The Hike Read online

  The Hike

  Landon Beach

  Copyright © 2021 Landon Beach

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Design for Writers

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Landon Beach

  Visit my website at landonbeachbooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: May 2021

  Landon Beach Books

  For Eric (deity) and Jim (sui generis)

  —friends who have hiked many miles of life with me.

  “You call that murder? Well, I see murder, too, not written on those drowned faces out there but on the faces of dead thousands! They are the assassins, the dealers in death, I am the avenger…Do you know the meaning of love, professor? What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can fill the heart as surely as love can…But there is hope for the future. When the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass—in God’s good time.”

  Captain Nemo, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

  “If possible, you should always touch the body with your gun to make sure the man is dead. Man is the hardest animal to kill. If he gets away, he will come back to kill you.”

  Salvatore Maranzano, First capo di tutti capi of the five New York Families

  “When they come, they’ll come at what you love.”

  Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part III

  “Where is Good? In our reasoned choices. Where is Evil? In our reasoned choices. Where is that which is neither Good nor Evil? In things outside of our own reasoned choice.”

  Epictetus, Discourses, 2.16.1

  PROLOGUE I

  Springer Mountain, Georgia, Saturday, April 4, 2015

  Rays of golden sunlight found their way easily through the bare, gray tree trunks rising toward the sky as Brad Cranston stood in front of the stone archway that marked the start of the Appalachian Approach Trail.

  Last night, he had stayed at Amicalola Falls Lodge and been told by the front desk clerk that in a few months, the surrounding woods would be a lush green canopy of tree leaves. However, in April, it was as if nature refused to leave a deep winter depression and only a skeleton of the once vibrant woods remained with human beings hiking around her weathered-bark bones looking for flesh. Brad couldn’t argue with the description, but he did see scattered patches of foliage, signifying that the forest was coming back to life and that spring was here, and summer was right around the corner. After a chilly morning with temperatures in the low forties, Brad’s watch said the temperature was now in the upper fifties. Dressed in a red, long-sleeved, moisture-wicking Columbia shirt with tan Columbia pants and leather L.L. Bean Cresta hiking boots, he turned his forty-six-year-old body away from the stone archway, and a beam of sun shone on his face. He enjoyed the momentary warmth and then took a couple of steps forward, then stopped and scanned the faces of the half-dozen hikers wearing bright-colored windbreakers and lugging huge backpacks, heading his way. They passed by him, stabbing the earth with their trekking poles, without offering any greetings and without much chatter between them, seemingly lost in their thoughts about the task that lay ahead. Some earlier hikers had been louder, cracking jokes and laughing to ease the tension, which he had settled on as a strategy to use with his own hiking partner. He looked at his watch. It was 1 p.m. They were supposed to meet near the arch at noon. Brad’s hiking partner, his loveable screwup of a younger brother, Conrad, was still nowhere to be seen.

  Brad pivoted and watched the hikers go under the arch. For a while, he could hear the sound of the group’s boots cracking the scattered branches on the floor of the trail, but soon the cracks and snaps faded until all he could hear was the occasional buzzing of the few bugs that had dared to brave the cooler April temperatures. For the twentieth time today, Brad looked at the red sign with white letters next to the arch signifying the beginning of the approach trail. Eight and a half miles later was the official start of his 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail (AT) hike with Conrad. If all went well, they’d summit Mount Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park and hug the sign on Baxter Peak sometime in September or early October. Months had gone into their preparation, all leading to today—day one.

  He had picked the approach trail as their start instead of being dropped off where Forest Service Road 42 intersected the trail less than a mile into the AT. If Conrad, the king of shortcuts, had known about this option, he would have demanded that they start there. Brad figured the 8.5-mile approach trail would be an easy test to see if Conrad was serious or not. Once Conrad started something he was interested in, he had a surprising amount of drive and resiliency, which had been a powerful advantage at a few brief points during his life and a debilitating liability during other stretches.

  They were from Michigan, so a handful of Michigan state parks had been their training ground for day hikes to get them in shape and get them used to carrying the load they would hump with on the trail. They had scaled up to overnighters and performed equipment research and testing, read a dozen books about the trail, including Bryson’s inspirational account, and, finally, tackled logistics planning. Their support person would be their sister, Heidi, and she had bump boxes, containing specific items to replenish their supplies, all addressed and ready to send to them as they reached certain towns. Brad reasoned that if they failed, it wouldn’t be because of a lack of preparation. In fact, they were so prepared that he was seeing visions of toilet paper, duct tape, and half-toothbrushes on the wall at night, including his stay last night at the comfortable lodge. He’d invited Conrad to fly into Atlanta with him, ride to the lodge, and stay with him there so they could start hiking in the morning, but his brother had declined. “Look, I’ll be standing with you under the stone-arch at high noon, all right? Don’t get all uptight on me. Let things flow,” he had said. Like always, there had been no changing his mind.

