Her mind was clear, her focus full, her aim true. With each red dot aligning on a target, with each pull of her trigger, she thought of Nick Aparo and nothing else. With each splatter of blood, she thought about what men like these had done to him. She allowed no other thought any breathing space, none whatsoever. She was just fully, totally, exclusively committed to wiping out each and every one of those sons of bitches that appeared in her sights.
The last two required a little more effort. She had to use stun grenades to rattle and tame them, had to come out from her cover and climb down to the kill zone and execute them at closer range. She didn’t mind it, though. It was what she was there to do. And after it was all done, after all eight of them had taken their last breath, a voice cut in and intruded on her serenity.
Kurt was hailing her through her earbud. “Annie?”
He needed to call for her twice before she responded. “What?”
“Annie, I can’t reach Reilly. I can’t see him either.”
Her mind folded itself back into reality and she started moving towards her car. “When did you last hear from him?”
“About ten minutes ago. Then we heard that explosion.”
“I know,” she said as she reached her car. “I heard it too.”
“He might need help,” Kurt said.
“I’m heading up there now,” Deutsch said as she slammed the car into gear and floored it.
67
It was eerie and uncomfortable.
It was also slow going. Very, very slow going.
Making my way up the mountain wasn’t easy. Loose footings, boulder fields, slippery rock outcroppings, and the snow, heavy and damp on the ground, in patches of irregular thickness and consistency. It wasn’t too easy to see either, what with the continuous snowfall layering a ghostly veil on it all.
It was desolate and quiet, the bare trees and the rough terrain giving it a grim, otherworldly feel, the dense evergreens then changing it into one that was brooding and mysterious. I knew the area was teeming with wildlife, and the multiple tree rubbings I saw confirmed it. But I didn’t see any bears, deer or elk. Not even a turkey. The only wildlife up here right now seemed to be two predators who were out hunting each other. It was as if the rest of the animal kingdom had vacated the mountain to give our confrontation plenty of room to play itself out. Maybe the blasts and the gunfire had just scared them off. Or maybe they knew better and didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.
My senses, still jarred by the grenade’s blast, were doing their best to cut through the haze and stay focused, to try and pick out the tiniest movement, the smallest sound.
Roos was out here, somewhere.
This was his territory.
It was where he hunted, and the realization made every step I took more hesitant.
He knew these woods. I didn’t. But I wasn’t leaving here till I found him.
Roos huddled under the blind he’d built at the mouth of the rock tunnel, listening intently as he scanned ahead for any sign of Reilly.
He didn’t have to worry about his back. He knew Reilly would be coming up the mountain. All he had to do was wait. Then he’d just pick him off and make his way back to civilization.
Waiting for a kill wasn’t new to Roos. Far from it. He was a natural hunter, a talent his father had spotted and helped nurture ever since Roos was a young boy. Stalking prey, whether on land or at sea, was a feeling he was very familiar with, a hobby he enjoyed greatly, and one he’d been able to indulge to his heart’s delight ever since his father, a successful dentist who’d ridden the popularity surge of orthodontics in the mid-70s, had bought that huge piece of land for a song after Hurricane Camille had savagely devastated the area in 1969. An only child, Roos had inherited the lodge from his father after the man had died prematurely from a heart attack almost ten years to the day after buying it.
He’d put it to good use, for all kinds of hunts.
Over the years, Roos had built many blinds across his property. Nature provided a lot of the materials that made the best blinds: trees torn down during heavy storms, densely leaved branches from conifers, large boulders to tuck in against. He’d build them early in the season, give the animals time to get used to them. Then he’d go up and spend hours huddled inside them, watching, waiting-making sure no noise and no smell scared off his prey. Then they would appear, out of the trees, oblivious to the danger he posed. There was nothing more satisfying than watching a bull elk or a white-tailed doe walk by, mere feet way, so close he could reach out and touch them. Observing them at eye level, stretching out the time before the kill as long as he could, toying with their lives before he took them away.
Those same emotions were channeling through him now, only it wasn’t a bear or a buck he was waiting for.
He sensed something in the distance and slunk lower, slowly, carefully.
Movement, through the thin, white haze down the mountain.
He flattened himself completely and calmed his breathing. He knew from hunting hungry bucks how crucial it was to remain quiet and immobile. The smallest sound, the minutest movement, could spook his prey.
He looked out intently through the light snowfall, then adjusted his rifle and peered through its scope.
A lone figure was making its way closer to him, headed in his direction. Taking slow, hesitant steps. A dark silhouette against the white backdrop, disappearing in and out from behind the army of bare chestnut oaks that dotted the hillside.
As the figure got nearer, his concentration deepened. He could sense the imminent kill, intoxicated by the endorphins that were rushing through him in anticipation. God, he loved a good hunt, and this one would cap them all.
And then he got a glimpse of his quarry’s face and his pulse spiked and flushed his euphoria away.
It wasn’t Reilly.
It was a woman.
Annie Deutsch advanced cautiously as she made her way up the mountain.
She hadn’t found Reilly in the charred cabin, hadn’t seen any sign of him outside. She’d seen Tomblin’s body in his chewed-up SUV before stumbling upon a dead shooter by the side of the cabin and she figured Reilly had gone up the mountain, tracking his prey. She also figured two guns would be better than one.
She wasn’t comfortable out here. She was a city girl through and through and hadn’t spent much time out in the wilderness. She’d skied in Vermont a couple of times, years ago, at the insistence of a college boyfriend, but apart from that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in such an alien landscape.
It was a shame, she thought. It did possess undeniable beauty, and she could understand why people made the effort to get away to places like this. But right now, that appeal was completely wasted. All she could see around her was suffering and death.
She stopped for a moment, looked around. Nothing but bare trees, boulder fields, a couple of large rock outcroppings, and snow. A cold, bleak canvas of white and various shades of grey, punctuated by the occasional dash of dark green from some mountain laurel or a huckleberry shrub.
She couldn’t see any sign of life. She wished she could call out to Reilly, make sure he was still alive-make sure she wasn’t the one being stalked. But she couldn’t.
Instead, she just panned left and right, made sure she wasn’t missing anything, and continued on up, her mind picking out the large outcropping on the ridge to her right as a heading to follow.
Roos watched the woman get closer and closer.
She was fifteen yards away and closing. He had her in his crosshairs now. One gentle pull on his trigger and she’d drop to the ground without knowing what hit her.
He held his breath, adjusted his aim. At this distance, in these conditions, it was an easy shot. Almost unsportsmanlike. No challenge whatsoever. It was also almost unfair. Does and bucks had highly tuned senses. They could see, hear and smell even the slightest of clues. This woman was, by comparison, like an astronaut in full gear. Slow, lumbering, strained. Incomparable. He’d be able to call out to her, wave at her and ask for her name before he pulled the trigger, and he’d still drop her.