by James Thayer
Adrian pointed at the MILE. "He isn't going to allow you to use technology you didn't use in Elephant Valley. No lasers, no parabolic listening devices, no night vision goggles."
"What if we don't follow his rules?" Coates asked.
"He'll continue to kill anybody standing next to Owen until Owen understands his message and agrees to his rules."
Coates stepped to the couch in front of the fire and sank into one end of it. Adrian followed him, tucking herself into the other corner of the couch, leaning against the armrest. She kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs under her. Her blue-striped shirt was open to the second button. Her light-blue jeans were tight at her ankles. After a moment, Gray followed. He lifted a log from the box and threw it onto the fire before sitting between Adrian and the detective. Gray spread his legs, hooking a foot under the coffee table leg. Adrian was watching Gray.
"I think Nikolai Trusov has been telegraphing his movements." She spoke between bites of the apple.
"Wanting us to know his progress toward Idaho?" Coates asked.
"Sure. He is keeping ahead of the law but not particularly hiding his progress. He has left fingerprints everywhere. He has let himself be spotted a couple of times. For example, he didn't have to eat in that cafe in Mentor. His picture had been in the papers throughout Minnesota. He must've known he'd be spotted."
Coates agreed by nodding.
"And more than that," she continued. "The violence he inflicted on that gas station attendant in Cleveland was a message to us. He didn't need to do that. He could have flicked that fellow aside with the back of his hand. Trusov is too steady and professional to get carried away in trying to fend off some kid. He was telling us what we can expect if we don't go along with him."
"A long-distance message," Coates agreed.
The flames worked noisily at the wood. A charred log fell onto the embers, sending sparks up the chimney. The air was crowded with scents—fire smoke, old cedar, garlic from their pasta dinner, and Adrian's distinctive aroma, an eerily arresting and confounding fragrance.
When the telephone rang, the detective rose to cross the room to Adrian's desk. He carried his beer glass with him. After a moment he dropped the handset onto the receiver and walked back to the couch. "A sporting goods store near Butte has been broken into. A smash-and-grab. Trusov left his prints again."
"What'd he get?" Adrian asked.
"A .30–30 deer rifle and a .22, two shotguns, ammunition, three dozen hunting and fish-cleaning knives, some climbing rope, baling wire, and some cold-weather clothing. A cap, a pair of boots, that sort of thing. What's he want with the knives and rope and wire? And so many weapons?"
"Traps," Gray answered. "Protecting his hide and his routes with nasty surprises. Same thing I've done around here."
The detective rubbed the back of his neck. "Owen, I had hoped we wouldn't have to get to this because I thought we'd catch Trusov before he got here, but tomorrow you'd better start teaching me the lay of the land so I can help you when the time comes." He headed toward Gray's childhood bedroom. "I've got the bottom bunk. I'll be asleep in ten seconds." He disappeared through the door.
When Gray started to rise from his chair, Adrian's hand on his shoulder stopped him.
She asked, "Do you want to talk?"
"I'm out of talk." Gray's voice was so soft it mixed with the sounds of the fire. "Nikolai Trusov is reducing me to a rifle. Rifles don't have much to say."
Her hand was still on his shoulder. "We could talk about your plans after this is all over."
He looked at her a long moment. Then he gently shook his head. "For a number of days I haven't been able to think of any future beyond Trusov."
"You have a future, Owen. I'm interested in it."
He lifted himself from the couch. He stepped to the bedroom door, then glanced back at her. Searching for something to say, he found only "I'm interested in your future, too." He looked at her another moment, then continued into the bedroom.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the fire tower in the late 1930s, and it had been repaired and upgraded over the years, until the mid-1980s, when it was abandoned, a victim of Forest Service cutbacks and satellite technology. The tower was on Fellows Mountain, a granite peak that offered a thirty-mile view yet was accessible almost to its peak in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. So many mountains formed this long spine of central Idaho that many of them, even those over nine thousand feet, were unnamed. Fellows Mountain owed the distinction of a name because the Forest Service spotter who had worked there for twenty-two summers carried the name.
