Cut Out

by Bob Mayer

  Master looked at the large area the map covered and considered Riley’s background. “What about up in the mountains?”

  Ferguson’s finger waved through the air tracing the roads around the perimeter of the park. “You have a heck of a climb to get any height.” He pointed at a black line bisecting the area. “Newfound Gap Road cuts right through and there’s a parking area here.” He pointed at a small black space high up in the mountains. “There’s a lot of trails in this area, and you can go off in any direction and disappear within a hundred yards.”

  Master was silent for a minute, ignoring the fidgeting of the pilot. He couldn’t even be certain that Riley was here yet, but the odds were he was. Giannini had to be en route, because the transcript indicated she was not to arrive until after daylight. He wanted to catch them all together and end this thing. If he could spot her moving in, he might be able to follow her. He suddenly looked up. “We need to hire you for the day.”

  Ferguson blinked. “I run three hundred and fifty an hour.” He eyed Master suspiciously. “And I need half that up front.”

  Master reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of money, peeled off two thousand in hundred dollar bills, and handed them over. “Get your bird cranked up.”

  Master turned and strode out to the van. Getting inside, he looked at Simon. “What do you have on Giannini?”

  “I’ve got an outline of her file and—”

  “I need a description and what kind of car she’s driving.”

  Simon irritably flipped over a few pages. He’d come down here expecting to be in charge and was none too happy about the way he’d been treated since getting off the jet. Despite that, there was something in Master’s eyes that told him to hold any complaining until he was safe in the cocoon of his Virginia office. “Here’s a fax of her photo, and she’s driving a 1988 red Mustang GT.”

  Master looked at the photo and then at the analyst. “All right. I want Surveillance One to head down to the vicinity of Fontana Lake. Check for Giannini’s car. She should be coming in soon. Make sure they talk to the park ranger for that area. Have Two and Three head up to Newfound Gap and station themselves there. I’m going to look over this area from the air. I’ll take a portable with me to maintain commo with you at this location.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Simon raised a hand as Master turned to leave. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I already told you that—stay out of my way.” Master stepped out of the van and scanned the panorama of tree-covered mountains. You have to come out sometime, he thought, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.

  Chapter Seventeen

  GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

  1 NOVEMBER, 8:20 a.m.

  “You stay here with Lisa,” Riley ordered as he checked the functioning on the FA-MAS rifle. He pulled back the charging handle and replaced the slightly damp cartridge that had been in the chamber all night.

  “Roger that, Chief,” Hammer replied. He was rummaging through Riley’s rucksack. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m heading up to the tower to look for Giannini. She should be here this morning.”

  “Then what?” Lisa asked. The few hours of sleep on Riley’s quarter-inch-thick sleeping pad had not provided much rest. Her hair was disheveled, and dark shadows under her eyes showed her weariness. “Do we just hide up here forever?”

  “I don’t know,” Riley said. “As far as we can tell, someone’s tapped into the computer at the Witness Protection Program. That explains a lot, but we don’t know who that somebody is, and until we do we’re making stabs in the dark.” Riley spread his arms helplessly. “I don’t know what to do next. I tried to outsmart these guys and it almost got my head blown off. All I know is that the next step is to get Donna Giannini here with us. Then we can sit down and figure out what to do without having to worry that someone’s ass is hanging out in the wind.”

  “I know what I’m doing next,” Hammer said cheerfully. He looked at Lisa. “How about some nice warm nectar of the gods?” he asked, holding up Riley’s portable stove and some instant coffee. He started pumping the primer on the stove without waiting.

  “I’ll be back by noon,” Riley said, touching Lisa on the arm. “We’ll figure out something then.”

  Lisa watched him leave and then turned her attention to Hammer, who was concentrating on the task at hand. “You don’t seem very concerned about all this.”

  Hammer chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t worry about things I can’t control.” He looked up at her. “Bullshit is part of every job description in the army, and a long time ago I learned to go with the flow.”

  He peered in the canteen cup on top of the stove to check the water. Then he looked at her and his expression became serious. “Listen, I spent three years fighting a war that no one even talks about anymore. A war that some assholes in Washington started and then pissed away. If that wasn’t bullshit, I don’t know what was.”

  “But you stayed in the reserves, or else you wouldn’t be here,” Lisa noted.

  “Not at first. I got out as soon as I returned to the States, and I swore I’d have nothing to do with the army ever again.” Hammer’s eyes took on a distant look. “I got back and bought a Harley, first day after I outprocessed. I took all that money I hadn’t spent for three years sucking shit in the jungle and I hit the road.” He laughed. “Hell, I can’t even remember half the things I did or the places I went. I was high, I was drunk, I was so fucking out of it most of the time I could have killed people and I wouldn’t have known. And the funny thing is, I wanted to kill someone. I wanted a face that I could look at and say: ‘Hey, you, motherfucker, you’re the one that caused my buddy Juke Taylor to get his guts blown all over the place. And you’re the one that sent Team Hawaii out one day and they were never heard of again and the only reason I wasn’t with them was because I was down in Nha Trang getting an infected tooth pulled.’

