by James Thayer
When he saw Owen Gray, the man's face wrinkled into a grin, and he slid to the ground and crossed the gravel, hand out in front of him. He pumped Gray's hand, and then he continued to hold it, patting it like he might a child's, smiling all the while.
"Tell me you are moving back into the Sawtooths, and that handsome woman is your bride."
Gray smiled. "Walt, I'm only here for a while."
"And that's not your wife?"
"Lord, no. She's a combination ninja assassin and Grand Inquisitor, and I'm not related to her in any way." He introduced Coates to Hobart Police Chief Walt Durant.
Walt Durant had a doughy face. His mouth was wide and his lower lip hung an inch out of his mouth and was always damp. His nose was the size of a light bulb and was lined with burst capillaries. Acne had left pits high on his neck below his ears. With small gaps between every one of his teeth, his smile resembled a picket fence. He was bald except for a horseshoe of gray hair from temple to temple. Durant was walleyed, and Gray never knew whether the chief was looking at him or staring over Gray's shoulder at something more interesting. Durant was wearing a tan uniform shirt and slacks. Above his badge were four citation plates awarded by the city council, each representing five years of distinguished service. Gray had heard the chief complain that it was cheaper for the city to give him a medal than a raise. Durant wore a holstered revolver on a Sam Browne. Also on the belt were a handcuff case and two bullet dumps. He had left his hat on the car seat.
"You carry two shields, Chief?" Coates asked, pointing to Durant's shirt pocket.
Durant lifted the second badge from his pocket. It glittered gold in the sunlight. "I'm also the Hobart fire chief. The badge I wear depends on the nature of the emergency. I'm also in charge of the Hobart sanitary landfill." The police chief brightened. "Another job I had once was a bounty counter."
"A bounty hunter?" Coates asked.
"A counter. The federal government back in the early sixties offered a bounty for coyotes. You remember that, Owen? You and your old man brought in two hundred fifty coyotes in one month. Most ever, I'd bet. I'd pay you ten dollars for every set of coyote ears you and Dalton brung me. That's still talked about in this town, Pete, two hundred fifty coyotes in thirty-one days." Durant whistled appreciatively.
Durant had been Dalton Gray's closest friend, the first visitor to the house when Owen had been born. Decades later, as Dalton was being lowered into the ground in the Hobart cemetery, Durant had told Gray in a breaking voice, "In the future, if you need anything from a father, you ask me, Owen."
The police chief said, "You haven't mentioned what brings you out here, Pete."
While Coates told Chief Durant about Nikolai Trusov, Gray crossed the lot to enter the cabin. He returned a few minutes later carrying sandwiches piled high on a plate. He stopped at the porch to hand some out to Adrian Wade and the two techs, then returned to Coates and Durant. They helped themselves.
"What's in it?" Coates asked, lifting the top slice of bread like a flap.
"Watercress, a lot of butter, and salt."
"Where's the pastrami? It's like you've given me two bookends with nothing in between." The detective bit into it, then admitted, "Not bad."
"And what makes you think the Russian is coming to Hobart?" Durant asked.
"We put two facts together. One, Trusov is heading west. And two, Owen is here."
"How does this Trusov know where Owen is?"
"I haven't figured that out," Coates replied, glancing at Gray. "Trusov knows Owen was raised in the Sawtooths, because he had a copy of his high school annual and he's seen Owen's service record. Maybe he's just guessing Owen has returned home."
"So what are you proposing we do?" Durant asked.
"I tried to erect a series of concentric circles around Manhattan, circles of people looking for Trusov. But he got outside them all. Now I'm going to put the same circles around Hobart, hoping I can spot Trusov coming in."
"And you want my help," Durant said skeptically. "To protect Owen here? Owen can probably take care of himself."
The detective said, "My task force isn't assigned to protect Owen. Its job is to catch this murderer."
"A task force," the sheriff repeated. He looked at Owen, his eyes mirroring his mirth. "An entire task force?"
"I'm going to make it impossible for Nikolai Trusov to come to this area without being noticed, I'll guarantee you that."
