Force of Nature

by C. J. Box

  As he approached the cabin from the back, Joe thumbed the safety off his shotgun and tucked the stock under his arm. He tried to stay quiet and not dislodge small rocks from the scree that might tumble downhill, clicking along with the sound of pool balls striking one another.

  When he was close enough to see the entire side of the small structure, he dropped to his haunches and simply listened. There was no sign of life from the old log shelter, and two of the four small panes of glass from the side window were broken out. In the rocks near the closed front door were dozens of filtered cigarette butts. Richie, Joe thought, must be a smoker. But what had he seen from this perch that spooked him off the mountain?

  “Hello!” Joe shouted. “Anybody home?”

  Silence from the cabin. But below in the trees, squirrels chattered to one another in their unique form of telegraph-pole gossip. They’d soon all know he was there, he thought.

  He called out again, louder. If someone was inside, perhaps he’d see an eye looking out from one of the broken panes. But there was no movement.

  For the first time, he noted a rough trail that emerged from the line of timber to the front door of the cabin. The trail was scarred on top, meaning it had been used recently. Maybe Richie had seen someone coming up on it? But why would that scare him?

  Joe stood and slipped along the side wall of the cabin until he was underneath the window. He pressed his ear against a rough log and closed his eyes, trying to detect sounds of any movement inside. It was still.

  He popped up quickly to the window and then dropped back down. No reaction, and all he’d seen inside was a shaft of light from a hole in the roof cutting through the gloom, illuminating what looked like three stout black logs on the packed-dirt floor.

  Stout black logs?

  THE HEAVY front door wasn’t bolted, and it moaned as it swung inward on old leather hinges. Joe stood to the side, shotgun ready, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Nothing moved in reaction to the wide-open door.

  He stepped inside. It was still and musty, but he caught a whiff of a sour metallic smell. The odor seemed to hang just above the floor.

  The logs weren’t logs at all but three dark green plastic bundles placed next to one another on the floor. Joe stepped closer and prodded the nearest one with the toe of his boot. There was something heavy inside, but there was a little give, like poking a sausage casing. A chill rolled down his back.

  He bent over to look closely at a line of beige-colored print on the plastic. It read human remains pouch in military stencil font.

  “Oh, no,” he whispered, as he dug the flashlight out of his daypack and snapped it on.

  He stood quickly and took a deep breath of fresh cold air before bending back down to unzip the first body bag. Now he knew why Richie had run off. But he’d neglected to report what he’d found, the coward.

  A middle-aged woman, her skin waxy, eyes open and dull, hair matted to the side. And a dark deep cut across her throat.

  Joe felt his insides gurgle as he unzipped the second bag to find a familiar dark round fleshy face looking out. The body also had a deep slash around its neck, only partially hidden by a fold of fat.

  The third body Joe didn’t recognize. It had been a young man with sharp cheekbones and a thin, long nose. Short spiky hair. Same wound.

  Joe thought, The real Luke Brueggemann.

  AFTER HEAVING what little was in his stomach into the scree, Joe fished the radio out. No signal.

  He tried his cell phone. Reception was faint; one bar lapsed into roaming and back again. He climbed back up the mountain to where the signal was stronger. He called Sheriff McLanahan.

  “What now?” McLanahan asked, obviously agitated. “Is all forgiven?”

  Joe ignored the question. He was shaking as he said, “I found the bodies of Pam Kelly, Bad Bob Whiteplume, and an unknown male. All murdered and stashed in an old cabin overlooking the South Fork. Here, I’ll give you the coordinates. …”

  After telling McLanahan the name of the suspect and his possible location in Camp Five, Joe said, “I don’t know how many bad guys are down there, but I do know they’re armed and dangerous.”

  Then, shouting into the phone: “Listen to me this time, Sheriff. Make that call to the FBI and tell them to send everybody they can up here. Now. And gather what’s left of your department and gear them up and storm Camp Five. I’ll try to get into position so I can be a spotter. Stay off the radio, and keep your phone on.”

