Hunting Season

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning the Bureau has a basic problem in its laboratory: The lab rats work for the prosecutors. Sometimes their evidentiary conclusions aren’t exactly unbiased. That’s where I got into trouble in the first place, and it’s the real reason I was sent to Roanoke.”

  Lynn thought about that, turned again, and winced. Janet checked her bandage for signs of bleeding, but there was nothing significant.

  “You know,” she said, “that woman said she didn’t shoot you; she said it was the aTF doing that roadblock, that they shot you.”

  “The aTF? But why? Why were they even doing a roadblock? And, besides, they thought you were FBI. They wouldn’t shoot at an FBI agent, would they?”

  “Some of them would probably like to, actually,” Janet said.

  “But no, I wouldn’t have expected that.”

  “Well, somebody sure as hell did,” Lynn said, rubbing her side.

  “I have two bullets,” Janet said, patting her own pocket.

  “We’ll have to look into that when we get clear of this mess.”

  “Speaking of which …”

  “Yeah,” Janet said, getting up.

  “I guess it’s time to open sesame.”

  Lynn dragged herself off the floor of the cave, and together they examined the wooden door. It was horizontal and appeared to be seated in the ceiling of the small chamber they had reached. It was not quite six feet off the floor of the chamber, but Janet couldn’t see how they could get it open more than a few inches without something to stand on. There did not appear to be any hinges or connection point. There was a handle on one end.

  “You suppose it’s pull instead of push?” Lynn asked.

  Then the lantern went out.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Janet said.

  “We’ll try to do this quietly.” She pulled down on the handle. The door, which was hinged on the other end, pulled grudgingly down into the chamber, accompanied by a rockfall of dirt and small stones from above.

  The other side of the door had a set of small boards nailed onto its surface, which they could feel but not see. A draft of cool, clean air filled with the scent of pine trees blew down into their faces.

  “All right!” Janet whispered.

  “Up we go.”

  They clambered up, using the boards as steps, Janet leading, gun in hand. They crawled out onto the forest floor, staying low. The night was clear and moonlit now. They could see that they were on the side of a steep slope covered in tall pines. As soon as Lynn came off the door, it rose from the chamber below and settled back onto the level of the hillside.

  They sat there for a few minutes, getting their night vision. There was a small breeze blowing up the mountain. It was enough to stir the pines, which, in turn, made it impossible to hear if anyone was moving around them. The ground was covered in a thick bed of pine straw, adding to the sound insulation. Above them, an outcropping of rock rose straight up, gleaming gray-white in the darkness. It looked like the bow of an enormous ship towering above them.

  Janet moved closer to Lynn so that she could whisper softly.

  “You live here. Where do you think we are?” she asked.

  “My father lives here. I live in Blacksburg. But we’re probably on the back side of Pearl’s Mountain. That’s the west side. Dad’s cabin and Micah’s place are on the east side. So now what?”

  Janet put the gun back in its holster. Her damp clothes made her cold. If anybody was waiting out there in the woods, he or she would be able to smell all this cave mud, she thought.

  “We need to get to Micah or some of his people,” she whispered.

  “The question is, Up and over, or walk around?”

  “Up and over is out of the question,” Lynn said.

  “I’m not sure I can even walk around. And the east side has a sheer rock face. I don’t know how high we are, but…”

  “We’re going to have to do something,” Janet said.

  “We stay out here in these wet clothes, we’re going to get hypothermia. We know they had people at your father’s cabin. Let’s go the other way, north, around the mountain. Micah has to have some scouts out on the mountain. Hopefully, we’ll run into one.”

  Lynn groaned but got to her feet. Janet wished they had brought along those sticks Micah had pointed out. She had gone hiking several times up on the Appalachian Trail and knew the value of a good stick. The bigger problem was to keep from going in aimless circles in the darkness of the pine forest. They would have to pay attention and keep the top of the mountain to their right. And watch for timber rattlers, stump holes, waita-minute vines, dead falls loose rocks, and whatever else the mountain slope had in store for them. She tripped over a long stick, picked it up, broke it down to a useful length, and told Lynn to find one, too. Then they set out into the trees.

