“It will be there for you,” Craig said. “They’ve been there since I moved in 10 years ago. Probably be there when I move out if you don’t come drink them.”
Mac laughed.
Chapter 26
Mac sorted through his pack with practiced speed and thoroughness. What did he need? Really need? Warmth. Rifle. Ammo. He hesitated. His reporter’s notebook. He could hear Janet’s voice asking him when he set out after Howard Parker: Are you a reporter or a Marine on this one? Still a good question, he conceded. For the next few hours, he was a Marine. But he had a life he wanted to come home to — as a reporter who might have found a girl to love. He wasn’t always going to be a Marine on a mission.
Just for the next few hours as he got this sorted out.
He snorted. And then he became the wolf — that was how Stan Warren described him, a wolf who had realized that the sheep had it pretty damn good with their regular meals and warm safe barn. He didn’t don sheep’s clothing to harm the sheep but to join them for a bit. But this was the price you paid for joining the sheep for three squares and a warm place to sleep: you started liking some of them. He liked Rand. Kevin here, even Tim and Craig. Ken? He respected the hell out of that old wolf.
And, of course, there was Angie. He thought briefly of her. Her smile, her abilities as a news photographer, the amazing way she’d kept pace with him yesterday. Was there any other way to make it down this mountain to her than this?
Well, he could probably abandon these people, slide out and make it down. It would be a damn cold hike, and it would be tough, but he could. But he wouldn’t be a person worth much if he did it. He would be someone else.
Because in all the things he’d done, both in the military and out, he’d never abandoned those entrusted into his care.
He’d never betrayed that trust and wouldn’t do so now.
These men were trusting him to get them out of this mess. And he would, or die along with them, because that was who he was.
And at the end of the day? He liked who he was.
So, he stuffed ammo into his pockets. Put his pistol in one. His knife was strapped to his leg above his boot. He drank a Mountain Dew, toasting Craig with it and making him laugh.
He gave Kevin his larger pack and told him to empty his small backpack — his son’s pack.
Kevin looked puzzled. “What are you going to do?”
“Watch,” he said. He pulled out the fluorescent strip and re-attached it to the small pack.
Kevin looked puzzled still, but he obediently filled the bigger pack with the few things he thought they’d need. Some food, warm layers, some first aid items. He went through the belongings of everyone there with a thoroughness that made Mac grin.
The kid had sand, he thought. He might recommend him to Ken.
Kevin shouldered the pack, picked up his own rifle, and nodded at Mac. Mac looked at the weapon. “Are you as bad a shot as he implied?” Mac asked.
“I’m not a bad shot at all,” he said. “I’ve been hunting deer and game in these mountains since I was a kid. I’m just not going to shoot at a human being.”
“Good enough,” Mac said. “And if it’s him or you? Or him or me?”
“I’ll shoot to scare him off,” Kevin said without hesitating, an indication he’d been thinking about it. He took a deep breath, let it out and then nodded. “And if that doesn’t work? Yeah, I’ll shoot to kill.”
Mac just nodded. He hoped Kevin wasn’t tested. Hoped if he was, that second shot was quick enough to save Mac’s life or his own. But the important part was the decision. The strategy. Now Kevin knew what he would do.
And so did Mac.
“OK, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to make a run for it the way we came,” Mac said. “And I’m going to hang this backpack on a tree limb for our shooter to get in some target practice. You are going to ground and become a black hump like these guys have been. Stay down. I’ll come for you.”
Kevin frowned, thought it through and nodded.
“Let’s go,” Mac said. He nodded at Craig, who nodded back.
And the two of them moved out at an easy lope, that allowed them to pick up their feet out of the snow that had accumulated. Mac thought there was probably six inches now. It would make it easy for him to track someone.
Unfortunately, it made him easy to be tracked. And if the shooter was smart enough to stay put? There’d be no tracks. Well, they could play what if games, or he could go find out. So, in a kind of a staggering lope, they pushed out of the copse of trees they’d been hiding in and made for another copse ahead. Mac had the backpack flung over his shoulder feeling much like he was wearing a bullseye on his back. A bulletproof one, he reminded himself. Maybe he should approach Janet about replacing reporter bags with school backpacks.
She’d probably make him wear a Spiderman one.
He barely heard the shot until it smashed into the tree ahead of him. Craig was right, he had a suppressor. Mac ran toward that tree, hung the backpack about where a man might crouch to look back and kept on moving. He caught up with Kevin. “Wait here,” he said, pushing him further out of sight behind a tree a bit further on. “Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
Kevin grinned.
Mac did his centering routine, and then he studied the tree the bullet had hit, figured the trajectory of where it must have come from. He headed uphill from his present location, angling
