Camouflage

by Aaron Pogue

  He'd said something else, too. He'd said, "It's not the recorders. It's just you." She didn't want to think about that yet. She checked her watch. 5:56.

  She didn't think anyone was chasing her. That was a painful thought—humiliating—because of the reasoning behind it. Simply put, no one had caught her yet. If they'd been trying...they would have.

  She shivered, soaked through and bitter cold. She considered crying, but it seemed kind of pointless. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, counting the seconds. 5:56 still. She cursed, and then she shut up.

  She had fallen. Halfway here. She tripped over a stupid root and tried to catch herself against a maple, bruising her arm in the process, and then she'd pitched headfirst over the edge of a drop-off. Five feet down, maybe seven, and the only thing that stopped her terrified scream was the crash at the bottom, knocking the air out of her.

  Hunted, her partner gunned down before her eyes, and she had screamed like a little girl. Then she'd stayed right there, stunned, for five minutes. Maybe seven. She hadn't even drawn her gun. If anyone were hunting her, she'd be dead.

  She thought of the message on the tree where Timmy Burke died. She wondered if maybe they had driven her there on purpose. If this whole thing was a message, an intimidation.

  She checked her watch again. 5:58. Her eyes lingered on the watch. That was what worried her most, now. Over an hour, and she hadn't once felt the familiar pinprick on the back of her wrist. She needed it. She needed painkillers and clotting agent. She pushed the back of her cold hand against her burning face. She probably needed antibiotics, too. She shivered again. Shuddered. Groaned.

  Then she checked her watch. 6:00. She didn't even have to look at her handheld to know. The red error ring had never left her watch. The time changed over to 6:01 while she watched, and then Katie closed her eyes and counted breaths. No rescue was coming.

  At the tenth breath, she forced her eyes open. She blinked and pushed off with her shoulder, up. She leaned out from under her cover and looked around. No one was hunting her. No one needed to. She looked at the error message glowing on her handheld, then put it away.

  She took a deep breath and forced it out. She turned downhill, and in her mind's eye she saw the highway winding across the valley floor. Two miles away, in a straight line. Maybe three. She considered crying again and it made a little more sense now. She still decided against it, though, because she couldn't spare the energy.

  It took her three hours to find the road. When she finally did, it felt like a dream. The rain had stopped, but heavy clouds hid the moon and left the world shrouded in inky darkness. She fell more than she walked the last hundred feet, rebounding off trees and skidding along the slippery ground.

  Slick with blood and mud and rain, exhausted and broken, she stumbled blindly through the break in the trees and out into the middle of the highway before she even fully registered what it was. Then she laughed, a cruel bark wtih a touch of madness to it, and stood and stared east toward the quiet little town of Bickmore.

  For a full five minutes she didn't move. She simply waited, expecting some car to come for her. When it didn't, when she finally understood it wasn't going to, she blinked away the haze. Then she walked out of the road, checked her handheld, and headed east.

  Gradually her mind began to work again. Her leg hurt, and her head hurt, but she'd been propelling herself mechanically forward for so long now, it was no trouble at all to follow the easy grade of the road.

  Much more disturbing was the error message still on her handheld. She wasn't in the yellow dot anymore. She was sure of that. The recorders here were working. But she had no signal. She, personally, was forgotten. Her watch didn't recognize her. Her headset wouldn't listen to her. Her handheld refused to connect.

  "It's not the recorders." Eddie's almost last words. She had disappeared. "The only thing that could do that...." He hadn't finished the sentence, but she thought she knew. If she was right, it was a fitting irony.

  She tripped, just a little stumble when she didn't raise her right foot high enough off the ground, but as tired as she was she couldn't correct for it, and she fell, scraping the heels of her hands on the tiny gravel along the roadside. She held herself there, on hands and knees, with her shoulders six inches off the ground and her forehead almost touching it, but she couldn't find the strength to stand up.

  Two miles to the highway had been her talisman—the mantra that kept her alive and kept her moving. Now...now she was in the civilized world again, visible to high-quality state-owned recorders every eighth of a mile, and still just as hopeless.

