Camouflage

by Aaron Pogue

  Her eyes were stinging from the strain of staring at shadows, so she made herself look away. She dropped her gaze to the ground above the ledge, much closer, and she could see enough of it to know what to expect.

  The ground was hard-packed earth here, relatively smooth. The trees were tall, with thick trunks and spaced wide apart. There was little in the way of ground cover, beyond the thin grass, so she didn't have to worry about branches crackling to give her away.

  It was too open, though. She could see that instantly. Her neck and shoulders were tense again, her stomach balled into a solid knot. She didn't want to move.

  But this was her only plan. She'd spent every minute they'd given her to get here. She cast her eyes up to the thick black shadows above, one more time, then lifted the shotgun carefully to the top of the ledge. She worried it would clatter, but she found a tuft of grass to rest it on and let go gently.

  She moved with an exaggerated slowness then, like a cat burglar in one of the old movies her dad had loved so much. She raised up on her toes, pressed the palms of both hands down on the top of the ledge, and lifted herself up six inches, eight, while her arms screamed in protest.

  That was enough to kick her left leg up and catch the edge. She got her knee up, and the tip of her shoe, but between them they were enough for her to leverage herself at the hip. Up and onto the even ground, and out in the wide open.

  It was here. She checked the map in her head as she carefully retrieved the shotgun. Right here. One of these trees, but she couldn't say which one. A pinpoint on the map still represented fifteen, twenty trees in the real world, and the canopy above was still inscrutable.

  She felt like it would be a little ways in. She had nothing to go on but instinct, but that felt right. So she started moving forward, placing each step with excruciating care, grimacing at every rustle of her oversized clothes. Even her breathing—slow and measured—seemed a horrible rumble in her ears.

  Then she heard a crinkle, the sound of a foil wrapper like the ones Faye had stuffed in her backpack. She froze in place, every muscle taut. Her eyes flashed to the ground at her feet, searching for the offending wrapper.

  There was none. Instead she saw motion, a shadow thrown from above. A line too perfect to be the work of nature. Instinctively, her head snapped up, to the trees right above her.

  And there he was. Wade, monstrous and terrible. He was in a stand twenty feet off the ground, maybe four paces ahead. He was on his feet, staring past her toward the west. Toward the ridge. She'd guessed right. He had a scope trained on the distant pass, one eye hovering to look through it and a candy bar clutched in his left hand, halfway to his mouth.

  Her motion gave her away. He saw it in his periphery and swung toward her.

  She was faster. She raised the shotgun in one swift motion and pulled the trigger.

  And missed.

  He laughed down at her, bringing his rifle to bear. She forced herself one step forward. Forced her heart to calm while she watched Wade's rifle swing home. Forced herself to aim down the sights as they'd taught her during her firearms training way, way too long ago. It's easier to miss with a shotgun at twenty-five feet than most people think, they'd said. You've still got to aim it.

  She did. Tight, right on his face, and his eyes locked on hers. She pulled her trigger first, and did to him as he'd done to Jim Dade.

  13. Doppelgangers

  Wade fell out of the tree, a massive pile of meat, and hit the ground with a solid thud. Katie bounced on her toes, ready to run, but the thought of Jim stopped her. She cast a quick glance to right and left, and realized she could see clearly now. The world was still a wash of grays, but color wouldn't be far behind. Outside the canopy of the trees, it was already well and truly dawn.

  She saw no one, so she moved quickly. They would have heard the gunshots. They would know where Wade's tree stand was. And that hardly mattered. In sixteen minutes, they could just get the information from Hathor.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Five minutes since she'd crouched at the ledge. It had felt like hours, crossing the ground, searching. She looked back now, in the thin light of dawn, and realized she could make her way back to the ledge in six long strides. It would be a matter of seconds.

  It wouldn't have gained her the advantage, though. Slow and careful, she thought. That's what got her through. She glanced at the watch again, no change, and then bent to search Wade's pockets.

