Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

  “How far out are we?”

  “About half a mile. But otherwise literally in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of silent nowhere.”

  Mannew’s farm was located well inside the United States National Radio Quiet Zone. While emergency and CB radios were allowed, for inhabitants in the area it was the choice of cable or satellite communication or the silence of the mid-nineteenth century. The team had even had to change out their regular gear; K-9 handlers carried a satellite phone instead of their usual standard issue radio.

  A dark smudge over the mountain to their right caught their attention.

  “What’s that?” Craig swiveled in his seat, putting down his window. The soft breeze that wafted into the car was laden with damp earth and fresh green life, but laced with the unmistakable scent of wood smoke. He stuck his head out to gaze up into the sky. “Shit.”

  Suddenly the driver in the lead car ahead of them hit the gas, speeding away from the group. It took only seconds for the cars trailing behind to do the same.

  Meg followed suit as Craig settled back into the seat, his face grim. “They’ve seen it too. It’s definitely fire. And from the size of that smoke trail, it’s an inferno.”

  Meg’s gaze stayed locked onto the rough dirt road as they sped along it, bouncing over dips, all while keeping her eyes away from the nearly sheer drop to her left in hopes of staving off the gut-wrenching fear. But she couldn’t help glancing at the tiny wood and wire fence marking the precipice that wouldn’t stop a child’s wagon from going over. And then down, down, down. She didn’t want to think how far.

  She clutched the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles going dead white, and fought not to hyperventilate. Craig didn’t know about her fear of heights; only Brian knew, although she suspected Lauren had guessed and guarded her secret. It was crucial that he not learn or it might affect the cases he assigned to her. Miraculously, she managed to speak with her voice sounding completely calm. “He’s burning down his farm to cover his tracks?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “I can’t take my eyes off the road. How’s Hawk? It’s got to be pretty bumpy back there.”

  Craig peered through the metal mesh into the back. “He’s lying flat with his legs braced to keep from sliding.”

  “That’s my smart boy. Hang on, this is a wicked bend.”

  Meg muscled the SUV through a hairpin turn that sharply angled up Sugarloaf Knob, then glanced in the rearview mirror to see Brian and Lauren still safely behind them.

  They climbed the steep incline as fast as they dared. In the distance, down South Branch Mountain, lay the town of Moorefield, settled in 1777 at the convergence of several branches of the Potomac River on its way downstream toward Chesapeake Bay. Except for a quick glance, Meg kept her eyes firmly on the road and the bumper of the vehicle in front of her as they jerked along. A particularly hard lurch had Craig lunging for the handhold on the door and then peering into the back to check on Hawk again.

  “He’s okay.”

  “I hate this road.” Meg’s words came from between clenched teeth. “The last thing we need is one of the dogs getting hurt before we even start.”

  The smudge over the hill was getting darker now, charcoal clouds filling the sky to the west.

  Craig fiddled with his satellite phone, resetting his map for their current location. “One more curve and we’re”—he cut off as the SUV gave a tremendous lurch and Hawk gave a small yip from the back—“just about there.”

  They took the last curve too fast, leaving Meg fighting inertia to keep from fishtailing around the bend. Then they were shooting into a farmyard and pulling to a stop in front of a split rail wooden fence. Meg swallowed a sigh of relief and nearly had to peel her own fingers from where they’d seized around the wheel.

  At the far end of the enclosure, the barn was engulfed, flames rising high and sparks exploding into the sky to dance in the hot air vortices, while below, the barn’s timber framing glowed an unholy reddish orange. Nearer, the farmhouse was also in flames, smoke pouring from open, flame-licked windows. Inside the front door, an inferno roared and swirled, consuming everything within.

  FBI agents piled out of vehicles. Already in bulletproof vests, guns drawn, they ran toward the house to see if there was hope of recovering any evidence. But they drew up short, driven back by the blistering heat. With shouted commands, they split up to search the property.

  Meg pulled her Glock from her belt holster and saw Craig do the same on the far side of the SUV. They jogged over to Brian and Lauren, standing outside Brian’s SUV, their faces lit by the glow.

