The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  Ignoring the young officers, who had drawn their weapons and trained them on him, Canyon laid the shotgun across the faux wood top of one of the station house’s old desks. Returning to the bars, he said, “Is my son still alive?”

  “For now.”

  “What about the sheep?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “What did you do with the truck you stole from my ranch? You kidnapped my son and then stole a truck hauling a livestock trailer already loaded down with sheep? Are you tracking all this, you crazy son of a…”

  Canyon let the insult trail off without finishing his statement. Ackerman smiled at the small act of acquiescence.

  “Crazy is all about perspective, and I understood the question. It just seems like an odd order for your concerns. You haven’t even asked about the five men you sent to retrieve your son and your lost sheep. Rest assured, , Mr. Canyon, your property is still intact. My demands are quite simple. Return DOJ Special Agent Maggie Carlisle to me, and I will return your son to you.”

  “I had nothing to do with that agent going missing. The FBI and BIA have already questioned all of us. I can’t tell you anymore than I did them.”

  The man in the cage shook his head and sighed. “I find that response completely unacceptable. Try again.”

  “The truth doesn’t change by saying it with different words.”

  “Truth is a subjective term and an elusive concept. but let’s make it simple and speak in terms of facts. You have four hours to produce Ms. Carlisle unharmed or your son will bleed out from his injuries.”

  “I can’t give you what I don’t have!”

  “For the sake of expediency, let’s say that’s true. If that’s the case, and you really don’t know where she is, I would suggest that you bring every iota of your power and influence to bear on finding her. But please realize that if my demands are not met within the next four hours, then it will not only be your son who dies. I will sweep across your little kingdom like a Biblical plague. Like the angel of death visiting the Egyptians, I will unleash my wrath upon you and everything thing you love until you let my Maggie go.”

  “I think you’re forgetting that you’re the one behind bars. You’re not in a position to be making demands.”

  The prisoner chuckled. “Are you familiar with the writings of Laozi?”

  Canyon resisted the urge to tear his way into the cell with his bare hands. Through clenched teeth, he answered, “No.”

  “Loazi was an ancient Chinese philosopher. He has actually attained the level of deity among religious Taoism and some other traditional Chinese religions. One of my favorite quotes from him is that ‘There is no greater danger than underestimating an opponent.’”

  “What makes you think that I’m underestimating you?”

  “Because you have yet to accept the inevitability of my Xaviery. Now is not the time to stand up and fight, Mr. Canyon. Now, is the time to dust off the white flag and start waving. You now have three hours, fifty-eight minutes, and thirty-seven seconds to produce Ms. Carlisle. Those are my demands. They are not subject to debate. This is not a negotiation. It is a hostile takeover by a superior force. I’m going to take a little nap now. I think you have some work to do.”

  “And what if I can’t pull this missing agent out of my ass?”

  Laying back onto the metal cot of the drunk tank and closing his eyes, the scarred stranger said, “Then, Mr. Canyon, I will burn your whole world to the ground.”

  9

  Liana Nakai sat at her desk and willed her hands to stop shaking. This couldn’t be happening. She was a police officer on the largest American Indian reservation in the United States, a nation within a nation. Which basically meant that she had all the same duties as a belegana cop, but with more ground to cover and less resources to do it with. She was an officer of the law, and this was still a police station. Liana had one day dreamed of moving east and becoming a detective or even applying to the FBI academy. This was supposed to be a pit stop on her way to better things. Instead, she probably wouldn’t leave this backwoods excuse for a police station with her life, let alone her career, intact.

  She had always known that police work was dangerous, but she had seldom really considered that this place could be the end of the line. And then a man walked into her station on her shift covered in blood. This man who called himself “Frank.” He had altered the course of her life in a way that seemed irreparable. A federal agent was missing, and her captain and the most powerful man in the valley seemed to be complicit or directly involved with the disappearance. By extension, that meant she was an accessory to their crimes as well.

  Ejecting the magazine from her Glock 22, the standard issue sidearm for the Navajo Nation Police, she checked to make sure that it was in perfect working order and ready to fire.

  Her grandmother had once told her that we each have two coyotes that follow us wherever we go. One coyote was love, and the other was fear. The two were constantly at war, and the one who would rule your life was the coyote you chose to feed.

  As she sat at her desk, checking her weapon, trying to remember her training and searching for a way out of this mess, Liana imagined that Love was hiding under the desk and Fear was clawing at her leg demanding to be fed.

  Having learned long ago that life was all about choices and consequences, Liana knew that one simple decision could change a person’s life forever. She had seen such causality in the life of her father when he had chosen to rob an armored car in Albuquerque and wound up eating a bullet. Simple choices, permanent consequences. And she had already made her bad choice two days earlier when the FBI and BIA had come knocking and asking about the missing agent. Instead of revealing that she had in fact seen the missing woman when she had come to visit the station and had spoken with the captain, Liana did as she was told and remained loyal to Yazzie.

