Grant unclenched his jaw. “It would be a smart choice, on his part. Up on top, if he moves around a little he could see people coming from any direction.”
Jed’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re thinking he doesn’t know I’m an army-trained sniper, too.”
There was a long, long silence.
That was the one calculation Grant had already made. Jed was his ace in the hole. “You know I don’t want to ask you to do anything like this.”
Slight nod; guarded expression. Jed had to know that Grant would do anything at all to save Cassie.
“How close do you have to be?”
His friend mulled it over. “There was a time I could have taken out a target at a thousand yards, but I haven’t kept up with the practice.”
The local outdoor range had set up the most distant target at two hundred yards.
“To be safe, let’s say five hundred,” Jed finally said. “There’s minimal wind today. But, damn, Grant. What if I can’t get a bead on him? And meantime, what do you plan to be doing?”
“Following his instructions.”
Jed’s penetrating blue eyes felt like a laser right then. “You want to distract him from Cassie.”
“I do.”
“He’ll have you trotting toward him, tail wagging like a dumb dog. Until you’re in range. And you intend to do that, gambling that I can pop him before he decides to take your head off.”
Playing decoy wasn’t Grant’s idea of a great plan, but he couldn’t think of another. Not soon enough.
“Shouldn’t we call Taylor?” asked Jed.
Grant considered the pros and cons. “I’d rather not,” he said after a minute. “Taylor’s a nice enough guy, good intentions, but how long would it take him to bring in the Hostage Rescue Team? Too long.” Oberg would kill Cassie if a helicopter swooped in, Grant had no doubt. What could HRT members do that Jed couldn’t? “The agents assigned to the satellite office are unlikely have a skill set that is any use to us. I trust you. I trust myself.”
“You’re fucking crazy.” But Jed said it without heat, already bending to pull a laptop from beneath his seat. “Let me pull up a map.” It took a few minutes, but he found a U.S.G.S. topographical map with elevations as well as rivers and streams. Studying the close-up, he said, “I take it you can ride or drive an ATV around one end and along the top, like the smaller rimrock near Norman’s body?”
“You can get up there.” Grant frowned. “Problem is, because of the cleft you have to choose one side or the other, unless you’re a stupid ass teenager.” Staring straight ahead, he forced himself to think logically. Consider this a geometry problem, not a life and death scenario. “I think he’ll go for the south side. That’s where we usually staged parties or camped. The top of the north side of the rimrock is rougher. Broken pieces of basalt, junipers with roots clawed deep. Sagebrush.”
Jed nodded acknowledgement. “Then that’s where I need to be.”
“I was thinking I’d ride out there someday this spring, but I didn’t make it last year. I haven’t been there in seventeen years.” There would certainly be change. Had teenagers continued to use the fort for partying?
“Noted,” Jed agreed.
“Or, shit, he’s chosen another place altogether.”
“Right now, we need to go with your gut. If we start out that way and he calls with a different location, well, we pull out and go. But if you’re right, and I can get up there unseen, we have the advantage.”
Grant looked right at him. “Can you?”
“Yeah. I’m the original invisible man.”
One ghost to hunt another.
They discussed where Oberg would be likely to place Cassie. Not on top with him, they agreed; she’d be tied up or unconscious somewhere along the foot of the rimrock, or conceivably in the roughly eight foot wide crack. The idea would be to make anyone approaching completely vulnerable to a man looking through a sniper’s scope.
They pulled up other maps. The rimrock was on U.S. government land. Grant dredged deep in his memories for the nearest ranches, to recall whether any cattle ever grazed on that stretch of federal land, whether there were Forest Service roads. The land swelled into low, rolling hills to the southeast, which would give Jed cover for his initial approach. As he neared, he’d need to become a ghost in truth.
Grant hated handing over control to someone else. Damn it, he hadn’t known Jed that long. But again, he butted up against the lack of options. Whatever else you could say about Rick Oberg, he was smart. Careful.
