Another one now, a second one, popping its head up, farther down, about the same size.
A third one, a bit smaller and darker in color, separating itself from the others, moving to Bach’s left, eyes on her, something fleshy dripping from its mouth.
A fourth one, to her right. A semicircle of four, in what she can only assume is some kind of formation.
A defensive formation. Or an attack formation.
The latter, she decides.
Eight beady eyes on her.
She takes a step forward and hears a low growl, sees the sides of the first animal’s long snout tremble, revealing teeth—presumably jagged fangs—that she’s too far away to make out. The others, spurred on by their leader, join in, snarling and growling.
Are they coyotes? They’re supposed to be afraid of humans.
Food, she thinks. They must be close to food or already feasting, maybe something big and tasty, like a deer carcass. They must see her as a threat to their lunch.
Unless they see her as the lunch.
She doesn’t have time for this. It would be too risky and time-consuming to alter her path. One side is going to have to move, and it isn’t going to be hers.
Her body otherwise still, she removes her sidearm, her SIG Sauer with the long suppressor.
The lead animal lowers its head, the growling louder, snapping at her.
She aims her weapon at the small space between its eyes. Then she adjusts her aim for its ear and fires once, a single suppressed thwip.
The animal yelps and spins around, bounding away in a flash, nothing worse than a small flesh wound on the tip of its ear. The others disappear just like that, too.
It might have been a problem if they’d all attacked at once, coming from different directions. She would have taken them all out, but it would have required more ammunition and probably made more noise.
It’s always easier just to take out the leader.
If there is nothing else to learn from history, it’s that from humans to animals, from the most primitive to the most civilized, most individuals want to be led.
Take out the leader, and the rest of the pack panics.
Chapter
68
It would be better if it came from you,” I say to Chancellor Richter as we confer in the room I would call the cabin’s family room. “The other leaders in the European Union look to you, Mr. Chancellor. That’s no secret.”
“Yes, well.” Richter places his coffee cup on its saucer, searches for a place to set it down, buying himself a moment to think. It never hurts to stroke the boundless ego of the chancellor, the longest-serving leader in the EU and, my flattery aside, increasingly the most influential.
Never mind the fact that if the virus activates and decisions of war must be made, I will be making the same phone calls, with more or less the same pleas, to the leaders of France, the UK, Spain, Italy, and the other NATO countries.
If we have to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty and go to war with Russia or whatever country is behind this, I’d rather the motion to invoke came from someone other than the United States. Better yet, as was the case after 9/11, a motion joined by all NATO members. It would be better if it looked like an unsolicited decision rather than a plea from a wounded superpower.
He doesn’t answer right away. I didn’t expect him to. Still, it is the first time I’ve seen Juergen Richter at a loss for words.
In the background, from the corner, the television plays a continuous string of bad news: the water-supply difficulties in Los Angeles, possibly caused by terrorism; North Korea vowing another ballistic-missile test after our military exercises in Japan; the civil unrest in Honduras, where half the president’s cabinet has resigned; further developments in the assassination plot against the Saudi king. But the lead story, of course, is the upcoming testimony of the president of the United States before the House Select Committee and, courtesy of my vice president, the question of whether the president is suffering from a “nervous breakdown” or has “fled the capital in a panic.”
My phone buzzes—FBI Liz—saving the chancellor from the awkward silence. “Excuse me,” I say.
I tap my earbud as I stand in the kitchen looking out over the backyard, the black tent, and the wall of endless trees beyond. “Go ahead, Liz,” I say.
“The team members that the Secret Service killed on the bridge,” says the acting FBI director, Elizabeth Greenfield. “We’ve identified them.”
“And?”
“They are a part of a group called Ratnici. It means “warriors,” basically. They’re mercenaries. They come from all over the world, and they’ve fought all over the world. The narcos used them in Colombia. They fought for the rebels in Sudan until the government hired them to switch sides. They fought for the Tunisian government against the ISIS insurgency there.”
“It’s what we figured. Cutouts. Untraceable.”
“But Ratnici doesn’t work for free. They’re soldiers, not ideologues. Somebody paid them. And for something like this, Mr. President, you can only imagine how much money they’d demand.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Good. You’re going to follow the money.”
“We’re trying, sir. It’s our best lead.”
“Keep at it, as fast as you can,” I say as the door leading to the basement opens behind me.
Up walk the Americans on our tech team, Devin Wittmer and Casey Alvarez, a wave of cigarette smoke wafting off them. I don’t know them to be smokers, but I assume some of the Europeans are.
Devin is no longer wearing his sport jacket. His shirt has come partially untucked, and his sleeves are rolled up. The wear on his face is evident.
But he has a smile on his face.
Some of Casey’s ponytail is undone. She removes her glasses and rubs her eyes, but the upturn of her mouth is promising.
I feel something flutter through my chest.
“We located it, Mr. President,” says Devin. “We found the virus.”
Chapter
69
Foot forward, weight forward, stop and listen.
Foot forward, weight forward, stop and listen.
It worked for her when foraging for food in the markets of Sarajevo. It worked for her when hiding from the Serbian army in the mountainside as they searched for the half-Muslim Bosnian girl who killed six of their men.
It worked for her a week later, when she finally summoned the courage to sneak down from the mountains to her home.
A home that had burned to the ground. A two-story house, now little more than a heap of gray ash and rubble.
Next to it, her mother’s naked body, tied to a tree, her throat slashed open.
Two kilometers. Bach could run the distance in twelve minutes, even with this pack on her back. She could walk it in twenty. But it takes her almost forty minutes in this cautious, plodding fashion.
Along the way, little animals bounce out of her path, even a few deer, freezing in place on her approach, then bounding away. But no more coyotes, or whatever they were. Maybe word got out not to mess with the girl with the gun.
She hasn’t strayed far from the east side of the acreage, heading due north during her jaunt and sticking close to the lake’s shoreline. The patrols aren’t likely to come from that side but rather from the north, south, or west.
She reaches the tree, the thickest one she’s seen in these woods. Sixty feet high and two feet in diameter, she was told, which to her means about eighteen meters high and sixty centimeters wide. Tall and skinny.
This is where it will happen. This is where she will kill him.
Above her, the tree is thick with leaves and strong branches, easy to climb. But from the ground, there is nothing to latch onto. Full climbing gear—a lanyard, foot spikes—would be too cumbersome, too heavy to transport.