  Brad looked at his watch again. 1:15 p.m. Another group of hikers, louder than the one he had just seen disappear into the woods, passed by and stopped by the arch to have their pictures taken before embarking on their journeys. Thankfully, they did not ask for his help. He must have seen over fifty people already and helped most of them with their pictures. “Hello, sir. Could you help us take a quick picture?”

  Where in the hell was Conrad? That was the most pressing question. Another question slithering around in Brad’s mind was: Why am I doing this? He’d been divorced for five years, so this wasn’t a knee-jerk escapist mission. He was relatively happy in his life, so this wasn’t an “I’ve gotta go find myself” remedy. He had never been out of shape, and so this wasn’t some crusade with echoes from a doctor’s physical examination that said, “Lose the weight...or else.” He hadn’t succumbed to materialism, so the hike was not to get away from the empty distractions and excesses that contemporary life in America offered at every turn. Why am I here? His best answer was that he had helped his brother turn his life around, they had both always been the outdoors type, they enjoyed each other’s company, and, although Conrad was much more competitive than he was, they liked a challenge. Any other positive that this half-a-year provided would be welcomed but not required. What will the rest of the world be doing for the next six months? Standing here, pissed off waiting for Conrad, Brad Cranston decided that he didn’t really care.

 
He moved away from the archway and took a seat far enough away to not be asked for any more picture assistance. He’d give Conrad another half-hour or so, then he’d hike back up to the lodge and start making phone calls.

  Don’t start playing the ‘What if?’ game, he told himself. He picked up a twig from the ground and started bending it, testing its pliability. On the third bend, it snapped in two. He threw the pieces down. Okay, what have I missed here? He searched his memory for any hints that Conrad would be a no-show.

  All of the milestones that, if not taken care of, would have triggered Conrad’s early exit from the adventure had been achieved. They had already paid for the necessary permits, had plenty of money for fees, bought the equipment, bought the airline tickets, and registered for the thru-hike. Their trail names were as different as they were: his—Sandusky, because of his love of Cedar Point and the happy memories of taking his daughter Noelle there when she was young; Conrad’s—Proust, his brother’s favorite author. Brad had wanted to leave earlier, late February, to avoid the crowds. With so many northbound hikers, shelters and tenting areas ran out of space quickly. Conrad had said no, and Brad had given in to the April start date. So, the schedule wasn’t a show stopper. Then, there was the cash issue. The general rule of thumb was to budget one thousand dollars per month each on the hike. Since the hike took five to seven months, Brad had saved seven thousand dollars, and Conrad had shown him his bank account statement two days ago—the funds were there. As far as travel, Conrad’s flight had taken off early this morning from Detroit Metro and had landed in Atlanta on time. He had called Conrad a half an hour after the plane had landed, but the call had gone straight to voicemail. Brad had called Heidi next, but she hadn’t heard from Conrad either. There could have been an accident on the way from Atlanta. If that was the case, he would hear about it at some point.

  He laughed to himself. This is ridiculous. Brad knew that Conrad was probably going to show up any minute now with some lame excuse, which would be forgiven, and then they’d hike the legendary Appalachian Trail. It sounded like he was relaxing, talking sense into himself, but something about the situation didn’t feel right to Brad.

  Did Conrad try and bring a gun in his luggage?

  They had talked about bringing one on the trail, but Brad thought they had come to the agreement that it was not worth it. The gun could be taken and used against them, it was heavy to carry, and, with Conrad’s luck, an accidental discharge was highly probable. There were risks hiking the trail. There were also risks getting behind the wheel of a car and driving ten miles down the road each day to work. In the past two decades, there had been two or three major crimes on the trail. Other than those, three million people had safely traveled its winding path. When he calculated the odds, Brad saw the three million safe passages; Conrad saw the handful of major crimes. “Somebody could take us right out, Brad!” he had yelled in one of their early arguments. Christ, he hoped he was wrong and that Conrad had not attempted to bring a weapon to the Detroit airport. Did Conrad even own a gun? He didn’t want to know.

  After waiting an extra ten minutes past the half-hour he had already waited, Brad made his way up to the lodge and called Heidi.

  “It’s Brad,” he said.

  “He already quit, didn’t he?” Heidi said. “I knew it.”

  “No. He still hasn’t shown up.”

  There was a pause. “What?”

  “I’ve been waiting at the entrance to the approach trail since noon, and he’s not here. Have you heard from him?”

  “No. Since the plane landed on time and he didn’t answer, I just figured he was on his way to you. You know how horrible he is with his cell phone, if he brought it at all,” she said, an edge to her voice that seemed laced with both sadness and disappointment. He knew that rage was just around the bend.

  “Yep.” He tipped his head to the right, sandwiching the phone between his ear and right shoulder, while he lowered his pack to the lobby floor. He then told her all of the scenarios he had thought through. “Other than waiting here to see if he shows up, the only thing I can think of is to call and see if he even got on the plane in Detroit. Can you check for me?”

