Dangerous Ground, no. 1 Read online

  Finally, Will said, “Is that really what you think or is this some kind of — I don’t know. An ultimatum?”

  Taylor searched inside himself. Tried to put aside his own feelings and figure out what he expected of Will. He was forced to conclude that he did not expect anything. He had always understood that Will did not want to get involved — not with his partner — not at the expense of their team. If they had met under other circumstances…well, probably not then, either, because Will was convinced that Taylor was incapable of a relationship that lasted longer than fifteen minutes. Will just did not believe that Taylor was his type, and who would know better? So Taylor knew what he wanted was unrealistic. It was really out of curiosity that he asked, “If it was an ultimatum, what would your answer be?”

  Will groaned, put his head in his hands. “What kind of fucking question is that?” Lowering his hands, he sighed. It was a long, weary sound. “I don’t know. Maybe you are right. I was hoping this afternoon might settle some things…”

  “Did it settle something for you?” Taylor asked, and he couldn’t help the note that crept into his voice because he thought if Will said yes he was totally bullshitting himself. It had been crazy, but it had also been fantastic between them, and Taylor was certainly experienced enough to know the feelings hadn’t been all on his side.

  But Will didn’t answer that. He just said, “If you still feel like…you want out…”

  He opened his mouth to deny that it was what he wanted, but that was what it amounted to. As painful as the idea of breaking the partnership was, he couldn’t go on working side by side with Will feeling the way he did. The idea of watching the David Bradleys come and go in Will’s life, or worse, watching Will settle down with someone like David Bradley — who, in fairness, was a perfectly decent guy — was more than he could take.

  It wasn’t reasonable or logical on his part, but…

  Maybe he was as self-centered and egotistical as Will thought. As embarrassing as that was to admit.

  And maybe fucking in a hot tub had settled everything nicely for Will, but it had just confirmed for Taylor what he already knew. He wasn’t getting over this anytime soon.

  He said carefully, “This way we walk away friends. Which matters to me. A lot. The way we were going… I don’t know that we would.”

  The truth of that was in Will’s eyes. After a very long moment, he nodded.

  Which settled that.

  They moved about the camp getting ready for the night, and every time Taylor looked at Will’s closed expression his chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with cold air in his healing lung.

  “Did you really want the turkey tetrazzini?” Will asked politely when the water had boiled.

  “I was just kidding,” Taylor returned, equally polite.

  They ate beef stew in silence. They had cleared the air, but there didn’t seem to be much to say any more. Taylor couldn’t even work up enough enthusiasm to discuss their dead hijacker and casino heist.

  The stars came out: incredibly huge and bright in the black skies. It got colder. They were both tired, and Taylor knew he wasn’t alone in not wanting to squeeze into that little tent and lie there listening to each other pretend to sleep.

  “Anything else you want out of my pack?” Will asked finally. “Toothpaste? Soap? Anything else to eat?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I guess I’ll bear bag everything.”

  Taylor nodded, but Will made no move to get up and hang the food and items that might attract bears. He poked the campfire with a stick, his grim face half in shadow, half in rosy light. He could have been a million miles away, sitting on that distant pockmarked moon rising over the serrated tips of the mountains.

  Taylor shivered — and for once Will didn’t notice. Taylor rose. Will didn’t look up. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. Instead, he went to get his jacket out of the tent. It was colder tonight, and the air was damp. The night air, spicy with pines and wood smoke, smelled like more rain was on the way. Looking at their sleeping bags lying there side by side gave him a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  His SIG was lying on his bag, and he remembered his joke about using it to keep Will back.

  Shrugging on his jacket, Taylor crawled back out of the tent.

  Will was watching him. He said suddenly, “Look, Taylor. What if we…tried to…I don’t know. Take it one day at a time?”

  He looked like a stranger, bearded, his eyes shining with a mystery emotion. He looked intense, urgent.

  Bushes to the side of Taylor rustled, and something twittering flew up and winged away into the night. When he looked back, Will was on his feet — waiting for his answer, apparently. He wasn’t even sure what the question was.

