• • •
HE MUTED HIS HEADLAMP down to a faint glow and carefully circumnavigated the structure while staying in the trees. There was no doubt the old cabin was under construction, but no way to tell from the outside if anyone was inside. He found no vehicles in the timber beside it, but he did see a crate-sized box raised on stilts just inside the tree line. There was rustling from inside.
Joe approached the construction and leaned into it. The front was open and covered with wire mesh, and when he twisted slightly on the lens of his lamp the three hooded falcons came into view. They were perched on dowel rods and facing him, aware of his presence. A redtail, a prairie, and a peregrine that looked startlingly familiar. He recognized the tooled leather hood and leather jesses from the last time he’d seen the bird in person.
“Nate,” Joe whispered.
And he turned back to the line shack.
Joe took a deep breath, approached the closed front door. He stood to the side of the doorjamb and rapped on it with his backhand knuckles, in case Nate instinctively grabbed his weapon inside and decided to fire through the door.
“Nate. It’s Joe Pickett.”
There was no reaction from inside. He knocked again—harder—and said: “Nate. Let me in. We need to talk.”
Nothing.
Joe thought the likelihood of Nate blasting him was remote. Nate wasn’t one to panic. Even so, he wasn’t the kind of man to surprise, either.
Joe reached down and turned the knob. Unlocked. He pushed the door open and entered, using his headlamp to see inside like a Cyclops.
After thirty seconds, Joe had no doubt who lived in the line shack. Falconry gear—hoods, jesses, bells, lures—was scattered on the tabletop. Ancient books on falconry were stacked on a single bookshelf next to volumes on war, military tactics, and Special Operations. And in a small frame on the end of the bookshelf was a five-year-old photo of a young girl with a falcon on her arm. Sheridan, fifteen years old, grinned awkwardly at the camera with strands of her blond hair whipping across her face in the wind. The photo tugged at Joe’s heart: both that it was a younger and more awkward Sheridan, and that Nate displayed it.
Joe took a deep breath and tried to regain control of his heartbeat and breathing.
He’d found him. But now what?
Nate was obviously gone, but who knew how long? His weapon and hat were missing, and there was no vehicle outside. Folded clothes on the bed indicated he was around, and fresh-skinned grouse marinating in the refrigerator indicated he was coming back soon.
His friend lived in his own world, Joe knew. Nate was prone to midnight sojourns, sitting naked in a tree for hours, and sometimes submerging himself entirely in a river or pond with a breathing tube just to experience what it was like to be a fish. Nate didn’t keep regular hours, and except for feeding and flying his falcons, there was no routine. He could show up at dawn, or within the minute.
Or he could be outside, watching silently to see what Joe was up to.
Now that he’d found Nate’s location, Joe wasn’t sure he wanted that conversation after all. If his friend was at Sand Creek Ranch, it confirmed to Joe that Nate was hooked up with Wolfgang Templeton. And if what the FBI suspected was true, the surveillance video from the Scoggins compound in Montana might turn out to be enough to place Nate at the scene. Kidnapping and murder were crimes Joe couldn’t overlook.
He stood in the cabin for ten more minutes, running scenarios. He could slip out, wait, or set up an ambush. None felt right.
In the end, Joe extracted a single shotgun shell from his pocket and stood it brass-down on the table. Nate had once left a .50 round in Joe’s mailbox to signal he was in the area. Nate would recognize the shell and know he’d been there, and draw his own conclusions.
Maybe, Joe thought, Nate would come to him.
• • •
AT THE EDGE OF THE CLEARING, with the line shack behind him and an access road cut into the hillside below, Joe set up a short tripod and mounted his spotting scope. Lights from the ranch compound winked below. In the star- and moonlight, Joe could make out the silhouette of the lodge itself—it indeed resembled a country castle with turrets and peaked roofs—as well as an assemblage of outbuildings, barns, sheds, and guest cabins. The entrance road to the compound was illuminated by soft yellow pole lights. The dark ribbon of Sand Creek itself serpentined through the valley floor.
