Hunting Season

by P. T. Deutermann

  He stood up. McGarand had held his daughter prisoner for almost a month, after allowing the other two kids to die in a flash flood like bugs.

  Then he had simply walked away, leaving Lynn in the nitro building to starve. This was an opportunity for justice such as rarely had come along in his previous life in law enforcement. He walked down the bunker roof and out to the gravel lane, looking along the ditches. He finally found what he was searching for, a piece of thin steel rod, about two feet long. It was rusted but still solid. He climbed back to the top of the bunker and quietly inserted the rod through the latch at the edge of the cowling base.

  Then he bent the two ends up to form a wide vee, so that the rod could not be shaken out. The hinges were solid steel and mounted on the outside.

  The cowling surrounding the turbine head was heavy steel, designed to allow a controlled release of combustion gases should the ammunition that had been stored there ever cook off. Rusty, covered in bird lime, but solid steel. Then he went down and found a stick, brought it back up, and jammed it roughly into the turbine housing, stopping the motion. No motion, no reason for anyone else to notice there was anything different about this bunker. And, best of all, McGarand had locked the front steel door from the outside before climbing back in through the ventilator.

  He slid back down the concrete and examined his handiwork. Then he remembered the plastic bags out on the fence line. Even better. He trotted back out to the fence line, gathered up three of the largest plastic trash bags, and returned to the bunker. He climbed back up and hooded the front vent grill with one of the bags. Then he covered the immobilized vent with the other two. Before knotting on the final piece, he fished in his backpack and extracted Lynn’s weather-beaten high school ball cap, which he had carried with him ever since recovering it from the logjam.

  He pushed it through the grill, dropping it into the bunker below, and then finished wrapping plastic over the vent grill. The bunker was now sealed. In twelve hours or so, there would be no more oxygen in there, even less time if McGarand kept a kerosene lamp going.

  “Burn in hell, Browne McGarand,” he said not so quietly.

  At noon, Janet Carter checked through the arsenal’s main gate in a Bureau car and drove down into what was left of the industrial area. The new civilian security guards reported that an aTF forensics team was going to be on the site today, although they had not signed in yet. She told him that there would be four more vehicles with FBI agents coming behind her. She parked her Bureau car near the windowless administrative building at the top of the hill, shut it down, and opened the car’s windows. She could see what she assumed to be the aTF CSU van down near the rubble

  of the power plant, but not the technicians. The hole in the main street, into which she had driven her car, was still visible. Several of the overhead pipe frames had been blown down in the blast and remained where they had fallen, looking like piles of steel spaghetti in the now-cluttered street.

  The windows in the administrative building had been blown through the building and into the parking lot, which sparkled as if covered in new frost. There was a fifteen-foot-high ring of rubble surrounding the site of the power plant.

  Farnsworth and Keenan had worked up a quick plan back in the Roanoke office. They would post two-man teams at the known incursion points, such as the rail spur, the back gates, and the creek penstock. The rest of the tactical squad would go through the main gate and then deploy on foot into the tree line overlooking the open meadow above the industrial area. Farnsworth had briefed Abel Mecklen, the SAC of the Roanoke aTF office, as to what they would be doing at the arsenal, and he had requested that the aTF launch one of their small surveillance planes. The aircraft would be tasked to orbit the arsenal perimeter at ten thousand feet with its engine muffled. A county hospital MedLift helicopter was put on short standby at the hospital pad; after their last exciting visit to the arsenal, Farnsworth was taking no chances.

  The RA had taken AD Greer’s direction literally and pulled everyone into the operation, even Billy Smith, who was again assigned to tactical communications. Janet, like the rest of the agents, had changed into tactical gear: jumpsuit, Kevlar vest, tactical equipment belt, and FBI ball cap.

  She had a portable radio with collar microphone and her SIG was bolstered on her right hip. Her personal .38 revolver was in the glove compartment.

  She looked at her watch: The tactical radio circuit would be established in twenty minutes, after which the various elements of the team would check in onstation. After that, she would be cleared to do whatever she needed to do to find Kreiss. Which was probably nothing, she realized. Kreiss would probably just step out of one of these wrecked buildings and come over to the car. That’s when it might get hard.

  She still had a residual headache from the carbon monoxide, and she would have loved to have had a bottle of oxygen to suck on for a while.

  Goddamned woman. The frustrating thing was that once they had Kreiss and could get what he had into the right channels, they would then all have to wait some more, for the right pressure to be applied and the Agency’s black widow to turn loose her hostage. The nagging question in the back of Janet’s head hadn’t changed: What if Misty wouldn’t go along?

  What if she had gone off the tracks and was now engaged in some personal vendetta against Kreiss? If this didn’t work for some reason, and Kreiss didn’t get Lynn back, there would be hell to pay. Coupled with the implied treachery in what AD Greer had said, she felt pretty uncomfortable about Kreiss’s prospects.

