by Alaric Hunt
“Door back here,” Linney whispered on the radio. All of them wore headset walkie-talkies and bulletproof vests, and they carried Tasers, pepper spray, handcuffs, and firearms loaded with blue bullets. The older men had one magazine each of hard bullets for their pistols. “Two windows.”
“All right,” Guthrie said. “Maybe he wants to bolt from the door, so be sure to mention he’s surrounded.”
“You bet,” Olsen muttered.
The big veteran marched up to the trailer door with a Garand slung over his shoulder. Guthrie crept along the length of the trailer and stopped outside the window closest to the door. Lieberman, Holloway, and Little Prince stood back, waiting. Olsen pounded on the trailer door after a glance at the little detective. His task was simple: goad Gagneau into violence, using himself as the bait in the trap.
Olsen pounded heavily on the door again. The blows rocked the trailer. “Open this door, Sergeant! You been working for the devil long enough! Now it’s time to pay the taxes! Alpha’s ghosts are out here surrounding you, Sergeant! Come on out!” The big man stretched the words out with a parade-ground voice. The crickets fell silent around the trailer, leaving the night eerily quiet when he paused. The trailer creaked. A question made wordless by distance drifted from the group at the nearby fire.
“Captain, you a brave man,” Gagneau called from inside his trailer. “But you should not have come here.”
“Come on out of there, then!” Olsen roared, and pounded on the flimsy trailer door.
The killer answered with a fusillade. Muffled shots emitted holes around and through the door. Olsen dived into the dirt, cursing. Guthrie shattered the window glass with a hard rap from his can of pepper spray, then began spraying blindly into the interior of the trailer. Shouts rang out from the campfire. People rushed toward Gagneau’s trailer. The sleepy summer morning erupted; lights snapped on in every direction, followed by outraged voices.
“That’s enough, Guthrie,” Inglewood said on the radio. “I’m on the phone to the Essex County sheriff. Just back off and hold him.”
The little detective kept spraying into the broken window. Olsen rolled and found cover beneath the edge of the trailer. People rushed up, coming to sudden halts when they saw the house detectives and Little Prince waiting in the darkness. Tall oak trees stretched their limbs above the trailer from the back, blotting out the sky. The big black-bearded man emerged from the gathering crowd. His plaid shirt looked almost black without the light filters on the computer monitors.
“Here, what’s you’re doing there?” he demanded.
A young woman darted glances at the waiting detectives and shouted, “Marc! Marc! Here’s people out here!” More men rushed up. Their shouts blended into a basso chorus of anger.
The window on the other end of the trailer shattered and an arm snaked out, holding a pistol. Gagneau fired at Guthrie. The little detective ducked for the bottom edge of the trailer. Little Prince drew his Colt and fired a string of shots at the dark window. Gagneau dropped his pistol and his arm whipped back through the window. Running feet hissed through the dusty leaves all around them as some of the onlookers scattered, but even more rushed forward to replace them.
“Under the trailer, Marc!” someone shouted.
A shot boomed into the air, then a slim, longhaired man in the crowd leveled a pistol at the house detectives. “Here’s enough now!” he shouted. “Get on away, you!”
Little Prince turned and fired at the longhaired man. His gunshots lit the night like strobe lights, capturing images of scattering gawkers, shocked faces, upraised pistols, and returning shots. Shooters dived for cover and hid behind trees, while the unarmed scattered. A few people in the darkness paused to hurl stones, adding curses to keep the silence at bay. On the radio, Inglewood swore softly, watching the riot on the video monitors.
“Ah jeez,” Holloway said. “Forget a vest—shoulda brought my bulletproof underwear.”
“You hit?”
“Ah jeez,” Holloway repeated.
Hovering trees darkened the ground behind Gagneau’s trailer to invisibility. The aluminum trailer floated like a long, pale boulder of limestone on dark water. Vasquez broke from behind the tree she was using for cover and trampled through the light underbrush to reach the trailer. Linney hissed at her. She ignored him and peered through one of the trailer windows. She hammered the glass out with the barrel of her Garand. The sound seemed lost in the gunfire and shouting beyond the trailer. Linney hissed again as she leaned the rifle against the trailer. She coughed a few times, then hauled herself through the window. The dark veteran cursed as her feet disappeared.