The one thing he’d never expect was an opponent as good as he was at blending into any landscape, at long-distance shooting. Someone who had become inured to pulling the trigger, even knowing he was taking a life.
Grant prayed Jed hadn’t broken on some level that wasn’t obvious. That he could pull the trigger when that moment came. And that doing so wasn’t the straw that did break him.
And, damn, Grant hoped he hadn’t just made the worst decision of his life.
*****
“ATV it is,” Rick Oberg said. “Hop aboard, my dear.”
Swaying on her feet, Cassie couldn’t have ‘hopped’ anywhere. There seemed to be three Ricks, three ATVs. She had six feet. Which ones were really hers? she pondered. She rotated one foot to see which was real – but three of those feet rotated.
“Do what I tell you!” he snapped. He threw her toward the all-terrain vehicle.
Her chin collided with a handle, thunk, and she toppled to the ground spitting blood again. No, not ground, she realized blearily; a plank floor littered with scattered bits of filthy straw and grains. Manure. She could smell manure. Barn. But she couldn’t really make it out, not with her vision so screwy.
“Get your ass on.” She found herself being hauled upright, her leg forcibly lifted over the seat. “You’ve screwed up my plans enough already.” He sounded sullen. “If you hadn’t made me hit you—”
A long gray case seemed to be attached to the ATV with a bungie cord. Well, many bungie cords. Three cases. Three of me. Three of…something big, something that swayed, hidden inside a black plastic bag. She almost giggled, but knew deep inside that it would hurt.
He mounted behind her in seconds, his arms caging her in when he grasped the handles. The engine roared, and he accelerated out into the too-bright, cold day. Cassie closed her eyes, and endured.
If he hadn’t had to hit her…what?
*****
Grant backed up his pickup to the dual horse trailer, the only size his parents owned, then got out to secure the hitch.
He and Jed had separated, both going home to change clothes and pick up horses and gear. Grant had donned a Kevlar vest before dressing for the cold and switching to tactical boots. Jed would load his own horse and pick up his preferred weapon and ammunition. Not the same rifle as he’d brought out to Arrow Creek, he’d said; this one had a serious scope attached.
Right or wrong, they’d decided to take a chance. If the ‘instructions’ sent them elsewhere, their biggest handicap would be the lack of planning time. Their phones allowed them to stay in touch. Jed could use his to pull up maps for a different location, too.
He sounded confident about his ability to make the approach. A rolling hill to the east would allow him to ride to within a half mile or less of the rimrock, unseen from the top of it. It was also the longest way in, and therefore the least likely for Oberg to choose.
Grant saddled his Quarter Horse before loading him. He brought his father’s Winchester hunting rifle and a scabbard he could hang from the saddle as well as his familiar Glock. He wished he thought there was the slightest chance he’d get close enough to use the Glock.
He warmed up the truck, then waited. And waited.
*****
“This is the farthest you go.” Oberg shoved Cassie off the ATV onto the ground. A sharp pain in her elbow had her eyes stinging. Sick and hurt, she still rolled onto her back before he managed to dismount and bend over her. Oh, Go
d, did he intend to rape her? With all her wavering strength, she kicked out at him.
One foot missed altogether, but the other connected with his knee hard enough to have him swearing viciously and backing away…for a fleeting instant, before he threw his body on hers, flattening her. She kept fighting, however uselessly, as he flipped her onto her stomach. Even then, she flung her elbows and jabbed her hands behind her. She knew she’d hit his cheek when he swore viciously and reared back. Her thumb felt as if she’d broken it. That didn’t stop her.
But eventually, he planted a knee in the middle of her back and wrenched her arms behind her. She cried out and tried to keep fighting as she felt him wrapping cord or rope around her wrists, painfully tight.
He lifted her, and she sank her teeth into his wrist above his glove. This time, the blood she tasted wasn’t hers. If her body was found, investigators would have his DNA. He wouldn’t get away with killing her.
