Hunting Season

by P. T. Deutermann

  Kreiss, who had been prepared for the crash and was double-belted, was unhurt. He popped the latches on the seat belts and lunged forward to grab Lanny around the throat with his cuff chain. Lanny, stunned by the violence of the crash and entangled in his deflated air bag, did not resist as Kreiss hauled him back over the seat and stuffed him down into the space between the backseat and the floor. He checked on Johnstone, who appeared to be unconscious and pinned beneath the headliner of the car, which had been smashed down on him in the crash. His face was obscured by his deflated air bag. The front windshield was gone, as were all the windows, and there was a strong smell of gasoline in the car.

  Kreiss fished in Lanny’s suit pockets for the cuff key. When the agent stirred, Kreiss hit him once in the temple with a raised-knuckle fist, and the man sagged. Kreiss got the key, unlocked the cuffs, threw them out the window, and climbed over the front seat to retrieve the envelope with his own wallet and keys from the floor. He reached into Johnstone’s suit jacket pocket and took his credentials. He left their guns alone. He turned off the ignition and threw the car’s keys over the wall. He tried the right rear door, but it was jammed. He climbed out the right-front window and dropped to the pavement, shaking off bits of glass from his clothes. He found himself standing in a spreading stain of gasoline. He swore and then spent the next five minutes dragging the two unconscious agents out of the car and fifty

  feet back away from the wreck. Both had been wearing seat belts and neither one appeared to be bleeding or otherwise seriously injured. They are assholes, he told himself, but they are essentially just working stiffs doing their jobs. There is no reason for them to die for their incompetence. He retrieved the handcuffs from the ground and cuffed their wrists together through the iron rail of a park bench that was cemented to the ground. He took their guns and threw them onto the floor of the car’s backseat.

  He went back into the car one more time and ripped out the radio handset, throwing it over the cliff. He saw their car phone dangling by its floor-mount wire. The light was still on in the dial. He hesitated and then punched in Janet Carter’s number in Blacksburg. The phone rang several times but then hit voice mail. He hung up, ripped out the handset, and threw it over the cliff. Then he brushed himself off again, suddenly aware that there really was a hell of a lot of gasoline on the ground. He started up the overlook exit ramp. He hoped the car would not burn, because that would attract immediate attention, and he needed some time to get back down to the vicinity of Key Bridge. There was a hotel right near the parkway ramps at the bridge, and hopefully he could get a cab back into the District. The good news was that it was all downhill.

  He got up to the parkway and started jogging back down the northbound lane. He would have plenty of time to duck down behind the stone walls if he saw approaching headlights. He would try to get a call through to Carter again from his van. Right now, everything would depend on how long it took for the Park Police to find the wreck. He watched for signs of a fire as he jogged back down the empty roadway, but the woods behind him remained dark.

  Janet Carter came out of the tiny bedroom where Lynn lay, relieved that the bleeding had stopped. An elderly woman who smelled of lilacs had cleaned the wound with soap and water, then applied some yellow powder and a clean bandage. There was a large bruise around the wound, but the bullet had apparently hit a rib and stopped. Lynn had remained awake and had gasped when the soap and water hit, but the old woman had given her some hot herbal tea, and now she was asleep.

  To Janet’s surprise, the interior of the log house was spotlessly clean, in sharp contrast to all the junk piled around the front entrance and out behind the cabin. She couldn’t tell how many people actually lived in the cabin, which appeared to be a central log house with a conglomeration of additions and extensions. It was much bigger

  than it had appeared from the road. The woman, who had not spoken since Janet had followed the men carrying Lynn into the house, led her back to a kitchen and family room area. The kitchen smelled of coffee and baking bread, and Janet saw three more loaves of bread rising in an oven next to the stove. There was another small bedroom and bath behind the kitchen, and the woman indicated Janet could go in there and clean up. She closed the wooden door behind her and went into the bathroom to wash her hands and face. She had some bloodstains on her hands and her face was sooty. She cleaned up as best she could and then went back into the kitchen. Micah Wall was there, taking off his jacket. A semiautomatic shotgun was parked on the wall next to an ancient-looking refrigerator.

