Deadfall (7 page)

He asked,“How does someone with your money, your family, come to . . . to
this
?” He gestured at the Hummer, at the town.

Declan stared at him. “You want the George Mallory answer or something more profound?”

When Mallory had been asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, his famous answer was “Because it's there.” Tom thought Declan meant “Because I can.” If his motivations were that crass, how could any answer satisfy Tom's curiosity?

Declan continued. “Now, do you want to know the rules of the game? Or do you want to talk family?”

That
Tom definitely did not want to do. If Declan's research was as thorough as he had implied, he must know about Laura and Dillon. Was the question a threat to bring them into the equation, not in conversation but in person?

“What rules?”Tom asked.

“Actually, there aren't any.You run, we try to kill you. No, wait.We do kill you, but you run as though you have a chance.”

“And if I get away?”

“You won't.”

“If . . .”

Declan sighed heavily. He waved to Kyrill, the brilliant game programmer, and Bad, champion of the board. From opposite ends of the street, they obeyed, moving toward him, lugging their weapons.To Tom, he said, “Do you recognize their guns?”

Tom eyed them again as they approached. He tilted his head toward Kyrill. “Fifty-cal sniper's rifle. Some hunters use it.”

“And the other one?”

Tom shook his head.

“It's a variation of the Gewehr G11. Uses casingless ammo. That means it weighs the same as a fully loaded M16, six pounds, but it holds three times as many rounds.”

Bad stepped in, heard Declan's words, and pulled a long rectangular magazine off the top of the weapon. He held it up for Tom to appreciate. The bullets inside were square pegs. It reminded him of a PEZ dispenser.

“When it shoots a bullet,” Declan continued, “the slug comes out of the barrel and the rest of the cartridge ignites and is gone.There's nothing to eject in preparation for the next round.That makes it an extraordinarily fast-firing gun. The designers studied the dynamics of firing bursts of three rounds, a common pattern for automatic weapons.They found that the first shot's recoil causes the next two bullets to go high.”

Declan spoke in such a deadpan voice,Tom wondered if the man was capable of emotion. More troubling was his suspicion that Declan did indeed experience feelings, but the events required to tap them were both extreme and intense. He wouldn't want to be around when Declan needed a jolt of emotion.

Too late,
he thought.

Bad slipped the magazine back onto the gun. It ran the length of what Tom assumed was a barrel.

“This thing fires at a rate of two thousand rounds a minute.That's three rounds in one-tenth of a second.Three rounds before the shooter even feels a recoil, so each bullet hits its target.”

He gestured to Bad, who glanced around, spotted a target, and aimed.

Tom realized the gun was pointed at Beggar, one of the town's innumerable stray dogs. The bony mutt was a block away, sniffing at the curb. Before Tom could protest, the weapon coughed, a quick, throat-clearing sound. Beggar spun and flipped, much of his motion lost in a mist of blood and fur. He hit the curb and didn't move, not even a twitch. Tom had no doubt all three bullets had found their mark.

Bad continued to hold his aim on the animal, ready should a fresh burst prove necessary. After a few seconds he lowered the gun.

Declan said, “This weapon alone narrows your chances to somewhere between zero and none.” His smile was a wire drawing taut. “And it's nothing. A Super Soaker next to what else we have.”

Tom's eyes moved to the burning car.

Declan asked, “Still think you have a chance?”

Tom looked hard into his eyes. “Always.”

“Okay. If you somehow manage to elude us, to hide where we can't find you or you actually make it to civilization, then you're free.We won't kill anyone in retaliation. Promise.”

“What kind of head start do I get?”

He looked at his watch. Instead of answering, he called to the girl. She came to the doorway of the general store, a folded magazine in one hand, a bitten Ho Ho in the other. There was a smear of chocolate on her lips.

“It's time. Go get the others.Tell Pru and Julie to make sure nobody can get out. They should have it all secure over there by now.”

She gamboled past Tom, not offering him even the briefest glance.

A minute later, the community center door banged open, releasing Julian, Pruitt, and Cort.

“A head start?” Declan said, as though no time had passed since the question. “How does five minutes sound?”

“I think an hour's fair.You want to be fair?”

“No, I like five minutes.”

He swiveled his head to make eye contact with each of his five sycophants, standing in a semicircle around them. Each gave a nod, apparently already apprised of the game and its rules.

