Death Canyon (26 page)

Deep in thought, he made his way along the trail, reminding himself to stay focused, be careful. Another seismic event or
even his own footfall could trigger a dangerous rockslide. He kept his eyes open for injured skiers and hikers but didn't notice anyone.

When he made it back to the tram dock at the top of the resort's main peak, the lift wasn't running. The woman at the top told him they had recorded a major quake. It didn't likely damage the tram, she said, but the engineers needed to have a look. Just to be sure. The lift would be down for at least an hour.

As dazed tourists congregated at the top to chatter about the quake, Jake decided to walk the maintenance roads to his vehicle. He had to get back to Noelle's cabin. He noted the damage on the way down. Below cliff faces and steep rocky slopes, there was evidence of more rockfall. As Jake lost altitude and the terrain became less steep, though, the signs of the quake mostly disappeared.

The hike to the bottom of the mountain took longer than it looked, more than an hour.

*  *  *

Noelle was waiting on her cabin's porch. She ran to the driver's door and opened it for him.

“Are you okay? Did you feel the quake?” She looked him over. He seemed fine, at least physically.

“I felt it all right.” They walked inside. Jake put his keys down on the table, shaking his head. “Could I have a glass of water?” Noelle filled a glass. The normally calm man was rattled, which caught Noelle's attention. She tilted her head with curiosity as she handed him the drink.

Jake continued after his first sip. “It felt like the mountain was coming down up there. Rocks falling, little avalanches and cornices
breaking off. I thought I was gonna get swept off the peak too. A 5.1, they said? Pretty rare around here, huh?”

“Hold on. Where
were
you?” She held up her hands, palms out.

“Top of Maelstrom. I know, I know. I just wanted to put my eyes on the scene before we talked to Ricker. I was up top there when I felt the quake. It really moved some stuff around. Rockfalls, the whole nine yards.” Jake drank more water.

“Was anyone hurt? What did you find?”

“Not a thing.”

Noelle paused. “Well, I looked around this morning near the Gosling site. I thought maybe I would find the screwdriver, or anything that would help—a shoe print, who knows? Nada. There's too much land to cover. If someone wanted to dispose of a body it'd never be found, never mind a six-inch screwdriver. I talked to the trail crew too. Nobody had seen or heard anything about the attack other than from the newspapers.”

Jake nodded. “I've got good news. You got a message. Graem Ricker actually gave us his phone—”

Noelle cut in. “I know.” She brought her computer to the table. Jake held out his hand for it and Noelle obliged.

“If I can send an email from your computer, I can get his billing address. I know a guy . . .” Jake trailed off. “It should only take a few minutes.”

With his email open, Jake glanced up at Noelle, who was standing behind him, watching. She got the idea. Privacy.

She sat down across from Jake and the computer. He knew that Noelle wouldn't recognize any of the FBI domains used for covert communication—@hammerco.com, @magazinepub.com, @20sumthingdate.com, and so on—but it was easier to avoid questioning. Jake got to the point quickly:

Daniel:

Long time no see, friend. Let's fix that sometime.

Need a physical address for the following name and mobile number, no PO box.

Jake typed the name and number and clicked send. Before he could finish telling Noelle that it shouldn't take long a new email arrived.

Jake:

Will do. Gimme 10. Walking back from cafeteria.

Sent from my iPhone

“Ten minutes,” Jake said. “Think you can wait that long?” He smiled.

“Pretty resourceful buddy.”

“He spends all day sitting in a cubicle.” This much was true. “I'm sure he's loving the excitement.” The latter part wasn't true. Daniel spent his days doing work that was far more meaningful and stimulating than hacking an address for an old friend. Still, he owed Jake a few favors.

Ping.
The reply was as succinct as the request:

722 Ranch St., Basement Apt, Jackson.

Agreed on the get-together. East or west?

Dan

Jake was entering the address into his phone's notes. “It's on Ranch Street. I don't want to surprise him at home, though, unless that's our last option. Try to arrange for a meeting somewhere. If
not, I'll head into town and check his apartment, but I'd like to do this out in public in case he's dangerous.”