From a coat pocket Coates removed a contour interval map of the area. The map had a 1/250,000 scale, with contours every hundred feet. The detective asked questions about the lay of the land, about State Highway 75, which was the only paved road in and out of Hobart, and about the smaller gravel and dirt roads that wandered in a number of directions up into the mountains, short roads because the peaks east and west of the town were close. He asked about the emergency grass airfield north of Hobart, about trails that crossed the mountains on which a hiker might approach the town, about locations for highway checkpoints.
Coates finally summed up. "It looks like I'm going to need two shifts of about eighty people each. A hundred and sixty. I suppose you know most of the sheriffs and police chiefs around here."
Durant nodded. He crammed the last quarter of his sandwich into his mouth. A stray watercress leaf escaped his jaws and floated to the ground.
"Will they loan you their people?"
"As many as they can spare." The police chief produced a can of Copenhagen from his pants pocket. He tapped the lid before opening it, then held the tin out. Gray and Coates declined. The chief inserted a wad of tobacco behind his lower lip.
They were standing thirty yards southwest of the house. A tangle of weeds was at their feet. Owen Gray lowered himself to his haunches and absently began pulling weeds from the ground, one at a time, throwing them off to his right. The police chief followed him down and also yanked the plants from the ground.
"And I need some of your resources. What's the size of your department?"
"You're looking at it."
"You? That's it?"
Durant put a backcountry drawl into his voice. "Hobart ain't Manhattan, Pete."
"How about communications equipment?"
"I don't have much, because when I'm out of the office there's no one to call at the office, and when I'm in the office there's no one out on the road."
Pete Coates also lowered himself. He imitated the others by yanking a weed from the ground and throwing it aside. "Does the Hobart Police Department have anything useful?"
"Twenty orange traffic cones."
"That's it, for Christ sake?"
"Four portable barricades, one police car, four assorted firearms, and a one-person jail that an imbecile could break out of."
The detective removed his eyeglasses to scratch the side of his nose where the tabs had left red marks. "Does your office have electricity?"
"Yep. And we get the mail whenever the river freezes over and the dogsleds can get in."
Gray and Durant continued with the weeds. The small pile of discarded plants was growing. Behind them toward the ravine was a thicket of taller weeds, these with sharply pointed elongated leaves of bright green with slight purple veins.
The detective asked, "Is there anything else you can do to help me, Chief?"
"I'll call everyone in Hobart and tell them to keep their eyes out. A stranger won't be able to belch in this town without me hearing of it."
"Can you tell me by tonight how many people you can borrow?"
"You bet."
Coates lifted a spiral notebook from his coat pocket and flipped through a few pages. He spoke for a moment about response times, about how his circle of men and women would collapse around the first location where Trusov was spotted. He used SWAT team jargon. Walt Durant pursed his lips and nodded.
"That's all I got right now." Coates returned the book to his pocket before saying, "I'm loath to display my city ignorance once again, but why are we pulling these weeds?"
"Thes
e are wild oats," Gray replied, tossing another aside.
"Aren't you supposed to sow wild oats, not pick them?" Coates asked.
"See these?" Gray held up one of the wild cereal stalks. "This bristlelike appendage that sticks out of the grain is called an awn. It can get stuck in an animal's throat and cause an infection. I lost a mule once that way. By the time I noticed the infection, the mule was a goner."
Coates picked another oat stalk. "But you don't have any mules or horses around here now."
"I do it on principle." Gray flicked another weed onto the pile.
"We're both principled guys," Durant said.
The detective rose to his feet. "Yeah, well, you're both having fun at this big city guy's expense. But I'll tell you, the only thing I can see favorable about the mountains is that you can walk thirty feet in any direction and take a leak."
Coates turned to walk across the gravel into the taller weeds behind him. He brushed a few aside, and stepped further into the thicket. His back to Gray and Durant, he unzipped his pants. He was hidden from Adrian by a stand of mountain laurel. He said over his shoulder, "No need for pay toilets out in Idaho."