  She shook her head to clear her thoughts and focused on what was going on around her. Too many what if’s could be very distracting. The aTF van hadn’t moved and there was still no sign of their techs. She wondered where they might be working, since most of the structures at that end were demolished or too badly damaged even to be safe. For that matter, she thought they now pretty much knew what had caused the blast: a concentration of hydrogen. Then she remembered what the civilian gate guard had said: aTF forensics hadn’t signed in on-site yet. Then what-The radio squawked in her left ear as Keenan came up on channel one, establishing the tactical net. She acknowledged when he polled the various teams. He reported that the aTF’s aircraft was still at the local airport, down temporarily with a parts problem, ETA one hour. Here we go, she thought, stuff going wrong before we even get going. She scanned the wrecked buildings down the hill for signs of Kreiss. She had parked the car in plain sight, and he could surely recognize a Bu car. She looked at her watch again: 12:20. They were now in the window.

  Where are you, Kreiss? she thought, beginning to feel exposed out here in the sunlight. She thought of the stark contrast between what he’d been doing for all those years, on his own, and the way the rest of the Bureau did business. Dependent solely on his wits and cunning, with no partners, no backup, no base, and no rules. Every new mission coming with its own fresh hunting license. The silence around her was palpable.

  C’mon, Kreiss. This is your only hope of getting Lynn back, this, or giving yourself up to those people. Now you need us. No more Lone Ranger. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The sooner the better, Kreiss.

  Kreiss was in the trees above the creek, flat on his belly, scanning the entire industrial area through his binoculars. He had seen Carter drive down the main access road and park near the admin building. He was waiting to see if he could detect how much backup there would be and where they would set up. And he was curious about that van down by the flattened power plant. It looked like a CSU van, except there was no lettering of any kind to identify whose CSU might be there. He couldn’t see

  the license plate, either. He knew aTF would work a scene like this for weeks, even if they had already figured out what had happened. They liked to gather a ton of evidence, and bomb sites often yielded literally tons of evidence.

  He scrunched around in the pine needles to get a better visual line on the van. Ford, fall-sized, tan. It could be a piece of the FBI backup team, too.
Except he was pretty sure he remembered seeing it earlier, when he had gone into the bunker farm. He studied it carefully. The windows facing into the morning sun were clear; the others, toward the back, still had dew on them. It had definitely been there awhile. He scanned up the street to Carter’s Bu car; he couldn’t make out the details of her face, but it looked like her, sitting alone in the driver’s seat.

  He continued to scan right, up into the tree line where the road from the main gate came out into the industrial area. That’s where the bulk of the backup team would be, he figured. And probably at the other entrances to the arsenal. He rolled over on his back, looked into the sky, and listened. No airplanes, or not yet anyway. The empty bright sky made his eyes water. It was tempting to close his eyes and just relax there, safe in the pine needles among all these silent trees. The birds had quit worrying about him. So what was he waiting for? He rolled back over. Two things:

  Farnsworth’s question about where he was, exactly, and that van. The RA had probably just been trying to figure out where to deploy his backup team. In any event, he couldn’t do anything about Farnsworth. The van was something else. It might be FBI, aTF, or even local law.

  Or it might be Misty.

  Why would she be here at the arsenal? She could hide anywhere, and, unlike McGarand, she had not had that much time to prepare a place here. More likely, he thought, she had a source inside the Bureau and knew why Carter was here. Her mission was to bring him in. A straight retrieval. That was the only logical explanation for her taking Lynn hostage: They didn’t want Lynn. They wanted him. And Misty would trade. If she was here, and watching, he would have to be very damned careful about getting to Carter’s car. He began sliding back into the woods, and then he stopped as it hit him.

  Ford, full-sized, tan. My God, he thought. Was that the van he’d rented in Washington and left at the strip mall? Wasn’t that his van?

  Janet acknowledged a second station poll on the tactical net, confirming again that she was in position. It was getting warm in the car, especially in

  the vest, and she was tempted to move into the tiny bit of shade of the admin building, on the other side from where she was parked now. But that would put the building between her and her backup, and her instincts told her not to do that. Farnsworth came up and asked if she saw anything going on. She reported that there was nothing moving. Then she asked if the aTF Crime Scene people had been backed out during the pickup window.

  “What aTF Crime Scene people?” Farnsworth asked. She told him about the van down by the power plant. Farnsworth told her to stand by, then, a few minutes later, came back.

  “aTF does not have any people or vehicles on the installation. Describe the van.”

  Janet asked him to wait and then got out of the car. She put binoculars on the van and described it to the RA. She could not get a license plate.

  She asked if he wanted her to go down there. He told her to stand by. She knew that he didn’t want to reveal the scope of the backup forces, in case Kreiss was watching and got spooked. She also didn’t think he would want her to approach an unknown vehicle on her own. He came back on the net.

  “Move your vehicle to a position where you can get a license plate on that van,” he instructed.

  “Do not get out of your vehicle.”

  She acknowledged, got back in, and started the car. She rolled up the windows, switched on the AC, and then drove around the admin building and onto the main street. She had to go very slowly as she threaded her way through chunks of concrete and piles of other debris in the street.

  The toppled overhead pipe racks obstructed her way, so when she reached the first side street, she went left, down around the pushed-over remains of the wooden sheds, and then up a small rise where a water tower lay on its side like a smashed pumpkin. From this vantage, she could get the binocs on the van’s back plate. She called it in to Farnsworth. He acknowledged and told her to hold her position and reiterated his instruction to stay in her car.

