by JT Sawyer
Within twenty-four hours, Roth made certain that Kruger was found knifed to death by Serbian gang members outside the shower room. He’d paid off one of the warden’s men to make sure there were no guards in the area for several minutes during the attack. A few weeks later, the guard was found dead at home in his swimming pool from an alcohol-related head injury inflicted by Roth.
With Kruger gone, Roth’s chance for selling the plates to the buyer dissipated like smoke in the wind. The news article drew too much attention to Durango and the Kruger case, placing the U.S. Marshals office in the spotlight. Roth would find a way to sell the counterfeit plates eventually. He was in too deep now to turn around and had to play the waiting game.
Roth’s attention shot back to the present as he saw Dev step near the entrance of the canvas tent by the house. Damn, why’d she have to go meddling in all of this? Fucking Mitch Kearns is a sliver in my ass just like before! That prick waltzes up here from Phoenix last year and lays a claim on my territory, telling me and my guys how it’s going to be because he’s some shit-hot tracker. Hell, Anton might’ve gotten away and I could’ve dealt directly with him to sell the goddamned plates back to his group.
He cleared his throat and spit on the grass. Mitch got what was coming to him—probably so did the rest of those fuckers who got plucked away by whoever’s behind this. He turned to walk inside, taking one last look at Dev but trying not to let his disdain for her presence show. Just hope this doesn’t lead back to me in any way.
Chapter 17
With the first rays of dawn piercing the dense canopy of the forest, Nicholas pried open his eyes. He had wandered too far from the log shelter and had become disoriented, eventually wandering in circles for hours. In the end, he was only three hundred yards from the others but it could’ve been miles for all he knew. The space blanket that he had gotten from the backpack earlier had been his salvation, keeping the cold and rain at bay long enough to fend off severe hypothermia. He stood up from the hunched position he’d tried to sleep in under a tangle of tree roots not far from a precipitous ledge near a side canyon. His knees creaked like the rusty hinges on an old door and he arched his back in a stretch. Then he walked out to the edge of the drop-off and unzipped his fly, relieving himself. He watched the steaming liquid cascade off the cold rocks thirty feet below while ravens in cliffside nests squawked in protest.
When he finished, he stepped back a few feet and glanced over the vista of jumbled boulders below. From his waistline, he removed the one thing that had fueled his confidence during the long night—the .357 he had slipped away from Mitch while he was busy starting the fire. “Fucking Boy Scout—hate guys like that. Just a super jock who always gets the girl and has an answer for everything,” he muttered as he fondled the revolver like it was a stolen antiquity. He ran his thumb over the trigger and then flipped open the cylinder, inspecting the ends of the five remaining rounds. He spun it again and again, watching it like a gambler hovering over a roulette wheel. Nicholas shoved the cylinder back in place and held the gun out, centering the front sights on a blue jay perched on a distant branch. His arm grew fatigued and he was surprised at the weight of the weapon. He had only been shooting once in younger days with his stepfather and had walked away with an appreciation for vodka and sexist jokes that were a crucial part of the afternoon lesson in making him into a man.
With the .357 in his possession, Nicholas could march onward without the others. He would make it to the cabin and snipe any bad guys following him. Then, he’d call for help and be there to greet the reporters, the pistol tucked in his belt and a few streaks of mud adorning his face.
The blue jay in the distance stopped chirping, its monotonous birdsong ceasing to echo off the canyon walls. Nicholas scrunched his eyebrows together, trying to discern the meaning. Then he heard muffled footfalls behind him as something moved delicately over the damp pine needles.
He turned, still holding the gun at his side, but the slashing action of the blade was already driving forward into his ribcage. He gasped and curled forward, the revolver clanking on the rocks and slipping into a deep crevice. Another downward strike drove into the soft flesh above his clavicle, the tip going deep enough to penetrate the aorta. He looked into the eyes of the attacker as he staggered back, the vein in his neck throbbing as the last few pulses of blood rushed through it.
