'Thanks,' Savage said. 'But I prefer to do my own worrying.'
'Oh man, buddy!' Fin groaned. 'You gonna take that? You gonna take that from this shitty-ass bastard?'
Walters tried to appear calm, but Savage saw the corners of his jaw flex out. 'All right, fine. We can just leave you in there.' He stepped back and crossed his arms, evidently quite pleased with himself.
Savage raised his hand, formed a gun, and aimed it at the empty air of his cell. 'Bam!' he said. 'I just killed your hostage.' He spread his arms and turned around once, slowly. 'I like it in here. Got my three squares a day, john in the corner, view of the sky. You gonna threaten me with something, you'd better make it something good. And until then…' Savage sat on the floor, Indian-style. He raised his eyebrows until they almost disappeared beneath the line of his bandanna.
Walters opened his mouth, then closed it. He uncrossed his arms.
Fin burst into a wheezing laugh, spraying the floor with saliva. 'Oh fuck, buddy. Oh man, this guy's askin' for it. For a good beatin', like the kind-'
'Shut up!' Walters barked.
Fin covered his mouth with a hand, his face turning red as he theatrically held in his laughter.
Walters turned to one of the guards. 'Shut him up. Now.'
The guard banged his baton against the bars of Fin's cell, and Fin held out his arms, spreading his hands. 'Hey buddy, no problem. You want quiet, all you gotta do is-'
The guard drew back his baton again as if to strike, and Fin shut up. He pretended to zip up his mouth. He crossed his cell and threw the imaginary key in the toilet. He flushed the toilet. He busted a fat grin like this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
Walters turned back to Savage, a pulse beating in his temple.
'Now,' Savage said calmly. 'Like I said. Where to?'
No sound save the dripping water somewhere down the dim moldy corridor. Walters pulled his head to one side, as if to relieve a kink in his neck. 'Sacramento.'
Savage still refused to rise. 'Why?'
Walters's jaw flexed again. Savage leaned back on his hands, kicking his legs out in front of him. With effort, Walters relaxed his face. He didn't raise his voice, but he still conveyed anger by shaping his words into hard, compact syllables. 'Briefing on a mission. The details are confidential.'
'There now,' Savage said, standing up. 'That wasn't so hard.'
The guard slid the door open, and Savage stepped into the corridor, brushing the dirt from his sleeves.
'That's it?' Fin shrieked. 'You're gonna let him go? Whaddaya mean a mission? I could fight a mission. I could fight a mission better than this weasel. You should hear him moan during push-ups. Like a bitch. Just like a-'
As Savage passed Fin's cell, he reached through the bars, bunching Fin's shirt in his fist. With a sudden sharp movement, he recoiled his arm, jerking Fin's head forward into the bars. Fin buckled and went limp in his grasp. Savage released him and stood facing both guards and Walters obediently before the clang had finished echoing up the corridor. Fin slumped to the ground, bent awkwardly over his legs. The two guards glanced at each other, then back at Savage, but Savage remained perfectly still, his arms at his sides, wearing an expression of total compliance.
Behind him, Fin's body shifted, his torso tilting over onto the floor. He began to draw air in slow, rasping breaths.
'Well,' Savage said, gesturing down the narrow corridor. 'Shall we?'
'Confidential, huh?' Savage rolled a cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other, leaning back out of the open door of the camouflage Blackhawk so he could feel the cold wind whipping across his face.
His foot rested on one of the skids, still covered only with a sock. 'Must be important for them to pull me out of the clink.'
Walters snickered. 'Yeah, they only use felons on missions of the utmost importance.'
'I can imagine I'm probably a distant second to someone with real military training. Like, say, a park ranger.'
Walters didn't reply.
Savage toed the small mound of supplies Walters had loaded in the back of the helicopter-rope, canteens, climbing gear. 'We've been heading northwest for a while now. Last I remembered, Sacramento was due south of Billings.'
'Your briefing's not until tomorrow A.M. I'm just in charge of picking you up and dropping you off. I have a mission of my own here in the meantime.'
'Helo shortage?'
Walters nodded. 'And everything else. The chopper's due in Sac end of the day. They weren't exactly gonna make a special outing to pick up a jailbird. Since I was headed out anyway, I landed the lucky task of transporting you. But first, we're making a detour. You get to wait.'
Savage nodded ever so slightly. He glanced down and wiggled his big toe, protruding from a hole in his sock. 'Any way you could see about getting me a boot?'
'Like I said, you get to wait.'
The helicopter pulled in tight to the land, running along the top of an elongated gorge. Below, rivulets trickled along icy banks. Through the thick forest, Savage could make out only occasional spots of ground, white splotches showing through the patchwork of trees.
Walters scanned the forest with a pair of high-tech binoculars. They whirred, electronically focusing as he swung them back and forth. 'Glacier National Park. We had three campers killed here last week by a grizzly sow. One guy survived the attack, staggered back to a logging camp. Severe head wounds. Said he was batted around like a soccer ball. He did the smart thing though-curled up, covered his vitals, refused to panic.' Walters lowered the binoculars, and Savage was surprised by the intensity in his eyes. 'Said he could hear the grizzly's teeth clinking against his skull.' His top lip pulled up in the start of a sneer. 'Park ranger stuff.'
Savage feigned a shudder, though his face kept its sardonic cast. 'Bad news bear.'
'It's a different kind of death,' Walters said. 'Wild animal. At least in a war, you know what you're getting. Bullet to the head, grenade in the gut-you go down and out. Not like this. Not like being eaten.'
Savage looked at the rifle across Walters's lap. A. 300 Win Mag, single action, equipped with a 10x scope; the weapon was a punisher-one of the few that had the stopping power to drop a full-grown grizzly. 'Fought a lot of wars, have you?'
Walters ignored him, leaning forward to set the rifle on the deck by his feet. 'The governor of Montana personally sent two trackers into the woods to hunt down the problem bear last week. One returned after four days with no sighting. We lost contact with the other. Presumed dead.' He formed a fist and tightened the fingers of his other hand around it. 'They needed it handled. Call went in to me. I booked the chopper, even promised I'd drop you off in Sac personally to make sure I got it.' He ran his tongue across his teeth. 'Figured we'd use the last place the second tracker established radio contact as the center point, then sweep the area in an expanding spiral.'
Savage took a long drag off his cigarette and flicked it out the open door. He watched it fall, a red glowing dot twirling in the wind. 'Good thinking,' he said, just the right amount of sarcasm easing its way into his voice.
Below, a river fought its way around bends and over boulders, finally cascading down a twenty-foot drop. Savage couldn't hear the noise of the waterfall over the rotors of the Blackhawk, but he imagined it perfectly, sensing the pulsing water as if it were running through his veins.
Just a few hours ago, the guards had signed him out in full. Battery, cruelty to animals, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of illegal firearms-they'd all vanish if he agreed to participate in the mission, whatever it was. He had known that there was a shortage of U.S. troops with all the trouble down south, but until now, he'd had no idea how serious it was. He'd been in the Gulf, but the last war he'd seen action in was Nam. He hoped that he'd been targeted for his record; if they were trolling county jails indiscriminately for anyone with military training, then they were in a lot more trouble than he'd imagined.
The pilot swooped the helicopter so sharply Savage had to grab the rifle to keep it from sliding out the door. He handed it back to Walters silently, noticing the pilot's smirk in the reflection off the windscreen. The helo plunged again.
'Picked her up,' the pilot said, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice. 'She's heading south.'
Walters raised his binoculars and located the grizzly sow. She was loping along the ridge about twenty yards back from the gorge. Her legs as thick as cannon barrels, she moved with astounding quickness, hammering over
