They had her in the truck now. The dull knocks of her kicks against the rear windshield were barely audible. The two men were getting in the front seat.
“We gotta go, now! No time for cover.” Jake pulled the Mariner, but held it at his side as the trio jogged toward the truck.
Brrrrrrrrmmmm. The engine came alive. Jake was in the lead, only a hundred yards away and running at a sprint now. Behind him was Allen, rifle slung over his right shoulder. Then finally J.P.
The transmission creaked as the driver put it in gear. Slowly, the truck started pulling away from the cabin.
Fifty yards. While still running hard, Jake took aim with the handgun. It was too dangerous; he couldn’t guarantee a shot to the tire from this distance.
The truck accelerated.
“Stop!” Jake yelled in desperation. The men didn’t hear him.
Jake stopped running when he got to the cabin. The truck was two-fifty out, at least.
Allen leveled his rifle.
“Can you make it?”
Allen stayed silent, focusing. He waited till the truck started to round a left bend in the road so he had a broadside shot at the tire. Then he took his breath. Jake watched him remain perfectly still and pull the trigger deliberately. The noise was deafening. Allen absorbed the recoil like a pro.
“Get him?” J.P. had caught up.
Allen lowered the rifle and shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
22
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA. OCTOBER 22.
9:20 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME.
Divya came into her office twenty minutes late.
Her assistant looked up. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
“Need a coffee?”
“Haven’t touched my first one.” She held up a Starbucks grande cup and pulled open the green glass door to her office.
She sighed at the pile of untouched cases on her desk. It was going to be a long day. An endless string of trivial matters. Divya’s priority was still the GPSN case, which was starting to come together. The evidence had established a relationship between Xiao and Canart. Whether it was totally hostile or somewhat cooperative wasn’t clear, but Divya leaned toward the former, based on the Terrells’ abduction.
Her third-story office windows overlooked a manicured lawn. She looked out briefly before settling into her chair. While her laptop was booting up, she tapped a Mont Blanc nervously on the desk, then checked her BlackBerry. Nothing urgent.
Scrolling through her contacts, she stopped on Jake Trent. She hesitated, then pushed send. The call went straight to voice mail. Dammit. Divya hung up. There was no way to explain her behavior with a message. Even a phone call was a stretch. She wished she could clarify things face-to-face. She still respected him. Cared for him. Maybe even loved him.
He’d been the same old Jake when he was in DC, and to her that was an incredible thing.
What have I become?
She needed time away. A break. The pressure and deception were getting to her.
She called a cab, not wanting to take the bus as usual.
“Yes, please. As soon as possible.”
A pause. “Yes, at Langley. Thank you.”
Divya walked out. “Maria, I’m feeling under the weather. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled weakly.
23
SALMON, IDAHO. OCTOBER 22.
9 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.
“Careful; they could be around any of these bends.” Jake still had the Mariner drawn.
“How far could they get if we hit ’em?” J.P. asked.
Allen interjected. “Depends whether it totally blew up or not. If it didn’t, they could get to town on a slow leak.”
Jake, J.P., and Allen were starting down a two-track that wasn’t visible through the canopy on Jake’s satellite images.
“Runs the whole way back to the main road,” Allen informed them.
The sun was out in full force. The snow would start melting soon.
“Stop.” Jake pointed to a tire track in the snow. “Look.” The tracks veered to one side and then the other. Then two tracks separated into a full set of four. One of those tracks was a few inches wider than the others. “Must have hit them here.” Jake looked back toward the cabin. The distance looked about right.
He talked softly. “They went out of control. They could be around this next bend.” J.P. and Allen nodded. Deep drainage ditches on either side would trap even a pickup.
Still, it was a long shot. Unless the blowout forced them off the road, the truck might be able to continue on its rim. Jake started into the woods for cover, then crept parallel to the road, which was beginning to bend to the right. J.P. and Allen followed a few paces back. Jake held up his hand in a fist, telling them to stop. He peered around a thick fir and listened. Two men were only thirty yards ahead, around the curve. They shouted at each other, panicked.
