Relentlessly,
the search continued. If a plane did not
pass over the area every hour—not always directly over the basin or cabin, but near
enough to cause alarm and make everyone glad they were inside and without a
fire—those lying low inside could have quite easily been talked into believing
that such was the frequency of the overflights.
No one quite understood it, Liz quiet and grim, speaking softly to Will
as she tried to prevent him picking up on the tension in the room, Kilgore quieter
still and quite unreadable and Juni wishing only that she could leave, lead
this menace away from her new friends and make some sort of amends for the
danger in which she had placed them all.
For
his part Einar naturally supposed the entire thing really must be related to
the ongoing manhunt, even going so far, as evening approached and the strain of
the thing began to get to everyone just a bit more, as suspecting that Kilgore
had somehow led the search to them, this time.
GPS transponders, probably, hidden in his pack or on his person perhaps
even without his knowledge, but one never knew about people, even those one had
come to trust. Very few were above manipulation
or blackmail of one sort or another, especially those who had family that they cared
deeply about, as Bud Kilgore now had in Susan, her children, grandchildren…a
lot of potential leverage, had the feds seen a purpose in exercising it. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense though, that
they would risk the virtual certainty of alerting all inside the cabin of their
designs with repeated plane passes, if they were already sure of their target. Place would have gone up by then in a roaring
splinter of fire and impact, that, or an assault team, probably supported by a
single helicopter which they might or might not have had the privilege of
hearing at all before initial contact, would have been through the door and
taken everyone, had they chosen to go the “live capture” route.
That
was what logic told him, and as darkness fell outside and the flights continued
Einar struggled to hold onto this assurance, hold back the growing conviction
in his mind that they had been set up, that the guilty party was likely as not
sitting right there amongst them, their betrayer, whatever dreadful pressures
might have been applied to press him into that service. Had to hold it back, keep reminding himself
of the reasons why he’d initially dismissed that scenario as one of the less
likely amongst many, and as time went on and he felt the darkness growing
around him, logic fading, he wished somewhat desperately to be able to talk the
matter over with Liz, get her good, solid perspective on it, she, who had so
often proven a rock in the storm, even if he was most times quite unable to
admit the fact. In the presence of the two
outsiders, however, and unable to safely venture far from the cabin due to the
continued flights, he found himself quite thoroughly alone in his struggle. Alone, and losing. Pretty soon probably wouldn’t even remember what
he’d believed logic had told him about Kilgore and his relation—or lack of it—to
the appearance of the aircraft, and if he did, would be certain that the
thoughts had been part of the plot of the enemy, a ploy meant to deceive him
into letting his guard down while they were all surrounded and destroyed. In fact, he was pretty sure of it already.
Scrunched
his eyes shut, turned his head to the wall.
Getting lost here, Lord. And I don’t want to be lost, because this is
looking like a pretty important one. Got
to find some way to hold on, here, and could sure use your help… To which an immediate answer was not
forthcoming, they seldom are, at least in the form which we might be expecting them,
but as the next plane came droning over at a height which sent all in the cabin
a bit closer to the ground than they already were, Einar glanced over at the
tracker and was able to see, for so brief a moment as to not be entirely
certain, later, that he had seen anything at all, that the man was nearly as alarmed
by the aircraft as he was, himself. Not
positive proof of his lack of involvement and certainly no protection against
the possibility that transponder of some sort might have without his knowledge
been placed on his person, but enough to allow Einar to relax just a bit, ease
the necessity of immediate action against the man.
Kilgore,
seeming blissfully unaware of the danger though in reality rather acutely
attuned to the fact that Einar had been about to make a move at him for one
reason or another, and fully prepared to counter it without unduly endangering
the other occupants of the rather small space or—hopefully—doing too much permanent
damage to the fugitive, rose and helped himself to a fresh dipper of water from
the barrel.
“Well,
that was a low one wasn’t it? Using
infrared, would be my guess, trying to skim these valleys and basins after
sundown in the hopes of picking up on a heat signature that don’t look quite
like an elk, something they might want to come back for a second look at or
even put folks on the ground to check out further…”
Juni,
rising finally from her distressed crouch against the back wall, shook her head
and joined the tracker at the water barrel.
“If they’re just out here looking for me, then why do you think they’re
coming over so often? It seems once or
twice over the same area should be plenty, doesn’t it? Especially when they have no more reason to
think I’m right here than that I’m anywhere else in the state…”
“Sure
they do. And besides, this last one was
the first to come through really low and slow, anyway. Most of the rest were just traveling, taking
enough time that they might have spotted something if it had been there, but
coming and going between this and another search area, for the most part.”
“What
do you mean, ‘sure they do?’ I never
told anyone I was coming here! Never
told a soul.”
“No,
but you been here before, haven’t you?
Not right here of course, but in the search area, hunting wildflowers and
doing interviews with most wanted men and such?
So when you turn up missing and folks start to worry, why shouldn’t this
be the first general area they’d think of?
Should have told someone, you know?
Told them you were going to Mississippi for a month, or something like
that, just so they wouldn’t get to wondering…”
She
nodded. “Guess I should have. I didn’t think anyone would ask questions…”
“Well. We’ll get you back down there soon
enough. Just have to wait for the right
weather. Snow, wind, stuff to ground the
aircraft and cover our tracks, and we’ll be out of here. Maybe sooner than we think. That could be one possible explanation for
the intensity of this air search right now.
Could be they know stuff about the weather that we don’t know, see a
limited window and want to make the best of it before it starts storming again.”
“I
hope so…”
Liz
and Einar, though, exchanged glances. May not be so simple as just walking out of
here, the two of you…
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