Chapter 17

The day was cool, and the sky gray. Charlie shivered, not entirely from the cold, and pulled his hooded jacket around him. Ian had him walk in front, and they had followed the trail in silence until they got to the break-off point. They had stepped off the trail then, sliding down a hill; the going got rougher and their progress had slowed. They picked their way through the trees, Ian directing as he consulted the park map.

Now the forest stretched around them, gloomy and solemn, an eeriness emanating from the pine trees. Fitful breezes sighed through their branches like spirits, wistfully mourning the dead. For a moment Charlie was saddened; it was a beautiful place, and ordinarily he would have liked to hike here. He knew, though, that this would be his last time; once this was over, he would never come back.

He was still apprehensive, but the exercise ate up some of the adrenaline in his body, and the panic had resided somewhat. Now that he had time to think, he wondered about what had transpired to bring him there. He didn't have his brother's street smarts, but he knew it was dangerous for him to be here. Don must have absolute trust in Ian's ability to keep him safe, he reasoned, or he never would have decided to have him do this.

He had to trust his brother, trust Ian. They were the ones with the training, with the knowledge of the criminal mind. Who was he to doubt them? He was a mathematician, not an FBI agent.

Still he couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow being used. Memories from school lurked in the back of his mind – of all of the times schoolmates had asked him for help with their math and he gladly accepted. He hadn't had many friends, and each time he jumped willingly at their requests for assistance, thinking it might open a door, start up a friendship, and each and every time, as soon as they got the help they needed, they had nothing to do with him. He felt it even in recent years, when Don pushed him to take a case that he didn't have time for; he suspected sometimes that he was being taken for granted. No, he was no stranger to being used, and the pain that came with it.

He took a deep breath, berating himself. He was being ridiculous. Don would never use him in a way that would put him in danger, he told himself. It was one thing to try to talk him into adding yet another analysis into an already busy schedule. It was another entirely to put him in harm's way. Don would never do that. So this was okay, the fact that he was out here. It must be.

Edgerton kept close behind Charlie as they hiked. He knew that Don Eppes would be furious at this, and Charlie probably would be too, once he realized that Ian had lied to him, but he would have Charlie back this evening, safe and sound, and there would be little they could say about it. Ian knew that there was a risk in bringing Charlie back out, but he had supreme confidence in his ability to protect him; he planned to stick to Charlie like glue.

Besides, this was absolutely necessary. Even if Ian had stopped short of this, and asked Charlie only to finish his analysis, they would still have been far from catching Mansour. They would have to stake out the paths that Charlie identified, which would have meant several more days and possibly more victims, including the missing deputy. Trying to trace Charlie's flight path could bring an end to it all immediately.

Yes, thought Edgerton, if it went as planned and they found Mansour's site and the missing deputy, the benefits would far outweigh the risks. He purposely had kept the size of the group down to just the two of them – a large group would be more likely to attract Mansour's attention, and Edgerton didn't want him to know if they found his canyon. With any luck, they would slip in and out, under the radar, and Ian would come back in with a team to take down the site and Mansour.

They had been hiking for a while; still Charlie was surprised at how quickly they came to the river. They walked up the bank until he came to a place he thought he recognized. Sure enough, there was the stick he had used to probe the sandy spots when he crossed, still lying on the bank.

Charlie was starting to get tired again; the exhaustion from the previous days was beginning to catch up with him, and he stood for a moment, resting. He eyed the river, and memories of that night arose, swirling like the water. After crossing, he had made a sharp right and followed the river that night, he realized, taking him away from the route that they had just traveled.

Eventually he had ended up back on the trail, but far from the entrance. He had been completely disoriented by that time, and it was pure luck, he knew, that his path had crossed the one that Don and the team were on. If that had not happened, if they hadn't found him when they did, he would have died from exposure, or worse yet, have been found again by Mansour. He shivered, and turned back to the river.