  As he stared, Will shrugged. Said offhandedly, “We could try, right? It would be worth trying.”

  Taylor opened his mouth to ask what they were going to try, exactly, but there was motion to his left and — and then to the right — and a couple of shadows detached themselves from the darkness and walked into the ring of campfire light.

  Chapter Five

  There were three of them. Two men and a woman — although it took Taylor a moment to identify her as such beneath the shapeless clothing. They wore hunting caps, heavy plaid jackets, and they carried rifles. Taylor didn’t know much about it, but he was pretty sure hunting was not allowed in a national park.

  He barely caught himself from reaching for his missing shoulder holster, instead throwing Will a look, and what he read in Will’s face confirmed that they were in trouble — even before the trio moved across the open space of the campsite, cutting him off from his partner.

  “Evening,” said one of the men. He was older than his companions, sixty or so, but he looked trim and fit — and very alert. “We saw your campfire.”

  The second man was tall, six-three, maybe six-four. Big. He had long blond curls beneath the duck-billed hunting cap. He stepped toward Taylor, staring at his boots.

  “It’s him. I’m bettin’ it’s him.”

  “You mind?” the older man said to Taylor.

  “Do I mind what?” Taylor asked warily.

  “The sole of your boot. Let’s see it.”

  Taylor thought of the .357 SIG lying on his sleeping bag in the tent. Three short steps away.

  But they’d still be outgunned. Will’s 9mm was probably in his backpack, and although these were close quarters for rifles, all three were handling their weapons with the ease of long practice. Taylor counted two suppressed .22 rifles and one semiautomatic with a scope.

  He lifted his leg, offering them a gander at the mountain grip outsole of his Adidas Badpak GTX, balancing for a moment in a way that felt way too Karate Kid for comfort.

  “It’s him!” the younger man exclaimed. “That’s the boot that made the tracks around the plane.”

  “Nice job, Cinderella,” Will said calmly, and Taylor understood that Will was letting him know that he understood the situation as Taylor did, that he was ready and waiting for opportunity to present itself.

  “Hands on the back of your head, son,” instructed the older man — clearly the leader — to Taylor. Taylor clasped his hands behind his head. “Search him, Stitch.”

  The woman kept her rifle trained on Will while the younger man yanked Taylor around, searching him roughly.

  “We’ve been tracking you two most of the day,” the older man said, watching this procedure closely. “You were making pretty good time until you decided to go skinny-dipping.”

  The woman laughed.

  At that moment Taylor was glad he couldn’t see Will’s face.

  “It’s not on him,” Stitch said, and he emphasized his disappointment by shoving Taylor down.

  Taylor rolled with it, coming up on his knee. Ready, but too far away to do anything — especially with a rifle trained on Will.

  “Well, well,” the older man said, observing this. “What circus did you escape fr
om?”

  “Where’s the money?” Stitch yelled, and he kicked at Taylor, who grabbed his foot and twisted, throwing the other man flat. He didn’t have opportunity to follow up, though, because the other two rifles cocked simultaneously — one pointed at him and one pointed at Will’s head.

  “Stitch, would you stop fooling around,” the older man said wearily. “Is he carrying any ID?”

  “Nothin’,” Stitch said, climbing to his feet. “Not a damn thing.” He reached down, fastening his massive hands in Taylor’s coat, dragging him up and punching him in the belly.

  Taylor doubled over, beef stew and bile rising in his throat. He managed to stay on his feet, although that was partly because Stitch still had hold of his jacket.

  Through the pain he heard the older man saying, “Here’s the problem. We believe you two have something that belongs to us.”

  “I don’t know what the hell it would be,” Will said, his voice tight with anger.

  “Put your hands behind your head! That plane that you walked round and around and climbed into and walked around some more yesterday? That plane was carrying something that belonged to us, and we want it back.”

