The Final Mission Read online

  She swore quietly and put her head back in her hands. That was it. Dead end. Her superiors had been correct: she was wasting time and resources.

  Because some people couldn’t be touched. A word in the right ear, and unless someone had an ironclad case with a dozen witnesses and video and paper to back it up, the case would be dismissed.

  She didn’t have anywhere near that.

  Her hand was played out, and no matter how she despaired, no matter how much the bile rose in her throat, she began to accept that there would be no justice for Mary or those rape victims. None. Not even a day in court.

  Swearing again, under her breath, she switched off the computer. Brick walls at every turn. It made her feel no better…in fact it made her feel angrier…to think those bricks might have been deliberately placed in her path.

  But she’d also been around the block enough times to know that this was a battle she couldn’t win. If she beat her head on that wall enough, she’d merely come away bloodied and probably out of a job, with nothing at all accomplished.

  For an instant she felt an uncharacteristic urge to smash something, but she fought the impulse. Smashing something would fix nothing, and merely leave something broken. She’d learned that years ago when her dad had died.

  “Courtney? Are you okay?”

  She started and looked around to discover Dom had returned. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  He came into the room and sat facing her. For an instant she thought he was going to reach out and take her hand, but with almost visible effort he refrained. “What happened?”

  “That guy whose photo I sent to my friend?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a general’s son.”

  “Oh.”

  “Untouchable,” she said, in case he hadn’t gotten it.

  “That’s probably why he looked familiar to you, then.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So you’ve reached a dead end.”

  “Evidently.”

  He leaned back in his chair, frowning faintly, studying her. “That’s okay.”

  “Okay? How can it possibly be okay?” Her voice had risen, and she caught herself with effort. “Why should he get off? Just because his dad is powerful?”

  “Do you have any proof that he did any of this?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Well, then. That’s it. And somehow you’ve got to let go of it.”

  “How can you say that? It was your wife!”

  For an instant he didn’t move except to tighten his mouth into a stern line. God, she hated to see that, especially when she knew how soft and generous that mouth could be. Stop it, she told herself. It was better this way. Let him be angry with her. It would make it easier for her to leave.

  Then he rose. “Come with me. I want you to see something.”

  Feeling as if every muscle in her body dragged, she followed him into the living room. He walked over to a shelf and pointed to a triangular case containing a U.S. flag and beside it another case containing a Purple Heart, a combat theater medal and a good conduct medal, plus Mary’s medical, unit and rank insignia.

  “You see that?”

  She nodded. He stared at them for a few seconds, then faced her. “My boys have that. It’s not much, but it tells them their mother was a hero who died in the service of her country.”

  “She did!”

  “Exactly. They’ve accepted she was a soldier, a casualty of war. Now you tell me just what good it will do for them to be told their mother was murdered by one of her fellow soldiers. You tell me how that will make them one bit happier, or make their loss one bit easier to bear. You tell me how that won’t make them bitter or angry.”

  Courtney caught her breath. “That’s why you can live without justice?”

  “What the hell good will justice do except damage those boys? People die. I watch animals all the time, and the amazing thing is they don’t seem to be hung up on justice. They accept that the weak or young will fall. It’s the natural order. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, but tell me, Courtney, just what you think justice is going to fix. It’s not going to bring Mary back. It’s not going to erase the violation of those Iraqi women. It’s not going to fix a damn thing. War is an atrocity-making situation.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. I’m not saying this guy, or whoever it was, did the right thing, or that it was excusable. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to pay the price for what he did. But I’m not keen on having my boys’ life ripped up by the fact that their mother may have been killed by people she should have been able to trust. That’s a lesson they’re too young to learn.”

  He hesitated then added, “Justice won’t bring your dad back, either. It may not even provide as much satisfaction as you think.”

  He left her standing there, shaken to the core.

  An hour later she discovered he was still planning for them to head up into the mountains to watch the migration. She went into the kitchen and found him with the saddlebags again, stuffing things into the panniers.

  She expressed her surprise. “We’re still going?”

  “Why wouldn’t we be?” He smiled at her.

  “I thought…I thought…”

  “That I was mad at you? I’m not in the least. I was just explaining my viewpoint. Now, do you want to go? If so, get your things.”

  Yes, she wanted to go. Even after the shakeup he’d just given her, she very much wanted to go. But as she bundled up clothes to take with her, she did something she hadn’t done since her arrival: she tucked her service weapon into her belt holster, and hid it beneath a baggy sweatshirt.

  That may have indeed been a careless hunter last weekend, but she couldn’t forget it. Especially now that she knew who had been the subject of her inquiry. Since opening that email this afternoon, she’d had a paranoid thought: that she was up against some shadowy cabal, the same cabal that had killed Mary. That her request for a face match may have come to someone’s attention.