Under the front edge of the trailer, Olsen unslung his rifle and then rolled back onto his stomach. The Garand was loaded with blue bullets, but they still carried a knockout punch. Along the encircling road, shouts and screams formed a melody for the bass line of cranking engines. Some of the visitors had decided to leave. Pistol shots cracked like misplaced drumbeats.
Little Prince threw shots at a line of underbrush along one of the camper lots, but Olsen didn’t see anyone there. The big man shot a bare-chested man as he flourished a pistol, aiming at one of the detectives on the other side of the road, and snapped another pair of shots at crouching shadows. The shooter and the shadows fled, yelping in pain. The rifle had a big sound, with a muzzle flash like a fog light.
Guthrie slid along beneath the edge of the trailer and rose to a crouch at the door. He tested the knob; it was unlocked. He grinned at Olsen while the big man reloaded his rifle. Escaping visitors raced in the depths of the park, their headlights crossing like sword blades. A band of half-dressed youths crept from among the campers beyond the encircling road, threw rocks, and faded back into cover. Little Prince cursed, and his pistol fell silent as he spun to his hands and knees.
“Maybe you oughta get out of there, Guthrie,” Inglewood suggested.
Lieberman banged away with his Colt at some creeping shadows, where muzzle flashes had winked a few moments before. Wood smoke drifted on the cool morning breeze. The camper park was a crazy quilt of darkness, dim sides of trailers and vehicles, and blotches of greenery that drank the light from faint pools cast by campfires and lamps beyond windows; rushing arcs of headlights made fleeing people wink like fireflies as they ran through slices of light. The house detective could’ve been shooting at ghosts, but the strobe of his muzzle flashes pinpointed him. Gagneau poked the tip of an AK from his window and sprayed a burst—the chopper had found a place to land. Lieberman pitched over.
“Ah jeez,” Holloway groaned, and fired at the window.
Pepper spray tainted the air inside Gagneau’s trailer. Vasquez slithered over the sink onto a carpet of glass on the tiny kitchen floor. Both windows in the kitchen were broken. A partial wall screened the rest of the camper. One narrow door was open on the front side, and a countertop opening doubled as the kitchen table and a breakfast nook in the middle room. The young Puerto Rican detective rose to a crouch, pulled her Colt, and extended the gun over the countertop. Gagneau was kneeling at the window on the other side of the front door, peering along the length of his AK, partially silhouetted by faint light from the window. His cough sounded like a stutter.
Vasquez shot Gagneau. The blue bullets flung the little man away from the window; he tumbled like an acrobat, disappearing behind a couch along the back wall of the middle room. His curses were interrupted by a fit of coughing. Then he slid from behind the other end of the couch and sprayed the kitchen wall with the AK. Vasquez dived back onto the glass-covered floor, deafened. Guthrie peeled the front door open and fired his Taser across the small room. The probes caught in the corner of the couch. Gagneau opened the door to the back room and rolled through as the little man drew his Colt and coughed.
Inglewood cursed steadily on the radio as Olsen spaced five shots slowly, pausing to aim. Four screams erupted. The shadows vanished. Honking horns joined the chorus of gunfire, racing engines, and shouts. The riot stopped as sudd
enly as it had begun, deprived of fresh people to fill with anger. Holloway crawled over to check on Lieberman and Little Prince. The stunned house detective clutched a bleeding, paralyzed arm. The young thug had a bloody knot on his head above his ear. He had recovered his pistol but couldn’t fit his flat-brimmed cowboy hat back on his swollen head.
