ran on a series of MTV extreme sports shows.
“Plenty of time for a campfire, Farrengalli,” Bowie said. “Don’t get your Lycra in a twist.”
Raintree walked on, wishing he were wearing moccasins instead of five-hundred-dollar custom boots.
Something was out here, he knew. Call it his medicine, his vision, his destiny. In this forest that was older than his people, older than all people, something waited.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Rook returned minutes, or maybe centuries, later and knelt at the lip of the opening. “Here. I found this at Goodall’s campsite.”
He tossed a rope into the hole and it bounced off Castle’s shoulder. The rope was about the thickness of a clothesline, but made of threaded nylon and strong. The Rook belayed the rope against a nearby tree trunk and said, “Get a grip, partner.”
Castle wrapped the rope a couple of times around his palms. At the first tug, the rope tightened and burned his flesh. Castle bit back a grunt of pain. Samford dug his heels into the ground and yanked again. This time Castle wriggled his waist and felt the soil and rocks loosen around him. He slid up a few inches, but more dirt trickled down from the raw slope above. Castle wasn’t sure whether Samford could pull him free before the whole rim of the opening collapsed.
His boot was hung. He kicked it free, wondering if a tree root had fallen in the hole before he had. He pictured his bootlaces tangled in the wormy white roots. Samford tugged the line again, and hot curls of pain peeled from Castle’s shoulder sockets. This time, he moved upward a good six inches, and now he could move his hips enough to wriggle free.
“You’re getting there, Rook,” Castle said. Above him, Samford tied off the distance he’d gained, then dug in again and leaned back. Castle eased upward, incongruously imagining he was being squirted from the womb. Only this womb was the cold belly of the Earth, and its progeny was thirty-five years old, a sick sack of blood, bone, and skin. Not old enough yet for day diapers, too young to walk on its own.
Castle felt himself drop as the rope suddenly went slack. He popped back into his previous position like a cork rammed into the neck of a wine bottle.
“Damn,” Samford said. “Did you see that?”
Castle’s breath stalled between his lungs and throat. “Goodall?”
“Some kind of giant bird.”
“Well, get me out of here and maybe we can roast its ass for dinner.”
Samford restored the tension on the rope and once again worked Castle free. A stone the size of a fist tumbled down and bounced off Castle’s chest, dinging the edge of a rib bone. Darkness had taken a bigger bite of the sky, and the air seemed heavier with the deepening night. Castle shivered, wishing he was sitting around the campfire and talking shop with The Rook, going over Goodall’s assessment, planning strategy. Castle was experienced enough to know once a deal started going down, even the most carefully arranged plan gave way to improvisation. That meant instinct and cunning always trumped intelligence, which was probably why Goodall had managed to escape capture so long.
We’ll see about that, once I get my sorry ass out of this bottleneck.
Castle’s thighs emerged from the narrow gap that had attempted to suck him underground. He fought to find purchase with his feet, the rope cutting into the soft meat above his wrists. He got one knee out and lodged himself against the moist soil so he wouldn’t slip back into the hole.
“Keep an eye out for Goodall,” Castle said. “He might be waiting around to put another couple of scalps on his belt.”
“He’s gone,” Samford said. “I cleared the perimeter when I got the rope.”
“You’re the profile guy. You know he’s slicker than owl shit.”
“The assessment says he’s megalomaniacal but he’s not reckless. Hell, he’s a survivor. He’d rather laugh at us tomorrow than risk a showdown today. Every day he avoids capture is another day he achieves cult status in the eyes of his anarchist buddies.”
“They’re not anarchists anymore. We call them ‘terrorists,’ remember?”
“Yeah. That damned Bin Laden. He’s given a bad name to mass murderers. Now let’s get you out of there and regroup.”
Samford drew the line taut and Castle tried to draw his other leg from its subterranean snare. Castle thought of the title of an old Rod Stewart album, “Foot Loose and Fancy Free.” Rod, the rooster of rock, the scratchy-voiced poet of Castle’s teen years, going from Scotland plaid to peroxide blond in the blink of an eye. A generation later, Toby Keith gleefully spoke of putting a misogynistic boot in somebody’s ass. You kicked whatever way you could. But Castle couldn’t seem to kick the habit that clung to his shoe leather with all the invisible tenacity of a mutant octopus to an anchor.
“I’m hung up,” Castle said. He was more annoyed than worried, though he desperately wanted to be out of the hole by full dark. Crickets and other night insects had started their sonorous clicking and chirruping, a sound that was comforting when heard from the back porch, but oddly disturbing in the deep wilderness. Castle could probably reach his Glock if needed, but he’d have to free his right hand first.
“Let me tie off and maybe I can slide down and help.” Samford’s voice had grown softer, perhaps sensing his words would carry in the relative stillness of the forest. To Goodall’s ragged, off-center ears.
“You’ll bring a load of loose dirt down on the way. Better let me work it out myself.”
“Okay. I’ll do a quick reconnaissance.”
The Rook was Behavioral Sciences all the way, and though he’d undergone the same new agent training as Castle, he was not HRT-tested. Sure, he’d been in a talk-through in a couple of crisis situations, had worked mop-up on serial killer cases, and put in a couple of years twiddling his thumbs in the Department of Homeland Security’s clownfest. But he’d never drawn fire and had never pulled the trigger.
Castle, a SEALs vet, had gained a grudging respect for The Rook over the last few weeks. Enough respect that he didn’t want his partner to face Goodall alone. If The Rook died because Castle was nailed like a cheerleader on prom night, tripped up by his own stupid feet and carelessness, then it would add yet another shingle to Castle’s spot on the Quantico Wall of Shame. “I’ll be free in a second,” Castle said. “I’m not sure everything works right, so you better stick around.”
“I thought you said you weren’t hurt.”
“What did you expect me to say?”
“That you love me.”
“Hey, pard, this ain’t Brokeback Mountain.”
“Man, you’ve got no sense of humor anymore.”
“My second wife took it in the divorce settlement.”
“Okay, take your time. Goodall’s long gone, I’m telling you. Fits the assessment. Live to fight again another day.”
“Or to get another headline. Three hundred and twenty days and counting. Or is it twenty-one? I lost track.”
Castle rotated his ankle. Though more loose dirt and rocks had fallen in his attempt to scramble up the bank, there was space around his thigh. He couldn’t see into the inky darkness below. Whatever had snagged his boot still clung to it. He thought he heard faint scratching sounds against the leather heel.
The night plays strange tricks on the mind. Even the cavemen knew that. Why else would they huddle around the fire and tell stories? Because the monsters in their heads were worse than the real monsters outside, the ones that only wanted to eat them.
Castle flashed to one of his childhood memories, one so persistent it had outlasted the face of the first girl he’d ever kissed, the aluminum ding of his first tee-ball base hit, the smell of popcorn at the Titusville drive-in theater. The thing under the bed that scratched the dusty mattress frame, claw tips working idly back and forth. The thing, with arms as long as fire hoses. The thing, breath rasping as it chuckled, sausage-chub tongue playing over sharp, yellow teeth. The kind of teeth that ate little boys for a midnight snack, once those arms reached up,