The tower offered a 360-degree view of the crests and cliffs and ridges and chimneys of the surrounding mountains. The distance in all directions was filled with powerful cut-tooth shapes. Below the jagged granite formations were the forested foothills and alpine cirque lakes. From the tower's height, man's feeble inroads into the wilderness—a few ranches, the stunted town of Hobart, the occasional hunter's shack, the winding roads—were entirely hidden.
The tower was five miles east of Owen Gray's cabin. It straddled a sharp ridge, two of its four support posts on the south slope and two on the north. Valleys fell away in both directions, steep walls of fractured granite that plunged with dizzying abruptness to avalanche gullies below. Beyond the valleys were more ridges and peaks, some with sparse coverings of pine trees. The rim of Shepherd's Bowl was visible, the basin out of sight. Daisies and thistles and tarweeds tried their best but made little headway on gray stone.
Gray and Coates parked the Jeep fifty yards from the tower, where the Forest Service road ended. They traveled over the broken ground, following a trail that wound to the south side of the ridge. Even after years of footsteps from rangers and hunters the path was hardly a path, noticeable only because some of the sharper stones had been turned aside by boots over the years. The sun was a flat plate high overhead. The rocks radiated heat. The air was light and scentless.
"So you know where Trusov is?" Gray asked between deep breaths.
"You think I've been picking my nose all this time?"
"It means he crossed some hard country on foot."
The detective said, "The man is a machine. We learned a long time ago he could jog forty miles with a full pack over rough country. And he's done just that." Coates turned his head halfway to Gray. "But he's still twenty miles away. He hasn't made it over the Galena Pass yet. We're sure of that."
The trail narrowed and curved around a boulder formation that brought Gray and Coates near the precipice. They carefully stepped around stones and continued up the ridge. Gray was carrying the Marine Corps sniper rifle on a sling and the backpack. In his hand was a rolled-up map.
They drew near to the tower, which loomed above them on the ridge. A shaky ladder was attached to one post and was connected to a closed trapdoor. Wood planks framed all four sides, above which were picture windows on all sides. The roof was pitched sharply to allow snow to slide off. A stovepipe breached the roof, its conical metal cap tilted.
Coates bent over, his hands helping him scramble up the incline. They reached the cool shadow under the tower. A few milkweed plants grew at the base of the poles. Gray tested a rung with his weight. Then he began to climb. He pushed open the trapdoor with the palm of his hand. Its hinge was made of leather. The door fell back onto the floor with a loud slap. He pulled himself up and through the hole. Coates climbed after him, his feet disappearing through the hatch.
The tower contained one room. The furniture and equipment had been removed long ago. The roof leaked when it rained, and spots on the wood floor were brown from dry rot. Several nails were on a corner post where the rangers had hung their coats. Two-by-tens laid over sawhorses had served as a table and were still in the tower.
Gray spread out the map on planks near a window. "We are here." He drew a finger across the map. "My house is here. This is north."
"I know north," Coates said testily.
"Your peop
le shouldn't come anywhere inside this area." Gray's finger traced a large circle around his house.
"I'm going to catch that bastard before he gets anywhere near your place." Coates stabbed the map. "Owen, I've now got three hundred law-enforcement personnel in the field, a wall of people. Trusov isn't going to get near your place."
Gray might not have heard him. "Once Trusov is loose inside this area, keep your people away."
"So you can duel with him? That's not what I'm here for."
"It'll be too dangerous for your people to follow the Russian into the forest."
"Three hundred people—"
"They'll be ducks in a shooting gallery, Pete. Entirely out-gunned and outwitted."
"These are skilled people."
"Trusov will kill as many of them as he wants to. A dozen, two dozen." Gray's voice rose a fraction. "I'm telling you, it'll be a slaughter. Keep your people away from him and me once this has begun."
Coates stared at him.
"I'll have too much else to think about. I won't be able to keep them alive." Gray pointed out the window. "That's Bighorn Ridge." He located it on the map. "Over there is Sallick Mountain." Again back to the map to draw a circle. "I want you to promise me your folks won't get inside this circle."