  As she held herself there, panting, she tried to figure the new distance in her head. It was pointless. She knew that—and in more ways than one. Pointless to estimate, because it would be far more guesswork than the mountain had been. She'd never spent any time counting the half-mile circles from here to there, but she'd known the yellow dot inside and out.

  Pointless in a larger sense, too, because no matter the precise distance, it was too far. It had to be at least ten miles, maybe as much as twice that, and she'd be lucky to make it one, even on the manicured verge. She took a deep breath, and it burned in the bottom of her lungs. She'd be lucky to even stand up, she thought. She was used up. Spent.

  She heaved, with all the strength she had, and it was enough to throw her back on to her heels, knees digging painfully into the tiny stone bed. She was upright, at least. There was some dignity in that. She breathed, and watched the clouds part overhead as stars came out. She saw a wash of yellow-orange light, too, and it was several minutes after she first heard it before she noticed the hornet buzz of a car approaching.

  She reacted too late, desperate, flinging herself up, twisting, falling deliberately out into the road, and then she lay blinded by the car's lights and praying it would have time to slow down for a bit of trash in the road. It did, tires hissing on the still-soaked pavement as it rolled to a stop just in front of her. She gulped three quick breaths and climbed up the hood of the car to pound on the blacked-out windshield.

  The door opened, more bright light inside making her wince away, but then when she saw the figure seated inside the car her hand flew instinctively to the gun at her side. She couldn't have aimed it, maybe couldn't have fired it, but she needed the threat. She forced herself upright, and stumbled around to the open door, staring in at Randall Loney.

  "God in heaven," he hollered, bewildered and more than a little drunk. "What the hell happened to you?"

  She tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn't work. She moved her tongue, trying to find moisture, but she couldn't remember how many hours it had been since she'd stooped to sip a drink from a muddy pool. She finally moved closer and croaked the word, "Help."

  She watched his eyes, wary, and spotted the flicker of something in them, but she couldn't place it. He didn't look vindictive, though, or vicious. Surprised, of course, but he seemed concerned, too. And she couldn't count on anything better coming along. She couldn't count on surviving the night.

  So, when he didn't object, she let herself fall forward into the car's interior. She cried out, suddenly feeling the stabbing pain in both her legs, and Randall had to lean across her to tug the door closed.

  Then she felt the car wash into motion and moaned into the floorboard, a sound of mingled relief and disbelief. She was alive and had found rescue. She was heading toward town, where she could get medical treatment and place a call. She—Eddie!

  The thought flashed into her mind and she flailed for a moment, squirming and twisting in the floorboard, trying to get upright. Her right hand crashed into a pile of empty beer bottles, and as she pushed herself up with her left she spotted one of them with an ounce or two of warm beer still in the bottom. She drank it greedily, coughing on the first mouthful, then shivered head-to-toe like a dog come in out of the rain and lifted herself up into the seat next to an astonished Randall.

  "I need you to call emergency services," she said. It still c
ame out a croak, and he just frowned at her, baffled. She grabbed a handful of his shirt and leaned closer. "My partner's in the woods. They shot him."

  Randall's eyes grew wide. His mouth fell open. "Well," he said after a moment. "I'm sure Hippocrates—"

  "No, no, no," Katie hissed. "Recorders were off. Just like Mr. Burke."

  Randall whistled softly, but he made no other move. She pushed closer to him, trying to threaten. "Do it, Randall. Do it now. Say, 'Hathor, connect me to Hippocrates.'"

  "And then what?" Randall asked. "You got a location? If he's not on the recorders—"

  "I can find it," Katie said. She slumped back. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, but knotted her fingers in her hair instead. She made a fist in her frustration, ignoring the pain in her scalp. "How? How?"

  Randall dragged out his own handheld, a cheap device that was easily six years old. He slid it across to her. "Here," he said. "I don't know what's wrong with yours—"

  "Just a glitch," Katie said quickly. "Busted. For the moment. I fell. In the woods."

