I knew that danger was close, but I had to know how close, so I jumped from the rock and ran over to the top of the incline, throwing myself down on my stomach when I reached it. I crawled closer, peering over the top to see Hazar’s men by our shelter. Some were standing guard, while others were picking through my belongings.

The suited man we had seen last night waited in the center of the plateau, and I could see him clearly now: He was about the same age as Dad, but taller and with close-cropped hair. He was good-looking and strong, with broad shoulders and a wide back. He held out something that looked like a cell phone, and scanned the plateau before typing something into it and looking around again.

“The fire is still warm,” one of Hazar’s men called out. “And their gear is still here, but there are no footprints.”

“The snow’s getting heavier. They were here not long ago,” the suited man said. “The information is good.”

“Morris,” the president said as he crawled alongside me. “He was on the plane with me. He’s the one who put me in the escape pod. He must have sabotaged the other parachutes and jumped out after me.”

“Your bodyguard?” I whispered in disbelief.

“A damn traitor,” the president replied through gritted teeth. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

“But how did he find us?” I watched Morris, wondering who I was most afraid of: him or Hazar.

“Someone is helping him. Someone is sending him information on that handset. It’s the only explanation.”

“But how would anyone else know where we are?” I had done everything I could to cover our tracks.

“There’ll be satellites trained on this forest, Oskari, all of them looking for me.”

“Like in a video game?”

“Yeah, maybe, and someone who is watching the satellite could be telling Morris what they’re seeing. Damn it. I can’t believe it … that man took a bullet for me.”

From the distance, the faint thucka-thucka-thucka of a helicopter grew, and a small black dot appeared in the white sky over the trees far below.

“We have to go, President.” I started shuffling backward. “Come on.”

When we were out of sight, we stood and ran across the snow and rocks, past the freezer toward the trees. As we came close to them, though, the president stopped.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low. “We need to hurry!”

The president shook his head and reached into his pocket, removing the pistol he had taken from Otis. “We need to go our separate ways.”

“What?” I grabbed his arm, trying to make him follow me. “Come on. They’ll be here any moment.”

“It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, don’t you see? Look at the tracks we’re leaving — you know better than I do how bad that is. And if I’m right about the satellites up there looking at us, they’ll see every move we make. We could wave to the people watching.”

I looked up at the sky, snowflakes falling on my face. “For real?”

“Yes, for real. And if Morris is getting information about where we are, then it doesn’t matter what we do. In daylight, they’ll see us wherever we go.”

“But they can’t see through trees, right?”

“I guess.”

“So let’s go into the trees. There’s less snow in there, too; we won’t leave tracks. Farther down the mountain there won’t be any. We’ll stay in the forest and —”

“No.” The president pulled his arm away. “You go, Oskari. Use all your knowledge of these mountains and forests to get as far away from here as you can, as fast as you can.”

Still the helicopter approached, the black speck growing as it came closer, the sound of its pounding engine becoming louder.

“Go, Oskari, you’ve done enough. I can’t put you in any more danger.”

“But what about you?” I was starting to panic. Any moment now and the men would come up the rise to find us standing here.

“I can look after myself.”

“No, President, I don’t think you can.” Feeling the urgency building to a bursting point, I grabbed for his arm again. “But what if —”

He pulled away. “If whoever is helping Morris can see me, then so can my people. They will be here soon; it’s only a matter of time.” He put his hand on my shoulder and looked me right in the eye. “Oskari, I need you to believe in me — like I believe in you.”

I wondered if there was anything I could do to make him change his mind. The truth was that I liked him and I didn’t want him to put himself in danger.

Before I could say anything, though, the president spat in his hand and offered it to me, saying, “Thank you for being my friend, Oskari.”

I considered his gesture as a thousand thoughts rushed through my head. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should save myself and leave him to face Hazar alone. After all, this wasn’t my fight. And, anyway, the president’s Navy SEALs would be here any moment.

Almost without realizing I was doing it, I spat in my own hand and we shook.

“It’s time for you to go,” the president said.

Still I hesitated.

“Now, Oskari! Go!”

The way he spoke startled me, and I looked up at him as he pushed me away.

“Go!”

So I turned and ran, sprinting across the hunting ground as if the devil was grabbing at my heels. I scurried up the boulders at the far edge and jumped down into the forest, disappearing into the trees and leaving my new friend behind me.

Everything was a blur. Thoughts boiled in my mind. The deer head. The note. Hazar. Morris. They all swirled about as I ran and ran and ran. My arms and legs moved without me even thinking about it. My whole body burned with the adrenaline that was raging around my blood, fueling my muscles to move harder and faster.

I ducked branches and skirted around trees and boulders without a clear idea of where I was going or what I was going to do. My boots pounded the forest floor like a drumbeat that would never stop.

Except, they did stop.

When an image of the president appeared in my head like a photograph, blocking out everything else, it was as if I had run into a wall of solid rock.

