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Mac wasn’t sure what woke him up. He lay very still and listened. He could hear the soft sounds of Angie sleeping. That was it. He frowned. He got up, pulled on clothes, and grabbed his pistol before easing out of the tent. It wasn’t sun up yet, but it was close because he could see. And it was cold. That’s what they needed — a snow storm to blow in, he thought glumly. He stood by the tent and listened. He didn’t hear anything.
And he should, he thought suddenly. He should hear whoever was on guard. Maybe even Rand starting breakfast. More sounds from the tents. There was nothing. He looked over at the vehicles. The one he’d drove into camp last night was gone.
“Son of a bitch,” he said softly. That was probably what had awoken him, the vehicle leaving. Angie came out of the tent and stood beside him.
“What?” she said.
“They left us,” he said grimly. He stood still, surveying the camp. There was a sound behind him and he turned, his pistol pointed and ready.
“Easy,” Rand said. “I argued. And I’ve got a knot on my head to show for it.”
“What happened?” Mac asked. He dropped the pistol down; it wouldn’t take but a moment for him to bring it back up, and Rand knew it.
“That handheld? Norton started talking until Ken finally answered. Norton promised him safe passage out with all the clients and the wounded if he’d leave you behind. Both of you. To be honest, I didn’t have much of a problem leaving you behind for the sake of the clients, but leaving Angie behind? That bothered me, and Ken too. But Ken can make hard choices, and he has two dead, five wounded, and a bunch of worthless clients. Craig was grim. But he could do the math too. Norton promised a second rig down at the fork in the road — so, they hot-wired the vehicle — and moved out. About 30 minutes ago. I turned away from Ken and Craig to go wake you up, and Craig gave me a nice love-tap. And so, I’m still here.”
“Key was in my pack,” Mac said slowly. Fuck. They’d taken his gun that was stashed inside and left the rest of the pack sitting outside the tent next to his boots. He glanced over. They were still there. Be a bitch of a walk if they weren’t.
“Yup,” Rand said. “My argument was that given the offer, you’d probably volunteer to stay behind if they took Angie to safety. But Craig didn’t want to risk it. I can understand. He’s got a business to run, and he’s got these crazy clients. And a dead client still out there to explain at some point. Ken? He’ll get them out and come back. I’d bet my life on it.”
“You probably have,” Mac said. He sighed. “They’ll come for us. And we should be elsewhere when they do. But damn, man, is there any chance of some food?”
Rand snorted. “They didn’t take anything but people and weapons, so one thing we’ve got is food.”
“They take the C-4?” Mac said as he followed Rand toward the kitchen area. He glanced at Angie. She looked pale. Tired, dark circles under eyes. But she was composed. No hysterics.
“Yeah.”
“Must be a full vehicle,” Mac observed and took the sandwich Rand handed him. He handed another to Angie. She started to refuse it, but Mac said quietly, “Eat. You’ll need the energy.”
“And I’m making coffee,” Rand said. “I need coffee.”
Angie took a deep breath, then let it out. “I could use a cup,” she admitted.
“The wounded are in the vehicle,” Rand said as he set about making the coffee. “Mark was driving. Ken and Craig were scouting, and the rest were told to walk and stay with the vehicle.”
“Do you trust Norton’s word?” Mac asked.
“That’s another question,” Rand agreed. “I don’t see what benefit there is for Norton to let them go. Dead men tell no tales. So, conquer and divide? Ken didn’t disagree, but at least one of those men won’t make it if they don’t get him to a hospital.”
“It really depends on what Sensei is telling them,” Mac said. “He’s got some way to communicate with Norton. I wonder if Norton is still taking his orders?”
“No clue,” Rand said. He handed Angie her coffee, and leaned against the table to drink his. Mac rummaged in the ice chest for his Mountain Dew. The three of them considered the situation while they silently drank their morning jolt of caffeine.
“Options,” Mac said at last. “One, we start hiking out. Probably could even catch up with the car, and to be honest? I think they’re going to need us. Two, we say screw them, they’re on their own, and figure a different route out of here where Norton’s not likely to find us. Three? We take the fight to Norton. Much as I like that one, the odds aren’t in our favor. Four? We wait, hope that Ken sends help before Norton gets us. We could actually set up a pretty defendable camp here, or not far from here.”
“Can I vote for sit somewhere and cry?” Angie said with a laugh. She shook her head.
Rand pointed his finger at her, and nodded.
“Label that option 4b,” Mac said smiling. “Because I’m pretty sure staying here makes us sitting ducks, and we’ll be in tears.”
