Silken Prey

they
were
gunfighters, every one of them. Jenkins was the lead man, with two to his left, one to his right, in a V, like a bunch of Canada geese headed south.
    Lucas was counting steps. Two hundred and eighty slow steps down the road, and they could hear Dannon working, the rhythmic
chh! chh! chh! chh!
of a spade digging into damp earth, but they couldn’t see him.
    •   •   •
    W HEN D ANNON WAS IN the army, he’d served as company level and battalion level intelligence officer. In the latter job, in Afghanistan, he’d serviced a dozen sources in villages scattered around the forward operating base. They would call into the cell number and leave messages, which the native translator would render into English. Most of it was inconsequential—this guy or that guy had come or gone, and he was Taliban or an Arab or whatever. Arabs were always interesting, because they were rare and sometimes important. Most times, they were kids from Saudi or Jordan looking to make their bones, wandering across the landscape like itinerant skateboarders; but sometimes interesting. The Americans usually tried to pick up the Arabs.
    The actual pickups were done by special ops people. Dannon had gone along on a number of the operations, when there was space available—the commander encouraged staff people to get out in the weeds—and had twice been involved in firefights with the targets. Both times, they’d been kids, and both times, killed.
    But.
    Except for the fights themselves, it had always been high-tech: sources fingering the targets, live calls when a target was leaving a village, tracking them from gunships, then closing them down.
    He’d never used a GPS tracker, and it never occurred to him that there might be one on his truck. He’d never been tailed, and though he’d watched his rearview mirror, looking for cars that were pacing him, it never occurred to him that cars that overtook him and disappeared in the distance were the watchers. He’d never thought that night-vision goggles could be used against him.
    He’d never been snuck up on in the dark.
    But.
    He’d sat on nighttime ambushes, every sense digging into the dark, and as he dug Carver’s grave, that was operating on some level. At one point, a few minutes after he started digging into the reeds in the swampland, he picked up what seemed to be a vibration. He stopped digging and walked out to the road, and peered in the dark toward the turnoff. Nothing but darkness.
    He turned back, navigating with a taped flashlight, a thin needle of light showing him the path.
    He worked for another five minutes, and then felt another chill. What
was
that?
    There was no specific noise, other than the engines from the interstate, a mile away, but there was something under that . . . an unidentifiable pattern . . .
    He didn’t feel foolish at all: the special ops people always had said that when you had a feeling, pay attention to it; most times, it was nothing. The other time, if you hadn’t paid attention, it would kill you. So he paid attention, sitting, no longer digging. The burial site, near where they’d put Tubbs down, was off a gravel track, down a path that led to the river, and then off the path fifteen yards.
    Lots of zigs and zags.
    He was invisible, he thought. He sat, listening, listening . . .
    And heard the crunch of gravel.
    No. Imagined he heard the crunch of gravel? He wasn’t sure. He slipped his gun out of its holster, pressed the safety forward.
    Duckwalked out to the path to the river.
    •   •   •
    A MINUTE OFF THE TRACK, Lucas felt Del’s arm slow him down, and pull him in. They bunched up and Jenkins whispered, “His truck is twenty-five or thirty feet in front of us. I think he’s off to the right, right by the truck.”
    Lucas said, “Keep the lights handy. Light him up if you see him.”
    They moved on, up to the truck; and then a few steps beyond. Lucas heard the crunch of gravel and put out a hand to Del, who was to his left, stopping him in his tracks. Del did the same, to Jenkins, and Jenkins to Shrake. They all froze, and listened, peering into the blackness.
    Three of them could see nothing; but there was some kind of faint, faint noise coming from the front. Jenkins saw Dannon edge into the path, a gun in his hand.
    Jenkins had his flashlight in his left hand. He pointed it at Dannon’s eyes, pointed his pistol, and without warning, turned it on.
    Dannon was there, thirty feet away, pinned by the