“Gunshot,” the skinny one said. “Guaranteed.”
“Yeah? You know the difference between backfire and rifle fire? There’s no one back there.” The chubbier one was messing with the rusty jack.
“Maybe I do.” Slim was busting sticks over his knee.
“You can’t help?”
“Sorry.”
Old Slim started haphazardly tossing logs and rocks—whatever he could—into the ditch to help the truck’s traction once the tire was fixed. Jake could see a shape inside the truck. His heart leapt. Head and shoulders. Esma! Maybe.
Jake thought about trying to get her attention, but decided against it—she might give them away. He took a deep breath and slowly walked backward, barely lifting his feet.
“Is that them?” J.P. spoke too loudly.
Jake silenced him, giving one stoic nod, then pointed at him and made the fist again. Stay here. J.P. started to protest, but Jake grabbed him hard by the shoulder and squeezed.
“Owwww!”
Jake gestured to Allen: Guns up. I’ll lead.
Allen appeared calm to Jake. Good. No room for nervous mistakes. The man was a reassuring presence—the polar opposite of J.P. Jake took a deep breath and walked carefully around the bend to his observation point. Allen followed, rifle ready, eyes wide.
The men were still working on the tire. Slim was now down on his knees too, messing with the jack. He faced Jake and Allen at a quartering angle. The larger man had his back to them.
They watched Slim take a big breath as he looked up toward them. Jake feared they’d been discovered. His hand tightened around the Mariner.
Instead, Slim broke into a pitchy “Whistle While You Work.”
Chubby slammed the tire iron down. “Would you shut up?”
Jake did the math. Four feet to a weapon in the driver’s seat for Slim, if there was one there. One lunge. Three seconds from initial contact before a round was fired. No. Two, if he’s smart and has a round in the chamber.
More time for Chubby, closer to the rear; he had farther to go. Two big steps. Four, maybe five seconds between contact and shots fired.
These numbers depended on their emotional states, of course. Jake took them in. Reasonably relaxed now, considering they’d just heard what Slim figured might have been a gunshot. Add an extra second for their demeanor.
Four seconds, approximately. Jake hoped Allen and J.P. would hear his voice before getting a visual. His command would take half a second. Get on the ground! Two. Three. Four. Then he would fire at Slim if he wasn’t still as a stone with his hands on his head in that drainage ditch. A half second to let the sound of gunfire freeze Chubby and force a surrender. If he didn’t, Jake would fire the Mariner at him too.
Jake gave Allen a final nod and stepped out. He was twelve feet from the captors—an easy shot.
“GET ON THE GROU—”
A blur in Jake’s periphery.
/>
“Esma!” J.P. charged into the chaos. He lost traction in the melting snow and stumbled. 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . J.P. wasn’t moving fast enough. Slim was at the passenger door, fumbling for his weapon. He turned to face J.P., gun drawn.
“NO!”
Jake let a round go. Easy shot to the forehead. Ten yards. Slim was dead before he knew it.
When his ears stopped ringing, Jake heard a groan from below him. Chubby was wrestling with J.P. in the roadside ditch. Jake trained the Mariner on the fracas, but a shot wasn’t possible without putting his friend in danger. The commotion moved toward the truck. Chubby was strong, dragging J.P. out of the ditch toward the truck.
Bang. Another shot rang out, not from the Mariner. Jake’s ears roared again. Allen had fired and missed. Jake heard the man reload, but again there was no safe shot. J.P. had climbed up the big man’s body and was trying to wrestle him away from Esma.
Esma clambered into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. She put the truck in drive and floored it, spraying mud toward Jake and Allen. Chubby climbed inside the cab through the passenger door. Two more shots. Deeper than the rifle. Resounding. Boom. Boom. Then the whir of tires and bare rim on the road. Smoke poured from the wheel wells.