"Well . . ."
Gray spit out, "Anybody in this circle is going to be a target. For Trusov and for me. I won't have the luxury of analyzing targets. I'm going to fire at any human I see."
Coates finally nodded. "Okay, nobody inside the circle."
Fine optics can make even clear air have a grain. The blue of the sky seems to ripple and bubble, giving substance to nothing. Those optics seem to enhance color, and the small circle of pallid blue sky inside the metal band was sparkling blue. Inside the little disc of sky was a pointed post, a needle-sized metal twig sharpened at the top. The sky, made viscous like a stream by the lenses, floated toward the top of the circle as the scope slowly lowered.
Rising from the bottom of the blue ring of sky was the stovepipe lid, then the pipe, then the tower roof's shingles. Then came the window, the sun's reflection harshly magnified by the scope's lenses.
Nikolai Trusov smoothly moved his finger from the trigger to the eyepiece lens to turn it two degrees. The window frame sharpened. He lowered the rifle, and rising in the scope was more of the tower window. The Russian could make out slight warps in the glass as wind brushed the tower. With steady motion, as if the weapon were on rails, the barrel and scope glided lower. Owen Gray's head rose in the circle. Black hair, pale skin, a tall man. Gray's nose came to rest just above the point of the scope's aiming post. The American's image was shivered by heat currents. Owen Gray. White Star.
Then the scene in the eyepiece lens drifted smoothly to the left. The shorter form slid into view. Barrel-chested, sandy hair, small features in a melon head. The aiming post came to rest on his nose, just below a pair of spectacles. Then it sidled down his neck to the man's right arm. Eight hundred yards south and a hundred yards below the tower, Trusov brought his trigger finger back. Slowly and slowly and slowly.
The Mosin-Nagant bucked back against his shoulder. Most snipers will remain in position after a shot, letting their barrel return to the firing plane. Thinking about another task to be accomplished immediately after the shot makes the attention wander. Trusov had more skill than most and more concentration than most. He instantly lowered the rifle to the boulder he hid behind and brought up his binoculars. He had practiced the maneuver, and the binoculars immediately found the tower glass.
A black slash in the flat scene visible in the binocular lenses was Trusov's bullet, flickering through the air, then disappearing with distance. The tower window shimmered as a hole was punched into it.
Blood and bone and shards of glass filled the air and lashed against the tower's far window like windblown rain. Pete Coates spun and then collapsed. Blood and bits of flesh slid down the far window. Trusov lowered the binoculars.
Snipers are taught that if they are captured or if they are surrounded, the time to break out is now, not later when the enemy has had time to regroup. All glass and plywood, the fire tower offered no protection from bullets. Coates groaned, blood spreading on the floor under his shattered elbow. Gray pushed him toward the hatch and without a word shoved him through. Coates landed heavily on the ground. The rifle in one hand, Owen Gray followed the detective through the hatch to the rocks below.
He landed hard on the incline and rolled involuntarily downhill, almost to the support post. Behind him, blood dripped from the hatch to splatter the stones. His shoes pushing against the loose rocks, Gray scrambled up the incline to push Coates behind a boulder. The detective moaned and his eyes opened. His elbow was frayed and bleeding, his jacket wicking away blood.
"Stay down," Gray ordered.
A bullet slammed into the rock supporting Gray's right foot. His leg collapsed, and he slid further down the incline. He tried to reach for the eight-by-eight, but he slid past, out into the blinding sun. He tightly gripped the rifle.
Hoping to find a foothold, he jammed a leg against the mountain-side, but the loose stones slid away beneath him, rolling and bouncing down the slope. He clawed at the rocks and managed to slow himself. His slide stopped when his foot found a brace against a stone.
Blasting up a cloud of granite grit, another bullet kicked away that stone. Gray fell again. The side of the mountain gained in pitch, and he slipped more quickly, his body bouncing painfully as he skidded over the rocks. He tried to jam the stock of his gun against a boulder to stop himself, but he was sliding too quickly and the boulder ripped the weapon out of his hand.
