by Rhona Weaver
Trey leaned back against the front of the chair. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Yes, I do. . . . I haven’t been totally honest with you and I’m sorry for that. You’re right. It’s not my nature to hide things, to not be up-front . . . to mislead anyone. So here it is. Phillips knows how capable you are, and how valuable your assistance is to HRT and the Bureau in setting up the raid on the compound and protecting the folks who’re coming in from Israel. But he’s nervous about your relationship with Luke. He considers Bordeaux to be one of the most dangerous guys we’re dealing with, and he warned me that there’s no telling which side Luke will come down on when push comes to shove. I told Phillips you could help us tremendously in bringing down the bad guys, but under the circumstances—you being so close to Luke—you should be watched. Phillips asked me to work with you and keep an eye on you, to make sure Luke doesn’t come back into the picture in a bad way.”
Trey took that all in and finally dropped his eyes to stare down at the rug. He didn’t make any comment.
“Put yourself in Phillips’s place. . . . Put yourself in my place. What would you do? It comes across pretty clear you feel you let Luke down in some significant way in the past. It’s possible he might pressure you to make it right now that y’all have reconnected.” Win knew his efforts at reasoning were going nowhere.
Trey glanced at his watch and moved off the floor. He sat in the chair and pulled his boots on. “I’ll, ahhh, go outside to check on my men. Then I’ll sleep on it. Will let you know if I’m still on this assignment in the morning. Don’t bother with breakfast. We’re out of here at 5:30.”
* * *
Win was eating a piece of toast in his kitchen when Trey came downstairs at 5:15 the next morning. Win poured them both coffee, then leaned back against the counter and waited for him to speak.
“Our goal is to stop the bad guys. We don’t necessarily have to like each other to do that, but we do have to trust each other—if we don’t, someone could get hurt. In order to have that trust, we have to be honest with each other. There is no partnership without that as the base. You and I are both Christians, and you were right the other day when you implied that our faith should be a strong foundation for that trust. But you didn’t trust me to tell you if Luke makes an appearance, and that was wrong of you. That said . . . well, last night I thought about how you must have felt up on the ridge, with me holding your gun. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. So we’ve both made mistakes here. Do you see it that way?”
“Yeah, I do,” Win answered.
“If you still want me as a part of this operation, I’ll be there beside you. But no more games.”
“No more games.” They shook hands on that and Win felt tremendous relief. He needed this guy. He needed a teammate. He needed a partner.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Susan Hapsburg was on his radar. Not that he wanted it that way. She was funny and friendly and she seemed to have made it one of her goals in life to make him smile every time he saw her. She and her husband had moved to Mammoth three years ago, and she was in the process of transitioning out of her earlier career as a Park Service law enforcement ranger. Susan was smart, ambitious, and seriously conflicted about her dual roles as a police analyst and the mother of two-year-old twin daughters. Win figured that she’d taken the clerical Park Service position because it was low-key and predictable compared to a ranger’s hectic schedule. One of her duties consisted of serving as the administrative officer of the area’s annex unit of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. She was the coordinator for JTTF training and information dissemination for a five-county area of Montana and Wyoming, as well as Yellowstone National Park. For the time being, Trey, Gus, four sheriff’s deputies, and a couple of Montana game wardens were the only JTTF officers in their unit who weren’t in the FBI. It wasn’t what Congress had envisioned when the number of JTTFs dramatically expanded after the 9/11 attacks.
The JTTF concept was great: have all local and federal law enforcement agencies contribute men and women to a working group that would have top secret clearance to share both local and national tips and leads on potential terrorism activities. It was an effort by the FBI to coordinate resources and intelligence assets with local law enforcement. In reality, a lack of manpower in many rural areas, not to mention the lack of any impending terrorism threat in most regions, led to the disbanding or scaling back of many of the JTTF units across rural America. Johnson had done little to nothing to keep the local JTTF unit alive during the last several years, and Win saw an opening to contribute something, at least, to local law enforcement. It wasn’t like he had much else to do during those first few days in Mammoth. Even before the False Prophet case gained momentum, he’d already held two meetings with Susan in the hope that they’d be able to recruit a few new JTTF members and get the local program back on track.
