Force of Nature Page 17

  “The second reason was to eliminate anyone who might help me out. War is still just a numbers game. It is cold-blooded, but that’s what it is. Kill more of them than they can kill of yours. And if possible, kill them all.”

  “What are you going to do to them if we find them?”

  “What do you think? Revenge is something I’m good at. I enjoy it for its purity.”

  She shrunk away from him, shocked.

  “And to further reduce their numbers,” he said. “Two can play at this game.”

  ONCE THEY started climbing the mountains and Idaho was in his rearview mirror, he borrowed Haley’s cell phone and called the Teton County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Department.

  “I need to report a murder,” he said to the dispatcher.

  “Come again?” she said. He heard a slight click and knew the dispatcher had engaged the recording device.

  “Two men using the names Bill Wood and Tom James murdered the Reverend Oscar Kennedy in his own home this morning with a sniper rifle. They’re also responsible for the deaths of Gabriel Cohen, Jason Sweeney, Mike McCarthy, and Aldo Nunez, all former Special Forces vets. And an innocent named Diane Shober. You know the names from the case files in your department, but these weren’t accidents. Wood and James stayed the last week at the Rendezvous Motel in Driggs, room eight. Make sure you get a forensics team there to collect hair, fiber, and DNA samples to help determine the true identities of the killers—”

  “Please slow down,” she said. “Where are you calling from?”

  “That’s not important,” Nate said. “You can listen to the tape afterward. What is important is that Reverend Kennedy’s body is taken care of and his family notified. He was a good man.”

  “What is the name of the reporting party?” she asked.

  “That is all,” Nate said, and closed the phone.

  Haley shook her head. “That’s why you told the guy not to clean their rooms. So there would be DNA samples.”

  “Right,” he said. “If they were there for ten nights, the room is crawling with their residue. The cops will find enough to positively ID the killers—provided their DNA is on file somewhere. Which may be a long shot. I don’t expect them to ID our bad guys right away, but they’ll send a car out to Oscar’s compound. I can’t stand the thought of his body unattended all night.”

  “Neither can I,” she said, and her eyes again filled with tears.

  After a few minutes, she reached toward Nate to retrieve her cell phone.

  “No, sorry,” he said, and rolled down his window. He extended the phone outside and flipped it down and back under the back tires. The crunch sounded like a car door being closed.

  “Hey!”

  He said, “They can track us from the call I just made or at least figure out what cell towers sent it.”

  “How am I supposed to function without my phone?”

  He grinned wolfishly. “Welcome to life off the grid.”

  They summited the mountain, and the lights of Jackson Hole splayed out beneath them in the valley.

  JACKSON IN OCTOBER was predictably empty. The throngs that packed the wood sidewalks in the summer were gone, and those wearing skiwear and fashionable snow boots were yet to come. It was the time of the year when the Mercedes, Lexuses, and BMWs of tourists and seasonal residents gave way to the muddy four-wheel-drive pickups of elk hunters, but in much smaller numbers. The town seemed to be resting and recovering, and many of the retail stores downtown were closed until winter and skiing resumed.

  But not the bars. Nate located the white Tahoe parked at an angle on the side of the Wort Hotel. He drove past it, with Haley pointing out the Colorado plates, and kept on going.

  “Aren’t you going after them?” she asked, confused.

  “Yes.”

  “Then where are we going now?”

  “I’m taking you to the airport so you can fly back to North Carolina, or wherever.”

  She sat back hard in her seat as if slapped, and crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  “Sure you are,” he said. “Do you need money for the ticket?”

  “I need you to shut up and turn around. I was there when these guys destroyed my world. I’ve got to see this through.”

  He took a long look at her. In response, she set her jaw and tipped her head back. Her eyes caught and reflected passing lights. Lovely, he thought.

  He said, “If you stay with me you’ll either get killed or wind up in prison. This isn’t a lighthearted choice.”

  She waved his words away and clamped her hand back under her arm. “But I’ve made it. I’m sticking with you and seeing this through. I want to see the men who did this. I want to see them go down.”

  He slowed the Jeep but kept it rolling down the highway. They were clear of the southern town limits, but the lights of the town sparkled in his rearview mirror. The National Elk Refuge was on his right, and he could see the first of the arrivals out on the moonlit pasture.

  “If you stay,” he said, “you have to do whatever I tell you. This is my operation, and I’m good at these things. I don’t want or need your advice or your questions.”

