---1---
"You couldn't have taken Charlie this far," Don said, the weapon prepared. Rey carried the backpack, dragging his feet. They'd searched for the cell phone, sort of. Rey didn't try very hard and Don had to keep an eye on him every moment.
"He fell a lot," Rey said, rustling a bush. "Not being able to use his hands. Cuts everywhere, shredded knees. Branches flinging out from every direction."
He never lets up. He's twisting me around. Don resisted, ordered him to slow down.
"Shoot me," he said, going on. "Charlie cooperated pretty much until the end." He glanced at Don.
He's expecting me to crumble.
Rey continued. "The end being our destination. He panicked."
Don refused to buy his taunts.
"I had to put him down, fast."
"Can't be this far. You wouldn't have had time."
Reylott said, "These head wounds leak like oil." He touched his temple, where Don had belted him. "Charlie's did."
Don flared, blisters bursting under the hold and weight of the gun, arm raging. His boots seemed to have shrunken a size smaller. Rey was taking him on a wild goose chase. Hang on, Charlie. "Cut it out, I'm tired of your mouth," he said, and stood firm, discharged a round into the sky. "Where is he?"
Defiant, Rey trudged on and Don trained the gun exactly where he wanted it, popped another round.
Reylott swelled with anger, holding his left arm. "You haven't changed, Eppes," he said, "You're not who you say you are now or then. Only do what's good for Don," and he dumped the pack from his shoulders.
"You fool," Don shouted. "Get back here!"
Running off, Rey had passed through a pair of trees and tripped into a hole filled with decomposing leaves that had accumulated between them.
Don advanced and circled, floated the gun over Rey's head. The bullet had grazed him, tearing through his denim jacket. "Where is he?"
"Do it." He stretched out a leg. "I have nothing to lose."
"I do." With both hands, Don pressed the gun to Rey's skull, unhinged by the uncertainty of Charlie's fate. He overtaxed his voice, asking, "Why won't you tell me?" and began to cough, couldn't stifle it.
"Charlie's the chosen one." Reylott poked at his wound. "You never measured up. You had to be better at something."
Don repressed the last cough, shaking his head, and re-positioned the gun.
Rey's head tilted sideways with the touch. "The oldest is supposed to be the winner."
"That's right," Don said, prodding him with the barrel. "Whatever you say. Now tell me where he is."
"Come on, Eppes, you tell me something." He swept leaves aside with his boot. "The truth--Promise, I'll give you Charlie."
"What? What is it?"
"Is the FBI better than baseball?"
"Damn it." Don stepped back. "Where?"
Reylott said, "Answer me. He'll die without help, if it's not too late."
He wiped sweat from his eyelids. "Keep your promise or I swear I will waste your legs and leave you to rot."
"I'm rotten already. Well?"
Don coaxed his arms to stay straight, took a rasping breath before he replied. "No," he said. "It isn't."
"I thought so. Told you I like a good game," said Reylott, and he promptly rose. "He was right under your nose all the time, Donny." He slapped on a cold-blooded grin. "See that--up there?"
The outcropping.
Reylott's expression went blank and he sneaked away brazenly, then sprinted off, zigzagging though the trees.
Don lowered the gun, and let him go.
---2---
Reylott had been playing him the whole time, applying ploys from the manual of mental warfare. Don cursed himself for his stupidity, hurrying to the location where he'd had the "conference" with Rey. Above was the outcrop. Please be there.
Don sketched an alternate course, worried his opponent might have set traps or explosives-anything to make this harder for him, more fun for Rey. If he couldn't find Charlie in good time, he had the pack and would retreat, get help, and hope. There was no use letting Charlie bear the cross longer than he had to.
Rey had deteriorated. Back when, he'd been sociable, nice from outward appearances, never passed up a challenge. Don could never decide if he was an overachiever or an underachiever, both driven by feelings of inadequacy. At 19, Rey had saved a woman from drowning in a lake when the ice broke through, gloried in the attention he received afterward, missed it when it died down.
He had courage, but sometimes went to extremes, drinking excessively on occasion, foot hot on the pedal when he could get away with it. When women dumped him, it was always their fault. After showering them with attention, coming on strong, they'd have to tell him off to get rid of him. As an FBI colleague, he sometimes crossed the line with suspects or was patronizing with witnesses and victims. Yet he was savvy enough to know when to rein it in and behave.
Then, someone snitched and the Bureau heads decided to monitor him covertly, gathering information. Don was clued in, had to keep it secret. One of the toughest things he'd ever had to do. After three months, Rey suspected what was going on and pleaded with Don to speak up for him, put it in writing. Don said he would, but never did.
Rey was reassigned, and, five days later, caught with his hand in the classified cookie jar, making a dead drop. He had excuses, said he was following orders. The charges told the opposite: he'd allegedly taken bribes, tampered with evidence. Through it, he expected Don to stand by him. As the nails went in, Don made sure the distance between them expanded. Reylott blamed others, including Don, and was ultimately drummed out of the Bureau, disgraced, evading formal charges.
Don scrutinized his surroundings, watched for Reylott. It seemed like the trees had been frolicking about behind his back. Concentrate, Eppes, you can do it, he said aloud, resurrecting rusty tracking skills. This time a backtrack: comb the area, pick out footprints, broken twigs, smeared moss, squished leaves, flaked bark where they'd touched and other traces. He'd never traveled so fast. Not even on the job, except the day Charlie had wandered on to a crime scene and almost got picked off. Don put on the caution light after that. It was about communication: if you didn't warn your people, they couldn't effectively do their jobs.
From the opposite approach, the outcropping struck Don as a bulgier bulge, a different formation, and he gave it second and third looks before he came directly under it and ran into litter from the food bars in the underbrush. Above, young trees populated the hillside about one per ten square feet. With the gun in his waistband, he placed a foothold at the base, calling out Charlie's name before beginning the climb.
He undertook a diagonal path, tapping into a wellspring of stamina he didn't know he possessed. One goal was on his mind and for the time being, it suspended his pain. The outcrop was difficult to reach yet the wellspring pushed him upwards and he discovered it wasn't one boulder but several which overlapped. In the center, an opening large enough for a man. There was light within. Checking the vicinity, he called out then entered, scrunching to clear his head and pack. He called out again and his own voice came back to him. Dumping the pack at the threshold, he froze and listened. Faint drips stirred from inside and a breeze jostled the bushes behind him. His sight adjusted. The light, about twenty feet in, emanated from the ceiling.
To his left, pebbles skittered down the wall and he flinched, felt vulnerable, like he had when he'd found the koi in his car, as though he were the subject of a surveillance. Now who's paranoid. To the task, Don. He has to be here.
"Charlie!" Nothing. It wasn't the roomiest of caves, about a dozen feet wide, and he had to bow in places to pass through the initial ten feet. On the floor, gravel and broken stones had collected, clods of hardpan earth. Springwater seeped out of the walls and natural ledges formed their own indoor mini-outcroppings. Perhaps Charlie was behind one of those-but why so silent if he were?
Observing, he spied a dayhole above at the end of a vertical tunnel, several inches across, enough to allow illumination for another thirty feet. He turned, heard scratching like a spoon on concrete. Ahead, after scrunching again to get through, he discerned a larger mini-outcrop, taller than he was, sticking a third out into the cave, a segment of the wall. Mindful of stones underfoot, he headed for it, calling. He came round it--muted sunshine extending into the corner on its opposite side--and saw dangling bootlaces.
He can't be.