Night Game (24 page)

“We stepped into the middle
of it and Kendall was doing his best to be nice,” Marquez said after he’d pulled over with Shauf down the road.

“So what do you think?”

“If they catch Nyland picking up the supplies, we’ll back off.”

“Why not otherwise?”

“Because Nyland is the only reason I can think of for Durham to come back this direction rather than run.”

He watched her mull that over. A thing he’d always liked about Shauf was that despite the tough persona she cultivated, she was a gentle human being at heart. She understood how to intimidate and create fear, but she didn’t respect violence and didn’t take any pleasure in it. Ninety percent of the people they chased were motivated by money. Some were brutal and dangerous if given an opportunity, but her mind didn’t turn as readily as his did to the darker qualities of humanity.

He had no trouble picturing Durham taking risks to get to Nyland and meeting him at a prearranged rendezvous spot, perhaps a lonely spot on a dirt road in the Crystal Basin, a contingency plan made long ago. Durham might pull up in a pickup, Nyland step out from under the trees, glad to be rescued, thanking Durham and crawling under a tarp tied down over the pickup bed so he’d be hidden from view. He might lie on a dirty piece of foam as the truck bounced its way back to a paved road. Then he’d hear the reassuring hum of the tires on asphalt and believe he was safely away from the law.

But Durham had plenty to lose if Nyland was apprehended and then traded testimony against him for a lesser sentence. He might well hold the testimony that would put Durham in prison for life, so Marquez saw a different ending, Durham telling Nyland he needed to stay hidden until they reached a safe place, a remote cabin, for example, the spot where Nyland could hole up while the next plan was made. But what would that plan be and why would Durham want the liability and expense? There was a simpler way.

It was a big step, but maybe not so big for Durham if he was the guy they suspected he was. Park somewhere a gunshot wouldn’t matter, lower the pickup gate, and watch Nyland slide out from under the tarp, even help him. Then before he stood and straightened, two shots. The testimony Nyland could trade would end in a shallow grave.

Snow started while Marquez was on the phone to Katherine in the midafternoon. The conversation was laced with a bittersweet sadness, and they decided that she and Maria would stay at a hotel tonight because he wasn’t going to come home. He told her Nyland had been found and he was going to do what he could to help bring him in.

“There’s a jeep trail that runs five miles from the end of the paved road out to a lake named Barrett. He’s near there and on the move. A SWAT team is on its way in and maybe they’ll get him.”

“Enough force and Nyland won’t fight it,” he said.

Marquez drove out past Wright’s Lake and down to the entrance of the Barrett Jeep Trail. Shauf met him there, driving the jeep she’d picked up so she could get them off-road. Snow was falling in light grainy flecks that the wind swirled and tossed.

Marquez stood with his hands in his coat pockets, snowflakes tickling his stubble of beard. The real storm was yet to hit, not forecast to for several more hours, but the sky was dark gray, the light already turning toward dusk. The radio was on, tuned to the band the SWAT team was using. Marquez listened to the backandforth as a helicopter backed away due to turbulence.

“Anything they do to catch Nyland is going to be on foot,” Marquez said. “They just pulled their helicopter out.”

“Where’s he going to go in a snowstorm?”

“Wherever he’d planned to go if police showed up, but let’s hope when we drive up they have him in custody.”

Marquez stripped down and put a long-sleeved Thinsulite shirt, a Kevlar vest, then a fleece pullover and a Gore-Tex parka over that.

The parka had a hood and drawstring to cover most of his face. He pulled on Thinsulite pants and thermal waterproofs over those, Gore-Tex boots, then packed gloves and additional clips for the Glock into his coat. He slipped the night goggles into a pocket and loaded almonds, chocolate bars, a hunk of cheese, juice, and water.

He added a handful of aspirin, Advil, teabags, a small gas stove and canister, a survival blanket, Second Skin, extra socks, bouillon cubes because they always seemed to work for him. He packed bandages, compresses, a morphine shot. Bivouac sack and liner. GPS locator. He’d carry plenty of water. He had a radio and satellite cell phone. In an outside pocket he zipped in handcuffs.

They started up the rocky entrance to the trail, the jeep straining over the bigger boulders, tires slipping and then crawling forward.

Then the road became dirt and much easier to drive. In a few places they had to climb over deadfall. They drove out of the
forest and across a meadow with the wind scouring the road ahead, the sky a dark gray. Light would fade fast today. Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the Barrett campsites and watched the faces turn.

An officer stepping forward and already directing them to turn their vehicle around.

“Let’s go talk to them,” Marquez said.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Not yet, let’s see what they’ve got going.”

“This storm is coming in.”