They waded across the stream, probing with the stick again to be safe, and stomped the water from their boots. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and Charlie looked across the open area in front of them. The light shone on the stretches of grass and he paused, trying to get his bearings, unaware of the eyes on him.

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Megan, Colby and Don had parked next to Edgerton's truck, and swung up the trail at a jog. As they got into the park, David tried the radio, but with no luck. Edgerton either had his turned off or wasn't answering. As they got to the area where they thought that Edgerton and Charlie might have cut across, they started watching the trail edge.

"Here," said Colby, pointing. The hillside sloped downward, away from the trail, and there was a skid mark where someone had slid a little, plowing up pine needles and leaving a stretch of exposed mud. They oriented themselves with the map, picking out at distant bluff as a landmark, and plunged over the edge down the hill, trying to make up time.

Twenty minutes later, they had gotten to a ridge overlooking the small valley that the river ran through. The valley was open and grassy in most places, and as they looked across it, Megan's heart leapt with relief as she spotted the two distant figures. "There they are – they're just the other side of the river!"

Ian and Charlie were still a long way off, far out of shouting distance, and in fact almost unrecognizable, but it had to be them, and at least they were in sight. 'Thank God,' thought David, and they plowed down the hillside, headed towards the river.

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The valley posed problems for Mansour. He had kept close by them for most of their hike, but the man with the gun had stayed too close to the marked one, and he had not had a chance at him yet. Now they were near the river, and the open grassy stretches forced him away from them. He skulked and slunk from one bunch of trees to the next, breathing a sigh of relief as they crossed the last open patch and entered the forest on the other side. The forest was his domain, and he slipped into it, exulting in its familiar cover, as silent as a wraith, trying to close the distance between them.

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They had reached a dense stretch of forest, and Edgerton stood impassively, his stoic expression belying the impatience that swirled within him. Charlie was looking at the trees, stepping back and forth indecisively. Edgerton caught a faint crack of a branch off to the side, but he didn't turn his head. He knew that Mansour had found them. He caught a glimpse of someone lurking in the trees as they crossed the river valley, and had heard him behind them once they entered the woods on the other side. Mansour was impatient, and it was making him sloppy, but not nearly careless enough for Edgerton to get close to him, to even get off a shot.

He watched Charlie as he examined the forest in front of him. There was another victim out there somewhere, and Ian needed to know where Mansour had taken him. He was hoping that Charlie could remember enough to get them close, but that hope was fading fast.

Charlie looked back at him, anxiously. "I can't tell for sure. It was night, and we're going backwards. Everything looks different."

Inwardly, Edgerton felt his heart dip, and he writhed with impatience. Outwardly, his face was expressionless. "Which way do you think it is? Try heading that way and see if it looks familiar. We'll turn around and come back to this point if we have to."

Charlie turned back to the forest in front of him. They were near the top of a ridge. "Okay," he said. "Let's try this." He started over the ridge, and Edgerton followed.

Charlie crested the ridge and headed down the slope, glancing around him, suddenly nervous. The light was shining through the trees now, and creating bright patches of light punctuated by dark patches of shadow in the thicker growth. He steered clear of the shadows, picking his way among the trees.

A short way down the hill Charlie paused indecisively, concentrating on the landscape with a frown. Edgerton, a little farther back up the slope, heard a noise behind him, then another. It came from the other side of the ridge they had just traveled over. Mansour. He was close, much closer. Edgerton felt his heartbeat increase with anticipation. He could take him now; ambush him as he came over the ridge. He paused, listening, and then slipped silently back up the hill, melting into the undergrowth.

Charlie, unaware that he was now alone, pushed ahead down the hill, stopping again, puzzled, as he looked at a clearing in front of him. "I don't think this is right," he said, turning, his face registering confusion, then fear, as he realized that Edgerton was no longer with him. His heart contracted as terror jabbed at it, and he called out, his voice panicky. "Ian?"

He heard nothing but the sigh of the wind in the trees, the eerie creak of branches, and the pounding of his own heart.

"Ian?"

--------------------------------End Chapter 17------------------------------------------------