Glass Tiger (25 page)

He instantly identified Janet Kestrel. She was a tawny-skinned mid-twenties, full-bosomed and lithe, her warrior blood unmistakable: it was there in the strong nose, the high cheekbones, the deep-set liquid eyes with their predator’s fierce gaze. No physical effects seemed to remain from the savage beating she had sustained five months before. A fit companion for the much older Corwin, whatever their relationship had been.

As she talked animatedly with the other guides, Thorne could see that her eyes were the only jarring note in that Indain warrior look: they were the clearest, most crystalline blue Thorne had ever seen, glacier-deep.

After the four guides had shut and locked the shed, the
other three crowded around Janet, hugging her in turn, as if she were going away and these were their goodbyes. He was glad he had pushed so hard and fast to find her.

Finally she and the other woman broke away from the men and started for the camper with the plywood box on top. As they walked by, Kestrel’s glance passed casually over Thorne, then did a double-take at the 4-Runner. She paused.

‘Why don’t you just go on, Flo? I think I know this guy, I can get a ride home with him.’

They embraced again, briefly, then Flo went on to her camper as Janet strode over to Thorne, her face set with anger.

‘Okay, Jack, start talking. How did you get my car?’

‘We don’t have time for that now,’ Thorne said, a rough, urgent edge on his voice. He needed to get her out of there, quick. ‘My name is Brendan Thorne. A really nasty FBI agent named Terrill Hatfield is on his way here right now, and he’s coming after you.’

Astonishment momentarily froze her anger.

‘After me? Why? How?’

‘He wants to ask you a lot of questions about the attempted assassination of President Gus Wallberg in Montana.’

‘That’s ludicrous! I’ve never been to Montana in—’

‘It was Hal Corwin behind the gun. Hatfield has connected you with both the man and the event.’ He didn’t say that his own search for her had triggered Hatfield’s interest. Time enough for that later, when he had her safely out of there.

His words had struck her in the chest like flung rocks. Oh God! Hal had tried to kill the president! But how had some FBI agent connected her with Hal? And how had this Brendan Thorne ended up with the 4-Runner?

‘Hatfield probably doesn’t know you’re going under
the name Kestrel, but by now he’ll have connected up Janet Amore and Janet Roanhorse through that hospital administrator – Werfel – and Doctor Houghton’s office staff. He’ll have pressured Houghton’s people to find out where they sent the bearskin, and he’ll get your address from the post office in Groveland – that’s how I got it. If you want to talk to him instead of me, fine. But you don’t have any other choices.’

‘I can run. I’m good at running.’

‘Not from Hatfield and his men. Not alone.’

She had been hit with a series of stunning blows, but she recovered quickly. She just put out her hand. ‘Gimme the keys.’

‘They’re in the 4-Runner.’

She ran around to the driver’s side and he got in beside her. As she fired up the engine, all she said was, ‘I need some things from the cabin.’

Thorne was filled with admiration. If she had been riding shotgun for him, it was no wonder that Corwin had kept ahead of everybody for so long.

Hatfield huddled with his crew near the rent-a-cars at the Pine Mountain Lake Airport. Their breath went up in plumes on the cold, high-country air, so different from LA’s smog-laden offering. Their faces were pinched from pumping adrenaline: they wanted action. It was what they lived for.

‘Okay, guys, listen up. Roanhorse is in her twenties, black and blue, maybe part American Indian. She’s living in a shack off one-twenty. I don’t think she’s armed and dangerous, but I’m not sure. We either take her tonight or stake out her place until she shows. Only I will interrogate her, because only I have been given the guidelines.’

‘We got you, Chief,’ said Eisler.

‘I’ve got directions, I’ll drive the lead car with Franklin and Greene. Perry, you drive the second car. Any questions?’

Baror asked, ‘If she resists, how hard do we push?’

‘No shooting. It’s vital that I get a chance to talk to her. If she’s packing, it’s going to be a woman’s gun. A .380, something like that. Stopping power of a mosquito. You’ve got your flack jackets. And hell, you’re big tough guys.’

He couldn’t tell them Thorne was the real target here, that he wanted Thorne isolated so he could shoot him down. They were loyal to him, but they still were federal agents: they wouldn’t stand still for a flat-out execution. He doubted Thorne could have beaten them to
Roanhorse, but he had to brief them on the possibility, however remote.

