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  “And the second?” Reskova asked.

  “He’ll be able to play with us in the denser brush.”

  “Play with us?” Barrington repeated.

  “Razor wire, deadfalls, staked pits. He’ll get creative. Hughes knows who he took and he knows there will not be any air support. He’ll try and have some fun at our expense.”

  “Ah, Colonel, are we home yet?” Rutledge asked comically.

  “I’ll go first wherever we go, Agent Rutledge.” McDaniels chuckled, taking a liking to the woman who was obviously terrified but continued on in spite of it. “Don’t stray from the path I take and clear. If you need a bathroom break don’t wander away when we stop until I clear the area, okay?”

  “Sure,” Barrington agreed right away. He patted Rutledge’s shoulder in commiseration. “What if something happens to you?”

  “Go back immediately,” McDaniels replied solemnly. “Under no circumstances should you go on if he gets me. I’ll leave our back trail plainly marked for you.”

  “I don’t think we’d be any good with you breaking a few twigs along the underbrush,” Reskova said. “We’d still be lost.”

  “You all have GPS units, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I set them with the parking lot as base camp. That won’t make much difference if Hughes booby traps the trail,” Reskova reasoned.

  “True, but you won’t be lost. I hadn’t planned on using breadcrumbs to mark the trail, Ma’am. I’ll mark it with this.” McDaniels held up a yellow paint stick. He swiped it on a tree they passed, making a bright yellow dash. “It’s fluorescent, so you’ll be able to see it even in the dark.”

  “My man!” Barrington said. “At least you ain’t one of those guys who’d screw with us just because you can. Thank you, I…”

  “We can’t go back, no matter what,” Reskova interrupted.

  “He’ll kill all of you if you don’t, Ma’am.”

  “Maybe, but he’ll for sure kill the girl if we give up. As long as he thinks the game is still on he may keep her alive.”

  “That’ll be up to you, Agent Reskova. I don’t plan on letting Hughes get any of us but Agent Barring…”

  “Tom, Colonel,” Barrington cut in.

  “Tom asked me,” McDaniels acknowledged. “I gave you the best advice I could. One other thing: don’t drink from any body of water we pass. I’ll take care of getting our drinking water. Go easy on it. Make sure you give me warning when you’re getting low. If you’re sweating, you’re fine. If you’re not sweating, you need water.”

  “He wouldn’t poison all the water as he goes, would he?” Rutledge asked.

  “All the water up here can give us a bug, right Colonel?” Barrington asked.

  “That’s right, Tom. If you drink the water without purifying it first, you may not die, but you’ll wish you had. You each have two bottles on your belt. They should be fine for the rest of the day if the weather stays cool.”

  “I guess you better lead on, Colonel,” Reskova said. “I’m sorry about the remarks you overheard.”

  “I’m sorry I startled you. Stay about forty feet back from me. Maintain the spacing at all times. Here, take these.”

  McDaniels handed each of them a telescoping walking stick out of his pack. “I brought along extras in case we needed to make a travois out of them. It’s important to watch your footing. Even a slight sprain will slow us to a crawl.”

  Each of the FBI agents adjusted their walking stick to a height comfortable for them. McDaniels started out at a brisk pace.

  “Colonel,” Barrington called out. “Aren’t you going a little fast? I mean if Hughes is booby trapping his back trail you’d have to have X-ray vision to spot traps at the speed you’re going.”

  “I’ve already scouted the trail,” McDaniels replied over his shoulder. “Besides, Hughes won’t want anything to happen to us until we’re well into the woods. I figure we can make about three hours without any worry.”

  “You’ve already found something, haven’t you, Colonel?” Reskova asked.

  McDaniels turned around suddenly, an amused smile on his face. “Not bad, Agent Reskova. How’d you guess?”

  “Hughes would want to do something minor right away…”

  “To make sure we wouldn’t follow too quickly,” Rutledge finished Reskova’s statement. “He’d figure we’d be checking every inch of the trail afterward.”

  “What was it, Colonel?” Barrington asked.

  “Razor wire, ankle high. It would have disabled one of us. The others would have had to carry the injured one back, delaying our start after him.”

