Chapter #17Mountain Missions by: Seuzz   It's a long flight to Billings, Montana, but at least it's made comfortable by the usual amenities that Fane provides its elite teams. You spend the night there after picking up an SUV and a large van, into the latter of which you transfer Vulcan's portable P3 machine. Dr. Plante, whom you know only vaguely as a blank-faced, forty-something scientist, keeps mostly aloof, and declines your invitation to accompany the rest of the team to a steakhouse for dinner.
The next morning you make the seven-hour drive deep into the Rockies, to Olympia State Park, where surveillance teams have tracked Durras. His truck is in the parking area a dozen yards from the Park Service lodge, and you look it over appraisingly.
It's a 4x4, and was once fire-engine red, though it has been so faded from sun and the elements that it only glows dully in the afternoon light. It is also so filthy and dented it might have sailed over a couple of cliffs in its time. A sturdy hook and crane are mounted in the back, and neatly packed tarps cover some kind of equipment in the bed. "Pretty fuckin' manly," a voice says behind your shoulder, and you jump. Cox is grinning, but you can see the admiration in his eyes as he stares at the truck. "You gonna be convincing as the guy who drives it?"
Cox doesn't know yet—no one on the team does—that this is a new kind of infiltration, so you just shrug and agree that the truck looks good.
You wander around the parking lot while eyeing the nearby scenery on the chance that Durras will appear. There aren't a lot of vehicles, and most of those are coming and going from a nearby camping site. Muniz and White take their sweet time inside the ranger station, and you wind up at the van, where Dr. Plante is still sitting behind the wheel. "Check the equipment, Doc," you tell him.
"I checked it last night."
"Well, check it again," you order. "We were on the road for a few hours and hit some holes after leaving the highway. I don't want any fuck ups. You ever do field work?" He shakes his head. "Cox, help the doc check out Little Mavin," you call.
While they're still busy in the back with that, Muniz and White come out. "Two rangers inside, God knows how many are on the grounds," Muniz says.
"Website suggests there'll be three."
"And if there's four?"
"You'll stay in character around him, until the target shows, at least. See that red truck, Muniz? Go let the air out of one of the tires. White, let the air out of this one." You kick one of the van's tires.
And when Cox tells you that Little Mavin is in perfect order, you send Muniz in to get help changing the van's flat. He comes back out in the company of a ranger whose hipster 'stache and hipster glasses clash comically with his uniform. You pass them as you go into the station/lodge.
It's a big, wood-cabin kind of thing, very rustic on the outside, but clean and modern and—God help us all—even hip on the inside. Is that an espresso machine in the corner? There is a low Formica-topped table in the corner with two brushed-metal laptops open and humming, and places for four more to be plugged in. A sign hanging from the ceiling announces the area "WiFi Ready!"
But you and the remaining ranger have the place to yourself. You're wearing a mask of a chunky Midwestern housewife, and corner the ranger to badger him with empty, good-natured pleasantries that you punctuate with honking laughs and references to your kids, who sure do love to go ice fishing. This ranger, who looks a lot healthier and more athletic than his hipster colleague, takes it all in good spirits and does a fine impression of someone enjoying your company. Still, he doesn't look disappointed when the Hipster Ranger trudges back in about fifteen minutes later. "Todd, I need you to come look at this," he sighs, and hooks his thumb back at the van.
Todd complies, and you watch with mild interest as the two return to the van. The back doors are open. Hipster Ranger puts a hand onto Todd's back as they near the van; as they draw up, strong arms shoot out to grab Todd; Hipster Ranger pushes him in and slams the doors shut. You're still staring out the window, humming mildly, as Hipster Ranger comes back in. "How many more to go?" you ask him.
"Only one. He's at the day-trippers' site right now. But we got two more staff members besides him. We cycle through, three at a time."
"Who's in charge of the schedule?"
"Todd is."
"Then Todd will change the schedule. The three of you will work all days until the target shows." Hipster Ranger groans. "You have an eco-jazz festival you'll be missing?"
