Force of Nature Read online

  Idaho was one of the few places in the country suited so well for such a compound of ex-operatives. The state was unique and its people independent, for the most part. Nate found Wyoming and Montana to have similar traits, but he understood why Kennedy had chosen Idaho.

  There was a live-and-let-live mentality, Kennedy had explained to Nate, that allowed and even encouraged diversity of politics and opinions as long as neither were imposed on others. The ex-operatives were all libertarians of different degrees, although there were mighty political arguments among them. A couple of the men, including Gabriel Cohen and Jason Sweeney, considered the country already ruined. Cohen called it “the wimpification of America.” They were fully prepared to join a secessionist movement at the drop of a hat to help create a nation along the lines of what the Founders intended. Nunez and McCarthy weren’t yet ready to give up completely on Washington, D.C., but they simply wanted to be left alone. And if they weren’t left alone, they planned to push back. Oscar Kennedy kept his innermost feelings close to the vest, but Nate suspected Oscar would join with the secessionists if compelled to make a choice.

  The one thing all the ex-operatives agreed on, though, was their solidarity. It was all for one and one for all, much like the credos of each branch of the Special Forces. But in this case, the enemy was likely to be the same government that had trained and selected them.

  The year before, when Joe and Nate had found a missing woman named Diane Shober in the mountains of southern Wyoming, Joe had wanted to return her to her dysfunctional family because it was his duty to do so. After talking to her and assessing her views, Nate had disagreed and escorted her to Camp Oscar, where she’d thrived. And as far as he knew, she was inside the lodge.

  But why no vehicles, except for Oscar Kennedy’s?

  Something was very wrong. And who was inside cooking

  breakfast?

  AFTER WAITING for another hour and giving up on the idea that someone would come outside, Nate kept low and sprinted to the back of the lodge and leaned against the outside wall. He kept still and scanned the trees behind him for movement but saw nothing unusual. With his cheek and ear pressed against the rough surface of a log, he concentrated on trying to detect movement inside. Rapid footfalls could mean they knew he was there. But it was quiet.

  Closed-circuit cameras were installed throughout the property and fed to several monitors inside, but they were mounted in trees and on poles, and they pointed away from the lodge, not back toward it. Motion detectors were set up along the approach road on the far side of the property, but Nate had come from the back, through the trees, where he assumed there were no electronics. He’d learned through experience that motion detectors in wildlife-heavy brush were virtually useless and generally ignored.

  He assumed his arrival had been undetected, either by anyone watching the compound or by whoever was inside.

  There was a dark door that led inside into a mudroom. The door was painted reinforced steel made to appear to be wood. Like the door, the lodge itself looked rustic, but it was a fortress. Oscar Kennedy had used family money as well as disability income to make sure of it. The windows were triple-paned and designed to be bulletproof. All the entrance doors were steel, set into steel frames. Inside, like so many spare pairs of reading glasses scattered around in a normal residence, were loaded weapons within easy grasp.

  Still pressed against the outside wall and keeping his senses on full alert, he reached out and felt beneath a log on the left side of the back door until his fingertips brushed against metal buttons: the keypad.

  He wondered if they’d changed the code since he was there last. If they had, his old entry numbers would signal them inside that someone was trying to gain access. And if they hadn’t, punching correct numbers would alert whoever was inside that he was coming in.

  But he needed answers as much as he needed allies. And if his friends had been replaced by Nemecek’s men, he’d know very quickly and try to fight his way out. He was willing to take the chance. Nate slung the rifle over his shoulder and secured it. He didn’t think he’d be needing a long gun inside right away: too clumsy and cumbersome in a tight space.

  With his .500 out and cocked, he reached under the log and found the keypad. The code always set his teeth on edge: 9-1-1.

  The lock on the door released with a click, and he grasped the handle, threw the door open, and hurled himself inside.