There were the sounds of a satisfied grunt, then of liquid falling onto the ground.
Chief Durant clucked his tongue and asked Gray, "You want to tell him or can I?"
"What's a friend for if he can't break bad news?" Gray called to the detective. "Hey, Pete. How you feeling about now?"
"Never better. Nothing like relieving pressure on the inner systems."
"Well, as they say in the song, 'You're going to need an ocean of calamine lotion.' "
It took Coates a moment, then he yelled, "Aw, goddamnit." He held his hands away from his body and shook them as if that might rid them of the poison oil. "Goddamnit."
Without turning, he looked over his shoulder at them. "What do I do now, for Christ sake?"
The police chief said, "I'd put your peter back in your pants, for a start."
"It'll be best if you can do it without touching it," Owen said, pulling out another wild oat stalk. "Otherwise the oil will spread and you'll end up looking like you got the Bangkok pox."
"And don't ask me to help you with the task," Durant said with a straight face. "I wouldn't get the kick out of it you might suppose."
"Goddamnit," Coates yelled again. He jiggled himself, then jumped up and down, and finally used the thumb and little finger of one hand to put himself back into his pants. Still holding one hand away from his body and high above the surrounding plants, he zipped up his pants.
"Son of a bitch." He turned on his heels. "What do I do now?"
"You wearing socks?" Durant asked. "Otherwise your ankles will get it."
"Of course I'm wearing socks. Goddamnit, get me out of here."
"Why don't you walk out like you walked in?" Gray advised. "Keep your hands up."
The detective tiptoed out of the bank of weeds. When he got back to them, he demanded, "Why didn't you tell me I was walking into poison ivy, for Christ sake?" He grabbed the back of one hand with the other. "Christ, my hands hurt already."
"Pete, you're a smart guy," Gray said, dropping the last of the wild oats onto the pile and rising to his feet. "Never in my wildest imagination did it ever occur to me that a smart guy like you would walk into a patch of poison ivy with his privates hanging out."
Durant laughed.
"I was speechless," Gray explained. "I couldn't warn you."
Coates frantically scratched the back of his hands. "Funny guy, Owen, goddamnit."
Chief Durant returned to his car. He said he'd be in touch, and then he backed around the larch tree and drove down the road, disappearing down the hill, dust rising from the car's passing.
Coates and Gray started back to the cottage. Adrian Wade and the FBI technicians were inside. Coates scratched and scratched.
The detective said, "Owen, you're having a lot of fun at my expense, looks like. But you'd better do some serious preparing for Nikolai Trusov. He's coming and I'm going to try my best to stop him, but I tried in New York and failed. I don't plan on it, but I might fail again, and then he'll show up here."
"I'm getting ready."
"Doesn't look like it to me," Coates said. "Goddamnit, I got some poison ivy on my third leg. I can feel it." He scratched his crotch.
"Follow me." Gray led the detective to the side of the cabin. As a firebreak, the wild grass and bushes were kept well away from the structure. They walked on clover and grass and pebbles around to the back of the house, to the main bedroom window at the back. Moss grew on the lower logs of the house.
"Are you jacking me around, Owen?" Coates scoffed. "Cowbells and tin cans?"
Partially hidden in a stand of quaking aspen was a length of wire on which were three rusted cowbells and several empty cans. A trip wire was attached to the second log of the house and ran across the firebreak to the string of cans and bells.
"This looks like a kid designed it!" Coates exclaimed, working on his hands. "You don't think for one minute that Nikolai Trusov will fall for this, do you?"
"Nope." Gray stooped to lift a hand-sized rock. "But it'll take his attention off of more serious matters."
He lobbed the rock onto the ground two feet the other side of the bell-and-can alarm. The rock bounced on the leaves and grass.
The sound of an explosion filled the space between the brush and the building, a concussive wash of wind rushed past them. The air instantly filled with leaves and twigs, twisting and falling.
Coates jumped back, grimacing as if wounded. Smoke was gray and acrid, filling the air and making it shimmer. He reached under his armpit and pulled out his service revolver. "What in hell?"