Although he’d viewed the satellite photos of the ranch compound on Google Maps back in his cabin, the shots displayed on his screen had been taken in midsummer, when the main lodge and outbuildings were obscured by trees. Now that the leaves were clearing from the branches, he got a better idea of the layout.
He was no expert at night photography, but he was surprised by the clarity of the digital photos he took of the compound below under the lights. He doubted at that distance he’d be able to capture individuals, though, especially if they were moving. But he used the camera display and the long lens to zoom in on the vehicles parked on the side of the castle and snap uselessly away at them in the hope that a computer whiz at the state crime lab could determine license plate numbers.
More important, for Joe, was simply understanding the large scale and scope of the ranch headquarters itself. He’d been to many in the past, but never one as regal or elegant in design and construction.
Joe’s ears pricked when he heard a shout from below, then a slammed door. Floodlights came on and illuminated the huge lawn in front of the castle and a paved circle drive Joe hadn’t noticed previously in the dark. The back of the castle blocked his view from whoever had shouted and come outside, and he crawled the scope along the edges of the structure to try and catch a glimpse of who was there.
He could only hope that the reason for the sudden activity was not his presence above them at the line shack. Then, in his peripheral vision, he saw oncoming headlights flashing through the trees on the road to the headquarters. Someone was coming, and it seemed whoever had hit the lights knew of their imminent arrival.
Joe rocked back from the camera and lens so he could see the whole of it. He caught a glimpse of a woman in a white shirt or jacket emerge on the lawn for a moment, gesticulating to people out of sight. He leaned in and rotated the focus ring and saw her clearly and briefly for a second before she walked out of view toward the front of the building, but it happened too quickly to take a shot. She was young, attractive, black—the woman Latta had mentioned. She waved her arms at someone with the authority of a woman in charge.
A long white SUV with the SAND CREEK RANCH logo on the front doors cleared the trees on the road and turned onto the circular driveway. Joe swung his lens over and shot several rapid photographs as the vehicle approached the castle and went out of view in front of it, blocked by the building. A few words of greeting—happy in tone—floated up from the valley.
Whatever was happening, whoever had arrived with such fanfare, couldn’t be discerned. He checked the display on the camera and moaned. The shots of the vehicle under the floodlights were blurry and pixelated. From that distance and in the poor light, he couldn’t tell who was in the SUV—or how many.
“I,” he said to himself in a whisper, “am a lousy spy.”
• • •
THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILE AWAY, on the bank of Sand Creek on the valley floor, in a stand of thick river cottonwoods and red buckbrush, Nate Romanowski watched it all. He clutched a writhing burlap bag filled with pigeons he’d trapped in the loft of an unused barn farther down the river to feed to his birds.
He had no reason to expose himself, and had stopped cold when the floodlights went on in front of the castle. Instead, he’d stepped farther back into the shadows.
He’d watched as ranch staff poured out of the front door, directed by Liv Brannan. She made them stand shoulder to shoulder along the edge of the circular driveway like a scene out of an English drama.
Seeing her in action caused a tug in his chest. As she assembled them, Wolfgang Templeton appeared. He was framed by the huge double doors and backlit from inside for a moment before he stepped outside on the portico.
Nate could see Templeton’s starched white open-collared shirt, his silver-belly Stetson. He looked stiff and formal, as if he were about to receive royalty.
The white Suburban slowed as it took the circular driveway and stopped in front. A staffer Nate didn’t recognize opened the driver’s door and strode back to open the door for his passenger.
Because the SUV was between Nate and the front steps, he couldn’t see the woman when she was escorted out, but he did see Templeton’s reaction. After a momentary pause, he skipped down the steps to greet her. The staff offered their welcome and parted, and Nate watched as Templeton escorted his new woman up the stairs. Templeton towered over her, and guided her up the steps with his hand on the small of her back. She wore a dark skirt and matching jacket and had shiny dark hair.
