Scott Nicholson - The Gorge

Clara called Ace’s name.

The agent lifted his head from concealment, looking in the direction of the camp. Ace could have pegged him like that critter in the Whac-A-Mole game, but the situation might play out even better now. Because, from the ruckus Clara was raising, Ace had a good idea where the second agent was.

Haircut Number One broke into a run, leaving the thick evergreen undergrowth for the easier route between the large trees. Ace could have made his escape then. But if they took Clara, they’d learn a lot about Ace, plus the Feds would swarm the area like flies on fresh shit. The best strategy was to take them both down. Besides, he’d be doing the country a favor by knocking a couple of moochers off the taxpayers’ tit.

Ace followed Haircut Number One, who slung his pack to the ground and jogged, bent low with a small, two-way radio to his ear. “Suspect in sight?” the agent said into the mouthpiece.

A static cackle was the only reply, the words washed out by the noise of leaves crunching beneath the agent’s boots. They were getting near the clearing. And the trip wire.

The campfire threw throbbing waves of light against the trees. Ace ran in a simian gait, relaxed and confident. He played the scene out in his mind, the two agents grilling Clara, asking about her companion, scaring her into a confession. He’d peg Piss-and-Vinegar with the first shot, then drop Haircut Number One before the sound of the first shot died away. Then he’d walk out of the trees, tuck his gun in his pants, and ask Clara if the beans were ready.

Except the game didn’t follow the rules.

The dusk roared, the trees shook, and the explosion’s concussion cast a warm wind across his face.

Jim Castle (the man Ace had dubbed “Piss-and-Vinegar”) was full of only piss at the moment. Mostly he was pissed at himself. Eight years in the Navy SEALs; another six as a special agent in the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, or the “Super SWAT guys,” as they were called in-house; fourteen months assigned to the Goodall case, mostly as a sideline observer with a too-clean desk; then, three glorious weeks sleeping in the woods and eating what tasted like chipped horsemeat and Kennel Rations, riding shotgun on The Rook (whom Ace had dubbed “Haircut”) as they searched the gorge. All that time and effort building to the biggest moment of his career, and now he was stuck in the Appalachian equivalent of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

“Jim…” Derek Samford’s voice came from the handheld radio somewhere below him. The radio had slipped from his belt when he’d fallen-or more precisely, when the earth had moved.

If Castle could have reached the radio, he would have told The Rook to stay on point, to take Goodall down first and then worry about his partner. They needed a nail in the Bama Bomber. That’s the only way this ending would be happy. Because Castle had screwed the pooch big-time, the kind of boondoggle that would make them howl with laughter back in DC.

But only after Goodall was locked away, of course. No one would laugh before then, especially the older veterans, who would see their own decline mirrored in Jim Castle’s bad judgment. Not the fresh faces, the new agents who thought scars and kills were the measure of a man. And certainly not the higher-ups, who were getting reamed by Southern Congressmen and the press over their continued inability to nab a fugitive with a recorded IQ of ninety-five.

Castle moved his legs. Nothing broken, though his hips were jammed tight between two molars of granite. He had some nasty scrapes along his thighs, and a tickling sensation down his shin signaled a line of oozing blood from his knee. He arched his neck and looked at the diminishing funnel of daylight ten feet above. The opening in the earth was raw and jagged, and pale roots poked from the soil like sick snakes. Specks of dirt sprinkled down and bounced off Jim’s face and shoulders. A piece of grit lodged in the corner of his left eye, and he blinked it to mud.

The sides of the opening didn’t appear in immediate danger of collapse, so Castle figured suffocation wasn’t the biggest danger.

No, friend, suffocation is not your biggest danger. Your biggest danger is Robert Wayne “Ace” Goodall walking up to the edge of the hole, whipping out his baby-maker, and showering you with a tender stream of golden humiliation. Just before capping your ass and bringing the Bama Bomber back into the national headlines.

Good agents avoided headlines, even those like him who were scrambling down the final rungs on the FBI ladder. They didn’t wear dark glasses just for vanity. Speak to the media only when necessary, and only when higher ranks were dodging the microphone. He’d wanted one of those doors to open that led into the Puzzle Palace, the field agents’ fond nickname for DC headquarters. But he was far too old already, and this wasn’t a good time to get his name in the papers. No matter how you cut it, showing up as a casualty in the first paragraph wasn’t such a hot career move.

He had a. 357-caliber Glock in his shoulder holster, but his upper torso was too contorted to reach the pistol. He was in no shape for a shoot-out.

“What’s your 10–20?” came The Rook’s modulated voice. Though the broadcast was muffled, the words somehow echoed, as if a small cave yawned below him. That was just fucking wonderful. If he managed to wriggle free of his rocky vise grip and slide down, he had no idea how far the drop would be. Another ten feet, no problem, maybe a twisted ankle. Twenty feet, in that kind of terrain, meant broken bones, deep contusions, and the real possibility of head trauma.

Then relying on The Rook to find him and drag him to safety.

Derek Samford wasn’t technically a rookie, and wasn’t all that much younger than Castle. He’d put in three years as an Army officer, aced his courses at Quantico, and then eased into the unit known as Behavioral Sciences. He was more cerebral than hard ass, more Jodie Foster than Edgar G. Robinson, but The Rook had endured twenty-two-and-three-quarter days in the backwoods without a complaint and only a slight case of butt-crack rash. He consulted his wrist compass a little too often, tracking the sun’s path and acting the part of Nature Boy, though the wristband was of the blaze-orange variety that warned hunters not to shoot because a two-legged hairless monkey was on the other end. Castle could forgive him for the silly instrument because his partner knew north from south.

The Rook would make the grade one day, keeping his hair groomed to whatever standard the FBI brass decreed, working overtime in exchange for having a life, and succeeding whether or not he lost a partner along the way. So Castle’s probable death meant nothing to the outcome of the case.

Death? Assuming Goodall doesn’t blow your brains to scrambled eggs, you’ll probably live hours. Long enough to regret it.

Castle’s decision to outflank Goodall and his companion had seemed like a solid strategy. The book on the Bama Bomber was “armed and extremely dangerous and likely to take a busload of nuns with him.” In a showdown, Goodall would use the woman as a shield, or kill her on the spot. While Castle and The Rook would be limited in their gunplay because of an innocent bystander, Goodall had nothing to lose. Rampant homicide was a blank check.

Not that Castle believed the woman was truly innocent. Everybody was guilty of something, and then it was just a question of degree.

A stone the size of his fist bounced within inches of his shoulder. The opening above him shivered again, as if bracing for the onslaught of winter. But the ground wasn’t cold yet, so it shifted and settled. A runnel of dirt sloughed down from his left, adding another few inches of weight against his waist.