Kurt had flown it across the hill toward Roos’s property, its remote-controlled camera relaying what it was seeing to the remote control unit in Kurt’s hands, which in turn beamed the footage by Bluetooth to Gigi’s laptop. The image was surprisingly stable thanks to the three-way brushless gimbal that held the camera, and it gave me a great aerial view of what I’d be facing.
Roos’s cabin sat at the end of a long dirt trail that snaked its way from the main road up the mountain, carving a path through his eighty acres of land. Kurt flew the drone in a big circle to see what else was around, which was basically rolling hills of forest, forest, and more forest. At one point, the camera caught the mountains at an angle that looked familiar, and I was pretty sure it was the same mountain range that was behind Orford, Padley and Siddle in that picture of them in full hunting gear, the one I’d snatched from Orford’s office.
This was a hunting lodge, pure and simple, a secluded retreat to escape to and stalk black bear, whitetail deer and turkey, as well as predators like coyote and fox. It was also, it seemed, a lodge where far deadlier kinds of predator roamed around, no doubt plotting their own special brand of hunt.
Kurt had brought the drone around again and put it in a fixed hover so as to give us a clear view of the front of the lodge. It was a rustic log cabin, about a thousand feet in footprint, two floors with a couple of dormers on the roof, a wraparound porch, screened deck at the side. There were three cars out front, parked haphazardly in the small clearing that faced the house, large black SUVs, standard issue for hard-asses with attitudes. I couldn’t see them cramming more than four men per car, given the gear they had to be lugging. So it was likely Roos had eleven hired guns up there. We could see two guys standing outside, by the cars. The others weren’t visible. I’d decided the most I could ask Roos was to ship off two of the three vehicles, hence my request for eight men. I’d be left with Roos and three others to deal with. Twelve-to-one didn’t sound promising. Four-to-one I could live with.
I’d asked Kurt to give me another look at the road up to the cabin and I tried to memorize its turns by matching the visual with the satellite picture on Google Maps. Then he’d brought it back and swapped its battery for a fully charged one while I’d prepared the car for my drive up to the cabin.
Once everything was ready, I’d called Roos just after Kurt had sent the quadcopter back up. I’d made sure Tomblin hadn’t seen the drone-we had his eyes covered with duct tape too, and we flew it away from the car so he didn’t hear it. I didn’t want him telling Roos we had a bird up. It was amazing to be able to do this with something anyone could pick up at any halfway-decent electronics store or just buy online for next-day delivery. We had live coverage of the cabin all while I spoke to Roos. There was no action to watch, though. He was obviously inside, and the men outside were just standing there, waiting for orders.
Things changed after I hung up.
After a couple of minutes, three men came out of the house and joined the two who were already outside. The drone was too far for us to get a look at any of their faces. They just looked like small, dark figures against a dirty-white background. Then three others came outside, followed by two others.
They all held position for a moment, the first eight clustered close to each other, the last two closer to the house, facing them. I moved closer to the screen, sensing one of the two was Roos-the general addressing his troops. Then the eight men climbed into two of the SUVs, which drove away and took the long trail down the mountain.
“Where do I go?” Kurt asked. “You want the cars, or you want me to stay on the cabin?”
Ideally, I needed both. The guys at the cabin would be setting up whatever ambush they had planned, while the guys in the departing SUVs might be putting in place a trap of their own. And there were many more of them to worry about.
“Stay on the cars,” I told Kurt. “Let’s make sure they’re really gone.”
He nudged the two joysticks expertly to control the drone’s flight, and I took one last look at the tiny figure on the screen that I imagined to be Roos, burning his image into my memory before he headed back in and the cabin disappeared from the picture.
We watched as the two black SUVs snaked their way down the dirt road. They hung left when they hit the main road, pulled over, and the eight men got out. Kurt had moved the drone well up to make sure they wouldn’t see or hear it. The eight tiny figures stood there aimlessly for a moment, like they were stumped, then they got back in the cars and headed north. Kurt brought down the drone and had it follow them as long as it could, to the limit of its range. Once it reached it, its return-to-home feature kicked in automatically and it just reversed direction and started flying straight back to us. Kurt stopped it after a few seconds and held it in a stationary hover to monitor the road and make sure they weren’t coming up yet. We watched the road for about ten minutes and nothing showed up. I doubted Roos believed my story about a spotter, but it was worth a shot anyway. I figured they’d pull over somewhere within reach and wait for the call that would tell them I’d arrived at the cabin, then they’d rush back. Which meant I wouldn’t have much time up there.
Kurt brought the drone back while I got the Navigator and Tomblin ready. He swapped the battery for another fresh one and we were set. I’d have a guardian angel in the sky and a comms piece in my ear. Deutsch would have the other one. She’d be monitoring the situation and giving me some live updates, for which I was grateful. Assuming I made it up to the cabin alive.
I glanced at my watch. Almost an hour had passed since I’d spoken with Roos.
It was high noon on the shortest day of the year. I didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not.
Either way, it was time to go.
65
The black Lincoln Navigator stormed up the mountain, making mincemeat of the narrow trail and swallowing up the slushy bends in its stride.
From behind an open window inside the cabin, Roos waited, scanning the tree line for any sign of movement. The mountain was entirely still, with nothing but the distant sound of water cascading over rocks to disturb it. The snow was still falling lightly, the sky behind the carpet of hardwoods a dull grey. Then he became aware of a growl at the edge of his hearing, the throaty gurgle of a large engine. Its noise grew and grew, sending his pulse spiking up with every added decibel, and then the black SUV appeared from behind the trees as it rounded the last bend eighty-five yards downslope from the lodge.
Roos looked through his binoculars. Straining to get a clear picture through the irregular reflections bouncing off the SUV’s windshield, he was able to make out one solitary figure inside it, behind the wheeclass="underline" male, as expected, in a black baseball cap, sitting straight up. There could be others ducking low inside there, but it wouldn’t really matter anyway. If anyone else was in there with Reilly they’d also soon be just as dead as he was.
He watched as the Navigator rushed up to the mouth of the clearing outside the cabin-and didn’t slow down. It kept going, accelerating now and heading straight at the cabin.
Roos gave the signal, and a barrage of high-powered rounds erupted out of the trees.
The relentless feed of bullets, coming from outside on both sides of his cabin, drilled through the SUV. Roos watched as the 7.62mm NATO rounds rained down on the charging car, obliterating its windshield, side windows, body panels, as well as its driver, whose body was visibly shaking around violently with each impact. It was less than forty yards from the cabin when its wheels exploded from the gunfire, which hobbled it until more rounds ate into its engine and crippled it three car lengths away from the cabin’s front steps.