  The phone popped hard with static, and when it quieted back down Joe no longer had the connection. He wasn’t sure how much the sheriff had heard or understood.

  He could only hope that enough got through that the vise was finally beginning to close on John Nemecek.

  36

  HALEY DROVE THE TAHOE through the thick lodgepole pine trees on South Fork Trail, and Nate craned forward in the passenger seat, looking ahead. The river, no more than cold crooked fingers of water probing around boulders, was on their left. He caught glimpses of it through the timber.

  “There are tracks on the road ahead of us,” Nate said, “but nothing fresh from this morning.”

  Haley didn’t respond. Her face was grim and her mouth set. She obviously didn’t understand the significance of his comment.

  “That means that Game and Fish truck went somewhere else,” Nate said. “So maybe we can forget about it.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She looked small behind the wheel, he thought. But determined.

  Nate looked over as they passed by an outfitter camp tucked up into the trees on a shelf on their right. The camp had a large framed canvas tent, but there were no vehicles around and the door of the tent was tied up. A headless elk carcass hung from a cross-pole behind the tent.

  “That’s the fourth camp,” she said.

  Nate nodded and ducked down on the seat. Anyone observing the vehicle would see only the driver.

  “Talk to me,” he said calmly. “Tell me what you see as you see it.”

  In a moment, she said, “The trees are opening. I think we’re getting close to Camp Five.”

  OVER THE LAST half hour, Joe had worked his way down the mountain carefully, avoiding loose rock and downed branches, and he’d set up behind a granite outcropping laced through the seams with army-green lichen. From the outcrop he could clearly see the layout of Camp Five two hundred feet below.

  There were two hard-side trailers parked nose-to-tail in a flat on the other side of the river. The camp was remarkably clean: no debris, coolers, folding chairs, or other usual elk camp indicators. The fire pit, a ring of colorful round river rocks, looked cold and unused. There were no skinned elk or deer carcasses hanging from a cross-pole in clear view of the trailers.

  There were two vehicles he could see parked on the other side of the trailers: a late-model white Tahoe with green-and-white Colorado plates behind the second trailer and a dark SUV crossover parked on the side of the first. The second trailer, Joe thought, was a curiosity. Antennae and small satellite dishes bristled from the roof. Then he noticed something blocky covered with a blue tarp on the front of that trailer; no doubt an electric generator. The generator operated so quietly he could barely hear it hum.

  The second trailer was obviously the communications center.

  He was grateful his handheld radio hadn’t worked earlier. No doubt, they were monitoring air traffic. He hoped McLanahan listened this time and stayed off the police bands.

  A few feet from the tongue of the first trailer, Joe noted, were two five-foot pole-mounted platforms. On the top of each platform was a hooded falcon: a peregrine and a prairie.

  Joe was pretty sure he’d found Nemecek.

  He’d set up his spotting scope on the tripod and trained it on the white sheet-metal door of the first trailer. His shotgun was braced against the rock on his right, and next to it was his .270 Winchester.

  The rock had sharp edges, and it was difficult to find a comfortable position to lie
in wait. He shifted his weight from the left to the right and propped up on his daypack to see. When he heard the tick of a loose rock strike another, he assumed he’d rustled it loose with the toe of his boot.

  Then he sensed a presence behind him, and before he could roll over he felt a cold nose of steel press into the flesh behind his right ear. He jumped with alarm and a palm pressed square into the middle of his back, keeping him prone.

  “Put your arms out ahead of you, Joe, hands up. Don’t even think about reaching for your gun.” It was the voice of his trainee.

  Joe did as told without saying a word, and felt his trainee pluck the Glock from his holster. His pepper spray was removed next. Then he heard the clatter of his shotgun and rifle as they were kicked off the outcropping into the brush below.

