Not in the Cards

by Alex Westmore

  Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Delta pushed him aside and grabbed the Uzi with both hands.

  “Asshole,” Delta muttered, as she reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Every piece of evidence she could gather would be important if she could stay manage to alive. Whoever had blown a six-inch hole in Dice would still be somewhere close.

  The car, Delta thought, Martinez was still waiting at the car. She carefully picked her way back so that she would approach the car from the opposite direction. If she could kill Martinez and get the keys to the car, she was home free.

  Free.

  God, she was so close. Maybe she hadn’t run out of miracles after all.

  Moving from shadow to shadow, until she was about thirty yards from the car, Delta slowly inched her way forward. Still leaning against the car, his cigarette now extinguished, stood Martinez, head bowed as if he’d fallen asleep.

  Odd, Delta thought. Had Martinez killed Dice and then come back to the car?

  Delta dropped to a soldier’s crawl to eliminate her silhouette. From where she was, it didn’t appear as if Martinez had been the one who shot Dice. Martinez’s gun was nowhere to be seen, and he just stood there, not looking out at the desert or even smoking a cigarette. By the angle of his head, Delta thought he might be reading something. If he didn’t kill Dice, hadn’t he at least heard the shot?

  Suddenly, Delta shivered. Someone else was in the desert with her, someone who probably wanted all three of them dead. No witnesses, no bodies, nothing. Maybe she wasn’t as free as she thought.

  Picking up a rock, Delta tossed it close to the car and waited for Martinez’s reaction. When he didn’t move, Delta crawled closer. Something wasn’t right.

  Ten feet from the car, Delta squinted through the night and finally saw the reason for Martinez’s lack of response: someone had slit his throat from ear to ear and from chin to sternum. His head hung on by the vertebrae alone. Whoever had killed him was a natural. And they were probably looking for her right now.

  Delta decided to chance it. She needed to get the hell out of there, and she’d need a car to do that. She slid forward and crawled underneath the car. Reaching out the other side, Delta pulled Martinez’s body down into the sand.

  Methodically checking all of his pockets, Delta searched his bloodied clothing for the keys.

  Maybe they’re still in ignition Delta thought, wondering whether she should risk coming out from under the car. After all, she did have the Uzi. If she could just get in the car and—

  “Looking for these?” came a voice even deeper than Martinez’s. Delta looked out from under the car and saw a pair of army boots. The car keys landed silently in the sand right between the pair of size twelve shoes. “Don’t shoot, Delta. It’s us.” The woman’s voice came from nowhere.

  A woman? Looking again at the army huge army boots, the picture became very clear. “Sal?”

  Abruptly, a small face lowered to Delta’s and smiled at her as Sal placed her hand on the floor to steady her. “In the flesh. You gonna come out now?” Then the face disappeared. “Josh, help her out from there, will you?”

  A pair of large hands reached underneath the car helped Delta out, still gripping the Uzi.

  “It is you! Thank God. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Sal reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of keys to unlock the handcuffs Dice had put on Delta earlier. “You want to go get the Jeep, Josh? We need to get out of here in case they sent anyone else to check up on those two bozos.”

  Josh nodded and took off into the darkness.

  “Jeep? Sal, what’s going on? How did you know where to find me?”

  Running her small hand over the bump on Delta’s forehead, Sal smiled softly. “All in good time. Right now, we have to finish this business.” When Josh pulled up in the Jeep, Sal took Delta’s arm and pulled her from next to the Honda into the Jeep before handing the Honda keys to Josh. “Both bodies.”

  Josh nodded and picked up Martinez’s corpse as easily as if he were picking up Sal.

  Delta was suddenly exhausted, and the events around her seemed to be happening in fast motion. “Sal, I don’t understand.”

  Getting into the Jeep, Sal reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an ice pack. Then she smashed it against the dash it to activate it and handed it to Delta. “Here,” she said. “Put this on your forehead.”

