Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(103)

“That all makes sense now,” said Pine.

“Also, Ben and I hiked down here before I took the mule ride.”

“Why?” asked Kettler.

Roth pointed around to the stacks of equipment and what looked to be protective gear piled next to the nuke, along with food and several water bladders. “You can’t open up a nuke with a screwdriver and a pair of swim goggles for protection. And, of course, I needed food, water filters, and other supplies. I couldn’t carry it down on the mule ride—there are space and weight limits. On the hikes down, we hid all of it near Phantom Ranch. The night I ‘disappeared’ I used the mule to transport them as close as I could to my final destination. After that, I carried everything to where I needed it to go.”

“But why the hell did you kill the mule?” asked Kettler.

“The mule fell over a rock and either went lame or fractured its foreleg. But to tell the truth, I had intended to kill the animal anyway. I had brought an anesthetic with me to humanely accomplish that.”

“But why?” persisted Kettler.

Roth spread his hands. “I couldn’t bring it with me here. And we were a long way from Phantom Ranch. And the poor animal had no way to get back there. It would have been attacked and killed by predators. I did not want it to suffer.”

“And you carved the letters j and k on its hide,” said Pine. “Why do that?”

“There was no guarantee that I was going to come out of this alive, Agent Pine. Being out here solo in the Grand Canyon isn’t smart.” He looked at Kettler. “I’m sure you warn all tourists not to do what I’ve done. Come down without any backup and then go off trail.”

“That’s true,” conceded Kettler.

Roth looked back at Pine. “Ben was the only person who knew I was down here. If something happened to him, like you just said it did, then I would have no cover at all. If I died down here, either due to a snakebite or a fall or dehydration, I wanted someone to know that this had to do with something hidden in a cave.”

“So you obviously knew about the alleged expedition by Jordan and Kinkaid and the cave they supposedly found?”

“Yes. I actually heard about it from a local when I was hiking down here with the supplies.”

“My secretary is local. That’s how she knew about it, too.”

“It was the only thing I could think of, really, those two letters pointing to a hidden cave in the Canyon.”

“Not much of a clue,” said Pine. “I was just lucky my secretary knew about it before and put it together.”

Roth said defensively, “Well, I couldn’t exactly write, ‘Hey, there’s a nuke in a cave down here.’ For all I knew, it would be the people behind this who found the mule. I didn’t want to give them a direct map to me. I just did the best I could with what I had.”

“But then you rolled the mule over to hide the carving,” said Pine. “Why?”

“Because I knew scavengers would come and tear at its hide. The markings would have been destroyed if I had left them exposed.”

Pine looked confused. “But the three soldiers were right outside the cave. I thought they would have already been here to take the nuke, since the peace talks have collapsed. And then the media circus would have started.”

“I’m certain they would have, too. Except this is not the cave where they originally placed the device.”

“What?” exclaimed Pine.

“I couldn’t leave it there, Agent Pine. So I moved it here.”

“You moved that thing? How?”

In answer, Roth hauled out something from a corner that looked like a high-tech backpack combined with an overlay of exoskeleton technology.

“The weapon is not as heavy as you might think. They did a great job of miniaturizing the nuke, which is both impressive and terrifying. Now this is a lifting pack of my own design. I disassembled it, and Ben carried it down on one of his hikes into the Canyon and hid it in one of the caches. I reassembled the lift pack and used that on multiple treks to carry all my supplies onward from where I left the mule. I also used this to lift the weapon and carry it here.”

“How did you even know about this cave?”

“Quite simple. Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I used to hike the Grand Canyon on a fairly regular basis. Once I went off the normal trails and stumbled upon this cave. It wasn’t that big a deal; there are caves down here, of course. But when I realized that it was close to where they had placed the nuke originally, I hit upon the plan to move it here. I brought a collapsible pole with me to lever a nearby boulder into place to hide the entrance whenever I left the cave.”

“But why would you leave the cave while you were down here?” asked Pine.

This time Kettler answered. “You’ve been down here for many days. You needed water.”

“Yes,” said Roth. “There was a source nearby and I had my filters. And some of the battery packs for my power tools were solar. I had to place them outside to let them recharge.” He paused. “Unfortunately, I had to leave it open when I was inside. But I used the camouflage blanket that I brought with me to hide the entrance. I used the boulder when I was out of the cave to prevent anyone from sneaking past the blanket and surprising me when I came back.”