  She looked around the area where she had parked. Behind her was the line of pine trees, and behind that, she was pretty sure, there was a creek, just over that hill. In front of her, the full scale of the blast was evident, highlighted by the bare concrete swath where the power plant had been, surrounded by a nearly perfect circle of rubble and boiler parts. The two enormous turbo generators wrecked and shifted off their foundations, leaned to one side in mute testimony to the force of the explosion. The shredded insulation and shattered

  flanges on the scattered steam pipes made them look like giant broken bones. Big black holes gaped beneath each turbo generator and she wondered if they led down into the water chamber at the end of the Ditch. She put the car in park, shut it down, and rolled her window down. A small building whose roof was gone provided a patch of shadow for the car, for which she was duly grateful.

  “It’s a rental,” Farnsworth reported.

  “Rented two days ago in northern Virginia, along with a cell phone. We’re waiting now for headquarters to get the info on the drivers license. The contract is in the name of a John Smith, who paid cash.”

  “I’ll bet that’s Kreiss’s vehicle,” she said.

  “And you’d be right,” a voice behind her said softly. She turned and found Kreiss crouching by her door, a finger to his lips.

  “Hold your position and report any movement,” Farnsworth was saying.

  She acknowledged, while Kreiss walked around the back to the other side and let himself into the front seat. He asked her to roll the window down on his side. He was dressed in a camo jumpsuit, head hood, a pack front and back, and a heavy equipment belt, not unlike her own, which was strapped around his waist. A large automatic, probably a .45, was slung under the left side of his chest pack, ready for a cross-draw. He smelled of pine needles and wet mud.

  “Well, Special Agent,” he said in a tired voice, “here we are.”

  She didn’t say anything as he took off the hood. His face was gaunt with fatigue, and his normally well-trimmed beard was a little ragged around the edges. His eyes were red-rimmed, but alert, looking at her while keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings, as if he were expecting something dangerous to spring out of the rubble.

  “Do you think she’s here?” Janet asked.

  “Not Lynn. That woman?”

  “It’s possible,” he said.

  “That van down there? I left it in a shopping center parking lot last night,” He patted his front pack.

  “I still have the keys.”

  “So how did it get here?”

  “Beats the shit out of me, but someone with the right resources could manage it. I thought maybe you guys had moved it here.”

  “Nope,” she said.

  “Bad sign,” he said as he scanned the area again.

  “So what happens now?”

  “I tell them you’re here and then we leave,” she said, getting a little anxious about the possible presence of Misty.

  “Sooner rather then later, okay?”

  “What about Lynn?”

  “You give headquarters what they need, they pressure the Agency to get that woman to release Lynn.”

  “And what if she doesn’t?” he asked, echoing her own earlier question.

  Then the vehicle’s cell phone rang. Kreiss looked at her. She shook her head.

  “Moot point now, I suspect,” he said with a wintry smile. Janet had no idea of who might be calling her vehicle’s cell phone when there was a tactical radio net up. She picked it up.

  “Carter,” she said. Her voice cracked and she cleared it.

  “Let me talk to him,” the woman’s voice said.

  “No,” Janet said.

  “Don’t be an ass, Carter. How do you think I knew when to make this call?”

  “I don’t care,” Janet said.

  “Yes, you do. I’m looking at you through a sniper scope. Want proof?”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “You know exactly what I w
ant. Kreiss.”

  Then Kreiss was reaching for the phone. Janet didn’t want to hand it over, but something in his eyes made her yield. Then he slid across the seat so she could listen to both sides of the conversation. She was suddenly very aware of him as the front seat dipped under his weight. She hadn’t realized how large he was.

  “Speak,” he said.

  “I have your daughter. I will release her, now, as long as you get out of that car and go back into the woods until the feebs leave.”

  Kreiss was trying to scan the area outside the car without turning his head.

  “I’ve had a better offer,” he said.

  “I’m going to give these people something, and then they’re going to make your people an offer they can’t refuse.”

  “And then what happens to you?”

  “What?”

  “I said, what happens to you?”

  “I get to live in peace.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Why not? They get the smoking gun and a lock on Justice that even Hoover would love. And your people basically shouldn’t care. Your traitor blew his brains out five years ago up in Millwood.”

  “Palace games, Edwin,” she said.

  “You’ve never cared for palace games.

  And you think you can come in from the cold once you’ve done this, do you? A grateful Bureau welcoming the exiled hero back into the family, right? Listen to this.”

  There was a pause, and then, to Janet’s shocked amazement, Farnsworth’s conversation with Howell Greer was playing back to them. She cringed when she heard Greer’s words about Kreiss being expendable.

  She stared rigidly out the windshield, holding her breath, unable to meet his eyes when it was over. That damned woman had someone in the Roanoke office. Someone who had had access to secure communications, while they were being transmitted. Oh shit, Billyh Farnsworth’s voice came over her collar radio. Kreiss, not letting go of the phone, ripped the mike off her shoulder and threw it out the window.