Last Track, The (35 page)

The storm the previous night had eroded the bulk of Sean’s tracks. Worse, it had covered them in pools of water, or rinsed them from the earth entirely, leaving behind a murky, filthy mess. Given the conditions and a lack of visual confirmation, he reverted to instincts. He needed a track from Sean. It must be well-formed, and unscathed. While a partial might work, the more complete, the more emotional energy it stored, the sharper a picture he could visualize.

What he had plenty of were impressions left by Dagget and himself. Mike traced those back to the woods. Among the trees, he found the point where they had strayed, and faint proof of Sean. Unfortunately, a wide dip in forest floor trapped a standing pool of water. There Sean’s trail disappeared, caked over in a layer of mud. He checked either side for signs of the boy.

Before the temporary reservoir, he found one near a maple trunk. The boy’s foot had slid under a root, which trapped him for a second, and almost toppled him. Left behind in the soil was a smeared track, the indent fainter at the heel than the toe. Extended longer than a normal print, the streak offered the best available impression.

Mike placed a hand inside the track and shut his eyes. An image flashed: the woods from a point above the canopy. His perspective shifted, as if he hovered above the trees. Looking down, he spied himself, and Dagget watching on. Through the mud and water, new tracks appeared, one by one. A phosphorescent glow lit the outline of the prints, drawing his eyes down their path. The arc of his visions were finite, the range very limited. Only a small grouping—a set of a fifty, perhaps—revealed themselves. But it was much more than he had before, at least. He absorbed the details, burning the image into his long-term memory by noting nearby objects.

A trunk seared by lightning, a felled tree with no branches or leaves—these landmarks were anchors for him to hook into.

Rising, his knee cracked. His joints cried for ice and a handful of anti-inflammatories. Maybe a shot of cortisone, too. Usually by the time the doctor gave him injections for pain, he needed surgery. He had been warned repeatedly; the knee could survive only a few more operations.
Just hold up a little longer,
he thought.

Mike opened his eyes. Dagget was looking at him with great curiosity, as if he had spoken in a demonic tongue.

“Whatever you just did, your eyes were twitching up a storm. It was like you were dreaming. What do you see when that happens?” asked Dagget.

“Enough to get us closer,” Mike said.

“What if it doesn’t?” Dagget said, dubious.

“I have to trust that it does.”

•••

Lisbeth suspected that Mayhew was holding back a lot more than he shared. “We’re looking for somebody,” Mayhew said. “The information led us here, so we came to check it out,” he said. “Instead it’s explosions.”

Black smoke seeped out the mountain as the fire burned through the chemicals.

“Who did you expect to find in the lab?” Lisbeth asked.

“The owners,” said Mayhew. “We’ve known about them for a few months. Their distribution center serves nationwide suppliers. We had groomed a confidential source of information that led us here. A scientist. Unfortunately, all contact with that source broke off a few days ago.”

Lisbeth saw her chance and took it. “A chemist named David St. John, with red hair and a ponytail?” His brow rose, etching lines on his forehead. Mayhew’s expression verified this was the right bet.

“How did you . . . ?”

“My department found David’s body a few days back. Murdered,” she said. “At the scene there were tracks from a boy who was missing from a nearby ranch. We figured there was a connection, that the boy witnessed the murder. We’ve been looking for him ever since. We got a call last night from your office that said the boy was here, so here we are.” She kept pressing. “Six to one, the person who called me from your office is probably the one you’re after. How about a name?”

Mayhew cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

Denials were confirmation enough for Lisbeth.

A voice crackled over the radio headset. Holst, the officer checking for Sean, said: “Detective, our target in the rocks is David St. John. Or what’s left of him. Something chewed him up nasty like. He’s chained in place. Repeat. Acquired target is David St. John.”

“Hold up, there’s something approaching . . .” Holst said, his voice wavering. “Mountain lion!” A burst of gunfire followed.

•••

The tracks fishtailed toward a mountain base a half mile from their enclave. A deep awareness rushed through Mike, a gut-level feeling that told him the end of the search was near.

Fresh tracks from the boy, made after the storm, pointed towards an alcove.

Mike glanced back at Dagget. Something about the officer’s face said he understood this was it, too.

