Camouflage

by Aaron Pogue

  Jim Dade. The owner of the convenience store in town. Katie felt her heart sink. She'd liked him. He would have to be "J."

  He confirmed it an instant later. "Dammit, Avery! Kill those lights. You're blinding me here."

  Avery complied but he left the motor running as he climbed down from the driver's side. Katie saw Wade Hartman heave his bulk out of the passenger seat, and the two came together to meet Jim.

  "Watch your mouth," Avery said, but without much feeling. His eyes moved suspiciously, scanning the trees all around them, but it had the look of nervous habit more than real attention. He pulled out a handheld, read it in a glance, then checked his watch.

  Katie checked hers, too. 9:17. 43 minutes until the next recorder reset, and Katie knew immediately what Avery had seen on his handheld. She knew the error message well. She knew why these three were meeting right here, too. Big yellow dot.

  "Okay," Avery said, confirming it. "We're clean."

  "For forty minutes," Jim said. "I could've been here sooner—"

  Avery shook his head. "We couldn't. And we don't really need that long."

  "Right," Wade grunted. "Let's get this done."

  Avery jerked a thumb toward him in agreement. "Yep. I need to get back to Faye's place."

  Jim scowled at that, but cleared it away before Avery could notice. "Hey," he said, to cover it. "Why ain't Ken here?"

  "Ken's busy," Wade said. "Mind your own business."

  Jim took a step back, hands up. "I was just curious!"

  Avery shook his head. "You don't get to be curious. Just do what you're told and keep quiet." He frowned, thoughtful, and turned to look back over his shoulder toward the spot Jim had emerged from the woods. "Oh, dammit, Jim! Are you going to be able to find your way back without a handheld?"

  Jim's eyes went wide and his face went pale. "I...well, I didn't think about it. I...probably can."

  "Probably get your ass lost in the woods, and we'll get to send in a search party," Wade said. "That's just what we want."

  Avery nodded. He sighed with irritation. "I'll take the rest of your shift, okay? We should've just done this without you."

  Jim shook his head. "Done what?"

  Avery looked to Wade, but the bigger man didn't seem to want to answer. Avery sighed. "We've got to find the federal girl."

  "She's still loose!" Jim shouted. "Jesus, Avery—"

  "Watch it!" Avery cut in, jabbing a finger at Jim. "You watch your tone, kid, or you can end up just like Timmy did."

  Jim didn't back down this time. "You said you could handle it! You said you had it taken care of. What the hell? What are we going to do?" His head whipped left and right, searching the darkness around him in terror. "She could be anywhere!" His voice broke in a touch of panic at the end, and Katie couldn't help smiling in the darkness.

  Avery answered him coolly. "If you'd done your job, she never would have gotten out of the woods. Don't you forget that. And if Randall hadn't interfered...."

  He trailed off, and Jim hung his head. "So you—"

  "Randall's dealt with," Wade said.

  Avery nodded. "And that ties the girl's hands even more. We've got it under control, but we have to finish the job. Understood?"

  Jim nodded. Wade grunted. Avery said, "Good. I'll go—aw, damn." The others waited for him to clarify, and he looked at his watch. "I have to get back to the widow. She's up to something."

  "I told you I can get back to my shift!" Jim said, but the other two both hit him with a withering look. He shrugged. "Fine. I'll go watch Miss Burke."

  Wade snorted. Avery glared. "You don't have the balls to do what's got to be done, Jim. We all know that. I'm sending you with Wade to keep an eye out. And, honestly, so he can keep an eye on you. We've all got our doubts about you."

  "That's not how the leader wants it done—" Jim said, frantic, and Avery jabbed a finger hard in his chest.

  "Don't talk about the leader, Jimmy boy! You don't know a thing. Got it?" Avery stood over Jim, huffing with a fury, and he wasn't done. "And don't you argue with me anymore. You do what we tell you to, and maybe you don't end up like Timmy, okay? I don't care if you are one of us. We can make Amy a widow, too."