“Why is Norton doing this?” Angie asked. “Can we think about motivation for a minute? And is there any reasoning with him?”
Mac looked at Rand, raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? You know the man better than we do.”
Rand poured himself another cup of coffee and took a big gulp of it. “How much do you know about Norton?” he said at last.
“Former Skinhead, washed out of the Marines because he was terrorizing Latinos in San Diego, hates women who don’t know their place, and is a constitutionalist sheriff?” Mac said dryly. “Did I miss anything?”
“Bible-thumper, God-and-guns racist, and sociopath?” Angie added.
“The question is, is he crazy?” Mac watched Rand who was struggling with something. “And maybe the question is, Rand, who are you?” he added slowly.
“You didn’t miss much in your list about Norton,” Rand said. “And crazy? This crazy? I didn’t think so. It’s Sensei I’m after.”
“Homeland Security? Or FBI? You know an agent named Rebecca Nesbitt?”
Rand grinned. “I know Rebecca,” he admitted. “Smart woman. And I got a call on Thursday from her telling me to expect you. She was concerned, she said, and mentioned that things tended to go boom when you are involved. And yes, Agent Stan Warren is probably on a flight out here. Not that he has a chance of getting here in time for anything except for the cleanup.”
“Kind of his standard modus operandi,” Mac muttered. “Good to know that if we end up having to shoot our way through a dozen deputy reserves, we might have an FBI agent to help spin the story. So, are you FBI?”
“Yeah, Seattle office,” he said. “I do this with Ken to clear my head, you know? So, when this Sensei thing came up, it made sense to embed me as much as possible. Especially on these wilderness trips.”
“They’ve been hunting men?”
Rand was silent. “Can’t prove it,” he said finally, and he sounded frustrated about it. “But I’ve seen those bodies.”
“Well, you’re going to be able to prove it now,” Mac said, and he tossed the Mountain Dew can in the trash. “Because we’re the prey on this hunting trip.”
“Shit,” Rand said.
Mac rummaged through the remaining food and water bottles, then repacked his duffel pack. Found the first aid kit Ken had left behind. He looked at Angie. “You take water, your camera, and the gun,” he said. “You’ve got the compass. No matter what happens, you keep going, and get yourself out of here, are we clear?”
“Not without you,” she said.
“If necessary? Without me,” Mac said. “If we become separated? You keep going. If I get wounded? You keep going. You’re the best partner I could hope for, Angie, and I’m planning on both of us getting out of here, and then we can talk about ‘partners’ in a different context. But I need to know that you will do this. Don’t count me dead unless you see the body at the funeral. But you keep plowing ahead, no matter what happens. And I’ll find you. I swear.”
She looked at him, searching his face. Then she stood on her toes and kissed him. Wasn’t a peck on the cheek kiss, either. Mac responded to her urgency with an urgency of his own.
“Promise me,” he said, pulling back.
“Promise me you’ll stay alive if I do,” she counted.
“Count on it.”
She nodded. “OK, then,” she said. “If anything happens, I keep going, and get myself out of here.”
Mac looked at Rand who was wiping a smile off his face. Mac rolled his eyes. “You got an idea of how we might get out of here?”
“Maybe,” Rand said. “And I’ve got this.” He pulled out a brick of the C-4 and shrugged.
Mac grinned. “Planning a visit to their camp? Or luring them into this one?”
“I heard a boom last night,” Rand said laughing. “I suspect their breakfast was a cold one this morning. Don’t know how much damage you did, but apparently? A barbeque igniter will detonate the stuff just fine.”
Mac looked at their own barbeque. “Surely they wouldn’t use it?” he said slowly.
“For coffee?” Angie said.
Rand looked at the sky. “We need to move out,” he said. “It’s getting light enough they’ll be coming for us. And I’m not liking the feel of the morning.”
“Snow,” Mac said morosely. He’d take the desert heat any day. He didn’t like the cold and snow. And May was well within the snow season up here. What were they thinking bringing novices up this high into the mountains?
“The guy that almost made it out was headed toward the Park Center,” Rand said. “Someone took him out at the last minute and dumped him. But he came close. I think we go that way.”
Mac nodded. He frowned. “We’re looking at this wrong,” he said slowly. They looked at him. “We’re looking at it as if we are the prey. And I’ve never gotten anywhere thinking like that.”
Angie and Rand just watched him. He opened up the back of his 4-Runner, and pulled out the spare tire. He stood there, studying the contents of his gun locker, until curiosity got the best of Angie and Rand and they came over to look.
“Jesus, Mac,” Rand exclaimed. “You always have this? You ever get rear-ended it’s all over.”