  “He wanted to take out the tracker,” Reskova stated.

  “Yep. That means from here on the trail will be pretty easy to follow. Hughes will be thinking he needs to draw a map for novices to be drawn in.”

  “I hate this already.” Rutledge gripped the straps of her pack tightly. “What did you do with the wire?”

  “I still have it in my pack. C’mon, let’s move out. Remember your spacing.”

  When McDaniels had paced about forty feet in the lead, the others followed. Reskova quietly filled in Barrington and Rutledge about all she had learned from Dreyer, including the reason McDaniels had been retired to the reserves. Barrington laughed. Reskova glanced at him sharply.

  “What’s so funny, Tom?”

  “I can answer that, Diane.” Rutledge smiled over at her. “If we have to be out here trailing this murdering psycho, we need a guy like the Colonel, not some boy scout.”

  “Exactly.” Barrington pointed at McDaniels. “Let’s face it. We ain’t that girl’s best hope. He is. We’re along to hold him back. If that Senator had any brains, he would have found the Colonel and paid him a small fortune to go on in without anyone knowing.”

  “Do you feel the same way, Jen?” Reskova asked.

  “Pretty much,” Rutledge admitted. “I know we have a job to do; but let’s face it, this ain’t it. How sure are you we’re not being used as scapegoats?”

  “Not sure at all. I wanted to hear you two say it. At first, I thought we were up against the wall as far as time. After hearing AD Dreyer, I don’t know what the hell the script is. We can shadow this guy and call in every step of the way but we won’t be any closer to saving the girl than we were in the parking lot.”

  “Did we piss somebody off I’m not aware of?” Barrington asked. He stepped up and over a fallen branch, pausing to make sure Rutledge made it over without tripping.

  “More likely we just know Hughes the best. The best scapegoats are also the most logical choices.”

  “What freaked you out so bad while we were gone to the bathroom?” Rutledge asked.

  “You two should have been in the parking lot when the Colonel materialized. Dreyer and I were talking one second and then there he was. That guy has to be over six and a half feet tall. He must weigh at least two-fifty. Hell, look at him.”

  The three FBI agents watched McDaniels. The big man looked as if he slid along rather than stepped. What little disturbance he made passing through the woods was barely detectable, even by the trio following only forty feet behind him.

  “Check us out,” Barrington commented.

  The agents were making enough noise in the brush to drown out anything McDaniels did up ahead.

  “I guess it would be a good idea if we at least tried to mimic his movements,” Reskova suggested. “When McDaniels spoke up from almost at my shoulder, he practically scared the crap out of me. After McDaniels claimed he understood the mission parameters, it made me wonder why Dreyer thinks the Colonel won’t ditch us and do anything he wants.”

  “You said AD Dreyer knew the Colonel,” Barrington pointed out. “If the Colonel gave Dreyer his word he’d take us along, he’s the type you can make book on him doing just that.”

  “For our sake, I hope so,” Reskova acknowledged.

  “Okay, I officially hate this.” Rutledge’s breath came in short gasps as the trail began slanting upwar
ds. Reskova and Barrington looked at her questioningly. Rutledge waved them off. “It’s okay, I just need… to… get my… second wind.”

  “You better get your wind back before we catch up to Hughes or the Colonel will have to gag you,” Barrington kidded her.

  “Very… funny…” Rutledge groaned.

  “I figured the Colonel would just go in with a day bag and a knife,” Barrington remarked. “He’s packing twice the stuff we are.”

  “Dreyer told me before I picked up the equipment McDaniels would be carrying the tent and our ground pads,” Reskova explained. “We’re only carrying our food, sleeping bags, and some clothing.”

  “All that said, McDaniels hardly makes a branch rustle, even off trail. I guess we better save our breath in case we have to carry Jen.”

  The three agents laughed together uneasily.

  * * *

  Nearly three hours later, McDaniels stopped. He crested the slope they had been trudging upwards on for the past forty-five minutes. McDaniels signaled the FBI agents to stay where they were. They watched him quickly shed his pack and move upwards over the rocky top of the slope to the other side, out of their sight.

  “Cripes!” Rutledge gasped, taking a long swallow of her water. “I… I’m dyin’ here.”

