“Interesting, but you don’t have any proof that I’m behind the Sensei account,” Peabody said.
Mac nodded. “So, you take us out to the ravine and we get shot at. Validates your story. But it really didn’t make sense. Angie mentioned it. She said you expected to get shot at that day. Which was an interesting observation. Who was out there, I wonder? One of the deputy reserves? Then Norton makes arrangements for me to go along. You didn’t know about that until the very end. And it pissed you off. But then you thought it might be the solution to Norton’s desire to take over.”
“Norton is an idiot,” Peabody said. “What was he thinking taking in some reserves and attacking you guys like that?”
“He was thinking that Sensei wanted to see more of a war games scenario rather than a manhunt like he and Malloy had been doing,” Mac answered. “That’s what he told me. It’s what he’s telling the FBI. He’d planned to go along on the trip. He wanted to be there in the camp when I realized Angie and I were going to be the next ones hunted. But you changed the game. And then a couple of people ended up dead. The wrong people. And I wouldn’t let my team fight back against deputy reserves. We’d be dead or in prison if we did, and I wasn’t going there. Norton was pissed that I wouldn’t fight back. So, Norton decided a manhunt was still possible, and cut a deal with Ken Bryson. He can get his people out if he’s willing to leave me and Angie behind.”
“And how did you feel about Bryson when he did it?” Peabody asked.
Mac shrugged. “If he’d asked me, I would have told him to do it. Might have tried to get Angie in the trek out, but he made the right call. Leaving Rand behind was a boon. He gave us that. Upped our chance of survival tremendously.”
Peabody’s mouth tightened. “So, go on,” he said. “I still don’t see what it has to do with me, but it’s an interesting story. And anything that takes Norton down is going to have my stamp of approval.”
“I just bet it does,” Mac said with a laugh. “So now we’ve got a manhunt going, which Norton is more comfortable with. And no man has escaped him so far. Because if they do? You take care of it. You can’t afford for any man to live and tell the story. So, like that last hiker? He almost made it out. He thinks he has, actually, because there you are in your Ranger uniform. And you listen to his entire story. Does it turn you on? I bet it does. And then you give him a fatherly hug and tell him he’s safe now. And then you broke his neck and tossed him in the ravine. Irony? You don’t even know your own park well enough to know how discoverable that ravine is.”
Peabody’s mouth tightened, and he glared at Mac. Mac grinned. The man didn’t like criticism. “And the truth is? The person who has been taking those potshots at your rangers? That’s you. You don’t want them going into the Park. You want them sticking to the roads. Especially on the weekends Craig’s got his clients up there. Especially when they might find a dead body early enough for the coroners to determine cause of death isn’t natural or accidental. And god, it gives you a rush doesn’t? Sitting out there with your rifle and firing off shots at your rangers? Watching them duck? You don’t even try to hit them. And of course, the ranger who did get a ricochet got a hold of you! You were only 100 yards away....”
Mac shook his head. That one had really got to him. Peabody had balls, he’d give him that much. More than he’d first thought.
“I backtracked your career you know,” Mac continued conversationally. “Once you popped into my mind as a ‘person of interest’. My friend who does the deep dive into social media and data mining helped. He’s insisted Sensei knew me, by the way. And he confirmed that your writing was consistent with Sensei’s writing. He’d been ruling out the players as I listed them. Quite frustrating chore really. His fear was that Sensei was a coworker at the Examiner. But I didn’t think so. Maybe law enforcement. But not a reporter. But back to your past.
“See, I didn’t want to know your resume,” Mac explained. “I want to know what happens in an area where you’re stationed. Are there crimes that go unsolved? Does white militia rhetoric increase? What impact are you having in the communities as you pass through? And since I was confined to a hospital room for the week, I had plenty of time to track things down.”
Mac had actually been surprised at how easy it was, once he’d focused on Edward Peabody. He’d moved a lot for one thing. Twenty years in the Navy, the last station in San Diego. And yes, he overlapped with Norton’s time there. Peabody was older. But Norton’s experiment with boot camp happened during Peabody’s last year in San Diego.
“So, did you know Norton when you were both in San Diego?” Mac asked. “You overlapped. You must have thought you struck gold when you get up here 20 years later and there’s your Skinhead from San Diego.”
Edward Peabody
