The copter was an August Westland Grand executive model. It had two seats in front and room in back for five to six people. She had picked it up in Italy, flying across the North Atlantic, something not many helicopter pilots had accomplished. She had talked Uncle into buying it as a write off, as they had many high rollers that found it a nice perk to be picked up at the airport in the casino’s helicopter. It was probably more helicopter than the casino needed, but Susan had bugged Uncle until he gave in and purchased it. It was her helicopter; she looked after it, oversaw its maintenance and was the only one who flew it.
She ran her ID card through the last door that led to the flight deck. Uncle had talked about updating the security to the flight deck since there was a multimillion-dollar helicopter sitting there, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Susan was glad; no one had questioned her since she arrived. She had used her ID card to access the elevator, the offices and now the flight deck, but other than that, moving about and getting what she wanted had been easy. When she was in charge, she wouldn’t be so careless.
Susan loaded her gear in the passenger side in the front of the bird and then made some exterior visual checks. They had a helicopter mechanic who came by once a week to perform maintenance and check the craft, but she always liked to walk around and double-check things.
She started the copter, checked gauges, called into the air traffic control center and prepared for takeoff. She felt a buzz of power as she maneuvered the copter up and off the roof and headed northwest. Vegas shimmered below her for a few minutes, and then the lights reduced again and again until she was flying over sagebrush and empty desert.
The Grand averaged one hundred sixty-two miles per hour, but the trip would still be a long one. She would have to pilot around the restricted airspace of Area 51 and several other military no-fly zones. There were no major obstacles in her flight path and the weather was clear. It would be an easy flight. She tried to stay focused on her flight over the unchanging monotony of desert, but she couldn’t help slipping into her arrival at the cowboy’s ranch and the big surprise she had for him and his family. Again, the jackal grin slipped onto her face as she stared out the copter’s windshield.
Chapter 43
Cami had sent the girls out to let the horses onto the pasture, where they could eat freely and water at the creek. Landon was in his highchair eating some yogurt and a banana but spreading most of it into his hair and across his bare chest. She nearly had the cooler packed; she just needed some ice. She would have to go out to the detached garage to the big freezer for a bag of it.
“You be good, I’ll be right back,” Cami told Landon. He had nothing left to choke on, as he had thrown most of the food on the floor.
“Mum,” he burbled at her as he sucked yogurt off his fingers.
The garage was only 30 feet from the house, but Cami hurried; she didn’t like leaving Landon alone even for a minute. Off in the distance she could hear a helicopter. It was not unusual—the military base was not far off and they sometimes flew over the ranch on their maneuvers. She closed the garage door behind her so none of the cats would accidentally get locked in the building then opened the freezer. She couldn’t see the ice—it must be at the bottom and she would have to dig for it. Tom’s air compressor kicked on, cycling as it usually did a couple of times a day. With her head deep in the freezer, digging through endless packages of frozen food and the noise of the air compressor, Cami knew she would not be able to hear Landon cry and she tried to hurry. At last she found the ice at the bottom of the freezer. She pulled it out, roughly shuffled the frozen food back in place and closed the freezer. It had taken her a lot longer to get the ice than she thought it would, so she jogged back to the house.
Coming in through the back door, Cami could hear someone talking to Landon—it was a woman’s voice. Her mom, she thought, but then she stepped into the kitchen and was stunned to see a helicopter out the window. Her mind had not connected the dots even as she stepped further into the kitchen and saw the woman. She had a handgun drawn and was stroking Landon’s curls with her free hand. Her eyes were on Cami the instant she came through the door. “Where’s your husband?” The tone was cold and angry and at last, the dots connected. The woman had blonde hair and empty eyes like the man Tom had described, and she radiated hate. Cami stood there amazed and paralyzed.
The beautiful blonde pointed the gun to Landon’s head impatiently. “Where is he?”