A few seconds later, a crash. The truck hadn’t made it far—forty yards down the two-track. Jake saw only the shape of the vehicle through dense blue smoke. He scanned the landscape, Mariner at the ready. Nothing moving. The woods became silent but for the hiss from the wreckage.
Jake crept toward the debris. His heart was pounding. Adrenaline was drowning reason. He had to be careful not to get trigger-happy.
A sturdy gust of wind cleared the air. A shotgun came into focus—the perfect close-range weapon. Chubby held on to it tightly. It was his lifeline. He faced Jake, backing away. His other lifeline was Esma, whom he held in a headlock with his left arm. J.P. had crawled or slid back into the drainage ditch to Jake’s right, where he rested on his back.
“Don’t fucking move.” The 12-gauge was pointed at Esma’s head. The man turned and shuffled off, dragging Esma with him.
“Go after them!” Jake screamed without turning his head. He kept a bead on Esma’s captor. Allen didn’t respond. Jake ran to the ditch and turned his attention to J.P.
J.P.’s face was bloodied. Gunshot wound? Where? Jake patted him down, looking for holes. Nothing. He checked for breath and found it. Then he rolled J.P. over and checked his back. No more blood, just a busted nose. Thank god.
Jake stood and glanced at the tree line where the man had taken Esma. They were long gone. He spun around and finally saw where the shotgun rounds had gone.
Allen was sitting up. Blood was streaming from his upper right leg. Jake jogged over to him.
“The radio. Go to the radio in the cabin.” Allen was trying to suppress his own bleeding, pushing hard on his femoral with two fingers.
“Everyone okay?” J.P. pulled himself from the ditch. “Did we get ’em?”
“No. I need your T-shirt.” Jake’s quick-dry was no good as a bandage; it wouldn’t stanch as well as cotton.
“Jesus.” J.P. had to look away. “Here.”
As Jake bandaged the wound, Allen was using his own shirt to tie a tourniquet.
“Loosen it every thirty minutes. Let’s try to keep the leg.”
Allen nodded. Jake looked at J.P. “Listen to me: if he starts losing consciousness, you wrap that tourniquet tight and leave it.”
“I can’t . . .” J.P. was trembling.
“I’ll be back.” Jake took off running back up the dirt road.
Thirty minutes later Jake arrived at the Fish and Game cabin. He was breathing hard and thirsty as hell. The terrain made for difficult running.
“Come in. SOS.”
“Go ahead for dispatch.” The soft-spoken man sounded bored.
“We need a life flight up here. Now!”
“Up where?”
Fuck. “I am at a ranger’s outpost. First name Allen. Outside Salmon.”
“Which outpost? Do you know the site number?”
“I don’t know! Mount Phelan. Victim is at three-quarters mile south of outpost. I’ll start a fire at the site. Allen’s been shot. Another man down.”
Finally the dispatcher sounded concerned.
“Okay. I’ll send the chopper.”
“Police too. Suspect still at large.”
Jake dropped the receiver and ran out of the cabin. By the woodpile, there was a green-camouflaged Gator. The keys were in the ignition. Jake fired up the ATV and punched the throttle, then headed south over treacherous terrain.
Fifteen minutes later, Jake arrived back at the scene. He grabbed the reserve gas can from the Gator and doused a small stump.
“Lighter.”
J.P. nodded and tossed him one. With the gas, the fire went up quickly. Jake returned to the wounded biologist. “How is he?”
“Okay. Conscious but getting a little goofy.”
“I’m fine,” Allen mumbled.
His face was pale and his flesh cool. The blood had turned the melting snow a pinkish red.
“When was the last time the tourniquet was loosened?”
“Just fifteen minutes ago. You said every half hour.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“I don’t . . . don’t wanna lose it. I play volleyball at the Y, you know?” Allen laughed.
“You’ll be fine,” Jake reassured Allen. “Paramedics are on their way.” He pulled the tourniquet as tight as he could. “I’ll be back. Keep the fire going.”