  He waited until Jim nodded, and then he took a step back. He straightened his shirt. "Good." He checked his watch. "We can leave the place unguarded for a few minutes. Okay? Nobody'll ever know." He glanced over to Wade, and Wade grunted his assent. Avery sighed. "You two are going out hunting for whitetail. Got it? Faye let slip that the girl's hiding out in the woods behind Paul's place."

  Jim hung his head. Wade frowned. "And if we don't get her?"

  Avery fixed his eyes on Jim's. "Then we use the widow.The girl's got some kind of interest in her. If we've got to, we'll drag Faye out here and bring the bitch right to us." Jim looked up horrified. Katie and Avery both watched him summon the courage to speak up.

  "P-people like her," he said, a little frantic. "It won't be like Timmy. We can't just—"

  "We can." Avery grinned. "Honestly, the girl's been a blessing. Maybe the leader knew this would all happen." He looked around, and spread his hands expansively. "We'll let word get around the federal girl brought her out here. She's crazy. Everyone in town knows that now. The Gun Club will volunteer to track her down, since this is our land, and we'll arrive tragically too late. We can serve justice, though. Tie everything up nice and neat."

  Katie saw Wade's brow knit. "And Paul?"

  "Paul's dealt with," Avery said, offhand. "Once Faye is, anyway. He'll have nothing to come back to. I overheard her telling him to stay away, and thanks to the bitch we've got all the evidence he could have brought against us."

  He clapped Jim on the shoulders, cheerful. "I'm telling you. We've got to do some ugly things in the next day or so, but after that it's almost perfect. Everything is falling into place."

  Jim nodded, but Katie thought it was more from fear than any convincing Avery had done. Avery looked to Wade for support and Wade grunted his assent.

  "Good," Avery said. "We've got this." He looked at his watch again and frowned. "I've got to get back to Faye. That girl's way more trouble than you'd think."

  Jim sighed, and with as much deference as he could manage he said, "So...so you're going to get her now? To bring her back?"

  Avery scowled at him. "No! Dammit, Jim." He looked to Wade. "We should've just skipped this meeting. I told you. Jim's useless."

  Wade grunted.

  Avery turned back to Jim. "No. You and Wade are going to try to kill the federal bitch tonight, easy and clean. Okay? I'd prefer not to get the town any more worked up than it already is, at least until the other project is done."

  He turned, took a step back toward the Jeep, and finished his explanation over his shoulder. "That gives you two until dawn. If you can't get it done by, say, six, I'll bring Faye out here then."

  "But if we do..." Jim said, thinking. "Umm...what about cleaning everything up."

  "Good point!" Avery said, spinning on his heel and pointing back toward Jim with approval. "I guess we'll just have to stage it, either way. Couple of corpses out here in the woods, who's to say when or where they died? We just have to get the other project finished."

  He turned again, heaved his door open, and barked, "Wade. Come on!"

  Wade went to his side, and Jim took one hesitant step in their direction. Avery flipped the bright headlights back on, and Jim shrank back as though they'd hit him. "But...hey! What about me?" he called.

  "Call a cab," Avery snapped back. "It's only a few miles back to the road. Wade'll be waiting for you."

  Jim stepped closer, arms spread in supplication. "Oh, come on! There's room in the back!"

  "Don't keep me waiting!" Wade snarled over the sudden growl of the engine. "Walk fast."

  Avery took five points to turn the Jeep in the narrow lane, Jim standing pitifully off to the side the whole time, and then Avery roared away down the road. Jim watched after them for a moment, frustrated, then he cur
sed once and set off at a jog.

  Katie waited a long time, sprawled there on her belly in the dirt and leaves, until she couldn't hear a single sound from either of them. Then she took a deep breath, nodded once to herself, and inched forward back out onto the road. For one long moment she looked down the road the way the other three had gone, then she squared her shoulders and headed into the woods.

  9. The Bunker

  She remembered the first part of the route, forcing through bracken and scrambling over and under some limbs to get to the first real path. It was easier to follow now, even relying on the dim light from her handheld, because Jim had just come through. He'd left plenty of signs of his passage to mark her way, and he'd opened up the path somewhat with his larger frame.