  Kreiss established his hideout up behind the wrecked industrial area of the arsenal. He picked a heavily wooded spot upstream of the logjam and near the top of a hill on the opposite bank of the creek. Come daylight, he should be able to look down into most of the industrial area where the power plant had been, and also into the beginning rows of the vast bunker farm. He had driven north on Route 11 past the entrance to the arsenal.

  The signal lights had still been out, but the barrels were gone and there were floodlights up on the hill where the entrance gates were, which told him that the investigation into the explosion was still going on. He’d driven on into Ramsey, stopped to eat at a drive-through burger joint, and then retraced his route past the arsenal entrance to the place where the rail spur turned off to go into the arsenal. A half a mile beyond was a small shopping mall, where he had parked the van. He then walked back along the highway, carrying one bag of equipment, until he came to the railroad line, and then he turned off to get into the arsenal.

  His plan was to get some sleep and then call into Micah’s around midnight.

  By then, hopefully, there would be news of Lynn. After that, he would have some decisions to make. The only way he could prove his own innocence with respect to the Washington bombing was to bring in McGarand, and that would be tough to do with everybody hunting him.

  Plus, he had no idea where McGarand was. What he might have to do would be go into permanent hiding for a few years and maybe tell his story through the public press. But that would leave Lynn unprotected.

  He wasn’t worried about the Bureau or even the aTF doing anything to Lynn, but what Misty would do was a very different question.

  Headlights flared down in the industrial area. As he watched from the trees, he could see and then hear a security truck prowling through the littered streets. So there was active security now, he thought. He’d been lucky to get over the fence. The truck turned away and went down a road behind the blank concrete slabs that had been the power plant, then headed into the bunker fields. The headlights disappeared.

  He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. Focus, he told himself. Get some rest. Find out what’s happened to Lynn. Then decide.

  Janet stepped across the trail before recognizing what it was. Lynn did see it, and she said, “Hey.” They examined the trail, which was not much more than a footpath, but it ran up and down the mountain, not across it.

  It looked to Janet like it was maybe five, six hundred feet to the summit.

  “If this goes all the way to the top,” Janet said, “we could cut our little hike here in half.”

  Lynn groaned and then sat down on a log.

  “I’m sorry. You go ahead, and I’ll hole up somewhere. I can’t make that climb.”

  Janet sat down next to her.

  “I’m not going to leave you out here,” she said.

  “Let’s rest a while and then see what we can do.”

  “I know what I can’t do,” Lynn said.

  “I can’t climb this frigging mountain.”

  Janet said nothing, just sat there in the darkness. She had regained her night vision, and she could see amaz
ingly well. The sky was full of bright stars and a partial moon. Light-colored objects stood out with sudden clarity against the dark pines. Like the man standing there by that tree, watching them.

  “Shit!” she shouted, jumping up and fumbling to get her gun out. Lynn saw where Janet was staring and got up slowly, backing in the direction they had come. The man didn’t move, but just continued to stand there, motionless. He was very tall, bearded, and was wearing a slouch hat and carrying a long rifle with a scope in the crook of his arm. Finally, he advanced one step and raised the rifle into the air. A single shot blasted out against the night air, followed by two more as he worked the bolt so fast, Janet couldn’t see his hands move. The

  final gunshot reverberated across the rock face of the mountain like an insult against all nature. Back in the forest, a night bird squawked its disapproval. The man put the rifle back into the crook of his arm and stepped forward. Janet kept her own gun ready, but pointed it at the ground. The man approached, his footfalls silent on the pine straw. He was even taller than she had thought. She could smell the gun smoke rising from the barrel of his rifle.