“I’m carrying my locator. The satellite phone will work fine and I’ll hang a distance behind him.” He turned to her. “But they may have him or a good enough plan.”

Marquez left the day pack in the jeep, and they went to find Kendall among the officers mingling around the camping area. He counted twelve vehicles and watched the SWAT commander stride toward him.

“Why are you here?” the commander asked.

“Nyland’s wanted for commercial trafficking in bear parts.”

“That’s the least of his problems,” the commander said, and the officers near him chuckled. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Have you got him?”

“We will.”

“Where is he?”

“Up there. We’ve got his campsite secure.” The commander pointed to trees off to the left. “He was camped up behind them and he must have heard us coming.”

“It would be hard not to.”

Now Kendall walked over and stepped into the conversation. “Tell us where he’s going to go, Marquez. He’s worked his way around the lake with a dog.”

The SWAT commander moved closer to Marquez, pointed out Nyland up on the ridge, handed Marquez binoculars. When he
focused those, Marquez moved along the loose granite behind the lake and saw Nyland climbing, the dog trailing just behind him and both of Nyland’s hands in black gloves. If he had a weapon, it was a handgun. He wasn’t carrying a rifle, but he was dressed for the weather and had a pack, same as Marquez had in the jeep. Nyland looked back down at the lake, but only briefly and then climbed again, his direction purposeful. Marquez lowered the glasses, looked across the gray water of the lake, the whitecaps, the dark gray rim of granite beyond. Snow flurries obscured the ridge and then it showed again.

“He’s headed into Desolation Wilderness,” Marquez said.

“From there he has several exits if he stays on a trail, which he’ll almost have to do in this storm. He can hike to Tahoe or Donner Lake, or even double back this direction, drop down to Wright’s Lake via Rockbound. But you must be looking at trail maps.”

Kendall nodded and Marquez realized his worst fear was true. They’d set up the bust planning to capture Nyland here with the helicopter giving them lookdown ability, and the weather screwed it up. The storm came in four hours early and they had to pull the helicopter. He looked from the ridge and the tiny figures of Nyland and the dog to Kendall’s face.

“You didn’t figure he’d walk away. You figured the storm would work to your advantage, but remember all that survivalist literature in the trailer. He wants to beat us this way. He’s hiking out and I’m going after him.”

Kendall shook his head, said, “No, you’re not. The forecast is for three or four inches of snow and it’s already starting. It’s supposed to blow out tomorrow, but are you telling me he’s going to walk through a storm in the Desolation Wilderness?”

“He’s got night-vision equipment. So do I.”

“What good is that going to be in a storm?’ “Not very good, but the trails are there.”

“Crossing rock when you can’t see ten feet ahead of you?”

“He’s still running ahead of the storm, and a lot of the trail won’t be hard to follow.”

Kendall’s frustration came through now. He’d expected to trap Nyland here and he had all the people to do it.

“You forget about Vandemere already? He can pick you off as you climb toward him. He doesn’t have anything to lose.”

“It’s going to be dark soon.”

“You’re not going. You’ve got some sort of death wish.”

Something hardened in Marquez when he heard that, but he wanted to keep it going with Kendall a while longer. He looked up at the rock where the first snow had melted as it landed. The rock was dark and wet, and clouds were low over the lake.

“I’m not going to let you lose him.”

Kendall’s retort was immediate. “And what if you’re wrong and he’s just up there making a last desperate circle and plans to shoot it out with us. What if he’s waiting up on those rocks for someone to follow?”

“He’s been talking to Bobby by cell phone, right? You’ve monitored those calls, so you know he’s got a phone. My guess is he has a plan and he’s made the call that sets up his ride out when he finishes the hike. He knows he’s only got so much time to get away and he’s got to take advantage of the storm. He also knows this isn’t easy country to hide in, no matter how many survivalist magazines you read. It’s open high rock, lakes, pine and fir, and you can dodge for a while but not forever. But he also knows the thing to do is surprise you with how far he can move through a storm. Then have someone waiting on the other end.”

“You give him way too much credit. You go in there and there’ll be Search and Rescue people looking for you tomorrow morning. You’ll get lost if you don’t get killed.”

“Tell you what, Kendall, this is something I know a little bit about.”

Marquez showed the GPS tracking device they’d gotten from the FBI on an abalone poaching operation. It could track him individually.

He gave the Kendall the phone number for the satellite unit and a number for Shauf, though Kendall hadn’t asked for anything.

“You’re not going.”

Marquez walked away from him and when the SWAT commander followed, he had a better conversation with that officer, pointed at the ridge, told him where he’d climb up, where the trail went through.