‘I doubt we’ll get so lucky, but she might be accompanied by the guy we brought back from Kenya, Brendan Thorne. Turns out we might be talking a major terrorist here.’ Franklin and Greene knew Thorne was no terrorist, but not even they knew he had killed Corwin, not Hatfield. ‘If it comes to grabbing Roanhorse or taking down Thorne, take down Thorne.’ He paused. ‘Anybody have anything?’ No one spoke. ‘Then let’s saddle up.’

Baror exclaimed, ‘Hi ho Silver, and away-y-y-y!’

It was their usual battle cry. Grinning, they headed for the cars. The prospect of action, as always, had them hyped.

As she drove, Janet kept casting covert glances over toward Thorne. He reminded her of Hal: much younger, but the same self-containment, the air of physical capability, the hawk eyes.

He asked, ‘Is there a back way to your cabin?’

‘Aren’t you being paranoid? He can’t be here already.’

‘You don’t know Hatfield. I do.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘Later.’

‘How did you get my truck?’

‘Later.’

A mile from the cabin, she swung the vehicle into what looked like a hiking path through the pines. They bounced over roots and rocks, branches banging against the sides of the car.

She was getting edgy. ‘We can circle around and leave the 4-Runner a quarter of a mile from the cabin.’

‘Good. This was your folks’ place, right?’

How did he know that? She said, ‘Yes. My place now,’ then felt compelled to add, ‘The old man got drunk a lot
and beat on my mom and my sister and me. Then mom died and it was just Edie and him and me. Edie sneaked away to LA and married a Mexican. Soon as I was eighteen, I took off. Anywhere was gonna be better than here, with him. When he died, the cabin came to me. So I came back. Wood stove, no electricity, but it suits me fine during the warm summer months when I’m a river guide.’

‘How about during the cold winter months?’

She wrenched over the wheel to avoid crushing a fender against a rough-barked Ponderosa.

‘Then I spend most of my time in Reno, dealing blackjack.’

‘Is that where you met Corwin? Reno?’

‘Later,’ she said, aping him.

‘Fair enough.’

She thought, Why did I tell him all that? She had to get away from him as much as she did from Hatfield. It sounded to her like the FBI was after him, too, so after she found out from him where Hal was, she could use him to ditch the feds.

She drove the 4-Runner in a tight circle to face back the way they had come, then cut the engine and lights. They sat in silence until the high country silence that was no silence at all had again closed in around them. A nighthawk gave his cooing chuckle somewhere in the middle distance, throwing its voice, as always, so she couldn’t be sure just where it really was.

Thorne surprised her by quietly opening his door and getting out. He stood beside the 4-Runner and gestured toward the cabin, speaking softly through the open window.

‘It’s too silent over there. No wildlife sounds. Hatfield and his crew have the place staked out, waiting for you or me or maybe both of us. We’ll split up here, I’ll create a diversion. Where do we meet up if things go wrong?’

‘Meet up? Uh – Whiskey River.’ She said it before she thought it through, then knew it was the right thing. At Whiskey River she would be among friends. She wanted to lose Thorne, but she had to find out from him about Hal first. ‘It’s a biker bar in Oakdale, down the hill a ways.’

‘Since the Feebs are here, they’ll have your real name from the Groveland post office.’

‘You’re saying I should lose the 4-Runner?’

‘Yeah. It might lead them to you.’ He tapped a hand lightly on the window frame. ‘Give me five minutes.’

He melted into the undergrowth, as silently as she had ever seen anyone move, even the reservation Indians of her childhood.

Hatfield put his team in place in the woods between the highway and the cabin, took the driveway himself. If the woman was alone, his men would hold her while he waited for Thorne to show. If Thorne didn’t appear, he’d interrogate her alone. Why was Thorne looking for her? How did she fit into things?

If Thorne was with her, he’d let his team take her, then tell Thorne they had to talk. Kill him, make it look to his men like self-defense. He went into a comfortable crouch in a grove of western hemlock beside the track into her cabin, his .40 Glock semiauto resting on his right knee with his forefinger very lightly touching the trigger.

He tensed. Someone was walking cautiously up the gravel drive behind him. How in hell…

Thorne’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

‘Hatfield? Has she shown yet? Do you have her?’

Hatfield came slowly erect, the gun still out of sight beside his thigh, sure that he would be able to see Thorne on the open driveway by the light of the gibbous moon.

