His plan was to get some sleep and then call into Micah’s around midnight.
By then, hopefully, there would be news of Lynn. After that, he would have some decisions to make. The only way he could prove his own innocence with respect to the Washington bombing was to bring in McGarand, and that would be tough to do with everybody hunting him.
Plus, he had no idea where McGarand was. What he might have to do would be go into permanent hiding for a few years and maybe tell his story through the public press. But that would leave Lynn unprotected.
He wasn’t worried about the Bureau or even the aTF doing anything to Lynn, but what Misty would do was a very different question.
Headlights flared down in the industrial area. As he watched from the trees, he could see and then hear a security truck prowling through the littered streets. So there was active security now, he thought. He’d been lucky to get over the fence. The truck turned away and went down a road behind the blank concrete slabs that had been the power plant, then headed into the bunker fields. The headlights disappeared.
He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. Focus, he told himself. Get some rest. Find out what’s happened to Lynn. Then decide.
Janet stepped across the trail before recognizing what it was. Lynn did see it, and she said, “Hey.” They examined the trail, which was not much more than a footpath, but it ran up and down the mountain, not across it.
It looked to Janet like it was maybe five, six hundred feet to the summit.
“If this goes all the way to the top,” Janet said, “we could cut our little hike here in half.”
Lynn groaned and then sat down on a log.
“I’m sorry. You go ahead, and I’ll hole up somewhere. I can’t make that climb.”
Janet sat down next to her.
“I’m not going to leave you out here,” she said.
“Let’s rest a while and then see what we can do.”
“I know what I can’t do,” Lynn said.
“I can’t climb this frigging mountain.”
Janet said nothing, just sat there in the darkness. She had regained her night vision, and she could see amazingly well. The sky was full of bright stars and a partial moon. Light-colored objects stood out with sudden clarity against the dark pines. Like the man standing there by that tree, watching them.
“Shit!” she shouted, jumping up and fumbling to get her gun out. Lynn saw where Janet was staring and got up slowly, backing in the direction they had come. The man didn’t move, but just continued to stand there, motionless. He was very tall, bearded, and was wearing a slouch hat and carrying a long rifle with a scope in the crook of his arm. Finally, he advanced one step and raised the rifle into the air. A single shot blasted out against the night air, followed by two more as he worked the bolt so fast, Janet couldn’t see his hands move. The
final gunshot reverberated across the rock face of the mountain like an insult against all nature. Back in the forest, a night bird squawked its disapproval. The man put the rifle back into the crook of his arm and stepped forward. Janet kept her own gun ready, but pointed it at the ground. The man approached, his footfalls silent on the pine straw. He was even taller than she had thought. She could smell the gun smoke rising from the barrel of his rifle.
“Y’all cold?” he asked in an old man’s voice. Janet couldn’t really see his face.
“Yes,” she said. Had he signaled Micah? Or someone else?
“Them rocks yonder? They still warm. Y’all stay here. Pap’s a-comin’.”
Then he stepped back into the forest and disappeared right in front of their eyes.
“That mean what I think it means?” Lynn asked in a low whisper.
“I sure hope so,” Janet said.
“Scared the shit out of me. Let’s go see if he’s right about those rocks.”
Half an hour later, they were sitting with their backs up against a smooth wall of rock, which had indeed still been warm from the afternoon sun. They saw a lantern approaching through the trees, and then Micah and the tall man came across the path. The man was still carrying the big rifle, and Micah was carrying what looked like a stubby double barreled shotgun in one hand, the lantern in the other. He greeted them and then put a finger to his lips, signaling for silence.
“We’re goin’ down,” he began.
“Thank God,” Lynn murmured.
“Cain’t talk,” he said, dousing the lantern.
“They’s revenuers aplenty out on the mountain.”
“Where are you taking us?” Janet asked, wondering why the revenuers wouldn’t have heard the shots.
“To ole Ed’s cabin. Ain’t no one there right now. Where’s them folks what came after you in the cave?”
Janet told him about what had happened on the subterranean lake, and Micah nodded. He put a finger to his lips again and then started down the trail. Janet and Lynn followed, Lynn limping a little. The tall man followed for a while, but then, on Micah’s signal, he stepped sideways into the forest and disappeared again.
It took them forty minutes to get down to the level of the big meadow behind Kreiss’s cabin. Micah signaled for them to rest while he went forward to the edge of the woods. He watched for a few minutes. Then he walked carefully out into the meadow until he reached the rock where
Kreiss hid his Barrett. He lit the lantern, cropped the flame down to a minimum, and then extended it beyond the side of the huge boulder. As Janet strained to see, an answering flicker of light appeared down among the trees at the cabin. What is this? she thought. He had said there was no one at the cabin. Micah turned around and waved them out of the trees.
Had to be some of Micah’s people, she concluded. She had to help Lynn get to her feet, and the girl staggered when she first started to walk. All in, Janet thought, giving her an arm for support.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
“Almost where?” Lynn asked, which is when Janet noticed Lynn’s eyes were closed.
“Your dad’s cabin. Micah got a signal that it was all clear.”
They walked across the meadow, going slow to accommodate Lynn’s halting footsteps. Janet felt terribly exposed out in the broad expanse of grass between the woods up above and the dark cabin, but Micah proceeded ahead confidently. When they stepped into the shadows of the trees around the cabin, Lynn was stunned to see Farnsworth and five of the Roanoke agents, including Billy Smith, step out of the darkness. They converged on Micah. She was reaching instinctively for her weapon, when she realized from the way he was acting that Micah had known they were there. Farnsworth came over, took one look at Lynn, and instructed two agents to help her into the cabin. Janet just stood there with her mouth hanging open until she saw Farnsworth smile. He had something in his hands, but she couldn’t see what it was.
“Hey, Janet,” he said.
“Feel like a cup of coffee?”
Janet looked at Micah, who was standing to one side, looking considerably embarrassed. He had led them directly into the government’s hands.
“Mr. Wall, what have you done?” she asked.
“Don’t blame him, Janet,” Farnsworth said.
“He’s doing what he had to do. Let’s get a cup of coffee. I’ve got some things to tell you.”
Forty-five minutes later, after a hot shower and some dry clothes borrowed from Lynn’s closet, Janet sat with Farnsworth in the kitchen, having a cup of coffee. Lynn had been seen by some county EMTs and then had collapsed on her father’s bed, where she was now fast asleep. The rest of the Roanoke agents, except for Billy, were outside. Farnsworth put Janet’s credentials and her Sig down on the kitchen table. Billy sat at the dining room table, facing a laptop computer that was used for secure communications from the field.