Cami’s knees buckled and she caught herself on the table as she and the ice fell to the floor. “Please, don’t! He’s just a baby—Tom is up in the canyon.”
The blonde gave her a smile that made her shiver. “I wouldn’t kill a baby … not that way.” Now she stepped to Cami and put the gun to her forehead. “Where are your girls?”
Cami had never imagined what a gun pressed to her head might feel like—she felt so close to death, but now she lied to save what she could of her family, “They’re spending the night at a friend’s house in town.” Tears began to trickle down her face. She didn’t know how long the girls would be, but she hoped they would dawdle at their chores today.
“Fuck!” Susan stared down at Cami and the gun trembled for a moment in her hand. It took all of her control not to blast this hick housewife in her anger and disappointment. At last, she yanked the gun away and gestured at Cami. “Get up!”
Cami staggered to her feet, the bag of ice still in her hand. She thought about trying to fight back; she had at least ten inches and thirty pounds on the blonde. She could whack her with the bag of ice. But it didn’t seem like the best plan, since the woman could topple over Landon.
“Get rid of that!”
Cami set the ice in the sink and ventured a glance at the road up to the canyon. Tom’s truck was just coming down from the canyon; she could see the dust. The short woman saw it too.
“Ah, there’s the bastard.” She pressed the gun against Cami’s spine and looked up into her eyes. “Well, we can wait. Let’s pack a few things for our trip, huh?”
Cami wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She wanted to warn the girls and Tom, but there was just no way.
“Pack some things for that cute little boy. It’s going to be a long day and I think I might just keep him.” She waved the gun towards the back of the house where the bedrooms were. “Go get him what he will need for a couple of days—fill up a diaper bag and then come back here and pack him some food.”
Cami moved away from the gun. She wanted to snatch Landon from his highchair and run, but she knew the woman would shoot her before she made it out of the room. The woman wasn’t going to kill her, or at least not right away. She wanted Landon and maybe the girls. It chilled her to think of her children strapped to a rock somewhere surrounded by hungry, evil eyes.
“Hurry up! Don’t fuck with me—I have your baby here and I’ve killed lots of them before.” She was stroking Landon again, fingering his curls in a way that terrified Cami.
Cami hurried out of the room wondering what she could do. She had Landon’s bag still packed from the other day at her mom’s house, so she had some time. She began to open and close a few of Landon’s drawers so the woman would think she was doing her bidding. She saw the girls coming back from the horse pasture, cutting across the backyard. They had not seen the helicopter and probably had not even noticed it flying in. She was grateful for their lollygagging. God! At least she could save them. As quickly and quietly as she could, Cami pulled the screen from Landon’s open window and leaned out, gesturing to the girls, alternating between beckoning them to her and holding her finger to her lips. She could hear the woman talking to Landon in the kitchen; Cami had a few minutes before she became suspicious.
There was a bench under the window and with the girls standing on it Cami could whisper right into their ears, “I want you to run and hide. There is a bad lady in the house with a gun.” The girls started to smile, looking at Cami to see if she was teasing, but they grew wide-eyed at their mother’s
face. “This lady wants to take me and Landon away in a helicopter; I’m going to try and stop her, but you both run and hide and don’t come back until I call you or the helicopter leaves. Go, quick.”
Cami could hear the woman coming down the hall. She kicked the screen under the crib out of view and bent to pick up the diaper bag. “I’m coming.”
She stood up to block the petite woman’s view of the window and the yard, but there was a clang from the backyard as the girls went out the back gate. The woman caught sight of the girls running towards the corrals. “You lying fucking bitch!” She grabbed Cami’s long dark hair and yanked her to the window. “Call them back now!” The woman was practically howling, and the noise turned the frightened girls around. “Now!” She shouted and mashed the gun against Cami’s temple.