  “If you mean the pilot, he’s right where you left him,” Taylor got out, muffled. His head was down so he didn’t see the punch that caught him under the ribs. He cried out, the pain catching him by surprise; it hurt much worse than the slug to the gut, thanks to his damaged ribs. He remembered the doctor’s warning about his healing lung being vulnerable to detaching from his rib cage again, and he thought he’d shut up for a bit. He coughed a couple of times and tried not to throw up.

  “Look,” Will said, “whatever you think —”

  “Son, you move another muscle and I’ll blow your goddamned head off,” the older man interrupted. “Search him.”

  The woman went quickly, clumsily through the layers of Will’s clothes. She pulled out a baggie — Will’s ID carefully water and weatherproofed — dangled it in the firelight, and then nearly dropped it.

  “Orrin,” she called.

  The older man backed up, still keeping his rifle trained on Will. Taylor was grateful for that unobstructed view of Will. Will was watching Orrin and the woman, but his eyes slid sideways, meeting Taylor’s, and just that went a long way to calming Taylor.

  The woman was hissing — like Will and Taylor shouldn’t hear this? — “He’s a cop. A fed. Special Agent Will Brandt. He’s with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.”

  “What the hell is Diplomatic Security?” Stitch asked. “They supposed to be diplomats or something?”

  “Yeah, we’re diplomats,” Taylor muttered, forgetting his resolve to keep his mouth shut.

  “Oh yeah, where’s your embassy?”

  “Oh, for chrissake,” the woman said. “Orrin.”

  Orrin said to Taylor, “You’re a fed too, I guess.”

  Taylor said nothing.

  “That’s quite a coincidence. Two federal agents just happen to be up here camping off-season?”

  “We’re on vacation,” Will said. “It’s a national park. A lot of people are camping here.”

  “Not here, they’re not.”

  Unfortunately, he was right about that.

  “Search the tent, Stitch.” Orrin trained his rifle on Taylor, who was still leaning over, hands braced on his thighs, practicing breathing.

  Feeling Will’s gaze, Taylor looked up again, tried to reassure him with his eyes that he was okay, and ready to back Will up on whatever he wanted to try.

  “So here’s how it shapes up,” Orrin said. “We want the money that was on the plane. We don’t have time or inclination to sweet talk it out of you. You understand? If you want to walk out of this alive, hand it over.”

  “There was no money on the plane,” Will said without hesitation.

  And Taylor thought Will had called it right. No matter what they said or did, these bandits had no intention of letting them walk away alive.

  “It’s your funeral.” Orrin nodded at the woman, who tightened her finger on the trigger. The blast tore through the night — drowning out Taylor’s scream of protest — but amazingly Will was standing there, shocked and furious but still unharmed.

  And Taylor, who had jumped forward instinctively, stopped dead, sick with relief — not even hearing Orrin’s grim, “Don’t do it, son!” Not noticing the semiautomatic aimed at him.

  Stitch was poking his head out of the tent. He held Taylor’s SIG. “Hey, look at this.” He smiled a big, goofy smile. “Sweet!” He shoved the pistol into his belt, and crawled out of the tent. “There’s nothing in there.”

  He picked up Will’s backpack and began to go through it.

  “The next one goes through your belly,” Orrin said to Will. “It’s your choice.”

  “There was no money,” Taylor said desperately, and his fear for Will lent his tone a certain credibility that sounded misleadingly like truth.

  “Maybe someone else took your money,” Will said. “You ever think about that?”

  Which was about as close as he could come to reminding them of their own missing confederate. Not that they would have forgotten, but they obviously weren’t convinced of the way the skyjacking had gone, so they were eliminating possibilities. Taylor could follow their logic. And of course, while they couldn’t know it, they were quite right about Will and himself — if for all the wrong reasons.

  But then, that was the confusing thing: how couldn’t they know it? How had they missed the body in the meadow? Or had they?

  Yes, they had to have missed it, because if they’d found the body, there wouldn’t be any question about who had that money — and Taylor knew they were uncertain. Not that their uncertainty would keep them from clipping either himself or Will — but he didn’t let himself dwell on that.