  “I looked at everyone and thought, Maybe you’re the man.” Hammer’s voice hadn’t raised a decibel as he spoke. “And that I could just blow the man away and it would all be square. Payback.

  “It took me a year and a half to figure out that that was bullshit too, and that the civilian world ain’t no different. The man is us.” He poked a finger at his own burly chest. “I don’t have the answers, and I don’t really ask the questions anymore. You got to look out for number one, lady—especially now.” He seemed surprised at his own outburst and slightly embarrassed at the need to make it. “Ah, well, enough speech making. Let’s have some coffee.”

  “Why is Riley risking his life for me?” Lisa asked. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Because a friend asked him for help, and that’s all the reason he needs.” Hammer reached down to his cargo pocket and pulled out his tired-looking beret with the unauthorized personalized monogram sewn on the inside liner. “Probably because Riley believes in what this represents. The men I’d served with wearing this were the only thing that counted to me back then. We had honor with each other, and in this day and age that isn’t a word people think too much about. But I guess Riley still believes in it. Maybe he’ll learn better someday.” Hammer looked at her hard and quickly changed the subject. “Is what you told him true? You don’t know nothing about the money?”

  Lisa’s face was tight. When she answered, her voice sounded weary. “I didn’t know what my husband was into until the police showed up at my door. And all I learned, I learned from sitting in court listening to Philip testify. Nothing ever came up about him having a lot of money. Obviously, I didn’t know him very well, did I?”

  “But you might have an idea where he would have hidden it,” Hammer said. “You know, maybe a bank account he didn’t disclose to the feds. Hell, he could have kept it in cash and buried it in the backyard.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Lisa insisted, starting to get angry.

  “Well, you can tell Riley and me that story,” Hammer said calmly as he
poured her some coffee. “But if these people get hold of you, they ain’t gonna buy it.”

  8:40 a.m.

  Riley skirted the wood line to the north of the Clingmans Dome tower and trail. By doing so he also avoided the Appalachian Trail, which runs along that side. The vegetation consisted of red spruce and balsam fir trees, many of which had been blown down by the fierce weather that often lashes the top of the mountain. The Dome is the highest point along the two thousand miles of trail, and the second-highest point on the East Coast of the United States, topped only by nearby Mount Mitchell.

  A six-foot-wide tar path led from the parking area to the Dome, three-quarters of a mile to the east of the observation tower. Riley had considered getting off the helicopter in the parking lot, where the chopper would have been able to land, but he had chosen instead to come directly to the Dome for two reasons: he hadn’t been certain that the parking lot was clear of trees along the side for a landing; and, on the off chance that the access road wasn’t closed for the season, he felt that rappelling in on top of the Dome would be more secure than landing in the parking lot.

  He expected to meet Giannini coming up the path, so he moved to a position on the side of the hill where he could look down along a straight section of the path, into the empty parking lot. Riley settled down behind an uprooted fir tree and got comfortable. The temperature was in the low fifties, and the dark clouds scurrying by not far overhead threatened bad weather later in the day.

  He heard the helicopter long before he saw it. The sound of the blades was trapped between the high ground and the cloud cover. Riley pulled out a small set of binoculars from the butt pack of his combat vest and scanned the surrounding area. The aircraft was coming closer, and Riley edged along the log until he was under the cover of an upright tree. Still he could see nothing.

  The helicopter roared by less than thirty feet above the treetops, coming from Riley’s rear. He froze, not even daring to look up as it banked, and then he caught his first glimpse—a Bell Jet Ranger with “Mountain Flights, Inc.” painted on the side. The bird did another loop around the Dome, then headed for the parking lot, following the access road to the east. Riley focused the binoculars on the helicopter and caught a glimpse of the two men seated inside—a pilot wearing a soft cap backwards with a headset, and a man in the copilot’s seat, map in his lap. Riley twisted the ring on the middle of the binos and the man’s face jumped out at him. Riley lowered the glasses slightly— an FA-MAS rifle with silencer and laser sight was propped against the side of the man’s seat, leaning against the glass panel on the door. Riley felt a chill race down his back. They were here. He didn’t know how they had found out and arrived so quickly, but the critical thing was that they had done it.

  Riley slowly relaxed and refocused his attention on the parking lot and path, unaware of the figure flitting through the trees behind him, slowly moving up on him.

  8:43 a.m.

  Master shook his head; it was as he expected. They would never find anyone on the ground from the air, and there was a hell of a lot of ground to hide on. He unfolded the map the pilot had given him and consulted the information printed at the top. There were eight hundred square miles of wilderness, most of it in extremely rugged high country. Master’s estimation of Riley went up a notch.

  As the helicopter passed over Newfound Gap Road, Master’s feeling of despair evaporated. A red Mustang GT was parked in the lot, along with three other vehicles. He could see several people scattered about. Whether Giannini was among the tourists was impossible to tell from the helicopter.

  “Hold here!” he ordered Ferguson. Master quick-dialed on his portable phone, making sure the earplug was in place so he could hear over the sound of the engines and blades.

  The other end was picked up immediately and the voice rasped in Master’s right ear. “Surveillance One.”

  “This is Master. What’s your location?”