Mike clicked on his Maglite and stepped into the alcove.

Inside, Sean lay, breathless, crumpled against the rock walls. His face was white as ivory.

They raced for the boy at the same time. “Hang in there, Sean!” Dagget said. “You’re going to make it, kid!”

Mike held two fingers to Sean’s neck. There was a timid pulse, so faint it might as well be his own blood circulating. He leaned in near Sean. The breaths came from miles away, rather than inches from his eardrums.

“He’s in shock,” said Mike.

Fumbling with the backpack, Dagget removed a syringe and two vials of epinephrine.

Mike unclasped a knife. He sliced into the denim, sheared the fabric of one pant leg halfway up the thigh, then sliced clockwise, and ripped with both hands. The fabric tore away under his grip, exposing part of Sean’s leg.

Dipping a cotton swab into alcohol, Dagget sterilized a quarter-sized area on Sean’s outer thigh.

“You got the injection or you want me to do it?” asked Mike.

“I got it,” said Dagget. He ripped open the syringe packet. On revealing the contents, Dagget yelled, “Aw, no way!”

The needle had sheared in half, and the remaining stub was too shallow to pierce the vial of medication.

06:40:06 AM

Dagget swore, “Damn. It must have broken when we were running into the chamber last night. I bumped against the rocks pretty hard.”

“There should be another.” Mike remembered that from the beginning, when Shad gave them the tactical bag with equipment: two syringes, two vials.

Dagget found the second syringe. Cradling the package, he peeled away the wrapper. The second needle point had cracked; the busted pieces rolled around in his palm—another useless injector.

Mike missed every syllable of Dagget’s curses. His mind was on the problem, not the frustration. The way out of tight spots came by working the angles. There were always options, and sometimes a lack of ones to choose from made spotting the right one easier.

One option was off the table. He hadn’t spent three days searching for Sean to watch him die. Especially not over an equipment glitch.

Epinephrine had to be administered via injection. Taken orally, it did nothing. Without it, Sean would not last much longer. He knew even with the medicine, Sean might not make it.

Mike handed Dagget his cell phone, and dashed out of the alcove. Over his shoulder, Mike said, “You stay here and try both of the phones, call for anyone that you think might help. You know the drill.”

“Wait!” Dagget asked, panicked. “Where are you going?”

“Looking for something,” Mike said.

“What!?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

When he ran, Mike focused on two things. First, using the muscles in his legs, rather than the knees to run. Shifting the impact to the quadriceps protected the weakened joints from further damage. The more abuse his quads shouldered, the less his knees absorbed, the further and faster he pushed. He lunged, dodging mud and standing water.

The second focal point for Mike: a brief image from the previous night. Right before they dove for cover, he had seen a large piece of yellow nylon flapping in the wind near their cave. He had not thought much of the oddity then, and in the morning, he had been so obsessed over the marker business, he never considered what the nylon might be. Now he did. From the dimensions, and the way the wind lifted the fabric, there was only one thing it could be.

A parachute.

Since the chute withstood the gale instead of skating across the valley, it must be fastened to a stationary object, and likely a heavy one.

The best-case scenario was the scenario Mike banked upon—that reinforced ties fastened the chute to a pallet, and kept the parachute from tearing off into the canopy. And reaching the chute, his hopes were confirmed: tied to the pallet was the waylaid gear.

And it held everything they needed.

Sealed in plastic were boxes of food, water, batteries, walkie-talkies, flares and ammunition for the rifle and handgun. Better still, two of their very own disposable cell phones. Mike sliced deeper, burrowing into the stack. In the center, a first-aid kit holding an Auto-injector, preloaded with 1.0 mg of epinephrine. A single shot. A single chance.

He grabbed the cell phones, walkie-talkies, a flare, an energy bar and a bottle of water, distributing them across his available pockets. He tucked the Auto-injector into the kit, clutched the pack, and ran hard for the alcove.

A half mile stood between him and Sean’s last chance. Before his knee injury, he once cranked out a five-minute mile. That was on open land, over a trail of loose pebbles and steep ascents, with a twenty-pound load on his back. He had one chance to qualify, but the only penalty for failure that day was humiliation. Now he faced half the distance, and a consequence far harder to forgive.