  If they’d been watching him and Will in the hot spring through binoculars they could have been miles back — still on the mountainside — which would have left them crossing that meadow in the dusk.

  That was the only thing that made sense because if they’d been close enough to see them in the meadow, they’d have surely seen them stashing Taylor’s pack in the bear box. And they wouldn’t all be enjoying this little get-together.

  “No money,” Stitch said disgustedly, pulling Will’s SIG P228 out of his backpack. He stuck that into his waistband too, and then turned the pack upside down, dumping all the packs of freeze-dried meals and desserts into the grass. “They got a helluva lotta food, that’s for sure.”

  Silence.

  “That is a lot of cheesecake,” Orrin drawled thoughtfully. “I think maybe I’m inclined to believe you,” he said to Taylor.

  And Taylor knew Orrin was going to kill them.

  Will must have drawn the same conclusion at the same instant. He said, “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think you can murder two federal officers in cold blood and walk away.”

  Orrin said, “You’d be surprised at what people walk away with — when they’re willing to take a few chances.”

  Now there was irony, and he hoped Will appreciated it; Taylor was pretty damn sure Orrin was a cop. The way he spoke, the way he handled himself: it all spelled law enforcement — maybe retired, given his age.

  Will opened his mouth, and Taylor knew he was going to try and use the money as a bargaining chip. Waste of time. Any way you looked at it, they didn’t need both him and Will, and they could ensure that the one left alive started talking just by blowing off a kneecap.

  Orrin confirmed this the next moment by saying coolly, “All the same, I think we’ll hang on to one of you for insurance. Just in case.”

  He looked from one to the other of them, and reading that expression, Taylor went for him. Because if it was coming down to him or Will, it had to be Will. Taylor couldn’t see Will die and go on living. It was that simple.

  But Stitch was there first, tackling him around the waist and throwing him back a few feet into the grass and weeds. Taylor landed aw
kwardly, only making it halfway to his feet before Stitch landed on him. It was like having a piano dropped on his chest, but it didn’t matter; he already knew this was a lost cause. The point was to make the choice easy for Orrin — and to go down fighting — but as he delivered a few satisfying punches to Stitch’s head, sending his hat flying, it occurred to Taylor to roll away from the campsite, to move toward the cliffside.

  It was more instinct than sense, but he rolled again, managing to flip Stitch with him, and Stitch kept the momentum going, slugging in raw fury at Taylor. Somewhere in the background — behind Stitch’s cursing and grunts — Taylor could hear Orrin shouting at them, and the woman’s shrill tones.

  And then a rifle butt slammed into his head, and all the fight drained out of him. Through the sick pain he could see Orrin standing over him, ready to strike again. And through the blur of tears and blood he saw Will edging forward, crowding the woman. She backed up, yelling for Orrin, bringing her rifle up to fire.

  Orrin stepped away and turned his own rifle back on Will, who stopped in his tracks.

  Stitch scrambled up, grabbed Taylor’s jacket collar, dragging him to his knees. The barrel of his gun knocked against Taylor’s face. He didn’t care, didn’t notice, all his focus on Orrin.

  Orrin stared at Will. It felt like forever before he nodded at Taylor. “Yeah. He’d be less trouble. Kill him.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make sense,” the woman objected. “Why don’t we kill him?” She nodded at Will, who stared stonily back at her.

  Orrin said reasonably, “Because if you kill him, you’ll have to kill pretty boy anyway. And we need to hang on to one of them in case we need a hostage.”

  Taylor heard his death sentence with something like relief, just making out the words over his own pained gulps for air and the distant thunder of the river crashing over the boulders down the mountainside behind them.

  The woman and Stitch began to debate Orrin’s decision. Taylor brought his head up for one last look at Will.

  “My God, do I have to do everything myself?” Orrin inquired rhetorically, and the bullet slammed into Taylor’s chest, left side — for a change — knocking him back. He went with it, letting himself topple right over the side of the mountain.