  18

  NATE HIT THE FLOOR of the mudroom and rolled a full rotation with his revolver extended in front of him. The door from the mudroom into the main lodge was propped open, and he could see clearly down a shadowed hallway all the way to a brightly lit corner of the kitchen itself. A slim woman stood at the stove, and she turned in his direction at the sound of the door opening.

  She was young, mid-twenties, dark-haired, and obviously frightened. She held a cast-iron skillet aloft about six inches from the top of the range. In her other hand was a spatula. Her wide-open blue eyes were split down the middle by the front sight of his .500. Her mouth made a little O.

  “Who’s there?” a male called out from inside the kitchen. Nate recognized the Reverend Oscar Kennedy’s voice.

  “Me,” Nate said.

  “Jesus,” the woman said, still holding the skillet and spatula in the air as if her limbs were frozen, “It’s him.” She had a pleasant Southern accent that made everything she said seem significant and earthy.

  “Is it the infamous Nate Romanowski?” Kennedy boomed, then appeared on the threshold in his wheelchair. The woman stood motionless behind him.

  “Oscar,” Nate said as a greeting, and stood up.

  “You can put that thing away,” Kennedy said, wheeling down the hall toward him. “She’s on our side.”

  “Maybe not his side,” the woman huffed, pronouncing it like sad and throwing a vicious evil eye toward Nate, and turned on her heel and vanished out of view.

  Nate grunted, holstered his weapon, and leaned forward to give his old friend a greeting hug. They slapped each other on the back—Kennedy was surprisingly strong, and the slaps stung Nate’s injured shoulder—then released quickly.

  “What’s her problem?” Nate asked.

  “Haley? She’s all right. You scared her, is all.”

  From out of view in the kitchen, Haley called out, “He didn’t scare me, and you know it. Now, make him go away.”

  Oscar Kennedy waved his hand as if to suggest to Nate to pay her no mind. “Let me look at you,” Kennedy said, wheeling back a quarter-turn and squinting. Then: “You look not so good.”

  “I’m fine,” Nate said, releasing the rifle sling and letting the weapon slide down his arm, where he caught it before the butt hit the floor. He crossed the room and propped it up in the corner.

  “I guess the fact that you’re actually here and still with us is a miracle in itself,” Kennedy said.

  Nate sighed. “So you know.”

  “Some of it, anyway.”

  “So where is everybody? Where’s Diane Shober?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Gone.”

  “‘Gone’?”

  “Nate, the purge is on. But for some reason the operators seem to have packed up and left. I’ve seen no sign of them since yesterday.”

  “I might know why,” Nate said. Then: “‘The purge’?”

  Kennedy nodded. He was dark and fleshy, his bulk straining the pearl buttons of his patterned cowboy shirt. His condition had made him resemble an upside-down pear: pumped-up upper body, shriveled legs. His big round head was shaved, and he had no facial hair save a smudge of silver-streaked black under his lower lip. Nate noted the holstered .45 semiauto strapped to the right side of his wheelchair within easy reach. The old-school operators still loved their 1911 Colts.

  Oscar Kennedy narrowed his eyes. The look, Nate thought, was almost accusatory.

  “They’re taking us all out,” Kennedy said. “And you’re the reason why.”


  “SO WHERE DID everybody go?” Nate asked Kennedy. He sat at the kitchen table. A bank of computer servers hummed in the next room. Somewhere above them on the top floor, Haley stomped around in a room. The reading room of the lodge, which had once been where hunters gathered after a day in the mountains, had been converted into a communications center. Large and small monitors were set up on old pine card tables. Wiring, like exposed entrails, hung down behind the electronics and pooled on the floor. Nate remembered the size of the generator in one of the outbuildings that supplied the compound with power. From this location, Oscar Kennedy could monitor events and communications across the globe via satellite Internet access. And because he didn’t draw from the local grid, he could do so without raising much attention.

  Kennedy wheeled his chair up to the table and sighed. “This isn’t High Noon,” he said. “They didn’t desert you when you needed them most. It’s a lot worse than that.”

