North of the ghost town, a pair of small mountains was connected by a rocky saddle that provided an ideal overlook for the entire area. Along with the peaks, the saddle offered an unobstructed view of the dirt track leading to the abandoned houses. He’d situate Lauren in the saddle. If Voda or his men suspected Nathan might have a lookout, they’d focus on the peaks, not the saddle. Tactically, it was the best place to put her. Camouflaged to be virtually invisible, Lauren would be able to see every building and report any approaching vehicles.
He kept his descent going and flew in a northeasterly direction. He’d set the ship down on the other side of the twin peaks in a deep, dry wash that would hide the helicopter’s profile. There weren’t any roads near the LZ, so no one would be able to see his helicopter, even from atop the peaks, unless they flew in by air.
Nathan checked his watch. They’d arrived with plenty of time to spare. Going overland, Voda wouldn’t arrive for at least another two hours, maybe longer.
Lauren was blown away by his approach to the LZ. She seemed both frightened and excited and kept saying, “OMG” over and over. Nathan reminded her he needed to concentrate. A huge dust cloud swirled as he set the ship down and brought it to idle. A few minutes later, after the main rotor had completely stopped, they climbed out.
Nathan told Lauren to leave her headset on the seat.
“That was seriously cool,” Lauren said. “Will you teach me how to fly?”
“Sure, but I need to show you something important now, so pay close attention.” Nathan pointed to a red switch. “If anything happens to me, and I’m not saying it will, you’ll need to come down here, unlock the helicopter, and flip that red switch to the upper position. It’s the emergency locator transmitter. The ELT has its own battery, so you don’t have to turn the master battery switch on. Just flip the switch. The LED should turn solid red. Got that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The ELT talks directly to satellites, so after you activate it, just hide near the helicopter and SAR teams will come and find you.”
“What’s a SAR team?”
“Search and rescue. Okay, I’m locking the doors.” He hid the helicopter’s door key under a rock near the starboard skid and made sure Lauren knew exactly where it was.
Nathan grabbed the duffel from the luggage compartment and led her up the side of the wash and toward the gradual slope leading to the saddle between the twin peaks. With only five-hundred-foot rises, the peaks were little more than hills, but their rocky forms had profiles of rugged mountains. Vegetation was sparse, but he warned Lauren about the various kinds of cacti, telling her not to brush up against them. Everything in this desert stung, bit, pricked, or scraped. All the life forms out here were tough as nails.
After a few steps, Lauren asked, “Are there snakes?”
“Yes, but we have a better chance of winning the lottery than we do of seeing one.”
“Seriously? I hate snakes.”
“They’re just trying to make a living — no need to hate them.”
“What kind are they?”
“You don’t want to know….”
It took fifteen minutes to complete the hike and reach the flat saddle that sat between the peaks. Again Lauren impressed him with her stamina. The view was beautiful. In every direction, a vast expanse of open desert stretched to distant mountains. In essence, they were inside a giant frying pan. Smaller hills, like the ones they stood between, dotted the landscape here and there, but the surrounding area was mostly flat, with occasional sandy washes running in a southerly direction.
Nathan saw an ideal spot to position Lauren. Two clumps of creosote bushes were about five feet apart. The bushes, although stringy and somewhat thin, would give Lauren perfect concealment. He set the duffel down and cleared the rocks away, checking unobtrusively for ants and scorpions and other unmentionables.
Next, he conducted a complete check of her radio setup, making sure everything worked, including the modified voice-activated lapel mike. He clipped the radio to her waist, making sure the frequency lock was engaged.
“Did you spray-paint these radios? They’re cool-looking.”
“I airbrushed them in desert colors. It’s a flat finish so they won’t shine in sunlight. Run the earpiece and mike wires under your shirt. It’s probably best if you do that yourself.”
“Well, yeah.”
He clipped the mike to her shirt just under her chin, then put the field glasses around her neck and showed her how to focus them.
