Mitch met us as we parked. “Let’s move fast,” he said, handing me his cell phone as we rushed toward and then into the school building. “The number’s already punched in, just hit send. I’d rather have you guys on your way before Frank and Cathy get here, and that won’t be long.”
“Any idea why Curtis wants to see us in particular?” I asked, as we passed by the usual innocent signs of youthful life on the school’s painted cinder-block walls—bulletin boards full of artwork, athletic scores, and standardized-test schedules—then reached a wide double door that led out onto the main soccer field in the back, where most of Mitch’s troopers were collected.
“None at all,” Mitch answered, his voice still very grave. “But I don’t like it. He sounds plain old panicked, although that could be the fact that he’s lived on nothing but stream water and whatever a guy like him can catch up there for the last three days. But I don’t think that’s it.”
“So how do you want to handle it?” Mike asked, as the line of the woods drew closer and Mitch’s people began following in an anxious phalanx behind us.
“Well,” Mitch said, considering it. “Make the call. We’ll figure out how many of my guys who have night gear we need to coordinate with you, depending on whether or not he’s calmed down some. But I don’t want you going up there alone.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, lifting Mitch’s phone and hitting send. We all halted as I put the phone on speaker, and after just a couple of rings, Curtis’ voice answered:
“Major McCarron,” he said, plainly terrified, “I told you, I won’t talk anymore unless it’s to—”
“It’s all right, Curtis,” I said. “It’s Trajan Jones, I’m just using the major’s phone.”
“Oh—Dr. Jones.” The poor guy breathed a little easier. “Thank God. I’m sorry to drag you into this, but—I don’t know who to trust, other than you and Dr. Li.”
“Trust?” I said. “Curtis, what’s wrong?”
“There’s somebody after me,” he whispered, either because he suspected he was on speaker or because that “somebody” was close by. “I think—I think he’s trying to kill me. That may sound crazy, but just in case I’m right, there are things I want to say—and only to you two.”
“Can you give us some idea of where you are, Curtis?” Mike asked, glancing at me with a look that said he had little desire to head once more into the forest at night.
“Not that far,” Curtis answered. “I’ve been trying to make my way down, but every few minutes—well, it seems like I hear a bullet pass or hit nearby, but I haven’t heard any gunshots! Maybe I’m starting to lose my mind—”
“No, Curtis,” I said firmly. “Trust me, you’re not. So just give us a better idea of how to find you, and we’ll come in. And don’t worry, we’re armed, so you’ll be safe.” To which Mike rolled his eyes, knowing how little protection we could actually offer on our own.
“Okay,” Curtis answered. “I’ve gotten myself wedged into a stone formation, pretty much straight up from the middle of the main soccer field, I can see it from here. Just head up from there a few hundred yards; I’ll hear you coming. But I won’t move until then, I’m well protected, now.”
“All right, Curtis. Meanwhile, try to get calmed down. We’re going to get you out of this.”
“Thanks, Dr. Jones.” He clearly believed me, which was a burden of its own. “I’ll be waiting.”
I hit the bright red symbol that ended our call, then handed the phone back to Mitch, who said, “You really think it’s true? Somebody’s taking shots at him, but he can’t hear them?”
Pulling Mitch aside with Mike, in order to make sure that none of the troopers could hear what might be deeply disturbing information, I said, “He’s right, Mitch—I haven’t told you this before because, well, I wasn’t sure just what was happening, but somebody was taking potshots at us the night we were up on my aunt’s mountain with Gracie Chang, just before her little ‘accident.’ He was using a .308—with night vision and a suppressor.”
Mitch considered that fact silently, then slapped his Stetson against his leg. “God damn it, Trajan. I wish you wouldn’t keep things like that from me.”
“Yeah, well,” I answered, “if you liked that, you’re going to love this.” And at long last, much to my own relief, I told him the true story of what had happened between Mike, Curtis, and me on the day of the tech’s disappearance. “I’m sorry, Mitch,” I concluded, “but I didn’t know what to make of it, and I couldn’t risk getting bogged down at the Kurtz house, just then. Not to mention that Frank was on the damned warpath, looking for Curtis. So I dummied up. I really do apologize.”
