Blood Trail

see it so much as make out its blocky outline against the star-splashed horizon. Only one vehicle, which seems odd since there were at least four men at the airport. Where has the other vehicle gone?

Despite training the crosshairs of my scope on the windshield for what seems like half an hour, I can make out nothing, and no one, inside. If they are in there, and I’m sure they are because I hear voices, they are talking in the dark. I consider a blind shot but decide against it. I don’t do things blind. I strategize, I plan, then I act. I don’t just fire away if I don’t know who I’m shooting at. It’s the first ethos of hunting: know what you’re aiming at.

Sooner or later, someone from inside the pickup will open a door and trigger the dome light and I will see who is inside. Or turn on a light to look at a map.

But I can’t wait all night. I’ll be missed. This has to be done soon or I’ll have to abort and go back. But after taking this risk and having this opportunity, I don’t want to simply leave. I can’t just leave.

Ayman al-Zawahiri of al-Qaeda, whom I’ve studied, perfected a strategy he used for maximum casualties. In Nairobi, Kenya, he set off two bombs timed a minute or so apart in front of the American Embassy. The first bomb created minimal damage but the surprise and impact of it outside on the street made scores of people inside the embassy building rush to the windows to see what had just happened. When the second bomb went off, hundreds were killed or severely wounded by the shattered windows they had just exposed themselves to. He justified the action by saying that although he was sacrificing civilians and fellow Muslims, it was still for the greater good because it effectively unleashed more terror on the infidels.

It was a lesson learned.

And one to be applied.

THE FOREST had closed in and darkened around Joe and Lothar and they moved silently under the narrow canopy. They were on a game trail through the heavy brush. Lothar kept nodding, as if saying, yes, yes, yes, we’re getting closer. Ahead of them, through the dark timber, Joe could both see and sense an opening lit by moonlight. Before breaking through the brush into the meadow, Lothar stopped and looked over his shoulder at Joe, his eyes wide and excited.

“What?” Joe mouthed.

Without speaking, Lothar pointed just ahead of him at a space between two branches that opened into the meadow. At first, Joe couldn’t tell what Lothar was trying to show him.

Not until Joe crouched a bit and saw how the moon lit up the broken thread-thin strands of a spider’s web did he understand what Lothar was telling him. The strands undulated in the near-perfect stillness like algae in a stream. Which meant that there had been a web across the game trail that had been broken through just moments before. Joe felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and an involuntary chill swept through him that threatened to make his teeth chatter.

In the timber on the other side of the small meadow a twig snapped.

They were on him.

Lothar nodded his head and gestured toward the black stand of pine trees on the other side of the meadow while unslinging his automatic rifle. Lothar used the barrel of his weapon to indicate to Joe that he should move to the left. Using Lothar’s heel-first technique in the soft loam, Joe managed to distance himself about twenty feet without stepping on a branch or knocking his hat off in the heavy brush. As he moved he thumbed the safety off his shotgun and peered into the dark wall of trees, willing himself to see better.

The sharp voice came so suddenly he nearly dropped his shotgun.

“Drop your wapon! Drop it! Throw it out where I can see it!”

The man giving the command did so with authority that masked his exact position. Joe thought he heard a note of familiarity in the voice but couldn’t place it.

“Throw it out. Now!”

“Okay,” Lothar said. “Calm down, calm down.”

“Is there anyone with you?” the voice asked.

Joe thought, He doesn’t know I’m here. Would Lothar give him away?

“I’m coming out,” Lothar said, stepping from the brush into the meadow, the moon bathing him in shadowed blue. He held his AR- 15 loosely at his side. Joe could see Lothar’s face in the moonlight. He was grinning.

What was Lothar doing? Why didn’t he identify himself as an officer of the law? Should I, Joe asked himself, and give away my position ?

“I said drop it!” the voice bellowed, and Joe detected a note of panic. He also realized where he’d heard the voice before.

Joe shouted, “Lothar, no . . .”

But before Joe could finish, Lothar howled a piercing rebel yell and leaned back and swung his weapon up, pulling the trigger as he did so, the automatic fire ripping the fabric of the night wide open, the muzzle flashes strobing the trunks of the trees.

“No!” Joe screamed, his voice drowned out by Lothar’s AR-15 and by the single, deep-throated bark of a hunting rifle from the trees. Lothar’s head snapped forward from a single high-powered bullet that hit him in the throat above his body armor and he was thrown back, his weapon firing straight up into the night sky until it jumped out of his dead hand.

Joe kicked his legs back and let himself drop heavily to the ground, his shotgun out in front of him. The muzzle flashes of Lothar’s weapon were seared blue-green into his vision in a pyrotechnic afterimage and he could see nothing, and the racketing automatic fire had made his ears ring. For good measure, he rolled to his left, hoping there would be no more shots.

“It’s Joe Pickett!” he yelled out. “Hold your fire!”

From the shadows, Chris Urman, Frank’s nephew, said, “Oh my God.”

“I’m putting down my weapon,” Joe called, peering down the barrel.