A speckled pattern had appeared on the logs of the house. Some of the bird shot was visible in its craters, others had sunk further into the wood. A few pellets had dropped to the base of the building. Splinters had been torn away from several logs. Dust rose from the damaged mortar. The shot pattern was the size of a basketball.
"Jesus Christ, Owen. A spring gun?"
Gray nodded. "A 12-gauge hidden in the bush. I built a pressure plate out of some sticks."
Coates peered into the bush. "I don't see the shotgun."
"I hid it a little better than I hid the alarm. I've got five other weapons placed here and there, cocked and ready. I'll come back in a while and reset this one."
Coates returned his weapon to its holster and resumed scratching his hands and his groin. "All right. Maybe you are taking Trusov seriously."
They moved toward the front of the house.
Coates asked, "Where'd you learn about spring guns?"
"In Vietnam. We'd usually set traps at rear approaches to our hides so nobody could sneak up on us. All snipers are taught about booby traps."
"I'm going to be bunking out here in Frontier Land with you." Coates said, biting the back of his hand for relief. "You sure you remember where you put all the guns?"
"I'll draw you a map, if you like." Gray led him to the porch. "I only hope you're not a sleepwalker."
Montana State Trooper Ross Bowen lifted the plastic photo frame from his dashboard and grinned again at his new daughter. Eight pounds, seven ounces, twenty-one inches long, born six days ago, and if there was a God in heaven the girl would look like her mother. He gently tapped the photo, sending his love to his daughter. Bowen had been unprepared for the emotions that had overtaken him in the birthing room and that were still with him. His wife had laughed when he told her that food was tasting better since their daughter was born. So he hadn't told her that the Montana air seemed purer, that he could do more chin-ups than ever before, and that their Labrador retriever was more obedient. Everything was better. Bowen was suffused with parental joy.
Then the silver Honda Accord appeared in his mirror, growing quickly. Bowen didn't need to refer to his daily briefing memo and he didn't need to radio for confirmation. He knew the Accord had been stolen forty minutes before from the parking l
ot of a minimart. The State Patrol had assumed the Russian was behind the wheel.
Bowen's patrol car was parked behind a stone outcrop that hid much of his vehicle from westbound travelers yet allowed him to aim his mounted radar gun back east along the rising road. His radar was off, and the cone was against the windshield pillar. Trooper Bowen had viewed this duty as an opportunity to sit in the sun under his windshield and consider the good fortune of a new daughter.
The Accord tore by Bowen's patrol car. The trooper cranked over his ignition and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The patrol car fishtailed from the shoulder onto the asphalt. The photo of his baby fell to the floor.
The silver Accord wasn't speeding, only sixty miles an hour or so, Bowen determined as he closed the distance. He could see the back of the driver's head, but details were lost in the flashing reflection from the Accord's rear window. And there was a passenger in the car. Bowen flicked on his cherries and siren, then lifted his handset to notify the dispatcher that he would need assistance. He pulled within ten car lengths of the Accord.
To Bowen's surprise the Russian's car began slowing, and the rear blinker indicated the car was about to pull over. The trooper turned off the siren. He bit his lower lip. He had been hoping this Nikolai Trusov would outrun him, give him a reason to claim that further pursuit would have endangered civilians, which is when the Montana State Patrol regulations demanded the chase end. The Accord kicked up dust as it rolled onto the shoulder.
Trooper Bowen grimaced. Pulling over drunks and dopeheads and car thieves was dangerous enough, but this son of a bitch was straight out of a foxhole. Nothing in Bowen's training had addressed stopping a skilled combatant, a Soviet-manufactured fighting machine. From what Bowen had read about him and from the briefing given that morning by his lieutenant, the trooper knew Trusov was a superb killer—merciless and efficient—who apparently loved his craft. This man was perhaps the best the Russians could produce at shedding blood, and in a moment the Russian was going to turn his attention to one Ross Bowen of the Montana State Patrol. Bowen didn't like the situation at all.