  Man! She sat on the edge of her bed, wondering if this trip was wise. Just suppose someone was coming after her. She’d be exposing Dom, too. And her safety this past week on the ranch might owe entirely to the fact that if she got shot right around here, no one would be able to blame it on a hunting accident.

  But up in the woods and mountains, the story changed.

  She shook her head, telling herself she was in danger of building a mountain out of a molehill. Of course she was. Her friend was discreet. For anyone but her friend to have learned about the query on the face recognition software, someone would have had to have Metcalfe’s file flagged.

  Of course, someone who was the son of a prominent general, someone destined for the highest corridors of military power himself, might be able to arrange such a thing. Might. Careers of this sort were protected, ranks closed, people cooperated in hopes of advancing their own careers.

  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d run into a brick wall, but it would be the first time she might have to quit.

  She touched the bulge under her sweatshirt, and decided that yes, she was definitely taking it with her. One single shot in the woods meant nothing, usually. People hunted all the time where and when they weren’t supposed to. And of course, no one was supposed to know where she was. But just in case.…

  Decision made, she scooped up her clothes and toiletries and headed downstairs. “Are we taking a packhorse again?” she asked Dom as he began stuffing her things into a second set of saddlebags.

  “Depends. You mind roughing it? It’s supposed to be clear tonight, so we don’t even need a tent. But there’s also an old line shack we can use. Not nearly as nice as the cabin where we stayed last week, but adequate shelter.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  He looked up, smiling faintly. “I imagine you’ve had some training in roughing it.”

  “You could say so. Although I like it better here than some of the places I’ve had to camp out. I’ll take
the chill over the heat any day.”

  “No mosquitoes, either, not now. Been too dry and cold.”

  “I’ll vote for that, too. Do you get a lot of mosquitoes?”

  “In the spring and early summer usually. The run-off pools, the ground gets soggy in places, and yeah, we have lots of mosquitoes for a while. That’s part of the reason I’m glad I can take the horses to higher pastures. The higher we go, the fewer the insects.”

  “Maybe I ought to just camp out there all summer. I hate mosquitoes.”

  He chuckled. “I can always use somebody to keep an eye on my stock.”

  “Yeah, I’d be really good at that.” She passed him a couple of rolled-up T-shirts from her stack.

  “You probably would be. Think of all the peace and quiet. Nights under starry skies. No bad guys.”

  “An occasional mountain lion. A coyote. A wolf.”

  He laughed. “That’s always possible, although they tend to stay away when they smell people.”

  “I’d sure be ripe after a few days.”

  “What? No bathing in icy mountain streams?”

  “I’d rather drink from one.”

  He shook his head, his smile fading as he stuffed the last of her things into the saddlebag. “Don’t do that. The days of safe mountain water are long gone.”

  “How come?”

  “Too many people and too many beavers. They’ve carried some pretty nasty bugs up those streams. It’s almost impossible nowadays to find one it’s safe to drink from.”

  “That’s sad. But it doesn’t make the horses sick?”

  “Nope. But I still treat them for it anyway when I bring them back down. I don’t want the kids picking it up. And they could, which is why you won’t see them shoveling manure very often. Not until I’m sure they get the whole hand-washing thing down.”

  “They’re young yet,” she agreed.

  “And forgetful. It’s always that one slip that gets you.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  By the time they were ready to go, the sun had already disappeared behind the western peaks, although the day remained pretty bright.

  “Do we have time?”

  “Sure. It’s not that far by the direct route.”

  They took an entirely different path from last weekend, a steeper one, but much more open. She didn’t meet many of the thrilling views this time, although once they rode along an extensive gorge where water raced so rapidly that it drowned out every other sound.

  Just as the light reached that vision-deadening point between day and night, when everything seemed to flatten, they emerged in a small glade. Here and there a few late flowers bloomed in brilliant color, almost like tiny little fairy lights, even though the deciduous trees around them had shed almost the last of their leaves. Conifers rose tall and proud, seeming to tickle the sky with their tips, turning black as the light faded. Against one forest wall stood an old shack, barely bigger than the average suburban storage shed.

  After they dismounted, she noted that Dom merely loosened the cinches on the saddles, but didn’t remove them. “Are you going to leave them saddled all night?”

  “They actually don’t mind. They’re workhorses. As long as I give them room to breathe, they’re happy. I wouldn’t do this more than a night or two at most, though.” He hobbled them, removed the saddlebags, then let them wander around grazing and drinking from a nearby stream.

  On the grass he spread a canvas tarp, then opened two sleeping bags on it. “See, we can sit out here for a while and enjoy the evening. We don’t even have to use the shack unless you want.”

  Given the gunshot that insisted on ringing in her memory, she thought the shack might be the better option for later. She sat cross-legged on the sleeping bag he pointed to, and watched night engulf the world. “This is incredible.”

  “You don’t spend a lot of nights outdoors? I’d have thought you would, given what you do now.”

