“That means that Game and Fish truck went somewhere else,” Nate said. “So maybe we can forget about it.”
“Okay,” she said.
She looked small behind the wheel, he thought. But determined.
Nate looked over as they passed by an outfitter camp tucked up into the trees on a shelf on their right. The camp had a large framed canvas tent, but there were no vehicles around and the door of the tent was tied up. A headless elk carcass hung from a cross-pole behind the tent.
“That’s the fourth camp,” she said.
Nate nodded and ducked down on the seat. Anyone observing the vehicle would see only the driver.
“Talk to me,” he said calmly. “Tell me what you see as you see it.”
In a moment, she said, “The trees are opening. I think we’re getting close to Camp Five.”
Over the last half hour, Joe had worked his way down the mountain carefully, avoiding loose rock and downed branches, and he’d set up behind a granite outcropping laced through the seams with army-green lichen. From the outcrop he could clearly see the layout of Camp Five two hundred feet below.
There were two hard-side trailers parked nose-to-tail in a flat on the other side of the river. The camp was remarkably clean: no debris, coolers, folding chairs, or other usual elk camp indicators. The fire pit, a ring of colorful round river rocks, looked cold and unused. There were no skinned elk or deer carcasses hanging from a cross-pole in clear view of the trailers.
There were two vehicles he could see parked on the other side of the trailers: a late-model white Tahoe with green-and-white Colorado plates behind the second trailer and a dark SUV crossover parked on the side of the first. The second trailer, Joe thought, was a curiosity. Antennae and small satellite dishes bristled from the roof. Then he noticed something blocky covered with a blue tarp on the front of that trailer; no doubt an electric generator. The generator operated so quietly he could barely hear it hum.
The second trailer was obviously the communications center.
He was grateful his handheld radio hadn’t worked earlier. No doubt, they were monitoring air traffic. He hoped McLanahan listened this time and stayed off the police bands.
A few feet from the tongue of the first trailer, Joe noted, were two five-foot pole-mounted platforms. On the top of each platform was a hooded falcon: a peregrine and a prairie.
Joe was pretty sure he’d found Nemecek.
He’d set up his spotting scope on the tripod and trained it on the white sheet-metal door of the first trailer. His shotgun was braced against the rock on his right, and next to it was his .270 Winchester.
The rock had sharp edges, and it was difficult to find a comfortable position to lie in wait. He shifted his weight from the left to the right and propped up on his daypack to see. When he heard the tick of a loose rock strike another, he assumed he’d rustled it loose with the toe of his boot.
Then he sensed a presence behind him, and before he could roll over he felt a cold nose of steel press into the flesh behind his right ear. He jumped with alarm and a palm pressed square into the middle of his back, keeping him prone.
“Put your arms out ahead of you, Joe, hands up. Don’t even think about reaching for your gun.” It was the voice of his trainee.
Joe did as told without saying a word, and felt his trainee pluck the Glock from his holster. His pepper spray was removed next. Then he heard the clatter of his shotgun and rifle as they were kicked off the outcropping into the brush below.
“Now slowly pull your arms down and place them behind your back.”
Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“Just cooperate, Joe. You seem like a nice guy, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I guess you’ve figured some things out on your own.”
“Surprising, huh?” Joe said.
“Your hands,” his trainee said firmly.
Joe felt the handcuffs encircle both wrists. He balled his hands into fists and bent them inward toward his spine while the cuffs were snapped into place and ratcheted snug. It was a trick he’d learned from a poacher he’d once arrested. Now, when he relaxed his fists and straightened his wrists, the cuffs weren’t tight and didn’t bite into his flesh.
“Okay, now stand up. And don’t turn around or do any dumb shit.”
“That’s kind of a hard maneuver with my hands cuffed behind my back,” Joe said.
“Try,” his trainee said, stepping back.
Joe got his knees under him and rose clumsily. Despite what he’d been told, he turned a quarter of the way around. His trainee wore his red uniform shirt and held a.40 Glock in each hand — his and Joe’s. Both were pointed at Joe’s face.
“You’re a disgrace to the uniform,” Joe said.
“Stop talking.”
“I found Luke Brueggemann,” Joe said, noting a wince of confusion from his trainee in reaction.
“Up there,” Joe said, chinning toward the top of the mountain. “In an old miner’s cabin. You might have seen it on your way down.”
“I saw the cabin. Right after I found your truck stuck in the snow.”
“But you must not have looked inside,” Joe said. “The real Luke Brueggemann’s body is in it. Throat cut by a garrote. Same with Bad Bob and Pam Kelly. All of them dead, but I guess you know that.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” his trainee said.
“You know,” Joe said, “I’m getting pretty hacked off the way you people operate. This is a good place, and you’ve turned it upside down.”
His trainee simply shook his head, unbelieving.
“Did you kill them?” Joe asked. “Like you did Deputy Sollis this morning? Mike Reed might not make it, either, and you know he’s a friend of mine.”
“That was self-defense! That big one didn’t identify himself — he smashed through the door of my room.”
Joe didn’t know enough about the incident to argue. But knowing Sollis, he sensed a grain of truth in the explanation.
“You’re leaving bodies all over this county,” Joe said. “You need to stop. You’ve lost sight of your mission.”
“This is bullshit. There are no bodies. You’re just trying to get the drop on me.”
“I’m not that clever,” Joe said. And his trainee seemed to take that into consideration.
“So what’s your real name?” Joe asked.
“Hinkle,” he said. “Lieutenant Dan Hinkle when I was still in.”
The fact that he gave up his real name so easily, Joe thought, meant Hinkle had no intention of cutting him loose.
“Well, Lieutenant Dan Hinkle,” Joe said, “your boss is a killer. He’s gone rogue. And he’s taken a lot of you good men along with him and he’s murdered innocent people all over my county and terrorized my wife and family. Is that really what you signed up for?”
Hinkle’s confusion hardened into a kind of desperate anger. “Shut up, Joe. And turn around. We’re gonna march down there and see what my boss wants to do with you.”
“I’m not done,” Joe said. “The cavalry is coming. They’re on their way as we speak.”
“I said shut up with your lies.”
“I don’t lie,” Joe said. “You know that.”
“Turn around,” Hinkle barked.
And Joe did. But not simply because he’d been ordered. He wanted to see what was happening in the camp below, because he’d heard the sound of a vehicle coming, headed straight for Camp Five.
Haley said to Nate on the seat beside her, “There are two trailers and two vehicles.”
“Anybody outside?”
“No.”
“Keep going,” he said. “Drive up there with confidence like you were coming home after work. Like you just can’t wait to tell your boss some good news he’ll want to hear.”