Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 6

And constantly getting the same smug, superior answers. “Don’t blame us, Mr. President. Blame them .”

The late nights in the Oval Office, signing letters of condolence to the families of the best of us, men and women who had died for the idea of America, not the squabbling and revenge-minded nation we have become. And three times running across the names of men I knew and fought with, back when I was younger, fitter, and with the teams.

And other late nights as well, reviewing what was called—in typical innocuous, bureaucratic fashion—the Disposition Matrix database, prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, but was really known as the “kill list.” Months of work, research, surveillance, and intelligence intercepts resulting in a list of known terrorists who were a clear and present danger to the United States. And there I was, sitting by myself, and like a Roman emperor of old, I put a check mark next to those I decided were going to be killed in the next few days.

The sapling finally comes down.

Mission accomplished.

I look up and see something odd flying in the distance.

I stop, shade my eyes. Since moving here, I’ve gotten used to the different kinds of birds moving in and around Lake Marie, including the loons, whose night calls sound like someone’s being throttled, but I don’t recognize what’s flying over there now.

I watch for a few seconds, and then it disappears behind the far tree line.

And I get back to work, something suddenly bothering me, something I can’t quite figure out.

BASE OF THE HUNTSMEN TRAIL

Mount Rollins, New Hampshire

IN THE FRONT SEAT of a black Cadillac Escalade, the older man rubs at his clean-shaven chin and looks at the video display from the laptop set up on top of the center console. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat, the younger man has a rectangular control system in his hand, with two small joysticks and other switches. He is controlling a drone with a video system, and they’ve just watched the home of former president Matthew Keating disappear from view.

It pleases the older man to see the West’s famed drone technology turned against them. For years he’s done the same thing with their wireless networks and cell phones, triggering devices and creating the bombs that shattered so many bodies and sowed so much terror.

And the Internet—which promised so much when it came out to bind the world as one—ended up turning into a well-used and safe communications network for him and his warriors.

The Cadillac they’re sitting in was stolen this morning from a young couple and their infant in northern Vermont, after the two men abandoned their stolen pickup truck. There’s still a bit of blood spatter and brain matter on the dashboard in front of them. An empty baby’s seat is in the rear, along with a flowered cloth bag stuffed with toys and other childish things.

“Next?” the older man asks.

“We find the girl,” he says. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“Do it,” the older man says, watching with quiet envy and fascination as the younger man manipulates the controls of the complex machine while the drone’s camera-made images appear on the computer screen.

“There. There she is.”

From a bird’s-eye view, he thinks, staring at the screen. A red sedan moves along the narrow paved roads.

He says, “And you are sure that the Americans, that they are not tracking you?”

“Impossible,” the younger man next to him says in confidence. “There are thousands of such drones at play across this country right now. The officials who control the airspace, they have rules about where drones can go, and how high and low they can go, but most people ignore the rules.”

“But their Secret Service—”

“Once President Matthew Keating left office, his daughter was no longer due the Secret Service protection. It’s the law, if you can believe it. Under special circumstances, it can be requested, but no, not with her. The daughter wants to be on her own, going to school, without armed guards near her.”

He murmurs, “A brave girl, then.”

“And foolish,” comes the reply.

And a stupid father, he thinks, to let his daughter roam at will like this, with no guards, no security.

The camera in the air follows the vehicle with no difficulty, and the older man shakes his head, again looking around him at the rich land and forests. Such an impossibly plentiful and gifted country, but why in Allah’s name do they persist in meddling and interfering and being colonialists around the world?

A flash of anger sears through him.

If only they would stay home, how many innocents would still be alive?

“There,” his companion says. “As I earlier learned … they are stopping here. At the beginning of the trail called Sherman’s Path.”

The vehicle on screen pulls into a dirt lot still visible from the air. Again, the older man is stunned at how easy it was to find the girl’s schedule by looking at websites and bulletin boards from her college, from something called the Dartmouth Outing Club. Less than an hour’s work and research has brought him here, looking down at her, like some blessed, all-seeing spirit.

He stares at the screen once more. Other vehicles are parked in the lot, and the girl and the boy get out. Both retrieve knap-sacks from the rear of the vehicle. There’s an embrace, a kiss, and then they walk away from the vehicles and disappear into the woods.

“Satisfied?” his companion asks.

For years, he thinks in satisfaction, the West has used these drones to rain down hellfire upon his friends, his fighters, and, yes, his family and other families. Fat and comfortable men (and women!) sipping their sugary drinks in comfortable chairs in safety, killing from thousands of kilometers away, seeing the silent explosions but not once hearing them, or hearing the shrieking and crying of the wounded and dying, and then driving home without a care in the world.

Now, it’s his turn.

His turn to look from the sky.

Like a falcon on the hunt, he thinks.

Patiently and quietly waiting to strike.

SHERMAN’S PATH

Mount Rollins, New Hampshire

IT’S A CLEAR, cool, and gorgeous day on Sherman’s Path, and Mel Keating is enjoying this climb up to Mount Rollins, where she and her boyfriend, Nick Kenyon, will spend the night with other members of the Dartmouth Outing Club at a small hut the club owns near the summit. She stops for a moment on a granite outcropping and puts her thumbs through her knapsack’s straps.

Nick emerges from the trail and surrounding scrub brush, smiling, face a bit sweaty, bright blue knapsack on his back, and he takes her extended hand as he reaches her. “Damn nice view, Mel,” he says.

She kisses him. “I’ve got a better view ahead.”

“Where?”

“Just you wait.”

She lets go of his hand and gazes at the rolling peaks of the White Mountains and the deep green of the forests, and notices the way some of the trees look a darker shade of green from the overhead clouds gently scudding by. Out beyond the trees is the Connecticut River and the mountains of Vermont.

Mel takes a deep, cleansing breath.

Just her and Nick and nobody else.

She lowers her glasses, and everything instantly turns to muddled shapes of green and blue. Nothing to see, nothing to spot. She remembers the boring times at state dinners back at the White House, when she’d be sitting with Mom and Dad, and she’d lower her glasses so all she could see were colored blobs. That made the time pass, when she really didn’t want to be there, didn’t really want to see all those well-dressed men and women pretending to like Dad and be his friend so they could get something in return.