Inside the trailer, Guthrie charged the door to the back room as Vasquez scrambled to her feet in the kitchen. The little man ricocheted from the locked door and smashed a small table in the corner. A fit of coughing swallowed his curse of frustration. The back door of the trailer swung wide with a creak, and Linney aimed into the interior. The dark veteran’s eyes were adjusted, and he braced himself with the help of a tree. A grenade sailed through the doorway. Linney stared in puzzlement. The detonation was a flash of light and a concussion like a punch. Linney fired blind, reflexively, as Gagneau tumbled through the door. The little man paused; his AK stuttered. Guthrie and Vasquez threw themselves flat inside the trailer, but Gagneau was aiming at Linney. The heavy bullets whipped the veteran to the ground, and then the killer rushed through the ring of underbrush into the deep darkness under the trees.
The sudden return of quiet seemed like deafness. Guthrie kicked through the locked door, and Olsen low-crawled beneath the trailer. They found Linney by flashlight after calling his name produced no response. His vest had stopped most of the bullets, but a single stray had found his neck. Death made him so still and quiet that he seemed to be part of the ground.
“He got through us, Mike,” Guthrie said on the radio as he peered into the darkness under the trees. Along the back of the encircling road, the hillside rose sharply.
“The kid’s wearing a knot on his head the size of a pumpkin,” Holloway said. “Dave’s in shock, and I got a few ounces of lead in my ass. We’re done around this side.”
Inglewood sighed. “This’s the middle of nowhere. I called the deputies. What’re you gonna do?”
“I’m going after him,” Guthrie replied.
Vasquez frowned, glancing into the absolute darkness beneath the trees before studying the little detective’s face. Olsen slung his rifle and grunted disapproval.
“What?” Guthrie demanded.
“The sergeant was always a careful planner. He would have more than a little in mind here, and without some night vision a guy could stumble around until he caught up to his own ass.” The big man studied Guthrie’s face and frowned. “So you’re half a cat, then?”
“No, I just do some things the old-fashioned way,” the little detective said. “Maybe he has a plan—or maybe he’s circling or waiting. I won’t know until I look. Dawn ain’t far off anyway.”
“So I’ll be right behind you,” Olsen said.
The little detective shook his head. “Mike, maybe you got a reason to take a look in his trailer, right?” he asked.
“I could do that,” Inglewood said, “but I think maybe you should rethink going after this skel. He almost wiped out your crew already. Ain’t but three of you left, and I ain’t in no shape to climb no mountain—”
“Mike, give it a rest,” Guthrie snarled. He bent, scooped a small handful of leaf litter, and crumbled it. He sprinkled the dust on Linney’s body. “I’m gonna get this bastard,” he whispered.
* * *
The little detective posted Olsen at the back door of Gagneau’s aluminum trailer to watch uphill for lights or movement. He took Vasquez with him, telling her to watch and keep quiet. She followed him blindly for the first minute, concentrating just to keep him in sight, before her eyes could pick out other shapes in the darkness. She listened but couldn’t hear his footfalls even when she stopped moving herself. At a distance, the ground seemed as smooth as a blanket, but in the dark, every footstep was treacherous.
Faint gray light trickled into the sky from the east, but Vasquez used Gagneau’s trailer to position herself. Guthrie walked a slow semicircle behind the trailer, pausing with each step to kneel and gently run his fingertips over the leaf litter. Several times, he hissed at Vasquez when she took a step or shifted while he listened. The young Puerto Rican fumed but watched him carefully. Guthrie went only about half around the semicircle before he paused and moved away from the trailer. He led the way with his fingertips, brushing soundlessly among the leaves. His footsteps were quiet; he balanced his rifle on his left knee each time he swept at the ground with his right hand. Slowly, he crept a few dozen feet uphill, then stood and looked ahead.
Vasquez looked, too. Trees were slowly emerging from the darkness. She and Guthrie were climbing the eastern side of a broad, tall ridge. Beyond the ridgeline, Twin Oaks waited. She wondered if the little man was crazy, dribbling around on the ground like an old drunk chasing a fallen bottle in the dark. Then Guthrie moved again, taking long steps before bending to test the ground with his fingers again. Every few steps, he stopped to peer again, but he moved faster.
After a few minutes, the little detective crept up to a large forked tree. He stopped Vasquez, then swept a gentle circle around the tree before returning to the trunk. He found a Kalashnikov almost at her feet, with a length of twine and an empty trash bag.