“You—why?” he garbled out, blood spewing forth from his wound.
“For Anton, you greedy fool.”
Nicholas felt himself teetering on the precipice of rocks as the glinting blade, alight in the rising sun, sliced across his trachea. Both carotids were severed and arterial blood pumped out like a broken waterhose. His network of thought and reasoning dissipated as he tumbled back over the ledge; only the last surge of pain emanating out from his failing nervous system reminded him that he was still contained in his body. For a brief second, he felt his figure lighten before it was shattered on the rocks below. His blood-rimmed eyes blinked one time with laborious effort as the blue jay flew over him and his last breath sputtered out from his lips.
Chapter 18
A continuous drip of water from the log ceiling above was tapping on the shoulder of Mitch’s wool coat as he awoke around the smoldering bed of embers in the firepit. He sat up fitfully, pressing his back into the logs behind him and regaining his awareness. He shook his head, hoping he’d wake up next to Dev and then saw that he was still trapped in this canyon hell. Dammit, I must have dozed off for a while. He looked outside the entrance and saw Daryl’s body beneath a low-hanging branch of a spruce tree. It reminded him of when a mountain lion kills a deer and buries the remains under a bed of pine needles, coming back every few hours to feed. Only what other scheme is the predator planning—and who the hell is the predator in the first place?
He glanced around the inside of the shelter but the tracks were jumbled. Affixing his gaze outside again, he could see a series of fresh prints going off in opposite directions. The tread patterns were crisp and clear without the dimpling of rain drops in them which indicated they had been made recently since the rain had ceased just before sunrise. He stood up and made his way to the exit, noticing Lisa sitting on a flat rock slab a few feet away. Her knees were tucked into her chest as her hands clutched her muddy jeans.
“Where is everyone?” said Mitch.
“Out using the bathroom. I just got back myself. Nobody wants to be too close to one another so we all headed off in different directions though Julie and Brian were talking about hiking out on their own.”
Mitch could barely hear her, her voice was so plaintive and wispy.
“You OK—I mean, you feeling a little warmer?” He could see she was devastated by her actions in treating Daryl. Her facial expression seemed wax-like, as if she was a remnant of her former self, a part of her having perished along with her patient.
“Yeah, sure.” She didn’t look at him and just lowered her forehead onto her knees.
The wet needles on the evergreen trees were sparkling like a forest chandelier as the rising sun illuminated the beads of precipitation around them. In any other setting, it would have been a miraculous sight to behold but Mitch shoved away the aesthetic image and scanned the tracks near him again, walking outward in a concentric circle. No signs of Nicholas—wonder if he pushed on or is just lost? He saw where Julie had walked off to the left, stepping over some ferns rather than stomping them. Brian had walked straight ahead, his stride faster than usual as he plowed through a row of wild lilies, their purple heads trampled into the mud.
Mitch went back inside the log structure and drank the remaining water from his bottle then tried to choke down some food from an MRE but it tasted like chalk, making his stomach more unsettled. He went back out to Lisa and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“I need your help, before the others return.”
“I can’t help anyone.”
“Yes, you can. There isn’t much time. Come with me.” He held her arm and moti
oned for her to follow him behind the log structure. He needed to remove the implant in his back and felt like she was the only person he could rely on. Given the events which had unfolded since he met her, he was sure Lisa wasn’t involved in this crime.
When they were far enough from the shelter, he sat down on a mossy log and removed his jacket then his three layers of shirts until he was bare-chested. “You need to pry out whatever is in my back.”
“What? We don’t even know what it is. It could be something that can kill you. Besides, I don’t have a scalpel.”
From his coat pocket, he removed the sliver of glass that he had collected earlier near the metal speaker. “Now you have a scalpel.”
She pushed his hand away. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m the last person you want working on you.”