  She had some time. She could hazard a rough guess how much, based on what she knew. Timmy's notepads showed these shifts of theirs were six hours long, with an incredible regularity for months, so Jim's replacement shouldn't be due out here until midnight. She wasn't prepared to count on that, but it was something.

  Forcing her way through the trees, she focused on the other things she'd learned from that conversation. Faye was in danger, that was for sure. Unless Reed had gotten her message, anyway. If he could get someone in town tonight, they would interfere with Avery's plan. She hoped they would, anyway. She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't count on it. She'd given Reed so little to go on, told him not to trust any of the locals...that could work for Faye, but it could just as easily work against her.

  It was just like the shifts. She had information, but she couldn't draw any reliable conclusions from it. She had to expect the Gun Club could get back to the bunker at any given moment, and she had to assume Avery would be bringing Faye out here for an execution at six in the morning.

  She found the path and stopped for a moment. She sank down cross-legged in the dirt, rested the shotgun against a boulder close at her right hand, and finally did a full inventory of the backpack. She tore open a granola bar while she poked and prodded in the faint light from her handheld. That was enough for her to find the flashlight tucked in a side pocket, but a memory of the brilliant beam of light heralding Jim's approach earlier overwhelmed her enthusiasm. She decided to stick with the handheld light for now.

  She found the box of shells half-empty, but it would probably be enough for her. She wanted the shotgun more for the opportunity to break the recorders than to shoot anyone. If anyone got close enough for it to be effective, she'd do far better with her handgun. Still...she reloaded the shotgun and kept it close.

  There was the tarp she'd noticed earlier and some twine she could use to tie it off as a temporary shelter, but she didn't foresee much opportunity to take advantage of that. If she could make it to dawn, if she could keep Faye from dying at six, chances were good she'd be free and clear. And to do that...well, she'd need rescue from DC. That was the only real chance she had.

  She wasn't just going to sit and wait, either. She pulled Timmy's notepad from the pack, removed the map, and then put the pad right back. She drained a second water bottle and spotted the little packet of chlorine tabs at the bottom. She nodded to herself. She'd need to refill on water when she got to the stream.

  She unfolded the map, then refolded it as tight as she could while still showing her route. She couldn't quite decide whether it was stupid or just plain prudent to follow the same path she'd been ambushed on before, but it was the only path she knew. And for Faye's sake she couldn't afford to lose any time wandering lost. Besides, this time she was invisible.

  She stowed everything else back in the pack, reviewed the next leg of her route on the map, then tucked that in her back pocket. Then she jumped to her feet, took the shotgun in her left hand, and eased the strap on her handgun's holster. She glanced back toward the road, shook her head, and headed uphill.

  Handling the notepad reminded her of one of Timmy's margin notes. "Who is the leader?" She asked herself the same question again as she loped down the uneven forest trail by the light of her handheld. Who was the leader of the Gun Club? After hearing their little meeting, she really understood Timmy's curiosity.

  She'd kind of assumed it was the mysterious "J"—the one man among them smart enough to stay off her radar in her short time in town—right up until she found out "J" was Jim Dade. He was a junior member if ever she'd seen one. And that's why he'd slipped her notice. The other three were a tight-knit group, but Jimmy was clearly new...and not entirely welcome.

  As soon as she'd seen that, she had thought Avery. He certainly seemed to be calling the shots—her lip curled as she thought about his casual decision to stage Faye's murder—but he had still treated Wade as a partner (if a mostly silent one), and then there at the end Avery had made a reference to "the leader" himself. Something about the context of the conversation made Katie doubt the easy answer. Process of elimination would suggest it was Ken, the only man left. And they'd talked about Ken's "other project" as though it were important, but they hadn't really shared much of that reverence for the man working on it.

  So that left a fifth, someone entirely unmentioned in Timmy's notes. In the ones she'd gotten to read, anyway. Katie growled to herself as she broke through the brush and stepped out onto the rock-strewn bed of the tumbling stream. She needed to know what was on those pages, and she'd turned them over to that wretched Avery.