“His first stop,” he muttered. He pointed up the hill. “Then he went that way.” He studied the tree, then tapped a plastic disk nailed to it.
“Seen anything, Greg?” Guthrie asked on the radio.
“Not a thing.”
“Found his cache,” Guthrie said. “He left the machine gun and kept going uphill. What’s above us?”
“A few campsites, then that old lodge. Two roads run along the mountainside.” The big man paused. “So you’re sure he’s going up, then? He left a note explaining he didn’t mean to circle?”
The little detective sighed. “He’ll make the top of the mountain by midmorning. He was moving fast. You come on up here. Shine a light up the hill. There’s a reflector on the cache.”
A flashlight beam washed over them briefly from downhill, then winked out. Olsen began slashing uphill through the leaves. The light was richer; the details of the forest floor were emerging from the darkness at their feet.
“Why you so sure, viejo?” Vasquez whispered.
“It ain’t the where he was going; it’s the how,” he answered softly. Once Olsen joined them, the little detective pointed the way Gagneau had gone, then played his flashlight briefly in that direction. A tree trunk twinkled. The killer had blazed the trail to make it useful in the dead of night.
Olsen checked the assault rifle and found the clip empty. The big man let out a hiss of breath. “He’ll have more weapons somewhere,” he said. “That’s when he’ll turn on us.”
“We still need him alive, Greg. We follow him as best we can, and maybe get ahead of him.” Guthrie looked east at the patches of sky faintly visible through the trees. “I’ll be sight-tracking in another half hour. This ground holds sign as good as any in West Virginia. I might puzzle out where he’s headed when I can see it.”
“Viejo, you’re crazy,” Vasquez said.
“You bet,” Olsen echoed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
In the predawn darkness, the vast mountain towered above the detectives, with Gagneau already vanished, seeking a hole of his choice that they must find by blind chance. Guthrie’s slow woodcraft, guided by brushing fingertips, felt like an ant crawling behind a fleeing blue jay. Faint shapes of trees and underbrush sharpened into focus at arm’s length, carrying a clinging scent, almost rotten but sweet and moist. The dry, dusty top of the leaf litter hid a cool, slick layer patrolled by an army of mutant insects. The darkness made everything else invisible.
Vasquez struggled behind Guthrie. The little man was silent, but she made a sandpaper racket with every step. Olsen did no better following her. Fortunately, no trap waited; their creeping fear of ambush disappeared as Guthrie’s hunch proved true. Gagneau was racing for the ridgetop. They climbed into the descending edge of dawn as the sun peeked above the ridge to the east, lighting the western side of
the valley as it rose.
With light, Guthrie moved more swiftly. The killer’s boot prints were as plain to him as words on a written page. They climbed past campsite number three, close enough to see the rough wooden platforms, and disappeared into the mountain’s cupped hand. The stone surrounding them resembled a mass of broken knuckles and twisted fingers, with oak and maple trees emerging like splinters thrusting upward toward a sky hidden by greenery. Guthrie paused, finding on the mountain’s bony knee a perch to see its shaggy crest. He pointed at a notch high above them.
“He’s going there,” Guthrie said. “That’s contrary, on account that the saddle southeast is lower and quicker.” He pointed again.
Olsen scanned the ridgetop, then said, “If a guy meant to guess, he would suppose that notch fell directly above the spread on the other side, do you think?”
“Sure,” Guthrie replied. “Your sergeant would do that?”
“Dirty and direct was Alpha SOP,” he replied.
Guthrie looked again. “I don’t reckon that’s quicker.”
The big veteran grunted. “So if he decided to turn aside, you don’t think it would matter, then?”
The old man removed his fedora and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He worried at the brim for a moment. “He might be a half hour ahead, striking hard with your head down, but I reckon he’s less. We won’t make up time trailing to that notch.”
“So we have to split up,” Olsen said. “I can pass that saddle and turn back to the resort, but I can’t see what you’re looking at on the ground. You’ll have to follow him to the notch so he can’t turn aside, then.”