  “Not without six to ten other guys.” She shook her head. “Sometimes they’re quiet because we’re on an operation. Other times they’d scare off any wildlife within forty miles. But at no time do we just sit and enjoy nightfall. And even so, most of our operational training isn’t for woodland settings.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  At that moment she would have agreed with him. It was fascinating to watch the light seep away and darkness creep in. In a matter of minutes, the whole world seemed to change. Now, when she tipped her head back, she could see the millions of stars overhead, so many she couldn’t imagine being able to count them. “God, I’d forgotten it could be so peaceful!”

  “It’s easy to forget everything out here.”

  “Is that why you like it?”

  “That’s only part of the reason. I just like being surrounded by nature. I always have.”

  She leaned back until her head rested on the sleeping bag and she stared up. “I could get addicted to this.”

  “I already am.”

  She felt him reach out and curl his fingers around hers. She managed not to stiffen, but realized that if he went any farther, he was going to discover the gun clipped to her belt. Trying to move slowly, she reached for it and silently unclipped it, then tucked it under her sleeping bag.

  She didn’t know why she felt she had to conceal it. He’d ridden up here, after all, with a shotgun holstered on his saddle, and she’d seen his gun cabinet. And just a few minutes ago, after laying out the sleeping bags, he put his shotgun on the tarp within reach. This wasn’t a man with a moral objection to guns.

  Maybe it was because the years had taught her that most men felt uncomfortable with a woman who wore a sidearm most of the time.

  Regardless, it was done, and for now she gave herself up to the exquisite feeling of his large hand wrapped around hers.

  “So you used to fall asleep dreaming about falling into the stars?” he murmured.

  “Yeah. Do you ever feel when you’re lying down like this that you’re almost weightless and you could just fall upward right into them?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly when I was kid. I used to wish I could be an astronaut.”

  She smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I played with that idea for a while, too. What changed your mind?”

  “The horses. I couldn’t bring myself to leave them behind.”

  “You really are attached.”

  “Completely.”

  She wondered if that was some kind of warning. Even if it wasn’t she should probably take it that way. Anyone who wanted this man would be tied to his ranch, to his way of life. And considering the grief and anger he’d felt toward Mary for her long absences, did she really want to put him in that position again?

  Not that things had gotten that far between them. But it was good to think of all the dangers before you got in over your head. And it would be easy to get in over her head with Dom. That much was clear.

  Time to think of something else, she warned herself. “Are we likely to see any elk or stuff in the morning?”

  “If we get up very early, and we’re very quiet, there’s a pretty good chance. I’ve watched this migration for years. You’re not apt to see huge herds. This isn’t going to be like the African savannah. But we should see at least a few elk or pronghorns. Maybe a family group if we’re lucky.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  “Then we’ll have gotten up early and enjoyed a gorgeous sunrise.”

  “Works for me.” She smiled again and squeezed his hand.

  The night air was cooling rapidly, but that wasn’t unusual at higher elevations where the air was thinner and the sun slipped behind mountains long before official sunset. “I’m glad we can’t build a fire.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because then I wouldn’t be able to see anything but the fire.”

  A quiet chuckle escaped him.

  Somewhere an owl hooted, a lonely, beautiful sound. “So there are wolves around here?”

  “W
e’ve got a pack or two in these mountains.”

  “Do they follow the migration?”

  “Not exactly. They take advantage of it, of course, but wolves are pretty territorial. They have a certain range they stick to, and seldom venture beyond it. And now with all the packs in Yellowstone, they’re even more territorial and cautious.”

  “I read or heard somewhere that you can keep them away with a recording of their calls.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too.” He rolled on his side and propped himself on an elbow. Her eyesight had been steadily adapting, and even though the moon hadn’t risen yet, she could see him clearly enough in the starshine. “I don’t especially want to keep them away.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re part of the ecology. They don’t often bother my horses, they seem to prefer not to get into it with my dogs.” He fell silent for a moment. “I’ve seen changes since they started roaming around here.”

  “Like what?”

  “There seems to be more food. Some plants that had almost been grazed out by deer and elk have started to come back.”

  Courtney pondered for a few minutes. “I thought most ranchers hated wolves.”

  “Some do. But from what I’ve been reading, restoring the apex predator has been beneficial overall for the ecology. Sometimes you just have to make compromises, and realize that Mother Nature is going to take her due one way or another. My vote is for a healthy ecology.”

  “Which is why you opened some of your land for the migratory route.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But will hunters use those corridors?”

  “It’s private land. They’re not supposed to. But yeah, I imagine some will. Limited licenses help.”

  “I think that’s called herd management.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “I don’t object to hunting, as long as it takes into account that you don’t want to cull the wild herds too much. The thing is, the herds are actually healthier now that wolves have come back. And there’s less starvation in the winter, so they’re even growing a bit.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I think so.” He scooted closer. Letting go of her hand, he reached out to lay his palm on her midriff. “Feeling adventurous?”