“So sad,” she said. “That’s Armani.”
He stared at her, wary, his eyes like a hundred miles of Arctic ice, but something moved in them. A question.
“No, I am not going to finish you. I meant to. I missed, thank God. You have a kid at home, don’t you?”
He nodded, barely. “One I bet. I bet it’s a little girl.” Suspicious nod. “Well, you better go back to her. We wouldn’t want another little girl to grow up without a father.”
He stared at her.
“Bill?” He blinked hard. “You’re going to call in your support now. There’s a clearing through there, you saw it, I bet it’s where you parked your truck. Big enough for a chopper. Call it in. You’ll be in the ER quicker that way than if we called the volunteer ambulance. By the look of Babb that could take a while.”
He hesitated, nodded once.
“You can get to the clearing, right?”
He nodded.
“And this is what you’re going to tell your people.” He stared. “Listen: Tell them it ends here. Lamont stays dead. The secret about Chile”—he blinked—“just tell them: The secret about the coup stays secret. But—get this very clearly, please—if any harm at all comes to Lamont, or his daughter, Gabriela, or her son, or to me, or to Pete, or my Hank, the photos go to the press. New York Times, Washington Post, etc. It’s all set up, all it takes is the trigger. Otherwise it goes nowhere, everybody moves on. Got that?”
He nodded.
“You all have bigger things to worry about right now, is my guess. We better hope everyone lives long and natural lives. Now sit up. I’m not afraid of you anymore. They will surely kill you if you trigger the release of those pictures.” She leaned her rifle against a pine and knelt by the bleeding man and helped him sit up. She got behind him and undid the knot in the scarf and undoubled it and wound it expertly several times over the folded orange cap and his shoulder, and under his armpit, and snugged it very tight. He winced and flinched hard but did not cry out. “There. Better,” she said. She tugged the half-quart water bottle out of its sleeve on her belt. “Here.” He took it. She noticed his hands were scarred and very strong. Who knew what they had wrought in the world. He tipped up the bottle and squirted half into his mouth. Nodded once.
“You need help getting to the clearing?” He shook his head. Slowly he got to his knees. She stepped to the tree and picked up her rifle. He reached over for his, which lay where he’d dropped it on the pine needles. “Uh-uh, Tanner,” Celine said, bringing her rifle up. His head came up fast, whether from the sound of his last name or the curt warning. “You’d better leave that. That stays. I’ve always wanted one of those. It’s an M24, isn’t it? .308.” On his knees he stared at her. He looked like a man who wasn’t sure if he were in a bad dream from which he’d soon wake.
“From now on be careful who you call ma’am,” she said. “Get going.”
She slung his rifle, which was surprisingly light. Kevlar stock. Lovely. And she watched William Tanner walk slowly through the trees, watched him unshuck his satellite phone and bring it to his ear.
TWENTY-SIX
Celine made it back to the trail. Pete was there, standing in the shade and looking shaken. She never thought of him as an old man. He was just a few years older than she was, after all, and he was game and had a lively mind and his body still bore the temper and memory of a high-school athlete and farmhand. But she thought as she came out of the trees that he looked old. Something a bit frightened and tentative hovered around him as he stood there in his bright orange hat. Well. Anyone at any age would’ve been frightened by getting shot at—by a SEAL sniper. The only thing that had saved their bacon was getting startled by an elk. See? she thought. Jumping with fright can have its upside.
Pa looked deeply thoughtful as he watched her come and he held his shotgun at port arms. “I can’t believe what just happened,” he said as she unslung the M24. It really was a gorgeous rifle.
“You can’t?” she said, catching her breath.
“You used your favorite Armani scarf as a bandage.”
Her head came around. He didn’t seem old anymore. He smiled.
“You saw that? You were watching?”
“Do you kind of fake the emphysema for effect?” he said. “Or sympathy?” Pete’s expressions fell into no categories of common usage. “I’m also getting the feeling again that you’ve had special training in a part of your life I know absolutely nothing about. Not yet.” Yes, he wore a half smile, and yes, he seemed deeply amused, an amusement touched strongly with irony, and yes, his eyes were loving and tolerant, also bemused, even concerned. Maybe even a little confused. Well, one just had to let Pete be Pete.
“You had my back,” she said. “You were right there. And you were so stealthy the trained professionals didn’t notice. Wow.” She stood on her toes and straightened his cap. “Let’s go visit Paul Lamont. It’s a long shot, I know, but I keep being reassured.” She tucked some loose hair behind her ear. “Hank’s wondrous hat, damn. I just gave it away. Just a sec, my beret’s on the front seat.” She squeezed his arm and picked up the old and trusty lever-action hunting rifle.
They followed the track for twenty-five minutes and came to the edge of a clearing. The clearing was tall faded wheatgrass and rabbitbrush and sage. A light wind rippled through the grass and in the warming early afternoon they could smell the sagebrush. Also woodsmoke. No sounds but the breeze and the pulse of crickets. A copse of blue spruce and lodgepole pines protected a small cabin and behind the cabin was a small green lake. Green as his true love’s eyes. And beyond the lake, west, was the stone and ice ridge of Many Glacier rising out of the trees. There, northwest, was the mesa-topped monadnock of Chief Mountain. It dominated the horizon. They knew from the map that there, too, was the Canadian border. A good spot for a fugitive if ever there was one—if he was in good shape he could find a game trail and trot across the border in a few hours, all in the cover of deep woods. Someone must be home—a thread of pale smoke rose from a stovepipe in the roof.
Celine murmured, “Goose Lake. Sounds like a bird. But one step past it. A crafty SOB.” Pete nodded. “Happy hunting,” she said. And they stepped out of the deep shade of the trees.
They split up and walked over the open ground just the way two old hunters would: Walked slowly, careful not to twist an ankle, stopping every few steps to sniff the air and scan for elk or deer. And walking on. With their guns and orange vests and apparent age they could be nothing else. They had covered almost half of the two hundred yard meadow when they saw the cabin door open and a man stepped onto the porch and he was studying them with large military binoculars. They stopped and watched him, too. Then Celine raised her arm like a squadron leader and the two continued forward slowly. And the man stepped back into the darkened doorway and came out again holding a rifle. Each step in the sequence was done without haste and in silence. Also without haste the man raised the scoped rifle and leveled it at them. Well. Seemed like a day for getting shot at. Must be how every deer and elk in the county will feel in a month.
They stopped, glanced at each other, Celine frowned and nodded and they stepped forward. Celine waved at the man: an elderly hunter from away encountering an ornery native, trying to be polite. No shot, so they stepped forward again. They continued walking. The man, evidently, would let them live, and walk, until they got within hailing range.
And—just then Celine heard the thwop of a distant chopper. More like a stuttered pressure wave coming through the nearly still air. A beating of pressure in the ears and then the true drumming of the blades and they saw the man’s rifle come up to the sky over their heads as he scoped the new threat and they both turned and saw the black Robinson 66 coming fast and low over the ridge and trees. Maybe two miles from them, less, it came around hard in a clockwise bank and hovered. Right over the swampy meadow. Loud now, even at that distance. The bird rocked on air just over the treetops, and then it settled down out of sight and the throbbing dropped an octave; a few seconds later they heard another roar, the ramping up, and the chopper was over the trees and rising. William Tanner did not take long to load. The helicopter had barely cleared the tallest spruce when it tipped and banked and the tail rose and it accelerated straight toward the ridge and maybe Helena. Celine hoped so. Helena and not some black site, the man needed medical attention. She hoped he wouldn’t get demoted because he’d gotten bested by a silver fox.