  She found nothing but another soft candy bar and a handful of rifle cartridges in a jacket pocket. The rifle itself lay just beyond his outstretched arm, and she found another cartridge still in the chamber. She could see a little cardboard box up in the deer stand that probably held more, and a half-finished bottle of Coke.

  Her eyes drifted back to the rifle. She hesitated for a moment, torn between several courses of action, and it was the scope that decided her. Vengeance was just as tempting as a bolt to safety, but her hunger for more complete information won out.

  She snatched the gun up, and swung it immediately off to the west. The stink of Wade Hartman clung to the weapon, and as she lowered her cheek to the stock to peek down the scope, she felt several warm drops of his blood stain her skin.

  Her attention was all on the distant view through the scope. She backed away, sliding slowly to the left to clear her view, and ended up backing right up to the tree Wade had fallen out of. The stand would have given her a much clearer view, but she had a good angle from here. It felt like a long time while she oriented herself, but once she did she was able to scan the ridge quickly. It was empty.

  She tracked down and to the left and found the ledge above Jim's corpse, just barely visible from here. She'd chosen a good hiding spot. Another thirty seconds ticked by, a minute, while she looked left and right for any sign of movement—of hunters, or of hunted.

  Then she swung way to the right and took several long steps forward to get an angle down the ridge. She trained the gun right on the bunker—right where she knew it had to be—and she had to stare at the mottled green and gray for a moment, uncomprehending, before she remembered the camouflage canvas cover.

  A sigh escaped her. Then a memory swam up, sharp and clear, and she fell to a knee on the hard ground. She braced herself, holding the gun to her shoulder, and after a moment's searching she found the white orb of the satellite uplink. Maybe two feet across, maybe a third of a mile away.

  The gun dipped and dived—tiny movements, but at that distance it threw her target all over the place. She fell forward onto her stomach, stabilized the gun on the ground ahead of her, and sighted in. Then she peeked down at the folds of the canvas below it, looking for some indication of the wind. Right to left, but light. She adjusted, up and to the right. She let her breath out, and squeezed the trigger.

  The gunshot was a booming thunder in the morning silence. The rifle kicked against her shoulder harder than she'd anticipated, but she steadied it and searched with the scope again, back to her target.

  The uplink was still whole and perfect. She saw no sign where her shot might have actually gone, either—no way to correct her aim on another shot. Mostly, she thought about the time it would take to do the job and all the noise she was making at a known location.

  She scanned the woods below again, looking for any sign of motion. She checked the ridge, too, but the morning was still quiet. She checked her watch. Six minutes until the recorders came back up. They were biding their time.

  She didn't bother retrieving the ammunition but took the rifle with her just to deprive them of it. Five steps took her back to pick up the shotgun, scooping it up at a run, and six more got her to the ledge. She jumped down and hit the ground running. Past the fallen trees she found the signs of her passage earlier, and checked her watch as she ran.

  Five fifty-five. The two weapons were slowing her, so twenty feet into the thick brush she'd waded through before, she turned and chucked the rifle as far downhill as she could get it. It arced, spearing through the air
and stabbed down through the leaves and vines of a dense thicket, disappearing from sight.

  Then she crossed the shotgun in front of her, elbows bent tight, and ran on across the hillside. She went mostly north, leaping over rocks and fallen limbs and forcing her way through anything smaller. She broke through the treeline and skittered down the rocky slope into the bed of the creek, right to the spot where she'd left Eddie. She arrived with one minute to spare.

  They wouldn't know she'd killed Wade. That came to her as she knelt there. They might suspect it when he didn't take their calls, but with him ghosted they wouldn't know for sure. Better for her if they found her somewhere she'd been before, instead of camped out right under Wade's perch. Better for her if they underestimated her.

  While she worked through her reasons, she also moved. With a frantic efficiency she ripped open the backpack and scrabbled in its contents for the shotgun shells. She dumped the spent cartridges and reloaded it with two more, then set the gun off to one side. After a moment's thought, she yanked the tarp out of the bag and threw it over the gun. It wasn't much of a disguise, but at least she wouldn't be visibly armed. That might help.

