, boom, boom, all the way down.”
“Bullshit!” Menzil said.
“Your buddy here can vouch. He saw,” Walker said.
Menzil turned to Stokes and asked if it was true. For a second Walker thought that this was a chance to take down the three of them—charge them, shove them off the path to meet a similar fate to Reece’s, using the opportunity while they were shocked and preoccupied, all while they were forced into a position of one man across and three deep. But it was that depth that made Walker wait. Duncan, who carried the large pack and the sniper’s rifle, was a good eight paces away, and he’d have plenty of time to back-step, draw his pistol, aim and fire as Walker dealt with the first two.
So, not now.
Soon.
One down, two to go, and then Menzil.
“I—I saw Walker was takin’ a leak when I got here,” Stokes said.
“You really think Reece would have slipped?” Menzil asked.
“I—no, but—maybe.” Stokes looked from Walker to the ground underfoot. “It’s real loose here. Crumbling. It’s possible.”
“Shit.” Menzil looked from Stokes to Walker, and then over the ravine, which to him by the thin moonlight must have looked like a bottomless black abyss. “We’ve got ropes, right?”
“Right,” Stokes replied.
“Go down, check on him,” Menzil said. “If he’s gone, take the night-vision.”
“Do we have time for that?” Duncan, at the rear, asked.
Menzil was silent.
“If he’s not dead,” Walker said, “he’s got a broken back. I turned when I heard him slip—I saw him hit the first branch, hard, back-first. That branch was big, nearly a foot in diameter, and it held. His back took the force of that impact. And it’s a hell of a drop.”
Menzil stared in Walker’s general direction, then turned to Stokes.
“You’re going down there,” he said.
“It’s a long way, in the dark,” Stokes replied. “And we’re on the clock.”
“Take Walker’s goggles,” Menzil answered.
“It’ll chew up time,” Stokes countered. “Maybe a couple of hours. Then we’ll have lost our tactic
al advantage of being in place at the cabin by sunrise.”
“Who’s leading this?” Menzil said.
“With due respect, we were hired by your boss to do a job, and to get it done on time,” Stokes replied. “Reece knew the risk; it came with all those zeros on the pay check. And besides, that’d leave just the two of you up here, in the dark, with him. You want that?”
I want that, Walker thought. But he could see the wheels in Menzil’s mind turning over.
Menzil turned to Walker. “How far from here?”
“We’re a quarter of the way,” Walker said. And I’m a quarter of the way through your guys.
“Okay,” Menzil said. “Lead on. And not too fast. We stay close. No more than a few feet apart. And if you do anything stupid, Stokes will drill a round through your arm. And that’s just the start. We’ll shoot bits off you, piece by piece, until Murphy hears your screams and comes looking, right into Duncan’s scope. Got that, Walker?”
“Got it,” Walker said. “Follow me. And watch your step.”
63
Squeaker knew that against this captor, she had little to no hope of escape. He’d bound her moments after the others had left and had been silent the whole time since, alert, ready to respond to any threat he heard or saw. He kept the fire going at low-light embers, little more than immediate heating. Her only hope, she knew, was of Walker returning before deadline. She watched the guy, waiting for that moment. If he came at her then, with a gun or knife or whatever, she’d do what she could to survive. Until then, she knew, she had to wait. And hope.
•
Twenty minutes later Walker lost the track and stopped.
“What is it?” Menzil called out.
“Okay,” Walker said, facing those behind them, his voice as quiet as the breeze. “First thing, you can’t call out like that, because we’re getting close to Murphy and the mountain air is thin and sound travels like a bitch, okay? I’m saying that because as good as your two boys here may be, Murphy’s better—and we’re playing in his sandbox.”
Menzil was silent. Stokes and Duncan too.
“Secondly,” Walker went on, “you’re moving too loudly, Menzil. Not you, Duncan—you’re light on your feet, careful with how you use your body through the bush. Same goes for your retarded buddy—Stokes, was it?”
“Fuck you, pal,” Stokes said, his voice just above a whisper.
“Great, glad you’re all listening to my suggestions,” Walker said. “And last thing, we have to double back. About five minutes.”
“What?” Menzil said, his voice quieter this time.
“Five minutes back,” Walker said. “There was a branch of this track that led to the left; we were meant to take it.”
“This is crap,” Duncan said. “I’ve been watching Walker close; he doesn’t know where he’s going.”
“Is that true?” Menzil said to Walker.
Silence for a while.
It was darker where they were now, and Walker could see that Menzil had a heavy flashlight in his hand. He’d not used it yet for illumination, but it would make a decent club, and it could also temporarily blind Walker through his night-vision goggles if it was switched on and turned his way.
“Is that true?” Menzil repeated.
“What do you think?” Walker whispered. “Maybe I don’t know where we’re going. Then again, maybe I know exactly where we’re going, and I’ve walked you around in a circle and you’re about to be gang raped by a family of hogs that live near here.”
“How do you know?” Duncan asked Walker. “How do you know where Murphy lives? If his own cousin doesn’t know, how is it that you know?”
“I’ve been there before,” Walker said. “I helped him build the place. Log by log. Steel sheetroof—even doubled up on the roofing screws, so guys like you can’t pry through the ceiling.”