  “What happened?” Janet asked.

  “Took the pickup down the road, and they was a bunch of meanlookin’ boys and some cars pulled up where the other one went into the woods. One of ‘em told me to turn around, take my boys, and git outta there. He had him a Steyr machine pistol, so we done like he said.

  They friends of your’s?”

  “Nope,” Janet said, surprised to hear this old mountain man talking about Steyr machine pistols.

  “How many of them were there and how were they dressed?”

  “Couldn’t rightly tell. They was lotsa of headlights, so most of ‘em was in shadow. The one doin’ the talkin’ was wearin’ sunglasses. Big fella.”

  “But not uniforms? Not deputies?”

  “No, hell no. We know all the deputies in these parts. No, these boys wasn’t from round here. Now your car’s got five bullet holes in it. Here’s a coupla the rounds we dug out. How’s about you tell me what’s goin’ on here with that girl yonder.”

  Janet explained who she was, and how she came to be flying through the night with federal agents in hot pursuit. The old woman brought them both a cup of coffee and then sliced some fresh bread, which she put on the table with a crock of butter and another one with preserves. Micah indicated Janet should eat something, and she ate three slices of the fresh bread before stopping short of eating all of it. Micah took it all in, nodding his head a couple of times when Janet described Ransom and his partner and told about the incident with the Bronco. When she was finished, he just sat there, staring down at the table, as if lost in thought.

  Then the phone rang. He looked at Janet with raised eyebrows, but Janet just shook her head. He went over to the wall-mounted phone,

  answered, and listened for a moment. Then he handed the phone to Janet with an amused expression in his eyes.

  “Yes?” she said.

  The woman’s voice was as cold as she remembered it.

  “Not bad for an amateur,” she said.

  “But you can’t shoot for shit.”

  “I was aiming low, between the headlights,” Janet said.

  “Otherwise, you’d be dead.”

  “You put them all through my windshield. Like I said, you can’t shoot for shit. I have some news for you.”

  “You shot Kreiss’s daughter,” Janet interrupted. There was a second of silence on the line.

  “No, I didn’t,” the woman said.

  “I’m not carrying,” Janet didn’t know what to say.

  “Then who—” “Did you recover a bullet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Keep it. It might give you some leverage later. But in the meantime, I thought you’d want to know. We have Kreiss. The Bureau picked him up in Washington and is delivering him to Langley. So I don’t need the daughter anymore. You can relax.”

  “Relax. Right,” Janet said.

  “Suit yourself, Carter, I no longer care. But the aTF people whose roadblock you ran might.”

  “The ones who shot at my car and hit a kid?”

  “That’s why I told you to keep the bullet. If you get your tail feathers in a crack over it, find a reporter, tell your tale. The aTF hates that. And don’t let your famous Bureau lab get the bullet; their ballistics work goes to the highest bidder these days. But you probably knew that.”

  The dial tone came on and the woman was gone. Janet, her face a bit red, slowly hung up the phone.

  “Friend of yourn?” Mica
h asked.

  “No,” Janet said.

  “She was the one who set the hospital on fire and then chased us up here. But she says she didn’t do any shooting. That it was a bunch of aTF guys who did that.”

  “Now, that’ll please brother Edwin no end,” Micah said.

  “Revenuers shootin’ at his little girl.” He shook his head slowly.

  “Mama says the girl’s goin’ to be all right; we don’t have to get a doctor into it, less’n we see proud flesh.”

  “Shouldn’t we do that anyway?”

  “Doc sees a bullet wound, he’s obliged to call local law,” Micah said.

  “Might want to wait on that.”

  Janet sat back down at the table. She was aware that there were other men in the cabin, out in the front rooms. She was suddenly very tired.

  “They, the feds, already know it was me in that car. They may or may not know who Lynn was.” She stopped, and then it penetrated—what the woman had said about Kreiss.

  “Oh, hell” she said.

  “She said they had Kreiss. Up in Washington. She said the FBI had him and was taking him to Langley. Where she’s from.”

