Chapter 20.

Charlie Fitz

We've been travelling blind for an hour or so now, I bet we look like moving snowmen because certainly my jacket is caked in the stuff. We're relying on Molly's GPS knowhow and Jane's ability to calm her down. In front of me I can see the faint outline of Grace's bright red coat. We have zero visibility and it hasn't improved since; it's awful. Grace offered her hand to me so we wouldn't be separated, but I declined. As long as my feet stay in the tracks that Molly's made, I'll be fine. Luckily, we have been avoiding the tall pines that are scattered all over the place. The wind has made it difficult for us to talk to one another, but it's nice; I get to be alone with my thoughts. A lot of things are making me wonder; for starters, we never managed to fully trace that stamp. Secondly, how did Red John get up here with Lisbon? The snow would have covered all traces of tyre tracks but the snow would have been too thick for that…snowmobile maybe or something else? He couldn't have just sauntered up here; if someone like Cho is struggling to get up here, then if Red John is one of the remaining suspects – none of them are exactly spring chickens – they must have some sort of transport to get up here. And surely, it would've been easier to get all of the suspects in a room together, instead of going on a wild goose chase up mountains; if we'd have done that, this may not have happened.

There is a faint scream from up ahead, even though they are only a few feet away, I can barely hear them.

"What is it?" I shout to them.

A red figure approaches me; Grace slowly wades through the snow and stops a few inches away from me.

"We've hit a slight problem!" she shouts over the howling wind, "there's a wire up ahead, Wayne thinks that it's a trip wire, it's lucky that Molly didn't catch it!"

"Okay, what do we do?"

"Rigsby can disarm it, so we're gonna have to step over it," she answers, "follow me closely."

We wade inch by inch forward; the sweat on my brow begins to freeze in the cold and my hands begin to shake from fear.

"Stop!" she calls out; I do as I am told, "the wire is just in front of us. The other three have made it over," there are three dark silhouettes nearby, watching us, "ready?"

"Yep!" I reply.

"I'll go first and then you follow, okay?"

"Go for it!"

Grace lifts up her leg and the faint red figure disappears momentarily from sight, before popping up again.

"Your turn!"

Doing as instructed, I too lift my leg and move it forward. Even more sweat begins to freeze on my face and my teeth begin to chatter. I plant down my foot and nothing happens, I breathe a sigh of relief and bring my other leg over, I can feel a point of pressure on my shin, through the insulation in my boots, I continue moving my leg… and snag the wire.

"Oh crap" I curse, "GET DOWN!" I shout at the others and the figures disappear from sight.

The next thing I know, I am wedged up against a tree, a sharp nagging pain in my back. Black smoke billows from a pile of kindling a few feet away, filling my nose with a pungent odour. Sounds around me ring in my ears and my eyesight is extremely blurry, even more so with the thick snowfall. But what about the others?

"GUYS!" I call out, hoping for any sign of a reply, "GUYS, ARE YOU OKAY?!"

A layer of snow shifts beside my head and sends a fresh spray of the cold crystals into my eyes.

"Agh!" I move my arm to wipe my face.

"Oops, sorry," a familiar voice apologises.

"Wayne?"

"C'mon, Charlie, let's get you up."

He offers his hand, which I gratefully accept and he hauls me up out of the snow.

"That's the second time today that I've had to pick you up off your ass!" he smiles, jokingly.

"Hopefully, you won't have to do that again!" I reply, "how're the others?"

"Alright, but it looks like you got the worst of it," he answers.

"What was it?"

"He seems to have made an IED, you triggered the tripwire and well…boom," he tells me.

"Do you think that there could be more of these?"

"Possibly, if one wasn't enough to kill us, then it is extremely likely that there are more as we go further up."
"How far away are we now?"

"About ten miles and time is definitely running out," he responds.

"It's going to be hard to pick up the pace and avoid mines at the same time, any ideas how we can do that?"
"Not without a metal detector and I left mine back in Sacramento."

"If you were Red John…" I begin tentatively, "how would you arrange them?"

"Hmm…" he pauses to think, "randomly. I bet he has predicted our movements, our best bet is not to go about this typically, but to take it one step at a time."

"Go upwards but zigzag maybe?" I suggest.

"No, he'd be expecting that," he looks up ahead, "we need to discuss this as a team. They're up here…somewhere."

He grips my sleeve and we continue uphill, I follow Rigsby closely so we don't get separated; I'm guessing that we are following his tracks. Almost immediately, we run into four other figures, caked in snow, standing tall and rigid against the wind.

"Hey," Cho greets us, "you okay?"

"Yeah, but I'll be sore in the morning."

There are a few smirks, but we are quickly diverted back onto our task by Rigsby. He repeats our conversation before about other possible tripwires and IEDs that lie in wait for us.

"Unpredictable movements? Nothings unpredictable with him," Molly answers.

"We've got to try, what other options do we have?" Jane interrupts.