  She turned back to the remains of the survival gear Faye had given her, slapping through it with her left hand, eyes flashing. Another protein bar and granola bar flew into her hoodie pockets, but the packets of oatmeal she left on the ground with the chlorine tablets. She snatched an empty water bottle and dunked it in the creek, then drained it while she filled the other.

  She capped it off and stowed it in her hoodie pocket, too. She was just doing the same with the second bottle when her headset beeped. An instant later her watch jabbed the back of her wrist, delivering painkillers, and played another error message in her headset. It needed a refill.

  The watch's ministrations barely registered. Katie jerked the handheld from her pocket and snapped quickly, "Hathor, show me location information for me. Details to my handheld. Thanks!"

  And there she was. A string of numbers, but she touched a control to show the location in HaRRE, and it showed her standing perfectly still in the middle of the woods, on a steeply sloping hillside. She spun the camera and looked back uphill and instantly recognized the ridge into the valley. HaRRE had her half a mile away to the south and west, and while she watched Reed appeared right behind her, close enough to touch, and Phillips right beside him.

  She whirled in place, a smile brightening her face even though she knew better, but there was no one on the rocky creekbed behind her. They were all three fake, displaced just to deceive Avery. Just like she'd hoped.

  Her smile lingered, even though Reed wasn't there for her. She was back online now. Painkillers and stimulants were flowing through her system, too, but what really gave her strength was the knowledge that she wasn't alone.

  "Thanks, Martin," she whispered.

  She was barely surprised at all to hear him whisper right back. "No problem, Katie. I'm glad you're alive."

  Then it was Avery's turn to speak her name, dark and threatening. She only had a moment but before she connected the call she said, "Avery's calling again. Keep quiet, Martin, and keep on the line. And get us into the trees! Out of sight."

  He gave some sound of assent, and she shushed him, then said clearly, "Connect me."

  She had a moment to wonder if he'd noticed the extra Ghost Targets agents before he spoke. When he did, his voice dripped a lazy confidence. "That's the second time you've surprised me, Agent Pratt. You're a clever, clever girl."

  "There are more surprises in store," she said with bravado, and watched in HaRRE as her doppelganger led Reed's and Phillips's off the path and into the trees, moving parallel to the bunker. She nodded to herself, but she didn't move. She needed to talk to Martin again.

  "Oh, don't be too confident," Avery said. "After all, we still own these woods. Ken and Wade are advancing on your position even now. All that's changed is the number of federal agents who are going to die in these woods today."

  Katie opened the wrapper on her protein bar, letting him hear the sound of her taking a bite, the unconcern as she chewed it over before answering. "You know," Katie said, thoughtful, "you've got yourself a pretty cool trick here. Really. SpectreShields...they're quite a toy."

  "You have no idea," Avery said.

  Katie shrugged. "Still. All that does is hide you from Hathor. You don't seem to have given much thought to the real situation here."

  "Oh, I've thought of everything," Avery said, trying to keep control of the conversation, but Katie wouldn't give it to him.

  She cut him off, still perfectly casual. "What you're forgetting...." She paused to take a drink from one of her bottles. Her head felt a lot clearer than it had since she last left Faye's place. She frowned but pressed on with her bluff. "What you're forgetting is that we're Ghost Targets, Avery. All we do is deal with people like you."

  He sneered back at her. "There have never been people like us. We're a new breed. And we know all about Ghost Targets. You don't have so many tricks, and you are not as clever as you think. Ken's closing on your position right...now."

  Her skin prickled in sudden goosebumps, and she hit the ground. Right out in the open, in the middle of the creekbed, she was an easy target. As easy as Eddie had been two days ago. An instant later she heard the shot, the faraway crack of a rifle, echoing up out of the valley floor, and it took her a moment to understand. Then she had to fight not to laugh.

  She borrowed a touch of the fear she'd felt a moment earlier, let it into her voice. "You missed," she said. "And we won't give you another easy shot like that."