He held her wrist, gently squeezing. “That wasn’t your doing, Lisa. Whoever is behind this killed Daryl. It wasn’t you. I happen to think you’re a good person.”
She offered a lilted smile, her eyes showing some life again. “Thanks, but I…”
“Look, if this is a tracking device, and I believe that’s what it is, then I need to remove it so I can have a chance at getting the upper hand today. Having them know my whereabouts is not going to help with that.” He moved her arm back towards her. “We don’t have much time before the others return so I need your precision surgical skills to do this. Besides, I ain’t double-jointed.” He winked at her to lighten the mood.
“Alright, but I’m not going to be able to cover the incision with anything. This is real caveman stuff we’re doing here.”
“Already got that handled,” he said, pulling out a golf-ball-sized glob of spruce sap that he had collected on the walk over. “This will make a good improvised bandaid, plus it’s antiseptic. It’s an old mountain-man solution.”
“You constantly amaze me,” she said as she stood behind him and began looking over the incision site. “This is going to be a tiny cut and shouldn’t be too bad but get ready for a considerable sting.”
He gave her a thumbs-up to proceed. Mitch saw her shadow behind him and felt the weight of his decision to be in such a defenseless position. He hoped he was right about her. He’d made his mind up though and put his fate in her hands. He thought about how weathered her fingers looked when he first met her and how he never would have pegged her as a physician then.
“You must have horses—or do a lot of yardwork,” he said, trying to take his mind off the pain as she sliced into his skin. “My hands used to look like yours when I worked on a ranch fulltime in younger days. I mean, no offense, I actually admire that in a woman. It means she can handle herself and ain’t afraid of hard work.”
“That’s a funny sorta compliment to toss my way when I’m holding a primitive blade to your back.”
He winced as she squeezed out the pill-sized object and handed it over his shoulder. “Guess it wasn’t an explosive, eh?”
He grunted a reply, trying to ignore the discomfort while studying the miniscule device. “Definitely some kind of GPS tracker. I’ve seen larger versions of these used on our attack dogs in the military.” He pulled it closer, wiping it clear of blood and scrutinizing the edges, which were lined with tiny wire filaments. “This also looks like it has some electrical pulse that can be sent through it.”
“Like a Taser?”
“Could be—who knows.” He tucked it into his pants pocket as Lisa finished up coating the tiny wound with pine sap. Mitch donned his layers and stood up.
“Thanks, doc. You’re a helluva lady and a surgeon for what it’s worth.”
She sloshed her soiled hands through a puddle of water. “That means a lot,” she said, looking down at her furrowed fingers. “And it’s horses, by the way. They’re my one true passion in life that makes me forget about the rest of the world.”
Mitch nodded at her. “I know the feeling. Nothing like being under open skies on your favorite steed.”
They began to walk back to the shelter. Mitch stopped halfway. “Return to the others. I’ll be back in a little bit. There’s something I have to take care of first. If anybody asks, just say you haven’t seen me.”
He left and trotted into the forest then deposited the GPS tracker under a fallen spruce tree that had a large burl deformity growing off its side. This would make it easy for him to identify the hiding spot on his return trip. For twenty minutes, he walked in an expanding concentric circle around the area, looking for the tracks of anyone outside of their small group and for any indication of Nicholas. The rain had done a thorough job of erasing everything—animal, insect, or human. He felt even further stripped of his abilities in not being able to read the ground, something he so took for granted and had always relied on to analyze his surroundings. Now, he was operating blind.
As he pushed out further in an arc away from the log shelter, he came across something shiny glinting from behind a bush. Moving cautiously, he skirted near the edge of a precipice and found a crumpled space blanket jammed into the base of an elderberry bush. He looked to his right and saw some signs of transference on the rocks—the sign a tracker looks for when mud or debris from one surface transfers from the heels of the fugitive onto the rocks or logs. It’s the next best thing to locating an actual boot print and points to recent movement.