  “He’s been giving us breaks every twenty minutes,” Barrington said. “We’re probably getting close to where he figures Hughes will start messin’ with us. Man, it’s beautiful up here. What a view.”

  The three agents looked out over the rugged forest and rocky crests stretched out downwards along the mountain side. The sky, with wispy shadows of clouds shading the sun occasionally, bordered the vista in deep blue relief. The temperature had risen quickly up into the sixties, causing the FBI agents to sweat profusely as they trekked uphill. They were each into their second bottle of water.

  “Imagine how this climb must have been for that little girl.” Rutledge shuddered. “Every time I start wimping out I think of her.”

  “Hughes will be taking pretty good care of her,” Reskova replied. “He needs her for the time being.”

  “Or he could be dragging her dead body along.”

  Rutledge grimaced. “Thanks for that happy thought, Tom.”

  “Here’s where I think we are,” Reskova held out her topographical map, pointing to a spot running parallel to three lakes in the Triangle Lake area. “We can double check it with our GPS units. I…”

  “Check what, Agent Reskova?” McDaniels asked from behind the three agents, causing them to literally knock into one another reaching for their weapons.

  “You son-of-a-bitch!” Reskova snarled. “If you pull…”

  “Diane,” Barrington interrupted, looking sheepishly at the ground. He bent at the waist with his hands on his knees taking deep breaths. “I think the Colonel was trying to make a point and it’s a good one, Sir.”

  “Boy, if he’d have been Hughes, he could have sliced and diced us.” Rutledge looked up at McDaniels with some irritation. “Damn, Colonel, how the hell do you do that shit? Couldn’t you’ve just warned us to…”

  “To what, Agent Rutledge?” McDaniels cut her off sternly. “This ain’t a Campfire Girls’ outing. Hughes has that clearing up ahead staked out. He’s sitting nearly half a mile away in the brush of that peak over there.”

  The three FBI agents could only see the forested peak of the mountain McDaniels pointed to from where they were.

  “How do you know that?” Reskova struggled mightily to keep her temper under control.

  “Because that’s where I’d be if I wanted to take a shot. I also went around the slope so I could scan ahead with my scope. He’s there all right. Hughes takes a peek every few minutes with either his sighting scope or through his riflescope. He’s not dumb enough to take a chance on sighting in for long.”

  “Did you bring anything with that kind of range, Colonel?” Barrington asked.

  McDaniels shook his head in the negative. “No, it wasn’t in the mission parameters. Jim wouldn’t let me bring my sniper rifle. If he had, Hughes would be lying dead up on that peak and we’d be haulin’ ass over there to pick up the girl.”

  “Unless he hid her somewhere and then she’d be dead.”

  “That’s what Jim said, Agent Reskova, but I would have found her. No use picking at that scab now. I don’t have a rifle.”

  “I’ll call in and let AD Dreyer know where we are and where Hughes is.” Reskova took out her satellite phone. “Maybe he knows what he’d like us to do.”

  “Knowing how bureaucracies work, he won’t have a clue. This is all a sham. You three know it and I know it. Because of that Senator, nobody wants to do what needs to be done. They think somehow if everyone pretends the little girl will magically be okay then all will be well.”

  “Pretty cynical, Colonel.”

  “Yeah, well I’m sorry I popped up on you all like I did, Agent Reskova. I’m not too thrilled about having my hands tied concerning the girl and also having to worry about getting you three killed. I won’t do it again if you three promise to take this jaunt in the woods more seriously.”

  Reskova walked off with her phone in hand. Barrington looked at Rutledge before speaking.

  “We appreciate your concern, Colonel. Why did you take this gig? The money can’t be all that good.”

  “I was overseas when I heard about this Hughes guy and what he did to those three other girls he tortured. When your boss on behalf of Senator Hokanson contacted me, I couldn’t say no. Even when he finished listing all the handicaps I’d have doing this gig as you call it, I still had to take a shot.”

  “We’re like lead weights strapped to your back, huh?” Rutledge asked with a grin. “Don’t for a second think we don’t know it too. I…”

  “Dreyer said to move on if there was a way to get closer to Hughes,” Reskova interrupted as she rejoined the others after her call ended. “We are to proceed until nightfall and then await further instructions. Can you get us nearer, McDaniels?”