  Micah obviously didn’t know what she meant by Langley, but then the phone rang again.

  “Grand Central Station,” Micah muttered, reaching for it. He said his name, then smiled.

  “She’s right here.” He handed her the phone. This time, it was Kreiss.

  “Where are you?” she said in a rush.

  “I’m in a pay phone. I don’t have much time. Where’s Lynn?”

  “She’s here and we’re safe, for the moment anyway.” She saw Micah shaking his head slowly. He was warning her not to tell him his daughter had been shot. She nodded.

  “A lot’s happened, but we’re safe. But that woman just called, said the Bureau had you.”

  “They had me, and then I had them. Look, I’ve got to get back to my vehicle, and then I’m coming down there. I don’t know where McGarand is. He and his truck have disappeared.”

  “That woman said she was no longer interested in Lynn because the FBI was bringing you in—to Langley. When she finds out—” “Yeah, that’s why I’m leaving here. Soon.”

  “And there’s no sign that McGarand is going to bomb something up there? Like Bureau headquarters?”

  “I looked. I looked for his truck at all the Washington truck terminals.

  Then I went over into town and looked around the Hoover Building, and then I went up to the aTF headquarters building. There was no sign of the propane truck.”

  Janet gnawed her lip. The warnings. All for nothing, apparently.

  “Let me talk to Micah,” Kreiss said.

  Janet handed the phone back to Micah, who listened for a long minute.

  “I can do that,” he said.

  “Keep your powder dry.” Then he hung up.

  “What?

  “Janet asked.

  “We need to clear on outta here,” Micah said, getting up.

  “First, we need to git you and the girl in there some warm clothes.”

  “Can she be moved?”

  “Seem’ that’s just a flesh wound, yes. Even if it wasn’t, old Ed says we gotta move. Now. Come with me.”

  Kreiss had the cab let him out at an all-night cafe one block up from Constitution Avenue, and four blocks away from the parking garage where he’d put the van. It was 5:45 when a yawning waitress brought him black coffee and a stale-looking Danish. He had taken a corner booth back from the door and was yawning himself. Outside, the first headlights of Washington’s morning rush hour were starting to appear, and he could see even more vehicles down on Constitution. It didn’t surprise him: Washington’s traffic was so bad that many office workers went to work in the early morning darkness just to avoid it. By 7:30 most mornings, a large majority of government workers were already in the office, stalking the coffee pot. His plan was to eat his fat pill, get some caffeine in him, and then go retrieve the rental van. Given the fact of rush hour, his best plan was to sleep in the van until the traffic crush was over, then hit the road south for Blacksburg. He would simply take the van, and leave his pickup truck at the motel. If they were looking for him, the cash-rental van would buy him an extra day, whereas his own truck might be picked up pretty quick.

  He thought about driving down by the Hoover Building and waving to the cameras. Then he thought about Misty getting the word that he’d escaped again. Micah and his boys would provide as much safety as anyone could, especially on their home ground on the slopes and crags of Pearl’s Mountain. Misty and her associates were pretty damned lethal in a city, but Micah might be a good match for them in the Appalachian woods, especially once he got them to one of the caves. He decided to get going, before those same two cops came in for morning coffee and busted him again.

  He paid up and went out onto the sidewalk. There were no pedestrians, but definitely a lot more traffic. He walked up three blocks to Massachusetts Avenue and then over one to the parking garage. There was a line of cars turning in to both the street-level entrance and the ramp, probably desk-bound revenuers from the ATE building right next door. A bearded and turbaned Sikh carrying a rolled-up Washington Post and a paper cup of coffee was unlocking the ticket booth as Kreiss walked into the garage, but the man ignored him. Kreiss climbed the stairs and came out on the level just beneath the roof. His van was parked in the back right corner, mostly out of habit. His level wasn’t fall yet, but it was getting that way. It was 6:50; in another thirty

  minutes, the Sikh would be putting a garage FULL sign out in front. He unlocked the door, climbed in, and set the locks again. The rear seat folded down, so he was able to create a good-enough sleeping pad back there. The left windows of his van were right up against the outside wall, so incoming vehicles could park only on his right side. He draped a jacket up over that side’s window and stretched out. The first light of dawn was coming through the apertures between the concrete support columns, and he could see people moving around in the aTF building right next door. Their offices looked like every other government hive: computer cubes, plants in corners, conference rooms, pacifying pastel dividers, vision-impairing fluorescent lights, and all the coat-and-tie drones, moving slow until their morning caffeine fix took hold. He had spent many, many hours in similar circumstances between operational missions, and he did not miss it.

