But here he was with people looking at him for a plan. Well, OK. What was the damn hill? He thought about that for a moment. What was it Rand had said he wanted? The bodies, the weapons that killed them, the men who used them, and Norton. Well they did have the bodies, but the men they had were probably the only two who were not involved in the shootings, and they didn’t have Norton.
They needed Norton.
Fine, Mac thought. He sorted through the weapons in the camp, looking for those that had been used. The others were moving through the camp, looking for lunch, he thought. He ignored them. Most of the weapons he found hadn’t been used, which made sense when he thought about it. The men out there looking for him would keep the weapons they liked best. Mac piled up all of the unused weapons as he found them. Ammo went into the back of the rig they were driving.
He glanced at the barbeque which was a warped mass of metal and laughed. But he had the real thing for the next time.
Angie handed him a sandwich. He thanked her and grinned. “You doing OK?”
She nodded, but she looked worried. “Mac, it’s getting colder. The snow is coming down harder and the wind is picking up. Why haven’t Norton and his men returned to camp?”
“I’m sure they’re on their way in,” he said slowly as he ate the sandwich. He looked around, there was one vehicle besides their own in camp.
“Kevin?” he called. “How many vehicles did you all come in?”
“Four,” he said.
Ken had one, they had one, one was here, and the fourth? Where was the fourth?
Norton had to have gone after Ken, Mac thought. He’d promised Ken an extra vehicle, right? So, had he driven down an empty car and intended to hike back? Or had he kept on going when the snow started?
Shit.
He tried to work through the math. There were 11 in the sheriff’s group including Norton. Two were with them. Four teams of two were out searching for him. And the sheriff? Where was he?
Rand was setting up the radio base unit that he’d been carrying. Mac looked at Kevin. “You sure this snow is going to continue?”
Kevin nodded. There was already a blanket of white on the ground. He looked worried. “We need to call them in, get started down the hill.”
“Kevin? In what vehicles?” Mac asked gently. Kevin opened his mouth to respond, then looked around and he paled.
“Even if we drop off the bodies here, we’ve got eight men out there plus the five of us and two vehicles. Seven in each?”
“Possible,” he said slowly. And he sighed. “Where’s the missing vehicle?”
“I think Norton took it down to Ken,” Mac said. He didn’t mention what he was afraid of from there.
Rand shook his head. “Something’s not right about all of this,” he said. “There’s no radio chatter.”
Mac frowned. He looked at Kevin and Tim. “Did the sheriff mandate radio silence?” he asked.
Kevin shrugged. “Kind of?” he said. “But with the snow? I would think he would be ordering them in.”
“We could have missed it,” Rand said.
Tim shook his head and pulled out a hand-held radio. “No, we would have heard it,” he said.
“You didn’t broadcast our conversation, did you?” Mac asked sharply.
Tim flushed. “Should have,” he admitted. “Didn’t think of it, though.”
Thank God, Mac thought. He’d hate to have to kill the clueless kid for having faith in the sheriff.
“I’m blowing the stockpile,” Mac said abruptly. “Load up your personal stuff. Rand, load ammo. I don’t want that to go, too, but I’m not about to leave all this weaponry behind for the enemy coming down behind us.”
“They’re not the enemy!” Tim protested. “They’re not.”
“They may not think they’re the bad guys,” Mac conceded. “But then neither does the Taliban.”
Even Rand blinked a bit at that, Mac noticed. He shrugged.
“Move it,” Mac ordered. He started piling up all the guns.
“What about our camp?” Angie asked as she helped him.
“It’s set,” he said tersely. If they left the stockpiles there alone? No biggie. If they decided to arm themselves? He wasn’t going to lose sleep over it. He did need to let Ken know when they reached him or he would go back to dismantle the camp and get an unwelcome surprise.
“All right people,” Mac said. “Let’s move out.”
Rand was carrying two more rifles toward the SUV. Mac raised an eyebrow. “They’ve been fired,” he said tersely.
Mac nodded. He walked down the road as far as he thought he could and still hit what he aimed at, and fired at the detonator. Rand was already driving away, when Mac threw himself into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
The stockpile went up with a boom at Mac’s well-placed shot. “Well, Rebecca warned me,” Rand muttered.
Mac grinned.
The five were silent after that. Contrary to common belief, it didn’t need to be really cold for it to snow. In fact, that was part of the problem. It was muddy and slick under the rapidly piling snow. The SUV kept slipping into the ruts, jerking the steering wheel in Rand’s grip. He slowed. Finally, he stopped, shifted it into four-wheel drive, got out and manually locked the hubs of the wheels. Kevin got out and locked hubs on his side of the vehicle. The two of them talked a minute. Mac thought they were discussing who would be the better driver. He wondered if he trusted Kevin enough to let him drive at all. Rand got back