Susan’s JTTF credentials gave her the FBI clearances to know much of the information that seemed to be falling into the wrong hands. Her office was in the Justice Center, down the hall from the break room. She was in a good position to either access or overhear plenty of sensitive information. And, unfortunately, she had a motive—she’d mentioned to Win more than once how tight her family’s finances had become since the twins were born.
It was nearly 7:00 a.m., and Susan always got to the office early, even when she worked on Saturdays. Win knew that was so she could leave to pick up her girls at day care in Gardiner before 4:30. He had her schedule for the last ten days memorized. He was leaning back in a metal chair in her office, admiring her latest phone photos of the twins at play in yesterday’s snow. She dumped her satchel on her desk in front of him and turned to get coffee from down the hall.
“Need to be taking sugar in your coffee, Win. Wouldn’t hurt to sweeten up that smile a bit. . . . You’ve been frowning way too much lately—gonna break all the girls’ hearts.”
“No sugar . . . no thanks . . . but no way not to smile lookin’ at these babies in the snow!” He grinned and winked at her and handed over her phone as she passed his chair on her way out the door.
She’d only been gone a moment when Trey appeared in the doorway, moved toward her desk, and began scanning every scrap of paper that was visible. “We’d need a warrant to look in her purse. . . . Win, I haven’t got the nerve to even dig through my wife’s purse! I’d feel like a thief looking through her desk. . . . She cannot be involved in this mess. Just can’t be.” The ranger stood staring down at the huge handbag and the cluttered desk.
“Won’t be going through anything else—not right now. And the desk is federal property. I got a passkey to the locks and went through it this morning before she got here. Found nothing. Guess you checked those two contractors’ offices we talked about? They’re still scheduled to come in over the weekend?”
Trey nodded and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, they’re both working today. Felt like a cat burglar, rummaging through peoples’ desks. Do you think I don’t know it’s federal property!” He was scowling.
“Hey, you’re not hating this any more than I am. Let’s see if we can get her talking a little. She thinks we’re here to plan JTTF training. Try to keep your emotions out of it.”
Trey cut Win off. “And how’re you doin’ with that?”
“Not much better than you, but it has to happen. I filed to get access to her bank accounts and phone records yesterday, might get something there. Got to go through the process—process of elimination.”
Trey slumped into the other metal guest chair as Susan entered the room with her coffee and a big stack of chocolate doughnuts balanced on a paper plate. “Not gonna help me get rid of this extra thirty pounds of baby fat, but what the hay! Breakfast, boys!”
They were all leaning forward in their chairs, about to start in on the doughnuts, when Trey looked down at his phone and flinched. The text said very little: L, bronte help sc
ared. It had been sent from Ellie Bordeaux’s phone less than a minute ago.
Trey called an abrupt halt to their pig-out. “Ahhh, excuse me, Susan, but something came in that we may have to deal with.” He slid his phone down the desktop toward Win. “It’s Ellie, she just forwarded me a text she sent to Luke. Who’s Bronte?”
Win stopped with the pastry touching his lips and shot Trey a warning look before glancing at the screen. His breath caught in his throat. “Susan, we’ll get with you later—sorry about this. We’ve gotta go. Urgent!” He stood, grabbed his coat and hat, and quickly moved out the door.
Trey was right beside Win in the hall as he whispered, “Bronte is one of the original four guys who were staying in Luke’s trailers. One of Ron Chandler’s men.” Win felt the adrenaline hit his system as he said the words.
“Ah—Good Lord!”
Win was reaching for his Bureau phone when it rang. He took the call as they trotted down the hall and across the small lobby past Bill Wilson, an FBI guard, and through the building’s entrance doors. It was the Denver Field Office telling him Mrs. Bordeaux had called in the emergency code thirty seconds earlier. She was alone and someone was trying to break into the house.
