"I've never met Owen Gray, but I feel sorry for him, real sorry for him, what with this Nikolai Trusov after him."
Coates snorted. "A gunnery sergeant told me some stories about Owen Gray."
"Yeah?" His instruments instantly forgotten, the captain turned to Coates.
"Gray has a series of scars on his arms and legs. He got them in Vietnam."
"Yeah? How?"
"He fell into a tiger pit, a man trap set by the Viet Cong. The enemy disarmed him, dragged him a mile to the nearest village, and nailed him to a wall."
"Nailed?" The tech made a face. "Like Christ?"
"The VC had more nails than the Romans. They nailed Gray's hands, his biceps, couple more nails in his feet and through his shin bones, nails through his shoulders. Twelve nails in all."
"How'd Gray free himself?"
"He was pinned to that wall for all of a day and some of a night." Coates said his next words slowly, one at a time for emphasis. "Then he ripped himself free."
The captain's face lengthened. "What do you mean?"
"He couldn't pull the nails from the wood, so he yanked himself off the nails. The VC were sitting around an iron pot, boiling their fish and rice, and didn't see or hear him. Gray left chunks of himself on each nail, bloody gobs of skin and muscle. But he freed himself, then walked for three days back to American lines."
"Good God."
"So while you feel sorry for Owen Gray" — Coates smiled narrowly—"feel sorry for the Russian."
A moment passed, the captain digesting the story. Then he asked, "You hungry? I've got a top secret LAPSAT radio downlink that'll order us a pizza."
Coates shook his head. "I want to get the hell out of here as soon as—"
In front of the technician, the NEC monitor's screen turned to white, then ran through a color protocol, flickering quickly through a palette of primary colors. Then an image appeared on the screen showing approximately a square mile of Jefferson County. Visible were a small stream, rock outcroppings, patches of forest, several fence lines, and two buildings. Above the image appeared a series of menu buttons.
"Here we go," the tech said, pulling a mouse from behind the monitor. The tech clicked twice on a screen button. The image was instantly sectioned into twenty-five parts. The arrow then moved to the section containing the house and barn. Another double click, and that portion was magnified. The image was taken directly over the house and barn, and they showed clearly. A chimney throwing a long shadow, a collapsed chicken house near the barn, a wood stand that had once supported a windmill, another pile of wood that might have once been a toolshed, and a green van parked near the house, all were plainly visible on the screen. More clicks, and this image was sectioned, and the arrow found the part containing the barn. Yet more clicks, and that part was enlarged.
"Looks like you're right," the tech said. "Missing shingles. But look here, too. In front of the barn, in the grass, the double lines of an automobile track. Abandoned barns usually don't have fresh tracks on the ground in front of them."
Coates rose from the chair to lean toward the monitor. "And beneath the barn's roof in the gaps left by missing shingles…"
The captain pointed at a feature on the screen. "Looks like there's some yellow in that barn."
"Bright yellow, looks like," Coates added. "And shiny."
"Yeah, that's not hay bales or an old tarp or anything like that."
Coates lifted his jacket from the back of his chair. His voice was tight with excitement. "It's a goddamn Buick Regal is what it is. We've found that Russian son of a bitch." He slapped the captain on the shoulder and turned for the trailer's door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"You caught these fish?" Adrian asked, nodding at the two rainbow trout on the pan. The fish were cleaned but still had their heads and tails.
Gray moved a skillet over the heat. "In the creek."
"Did you kill the pig, too?"
Gray ignored her. He placed three strips of bacon into the frying pan. The bacon hissed and spat. He jiggled the pan to move the bacon back and forth. Gray lifted a pinch of cornmeal from a porcelain canister and dropped it onto the plate. He rolled the trout in the cornmeal. When bacon grease covered the skillet, he slid the fish from the plate to the frying pan. The trout and bacon sizzled together. On the other grill, steam rose from a stainless steel pot containing brown rice in boiling water. Gray placed a steamer over the water and rice. He lifted spring peas from a paper sack on the counter and dropped them into the steamer. He was wearing jeans and a high-neck University of Idaho Vandals sweatshirt.
Adrian leaned against the post that separated the kitchen from the main room. Her arms were crossed in front of her, and a glass of chardonnay was in one hand. Her mouth was pursed and her eyes moved back and forth. Gray thought she had the look of someone whose guard was up. He lifted a piece of wood from the iron box next to the stove, then opened the stove's front grate. Flame cast the kitchen in flickering red light. He shoved the wood through the opening and closed the grate.
She turned her head at a distant plaintive tremolo that ended in a series of sharp barks. She raised an eyebrow at Gray.
"A coyote." He used a spatula to turn the fish in the skillet.
"I thought they only bayed at the moon." She was wearing a white wool fisherman's net sweater and jeans.
"They howl at anything. Maybe he's mad at the weather."
Living in New York, Gray had gotten away from monitoring the weather. Rain or snow or sun, by the time it reached Manhattan's walled streets it didn't make much difference to Gray. In the Sawtooths, Gray checked the Emory and Douglas barometer on the kitchen wall several times a day, just as his father had for so many decades. That afternoon the mercury had dropped abruptly, and the storm had swarmed into the mountains as night had come. Rain lashed against the roof in wind-driven waves. Windows rattled with the gusts, and beads of rainwater were pushed horizontally along the glass. The wind bawled through the trees, filling the cabin with a deep rumble. Tossed by the wind, the trunks of young aspen trees in the grove behind the cabin clicked together in an uneven staccato. The old cabin creaked and groaned.
Gray lifted the skillet and used the spatula to slide the fish onto two plates. He opened the fish and poked gently them with a fork. "They're done."
With a spoon he retrieved the spring peas from the steamer. "The difference between perfect peas and overdone peas is about ten seconds. It's all in the timing."
He placed the peas on the plates and sprinkled them with pepper. He drained the rice in the sink and used a serving spoon to divide it onto the plates. Then he carried both plates around the dining table and into the main room to place them on the coffee table next to a wine bottle and two place settings.
"My grandfather was smart in a lot of ways." Gray pushed aside the screen on the fireplace. "One of them was this fireplace. You don't need to carefully balance your firewood on the grate, hoping it won't roll out onto the floor. This fireplace is so large you can just toss a couple of logs in and they'll be all right."
He brought two pieces of wood from the box and lobbed them onto the fire. Red sparks swirled and disappeared up the chimney. Gray closed the screen. The fire surged, engulfing the new offering. The blaze was the size of a bonfire, and it roared and popped, filling the room with warmth and dancing light. He lowered himself to the couch, facing the fire.
Adrian Wade joined him on the couch. "You didn't take the head off this fish."
"A trout looks better whole."
"You'll eat it, but you won't disfigure it."
"Something like that."
She placed her glass on the table. "You're not having wine?"