Horowitz came running in. “You find the President?”
“Afraid not, Mr. Horowitz,” DeWitt said.
“Use your radio and bring in all of your men,” Murdock said. “Have them bring any civilians with them. The Koreans have left the area, so it should be safe. Tell them to make themselves known. We have a perimeter set out.”
Jaybird took the Secret Service man down the hall to identify the dead man, and soon they heard a scream of protest.
Lam took two flashlights and went to talk to the cooks.
“Yeah,” said the taller cook, “they took the box of sandwiches, put them in their packs, and the water jugs, and took off. Was still light then. They headed out the back door here and walked due left down toward Wildcat Canyon. It’s about two miles over.”
Lam told Murdock what he knew on the net and headed out the door, checking the ground for what should be at least fifteen sets of footprints. Even on a trail he should be able to follow them. In the brush or woods it would be easier.
The Secret Service men and the resort staff began drifting in. There were four more government men, and they brought eight workers along with them. The Secret Service men huddled at one side. Horowitz left them and talked to Murdock.
“We want to use your SATCOM to call our office in D.C. and tell them what’s happened and ask for instructions.”
Murdock shook his head. “Not a good idea. We don’t know what’s happened. If we say the President has been kidnapped, it could cause a panic. Let’s hold off awhile. Your office can’t help us right now. What we need is a company of Marines for a blocking action and a pair of choppers with infrared imagers to show us where the Koreans are. We don’t have either and won’t get them. We wait on Lam and move out when he tells us to.”
The cook DeWitt had talked to came in and grinned when he saw all the people.
“Good, somebody to feed. I have sandwiches and beef stew in the dining room if anyone is interested. There also is plenty of coffee, tea, and soft drinks. I’ve set up for thirty, is that enough?”
Murdock called in the screening troops and they sat down to eat.
“Great time for a counterattack,” General Arnold said.
Murdock sipped his coffee and had another bite of the tuna-fish sandwich. “They are out of the area, I’m sure. Lam will keep us up to date.”
“What can we do until we hear from your tracker?” Horowitz asked.
“Not a hell of a lot except wait,” DeWitt said. He looked at Murdock. “Skipper, I checked the North Korean KIAs. No papers, no ID, nothing to indicate who they are or what they are doing.”
“Figures,” Murdock said, and reached for another sandwich.
Meanwhile, Lam came to a small stream and studied the obvious boot prints on the near side. All seemed to head directly into the water. But did they just cross or go downstream to confuse a tracker? No, they would go straight across. They would have no idea they would be followed at night. He crossed the stream and picked up the trail. Thirty boots tromping along was not hard to follow even at night. He used one light to save the other batteries.
The trail had swung downhill, and in the moonlight through gaps in the timber, Lam could see a meadowlike clearing coming up. He stopped and turned off his light and listened.
Nothing.
He flipped down the Motorola mike from his floppy hat brim. “Lam to Murdock.”
“Go.”
“Figure I’m about three miles from the ranch. Generally to the southwest, heading at a slant downhill. A clearing is coming up, a big one, like a meadow. Can’t see anything yet, or hear anything, but should be there in about ten. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Copy that.”
Lam moved forward, keeping the flashlight close to the ground. He watched for broken plants, mashed-down leaf mold, an occasional broken-off branch. By the time the last man had been through a narrow space, an easy-to-follow trail had been gouged out of the woodsy floor.
The tracker edged up to the fringe of woods around the open space. Yes, a mountain meadow that probably once was a lake. It was depressed in the center and covered ten or twelve square city blocks. Maybe twenty acres. He could see all around the edges of the opening and checked for lights. There were none. He held his breath, closed his eyes, and listened.
Yes, a muted laugh, a few words, all in some foreign language. They were somewhere close by. Why would they stop here? He checked the meadow again. Yes, it was dry, filled with grass. An ideal landing zone. He tried to sniff the faint breeze that blew toward him. There was no scent of oil or grease or even petroleum fuel. If there was a chopper close by, he couldn’t detect it. Why would they wait if they had a bird here? They wouldn’t. So maybe this was a pickup spot to be used in case of an emergency. They certainly had an emergency.
He backtracked a hundred yards and checked in with Murdock on the Motorola outlining where he was and what he had found.
“I haven’t been close to them yet, so I don’t know how many of them, and can’t tell if the President is with them. Want me to move up or wait for backup?”
“See what else you can find out. Then give us a compass heading so we can come find you. My guess is the quicker we get there the better. They could bug out again.”
Lam gave them an approximate compass heading and moved back toward the meadow. This time he stayed in the woods and worked his way fifty yards toward the voices before he angled back toward the opening. The wind shifted and he smelled wood smoke. Yes, they had a camp, so they would be there a while. He worked ahead slower, making sure he made no noise whatsoever that could be heard a dozen feet away.
Ten minutes of snail’s-pace moving later, he came over a slight rise and could see the reflection of firelight on the trees. He judged it to be fifty yards ahead. He closed his eyes again and listened. Yes, more voices, high-pitched, excited. They were celebrating? If so, they were a little premature.
Lam checked every three steps looking for exterior guards. He was sure they would have some out, maybe three of them. One was all he had to take care of. He moved to a large pine tree and edged his head around it. He figured he was still thirty yards from the camp.
Movement, just ahead. What? He lifted his NVG and checked. Yes, a man in jungle cammies with a sub gun sitting against a tree ten feet ahead. His chin had lowered to his chest. He could be dozing. Lam worked to his right, moving out of sight of the guard, then forward past him and to the left so he could come up behind the man. It took ten minutes to make the silent trip of forty feet. Then Lam was directly behind the man’s tree. He felt on his waist and pulled from his belt a length of piano wire that had been fitted with padded loops on each end. He held the ends and edged around the tree.
In one swift move he jumped beside the Korean guard, swung the loop of wire over his head, and jerked back hard with both hands. The surprised guard had time only to gurgle once as the thin wire sliced through his windpipe, then his jugular vein, and then cut through both his carotid arteries supplying blood to his brain. Blood spurted from the ruptured carotids with each beat of the Korean’s heart. The spurts became weaker and weaker, until no blood came out at all. In less than a minute the guard had expired.
Lam let him fall to the ground, cleaned the garrote on the dead man’s shirt, and put it back around his waist. He knelt and looked at the camp area. He still could see little. But the way should now be open. He worked ahead silently as a fox.
It took ten minutes to move thirty feet, and then he parted some heavy brush and looked out from ground level. Twenty feet ahead he saw the Koreans’ camp. There were two wall tents twenty feet long in a cleared area. Both had lights on inside. He could hear a muted engine that must be powering a generator.
The fire he had seen first glowed between the tents. Four men in jungle cammies sat around it eating off metal trays. The fronts of the tents faced each other. One had a door flap open. The other tent’s flap was closed and two armed guards stood in front of it.