  “Y’all cold?” he asked in an old man’s voice. Janet couldn’t really see his face.

  “Yes,” she said. Had he signaled Micah? Or someone else?

  “Them rocks yonder? They still warm. Y’all stay here. Pap’s a-comin’.”

  Then he stepped back into the forest and disappeared right in front of their eyes.

  “That mean what I think it means?” Lynn asked in a low whisper.

  “I sure hope so,” Janet said.

  “Scared the shit out of me. Let’s go see if he’s right about those rocks.”

  Half an hour later, they were sitting with their backs up against a smooth wall of rock, which had indeed still been warm from the afternoon sun. They saw a lantern approaching through the trees, and then Micah and the tall man came across the path. The man was still carrying the big rifle, and Micah was carrying what looked like a stubby double barreled shotgun in one hand, the lantern in the other. He greeted them and then put a finger to his lips, signaling for silence.

  “We’re goin’ down,” he began.

  “Thank God,” Lynn murmured.

  “Cain’t talk,” he said, dousing the lantern.

  “They’s revenuers aplenty out on the mountain.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Janet asked, wondering why the revenuers wouldn’t have heard the shots.

  “To ole Ed’s cabin. Ain’t no one there right now. Where’s them folks what came after you in the cave?”

  Janet told him about what had happened on the subterranean lake, and Micah nodded. He put a finger to his lips again and then started down the trail. Janet and Lynn followed, Lynn limping a little. The tall man followed for a while, but then, on Micah’s signal, he stepped sideways into the forest and disappeared again.

  It took them forty minutes to get down to the level of the big meadow behind Kreiss’s cabin. Micah signaled for them to rest while he went forward to the edge of the woods. He watched for a few minutes. Then he walked carefully out into the meadow until he reached the rock where

  Kreiss hid his Barrett. He lit the lantern, cropped the flame down to a minimum, and then extended it beyond the side of the huge boulder. As Janet strained to see, an answering flicker of light appeared down among the trees at the cabin. What is this? she thought. He had said there was no one at the cabin. Micah turned around and waved them out of the trees.

  Had to be some of Micah’s people, she concluded. She had to help Lynn get to her feet, and the girl staggered when she first started to walk. All in, Janet thought, giving her an arm for support.

  “We’re almost there,” she said.

  “Almost where?” Lynn asked, which is when Janet noticed Lynn’s eyes were closed.

  “Your dad’s cabin. Micah got a signal that it was all clear.”

  They walked across the meadow, going slow to accommodate Lynn’s halting footsteps. Janet felt terribly exposed out in the broad expanse of grass between the woods up above and the dark cabin, but Micah proceeded ahead confidently. When they stepped into the shadows of the trees around the cabin, Lynn was stunned to see Farnsworth and five of the Roanoke agents, including Billy Smith, step out of the darkness. They converged on Micah. She was reaching instinctively for her weapon, when she realized from the way he was acting that Micah had known they were there. Farnsworth came over, took one look at Lynn, and instructed two agents to help her into the cabin. Janet just stood there with her mouth hanging open until she saw Farnsworth smile. He had something in his hands, but she couldn’t see what it was.

  “Hey, Janet,” he said.

  “Feel like a cup of coffee?”

  Janet looked at Micah, who was standing to one side, looking considerably embarrassed. He had led them directly into the government’s hands.

  “Mr. Wall, what have you done?” she asked.

  “Don’t blame him, Janet,” Farnsworth said.

  “He’s doing what he had to do. Let’s get a cup of coffee. I’ve got some things to tell you.”

  Forty-five minutes later, after a hot shower and some dry clothes borrowed from Lynn’s closet, Janet sat with Farnsworth in the kitchen, having a cup of coffee. Lynn had been seen by some county EMTs and then had collapsed on her father’s bed, where she was now fast asleep. The rest of the Roanoke agents, except for Billy, were outside. Farnsworth put Janet’s credentials and her Sig down on the kitchen table. Billy sat at the dining room table, facing a laptop computer that was used for secure communications from the field.

