Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(16)

Because the man he was hunting was just as skilled as Nate had ever been, not to mention younger and more ruthless.



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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.

The man Nate was hunting had broken every single one of those tenets, plus he’d physically attacked his wife and threatened his baby. His name was Axel Soledad.

Nate’s legitimate bird abatement business depended solely on his inventory of wild falcons, each of which he’d worked with for hundreds of hours until each raptor was fine-tuned. He’d flown each bird—peregrines, red-tails, prairie falcons, a gyrfalcon, kestrels, and Harris hawks—to develop their particular specialties and to enhance their hardwired skills. His Air Force had been practically wiped out. The three birds that weren’t stolen had been killed and left at the mews. None had escaped.

Not only was his Air Force captive in the vehicle of an outlaw, but his means to make a living and to support his family had been dashed—and that very family had been attacked. Retribution would come.

After Nate had posted an account of it all, the forum had exploded with rage. Many on the site had their own stories to tell about Axel Soledad. Although considered charismatic and a very experienced falconer in his own right, Soledad went against everything the Bal-Chatri community of falconers believed.

The members on the site not only wanted to see Nate recover his birds, they wanted Soledad disappeared by whatever means necessary. Nate didn’t disagree.

So the network looking out for Axel Soledad had been established. One member who called himself “Geronimo Jones” posted he’d seen Soledad and two other associates in downtown Denver. He’d provided Nate with a cell phone number to call once he got there.

Geronimo Jones. Nate already liked him.



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Since it was rush hour, the traffic had started to build once Nate drove south past Fort Collins. The Front Range was booming, and there were housing developments on both sides of the highway where open fields had been just a few years before. Economic and cultural refugees from California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and other states had recently contributed to an influx of population in Colorado. Nate barely knew the state anymore, even though he’d once lived there in his youth.