“How do I do that? He may be dumb enough to give out his cell number, but if I ask him to hang out, don't you think he'll find it strange? I don't know him that well. It's been years since I saw him last.”

“Ask him on a date. What man could say no to that?” He cracked a smile.

“Are you serious?” Noelle asked. The look on Jake's face insisted he was.

Noelle sighed and typed.

Graem, long time no see. Want to grab a beer sometime soon?

:) Noelle

Jake stayed at Noelle's for a few hours. They chatted, waiting to hear from Ricker, but nothing came through. At five thirty, he excused himself and drove home. Noelle promised to call the minute she heard anything.

Jake prepared dinner for himself and J.P., who evidently had just woken up. The game freezer was still nearly full from last hunting season, so the pair agreed on elk T-bones and a Caesar salad. Neither Jake nor J.P. hunted, but friends did.

It wasn't that either morally objected to it. They were meat eaters and knew it was a fact of life. But for both men, there had been moments in their past that inexorably linked gunfire—the sound, the recoil's punch, the smoking barrel—to something far more disturbing than taking an animal for food.

Still, every fall, they would each help a few buddies carry out their kills. They were always rewarded with meat. Last fall had
been cold and snowy, bringing more animals than usual into the valleys, where they were accessible to hunters. It seemed like everyone who ventured out was bagging big cow elk and mule deer.

J.P.'s assistance consisted mostly of drinking beer while standing in the kitchen. And he was in charge of the grilling, of course. “The only manly thing about cooking,” he liked to say.

“The secret with game,” J.P. preached for the millionth time, “is to either cook it way long, like in a Crock-Pot or a stew, or barely cook it all.” Jake generally liked his meat medium rare, but he would rather eat a bloody steak than insult his friend's grilling prowess. It was one of the few things J.P. took seriously.

“Grab a beer, man! What're you doing empty-handed out here?” J.P. pointed toward the handmade wooden steps leading to his trailer's front door. Beside them sat a blue tub with a few beers cooling in water from the creek.

“I'm gonna pass, thanks. I might have something to do tonight that requires a clear head.”

“Aw, shit. Suit yourself, then.” J.P. laid the thawed steaks on the grill. There was a pause. “Well, c'mon. Whaddya have going on later that's so important?” He was waving smoke from the burning remnants of past meals away from his face.

“I want to try to talk to that Ricker kid. See what he knows about all this stuff. It may be nothing, but I'd be willing to bet he doesn't let me down.” Jake was looking at the art on J.P.'s beer bottle, a microbrew from Washington State. J.P. motioned for Jake to hand it over and took a chug.

“Really? You think that dumbass is the one after you?” Another swig.

“I don't think so, no. I just think he's involved with whatever
is
going on around here—”

CRACK!

What the
 . . .
?

At first the noise didn't make sense to Jake. Then he felt the rushing air and the sudden warmth. The last sense to contribute was sight, and it confirmed what the other senses suggested—fire, light, heat. An explosion.

The propane tank below the grill had burst and was spewing flames from a hole in its side. J.P. was still stunned, standing close enough to the grill that flames were licking at his forearms, his horrified face lit up by pyrotechnics.

Jake lunged for J.P. as he tried to beat back the inferno with his hands.

They fell off the porch together and onto a soft pad of dead pine needles. Jake stood up, grabbed J.P. by the shirt, and pulled him away from the inferno. At about thirty yards out, Jake looked J.P. over for injuries.

His friend seemed okay. They both glanced back at the burning grill, speechless, expecting a massive explosion, but it never came. The flames fizzled out in a few moments, and the men cautiously returned to the porch. Smoldering ashes littered the wood panels, but the house was safe. J.P. went inside and returned with a pitcher to douse the remaining flames. After a few trips with the water, J.P. sat down in the wet mess and lit a cigarette.

“I guess we're eating out tonight, my friend,” he said between puffs.

“Guess so.” Jake grabbed his keys and the men loaded up. Before he started the vehicle, Jake turned to J.P. “You still like grilling?”