  Randall nodded. He looked her up and down, still clearly overwhelmed at her condition, and she tried to sit up straighter. It hurt.

  There was a map open on the handheld, tracking their car, and she moved the focus out into the woods. She retraced their route from memory, orienting off the spot of Burke's murder and the center of the yellow dot, then working back north to find a stream that cut down through the woods. She sat back.

  "Here," she said, jabbing a finger at the spot. Then she traced the path of the creek, half a mile up and down. "Somewhere along here. I can't be sure exactly—"

  Randall stared for a moment, then he shook his head. "What the hell is Hathor supposed to do with that?"

  "Send help!" Katie said. "An emergency response team."

  Randall held her eyes for a moment, and then he shook his head with a frown. "In the city, maybe. Out here, we've got one rescue worker."

  "Well—" Katie started, but Randall cut her off.

  "He was our sheriff."

  That shut her up. The handheld fell from fingers that were suddenly numb. She dropped her head, gagged on a sob, and slammed a fist against her thigh to stop herself crying. Randall turned his head away and she recognized it as a generous gesture, but she didn't have time for that. She took a calming breath.

  "Okay," she said. She blinked away a tear. "That's that, then. I need to make other plans." She grabbed for the handheld again. "I need to send a message to my team lead. I'm using your handheld because mine's—"

  "Busted. Right." She recognized the look in his eyes now. Wary. Careful. The same way he'd look at a wild animal. That was better than it could have been. If he'd really known how vulnerable she was, how helpless....

  She pushed the thought aside and typed out a message for Reed. It was slow, because her fingers were cold and stiff, because she wanted to tell Reed everything without worrying him too much, and also because she didn't want to tip Randall off to her condition.

  Ten minutes later, she had three clumsy sentences that she thought would do the job. If nothing else, it would get Reed to send someone to pick her up. She reread the message twice, then slid the handheld over to Randall, watching his eyes for too much understanding.

  "There," she said, trying to sound casual. "Send that to Agent Reed at the FBI."

  He just stared at her. After a moment, he blinked. Then he said, "How?"

  "What do you mean how?" Katie snapped. "Just—oh." Her face fell. "Oh."

  "Look, Agent Pratt, I swear I've seen the light. I'm a changed man. I want to cooperate in every way. But...what the hell is going on?"

  She ran a hand through her tangled hair, trying to think. "Try to send it to the FBI Ghost Targets task force," she said. "They might have a public address. Wait!" She added her full name to the message, then gave it back to him.

  Randall shrugged, humoring her, and gave it a try. "Hathor, send this message to Agent Reed, FBI Ghost Targets. Thanks. Hah." He shook his head almost immediately at the error tone. "Nope. Hathor, send it to FBI Ghost Targets task force. Thanks."

  He waited a moment, eyes a little wide, listening. Then he nodded. "That worked."

  Katie shrugged. "No error," she said. "But who knows where it goes? Try Craig, would you? That's our receptionist. He might have a public address."

  Randall nodded and repeated the order, but almost immediately shook his head. "No luck," he said. "What do you think will happen to the one that went through?"

  "Honestly," she said, "I think it'll go into a public inbox and get parsed by a thousand different algorithms to determine its importance and the best destination. Should be enough keywords in there to get it promoted to my team...." She trailed off, and when she saw he was waiting for more, she shrugged one shoulder. "We'll see."

  Randall watched her for a moment, and she could see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. She took the time to try to compose herself and braced for the worst.

  He surprised her. "Well... I can give you a place to sleep tonight," he said, apologetic, "but I can't do a thing for you during the day tomorrow. I can't lose this job." He nodded toward her bruised arm. "But you can hang out at my place and maybe patch yourself up some. Then six or seven, I'll be home and I can give you a ride down to Gauley Bridge to pick up a new handheld."

  He had to know it was more than just the handheld. Her watch should've had ambulances screaming to meet them, and her headset should've been sufficient to send a message straight to Reed. He didn't press the question, though. He just shrugged a shoulder. "Assuming your boys don't come pick you up first, I mean."