“Let’s get you into your ghillie suit. You can skip the pants. The coat will fit you like a tent.” He pulled it out of the duffel.
“I’m wearing that shaggy thing? It’s totally ugly.”
“It’s not supposed to be a fashion statement. It’s designed for a very specific purpose, to break up the hard edges of your outline.”
“If you say so….”
He helped Lauren put the coat on. It hung down to her shins.
“I feel like some kind of crazy creature in this thing.”
Nathan smiled. “You’re a twelve-year-old female. You are a crazy creature.”
“Hey, that was mean.”
“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Don’t worry, Voda and his band of merry goons don’t stand a chance against us. We’re going to kick their asses.”
“You’re not supposed to use that word.”
“What word, ‘asses’?”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
“Put the ghillie suit’s hood on after I leave. Have a seat right here where I cleared the rocks away. I’m leaving the duffel behind this bush, where you can reach it. You’ve got plenty of water. The canteens have camouflaged sleeves. Now listen up. Before I head down, let’s go over some stuff. Your number one rule is to move in slow motion. Everything you do up here has to be slow and measured. Don’t make any quick moves. The human eye catches movement. We’re going to use some landmarks for reference. See the access road leading into the ghost town?”
“Uh-huh.”
The dirt road below the peaks provided the only way into or out of the ghost town. He pointed to where the road took a ninety-degree turn, approximately a mile from the town. “We’ll call that ‘the turn in the road.’”
“Okay.”
“The houses down there are aligned on an east–west axis.” He oriented her to the cardinal directions. “The ghost town is due south from this position. East is to the left. We’re going to number the houses from one to ten and abbreviate them as H1, H2, H3, all the way to H10. The first on the right down there — the one on the west end of town — will be H1. See how houses four, seven, and eight are gone? We’re still going to refer to them as H units. So H4, H7, and H8 are open slabs. Got that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Nathan looked at his cell and saw one bar. He’d never experienced good success with one bar showing, but tried it anyway. He called 411, but after two full minutes, it never connected. “It looks like there’s no cell service out here, so the radios are the only way we can talk. Remember to make acknowledgment clicks unless I ask you a question. Since your radio is voice-activated, you’ll have to press the transmit button to give me a click, but you don’t have to press it to talk. I’ll leave my cell with you anyway. It’s set to vibrate, but it shouldn’t ring. If it does, call me on the radio before answering it. It could be you-know-who.”
“Voda?”
“Yes. Do not talk to him if he calls. Don’t talk to anyone, not even Harv.”
“I won’t. ”
“I’ll put my ghillie suit on later.” Nathan conducted a quick inventory of his backpack to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Everything looked good. He assessed the weather. Temperature-wise, it felt like high seventies or low eighties. Before using his handheld wind indicator, he estimated the wind at around ten knots. He pulled the device out and took a reading. It showed a varying wind velocity between nine and thirteen knots. An amazing tool, the WM-4 measured wind speed, wind direct
ion, temperature, relative humidity, and compass direction. It also calculated wind-gust speeds, as well as dew points and a few other things. He didn’t need all that extra information. Wind speed and direction were his primary concerns.
The fluorescent stake stuck out of his backpack, but that didn’t matter. Using a Velcro strap, he secured his ghillie suit to the backpack.
“Okay, Lauren, sit tight up here.”
He started down the rocky slope, working his way through the creosote bushes and patches of cacti. The exposed faces of larger rocks and boulders shone with desert varnish. Halfway down, he stopped and looked back.
“I can’t see you at all. Remember, no sudden movements. Do everything in slow motion. I want you to practice taking a drink of water. Okay?”
“Okay.”
If Nathan hadn’t known exactly where to look, he never would’ve spotted her, but he saw the right side of her ghillie suit move as she brought the canteen up. “Slower, Lauren. I want you to take twice as much time as you just did. Try again. I don’t want to see any discernible movement.”
