“We discussed this,” he said. “We want to get in and get out of this place. People will notice us the longer we are here. You can get plenty of sleep on the plane home.”
Victór moaned.
“We have to believe in why we’re here,” László said. “Never forget that.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nate Romanowski
Nate drove south on I-25 toward Denver in silence, except for the sizzling of his tires on the highway wet from snow. His five-shot .454 Casull revolver sat in a coil of its shoulder holster within easy reach on the passenger seat. He had revenge on his mind and violence in his heart.
In falconry terms, he was entering the mental state of yarak, where his complete focus was on the hunt. Despite his hours on the road, everything was coming together. His eyesight seemed sharper, his hearing had improved, his instincts were on high alert, and his jaw was clamped tight.
Physically, he didn’t feel like he was there yet. Since marrying Liv and having a daughter, he hadn’t regained the lethal edge he’d once had. He hadn’t quite gone soft, but his life and outlook had been redirected. His new life as an on-the-grid husband, father, and small-business owner was much more fulfilling and rewarding than he’d ever imagined. But he knew he needed to temporarily step aside from all of that and invite his old self back in.
Because the man he was hunting was just as skilled as Nate had ever been, not to mention younger and more ruthless.
* * *
—
After crossing the Wyoming border into Colorado before dusk, he stopped for coffee and gasoline in the small town of Wellington. Large snowflakes drifted down, briefly illuminated by pole lights bordering the convenience store and fuel stop. He could hear the drone of the interstate to the east.
While he filled the tank of his specially retrofitted panel van, Nate checked his phone and dialed up a website called Blood Feathers, which was a falconer’s term for nascent raptor feathers that were still growing. It was a crudely constructed site that hadn’t been updated in years, and it was used primarily by master and apprentice falconers who were out of the mainstream but still wanted to communicate with like-minded practitioners. The falconers on the site were a motley crew of outlaws, ex-cons, survivalists, and former military. A few had even served as elite special operators in the same small unit to which Nate had belonged. They weren’t friends exactly, and he’d never met most of the people who posted on the site. Falconers tended not to congregate, lest they lose the all-consuming and necessary concentration on their partnership with their birds. But they were like-minded for good or ill.
Nate scrolled down through the crude graphics on the site until he found the log-in box for a special portal called Bal-Chatri, named for an especially effective trap for capturing wild raptors. The offshoot access was heavily encrypted, and he keyed in a series of passwords until it gave him entry. Then he scrolled down through the message threads.
Ninety percent of the content on Bal-Chatri pertained to best practices, tips, and interactions between falconers. There were forums on the qualities of individual species, and debates about the ethics of using wild raptors for commercial bird abatement enterprises. The other ten percent of the content fell into the category of “political.”
This part of Bal-Chatri was devoted to unofficial and civilian-generated special ops.
The outlaw falconers who populated Bal-Chatri were almost all anti–government regulation, libertarian, pro–Second Amendment types who simply wanted to leave others alone and be left alone themselves. They railed against bureaucrats and politicians and social justice warriors of all stripes who would, if given the chance, impose their mores and wills upon them. Nate’s own sympathies tended in that direction, but he rarely participated in the discussions. Even very well-known and experienced falconers throughout the world couldn’t access the special portal. It was available only through special invitation.
What was of value to him via Bal-Chatri wasn’t the politics or even the collective knowledge of fellow falconers. It was the geographic dispersal of the members and the fact that although they were largely antisocial loners, they all shared an unwritten code. Bal-Chatri was used to call out violations of that code so members could work together to expose and expel falconers who broke it.
Honorable falconers didn’t steal or injure birds from other falconers; honorable falconers never trespassed on hunting territory used by others; honorable falconers looked out for the best interests of others; honorable falconers never snitched regarding federal wildlife regulation violations; honorable falconers never engaged in practices that would damage the reputation of falconry; honorable falconers were permitted to capture and sell birds despite domestic and international prohibitions—but only to other honorable falconers.