  Brian’s gaze was fixed on the house, the flames lighting his face in tones of gold. “He burned it all. Any evidence we might have found, it’s all gone.”

  “It’s doubtful he’s even here,” Meg said. “No reason to start a show like this and then stick around. He knew it would attract attention.” She met Craig’s eyes. “He’s ending it all now. Whatever he’s doing next, he’s on his way to do it now. He knows it’s all coming down around him.”

  Craig nodded in agreement. “From the moment the NSA bomb didn’t go off, he knew we’d have evidence to nail him. The question is—what’s his endgame?”

  As if on cue, Craig’s cell phone rang. Further out, around the house and property, several other phones started to ring. Craig’s face was grim when he answered the call. “Beaumont.” He listened intently for a moment, nodding in agreement with the person on the end of the line. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’re close, so within a half hour. Don’t let anyone on the property. We need it pristine.” He ended the call and swiveled to look down into the valley, his hand shading his eyes from the morning sun. “Goddammit.”

  Meg tried to follow his gaze. “What happened? What are you looking for?”

  “Look way down into Moorefield. See that tiny stream of black smoke? Someone just blew up the Hardy County Courthouse. The explosion happened in one of the judge’s chambers and they think he went with it.” Craig turned to look at his handlers. “No way that’s a coincidence when Mannew probably just set his farm on fire.”

  “He’s tying up loose ends,” Lauren said.

  “But that’s hardly an ‘end of days’ target.” Brian stared harder at the tiny town below, as if concentrating would make the situation clearer. “We thought he’d try for a skyscraper or sports stadium or arena.”

  “Maybe you’re thinking too big. Maybe it’s his end of days,” Meg said. “He’s done two federal targets and a state target. Maybe to end everything off, he wanted to go personal. Wanted to take out something with special meaning to him. If a judge is dead, maybe he felt he’d been wronged by that judge at some point.”

  “A man was seen running away from the bomb site, so I think you’re probably right.” Craig watched several senior agents hurrying toward him. “We’re going in to see if you can track him. Load it up, we’re headed back.” He turned to meet the agents and they quickly exchanged information.

  “Tracking Mannew is one thing, but a starting point would be even better.” Meg scanned the farm, squinting through the acrid smoke: rusted barrels, an overturned wheelbarrow, piles of broken wood . . . an old shirt tossed over the split rail fence? She needed to move fast before the fire got any closer to it.

  She took off across the open yard, ignoring Brian’s questioning yell. Grabbing a splintered piece of wood from a jumbled pile of boards, she inched closer to the barn, turning her face away from the blistering heat, holding out the stick to slip it under the shirt to snag it and draw it away. She missed on the first try as she was nearly doing it blind, the smoke from the blaze making her eyes tear. Flaming timbers crackled over her head and sparks rained down, but she didn’t back away. Turning into the heat so she could see what she was doing, she successfully caught the shirt and was able to whisk it up and away. Keeping the shirt balanced on the end of the wood, she jogged back to the cars, feeling the cool relief of the mountain air as she moved
further and further away from the fire.

  “Look what I found!” She brandished the shirt in Brian and Lauren’s direction. “This is our way to track him. Get out the gloves and the cases. We’re taking some of this with us. He thought he was stumping us burning down his house and barn. But he didn’t take our dogs into account. That will be his downfall.”

  Chapter 30

  Mantracker: The tracking dog works from a scent article belonging to the subject, such as a piece of clothing or an item touched only by the subject. From this article, the dog picks up the subject’s scent and uses it to find the subject’s path.

  Friday, April 21, 11:58 AM

  Outside Perry, West Virginia

  “Slow down!” Craig leaned forward in his seat, squinting into the distance. “There they are, off to the right.” He swore quietly. “They could have at least tried not to advertise that his car’s been found.”

  Meg couldn’t miss the flashing lights on top of the deputy sheriff’s police car. “Mannew can’t spell, but that doesn’t make him an idiot. He’s going to be looking for any sign we’re on to him. Now he’s probably moving faster.”