“No, I get that one,” Mitch answered, a little to my surprise, as he put his hat back on. “There’s been something not right about this whole business from the start. I just wish you’d have given me the chance to help you out earlier. Which you’re going to do now.” Then he turned around, whistled at his troopers, and a few of them—who wore dark gear and upturned night vision headsets, and presented .308 Savage 10FP rifles with suppressors and black graphite stocks—came forward. One bore binoculars that glowed with the distinctive green light of night equipment, and he handed them to Mitch. “Let’s see if we can’t spot that rock formation he’s talking about from here,” Mitch went on, moving to the soccer pitch’s midfield and beginning to scan the mountainside. He drew a blank, however, after which he handed the things to me to see if I could do any better.
Luckily, I could: at just the spot Curtis had indicated, less than a quarter of a mile above the playing field, a stony bald spot glowed white in the binoculars’ green field. It was hard to see, but it was there; and when I pointed it out to Mitch, he caught it, too. After that, we devised a plan: Mike and I would move straight toward the location, going slowly in order to give Mitch’s men—who would be moving fast to flank us on either side, at enough of a distance that they wouldn’t blow the situation, but still close enough to offer us cover—time to get ahead. Then, as we neared Curtis, I’d use Mitch’s phone to contact the fearful tech, and try to get an idea of his exact location.
Mike and I paused at the woods’ edge as Mitch’s men dashed on in, their goggles lowered. I had the pair of glowing binoculars around my neck, but that didn’t console Mike much. “I ever tell you how much I hate the goddamned wilderness at night, L.T.?” I just glanced at him wearily. “Well, it’s fucking true.” He double-checked the cylinder of his .38, snapped it closed, made sure he was carrying additional rounds, then took a deep breath. “But fuck it. Let’s get this done…”
And with that, we once more left civilization behind in the search of some fragment of truth that would allow us to push the case further along toward a solution. Even I, who had no undue terror of the forest at night, was realistically nervous, just then. Yet Curtis could, potentially, blow the case wide open; and we simply had to know what he did. Which did not mean that we had to abandon caution altogether, however: once we were about a third of the way to our destination, I hissed at Mike, and whispered that we should spread out a bit, and start moving behind whatever cover we could find. I had spent enough time, if not in this exact location, at least in similar spots in the Taconics to be able to gauge our progress fairly well; and when the grade of the hillside, the time we’d been walking, and the glow of the few lights in the school behind us told me that we couldn’t be more than twenty-five yards from our goal, I signaled to Mike to stop, and pulled out Mitch’s phone to call Curtis.
He answered quickly. “Dr. Jones? Are you close? There’s an awful lot of movement out there.”
“Don’t sweat that, Curtis,” I whispered. “It’s some of Mitch’s men, getting into position to cover us. We ought to be to you in just a few minutes, we’re straight downhill from your spot.”
His voice got even more edgy: “I can try to meet you when—Jesus!” His sudden outburst needed no explanation. Both over the phone and echoing through the woods, I had heard the unmistakable soun
d of a high-velocity bullet ricocheting off rock. Mike immediately got down low behind a very large fallen tree trunk, and I got my back up hard against an upright oak that, I hoped, was wide enough to shield me. “Dr. Jones!” I heard Curtis cry out loud. “That hit the rocks just above my spot—I’m not crazy, someone really is trying to kill me!”
“I know you’re not crazy, Curtis. But you still didn’t hear a report before the shot hit?”
“No,” Curtis said, which was both good and bad news: even a suppressed rifle will emit an audible noise, especially in the deep woods at night, where any small sound is greatly magnified. Thus our phantom shooter was still working from a considerable distance; but he was also trying to maneuver his way to an effective angle without descending the hillside and risking discovery.
“All right, then,” I said, still trying my best to sound reassuring. “McCarron’s men all have night vision equipment; it’s likely they’ve got a better idea of where he is than you do. So hunker down and sit tight, we’ll be there soon.”