J.P. smiled. “Bug off, man. Your grill is faulty! Let's sue the mamma jammas who made that death trap.” He turned up the radio and put his window down.

As he approached the end of the driveway, a hundred yards from the grill, Jake stopped, clicked off the music, and put the SUV in park. “Sonofabitch!” He practically flew out the door and jogged to a stand of pine trees along the main road, only twenty-five feet from the intersection with the drive. He bent and picked up a shiny object. Twirled it in his fingers and looked around. He walked back to the car.

“What's up, man?”

Between his forefinger and thumb, Jake held the brass shell of a seven-millimeter rifle round. He was careful to touch only the firing ring. It was still hot and could be dusted for prints. J.P. brought his hand up and covered his mouth in disbelief. “Shit, let's get outta here, man.”

Jake looked around in the darkness but couldn't see a thing. He floored it out of the driveway.

*  *  *

Two hundred yards to the west, hidden in the pines, Makter laughed out loud. He took the rifle apart and put it in his backpack, then walked back toward the road.

*  *  *

Jake and J.P. ate their barbecue in a deserted diner in town. One or the other would look around every so often. Neither could finish his meal. Paranoid, maybe, but someone had just tried to kill them. Or at
least Jake. If he were J.P., he would've left Jake for his own safety, but Jake knew that would never cross his friend's mind. He was too loyal.

J.P. flipped through a newspaper, shaking his head.

“Everybody wants to be in control, man,” he said with his face still buried in the pages.

“What?” Jake had been wrapped in his own tangled thoughts.

“In nature and stuff. Just, like, look at the news any day. Elk population is too big, elk population is too small, wolves should be eliminated, wolves should be protected, we should put out wildfires, we should let them burn—”

“What are you getting at?” Jake interrupted.

“Like, do you think any of it makes any difference? Do you think we as humans can make the world a better or worse place? Is that even possible?”

Jake thought for a moment. “Sure, civil rights for example.”

“No, man, like in the natural world. Can we make it what we want? Can we improve upon Mother Nature? It seems like every time we try, we end up worse off.”

“Don't know, really. Seems to be a popular ambition. Since the beginning of time.”

“Yeah, man.” J.P. was deep in thought again.

“I don't know, J.P. Not something I'm really focused on right now.” Jake immediately regretted sounding harsh, but his friend didn't seem to take offense to the dismissal.

“Right on.” J.P. looked around anxiously, thinking about what to talk about next. “So, this is all gotta be connected to your past, right? I know you were a criminal lawyer or whatever, but you never really told me much about it.”

“Yeah, sort of. I worked at a prosecutor's office for a while.” He hated having this conversation, even with close friends.

“Well, like, how did you know that shell back at the house was a seven millimeter?”

The question caught Jake off guard. “Oh, well . . .”
Shit. Because they're almost the same rounds used by military Special Forces and police marksmen, the same rounds my snipers used in raids.
Then it occurred to him. “It says right there on the shell.”

“Oh, ha. Duh!” J.P. seemed satisfied with the answer and went back to his paper.

Phew.

Jake was always careful not to reveal too much. It could get him and those around him in a whole lot of trouble.

It seemed like a different world now. One that Jake only occasionally missed.
The Big Office.
That's what they'd called the federal Office of Special Investigations. The umbrella organization, the DOJ, called it the “other office,” referring initially to its secrecy and eventually its irrelevance.

Chasing Nemo.
That was the code name. No coincidence
nemo
meant “no one”—the targets were often elusive, shadows in the fog.
I have to go to Portugal to chase Nemo.
Nazis. War criminals. Terrorists. The deepest and darkest evil that has ever existed on this earth. Eradicate them, that was the main job of the Big Office. The Big Office punished those who committed crimes against humanity.

Then there was the Philly Office
.
Totally unrelated to the Big Office, except for the fact that so many of the officers moved to smaller offices around the country once the slime from World War II, Bosnia, Serbia, Darfur, and Rwanda had been prosecuted or killed.