C. Box - Force of Nature

She sighed, and said, “At least we’re going to Disneyland. I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I,” Joe said.

It was midnight when the house phone rang. As always, Joe ignored it. He was talking with Mike Reed and waiting for Lucy to come back and tell him what she’d dug up on Brueggemann and his girlfriend.

Marybeth came into the living room holding the handset, and the moment he saw her face he knew something momentous had happened.

She handed him the phone with concern in her eyes. “You’ll want to take this,” she said.

As he reached for it, she said, “In your office.”

She followed him back in and again closed the door behind them. “It’s Nate,” she whispered.

“Where are you?” Joe asked immediately, careful not to use his name.

“We can’t talk long,” Nate said. The connection was clear, but from the airy tone of it, Joe assumed Nate was speaking from somewhere outdoors. Maybe a pay phone, he thought.

“Gotcha,” Joe said. “Where…”

“No,” Nate said. “We can’t go there right now. Our friends might be listening.”

“Right.”

“It’s time to fly,” Nate said. “Take the entire nest. Don’t think about it, and don’t play hero. Just go.”

“I understand,” Joe said, glancing up at Marybeth, who nodded.

“The threat is on top of you right now.”

Joe hoped he didn’t have to respond to Nate in falconry terminology. Instead, he said, “Yup.”

“At least three of the Peregrines are still out there,” Nate said. “One may be a young female.”

“Only three?” Joe asked, wondering how many men Nate had taken out of the game.

“At least,” Nate said. “But there could be more I don’t know about. Leave them to me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Nate laughed bitterly. “So far, so good. But the cost has been too high and the collateral damage has been heavy.”

Joe thought, So many questions. He said, “Is there any way we can talk more?”

“No,” Nate said, no doubt measuring the time of the call and trying to end it quickly. Joe wanted to tell him it didn’t matter: If the call was being traced, it was already too late. But he didn’t dare say it.

“Just remember,” Nate said, “these creatures won’t return to the fist no matter how much you’ve done for them. They kill, they eat, and they move on. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“They might be right next to you, but you can’t trust them. Just get away now.”

And he hung up. Joe listened to the dial tone for a moment, then cradled the phone and picked it back up and dialed star sixty-nine. The phone rang on the other end, but no one picked it up.

“He’s gone,” Joe said.

“Is he okay?” Marybeth asked.

“I guess he is.”

“What did he say?”

Joe tried to recall the conversation verbatim, and repeated it.

She frowned. “The only thing I understand is he wants us to go. That I got. What was the rest about?”

Joe said, “He thinks Nemecek has someone inside. And so do I.”

He stood and said, “I’ve got to go out for a while.” Marybeth stepped aside, puzzled. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” he said. “I’ll ask Mike to hang around until I get back.”

He told her his suspicions and her eyes widened and she raised her balled fist up to her mouth.

She said, “I won’t even tell you to be careful,” she said. “Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

He handed her the copy of The Looming Tower. “You might want to look through this,” he said. “You’re a much faster reader than I am. See if you can find anything that might relate to Nate, or Nemecek. Maybe you can find something about their old unit, or something they might have been involved in.”

She took the book and eyed him warily. “You mean when I take a break from packing and organizing the girls?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said.

As Joe reached for his coat, he noticed Lucy standing in the mudroom, a look of annoyance on her face.

“Did you forget something?” she asked.

He paused as he pulled on his parka, and it came to him. “Oh, Brueggemann on Facebook. I did forget.”

“Just as well,” she said. “He doesn’t have a page. There was nothing to find.”

Joe paused while he took it in.

“It’s weird,” she said. “ Everybody has a Facebook page. But not him.”

“I don’t,” Joe said, reaching for his shotgun.

“I mean everybody young,” Lucy said.

“Oh, thanks.”

Seven miles north of Crowheart on U.S. 287, past midnight, Nate Romanowski broke the long silence and said to Haley, “There’s an airport in Riverton with a commuter flight to Denver in the morning, where you can connect to wherever you want to go. I’ll give you money for a ticket.”

“Keep your money,” she said. “I don’t need it, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He shook his head and sighed.

“You’re stuck with me, dooley,” she said, her jaw set defiantly.

When he didn’t respond, she turned her head and looked out at the darkness and falling snow. “Where are we?”

“Out of the mountains,” he said. “If you could see anything, you’d see the Wind River Mountains to the west.”

“Okay.”

Nate gestured to the left. “Crowheart Butte is out there. On the other side is Bald Mountain. The road goes between them.”

They’d not encountered a single oncoming car for two hours.

“How do you know?” she asked. “I can’t see a thing anywhere.”

“I can feel it,” he said.

She snorted. “And how does one acquire this skill?”

He shrugged. “It comes from experience. Climbing trees, burrowing into the dirt, watching clouds go over. You’ve just got to open yourself up and not clutter your mind with thinking. Have you ever skied with your eyes closed?”

“Of course not.”

“Try it,” he said. “All of your senses open up. You can feel the terrain through your feet, and smell how close you are to the trees. You don’t have to go fast. Just try it sometime. The contours of the slope and the surroundings become clear even though you can’t see them with your eyes. It’s like being in a dark room. As you walk around it, you discover how big it is, where the tables are, how thick the carpet is. Sometimes, you can hear your own breath and your beating heart.”

“You sound kind of nuts,” she said.

“My friend Joe Pickett says the same thing.”

“Maybe we’re right,” she said.

“Maybe. But test it out,” he said softly. “Close your eyes. Crowheart Butte will come to you. You’ll know where it is…”

After a few minutes, she opened her eyes. “I’ve got nothing,” she confessed.

“Practice,” he whispered.

The highway cut through a vast carpet of foot-high sagebrush that gathered clumps of snow in the palms of its upturned, clawlike branches. But it wasn’t yet cold enough on the valley floor for the road to ice up.

“You said you wanted to ride this out until we found the guys who killed Cohen and the others,” he said. “We found them and put them down. Now you can go home and spend some time with your dad.”

“I already did that,” she said. “I said goodbye. Now I’m committed to riding this out.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“You don’t sound that disappointed,” she said.

“Remember the rules,” he said. “I can’t guarantee your safety. And I can’t promise you won’t see something much worse than what you saw back there.”

She hesitated, and for a moment he thought she might reconsider. Instead, she said, “Just drive. You said you know where this Nemecek is located, right?”