Jake hopped back on the Gator and sped toward the cabin where the men had held Esma. He spun circles in the open yard, trying to get attention.
Finally, the dull, building murmur of the blades gave way to a visual—the heli was there.
24
SALMON, IDAHO. OCTOBER 23.
6:15 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.
Jake woke up and called the number for the Steele Memorial Medical Center. Wildlife Biologist Allen Ridley was already gone, transferred to St. John’s in Jackson for surgery. He was stable, but hope for the leg was dim.
Jake wandered to the two-story lobby. The coffee was near an old granite fireplace that hadn’t been used since its last cleaning. Only the steelhead fishermen were up, waiting for their guides and chatting about the one that got away. Normally he loved soaking in fishing stories, but Jake couldn’t bear to listen.
Shock dulled his senses. The gloom he’d tried to forget for nearly a decade had returned overnight. He’d tried to do good but ended up only adding fuel to the fire. Instead of restoring order to chaos, righting a wrong, he exposed an innocent person to forces no one should ever experience. No more volleyball at the YMCA, Allen—all because of my ego. Sorry about that. Keep in touch.
The fact that J.P. wasn’t badly hurt was nothing short of a miracle. The chopper had taken Allen first, leaving Jake and J.P. with one paramedic and the corpse. Fish and Game, with local police in tow, drove up the road on the back side of Mount Phelan an hour later. Jake and J.P. gave their statements and the authorities marked off the scene. A few hours later, they were back in Salmon.
Jake took an extra cup of coffee and headed back down the corridor. One room short of his own, he stopped and knocked.
J.P. came to the door. He was still dressing, his hair wet from the shower.
“Got you some coffee.”
His friend took the Styrofoam cup. “Come in. You look like shit,” J.P. said, almost smiling at the role reversal.
Jake finished his coffee. He turned on J.P.’s coffeemaker for another.
“You heard from Sergeant Compton?” J.P. asked.
“Not yet this morning. I’m supposed to meet him in an hour.”
“You know they found her, right?” J.P. was standing now, futzing with h
is shirt, looking in the mirror. “Better with or without top button?” He ran his hands through his hair.
Jake was in disbelief. “Esma? They found her? How?”
J.P. finally opened up a big smile. “Dumbass walked right into Steele Medical, they said. Four a.m. Gunshot wound to the abdomen. They called me an hour ago. Didn’t want to wake you up. You got him, man.”
Jake tried to connect the dots. “I fired only one round.”
“Hell, maybe the biologist did it.”
Jake thought back. He remembered it now. Bang. A rifle shot as he was tending to J.P. The panic of the moment and the ringing in his ears had drowned out the sound.
Allen had fired while sitting on his bottom and nearly bleeding out.
“Anyway, she’s okay. A little banged up. I’m going to see her now.”
Jake looked at his watch. Still plenty of time before he met with the cops. “Do you mind?”
“She’d love to see you.”
25
TRAM VILLAGE, CHINA.
Chief Terrell and Charlotte had just finished what they assumed was their dinner in their cell. Not bad, really—a lo mein of some sort with flash-fried brussels sprouts on the side. Strange combination, but it tasted good.
They’d decided that evening was their favorite time of day—after dinner. At least there was something to do: sleep. And the giants and Xiao wouldn’t be back till morning. But things today had taken a turn for the worse. Xiao was angry and impatient. He had it in his head that finding his daughter would be easy in a small town like Jackson.
He’d brought the phone with lunch and demanded that Terrell call Layle, even though it was the middle of the night in the Tetons. A sleepy Layle had only bad news—still no trace of Meirong. Xiao grabbed the phone and screamed at Layle, frightening Charlotte. When she began to cry, Left Giant, so dubbed because he always stood on Xiao’s left, backhanded her across the face. The chief could barely restrain himself.
It was time for some sort of plan. What if Layle still has no bead on Meirong by tomorrow? How violent will Xiao get then?
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