Page 44 of Battle Mountain

“I thought we had,” Geronimo said sourly.

“Don’t screw it up this time,” she said. Then: “I’ll have Joann contact Russ and Jolene and tell them you’re coming. If they don’t want to see you, I’ll let you know, now that I have your cell number.”

Then Tuck-Smith stood and pulled a set of headphones on. Both Nate and Geronimo froze in their chairs as she did so. Nate had never been in the same room with a seven-foot woman before.

“Yes, I’m tall, get over it,” she said to them. “Now, go.”

She said it while she shooed them out of her office.

“Thank you,” Nate mouthed to her.

“No charge,” she mouthed back. Then: “This is Cheryl,” she said into her headset while turning away. “I’m sorry I’m a minute late. Let the games begin…”

Nate looked over his shoulder to see if her last statement was also meant for them. Geronimo caught it as well.

When she winked at them, they knew it was.

—

On their waythrough the lobby toward the front door, the receptionist, Joann Delany, extended her arm and handed Geronimo a Post-it note that she’d hastily scribbled on. Geronimo took it and looked it over.

He read, “ ‘Russ and Jolene Anthony, 103 Cherokee Creek Trail, Tie Siding, Wyoming.’ ” Then to Nate: “Where in the hell is Tie Siding?”

“South of Laramie,” Nate said. “It’s an hour or so west of here. Don’t worry—I’ve been there. It’s really off the beaten path.”

“Of course it is. What isn’t off the beaten path around here?” Geronimo said.

Nate nodded goodbye at the receptionist, who turned away and wouldn’t meet his eye.

Chapter Eleven

“From what I’vebeen told,” Susan Kany said to Joe as she drove slowly to Spike Rankin’s elk camp along a narrow two-track road flanked by towering aspens on both sides, “the Centurions are a mix of defense industry CEOs, federal government officials, current and ex-military leaders, airline executives, and even a few astronauts. I’ve heard them described as the military-industrial complex in cowboy boots.”

Joe chuckled at that.

“I went to the ranch last year when the Centurions were around,” she said. “At the time I didn’t know any better. All I knew was that there had been a big run on out-of-state fishing licenses sold at their tackle shop in a short period of time, so I thought it was a good opportunity to check fishermen. I’ll tell you what—I wasn’t exactly welcome there.”

“How so?”

“They stopped me at the front gate of the ranch. They have a little guardhouse building, and there were like five people inside. Two older ladies apparently work there all the time for theB-Lazy-U, but there were three buff guys in shades with handheld radios as well: security for some of the members, I think. They questioned why I was there and I had to show my badge and ID. They asked if I could come back later, but that made me suspicious and I said no.

“After ten minutes of the security guys talking to someone inside, they let me in. But as soon as I got within the ranch complex, a couple of other security types followed me to the river on an ATV. I checked a couple of fishermen on the river with their guides and they checked out—everything was kosher. But my minders never left me alone the whole time.”

“Did you have any idea who the fishermen were?” Joe asked.

“You could tell by looking at them that they were muckety-mucks,” she said. “They wore all-new Orvis gear straight out of the box, and they had two-thousand-dollar Sage rods. I looked up the names of the three guys I checked later. One of them was the CEO of a defense company that does radar and sensors for rockets and warplanes, one of them was the chairman of an airline, and the third guy was some kind of deputy undersecretary in the Defense Department.”

“Interesting,” Joe said.

“None of them could cast worth a hoot,” she said.

“How many of them are out there?”

“They have two hundred and fifty members, and they’ve been around as a club for over sixty years.”

“Have they always come here?” he asked. “From what you’ve told me, I’d expect them to go to some place more high-end and famous. You know, Jackson Hole or Aspen or something like that.”

“I think that’s what they’re trying to avoid,” she said. “Thisplace has everything they want: a huge private airport, luxury ranches, outdoor things to do, no national press of any kind, and locals who keep their mouths shut.”

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