  “Now slowly pull your arms down and place them behind your back.”

  Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Just cooperate, Joe. You seem like a nice guy, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I guess you’ve figured some things out on your own.”

  “Surprising, huh?” Joe said.

  “Your hands,” his trainee said firmly.

  Joe felt the handcuffs encircle both wrists. He balled his hands into fists and bent them inward toward his spine while the cuffs were snapped into place and ratcheted snug. It was a trick he’d learned from a poacher he’d once arrested. Now, when he relaxed his fists and straightened his wrists, the cuffs weren’t tight and didn’t bite into his flesh.

  “Okay, now stand up. And don’t turn around or do any dumb shit.”

  “That’s kind of a hard maneuver with my hands cuffed behind my back,” Joe said.

  “Try,” his trainee said, stepping back.

  Joe got his knees under him and rose clumsily. Despite what he’d been told, he turned a quarter of the way around. His trainee wore his red uniform shirt and held a .40 Glock in each hand—his and Joe’s. Both were pointed at Joe’s face.

  “You’re a disgrace to the uniform,” Joe said.

  “Stop talking.”

  “I found Luke Brueggemann,” Joe said, noting a wince of confusion from his trainee in reaction.

  “Up there,” Joe said, chinning toward the top of the mountain. “In an old miner’s cabin. You might have seen it on your way down.”

  “I saw the cabin. Right after I found your truck stuck in the snow.”

  “But you must not have looked inside,” Joe said. “The real Luke Brueggemann’s body is in it. Throat cut by a garrote. Same with Bad Bob and Pam Kelly. All of them dead, but I guess you know that.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” his trainee said.

  “You know,” Joe said, “I’m getting pretty hacked off the way you people operate. This is a good place, and you’ve turned it upside down.”

  His trainee simply shook his head, unbelieving.

  “Did you kill them?” Joe asked. “Like you did Deputy Sollis this morning? Mike Reed might not make it, either, and you know he’s a friend of mine.”

  “That was self-defense! That big one didn’t identify himself—he smashed through the door of my room.”

  Joe didn’t know enough about the incident to argue. But knowing Sollis, he sensed a grain of truth in the explanation.

  “You’re leaving bodies all over this county,” Joe said. “You need to stop. You’ve lost sight of your mission.”

  “This is bullshit. There are no bodies. You’re just trying to get the drop on me.”

  “I’m not that clever,” Joe said. And his trainee seemed to take that into consideration.

  “So what’s your real name?” Joe asked.

  “Hinkle,” he said. “Lieutenant Dan Hinkle when I was still in.”

  The fact that he gave up his real name so easily, Joe thought, meant Hinkle had no intention of cutting him loose.

  “Well, Lieutenant Dan Hinkle,” Joe said, “your boss is a killer. He’s gone rogue. And he’s taken a lot of you good men along with him and he’s murdered innocent people all over my county and terrorized my wife and family. Is that really what you signed up for?”

  Hinkle’s confusion hardened into a kind of desperate anger. “Shut up, Joe. And turn around. We’re gonna march down there and see what my boss wants to do with you.”

  “I’m not done,” Joe said. “The cavalry is coming. They’re on their way as we speak.”

  “I said shut up with your lies.”

  “I don’t lie,” Joe said. “You know that.”

  “Turn around,” Hinkle barked.

  And Joe did. But not simply because he’d been ordered. He wanted to see what was happening in the camp below, because he’d heard the sound of a vehicle coming, headed straight for Camp Five.

  _______

  HALEY SAID to Nate on the seat beside her, “There are two trailers and two vehicles.”

  “Anybody outside?”

  “No.”

  “Keep going,” he said. “Drive up there with confidence like you were coming home after work. Like you just can’t wait to tell your boss some good news he’ll want to hear.”

  He felt her reach down and touch his neck as if for reassurance.

  “How far are they?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe five hundred feet?”

