by Steven Gould
They’d tried smoking most of the meat but at that time they’d still had some crystal meth. Pritts had done the last of the meth and, hopped up, put too much firewood under the smoking rack. The meat had burned instead of drying and there was a big fight about it when Ortiz returned from hunting. They had last eaten two days before, the remains of a doe Ortiz had shot the week before. They’d tried to hunt that morning but a surge in bugs had driven them back to the river’s edge and, more than once, up to their necks in the water.
“Wish we had some rock,” Ortiz said. “At least it would kill the hunger pains. But someone smoked it.” The round of recriminations that followed proceeded like an ancient ritual, every part known by heart.
The plane came out of the north about the time the sun crested the Sandias, a four-engine turboprop aircraft traveling over the city at a bug-safe fifteen thousand feet. It was clear to Kimble that it wasn’t just an overflight. The plane turned and made five passes, north to south, south to north, dropping in altitude and shifting eastward each time.
Looks like Julio got the word out.
After the last pass, six blue blossoms appeared high above the northeastern quadrant of the city and drifted with the wind, west, toward the river.
Whoa, Kimble thought. He thought it had just been a spotter flight. He hadn’t expected them to send a unit of the Rapid Response Force.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one to see the parachutes open. Both Pritts and Ortiz were swearing, scrambling to get their bedrolls and gear together.
“You don’t know they’ve come for us,” Pritts was saying.
“Face it. Those guys on the raft reported us. I knew you shouldn’t have shot at them. They probably showed them your wanted poster down in Isleta.”
The chutes were below the trees now. Kimble thought the RRF team was aiming to come down in the river, bug-safe, bug-free.
Pritts and Ortiz had planned ahead, apparently. There were no arguments over where to go. They had a small raft in the scrub near the river. It wasn’t big enough to hold them, but it supported their saddlebags and bedrolls, a disturbingly large bundle of disposable rifle barrels, their rifles, and their hastily stripped clothing. They waded out into the river, swearing at the frigid water. They only had to swim ten feet, mid river, and then they were wading again. When they got over to the far shallows, they snatched up their belongings and shoved the raft away, then continued upriver, keeping to the water.
Kimble nodded. It was a smart move. The water hid their tracks and kept them away from bugs. It was also an unlikely direction for the fugitives to go, toward the city center, where the bugs would be worst. The Rangers would certainly have the camp’s location. Julio would’ve pointed it out on a map and the information would’ve gone out by heliograph. Apparently all the way out of the territory. It was possible that even in the night the heat from their bonfire had been pinpointed by satellite.
Kimble waited until they two men had splashed around the next bend in the river before following. He had an unused plastic trash bag in his pack, reserved as rainwear for a rare spring storm. It protected and floated his things across the river.
The water was very cold. He shuddered to think what it must be like for the two men, who hadn’t eaten recently. Kimble’s teeth were chattering as he dressed on the other side.
He went ashore, stepping past patches of bugs, and risked running along the top of the overgrown western levee. Twice the ground collapsed under him and he threw himself forward, remembering with vivid imagination the fate of the fugitives’ first horse.
Maybe they’ll eat me if I break my leg.
Once, the bugs became so thick he had to go back to the shallows, but he returned to the levee almost immediately. He could travel faster and more quietly than the men splashing through the shallows but he had only just caught sight of them when they turned up into the bosque a half a mile south of the wreckage of the Central Avenue Bridge.
It had been a mixed residential and industrial area, and it was thick with bugs. Pritts and Ortiz topped the levee and then dropped to the ground behind the crest, peering through the brush back at the river.
Kimble saw the Rangers, then, rounding the bend. They were in three inflatable kayaks, strung well apart. The man in the stern of each boat handled the double-bladed paddles. The men in the bows scanned the shorelines with binoculars, their gyro rifles in their laps.
The deep water was on the west side at this bend. They would pass very close to Pritts and Ortiz.
