But then, he didn’t think killing her would be a wise move.
She’d be dead, no question. But the shot would ring out across the woods, and Reilly would know where he was. He’d need to try and make his way to another blind before Reilly spotted him. Staying in this one and using the dead woman as bait was too dangerous. Reilly would anticipate that move. And no matter what, he’d still have Reilly out there, on the loose, stalking him.
No, killing her now would be a mistake. He had a far better use for her. Much simpler, much more straightforward, but knowing how righteous Reilly was, it was bound to work.
He watched her climb up, seemingly drawn to the outcropping that shielded him. He knew he was perfectly camouflaged, knew she wouldn’t spot him until it was too late.
She kept coming. Slowly, but inevitably.
He waited until she was a few feet away, then, in one swift move, he launched himself up at her and slammed the stock of his rifle into her back.
She grunted heavily and stumbled forward, falling to her feet, her carbine tumbling out of her hands.
She turned around slowly, groaning with pain, but he was already on top of her, his rifle right in her face.
“Shh,” he said. “No noise. Not yet. Now turn around.”
68
I was tired. Exhausted, actually.
My body was starting to flag. I hadn’t been too kind to it lately. It had been a pretty intense couple of weeks that had included hours when I was technically dead. But I couldn’t give up now.
I kept advancing, my legs moving on their own, carrying up farther and farther into the mountain, trying to avoid a fall or even a slip. Up here, right now, a damaged ankle or a busted knee would be fatal. And there’d be no Frankenstein machine to bring me back this time.
I heard the air move above me and glanced up to see a turkey vulture glide by. It banked, made a full circle over me, then with a flick of his wings, it was gone again, disappearing into the white mist. I wondered if that was a good omen. It had to be-for one of us, anyway.
There were more than a few blowdowns up here, maybe casualties from some recent hurricane. I either climbed over them or made my way around them, long bare trunks that were just making my advance more difficult.
And then I heard her, a call that echoed through the trees.
“Reilly! Reilly?”
It was Deutsch.
I almost shouted back, then I held back.
He had her.
Shit.
What was she doing up here?
I gritted my teeth to swallow my anger, then I summoned up more resolve and increased my pace, heading in the direction I thought her shout came from.
She hadn’t sounded too far-a hundred, hundred and fifty yards, tops, I figured. I was moving faster now, breathing hard, eyes focused intently ahead of me, acutely aware of a potential ambush.
“Reilly!”
Her voice rang out again, acting like a compass heading.
I kept going, my fingers tighter against the carbine. And after a long climb that left me almost breathless, something appeared out of the haze that was shrouding the mountain, something foreign to this desolate landscape.
It was Deutsch, standing in front of a large rock outcropping at the top of the ridge. Only she wasn’t alone. A figure was standing behind her, and he was holding a handgun to her head.
Roos.
I slowed my pace, swung my gun slowly so is was pointed in their direction, and kept moving until I was about ten yards away from them.
There he was. Gordon Roos. After all these months-after all these deaths, I was finally face to face with him.
I have to say, in the flesh, he was a disappointment. Mid fifties, give or take, I imagined, although he had to be older. Lean, short cropped hair, focused gaze. Seemed in pretty good shape. Nothing noteworthy, nothing particularly vile or evil in his features. No glass eye, no scarred face, no deformed fingers. My nemesis looked disconcertingly normal, and his face was very similar to the one in the drawing Leo and Daphne had sent me. They had really done a phenomenal job.
“Nice to put a face to the voice,” I said, trying to play down the fact that Deutsch and I were truly and genuinely screwed.
“I figured it was about time we met,” Roos said. “You’ve put enough time and effort into it.”
I wasn’t in the mood for games. “Let her go,” I said. “This is between you and me.”
“You’re such a Boy Scout, you know that? Like you just walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting or something. ‘This is between you and me?’ Seriously? Come on… What are you-Shane? When did that ever work in the real world? You think I’m going to roll around in the snow with you when I can just shoot you? Christ, I could have picked you off minutes ago, while you were still coming up here. But I wanted to see the look in your eyes when you realized you were screwed. When you realized you and this little bitch of yours were both screwed. That look on your face right now? That’ll keep me company for years to come. It’s moments like these… when they come around, you’ve got to grab them. They’re life’s fuel.”
And just like that, he calmly, matter-of-factly, raised his gun at me from behind Deutsch. I thought of shooting first, swinging my gun up quickly as I dived off to one side, but there was no way I was getting a clean shot off at him, not with Deutsch there in the way, not on the move and given how weary I was and how my hands were shaking.
Still, I couldn’t just stand there, and in that instant of deciding whether to duck left or right or charge ahead, something rushed down out of nowhere, a buzzing white flash that came out of the sky and smashed itself against the large boulders right next to them. Roos wasn’t expecting it-none of us were. But the split second of distraction from Kurt’s kamikaze drone was all we needed.
Just as Roos flinched sideways with surprise, Deutsch moved, fast as lightning, grabbing his gun hand with both hands and yanking him forward, almost over her shoulders, causing him to spin and topple over and slam into the ground. I was already charging at them and I covered the ground between us in a heartbeat and got there as Deutsch was wrangling the gun out of his hand. I dove in, hammering his face with a massive downward punch that just planted him in place and loosened his hold on the gun. I gave him another-unnecessary, but what the hell?-then Deutsch and I stepped back and took in our captured prey.
Gordon Roos was finally mine.
Now I had to decide what to do with him.
69
We marched Roos down the mountain.
He tried talking a couple of times, but I shut him down, first with a couple of words, then with another punch. I wasn’t ready to listen to him. I was still gathering up my thoughts and playing things out in my head.
We kept going until we got to a small clearing that was dotted with ghostly birch trees, within sight of the cabin. More snow had settled up here-two, maybe three inches. I knew the temperature was still hovering just below zero, but there was a mild wind blowing, which was what I needed.
I told Roos to sit down by the base of one of the trees. He did as told. I walked over and cuffed his hands around it.
I stepped back and turned to Deutsch. “Is the Crown Vic down there?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And the jerrycan? Still in the trunk?”
“Yep.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Roos called out. “I’m not telling you anything.”
I walked over to him. “I’d bet otherwise.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “You’re going to kill me anyway. At least this way I’ll enjoy knowing you’ll never clear your name and you’ll never know the full story about your dad.”