The son and eldest daughter were twins; both blue-eyed with yellow-blond hair, tall-the boy was already his father's six-two, which put him three inches up on Michael Havel, and built like a running back. Eighteen, the same age as Mike had been when he'd left the Upper Peninsula for the Corps, but looking younger, and vaguely discontented. His sister…

Down boy! Havel thought. Jesus, though, I envy those hip-hugger jeans.

An inch or three below his own five-eleven, short straight nose, dusting of freckles, and…

Jesus what a figure… twenty-eight isn't that old…

"Mike's one of my best," Dan said.

"Glad to hear it," Larsson senior said.

Everyone bustled around, signing forms and collecting coats. Havel helped with the baggage-there wasn't all that much-buttoning his coat but glad to be out in the clean chill. Then he did a walk-around of the Piper Chieftain. The ground crew was good, but they weren't going to be taking a twin-engine puddle jumper over the biggest wilderness in the lower forty-eight.

Larsson's eyebrows went up when Mike loaded his own baggage; a waterproof oblong of high-impact synthetics with straps that made it a backpack too, and the unmistakable shape of a rifle case.

"Something I should know about?" he said.

"Nope, Mr. Larsson," Mike said. "Just routine; I'm a cautious man."

Larsson nodded. "What's the gun?"

"Remington 700," he said. That was a civilianized version of the Marine sniper rifle. "I used its first cousin in the Corps, and it makes a good deer rifle, too."

Signe Larsson sniffed and turned away ostentatiously; possibly because he was an ex-Marine, or a hunter.

Oh, well, he thought. I'm dropping them off in a couple of hours, anyway.

Eric Larsson grinned at his sister with brotherly maliciousness. "Hey, maybe he could shoot you a tofu-lope, sis, now you're back on the vegetarian wagon. Nothing like a rare tofu-lope steak, charred outside and all white and bleeding goo on the inside-"