Last Track, The (22 page)

Some leaders used exuberance, chatting up the laggards before charging back to the head of the fold. This made it plain to deadbeats that the leader was in better shape, and had energy to spare. One spewed insults, berating the slowpokes. And sometimes silence cut far deeper wounds.

But there were few greater humiliations for a runner than to be reined in several times during the same practice. Sean had suffered this fate. He had endured all of the tortures. He really did not like running for sport, but his father forced him to train. His father made him do lots of things.

Even things that aggravated his asthma.

Curiously, long-distance runners suffered from asthma more often than sedentary individuals. In fact, it often caused exercise-induced asthma, a medical diagnosis his father ignored. If all Sean was good for was running, then he better learn to deal with it early in life. “Learn to catch a ball.” he said when Sean protested.

Outside the hostile environment of sanctioned practices, though, Sean proved far more capable. In winter he jogged hours across the parks, the concrete paths and dirty slush. In spring he ran in hail. In summer he ran in smog and heat. He kept charging.

And now in September, he ran for his life. The time for going full out had arrived. He dropped the hammer. Gaining speed, his stride lengthened. The momentum grew. The grade carried him.

Overhead, the helicopter inched closer, the sound of the blades and rotors rang louder. So much more space to cover, and so little energy on reserve. He had to try and make it.

Here he was the lead runner, way out front. He dictated the pace. For an instant, he visualized the entire squad dragging behind him, the coach at the side of the road with a flat tire. And the goddamn bullhorn, that was broken, just shards of useless plastic and smashed electronics.

His left foot slipped across a few stones, which gave way under the impact. Sean slid. Breaking stride, he whipped his arms out like stabilizers, trying to lessen the mistake. Inertia drove him into the next step. The pendulum swung once again. Still upright. He cranked his legs and righted himself.

The helicopter began a turn, circling slowly around over the trees.

He ran faster toward safety.

10:44:43 AM

To Mike’s relief, Jessica had answered his call on the second ring. He sucked in three quick breaths before speaking. An arduous task faced him, and he could not fail at convincing her to leave the ranch immediately.

Her persistence, though, made his task much, much harder. Whenever she believed in what she was doing, she closed out any voices that suggested she quit. Criticism, emotion, or arguments—none of these tactics swayed her when she truly believed in what she was doing. And Mike anticipated facing deep convictions here. Journalism was rarely about the published story or the check for Jessica. Her motives were less self-serving than attention. No, it was about being involved. Because what she knew best could aid the situation, that made her want to help. She almost had to. She helped by bringing information to people who needed and wanted it.

“Someone involved with the case was murdered this morning,” Mike said. “We had talked about the possibility that things might get too dangerous for you and Andy to stick around. I think this makes it that time.” He explained that Shad was looking at identifying the caller behind the phone threats, and was dead and paid the price.

“I’m sorry Shad is dead. He was just trying to help. Actually, I was going to call you about him,” Jessica said. “I forgot that my laptop is still configured to pull from both of our mail accounts. Sorry, I didn’t mean to click on yours. It happened by accident. I didn’t even notice till much later. Anyway, you got a message from Shad.”

“When?” The time the note arrived seemed critical. E-mail could be faked.

“8:30, according to the date-time stamp.”

8:30. Minutes before he died,
Mike thought. That detail checked out. Suddenly the chronology hit him at once. Shad barely got the information sent off when the assailant attacked. And he missed the mail on his cell phone because the mail software on Jessica’s computer automatically removed messages from the server. There was never a chance to retrieve it.

He had set the option on her laptop years ago; the configuration made sense back then. For a while they had shared a machine. By habit, he checked personal e-mail on rare occasions, and used his business account for most communications. A right-enough arrangement that he left intact, despite their divorce suggesting things were final.

In situations like this one, he realized how cordial their relations were and was thankful they were close. Most separations were final, definite. To Mike, they were more of a divorced couple. Though using the word
couple
in their situation seemed . . . inaccurate. They had an unspoken understanding about many things that often tripped up ex-lovers.