  "You can hardly stop us," Avery said.

  "We are Ghost Targets," Katie said, desperately hoping Martin would be able to back up her claims. "We don't need modified SpectreShields or satellite uplinks on silly little poles to do our job, Avery Dean. We just do it."

  And right on cue, Katie disappeared from HaRRE. Reed and Phillips blinked out one moment behind her. She heard Avery's gasp of shock on the other end and smiled to herself. "We'll be in touch, Avery. I promise. For now...goodbye."

  The connection died, and Katie had to stifle a victorious whoop. The one she heard from Martin lifted her spirit, though. She smiled again. "That was good work, Martin," she said. "You think fast."

  "It's everything I can do to keep up with you, girl." He sounded tired, and she realized he'd been awake as long as she had.

  "Where are you?" she asked. She looked around, kicked the tarp aside, and retrieved the shotgun. She scooped up the box of shells, too, but left the rest where it was. Speed was more important now than ever.

  "I'm at the hotel," he said as Katie stepped over the creek and pushed through into the brush on the other side. She found a narrow, twisting deer path right away and took it north until she could find a better route. "I didn't want to tip off Avery while he was watching my other persona, so I headed somewhere populated where I could turn the cycling back on."

  She frowned, trying to remember how his identity ghosting worked, and then gave it up. "That's fine," she said. "And Reed and Phillips?"

  "They should be near there," he said. "They showed up half an hour back. I got in touch with Reed and told him some of what was going on, and he and Phillips rerouted straight to the logging road."

  "Good," Katie said, then she stopped and frowned. "Wait. What do you mean 'should be'?"

  "Well, I can't track them, Katie. As far as HaRRE's concerned, they're in the woods right next to that bunker."

  "Oh." Katie said. "I thought that was just...oh." She thought for a moment, and sighed. "Martin, you've done the same thing to them Avery did to me for the last two days. Their car is going to be dead on the side of the road, they won't be able to access maps or routes—"

  "No, they can," Martin said. "I mean...yeah. The car's stopped. Unless...." She heard him thinking, heard him shake his head. "No, I'm sure they're fine. It's just the location information I've supplanted. That's why you and I can talk."

 
; "Of course." She started walking again. "But they're on foot," she said, thinking it through. "Somewhere along the highway. Near the logging road."

  "I could look into their record to see how far they got," Martin said, "but I spoofed that, too, to make it believable in case he checked."

  "That's okay," Katie said, caught up in her thoughts. "That's good, Martin."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't have a lot of time to work it out. I tried to think through everything—"

  She smiled. "It's okay. You did wonderful. Here. Can you get video feed from my headset recorder?"

  "I disabled it, but I can turn it on for a moment," he said, sounding uncertain.

  "Do it," she said, and pulled out the map. She unfolded it all the way, spread it out on the ground beneath her feet, and pulled up the video feed on her own handheld so she could make sure she got it all. "You see the map?"

  "Yep," Martin said. "If you'll just scan over it left to right...no, pull back. Stand up. Good. Now, left to right, and I think I can reconstruct it. I know I've got something—"

  "Good," Katie said, doing as he'd instructed, then she knelt back down and moved her hands across the map. "Bunker," she said, touching its mark, then she traced a ring around the valley, following the contours on the topographical map. "And this is the valley it's in. They can get in here, using either of these routes, but that's a vulnerable spot."

  "What's your plan, Katie? Do you want me to connect you to them?"

  "No," she said. "There's no time. Avery's got Faye—"

  "I thought he let her go," Martin said.

  "That's exactly what he wanted us to think," she said. "I think he was lying. I think there's something else altogether going on here."

  "What?" Martin asked. Before she could answer him her headset beeped and she heard Avery speak her name.

  She hesitated a moment before declining the connection. "There's no time," she told Martin. "We've put a scare into him, and he's got Faye. And Eddie." She shrugged at that, but a frown pulled at her lips. She didn't know how to count him. "If we spook him too much, he might do something stupid."