  She stopped at the stream to refill both water bottles. She read the instructions on the packet of chlorine tabs and added them to the water, shook both bottles briskly, then stowed them back in her bags. She figured she had much worse things than parasites to worry about, but Faye had gone to the trouble to outfit her for survival. The least she could do was respect that.

  The sky was clearer now, and more of it visible here along the creek, so Katie used the extra light to double-check the shotgun. It had seen some rough treatment on two frantic treks through the woods, but the action moved clean. She could hardly tear it down out here by starlight, but she didn't see any obvious problems.

  She zipped back up and returned to the problems she did have: an uphill climb and a secret society out to kill her. She spent most of the next ten minutes focused on the first problem, huffing her way up over boulders where she'd detoured into the woods before. Without the handheld to guide her, she was afraid of getting lost. The map could only get her so far.

  The slope leveled out a bit after a while, though, and she got back to the puzzle of the leader. Ken still felt wrong, but she found herself considering what he did bring to the group. He had a business outside Bickmore. He was a programmer, a "software guy" as Eddie had put it. That explained some of the sophistication these guys had managed, but it relied pretty heavily on the hardware component, too—

  She stopped, halfway to the top of a boulder fall, one hand wrapped around a tree root and the other stretched out overhead questing for a handhold. For a moment, she just hung there in the silver silence. Could it be that simple?

  She shook her head, found a grip, and heaved herself up onto the next level. And there was the slab of stone she'd stopped to rest on. There was the spot Eddie had stooped to get a drink. There the ink-black smear of blood on the smooth, dry stones of the creekbed.

  Could he have faked it? Could he have been involved all along? She saw the scene unfold in her mind once again, two clean shots, clear of any vital organs. Both were bad bleeds, but nothing a VitaTech bandage couldn't handle. If they had come for him after she ran, they could have gotten him somewhere safe for medical attention while she was still bolting like a rabbit. It certainly explained why they hadn't caught her. They were too busy taking care of Eddie.

  She wanted to stop and think it over, but she didn't dare. Not there, anyway. She hurried across the long flat stretch, then climbed the slope at the far side with big bounding leaps. Her eyes kept drifting up and to the left, to the general area where she knew the rifleman must have fired from.

  Wade, right? She nodded to herself. It s
ure seemed that way, from Avery's comments earlier. Wade did the dirty work. Not that she would let any of the others off the hook, but it felt good to have at least one of the answers.

  Up ahead the creekbed turned sharply to the right, but she recognized that from the map. That was where she was supposed to leave, going on straight across a high, open meadow, and then...

  She stopped right there in the open, in plain view, but for a heartbeat she couldn't make herself move. Because there it was, in sight. Just across the meadow, maybe thirty yards out, the land dropped down into the forested slope of a bowl a mile and a half across. And rising from the center of it, on a pole so thin it was invisible in the night, was a Hathor satellite uplink.

  If she hadn't known where to look, she wouldn't have seen it. Just a tiny white speck in the big black darkness, it seemed to glow for her eyes. She crossed the meadow at a sprint that could have spelled disaster if she'd hit some burrow hole or even a particularly large rock, but her eyes never moved from that white spot. She made it all the way to the other side before she missed a step, and then her left foot hit a patch of leaves that slipped out from under her. She fell, skidding right over the edge and down a steep, loose slope on the other side.

  She dragged the shotgun crosswise on the hillside beneath her and dug for some hold with the edges of her shoes, but she flew twenty feet down the hill before her left foot slammed hard into the trunk of a towering elm. She let her knee collapse, lessening the impact, and that curled her around to slide sideways another five feet before she finally settled to a stop.

  She rolled onto her back, propped up at a funny angle by the backpack, and lay staring at the broken view of the starry night while she caught her breath. So close. Less than a mile, and all of it downhill.

  She pushed herself up on an elbow and tried to find the antenna again. It was lost in the press of the trees. She climbed gingerly to her feet, running her hands lightly over the backs of her legs, feeling for any rips in the fabric that could indicate worse damage. She was surprised to find none. She shifted her weight to her left ankle, and it held. She took a few test steps downhill, and the little twinges of pain quickly faded away. And then she was running again. In control (if barely), but moving blindly downhill for now.