"Why? Did he tell his spotter he had ever met me?"
She shook her head. "I gather he knew of your Vietnam reputation. I questioned Nadir closely about this. Trusov never claimed any acquaintance with you, or said he ever met you. He knew of your reputation. He was envious of it."
"How did he get the big scar on his head?"
"Nadir didn't know. He had that groove in his skull when they first teamed up in 1985."
A bluebird on the bough of a subalpine fir chirruped noisily.
Adrian put her hand under her coat to adjust her holster, then continued, "Nadir said Nikolai Trusov was crazy."
"I already knew that, too."
"He meant that while Trusov was a superb soldier during his first years in Afghanistan, the Russian became increasingly unstable. Doing erratic things. But he was so valuable to the Soviet war effort that he was tolerated for a long while. Then he snapped."
"What happened?" Gray asked.
"There was bad blood between Trusov and his captain. Nadir didn't know how it started, but the two were always at each other. The captain didn't have the leeway to deal with Trusov like he would any other subordinate because Trusov was an Olympic hero and a brilliant sniper. Trusov detested the captain, an up-and-coming Moscow University graduate trying to make a mark. Nadir doesn't know what set Trusov off that day, but when the captain drove by in an open GAZ field car, Trusov put a bullet through both the captain's wrists as his hands gripped the steering wheel."
"Did the Afghan spotter actually see this happen?"
"Nadir was there, and he said it was a phenomenal shot. Four hundred yards at a moving vehicle, and Trusov called it before he fired, just like you'd call a pool shot, telling the Afghan he'd take out both the captain's wrists."
A nutcracker landed at the other end of the boulder and dipped its beak at Adrian, hoping for a handout.
"Trusov may have been a hero, but no soldier gets away with that." Gray opened his backpack and brought out a peanut butter sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
"He didn't," Adrian said.
Gray tore off half the sandwich and tossed it to the bird. The nutcracker squawked and leaped onto the handout. Two other nutcrackers instantly appeared to tear at the bread. They flapped and hopped and quarreled, flipping bits of bread down their gullets.
"Trusov was arrested and court-martialed," Adrian said. "He spent the next eight years at hard labor in the Red Army's First Military District prison. He was released six months ago."
"I thought the INS was supposed to keep criminals out of this country." Gray tried to keep the touch of desperation from his voice. "Didn't they check him out before they gave him a visa?"
"A visa to accompany someone coming to the U.S. for surgery isn't examined closely."
Gray wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The day was warming, and the sun was high in the pale rinsed sky.
Adrian continued. "But the people at the INS are helping our investigation. They checked with their counterparts in Europe, and the Swiss came up with something. Victor Trusov could have had his operation three months earlier in Geneva. The Swiss had given both him and his son permission to enter their country, and the Red Army had made arrangements for the operation at St. Paul's Hospital in Geneva. But the Trusovs refused, apparently waiting for the U.S. visa."
"So Nikolai intended to come here all along, and was willing to make his father wait for the surgery until things worked out. Old Victor could have died in the meantime."
Adrian nodded. "I suppose Nikolai was willing to risk that to get into the U. S."
"And to come for me," Gray said darkly.
"Yes, to come for you."
"How did Trusov get his rifle into this country?"
She replied, "Probably in a diplomatic pouch."
"A rifle in a pouch?"
"Pouch is a term of art. It can be anything from a letter to a container on a ship, as long as it has the diplomatic seal. A Hero of the Soviet Union would easily have found a Russian diplomat to help him get his rifle in." Adrian leaned forward on the boulder. She stared at him a moment before continuing, "You know that you are asking me to believe the impossible, don't you?"
"I'm not following you," Gray said. He tossed another piece of the sandwich to the birds.
"It is impossible that no connection exists between you and Nikolai Trusov."
"I never said there wasn't," Gray protested. "I just don't know what it is."
"By not telling me everything, you are asking me to believe the preposterous. I'm convinced that something in your past connects you to Trusov. You might not know it, but it does. And I won't be able to make the connection between you and the Russian unless you tell me everything."
He nodded vaguely.
"You are hiding something from me. Level with me."
"You already know everything important about me."
"That's a lie." She smiled to take some of the sting from her words. "I've been a policewoman too long to buy that."
"You and I are on the same side," Gray said rather feebly. "I'm not going to lie to you."
Adrian leaned forward and brought her hands across her lap to fold her fingers. She gasped, then flicked her hand. Her mouth began a curl of horror but she controlled it. She leaped up from the boulder. Her voice wavered. "Have I hurt myself? There's blood all over me."
Gray rose and hurried to her, reaching for the hand. "Show me where."
Her voice was an unsteady whisper. "On my jacket."
Her coat had more zippers than a flight jacket. A dark stain had spread along the right sleeve near a Velcro fastener. Gray quickly undid the Velcro and gently pushed back the fabric along Adrian's arm. None of the blood had seeped through the Goretex onto her arm.
Gray said, "The blood is from the rock you were sitting on."
An edge of the granite slab was daubed with blood, and tinctures of the fluid darkened the silver moss on the stone.
"Where did it come from?"
"A wounded deer." The corners of Gray's mouth turned down. "A mule deer, probably."
Gray rubbed a finger along the rock, bringing a smear of blood to his eyes. "It's been hit in the liver. You can tell from the dark color of the blood."
"Wouldn't that have killed the deer?"
"A deer with a liver hit can take off at a dead run and go for a long way." Gray bent close to the rock. Mica flecks glittered in the sunlight. He found a tuft of hair. "This is his fur. It's black-tipped, which means it's from just above his belly." Gray knelt closer to look at the prints at the base of the boulder. He found a hoofprint. "The mulie staggered against the rock, then took off again, uphill into that ravine."
"Is he going to die?" Adrian asked.
"He can't survive this wound."
"Who shot him?"
"Some poacher who didn't have the skill or the energy to follow the deer."
"A poacher?"
"Deer are out of season."
"Can we help the deer?" she asked. "We should do something."
"There's nothing we can do."
"Yes, there is." She looked directly into his eyes. "We can't let him just die."
Adrian started along the path, then veered off in a bank of bunch grass toward the ravine. The nutcrackers scattered, crying raucously. She looked back at Gray. "I'm going to find him."
"Goddamnit," Gray muttered. He lifted his rifle and pack to follow her.
The north-facing slope of the ravine was dotted with lodgepole pine. Adrian's approach flushed a covey of grouse that had been feeding on buds and leaves. She led him along a deer trail through serviceberry bushes, whose flowers resembled white lilies. They reached a fork in the trail where the ravine branched.
She slowed, then stopped. "Which way did he go?"
"Look for blood. Women are better at finding blood on the ground than men are. I don't know why, but it's true."