  “It would mean splitting up. I can map you three a way to flank him while I watch to make sure he doesn’t move from where he’s set up now. I figure he thinks he has at least another few hours before the three of you would reach his trap point.”

  “What about you?” Barrington asked.

  “I’ll know where he is and where you are. Let me see your map.”

  Reskova handed McDaniels the map. McDaniels pointed to a spot at the base of the peak where Hughes waited to snipe at them if they came into the clearing.

  “It will be rough going but I figure you three can make it to this spot before dusk. If I see Hughes pull out I’ll call you immediately on the Sat. Phone.” McDaniels outlined a trail which would keep the FBI agents out of Hughes’ sight as they proceeded to the point he had indicated. “You will have to take it slow and keep the noise level down. The winds picking up. It will be sweeping down from the mountain where Hughes is perched. That should mask some of the noise you all make. I’ll join you at dusk.”

  “You aren’t planning on ditching us, are you, McDaniels?” Reskova asked.

  “Diane, he could have ditched us anytime he wanted.”

  “Tom’s right. If I say I’ll join you at dusk, that’s what I’ll do.”

  “This all sounds real good. Maybe it would be better if I stayed here and watched our back trail,” Rutledge said, only half in jest.

  “That’s my partner, always watching out for us.” Barrington draped an arm around Rutledge’s shoulder. “You’ll do fine, Jen. How about it, Diane?”

  Reskova looked at McDaniels with distrust. “The Colonel’s going to pull something. I can feel it all the way from my toes to the top of my head.”

  “You missed the point,” Rutledge spoke up. “If he does, we can’t do anything about it anyway. If you don’t have a way to get across that clearing without getting your head shot off, I think we should consider his plan.”

  “How do we know Hughes is even where McDaniels sa
ys he is?” Reskova turned to McDaniels. “Take me where I can see him and we’ll go with your plan.”

  “Follow me. Tom, you and Jen stay right where you are. We’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t worry about us this time, Colonel,” Rutledge said. “You better not try any of that damn Ninja shit on us again either. You might get shot.”

  McDaniels laughed. “Acknowledged. C’mon, Agent Reskova, let’s go take a look at the real bad guy.”

  Almost exactly fifteen minutes later, McDaniels led Reskova down over the slope in front of the other two FBI agents, making sure they knew where he was.

  “He’s there,” Reskova announced. “We’ll follow McDaniels’ suggested trail. We better get started.”

  “I’ll catch up with you just after dusk,” McDaniels told them as Reskova started descending carefully from their previous position with Barrington and Rutledge following. “How much water do you three have?”

  The trio stopped and took stock of their water supply.

  “One bottle,” Barrington said. Reskova echoed the amount.

  “I only have a half left, Colonel,” Rutledge told him.

  McDaniels handed her two full containers. “Give me the half full one and all your empties. I’ll fill them before I rejoin you.”

  After collecting the containers, McDaniels watched the three hiking away at an angle down the slope, diligently trying to trek quietly. He smiled and went over the slope. Instead of taking up a position to watch Hughes, McDaniels began a quick and silent hike in another direction. He knew Hughes would hear the three FBI agents.

  Chapter 3

  Hughes

  “Well, little Missy,” the black-bearded man snarled, looking through the digital viewfinders. “It looks like those FBI agents want to play mountain-man with me. Too bad they didn’t give me a chance to make my shot. I wasn’t goin’ to hurt them too bad - just blow some toes off. Then I’d have me some fun tonight.”

  The little girl, exposure causing her teeth to chatter behind the duct tape used as a gag, looked fearfully up at the man who had dragged her through the mountains. Her blonde hair lay in dirt-streaked tendrils over her face and neck. Every movement brought new agony from her arms and legs. She lay curled up with her limbs bound painfully behind her back. She had been at the park for her eighth birthday, playing hide and seek with her friends while they waited for their parents to barbeque the hamburgers and hot dogs. One moment Alicia was hiding behind a tree - the next she felt a rough hand over her mouth, a pinprick at her neck and then nothing.