  "Of course," she said. She watched him for a moment, looking for any sign of deception, but she couldn't spot it. She gave him a smile. "Thank you."

  "Hey, no problem." He gave an order that dimmed the lights in the cab, then leaned his chair back as far as it would go. "Watch the road for me, would ya? I'm gonna grab some shut eye." Then he turned his back on her, and quickly fell still.

  She watched him, wondering. After a moment she had to hide a massive yawn behind her hand, and once it passed she leaned her own chair down. He'd turned his back so she could feel more comfortable. She smiled at his back and shook her head against the soft cushion.

  She didn't sleep, though. She couldn't. If she couldn't get a new handheld anywhere in Bickmore, she probably wouldn't be able to find anything to help with her problem at all. She could probably find some medicine—but, no, she couldn't. She sighed, so tired. No money and no ID.

  She'd just have to make do with whatever Randall had in stock. He did seem like the sort who'd have something more than he carried in his watch, anyway. She took some comfort in that.

  But then what? Soap and water, bandages and a couple mild painkillers would be enough to get her on her feet again, but that still left her stranded in a town of suspects. Someone from the area had executed her partner as well as the sheriff. She had a case to work, and if she was stuck in town all day, she should be investigating. But she'd have to keep her status secret....

  She felt a dark, bitter chuckle rumble up in her throat, and she shook her head. It was so deep in her, so ingrained, that it felt perfectly natural. It felt better to dive back into the case than to hole up and wait. It was stupid, though. She couldn't do anything without her headset and handheld, and there were way too many risks. She could almost hear Reed chewing her out for even thinking of it. She could hear her dad even clearer, trying to rebuke but sounding so damn proud of her.

  She startled awake when the cabin light suddenly flared in the car. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes of rest, but it was enough to twist her body with a crushing stiffness. Her jaw cracked as she yawned, and she rubbed her eyes clear. Then she bent forward and realized with surprise she actually felt better.

  Not better. Worse. But clear-headed, for the first time in a long time. She threw her door open, reached up to grip the top of the doorframe, and heaved herself up and out. She
sucked in a hissing breath as her weight settled on the right leg, but it wasn't too bad. She'd had worse, anyway.

  It was raining again, a miserable gray drizzle, and she limped through it after Randall toward the flimsy front door of his trailer home. She already knew what waited inside, but after the day she'd had she saw it in a whole new light. The couch—her destined bed—looked like perfect luxury. She went straight to the kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of water from the tap. She drained it in one go, then started more slowly on a second. When she turned, she found Randall watching her.

  He nodded when she met his eyes. "You look like hell," he said. He jerked a thumb over his left shoulder, toward the back door. Toward the woods. "I've had days like that. Usually it was ol' Timmy dragged me back home alive."

  He held her eyes for a moment, making sure she understood, and she nodded. He laid it out anyway. "We had our misunderstandings, Ms. Pratt. Everyone in town run afoul a' ol' Timmy one time or another. This ain't right, though."

  She nodded again, and he turned his back on her. "Sandwich stuff in the bottom drawer of the fridge," he said. "First aid kit's in the bathroom." He glanced back at her, once, and shrugged. "I'll see if I've got anything'd fit you, then I gotta crash. Work's early."

  She smiled after him. "Thank you," she called, and just saw him dismiss it with a wave of his hand. Then the bedroom door clicked shut.

  She wanted to sleep, but she was in no shape for that. She finished a second glass of water and filled a third, then pulled open the door to check on the sandwich makings. After a moment's consideration, she decided to head to the bathroom first.

  She caught herself limping on the way and tried to stop. The leg would hold her weight, no risk there, it just hurt when a normal step pulled at the edges of the cut under her knee. She kicked off her filthy shoes and bent to peel the socks off, leaving a smeared puddle of mud and old blood all over the cheap linoleum floor. She considered the ruined leg of her pants for a while, then just gritted her teeth and tore it off at the knee.