Cut Out (27 page)

“We’re looking for some fugitives and we think they might be hiding out in the park,” Master said.

Ferguson whistled. “It’s a damn big park.”

“If you were planning to hide out, where would you go?”

“These people driving a car?”

Master paused and considered the question. They’d spotted the Camaro parked at the Rowe Training Facility. The sergeant major who’d come to pick up the car had professed ignorance, and Master had ordered his men to back off—they had made enough of a scene already around Fort Bragg. There was still that other set of tire tracks leading away from the spot where the two men had been killed. Master could think of no other way they could have gotten up here. “They got here by car, but we think they’re on foot now.”

Ferguson looked down at the model. “Like I said, it’s off-season here and the whole park is pretty empty, but the least traveled area is here”— he pointed at the southwest corner of the map—“down by Fontana Lake on the North Carolina side. The Tennessee side is much more active.”

“Where could they leave a car down there?”

“Pretty much anywhere. You can check with the park rangers. There’s a ranger living down there right along Route 28. If someone’s in that area, it’s likely he’ll know.”

Master looked at the large area the map covered and considered Riley’s background. “What about up in the mountains?”

Ferguson’s finger waved through the air tracing the roads around the perimeter of the park. “You have a heck of a climb to get any height.” He pointed at a black line bisecting the area. “Newfound Gap Road cuts right through and there’s a parking area here.” He pointed at a small black space high up in the mountains. “There’s a lot of trails in this area, and you can go off in any direction and disappear within a hundred yards.”

Master was silent for a minute, ignoring the fidgeting of the pilot. He couldn’t even be certain that Riley was here yet, but the odds were he was. Giannini had to be en route, because the transcript indicated she was not to arrive until after daylight. He wanted to catch them all together and end this thing. If he could spot her moving in, he might be able to follow her. He suddenly looked up. “We need to hire you for the day.”

Ferguson blinked. “I run three hundred and fifty an hour.” He eyed Master suspiciously. “And I need half that up front.”

Master reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of money, peeled off two thousand in hundred dollar bills, and handed them over. “Get your bird cranked up.”

Master turned and strode out to the van. Getting inside, he looked at Simon. “What do you have on Giannini?”

“I’ve got an outline of her file and—”

“I need a description and what kind of car she’s driving.”

Simon irritably flipped over a few pages. He’d come down here expecting to be in charge and was none too happy about the way he’d been treated since getting off the jet. Despite that, there was something in Master’s eyes that told him to hold any complaining until he was safe in the cocoon of his Virginia office. “Here’s a fax of her photo, and she’s driving a 1988 red Mustang GT.”

Master looked at the photo and then at the analyst. “All right. I want Surveillance One to head down to the vicinity of Fontana Lake. Check for Giannini’s car. She should be coming in soon. Make sure they talk to the park ranger for that area. Have Two and Three head up to Newfound Gap and station themselves there. I’m going to look over this area from the air. I’ll take a portable with me to maintain commo with you at this location.”

“Yes, sir.”

Simon raised a hand as Master turned to leave. “What do you want me to do?”

“I already told you that—stay out of my way.” Master stepped out of the van and scanned the panorama of tree-covered mountains. You have to come out sometime, he thought, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.

Chapter Seventeen

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

1 NOVEMBER, 8:20 a.m.

“You stay here with Lisa,” Riley ordered as he checked the functioning on the FA-MAS rifle. He pulled back the charging handle and replaced the slightly damp cartridge that had been in the chamber all night.

“Roger that, Chief,” Hammer replied. He was rummaging through Riley’s rucksack. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m heading up to the tower to look for Giannini. She should be here this morning.”

“Then what?” Lisa asked. The few hours of sleep on Riley’s quarter-inch-thick sleeping pad had not provided much rest. Her hair was disheveled, and dark shadows under her eyes showed her weariness. “Do we just hide up here forever?”

“I don’t know,” Riley said. “As far as we can tell, someone’s tapped into the computer at the Witness Protection Program. That explains a lot, but we don’t know who that somebody is, and until we do we’re making stabs in the dark.” Riley spread his arms helplessly. “I don’t know what to do next. I tried to outsmart these guys and it almost got my head blown off. All I know is that the next step is to get Donna Giannini here with us. Then we can sit down and figure out what to do without having to worry that someone’s ass is hanging out in the wind.”

“I know what I’m doing next,” Hammer said cheerfully. He looked at Lisa. “How about some nice warm nectar of the gods?” he asked, holding up Riley’s portable stove and some instant coffee. He started pumping the primer on the stove without waiting.

“I’ll be back by noon,” Riley said, touching Lisa on the arm. “We’ll figure out something then.”

Lisa watched him leave and then turned her attention to Hammer, who was concentrating on the task at hand. “You don’t seem very concerned about all this.”

Hammer chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t worry about things I can’t control.” He looked up at her. “Bullshit is part of every job description in the army, and a long time ago I learned to go with the flow.”

He peered in the canteen cup on top of the stove to check the water. Then he looked at her and his expression became serious. “Listen, I spent three years fighting a war that no one even talks about anymore. A war that some assholes in Washington started and then pissed away. If that wasn’t bullshit, I don’t know what was.”

“But you stayed in the reserves, or else you wouldn’t be here,” Lisa noted.