  Nate cocked his eyebrows, waiting for more.

  Kennedy said, “Sweeney and McCarthy were killed in a car accident two weeks ago. On that steep hill into Victor. The Idaho Highway Patrol said they lost control of their vehicle, but I think they were forced off the road.”

  “Any proof of that?”

  “None,” Kennedy said. “Other than they’d negotiated that stretch of highway hundreds of times. Yes, it can get treacherous in the snow and ice, but they were used to that. We had our first winter storm that morning, and they were going into town to get groceries. They never came back.”

  Nate felt cold dread spreading through him. Jason Sweeney and Mike McCarthy were serious men. Sweeney was paranoid at times and scary when he got angry, but he was capable of locking his emotions down when the going got tough. McCarthy was an ex–Navy SEAL who was so silent it was easy to forget he was in the room.

  “Two weeks,” Nate said. “That’s about the same time things started happening in Wyoming. You heard about Large Merle?”

  Kennedy nodded and gestured toward the communications center.

  “Any chatter about McCarthy and Sweeney from official channels?” Nate asked.

  “None. Which told me everything I needed to know.” Kennedy smiled sadly. “Whenever one of our brothers passes on, there’s chatter. Guys email and post stories about the fallen warrior and let others in his unit know where to send flowers and donations and such. But in this case, there was nothing. Not a word. Not even a link to the write-up in the local paper. And when I sent a few emails out to their old unit, there were no replies. That means somebody put a lid on it.”

  “How can that be?” Nate asked. “Nobody has the juice to tell ex-operators not to grieve. No one can tell them anything.”

  “It’s not that,” Kennedy said. “The emails I sent never got there. And if anything was posted on the secure blogs and websites, it got deleted just as fast. Our guys in high places have that ability: to scrub digital communications. They’ve had it for years, but I’ve never encountered it personally. Somebody somewhere put out the word that there would be no mention of Sweeney and McCarthy. And because all communications go through conduits that we—our government, I mean—own, they can squelch anything they want to. They even have the ability to go back and ‘disappear’ items that were posted years ago. That’s a new capability, I think, but I’ve heard them talk about it unofficially.”

  Nate shook his head. “You mean they can delete history?”

  “Digital history, at least,” Kennedy said. “They have the ability, if they wanted, to scrub every story, article, post, or reference to the moon landing. They could make it appear that the event never took place. Or change the narrative.”

  “Christ.”

  “It’s a tremendous tool for counterinsurgency,” Kennedy said. “Think about it. The terrorists use email, websites, and social media to connect. If our guys can alter or delete their communications and history, they’re fucked.”

  “But someone is doing it to us,” Nate said.

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Official or unofficial?”

  “You tell me.”

  As Oscar Kennedy talked, Haley reentered the room and studiously avoided eye contact with Nate. She padded over to the sink.

  “Mind if I do the dishes now?” she asked Kennedy.

  “It can wait,” he said.

  She turned on him, and her eyes flared. “How about you do them when you feel the time is right, then? I’m not your maid.”

  “Fine, then,” Kennedy said with a sigh. She did a shoulder roll away from him and turned on the taps.

  She said, “Let me know when he’s gone, okay?”

  Nate looked to Kennedy for an explanation.

  “She came with Cohen,” Kennedy said. “They were an item.”

  “‘Were’?”

  Gabriel Cohen had been tall and rangy, with black curly hair. He was a talker and a charmer, and women fell for him. He was charismatic, passionate, and he drew people in. He’d looked Middle Eastern enough to be dropped inside the region into the hottest spots. Since he spoke Arabic and a smattering of Urdu, he could operate in several countries, including Pakistan.

  Kennedy nodded. “He’s gone, too.”

  “Jesus. What happened?”

  “You happened,” Haley spat. She scrubbed the pots so violently, water splashed across the countertop.