She issued an acknowledgment click.
He watched her repeat the motion. “That’s perfect. Good job.”
Ten minutes later, Nathan entered the ghost town and looked around. The vacant slabs looked forlorn. Sticking up like punji sticks, stubbed copper pipes were all that remained of the plumbing. The metal had probably been salvaged for its scrap value. At various locations around the bare concrete, steel framing anchors designed to secure heavier posts had also survived the fires.
Nathan hadn’t seen any signs of people, but he needed to verify that. He walked through the abandoned homes, thoroughly checking each one. They were small — approximately thirty by thirty feet — with hip roofs. All of them had the same three-bedroom floor plan. Most of them had incomplete or missing framing inside — in some places, entire walls were gone, while in other areas, only drywall had been removed. Perhaps campers or partiers had removed the lumber for firewood or bonfires.
Without exception, every window of every house had been broken by vandals, who’d either shot guns or thrown rocks. Numerous bullet holes were visible in the stucco surrounding the destroyed glass as well as the interior walls. Rocks were strewn about the concrete as well. Whoever had ruined these windows was either drunk, a lousy shot, or both.
Confident that the buildings were vacant, Nathan began looking for a tactical location where he’d be able to see the entire line of structures. He found a good spot — a large group of creosote bushes about sixty feet south of the road — and walked over. They were spaced in a way that would allow Nathan to conceal himself in the middle of them. He liked it. From this position, he checked to make sure he could see the top of the saddle where Lauren was hidden. He could. He shucked off his backpack and removed the radio he’d use to communicate with Voda. He also grabbed the surveyor’s stake and hammer. Directly in the middle of the road, he used the hammer to drive the stake into the ground. It took several attempts to find a soft enough spot.
After the stake was rooted, he clipped the radio to it and returned to his hiding place. Looking back, he saw there was no way to miss its fluorescent form sticking up in the middle of the road. He verified his earpiece wire was securely plugged into his radio’s jack, then tested the setup using Voda’s radio. It worked perfectly. He could hear his own voice through the earpiece.
“Lauren are you tracking me with the field glasses?”
“Uh-huh. I can see you perfectly.”
“Good. I’m going to walk all over the place down here and create all kinds of false and confusing footprint patterns. Don’t worry, it will only look like I’m confused. I’ll be walking around in random directions, and I’ll also walk backwards on purpose. Keep an eye on the road and let me know if you see any vehicles.”
His radio clicked.
Nathan spent the next fifteen minutes walking all over the place, forward and backward. He didn’t think Voda’s men would be paying much attention — if any — to footprints, but it was better to play it safe. When he finished, he got onto his hands and knees and backed away from the road toward the group of creosote bushes he’d identified. He smoothed his tracks as he went, then leaned over and blew on the sandy ground as a final touch. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked good enough. The sixty-foot gap between his hiding place and the road looked undisturbed.
Now it became a waiting game. Nathan had no illusions about Voda. He didn’t expect the guy to bring two men. Nathan believed he’d be facing at least four opponents, maybe more. In order to be prepared to fire on them, he used the spare time to measure distances to various landmarks with his laser range finder. The first distance he wanted was the base of the small twin mountains where Lauren was hiding. Aiming the range finder between houses three and five, he focused on a large rock that was shaped like an upended grand piano. The red digital display indicated 627 yards. Okay, he’d call that spot Piano 627. He believed it to be fairly level with his position. He swung the range finder up to Lauren’s position and read 1,210 yards. He looked for a landmark halfway up the slope beneath her and found a large, rectangular rock. He took a reading and got 851 yards. He’d call that location Rectangle 851. Because the slope up to the saddle was nearly constant, he’d be able to estimate intermediate distances accordingly. He took readings for the houses as well. The westernmost building from his current location stood 131 yards distant, the easternmost building 155 yards.
