Traffic's moving—Belaski glances at the speed dial; approaching forty-five miles an hour.
Lauren DeLuca sits as far as she can get from him in the rear of the Jeep, pressed up against the door.
He turns, stares at her a moment.
She glares back. Refuses to look away.
He breaks off, turns to the driver. “You a cop?”
“FBI.”
“Where's my brother?” Lauren says. Her voice cold, flat.
Belaski glances at her. Then back at the driver.“What's your name?”
“Rimes.”
He smells the scent of shampoo in her black, ringlet hair. “Just Rimes?”
“Agent Rimes.”
Belaski nods. “What're you doing with Ms. DeLuca, here, Rimes?”
The woman holds the speed of the Jeep steady. She doesn't reply.
“FBI?” Belaski says. “So, are you local? Or out of Chicago?”
“Rapid City.”
“Right,” he says. “The country cousins.”
Lauren speaks; “Where’s Anthony?”
Belaski half turns. He lets the muzzle of the SIG drop—to point at her belly. “How about we go get him? One thing,” he says. “Either one of you tries something, you need to know there's not another living soul knows where Anthony is.”
Beyond Lauren, out of the window, the land is flat, white with snow, a line of hills at the horizon. The Jeep speeds by a clapboard chapel, its low spire stark against the sky.
“Nobody knows where he's at,” Belaski says. “Except for me.”
Lauren’s eyes burn him.
“I'm guessing he's not in that great of a shape,” Belaski says.
Rimes speaks over her shoulder. “Why would that be?”
The highway is climbing, now, the Jeep cresting a small hill. To the south is a dark line, approaching forest.
“He’ll be close to freezing to death,” Belaski says. He keeps his gun arm low, below the line of the window. A diner catches his eye at the side of the road, a sign out in front of it; Cowboy Pancakes—99 cents. “He needs somebody to get to him real fast...”
Rimes shakes her head. “You have any idea what you’re doing? Kidnapping a federal officer. Every cop in the state will come looking for you.”
Belaski touches her cheek with the cold steel muzzle of the gun. “Then, you better hope they don’t find us.”
Running down the sidewalk in the churned-up snow, Whicher rips his cell from his pocket.
Down at the motel, a SWAT team officer holds a cut-down shotgun by the door of the suspect room. He shouts across the lot; “Clear. It’s clear...”
Whicher stops, presses the key to call, clamps the cell to his ear.
There’s no answer from Rimes—she’s not picking up.
He holds out the Marshals Service badge, sprints to the nearest sheriff’s department cruiser.
Running from the back of the motel building, the older deputy stares at him.
“I need your radio—right now.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Belaski studies the surface of the Forest Service road; no new tracks in the snow.
He stares past Lauren at the ground fronting the cabins—unchanged since he left it.
“Pull in over there,” he says.
The woman, Rimes, slows—she steers the Jeep into the clearing between the trees.
The last few miles she hasn't spoken; since he took her cell and threw it out onto the highway.
The cabins are undisturbed—the woods dark, deserted. “Alright,” Belaski tells her. “Cut the engine.”
She puts it into park, shuts off the motor.
He jumps out, steps level with the driver window, points the gun. Some got the urge to talk, he thinks, to sound off. More were like her. Silent, calculating.
Rimes’s face is frozen, a rigid mask.
He opens up her door. “Get the hell out.”
Eyes on him, she unhooks her seat-belt, slides out, stands in the snow.
“Lauren,” Belaski says. “You want to help your brother? Get your ass out here.”
He hears the rear door of the Jeep click open.
“Up in that cabin,” he says.
Lauren gets out, steps forward, wading into the snow, her wrists still zip-tied together.
Belaski flicks the muzzle of the gun at Rimes. “Get on up there.”
“Anthony...” Lauren calls.
“Shut your damn mouth,” Belaski snaps.
Lauren claws at the edge of the cabin door, jamming her fingernails into a gap in the frame.
Belaski steps up, grabs the door, yanks it open. He levels the gun at Agent Rimes. “You're going to carry him out. You and her together.” He pushes her inside.
The air in the cabin feels frozen, an ice house. On the plank floor, Anthony is slumped in his ropes, his back against the iron stove in the center of the room.
Lauren drops to her knees, reaches out, lifts her brother's head from his chest.
“You sick fuck,” Rimes says. “You left him here? You left him out here all night?”
Belaski twists his mouth, drives the butt of the gun into the FBI agent’s face.
Rimes staggers, falls backward into a pine table. She hits the floor, head cracking against the hard, bare boards.
Anthony looks up, blinking—his face gray, hands locked in the park ranger's steel cuffs.
Belaski steps to Rimes—she's not moving, her eyes are closed. He pulls the big survival knife from his pocket, unsheathes it, moves across the cabin, behind the stove.
He squats. Puts the serrated top-edge of the blade against Anthony’s ropes. Sawing back and forth, he slices through the fibers.
Anthony gives out a groaning sound.
Lauren leans in. “Alright. It’s alright. Hold on. We'll get you out of here...”
Belaski watches Rimes, works the knife back and forth, pulling, twisting. The rope comes free.
Lauren stands, gets her hands on her brother's ice-fishing jacket, pulling in the folds of fabric, closing her fingers into a grip.
Anthony shifts his legs, moves his torso. He falls to one side.
“Come on,” Lauren says.
Belaski steps around the stove, puts away the knife, the gun still out.
He reaches down, grabs Anthony, lifts him.
Lauren ducks a shoulder beneath her brother’s arm.
He draws his legs beneath him—stands, unsteady.
Belaski lets go, walks to Rimes, still laid out on her back.
He kicks her in the kneecap. No wince, no reaction—no sign of pain in her face. “Get him outside,” he says to Lauren. “Get him out in the Jeep.”
Lauren staggers with her brother, hands slipping on his jacket.
Belaski reaches down to Rimes, holds the gun at the FBI agent’s midriff.
He pulls at the bottom edge of her fleece jacket. Beneath it, fixed to the belt of her pants is a Glock 23 in a nylon holster. He takes it, sticks it into a pocket, pops the stud on her leather cuff-holder. He takes out the cuffs. Removes the key from the lock.
He crosses the cabin, steps out after Lauren and Anthony into the glare of light.
The smell of the forest is sharp in the air.
Lauren and her brother limp toward the side of the Jeep.
“Open up the rear,” Belaski says.
Lauren stares back at him. “What? What for?”
“Just do it. He'll be fine.” He steps from the cabin door, jogs to the driver side of the vehicle. Rips the keys from the ignition.
Lauren’s eyes drill him.
“I'll finish this,” Belaski says, “then we haul.”
He raises the gun an inch, strides back to the cabin.
“Wait,” Lauren calls out.
Belaski steps through the open door, enters the room, crosses to Rimes, laid out flat.
He levels the gun at her head.
“Wait,” Lauren calls behind him, at the door. “Jesus Christ, wait. Don't do that.”
The unmarked Crown Vic draws level with the White Fox Motel.
Whicher sees Kinawa behind the wheel.
The FBI agent spots him, brakes hard, pulls the car over into the lot.
The SWAT team have cleared the building. Quinlan, the sheriff’s deputy, is taking a statement from the motel owner—nobody's reported seeing the renter of the room except for him.
The marshal watches Kinawa step from the Crown Vic. Through the open door of the cruiser is the sound of radio chatter—one transmission following the next.
The driver of the Yukon was booked in under the name of Gary Farndale—alone, nobody else accompanying him. No sign Anthony was ever there.
At the edge of the lot, the SWAT team stand stripped of vests and helmets, their body-armor stowed back in the trunk of their unit. Two of the team are pacing, smoking cigarettes. The handful of motel guests shelter in a room at the end of the building, the younger sheriff’s deputy taking statements.
Nobody can raise Janice Rimes.
There’s no response from her cell.
Kinawa's eyes are sunken as he steps across the frozen lot.
Whicher bunches his shoulders, tries to huddle some heat back into his body.
“Two Jeep sightings,” Kinawa says, raising his hand, holding up two fingers.
Whicher takes off the Resistol hat—ice cold air clings to his scalp.
“One vehicle sighted near the state line with Nebraska,” Kinawa says. “The other, east of the city here, off the interstate—near the Air Force base.”
“They get either one of ‘em stopped?”
“The interstate sighting looks like an airman—right vehicle, wrong plate,” Kinawa says. “The other sighting was from Highway Patrol. A trooper down in Lakota County thinks he saw a Jeep headed south.”
“He couldn't confirm?”
“He was driving north—a median and a barrier between him and the south-bound lane. He found a gap, got turned around, but by the time he did it, the vehicle was gone.”
The marshal looks at him.
Kinawa's face is grim. “He went down the southern stretch, couldn't see the vehicle, couldn't catch it up. But it’s a country road, there’ll be all kinds of places to turn off.”
Whicher sets the hat back in place.
The FBI man stares at the motel. “It's an hour south.”
“Y’all had no other sightings?”
Kinawa shakes his head.
The marshal listens to the garbled stream on the radio. “You think we were followed?” he says. “This morning? You think there could’ve been some way...”
“You were off-air,” Kinawa says, “in an unmarked vehicle.”
“Y’all call the phone company?”
“It takes time for them to pinpoint a cell.”
The marshal nods. “Why take the Jeep? Why head for Nebraska?”
“Dammit, why didn’t you just go straight out to the airport?”
Whicher eyes the FBI man. He points a finger at the motel. “The guy was in here; we had an even shot.”
“Kidnapping a federal officer plus witness is our best-case-scenario, now,” Kinawa says. “Worst case—might be double homicide.”
The marshal lets out a long breath. “They were parked well back up the road in the Jeep, I told Agent Rimes to take off if anything happened.”
“Janice Rimes doesn't disappear,” Kinawa says.
Whicher scans the snow-blown area around the motel.
The FBI man walks back to the Crown Vic. He gets in the vehicle, slumps behind the wheel.
The marshal checks his watch, thinks of Inspector McBride—he’d be in flight, now, half way back to New Mexico. What to tell him? He stares back up the street toward the intersection and the gas station. He can just make out the lot of the supermarket where the Jeep had been parked.
Glancing across at Kinawa, he sees the FBI agent leaning forward in the driver’s seat. His mouth is open as he listens to his radio.
Whicher steps toward him.
“Unit in contact,” Kinawa calls out. “Nebraska State Patrol reporting a sighting—north of Redwood...”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Just across the state line.”
“We need to get a message to them,” Whicher says.
“The sheriff’s office has been asked to field units.”
“We don’t know who’s in that vehicle, there could be two innocent women in there,” the marshal says. “They need to know to hold fire.”
Kinawa starts up the motor. “Nobody’s going to be backing off.”
Chapter Forty-One
In the rear-view mirror, the cruiser is a speck—Belaski checks his speed on the dash—pushing seventy on the county road, snow and ice and grit slipping to wet melt in the morning sun.
He eases his foot a fraction from the gas; the risk of crashing out too strong, he only needs to pull away.
Ahead, to the east, block shapes stand proud of the white horizon—rooftops, outlying buildings—the edge of a town.
The shock of seeing a State Patrol trooper is fading. He’d spotted the vehicle, an Interceptor, coming toward him; the officer behind the wheel seeming to look in as he passed.
He’d kept on going; the trooper keeping the same course in his rear-view.
Town.
Town could be a good thing.
He could drive in, switch it up. He checks the rear-view. Still the small, dark speck.
Lauren in back is half twisted around—looking over the rear seat-rest into the trunk space. Looking in at her brother.
Belaski flexes his hands on the wheel, focuses on the road ahead—the churn of snow, fence lines, phone poles—threads across the bleak, plains land.
The first cop, still on the highway, back in South Dakota, he'd spotted him a quarter-mile off. Light-bar sticking up above the median. He'd found the first place to turn off, worked a way on south.
He could do it again.
He checks the cruiser—just a dot, now.
Posted signs on the county road show two state highways coming up ahead.
He eyes the outlines of buildings, bigger now. He could head into town, wait a spell.
He looks up in the mirror, catches Lauren, eyes fixed on him.
She turns her head away.
He could just shoot her?
Why not?
Just shoot her and be done.
Her and her brother—the two of them, put a bullet in both of their skulls. Photograph it with his cell, send a picture to Coletti. No star witness anymore, no conviction. Maybe not even any trial.
The town looks big enough, he could head in, lay up, get the hell out of sight.
He could shoot them both and ditch the Jeep. A lone man on foot, he could disappear, call for help, get a ride out.
He could do it, if not for Jimmy.
If not for Jimmy Scardino’s death.
Bring them back alive, both of them, and everything might be forgiven.
Belaski checks for the Interceptor in his rear-view. Barely visible as he steers toward the town.
Wind is rattling down Main, relentless—straight off the miles of empty prairie. Sheriff Colton leaves his office, a brick two-story—right across from the town's old movie theater.
He struggles with his sheepskin coat, trying to put it on, trying to run at the same time.
Fifty yards up, across the main east-west highway, the lot of the police department holds one parked cruiser, plus a single SUV.
Colton runs as best he can along the snow-bound sidewalk.
He crosses the highway—dodging light traffic—trucks and rigs hauling loads, trying to catch the break in the weather.
The sheriff eyes the cluster of radio antenna on the roof of the Redwood PD. Last inbound message was via Nebraska State Patrol; a unit west of town in visual contact with a felony kidnap suspect. Vehicle likely containing hostages. Hostages—in the plural.
Two of Colton’
s deputies are out in the south of the county. At full strength they’re only four men strong. The missing deputies are an hour and more away.
The sheriff crosses the police department lot, the flag in front of the building snapping in the wind.
He reaches the main entrance—pushes open the double door.
Inside, the tall, rangy figure of Chief Eriksson is at the front counter, talking into a cell. He spots the sheriff, raises a hand.
Colton takes off his hat.
Eriksson closes out the call. “I'm radioing all units...”
“How many y’all have on duty?”
“Six,” Eriksson says. “Lieutenant Ganley's out of town, I have a sergeant and four patrol officers. The rest are off-duty, I'm trying to reach them now.”
“Did the State Patrol call again?”
Chief Eriksson nods. “They're sending units up from Troop E—in Scottsbluff.”
“That's an hour and a half,” the sheriff says.
“South Dakota units have crossed into state—they can’t find the vehicle.”
The two men stand looking at one another.
“Now it's our problem...” Colton says.
Chief Eriksson rubs at the sleeve of his dress-shirt. “According to the last message, there’s an FBI agent on the way down here, with a US Marshal in tow.”
“Who the hell is in that suspect car?”
From the open door of a side-office, the voice of a dispatcher carries into the lobby.
“State Patrol reckon a federal witness,” the chief says. “A witness under protection.”
“I heard missing federal officer,” Sheriff Colton says.
Eriksson scowls. “If we're going to stop the vehicle, we need to cover the highway, plus the main axis routes north-south.”
“No way we can get all the county roads covered off.”
“Some of those roads must be snowed up.”
“I can hold a line to the south,” the sheriff says. “I'll put my two deputies out there, if you can get units to the east?”
The female dispatcher puts her head out of the office. “Chief?”
Eriksson spins around.
“State Patrol say their unit has lost contact with the vehicle. But they think it could be headed in here.”
An American Bullet Page 20