"No, a girlfriend, and she's one of the other two rangers."
"And the other one?"
"Just a guy."
"Then I'll take over for the girl." You take out your cell phone, one of the disposable ones you and your team always carry on a job. "Gimme an address for her and get a mask from the van. Get it on her tonight."
"Awesome. We had a fight yesterday and she still hasn't forgiven me."
You start to rub his back with mock sympathy, but some more tourists come around the corner and into the lodge, and your new partner has to go to work. You wander around a bit more, killing time. But you're looking out the window again when the van doors open and Todd hops out. He straightens his uniform, looks around, and gives you a curt nod as he takes out his cell phone, presumably to get the third ranger up to the lodge and into the van.
Thirty minutes later, the Olympia State Park is another—albeit temporary—division of Fane Holdings.
* * * * *
A little before seven, Hipster Ranger—whose name, to your dismay, turns out to be "Geist Howland"—goes back to town. You stay with Todd Clemons and Wynn Gamble, as played in this farce by Cox and Muniz, until after sundown, by which point it's apparent Durras won't be coming back out of the park before morning. "Geist and Becky will be in tomorrow at five," Clemons tells you. "I'll call Buck and tell him he has the day off, that Wynn needs the extra hours." Gamble grimaces. You leave them—they have night duty at the lodge—and drive back to Olympia with Plante in the SUV. You drop him at a motel and drive to the address Geist gave you.
It's a timber house, almost an exact cube in shape under pyramidal eaves, on the outskirts of town. A smell of sawdust wafts out when Howland opens the door. "Christ, Knotts," he says. "You took your sweet time."
"Had to stay until after dark," you reply. "Where's the girl?" He chucks his chin at an unpainted door. Behind it is a tiny bedroom with a narrow mattress on the floor. Resting on it is a girl in cut off jeans and a red button-down shirt that's been tied off below the breastbone. She is slim, brown, healthy. "No wonder you didn't want to skip out on her," you mutter. "What was this fight about?"
"She caught me hitting on her best friend."
"If we didn't have to bundle her into a sleeping bag, you'd be sleeping in it on the back porch," you retort.
You get the girl—Becky Barlowe—wrapped up warmly, but there's a deep cellar under the house, and that's where you stash her; the paralytic poison will keep her asleep for as long as you need her out. You pull out some of her clothes from a dresser whose drawers don't want to close and whose rough surfaces bite your finger tips, and squat on the floor to take off your mask. You peel off the polyester pantsuit you've been wearing and scratch deeply at Paige Knotts's body. In fact, once you start, you find you can't stop, and fall back to grunt and writhe on the crusty sheets as you dig at yourself. Howland (that's Desmond White) watches with a pinched expression. "What's the fucking deal, Knotts? Is it like a snake shedding it's skin?"
No, it's just the sudden realization that in a few days this body, which despite tattoos and disguises is the one you were born with, won't be yours ever again. "So you were hitting on your girlfriend's best friend," you say. "Come hit on me. Flirt with me until I scream."
"Are you serious?"
"What's wrong? We've done it before. The party after the last Italian job, wasn't it? You were in me, weren't you? I think I was in you, too."
"That was different, that was masks and tats."
"You've got a tat going now."
"You don't have a mask."
You sigh and get up. "Alright, I'll get your girlfriend's mask," you grumble as you push past him.
"C'mon, Knotts, you know it's kind of— Look, I don't got anything against you. I think you're sexy as hell, and there's lots of time I've— Uh—"
"A smooth talker like you," you snort. "No wonder Becky prefers sleeping in the basement." You snatch up the mask from the saggy futon. Howland is very red when you turn back around. "Don't worry about it, White. I'm not offended, and I'm only a little bit pissed. I just could use a little honest affection right now. It's been a rough week. I could use a real face to face—"
You stop cold at the echo of Banks's "A real face to a real face." Despite your protests, you're not being honest even with White.
But before you can raise Becky Barlowe's mask to your face, your partner catches your arm and pulls you close.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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