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“There’s a shoot-to-kill order out on me,” the fugitive said, matter-of-fact.
“No such thing.”
“Liar.”
Gus stepped over a smooth, slippery rock. “The purpose of deadly force isn’t to kill. Its purpose is to stop you-someone-from killing or seriously injuring someone else. It’s about public safety. It’s not about killing.”
The fugitive snorted. “Why not shoot me in the knee?”
“Shoot you in the knee, and you can still fire off a round or stab someone. Apply deadly force, and you can’t. But if you live-then you live. The purpose was to stop you, not to kill you.”
“You’d shoot to kill me if you had the chance.”
“Toss your gun off the ridge.” Although he wasn’t known for his patience, Gus kept his tone reasonable, persuasive. “Let’s walk back down the trail together. Keeping your gun pointed at me puts you at risk of getting shot yourself. If the police see you-”
“It’s just you and me up here. And the ghosts. Don’t try to fool me. I know we’re almost there.”
Yes, Gus thought as he led the fugitive around a familiar bend in the trail. They were almost there.
He slowed his pace, mindful of the slippery rock, and the fugitive moved in closer. “You’re picturing yourself firing your Glock into my chest, aren’t you?”
Gus didn’t own a Glock. “I’m picturing you wrapped up in a blanket in front of a nice fire in a woodstove. Safe. No worries about tripping and falling up here. No worries about hypothermia. No worries about getting yourself shot.”
“A.40-caliber Glock.” The fugitive’s teeth chattered, but derision had crept into his voice. “Isn’t that what you carry, Mr. Senior Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter?”
Gus maintained his steady pace. He saw now what had happened three hours ago.
The fugitive believed he’d snatched a federal agent.
Specifically, Gus’s nephew, Nate Winter, a senior deputy U.S. marshal visiting from Washington. He and Gus had similar builds and were just thirteen years apart in age. Wearing a hat, carrying a pack, Gus could understand how someone could think he was Nate.
He didn’t correct the fugitive’s mistake.
The trail became steeper, and the drizzle turned to light rain. Behind him, Gus could hear the fugitive shuddering and shivering, cursing at the cold. “You’re in first-stage hypothermia,” Gus said. “Shivering is your body’s way of trying to get warm. Your core temperature is already below normal. You’re still conscious and alert, but you won’t stay that way.”
“I’m fine. Keep walking.”
“As your core temperature drops below ninety, your coordination will become more and more impaired. You’ll become weaker. Lethargic. Confused.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’ll stop shivering.” Gus had explained the stages of hypothermia to countless hikers over the past thirty years. “You’ll be at an increased risk of cardiac arrest.”
“It won’t happen-”
“It is happening. It’s happening to you right now.”
“I’ll take your gear and leave you. You’ll freeze long before I do.”
“You need me to get you off this mountain alive,” Gus said calmly.
“All I have to do is go downhill.”
“It’s not that simple. You’re in a wilderness area. The main trails are to the south. Even if you managed to avoid falling off a cliff-even if you didn’t run out of potable water-and you made it off the mountain, you’d still be miles from the nearest help.”
The fugitive was breathing hard now. “More lies.”
“I’m just telling you how it is,” Gus said. “And no matter what you do-leave me, take me with you-you’ll still be wet and cold. It’ll be dark soon. Do you know how to protect yourself from the cold overnight?”
“Stop talking.”
Gus pretended to stumble slightly on the trail and deliberately ran into a half-dead spruce tree. A sharp sticklike lower branch dug into his cheek and drew blood. He gave an exaggerated yelp of pain and let a few drops of the blood drip onto the gray granite at his feet.
“Hold up.” The fugitive shoved his gun into Gus’s back and sniffled, but he didn’t stop shivering. “The blood. Clean it up. Use your glove. Do a good job.”
Squatting down on one knee, Gus used the thumb of his black, windproof glove to wipe up the blood, which was already mixing with the rain water.
The fugitive stood over him. “Think I’m stupid? I know what you’re doing. You’re leaving a trail for your marshal friends.” He squinted down at the cleaned-up blood spot. “Back on your feet. Don’t try that again.”
Gus shrugged as he rose up straight. “No one would notice a few drops of blood in this wilderness.”
“A search dog would.”
Gus pressed a gloved finger to the cut on his cheek, as if he didn’t dare let more blood fall onto the trail, but as he started back up the trail, he noted the snapped branch on the spruce with satisfaction. A search-and-rescue team wouldn’t miss it. Just as they wouldn’t miss the other clues he’d left during the past three hours.
His bread-crumb trail.
He’d participated in enough mountain rescues over the years to know how they operated. By now, Nate and his wife and his two sisters and their husbands-all gathered in Cold Ridge for a long weekend-would have realized Gus’s quick walk up the trail had gone bad. They’d do a fast-and-easy search for him before notifying the authorities, who’d launch an official search.
Were they thinking, even now, that he’d simply gone off trail and fallen? Or were they aware that an armed-and-dangerous fugitive was in the area?
Did they know his name, what he wanted?
The fugitive coughed, his shivering constant now. “All right, stop,” he said abruptly. “Take off your pack and set it on that rock there. Nice and slow.”
Gus complied, aware of the Smith & Wesson pointed at him. The fugitive’s hands had to be stiff from the cold, his fingers wet and slippery. If he just dropped the gun, fine. But Gus didn’t want him accidentally firing off a round.
“Unzip the main compartment and dump out the contents,” the fugitive said. “Again, nice and slow. Don’t do anything stupid. I want to see what you’ve got in there.”
Gus did as instructed, shaking out three energy bars, a water bottle, an emergency whistle, waterproof matches, dry clothes, a compass, trash bags that could be used as an emergency shelter.
The fugitive toed a trash bag with his wet sneaker. “That’s a lot to carry for a day hike, isn’t it?”
Gus shook his head. “I always pack more than I think I’ll need. If I use everything, I know I didn’t pack enough.”
“Where’s your gun?”
“Not here.”
“You’re a federal agent. You go armed 24/7. You’re supposed to have a gun.”
Gus didn’t know if that was true or not. He and Nate had never discussed those kinds of details. The fugitive had frisked him for weapons in the first minutes after he’d jumped out from behind the boulder, but Gus hadn’t realized it was, at least in part, due to mistaken identity. “Why didn’t you check my pack for a gun sooner?” he asked.
“I didn’t need to. Touch it, and you were dead, anyway. Let you carry the extra weight of a gun.”
His logic made sense. “Do you want to change into dry socks at least?”
“No. Give me your water.”
Before Gus could comply, the fugitive reached down with his free hand and grabbed the plastic bottle from among the dumped-out contents. He used his teeth to open the flip-top and drank deeply, even with his chattering teeth.
He shoved the bottle at Gus. “Close it. Don’t drink any.”
Once again, Gus did as requested.
“You’re older than I thought you’d be,” the fugitive said. “What’s with the white hair?”
“Hard life.”
“I hate marshals.”
Gus said nothing.
“How much farther now?” the fugitive asked.
“To-”
“To where your mummy and daddy froze to death.”
Gus pushed back a surge of anger and gazed down toward the village nestled in the valley below Cold Ridge, lost now in the gray clouds and fog. He could see his nephew and nieces on that cold, awful night thirty years ago.