  She didn’t respond immediately. After a beat, she said, “Okay. But you have to understand I’ve never done anything like this before. Never. Cohen was trying to teach me how to use a handgun, but I didn’t like it.”

  “I’m not letting you near a weapon,” Nate said. “And remember to fight against your first instinct.”

  “My first instinct?”

  “To talk,” he said. “When things get hot, I need you to listen to me and do what I tell you, and not yammer on. Repress that first instinct. Can you do that?”

  “Of course,” she said, obviously insulted.

  “Good,” he said, slowing down to begin a U-turn back to town, “because I think I like your company.”

  As they drove, she shot her arms out and settled back in her seat. “I thought for a brief moment I liked yours,” she said, “then I found out what an asshole you can be.”

  THE WORT HOTEL stood on the corner of Glenwood and Broadway in the heart of Jackson, and it stretched the length of the short block. Constructed of rough stone with eaves and gabled windows, it looked like a regal 1940s matriarchal ghost amidst the gussied-up faux-western storefronts. The Silver Dollar Bar had its entrance on Main, and as Nate and Haley cruised by, they could see men with cowboy hats at the bar and smaller groups of hunters sitting at tables. They didn’t slow down as they drove by.

  “Did you see our boys?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Nate turned on Glenwood and passed the Tahoe and continued on across Deloney and backed into a dark alleyway and turned off his motor. From there, they could look out the front window and see the back bumper of the Tahoe jutting out into the street. There were fewer than ten other cars parked, and plenty of spaces. It was an entirely different feel from the busy summer and winter months.

  “How can you be positive it’s the right car, or that the bad guys are inside?”

  Nate shrugged. “I can’t.”

  “Do you want me to go in the bar and look around?”

  “No. They might recognize you. Those bastards were up there in the trees for days looking down at the compound through binoculars or a spotting scope. They might have seen you.”

  “Oh,” she said, then hugged herself. “It creeps me out to think they were up there all that time. Just waiting for us to finally open the curtains.”

  “Lots of patience,” Nate said. “But no surveillance is perfect. The longer it goes on, the more there’s a chance for a mistake. Like not seeing me come down to the house this morning.”

  After ten wordless minutes, he could tell it was killing her not to talk. She squirmed in her seat, and took deep breaths that ended in long sighs.

  Finally, she asked, “Have you thought about calling the sheriff again? Telling them you might have found the killers?”

  He shook
his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want them arrested. I want them dead. But not before I get some intel.”

  AFTER TEN MORE MINUTES, she said, “So are you going to tell me what this is all about? Why those … men … are after everyone?”

  “Maybe later,” Nate said, opening his door and swinging out. “One thing at a time.”

  “I deserve to know,” she said. “Gabriel and all my friends …”

  He looked up sharply. “Remember what I said about talking? I meant it.”

  She sat back quickly as if he’d threatened her with a knife.

  He said, “Stay here, be quiet, and keep your eyes open. If you see anything hinky, flash the headlights once.”

  “Hinky?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  Nate rattled around through gear in the small back floor well and came out with an eighteen-inch crowbar and a two-foot length of stiff wire.

  “Back in a minute,” he said, and walked across Deloney with the tool pressed to his thigh so it couldn’t be seen in silhouette. Dime-sized snowflakes sifted down through the orbs of streetlights and began to gather like goosedown in the cracks of the wooden walk.

  HE DIDN’T NEED the crowbar to get into the Tahoe, and he was grateful, because he feared setting off an alarm. A car alarm blasting in the quiet night would be a small disaster. He kept low as he cased the vehicle, looking in all the windows but not standing tall enough to be seen over the roof.

  The front seat was uncluttered except for a sheaf of folded maps and documents crammed down between the driver’s seat and the console. The backseat was loaded with duffel bags and gear bags. Not unusual in a mountain location if the occupants were mountain climbers or trekkers.

  The back compartment had a couple of suitcases, plastic tubs with lids, and a heavy blanket spread across the carpeting from one wheel well to another. The blanket didn’t lie flat, but was rounded down in the center. It was obviously covering something long and bulky.

  Nate held the wire up to the light and bent the tip into an L shape. He made another bend about eighteen inches from the L. After checking the walks for passersby—there were none—he glanced down the street to where his Jeep was parked. He couldn’t see Haley in the passenger side because of the shadows, but she was not flashing the lights. Quickly, he stood and jammed the pointed tip of the wire through the rubber seal on the back window. He had to work the wire up and down until the pointed tip found the edge of the glass in the channel. With a shove and twist, the wire poked through the seal on the inside and he could see it on the other side of the glass.