“If I lose him, I’ll be hiking out the Eagle Lake Trail.”

The commander frowned; he was a patient man and tried to get his point of view across.

“The detective is right,” he said. “This suspect is likely to be desperate and unlikely to have any plan to hike away. He may reach that ridge and lay down on a rock and wait.”

“He’s carrying a pack.”

“Are you from this area, warden?” the SWAT commander asked. “I mean do you live locally?”

“No.”

“I do, and we may be in a whiteout in a couple of hours.”

“I understand that.”

“Storm blows through tonight, and we’ll get a copter up with infrared lookdown and fly right over the trail you’re talking about.”

“He knows that and you and I know the wind will still be blowing tomorrow morning and a copter may not work.”

“I’m trying to talk you out of risking your life.”

“I appreciate that.”

They could still see Nyland, but barely. Marquez pulled his pack on, looked at the SWAT commander again.

“You know our warden was murdered.”

“Of course.”

“If one of your SWAT team got murdered, would you watch the suspect walk away?”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“I am hearing you.” He put a hand on the commander’s shoulder.

“I’ll see you on the other side.”

A steady snowfall began
as he climbed the loose rock behind Barrett, boots slipping, the wind flapping his coat hood like a loose awning. Snow drove sideways as he crossed the ridge, and it wasn’t too late to turn around. He could drop back down to Barrett Lake and leave it to helicopters and dogs to try to find Nyland in the next few days. He lost time now, searching for the trail that really wasn’t visible on the rock. He resorted to the topo, worked his way to where the trail should be, and talked with Shauf. The GPS locator could tell her where he was, and she could direct him.

He found the trail again, pulled the night goggles on, adjusted his gloves, no longer worried about Nyland fixing laser gun sights on him, no risk of that with this snowfall and twilight. The trail dipped and descended, left the rock and became trough-shaped after dark, curved like a chute ahead with the new snow layering it.

He spotted a footprint and adrenaline kicked in, then more boot prints nearly filled with snow and he knew Nyland was somewhere
up ahead. He passed a wooden sign, Red Peaks Trail, crouched behind a rock, used his flashlight to study the map, drank water, ate, and made a call to Shauf. With the locator she confirmed he was on the correct trail.

“Any sign of him?”

“Footprints. I’m taking it slow, not trying to catch him, just keep track of him.”

He signed off with her and started again, hiking in heavier snow but less wind. He’d gauged the whole hike across and through Desolation as eight hours and had been up here a couple. His hands and feet were cold, though everything else was fine. Cheeks a little numb. He squatted and checked marks on the trail, risked the flashlight again, and the marks didn’t read as footprints. An hour later he made another call to Shauf and huddled under a granite shelf trying to warm up, telling Shauf he’d lost the footprints but figured he had no choice but to continue hiking across toward Tahoe. He fired the gas stove, let it boil a cup of water in the shelter of a rock cleft, wrapped bare hands around the flame, cleaned the goggles, and stared out into the storm again.
Where are you?

When he started again he stumbled, kicking rocks newly covered by snow, losing the trail, losing time finding it again, using Shauf and the satellites to locate himself. The wind kept working the cold in, and each mile came hard. Then not long after midnight the snow lessened and there were breaks in the clouds, ragged tears, starlight on the new snow and darkness again. It became easier to keep the goggles operable. As he hiked toward Velma Lakes he knew either he had a break in the storm or it was ending, and he checked with Shauf, who was monitoring air traffic weather. She told him that Doppler radar showed the worst was over, which heartened him, took some of the leadenness out of his legs. He figured the expenditure of adrenaline and the cold gnawing away at him accounted for the unusual tiredness. He cleaned
the goggles again and saw the outline of terrain farther ahead, saw no sign of Nyland.

At 1:30 he ate more of his food, the almonds, another candy bar, a slug of water. He sloughed ahead through snow drifted six inches deep in the low sections of trail. Anyone walking ahead would leave tracks, and periodically he stopped, leaned on a rock, and studied the terrain behind. He switched the Gore-Tex hood for a cap because he didn’t like the way the fabric affected his hearing, the constant rustling.

Then he heard a hound bay and looked for a place to hide, left the trail and found rocks. He heard the hound again and with the wind couldn’t place the direction, then realized it was from behind and that Nyland could be following his tracks, not knowing who he was. He crossed the trail, stepped among red firs growing closely together, stepping on patches of needles the snow hadn’t reached, using the needles as stepping-stones to avoid leaving tracks. He pulled his gun and wrapped his other hand around the small flashlight.