Cami struggled to straighten herself to meet the girls’ gaze, even though the woman’s grip on her hair was pulling her down. “Run! Run and hide! Run—” The woman kneed her in the stomach hard, dropping her to the floor. Then she was kicking her in the side and cursing. Cami curled up to shield herself from the blows, her mind clinging to her last glimpse of the girls as they ran away from the house.
The limo arrived at eight on schedule. His staff had all learned that the best way to please him was to have things done in a timely manner and to never be late. He nodded to Jake as he opened the limo door for him. The morning’s copy of the Wall Street Journal was sitting on the seat waiting for him. He briefly looked at the front page. “Any more news?”
“No, sir, but I’m working on it.”
“Good. Keep me posted.”
He already felt tired. It was going to be a long day without the worries of Weasel and what he might tell the cops. He set the newspaper down and rubbed his eyes. When he looked up he saw Billy the driver watching him in the rearview. “We’ll get through it, won’t we, Bill?”
“Yes, sir,” Billy said, but the words sounded empty.
He forced a smile and turned his head to the window, watching the thousands of cars and buildings that made up the hole known as Las Vegas stream by. How he wished he could be anywhere else. The men escorted him up to the office, and then he sent them off to see what they could learn about Weasel. He would need them back by ten thirty for the first memorial.
He went to work on a few normal day-to-day tasks but found it hard to concentrate. He thought it must be his worries about Weasel and all of the other shit Susan had been bringing down on him. But as he cleared his mind and tried to focus on his work, something kept niggling. Something wasn’t right. There was something new coming, some problem, and there was a foreboding intensity about it. Sometimes when he closed the blinds to his office and concentrated on the One he could get clarity, but he didn’t feel like that would work today. He stood and paced before the large picture window looking down on the strip. What was it? Part of it, he felt sure, had to do with Susan—that felt right. Maybe she was going to make a scene today at one of the memorials—probably the private one in front of the group. Perhaps she would blame the entire Lyon County murder situation on him. Even as it raised his blood pressure to think of it, he knew that there was more: some other force at work, and it was not a dark force. This force was against him. He wondered at this, because he had not felt something like this before. Of course there was God. He felt His power when he walked or drove past Holy Ground or when an especially good or holy person passed by him in a hallway or on a sidewalk. He would have a feeling of light-headedness, almost vertigo, as if the ground was shifting below him and he was about to fall far and downward. At the same time he would feel emptiness, an apartness and lack—the feeling of a beggar looking through iron bars at a green country he would never know. The feeling was awful enough that his daily routines had routes to avoid such places and none of the employees he worked with closely were on St. Peter’s good list. It was more difficult when he had to deal with the public, because good people popped up in surprising places. He always managed to mask his feelings of illness and repulsion, though he was usually ready for a strong drink by the time the meeting was over.
But he had never had the feeling that such a force would attack him, and that was the feeling he had now. He had never seen much opposition in any of his group’s doings—a few lawmen that tried, but they had met with accidents or their bosses had been bought and sold and they had destroyed the investigations. This feeling he had was strong, and he had no idea where it was coming from. He would have to be on guard and watchful.
Father Bob had awakened at five as usual—his steady routine was a curse when he wanted to sleep in or if he changed time zones. Still, there was no point in lying in bed. He got up and prepared for the day and reviewed his plan again and again. He visualized it and tried to keep himself positive. The priest did have doubts about what he was going to do, although he had tried to hide them from Tom. Would he ever get a better opportunity to bring down some extremely evil people than he would today? It only took him half an hour to get ready and so he knelt beside his bed, cleared his mind and prayed. He prayed for success on his mission, for the safety of Tom and his family and that this organization might be destroyed. He prayed for forty-five minutes straight until his knees screamed in protest, and then he signed off and struggled onto the bed and rubbed his numb kneecaps. He still had three hours before he could put his plan into action. He groaned at how time could slow and went through his black leather satchel one more time. He checked the .357 once more, checked its ammo and carefully put it into the top of the bag and covered it with the Good Book. Father Bob smiled. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
After all was as ready as it could be, he broke down and turned on the idiot box. He only had a TV at home to watch movies, preferring to get his news from the internet. When he had a chance to access cable every six months or so, it always amazed him how the world had sunk a bit lower in morality. The Devil had his claws in the world for certain; he was reeling it into his domain inch by inch, so that people would not notice where they were until it was too late.
