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.
20
WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER
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.
Philly, New York, L.A., Houston. Not every city had a special investigations unit, but those were the big ones. The targets of the Big Office were dying off, so the talent from the Big Office had flooded those markets when it downsized. Jake had been one of the transfers.
The focus at the Philly Office was totally different from the fed deal. It was all about TCP, threat investigation and control (local), crimes (major), and police affairs.
Low-level shit, relatively speaking. It hadn’t particularly interested Jake, but he found it preferable to sitting in an office.
The work itself varied, but it always came back to TCP.
TCP. The acronym that had defined Jake’s life for three years. Everything was TCP. If it wasn’t, it got handed down to the local or state cops. If it wasn’t, it meant nothing to Jake.
The office was occasionally commissioned by police departments for internal affairs matters, but most often major crimes investigations and terrorist threat evaluation came from the feds. Sometimes the office’s own sources found information that merited investigation.
The office, along with a couple of other city departments, was in Tier One, which meant they had first access to the big guns—SWAT, police negotiators, and heavy artillery and equipment. Jake had hated when it came to that.
The secrecy surrounding the office had more to do with containment than anything else. Rumblings of terroristic threats and major crimes caused chaos. Fear. Internal investigations of public officers or whole departments made people doubt their public servants. More fear, more chaos.
* * *
“Buddy, you’re buzzing.” J.P. snapped Jake out of it.
It was Noelle. She sounded anxious.
“He’s in town tonight. He wants to meet around seven in the square. It’s a friend’s birthday; they’re going dancing, and he said I could join them.”
“Perfect. Stay put and I’ll pick you up. Well done, Noelle.”
Jake asked for the bill. When they got in the car, J.P. wanted to know what was going on. “I can help, man, I swear.”
“There’s no reason to,” Jake replied dryly. “You’re still dealing with your injuries. Plus, if you come along, it will only hurt our chances. I just want it to be me and Noelle. I’m going to drive you into town. I want you to stay at a friend’s house. Our place isn’t safe.”
“I’ll second that,” J.P. said, chortling. “If you need me, call me. I’ll probably end up at Ted’s house.”
For the rest of the ride into town, Jake thought about his strategy. He wanted to confront Ricker in public, but away from the group. He also needed a reason to be there. He thought of presenting himself as a cop, but quickly discarded that idea. Jackson was too small. Ricker may very well know all the police on the force, especially given his run-ins with them. He settled on a newspaper reporter. Jake would bluff, telling Ricker he had enough information to get him arrested. If Ricker revealed more of the story, he could walk away without being implicated. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best he had.
In town, J.P. hopped out. Jake continued north toward Noelle’s cabin. It was a beautiful evening, but almost too nice. Like the eye of a hurricane. Elk were beginning to leave the safety of the trees and feeding on the margins between sagebrush flats and pine forests. The coyotes were out looking for field mice and carcasses.
The SUV came to an abrupt stop outside Noelle’s cabin. She was waiting on the porch. It was 6:35 p.m. Jake didn’t bother to get out. Noelle jumped right in. Her attire surprised Jake; she was dressed to the nines, ready to go out dancing as her invitation suggested. She looked beautiful in the angular light of the early evening. As Jake searched for words to compliment her, she spoke.
“We’ve gotta hurry, Jake.” He nodded at her and put the car in reverse.
Jake sensed their mutual nervousness as they drove back to town. Noelle, he knew, wasn’t versed in the art of deception. And he was rusty himself.
“What do I say to him?” she asked.
“If it goes as planned, you won’t have to say much. I just want you to say hi, a couple minutes of small talk. I’ll confront him as soon as he seems to buy into it enough that he won’t immediately run.”
Jake explained the reporter guise. She seemed to think it would work.
“Do I stay there with you after?” Noelle’s tone suggested that she wanted to.
“No. Absolutely not. You go back to the car. Just walk away.” Jake neglected to tell her about the explosion and the seven-millimeter shell. No need to frighten her. He considered for a moment that he was using her, putting her in danger. Maybe he should call the whole thing off. No. He needed to know what was going on before it was too late. If she walked away like they discussed, the danger was minimized.
“Okay.” Noelle nodded, holding eye contact a second longer than usual, like she was looking for some hidden meaning in his eyes.
Jake parked in the town square’s public lot. It was getting chillier now as the sun dropped lower in the sky. Noelle pulled on the white, open-meshed cotton sweater that she had clutched in her hands during the ride. She tucked some errant strands of hair behind her ears.
She looked at her watch. It was already seven. “Let’s go.”
Noelle walked along the east sidewalk of Broadway, while Jake crossed over and took the west, so that they wouldn’t be seen together. From a block away, she noticed a group of seven or eight gathered near the elk antler arch on the southwest corner of the square. Locals, no doubt. None of them were taking pictures of the arch. The men wore jeans or Carhartts and stylish western button-downs with fleeces over them. It had to be them.
She could hear them as she approached. “What are we waiting for again, Graem? I need a beer like crazy, dude. Long day . . .”
“Some girl,” one of the females said. A short, skinny man with a tan face and sandals on looked embarrassed. Ricker. He was wearing ratty, old cargo shorts and a hooded sweatshirt with a ski logo on it. His face matched the picture on the website and her memory. That was her mark.
“Seriously?” the first man retorted. “We’re waiting out here so Ricker can get laid? Do it on your own time!”
“C’mon, guys, take it easy,” Ricker urged.
“Graem?” Noelle said, smiling, as she approached the circle. She was now about twenty feet away. Jake heard her speak and took notice. He was ready to cross the street as soon as the traffic light changed.
“Noelle?”
Her looks caught everyone by surprise. “How are you? Been too long!” They hugged for a second.
“Right?” Noelle smacked him playfully on the chest. “You rip around pretty good on the slopes, if I remember right. Didn’t know you were still in town.”
Jake was walking fast across the crosswalk with his head down. While Ricker was trying to come up with something witty to say, Jake interrupted with a stern voice.
“Mr. Ricker? Graem Ricker?” Jake’s face was under the shadow of the ball cap he put on as he crossed. “I need to talk with you in private, right now.”
Without missing a beat, Noelle crossed the street the way Jake had come. Ricker spun to see her leave, a look of utter confusion on his face.
“What’s your problem, man?” one of the men in the group yelled.
“Stay out of it and there won’t be any problem,” Jake said calmly.
“Lucky I’m on parole, man. I’d fuck your shit up!”
The crowd started to disperse, laughing and hooting.
“You need to come with me.” Jake turned to face Ricker again.
“What the hell, man? Who are you?” Anger and confusion washed over Ricker’s face.
“I’m a reporter, Graem, Salt Lake Sun.” Jake flashed his wallet as though it had credentials. “And I need to talk to you about the avalanche.” Jake stared him down. Suddenly, the man’s furious look morphed into a sinister smile.
“Bullshit! I call bullshit!” Ricker looked around as if someone was there to be impressed. “I know who you are, you sonofabitch! You’re Trent, man!”
Jake had to reformulate his plan quickly. Thinking on his feet, he remained calm, but his intensity increased. “Wow, you’re a real genius, kid. It doesn’t matter, though. I need to talk to you about this avalanche and I think you’ll wanna talk to me, too, once you realize the stakes.”
Ricker laughed. “Fuck you, asshole.” He turned and started to walk away.
Jake was too quick for him. He grabbed Ricker’s shoulder firmly from behind and whispered in his ear. “I know you staged that slide up on Maelstrom. I know you waited around for the sun to toast the snow, begging to slide. Sure, an earthquake started it, but you were gonna do it anyway. I can put you in jail, Graem, or worse.”
Death Canyon Page 20