“Ready?” he said to Tom with a wink. “Go.”

8

Hutch, Phil, Terry, and David
found the area where Franklin had suggested they set up camp.

“Yeah,”Terry said approvingly.

There was a flat, grassy patch, which Hutch thought of as the
stage
. It was here they would make camp. Surrounding it on three sides, like side and rear theatrical curtains, were tall evergreens, mostly fir, with a smattering of birch to make it more richly textured. These trees clothed a low berm that nearly encircled the camp area, protecting it from the wind. Stage right was an opening in the trees, a trail that converged with the path leading to the helicopter meadow.

On the open side of the campsite or stage, which faced northwest, boulders paved a gentle slope down to the Straight River. The water here was not much more than a wide, fast stream. At the base of the slope, a natural pool had formed, ideal for cleaning fish, their clothes, themselves. Upstream and downstream, the current rushed over steps of rocks, serenading the campers with one of nature's finest songs: the low susurration of moving water.

Adding to his appreciation of the bivouac, Hutch didn't see a bear trail anywhere near. He did spot a few widow-makers—standing dead trees that could blow down on them if they camped too close—but the area was large enough to avoid them.

As usual, they had brought only two tents, which cut down on gear, helped each tent stay warm at night, and ensured that a bear couldn't drag off one of them without the others knowing about it. Hutch selected a spot to pitch the tent he and Phil would use and started clearing it of twigs, pinecones, and rocks. Phil pulled their tent from its pouch and began snapping together the flexible poles that would arc over it, giving structure to the material.Terry and David debated the merits of three possible locations.

A scorched circle where grass and dirt gave way to rock showed the spot where previous campers had laid a fire. Following the rules of Canadian backwoods camping, the last users had broken up the pit, redistributing the perimeter stones into the surrounding landscape. Even the ashes and unconsumed wood had been scattered, either by the campers or the weather.

Having camped together for seven years, the four men worked mostly in silence, but efficiently. In forty minutes they had erected the tents, built a fire pit, gathered kindling, and hung the food from a high branch away from foraging animals.

Phil headed for the naturally refrigerated river, a case of beer in hand. As he descended the slope, he opened a can.

“We heard that!” David called. He had draped his earbuds over his shoulders.

“Hear this,” Phil answered, but no sound followed, thankfully.

Hutch knelt before the pit and wedged a thick branch into the rocks so it angled up over the center. He dug into a nylon sack, removed a well-used teakettle, and hung it off the tip of the branch.

Phil came huffing back up the slope. “I'm not looking forward to those freeze-dried meals,” he said.

“I think you'll be surprised,” David said.

“Man, even that crap's good eating for me these days.” Terry shook his head sadly. “Used to eat at Elway's twice a week.”

“Oh yeah, they got good grub,” Phil agreed. “Pricey, but
man
. . .”

Terry smiled. “The valets knew my Jag. They'd run in to tell the maître d' I'd arrived before I'd even get to them. I tipped them a twenty and they'd keep the car right there, outside the door. The bankruptcy trustee wouldn't let me keep that car, too much equity. I don't think Elway's would keep the car I'm driving now right out front.”

“Could be worse,” Phil said. “Look at
me
.”

Terry gave him a dismissive wave. “Buy an exercise bike.You'll be fine.”

“I don't have a
job,
” Phil reminded him. He pulled off his glasses and began cleaning them with his shirttail. “I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. Fat and broke. Does it get any worse?”

“Lighten up,” Hutch said. He returned to the loose tree stump he had found earlier to sit on. “Who said, ‘Where there's life, there's hope'?”

“Terence,” David answered.

He had turned Hutch into a quotation geek back in fifth grade. It drove the other two batty.

“Terry?” Phil said, an unsure smile on his face.

“The ancient Roman playwright.”

“Yeah, but you know the kind of plays
he
wrote?” Hutch asked.

David nodded, knowingly.

“Comedies,” answered Hutch. “He never wrote a tragedy or drama. You can't quote a comedian to make a serious point about life. May's well quote George Carlin at your mother's funeral.”

David ignored him. “How about ‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,' or ‘Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.' Profound, right? Probably close to the way things really are.” He raised his eyebrows at Hutch, looked to Terry and Phil. “Shakespeare—from his
comedies
.”