Chapter 44
Tom was heading out of the canyon towards the ranch when he saw the helicopter hover and then land. At first, he had hoped it was a military helicopter, but he knew it was too small. Then he hoped it was a lost news helicopter, but as it landed, he knew it was no such thing. The road to the ranch from the canyon was rough and took twenty minutes under the best circumstances, but Tom knew he didn’t have that much time.
His truck would never be the same, but he didn’t care. He stomped on the gas and lurched over rocks and little gullies. At times, his seatbelt was all that kept his skull from slamming into the roof. Tom slowed it a bit, realizing that as much as he wanted to be home, getting a flat here would prevent his arrival. He wondered about the people in the helicopter; if there were two armed men, what could he do? Before they had kids, Tom always had a firearm in the truck, but now all of his weapons were in the basement in the gun safe, except for his .22, which was high in the back porch. Father Bob had said these people would take his children. What about Cami? Would they shoot her dead in front of the kids? The thought of his young wife lying dead in a pool of blood tore at his heart. He reached for his front shirt pocket where he usually kept his cell phone—empty. He remembered that he had started to lay out the things he would need for Vegas on his bed—cell phone, charger, wallet … In his hurry to move the trailer to the canyon he had not thought to bring a weapon or his phone. Who could he call now anyway? The ranch was a half hour from town and twenty minutes from the nearest neighbor. Their beloved privacy and peace was turning against them. He had been driving for ten minutes when he wondered why the helicopter had not taken off. A woman and three little kids should be no trouble for professional killers. Why hadn’t they taken off? It must be waiting for him. That or Cami had figured out something to stall them. He voted for the first alternative. A second trip out here showed they very much wanted him. They would have a gun to Cami’s head if she was
still alive or perhaps to one of the children, knowing he would do exactly what they wanted him to do. He stopped the truck; he just needed a minute to think. A minute was dearly expensive, but he wanted something to ruin their plans, something that would make him less than the icing on the sacrificial cake of his family. He did have his binoculars. He ripped them from their case in the glove box. Everything seemed calm at the house. He started to lower the glasses when he caught movement at the front of the house. The screen door opened and he could see Cami with Landon in her arms. Thank God! He couldn’t see her expression, but she was struggling to walk, bent and limping. But she was alive and Landon too! He saw another figure behind her. At first, he thought it was a child, but she was too tall for Amanda and the gun in her hand made it clear it was not a friend. They walked towards the helicopter. He watched for the front door to open again, but there was nothing. He put the binoculars down for a moment. What in the hell? A short blonde woman was not what he expected and a short blonde woman alone—unlikely.
He picked up the glasses again. The little woman was gesturing at Cami, obviously telling her to get in. Now he could see the side of Cami’s head red with blood; the bitch had hurt her. Cami struggled into the helicopter with Landon and then they were out of his view. He saw the blonde pull handcuffs from her back pocket and reach inside. It took her a few moments to secure Cami, and then the woman threw a bag in after Cami. Tom recognized the diaper bag. It gave him a thread of hope that these people didn’t intend to kill Landon—at least not right away. The woman turned, and he felt she must be looking right at him, but he knew he was still too far away. She must be looking for dust from the pickup. He looked behind him and saw what little dust there had been had already settled. He put the binocs back to his eyes and saw the woman had started to jog out towards the corrals and the barn. His heart beat a little faster—she must be looking for the girls. He jumped back in the truck. He was still ten minutes away by the road, but if he cut over to the pasture and drove through his fences to the house he could be there in five.
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