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THE DEVICE WAS A TRACKER, something that looked like it’d be used by Special Forces. Widow studied it. No trademarks. No logos. No “Made in China” label. No English writing or any other language for that matter. Nothing that’d help him to discern its origin.
Widow figured it was definitely some kind of covert ops equipment.
He looked at the boy and asked, “Where did you get this?”
The boy shrugged.
Widow said, “¿De dónde surgió desde?” But he wasn’t one hundred percent certain he was saying the right thing.
The boy said something else in Spanish, and Widow didn’t follow. Then the boy said, “Bad guy. Copper.”
Widow knew he was talking about a bad guy from the helicopter. He got up out of bed.
The little boy looked up at him with confused brown eyes.
Widow held out his hand gently, and the little boy grabbed it. He led the boy back through the police station, down the hall, and into the community center. They crept through, trying not to wake anyone. Widow peered around, studying faces, looking for Amita and her father. He heard voices in the distance.
He went outside and found them standing near the entrance. The freezing weather engulfed his face.
The boy had followed close behind him. He nudged him back inside and said, “Wait.”
Widow went back out into the cold.
Amita said, “You’re awake. Neither of us could sleep. Not that we should anyway with all that’s going on.”
Widow studied her face. She looked tired. Dark circles nestled under her eyes, and her makeup was practically gone at this point. Her father looked even worse. He needed sleep. His face was worn like old leather. He looked more like a great grandfather than a fifty-five-year-old father.
Widow said, “You two should’ve gotten some sleep.”
Amita said, “We’ll sleep tomorrow.” It reminded Widow of a guy he used to serve with, years ago. Another SEAL who always said, “I’ll sleep tomorrow.” Which was a spin on the phrase I’ll sleep when I’m dead, another common Navy SEAL motto. However, the guy who used to say that had died in a mission.
Widow always slept when he could.
He asked, “Do you see this?” He showed them the device. “I found the boy with it.”
The father said, “I saw him with it earlier. What is it?”
“It’s a tracker. He must’ve gotten it off one of the bad guys, probably the dead one. The charred guy. I think he picked it up while he was escaping. Then he collapsed in the cold, and the dead dog we found dragged him through the snow and down the mountain until it died from the gunshot wound. The bad guys must’ve been shooting at him.”
Amita asked, “Why would they shoot at a little boy?”
“I don’t think they were trying to kill him. I think maybe they were trying to recover him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But there’s a lot more going on here than a canister of Ebola.”
“What else is going on?”
Widow said, “Something to do with this boy. He’s from Mexico—we can safely assume that—but how did he get here?”
Red Cloud asked, “Where are his parents?”
Amita shrugged.
“We need to find Jacobs,” Widow said. “He holds the answers.”
Amita asked, “Is he alive?”
“We haven’t found him dead. Maybe he was in the fire, but maybe not. If he didn’t die, and the bad guys didn’t get what they wanted, then they’ll be back. The boy picked up this tracker not knowing what it was. It’s used by special forces teams to keep track of their guys. It’s usually sewn into their equipment. Like a rucksack. For keeping tabs on them.
“The kid picked it up. It’s not meant to track him, so they may not be looking at it. But they might, and that means they know where he is. Or they will—soon.”
Widow dropped the tracker to the ground and stomped on it hard. Once. Twice. Three times. It shattered into tiny fragments and buried down into the snow.
He said, “We’d better get ready. This storm is slowing down. We may have visitors. Amita, you’d better check to see if the FBI responded on that print. We need to know who we’re dealing with. And call them. And call the state police. We’ll need some backup.”
“What about the CIA?”
“They aren’t going to help us. But I’ll call Shepard anyway. Can’t hurt to ask.”
Widow pulled out the sat phone and dialed and let it ring and ring.
Shepard answered, “Widow, have you found him yet?”
“I don’t know where the hell you got your intel from, but it’s a joke.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We got some problems up here. But I can tell you that there’s no Indian terrorist group. There’s a much bigger threat here.”
“What?”
“There’s an outside hostile force.”
Shepard said, “What are you talking about?”
“If you want to get the canister of Ebola back, then you need to quarantine the reservation and send in the National Guard. We’ve got a well-armed force coming up here from out there.”
“What?” Shepard asked again.
“Someone attacked Jacobs at a nearby house and blew it up. And Shepard, they’ve got some impressive firearms. I found a Heckler and Koch G36.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
Widow said, “And better than that; they’ve also got a military chopper. Loaded with a machine gun.”
“Military chopper? You sure?”
“About as sure as I can be. I saw the tracks from the landing gear. And they used a Vulcan machine gun to destroy a house.”
Shepard repeated, “You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. There were shell casings from the bullets all over the ground.”
Silence again.
Shepard said, “This is serious. We’ll get you out of there. You’re right—this situation is too big for us. We’ll have to involve the governor and the National Guard. Just stay put for now. I’ll get back to you.”
Then Shepard clicked off, and the line went dead.
Widow stared at the phone and slipped it into his pocket. Amita had walked away while he was on the call. He looked at the chief.
Red Cloud said, “This Shepard doesn’t seem trustworthy.”
“The CIA never is.”
“What do you think?”
Widow said, “I don’t know yet. But we can’t wait. We need to find Jacobs. He’ll know something.”
Amita came back out of the community center, holding a fax in her hand. She showed it to them. Half of the page was blank like it had gotten cut off in the transmission.
Red Cloud said, “I’m going to head back in. I left my radio inside, charging.”
Widow nodded, and they watched him walk back.
Amita turned back to Widow and said, “The phone lines went down right in the middle of receiving. The Internet is out, too. Right now, your sat phone is the only working communicator.”
“And that’ll only last as long as the weather holds up,” Widow said.
“You have to see what the FBI sent about this guy. There’s something seriously wrong with it.”
Widow looked at it. The guy’s name was Cory Philips. There was all the basic background Widow had expected—place of birth, age, college, military service, Special Forces training, tours in Iraq, and redacted missions, and so on.
The one thing that was unusual was that Cory Philips had died two years ago in a helicopter crash.