“My rig!” Trey called as they raced down the granite steps, which thankfully someone had salted to clear the ice and snow. Win was clutching his phone and holding his hat in the frigid wind. He wrestled open the passenger door of the ranger’s Tahoe. He was on the phone to the FBI’s SWAT team leader within seconds as Trey made a quick U-turn in front of the Mammoth Post Office and headed toward Ellie’s house. Trey hit a button in the vehicle’s console, activating the flashing lights and siren. He was driving with his left hand and pulling on his seat belt with his right. “Get your belt on!” he ordered as he passed two snow-covered RVs lumbering in front of the park’s medical clinic.
Win knew they were running only sporadic surveillance on Bordeaux’s entrance road. Most of their manpower was spread out elsewhere. For the last two days of near-blizzard conditions, the surveillance teams had concentrated on locating the men who’d reportedly left the church compound. Win was praying someone from one of their teams was nearby. He knew there was no hope for a helicopter with the low-hanging clouds and high winds.
“Do we call the locals in? Call in my folks?” Trey asked as he whipped down the first of several switchbacks leading down the mountain.
“Whoa! Let’s get there in one piece! No—no locals. No rangers. Not till we know what we have. Got our SWAT boys comin’. Ellie’s an informant. We’ve got to be careful with this!” Win closed his eyes for a split second as Trey passed another slow-moving vehicle. Either the guy had spent his entire youth playing Grand Theft Auto or he’d actually run from the law. Trey braked sharply and came down another switchback in the wrong lane. Win dropped the phone on his lap, gripped the handhold, and pulled his seat belt on.
Win was trying to focus on something other than Trey’s driving and the horrible things that could be happening to Ellie. He had to raise his voice above the wailing of the siren to finish his calls. It occurred to him that he’d only been in a police vehicle with the lights and siren on during an actual emergency once—the short chase to catch Richter. Except for that day, the Tactical Emergency Operations Center practice track at Quantico was as close as he’d come—and as the reality of the danger hit him, he realized his training couldn’t compare with the actual experience. Self-doubt was raising its head.
“You ever done a dynamic entry against armed subjects?” Win asked through gritted teeth.
“No. . . . No, have you?”
“No, but I’ve been told it’s speed and violence of action—uh, sheeees! Watch the road!”
“You’ve been told! Well, I’ve had SWAT training, ah, maybe not up to your high and mighty standards, but you haven’t had any tactical training! I know the layout at Luke’s place!”
“Okay, okay, let’s stop competing with each other. Too much at stake here and you know it! So tell me about the layout, I’ve only been in the front.”
Trey took a deep breath and calmly walked him though the house, room by room, as they continued to speed down the highway toward the gravel entrance road to Luke’s house. As they dropped in elevation, the snow depth receded. The highway was plowed, and thanks to Trey’s skill with the Tahoe, not to mention a good dose of angelic protection, they were making amazing time. Win was notified by phone that the nearest surveillance agents were almost three miles from Luke’s entrance road—he and Trey would get there first.
“How are you with your weapons?” Win asked.
The ranger grimaced a bit and kept his eyes glued to the oncoming tourist traffic. “Pretty good . . . better with a long rifle.”
“Then I’m the lead on this.”
Hechtner shot him a sharp glance and spat out his reply. “Because you’re FBI?”
“No, because I’m real good with the guns. All of them. So I’m the lead.” It wasn’t bragging; it was a fact. He was eyeing the ranger’s Colt M4LE, law enforcement’s equivalent of an AR-15. The rifle and a shotgun were locked between them against the Tahoe’s center console.
Win closed his eyes tight as Trey made a NASCAR-worthy pass around a minivan. He kept his negative internal narrative to himself. His mind alternated between praying and replaying forced-entry methods he’d learned in training.
“Keep the siren on? Tip them?” Trey asked nervously as he slowed to negotiate the barely plowed, slushy gravel road that led from the highway to the house.