“Lauren, I’m going to take a practice shot for my wind and elevation corrections. Don’t be alarmed when you hear the rifle report. Copy?”
“Okay.”
Forty-five degrees offset to his target, Nathan took a cross-legged sitting position. He shouldered his Remington, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward, finding his comfort zone. Since he always kept his scope zeroed at three hundred yards, he clicked an additional five hundred yards of elevation to line up on Rectangle 851, then added an extra twelve clicks to account for shooting at an elevated target.
Wind was a tougher call and always the biggest variable. Gravity was constant and never changed, but wind could push a bullet completely off target over long distances. Nathan knew the wind was coming from the northeast — his three or four o’clock position. He’d be shooting about forty-five degrees into a right-to-left crosswind. The current wind speed wasn’t severe, but it was far from calm. Desert winds could be tricky, especially during a weather change, but Nathan had checked the report for the area and hadn’t found any high-or low-pressure areas moving through. He estimated the wind hadn’t changed since he’d taken a reading, and he didn’t feel any significant gusts. For an eight-hundred-yard shot, he knew a pure crosswind of ten miles per hour would push his bullet around seven or eight inches — close to one minute of angle. Since the wind was blowing at a forty-five-degree angle, he dropped the correction in half. His scope employed one-quarter minute of angle increments, so he clicked his windage knob two times for a one-half MOA correction to the right.
“Okay, Lauren, stand by.” He took in a full breath, blew half of it out, and steadied the crosshairs for the exact center of the rock. He knew he’d be able to see his impact, because the armor-piercing bullet would blast a sizable crater out of the desert varnish covering the rock face.
He thumbed the safety switch and began a gradual squeeze of the trigger, not knowing exactly when the rifle would discharge. It was a technique designed to eliminate trigger jerk, a common affliction among amateur shooters.
The Remington bucked, and its report hammered his ears. He reacquired Rectangle 851 and looked for the impact. A light-colored blemish now occupied the rock face, nearly dead center of where he’d been aiming. He clicked one additional windage correction. His elevation was low by almost eight inches. The rock must be higher than he’d estimated, so he clicked an additional elevation correction into the scope. He had little doubt Harv — who’d served as his spotter during their many sniping missions — would’ve
nailed these corrections. Harv was much better at assessing this stuff.
Nathan cycled the bolt and ejected the spent brass. Since he wanted to keep five rounds in the rifle, he removed a fresh cartridge from a stripper clip. Using his left thumb to push the four rounds in the magazine down, he slid the bolt forward about halfway, inserted a cartridge directly into the breach, and closed the bolt. He now had one in the pipe and four in the magazine. He made sure the safety remained in the off position by checking it with his right thumb.
“Okay, Lauren. We’re all set. You okay up there?”
“That sounded really cool. After the poof sound, it crackled all around me.”
“It’s the reverberation from all the rock faces in the area. It’s a good effect. It makes it harder to locate the source of the shot. We’re going to sit tight and wait. Keep drinking sips of water and practice making slow-motion moves. It’s not super hot, but I don’t want you get dehydrated. If you have to pee, let me know. And don’t worry…I won’t look.”
“Awkward.”
Awkward? Was that more kid lingo? Nathan smiled and settled in for the wait.
He looked across the road at the houses.
Collectively, these structures amounted to a sad sight — a testament to someone’s broken dream. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to build ten houses in the middle of the Mojave Desert. If there’d been a common well with a storage tank and water-delivery system, he saw no evidence of it.
Despite the harsh nature of this landscape, Nathan liked it. He’d always felt at ease in a desert setting and didn’t know why. He’d never tried to analyze it, because, quite frankly, he didn’t care. He liked the desert, and that was that.
Thirty minutes later, Lauren’s voice came through the tiny earpiece. “I can see two cars, way far away.”
“Copy that. Keep a close eye on them. Let me know if one of them stops and anyone gets out. If that happens, tell me how many men get out and where they go, okay?”