With his belly against a rock he lay and waited, then heard Nyland quieting his dog, the hound whining and snuffling, Nyland hesitating, stopping on the trail, still not quite to where the trail passed below Marquez’s position. The dog had picked up a scent. Now he heard Nyland’s boots sloughing through the snow and the dog running ahead. He waited for Nyland to pass by and then got ready to come over the rock and slide down behind Nyland onto the trail.
Do it. It’s not going to get any easier.
He drew a deep breath and went, clicked the flashlight on as he came down on the trail.

“Don’t move! I’ve got a gun on you, Nyland. Don’t move!” But Nyland went into motion, spinning, and then coming at Marquez. Marquez had time to shoot him but didn’t pull the trigger, and Nyland tackled him. Marquez lost his gun as he went down and the hound ripped at his pant leg. Nyland was strong,
fighting hard, and was trying to get a gun out. He managed to pull it out and then it discharged, missing both of them.

Marquez struggled to get the gun Nyland held, pinning the arm that held it while Nyland clubbed at Marquez’s head with his other hand. But now Marquez gripped the gun and twisted. Nyland’s trigger finger was trapped, and it made a dry snapping noise as bone broke. The gun fell into snow and Nyland grunted in pain, tried to retrieve the gun, and Marquez brought an elbow down on his face, crushing the lens of his goggles. The next blow shattered Nyland’s nose.

“Stop moving and lay still,” Marquez said, gasping for breath, forcing the words out as he got ready to hit him again. Nyland surged, and Marquez had to hit him hard one more time, this last with the butt of Nyland’s gun. He handcuffed him, the hound barking inches from his face. He searched Nyland for weapons, took yet another gun off him and a cell phone, he recovered his own gun and rested, holding the gun and flashlight beam on Nyland, deciding as he caught his breath how to do this, hike him out or wait for morning and help.

Nyland bled from the nose. The broken finger pointed sideways, and Marquez moved the flashlight back to his face.

“You’re going to hike out, so suck it up. Unlike Petroni you’re alive.”

“I didn’t kill fucking Petroni.”

“You’re a good man, Nyland, just misunderstood. You’re going to walk ahead of me, but don’t get up until I tell you to.”

He went through Nyland’s pack before placing it in the trail where it could easily be found in the morning.

“I can’t see,” Nyland said as Marquez got him to his feet.

“I’ll shine a light through your legs. If you fall, stand up and start walking again. If you run, I’ll shoot you.”

Marquez had tied the thin rope he’d found in Nyland’s pack to one of Nyland’s ankles, figured if Nyland ran he’d bring him
down by jerking his leg out from under him and dragging him. Keeping Nyland twenty feet ahead, they started walking, the thin rope sliding along the snow behind, the hound sticking near Nyland. A mile into it Nyland started playing games, staggering, pretending to trip, shuffling his boots through the snow, exaggerating his difficulty walking. Marquez said nothing to any of it.

They moved slowly, but they moved, and sometime after daylight Marquez knew they’d reached the Eagle Lake Trail. An hour in he had Nyland stop and kneel on the trail while he called Shauf.

“I’ve got him. I’m walking him out.”

“Okay, got your position, I’ll notify everybody.”

He hung up with her and listened to Nyland spit blood and mucus. He gave him some water, sat on a rock nearby and listened to the rhythm on his breathing, decided Nyland was fine to keep walking. But before telling him to get to his feet again he tweaked him.

“Who killed Petroni?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit. Was it Durham?”

“I don’t know. I hardly see Durham. I haven’t seen him in three weeks.”

“Who milks the caged bears?”

“I don’t know anything about caged bears.”

“Sophie has turned on you, but battered women can be like that. She led the detectives to where you hid the rifle in the sales office, and now they’ve got a murder warrant. She’s turning state’s witness. You’re going to be the fall guy for Durham and whoever else.”

“I don’t want to hear your shit. Walk me out.”

“Where were you headed? Is Durham waiting up ahead? If I was him and you could testify against me, I might be waiting up ahead. Of course, with all the police, I don’t know. But I sure wouldn’t want you to get a chance to plea-bargain.”

They started down the trail again and nothing was said for another hour. When they took the next rest Marquez could tell Nyland was getting ready to try something, and then he asked for his night goggles back.

“You’re doing okay without them.”

“I can’t move my hand.”

“I’ve been looking at numbers on your cell phone.” Marquez had relayed a list of them via text messaging and the satellite phone to Shauf. “Which one is Durham’s?”

Nyland ignored him, then a little while later repeated that he hadn’t killed anybody and didn’t know about any rifle. His boots slogged through the snow ahead of Marquez, his voice stronger, saying he didn’t “put Petroni in the teddy bear suit,” but he wished he’d seen him.