“I’m calling bullshit,” Duncan said. “He’s lying. We should cap him here and now, for Reece. Then we track back to the clearing and wait for first light and find the path to Murphy ourselves. Hell, we could start on his cousin, get her squealing real loud, set a trap for Murphy, then—blam.”
“How do you know where Murphy is?” Menzil said to Walker. “Time to be truthful, or these boys will get their wish.”
No one spoke for near-on a minute. Stokes raised his HK at Walker’s forehead.
“Okay,” Walker said. “Someone told me. Someone who runs supplies to him and his family.”
Stokes lowered his weapon.
“Dylan,” Menzil said. The corners of his mouth moved to a grin, misshapen, sinister in the green glow of Walker’s vision. “She ran supplies to Murphy. But only to the end of the off-road track.”
Menzil paused. Walker felt a weight in his stomach. These guys had found their way here because they’d paid a visit to Dylan too. That was the only way. How did they get to her? Not from a note passed at a bar. Maybe they got information somewhere along the way that pointed to Old Pelts Road and then called in to the first place that they came upon. It may have been blind luck.
“Oh yeah, Dylan,” Menzil said. “She put up a fight, that one. Tough. Tough as a man. Fragile as a man too, when it comes to flesh meeting a knife.”
Menzil pulled a black anodized combat knife from a sheath next to the holstered Sig. Only the thin sliver of the sharpened edge caught the light of the moon through the tree canopy above.
Something settled in Walker. The anger that came from knowing that these guys had cut Dylan, killed her for what she knew, steeled his thoughts and actions. The next hour was the last hour that any of these men would breathe the same mountain air as he, and their screams would be heard interstate.
“Well, she was tough,” Walker said. “Tougher than any of you, because clearly she went to her grave keeping the location of Murphy’s cabin a secret. You idiots were too dumb to get it out of her. Really? Killing her, with a knife? Before you got what you needed? Dickheads. And you know what? I’m no different from her, so take your best shot with that blade. I can promise you that you and your buddy here’ll be dead before your screams end. And the guy up the back might get off a shot, he might bring me down, but then it’ll just be him and Murphy, all alone in the forest. Oh yeah, boy, you’ll have one of the most decorated Navy SEALs known to history hunting you down, chasing the echoes of your buddies’ screams.”
Menzil looked at the knife in his hand.
“What’s it going to be, office man?” Walker said. “You want me to give you a colonoscopy with that knife, or you want to backtrack five minutes and get on with the job?”
Menzil re-sheathed the knife. “Keep a gun on him,” he said to Duncan. “If he even thinks about something smart, delaminate his skull.”
“The five-five-six round doesn’t do that, fool,” Walker said, pushing past the three men and heading back the way they’d come. He wasn’t a fan of knives for combat, not at all, but given the images screaming in his mind of what had happened to Dylan, he looked forward to becoming a little more accustomed to using one.
64
“How long do we give him?” Woods said.
They sat in the car, out front of Dylan’s dark, lifeless house. The Ford Taurus’s engine pinged and hummed, the heater on low, chasing the heat to the outer layer of the windows in a battle of nature versus Detroit engineering.
“St. Louis,” Woods said. “That’s what Grant said. Get to St. Louis.”
“Give it some time. See who comes walking out of the forest,” Levine said.
“But how long? That could take hours,” Woods said. “The Feds will arrive first thing in the morning to go through this crime scene.”
“Murder scene,” Levine said, her voice detached, as though the images were unshakable in her mind. “Torture scene. What happened here . . . it wasn’t necessary.”
Woods looked at her. She appeared tired as hell, as though the past twenty-four hours of chasing a ghost across the country had hit her all at once. “This place is going nowher
e, Levine. Let’s split. Get to St. Louis. Rest a few hours. See what’s what in the morning.”
Levine watched him, thought about it, looked around the dark cold night. Finally she said, “Okay. You drive.”
•
“Sh!” Walker said.
The three men behind him stopped.
“Listen,” he said, noting the sound of falling water.
“It’s been just over two hours,” Duncan said to his boss. “We should be there by now. The sun’s just an hour away.”
“Where is it, Walker?” Menzil said.
“About ten minutes beyond the water,” Walker said, as he crouched down. He saw footprints beneath the loose leaf litter leading off the main path but he stood quickly, not letting on that he had found a path that Murphy—or someone else—used regularly. If it was Murphy, they were close now—the path was well used and no care had been taken to conceal the footprints or disturbed foliage; as if the user presumed that no one would track him this far; as if the user was close to home.
“That way?” Menzil said, pointing.
“Yes,” Walker said, hoping that he was not leading three armed brutal killers toward an unsuspecting family.
“Ten minutes?”
“Yep. We’re close.”
“Okay,” Menzil said, looking at Duncan but gesturing toward Walker. “Kill him. Make it quiet. And don’t damage those night-vision glasses.”
Duncan pulled out a HK pistol and screwed in a long silencer.
65
Levine had said nothing on the ride so far, a good hundred miles. Woods was behind the wheel, keeping the Ford about five over the speed limit at all times.
“What’d he say to you?” Levine asked Woods.
“What’s that?”