Page 55 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
“This could be where they’re keeping their vehicles. Trucks and cars that can’t get up to their training site.”
“Is that important?” Clare frowned. “The whole point was to find the militia.”
“It is, yeah.” Yíxin began to walk back and forth. Ethan followed her movement with interest. “If we have sufficient cause to arrest them, it’d be a lot easier for law enforcement to just wait for them to hike down and get their pickups than it would be to charge up the mountain for a New York State version of Waco.”
Clare paused. “But you don’t have the evidence to arrest them yet.”
“I’m not even sure who’s taking part in the group, other than maybe the men Tiny recognized yesterday.” Yíxin made a sound of frustration. “I thought this whole thing was going to be a lot more straightforward.”
“Regardless, we need to get Tiny back. There’s no telling what Cal might do if she catches up to him.”
“Report your car stolen and give the cops the location.”
“No. If Tiny is arrested, Rose will go into emergency foster care. Itcould be months before they’re reunited again.” Clare heard awoofand opened the door for Oscar.
“What’s going to become of the baby if her husband beats her up?”
“We’re going to stop that from happening.” Clare lifted Ethan from his high chair. “If you and I go up there to get Tiny and Rose, we’re just a couple of harmless do-gooders. We’re not any threat to their plan, whatever it might be. But if we call the cops, we’re going to get a lone Essex County Sheriff’s deputy, and how do you think the militia members are going to react to that?”
Yíxin sighed. “Not well. Not well at all.”
“Let me change out of my clericals and call my friend Karen. She goes to my church and her little boylovesEthan. If she can watch him, we can be on the road in ten minutes.” Baby on hip, Clare pushed through the swinging doors into the living room. The lawyer followed.
“The Essex County deputy could get there a lot quicker.”
Clare headed toward the stairs. “One person. If you’re going to confront these guys with cops, you need a force in strength, not one individual. And you don’t have any solid proof that would justify the sheriff’s department or the state police to do so. I don’t think you realize how stretched thin law enforcement is in the North Country.”
“If that’s the case, how come you’re not worried about your husband?”
Clare turned. “Because Russ can take care of himself. And because, thank God, he’s not a cop anymore.”
2.
“He’s a cop.”
That one short sentence, three words long, echoed around Russ’s head like the chorus from some unlovely, inescapable Christmas song. It stayed with him as he sat, under guard, in a corner of the camp. It rang in his ears while he ate a lukewarm dinner off a paper plate. It kept him company all night long in a stuffy single tent, vacated for his use by a man who left behind a too-short cot and the lingeringsmell of Axe body spray. And now, as he sat in the same darkened tent, waiting to find out his fate, he wondered if he was going to pass out of this world with Kevin Flynn’s accusation still slicing through the cold air.
He thought he’d been doing a decent job scouting the camp. After settling Hadley in position, he’d dropped back, hiking uphill and northward, following the trip line as best he could, because you didn’t waste manpower patrolling an area that was going to tell you if there was a breach anyway. He was pleased when it started to snow; he had confidence in his ability to maneuver through it, and though it would reduce his sight line on any patrolling militia, they seemed to go out in numbers, and it would be easier for him to hear them than for them to notice one guy moving carefully. He didn’t worry about tracks; at the rate the snow was coming down they’d be blurred in half an hour.
His plan was to circle clockwise, looking for any sign of wider-scale movement in and out of the camp—vehicle tracks or a well-beaten path. He also wanted to surveil the side of the camp he hadn’t been able to see from his original approach. For all he knew, they could have a whole depo and armory tucked away on the other side of the moraine. He had zero idea what they were up to, but any hope the militia were just a bunch of racist wannabes playacting in the woods had vanished when they’d discovered Pierre’s body.
Russ hadn’t spotted any significant break in the perimeter by the time he made it to the halfway point. He’d moved farther away from the trip wire; the snow was piling up fast and the last thing he wanted to do was step on it unseeing. He slung his rifle over his back and slowly, carefully, began approaching the rear of the camp. A flash and flutter of red caught his eye and he dropped into the snow, only to see a pair of cardinals and a half dozen red caps settling into a sheltering mountain laurel. He sighed to himself, clambered up out of the snow—and discovered what had disturbed the brilliant birds in the first place.
“Stop right there. Put your hands up.”
He did so. The man behind him pressed the barrel of a rifle into the center of his back, clunking against his own longarm.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The truth—or at least a portion of it—seemed the safest thing. “I’m trying to reach Kevin Flynn.”
There was a brief, whispered conference. More than one man. The first voice spoke again. “That’s not what I asked. Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Kevin’s. Take me to him, he’ll vouch for me.” There was a pause, then another series of whispers. Russ focused on the birds, crimson feathers against green leaves and white snow.
“Stay still.” A second voice. The pressure against his back went away. “There’s a rifle aimed at your head.” One of them grasped his gun and pulled it upward. Russ obediently raised his arms higher so they could get the strap.
“I’ll take it, Dillon.”
