Chase by James Patterson Page A

the outer office of the comm trailer at Black Hills compound, listening to the boss, Paul Haber, scream bloody murder into his phone on the other side of the closed door.
    He had reason to be pissed. They’d been only half an hour away, coming back from New York, when they got the call from Therkelson that the cop, Bennett, had arrived at the base alone.
    Toporski and Therkelson, going ahead of the rest of the team, were supposed to neutralize the cop.
    But that hadn’t happened. As they came up the hill, they saw the wreckage in the ravine—Toporski squashed dead like a bug and his buddy Therkelson busted up and in critical condition. The cop was gone.
    The only good news was that the cop seemed to have headed off in the direction of the state forest, hundreds of thousands of acres of uninhabited woods. He had a good forty-minute head start on them, but there was no one on this side of the mountain. They might be able to catch him still.
    Haber had already gotten the hunting party started. Before making the necessary calls, he told Monroe to get the MH-6 Little Bird ready, then took down and doled out what he called his M&M packs—M4A1s with attached M203 grenade launchers—to all the men.
    Haber, who had been a platoon sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry, before joining Delta, wasn’t stingy with the ammo. He’d given everyone five full clips apiece, as well as grenade packs with star clusters and smoke and high-explosive rounds. He wanted this cop good and dead.
    Devine sat on a plastic lawn chair staring up at the trailer’s dull metal ceiling as Haber screamed some more.
    Ever since he was a little boy, he’d loved guns and hunting and the woods. His father was an avid deer hunter, as his father had been before him. Devine loved the cold, empty wilderness and the smell of gun oil and cordite, sweat, and leather.
    But for the first time, he felt something was wrong about all this, something off.
    There were only seven of them now. Haber, Irvine, Leighton, Willard, Monroe, and De Souza. And himself.
    One little, two little, three little Indians, Devine thought as the boss’s door flew open.

Chapter 22
    Haber stood in the doorway, a slender, sharp-featured thirty-five-year-old man with a shaved head, gray trimmed goatee, and cold, dark-brown eyes. He was dressed in Sitka Optifade camo bibs and jacket, with Crispi Italian hunting boots. The mission was bankrolled by some deep pockets, and Haber had insisted that he and the men be outfitted properly with the best that money could buy.
    Even at rest, Haber had a stately presence. There was something old-fashioned about him. A hunter, an alpha. A born leader.
    “Get in here,” Haber said, going back into the office, taking his own M&M pack out of the locker behind him and clunking it on his desk.
    Devine watched Haber expertly load, check, and sight his automatic weapon. He did it with a skilled workman’s quick yet reverent efficiency. There was something pretty about it. Like watching a musician tuning his instrument, or a master chef honing his knife.
    The inside of his office was as spare and rugged as the man. A cot and camp chair, coffeepot on a plywood shelf, a whiteboard tacked with aerial and topographical maps.
    “Where’s Leighton? Here?” Haber said, tapping at the map.
    “Yes. I have him on this perimeter,” Devine said, stepping over and drawing a line with his finger.
    “So you definitely think he went south here?” Haber said, pointing.
    “Yes. His track through the mud puts him on this downslope to the southwest right toward the state land. That’s our advantage. That’s some of the most uninhabited timberland in the state. In the northeast, probably.”
    “Okay, good,” Haber said. “Why aren’t you on the bird yet?”
    Devine winced.
    “I wanted to talk to you in private, sir. I think we should medevac out Therkelson. We could have Monroe fly him over the hill and down to Chapman and call 911 anonymously.”
    “C’mon, he