Force of Nature (23 page)

She said, “I meant you might as well tell me, because the bad guys will think you did, anyway, and they’ll try to kill me, too.”

He looked over at her as if seeing her for the first time. God, she was lovely. She didn’t deserve to know him, he thought. She didn’t deserve to get hurt.

He said, “If I do—”

She cut him off. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. So you might as well. Lord knows, we seem to have the time.” He liked the way she pronounced
time
as
“tahm.”

After pausing for a minute, he said, “It’s very close to me right now. Telling Oscar opened it all up like it was yesterday. All these years, I’ve struggled to keep it somewhere in the back of my brain, in the reptile part. But I spent too many years alone, with too much time to fight it back constantly. So at times, it crawled over the wall and haunted me, and after I’d chased it back I’d sit around for days and consider all the implications. In a strange way, I think Nemecek has the same problem. I dealt with it by staying out of the world and doing what good I could do. Trying to make up for what I did in a very small way, although I know it isn’t possible. I kind of adopted this family named the Picketts, and I swore I’d protect them. I have,
up until now. But I’m afraid of what could happen to them. Their only crime is trusting me.”

She shook her head sadly, and asked, “How does Nemecek deal with it?”

“By making me go away,” Nate said. “And everybody who knows or
might
know. That’s one of the tragedies about what happened to Cohen and the rest back in Idaho. They didn’t know, but he thought they might.”

She said, “Could you go to someone? Maybe someone in the government who would be sympathetic? Or maybe a reporter?”

“No,” Nate said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought over the years, but I don’t know who I can trust. Something has happened to make Nemecek double down, to want to take care of his problem: me. Until I know what caused him to come out from under his rock, I don’t know who I can trust.”

“You can trust me,” she said.

“Can I?”

“Your arrogance is off-putting,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “You ask that question but you assume I should trust
you
with my life. Maybe you’ve spent too much damn time alone.”

He turned to her, amazed. “Maybe I have.”

Then he noted movement in his peripheral vision and sat up straight.

“What?” she asked.

Through the wet-streaked windshield undulating with moisture, he could see two men emerge from the side entrance of the Wort. Even without seeing their features clearly, he could tell by their bearing and presence they were heading for the Tahoe. They were both tall and without paunches, and they moved with an athletic grace not entirely affected by alcohol. One wore a battered straw cowboy hat and the other a ubiquitous billed trucker cap, as if they’d gone to
a western store and said, “I want to look like a local yokel.” Cowboy Hat loped down the wood sidewalk and extended his hand toward the car. At that moment, the interior lights of the SUV came on as he keyed a remote.

“Buckle up,” he said.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re gonna do this, aren’t we?”

Nate reached over and grasped her hand. “Last chance to get out. This could get ugly.”

“Like I haven’t seen ugly,” she said.

NATE SAT STILL
in the running Jeep in the alleyway while the Tahoe backed out onto Glenwood. When he realized the SUV would be coming in his direction, he slipped the gearshift into reverse and backed as fast as he could without losing control and clipping the outside walls of the brick buildings on both sides. At the far end of the alley, he stopped.

“Get down,” he said urgently, as the Tahoe swung into the street and its headlights flashed on.

She hesitated for a half second until he reached over toward her, then obeyed. Their heads touched each other in the space between the two seats, and a wash of light from the headlamps of the Tahoe flashed through the cab.

He waited for a beat and said, “Okay.”

When he looked up, the Tahoe was gone.

He kept his lights off as he backed the rest of the way down the alley, and when his tires hit the pavement of the next cross-street he cranked on the wheel so they were pointed left.

Assuming the Tahoe driven by Cowboy Hat was going north on Cache Street, he turned right onto Millward, which ran parallel to
Cache through a residential neighborhood. As he crossed Gill Avenue, Nate gestured up the empty street to Haley, who looked out her passenger window.

“We should see them now,” he said.

And they did. The white Tahoe cruised through the intersection headed north and disappeared from view.

Nate gunned his Jeep, keeping up with the Tahoe a block to his right. He turned right again on Mercill and paused until the Tahoe crossed their path and continued north.