I came to a sudden halt and stood there, chest heaving for breath, with that picture still in my head.

It was an image of the president, my new friend, wrapped in a blanket, cold and tired and afraid, and I knew I was the only person who could help him. He had said that there would be people on their way to save him, but they would be too late. The president needed me to do something for him now. He needed help now.

I touched the pin badge on the collar of my jacket and remembered what my new friend had said to me: I believe in you. Well, what use was that if all I could do was run away and abandon him? There was no other hope for him — I had to do something. I should never have left him.

Realizing what I was about to do, I turned and looked back, feeling afraid and excited and angry all at once. I was terrified of the men with guns, especially Morris and Hazar, but they were in my place and they had no right to be here. This was my wilderness. My mountain. And today I was the king here. Satellites and helicopters and guns wouldn’t be of any use to them if we could disappear into the forest.

“I’m coming,” I said as I started to jog back. “I’m coming to help you, President.”

Everything was different now that I wasn’t running away in fear. I had decided to be the hunter rather than the hunted, and my senses understood that. My mind became calmer and I was aware of everything around me. I heard every rustle of partridge in the undergrowth, every call of every bird. I felt the breeze on my face and the ground beneath my feet.

When I reached the boulders skirting the hunting ground, the snow had stopped and the sky was beginning to clear. I pressed myself against the cold gray rock and listened.

In the distance, the thumping of the helicopter approached.

Thucka-thucka-thucka.

I eased around the rock, slipping between two large, smooth boulders and boosting myself up on a smaller one so I could look over without being seen. My view of the hunting ground was excellent — the surrounding rocks and trees, and the freezer chest right in the middle.

The president was nowhere to be seen, and for one terrifying moment, I thought they had found him already, but as I scanned the area, Hazar’s men appeared over the lip of the slope that led down to our camp. Four of them, moving in a line through the snow, automatic weapons held high. They spread out as they came onto the hunting ground, sweeping their submachine guns in arcs, moving slowly.

The president appeared from behind a boulder several feet to my right. He stepped out with his arms raised, the pistol straight out in front of him. Hazar’s men noticed him almost immediately and swung their weapons around to point at him, but the president wasn’t going to be taken without a fight.

He was the first to pull the trigger.

There was no loud bang, though. No crackle of gunfire or falling bodies.

Instead, there was a faint click and a moment of nothing.

The men stared at the president, and he stared back for a fraction of a second. Then he was turning the pistol in his hand, looking at it as if it had betrayed him, and —

Morris appeared from the rocks behind the president.

The bodyguard moved quickly, crossing the distance to the president in a split second. He slipped his left arm around my friend’s neck, while his other hand went straight for the pistol, grasping it hard and twisting it out of the president’s grip. Before he had a chance to react, the president was disarmed and Morris was pressing the barrel of the weapon into the soft skin under his chin.

“Next time you want to shoot someone,” Morris said, “take off the safety catch.”

He took the gun away from the president’s chin, and in one quick movement released the clip so that it slid out onto the ground, then threw the weapon to one side and pushed the president into the hunting ground.

My friend stumbled forward, falling to his hands and knees, but he was quick to get back to his feet and turn around to face his bodyguard.

“Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”

Morris shook his head. “You’re too damn stupid to work it out, aren’t you?”

“I thought you were a friend.”

“You don’t have friends,” Morris said. “You’re the President of the United States. You can’t have friends.”

“But you put your life on the line for me. What’s changed?”

“This.” Morris tapped his chest. “The bullet I took for you. Your legacy right here, working its way into my heart. I have a family, too, remember. They’ll need money when I’m gone — and it’s only a matter of time.”

“You could’ve retired. You had the option. I —”

“Money. And I’m not talking about some pitiful pension, I’m talking about the kind of money that comes from handing a man like you over to a man like that.” He raised a finger and pointed at the sky. “That’s your destiny approaching.”

“This is about money?” Betrayal and disappointment were clear in the president’s voice.

“Isn’t it always?”

The president shook his head. “And I thought we were friends.”

“You thought wrong.”

The helicopter was growing louder by the second; it would be here any moment. I looked left and right, trying to think what I could do, but with all those armed men in the hunting ground, I was helpless and useless. There was nothing I could do to help my friend. Nothing at all.

“By the way,” Morris said, stepping toward the president. “Where’s your little helper? Abandoned you, eh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Morris stood toe to toe with the president and looked him in the eye. “Sure you do. The kid who popped you out of the rescue pod. Drove that ATV we found. Lit a fire for you last night and gave you a blanket.”

“I don’t know, Morris. I guess if you’re too damn stupid to work it out —”

Morris struck out with his right hand, hard and fast, smashing the president in the kidneys. He cried out in pain and dropped to his knees, but Morris didn’t leave it at that. He put up both fists and began to rain blows on the president, hitting him over and over again as the helicopter finally came in to land.