C. Box - Force of Nature

Joe was pretty sure he’d found Nemecek.

He’d set up his spotting scope on the tripod and trained it on the white sheet-metal door of the first trailer. His shotgun was braced against the rock on his right, and next to it was his. 270 Winchester.

The rock had sharp edges, and it was difficult to find a comfortable position to lie in wait. He shifted his weight from the left to the right and propped up on his daypack to see. When he heard the tick of a loose rock strike another, he assumed he’d rustled it loose with the toe of his boot.

Then he sensed a presence behind him, and before he could roll over he felt a cold nose of steel press into the flesh behind his right ear. He jumped with alarm and a palm pressed square into the middle of his back, keeping him prone.

“Put your arms out ahead of you, Joe, hands up. Don’t even think about reaching for your gun.” It was the voice of his trainee.

Joe did as told without saying a word, and felt his trainee pluck the Glock from his holster. His pepper spray was removed next. Then he heard the clatter of his shotgun and rifle as they were kicked off the outcropping into the brush below.

“Now slowly pull your arms down and place them behind your back.”

Joe said, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Just cooperate, Joe. You seem like a nice guy, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I guess you’ve figured some things out on your own.”

“Surprising, huh?” Joe said.

“Your hands,” his trainee said firmly.

Joe felt the handcuffs encircle both wrists. He balled his hands into fists and bent them inward toward his spine while the cuffs were snapped into place and ratcheted snug. It was a trick he’d learned from a poacher he’d once arrested. Now, when he relaxed his fists and straightened his wrists, the cuffs weren’t tight and didn’t bite into his flesh.

“Okay, now stand up. And don’t turn around or do any dumb shit.”

“That’s kind of a hard maneuver with my hands cuffed behind my back,” Joe said.

“Try,” his trainee said, stepping back.

Joe got his knees under him and rose clumsily. Despite what he’d been told, he turned a quarter of the way around. His trainee wore his red uniform shirt and held a. 40 Glock in each hand-his and Joe’s. Both were pointed at Joe’s face.

“You’re a disgrace to the uniform,” Joe said.

“Stop talking.”

“I found Luke Brueggemann,” Joe said, noting a wince of confusion from his trainee in reaction.

“Up there,” Joe said, chinning toward the top of the mountain. “In an old miner’s cabin. You might have seen it on your way down.”

“I saw the cabin. Right after I found your truck stuck in the snow.”

“But you must not have looked inside,” Joe said. “The real Luke Brueggemann’s body is in it. Throat cut by a garrote. Same with Bad Bob and Pam Kelly. All of them dead, but I guess you know that.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” his trainee said.

“You know,” Joe said, “I’m getting pretty hacked off the way you people operate. This is a good place, and you’ve turned it upside down.”

His trainee simply shook his head, unbelieving.

“Did you kill them?” Joe asked. “Like you did Deputy Sollis this morning? Mike Reed might not make it, either, and you know he’s a friend of mine.”

“That was self-defense! That big one didn’t identify himself-he smashed through the door of my room.”

Joe didn’t know enough about the incident to argue. But knowing Sollis, he sensed a grain of truth in the explanation.

“You’re leaving bodies all over this county,” Joe said. “You need to stop. You’ve lost sight of your mission.”

“This is bullshit. There are no bodies. You’re just trying to get the drop on me.”

“I’m not that clever,” Joe said. And his trainee seemed to take that into consideration.

“So what’s your real name?” Joe asked.

“Hinkle,” he said. “Lieutenant Dan Hinkle when I was still in.”

The fact that he gave up his real name so easily, Joe thought, meant Hinkle had no intention of cutting him loose.

“Well, Lieutenant Dan Hinkle,” Joe said, “your boss is a killer. He’s gone rogue. And he’s taken a lot of you good men along with him and he’s murdered innocent people all over my county and terrorized my wife and family. Is that really what you signed up for?”

Hinkle’s confusion hardened into a kind of desperate anger. “Shut up, Joe. And turn around. We’re gonna march down there and see what my boss wants to do with you.”

“I’m not done,” Joe said. “The cavalry is coming. They’re on their way as we speak.”

“I said shut up with your lies.”

“I don’t lie,” Joe said. “You know that.”

“Turn around,” Hinkle barked.

And Joe did. But not simply because he’d been ordered. He wanted to see what was happening in the camp below, because he’d heard the sound of a vehicle coming, headed straight for Camp Five.

Haley said to Nate on the seat beside her, “There are two trailers and two vehicles.”

“Anybody outside?”

“No.”

“Keep going,” he said. “Drive up there with confidence like you were coming home after work. Like you just can’t wait to tell your boss some good news he’ll want to hear.”

He felt her reach down and touch his neck as if for reassurance.

“How far are they?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe five hundred feet?”

“You’re doing great,” he said.

“Oh, Jesus,” she said after a beat. “Someone’s coming outside.”

“Which trailer?”

“The second one. Now two men. Nate, one of them has a long rifle or a shotgun. They’re standing there looking our way.”

“Is he aiming the weapon?”

“Sorta.”

“Is he aiming it at you or not?”

“He’s kind of holding it at port arms,” she said, an edge of panic in her voice.

“Good,” Nate said. “Keep going. Don’t flinch. They recognize the vehicle. They think we’re on their team.”

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice tight. “There’s John Nemecek. He just came out of the first trailer.”

“Keep going,” Nate said. “Smile at them if you can.”

Joe and Dan Hinkle were twenty yards from the bank of the river. There was so little current this high up in the mountains it barely made a sound, just a muffled gurgle as it muscled around exposed river rocks.

The muzzles of both guns were pressed into him, one at the base of his skull and the other in the small of his back. Joe felt dead inside and his feet seemed to propel him forward of their own accord. He thought, There is no way they’ll let me go.

He thought about what he could do to get away. If he were in a movie, he’d spin and drop-kick the weapons away and head-butt Hinkle into submission. Or simply break and run, juking and jiving, while Hinkle fired and missed. But this was real and there were two guns pressed against him. He didn’t know how to drop-kick. And Hinkle was trained and skillful and wouldn’t miss.

Ahead of him, across the river, three men had emerged from the two trailers. All three were facing the oncoming white SUV and apparently hadn’t seen Joe and Hinkle yet. One of them, tall and fit and commanding in looks and presence, looked like the person Marybeth had described meeting in the library. Nemecek stood ramrod-straight, hands on hips, his head bowed slightly forward as if he was peering ahead from beneath his brow. The other two men, both young and hard, one in all-black clothing and the other wearing a desert camo vest over a Henley shirt, flanked Nemecek. The man in all black carried a semiautomatic rifle.

The three stood expectant, waiting for the arrival of the white SUV.