Last Track, The (9 page)

“I’ll ring you when I’m ready,” Mayhew said, a bit rushed.

Crotty loitered at his desk for a minute, pretending to finish another report. First, he called his long-distance carrier. They put him on hold.

A voice, neither recognizably male nor female, announced the wait time was over an hour. Perfect. Muting the handset, he abandoned the receiver and bolted. Since everyone was on assignment or at lunch, he owned the corridor. He had to make it to Mayhew’s office before the screen saver locked the terminal; Mayhew had left in too big a hurry to do so manually.

No witness saw Crotty run the shell prompt on Mayhew’s terminal. No witness saw Crotty navigate to the directory of interest or search the files created by the keylogger software Mayhew unwittingly installed. No witness saw the software that captured every move, and recorded every keystroke, every user name and password in a text file. No witness saw Crotty log in as Mayhew and run queries against those restricted databases.

The only record: audit trails at the Network Operations Center, the FBI, and the DEA. And all they showed was Mayhew had requested and printed information. Crotty wrote down the user names and passwords for future reference, uninstalled the key- logger, and wiped the local files the program created.

Crotty returned to his assigned desk, still on hold with the long-distance company. He increased the volume. Ads for the telecommunication services over a soundtrack of mangled Mahler crackled on a headset speaker. Scanning the profile, he was intrigued. The Partner was vague about what the background check was for, whether it was in consideration for employment or blackmail. What Crotty read about the target so far, he rather liked.

Line two rang. The display flashed
Mayhew, P
. Crotty still languished on hold on line one with the phone company.

“Where’s the report?” asked Mayhew, his voice petulant. Crotty kept the report to preserve his alibi. As far as the official record was concerned, Crotty had been on the phone for over an hour, never in Mayhew’s office.

“Sorry,” Crotty said. “I’ve been on hold since we spoke. I’ll drop it off now.”

Crotty stuffed the findings for the Partner in a self-sealing, legal- size manila envelope. He found the best hiding places were right in front of everyone’s eyes. Secure from nosy office mates, he slid the envelope under a pile of other papers on the desk.

His Mike Brody research would have to wait.

11:20:31 AM

Outside the stable, a breeze washed over the morning, and ranch hands paired each guest with a horse.

Horses were Jessica Barrett’s first love and a major part of her life. As a child she had owned an older horse named Poco who suffered from degenerative arthritis. When Poco passed on Jessica’s thirteenth birthday, it was devastating. Sympathetic to the loss, her father gave her a fantastic Arabian, Majique. And with Majique’s help, Jessica got over Poco, and mastered riding.

Majique could be difficult, refused any formal training, and demanded a confident rider. Only Jessica sufficed, only Jessica dared ride bareback. Every summer morning they sailed through the open fields until the sun rose. Winters she dashed off the school bus and rode until an hour before sunset.

Saddling up at the dude ranch that morning on Tic-Tac, her horse for the week, transported her back to Majique. Tic-Tac strongly resembled her beloved companion. The similarity was welcome, yet almost overwhelming. After talking Andy through his mount, she climbed on Tic-Tac from the left side, right hand gripping the cantle. From the instant she eased into the saddle and fed her foot into the stirrups, it all felt right and familiar. Rolling with the feeling, she tested out Tic-Tac. First a stand, then a gentle trot.

“You’re a natural,” Erich said to Jessica, approaching on horseback.

“Thanks!” she gushed, enough to hear it in her own voice. There it was again, that feeling of self-consciousness and attraction stirring at once. She had been there before, long ago. What she wasn’t certain about was if she was ready to go back again. She concentrated on the riding, and tapping a connection so treasured from her past.

“In fact,” Erich said, “you are way ahead of this group.” A smile revealed a row of capped teeth.

Jessica glanced backward. Behind her, a mishmash of guests struggled, some fighting their animals by climbing up the right side. Even Andy trailed Erich by nearly a dozen lengths.

“Oh.” The embarrassment of neglecting Andy in her enthusiasm was too acute to conceal, so she tugged the reins, and looked away as she spoke, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll circle back.”