In Kimble’s knife bag, a leather pouch where he kept a chunk of obsidian and a rounded river rock for chipping, he had a small piece of the thick bank window they’d gathered up in Corrales. He took it out and scrambled down to the riverbank.
It wasn’t as good as a heliograph but he could tell, even from this far, that the Rangers saw his reflected sunlight. He’d practiced his Morse code for a half hour every day for the month after his training sessions with Communications Tech Sergeant Chinn, but not so much after that.
“AMBUSH WEST BANK.” He hoped that was what he was sending. He wasn’t that sure about “W.” Was it dot-dot-dash or dot-dash-dash? He repeated three times and then water exploded next to him and the loud bang of the gunshot rolled back and forth between the riverbanks.
Pritts had seen him.
He jumped back into the brush. He kissed the chunk of glass, stowed it away, and snatched up his pack. He risked a look from the top of the levee. Two of the kayaks were putting into shore and the other had swung wide, both occupants training their rifles on the western bank. Ortiz and Pritts were both pounding up the crest of the levee toward Kimble.
Pritts saw Kimble and took another shot, but he was running and Kimble heard it tear through the cottonwood leaves high above him. Ortiz stopped running and, for an instant, Kimble thought he was going to give up, but instead he crouched and steadied his elbow on his knee. Kimble flung himself sideways, toward the river. A tremendous impact threw Kimble forward and he tumbled down the slope, his forward roll spoiled by his backpack. Still he came out of it standing, and then fell flat on his face.
He was dazed and he was having trouble breathing. There was something wet running down his ribs. He rolled over on his side and thought he heard his broken insides rattle together, then he realized it was Ruth’s lightest ceramic cooking pan. He touched the wetness on his side and brought his fingers up. Water. From his plastic water bottle. He’d just been shot in the backpack.
He heard footsteps and looked up. Ortiz and Pritts stood atop the levee. Ortiz was looking back, toward the Rangers, and Pritts was staring down at Kimble. He raised his rifle. “Little shit,” he said.
Blood fountained from Ortiz’s shoulder, spraying across Pritts’ face. Ortiz went down, clutching his shoulder, his rifle tumbling to the ground. Pritts’ gun, halfway to his shoulder, went off as he jerked the trigger in surprise. The bullet tore into the ground in front of Kimble, stinging his face with gravel and fragments of ceramic slug.
A hissing gyro tore through the air near Pritts’ head and he jerked sideways. He fired both of his remaining barrels back toward the Rangers, then dropped his gun and crouched, his hands scrambling for Ortiz’s rifle. He found it, pivoted, and aimed it.
Kimble found himself looking straight into the barrel.
The south side of Pritts’ head sprayed out, his eyes went wide, and he dropped straight down, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
* * *
“WE figured it out,” said Sergeant Cletus Brown, commanding. “AMBUSH UEST BANK. You-est. Helped that I was sounding it out.”
The squad member who doubled as med tech had finished gluing Ortiz shut. He had the shoulder immobilized and a bag of Lactated Ringer’s Solution running I.V. Now the med tech was tweezing bits of gravel and ceramic slug from the cuts on Kimble’s face.
“Thanks for the warning,” continued Sergeant Brown. “They might have gotten me or Tumbo here—we were on point.”
Kimbl
e was holding very still but he said, carefully, “To be honest—OW!”
The med tech, Tumbo, held up a ceramic shard three-quarters of an inch long in his plastic forceps. “Oh, stop being a baby. It’s not like it went into your eye or anything.” He flipped it off to the side and muttered under his breath, “Though it could have.”
Sergeant Brown whistled. “You can holler if you want to. Tumbo’s a bit of sadist. You were saying?”
“To be honest, they were probably going to let you float right past. I think they were that rational, but they were both meth heads and they hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. You might have been in more danger because of the rations you carried.” Tumbo started smearing antibacterial ointment on the wounds. “Besides, you were here to get them, right?”
