The line was delivered with a genuine smile and Ethan found himself warming to the officer immediately. Watson introduced his men to them as they stepped forward. His sergeant was a man named Kurt Agry, a couple of inches shorter than Ethan and maybe twenty pounds lighter, but he was stout and compact and his features had been hewn into hard lines by the axe of military training. His hair was shaved down to a gray stubble that stained his almost square head. The corporal was a younger guy called Jenkins, tall and rangy.
The rest of the soldiers were amiable but reserved toward their civilian charges. He caught their names; Milner, Simmons, Archer, Klein, Willis. Most wore black basketball-style caps over their heads and generally kept their faces vaguely concealed as though concerned about their identities. Ethan smiled inwardly. National Guard soldiers were occasionally prone to inflating their appearance to mimic battle-hardened front-line troops. Ethan didn’t care much: what mattered to him was that they had firepower, and plenty of it.
‘You guys got a game plan here?’ Lieutenant Watson asked Ethan. ‘Our brief was exactly that: brief.’
‘Fox Creek,’ Ethan replied, and showed Watson the position on the map. ‘This is the closest we have to a location for the disappearance of a man named Cletus MacCarthy. Finding him is the key to proving the innocence of his brother Jesse, who is currently facing trial for his murder.’
The lieutenant frowned at the map. His sergeant, Kurt Agry, shot Ethan a confused look.
‘Civil case?’ he guessed. ‘Why are we down here and involved in it?’
Ethan decided not to beat about the bush.
‘Because whatever killed Cletus was strong enough, or mad enough, to decapitate a park ranger with a single blow.’
The soldiers glanced at each other, their interest piqued. Ethan folded the map away as Watson shrugged and smiled.
‘Well, no sense in standing here debating. We’d best move out.’
Kurt Agry raised an eyebrow at his lieutenant.
‘You got any idea what could do that to a man? There was nothing in the brief about bear-hunting.’
‘We’re not sure,’ Ethan replied. ‘The suspicion is that it might have been a sasquatch.’
Watson and Kurt stared at Ethan for a long, silent moment. ‘Seriously?’ Watson murmured.
‘Apparently so,’ Lopez replied. ‘Hence you guys and the heavy weapons.’
Ethan scanned the soldiers. All carried M-16s, probably service pistols too, but he saw no grenades other than ‘flashbangs’, designed to stun and blind unprepared opponents. Each man carried a bergen, filled with equipment and extra ammunition. Two of the troops carried Mossberg 500 pump-action, 12-gauge shotguns.
The sergeant did not look impressed.
‘We’ve been deployed to hunt down a sasquatch?’ Kurt Agry asked. ‘What’s after that, werewolves?’
The soldiers behind him chuckled. The voice that replied didn’t.
‘That might be safer.’
The group turned as from the forest walked an old man and a young woman. Ethan recognized Duran Wilkes and his granddaughter Mary as they walked toward the group.
‘We can track animals,’ Kurt Agry murmured to Ethan, suddenly changing his tune. ‘There was no need to bring in the rednecks.’
‘Local knowledge,’ Ethan countered him. ‘No amount of training can equal that.’
The old man and his granddaughter stopped in front of the group. The man spoke in a voice imbued with the confidence of a man entirely at home in the wilderness.
‘Duran Wilkes,’ he announced. ‘This is my granddaughter, Mary.’
‘Welcome aboard,’ Lieutenant Watson said. ‘More the merrier, I suppose.’
Kurt Agry thrust himself into the conversation.
‘Thanks for coming, but from what Warner here says it’s probably best if we take point right now.’
Duran Wilkes raised an eyebrow at the soldier. ‘How’s that, son?’
‘Experience and training,’ Kurt replied. ‘We’re kitted out for this whereas you’re not. This is a big group to move through the hills without being detected, and we’ve already had a chance to get a lay of the land since we arrived so we’ve got a bit of a head start on you guys.’
Duran Wilkes stared at the soldier for a long moment and then chuckled.
‘Sure thing, mister,’ he replied. ‘You boys go ahead and take the lead.’
Kurt Agry nodded, and with a brief flick of his head gestured to the other soldiers.
‘Let’s move out!’
Ethan watched as the soldiers fanned out into a loose phalanx and turned north to follow the stream up into the mountains. He turned to Duran.
‘Thought you weren’t coming out?’
‘Change of heart,’ Duran said. ‘Doesn’t mean I like bein’ here.’
‘You’ve got local knowledge,’ Lieutenant Watson said. ‘That counts for a lot. Don’t mind my sergeant, he’s old school. Personally I’m glad you showed up here today.’
Duran looked up at him and a twinkle of light gleamed in his ancient eyes.
‘We didn’t get here today, we turned up yesterday evening. Been watching your troops all night.’
Lieutenant Watson grinned beneath his heavy camouflage paint, looking at the old man with new respect.
‘I’ll be damned,’ he replied. ‘Sergeant Agry didn’t spot either of you.’
Ethan hefted his bergen onto his shoulders and gestured for Duran to lead the way.
‘Looks like we’ll be following you after all.’
24
Natalie Warner pressed the button on her key fob and the lights of her Ford Taurus flashed briefly as she walked toward it. The bright sunshine was warm on her hair as she opened the door and climbed inside.
She pulled out of the lot slowly and eased the car out onto 3rd Street.
Fact was, she had no idea what she was doing. Natalie did not have the first clue about how a surveillance operation was run. It had been an instinctive decision to leave the Capitol and drive out of the district toward Maryland. Her reasoning was simple enough: if she was the subject of a surveillance operation then somebody would be following her.
Natalie felt an almost childlike sense of anticipation as she briefly scanned the handful of cars visible in her rear-view mirror as she cruised west on Madison, the nearby Washington Monument towering into the powder-blue sky. A dark-blue sedan, a silver GMC, two cyclists hugging the sidewalk and a glossy red Pontiac. She remembered watching cop shows shot on these very streets as secret agents sought to foil the impenetrable plans of unspeakably evil organizations bent on world domination.
The excitement waned as she reminded herself that this was the real world and that this surveillance, whatever the reason for it, was also just as real.
She drove up onto the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Potomac glittering beneath the bright sunshine, and looked again in her mirror. The Pontiac was gone, as were the cyclists, left far behind. The silver GMC was still with her, and the blue sedan, two people inside it.
Interesting, but hardly a cause for concern. There was plenty of traffic flowing from the district across the Potomac. Ahead, the bridge descended down to a circular near the National Cemetery. Two lanes on the right headed north for the Memorial Parkway. The left lane was for traffic heading south on the Parkway or toward Fort Myer. Natalie stayed in the central lane and scanned her mirror.
The GMC loitered about four cars back in her lane. The sedan had taken the Fort Myer lane and was two cars back.
Natalie waited until the last moment, and then just before the lanes split from each other she switched lanes abruptly.
Behind her the GMC swerved to match her, tucking in behind a deli van with bright fruits emblazoned across its side.