  The rubber seal squeaked as he raised the butt end of the wire and shoved it farther into the back compartment. No alarms went off. He pushed it until it reached the rear bend, then farther raised the back end. The L-tip bit down into the fabric, and he pulled the wire from left to right, drawing back the blanket, revealing the black heavy barrel of a rifle. He pulled it back far enough to see the bipod, legs folded, mounted to the undercarriage of the front stock and the blunt snout of the scope.

  A Barrett M82A1M .50 sniper rifle, all thirty pounds’ worth. It shot 690- to 750-grain .50 caliber Browning machine-gun cartridges, each nearly five inches long. The murder weapon. Just as he’d guessed.

  NATE TOSSED the crowbar and the wire back into the rear floor well and brushed snowflakes from his coat and sleeves before he climbed inside and shut the door.

  “It’s them,” he said, describing the find.

  “What if they’re staying for the night?” she asked. “I mean, it’s a hotel.”

  “Then we wait until morning,” he said.

  “I’m getting cold. It’s snowing.”

  “Haley …”

  “I know, I know.”

  AFTER TWENTY MINUTES, he noticed she was hugging herself and trembling from the cold. She’d obviously chosen not to complain, and he appreciated it, and he reached forward and started the motor. It took a while before dust-smelling heat—it was the first time he’d had to turn on the heat since winter—poured through the vents.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The snow came straight down and had coated the streets and cars with a clean white inch. Falling snow haloed around the lampposts and turned pink in the neon red light from the Silver Dollar Bar sign. Nate checked the time and was surprised to see it was only 8:15. The tragic day they’d had, the stillness, the dark streets, and the smothering snowfall made it seem much later.

  Haley said, “Maybe we could stay inside? Separate rooms, of course.”

  Nate grunted. He liked the soft, husky tone of her voice. Despite what he’d told her earlier about talking, he found her voice attractive. Although she’d been sitting next to him nearly all day, he could feel her presence very strongly at that moment. He was tuned in to her every movement, every breath. Her dark hair shined blue with diffused ambient light from outside, like Superman in the comics. In the warm air of the heater, he could also catch a light whiff of her scent.

  As the cab warmed up she had her eyes fixed on the windshield but said, “Gabriel told me about your loss. About your girlfriend getting killed.”

  “She was more than that,” he said.

  “You know what I mean. It must have been horrible.”

  “It was. It is.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it, right?”

  “Right.”

  After a moment, she said, “So we’ve both lost the people closest to us. What are the chances of that?”

  He didn’t reply. But he found it more than interesting that she was thinking of the two of them that way. He’d been thinking the same thing but keeping it at bay because he was frightened of the possibilities.

  “I’d like to get some sleep,” she said softly, “but I’m afraid if I close my eyes I’ll see Oscar’s body again. I’ll never be able to get that image out of my mind for the rest of my life.”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of violent death. If you spend a lot of time in the natural world, there’s little else. I know there are wild animals that die of old age, but I’ve rarely seen one. There’s a point where you get like a hunter or a farmer—or a doctor—and you look at it almost clinically. Bullets are just chunks of metal thrown really fast through the air, and when they hit soft flesh they do terrible damage. You get used to it. But when it happens to a friend who was talking to you just a minute before—he’s there and then he isn’t, and all that’s left is meat—you never get used to that.”

  He felt her eyes on him and almost didn’t want to look over.

  “Your secret,” she asked. “You told Oscar, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But no one else?”

  “No, although a friend named Large Merle figured it out. He’s no longer with us. I tried to tell a good man I know, a game warden in Wyoming, but he didn’t want to hear it.”

  She said, “Maybe I do.”

  “Maybe you don’t,” he said, turning on the wipers to clear the windshield of snow that melted on contact.

  “Not that it seems to matter,” she said. “Everybody you come in contact with seems to wind up ‘no longer with us.’”

  Nate grimaced and closed his eyes for a moment. “You don’t need to remind me,” he said, thinking of Joe and Marybeth. Hoping they’d see and understand his message to them to get away fast. Hoping they were in the process of packing bags that very minute. Wondering if he shouldn’t step out from his self-imposed communications blackout and make an unsecured phone call to emphasize his concern.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean …”

  He grunted again and waved her words away with his hand.

  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. Sh
e 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.”