Beck's Six

“Just covering all bases,” Roman told him. “When you’re done, head back down the other side of the mountain. There’s a stand of lodgepole pines that gives pretty good camouflage. We’ll meet up there. Acknowledge, please.”

Beck heard everyone’s “Roger that” and “Copy that.”

“One more thing,” he added. “Somehow we also have to figure out what’s loaded on those trucks that drove up here. It should give us an idea what their plans are.”

“Maybe. But if they’re planning something big,” Dean added, “how come no one has figured it out yet?”

“Hank, you there?”

Hank had tuned his own headphones to their frequency so he could keep up with what was going on.

“Patterson here.”

“Have you been able to come up with anything at all?”

“Still working on it. For a bunch of radical fuckers, these guys have perfected secrecy to an art. I’ve still got feelers out to all my contacts, and I’m still researching background on the Loyalists. And trying to figure out what their target could possibly be. There’s no big events that we can find, no special activities. We’ve asked for the National Guard to protect major government buildings.”

“I have a feeling we’re running out of time,” Beck said. “Heavy trucks carrying stuff up here under a cloak of secrecy isn’t a good thing.”

“No shit. Could be guns, explosives, whatever. Their first episode five years ago was an attack on a government compound and involved a multipronged attack. There were a series of them, all in the space of a year, but nothing since then. We can’t seem to identify a signature. And I want to know how these assholes have managed to stay so far under the radar that you need a backhoe to dig up info about them.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Beck told him.

“No kidding. Okay, let me get back to my contacts and remind them how urgent this is. Patterson out.”

Roman snapped a few more shots of the tracks on the shoulders—both of them—then mounted the Ducati. Beck swung on behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

“I’m going slow,” he told her, “so we can take a good look at both sides of the road and see if there’s anything more we can spot. I want to know if these tire tracks show up elsewhere, or did the truck or trucks only swerve in this place. And if so, why.”

“Okay. And I’ll keep my eyes peeled for anything else that seems the least bit off.”

Roman kept the bike in first gear, cruising slowly along the road, the two of them looking as casual as possible. Just two tourists enjoying the scenery. They hoped.

The road climbed steadily, winding itself around the mountain, the loops becoming narrower the higher up they went. In addition to the trees and other growth, the Wind River Mountains were home to the nation’s largest herd of bighorn sheep. It also provided habitat for elk, deer, moose, bear, wolves and wolverines, and many other animals. They hadn’t seen many animals where the training exercises were being held, but Beck figured it was because so many people were around. As they moved up the mountain, now and then she heard crashing sounds and spotted some of the bighorn sheep. She just hoped they didn’t run into a bear.

They had gone about a half a mile when Roman suddenly slowed the cycle even more and then swerved to the shoulder, pulling to a stop.

Beck dropped her legs and looked around, frowning.

“What is it?” she asked. “What do you see? Why did you stop?”

“Look.”

He pointed to the shoulder of the road, which was mostly dirt and grit that rimmed the highway and looked undisturbed, almost everywhere, except for a stretch of at least six feet that bore the imprint of tires, as if a vehicle had pulled over. The gravel was disturbed for a good stretch, as if someone had been searching for something.

“More marks, only these are a little different.”

“Someone stopped here,” he told her, “and was out here searching for something. But what? From the size of the tires, here and at the other spot, I’d have to say it was a damn big truck. What the hell could be so important to pull it over on the shoulder and take time looking for something?”

“I can’t imagine something would have fallen off the truck,” Beck commented. “If these guys have their shit together the way everyone you’ve been in contact with says they do, and they’re planning some big event, they’d make damn sure their trucks were well packed and secure.”

“That’s my thought,” he agreed.

“Whatever it was,” she told him, crouching down and studying the area, “it didn’t cover much space. Something small. It looks like someone was sifting through the dirt.”

“Yeah, but what the hell is it?”

Beck frowned, still focused on the area in front of her, then snapped her fingers.

“Cigarettes. It has to be cigarettes. Some jackass was smoking and tossed the butt out of the window.”

Roman nodded. “And they didn’t want to leave evidence that they were actually here. In case there was a reason for someone to retrieve and analyze the saliva on it.”

“Right,” Beck agreed. “That means something is going to happen that makes identifying these people very important. What do you want to bet Leslie stumbled into it. So they grabbed her. Maybe they plan to use her as insurance for something.”

“But what? Hank said they did some stuff with explosives five years ago, but mostly they were shooting at people. Maybe that’s their big deal this time, too. Blowing up a—” He stopped and stared at Beck looking up at him. “Damn it. Of course. That’s what they’ve got in mind. I bet they’re all in the national database, so they don’t want to leave any identifiers just in case.”