Even Steven (47 page)

Dropping the phone into its cradle, she turned to Gardner. "Get your coat. And grab a shotgun. I think this evening is about to get really exciting."

The Bell Jet Ranger was all over the sky. Approaching the Blue Ridge, the fine, chilly weather of northern Virginia had quickly turned to shit. What had once been clear, starry skies now looked like thick, gray ink as the heavy clouds reflected the chopper's blinking strobes.

Russell sat in the back this time, watching over the shoulders of the two pilots for some signs of panic on their part, all the while trying to decide which direction his supper would ultimately travel. "You're sure it's safe to be up here, right?" he asked over the intercom. It felt slightly unfair to him that the pilots both wore helmets while all he got was a pair of green plastic headphones with a boom mike.

The uniformed cop on the right-the command pilot-half-turned as he keyed his intercom. "Agent Coates, you need to relax. I promise that neither one of us has a death wish, okay? If conditions go below minimum, we'll turn around. It's a little rougher than usual, but you're perfectly safe."

Russell loved the way pilots practiced the art of understatement. And the edge of annoyance was not lost on him. They were flying through this crap as a favor to him. If they were in fact unnerved by the weather, his whining wasn't making it any better.

According to his latest information, Tim Burrows was out of surgery, and the doctors had sent out word to the vigil in the waiting room that things had gone well, and that there was every reason to be optimistic. His flawless physical conditioning made it all the better. Russell said a little prayer of thanks.

As a gust of wind rolled the helicopter sharply to the right, Russell shot out a hand to grab the Jesus bar. Suddenly, he felt as if he were field-testing Dramamine.

"Agent Coates," the pilot's voice cracked in his earphones.

"Still here."

"Okay, I've got a call for you here. I'm gonna patch it through to your headset. Just talk like you would on the intercom. Remember to push the talk button."

If there was one task in the world at which Russell was an expert, it was talking on radios. He heard a brief burst of static, followed yet again by the pilot's voice: "Go ahead, Charleston Center."

"Am I speaking to Special Agent Russell Coates?" The new voice sounded scratchy and mechanical. "That's affirmative. Who is this?"

"This is the air traffic control center in Charleston, sir, with an urgent message from your office."

Oh, God, Russell thought. Tim didn't make it. "I'm reading here, sir, so I hope it makes sense. Park Ranger Sarah Rodgers reports that the Martins' Explorer has been spotted in Catoctin National Forest."

Russell's eyebrows nearly left his forehead.

"Do you copy, sir?"

"Affirmative, I copy. And it does indeed make sense. Thank you very much."

"Thank you, Charleston Center," the pilot added. In another hiss of static, Russell's headset was disconnected from the main radio.

Now, this was a damned interesting development. Why would they go back? Why would an attack in their home bring them back to the woods? You'd think it would be the very last place they'd go; which meant, of course, that it was the very place that Russell needed to be.

"Okay, guys," he said into his intercom. "We need to change the plans a bit. . ."

The accumulating snow masked many of the landmarks that Bobby remembered from last night. It was colder, too, and while his down jacket kept his body warm, he found himself wishing he'd brought a hat. "Suppose this isn't where they went?" Susan asked as they walked up the Powhite Trail, her hands tucked into her armpits for warmth.

"This is it," Bobby replied, hoping that saying it firmly enough would make it true.

"But suppose it isn't?"

"If this isn't it, then we're all screwed."

"You're sure we're still on the Powhite?"

"I don't know how we couldn't be. Sure looks a lot different in the snow. It's beautiful."

Susan didn't bother to answer. Nothing was beautiful anymore.

Bobby's logic for being here was as simple as it got: last night, Steven had come running to them from upstream, which meant that wherever his ordeal had started was centered somewhere uphill from where they'd camped. His plan was merely to go there and wait. And watch. And listen. It was that simple. Now that he was here, though, it seemed too simple, too driven by coincidence. These woods were big, even on a clear day. On a snowy night, they felt even bigger. The more he thought about it, the more stupid and hopeless it all seemed. But what was the alternative? Nothing, that's what.

Suppose they're not even here? Suppose they went to an airport, or to South fucking Carolina?

These thoughts tortured him as he continued his climb up the steep incline. If he was wrong, they really were out of cards. If they didn't find what they were looking for up here, then he supposed it would be time to make that phone call to the FBI.

As for Steven, it would be time to pray. Hard.

IT NEVER OCCURRED to Samuel to wonder about the other car. He saw it sitting there among the trees, and he assumed it belonged to The Boss, but he kept on walking toward the special place in the woods- the place where they would play their game. The snow fell and fell and fell, making the woods look like a Christmas special on television.

Justin didn't seem to like it, though. As the temperature dropped, and the snowflakes accumulated on the outside of Samuel's jacket, the little boy curled tighter and burrowed deeper. He still hadn't said a damn thing.

Samuel's doubts about this game grew steadily deeper. For the life of him, he couldn't see the fun in it. If it were anyone but The Boss that he was going down the mountain to meet, then he might have considered breaking the appointment-a very, very bad thing to do. Jacob never missed an appointment and always yelled at Samuel if he did something to slow him down. If you missed appointments or let people down, they might never work with you again.

But maybe Samuel didn't want to continue working Jacob's job. Maybe he didn't want to get into the snot-pounding business. He wasn't nearly as good at it as his brother was, and he certainly didn't enjoy it as much. Yessir, maybe this would be the very last time that Samuel ever dealt with The Boss. Maybe he might just mention that to him, too.

So, why keep going at all, then? If he was never going to work for The Boss again, why not turn around and take Justin home, away from the game that had never sounded very fun in the first place? What did he care if The Boss got pissed off?

The only man Jacob was ever afraid of.