  Delta did as she was told and waited in silence as the Honda returned from the direction of Dice’s body and started up the ridge. Sal started the Jeep’s engine and followed.

  “We had nothing else to do, and Connie thought you might need more back-up than just her and Tony.”

  “Back-up? You and Josh were my back-up?”

  Sal nodded, pulling out a pack of gum and offering a piece to Delta. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, and Delta realized that the Honda had gone end-over-end off the edge of the ridge and had hit the bottom, creating an explosive mass of flames.

  Sal stopped the Jeep and peered over the edge. “It’ll take the boys in blue a long time to figure out what happened to those creeps.” Sal pulled the car up a bit and waited for Josh to come running back.

  “All taken care of, boss. Two crispy critters in the trunk of a burned out Honda. The car went right into the gulley. Could be days, maybe even weeks, before anyone finds them.”

  Sal grinned. “Great.”

  “Sal...” Delta said, gingerly placing the ice pack on her forehead.

  Her whole face hurt. “Would you mind filling me in? Just how is it that you followed us without any transmitting devices?”

  Josh hopped in the backseat and handed something to Delta. They appeared to be square binoculars. “Take a peek through these babies.”

  When Delta brought them to her eyes, everything in the desert was illuminated. She could easily see the road, cacti, and even a rodent scurrying across the dunes.

  “Incredible. But that doesn’t explain—”

  “It’s a night scope. It actually lets you see in the dark. We were able to follow you from quite a distance on this shitty road without having to turn our headlights on.”

  Delta lowered the scope from her sore face and shook her head. “Did you follow me to the motel?”

  “Actually, we got lucky on that one. Connie wanted us to stay out of sight, like she did, but Josh and I decided that our fatigues looked too obvious for anyone to be concerned about us. No one would ever believe that two people dressed in jungle fatigues would be tailing them.”

  Delta looked at them both. Sal was right. “Good point.”

  “So Josh and I moved closer. Good thing, too, because we just barely caught you getting into that Honda.”

  Delta lightly touched her burning forehead. A small egg shape protruded from below her hairline. She imagined her face was one large bruise. “And Connie? Where is she?”

  “We radioed to her what was going down and she arrived at the motel only seconds after we did. Connie sent us after you while she and Tony registered in the room next to the bad guys.”

  “She sent you?” For a moment, Delta felt hurt that Connie didn’t come after her herself.

  “Yep. She made it clear your life was in our hands and told us to do whatever we had to do to protect you. She mentioned something about gathering evidence while the place was still hot. Or something like that.”

  “And all this time I thought she’d be frantic.”

  “I’m sure she was. When they escorted you out, Tony started out of the hotel room, and Connie pulled him back in. She and Tony were going to see if they could listen in and find out where they were going next.”

  “Why didn’t Connie tell me about you two?”

  “It was a last minute detail. Actually, she came to me for the night scope, and Josh and I volunteered to help out. Delta, Josh was a point man in ’Nam. You know, the guy who went first to set off traps and spot snipers.” Sal beamed with pride. “He’s very good. A couple of whi
te-collar crooks could never beat him. Connie made the right choice.”

  Delta reached across and touched Sal’s arm. “Thank God she did. I thought I was history back there.”

  Sal grinned. “Naw. Connie knows how to look after her own. You’re family to her, Delta, and family takes care of each other, huh, Josh?”

  Josh nodded.

  “So what happened once we left the motel?”

  “We followed you out here, drove up to the ridge and put that ass-wipe who was going to kill you in the sights. End of story.”

  Josh proudly held out an AK-47 assault rifle with a folding metal stock. By the looks of it, it was probably the one he had used in Vietnam. “Josh shot him?”

  Sal shook her head. “Nope. I did.”

  Delta was stunned. “You?”

