The Call of the Mild Read online

  There was no one inside.

  Gus came out of the tent and checked the dining table, hoping that Shawn and Mathis had reappeared there while he was checking the sleeping quarters. They hadn’t.

  Moving around the yellow pavilion, Gus discovered that there was one other tent he hadn’t noticed before. No surprise there—unlike the grand sleeping quarters, this was a small, olive drab lean-to, probably the cheapest shelter you could find at any army surplus store. Gus approached it nervously. It was just about the right size to hide a body. He lifted the flap and peered in. And his heart stopped.

  The tent was dark and close. Something lay sprawled on the ground. In the dim light it looked like a body. Gus forced himself to reach in and touch it. The form sank under his fingers.

  Gus almost let out a laugh in relief. It wasn’t a body. It was just a few spare pillows that had tumbled down from a stack on the left side of the tent. Gus had fallen for the same trick he’d used on his parents when he wanted to sneak out with Shawn when they were kids—he’d arrange his pillows under the covers on his bed so that when his parents looked in on him they’d see what they’d think was a sleeping boy. The only difference was that his parents had never fallen for this subterfuge—apparently a good mother could tell the difference between the child she’d borne and a cotton rectangle filled with foam—and Gus just had.

  He pushed the pillows out of the way and checked the rest of the tent’s contents. There were coolers filled with eggs and oranges, not doubt to be scrambled and juiced in the morning, a sack of potatoes, bags of whole-bean coffee, several restaurant-sized cans of ketchup, what looked like an entire pig’s worth of bacon and a second swine of sausage, and pink bakery boxes filled with croissants, brioche, and Danishes. Gus didn’t know what seemed more surprising to him—that they had brought enough food to feed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or that they’d flown in the pastries pre-made, instead of baking them fresh.

  There were more crates stacked behind the breakfast supplies, but Gus didn’t bother to check through them. None of them was big enough to hold a body. He crawled back out of the lean-to and let the flap fall shut behind him.

  There was still no sign of Shawn or Mathis at the dining table. Gus forced himself to keep calm. Mathis wouldn’t do anything obvious. He couldn’t. He’d have to figure that Gus knew everything Shawn did. Even if he managed to get rid of Shawn and make it look like an accident—for the first time since the helicopter landed, Gus replayed that old dream image of his best friend’s body broken and bloody at the bottom of a cliff—he couldn’t possibly hope to get rid of Gus the same way.

  Whatever Mathis was up to, Gus had to figure it out fast. The sun was dropping behind the peak of the mountain, and the shadows had disappeared. There was probably another fifteen or twenty minutes before it got too dark to see, but that wasn’t a lot of time. The servers were already moving around the camp lighting oil lamps. Once the sunlight was gone, so was any chance of finding Shawn.

  There was one way out. The emergency beacons. He could use one of them, send out the signal for help. Whoever showed up would be prepared to find people lost in the wilderness. It would be career suicide, but Shawn would have to find that preferable to actual homicide.

  No need for that extreme measure just yet, though. Gus would give it a few more minutes, wait at least until it was dark. And if he’d heard nothing from Shawn by then, he’d do it.

  Gus was moving towards the backpacks to position himself near the beacons when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He wheeled around towards the motion and saw Shawn walking away from him at the far end of meadow. He was about to call out, to wave his hands over his head and jump and scream to let Shawn know he was heading in the wrong direction. Until he noticed two small details that had escaped him in the first blush of excitement:

  Shawn wasn’t alone in the meadow. Morton Mathis was walking directly behind him.

  And Shawn’s hands were up in the air.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  He was a savage jungle cat moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses of the meadow. The sun was completely hidden behind the mountain now, and the last glimmerings of daylight were fading into dark gray. But jungle cat Gus didn’t need light to find his way. He was moving on smell, on touch, on instinct.

  He was going to save his friend.

  As he tracked his prey, Gus tried to figure out what exactly was going on. Clearly Mathis was armed. He must have been holding a gun on Shawn. He hadn’t used it yet, though. The shot would have echoed through this wilderness like an avalanche; if he wanted to kill Shawn and rejoin the other lawyers he’d have to do it silently. And that meant getting far enough away from the camp so that the others wouldn’t hear even if Shawn cried out.

  This gave Gus a small advantage. Mathis had to keep this quiet; Gus could yell for help at any time. Even if the other lawyers wouldn’t necessarily come running, odds were at least some of the servers would try to help.

  There was only one thing stopping Gus from crying out right now, and that was the fact that Shawn must have come to the same conclusion. He would have known that Mathis couldn’t afford for him to shout for help—so why didn’t he?

  Gus crouched at the edge of the meadow and peered into the gathering darkness. Just ahead of him the ground began to slope up sharply and the wildflowers gave way to the kind of rocky wasteland they’d spent the morning walking through. Large boulders spotted the landscape, which would give Gus cover once he started to move forward again. But they were also cover for Mathis—he and Shawn could be behind any one of a dozen large enough to hide two men.