“If possible,” said Brown.
“Huh?”
“Our mission was to get you out. If we could safely take Pritts and Ortiz, well and good, but the primary objective was to safely extract you. You aren’t the illegitimate son of the governor, are you?”
Bentham, thought Kimble. He shrugged for the sergeant. “Pretty sure I’m not.”
Sergeant Brown studied Kimble’s face. “Well, you sure don’t look like the governor.” He jerked his thumb at Ortiz and the inert body beyond. “You’re right. Going after those two is more our sort of thing. Rescue missions … well, we might go after government VIPs who get themselves in trouble. Do you have any idea why you had priority?”
Kimble shrugged. It wasn’t yes and it wasn’t no.
Sergeant Brown raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess if they wanted us to know, they would’ve told us.”
The plane hadn’t left Albuquerque, it was just circling far enough that Kimble hadn’t been aware of it. One of the team took a small heliograph out of his gear and flashed a message, acknowledged by a blinking laser on the belly of the plane. The plane dropped a cargo chute from an altitude of 10,000 feet (5,000 feet above the river) and a quarter mile east. It crossed the river and landed in the bosque on the west side, several hundred yards downstream.
Sergeant Brown watched it intently through his plastic and glass binoculars. “Uh, not seeing any swarming, so I think we’re okay.”
The cargo pack had body bags and a larger inflatable raft, suitable for transporting both the wounded Ortiz and the deceased Pritts. “If it’d just been run-of-the-mill bandits, we’d take prints and a photo, then bury the remains, but this guy stirred up so much shit, they wanted us to bring him in even if it was just pieces.”
The Rapid Response Force team delivered Kimble to the junction of Rio Puerco and the Rio Grande. Before releasing him to Patrice and Julio, who were camped there, Sergeant Brown had Kimble identify them, checking their names against a printout from his pocket.
From his kayak, Brown said, “I’d say, ‘see you around, kid,’ but I’m hoping not.”
“Thanks for the rescue.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
* * *
THEY could’ve made it back to Perro Frio by nightfall if it weren’t for the cargo. As it was, they got in by noon the next day and finished unloading the dojo’s share of the glass by early afternoon.
Over supper that night he told Ruth most of the story. He minimized the danger a bit, telling the truth about a bullet going into the backpack but implying that he hadn’t been wearing it at the time. The cuts on his face he grouped with the cuts from the glass back when he’d short-circuited the battery in Corrales.
Ruth said, “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“We can replace the water bottle and the cooking pan.”
Ruth rolled her eyes.
Kimble changed the subject. “Anything happen while I was gone?”
Ruth scratched her head and exhaled. After a moment she said, “Your old schoolmate Luanne Tuscano is pregnant. Her father is furious, alternating praying over her and shouting. Johnny Hennessey is denying any involvement and his father is backing him. The school board, in a vote of three to two, decided to reinstate you but Mrs. Sodaberg explained about your GED, so they amended it to an apology.” She looked up from her basketwork at Kimble’s astonished expression.
“In other words,” Ruth added, “nothing much.”
13
Kimble and Mrs. Perdicaris
Captain Bentham showed up a week after Kimble’s return. He sat on a log while Kimble turned the compost bins.
“As Lieutenant Durant would say, the best agents should ser invisible como fantasma,” Bentham said. “Like a ghost. The people they’re reporting on never even notice them. You’ve really got to work on that.”
“Well,” commented Kimble, “I wasn’t the one that sent the RRF after some random kid. Those boys were asking all sorts of questions.”
Bentham dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “I’m not worried about those guys. The last thing I want is for Ortiz to start talking about this kid who works for the Rangers. I mean, yes, he’s in the pen, but word gets around. Prisoners talk to family members.”
“He saw me to shoot me in the back … pack, but then Sergeant Brown shot him. Doubt he was even conscious until after I left the RRF team. He never heard a name. Never even got a clear look at my face.”