  Meg pulled off to the side of the gravel road behind the deputy’s car, her gaze flicking to the rearview mirror to see Brian pull off just behind her, Lauren visible through the windshield in the passenger seat.

  Mannew was in the wind.

  Each handler carried a small water-resistant plastic case containing a torn piece of the shirt from the farm. Each case was carabiner-clipped to their packs and could be easily opened and offered if needed to give the dogs the scent again. At the remains of the courthouse, Meg, Brian, and Lauren had given their dogs the scent and they’d immediately started tracking Mannew. From the way the dogs had immediately taken to the trail, they knew they had the right target.

  The dogs tracked him over the fences and through the six backyards lining Eisenhower Street. After that, Mannew had gone over the level crossing at the train tracks. He’d hit a muddy spot by the train tracks, so they knew he was wearing some sort of deep-treaded hiking boot. Clearly, this was part of his plan from the beginning and he was prepared to make his escape on foot. Well, they were ready to track him, whatever his plans.

  The trail had gone stone cold behind a farm equipment repair shop just off Jefferson Street. They didn’t need a forensic expert to tell them the tire tracks belonged to a pickup truck and Mannew had fled. A block west was Old West Virginia 55. From there he could have taken WV 28 south, US 48 west, US 220 north, or WV 55 east.

  He could have gone anywhere.

  The local sheriff, who knew Mannew personally from previous run-ins, immediately put out a BOLO on his vehicle—an eleven-year-old white pickup truck—with the associated license plate, with instructions to consider other plates as well in case he’d stolen a set or two to throw trailing law enforcement off the track. He’d also supplied them with Mannew’s driver’s license picture so they could recognize him on sight.

  Fifteen minutes later law enforcement got a lucky break when a call came in from a trucker with a CB radio who reported passing a white pickup on WV 55 headed east, and the chase was on. An hour after that, a Hardy County deputy sheriff radioed in he’d found Mannew’s abandoned pickup just off Trout Run Road, a single track gravel road that wound through the mountains nearly twenty miles due east of Moorefield. The K-9 teams were standing by, and arrived about forty minutes after the reported sighting.

  Handlers and dogs all piled out of the SUVs, Craig’s arms full of maps.

  As the handlers pulled out their packs and watered their dogs before starting, the deputy approached. “Glad you folks were so handy for this. He’s maybe got an hour lead on you, but that’s all. When I arrived, his truck was still pretty warm, so he hadn’t been gone for long. I did a quick look ’round while I was waiting. It looks like he went due west, headed straight for Trout Run.”

  Meg closed Hawk’s water bottle and snapped the trough back into place. “Trout Run?”

  “Local creek. He’s a country boy and he knows K-9s have been involved in the case. He likely wanted to hide his tracks.”

  “Creek is a good way to do it,” said Meg. “But unless he walked for miles in it, we’ll find him coming out somewhere.”

  “Problem is Trout Run has three or four feeder streams in this area. And due east is Pond Run and its handful of feeders. He’ll be crossing more than one stream.”

  The deputy’s laundry list of challenges was starting to get on Meg’s nerves. Did he think they were rookies? “More challenging, but not beyond us.”

  Craig was spreading out a map on the hood of the deputy’s car, using rocks to hold down the edges where they danced in the cool spring breeze. “It explains why he picked this area to dump his truck, assuming he knows it.”

  “He knows it all right,” the deputy said. “Grew up here. Never lived anywhere else.”

  “Then a gold star goes to Sheriff Granger, who was sure he wouldn’t take the pickup far now we know who’s responsible,” said Craig. “It’s too recognizable in this area and people would be looking for that vehicle specifically. He suspected Mannew’d try to get some distance between Moorefield and himself, but then would dump it because it was too risky to be seen in it. I thought he’d go southwest and get lost in the Alleghenies and the million acres of the Monongahela National Forest, but Granger called it right. He concentrated on small roads, off the beaten path, and headed right into the heart of the Quiet Zone. Communication is at a minimum in this area, so not as many ways to get the word out that a search is on in the first place. And the people who come here, they want to live this kind of cord-cutting quiet life. They’re not glued to their TVs and radios and Internet. So Mannew could pass right through this area unnoticed because people don’t know to look for him. Except for that one report, we’ve lost Joe Public as our eyes on the ground, I’d bet.”