“Permission granted to read my mail in emergencies,” Mike said. Divorced or not, he hid very little from her. Ninety-five percent of the messages were unsolicited advertisements and stock tips anyway. “So what did Shad find?”

“Maybe we can figure that out together.”

“Is it not in English?”

“It is, but it makes no sense. The message consists of a subject, a short note, and an attachment. It’s nonsensical. And when I click the attachment, it asks for a password.”

“First off, where is the laptop now?” For Mike, it seemed the most important question he could ask.

“You caught me on a riding break,” Jessica said. “After that picture in my planner disappeared, I told Erich and he changed the lock. He also offered me access to a huge safety-deposit box. I locked up the computer, my planner, and a few pieces of jewelry. Should I secure any of your things?”

“Thanks, but that’s all right.” He could live with a few less material possessions. He didn’t want to consider life without Jessica and Andy. “Can you recall what the note said?”

“Give me a second,” Jessica said. “I’ll remember.”

While Jessica reflected, he mulled the latest twist. The file wanted a password. Since e-mail was an insecure medium and subject to interception, one technique to discourage unintended readers was by locking the file, and enforcing authentication before allowing access to the contents. However, the method only slowed down prying eyes, and only for a short period. Brute force attacks compromised passwords in seconds or minutes. In rare cases, cracking a text-based pass phrase took a few hours. Anyone with access to a decent piece of equipment might unravel the secrets inside quickly enough. So really that choice was hardly a choice at all.

Encrypting the message contents was a better method and the preferred one. A complex algorithm might take months or years of computer time. For Shad to have done this, Mike would have needed to send Shad his public encryption key first. Then Shad could have created an encrypted message that only Mike could read. They had never traded keys—they had no opportunity to do so—so the only recourse was to password-protect the file, and hope that when an outsider figured out the password, it no longer mattered if the file contents became public knowledge.

Hopefully a clue in the message hinted at the password.

“The subject was The Creed. The note itself was a single line: Mike, Bet number three you know word for word, Shad.”

Like many truths in his life, the answer revealed itself when he gave himself permission to see the answer waiting for him.
Of course.
The Creed.
Shad had asked if he remembered it.
Number three out of six.
“Point three of the Ranger Creed,” Mike said. “Try this: Never shall I fail my comrades.”

“Wait,” Jessica said. “Is that one long word, or are there spaces like a regular sentence?”

“Spaces,” Mike said. “And make the N in
never
capital, just like the phrase.”

“Never shall I fail my comrades,” Jessica said. “Got it. We’ll be back at the ranch for lunch by twelve. I’ll check it ASAP. What’s in the file, by the way?”

“It’s all the recent activity on my cell phone,” Mike said. “Incoming and outgoing. Hopefully it tells us who the Partner is. In any case, even if you get this open, I still want you and Andy to take off.”

“Once we have the records, we can go to Lisbeth about the threats. Maybe we’ll have a name. We won’t need to leave.”

“And what if she’s the Partner? Or if she’s protecting whoever it is?”

“Lisbeth strikes me as pretty much what she says. A small-town detective who needs whatever resources she can get. Now, if she doesn’t respond the way I think she will, then I’ll call someone else.”

“Would you consider leaving, anyway? Given what happened to Shad, I’d feel better . . .”

“Maybe it sounds like the wrong approach,” Jessica said, “but something tells me you need us to stay. At least for now.”

Mike resigned himself to the fact that she was not leaving with Andy. She was immovable. She would decide when she was ready, not Mike. “Can you forward Shad’s message to my business account before you do anything?” he asked. “Because as it stands right now, the only proof we have that the Partner exists is on your laptop.”

10:49:33 AM

Mike answered his phone and was greeted to another helping of the hissing voice of the Partner.

“That was a very foolish thing you did earlier. Did you think shutting off your cell phone would keep me from figuring out about your little detour?”

“Maybe.”

“Guess again,” the Partner said. “Stay on task from now on, or a lot more than your GPS bearings will get messed up.”