At the top, the woman turned to thank the staff, and Nate saw a wide mouth and glint of perfect white teeth and her porcelain doll–like face in the porch light.
It was as if someone had punched him in the stomach.
Wedell, Wyoming
After finally locating the red baling twine ties, Joe secured the wires he’d lowered so he could pass through. That he’d located Nate disturbed him. Although he wanted to see his friend again, he didn’t want to encounter him, given the circumstances.
He was pleased he knew more about the Sand Creek Ranch itself, and wondered if the arrival of Templeton’s love interest would cause them to lower their guard for a few days. He doubted it. He wished that at least a few more of his shots had come out more clearly than they had, and he hoped the techs at the FBI could find something on them to help establish probable cause for a raid. But he doubted that, too.
• • •
THE NIGHT COOLED CONSIDERABLY as he rode the ATV back down the mountain, and he’d stopped to pull on his buckskin gloves and Filson vest. When he reached the Black Forest Inn, it was dark and quiet except for randomly lit windows and the thumping bass from the jukebox in the saloon.
Joe skirted the inn grounds and kept to the trails in the trees until he was halfway between the hunting lodge and the town of Wedell. He braked and shut off the engine and drank half of a bottle of water and looked at his watch.
Midnight.
He was surprised how much time his sojourn had taken. It was too late to do much more than text Marybeth that he was okay and would call tomorrow when he could. Obviously, if she’d learned more about Erik Young, there would have been a series of voicemails or messages.
With his thumbs punching the letters clumsily in the cold, he wrote to Chuck Coon: Templeton has thousands of acres to bury bodies. What do you need for PC to search it?
PC meaning “probable cause.”
He wondered if Coon would see the text before morning.
• • •
JOE PARKED THE ATV at the abandoned orchard and walked the rest of the way to the Whispering Pines. He was exhausted. His intention was to open the back window, retrieve Daisy and his packed duffel bag of clothes, and drive back to the Black Forest Inn to stay the night. He figured he’d have one day while the Game and Fish truck sat out in the parking lot before they’d realize something was off—maybe he was sick or injured or awaiting instructions in his room?—before trying to smoke him out. Joe wondered who they’d send to check on him and thought Anna would be the most likely.
By then, he hoped, Chuck Coon and his special agents would have enough background and probable cause to swoop northward to take over the investigation. As far as Joe was concerned, it wouldn’t be soon enough.
But there was a problem, and at first he thought his tired eyes were playing tricks on him.
• • •
THROUGH THE LAST TREES and brush before he reached the back of his cabin, he could view his pickup parked by itself in the lot under the illumination of a single blue-white pole light. Someone was underneath it, on their back with arms extended, reaching up toward the engine.
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yup.
Joe dropped to his haunches. He reached out and used the palm of his hand to bend a caragana bough down far enough to see over it. Not only was there one man beneath his truck, he could see the ankles and boots of another who was standing or squatting on the other side of his vehicle, as if keeping watch on Joe’s cabin. He could see neither man clearly enough to make an identification.
Joe heard the clink of metal on metal from beneath the undercarriage. The man underneath was using hand tools.
Why else would someone be underneath his pickup after midnight? They were obviously dismantling a part in his motor or drive-train . . . or installing something to his vehicle, whether a tracking device or explosives. He thought, They couldn’t burn me out like they did the DCI agent. It would be too obvious. So this time they were trying a new tack. Which meant his suspicions about the electronic surveillance in his cabin had turned out to be correct and had roused the attention of . . . somebody.
He shifted until he could see the whole of the parking lot. Anna B.’s Jeep was parked where it always was on the side of the office. No lights were on in her rooms. There were no other vehicles in the lot besides his. Yet . . .
Whoever it was doing something to his truck couldn’t have simply walked there, he thought. No one walked in Wedell. No one walked in Wyoming. Their vehicle had to be parked nearby.
