He spotted a clearing ahead and set up the jagged slope toward it. When he finally reached the break in the trees, he paused, leaning against a boulder. A glasslike puddle at his boots looked like a portal to the underworld, the reflected pines thrusting down to a miasma of subterranean clouds. A loon arced gracefully down to land, kissing its mirrored opposite and shattering the illusion. The sleek black head bobbed, and then a mournful wail drew out and out, warbling the air.

Evan would have to head back soon or risk frostbite. He climbed atop the boulder and peered up the northern face of the range, charting a mental course over the brink.

His thoughts traveled to a midsize carrier that right now was sliding south alongside the Baja Peninsula toward the Panama Canal.

Seventeen years old. Locked in a goddamned twenty-foot ISO-standard container like a piece of break bulk cargo.

For a moment the image of Alison Siegler made him debate going for it. Insulating his skin with a paste of mud. Once he got past the rim, he could build a shelter, search out tinder, forage for food. Maybe it was worth taking the shot now.

The loon’s howl cut off abruptly, and it took flight with a graceless flapping, flecks of water raining down on Evan’s head. He turned to see what had scared it off.

A ten-point buck had wandered silently to the water’s edge. His majestic head was raised, obsidian eyes fixing Evan where he stood. Evan’s breath gusted out, wisps riding the air. He could see the buck’s breath, too, twinning plumes from the nostrils. The buck lowered his front leg, muscles sheeting beneath the fur.

A frozen moment.

Then the buck jerked.

An instant later the gunshot thundered across the valley.

Evan’s head snapped upslope to search out the shooter, but it was too late.

The stag buckled onto bent front legs. He wheezed. His hind legs kicked, propelling him forward onto his neck. The puddle sprayed, dark with churned-up muck. Then the buck collapsed onto his side. Crimson matted his fur, running into the water.

Evan slid down from the boulder and walked over. Breath fluttered the tattered fur at the wound, air leaking through the punctured lung, the sound like a deep, hoarse sigh. Saliva frothed the mouth. One rolling black pupil looked up at him.

Evan squatted over the buck, rested a hand on the warm neck, stroked it gently until an inner stillness claimed the eye.

He tallied the new count: Two dogs, ten guards, Dex. And a sniper.

He understood better what René had wanted him to learn on his little nature hike.