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Nashida reached the wreckage site and immediately drew his firearm, though he couldn't remember how many rounds were left off the top of his head. Something to check later. To his surprise, the bodies of the Bureau's fallen comrades had been removed and stacked up outside the plane. There were also the remnants of a bonfire. He and Orroye weren't the last ones out of that plane. They left someone behind. It didn't take him long to figure out who.
"Jericho."
Nashida let the weapon fall to his side. Jericho was long gone, which probably meant he ransacked whatever was left on the plane as well. That son of a bitch scammed him again.
Last summer in St. Louis, Jericho and a rogue cop caused quite a bit of damage at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel. His original suspect, a kid named Chris Shane, had some crazy stories about worms. Nashida didn't have time for that fantasy garbage. Not anymore, anyway. Jericho successfully faked his own death and escaped, leaving Nashida to clean up the mess.
It took months of research to figure anything out on the man the Bureau called The Specter. Nashida knew the man had no fingerprints and no real name. He only left a trail of aliases and shell casings. Finally, he got a tip from an unknown source: The name Jericho, and a black card with a silver J embedded on the front. The plan fell together quickly and went off without a hitch. Until the flight back.
Nashida wondered if Jericho somehow put Riggler up to whatever happened in the cabin. Maybe Jericho paid him off? Rig's wife had been sick. Connecting those dots wasn't much of a stretch of the imagination. The worst part was, this piece of shit criminal puke was consistently four steps ahead of them. That's probably why he was never caught. At least not until Nashida's project. Now that was all gone.
"Fuck!" he shouted into the vast wilderness.
Nashida plopped himself down near the remains of his dead co-workers. This was all Jericho's fault, and he owed it to those fallen men to make that assassin pay. If it took another year, he was going to arrest Ethan Jericho and make him taste justice. Real justice, not some eye-for-eye mafioso thing.
Speaking of taste, Nashida was starving. He stood back up, brushing the snow off his backside and re-entered the plane. Maybe there were a few bags of peanuts, or something, anything that possibly got overlooked. Nashida scaled across the seats and climbed to the back area. He tore open a few drawers and cabinets, but found nothing other than ground coffee. Could he eat that? He didn't even see the flight attendant's cart—
"Shit!"
He forgot about Orroye, who was literally stuck on a log out in the middle of nowhere. This trip was about trying to get help. He needed to take another look at the radio.
Nashida crawled back down the seats and climbed into the cabin. It was a lot easier to sit in the cockpit without the pilot in the chair.
Nashida grabbed the radio control and pressed the call button.
"Hello, do you copy? Hello? Over."
Nothing. Not even the sound of static. A bullet to the console will do that.
"Mayday! Mayday!"
Still nothing. This was pointless.
Nashida climbed out of the cockpit and through the rip in the hull. The sky shifted to an orange hue. It was incredible how quickly the sun sets out here. It made getting anything accomplished when it wasn't insanely cold nearly impossible.
There was just enough leftover kindling for Nashida to get another fire started. Fortunately, he had one last flare, having left the other with Orroye. Poor guy was out there by himself, pretty much helpless.
Sitting outside the cabin, Nashida wondered about the point of this trip. The radio was broken beyond repair, at least whatever repairs he could make on his own. He didn't set the SOS in the snow. That's okay, he would first thing tomorrow. Worst of all, his elusive Specter was, quite literally, in the wind. What did he accomplish here? Absolutely nothing.
Nashida warmed himself by the fire when the stench returned. Whatever stunk up the north woods, he had just about enough of. He couldn't take it anymore. Strangely, the horrific smell did nothing to kill his appetite. That son of a bitch Jericho took everything. He was somewhere right now laughing at them, probably feasting.
The agent envisioned him standing there just beyond the fire, mocking him. Raising his gun, Nashida aimed at the phantom in the back corner of his mind. For a second, he swore the bastard was right there. But he wasn't.
Nashida lowered his weapon. Jericho beat him again. The same way Mother Nature took her turn beating him. He was so cold and hungry. Just a little something would help. Anything to subside his hunger pangs and shut off the sound resonating in his stomach. Too bad there was nothing up here to eat.
Nashida turned back to look at the empty plane, but something else caught his attention. There was something to eat up here.
What other choice did he have? Maybe they tasted like chicken.