The Divide

Anderson Ray

Description

In this newest Awol hiking thriller, Karl Bergman, whose trail name is Awol, begins to thru-hike the 3,100-mile-long Continental Divide Trail at the Mexican border. By the time Awol and his dog, Blazer, reach the Colorado Rockies, he has uncovered information about a terrorist plot. Awol asks his son, a graduate student at UCLA, to give details to old friend, Detective Vincent Sacco. Awol tells his son he doesn’t want to get involved and continues his thru-hike. Awol is beyond annoyed when FBI agent, Diana Santos, finds him on the CDT and asks him to work with her and infiltrate.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Thrillers
• The Divide
• Borders of Mexico
• AWOL (disambiguation)
• Continental Divide of the Americas
• Rocky Mountains
• Colorado Rockies
• Continental Divide Trail
• Continental Divide
• Sierra
• Suspense
• Rockies du Colorado
• Ray Anderson
• Montagnes Rocheuses
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 18 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781684425198
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

THE DIVIDE
RAY ANDERSON
TURNER PUBLISHING COMPANY
Also by Ray Anderson
The Trail
Sierra
To- CHRISTINE, JEFF, and STEVE
The Divide is a work of fiction. While most of the settings are taken from my journal notes, any similarity of characters, names, or scenes is coincidental. In some instances, I adjusted timelines of actual events-for example, the collapse of Lehman Brothers in NYC. Any errors in the depiction of government agencies are entirely the author s.
THE DIVIDE
Turner Publishing Company
Nashville, Tennessee
www.turnerpublishing.com
The Divide
Copyright 2020 Ray Anderson. All rights reserved.
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design: M.S. Corley
Book design: Tim Holtz
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available Upon Request
9781684425174 paperback
9781684425181 hardcover
9781684425198 ebook
Printed in the United States of America
17 18 19 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
EPILOGUE
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
Central Colorado, west of the Divide September 2007
D ON REARDON PULLED HIS compound bow and aimed. Between heartbeats, he let the arrow fly. Forty yards away, the doe went down. Satisfaction rippled through him-he d now have protein for another several weeks. What Reardon liked about bowhunting was the stealth, the efficiency with purpose. Without the accompanying sound of a gunshot, not a soul knew.
The camouflaged, bearded, six-foot mountaineer had built his own cabin in an unlikely spot. He was a mile away from water in an understory of aspen and pine blowdowns, far from any trail. The Continental Divide Trail, known as the CDT, was closest at over a mile beyond the stream, Reardon s water source that was often visited by wildlife. The creek bend, where he dragged the doe to, was so hidden that one could only find it by following the sound of roiling water. He came here to hunt and had never been disappointed. Animals would cover any tracks Reardon might make, but he d never seen any human within two miles of his small cabin.
It hadn t taken him long to build the twenty-by-ten-foot structure. Alee of wind, braced and protected by blowdowns and debris, which absorbed storm and snow, Reardon had stuffed muddied mosses into cracks and the occasional small hole. He remembered what his father had once told him-climate is what you expect; weather is what you get. He did pack in brass hinges, screws, and a battery-powered drill to fix a door he d fashioned onto an ax-shaved and sunken aspen trunk. He d already brought in an old-time bucksaw, the kind one person pulls back and forth with two hands. He d spent a lot of time finding a spot where he could use trees for the corner posts of his cabin. Two trees were already in position. For the other two corners, Reardon cut off sturdy limbs from a large oak, dug holes with an entrenching shovel he d bought at an Army-Navy store, and sunk them himself. At the same store outside of Denver, he also bought an extra mess kit, three canteens, camo, boots, extra pairs of wool socks, and a waterproof bag, which he used as a case for his down pillow, one of the few items of domestic luxury he allowed himself.
Reardon pulled the arrow out of the doe, and after checking the feathers and running them several times across his forehead above closed eyes, he washed the arrow tip and shank in the stream. His father had taught him how to bowhunt and gut game. Reardon thought back to the day he asked his father why he rubbed arrow feathers across his temple. He remembered the relaxed smile of his father and his words: Son, when you chalk up a kill, give simple mental respect back to the animal. It s never personal. Reardon stiffened as he remembered his father s suicide three weeks later. He d hung himself from a garage rafter.