Feet downward he slid, crashing down the incline. With his left hand he frantically grabbed at a Scotch broom, a tawny, strong plant that would hold him. His fingers caught a branch. He stopped, perched precariously against the side of the mountain. Blood flowed from his legs where pants and skin had been abraded.
A bullet coursed into his left arm, digging a half-inch trench in his triceps. His arm jerked spastically and he lost his grip. Yet another bullet struck the heel of his boot, tearing off the leather and burning the bottom of his foot. His leg collapsed, again sending him helplessly down the steep hill. When his leg caught on a rock, his momentum flipped him to one side and he began to roll length-wise down the gully side, stones smashing into him as he tumbled. The world whirled madly around him. Blue sky and gray stone spun over and over. His head banged into a rock, then another.
He came to rest at the bottom of the gully. Scraped and shot and bleeding, he crawled behind a boulder that hid him from the south slope. His rifle was somewhere up the slope.
Gray heard several more shots and the shattering of glass. Trusov was disabling the Jeep.
Five minutes passed before his vision lost the fuzziness at the edges and Gray admitted to himself that he could think clearly again. The Russian hadn't been out to kill him or he would have. All the pieces of that day in Vietnam weren't yet in place. Gray was safe, the Russian probably gone.
Gray rose from behind the boulder. Limping and bleeding and aching, he crawled back up the slope.
The computer monitor displayed the photographs one after another, all with the clarity of 35-millimeter slides. Owen Gray at twelve months, a scant halo of dark hair, pudgy cheeks, an open smile revealing four baby teeth. Owen Gray, eighth grade, shy grin, eyes a little to the left as if a friend off-camera is razzing him. Owen Gray wearing a narrow black tie and a full grin, his hair over his forehead in the new fashion imported from Liverpool, his high school yearbook photo. Owen Gray's Marine Corps boot camp ID photo, shaved head, stunned look. Another Marine photo of Gray, this time receiving the Honor Man citation from a colonel, Gray wearing a white dress cap and a single chevron.
Next was a snapshot of Gray sitting in front of sandbags wearing a small mustache, a rifle with a starlight scope just visible at the edge of the frame. Next was a college yearbook photo, then one from law school, then a photo from his first
year as a prosecutor. Gray was aging as the photos rolled by, a few wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, a slight rise in his hairline above the temples. The last, from six months ago, was taken at a federal prosecutors' dinner, showing Gray in black suit and a floral tie, wearing a confident but tired grin.
For a moment, Adrian stared at the screen, at the most recent photo, then she stroked the keyboard several times and Gray's baby photo appeared again on the monitor. Distant laughter from the troopers at their car on the other side of the big larch tree did not distract her. She went through the photos of Gray, this time more rapidly, watching him grow and stabilize and age. The photos revealed little, only what Gray was prepared to show the camera, but still, for a student of human nature as Adrian Wade was, there was much to be seen. Some scoffed at the notion of intuiting personality traits from photographs of a face. It smacked of the fakery of phrenology. But a camera could peek behind the surface of the skin, could betray confidences and convictions to the careful viewer.
She leaned back in her chair studying Owen Gray's face. Her work in the mountains was finished, her investigating and computer skills no longer needed. She should have been packing her few things, readying for the journey east, but her clothes remained on pegs in the bedroom. She idly tapped her fingers on the base of the keyboard. She wore her Goretex jacket, only slightly askew on her shoulders because of the handgun under the fabric. To her left, the antler chandelier swung slowly in a draft. Sunlight streamed through the windows, making the room dark by contrast. Outside, a song sparrow let loose with its three piping cheerful notes, followed by a rapid slur of a smaller trill. Adrian lifted her wallet from the desk and pulled out her driver's license. She held it up alongside the monitor. She stared at the small colored photograph of herself, then her eyes shifted to the image of Owen Gray on the screen.
She smiled knowingly and said to the screen, "I know your future better than you do."