Nimec looked at him and said nothing.
“It’s because they’re ugly,” Granger said.
Nimec continued to say nothing.
“And because they’re just the right size to be man-eaters,” Granger said.
Nimec just looked at him.
Granger jammed his probe into the snow, then snorted out another humorless burlesque of a laugh.
“What’s wrong? Don’t like my riddle?” he said. “Or maybe you’re thinking about how you’re going to miss another man-eater. Your friend Megan over at Cold Corners. She’s got a helluva lot sweeter lips than the one that’s about to gobble you up, huh?”
Nimec was silent.
“Well, okay. Whatever. No need to kiss and tell.” Granger nodded to his left. “All you have to do is walk over to that hag’s mouth over there. Right up to its edge. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Nimec looked at him. Looked at the gun between them. What was it Granger had said to him after he’d almost taken that spill in the snowshoes? I know this has to be tricky. It was yet another comment that had suddenly taken on new and unforeseen meaning.
Granger brought his gun up higher now.
“Do it, hero. Walk. Show me how brave you are,” he said, and raised the pistol another few degrees, bringing it level with Nimec’s chest. “Do it or I’ll shoot you dead where you stand.”
Tricky, Nimec thought.
He turned slightly, took a half step toward the crevasse.
Tricky.
“You don’t think I—” he began, giving voice to whatever words came into his mouth, intentionally breaking off, trying to sound like he’d really been about to say something as he feigned a slip on the ice and then thrust himself toward Granger in a sliding, lunging belly-dive.
His arms reached for Granger’s legs now, grappling them below the knees, knocking him off balance before he could recover from his stunned surprise.
Granger teetered on his heels a second and fell over backward, driven by Nimec’s weight and momentum. He grunted as the air went out of him, Nimec holding his legs in a tight clinch, his shoulders slamming hard onto the ice and snow.
Somehow his right hand maintained its grip on the Beretta. All in a heartbeat Nimec saw the pistol sweep down toward him, broke his clasp on Granger, and boosted himself halfway on top of him, reaching for the strap from which his rejected metal snowshoes hung around his shoulder.
Nimec swung the paddles at Granger’s gun just as he squeezed the trigger, deflecting its barrel so the round fired harmlessly into space. He swung them twice again, hard, making contact both times, striking Granger on the wrist and knuckles.
Nimec heard Granger’s exclamation of sudden pain, glimpsed the Beretta flying free of his fingers as they involuntarily released it, a black projectile hurtling off against the whiteness.
He also saw that both he and Granger had fallen precariously near the crevasse, their heads mere inches from its broken lip. Granger was heaving, grabbing, thrashing underneath him, his wild struggle to dislodge him moving their bodies closer to its edge — close enough for Nimec to hear miniature cascades of snow and ice spill down and away into its gaping emptiness.
He did not waste an instant. Pushing off with his toes, he clambered further up Granger’s body, got fully on top of him now, and brought an elbow down on Granger’s throat, hacked it into his throat, catching him squarely in the windpipe.
Granger made an umphing sound and went limp, sinking back into the snow, his chest seeming to collapse, his arms falling strengthlessly to his sides.
Nimec gulped a breath. Then he rose onto his knees, straddling Granger, bunching his fists around the collar of the man’s parka to pull his head and shoulders out of the snow.
“You son of a bitch,” he said. “Let’s see what you’ve got to gain by talking now.”
NINETEEN
Megan watched Pete Nimec and Ron Waylon enter her office.
“Red dog,” Nimec said, shouldering through the door first.
She remained quiet behind the desk, where she’d sat for over an hour, waiting for them to complete their latest interrogation of Russ Granger and report on whether they’d gotten anything out of him.
Waylon pulled up a chair opposite her. Nimec strode over to the big Dry Valley satellite map.
She looked at him.
“I gather,” she said, “you’re going to explain what you mean.”
“Red dog,” Nimec repeated. “It’s the name of a card game I learned—”
In your pool-shark days with your reprobate father, she thought.
“—in pool halls when I was a kid,” Nimec said. “My old man used to play with some Philly Inquirer beat reporters. Everybody’s dealt five face-down cards. Then the dealer starts around the table, deals each player a card face-up. If the player owns a higher card in the same suit, he shows it and wins double his bet for that round. If he doesn’t, he tosses his hand and his stake gets added to the pot. If they want to make the game more interesting, the dealer burns a card from the top of the deck… shows it to everybody, then tosses it to give the bank an edge.”
Megan nodded.
“So Granger displayed a burn card when he let us know Scar and Shevaun Bradley are alive,” she said.
“Right.”
“What’s he shown you now?”
“The notch.” Nimec stabbed a finger at the blue pin identifying the area of Scout IV’s disappearance. “They’re being held prisoner in the notch. At some kind of underground base.”
Her eyes widened.
“Pete, that’s incredible… ”
“Don’t unbuckle your seat belt yet,” he said. “He gave us the exact location. There’s some kind of tunnel or mine shaft. He wouldn’t tell us what’s being dug up. Or stored. I figure he knows, or has a damned good idea—”
“But that’s another burn card he can show when it’s advantageous to him.”
“Yeah. Granger’s got a full deck. And he intends to use it to win himself the sweetest deal possible with INR at State, CIA, Interpol… whoever winds up with custody of the slug once they can sort that out.”
“Meanwhile he’s playing UpLink…”
“Dealing us what he figures we want most…”
“The whereabouts of our people, in other words…”
“In exchange for our agreeing to testify that he was cooperative when the time comes to face the music,” Waylon said.
Megan looked from one man to the other.
“This explains a lot,” she said. “Explains almost everything, in fact. Our rover coincidentally rolls too close to the notch… we’d programmed it to explore the area… and then whoever is out there in Bull Pass takes preemptive action. Disables or destroys it before we can receive telemetry that exposes their presence.”
Nimec was nodding.
“Next our S&R team arrives,” Megan said. “They pick up Scout’s trail, follow it to where it ends—”
“Come too close to the notch themselves with Granger sounding the alert…”
“And stumble into the same concealed pitfall as the rover,” Megan said.
Nimec and Waylon gave her near-synchronous nods. Then they were all silent for some moments.
“Why would they want to kill David Payton if they were going to let the others live?” Megan said.
“Granger swears he doesn’t have any idea,” Nimec said.
“And you believe him?”
Nimec shrugged.
“Hard to be sure, but my gut sense is he’s on the level,” he said.