Fifteen minutes later he stretched and moved enough to relieve the tired muscles. At first he didn’t notice it. Then the hum of a motor came through plainly. A plane or a car? He edged toward the road and saw the dust plume a mile away. The rig was coming this way. Another car on this backwoods roadway? It could even be a car hijacked by another team of Korean firebugs.
Lam found a good OP and edged behind a tree so he could see the road and the trees on both sides. There was no movement by the Korean ahead. How far ahead? Lam brought up the Bull Pup and switched it to 5.56 and waited.
The car came closer. Would the Korean shoot into it to stop it and then try to hijack it? To do that he’d have to leave the woods and expose himself to Lam’s rifle. Lam waited. The car seemed to be coming slowly, kicking up dust on the rough gravel road, but not making much speed.
Lam heard movement ahead, small sounds as if the Korean was trying to be silent. He scanned the brush and trees in front of him, but could not see anyone. The sounds stopped.
The car was much closer now, only a hundred yards down the road. It kept coming at the same slow speed.
The crack of a heavy rifle startled Lam, and he jerked his head around to look at the car. A front tire blew out and the car stopped quickly, forty yards down the road from Lam’s position.
“You will leave the car at once,” a voice bellowed from the brush. Two men in the car got out, frowning.
“Who the hell are you?” the man called.
Another rifle shot, and the questioner slammed backward, hit the side of the car, and fell to the ground. He didn’t move.
“Leave the car and run back the way you came,” the same voice called with a faint tinge of an accent. The second man looked at his downed companion, then took off running as fast as he could down the gravel road away from death.
Lam waited. Nothing happened for two or three minutes that seemed like a half hour. Then a form lifted from the brush twenty yards ahead and rushed toward the car. He wore cammies and a floppy hat, and carried a rifle. Lam tracked him, then sent a three-round burst of hot lead at him. He saw two of the slugs hit the man, one in the thigh and one in the stomach. The man lurched forward, turned, and tried to return fire, but stumbled and sprawled on the ground, his long rifle trapped under his body. Lam fired twice more on each side of the man, then ran into the road.
“Keep your hands in the open or you’re one fucking dead Korean,” Lam brayed. The man tried to sit up, pushed with one hand on the roadway, then whipped around his other hand with a pistol in it.
Lam shot him five times, three in the chest and two rounds jolting through his face and into his brain. Lam walked up slowly and looked at the two men. He kicked the pistol out of the Korean’s reach, then checked the civilian. He was dead. Lam looked in the car. Two suitcases in the backseat and a bunch of camping gear and a plastic cooler. The keys were in the ignition, which had been turned off. Lam sat in the car and flipped down his Motorola mike.
“Erase that second firebug. He killed a kid trying to take over his car. Another good guy ran down the road.”
“See if the Korean has any papers, orders, addresses, money, anything,” Murdock said.
“Roger.”
Lam went through the firebug’s pockets, and found only waterproof matches, three new one-hundred-dollar bills, and two time-delay detonators. He told Murdock.
“Figures. Take a hike up the road and I’ll call in the chopper. Then we’ll see if we can find that other civilian. Did the shots disable the car?”
“Just blew out one tire. If the kid has a spare he’s in business.”
“Take your time getting here. No rush. The chopper probably won’t be here for a half hour, Forestry Four said.”
“That’s a roger, see you in about twenty.”
Fifteen miles to the west of where Murdock waited for the chopper, Lieutenant Ed DeWitt looked down on the smoke that billowed below. It was still small, and a dozen smoke jumpers had dropped from the sky to try to put it out before it ravaged this foothill to the soaring peak of Mt. Hood.
“How do we know which way the firebugs went when they left the fire?” DeWitt asked. The pilot heard the shouted words and shook his head.
“This pair has been moving west, not east like the others. Maybe they just got confused. The fire was reported an hour ago. We figure the Koreans have traveled about two miles in the heavy timber. It’s slow going down there. If they keep on their track, they’ll run right into Mt. Hood. My guess is that they will swing to the north to go around the steeper slopes. Stay in the foothills.”
Any roads in here?”
“Damn few. Over a few miles is Oregon Highway 35, which goes from Government Camp to Hood River on the Columbia. Not much else. We’re eight, ten miles from that highway.”
“So where are you dropping us off.”
“Wherever you say.”
“So we have a couple hundred thousand acres and the bad guys could be anywhere. Not much of a chance. Can you talk to Forestry Radio?”
“Yes.” He handed DeWitt the headset and a mike. “Just push the button and call for Forestry Four.”
A moment later DeWitt had the head man on the radio.
“We don’t have a clue where to set down. Do you know for sure that this team went west and not east?”
“We think so. A light plane reported the fire, and the pilot said he saw two men in cammies running to the west through an old burn.”
“Okay, Four. We’ll set down near the burn and try to find some tracks. Out.”
The pilot did a turn and went back the way they had come. They hit the smoke, and then DeWitt saw the burned-over area. It wasn’t all that big. To one side of it was a bulldozed area that had probably been used as a landing zone and headquarters for firefighters.
“You have a radio?” the pilot asked DeWitt.
“A SATCOM. We can get Forestry Four on TAC Four.”
The bird touched down, and DeWitt and his team jumped to the ground and ran out of the rotor wash. When the chopper had taken off, DeWitt told the men all he knew about their target.
“We try to pick up some tracks in the burn and follow them.”
“Let’s go to the far side of the burn and check along the edge of it for tracks,” Franklin said. DeWitt nodded and they moved that direction. They walked through the edge of the burn toward the west, and DeWitt was surprised at the new growth that had already begun to show where less than a year ago a furious forest fire had burned everything in its path. At the far side of the burn they worked the edges critically. Twice they found deer tracks, and places where birds had nested. Then Mahanani yelped.
“Hey, look at these. Fresh damn boot tracks, a pair of them with the toes pointing east. Looks like they’re in a rush. See how the heels are pressed in hard where they landed, and then the toes dig in and kick out some dirt and ash to the rear when they push off hard with their toes.”
“Franklin, you’re my best tracker. Lead out, let’s see if we can follow these puppies.”
Franklin moved to the edge of the burn and a few steps into the timber, and stopped. He kept looking for boot impressions, but there were none. Then he remembered what Lam had shown him one day about tracking. He spotted a clump of weeds that had only partly lifted up from where a boot had mashed them down. Now he looked ahead and could see a pattern to the plants where they had been disturbed.
Under a huge oak tree he spotted actual boot impressions in the heavy leaf mold. Farther on he caught where a branch had been broken off, and where leaves had been stripped off a limb. Franklin held up his hand, and the four men stopped and listened.