He gave it a count of fifteen before nosing the Jeep up Mercill to turn left and give chase.

She said, “Nate—your lights?”

Thinking he didn’t realize they were off.

“Haley,” he hissed, “the thing about
talking
.”

She blew out an angry stream of air.

“But if the cops see us without our lights on …”

“There are no cops,” he said impatiently. “They’re all over the pass in Idaho, helping out the sheriff over there with a murder. That’s how these small towns work.”

“Oh. Clever on your part.”

“Now,
please
, no more fucking help or advice.”

She reached up and drew her closed fingers over her mouth in a zipping motion.

NATE AND HALEY
retraced their earlier route toward the airport, although this time there was a single pair of distant taillights a half mile ahead of them on the road. Nate still drove with his lights out, faster than he should.

The heavy snowfall blanked out the stars and moon and made the night landscape two-tone: black above and dark purple below. He
used the faint double set of tire tracks ahead to follow, as well as the distant taillights. He could see nothing in between.

“Watch for wildlife on the road,” Nate said to Haley. “Warn me if you see anything.”

The route from Jackson toward Grand Teton National Park was famous for grazing bison and elk alongside the two-lane highway.

“Okay,” she said, tentative. He knew she was frightened. He didn’t blame her. He gently pressed harder on the accelerator, beginning a long process of closing the gap between the Tahoe and the Jeep in the dark.

JACKSON HOLE AIRPORT
was on their left. It was low-slung and obscured by the darkness and the storm, but several red warning lights shone through the snowfall. After they passed it, the darkness descended on them further. There were no houses and no lights. They were officially in Grand Teton National Park, headed north.

He’d been on the road many times before and tried to recall the landscape, the features, and the turns. The Gros Ventre Range was to his right, the Snake River Valley to his left, and beyond the river the jagged sawtooths of the Teton Range. The highway was on a flat bench skirting the river valley.

Nate guessed the Tahoe would continue to Moran Junction, then take U.S. 26/287 over Togwotee Pass via Dubois and on to the Bighorn Mountains.

Before the road crossed the river and wound through pockets of timber, there was a long straightaway of three to five miles. Long enough to make sure there was no one coming, or behind them. Long enough, if he gunned it, to make his move. He didn’t want them to leave the park and get as far as the junction, where the route
over the mountains became narrow and heavily wooded. Plus, it would likely be snowing harder.

Nate pried the fingers of his right hand from the wheel and reached across his body for the grip of his .500. He drew it out of the shoulder holster and laid it across his lap.

He said to Haley: “Hold on, roll down your window, keep your eyes open, and duck when I tell you.”

He could tell she wanted to question him, but she swallowed her pride and cranked down the window. Cold air and whirling snow filled the cab.

“Here we go,” he said, flooring it. His rear tires fishtailed slightly, then gripped through the snow to the asphalt, and they shot forward.

THE TAILLIGHTS
ahead of them started to widen. His engine howled, but he doubted Cowboy Hat and Trucker Cap would hear him coming before he was on top of them. In his peripheral vision, he saw Haley dig back in her seat and grasp the handhold on the dashboard as if it would cushion an impact.

But just twenty feet before he plowed into the back of the Tahoe— he could suddenly see the smudge of white from its back hatch—Nate hit his headlights, clicked them to bright, and swung his Jeep to the left into the oncoming lane.

The brake lights on the Tahoe flashed quickly—no doubt Cowboy Hat was temporarily blinded—and Nate roared up beside the SUV so they were rolling down the road side by side.

“Duck!” he yelled to Haley.

She went down.

He extended his revolver straight out away from his body, aimed at the Tahoe, and looked over.

Cowboy Hat turned his face to him as well. He was blinking from the unexpected blast of light and his mouth was slightly open, as if he was about to say something. Nate saw a face that was chiseled by bone and fashionably stubbled. His view within the scope trembled crazily, but when the crosshairs paused for a half second on a spot between the brim of the cowboy hat and the man’s left eye, he squeezed the trigger. The roar of the gunshot was deafening inside the cab of the Jeep, and a four-foot ball of orange flame leapt between the two vehicles.