He hurled her toward a skinny, twisted juniper. A stiff branch and needles scratched her bare face. Twisting on the ground, she saw him tying the other end to the tree trunk. Only one trunk, one Rick Oberg, she realized. She might be concussed, but she’d quit seeing in triplicate. With a snick, he sliced off the rope with what she thought was a box cutter.
“Why are you doing this?” The words slurred as if she were drunk.
“Because Holcomb can’t live with himself if he doesn’t try to rescue you.” His voice was honed to an edge. “He’s so fucking full of himself, he won’t be able to imagine failing.” His laugh might be the ugliest thing Cassie had ever heard.
“You’re using me.”
“What, you just figured that out?” he mocked.
“I never did anything to hurt you.” Paul Lawseth hadn’t, either.
“You could have worked with me, but you gave him whatever he wanted. What happened to the ethics of a journalist?” he snarled. “Seeing both sides? I only kill people who can’t justify the air they breathe.”
Was he going to shoot her when he was done ranting? No, why would he have bothered tying her up? He had to know she’d have been doing well to crawl a few feet before collapsing.
“You mean, people who hurt your feelings.” Stupid.
“People who shit on me!” He nudged her with the toe of his boot. Not quite a kick, but hard enough to hurt. “The bitches always went for him. I don’t know why I expected different from you.”
“He’s a good man.” When Rick got angry, upset, he made mistakes. She felt some triumph seeing his face. His right cheekbone was red, his eye squinting and watering. With luck, it would swell, damaging his ability to see through his rifle scope. The harder she could push him, the better. Make sure he can’t keep his poise. That was her goal.
She whipped her legs out in a scissoring motion. Too slow, but when he twisted to evade her, he fell. Enraged now, he rose to his feet and kicked her hard enough in the stomach to cause her to retch. He laughed, another sharp, bitter sound. “Why am I wasting time talking to you? I have things to do.”
Curled around the violent nausea in her stomach, Cassie couldn’t tell what he was doing behind her. Why look? She’d just as soon not see death coming. She knew what it looked like. Once was enough, thank you.
But when she heard small, scratching sounds above her, she couldn’t resist rolling slightly to see what he was doing. There, tethered to a branch of the juniper, was a bright yellow balloon with a smiley face.
That was the moment when true terror penetrated the fog in her head.
*****
The red basalt rimrock was still out of sight when Jed tied his mare’s reins to a scrubby juniper and covered her with a ghillie blanket. From any distance, when she wasn’t moving she’d look like an unusually large clump of sagebrush.
He then set about making himself invisible. He’d done it many times, the only difference here from his military tours being the color of the soil and vegetation. He’d often preferred to build his own camouflage, and had kept the jacket and pants with netting over the head, shoulders and back. Knowing their adversary was a sniper, too, last week, Jed had felt sudden certainty that he would need a ghillie suit, and had acted on it. He’d cut sagebrush and rabbit bush, and attached the aromatic branches to the netting with jute. He’d also made a ghillie wrap for his rifle. Now he grabbed handfuls of dirt and rubbed it into his face since his tan had faded over the winter.
This wasn’t something he’d ever expected to have to do again. He kept having to push back at memories that could easily turn into flashbacks. He was far from healed; might never really be what anyone would call normal. But he hadn’t flipped out yet, and wouldn’t today. Grant had given him refuge here in Fort Halleck, offered friendship. Jed had no intention of letting him down.
And then there was Cassie.
Linette…he couldn’t let himself think about her.
He turned his mind to business.
Oberg would be using military grade binoculars to sweep the landscape in every direction, but he’d imagine himself king of the mountain. Invulnerable. He wouldn’t conceive of needing to become invisible.
Instead of a handgun, Jed had brought along a Ka-bar knife strapped to his thigh in case of an unexpected, up-close encounter. The only other item he carried besides his rifle was his Steiner combination binoculars and rangefinder. He didn’t need the rangefinder, but appreciated the feather weight and the crystal clear optics. They fit nearly in their case under his arm, much like a shoulder holster. He’d be stopping to use them every few yards.