“Please hurry,” Curtis murmured. After I’d hung up on the poor fool again, I heard Mike whisper:
“We’ll be there soon? What are you talking about, L.T., we don’t even know where this fucker’s shooting from! Leave this to Mitch’s guys, for shit’s sake.”
But I was already scanning the hillside above us with the night vision binoculars, trying to find anything I could that would allow us to proceed. “I’d like to do that, Mike, but we still don’t know what’s what, with these guys—I know Mitch is okay, but Mitch isn’t here, and who knows that one or more of these other guys doesn’t have orders to silence Curtis and the shooter? So we have to—”
And then a sudden, fortunate realization: not having a head mount, I wasn’t holding the glowing binoculars tight enough to my head, and that would mean that a small amount of the green light that they projected into the ocular lenses would be reflecting off my own eyes and face amid the darkness. I ducked suddenly, and sure enough, just as I did, a big chunk of the oak that had been offering me cover was torn away, just above the height where my head had been. Thinking fast, I let out a loud cry of pain, one that brought Mike at a run; but I quickly grabbed his shirt and pulled him to the ground beside me, seething, “Get down, Mike, you idiot!”
“Idiot?” he said, quickly determining that I was okay. “L.T., you fucker, I was trying to help!”
“And I appreciate that,” I said, shutting off the binoculars and letting them dangle around my neck. “But I was bullshitting, I want him to think he got one of us, though I don’t think that was his purpose. No, he meant to scare us off; but now, if he believes that one of us is wounded or dead, we can work around in a circle that way”—I pointed to my left, where the trees were more densely grouped—“and get up to Curtis.”
“Oh yeah? And when did you become such a tactical expert?”
“I’m not—but I’m beginning to understand this guy better. He’s fine, if he can see a target clearly. But on the move, like we were in the Prowlers, or in crowded woods, he seems less proficient. I don’t think he’s ex-military, which will help when we flesh his profile out a little more.”
“Oh, great,” Mike said, as the pair of us, crouching low, made for the thicker trees uphill. “Glad to know that I’m sticking my neck out for another one of your goddamned profiles…”
Despite Mike’s initial anxiety, once we’d gotten another fifteen yards uphill amid a stand of very thick pines, both of us began to breathe a bit easier: we’d be very hard to spot in that location. In addition, the ground beneath our feet had begun to show stone beneath the thick, dead pine needles: a sign that we were approaching the rock formation in which Curtis was hiding. Using only hand signals, now, Mike and I pushed our luck by pressing on another fifteen yards; but when even the pines began to thin on the emergent rock below us, I decided we’d better pause, get some cover behind the last of the good-sized trunks, and contact Curtis again.
“I hope you’re close, Dr. Jones,” he said, as soon as he’d answered my call.
“We are, Curtis,” I replied, keeping my voice even quieter than it had been. “Look to your right and a little downhill—can you see the beginning of a long stand of pines?”
There was a pause, and then he returned: “I—I think so. There’s a very dark patch, it’s close.”
“Okay—that’s where we are, but I’m not sure we can move uphill very much farther. Any chance that, if you head down from your position, you can use the rocks you’re hiding in for cover? The shooter’s above you, so if you stay low enough, the angle they offer should prevent him from being able to hit anything but the top of those rocks.”
Curtis breathed deep, seeming to have found some confidence. “Okay,” he said, “On my way.”
There was nothing for Mike and me to do, now, but get even lower and wait for some sight or sound of Curtis; it seemed, at last, that we were on the verge of the kind of revelations for which we’d long hoped. Realizing as much, even Mike could let out a little chuckle. “I never would’ve believed,” he said. “I mean, when that poor little schmuck took off from the Kurtzes’, I just thought it was funny: tearing off his tech suit like he was Superman, disappearing up the hill in his T-shirt and chinos, the back of his balding head bobbing around like—”
I was on the verge of sharing his amusement; but then Mitch’s phone rang: “Curtis? What are you doing?”
