“It’s not like rugby at all.”
There was a knock on the door and the brothers looked at each other. They’d not heard a car approach outside.
The door opened inward as far as the safety chain would let it. “Housekeeping,” a man said.
“We don’t require a service,” László responded.
A young man with thick glasses and a wispy beard peered in through the crack of the door at the two of them on the beds.
“Are you sure?” the man asked.
“We are sure,” László said firmly. With a side-eye, Viktór could see his brother reach beneath the bed for something. Probably the Pulaski tool.
“Not even towels?” the man asked.
“We’re okay, I said,” László replied. “Close the door. You’re letting the cold in.” He was getting angry.
“Who’s winning?” the housekeeper asked.
“Not the Lions,” Viktór said.
“I’m not surprised. I can’t remember the last time they won. I’m from Michigan.”
Viktór didn’t know what that meant. He looked to László, who was lifting the ax from the floor to lay it across his thighs. Viktór signaled to his brother with his eyes to calm down.
“It’s none of my business,” the housekeeper said, “but they’re serving free Thanksgiving meals at the community center if you guys are interested. Turkey and all the trimmings.”
“We’re okay,” Viktór said. “Please close the door.”
He could feel László tense up next to him, ready to leap to his feet and swing the ax through the gap in the door.
“Well, suit yourself,” the housekeeper said. He sounded disappointed. But the door eased closed and Viktór let out a deep sigh of relief.
Then the door opened again.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” the housekeeper called out. Then he quickly pulled the door closed.
His shadow passed across the curtains of the outside window and Viktór could hear the squeaking of laundry cart wheels on the cement sidewalk. A few seconds later, he heard “Housekeeping” called out in front of the room next to theirs.
“These people,” Viktór said. “They’re a pain in my ass.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Northwest of Boise
Nate Romanowski and Geronimo Jones were over halfway on the nineteen-hour, thirteen-hundred-mile drive from Denver to Seattle. Nate was at the wheel of the van. The landscape was rolling grassland and wide-open vistas and there was no longer much snow in the mountains. The sagebrush was gone. They’d outrun it.
As they traveled, Nate got used to the van rattling with empty cages on rough blacktop. It was a sound that he hoped would go away once the crates were filled with his recaptured Air Force. The rattling would be replaced by the shrieks of falcons and the heavy odor of hawk shit. He welcomed it.
They’d soon leave Idaho and enter the state of Oregon. Eastern Oregon, like eastern Washington, struck Nate as more Rocky Mountain West than Pacific Northwest. Dry, flat, and lonesome. The change in terrain and atmosphere was subtle and it came slowly over hundreds of miles traveled. He’d noted it before. Beef cattle still grazed in the fields and the small rural towns they passed through were ranch-oriented. Farming towns and green fields would soon replace them in a kind of changeover that came with the subtle drop of altitude and the heavier air. Once they left the Yakama Indian Reservation and crossed over the Cascades in Washington State, it would all be different: wet, green, and more than a little insane.
As he drove, Nate eyed every car they passed on I-84 for a glimpse of Axel Soledad’s vehicle. They’d learned from Tristan that Soledad had swapped out the Chevy Suburban he’d used in Wyoming for a black Mercedes-Benz Sprinter transport cargo van. Presumably, it was loaded with Nate’s falcons and one, maybe two, associates of Soledad’s. If Tristan’s information was correct, Soledad was bound for Seattle with a stop along the way in Baker City, Oregon.
Tristan had let the Baker City reference slip when he talked to them and it determined the route Soledad would take. Interstate 25 north to Fort Collins, US 287 to Laramie, I-80 West to Salt Lake City, I-84 to Ellensburg, Washington, then I-90 West to Seattle. The fastest possible route, less the stop.
Nate and Geronimo planned to stop in Baker City as well, if they didn’t overtake Soledad’s vehicle en route.
* * *
—
Tristan, last name Richardson, had spent the previous night bound and gagged in a heated outbuilding on Geronimo’s land in the mountains west of Denver. Nate had been given a well-appointed guest bedroom on the second floor in the Joneses’ spectacular log home. He’d gone to sleep overlooking a stunning view of the twinkling city lights far below them.