One of Underwood’s team cursed the darkness and the cold, his voice harsh enough to cut through the wind. When the agents were close enough to start to crowd him, Joe nudged Toby on over a wide snowfield that looked like a pond or small lake in the moonlight, and led them over the mountain to the western slope. As he descended, he left the cold wind on top. And as he walked his horse into the thick stand of trees, he left the moonlight as well.

—

DEEP IN THE TREES, Joe could see only what the yellow orb of his headlamp would reveal. Toby could see better than he could in the dark, so he had to trust the horse wouldn’t trap them in down timber or walk over a cliff. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the lenses of five bobbing headlamps, and sometimes the wayward beam of one slicing out to the side.

He emerged into a small mountain meadow where the canopy opened to allow moonlight. He reined Toby to a stop and waited.

Underwood joined him a few minutes later, and Joe said, “This is ridiculous. We’re only going to get our horses or ourselves hurt trying to ride down this mountain in the dark.”

“We have our orders,” Underwood said without conviction.

“Fuck the orders,” one of the team grumbled from the dark. “We need to get some rest, and my legs and butt are numb. If we ran into trouble right now, it would take me five minutes just to get out of this goddamned uncomfortable saddle.”

The others agreed, and they slowly dismounted. There were plenty of moans from saddle sores and distended knees and aching buttocks. One agent said loudly this was the worst assignment he’d ever had. Joe thought it interesting that Underwood no longer reprimanded them for their loose talk.

And by painfully climbing off his own horse, Underwood seemed to agree with them. They’d gone far enough for a while.

One of the agents said, “I guess we’re just supposed to sleep in the open. Oh, thank you, Regional Director, for your excellent planning.”

Underwood said, “Try spooning. That’s what they did in the Civil War.”

Joe stifled a grin when Underwood’s suggestion was met with a fusillade of angry curses. He thought for a moment that the expedition might just implode under its own combination of aimlessness and disorganization. That would be just fine with him, he thought. Joe almost felt sorry for Underwood, who was tasked with commanding a mission by a man he didn’t like or respect. He was a professional, though, and his background girded him for unpleasant duties.

“And no fires,” Underwood barked.

Just then, Underwood’s satellite phone burred and lit up.

“Yes, Director Batista,” Underwood said, loud enough to quiet the team of agents.

“Jesus Christ,” one of the agents whispered. “Does the son of a bitch know we stopped?”

—

WHILE UNDERWOOD LISTENED to his boss and said very little except to grunt and agree here and there, Joe showed the agents how to loosen the cinch straps on their saddles, picket their horses far away from one another so that each horse could graze and not get tangled with another. Then he revealed to the agents where heavy rubber rain slickers were rolled up and tied behind the seat of each saddle itself.

“Don’t unfurl the slickers with a lot of noise and force,” he said to them. “You’ll spook the horses. They get scared at flapping things. You can use the slickers for sleeping. They’ll keep you warm enough on top and the moisture in the ground won’t soak into your clothes.”

“We’re the fucking Wild Bunch,” one of them said, pulling on a long dusterlike yellow slicker.

“I think they all died in the end,” another one said sourly.

—

THE AGENTS WERE GRATEFUL if not happy, and Joe left them sprawled in the grass of the meadow. The yellow slickers held the moonlight. Joe thought the sight of four yellow forms writhing around to get comfortable in the grass looked sluglike and slightly comical.

For himself, he led Toby to the far edge of the meadow and unsaddled his gelding and picketed him. There was a one-man bivvy tent in the saddlebags, but Joe didn’t set it up. Instead he spread it out to use as a ground tarp and covered himself with a thin wool blanket he always packed along.

He propped himself up on an elbow on the saddle he’d use as a pillow, and ate two energy bars that had been in his emergency kit for at least two years. They were dry and crumbled into dust in his mouth, and swelled into a paste when he washed them down with water from his Nalgene bottle. He waited in the dark for Underwood to sign off with his boss. Occasionally, he could hear a word or two of Batista’s voice cut through the silence. He heard the words strategic, nonnegotiable, location, and autopsy very clearly.

Finally, Underwood said, “I’ve got some worn-out special agents here, sir. They need rest . . . I understand . . . Yes, I’ll get them up and keep them moving, and I’ll keep the phone on all night.”

As Underwood let the phone drop on its lanyard, he said, “Asshole.”

“Are we moving?” one of the agents asked defiantly.

“No,” Underwood said. “But if he asks us later, we did.”

Joe waited a beat, then said to Underwood, “I put your horse up over here. I’ve got a space blanket I could lend you. Do you want it?”

Underwood said, “Is that one of those silver sheets that’ll make me look like a baked potato?”

“Yup.”

He sighed. “I’ll take it.”

Joe handed Underwood the blanket, along with the Ziploc bag with the remaining two energy bars.

“They aren’t very good,” Joe said.

“Thank you anyway,” Underwood said, tearing into them.

—

AFTER UNDERWOOD SETTLED in his silver-lined blanket in the grass, Joe said, “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“So you want to talk,” Underwood said with irritation.

“I’ll keep it low so your guys don’t hear.”

“What about me? I’ll hear.”

Joe asked, “Do they have a location on Butch?”

“Yes. His phone is on, and it has a GPS feature inside the circuitry. They know exactly where he is on the map at least.”

“I knew about that,” Joe said. “Butch is smart enough to know it, too, so it surprises me he kept it on.”

Underwood shrugged. “Maybe he isn’t so smart. Batista has been trying to contact him for hours, but he must have the phone set to mute or he just doesn’t want to talk. The director wants to tell him the helicopter will be arriving at dawn.”

“Which way is he headed?” Joe asked.

“West. It sounds like he doubled back after he talked to us and he’s working his way down the mountain. Batista said his route is pretty erratic, though. They’re guessing at the FOB that Roberson is looking for a nice flat piece of sagebrush for the helicopter to land.”

“But it won’t happen, will it?”

“No. There is no helicopter,” Underwood said.

“What else?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Not a chance. The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you can get some sleep. Or I’ll take that space blanket back. You do look like a baked potato, you know.”

“Damn you.”

“Has anything happened in the investigation we should know about?”

“Like what?”

“I thought I heard you say something about an autopsy,” Joe said.

“Oh, yeah. There was a preliminary autopsy on our two special agents. Both were shot multiple times with small-caliber rounds. Tim Singewald was hit four times, and Lenox Baker was hit three times. Didn’t you say Butch Roberson was packing a .223 semiautomatic rifle?”

“I think so. It looked like a scoped Bushmaster .223 with a thirty-round magazine. They’re common around here.”

Underwood said, “The rounds that killed the agents were small caliber. Once they run ballistics on them, I’m sure there will be a match.”

“Lots of folks up here have .223s,” Joe said. “They’re a popular coyote-hunting round.”