Terry jabbed a finger at him. “I got one for you: ‘The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.'”

Everyone laughed.

David said, “Okay, okay, I've heard that before but I just can't remember . . .”

Hutch rubbed the stubble on his chin. “So who is it?”

Phil dug into another duffel and produced a collapsible canvas chair. Hutch had asked him to leave it home, but Phil said life was too short to do without some things. Besides, he had purchased it from Cabela's, which proved the thing's camp-worthiness. He unfolded it and eased down. The aluminum frame groaned. He said, “Hutch, didn't you interview George Carlin?”

“Nah, that was Dane Cook, before he got big and before I started focusing on locals.”

Twice a week Hutch profiled people who exemplified the spirit of Colorado. Housewives, entrepreneurs, celebrities, ranchers, farmers, average Joes. The only criteria were residency; an achievement illustrating tenacity, resilience, or the prevailing over great odds; and a story that piqued Hutch's interest. For what turned out to be one of his most popular columns, he'd interviewed a man who'd spent twenty-three years erecting towers and running power cables through the Rockies' most treacherous terrain.The guy had survived four separate bouts of frostbite, cumulatively losing only three toes, two fingers, and part of one ear. He'd fended off a mountain lion and two bears. And tumbled over three cliffs, one of which had plunged him into the North Platte River. He'd traveled through three miles of rapids before a whitewater rafting guide snagged him and pulled him out.

Most stories were not as dramatic but were nevertheless inspiring. One chronicled a woman's fight against an ill wind that was battering her life. After her husband's untimely death, she'd faced foreclosure and bankruptcy. By sheer elbow grease and a previously untapped business mind, she had turned her property into what a half-dozen travel publications agreed was the nation's premier dude ranch.Then there were the Eagle Scout who'd fought off a Bigfootlike creature—probably a bear—and saved a troop of Cub Scouts . . . the restaurateur who'd battled street thugs and naysayers to ignite a revitalization of Denver's East Village . . . the Palmer Lake woman who had created a thriving business selling hand-painted trash baskets on eBay.

The variety had given Hutch an appreciation for the struggles, both catastrophic and trivial, every breathing soul faced just to get from one day to the next. It had also educated him in countless fields of endeavors. Some knowledge had proven to be immediately practical: the dude ranch had given him, Janet, and the kids one of their best vacations ever; a contractor he'd interviewed had also been an avid fly fisherman and had pointed Hutch to some of the greatest holes he'd ever fished; and he'd switched from a compound bow to a recurve after profiling a renowned bow hunter. He'd bagged his first bull elk on his next hunting excursion, a feat he credited to the recurve's lighter weight and quieter release.

A pebble struck his cheek, snapping him back to the present.

Terry was grinning at him. “Looked like you were dozing,” he said. Sitting, he stretched his body up, rolling his shoulders back. He had the lean, athletic body of a cyclist. He swam at the Y—
not
at the Denver Athletic Club anymore, he'd pointed out more than once—and played an occasional game of racquetball, but the build was largely genetic. “Can't have that.”

Phil huffed. “All the way here, and we
still
have to deal with
you
.” Terry shrugged. “Such is life.”

Hutch and David grinned at each other. In unison, they said, “And it's getting sucher and sucher.”

Terry tossed pebbles at both of them.

9

He,d been on the run
an hour now—though “running” was not really what Tom Fuller was doing. More accurately, he had darted from one hiding place to another. At first he had zigzagged west, then tacked back around to within a block of Provincial Street, thinking he'd find a lone gunman to ambush with a crack on the head or . . . or
something
. But the few times he'd spotted them, between houses, through bushes, they'd been in pairs or in threes. For the most part, they had seemed content to mill around Provincial, as though they expected him to remain in some imaginary arena that kept them from having to venture too far. He'd considered commandeering a vehicle. Any of his neighbors would have accommodated his request. But then he'd remembered Roland Emery. His car had not saved him. Besides, the roads out of town made doing somersaults a faster proposition. A car would do nothing but make him a bigger target. He had not sought refuge in a house because he didn't want to put the residents in jeopardy. If Declan modeled his town-taking on Nazis—
What do you think they did to keep the townsfolk in line?
—chances are he'd make examples out of anyone who helped Tom.