sun barely showed in a gunmetal sky. Less than an hour of daylight left.
Few people were on the highway in this mountainous part of West Virginia. Dead of winter. No reason to be out and about if you didn’t have to be, especially with a blizzard forecast.
Franks liked to whistle. He was good at it, and he kept whistling that Kansas song until the burn phone rang on the seat beside him.
He pressed Answer on the Bluetooth connection. “Talk.”
“Peter here. How you coming along, Conker?” said a man with a British accent.
“Five, maybe six hours out of DC, if I’m lucky,” Franks said.
“There’s a room for you at the Mandarin Oriental under Richard Conker. Everything else you’ll need is in the safe. Code 1958. Repeat, 1958.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning, then.”
The line went dead. Franks ate a carrot, took a gulp of water, and thought about a bed at the Mandarin. But that was hours away.
He took his mind off the long drive by focusing on the pleasant soreness in his shoulders and legs. A welterweight in his thirties with a smooth shaved head and a disarming smile, he kept his body in prime condition by pushing it hard, and often.
Earlier in the day, just west of Cleveland, he’d stopped at a park and in twenty-degree temperatures put himself through a brutal hour-long routine of gymnastics, calisthenics, and body-weight plyometric exercises, followed by his own meld of yoga and the various martial arts he’d studied over the years. He’d burned twenty-five hundred calories, easy.
Since then, Franks had been engaged in a near nonstop, slow-motion binge of various shakes, protein bars, and raw vegetables and fruits.
And yet, after his phone call with the Brit, after knowing he had a high-dollar job waiting, he felt a different kind of hunger. One that couldn’t be sated with food.
Franks saw a sign ahead: ROUTE 16, IVYDALE—MUDFORK .
Despite the storm coming, despite the long drive ahead, he ran his tongue along his lips, went with his gut, and got off at the exit.
West Virginia State Route 16 ran north and south. He took a left and headed toward Mudfork. The road was narrow, snow-covered, and potholed in places, but Franks drove fast in his white Chevy Tahoe. Wyoming plates. Radial studded snow tires. Heavy-duty shocks. Registered to Richard Conker.
Franks pressed on the gas, his head swiveling as he scanned the area. He didn’t have a lot of time to find what he was looking for. Once darkness fell, he’d be done.
North of the hamlet of Nebo, the land on both sides of the route turned hilly; it was forested in bare oaks and clad in four inches of fresh snow. Franks passed a short driveway and saw an opportunity that made him smile.
Beyond some pines, two hundred yards farther on, he came upon the relic of a farmhouse, windowless, siding peeled to bare board and rotten. The barn’s roof was caved in. No sign of life anywhere.
Even better.
Franks pulled into the overgrown lane and parked the white Tahoe behind a gnarled old spruce and crab-apple trees laden with snow. His wiser, more experienced self said to sit there a few moments, breathe, and consider other options.
But then, even with the window closed, he heard the buzz of a chain saw. It almost took his breath away. Throwing caution to the wind, he reached around beneath the seat behind him, grabbed a few things, and climbed out.
The snow came up over Franks’s ankles, running shoes, socks, and the bottom of his leggings. His feet felt cold and wet almost immediately, but he didn’t care.
He pulled up the hood of his black fleece jacket against the wind and broke into a jog, passing an old chicken coop in the overgrown farmyard as he headed toward a stand of mature pine trees and the revving, biting sounds of that saw.
CHAPTER
26
FRANKS DUCKED INTO a pine break planted ages ago.
No doubt meant to block the view of nosy neighbors, he thought, ignoring the fluffy snow that sloughed off the boughs and clung to his hood, shoulders, and sleeves. He welcomed the snow and knew he had to have been almost invisible in those firs, frosted as he was, and moved toward the chain saw.
Creeping up to the edge of the muddy work yard he’d glimpsed from the road, he spotted a stack of long logs to his left and a steel shed to his right.
The chain saw and its operator worked by an idle log splitter set