  “Thirteen miles along the Newfound Gap Road.”

  “What’s your ETA at the Gap?”

  There was a brief pause. “Ten mikes.”

  “I’ve got what appears to be Giannini’s car in the lot. There are also—I count five personnel there. Approach unobtrusively and see if Giannini is one of them. Also keep your eye out for Riley or Lisa Cobb. If you clear all the people, I want you to check the Mustang’s plates when you get there and confirm. If it is Giannini’s car, secure the area. Also run the plates on the other cars that are parked there.”

  “Roger.”

  Master redialed, calling his other vehicles down in the visitors’ center and ordering them up to the parking lot in Newfound Gap.

  “How much fuel do you have?” he asked Ferguson.

  “About two hours worth.”

  “All right. Let’s check out this area.”

  8:45 a.m.

  The sound of a branch snapping jabbed into Riley’s consciousness. He rolled left, ignoring the pain as a stub of the tree he was hiding behind tore through his parka and into his side. He swung the muzzle of the FA-MAS, his finger light on the trigger.

  “Whoa!” Giannini yelled, holding her hands clear of her body, .44 magnum in the left hand. “I think I had the drop on you there,” she added.

  Riley cursed. “Damn, Donna, you should know better than to sneak up on me like that.” He checked his watch. “How long have you been here?”

  “Since five-thirty this morning.”

  Riley stood, and absently felt the small wound on his side. “I told you to get here after daylight. We could have walked into each other in the dark, and that—”

  “Yeah, well things happened to change the plan,” Giannini interrupted. “What did you do to your side?” she asked, walking up to him.

  “It’s nothing,” Riley said.

  “Right,” she said, reaching out and unzipping his jacket. “You manly men—it’s always nothing.” She reached under his fatigue shirt and peered at the scratch. “You’re right—it’s nothing.” She dropped the shirt and looked him in the eye. “Well, are you just going to stand there or what?”

  Riley shifted from one foot to the other, feeling slightly foolish, draped as he was with weapons and looking somewhat grungy from his night under the stars. He reached forward and gave her an awkward hug.

  “I drive all the way from Chicago and that’s all I get?” Giannini asked. She grabbed his arms and wrapped them around her. “Hold me!” The bantering was gone from her voice. “Hold me tight.”

  8:50 a.m.

  Lisa heard the voices the same time Hammer did. They both froze and looked at each other. Hammer put his finger to his lips, signaling for her to be silent, then picked up his rifle. He slid silently out of camp, heading in the direction of the sound. Lisa stayed in place for a few seconds, then followed, having no desire to stay alone in the middle of the woods.

  She tried to move as quietly as possible, but less than ten feet out of the campsite she brushed against a branch. Hammer whirled and gestured for her to go back. Lisa shook her head firmly. Hammer again pointed back and Lisa again refused. Hammer rolled his eyes and shrugged. He continued downslope.

  The voices grew closer—a man’s and a woman’s. Lisa crept up right behind Hammer’s left shoulder and peered over. Through the trees she could make out a trail cut across the mountainside about thirty feet away, the ground well worn. Whoever was making the noise was coming this way from the left. Hammer slipped the barrel of the silenced rifle over a low branch of the tree he was hiding behind.

  A woman appeared first, a large backpack towering over her head. Her long blond hair flowed over the shoulder straps, and she wore brightly colored, loose-fitting pants and a worn plaid shirt. She was laughing and looking over her shoulder. Coming up the trail behind her was a tall young man with an even larger backpack. Lisa watched as the barrel of Hammer’s rifle tracked the two. Her chest constricted as she saw Hammer’s finger curl around the trigger. The two campers were now directly in front, oblivious to the death that had t
hem in sight.

  Hammer’s finger tightened on the trigger, even as the girl let out another laugh.

  “No!” hissed Lisa.

  The muzzle moved to the right, centered on the man’s head, and stayed there until the two disappeared around a bend in the trail. Hammer slowly pulled the weapon back in and turned to look at Lisa with a blank expression.

  “You were going to kill them, weren’t you?” Lisa said quietly.

  Hammer shook his head absently, as if his mind were elsewhere, and without a word led the way back to the campsite.

  9:12 A.M.

  “It’s Giannini’s car, but she’s not in the area.”

  Master peered down at the ground, then up at the clouds, close above the blades of the helicopter. He spoke again into the portable phone. “How about the other vehicles?”

  “Negative on them. Tourists.”

  “Hold,” Master ordered. He dialed the number of his own command van. “Put Simon on.”

  Master grimaced as the voice he had grown to hate came on. “Yes?”

  “You call your boss back in Virginia and you tell him to get this road closed.”

  “What?”

  “I want your boss to call the fucking National Park Service and close the Newfound Gap Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” Master enunciated. “Got it?”

  “Yes, but I think—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you think, what you feel, what you fucking suppose, or anything,” Master snapped. “Just do it.” He hung up and glanced at Ferguson, who had not been able to hear the conversation above the sound of the aircraft and was concentrating on flying. Master recalled his men below: “Clear me a landing pad at the end of the parking lot and mark it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

  1 NOVEMBER, 9:50 a.m.