  Suddenly there was a sound in the air. It sounded like voices. But where were they coming from? The stream was running off to Gus’ right, and the sweet tinkling drowned out the faint sound of speech. It must be Shawn and Mathis, but Gus couldn’t make out what they were saying. He cursed himself for every time he’d ever turned up the volume on his iPod to fill his brain with Mariah Carey’s high notes. Didn’t he know he’d need his hearing intact one of these days?

  Just keep talking, Shawn, Gus thought as he maneuvered his way to the first of the large boulders and pressed himself against it. Let me know where you are.

  For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but silence. And then he heard Shawn’s voice again. It sounded desperate, as if he were pleading for his life. Who knew how much time he had left before Mathis silenced him forever?

  There was an enormous boulder up the hill to Gus’ right. Shawn and Mathis were on the other side of it. Gus scrabbled around in the ground at his feet for a weapon. He came up with a stone the size and weight of a brick. It would do.

  At least, it would have done if he and Mathis were Cro-Magnons fighting it out in a prehistoric age. Unfortunately a lot of time had passed since then, and mankind had invented far more advanced weaponry, including the gun that Mathis must be holding on Shawn. The rock wouldn’t do Gus any good if Mathis could take him out from fifty feet away.

  Gus needed one more weapon, and there was only one available—the element of surprise. He’d have to strike from above.

  But for the surprise attack to work he would have to move silently. And that was nearly impossible. The ground was scattered with loose stones, and they skittered down the hill with every step he took. He had to lift one foot, wait for the gravel to settle underneath, then find a new place for it a few inches ahead. Press it down gently, make sure there were no loose rocks underneath, and finally put his weight on it. Then he could begin the process with the other foot.

  Gus had no idea how long it took him to get to the top of the boulder. It felt like hours, although the last dregs of daylight around him suggested it had been only a few minutes. He pressed his back against the boulder and listened for the voices.

  “You can’t just leave us out here,” Shawn said.

  “Watch me,” Mathis said.

  “You really think no one’s going to fig
ure out what you’re up to?”

  “That’s not going to matter to you,” Mathis said. “In fact, none of this is going to matter to you. And that’s—”

  This was the moment. Mathis was going to kill Shawn. Gus had to move now. He raised the rock over his head and leaped down from behind the boulder.

  At least that’s what he meant to do. But the ground around the boulder was strewn with loose rocks, and as he pushed off with his foot, the rocks slid out from beneath him. Gus went down headfirst, his face nearly slamming into the ground before he managed to get his other foot beneath him.

  Gus was upright now, and moving fast, but Mathis had heard him. He whirled around, leveling the gun. Even in the twilight, Gus was sure he could see Mathis’ finger tightening on the trigger as Gus stumbled towards him. Gus brought the rock back up.

  “Gus, no!” Shawn shouted.

  Shawn’s words penetrated Gus’ mind at the same instant as the tingling sensation from the shock of the rock slamming into Mathis’ head. By the time he was able to process the thought that Shawn hadn’t wanted him to knock the gunman out, it was too late for him to do anything about it. Mathis was sprawled out over the stony ground.

  “Are you okay?” Gus gasped as he kicked the gun out of the unconscious man’s hands and heard it splash into the stream in the darkness.

  “I’m fine,” Shawn said. “Wish I could say the same for him.”

  Shawn got down on his knees and felt Mathis’ neck for a pulse. He looked relieved to find one.

  “I’ve never heard you express such compassion for a murderer before,” Gus said, a little hurt that Shawn didn’t seem at all grateful to be so daringly rescued.

  “And you never will,” Shawn said. “Unfortunately, Mathis isn’t our killer.”

  Gus gaped at him. “But he has to be. It all fits.”

  “And a Matchbox racer fits in a prescription pill bottle,” Shawn said. “But that doesn’t mean that if you dump out your mother’s Darvon so you can use the bottle as a car carrier she won’t get mad at you, as I think we both remember all too well.”

  Gus tried to make sense of what Shawn was saying. “He was holding a gun on you.”

  “Yes, he was,” Shawn said. “In his right hand, which definitely did make our theory seem more likely. Unfortunately, what’s in his left hand seems to undercut it just about entirely.”

  Following Shawn’s gaze, Gus knelt down and opened Mathis’ left hand. He was holding on to a plastic wallet. Gus took it and let it fall open. He couldn’t see much in the dark, but he could feel a smooth plastic surface on one side. On the other was a shield of engraved metal.

  “It’s kind of hard to see in the dark, but he showed it to me before the sun went down,” Shawn said. “It identifies him as Special Agent Morton Mathis, FBI.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Gus stared down at the FBI agent, trying to will him back into consciousness. At least he thought he was staring down at Mathis. It had gotten so dark he could have been staring at a rock.

  Or he could have until the rock stirred and moaned. And then let out a string of curses Gus was pretty sure no rock would ever utter.

  “You’re okay now,” Shawn said, reaching down to help Morton to his feet. “You had me scared there. We were having a pleasant conversation, and then you just keeled over and passed out.”

  “Yeah, right after this idiot beaned me with a rock,” Mathis said, clutching the back of his head.