Keeping low, Joe scrambled backward until he was sure he was out of view from the lot. Then he stood up and looked around. He cursed himself for leaving his shotgun in the scabbard of the ATV, and wished he hadn’t removed the .40 Glock he’d tucked into his belt on the small of his back earlier because it was uncomfortable to ride with.
He moved cautiously toward the access road to the motel, sidestepping from tree to tree. The brush on his side of the borrow pit was thick enough to keep him concealed from the road, although he feared the dry fall leaves would rattle as he pushed his way through them.
He could see a vehicle parked in the dark on the far side of the road. It was a blocky SUV pointed uphill. It was located in deep shadow under a canopy of pine so even the stars and moon couldn’t reach it. It was too dark to see if anyone else was inside, but he could tell it was light-colored and had a bike or luggage rack of some kind on the roof.
Joe waited, worrying about himself and his dog. If Daisy heard or sensed the men outside and started barking, it could scare them off and confirm in their minds he was inside. But he feared for her life if she barked. The men might panic and enter the cabin to shut her up. He couldn’t sit back and let them. If that happened, he knew he’d risk exposing himself—and his lack of weapons—to them.
There was a shaft of blue light from the pole lamp on his side of the borrow pit about seventy feet up the road where the turn-in for the motel was located. When the men at his truck were finished with whatever they were doing, he thought, they’d have to return to their SUV that way. He doubted they’d bushwhack their way back in the dark.
If they returned to the vehicle on the road, he’d see who they were.
Joe waited. Daisy didn’t bark.
• • •
TEN MINUTES LATER, Joe saw two forms enter the light shaft on their return to the parked SUV. He recognized the distinct brim fold in the taller man’s cowboy hat as the one worn by Bill Critchfield. He could see a three-quarter’s glimpse of Gene Smith’s profile as he entered and exited the light. Smith was carrying a small toolbox in his hand and swinging it slightly forward and back with each step.
Joe tried not to breathe as they neared him, and hoped they couldn’t somehow hear the beating of his heart, as he could.
Critchfield and Smith crossed over the road and surprised Joe by not
opening the front doors to climb in. Instead, they split up at the front bumper of the vehicle and walked to the back doors and opened them. They’d used an unfamiliar vehicle to get to the Whispering Pines instead of Critchfield’s pickup.
When the doors opened, the dome light inside came on. In the near-total darkness, it was almost blinding.
But in the second or two it took for Critchfield and Smith to swing open their doors and slide in, Joe could see they weren’t alone.
Sheriff R. C. Mead sat behind the wheel. Next to him on the passenger seat was Jim Latta in civilian clothes. Latta’s expression was blank.
Joe closed his eyes and sighed. Latta.
• • •
MEAD STARTED THE TRUCK but kept his headlights off. Instead of pulling a U-turn, he backed into the road, bathing Joe in red backup lights, then cranked his wheel and rolled downhill. As he did, Joe heard muffled words being spoken from inside the vehicle but couldn’t make them out. Not until the SUV was out of sight below in the trees did its headlights flash on.
It wasn’t a luggage rack on top of the SUV, Joe realized, but the light bar of the sheriff’s department GMC Yukon.
First Nate, and now Mead and Latta, Joe thought. Who else would reveal he was on the wrong side tonight?
• • •
JOE WAS NO MECHANIC, but it was obvious what they’d done to his pickup when he rolled under it with a mini Maglite in his teeth.
Smith had attached a cheap prepaid cell phone—the same make and model Joe had noticed at the Sundance convenience store—to the undercarriage of his pickup. It was secured with strips of electrician’s tape that had been rolled around the front axle. The phone was powered on but inert, and there were two wires—one red, one white—that snaked out from its plastic shell. Joe followed the wires from the phone as they looped around and through steel undergirders toward the mid-rear of the vehicle. There, they were jammed into what looked like a fist-sized lump of light gray clay that had been pressed against the outside sheet metal wall of the gas tank.