  Sal nodded. “Josh had to take the big guy out first. Waited until his cigarette went out and then took out that other prick. Pretty good piece of shooting if I say so myself. Daddy took me to the range all the time before he shipped out. Looks like all those years of practice finally paid off.” Sal adjusted her cap. “Guess it was my turn to save a life. Dad would be proud.”

  Delta was shocked. This petite woman wearing army fatigues had saved her life by calmly squeezing a powerful round through the chest of a man she didn’t even know. “Sal, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Josh said, leaning forward from the middle rear seat and touching Delta’s shoulder. “Like Sal told ya, family takes care of each other.”

  Delta leaned back, letting exhaustion roll over her like a small wave. She had come, she thought, millimeters to dying, yet she was plucked from death’s grasp by two people who hardly knew her. The thought made her dizzy. Or was that from the bump on her head?

  “Sisterhood is powerful,” Sal said, glancing in the mirror at Josh.

  “Yeah,” Josh replied, spreading a blanket over Delta’s lap. “Just like brotherhood.”

  Closing her eyes, Delta leaned her head back on the headrest and fought the fatigue creeping through her body. As images of the night flashed before her, Delta inhaled slowly and released the last of her fear.

  “It wouldn’t have been right,” she said through sleepy lips.

  “What wouldn’t have been right?” Sal asked as she drove over the winding road.

  “For me to die in the desert.”

  Sal nodded. “Because it wasn’t your time?”

  Delta grinned. “No. Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to die wearing a goddamn dress.”

  When Delta, Sal, and Josh finished telling their tale to Connie, she pulled Delta to her and hugged her tighter than she ever had.

  “Thank the goddesses you’re okay.”

  “Okay? Have you taken a close look at my face?.”

  Delta looked into Connie’s eyes and smiled. Her face ached and she had a pounding headache, but she was alive. “I owe my life to you, Con. If you hadn’t thought everything through...” Delta stopped and shuddered. Just the idea of Dice’s hand on her gave her the chills.

  “It’s okay, Storm,” Connie whispered, running her hand through Delta’s hair. “The edge was just a little sharper this time. You might have thought you were going off half-cocked, but that’s not something I’d ever let you do. You’re too important to me.”

  Tony, who returned from the kitchen holding a beer, nodded. “Shit, Delta, you guys are a two-person police department.”

  Connie shook her head. “Tonight, it took all five of us.”

  Sal and Josh each held up a beer. “Hear, hear. To success.”

  “To success.”

  After everyone except Delta took a drink, Tony sat on the couch next to Connie and Delta. “You were real cool, Delta. Man, when that guy had that Uzi in your back, I thought I was going to piss in my pants.”

  Delta chuckled. “You and me both. But enough about me. What did you get? Anything good?”

  Connie nodded. “They’re almost finished with their current filming. The kid you found at Richardson’s wasn’t supposed to get whacked, so they’re looking for another kid to finish ‘production.’”

  “They’re not bolting out of town?”

  “Not yet. But then they didn’t know their pals would never return.”

  Tony sipped his beer and nodded. “I’ve never seen two people move out as quickly as those guys did. In five minutes, they had the TV, the video, everything out of that motel room and were in the wind.”

  “Did you get anything from the room? Prints, anything like that?”

  Connie nodded and walked over to her briefcase. “We got two good sets of prints, but let me tell you, Del, these guys are pros. They wiped down everything. I mean everything. Well...almost everything.”

  “Yeah, man, Connie lifted the first set of prints from the inside door of the medicine cabinet.”

  Delta smiled at her. “Now who’s the pro?”

  “Well, the second set was much harder. I got it from underneath the arm of the chair. Those aren’t real good, but they’ll do. We should have something back on them within an hour or so. The lab guy on duty owes me a favor.”

  “Excellent. What else?”

  Connie put the prints back and pulled out a stenographer’s notebook. “The reason the feds have had such a hard time tracing the missing kids is because all but one of them were stolen from reservations.”

  Delta perked up at this new evidence. “Indian reservations?” She suddenly remembered Connie’s remark about everyone thinking dark-skinned children were Hispanic.