  “And considering our location, he’s likely headed straight over the border to Virginia.” Hands on hips, Meg studied the mountains to the east. “How far is it from here?”

  Craig used his thumb and forefinger to measure the distance on the map and quickly compare it to the scale. “About two and a half miles as the crow flies. Which doesn’t seem like much, but you know the rough rule of hiking—one hour for every two to three miles, depending on the load you’re carrying, and an hour for each thousand feet of elevation.” Craig straightened and swept an index finger across the mountain that rose above them. “According to the GPS we’re sitting at about fifteen hundred feet above sea level. That mountain ridge is nearly three thousand feet above sea level. Head further north and it’s over three thousand feet.”

  “We can’t discount it,” Lauren said, “but it’s more likely he’s gone southeast than northeast. Granted, he may be betting on us making that call and then missing his trail altogether.”

  Meg gave a dismissive half snort of disgust. “Then he doesn’t know us very well. No assumptions.”

  “Never.”

  Meg shouldered her pack and looked down to Hawk at her side. He was staring up at her, ears perked, looking like a coiled spring. Brian and Lacey, and Lauren and Rocco were also ready. “We’re going up.” She turned to Craig. “Can you coordinate from here?”

  “Sure can. The sheriff’s office gave me all the maps they had on hand because they said satellite mapping of an area this remote is pretty hit and miss. And the deputy is here to share his knowledge of the area. We’re good to go. Whatever support you need, you’ll have it. Just let me know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Keep an eye out for snakes,” the deputy advised helpfully. “Sunny day, they’ll be out and about.”

  “Good to know. Okay, let’s move.” Meg unclipped the case containing the tattered piece of Mannew’s shirt from her pack, opened it, and offered it to Hawk to smell as Brian and Lauren did the same for their dogs. “Hawk, find it. Find.”

  Hawk put his nose down to the ground and in seconds had the
scent and was circling the front of the truck. He headed into the forest lining the road, with Brian, Lauren, and their dogs hot on his heels.

  The dogs were absolutely sure in their tracking and only displayed the usual small back-and-forth weave as they crisscrossed from one edge of the heaviest of the scent trail to the other. The air inside the forest was mostly still, with only the slightest of breezes, optimum conditions for tracking as the shed skin cells the dogs followed had mostly fallen straight down onto the path Mannew had taken. Sunlight filtered through the new leaves above their heads and the land rose only slowly at this point, so the team moved at a comfortable jog.

  But they hit a wall when they broke from the trees into a narrow gully and the scent stopped dead at the stream. High with spring rains, the water ran fast, nearly overflowing its narrow banks.

  Brian cursed under his breath as all three dogs cast about for the scent, which was washed away in the tumbling water.

  “We knew this was coming,” Meg said, one hand shading her eyes as she scanned further upstream. Nothing. “We’ll have to cross at the best spot and then come back and try to find the scent again. We’ll likely have to split up.”

  “He could have waded up or down this stream for half a mile or more.” Lauren stared at the icy water. “I hate tracking with wet feet. Waterproof boots never keep that kind of water out.”

  “Trust me, we all hate it.” Meg pointed twenty feet further upstream. “Let’s cross up there; that section looks easier. There are some rocks we may be able to use to try and stay out of the worst of it.”

  When they got to the spot she’d chosen, Meg bent and submerged an index finger in the tumbling water, her body shuddering at the extreme chill. “Just a warning, that’s cold. It’ll be running down from the mountains, and it was a bad enough winter there’s likely still snow at the higher elevations.” She stood and studied the half-submerged, slimy, moss-covered rocks that sparsely peppered the width of the stream. “In we go.”