“Pluses and minuses . . . I’m thinking yes, leave it on till we’re almost there. Might slow down whatever’s going on.” He didn’t want to dwell on what might be going on.
Trey whipped to the side of the gravel road before the brow of the hill where the house sat, and they both jumped from the vehicle into the deep woods. No need to drive right up to the house and into an ambush. Win took the short-barrel Remington 870 shotgun and Trey grabbed the rifle. They moved quickly through the snow-filled woods on opposite sides of the road. Win could make out a muddy red Chevy pickup parked beside Ellie’s Toyota in the drive. The front door of the house was wide open. The wind was whipping the curtains on the windows inside. He spotted no movement in the house. Trey was hugging a huge evergreen on the right side of the yard. The ranger motioned him to move up.
So much for being the lead! Neither one of us is real sure of what we’re doing. Win crouched low and held the shotgun at the ready as he ran from the tree line toward a small well house or shed about fifty yards to the left of the main house. He was halfway across the snow-covered yard before he remembered to click the shotgun’s safety to the off position. Good Lord, Win! As he neared the shed, he saw two figures moving toward the woods far behind the house.
At the FBI Academy, new agents work through various armed-entry scenarios in a mock-up town called Hogan’s Alley. Win remembered thinking how stressful and realistic it had felt with paintballs peppering around him during simulated attacks. He’d thought at the time it couldn’t get more intense in a live-fire situation—he was very wrong. As soon as the bullets from Bronte’s AR-15 began clipping the weathered boards of Luke’s well house, Win’s adrenaline hit a new level. He dove into the back wall of the little frame shed and clutched the shotgun with both hands. He knew he had no chance for a shot with the shotgun or his handgun—the shooter was at least three hundred yards away. The distance was probably the only thing that saved him. He was at the far end of the accurate range of the assault rifle unless the guy was a real marksman. A second long burst hit the little building, and Win yanked his hat down tighter, as if it would somehow protect him. His heart felt like a drum in his chest and he knew his hands were shaking slightly on the shotgun. This was very different from the shoot-out with Richter—that shooting had happened so quickly, he’d had only seconds to react. Out here, huddled in the snow against Luke’s well house, he was f
acing the opposite situation. He was overthinking his responses rather than letting his training dictate his moves.
Trey whistled to get his attention, then sprinted from the trees to the red pickup. He glanced inside the cab, keeping his assault rifle tucked close to his body, and quickly moved on. He jumped the front steps of the porch and flattened his back against the house beside the open door. Win thought about trying to run toward the house to back up Trey’s entrance, but the gunman changed his mind with another volley of automatic rifle fire. Win squeezed his eyes shut and ducked lower behind the well house as several rounds thudded into the snow between him and the porch.
When he looked back up, he realized Trey had made his entry. He was too exposed to change his position and help Trey clear the house. He hazarded a quick peek around the corner of the shed and saw no one in the distance. He’d hold his ground unless Trey called for help. Where’s our backup? He checked both his phones for cell service: none, zero, zilch. Damn!
In less than two minutes Trey reappeared on the front porch with a long gun in each hand. Crouching low, he zigzagged across the yard to Win and dropped down on one knee next to him. No gunfire came from the far woods.
“House is clean—rear door open. I was watching him from the back window. He had Ellie by the arm, half-dragging her down the trail. I didn’t see anyone else. Looks like just one guy. No way we’re gonna get a shot at him until we can get some separation. Can’t risk hitting her.”
“Hope it’s only one guy—we’re totally in the open if we follow the trail they’re on.” Win was taking quick glances around the shed’s corner at the wide expanse of sagebrush the trail meandered through toward the far tree line. “I can’t get a call out, but agents should be here anytime.”
“Cell service is iffy here, comes and goes. Luke has a cell booster in the house—won’t work in the yard. But I’ve got a plan. He’s headed for the river. There’s a shortcut. Maybe we can get around them.” Trey slung a deer rifle over his back and started moving down a lightly used path at a low crouch, the assault rifle at the ready.