doesn’t deliver Stenko within twenty-four hours and make that incident this morning peripheral to the big arrest, he’ll look like an idiot. We’ll all look like idiots.”
“But if you find him,” Joe said, “it may turn out to be Portenson’s ticket out of here.”
“That’s what he’s thinking,” Coon said. “You know how the bureaucracy works. He doesn’t even want to consider any other outcome at this point. Which brings us back to the situation at hand. Is there anything we can do to get that girl to talk?”
Joe said, “You’re starting to piss me off, Chuck. There’s an unknown teenage girl in there fighting for her life. As far as we know she’s completely innocent—maybe even a kidnap victim. My family’s been turned upside down. Show a little compassion, will you?”
Coon stopped pacing and looked Joe over. He said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. But I’m not sure what to do. Every minute Stenko is getting farther away and we don’t even know what direction.”
Joe leaned back against the brick wall of the hospital and bent a knee so his boot rested against it as well. “Are you searching the area of the crash?”
Coon said, “The sheriff has his people all over it. Your governor agreed to send troopers and DCI personnel. So far, no one’s reported anything.”
“Have they checked with all the local ranchers? Found out if they saw Stenko or Robert?”
“Yeah, all of that. Not all the ranchers were there, though, which leads us to believe that maybe the Stensons found a vehicle somewhere and took the owner with them.”
Joe whistled. He knew it would be a matter of time before someone local reported a missing person. But given the isolation of the area where residents might not see each other for days—or realize someone was not there—the delay could be fatal to the investigation.
“The pressure’s on,” Coon said needlessly, tossing the cigarette aside and digging for another. “When we left the crash scene with the injured girl, we might have lost our chance to get on top of Stenko and Robert. They couldn’t have gotten very far at that point. We might have been able to run them down.”
“You did the right thing,” Joe said. “You saved her life bringing her here.”
Coon snorted. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do me now.” Then, looking up, “I’m sorry I just said that. Really. You’re right, Joe. But you don’t have to be the one to tell Portenson what’s happened.”
“I’d like you to find them, too,” Joe said. “The only way we might be able to learn about who is up there in that hospital room is to find out from Stenko.”
“I might need a couple of drinks before I tell Portenson,” Coon said. “I’ve seen him blow up a couple of times and it’s not a good experience. I think my skin actually blistered the last time.”
Joe barely heard the last part of the sentence. He was recalling what Marybeth had asked him about Nate, and how he’d assured her Nate would be just fine. But would Nate, being Nate, seek sanctuary so he could hole up? Or would he . . .
Joe said, “Give me your cell phone. I might know how to find them.”
27
EARLIER THAT AFTERNOON, AS THE THUMPING BASS BEAT OF the FBI helicopter faded away into the sky miles behind him, Nate Romanowski crossed a shallow creek and saw that someone had been there before him.
He was halfway across the creek, hopping from one exposed river rock to another to keep his boots dry, when he noticed that the side of the basketball-sized rock he was about to step on was glistening with moisture. It had been splashed as if someone had stepped on it, slid off, and wetted it. He paused and looked carefully downstream and up the creek. The water was cold and clear if not more than four inches deep, and there were sandy pockets downstream from the cluster of river rocks he was using to cross. The creek was perfect habitat for brook trout. He
And in the mud on the far bank was a fresh footprint with chocolate-colored water swirling in the depression of a half-moon-shaped heel.
He bent down and studied it. The shoe that had made the print had a smooth sole and a squared-off toe. Not cowboy boots or Vibram hikers. A city shoe.
He stood up and rubbed his chin.
His intention before seeing the footprint was to continue down the creek until it joined a stream and to follow that stream to Sundance. He had an old friend in Sundance, a falconer and Special Forces operative he’d not seen in years but who would take him in.
But when he thought about it, and he looked at the moisture on the rock and the city shoe print in the mud, he changed his mind and his destination. And he checked the loads in his .454 Casull.
ONCE HE WAS ON THEM, their tracks became more glaring. Aspen leaves covering the trail were crushed into the ground by the prints, and spider’s webs that had been spun knee high had been breached and halved so that the threads seemed to reach across the opening in an effort to rejoin. There were two men ahead of him, all right. They were taking an old game trail south, mashing old and new deer tracks and mountain lion tracks. Different shoes; the square-toed hipster shoe that had left the track on the creek bank and a more traditional businessman’s shoe—worn heels, a rounded toe—that sank deeper into the ground because the wearer was heavier. The businessman’s stride was inconsistent, the right foot flaring off the game trail with regularity, while the square-toed shoe proceeded relentlessly down the middle of the trail.
Stenko and Robert.
As he tracked them and observed their path, Nate paused often to stop and listen. They weren’t that far ahead of him. But he heard no voices or sounds.
The tracks stopped at a rusted three-strand barbed-wire fence stapled to gnarled pitch wood posts. On the base of the nearest post there was a collection of old C-shaped staples on the ground in the grass, indicating that