“I’m lost, Dr. Jones!” he whispered, panicking again. “I’m standing—”
“Standing?” I had suddenly recalled Mike’s precise words with horror: I rose up behind my pine, caught sight of that white T-shirt and balding head, and called out, “Curtis! Get down! Now!”
“Why?” Curtis answered, from his spot just above us to our right. “I must be close, I can—”
But that was all. Mike and I were close enough to hear a bullet searing through the forest night, and then the terrible sound of bone and flesh giving way. “Curtis!” I called, moving toward the place where I’d glimpsed him.
“L.T.!” Mike warned without moving. “What’re you doing, get the fuck back here!”
“No, Mike,” I answered as I ran. “He doesn’t want us! He had one job, here, and I just pray—”
But that prayer, like so many in the case, was to go unanswered. In a few seconds I came up on Curtis’ body, lying facedown in the soft undergrowth of the woodland floor short of the pine stand that had offered Mike and me cover. He’d been hit in the center of the back, the shot shattering his spine and, I found when I turned him over, taking away part of his chest. His eyes were closed, indicating that he’d lived for just a few seconds after being hit; which only magnified the horror of it all. Mike soon ran up behind me, mumbling an oath very quietly, and then we both just stood there for several minutes, trying to absorb what had happened. As reality sank in, I shouted down to Mitch, telling him that he could now order his forward units up the ridgeline as fast as possible, and join us where we were without concern for his men’s or his own safety. This he did in short order, making his way through the hillside in a manner that reflected his own childhood of exploring these mountains by day and night; and when I moved to meet him, he knew from my face that something very bad had happened.
“Curtis?” he asked, hoping against hope. “He all right?” All I could do was shake my head grimly and lead him the short distance to Kolmback’s body. As he saw the mess that had been made of the unfortunate tech, Mitch’s face grew pained, and he removed his Stetson to kneel by him. “My God,” he murmured. “My God, what’s happening…”
“Bastard almost got Trajan, too,” Mike said quietly. “Although he seems to think it wasn’t—”
“It wasn’t a kill shot—we can be sure of that now. He just wanted to scare us away from Curtis’ position. I thought he wouldn’t have an angle, if Curtis came low to meet us, and he wouldn’t have had; but Curtis got lost, then panicked and stood up. Mike had reminded me: Curtis’ balding head and T-shirt. T
hey would have glowed like flares in a night scope. Why did I tell him to come out…”
Mitch shook his head. “You can’t blame yourself, Trajan. Look at this wound.”
I followed the order, and suddenly realized how out of proportion the bullet’s damage had been: an ordinary round fired from a suppressed rifle simply couldn’t have done it. But another kind of projectile, one favored by the worst of hunters as well as by many snipers, would; and so I wasn’t surprised when I heard Mike say:
“You’re right, Mitch.” He examined the body more closely, as we steadily found ourselves surrounded by most of Mitch’s troopers from below, who were gazing on the scene in shock and anger and hanging on every word. “A ballistic tip,” Mike continued. “Had to be.”
“Yeah-uh,” Mitch droned sadly. “God damn it, I hate those bullets. Bad enough when people use them hunting. They explode inside the animals, but sometimes there’s no exit wound, so no blood trail to follow. Things die in pain for no reason. Poor old Curtis, though…was no deer or bear. Just a little guy without much to him. But—” Mitch attempted to steel himself and get back to business. “They do fly awfully straight, those tips. So people just keep using them…” At last rising, Mitch tore his walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke to his men up the mountain, telling them to be careful but to press their pursuit. After detailing the troopers still below to bring up a stretcher, he ordered the men around us to form a second wave with their flashlights: there was no need for secrecy or subtlety, now, he said, and they all knew just what a blow the unknown sniper had struck at law enforcement. The men proceeded up the mountain with no fear, each with a Glock in one hand and a waving Maglite in the other, fanning out to cover as much ground as they could.
Mike and I went back down the hillside with Mitch, behind two troopers who had appeared with a folding stretcher and were bearing Curtis’ body back to the school. Mike had already agreed with Mitch about a ballistic tip being the cause of death; but I wasn’t finished with the topic: