“And maybe McKenzie Doyle in Newport Beach?”
“Maybe,” I said. “He’s due in court again next week. He’s being sued for slandering Ammna Safar as blood related to known terrorists.”
A beat of silence.
“Broadman abducted Natalie out of vengeance,” said Lark. “I fear for her state of body and mind. Broadman’s Chaos Committee might be shot up, but I think he’s more dangerous now, not less. Dalton is personal.”
“I agree.”
“Let’s hope he’s got enough sense to stay away from packages that arrive by mail.”
“He’s fearless,” I said. “Choosing off The Chaos Committee in the media, when he knows they’ve got his wife.”
“What did he call them in that last tweet?” Lark asked.
“Impotent morons.”
“Proetto and Hazzard have backed off on him,” said Lark. “They don’t think he was involved in her abduction. In spite of his shaky timeline. Doyle offered herself as his alibi.”
“That was never the right call.”
“And you be careful, too, Roland. You’re the pesky PI who put the feds onto Broadman. You came out of Fallujah in one piece and he didn’t. Broadman might enjoy blowing you to bits.”
I saw Tola and the priest walking slowly side by side in the parish garden. A pool and a waterfall and statues of the saints. A riot of springtime colors, the priest’s hands behind his back, Tola’s head bowed in thought.
“I thought of that favor you can do me,” I said.
A grunt from Lark.
“Tola took Crag Face’s bait, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you also going to bring her up on schedule-one drug charges?”
“We might.”
I watched Tola and the priest ambling past the roses and groomed palms.
“Can you help her out?” I asked.
“I cannot. Did you ask her about the six cartel men gunned down in Mexican Buena Vista last night?” he asked.
“I didn’t have to. I was there.”
“Fuck,” said Lark. “Talk to me.”
When I was done, another long Lark silence.
“Roland, the drug charges are the DEA’s but I can make it my business if I really want to.”
“I gave you The Chaos Committee, Mike. Now I’m trying to help a friend.”
“A murderer,” he said. “It’s wrong and you know it and you’re covering her murdering ass. I understand—I understand why, but why doesn’t matter. What matters. Why only counts for kids and dogs.”
Lark punched off.
Tola and the priest were approaching and I heard their voices on the breeze but not their words.
Tola introduced us and the father thanked me for bringing Tola to the parish. He sized me up, then said I had done a brave thing in protecting San Diego from a terrible attack a few months ago. Or was it a year by now? He had a grave expression and I wondered what Tola had confessed.
“Please come visit us any time you’d like,” he said. “Both of you. You are always welcome in the house of God.”
We walked the beach in Oceanside. Got lunch. Watched the surfers from the pier, fed some quarters into the mounted telescopes and got good views north and south. Took a siesta in a shady patch of grass under rotund Canary Island palms. Some of Tola’s turmoil ebbed out of her as she slept, her head heavy on my chest.
My phone rang and Dalton’s name and number appeared.
“Natalie just called!” he boomed. “She’s okay, Roland! She’s okay! I can pick her up but she’s not sure where or when. She’ll call. They don’t want money and I can bring a second. You. It’s going to happen somewhere remote. In daylight, so they can see that we’re playing fair. This phone isn’t leaving my hand!”
“It’s a trap, Dalton,” I said. “They’re shot up and desperate.”
“Maybe, Roland, but I’m going. I feel good about this. What you do is up to you.”
FORTY
We were sitting in my downtown office when Broadman’s call came through. It was 6:10 p.m., an hour and forty minutes before sunset. Dalton had been talking nonstop, sipping bourbon from the bottle. I did not. My senses were resting for whatever was coming in the next hours. My old boxing scar was itching like a bug bite. My heart felt heavy and my soul felt old.
Broadman had dispensed with the voice changer he’d used before. I could see his mangled face and hear his low, even voice clearly through Dalton’s phone speaker.
“Dalton, come to the visitor’s center at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Use Montezuma Valley Road, in from the southwest. Follow the signs to the center. I need the make, color, and year of the car you’ll be using, and of course the plates. Make sure your phone is charged, on, and your GPS active. Natalie is waiting, but I’m not sure how forward she’s looking to seeing you. Time has passed. People change.”
“If you’ve hurt her, sir, I’ll kill you.”
Broadman chuckled softly, then listened as Dalton gave his SUV description and license plate.
“I’m assuming you’re somewhere near home right now, with your good friend Roland. Hello, Roland. You have one hour to get here.”
He hung up and Dalton strode to the door.
“Stay cool, Dalton,” I said. “Broadman is going to run us around at least a little, make sure we’re alone.”
I attached my remaining Vigilant 4000 to the trailer hitch of Dalton’s black X5, set my riot gun on the front seat, worked my paddle-holstered .45 into its warm lair at the small of my back, put a cold water in the cup holder.
I drove while Dalton looked wide-eyed out the windows, talking about Natalie. And the war. And the election. And his sons. And the Straits when he was a kid and thought his father and Virgil were almost gods, brave and wise, how much they knew and all the ways they had to get people to do what they wanted. Even Kirby was a hero in Dalton’s memory, the big brother who’d introduced Dalton to the love of his life, then gallantly surrendered his interest, the big brother who’d been cursed by God when he lost his temper and knocked their father into the barbecue pit out at grandpa’s place that night.
“I’d give up my other leg to get him back alive,” said Dalton. “As much as we fought and sometimes hated each other. There’s something in blood that you can’t deny. I’m glad Tola did what she did.”
I took the back roads to Highway 76, past Lake Henshaw to Highway 79, north to Montezuma Valley Road. The sun hid high in the trees. The yellow center line wound through the mountains then straightened as we descended toward the desert. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror.
The visitor center entrance was closed, as I knew it would be. A breezy 92 degrees. Three cars in the parking lot. Employees? After-hours tourists? I pulled into the turnaround, knowing that this is where a rifle ambush would take place if Broadman’s goal was simply to kill us. The high rock walls of the building were perfect battlements, overlooking our lumbering target of a vehicle. Perfect light and clarity. But I thought Broadman and what was left of his Chaos Committee wanted more than that. Something less merciful than death.
Dalton’s phone on speaker:
“Park on the shoulder and wait ten minutes. Then drive Palm Canyon into Christmas Circle and take the first right onto Borrego Springs Road. Park outside the Bighorn Motel. You won’t be able to get into the lot. Ten minutes, friends.”
I looked for motion in the visitor center cars, but saw none. Scanned the near sky for a drone but saw and heard nothing. Best bet was Broadman or his people were in some middle distance with their spotting scopes or binoculars trained on us, looking for our backup. We got out and hunkered in the shade of the SUV, Dalton with his bad leg out straight in the sand and his good one tucked up close for balance. We faced the sparse horizontal sprawl of Borrego Springs in the near distance.
“It’s been
over two weeks since I’ve seen her,” he said. “The longest time apart since we got married. And that was a long time ago. I can still see her that day, though. And I sense that she’s somewhere close.”
I felt the hot breeze on my face, and the sweat dripping from the paddle holster against my back. Felt that pre-combat slowdown, time putting on its brakes.
“Is it enough for you to get her back?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Broadman and his Chaos Committee are responsible for three bombing deaths,” I said. “Including a congressman and a chief of police. They’ve incited the shooting of six cops and mayhem across the state.”
“What are you saying?”
“We have obligations beyond Natalie, Dalton. What if she’s not as willing to come back with you as you think she is?”
“How could she not be?”
I hung that question on the breeze. “Like Broadman says, time has passed. People change.”
“You don’t think Natalie’s changed, do you?”
For probably the hundredth time in the last two weeks I wondered if Dalton Strait was as childlike and oblivious to reality as he often seemed.
“Dalton,” I said. “I told you what I saw. How Natalie was dressed and how she behaved with her captors. Are you going to have my back if Natalie doesn’t want to come back to you?”
“Then why did she call? Not to lure me into a trap, like you said. She’d never do that.”
“That’s exactly why she called, if she’s fallen in with them. You’ve got to factor in her state of mind, Dalton—the bipolar, the abduction, the indictments, the campaign pressure.”
Dalton thought a moment. Reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his M9 combat sidearm. The hammer caught on his pocket liner and he almost dropped the gun.
“There’s three Chaos fuckers left,” he said. “If you go by the TV station raid. We can take them.”
“Three at least,” I said.
Dalton turned to me, frowning. “If you could shoot phone video of me fighting them, it would help me in November. Better than any ad I could afford. Can do?”
“I might be a little busy for that,” I said. “Put the gun away until you need it.”
“Fine. Okay. We just have to make sure Natalie is safe, Roland. She’s all that matters to me.”
Dalton worried the gun back into his pocket. I checked my watch.
“Back to the Bighorn,” I said.
* * *
I parked off the road across from the motel. Yellow crime scene tape rippled across the entrance. More crime scene tape across the office and several of the bungalow doors—notably six and nineteen. A San Diego Sheriff cruiser parked outside the office. Another in front of bungalow eight. No other cars. A coyote trotted across the lot, tail bushy and low.
I got the binoculars from under the seat, glassed the hills behind the motel. Old tailings from the mines glittered blue and yellow in the lowering sun, the windows of the rock homes peering out from low ground like snipers. Atop a distant boulder I saw the sudden flash of sunlight on glass, then movement. A woman?
Dalton’s phone:
“Our federal government ruined the Bighorn, thanks to you, Roland. I take great umbrage at that. Dalton? Natalie is dying to see you. Retrace your way to Christmas Circle and continue north on Borrego Springs Drive until you come to San Ysidro Drive. Go right. It’s a dirt road. Park in the shade of the Serpent. You can’t miss her. She’s thirty feet high, three hundred and fifty feet long, with the head of a dragon and the tail of a rattlesnake. Get out of your cute little BMW and stand still with your hands up. Any different, we’ll cut you to ribbons.”
“Please be careful, Dalton,” said Natalie. “Please do exactly what we say. Everything depends on you.”
We, I thought. But Dalton didn’t skip a beat.
“I love you, Nats.”
“I always hated it when you called me that.”
“I didn’t know. There’s so much I need to learn.”
“I never spent much on myself,” said Natalie. “Target and JCPenney for me. Why did you tell everyone that I’m crazy and spent all the campaign money?”
“I needed an out. I’ll set the record straight after you plead guilty in court. Don’t worry!”
“I worry a lot, Dalton. Come and get me. It’s time we see each other face-to-face.”
I headed into the traffic circle, merged behind a gleaming silver-and-black motor home that went back toward town. Four bikes on the back, two of them small and pink—a late spring fling for Mom, Dad, and the girls. I continued north.
The sun hung fat and orange in the west. I made the right onto San Ysidro and saw the enormous iron head of the Serpent glaring down from the cloudless blue. I thought of Odile’s vision of Natalie Strait coming to harm in the desert. Slowly picked my way across the sand flat and parked in the shade of it. Shut off the engine.
An openmouthed dragon towered above us. Red-rusted tendrils dripping from its jaws, sabers of bared teeth, iron spikes flaring back over its eyes in a crown of rage. Big enough to eat the little-pink-bicycle family and their shiny motor home in one bite. One of many Ricardo Breceda sculptures scattered throughout the Borrego desert.
“Wow,” said Dalton.
No cars. No people.
I got out, went to the front of the vehicle and raised my hands as instructed. Dalton did the same. I could see down the length of the Serpent all the way to the rattlesnake tail, roughly a football field away, its long body looping up from the sand in diminishing arches, scaled and spiked, a serpent in a sea of sand.
From under the last rising coil Broadman’s silver Tahoe emerged toward us. Followed by a black Yukon.
“Game on,” said Dalton.
“Steady,” I said.
“My middle name.”
FORTY-ONE
The Tahoe came slowly toward us and parked next to the first coil of the Serpent, just a hundred feet away. The Yukon swept wide across the flat to our left and parked lengthwise, its left flank facing us. Two men I didn’t recognize braced long guns on the hood, aimed our way. The driver’s window and the window behind it both rolled down and gun barrels glinted in the sun.
Jackie O climbed out of Broadman’s silver Tahoe, her sunglasses just like those in Lark’s video, and a machine pistol in her hands. Unmistakably Jackie O. So unique yet so ordinary. The face that had launched a thousand futile searches.
Natalie Strait dropped to the sand in her desert fatigues and combat boots, landing lightly and throwing her big dark hair back with a shake of her head.
“Jesus,” whispered Dalton.
It was as jarring a change as I’d ever seen in a person in such a short time.
Behind her followed Cassy Weisberg with a little machine gun of her own. A wide-brimmed straw gardening hat with a chin strap. A little piece of my heart fell away when I realized she’d been part of The Chaos Committee all along.
Then Broadman, dressed in white, a white ball cap shading his face, a large black backpack over one shoulder. He had a smartphone in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“Keep those hands up,” he called out. “Otherwise, you can probably guess what.”
He dropped his phone into his pants pocket, slung the black backpack off and handed it to Cassy.
They came toward us slowly—Broadman, Natalie, Cassy, and Jackie O—stopping forty feet from where we stood. Then Cassy continued. Her pale face was shaded by the hat. She dangled the backpack from one hand and kept the machine pistol tucked tight to her side, pointed at us. Stumbled once, slightly. Handed Dalton the pack.
“Put it on,” she said.
“If you put it on, he’ll blow you up,” I said.
Dalton gave me a look of disdain as he worked on the pack and rolled his shoulders.
“Okay, Sarge. I�
�m all strapped in, so let her go.”
“Not up to me, PFC Strait. It’s up to Natalie. She knows her own mind now, and has the strength to speak it. Chaos has set her free.”
In the shimmering distant mirage I saw two vehicles moving slowly across the desert toward us. Tiny things with puffs of dust settling behind them. My confederates, answering the call of the Vigilant, I hoped.
“What do you want from me?” asked Dalton.
“I want what Natalie wants, Dalton. I’ve been a fan of hers since you showed me those pictures in Fallujah and called her a schizoid sexpot. Step closer to us. Halfway but no more.”
Dalton stopped halfway.
“Tell him what you want, Natalie,” said Broadman.
“First I want you to apologize for belittling me and cheating on me and blaming me and trying to send me to prison for something that was your idea.”
“I’d drop to one knee,” he said. “But . . .”
Instead, he sat heavily on his good leg well clear of a patch of cholla cactus, and extended the other leg in front of him. Looking up at her he clasped and pumped his hands as if in emphatic prayer.
“I, Dalton Strait, do apologize to you, Natalie, my one and only true love from the beginning, for all the terrible, cowardly, dishonest, and genuinely shitty things I’ve done. I owe you everything that is good in my life. I have squandered much. Please forgive me. I will never let you down again. Give me a second chance.”
I watched the emotions play across Natalie’s face, from contempt to anger to doubt.
“Tell her about the whore in Germany and the lobbyist in Newport Beach,” said Broadman.
“They meant nothing.”
“You chose nothing over me?”
“And tell her about the IRA you cashed out for Terrell’s college but spent on golf junkets for you and your buddies,” Broadman added.
I saw a bitter ripple of surprise pass over her. A change in her breathing. Then some deep inner retreat.
“So much betrayal, Dalton,” she said, her voice distant. “I just really don’t know what to do with you.”
Then She Vanished Page 25