After about an hour, when the last vestiges of my sandwich and coffee were gone, I decided to head back to town to ask around at the store or the church for Haber.
I was almost to the part of the gravel drive where I’d thought I was on a hiking path when I saw the truck. It was a late-model red Nissan Titan pickup, sitting kind of cockeyed in the road with its front end tucked into the brush.
As I pulled closer, I could see a guy crouching by the Titan’s rear driver’s-side tire, working a lug wrench. His back was turned so I couldn’t see his face, but he was short and stocky, wearing a camo ball cap and a black pullover hoodie and jeans.
“Hey, you okay?” I said, as I stopped the car, opened the Chrysler’s door and got out. “You alright?”
“You move and I’ll blow your spine out,” said a voice off to my right.
I turned to my right and threw up my hands. Because on the hill a little ways up beside my car, a big dude in a balaclava and sunglasses was casually pointing a rifle at my head. The rifle was an FN SCAR, a smooth, almost plastic-looking beige Belgian machine gun with a suppressor on it. The gun’s sight never moved an iota off my face as the big man easily hopped down onto the drive and came alongside my car.
Even with the gun pointed at me, I was actually more surprised than afraid. They were executives doing war game training or something, I decided. This was some kind of mistake.
“Whoa there, fellas. Everything’s fine. I’m a friendly. I’m a cop, okay? You can put the gun down. I’m investigating a case. I’m looking for a guy who might know something about it. Paul’s his name. Paul Haber. You know him?”
When I turned back toward the truck on my left, I saw the short guy suddenly right beside me. He was wearing a ski mask and sunglasses, too, and before I knew what was going on, he grabbed my shoulder and kicked my legs out from underneath me at the same time, and I landed hard enough on the gravel to knock the wind out of me.
Gasping for breath, I rolled to my right. My head banged off the hubcap of the Chrysler as I knelt up on all fours trying to get back on my feet. Then my Glock was ripped out of its holster as a big knee and a heavy weight landed on my neck like a sledgehammer, and I face-planted again back into the gravel.
I was stunned yet still trying to get up again when there was a familiar hollow clacking sound. My hands were ripped behind my back and a pair of handcuffs were ratcheted tight down on my wrists.
Still in shock, I heard an electronic beep.
“We just got him,” the big guy said into a Motorola. “I repeat. He’s under our control now. Over.”
There was some radio chatter reply, but I couldn’t hear what was being said. I was too busy lying there stunned as I felt my heart begin to double-time in my chest.
Just like that, in two seconds, I was out of it. Down and under the control of these two sons of bitches, out here in the middle of nowhere.
Just like that.
“Hey, you assholes, you better listen because I’m only going to tell you once,” I said, after taking a long hard minute to regain the last scrap of my composure. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m a cop. If you don’t get these cuffs off me right now, you two are going to prison for felony assault on a law enforcement officer. That’s ten years minimum.”
“Ah, why don’t we make it an even twenty, Officer,” the short, stocky guy said as a Red Wing boot smashed into my chest.
“You want me to go for thirty or forty?” he said, kneeling down next to me as I fought for breath.
His voice right beside my ear was deep, hard as nails.
“Or do you want to shut the hell up?” he said.
I’m in trouble here, I thought as I stared up at the two hard, faceless men. I rolled over and lay gasping on the dirt road, staring out at the endless columns of trees.
Big, big trouble.
Chapter 20
There was some more chatter on the radio, and they put me into the truck, facedown on the floor between the rear seat and the front buckets. Shortie sat in the front with my Glock in his hand, while the big guy got behind the wheel, turned the truck over, and reversed it out of the ditch.
A fresh flood of fear rushed through me then as I suddenly realized who the big guy was. He was the guy who killed Eardley, who followed him up to the roof of the hotel and chucked him off.
They’re going to kill me, too, I thought, as my fear began to morph into a full-on paralyzing terror.
I couldn’t let that happen. To let that happen was to die, I knew. Training, training, you’re trained. What to do in a situation like this? Don’t let your mind run away and hide on you, I heard some long-ago instructor say like he was right there in the truck with me. Breathe, focus, and still yourself.
As we bumped along the dirt and gravel mountain road, I did just that. I took a breath and concentrated on just the air, and the way it felt coming in and out of my chest. After two or three breaths I actually felt much better—back to sheer panic instead of out-of-body terrified.
To keep myself from freaking out again, I forced myself to think.