  She had thought nothing of the woman’s visit at the time. It wasn’t until the next morning that Yazzie had called her into his office and said, “Remember when I hired you for this job, and I told you that some times up here in Roanhorse, you just have to follow orders, even if those orders may contradict the letter of the law. I told you that you have to be loyal to this community first and the law second, because sometimes we have to let some things go for the greater good of our people. One of those moments may be coming soon Officer Nakai, and when it does, if anyone asks you, we haven’t seen any blonde federal agents in this office. Is that clear?”

  That night, Liana had been unable to sleep. When she had accepted Yazzie’s offer of employment, she thought that his cryptic words about looking the other way for the greater good involved letting the kids of the town council off the hook for drinking—which was illegal for anyone on the Rez. She had never considered that Yazzie had meant she would need to lie about missing federal agents.

  And now she had just witnessed a man—whom she was relatively certain was responsible for more than his fair share of illegal dealings—discharge a shotgun in their station house.

  It was clear that John Canyon was a man capable of murder. A federal agent had come around asking questions about John Canyon and then went missing. She didn’t need her criminal justice degree to put the pieces together. Maggie Carlisle had come here investigating Canyon, and he had probably killed her and buried her in the desert somewhere.

  Protecting the community and serving the greater good sometimes meant that you couldn’t just look the other way. Choices had consequences, and if Canyon killed someone, federal agent or not, then he deserved to go down for his crime whether he was a pillar of the community or some punk kid.

  She had known all of that on the day when an FBI agent had come to ask the captain some questions about the missing woman. But when her moment came, she had lied, and in that moment, she had become an accessory to Canyon’s crimes, whatever they may be. For the past two days, her choices had weighed heavily upon her. She had imagined that at any moment more agents could be back with more questions.<
br />
  But she had never expected the devil himself to walk through her door to collect on her debt.

  They could all end up in federal prison over this. At the very least, her career in law enforcement would be over. Forget Quantico. She would never make it off the reservation at the rate she was going. If she made it out of this night alive.

  The thought of her impending doom was fresh in her mind when she felt breath on the back of her neck. Liana spun around and prepared to deflect a blow with her left arm while holding the pistol close to her abdomen but ready to fire at point blank range.

  Officer Ernie Pitka raised his hands in surrender. He had overly large cheekbones and a thick brow, which gave the impression that his eyes were sunken back in his head and squinty. Something about him reminded Liana of an old desert tortoise. Now, Ernie’s deep-set eyes were wide with fear.

  She quickly lowered and holstered her weapon. “I’m sorry, Ernie. I’m just on edge.”

  The danger of being shot taken away, Ernie Pitka returned to his normal turtle-like self. She knew that he had a crush on her, but there was just something about him that wasn’t for her. And it wasn’t the turtle thing. She had actually thought long and hard on the subject. She had certainly dated worse guys, and Ernie was kind of cute, in his own way. But there was just some spark of intelligence missing from his eyes. When she spoke about anything of importance, his eyes became two glazed donuts, and he did a lot of nodding.

  Liana wanted someone who would challenge her intellectually and force her to grow as a person. And Ernie, the old tortoise, wasn’t the guy for that job.

  The many reasons why became evident as Ernie slowly settled down onto her desk and caught his breath in deep slow gasps. Everything Ernie did seemed to be slow and steady. He said, “I thought you had me there.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s very understandable with everything going down tonight.”

  Liana looked to the prisoner—who still laid upon the cot in the back of the cell, eyes closed. “It certainly has been an eventful evening.”

  “Who do you think this guy really is?” Ernie asked.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. He says that he’s here looking for the missing agent, but if he’s a fed then what’s with all the angel of death talk.”

  “If the whole badass killer thing is just an act, then this guy should win an Oscar. Did you see the stranger’s face when that shotgun blast went off? Dude didn’t even blink. In fact, he looks like this whole thing amuses the hell out of him.”

  Liana’s throat felt as dry as sandpaper. Grabbing a cup of coffee from the desk, she took a swig and then remembered that the cup had been sitting there since yesterday. No matter. It was wet, and she was beyond the point of caring. She said, “What are we doing here, Ernie?”

  “We’re guarding the prisoner.”

  “No, I mean… Canyon’s going to end up killing this guy… And I think he may have killed the missing agent.”

  Ernie slowly blinked his eyes at the revelations and said, “You think the prisoner killed the missing agent?”

  “What? No.”

  “That could have been where all the blood came from.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, so that Ernie wouldn’t see her eyes rolling. “Why would Frank be demanding that Canyon bring him the missing agent, if Frank is the one who killed her?”

  Ernie still looked clueless. “Who’s Frank?”

  “Try to stay with me here. Frank is the prisoner. I’m Liana. You’re Ernie. Any of this ringing a bell.”

  “I just asked a question. You don’t have to be so condescending about it.”

  Taking a calming breath, she said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. What I was trying to tell you is that I think that John Canyon killed that missing agent, and the captain knows something about it.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Ernie said. “The prisoner might hear you. And I would’t believe anything he offers. Your buddy Frank is obviously insane.”