Mitch crept towards the edge of the drop-off, following the mud transference, then saw some droplets of blood on the leaves of a mountain mahogany shrub. Another foot away was a large swath of bright red blood sprayed onto the boulders, like a water balloon full of it had dropped from above. He inched over to the last rock jutting out over the precipice and saw Nicholas’ shattered body on the rocks below. Mitch glanced back over his shoulder and then to either side to make sure no one was in the area then he scrutinized the dead prosecutor’s corpse, noting the knife wounds on the throat and chest. Mitch still didn’t see any signs of foot traffic which meant the attacker must have killed Nicholas before the rain ended shortly before sunrise.
He suddenly turned at the sound of movement behind him but slipped on the still-damp blood coating the rocks. He started to drop over the edge but grabbed the thin branches of mountain mahogany. Desperately clinging to the rim, Mitch felt the diminutive branches cracking as he began sliding along the slick face of wet granite. There was nothing left to grab and he feverishly clawed at the rounded lip along the rocky edge. He thought about the irony of having the rope around his shoulders that he had released Nicholas from yesterday.
“Shit, this can’t be happening.” He clutched a small fingerhold in the rocky surface but it wasn’t enough to sustain his weight. In another second his grip weakened and his finger started to give way. Then he felt something yank on his wrist and looked up to see Julie holding on to him. He was shocked to see the petite woman as she held on with one hand while grasping a large juniper branch jutting over the edge.
“Hold on, I got ya.”
Mitch was able to swing his other arm up to a contoured section of the rim which afforded more fingerholds then he hoisted himself up until his shoulders crested the edge. Julie grabbed his coat sleeve and yanked him up until he was secure. Mitch collapsed back onto the ground, sucking in the cool morning air while realizing how little sand he had left in his hourglass.
“Shit, this trek just keeps getting better,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows and staring at Julie. “Sure glad you appeared when you did.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said, flinging her damp hair back over her shoulder and then realizing she had blood on her arms. “What the hell.”
“It’s from Nicholas—he’s lying down below. Somebody hacked him up with a blade before shoving him over.”
Julie frantically tried to rub it off while scooching away from Mitch. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She reached down for a rock then got up on one knee like a linebacker waiting to sprint forward.
“Relax, he was my least favorite person in this group—maybe even the world actually—but I s
ure as hell didn’t kill him.”
“Then how did he end up there?”
“His knife wounds were on the front of his body from what I could tell so he must have been facing his attacker then fallen backwards.”
Julie began swiveling her head to the right and left, her eyes frantic. “Brian is the only person with a knife. He’s one of them. We have to get out of here. I knew we shouldn’t have stayed here this long.”
Mitch stood up and shook out his sore arms. He still wasn’t convinced someone else was out here but Brian had emerged with even greater certainty as the prime candidate. “You’re right, we should get moving. Let’s go back and get the others.”
“You walk in front of me,” Julie said.
“If you thought I was the killer, then why save me?”
“Look, I don’t know what to fucking think anymore. I just heard something scrambling around on the rocks and then saw you dangling there.” She rubbed a handful of wet leaves along her blood-stained sleeves. “I didn’t know it was a goddamned crime scene.”
Mitch proceeded ahead. When they arrived at the shelter Brian was filling his water bottle in a nearby puddle while Lisa was scrunched inside by the dwindling campfire.
“You seen Nicholas at all?” said Julie, palming the rock as she stood a ways back from Brian.
“No, you?”
Julie shot a sideways glance at Mitch as if hoping he’d do the rest of the interrogation. He moved up a few feet, pointing back to the distant ledge. “We just found Nicholas at the bottom of a cliff. He was stabbed to death then shoved over is my guess.” Mitch looked over Brian’s hands and shirt sleeves for blood but only saw streaks of dirt.
Brian stood up, his mouth agape. “Hey, look, what I said last night to him was just talk. He got on my nerves after the way he treated everybody here.”