“Sophie says you killed Vandemere for money. Who wanted him dead?”

“She’s a lying bitch.”

“If you want to hit back at her, start talking to me. You know Kendall isn’t going to listen to you.”

“Fuck off.”

Near first light Marquez holstered his gun, figured Nyland was hurt and cold, tired, and didn’t have much run left in him. Nyland was sluggish, exhausted, not quite the mountain man he figured himself for. He started to complain more about the pain in his hand.

“I can’t take it any longer,” he said. “My fingers are gone.”

Marquez had slid a sock over the bad hand to prevent frostbite.

He told Nyland to lie down in the snow. Nyland dropped to his knees, went face forward on the trail, and Marquez knelt and looked at the hand. It was badly swollen around the wrist and the fingers were bloodless, white. There was another six miles to go, a lot of it rocky and the steep downhill past Eagle Lake. Nyland’s coat was multilayer, waterproof, ripstop, and Marquez got an idea.

“All right, don’t move.” With a knife Marquez leaned over and right in the small of the back he cut through the coat. “I’m going to uncuff you and if you move I’ll do whatever I have to.”

Marquez freed his wrists and then bunched the coat up and clicked the empty handcuff through the hole he’d cut. That would keep Nyland’s good hand behind his back as long as he had the coat on. He told Nyland to keep the free hand, the bad hand, in his coat pocket, then got him to his feet and made sure the coat was zipped up tight before working the knife into the zipper at chest level and ruining it, so the only way he could get the coat off was over his head.

“If you can take me with one hand behind your back, now is your chance. Stay twenty feet ahead and don’t take your bad hand out of your pocket.”

“I wasn’t there,” Nyland said.

“Wasn’t where?”

“I haven’t been in the barn since we moved the bears to a place in Nevada that I didn’t even know about before. I wasn’t there when Petroni got it.”

“Who was?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long has Durham been farming bears?”

“Durham doesn’t know shit. It’s the other guy.”

“What other guy?”

“I don’t know his name, a dark-haired guy.” Nyland spit blood in the snow. “Fuck, man, my nose.”

“Durham has a partner?”

“I don’t know what their deal is.”

“Where does this other guy live?”

“Look, I didn’t kill Petroni.”

“You killed Vandemere. Sophie took Kendall to the rifle.” Marquez could see he finally hit home. Nyland stared at him without speaking. “Why Vandemere?”

“I didn’t kill anybody. It was probably him, the guy who set up the farms.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“Then you’re nowhere. Where in Nevada are these bears?”

“On a ranch outside Minden. Troy drove the rest out there while I was locked up.”

“Sophie says you bragged about killing Vandemere.”

“She’s fucked up.”

“I need the bear farmer’s name.”

“Hey, man, he’s way fucking smarter than you are.”

“He must be, he hired you. Let’s go.”

They shuffled through the snow another mile before Nyland answered. When he did his voice was different, empty.

“Petroni was out there.”

“Where?”

“In a cage at the place in Nevada, in one of the empty cages. It wasn’t anything to do with me and I didn’t see him. I wouldn’t do shit like that even to that asshole.”

“Stop walking, face me and say that again.”

The wind felt colder and seem to blow down his spine as he listened to Nyland. He shone the light on his face.

“Petroni was in a cage?”

“For a couple of days. That’s what I heard from Troy.”

“Troy saw him.”

“I don’t know if he saw him.”

“Sophie?”

“I think she did.”

Marquez got up close to him, and Nyland ducked his head like he was going to get hit. “She told you as you made bail?”

“Yeah.”

Nyland was silent after that. Dawn came. The dark blue line of Lake Tahoe showed in the distance when they started down the steep
canyon and passed Eagle Lake. Marquez checked in with Shauf. A half mile later as they started down a long open slope, Kendall and three deputies came out of the trees well down the grade.

“Want to tell me anything else before they get here?”

“Maybe I knew he was in a cage, but I didn’t see him and I wasn’t there when he got done. It was the freak that did him.”

“Why do you call him a freak?”

“Because he wouldn’t ever let me see him.”

Marquez took a guess now. “The freak paid you to do Vandemere.

Vandemere saw him one day and questioned what he was doing. After that the freak wanted him killed.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

“Am I?” Marquez pointed at Kendall and the deputies crossing a snowfield, their guns drawn and their voices starting to carry up. “They plan to lay it all on you and you know Kendall, he’ll do it. He’ll make it work. If you know anything more that can help you, you’ve got to tell me now. I’m looking for the bear farmer, and if you’re telling anything like the truth you need him found as badly as I do.”