Back at his cabin, Reardon cleaned, dressed, and salted the animal. He attended to his diary, and later that afternoon, as the sun banked west, he removed a short cedar floorboard and took out the three-ringed binder holding what he d requested from Butane: a report titled Explosives and Demolition . Butane, a military-trained demo expert, had prepared it privately for Reardon. What amazed Reardon was how small the explosive and how little the equipment needed for a major demolition. Not like in the old movies.
Son, don t make the mistakes I did. Get the facts. Insist on the details. His father s words kept him company. After an hour of study, he restored the binder to its hidden spot. He looked forward to his next ritual. He picked up his Quest Storm compound and a quiver of extra arrows. Before sundown every day, good weather and bad, he practiced shots. He stepped as quiet as the Ute did a hundred years ago, and after a quarter mile, stopped. He turned to face a sugar pine at fifty yards, the kind of pine that drops cones the length of a large man s shoe. He steadied the quiver and held the bow beside him. He closed his eyes and counted the seconds as they passed. On ten, Reardon drew out an arrow, nocked it, pulled, and let the arrow fly. His count stopped at twelve. Two seconds. He d done it quicker most times, but this shot looked good. He went to the tree. Near perfect. The arrow stuck the tree inside the newest bar coaster he d attached to it. His next shot was half a second quicker, but he missed the cardboard coaster by a quarter inch. He took eight more shots, all but one under two seconds by his count. Five stuck inside the coaster; three were within a half inch. A decent shot, but Reardon knew he d get better.
That night, he placed a birchbark bookmark in Butane s binder and closed it. He liked what he d read and would finish it tomorrow. He remembered the day he d discovered Butane lying in the ravine, his twisted and cracked glasses beside him. After a storm with sleet and fifty-mile-anhour winds had passed through, Reardon had taken a walk to check his perimeter, and after satisfying himself that his immediate environs were in order, he trekked farther on to the ravine that he knew would be flooded. From a distance, he saw him: a high-cheeked American Indian, unconscious with a busted leg. Reardon went to work. Drawing from the first responder course he d taken and all he d learned from his dad, Reardon removed the soaked, icy shirt, and being the same size and build as the victim, Reardon undressed and gave him his own shirt, still warm from his back. He revived the man, Paul Christo-he was wearing army dog tags-got him rehydrated, and set his leg. When Christo stabilized two days later, Reardon covered him with an extra wool blanket and went out to retrieve his drag, which he d made from willow switches and limbs to haul deer and game. It was time to hunt.
After some success and another meal of cooked protein, Christo, no longer delirious, showed Reardon a look of thanks and love with grateful brown eyes. It was at that instant Reardon knew he d be able to convert Christo to a supporter of his cause. He knew because he d had a premonition straight from Christo s love-locked eyes that Christo swung both ways. Reardon actually hoped this was true; if so, Reardon would own him. Since Christo had served as a demolitions expert, Reardon gave him the trail name Butane.
CHAPTER 2
A S BUTANE IMPROVED, Reardon probed into his past. The former army sergeant with a demolitions MOS was twenty-eight, one year older than himself.
Were both your parents American Indian? Reardon asked.
My mother is a full-blooded Ute. My father, so I m told, was a half-breed.
Reardon stared at him.
He vamoosed before I was born.
I see. Perhaps you d like to know more about him.
It was awhile before he responded. I learned only a few years ago that he was with a government agency that relocated tribes and -Butane made air quotes- looked after their welfare.
That s how your mother met him?
In a manner of speaking. But, I m told, he raped her and took off.
Reardon leaned over and patted Butane s bandages surrounding hickory splints, the leg hung in traction by ropes from the ceiling of the rustic cabin. He d tried patching Butane s glasses but had given up. The fire hissed from the damp hickory and soft pine, but the small room was warm. A few sparks flew across the bandages, but Butane didn t seem to mind. Reardon had explained how he was going to reset the leg, and Butane gave him advice, explaining that he d seen it done twice on the reservation. Butane confirmed that in both instances no trip was made to a hospital or clinic, just to a reservation doctor of all maladies.
Well, that must have been a shock, about your mother, Reardo