“Reinforced,” Mac said absently. “They’re safer than they’d be in any gun safe. Hell, it is a gun safe.”
“You could take over a third-world country with this type of arsenal,” Rand said.
Mac nodded and smiled. Probably. He’d taken over an Army-of-God-fortified isolationist community last fall with it. “Or a sheriff posse?”
Rand grinned.
“So, think like a cop, not a survivalist,” Mac said. “What do you need when we get back to the city to prosecute all of these idiots?”
Rand considered that. “I need Norton,” he said. “And I need to know who the idiots are. I need evidence of what they’ve done, and that means the dead bodies, and ideally the weapons that killed them.”
Then he looked at Mac. “So, think like a reporter, not a Marine,” Rand challenged him back. “What do you need?”
Mac looked at Angie. Then Rand did too. “What?” she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“The most important thing we need to get out of here is Angie and her camera,” Mac said slowly.
Rand slowly nodded in agreement. “And the way we get out of here, Marine?” he asked.
Mac smiled. It made Rand want to back up slowly. “We take their camp, of course,” he said. “And we play capture the flag.”
“What’s the flag?” Rand asked.
“Norton.”
Rand started to smile. “Photographed,” he added. “Angie, did you happen to take a picture of Cleve when you found him?”
She nodded.
“And the other injured?”
“That’s what I do,” she replied. “Whatever happens? I shoot it. Especially the bad shit. I can think about it — feel bad about it — later. But I photograph what happens.”
Rand was smiling. Mac looked at him. “And she sees a lot more than people realize,” Mac added.
Rand nodded. “Do we have time to circle around and photograph the guy that died in Ken’s group?”
Mac shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Once you realize that the way out of here isn’t a long hike where they kill and toss you in the ravine? We’ve got all day.”
Rand laughed. “Now if you can figure out who Sensei is? This won’t be as big a clusterfuck as I thought it was.”
“Oh, I plan to make it a big clusterfuck,” Mac reassured him. He also had a growing suspicion about Sensei. He set that aside for when he got out of here. “And I plan to let Angie photograph it all. It will be glorious.”
He rummaged through his weapon stash and came up with detonators. He handed them to Rand.
Rand laughed.
Angie shook her head. “Do we have time for another cup of coffee then?”
“Sure,” Rand said. “We’ve got time for another pot. And bacon and eggs even.”
“I could go for a hot breakfast,” Mac admitted. “But the situation still isn’t dire enough to make me drink coffee.”
Angie frowned at him. “What do you have against coffee, anyway?”
“Bad coffee is a Marine staple,” Mac said morosely. “When you’re on base, or any camp set up, the coffee pot goes up first, I swear to God. And I don’t know how they do it, but they can make day-old coffee from the first cup. When you’re in the field? You get a packet of instant Nescafe in your MRE. People do all kinds of things to make that shit palatable. Use it as chewing tobacco to get the caffeine hit. Mix it with the sugar and cocoa and instant milk to get a mocha drink that can gag a person — but damn, you got a hit from the caffeine, cocoa and sugar all at once.
“It’s not the taste,” he continued. “It’s the smell. I smell that shit, and I’m back in a field camp in Afghanistan.”
Rand was fixing the breakfast he promised as he listened to Mac. “And the Mountain Dew? Don’t get many Mountain Dew fans out here.”
“No, it’s a Midwest and South hillbilly drink,” Mac agreed. “Picked up the habit from one of my team members who came from Louisiana. He always found some somehow. As an alternative to coffee? More sugar and more caffeine that a Coke. Got me hooked on it.”
Mac didn’t add, he’d gotten hooked on it when he was sobering up. One barfight too many — and even the Marine Corps was looking at him skeptically. So, he started doing AA and all that shit. And what he found was that he craved sugar after that. And Danny gave him a Mountain Dew and said, “Drink.” And he kept feeding Mac Mountain Dew every time the craving for alcohol or sugar got to be too much.
He was glad to be sober. He missed Danny, even though the man could talk a person to madness. And somehow Mountain Dew was a part of all of that. It was his lifeline to sobriety. And a fond remembrance of a friend.
Even if it did taste like maybe they had added gasoline for a punch. It still beat Nescafe any day.
“Eat,” Rand said, and sat a plate down in front of him. He dished up more food for Angie and for himself. Angie poured coffee, and she rummaged around in the storage tent and came back with a six-pack of Mountain Dew.
“One now, the rest put in your pack,” she said laughing.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mac said, as he ate the bacon and eggs. They tasted really good. Food always did when you knew you were headed into a firefight. He even had seconds.