"I'm out of talk." Gray's voice was so soft it mixed with the sounds of the fire. "Nikolai Trusov is reducing me to a rifle. Rifles don't have much to say."
Her hand was still on his shoulder. "We could talk about your plans after this is all over."
He looked at her a long moment. Then he gently shook his head. "For a number of days I haven't been able to think of any future beyond Trusov."
"You have a future, Owen. I'm interested in it."
He lifted himself from the couch. He stepped to the bedroom door, then glanced back at her. Searching for something to say, he found only "I'm interested in your future, too." He looked at her another moment, then continued into the bedroom.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the fire tower in the late 1930s, and it had been repaired and upgraded over the years, until the mid-1980s, when it was abandoned, a victim of Forest Service cutbacks and satellite technology. The tower was on Fellows Mountain, a granite peak that offered a thirty-mile view yet was accessible almost to its peak in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. So many mountains formed this long spine of central Idaho that many of them, even those over nine thousand feet, were unnamed. Fellows Mountain owed the distinction of a name because the Forest Service spotter who had worked there for twenty-two summers carried the name.
The tower offered a 360-degree view of the crests and cliffs and ridges and chimneys of the surrounding mountains. The distance in all directions was filled with powerful cut-tooth shapes. Below the jagged granite formations were the forested foothills and alpine cirque lakes. From the tower's height, man's feeble inroads into the wilderness — a few ranches, the stunted town of Hobart, the occasional hunter's shack, the winding roads — were entirely hidden.
The tower was five miles east of Owen Gray's cabin. It straddled a sharp ridge, two of its four support posts on the south slope and two on the north. Valleys fell away in both directions, steep walls of fractured granite that plunged with dizzying abruptness to avalanche gullies below. Beyond the valleys were more ridges and peaks, some with sparse coverings of pine trees. The rim of Shepherd's Bowl was visible, the basin out of sight. Daisies and thistles and tarweeds tried their best but made little headway on gray stone.
Gray and Coates parked the Jeep fifty yards from the tower, where the Forest Service road ended. They traveled over the broken ground, following a trail that wound to the south side of the ridge. Even after years of footsteps from rangers and hunters the path was hardly a path, noticeable only because some of the sharper stones had been turned aside by boots over the years. The sun was a flat plate high overhead. The rocks radiated heat. The air was light and scentless.
"So you know where Trusov is?" Gray asked between deep breaths.
"You think I've been picking my nose all this time?"
"It means he crossed some hard country on foot."
The detective said, "The man is a machine. We learned a long time ago he could jog forty miles with a full pack over rough country. And he's done just that." Coates turned his head halfway to Gray. "But he's still twenty miles away. He hasn't made it over the Galena Pass yet. We're sure of that."
The trail narrowed and curved around a boulder formation that brought Gray and Coates near the precipice. They carefully stepped around stones and continued up the ridge. Gray was carrying the Marine Corps sniper rifle on a sling and the backpack. In his hand was a rolled-up map.
They drew near to the tower, which loomed above them on the ridge. A shaky ladder was attached to one post and was connected to a closed trapdoor. Wood planks framed all four sides, above which were picture windows on all sides. The roof was pitched sharply to allow snow to slide off. A stovepipe breached the roof, its conical metal cap tilted.
Coates bent over, his hands helping him scramble up the incline. They reached the cool shadow under the tower. A few milkweed plants grew at the base of the poles. Gray tested a rung with his weight. Then he began to climb. He pushed open the trapdoor with the palm of his hand. Its hinge was made of leather. The door fell back onto the floor with a loud slap. He pulled himself up and through the hole. Coates climbed after him, his feet disappearing through the hatch.
The tower contained one room. The furniture and equipment had been removed long ago. The roof leaked when it rained, and spots on the wood floor were brown from dry rot. Several nails were on a corner post where the rangers had hung their coats. Two-by-tens laid over sawhorses had served as a table and were still in the tower.
Gray spread out the map on planks near a window. "We are here." He drew a finger across the map. "My house is here. This is north."
"I know north," Coates said testily.
"Your people shouldn't come anywhere inside this area." Gray's finger traced a large circle around his house.
"I'm going to catch that bastard before he gets anywhere near your place." Coates stabbed the map. "Owen, I've now got three hundred law-enforcement personnel in the field, a wall of people. Trusov isn't going to get near your place."
Gray might not have heard him. "Once Trusov is loose inside this area, keep your people away."
"So you can duel with him? That's not what I'm here for."
"It'll be too dangerous for your people to follow the Russian into the forest."
"Three hundred people—"
"They'll be ducks in a shooting gallery, Pete. Entirely out-gunned and outwitted."
"These are skilled people."
"Trusov will kill as many of them as he wants to. A dozen, two dozen." Gray's voice rose a fraction. "I'm telling you, it'll be a slaughter. Keep your people away from him and me once this has begun."
Coates stared at him.
"I'll have too much else to think about. I won't be able to keep them alive." Gray pointed out the window. "That's Bighorn Ridge." He located it on the map. "Over there is Sallick Mountain." Again back to the map to draw a circle. "I want you to promise me your folks won't get inside this circle."
"Well…"
Gray spit out, "Anybody in this circle is going to be a target. For Trusov and for me. I won't have the luxury of analyzing targets. I'm going to fire at any human I see."
Coates finally nodded. "Okay, nobody inside the circle."
Fine optics can make even clear air have a grain. The blue of the sky seems to ripple and bubble, giving substance to nothing. Those optics seem to enhance color, and the small circle of pallid blue sky inside the metal band was sparkling blue. Inside the little disc of sky was a pointed post, a needle-sized metal twig sharpened at the top. The sky, made viscous like a stream by the lenses, floated toward the top of the circle as the scope slowly lowered.
Rising from the bottom of the blue ring of sky was the stovepipe lid, then the pipe, then the tower roof's shingles. Then came the window, the sun's reflection harshly magnified by the scope's lenses.
Nikolai Trusov smoothly moved his finger from the trigger to the eyepiece lens to turn it two degrees. The window frame sharpened. He lowered the rifle, and rising in the scope was more of the tower window. The Russian could make out slight warps in the glass as wind brushed the tower. With steady motion, as if the weapon were on rails, the barrel and scope glided lower. Owen Gray's head rose in the circle. Black hair, pale skin, a tall man. Gray's nose came to rest just above the point of the scope's aiming post. The American's image was shivered by heat currents. Owen Gray. White Star.
Then the scene in the eyepiece lens drifted smoothly to the left. The shorter form slid into view. Barrel-chested, sandy hair, small features in a melon head. The aiming post came to rest on his nose, just below a pair of spectacles. Then it sidled down his neck to the man's right arm. Eight hundred yards south and a hundred yards below the tower, Trusov brought his trigger finger back. Slowly and slowly and slowly.