  “You’re not supposed to remember that,” Shawn said. “It’s been clearly demonstrated in every movie ever made that when you’re knocked out with a rock and someone tells you that you fainted, you always believe it. I think it has something to do with short-term memory. Or rocks.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Gus said. “I saw you taking Shawn away at gunpoint and I thought you were going to kill him.”

  “You were wrong,” Mathis said. “Though maybe not anymore.”

  “Oh, come on,” Shawn said. “It was an innocent misunderstanding. We’ll all be laughing about it in a little while.”

  Mathis pulled his hand away from his head and rubbed his fingers together, checking to see if they were covered with blood. Apparently they weren’t. “We’re not doing anything together,” the agent said. “We’re not laughing together, we’re not crying together, and as I was explaining before Chingachgook here tried to scalp me, we’re not working this case together.”

  Gus shot Shawn a puzzled look, which was a waste of facial muscles since it was too dark to see expressions. But Shawn knew Gus well enough to read his silence.

  “Special Agent Mathis is working undercover at Rushton, Morelock,” Shawn explained. “The FBI seems to believe that someone there is using the law firm as a conduit to smuggle out top-secret technology.”

  “Would that be the same technology that was stolen from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory?” Gus said.

  “That’s great. You guys figured out a piece of it,” Mathis said. “Just enough to get Archie Kane killed.”

  “We’re not the ones with guns and badges,” Gus said. “We’re not the ones with the entire power of the federal government behind them. We didn’t even know who Archie Kane was until he was dead, let alone that he was working with the FBI.”

  “He wasn’t,” Mathis said. “I couldn’t break cover with him. But I did put a little pressure on the guy, and he snapped.”

  “If by ‘snapped’ you mean dressing up as a mime and holding innocent people hostage in a public restroom, I think that’s a fair assessment,” Shawn said.

  “I mean he tried to take care of the problem on his own to protect his mentor, and it got him killed,” Mathis snapped. “I’ve got that kid’s blood on my hands, and the only way they’re coming clean is when I pop the guy who did him.”

  “Then we all want the same thing,” Gus said.

  “Not entirely,” Mathis said. “Not unless you’re secretly harboring a yearning for a stint at Gitmo.”

  “Agent Mathis,” Shawn said soothingly. “Special Agent Mathis. Very Special Agent Mathis. What my rock-happy friend is saying is that we have a common goal. We all want to catch the person who committed these crimes. If we work together, we can figure it out before the rescue chopper shows up.”

  “There’s not going to be a rescue chopper,” Mathis said.

  “Once we use one of the beacons, there will be,” Shawn said.

  “You’re not using the beacons. Nobody is. One of those four lawyers sucking down sorrel soup is a murderer and a traitor. That person has given up all rights to be free in civil society. So whichever one it is, he or she is not going back to civilization except in handcuffs.”

  “I understand that,” Gus said. “But there are three other lawyers, as well as the two of us and you, and we haven’t murdered or, um, traitored anyone. What happens if we get to the end of the trail and you still haven’t figured out who the bad guy is?”

  “I’ll sacrifice you all and myself if that’s what it takes,” Mathis said. “The spy is never going to walk free again.”

  “Say,” Shawn said. “I’m not suggesting that the knock on the head has left you the slightest bit crazy or anything like that. But it sounds an awful lot like you’re talking about letting five innocent people die so you can catch one criminal.”

  “Is that what it sounds like?” Mathis said. “Then I guess that must be what it is.”

  “You can’t do that,” Gus protested. “You work for the government. You have rules. Laws. Statutes. Regulations.”

  “None of which applies in the wilderness,” Mathis said. “There’s only one law out here. And that’s me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Gus lay wide awake on the feather bed, staring up through the darkness at the tent ceiling. He thought back to the start of this day, when his only problem was that Shawn wouldn’t share his theory of who’d killed Ellen Svaco. Somehow he’d managed to convince himself that that had been a problem worth getting worked up about.
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  That was before he’d found himself on a five-day nature hike with a quintet of psychopathic lawyers, one of whom was also a murderer who seemed to have no compunction about killing to keep his or her identity a secret. At least two people were already dead, and Gus couldn’t imagine why the killer would feel any hesitation to continue with the spree.

  But now even that seemed like the good old days. Because that killer was likely to attempt murder only if it looked like he or she was about to be revealed. Mathis, the FBI agent, had claimed he’d kill them all if he didn’t unmask the killer. Which meant that someone was going to try to kill Gus, Shawn, and who knew how many others no matter which way things worked out.

  There was a light snore from the bed next to his. Shawn was sleeping peacefully—as always. And he’d eaten well, too, knocking back two bowls of soup and at least three helpings of lamb, along with a couple of chocolate soufflés. Nothing seemed to bother him—not their impending doom, or the impossibility of their situation, or guilt at having gotten them into this death march in the first place. Even when Gus had told him the entire story of his long search-and-rescue mission, starting with his baffling discovery upon stepping out of the bathing pavilion, through the searches of the other sleeping quarters and the supply tent, through his treacherous journey across the rocky hillside, Shawn sounded more entertained than impressed. By the time he was done, Gus suspected he’d hit the wrong person with the rock.