No holding back; he gave it all he had.

His right knee held until the last ten yards. The buckling beneath his thigh rippled up his quadriceps, and ended at his groin, sending Mike stumbling, sliding, skidding. He yelled for Dagget, who darted out of the alcove.

Dagget gunned for the tracker and the kit in Mike’s hands.

Surrendering, Mike’s knee resigned, and took his body down. He lobbed the medical kit at Dagget. It spiraled toward the officer, turning end over end through the air.

06:44:37 AM

Mike hit the rocks hard, palms first. He tore the flesh on his hands and scraped a hole through his cargo pants. He hauled himself up. Rattled, shaken, but otherwise okay. Walking was cumbersome. The damaged knee could handle weight-bearing pressures, though not much, and not for very long. He used the walls when necessary for balance.

Dagget caught the kit, the contents intact, ready for use. “You do it,” he said. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

Mike nodded. He arranged Sean in the recovery position. Then with a push on the plunger, he injected 1.0 mg of epinephrine into the boy’s thigh muscle. Synthesized adrenaline jolted through Sean’s bloodstream.

The boy’s physical response to the shot was slower than either man could tolerate. Epinephrine worked best when used early in an attack, and Sean was well into a severe episode, so neither of them deluded themselves that his improvement was guaranteed. Even with treatment the condition could be fatal.

“We’re taking you home, Sean,” Mike said through clenched teeth. “Come on. Talk to us.”

“Breathe, kid,” Dagget said. “This ain’t your day to die.”

Tortured, they counted the moments, anxious and hopeful.

Finally, Sean stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and he hacked, his voice raspy.

“Sweet Jesus, you scared us,” Dagget said.

Mike checked Sean’s vitals: breathing steadied; heart rate elevated; pulse improved. Regardless, Sean required medical attention, and soon. The epinephrine bought him anywhere from thirty to one hundred and fifty minutes. Beyond that point, he was in severe danger of a secondary attack.

“Any luck calling for help?” Mike asked Dagget. “We need a hospital transport now!”

“Negative. Can’t get anyone on either phone,” Dagget said. “Batteries are tapped on both.”

“Okay, I’ve got clean phones and batteries for the old ones,” Mike said, emptying his pockets. “Also walkie-talkies, and a flare. We need to throw up a call for help. Try Lisbeth first. Use the disposables. Whatever you do, keep your old phone off. Anything comes up, hit me on the walkie-talkie. We can’t move Sean yet, and my knee isn’t good for much more running.”

“So that leaves me . . .” said Dagget, beaming. Mike knew then all Dagget ever wanted was a chance to shine.

Mike loaded a fresh battery into his cell phone, and Dagget did the same, but they kept them both off. Then they tested the walkie-talkies, and switched them to the same channel. Mike enabled the speakerphone setting on the walkie-talkie, and tucked it into a pocket.

“Ready to be a hero?” Mike asked.

Dagget nodded, and racked a bullet into his handgun. “It’s about fucking time.”

•••

Firefighters in hazard suits blasted high-powered water streams at the abandoned meth lab. Everything stank of chemicals, metal, and singed powders. Besides the explosives, the lab was empty.

A fire investigator uncovered how the blaze started. An igniter set off a container packed with C-4, courtesy of Crotty’s men. Heat from the fire caught a row of pressurized containers filled with nitrous, which exploded. To Lisbeth, the curiosity was that a cell phone triggered the initial blast.

Cell phones were such effective remote triggers—so easy to conceal—that the United States Secret Service blocked service for an undisclosed number of city blocks when the President of the United States appeared in urban centers like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Still, the explosives and the high-tech mechanism seemed unnecessary.

Meth labs were filled with highly unstable chemicals and could explode on their own. If it was an active lab, anyway. There was little need to accelerate what nature made happen for free. Unless, that was, the lab no longer existed at the location and the raw chemicals and equipment had been removed ahead of the demolition.

The officer charged with Erich’s overnight interrogation called Lisbeth. “Your suspect is relentless. Stuck to his story like a champion all night. Claims someone stole a few of the disposable phones and planted the weapon near the scene.”