‘We’re waiting for her,’ he said in soft tones that
wouldn’t carry to his men. ‘I sent you the tickets to Kenya, why in hell did you fake your own death?’

‘Because I’ve seen the inside of a Kenyan prison.’ Thorne gave a low laugh. ‘No thanks. But why did you plan to set me up? I told you I didn’t want credit for Corwin. Told you all I wanted was out. Why didn’t you just let me go my way?’

Hatfield peered through pale moonglow at the figure just visible on the far edge of the drive.

‘I was under orders to make sure you stayed out of the country for a few months.’ He was slowly raising his Glock, keeping it where no vagrant ray of moonlight could touch it. ‘Then you’ll be released and you can go back to Tsavo…’

He pumped round after round at the shadowy figure. It was blown sideways, spinning into the thicket of heavy juniper bushes beside the road with a long, loud, strangled cry. A moment of thrashing, then silence. He’d got the fucker! Now, just seconds to cover himself with his men.

With a gloved hand, he pulled out the old Colt he’d pushed the rounds through at the firing range in D.C. The perfect throw-down piece, untraceable, exactly the sort of illegal weapon Thorne would carry. He fired three times into the air and threw the gun into the bushes where Thorne had fallen.

‘Over here!’ he yelled. ‘I need lights! I need guns! I need men! Now!’

Like her father before her, Janet had wrapped her money stash in waterproof plastic that she had buried near the rear corner of the cabin only eighteen inches down in dry soil. She dug it up with her pocketknife, then moved silently up the side of the cabin toward the door. At the flurry of gunfire from the driveway, she jumped two feet in the air.

‘Over here!’ an unknown voice shouted. ‘I need lights! I need guns! I need men! Now!’

Hatfield’s men sounded like a cattle stampede as they abandoned their posts to rush to the aid of the shouting man. Hatfield? Had he shot Thorne? Killed him?

She ran to the door, slipped in, grabbed up her cellphone, jerked the bearskin off her bunk-bed, threw a couple of armloads of clothing into a backpack, was out again within ninety seconds. Her Reno wardrobe in the closet might hold them there, making them think she just hadn’t gotten home yet.

She drove slowly, cautiously away, without lights and without even thinking of waiting for Thorne. He would make it or he wouldn’t. She would wait for him at Whiskey River for… three days. Longer than that, he wouldn’t be coming.

Hatfield was waiting impatiently by the heavy thicket of juniper bushes where Thorne had gone down. He said to his men, ‘Thorne! He came up behind me and started firing. No warning, no words, nothing. He’s in that thicket. I don’t have a flashlight…’

They went in, Franklin in the lead. ‘Here’s his piece!’ He took a knee, and, without touching it in any way, sniffed the barrel of the throw-down .45 that Hatfield had planted there. ‘Yeah, this baby’s been working all right.’

They worked their way through the thicket and congregated on the far side. They had found the gun. They had found heavy blood splotches. But they hadn’t found Thorne.

Hatfield had a sinking feeling in his gut. But, hit like that, bleeding like that, Thorne couldn’t get far.

‘Listen up.’ They stood in an exhausted circle around him, adrenaline leaching from their bodies. ‘He’s hit, and
he’s hit hard. Throw a perimeter around this wooded area until first light, then beat the bushes until we find the bastard’s body.’

‘Cops?’ asked Eisler.

‘We don’t invite the cops in, ever. You know that. If you spot him, shoot first and shoot to kill. Treat him like a Texas rattlesnake. By sunup, I want him in a bodybag.’

Thorne saw Hatfield coming up with the Glock and threw himself sideways into the cover as he had done with Corwin up on the mountain, yelling to make Hatfield think he was hit. But Christ, he was hit. The bullet smashed his side like a wrecking ball, accelerating the twist of his body so he went down hard on his side in the undergrowth, stunned.

He was bleeding heavily. Good: give them something to puzzle over. Bad: lose too much blood, the body would go into a defensive mode, pull blood in from the extremities, shut down everything not needed for sheer animal survival, and he’d go into shock. If the shock didn’t finish him off, Hatfield would find him and finish him off. Move. Now.

Things were going in and out. Essential to stop the bleeding now, so they would have no blood trail to follow. He ripped his sodden t-shirt apart and stuffed a long strip of it right through the wound, closing off both entry and exit.