“Take your time,” Erich said. “I believe you’ll find his stride quite powerful when you need it.” Erich peeled away and rejoined the group. Jessica turned her focus on Andy.

Jessica suspected Mr. Jones—Andy’s ready and willing horse—wanted a rider with more chops, a rider somewhere between novice and intermediate. Andy was not quite intermediate; he was more a novice. Before Pine Woods he had not ridden in a year. She decided that Andy might not be the best rider, but he was right enough for Mr. Jones. While she doubted he was entirely ready, she was willing to take the chance. She would keep an eye on her son.

“Doing great, Andy,” Jessica said. “Remember, keep your hands on the reins. Never drop them.”

The boy gripped the leather straps tighter, rising from a slump. “Do you think Dad will make it to dinner?” Andy asked.

“When he gets back, he’ll be here,” she said.

“So by tonight?” Andy said.

This conversation was far too familiar for her taste. The divorce had spared them all the inconveniences of Mike’s many unplanned, always inconvenient, absences. Whether he was in Arizona tracking an escaped prisoner or in Palau leading a scuba dive excursion, her ex-husband was out more often than he was present. She had tried everything to resuscitate the marriage. She fought valiantly, but a SWAT team of therapists had failed at helping them resolve their marital issues. Now with their separate residences and lives—it was just normal business—he was gone. This trip was supposed to be different.

Yet there was no convincing Andy that Mike was anything other than a hero. Mindful of that, she tempered her reply. “We’ll see.” Noticing his disappointment, Jessica fell back on what she could control. “You ready to learn a little bit about riding?”

“Yeah,” Andy said, excited, “teach me how to ride like Dad.”

Jessica almost said Mike hated riding and only bothered with it because sometimes the tours required it. “How about I show you how to ride like you? Get a feel for it first. We can go from there.”

“I guess so,” Andy said.

“When you’re ready, I promise I’ll show you a trick your dad doesn’t know.”

“Really?” His eyes lit up like a boy presented with a treasured family keepsake, then struggled with the weight of the gift. “But Dad’s an expert!”

Suggesting anything to the contrary was futile. Jessica knew this. The boy loved his father as much as the stories that surrounded him. Someday her son would see Mike as a whole person, the balance of strengths and faults. Today was not that day. Today the boy worshiped his father and saw no wrong.

“Sounds crazy,” Jessica said, “but I know how to do a few cool things, too.”

Andy laughed. “Sure, Mom.”

They smiled at each other and then glanced back to the group wrestling with their animals. A man traveling with his wife and son cursed at his Arabian. The insult drew a stern correction from his wife. Some of the guests had struggled long enough to be surrounded by clouds of dust.

A female wrangler, not a trace of dirt on her jeans, helped load the cowpokes onto horses, directing the stragglers in a patient tone. The soil of the riding pen resembled a parking lot on a snowy night after a teenager had turned figure eights in a sports car.

“Take a picture for Dad,” said Andy.

Discretely, Jessica clicked two shots. One was a woman with a neglected manicure riding along the rail, as if she might surrender at any time and clutch the posts. The second was a teenager whipping the butt of a horse with an open palm. She suppressed the urge to yell at the teenager. She had enough problems keeping tabs on Andy.

Taking both pictures on the sly, she remained mindful of the surroundings. No one else snapped pictures right then, or even held cameras. The presence of photographic equipment or tape recorders often colored people’s responses. Some might be more animated, exaggerating details and experiences, or outright lying.

On the flip side, some people shunned a recorded conversation. In between the gung ho and the shy was the story. A reporter got there by keeping both the extremes and the middle in play. Everyone’s point of view mattered.

There was already talk swirling about Jessica and Andy thanks to Mike. Discretely, Jessica sheathed the camera inside her saddle bag, comforted that no one had noticed.

“What do you think Dad’s doing now?” Andy asked.

“Whatever it is,” Jessica said, “I’m sure he’s giving it his all.”

11:45:22 AM

Now Mike had to decide whether to fret about Dagget or continue farther into the woods. Dagget was a grown man, a police officer with gear, a man with alleged woods savvy—so Mike had been told. Mike was seriously questioning that assertion lately.

