Plus, he wasn’t sure he could have typed the entire message on the tiny keyboard without his fingers cramping.
Gundersson sat on a stump by the small ring of stones in which he’d built a fire of dry wood to minimize smoke. His camp was half a mile inside the Unegama National Wilderness Area, in a clearing that hadn’t seen a chainsaw for nearly a century. His ankle throbbed after the long hike from the cabin, but it wasn’t broken or he’d never have made it that far.
Roland and Wendy hadn’t invited him to stay, not that he’d expected it. After all, having a federal agent walk out of the woods would make anybody a little wary, and if Roland’s story was true, the couple had every reason to distrust him.
“What do you have?” Harding asked from his cramped NCS office in DC, sounding like his acid reflux was acting up.
“This is more than just busywork. Another agency is investigating, and the targets have received threats. Apparently it’s connected to some secret drug experiment involving Burchfield.”
“Did you say Burchfield? The senator?”
“Might be a smear job, right? But these guys swear Burchfield was behind several murders and a cover-up last year. Apparently Burchfield and CRO Pharmaceuticals were backing development of a drug that helped suppress memory.”
“Shit, that’s already been invented. It’s called scotch.”
The forest was settling into the first phase of dusk, with the birds falling quiet and a few insects issuing their high-pitched trills. Faint stars appeared through openings in the bright green canopy, and the dying sun cast a pinkish light over the clouds. It didn’t look like rain, which relieved Gundersson, because he’d packed lightly and would have had to wear his poncho inside his tent.
“Doyle apparently got some e-mails with NCS as the sender. I told him I was with the CIA in order to get on his good side. I told him we were looking out for rogue elements in the NCS. Playing on all the interagency suspicion.”
“A double agent within the same agency. Did he fall for it?”
“Enough. He opened up, but I don’t know how much of it to believe.”
Gundersson related Doyle’s tale of how the couple and four of their college friends had been involved in a fear-response experiment eleven years earlier, where one of them had died. Then, last year, Sebastian Briggs had tried to recreate the experiment, testing a drug he’d discovered that caused the brain to shed its inhibitions and revert to primal functioning. According to Doyle, Burchfield was there when Briggs was killed, but nobody remembered what happened because Briggs had a different drug that caused short-term amnesia.
“That sounds like the biggest heap of steaming donkey malarkey I’ve heard since the WikiLeaks mess,” Harding said in response. “Even if half of it is true, I’d guess Doyle was using that ‘amnesia’ card as an out.”
“I don’t know, Chief. These people don’t really have anything to gain by lying. If they were players, why would they be hiding out in a hillbilly hollow?”
“I ran a background on Sebastian Briggs and not a whole lot comes up. That first experiment is on the books, and one of the subjects died, but it was apparently unconnected. Briggs was bounced from the UNC faculty, though, and he worked the fringe with some drug companies as a researcher, and then a whole lot of nothing. It’s like the last five years of his life were erased.”
“Big surprise. But there’s one red flag.”
“What?” Harding was growing impatient, annoyed that the job had gotten bigger and more complex than he’d counted on.
“No fake background was filled in for the last five years of Briggs’s life. People who wipe out files usually put in some vanilla dates and places so the hole isn’t so obvious.”
“So whoever is behind this is either new to the game or is so goddamned big that they don’t care who finds out.”
Gundersson propped his sore ankle on a stone so it could cool. “And if somebody’s playing connect-the-dots and wants to add more blank pages to the Seethe and Halcyon story, it’s only a matter of time before they show up here.”
“Or maybe they’re already there.”
The comment caused Gundersson to look around the forest, which already seemed wild and primal and threatening. “I better sign off, Chief. It’s not so easy to recharge a cell phone by rubbing two sticks together.”
“Okay. I’ll dig from this end and find out who set up this mission. Be careful out there.”
Right.
Gundersson hobbled to his tent and secured the Sectera in his pack, checking the clip in his Glock. He had been so engrossed in playing predator that he hadn’t considered someone might be watching him watch them.
He made his way back to the fire. Even though it was April, the night was cool, with mist hanging low in the trees. Every snapping twig or flapping limb evoked images of a hunter creeping up on his camp.
He’d chosen a level clearing, preferring it to the rocky clefts and granite recesses on the ridge, thinking he might have to move quickly. Now he wondered if he’d left himself vulnerable, because he’d be exposed to anyone watching from the forest. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Just the fox. Maybe even a black bear, but my food’s suspended in a plastic sack. Nothing here to attract any nocturnal creatures.
But the shuffle of moist leaves just beyond the perimeter of the clearing indicated something big. Gundersson forced himself to remain casual. If a double agent was involved, or someone wanting Roland and Wendy all to themselves, then Gundersson would likely be already dead. One shot with a silencer and no one would be the wiser until Harding made his scheduled call the following night.
The NCS was clustered inside CIA headquarters four hundred miles to the north, but it might as well have been a million light-years. Harding would have to watch his step researching the CIA’s involvement, since the agencies maintained an uneasy and oddly competitive relationship despite fulfilling the same basic mission. Harding had his own neck to protect. Gundersson was on his own.
He sat back down by the fire, keenly aware of the Glock thrust in the pocket of his windbreaker. He put his hands in his pockets, as if he were cold, and then realized that would look suspicious, since the fire was a better source of heat. He rubbed his hands over the flames, realizing how difficult it was to keep such a mundane gesture casual when you had to force it.
Depp and DiCaprio, you officially have my admiration for a change.
But good old Leo wouldn’t sit there with a bull’s-eye on his back. The script would tell him to do something cool like roll to the ground and come up firing toward the noise, squeezing off a chest-high line of lead that would result in a cry of pain.
Except he had no idea who was stalking him. It could be a real hunter, someone poaching deer out of season, or even a lost hiker. And killing the guilty was one thing. Killing the innocent was a lot harder to cover up, even for the National Clandestine Service, whose core mission was still officially classified. If Gundersson was the one who ended up tipping off the world that the NCS was involved in domestic actions, Harding would have him crucified, and the deputy director would make sure the nails stayed in place until the carcass rotted.
Gundersson opened the tin of pork and beans he’d warmed on a rock. He had no appetite but forced himself to eat a bite anyway. The syrupy odor immediately masked all the earthy, green smells of the woods.
He heard another clumsy footfall, a little closer and to the left, and he forced himself not to turn his head. He chewed slowly, staring into the fire, calculating distance.
Maybe I should casually stand up and saunter into the bushes as if I’m taking a leak. Except, if I assumed no one was around, I’d whip it out right here, wouldn’t I?
Plus, I can’t very well saunter when my fucking foot is about to fall off.
A night bird let out a piercing call, and it sounded a lot like a secret signal someone might make. Maybe there were two of them in the woods, closing in on him and cutting off any chance of escape.
The noise came again, and Gundersson decided it couldn’t be a pro. Nobody with any level of training would be so careless.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the thin, fleeting flicker of a penlight beam. His stalker didn’t have night-vision goggles, either.
Gundersson tossed the sardine can into the fire, the oil causing it to hiss and spit. He leaned back and