“Not at first. I got out as soon as I returned to the States, and I swore I’d have nothing to do with the army ever again.” Hammer’s eyes took on a distant look. “I got back and bought a Harley, first day after I outprocessed. I took all that money I hadn’t spent for three years sucking shit in the jungle and I hit the road.” He laughed. “Hell, I can’t even remember half the things I did or the places I went. I was high, I was drunk, I was so fucking out of it most of the time I could have killed people and I wouldn’t have known. And the funny thing is, I wanted to kill someone. I wanted a face that I could look at and say: ‘Hey, you, motherfucker, you’re the one that caused my buddy Juke Taylor to get his guts blown all over the place. And you’re the one that sent Team Hawaii out one day and they were never heard of again and the only reason I wasn’t with them was because I was down in Nha Trang getting an infected tooth pulled.’

“I looked at everyone and thought, Maybe you’re the man.” Hammer’s voice hadn’t raised a decibel as he spoke. “And that I could just blow the man away and it would all be square. Payback.

“It took me a year and a half to figure out that that was bullshit too, and that the civilian world ain’t no different. The man is us.” He poked a finger at his own burly chest. “I don’t have the answers, and I don’t really ask the questions anymore. You got to look out for number one, lady—especially now.” He seemed surprised at his own outburst and slightly embarrassed at the need to make it. “Ah, well, enough speech making. Let’s have some coffee.”

“Why is Riley risking his life for me?” Lisa asked. “He doesn’t even know me.”

“Because a friend asked him for help, and that’s all the reason he needs.” Hammer reached down to his cargo pocket and pulled out his tired-looking beret with the unauthorized personalized monogram sewn on the inside liner. “Probably because Riley believes in what this represents. The men I’d served with wearing this were the only thing that counted to me back then. We had honor with each other, and in this day and age that isn’t a word people think too much about. But I guess Riley still believes in it. Maybe he’ll learn better someday.” Hammer looked at her hard and quickly changed the subject. “Is what you told him true? You don’t know nothing about the money?”

Lisa’s face was tight. When she answered, her voice sounded weary. “I didn’t know what my husband was into until the police showed up at my door. And all I learned, I learned from sitting in court listening to Philip testify. Nothing ever came up about him having a lot of money. Obviously, I didn’t know him very well, did I?”

“But you might have an idea where he would have hidden it,” Hammer said. “You know, maybe a bank account he didn’t disclose to the feds. Hell, he could have kept it in cash and buried it in the backyard.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Lisa insisted, starting to get angry.

“Well, you can tell Riley and me that story,” Hammer said calmly as he poured her some coffee. “But if these people get hold of you, they ain’t gonna buy it.”

8:40 a.m.

Riley skirted the wood line to the north of the Clingmans Dome tower and trail. By doing so he also avoided the Appalachian Trail, which runs along that side. The vegetation consisted of red spruce and balsam fir trees, many of which had been blown down by the fierce weather that often lashes the top of the mountain. The Dome is the highest point along the two thousand miles of trail, and the second-highest point on the East Coast of the United States, topped only by nearby Mount Mitchell.

A six-foot-wide tar path led from the parking area to the Dome, three-quarters of a mile to the east of the observation tower. Riley had considered getting off the helicopter in the parking lot, where the chopper would have been able to land, but he had chosen instead to come directly to the Dome for two reasons: he hadn’t been certain that the parking lot was clear of trees along the side for a landing; and, on the off chance that the access road wasn’t closed for the season, he felt that rappelling in on top of the Dome would be more secure than landing in the parking lot.

He expected to meet Giannini coming up the path, so he moved to a position on the side of the hill where he could look down along a straight section of the path, into the empty parking lot. Riley settled down behind an uprooted fir tree and got comfortable. The temperature was in the low fifties, and the dark clouds scurrying by not far overhead threatened bad weather later in the day.

He heard the helicopter long before he saw it. The sound of the blades was trapped between the high ground and the cloud cover. Riley pulled out a small set of binoculars from the butt pack of his combat vest and scanned the surrounding area. The aircraft was coming closer, and Riley edged along the log until he was under the cover of an upright tree. Still he could see nothing.

The helicopter roared by less than thirty feet above the treetops, coming from Riley’s rear. He froze, not even daring to look up as it banked, and then he caught his first glimpse—a Bell Jet Ranger with “Mountain Flights, Inc.” painted on the side. The bird did another loop around the Dome, then headed for the parking lot, following the access road to the east. Riley focused the binoculars on the helicopter and caught a glimpse of the two men seated inside—a pilot wearing a soft cap backwards with a headset, and a man in the copilot’s seat, map in his lap. Riley twisted the ring on the middle of the binos and the man’s face jumped out at him. Riley lowered the glasses slightly— an FA-MAS rifle with silencer and laser sight was propped against the side of the man’s seat, leaning against the glass panel on the door. Riley felt a chill race down his back. They were here. He didn’t know how they had found out and arrived so quickly, but the critical thing was that they had done it.

Riley slowly relaxed and refocused his attention on the parking lot and path, unaware of the figure flitting through the trees behind him, slowly moving up on him.

8:43 a.m.

Master shook his head; it was as he expected. They would never find anyone on the ground from the air, and there was a hell of a lot of ground to hide on. He unfolded the map the pilot had given him and consulted the information printed at the top. There were eight hundred square miles of wilderness, most of it in extremely rugged high country. Master’s estimation of Riley went up a notch.

As the helicopter passed over Newfound Gap Road, Master’s feeling of despair evaporated. A red Mustang GT was parked in the lot, along with three other vehicles. He could see several people scattered about. Whether Giannini was among the tourists was impossible to tell from the helicopter.

“Hold here!” he ordered Ferguson. Master quick-dialed on his portable phone, making sure the earplug was in place so he could hear over the sound of the engines and blades.

The other end was picked up immediately and the voice rasped in Master’s right ear. “Surveillance One.”