  He was just closing his eyes when he caught sight of something odd in the space of daylight next to the window. It looked like a hose, a big black reinforced rubber hose, and it was just barely moving from side to side in some invisible updraft. He closed his eyes anyway, then opened them again. What the hell was a hose doing there? He stared at it again, trying to see if he had imagined movement, but it did move, as if it were dangling down from the deck above him. He sat up and looked at it again. There was something familiar about it, but he couldn’t place it. Just then a vehicle came by in front of the van, stopped, and then laboriously backed in alongside his vehicle. He lay back down instinctively, but the jacket blocked the view of the people getting out. Obviously a car pool; the men were finishing up an argument about the Washington Redskins, or Deadskins, as one of the men called them. They extracted briefcases, closed and locked the doors, and then disappeared toward the exit stairs. Kreiss sat back up again when they were clear. His eyes were stinging and he was dead tired, but there was something about that hose that bothered him.

  He slid into the front seat, looked around at the nearly full parking deck, and then got out on the driver’s side. The hose came straight down from above, within easy hand reach across the low concrete wall. He reached out and touched it, surprised at how cold it was. There was a sheen of moisture on the rubber, and a shiny metal collar just out of reach had a definite rime of white frost on it. When he stretched out to look up, he saw that the hose went up one more level to the roof deck, then disappeared.

  He looked down. The hose went straight down, then across a small, still, dark alley, and dis
appeared behind what looked like a small utility building at the back of the alley. The utility building

  appeared to be connected to the aTF building. As he listened, he heard the low whistling noise of vent fans rising from the alley.

  He leaned back into the garage and looked across the space between the aTF building and the garage. He could see right into a bank of offices. He watched office workers arrive in their cubes, stash lunch bags in office refrigerators, and stand around with cups of coffee, talking to their cell mates. He saw one middle-aged woman come into what was obviously an executive corner office, turn on the lights, close the door, and sit down in her chair, where she proceeded to hike up her skirt and make a major adjustment to her panty hose. None of them so much as glanced out their windows, even though it was now getting light all around. Great situational awareness, he thought. He saw no more vehicles coming up into his parking level, so he went over to the exit stairs and climbed up to the roof. Once out on the roof, he looked around and then remembered where he had seen that hose before: on the green-and-white propane truck driven by Browne McGarand, which was now parked in the corner of the roof deck.

  He didn’t bother even going over there. He could see that there was no one in the truck, and he knew instinctively that whatever had been in that truck was probably now inside that office building next door. He ran back to the exit stair on the roof and started down, two steps at a time. He hadn’t really figured out what he was going to do when he got down to the street: run like hell, or warn them? And would they listen?

  He was slowed by morning commuters on the stairs as he neared the ground level, and he rudely pushed past them to a chorus of “Hey, watch it” from the people he jostled. He kept saying, “Sorry, sorry,” but he also kept going. When he got outside to the street level, he stopped. The main entrance to the aTF building was a glass-walled lobby, and he could see the security people at their counter, next to X-ray machines and metal detectors. One of the men whom he had pushed by in the stairwell came abreast and gave him an angry look, but Kreiss ignored him. They were all in coats and ties; he was in slacks, a shirt, and a windbreaker. In about a minute, one of those angry aTF agents was going to ask him what he was doing out here. He looked into the alley. The hose was still there, barely distinguishable from the morning shadows. He wanted to go back there, make sure it had been routed into the ventilation building before calling a warning. But there might not be time.