  “You’re doing great,” he said.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said after a beat. “Someone’s coming outside.”

  “Which trailer?”

  “The second one. Now two men. Nate, one of them has a long rifle or a shotgun. They’re standing there looking our way.”

  “Is he aiming the weapon?”

  “Sorta.”

  “Is he aiming it at you or not?”

  “He’s kind of holding it at port arms,” she said, an edge of panic in her voice.

  “Good,” Nate said. “Keep going. Don’t flinch. They recognize the vehicle. They think we’re on their team.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, her voice tight. “There’s John Nemecek. He just came out of the first trailer.”

  “Keep going,” Nate said. “Smile at them if you can.”

  JOE AND DAN HINKLE were twenty yards from the bank of the river. There was so little current this high up in the mountains it barely made a sound, just a muffled gurgle as it muscled around exposed river rocks.

  The muzzles of both guns were pressed into him, one at the base of his skull and the other in the small of his back. Joe felt dead inside and his feet seemed to propel him forward of their own accord. He thought, There is no way they’ll let me go.

  He thought about what he could do to get away. If he were in a movie, he’d spin and drop-kick the weapons away and head-butt Hinkle into submission. Or simply break and run, juking and jiving, while Hinkle fired and missed. But this was real and there were two guns pressed against him. He didn’t know how to drop-kick. And Hinkle was trained and skillful and wouldn’t miss.

  Ahead of him, across the river, three men had emerged from the two trailers. All three were facing the oncoming white SUV and apparently hadn’t seen Joe and Hinkle yet. One of them, tall and fit and commanding in looks and presence, looked like the person Marybeth had described meeting in the library. Nemecek stood ramrod-straight, hands on hips, his head bowed slightly forward as if he was peering ahead from beneath his brow. The other two men, both young and hard, one in all-black clothing and the other wearing a desert camo vest over a Henley shirt, flanked Nemecek. The man in all black carried a semiautomatic rifle.

  The three stood expectant, waiting for the arrival of the

  white SUV.

  “THEY’RE JUST standing there,” Haley said to Nate. “Nemecek turned and said something to the man with the gun and he lowered it. I think Nemecek recognizes me.”

  “How close are they?”

  “A hundred feet, maybe less.”

  “He’s confused for a second,” Nate said. “He wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Now he’s turning back around toward me, staring. N
ate …” The fear in her voice was palpable.

  Nate said, “Floor it.”

  THE SUV came fast, Joe thought. Too fast. But then the motor roared and the Tahoe rocked and accelerated and he heard Hinkle gasp behind him.

  It happened in an instant. The man in black with the rifle shouted and leaped to the side, in Joe and Hinkle’s direction. Nemecek jumped back the other way and flattened himself against the first trailer. But the man in the desert camo was caught in the middle and hit solid and tossed over the hood and roof of the Tahoe with a sickening thump.

  Hinkle said, “What the fuck just happened?”

  “GOT ONE!” Haley shouted, hitting the brakes before she crashed head-on into the front of the second trailer.

  Before they’d completely stopped, Nate reached up for the passenger door handle and launched himself outside. He hit the turf hard on his injured shoulder, rolled, and staggered to his feet.

  Yarak.

  The man in black who’d dived away scrambled to his feet a few yards away, his face and hands muddy, the rifle in his grip. Nate shot him in the neck, practically decapitating the body before it hit the ground.

  Nate wheeled on his heels, cocking the hammer back with his left thumb in the same movement, and finished off the injured operative in the grass.

  Then he turned on Nemecek, who was still against his trailer but was reaching behind his back—likely for his .45 Colt semiauto. Nate could see the impression of body armor under Nemecek’s sweater, but it didn’t matter. The .500 exploded twice. The first shot shattered Nemecek’s right shoulder and painted the trailer behind him with a crazy starburst of blood, and the second bullet hit Nemecek square in his upper-left thigh, annihilating the bones and dropping him like a bag of sand.