Blood Trail - C. J. Box [41]
I’ve chosen not to use the knoll again. It would be too obvious and risky because they’re probably watching it. So I settle in farther up the ridge, behind some weathered rocks that provide both shelter and a place to take aim. When my breathing calms down from the long trek I let my eyes get used to the dark and peer through the scope of my rifle. Like all good-quality scopes, it gathers more light than the naked eye and I can see down the slope to where I hung Frank Urman in the trees. The band of light-colored material is crime-scene tape, I realize, and for a moment I expect to see my target within the perimeter. But he isn’t there. No one is there. I fight the building rage that has formed in my chest and pushed upward into my throat. I’ve taken a chance I shouldn’t have taken. For nothing.
But I think I hear talking. It is low, more of a muffled murmur than actual words. Sound carries up here, and the distance of origin can be deceptive. I lean down hard on the scope, sweeping it slowly through the trees, trying to find the source. The wind shifts almost imperceptibly and I realize the voices are coming not from the trees or meadow but from above them.
I slowly climb the hillside with my scope until I can make out the outline of a pickup truck. I can’t see it so much as make out its blocky outline against the star-splashed horizon. Only one vehicle, which seems odd since there were at least four men at the airport. Where has the other vehicle gone?
Despite training the crosshairs of my scope on the windshield for what seems like half an hour, I can make out nothing, and no one, inside. If they are in there, and I’m sure they are because I hear voices, they are talking in the dark. I consider a blind shot but decide against it. I don’t do things blind. I strategize, I plan, then I act. I don’t just fire away if I don’t know who I’m shooting at. It’s the first ethos of hunting: know what you’re aiming at.
Sooner or later, someone from inside the pickup will open a door and trigger the dome light and I will see who is inside. Or turn on a light to look at a map.
But I can’t wait all night. I’ll be missed. This has to be done soon or I’ll have to abort and go back. But after taking this risk and having this opportunity, I don’t want to simply leave. I can’t just leave.
Ayman al-Zawahiri of al-Qaeda, whom I’ve studied, perfected a strategy he used for maximum casualties. In Nairobi, Kenya, he set off two bombs timed a minute or so apart in front of the American Embassy. The first bomb created minimal damage but the surprise and impact of it outside on the street made scores of people inside the embassy building rush to the windows to see what had just happened. When the second bomb went off, hundreds were killed or severely wounded by the shattered windows they had just exposed themselves to. He justified the action by saying that although he was sacrificing civilians and fellow Muslims, it was still for the greater good because it effectively unleashed more terror on the infidels.
It was a lesson learned.
And one to be applied.
THE FOREST had closed in and darkened around Joe and Lothar and they moved silently under the narrow canopy. They were on a game trail through the heavy brush. Lothar kept nodding, as if saying, yes, yes, yes, we’re getting closer. Ahead of them, through the dark timber, Joe could both see and sense an opening lit by moonlight. Before breaking through the brush into the meadow, Lothar stopped and looked over his shoulder at Joe, his eyes wide and excited.
“What?” Joe mouthed.
Without speaking, Lothar pointed just ahead of him at a space between two branches that opened into the meadow. At first, Joe couldn’t tell what Lothar was trying to show him.
Not until Joe crouched a bit and saw how the moon lit up the broken thread-thin strands of a spider’s web did he understand what Lothar was telling him. The strands undulated in the near-perfect stillness like algae in a stream. Which meant that there had been a web across the game trail that had been broken through just moments before.