NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,98
her.”
He murmurs, “A brave girl, then.”
“And foolish,” comes the reply.
And a stupid father, he thinks, to let his daughter roam at will like this, with no guards, no security.
The camera in the air follows the vehicle with no difficulty, and the older man shakes his head, again looking around him at the rich land and forests. Such an impossibly plentiful and gifted country, but why in Allah’s name do they persist in meddling and interfering and being colonialists around the world?
A flash of anger sears through him.
If only they would stay home, how many innocents would still be alive?
“There,” his companion says. “As I earlier learned … they are stopping here. At the beginning of the trail called Sherman’s Path.”
The vehicle on screen pulls into a dirt lot still visible from the air. Again, the older man is stunned at how easy it was to find the girl’s schedule by looking at websites and bulletin boards from her college, from something called the Dartmouth Outing Club. Less than an hour’s work and research has brought him here, looking down at her, like some blessed, all-seeing spirit.
He stares at the screen once more. Other vehicles are parked in the lot, and the girl and the boy get out. Both retrieve knap-sacks from the rear of the vehicle. There’s an embrace, a kiss, and then they walk away from the vehicles and disappear into the woods.
“Satisfied?” his companion asks.
For years, he thinks in satisfaction, the West has used these drones to rain down hellfire upon his friends, his fighters, and, yes, his family and other families. Fat and comfortable men (and women!) sipping their sugary drinks in comfortable chairs in safety, killing from thousands of kilometers away, seeing the silent explosions but not once hearing them, or hearing the shrieking and crying of the wounded and dying, and then driving home without a care in the world.
Now, it’s his turn.
His turn to look from the sky.
Like a falcon on the hunt, he thinks.
Patiently and quietly waiting to strike.
SHERMAN’S PATH
Mount Rollins, New Hampshire
IT’S A CLEAR, cool, and gorgeous day on Sherman’s Path, and Mel Keating is enjoying this climb up to Mount Rollins, where she and her boyfriend, Nick Kenyon, will spend the night with other members of the Dartmouth Outing Club at a small hut the club owns near the summit. She stops for a moment on a granite outcropping and puts her thumbs through her knapsack’s straps.
Nick emerges from the trail and surrounding scrub brush, smiling, face a bit sweaty, bright blue knapsack on his back, and he takes her extended hand as he reaches her. “Damn nice view, Mel,” he says.
She kisses him. “I’ve got a better view ahead.”
“Where?”
“Just you wait.”
She lets go of his hand and gazes at the rolling peaks of the White Mountains and the deep green of the forests, and notices the way some of the trees look a darker shade of green from the overhead clouds gently scudding by. Out beyond the trees is the Connecticut River and the mountains of Vermont.
Mel takes a deep, cleansing breath.
Just her and Nick and nobody else.
She lowers her glasses, and everything instantly turns to muddled shapes of green and blue. Nothing to see, nothing to spot. She remembers the boring times at state dinners back at the White House, when she’d be sitting with Mom and Dad, and she’d lower her glasses so all she could see were colored blobs. That made the time pass, when she really didn’t want to be there, didn’t really want to see all those well-dressed men and women pretending to like Dad and be his friend so they could get something in return.
Mel slides the glasses back up, and everything comes into view.
That’s what she likes.
Being ignored and seeing only what she wants to see.
Nick reaches between the knapsack and rubs her neck. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
Mel laughs. “Silly man, it’s the best! No staff, no news reporters, no cameras, no television correspondents, no Secret Service agents standing like dark-suited statues in the corner. Nobody! Just you and me.”
“Sounds lonely,” Nick says.
She slaps his butt. “Don’t you get it? There’s nobody keeping an eye on me, and I’m loving every second of it. Come along, let’s get moving.”
Some minutes later, Nick is sitting at the edge of a small mountain-side pool, ringed with boulders and saplings and shrubs, letting his feet soak, enjoying the sun on his back, thinking of how damn lucky he is.
He had been