  “First, I want to ask you to take these back,” Farnsworth said,

  pointing to them.

  “I never sent in any paperwork, and the circumstances surrounding your resignation have changed. A lot.”

  She looked at the credentials, pulled them toward her, but then she left them on the table between them.

  “Tell me about those changes,” she said.

  She was physically tired, but the caffeine was working and her mind was alert. She decided that she wasn’t going back to the federal fold until she heard Farnsworth’s explanation. Billy pulled on a set of headphones and started talking to someone.

  Farnsworth sat back in his chair and rubbed his fingers across his chin in his characteristic gesture.

  “You were dead right about a second bomb.

  Somebody went to Washington and parked a propane truck next to the aTF headquarters building and managed to pump several thousand cubic feet of hydrogen gas into the building. Right at the start of the working day.”

  “Oh my God! The aTF building? Not the Hoover Building?”

  “Right. The results were very similar to what happened down at the Ramsey Arsenal. Obliterated the top floors of the building, and burned the rest.”

  “Damn!” she whispered.

  “How many—” “Almost none. They had some warning and got all the people out before it let go. Guess who provided the warning?”

  “Kreiss.”

  He cocked his head to one side.

  “And you knew that how?”

  “We’ve been in touch. As you know, I’ve been protecting his daughter.”

  “Yes. Well, Kreiss appeared in front of the building to deliver said warning after having been picked up earlier by two Washington beat cops for loitering in the White House security zone. There’d been a security alert downtown ever since the Ramsey thing. Then—and this is the interesting part—he was transferred to Bureau custody, from which he escaped by causing a car crash out on the G.W. Parkway at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, leaving two agents handcuffed to a park bench to watch their Bu car marinate in gasoline.”

  “Oh my,” Janet said, working hard to keep a serious expression on her face. They had me and then I had them.

  “Why was he transferred to Bureau custody?”

  “Because the local cops did a wants and warrants check, and the next thing they knew, here came two crackerjacks fro
m the Hoover Building, saying they had instructions to take subject Edwin Kreiss into custody in connection with a homicide down here in Blacksburg. District cops

  said, Be our guest. Got him off their blotter. But in the meantime, these two superstars took him, on instructions from the Foreign Counter Intelligence Division duty officer, for a midnight ride to Langley, Virginia, where certain people out there wanted to have a word.”

  “Did you file an apprehend-and-detain order on Kreiss?”

  “No, I did not. We’re all looking into that little mystery.”

  “This has to involve that horrible woman.”

  He got up to get more coffee.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” he said.

  “I discovered all of this after the fact. The last thing I did before the aTF building changed shape was to call in your warning that FBI headquarters was a possible target, and that that hydrogen bomb business referred to gaseous hydrogen, not nuclear hydrogen.”

  “What was their reaction?”

  Farnsworth grinned.

  “Building security thanked me for my interest in federal law enforcement, than wished me a good night. Several hours later, the world ended up on Mass Avenue. By the way, what did you tell Agent Walker, about forwarding the report?”

  “I asked him if he wanted to be the one link in the chain that failed to forward warning of a bombing up the line, in the event that there was a bombing.”

  Farnsworth nodded.

  “I want you to know that he was very, very insistent.

  Said he was logging and date-stamping his call to me.”

  Janet smiled.

  “We never change, do we?” she said.

  “CYA forever. Anyway, back to Kreiss: He shows up at aTF headquarters at daybreak, flashing the creds of one of the agents he stranded out on the parkway. While he was warning them, one of the guards checked with our headquarters, and then they apprehended him at gunpoint. This was about the time their gas monitors detected the hydrogen. Kreiss starts to walk away. They give him the usual warning. So Kreiss, cool as a cucumber, asks the guards if they really want to pop a cap in a hydrogen atmosphere.