tracks on the frosty ground.
“Somebody’s been up here already,” I said.
Wood walked over and took a look at the tread marks. “Nobody was here when we showed up. And that was at five.”
“Then they were here before then.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Frost forms on clear nights, in early morning hours. Soon as the sun tops those trees, it’ll melt off, just like it would’ve yesterday, given the weather. If you got here at five, then that means they were here sometime last night.”
“How do you know we didn’t leave those tracks, backing in and out?”
I glanced at the tires on Wood’s Explorer, then at the marks left on the ground.
“The turning radius and wheelbase dimensions are different. Also, these tracks were left by smaller tires—a van or a small truck, would be my guess. Plus, you can see where the driver pulled in, put it in reverse, and headed back down the mountain.”
Wood squatted for a closer look.
“For a flight instructor,” he said, “you sure seem to know a lot about tire tracks.”
We learned all about tire tracks at Alpha, along with hundreds of other seemingly trivial topics of study. When you stalk terrorists across the globe in the name of national security, any knowledge, our instructors constantly reminded us, can become an all-powerful weapon, however inconsequential that knowledge might seem in the classroom. Tom Wood didn’t need to know all that, though.
“Tires are groovy,” I said.
He strained to laugh.
W HERE THE pine forest was thick and the sun could not penetrate the tops of the trees, the trail was hard packed and easily negotiated. Where the trees thinned, enough so that light could filter through, the path devolved into mud. You didn’t need to be Tonto to spot two distinctly different sets of man-size footprints embedded in the brown muck. One set of prints was left by heavy-soled boots; the other, what looked like basketball or running shoes. And there was something else: to the right of the boot prints, plowed the length of the trail, were two shallow, thin gouges in the mud, spaced about a foot apart, like someone had dragged something down the mountain.
“Hikers,” Bree Kelly said as she followed me up the trail. The same two hikers, she speculated, whose tire tracks I’d noted at the trailhead, now more than an hour’s climb behind us.
“Can’t be the same hikers,” I said. “There’s only one set of prints coming back down the hill—the guy wearing the boots.”
“Could be the other guy found another way back down,” Wojewodski said, bringing up the rear. “These mountains have unmarked game trails going off all over the place.”
We stopped five minutes later for breakfast. Wojewodski offered me an apple from his pack. Wood gave me water from his CamelBak. Kelly shared a bag of trail mix. I pretended to eat the raisins, chucking them into the trees when nobody was looking. Why anyone eats dried, shriveled grapes unless they’re starving is beyond me.
The trail ascended into a narrow canyon where the sun could not go and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees, then curved northeast along a barren moraine. We traversed across talus, avoiding a modest-sized snowfield, before picking up the path on the other side and climbing in elevation. I didn’t complain when Wood stopped to check our bearings on a sun-splashed promontory overlooking Chalmers Peak and the barren granite ridge that ran south-to-north, bridging Chalmers to Mount San Marcos. I needed the rest. My legs and lungs were burning.
Wood studied the terrain ahead with a pair of scratched and dented field glasses.
“You say you saw the wreckage inside the tree line?”
I pointed. “Three hundred meters below that saddle, almost square in the center.”
We were no more than a mile from the site, Wood said. The least exhausting way to get there, he concluded, was to find a chute leading to the top of the saddle, cross the saddle to its midpoint,
“Somebody’s been up here already,” I said.
Wood walked over and took a look at the tread marks. “Nobody was here when we showed up. And that was at five.”
“Then they were here before then.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Frost forms on clear nights, in early morning hours. Soon as the sun tops those trees, it’ll melt off, just like it would’ve yesterday, given the weather. If you got here at five, then that means they were here sometime last night.”
“How do you know we didn’t leave those tracks, backing in and out?”
I glanced at the tires on Wood’s Explorer, then at the marks left on the ground.
“The turning radius and wheelbase dimensions are different. Also, these tracks were left by smaller tires—a van or a small truck, would be my guess. Plus, you can see where the driver pulled in, put it in reverse, and headed back down the mountain.”
Wood squatted for a closer look.
“For a flight instructor,” he said, “you sure seem to know a lot about tire tracks.”
We learned all about tire tracks at Alpha, along with hundreds of other seemingly trivial topics of study. When you stalk terrorists across the globe in the name of national security, any knowledge, our instructors constantly reminded us, can become an all-powerful weapon, however inconsequential that knowledge might seem in the classroom. Tom Wood didn’t need to know all that, though.
“Tires are groovy,” I said.
He strained to laugh.
W HERE THE pine forest was thick and the sun could not penetrate the tops of the trees, the trail was hard packed and easily negotiated. Where the trees thinned, enough so that light could filter through, the path devolved into mud. You didn’t need to be Tonto to spot two distinctly different sets of man-size footprints embedded in the brown muck. One set of prints was left by heavy-soled boots; the other, what looked like basketball or running shoes. And there was something else: to the right of the boot prints, plowed the length of the trail, were two shallow, thin gouges in the mud, spaced about a foot apart, like someone had dragged something down the mountain.
“Hikers,” Bree Kelly said as she followed me up the trail. The same two hikers, she speculated, whose tire tracks I’d noted at the trailhead, now more than an hour’s climb behind us.
“Can’t be the same hikers,” I said. “There’s only one set of prints coming back down the hill—the guy wearing the boots.”
“Could be the other guy found another way back down,” Wojewodski said, bringing up the rear. “These mountains have unmarked game trails going off all over the place.”
We stopped five minutes later for breakfast. Wojewodski offered me an apple from his pack. Wood gave me water from his CamelBak. Kelly shared a bag of trail mix. I pretended to eat the raisins, chucking them into the trees when nobody was looking. Why anyone eats dried, shriveled grapes unless they’re starving is beyond me.
The trail ascended into a narrow canyon where the sun could not go and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees, then curved northeast along a barren moraine. We traversed across talus, avoiding a modest-sized snowfield, before picking up the path on the other side and climbing in elevation. I didn’t complain when Wood stopped to check our bearings on a sun-splashed promontory overlooking Chalmers Peak and the barren granite ridge that ran south-to-north, bridging Chalmers to Mount San Marcos. I needed the rest. My legs and lungs were burning.
Wood studied the terrain ahead with a pair of scratched and dented field glasses.
“You say you saw the wreckage inside the tree line?”
I pointed. “Three hundred meters below that saddle, almost square in the center.”
We were no more than a mile from the site, Wood said. The least exhausting way to get there, he concluded, was to find a chute leading to the top of the saddle, cross the saddle to its midpoint,
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