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stopped his hand inches away. Perhaps touching the oar wasn’t
such a good idea.
    Directing his eyes along the waterline, Carl
spotted the other oar a few yards away. He lifted his head and took
note of the wind direction. It was blowing toward him. No doubt the
wind had moved the oars to the shoreline.
    “This gives new meaning to having both oars
in the water,” Janet joked.
    Carl didn’t laugh. He knew her well enough to
know that joking was her defense mechanism. She must have been as
unnerved as he was.
    “What now?” she asked.
    “No fisherman, no boat, too many fresh
tracks, and I haven’t seen a campsite, have you?”
    “No, but he told his wife he’d be staying in
Tonopah.”
    “Husbands tell wives all sorts of things that
don’t happen,” Carl said. “The wind is blowing across the lake.
That’s why the oars are here—assuming they were lost while Barrett
was on the water. If that’s true, we may find the boat farther down
the path.”
    “Or worse.”
    “Yeah, or worse.” The thought of a bloated
corpse floating on the surface didn’t appeal to Carl. “Let’s
go.”
    “What’s that?” Janet tilted her head to one
side. “Do you hear it?”
    Carl listened. He heard it—a low rumbling
that was growing louder. It was coming from behind them. He turned
and saw a cloud of dust over the rise. “What . . . Who . . .”
    Seconds later a large vehicle flew over the
crest of the road and barreled toward them. It was an easy vehicle
to recognize. Humvees were unlike any other car. And this one was
the military version. It shot past the SUV, past the old Chevy
truck, and came to an abrupt halt ten feet from where Carl and
Janet stood. A brown cloud of dust was launched upward.
    Carl reached for his gun. Janet already had
hers drawn. She held it in two hands, its muzzle angled toward the
ground. It would take less than a second for her to raise it to
firing position. Four men, all armed, exited the vehicle. They wore
military fatigues or BDUs—Battle Dress Uniforms. These were all
black . . . not the mottled green or brown usually associated with
soldiers. Carl had seen these before. The FBI and other federal
agencies wore similar uniforms when the occasion called for it.
    Carl raised his gun. “Hold it right there.”
He was thankful there was no quiver in his voice. While his words
were rock steady, his guts were little more than Jell-O. He held a
Glock 9 mm. They held much more. Carl had been trained to recognize
weapons he might encounter. With the advent of gangs armed like
militia, it was important to recognize the other person’s weapon.
Two of the black-clad men carried M16-A2s, and the other two
sported MP5 machine guns. All of them were pointed his direction.
Carl didn’t like the odds.
    “I was about to tell you the same thing,” one
of the men said. He had emerged from the passenger side front
seat.
    As the dust cleared, Carl could see that the
man was the oldest of the four but not more than forty. The other
three looked in their mid- to late-twenties.
    “Lower your weapons,” Carl demanded.
    One of the younger men laughed. The older man
quieted him with a glance, then approached Carl as if he were
threatening him with a piece of fruit. He stopped inches from the
business end of Carl’s gun. “You are trespassing and must leave
now.”
    “I am a deputy sheriff for Nye County, and I
am conducting an investigation.”
    “There is nothing for you to investigate
here, Deputy . . .” The man’s eyes focused on the nameplate over
Carl’s right breast pocket. “Deputy Subick. Go back to where you
came from, write a few speeding tickets, and forget any of this
happened.”
    “Not until I’m done. Tell your men to lower
their weapons.”
    “I don’t think so, pal.” The man’s voice had
a rough edge to it.
    “Who are you?”
    “We are part of the United States military,
and you are trespassing on government property.”
    “This isn’t government property, at least not
on