Regardless, finding Sean Jackson was the priority, and hunting for Dagget took time away from that. To Mike, that was unacceptable.

Yet, like it or not, he needed Dagget to some degree, primarily as a conduit to the other searchers. Mike had not proven himself to anyone on the force but Lisbeth, and until then, the others probably would discount his opinion. Should the same words come from Dagget, they might just listen.

Besides, working with Dagget offered other advantages. Two sets of eyes were better than one.

Dagget also had the backpack, which held an extremely important item: epinephrine for Sean. Mike improvised many things in his years, but never a sealed vial of epinephrine. There was no natural equivalent in the wild.

But waiting for Dagget was also unacceptable. Rotting away in limbo hampered the search, provided Dagget even returned. He had only one way for contacting Dagget—no walkie-talkie, no cell number—so he shouted the officer’s name a few times. To Mike, the lack of options put both men in a regrettable position.

After ten minutes of shouting and waiting in vain, he pressed forward.

In case Dagget decided he wanted back in the game, Mike marked the trail. Every four hundred feet he placed a reflective marker in the soil. When he turned left or right he set two markers parallel to each other, and staggered them. The higher of the two indicated the direction of the turn. He wasn’t certain if Dagget would be able to read the marks, but he knew he had done all he could.

What to do about Lisbeth and her briefings was another matter. Her phone number was on the business card in Mike’s back pocket. He still had cell signal. He could call now, tell her the score, or wait. He chose the second.

Technically, his first report was due within the hour.
How’s it going with Dagget?
Mike imagined Lisbeth asking.
Just great. He left. Been fantastic ever since.

Like Dagget himself, Lisbeth’s motives for the assignment were baffling. Even given the shortage of resources and the small department, certainly a less surly officer was available. Lisbeth had chosen Dagget anyway. Well, Mike had worked with the police before, and managed various personalities and agendas. He could deal.

Pop psychologists said resistant clients were clients in transition, poised on the cusp of a breakthrough.

His ex-wife was a big fan of psychology, having minored in the subject during college. Mike had been the target of many of her theories. Certainly, Dagget was resistant. Maybe all the officer needed was a nudge to the light of reason. Winning converts to the cause of tracking was less interesting to Mike Brody than results. In the end, everything else—all the discomfort and inconvenience—was only temporary.

His results-based approach was less about the ends justifying the means, and more about the ends. Sidestepping local politics was costly not just in terms of ill will and hurt feelings; it was isolating; it forced Mike into a leadership position. He believed energy served him best when funneled into areas with a chance for clear results. And that area was tracking, not ego stroking. Leaving the situation with Dagget behind at the trees, Mike began following Sean’s movements.

Heading west, Sean had stuck to a trail wide enough for two men shoulder to shoulder. The boy’s movements were less rushed, though they still belied confusion. Mike pressed on, hiking farther up the path.

These were the moments when time stopped mattering. After hitting his mark, moving across distances required less effort, even great ones. He moved effortlessly. Only the barest details distracted him: a breeze, pine needles brushing against the skin, branches lying on the trail.

Another half hour passed. Sweat beads dribbled down his forehead and neck, chilling his eyebrows and trapezius muscles. Perspiration slithered and stung a cut on his chin. He let the beads roll.

Dryness spread across his lips. He opened the canteen. Just a tiny sip. Water was crucial and grew more important over time. A steady supply of potable water was every hiker’s dilemma. Here it was doubly true, since Dagget had the iodine, leaving him no way to purify the water on the move. He must conserve.

When he committed the waypoint into the GPS back at the road, it showed a network of streams within two miles. A sprawling finger pattern covered the screen.

Mike revisited the coordinates. Navigating through the display by clicking a round button on the top of the device, he noted the tributaries. The level of detail was incredible. Roads, streets, lakes, and town names all had been available on these maps for years. Lots of 4x4 trails and lately many hiking trails were visible, though the level of detail varied by region. Heavily traveled areas had the best coverage. And as more backpackers used GPS units to collect and exchange data, the number of uncharted trails shrunk yearly. Now remote, unmapped areas in twenty-first century North America were rare finds indeed.