Well, okay, was that an argument in favor of meeting him or walking away? If he was so damn terrifying, why even meet up with him? Why not just leave now?

Because he knows where you live, you dummy.

"Don't call me that!" The snowy insulation made his voice sound three times as loud as he intended it to be. "You just keep your big fat mouth shut, Jacob!"

At the sound of the shouting, Justin jumped under his jacket and started to cry again.

Instantly, Samuel felt terrible. "Oh, it's not you, little boy. You didn't do nothing wrong. I was just talking to Jacob." He bounced the curled child gently as he spoke.

It was Samuel's turn to jump when a voice boomed from the shadows, "Who in the fuck are you talking to?"

He whirled around, leading with his flashlight. "Who is that?" he yelled. As an afterthought, he remembered his Ruger and shifted the boy and the flashlight to his left hand while he dug the pistol out of his pocket with his right.

"Whoa, there, Sammy," said a new voice, this one coming from farther over to his left. "You just be careful with that gun."

Samuel shifted the beam accordingly and caught a glimpse of a young man standing in a clump of trees, holding his own pistol. He thought he recognized the voice. "You're the one I talked to on the telephone. You're The Boss."

"No, I'm the boss," said the first voice. A big man with red hair stepped forward. Samuel responded with two steps back. "I understand you have a package for me."

Give him the boy, Jacob told Samuel.

Samuel shook his head. He didn't like the looks of this. Didn't like the looks these men had in their eyes.

"What do you mean, no?" challenged the big man.

Samuel was confused. "Huh?"

"Do you have the package or not?"

People might call him names, but Samuel was smart enough to know that when the man said "package," he really meant Justin. The man on the phone had meant the same thing. Come to think of it, how nice is it to call a nice little boy a package? Samuel took two more steps backward.

"Not thinking of leaving us, are you, Sammy?" asked the man with the gun.

Actually, that's exactly what he was thinking.

In fifteen years as a park ranger, Sarah had never once pointed her firearm at another human being. In fact, until recently, weapons weren't even part of the ranger's ensemble. As she understood the story, about a decade ago, a generation of psychotic hunters started taking out their anger against rangers who dared to enforce the game limits, at which point Congress approved the use of sidearms by uniformed park rangers.

From the very first day of the new regulation, Sarah had seen her obligatory pistol as more of an ornament than a weapon-no more threatening than her Smokey the Bear hat or her badge. Just between her and the tooth fairy, if it ever came down to a confrontation between her little .38 snub nose and some redneck's high-powered hunting rifle, she had every intention of just staying out of the guy's way.

Gardner seemed impressed that she'd known exactly where to find the Explorer parked. "I figured there was only one place for them to be," she explained. Still, it felt good to absorb that kind of admiration from a subordinate.

As they climbed the Powhite, following the steadily filling footprints on the trail, she found herself wishing that she hadn't been quite so aggressive. These people were murderers, after all, and she felt psychologically unprepared for a midnight shoot-out. Gardner's twelve-gauge helped, but even a hail of buckshot wouldn't do much to stop a well-aimed bullet from piercing her unarmored body.

"Well, I'm pretty much scared shitless," Gardner said as lightly as he could. The proud owner of a degree in forestry, he made no bones about his distaste for the law enforcement aspects of his job. "You sure we can't just wait for the sheriff's deputies to take care of this?"

As much as she wanted to say yes, she found herself shaking her head no. "In good weather, it takes them twenty minutes to get up here. Tonight, it'll be twice that. Maybe three times. And that's if they're not all tied up working wrecks on the highway."

"Suppose there's like a whole militia group up here or something?"

Sarah shot him a look that he couldn't see in the dark. "It's not like we're going in there with guns blazing, Gard. Maybe we just go as close as we can and stay out of sight. Hell, I don't know what we're going to do, but if it helps, I'm not feeling particularly suicidal or heroic this evening."

"Makes me feel all aglow and comfy."

Torn stubs of crime-scene tape still clung to the trees all around them. Without those clues, Bobby wasn't sure that he could even have found the old campsite. Even after only a day, it all seemed so different. In the distance, they could still hear the rush of the river, but with the snow muffling everything, even that sounded different.

As they walked into the tiny clearing, Bobby hesitantly illuminated the area at the base of the tree where the body had lain. He felt a sense of genuine relief when he saw that it was gone.

"Steven!"

Susan's cry made him jump a foot. He whirled to see what she saw. "Where? Where is he?"

"Steven! I know you're out there, honey, come to your mommy!"

He understood now that she didn't actually see anything. She was hoping. And drawing a hell of a lot of attention to herself if their attacker was out there. He'd have admonished her to be quiet, but realized the fruitlessness of it. If everybody stayed quiet, no one would find anything.

Give us the boy," said Ricky Timmons, his voice as menacing as anything Samuel had ever heard.

This wasn't a game.

Maybe Samuel had known that all along, and he'd just been trying not to see it, but everything was clear as day right now. This was no game. No one was interested in Justin having any fun out here; it wasn't even about having more fun than the alternative, or whatever it was that Jacob had tried to tell him last night. These men wanted to hurt the boy. Samuel took another step backward.

"Y-you stay away," he stammered.

"Give us the boy," Ricky insisted again.

Samuel backed up faster now. "No! No, you just go away!" Fuck the Boss, he thought. They wanted to hurt this little boy he liked so much.

"Oh, for God's sake," grumbled the tall, redheaded man. "Just end this shit."

Samuel saw Ricky's gun hand arc up, and he raised his own. Ricky fired first, his body disappearing behind an enormous muzzle flash that seemed to rock the whole forest. Samuel turned sideways to the gunman, his body protecting the screaming child who was only now struggling to free himself, and pulled the trigger on his own weapon.