Force of Nature (30 page)

Haley slowly covered her mouth with her hand in alarm.

HE SLOWED
the Jeep and edged it to the shoulder of the highway. A double reflector emerged from the dark, indicating the mouth of a
two-track road that exited onto the highway. He turned on it and drove over a cattle guard and continued over a hill. On the way down the other side, the headlights illuminated an ancient wooden barn that stood alone on the edge of an overgrown field. The roof of the barn had fallen in years before, and the open windows gaped wide and hollow like eye sockets on either side of the rotting half-open barn door.

Haley sat in silence, but he could feel her eyes probe the side of his face, obviously wondering what his intentions were.

He stopped in front of the barn and kept his headlights on. Light snow sifted through the air.

“You’ve fired a gun,” he said, killing the motor but keeping the lights on.

“Yes,” she said, hesitating. “I used to go grouse hunting with my dad, but I didn’t like shooting them. And Cohen took me out to the range a couple of times, but I’d rather read a book than shoot.”

“Can you hit anything?”

She shrugged.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Get out.”

NATE FOUND
an aluminum beer can in the opening of the barn—there were dozens more inside, and he guessed the structure was a meeting place for wayward ranch hands—and speared it aloft on a nail that stuck out from the weathered wood on the barn door. It was eye level, fifty yards from the Jeep.

While Haley stood in front of the vehicle shuffling her feet and hugging herself against the cold, Nate drew out the Ruger Mini-14 Ranch rifle and handed it to her. He showed her how to load a round into the chamber by pulling back on the breech-bolt feeder, where the safety was located underneath, and how to raise it to her shoulder so the stock rested against her cheek.

“It’s called a peep sight,” he said, touching the small steel ring near the back of the action. “Look through it until you can see the front sight, which is a single blade.”

“Okay, I see it,” she said.

“Find the front sight in the middle of the circle. Exactly halfway up, and centered in the circle from side to side.”

“Okay.”

“When you aim, think of a pumpkin sitting on a post. The post is the top of the front sight. Put that beer can right on top of the front sight, remembering to make sure it’s in the center of the back circle. Make sense?”

It took her a few seconds, then she grunted.

“Keep both eyes open and squeeze the trigger.”

He stepped back. He was impressed that she held the rifle firmly and the barrel didn’t quiver.

The boom was sharp and loud, and the muzzle spit a tongue of orange flame.

“Wow,” she said.

“You missed,” Nate said. “High and to the right of the can by an inch. That means you flinched just as you pulled the trigger. Now breathe normally, don’t hold your breath, and do it right this time.”

“I was close.”

“You don’t get extra credit for trying and missing,” he said. “Instead, you get killed.”

“You can be an asshole sometimes,” she said as she raised the rifle again.

“Relax,” he assured her. “Pumpkin on a post.”

The second shot ripped the bottom of the can away.

“Do it again,” he said.

She fired until she’d emptied the thirty-round magazine and
the air smelled sharply of gunpowder. Hot spent shells sizzled in the snow at their feet.

Nate said, “Twelve direct hits, nine near-misses, seven bad shots because you flinched. Overall, not so bad. Just remember: breathe, relax, both eyes open.”

She grinned and handed the rifle back to him. “Pumpkin on a post,” she said.

He nodded while he loaded fresh cartridges into the magazine and rammed it home. “Haley,” he said, “you’re a very good beer-can shooter. In fact, you’re a natural, as long as you remember all the steps. But I want to tell you something important, and I need you to listen carefully.”

His tone made her smile vanish, and she looked up at him openly.

“Knowing how to shoot is a small part of killing a man. Too many of these damned gun nuts think it’s all about their hardware, but it isn’t. It’s about keeping things simple.”

She nodded, urging him on.

“Don’t shoot unless you have a fat target. Aim for the thickest part of the target. Don’t try a head or neck shot—aim for the mass of his body. That way, if you flinch a little you still hit something vital. And don’t assume one shot will do it. That only works in movies or unless I’m shooting. Keep pulling the trigger until the target goes down. Then shoot him a few
more
times and run like hell. Got it?”

“Got it,” she said. “I just hope I won’t have to put all this advice into action.”

“Me, too,” Nate said, sliding the rifle back beneath the seat.

When he turned she was there, right in front of him. She reached up with both hands and pulled his head down and kissed him softly. He could taste her warm lips along with melting flakes of snow. His
hands rested on her hips, and he could feel her fingers weave through his hair.

As he reached around her to pull her closer, she gently pushed him away.

“Thank you for teaching me that,” she said.

“Thanks for the kiss.”

They held each other in their eyes for a long tense moment. He could feel his heart beat.

“I don’t know why I did that,” she said, grinning and turning away.

“I do,” he said, and turned her around so she was facing him. He reached down and grabbed her hips again and launched her up onto the hood of the Jeep. She collapsed back on the hood until her head was propped up against the windshield, and she looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes. Snowflakes landed on the warm sheet metal on both sides of her and dissolved into beads of moisture and he stepped up on the front bumper next to her.

“Let me get a blanket from the back,” he said.

“Hurry,”
she begged, and he felt her fingers trail off his shoulders as he rolled away.

“I DON’T KNOW
what I was thinking,” she said, looking down at her shoes while she cinched her belt. Fresh snow—larger flakes now but more infrequent—tufted her hair and shoulders.

“Whatever it was, I hope you think it again,” Nate said, folding the blanket.

“Too much has happened,” she said, still not looking up. “My nerve endings are exposed, I guess. My force field is worn out. My reserve has been blown away. I’ve never …”

“Stop talking,” he said.

“It’s different for you,” Haley said. “In one day you kill a guy, torture another guy, and get the girl. This must seem like fucking Christmas to you.”