  This time she let him see her eyes rolling. “Is that your professional opinion?”

  “Yes, it is. And I think I’ll take the word of two men I respect over some drugged-out lunatic. He’s probably hopped up on bath salts or something. I mean, look at him.” Ernie gestured toward the prisoner, and they both glanced in the direction of the drunk tank.

  Liana gasped as she noticed the prisoner leaning forward against the bars closest to them. The man had moved like a shadow, without making a sound. It had been like he had simply vanished from one spot and appeared in another.

  The prisoner cocked his head and said, “You do realize, Officer Pitka, that I’ve heard every word that you’ve said. To be honest, I resent the implication that my performance has been somehow chemically enhanced. I seldom even drink.”

  Pitka placed his hands over his Taser and said, “Sir, I need you to step back from the bars.”

  Frank laughed. “Or what? You mentioned earlier about how I wasn’t afraid of Mr. Canyon and his shotgun. Yet, you choose to threaten me with a Taser. That’s adorable.”

  Pulling the Glock instead of the Taser, Pitka said, “When he left for the Ranch, the captain told us not to take any chances with you. If you don’t sit your ass back down on that cot, then I’m going to shoot you in the leg. How adorable is that?”

  The prisoner didn’t speak. He merely smiled and locked gazes with Pitka for a long moment.

  Then he abruptly took a step back from the bars and, with wild eyes, said, “I’m really starting to enjoy you two. While we wait for the grownups to play their parts, how would you kids like to play a little game?”

  10

  John Canyon had agreed to ride with Yazzie. He was regretting that decision now as the police captain drove with no trace of urgency. Canyon said, “I just bought the station new Yukons last year. Tell me these things go faster than this.”

  “I’m watching the road for signs of where they went and what happened.”

  “The pickup was found nearly a mile up this road,” Canyon said and gestured toward the dirt and sparse gravel road that lay before them. “At this rate, Toby will die of dehydration before we reach them.”

  Yazzie didn’t take his eyes off the road. “You pay me to do a job. I actually think I’m not bad at it, so shut up and let me work.”

  Canyon thought of the large hunting knife sheathed at his side. For not the first time, he considered what it would be like to slit Yazzie’s throat with it. He said, “If you were anyone else—”

  “But I’m not anyone else. I’m the guy in charge of peace and security in this valley and making sure that our people have a better way of life. You supply the money and commerce to make that possible. But if you’d prefer that we call in the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assist in this matter, I completely understand.”

  Canyon cracked his knuckles to keep from cracking open Yazzie’s head. “It’s just over this hill.”

  They crested the rise and the dirt road turned into a straight away until dirt gave way to blacktop as the farm road met a more traveled route. Illuminated in the beams of the Yukon’s headlights, the wreck of another vehicle he had paid for lay alongside the road, sticking out from a dry creek bed. It was a jacked up old Chevy pickup that four of his men from the Ranch had hopped in to pursue the intruder.

  Yazzie said, “You mentioned there were drag marks in the dirt?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you checked the vehicle and walked around the scene of the abduction?”

  He sighed. “Yaz, what’s your point here?”

  “I just need to see your shoes.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Canyon raised his leg to show the captain his boot. Apparently satisfied, Yazzie stepped from the truck and crept up on the wreckage, shining his Maglite over the ground and the damaged vehicle. Canyon joined him and said, “As I told you, the boys ran off the road, flipped the truck, and that lunatic dragged them from this truck over to the other truc
k he stole from me.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s that mean? We’re wasting time here.”

  “Do you think our guy Frank carried off all four of those big boys by himself?”

  “I suppose so. He certainly looks strong enough.”

  Shining a light on the blown front and rear tires of the pickup, Yazzie said, “They went off the road because someone popped all their tires with a spike strip like we would use when stopping a suspect. I noticed a spot just up the road where it was probably laid out.”

  “You’re saying that this guy wanted to stir us up like a nest of hornets and then lure a group of my men up here to kidnap them?”

  “I would agree with that. But there’s something you’re still missing. Who laid the spikes out? Frank’s tires didn’t pop. But when your boys drove through there were spikes on the road. Unless this Frank can run like Carl Lewis or be in two places at once, then he had help.”

  “Okay, but where did they take my son?”

  “We’ll lose the trail up ahead where the road is paved.”

  “That’s just great. So this whole trip has been a waste of time.”

  Yazzie shrugged and adjusted his small wire-framed glasses. “I don’t know. I think I learned quite a bit. Now we know that Frank has collaborators. And I can see from the tracks here that the vehicle Frank stole was a loaded semi-trailer. Which makes me wonder what was in the truck?”

  “Sheep.”

  “Just sheep?”

  “What difference does it make,” Canyon snapped.

  “It matters because if it’s what i think it is, then someone is going to being royally pissed when it doesn’t show up. Maybe enough to send some of their own people looking for the missing shipment.”