  “A little girl was abducted from a Pueblo reservation in northwest New Mexico just a few days ago. Apparently, the family didn’t know she was missing because she was supposed to be staying with her grandmother.”

  “A few days ago? That means she could still be here.”

  Everyone nodded in unison. “Let’s hope so. As soon as I heard Rubin mention ‘the Chiricahua boy,’ I understood exactly what their game plan has been.” Sipping her beer before continuing, Connie walked over to Eddie and flipped off her computer screen saver button. “When we got back, I ran a check on all the kids reported missing from specific geographic locations. Look what I came up with.” Ripping a piece of paper from the printer, Connie handed it to Delta.

  At first, it just looked like a map of the United States. As she looked closer, Delta saw there were dark and light patches sprinkled throughout the North and Southwest, and red dots scattered about randomly. “What’s this?”

  “That,” Connie said, sitting next to her, “Is a map showing where five of our missing children were snatched from. See these lighter areas? Those show the cultural areas of certain tribes. The darker areas are actual reservations.”

  Delta counted twelve red dots within the darker shaded sections. Five dots were from areas in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, while the remainder were scattered through Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.

  “A dozen kids have been kidnapped off reservations in the last two months? Why hasn’t anyone done anything? What the hell have the feds been doing?”

  “You can’t blame everything on them, Del. They didn’t know the kids were Native Americans.”

  “But they should have known. How could they not know this?”

  Taking the paper from Delta, Connie set it on the coffee table. “Easy, Con. You need to understand something about the Native American mentality. There is no love lost between the federal government and these people. Even if the feds came in to help, the distrust is so deep, I’m not sure it would ever be repaired. The Indians on a reservation have their own government, their own police, their own ways of handling things. I’ll bet most of these children went unreported for days before the reservation police called in help. Even then, they probably only got help from the local authorities. That’s the way it is; that’s the way it’s always been.”

  Sal sucked her teeth and finished off her beer. “How sad.”

  Connie continued. “It’s been that way since the very beginn
ing. Obviously, Rubin and his friends knew this and capitalized on it. They snatched kids from people who would wait an eternity before asking for outside help. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s a great plan.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone put it all together?” Josh asked.

  “Keeping track of the goings-on on reservations isn’t easy. There’s a lot of crime, a high rate of alcoholism, and truancy rates are also very high. Add to this the lack of communication with state officials, and there you have it. It’s an ugly situation ripe for someone to come in and take advantage of.”

  “And that’s what they’ve done.”

  “Right. And it probably wasn’t that hard. Think about it. Rubin is darker skinned. He could fit in very easily on a reservation.”

  Delta cast a sideways glance at Connie.

  “No, Del, I’d bet everything I own he isn’t a Native American, but he’s obviously been successful passing as one.”

  Delta nodded. “If only we could get a bead on who Rubin or Poppy are.”

  Connie smiled broadly. “I found a notepad in the hotel room and I’m sure someone had written something on the top page before tearing it off. The guys at the lab should be able to tell us just what was on it within an hour.”

  Delta shook her head. “You’re amazing.”

  “Not really. I figured I better come up with some excellent clues or risk you pouting forever because I didn’t come after you.”

  Delta blushed. “It was a good call, Con. We need evidence. Josh and Sal handled my end with such a level of expertise that it makes my head spin.”

  “I was hoping you’d see it that way. Tony and I heard them discussing something about getting rid of anything that might come back to haunt them. Your intrusion has them running scared, Del, and desperate people do desperate things. I think we can expect them to make a major move within forty-eight hours.”

  “What kind of move?”

  “They’re not here just to get money, Del. They have a product to deliver, and as yet, it isn’t finished. No product equals no money, so they’re now in a bind to produce.”

  Delta rose from the couch so fast, the blood rushed from her head and she had to steady herself for a moment until the dizziness passed. “That means some of those kids may still be alive.”