And just as suddenly, the Tahoe dropped away.

“Oh my God!” Haley screamed into her arms.

“Stay down.”

Nate pumped his brakes to slow the Jeep and prevent an icy skid in the snow, while at the same time noting the sweep of errant headlights in his rearview mirror as the Tahoe left the road.

After a three-point turn, Nate sped back to the scene. He found the Tahoe on its side in the sloped bottom of a sagebrush-covered swale, the top tires spinning in the air and the moist ground churned up behind it. Nate switched the Jeep into four-wheel drive and drove through the fresh gaping hole in the right-of-way fence, his headlights on the underside of the Tahoe. There was no movement from inside. The rear hatch had popped open in the rollover, and the gear bags, the suitcases, the plastic tubs, and the unsheathed Barrett rifle were slung across the snow.

He drove around the vehicle until his lights framed the dented hood. The inside of the front windshield of the Tahoe gleamed bright red, as if it had been painted with a large bucket of blood. He hoped the slug hadn’t taken off Trucker Hat’s head as well.

Keeping his lights on the Tahoe, Nate stomped on his emergency brake and leapt outside the Jeep with his weapon in front of him.
Snow stung his eyes and gathered on his coat and hair. He could smell the sharp odor of leaking gasoline mixed with the sweet smell of crushed sagebrush.

As he approached the Tahoe, he heard a thump from inside, and suddenly there was a heavy-soled footprint in the blood on the inside of the windshield. Then another thump, and another footprint. A football-sized star of cracks appeared on the glass. He waited.

It took two minutes for Trucker Cap to kick his way outside.

Trucker Cap crawled out into the snow on his hands and knees. His face and clothing were covered in blood, and it took him a few seconds to realize headlights were on him, and that Nate stood between the headlights of the Jeep with his gun out.

“Oh, fuck me,” Trucker Cap said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get out of there. His head just …
blew up
.”

Nate kept his eyes on Trucker Cap as he called over his shoulder, “Stay down, Haley.”

From behind him, he heard her say indignantly, “I’m
not
a dog.”

He ignored her and gestured with the muzzle of his gun toward Trucker Cap. “Don’t move.”

“Are you the guy?” Trucker Cap asked. His voice was thick with shock as he stumbled to his feet. “Are you the guy who did this?”

Nate could see his bright teeth through the gore on his face.

“I told you not to move,” Nate said, and lowered his revolver and blew Trucker Cap’s right knee away. The man shrieked and fell straight down in a heap, moaning and writhing in the snow.

“You’re going to answer a couple of questions,” Nate said, approaching the wounded man, hoping Haley had obeyed and wasn’t watching what was going to happen from the Jeep behind him. “I’m not asking you to answer questions,” he said. “I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”

Trucker Cap groaned from pain and rolled to his back. He grasped his shattered knee with both hands, and blood pulsed out from between his fingers.

“You should have known this was coming when you went after my friends,” Nate said.

Nate thought of what Haley had said earlier:
Like I haven’t seen ugly.

He quickly closed the gap to the man and rolled him over with his boot. As he did, Trucker Cap’s jacket hiked up and Nate saw the grip of a .45 Heckler & Koch semiauto tucked into this belt. He snatched it out and tossed it over the top of the Tahoe.

“Any more weapons?”

“God, no,” Trucker Cap moaned. His eyes were closed tightly.

Nate dropped to one knee next to Trucker Cap and patted the man down with his free hand through his clothes. His hand came away sticky with blood, and he wiped it clean in the snow before reaching back and gripping Trucker Cap’s left ear. He gave it a vicious twist, and the man’s eyes shot open.

“I’m going to bleed out,” the man said.

“And what’s the downside?” Nate asked. Then: “Three things, or I rip your ear off.”

Trucker Cap’s eyes narrowed on Nate’s face.

“One: how many operatives were on your team? Two: why is Nemecek coming after me now?”

Trucker Cap’s mouth twisted into a defiant leer. “Why should I tell you? I heard what you did over there, you fucking traitor. When he gave us a chance to come after you, we jumped on it, you son-of-a-bitch.”