“Only the get-the-girl part,” he said.

She finally looked up and smiled. “Well, I guess that’s kind of a nice thing to hear.”

THEY WERE
back on the highway and no more had been said since they left.

“Since it’s very unlikely we’ll be around much longer,” Nate said, “you should know something about me. And when I’m done telling you, there won’t be any hard feelings on my part if you want to get dropped off at the airport. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you.”

She reached over and touched his arm and turned to him, waiting.

Nate couldn’t meet her eyes. He said, “Because of me, thousands of people are dead. Maybe tens of thousands.”

She gasped, and her fingertips left his sleeve for a moment as she recoiled. Then, surprisingly, she touched him again.

“Tell me,” she said.

AFTER THEY
crossed the border of the Wind River Indian Reservation, Nate told Haley about growing up, moving around, discovering his interest in falconry, and meeting Lieutenant John Nemecek at the Air Force Academy. And the six brutal months of training to become a full-fledged member of Mark V, a secret and off-the-books Special Forces unit comprising the best special operators from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. As with the other members of the Peregrines, Nate didn’t know how many men were involved, or most of their real names. Eight-man teams were assembled for specific
tasks based on their skills, sent overseas to kill, cripple, and destroy targets, then broken up when they returned. Although all the operators assumed Nemecek reported directly to superiors high in the government, it was never clear who gave the orders or even which branch or federal agency had ultimate authority. It wasn’t their business to know.

Peregrines operated under false identities in foreign countries, and got in and got out. Their assignments were highly choreographed and impeccably planned, and rarely failed. Nate was sent to South America, Eastern Europe, Africa, island fiefdoms in the Pacific, and the Middle East. None of his teams ever lost or left a man. There were only two missions that weren’t completed successfully. Once, when their target—a Central African warlord—was tipped to their presence and the team immediately evacuated, and another instance where a team member got too intimate with locals and inadvertently blew their cover. None of the other Peregrines from that mission ever saw or heard from the operative again.

The one constant in all the operations and planning for all the Peregrines was the man who’d recruited and trained them: Lieutenant John Nemecek.

“He is the greatest falconer I’ve ever seen,” Nate said to Haley. “He’s flown every species of raptor imaginable, from kestrels to golden eagles.”

Haley said, “I’m confused. What does falconry have to do with thousands of people getting killed?”

Nate drove on for a full minute before he said, “Everything.”

THERE WAS STILL
a sifting of powdered-sugar snow that held in the cold night air as Joe slid his shotgun into the cab of his pickup and pulled himself in. He shut the door and started the motor and sat for a few seconds with the engine idling, sorting out his route and hoping his suspicions about Luke Brueggemann were wrong. Lord knows, he thought, he’d been wrong before.

As he backed out of the drive onto Bighorn Road, he recalled the first time he’d heard that he’d be getting a trainee. It had been less than a month before and in the form of a departmental email sent by the assistant director of the Game and Fish Department in Cheyenne. It wasn’t a request as much as an order. Joe hated orders, balked at them simply for being orders, but in this case he swallowed his consternation and remembered his own days as a trainee, and how the experience—for better and for worse—had set him on the path he had taken. Pay it forward, he had thought.

But Joe recalled that the initial email was typically terse: the trainee’s name, origin, and date of arrival. No other information, and Joe didn’t have additional reason to ask for more at the time. Joe knew
the state system well enough to doubt whether Brueggemann had somehow infiltrated it with this end in mind. He doubted it. More likely, he thought, Brueggemann had been recruited by someone—probably his girlfriend.

Brueggemann was of the age and station in life—single, barely twenty-two, and practically penniless—that he’d likely be vulnerable to an approach, Joe thought. If sex, a future, or money were offered, few boys that age would refuse. So maybe they got to Brueggemann once it was known he’d be assigned to Joe Pickett in Twelve Sleep County.

Or maybe, Joe thought, she’d replaced the real Luke Brueggemann with a Luke Brueggemann of her own? If so, what happened to the real kid? Joe shivered at the possibilities.

Or maybe, Joe thought, he should stop letting his imagination run wild until he knew more and could actually base his speculation on a foundation of facts.

As he drove away from his home, he watched it recede in his rearview mirror. The house was lit up like Christmas, which was all the more striking because of the utter darkness all around. It looked like a beacon, every room lit up as Marybeth and Lucy and April packed for their early morning flight. The place looked so … inviting.

He took his foot off the gas and coasted for a moment, thinking about turning around. It wouldn’t be that many hours before they’d need to gather up and go to the airport. If something happened while he was away, he’d never forgive himself.

But …

Mike Reed had agreed to stay until he got back. Reed could be trusted, couldn’t he?

Joe swatted away his paranoia and drove on.

_______

AS HE LET
the threads of speculation hang there, one item jolted him in another direction: Brueggemann’s girlfriend. All he knew about her, or thought he knew about her from Brueggemann, was that she lived in Laramie because she was a student at the University of Wyoming. And he thought about what Nate had said:
a young female
.

Which made his mind leap and his scalp contract. Joe drew his cell phone out of his breast pocket and opened it and scrolled down the speed dial until he found Sheridan’s cell phone number.

The call went straight to voice mail.

“Call me the second you get this,” Joe growled, “and don’t turn your phone off at night.”

He cursed aloud. One of the problems with every person having a cell phone instead of a landline was that if they turned their phone off, there was no way to contact them in an emergency. Sheridan was a serial offender, and like most girls her age, she was casual about keeping her phone on or properly charged up. To her, the phone was for her personal convenience—for calling or texting
out
. She needed her sleep, after all, and rarely considered the possibility of a worried father trying to call her in the middle of the night.