The lump is right up under the edge of the skull, against the bone,” Keith said. His fingers continued to probe. “The cut’s still fresh.”
He pressed at Chance’s neck. The dog whined.
“There, boy,” Keith soothed. Then, to the room: “Got it.”
He held up a beige-colored object a quarter-inch thick and an inch square, glistening in the light of the fire.
Chuck studied the object from across the room. Its color triggered something in his brain. He unzipped the outside pocket of his pack and took out the clear plastic bag containing the sliver of bone he’d collected from the wall of ice at the base of Trident Peak. He crossed the room and dangled the baggie beside the object Keith had removed from beneath Chance’s skin. In the firelight, the sliver and object shone with the same off-white color.
Keith handed the object to Chuck. Like the bone sliver from the glacier, it was moist and slippery in his fingers. He tucked the baggie containing the bone sliver beneath his arm and applied pressure to the object, bending it back and forth with both hands. A tiny, black, rectangular piece of plastic popped from its center.
“Ah ha,” he said. “The chip was inside.” He held it out for Toby’s inspection.
“Identical to the one from Number 217,” Toby said. He looked toward Sarah’s body. “What did you know that you shouldn’t have?” he asked her. “What was it you found out?”
“Whatever it was, we need to find out, too,” Chuck said. Anxious to learn what Randall was up to in the mess tent, he handed the chip to Toby. He returned the sliver of bone to his pack and picked up the rifle from beside the door. “I’ll do a quick reconnoiter,” he said to Janelle from the doorway. “You’re doing great in here.”
She rested her hand on Kaifong’s arm. “I just wish there was more I could do for her.”
He stepped outside. The air had chilled with the onset of night. Scientists in clusters of three and four stood watch along the front of the cabin and mess tent. LED lanterns swung on hiking poles in the wind, casting an eerie glow into the meadow. Inky blackness pressed toward the cabin and tent from beyond the thirty-foot perimeter of muted lantern light. Mist and clouds blotted out the stars.
He found Randall seated at a table inside the mess tent. Jorge sat opposite him. A lantern swayed from the ridge pole, lighting the interior of the tent. Randall’s pack rested beside him, the drone strapped in its fiberglass frame.
Shattered bits of the satellite phone lay on the tabletop in front of Randall. He turned one of the pieces over in his hand. Its smooth plastic surface reflected the combined light of his headlamp and the lantern overhead. “I thought I might be able to put it back together.”
Chuck eased his grip on the rifle. So this was what Randall was up to. “Any luck?”
“It’s pretty much hopeless, man.”
“Keep trying,” Chuck said. “It’d be great to get through to somebody.”
He ducked outside and studied the researchers to his right and left, their folding knives belted to their waists. Someone had murdered Sarah and drugged Kaifong. But who?
He wormed his way through the crowd to the cabin’s west side, where half a dozen flashlight-wielding scientists stood with their backs to the log wall, facing the meadow. Three lanterns illuminated wet grass at the side of the cabin, while the concentrated beams of the flashlights reached to the edge of the forest two hundred feet away. The scientists acknowledged Chuck’s presence with glances and curt nods before returning their attention to the black wall of trees rising at the bottom of the clearing.
Chuck continued on around to the back of the cabin and mess tent. There, a handful of researchers aimed flashlights up the hill at the tent platforms. Chuck studied the slope alongside them—no sign of movement.
Clarence’s full-throated cry came from the east side of the mess tent. “Hey!” he yelled. “Back off!”
A deep roar ripped the night air.
Chuck sprinted around the corner of the mess tent, rifle raised. Clarence stood alone, his back to the canvas wall of the tent, his flashlight piercing the darkness beyond the dim half-circle of light cast by a pair of lanterns set on poles against the tent wall.
“It’s gone,” he said.
“A grizzly?” Chuck asked, his chest heaving.
Clarence nodded.
“You’re on your own over here?”
“They took off around front when the bear showed up.” He pointed at the corner of the tent. “Probably the smart thing to do.”
“Are you okay?”
“I barely saw it. As soon as I yelled, it disappeared back out of sight, roaring as it went.”
“It must be the one from the west side of the valley. It crossed the river, too.” Chuck shook his head, flummoxed. Common sense said the grizzly should not have followed after the wolves. He stopped himself. Why was he thinking in terms of common sense? Nothing about the last few hours—Sarah’s murder, Kaifong’s entrapment, the wolf’s attack in the woods—was, by any measure, common.
Clarence swung his flashlight, revealing the empty trail climbing south away from the cabin. “Nada,” he said.
Another roar sounded, this time from north of camp. A handful of scientists surged back around to the east side of the mess tent.
“Stay here, would you?” Chuck asked Clarence.
“Por supuesto.”
Chuck slipped through the researchers to the north-facing side of the tent.
“Look!” Justin cried out from the front of the cabin.
Flashlights swung north. The combined wattage illuminated the wall of forest at the bottom of the meadow. Something big and brown appeared among the trunks of trees at the edge of the forest before disappearing deeper into the woods, moving from east to west.
Seconds later, someone shouted from the west side of the cabin, “There it is, see? It’s running!”
A chorus of wolf howls rose from the forest to the west.
Chuck pushed his way through the knots of scientists gathered in front of the cabin. He met Lex as the ranger stepped outside.
Lex’s bandaged wrist hung at his waist. Fire burned in his eyes. “What’s going on out here?”
Chuck filled him in.
“So they’re circling,” Lex said.
“The grizzly, at least.”
“It’s a standoff, then.”
“We just have to keep it that way.”
Clarence’s cry came a second time from the east side of the mess tent: “Bear!”
Chuck frowned as he and Lex sprinted back toward Clarence. Mere seconds ago, the grizzly had shown itself two hundred yards away, on the opposite side of camp. It couldn’t be in two places at once.
Half a dozen researchers stood in a clump at the northeast corner of the mess tent. Chuck muscled through them, then came to an abrupt halt.
Captured in the beam of Clarence’s flashlight, a massive grizzly charged from the trees, its jaws wide open.
“Stop!” Clarence pulled the canister of pepper spray from his belt.
The bear did not slow as it neared the semi-circle of lantern light. Clarence released his spray. A cloud of red mist formed in front of him. Lex slipped past Chuck to Clarence’s side, yanked his canister from its holster, and sprayed it alongside Clarence. Chuck leaned his shoulder against the tent’s corner post and sighted down the barrel of the rifle.
Tongue trailing from its mouth, the charging grizzly reached the edge of the lantern light, thirty feet from Clarence and Lex. Another leap. Twenty feet.
Chuck thumbed off the rifle’s safety, peered down the barrel, and aimed at the bear’s head.
A deep, ragged V gouged the grizzly’s right ear.