Bentham growled. “But that wasn’t your doing!”
“What did you want? For me to let the team float into an ambush?” He saw Bentham grimace. “This isn’t about what I did, is it? It’s about what Sensei said.”
“I told her what my orders were!”
“Right. And what was that about? How dare you put the capture of Pritts second to my ‘rescue’? What the hell were you thinking? You know what the bastard did! Besides, how can I be invisible with you pulling that crap? Pritts was on the most-wanted list and you put rescuing me before that?”
Bentham looked away. “Well, yeah. In hindsight, not one of my best decisions.”
Kimble blinked, surprised. He liked the man for admitting that.
“It’s just she was furious with me after the mission in Parsons. I told her I’d do my best to keep you out of danger.” Bentham shrugged. “She scares me a little.”
Kimble laughed. “Well, she scares me a lot.”
Bentham muttered. “If only anything else scared you.”
Kimble sobered. “Oh, I’m getting there. I didn’t tell Sensei I was wearing that backpack when Ortiz shot it.”
“Well … she scares you, after all.”
“After Ortiz, bullets scare me, too.” Kimble raised his sleeve to reveal the bug scar on his deltoid. “Bugs scare me.” He spread his arms. “But after seeing what people like Pritts do, the thing that scares me the most is failure. You know what I mean?”
The corners of Bentham’s mouth pulled down. “I’m afraid I do. But that road is full of heartbreak. ’Cause you will fail. You can’t stop all evil and sick acts. Most of the time we won’t know about the bad guys until after the damage has been done. It’s what they do that defines them. It’s the screams of their victims that alert us.”
“But we can keep them from doing it again. Pritts won’t, that’s for sure.”
Bentham nodded. “Is it enough? ’Cause I guarantee for every one you help catch, others will get away. And too many of the ones you do catch will walk away scot-free.”
Kimble recognized the voice of bitter experience. “So, do you think I should just do nothing?”
Bentham looked away and didn’t say anything.
Kimble nodded. “Yeah, right. You were the one who recruited me. That’s what they call it, right? In the spy biz?”
Bentham nodded.
“You recruit many?”
“Sure. Three dozen or so in the last ten years.”
“How many have been underage, kids, like me?”
Bentham sighed. “In my whole career? Only one.”
* * *
KIMBLE first met Mrs. Perdicaris at a stopover on the old trail between Zia Pueblo and Acoma. Bentham had sent him there to wait for a passenger
caravan coming in from Needles.
“DEA has some information on the organization that was dropping the meth into Parsons. Seems they’re sending in someone to meet with a potential new distributor. The DEA has ID’d the outside contact, but we have no idea who these territorial guys are … but the meeting is supposed to be there.”
“Can’t they just arrest the guy they know about?”
“Not right now. I think their info comes from an undercover agent and they can’t act without compromising him. Anyway, it’s the Territory I care about. They grab that guy and we won’t see who’s willing to do the dirty here. There are always suppliers for a ready market. So we need to find and destroy the local market.”
Bentham gave Kimble a battered pair of binoculars. “Those are Zeiss optics—we only made them look beat up—so you treat them gently. The right-hand side is also a camera.” He showed him how to use it. “You’ve got thirty-six shots.” Then he gave him a printout photograph of the contact from the outside cartel.
“Careful with that. It’s the last thing you want found.”
It was three days walk from Perro Frio to the watering stop, but Bentham took him within five miles by horseback. “There were thunderstorms and flash floods around the Mogollon Rim so the caravan could be delayed. They’re due in three days but it could be as much as a week. The potential distributor could be anyone but I’ll vouch for Tomás, the spring keeper. If you run out of food, he sells supplies. There’s a roll of cash in the bottom of your food sack.”
The tanques at the old stopover were above the caravan route, up a rising sandstone ridge. When the tanques just caught rainwater, they dried out during parts of the year, but now they were supplemented by PVC piping running from a spring in the sandy ridge above.