“Understood,” Mike said, “but I need you to leave my gear alone.”

“Why? It’s more fun this way. And it builds character. Pushes you to use your skills and intuition. You’ve still got those, right?”

“I can’t give Lisbeth the wrong coordinates if I don’t know what the right ones are. And I don’t need to debug or outguess the equipment. That will slow me down. That’s bad for both of us.”

“Fine,” the Partner said. “We’ll consider your transgression a mistake. Don’t do it again.”

“Why did you kill Shad?” Mike said.

“I’d be more worried about who did that, rather than why. Your buddy picked the wrong data broker. Your ex-wife isn’t the only one with contacts in high places.”

Keeps saying “we” when he talks about operations, Mike thought. Someone else is involved, or he wants me to believe there is. Mike decided to press for that answer. “Can I speak to the other partner?”

A throat cleared on the other end. “What?”

“There are two of you in this, right?” Mike asked. “I just want to know if I’m talking to the right guy. The one who calls the shots. Put him on now.”

“You’re talking to the right person,” said the Partner.

“I want to talk to whoever killed Shad. And I could be wrong, but it doesn’t sound like that’s you. And if it’s not, it makes me wonder if you’re the person to do business with. So are you the boss, or what?”

“I promise when you find the boy, Mike, you’ll see who you’re dealing with.”

10:54:10 AM

Sean gazed at the endpoint. His eyes were strong, healthy, and unworn by monitors and poor lighting.

Out ahead, the route was clear. A long distance separated him from the goal, so much area to travel. This time he would not make the same mistake that had gotten him lost. He began again. His movements choppy, his stride awkward, he was perhaps half as fast as before he started out days ago. And still he ran. Down the hill, and among a patch of black cottonwood. The leaves provided cover. He wondered if this was enough, if the leaves shielded him from view.

The helicopter roared. Banking left, the distance and angle obscured the color scheme and make. It was louder than he believed it would be.

Once he caught a television special on aeronautics, which covered the basic principles of flight. Science was his worst subject, and he retained very few details from that broadcast. One tidbit he remembered, though—barring an attack from below, the main weakness of a helicopter was speed. And so the weakness would be his primary advantage, one he hoped would save him. To Sean, it seemed reasonable that his presence remained unknown so far, because the copter had swung away sharply. Because there was always a chance it might circle back, he continued. He could not falter. He dared not waver.

He would not stop, for the men in the helicopter bay held weapons. Black polymerized rifles with long clips, and laser sights, aimed at the canopy. Maybe even trained on him.

From the first sight of their guns, he knew they had not come to help. The killer sent them. He must have. Holding automatic weapons, they looked ready to shoot anything that moved.

Through the trees, past the stout trunks, and over bits of dead foliage, he pressed on. The noise of the copter blades reverberated through the hills. A reminder of what might happen if his plan failed.

As the bird boomed closer, he reached his destination, an alcove among the rocks. There was something better than he expected within: a pathway to a cavern. A cool breeze from deep inside washed against his face. His heart raced as he dashed into the hole.

Smooth sediment lined the walls. Water trickled somewhere beyond the darkness. A grown man could stand upright once past the narrow aperture. Outside the alcove, the entrance disappeared, lost to shadows and lighting.

Sean bent over, caught his breath, and coughed up some fluid.

The noise of the blades faded.

He was done running from the helicopter.

Here, he was safe.

11:35:01 AM

The air was warm. The sun, ablaze in the sky, burnt the backs of Mike’s and Dagget’s neck and arms. Free of the dense woods, they reached a new point along the escarpment, miles north of the ledge where they had slept last night.

The ledge stretched for miles in both directions, vast and sweeping as if each tip graced the horizon’s end at once. Unlike the escarpment, the various peaks here reached much greater heights. From the trees, the first tier of rock drew up like a wall, with flat, smooth sides and few holds. Contour maps de-emphasized the quick rise, and Mike had underestimated the psychological impact of facing a fifty-foot-high sheet of stone. Yet Sean had managed to cross it.