  “The cops said it was a bar fight,” Kennedy said, ignoring her. He chinned toward Haley. “Those two got in a big argument. It had to do with her staying here. Nunez didn’t like the idea of anyone bringing a stranger inside, and she overheard him telling Cohen. When Cohen didn’t defend her, she ripped into him. This place,” Kennedy said, “isn’t as big as you might think. There are lots of spats and arguments when you’ve got a bunch of people cooped up in here. Plus, there was the stress of Sweeney and McCarthy dying.”

  “Anyway …” Nate prompted.

  “Cohen left pissed-off ten days ago. It wasn’t the first time. I knew he’d likely just go down to Victor or over to Tetonia to get drunk and hash it out in his own mind. They found him beaten to death outside a bar in Tetonia. Blunt-force trauma. No suspects at all.”

  “So they were waiting for him,” Nate said.

  “That’s my theory.”

  “They probably jumped him from behind,” Nate said. “Cohen was a tough guy, and you wouldn’t want to take him on from the front.”

  “He was tough,” Kennedy said, shaking his head sadly. “But we’re all just flesh and blood. We’re all mortal. Even you.”

  Haley reacted by throwing the dishrag into the sink with obvious disgust. When she turned on them, her eyes were filled with tears and her chin trembled. “You talk about Gabriel like I’m not in the room, Oscar.”

  “Your choice.”

  “But I’m not here by choice,” she said. Her Southern accent was honey-laced, Nate thought. But her voice built as she said, “I’m a prisoner. My man is gone, and the wolves are right outside the door. I’m doing my best, but I don’t have much left. So at least extend me the courtesy of not talking about him as if I wasn’t in the room, okay?”

  Then she faked a slap at Kennedy’s head—he ducked—and again left the room. Nate watched her leave and was surprised to find his insides stir. She was fit and fiery, with that mane of jet-black hair and large blue eyes. She filled her tight jeans nicely and had a graceful way of moving—even when she was throwing a wet rag or stomping around—he found surprisingly attractive. He stanched the feeling. Alisha was still there with him—a braid of her hair on his weapon—and he instantly felt guilty about it.

  When she was gone, Nate asked, “How long has she been here?”

  “Three months, July,” he said. “We’re like an old married couple the way we fight all the time. She’s got a good heart, though. I’m fond of her, and it’s tough on her Cohen is gone. Really tough.”

  Nate did a quick calculation in his head. She couldn’t be the vixen who lured Large Merle to his death if she’d been
in Idaho for three months. But who was to say there was only one vixen?

  “Have you checked her out?” Nate asked Kennedy softly.

  The man nodded. “Of course, or I wouldn’t have let her in the door with Cohen. In a nutshell, she’s a North Carolina girl, born and raised in Charlotte. Old Southern family. Went to the University of Montana, then moved to New York. She was some kind of prodigy at a big public-relations firm for a while, got married to a sharpie, then divorced. No kids. She wanted to move back home, and she bounced around for a while until she ran into Cohen at Sun Valley and he brought her back here. No gaps in her history, no likely interactions with bad guys. Most of all, no incentive to infiltrate our compound. She was crazy about Cohen, even though they fought all the time.”

  Nate nodded. “Are you two … ?”

  “No,” Kennedy said flatly. “Not that I haven’t suggested it. But no.”

  “And Nunez?” Nate asked.

  Aldo Nunez was a wiry man of Hispanic origins with a cherubic face and the ability to insinuate himself into any group. Nate had met him only once but liked him immediately.

  Kennedy said, “He went down to talk to the local cops to find out what they knew about Cohen’s beating a week ago. That’s the last we’ve seen of him. He just never came back. You didn’t know Nunez very well, but believe me, he’s not the type to bug out.”

  Nate rubbed his face with his hands.

  “Diane Shober went with him,” Kennedy said flatly.

  “So she’s gone, too.”

  “I’m afraid so. Collateral damage.”