In fact, he took a minute to scan the slight rise ahead of him, pausing on every spot where a man who knew what he was doing could conceal himself. He then rotated gradually three hundred and sixty degrees, doing the same. Every so often, he’d be startled to see wildlife, their own camouflage hiding them from the naked eye. Jed spotted a coyote, completely still as it stared ahead intently. A minute later, an odd spiky plant—no, the tail of a male sage grouse, he thought. A small herd of pronghorns were browsing mostly dead foliage. Too bad there wasn’t any way to encourage them to circle his way, their movement covering up his own, but he probably wouldn’t get that lucky. They had other senses to discover his presence.
Fortunately, Rick Oberg didn’t.
Jed crouched low and began a slow ascent. Soon, he’d have to flatten himself on the cold ground and creep…but not yet.
*****
Despite the fact that he’d been waiting for a call or text, Grant jerked when his phone buzzed. Text.
Party time!
He felt little pleasure at knowing he’d been right. Butt Crack? he typed.
Where else? But there are rules. Come alone. Horseback. Don’t try to sneak around from the back. I’ll see.
Grant prayed that wasn’t true.
Where is Cassie?
With me.
What could he say but OK? He waited a moment, but when there was no response he texted Jed.
Right place. On my way.
Several minutes later, Jed texted, Good will beat you there
Then Grant tossed the phone on the passenger seat and accelerated down the driveway, gently making the turn onto the road. Five minutes later, he was on the highway.
Grant wished in passing for the full body armor his department didn’t have, but his thoughts reverted immediately to Cassie, out there with a sick SOB who fully intended to murder them both.
Tearing at him was the fear that Rick had already raped her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There had to be something she could do. Despite the shivers wracking her body and the continuing nausea, Cassie yanked repeatedly on the cord tying her to the tree. The juniper scarcely quivered, and the pain in her wrists was excruciating. She was losing feeling in her hands, too, and suspected they were swelling.
She’d only felt this helpless once in her life, and had sworn she would never be again. Yet here she was.
Rick Oberg had been right; Grant would try to rescue her, no matter w
hat risks he had to take. If she had to watch him die… Cassie moaned.
Think.
Her legs weren’t tied. Was there anything at all she could reach with either foot that would be sharp enough to cut what looked like the kind of white cord used for laundry lines?
Her heart jumped. The box cutter. He’d shoved it toward the pocket in his parka just before she’d knocked him down. Would he have noticed if it hadn’t dropped into his pocket? If it fell to the ground instead?
He makes mistakes when things don’t go his way, remember?
Please, please, God. Lying the way she now was, Cassie looked up at the rearing rock wall, and saw a glint of sun reflecting off glass or metal. Almost directly above her. And…if she could see him, he had to be able to see her.
Was he paying any attention to her struggles, or was he concentrating on the direction from which Grant would come?
Close to despair, Cassie imagined seeing the box cutter or knife lying on the ground just out of her reach, mocking her. Even if she could get her hands – feet – on it, would she be able to use it? But damn it, she wasn’t going to do nothing but lie here when there was any hope at all of helping herself. She began the torturous turn to allow her to look where he’d fallen.
*****
Grant swung himself on horseback and tugged his fleece hat over his ears. He reined his horse away from the trailer, but before he could tighten his legs, his phone buzzed.
Jed. Where R U?
He pulled off his glove. Just parked.
A pause, followed by, Fifteen minutes.
Ok.
Grant didn’t know if Rick could yet see him. He could trot instead of loping, maybe stop once to check the girth or the gelding’s hoof as if he’d been favoring it. If Rick could see him, he’d know Grant was delaying and enjoy thinking him a coward. Just so he didn’t guess that Grant’s approach was only a diversion, that he wasn’t the main actor in this drama.
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