  “Don’t you have your cell phone?” she asked.

  “No. I didn’t want it on the trip with me.”

  Another pause. “Okay, I’ll call,” she said.

  “Thanks, and, hey, let’s not panic. He’s put too much into this thing to back out now. That big-hearted oaf will be here any minute, wearing his toothy grin and armed with a ridiculous story about why he was late. And while he tells me the tale, he’ll be slinging his backpack around with his thick, hairy arms because he can’t stand still.”

  Heidi’s tone was serious. “He may still have a touch of his old charisma, and he’s smarter than he deserves to be, but, Brad, he’s thirty-eight years old. I’ll call.”

  Five minutes later, one of the phones behind the check-in counter rang. An attendant waved him over.

  “Heidi?”

  “He never got on the flight. Didn’t even check in a bag,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, half-concerned, half-enraged.

  After all Conrad had put the family through, Brad knew this would be the fatal blow with Heidi. She would now join their parents in the ‘Done with Conrad’ Club. After dinner with his family a month ago, his father had pulled him aside, eyes narrowed and more serious than a retiree’s should be, and said, “Don’t bring him on the hike.”

  If he lost faith in Conrad now, he’d never forgive himself. There had to be some explanation. Had to be. Even Heidi knew that Conrad was overinvested in the hike, and Conrad was never invested in anything—spent too much time in his own head, or, when he was heavy into every drug on the market, spent too much time out of his head. “It doesn’t add up,” Brad said. “I—”

  “Stop, Brad,” she said. “Stop. This is it for me. I’m through. I’ve got a whole bedroom in my house stacked with packages ready to send to you two along the way.” He heard her start to cry. “He’s gone, and you know it.”

  “Heidi, I’m sorry. I know how much you’ve done to help us. We wouldn’t even be able to attempt this thing without you.” He paused, searching for something to say to keep her on board. “Look, I’m going to stay another night here and wait. We owe it to ourselves and to him. There has to be a reason,” he said, wondering if he believed what he had just said. “You know how to reach me. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  She sniffled. “Fine,” she said.

  ✽✽✽

  The next morning, he awoke to no Conrad.

  And the next morning.

  And the next.

  Nothing from Heidi.

  On Wednesday, he left the lodge and headed home to Michigan. Conrad had disappeared.

  PROLOGUE II

  Location: CLASSIFIED, Winter 2016

  Chief Petty Officer Allison Shannon could feel goosebumps on her brown skin underneath her drysuit as she kicked forty feet below the surface of the water. Her fin strokes were smooth as she swept her underwater light from side to side, searching for anyone and anything that was not supposed to be in the water at this time. Approximately ten feet above her was the hull of the most technologically advanced warship ever built, USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000). Costing approximately four billion dollars to construct, the destroyer was six hundred feet long, nearly eighty-one feet wide, and had been commissioned on the fifteenth of October in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor during Fleet Week. Now, the ship was in another port, staying the night to refuel and to let a few select naval personnel at the base come aboard and tour the spectacular vessel. Zumwalt’s ultimate destination was San Diego, its new homeport. Before and after commissioning, there had been intelligence indicating that attempts would be made to destroy or damage the new pride of the American Navy before the ship ever reached the California coast. Hence, at each stop, security was tighter than a pair of spandex.

  Chief Shannon had been a Search and Rescue (SAR) swimmer for most
of her career. She was also a Master Diver, and when the Coast Guard established the diver (DV) rating in 2015, the commanding officer (CO) of the new program selected her to switch rates and help him develop and lead it. The maximum age for entry into the program was thirty-five; at thirty-four, she had outperformed over ninety percent of the new recruits—who were just over half of her age—in the physical fitness test. Now, she was a member of a Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST), which provided anti-terrorism security for high-value vessels like Zumwalt. Her team had provided underwater security during the commissioning and for the two port visits so far as the destroyer made its way south from Baltimore. They were embarked until the ship made it through the Panama Canal; then, a west coast team would embark and take over security until the ship was safely moored in San Diego. Her CO thought that having the team embarked was a bit of an overkill—commissioning was one thing, but every port and when the Zumwalt was at sea? However, he saw the possible rewards of showcasing his top divers doing the job they had been trained to do, which was to make sure there were no divers in areas they shouldn’t be—in this case, anywhere near the hull of Zumwalt.

  Shannon checked the bright Luminox around her wrist: 2345, or 11:45 p.m. civilian time; fifteen minutes until her watch was over. Her pressure gauge indicated that she still had around twenty minutes of air left. Take it nice and easy. She rose a few feet and aimed her light at the hull. Zumwalt’s motto was Pax Propter Vim: Peace Through Power. From what she had observed the past month and a half in the Atlantic Ocean, this ship had power and then some. Up forward, she could see the light of her diving partner, Petty Officer First Class Matt Keller.