CHAPTER 83

IT WAS GETTING LATE, less than forty minutes of light left by my estimate, when Bree and I closed on the far end of that long meadow and the fir trees below that slight rise, the snag tree now silhouetted in the falling snow.

I kept taking glances at the sled’s dark control panel, thinking I was going to need headlights at some point, and touched something that lit the panel.

“Ah, there, see? You can’t get out, Cross. You don’t have enough fuel.”

“Tell it to the ravens and the wolves, Malcomb,” I said, but I glanced down again, saw the fuel gauge showed half full.

“Told you so.”

I realized some kind of camera was mounted in my helmet that allowed him to see what I was seeing. I also realized that we did not want to go straight at the snag in the last hundred yards. If we did, we’d have to abandon the sled and wade uphill in deep snow, easy targets for Bean and the janitor. I tried to throw my left sleeve over the front of the helmet to somehow block the camera.

We almost flew off the trail before I grabbed the handle and kept us going uphill into the fir trees.

“Weren’t you taught to keep both hands on the steering wheel, Dr. Cross?”

I ignored him. I could see the top of the rise in front of me. As we crested it, I saw the opening in the woods I was looking for, slammed the shattered helmet visor down, hit the brakes, and pulled in.

“That’s not playing fair, Cross. I was enjoying the cinema verité quality of that footage.”

I drove us forward into the old trail that cut across the ridge, figuring that Malcomb had given me leverage in a way. “I’ll raise the visor if you up the stakes.”

“I don’t know how the stakes could be much higher for you.”

“Your stakes,” I said, stopping the snowmobile and silencing the engine. “You’ve got us. You know that’s true. You can pour more men into the field. We’ll never get to the trailhead. But just to make it interesting, to raise your stakes: What is your endgame in the killings of the potential Supreme Court nominees?”

Bree had jumped off the sled, had her helmet off, was listening for the sounds of our pursuers in the forest. Malcomb did not answer for several beats.

“It was never about the judges we killed. But I can tell you I fully expect the balance of power in the judiciary to change cataclysmically during the inauguration and afterward. Now raise the visor.”

Bree waved, pointed at her ear. I took off my helmet, listened, heard multiple snowmobiles in the distance, but nothing close. Maybe Bean and Toomey had stopped and were listening for our position, or maybe they were waiting for reinforcements, or—

I heard the helmet crackle, held it so I could hear him.

“A deal is a deal even among fierce enemies,” Malcomb said. “I raised the stakes, now you raise the visor. Show me what you are doing.”

“You spoke in riddles, so no deal,” I said, climbing off the sled, the pain in my ankle overwhelmed by the adrenaline still pumping through my system. I began to push my way through the brush toward the snag tree.

“Talk to me, Cross. I can hear you are in the woods, no longer on your sled. Are you thinking of your dear fallen friend, Sampson? He must be consuming your thoughts at this point. And what of the danger you’ve put your wife in?”

I said nothing, glanced over my shoulder, and saw Bree walking backward, covering the snowmobile and the trail beyond it.

“C’mon, Cross. I’m fascinated. Where do you think you’re going? What do you think you’ll find there in the middle of nowhere?”

We reached the snag. I faced north, found my eleven o’clock, and headed down through the thick Christmas trees there, snow falling from the limbs onto my bare head and making me shiver wildly. At last I reached the clearing I’d been looking for.

Bree had her helmet back on. She put her thumb up as she came out of the Christmas trees. I pointed east fifty yards to the edge of the woods where I’d stashed the two weapons and the pack and started that way in knee-deep snow.

The light had been different, almost gone, when I’d stashed the guns and gear what felt like a lifetime ago. And a good foot of snow had fallen since, much of it still clinging to the trees, which disoriented me as I got to within twenty yards of the woods. Snow coated nearly every fir, side to side and up and down, like some fairy-tale winter scene, cast in a pale blue light that made it all feel terribly sinister.

I struggled ahead and noticed a cluster of young trees with much of the snow gone from their lower limbs. I took a few steps toward them, puzzled; it looked like some kind of animal had plowed along the base of those trees and then gone back north to the edge of the woods.

Bree came close behind me, whispered, “What’s going on?”

I turned off the mic.

“Don’t know,” I said. “Something or someone’s been by the trees where I put the stuff.”

“Bear?”

I hadn’t thought of that. I picked up the helmet and walked to the tracks. The snow was deep. The walls of the tracks had caved in places. And fresh flakes were settling in the bottoms.

There was no doubt that those were human boot prints. But were these the exact trees where I’d left the guns and the pack? I went closer still, peered into the limbs, saw no guns or pack there.

“Is this the spot?” Bree said.

“I think so, but—”

I caught a flash of green through the lower limbs of the trees a split second before the helmet radio crackled again.

“Missing a few things, Dr. Cross?”