7.

      As Shaw sped back down Old Mill Road to the place he’d left Erick and Adam he thought:

       Never underestimate the power, for good and bad, of religion.

      This was not one of his father’s rules; Shaw had come up with it himself over a decade of reward-seeking. (He had significantly supplemented the Never rulebook since Ashton Shaw’s death, some years ago.)

      He understood what God’s protector, Sheriff J. Welles, had in mind. The sheriff’s and one other car would block the road south, while the third would do the same from the north, boxing Adam and Erick in. Dodd, on high ground, would understand that his instruction to “cover us” really meant “shoot to kill.”

      Maybe Adam would lift his hand in surprise at the officers’ presence.

      And Dodd would drop him with one of the big rounds.

       “I observed a threat to the officers on the ground and I acted accordingly.”

      And Erick?

      He’d instinctively turn to the wounded Adam.

      Another shot.

       “I observed the second suspect reaching for the weapon of the deceased individual and I was concerned that he would use lethal force against the officers who were present.”

      And there would be no body cams or witnesses to give a different story.

      Having seen the look that passed between Dodd and Welles and guessing what they had in mind, Shaw had tapped a spot on the map miles from the shoulder on Old Mill Road where the two young men actually were.

      What exactly he would do when he found Erick and Adam, he couldn’t yet say. But he knew he had to keep them out of the reach of Welles and his Christian soldiers.

      He now piloted the Kia back to the hill where he’d parked when he spotted the two for the first time. Shaw backed off the road into thick, stalky growths of pine and sedge and tangled brush. The vehicle was hardly an SUV but it did have four-wheel drive and if he kept it on packed earth he was confident it wouldn’t get stuck.

      Leaving his jacket in the car, he climbed out and rearranged brush to obscure the vehicle yet more, then he walked to the road’s edge, looking down the steep, grassy slope to the shoulder where the boys sat, about sixty feet below. Now, he tucked his shirt in, exposing the Glock on his hip, facilitating a fast draw.

      He studied Erick and Adam. They still were sitting on the roadside boulder, facing the road and the hill beside it, not the spectacular view behind them: the rocky valley and gushing river at the bottom of the ten-story cliff. When Adam turned, Shaw could see that, yes, he did have the pistol; sitting had pushed the grip slightly out of the pocket of the close-fitting jeans. This was good for Shaw. Adam’s Smith & Wesson featured a hammer, which was notorious for catching when one drew it quickly.

      The suspects were speaking to each other. Then conversation paused at the sound of a default ringtone. Adam pulled out the mobile to take the call. He looked around, orienting himself and noting a road that branched off Old Mill. Shaw’s impression was that the boys were expecting someone driving from that direction. The Rand McNally was in the car but he called up the GPS map on his phone. The road was Highland Bypass: narrow but a good shortcut to Snoqualmie Gap.

      This added a complication. Who was coming to meet the suspects? How many were there? If Shaw’s undercover theory was right, might they be armed extremists?

      How long until they arrived?

      And when would Welles and his deputies assume the young men had slipped out of their trap—or figure that Shaw had lied for one reason or another? A half hour tops, he guessed.

      No time to waste. He’d have to get to the young men, disarm Adam, and zip-tie their hands. Then, into the Kia and get the hell out of Hammond County.

       I deal in information, not citizen’s arrests …

      Not this time.

      Picking his footsteps carefully, Shaw worked his way down the hill to the road on whose wide shoulder the two sat. From behind a tree, he assessed the scene. To approach them straight on, either from across the road or from the asphalt itself, he’d have to cover an unprotected field of fire. He’d be some distance away when he’d call for them to surrender, which might encourage Adam to draw and shoot. He was probably a better shot than Adam but that wasn’t certain, and in any event the last thing Shaw wanted was a firefight.

      Odds of success with that option: thirty percent. Not good enough.

      Stay under cover and just call for them to surrender?

      No, they’d shoot or run, probably both. The cops would hear the gunfire and move in, guns ready. Dodd would move to high ground and target them with his heavy weapon.

      That tactic had only ten percent success rate.

      Take them by surprise, from behind?

      Yes, the best option.

      Of course, that approach carried a complication of its own: “behind” was essentially a cliff face a hundred feet above the rocky valley floor.

      When the boys were looking away, Shaw, crouching, hurried across the road and peered over the edge. The face was not a smooth sheet of vertical rock. It cantilevered downward at a forty-five- or fifty-degree angle to the rocky floor below. There were ledges and shelves and outcroppings along the way.

      Shaw recalled a book he’d read as a boy about warring Native American tribes. Flinging enemies from cliffs was a popular way for tribal people in mountainous regions to