Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Boxed Set, Volumes 1-3: Dead in Their Tracks, Counter-Strike, The Kill List

by JT Sawyer

  “Yep, but that’s about an hour’s drive from here. I take you that far, you’re gonna want to stay in a hotel for the night.”

  “Don’t mock my love of clean sheets and temperature-controlled rooms. I’ve stuck it out in the rain this whole trip with you and not once complained.”

  He patted her on the leg. “You’re right. You have been a trooper through it all.” He stood up and flung the rest of his cup of coffee into the deluge outside then grabbed his heavy wool coat. “Let’s go, my dear—it’s time we leave our cozy retreat and have you dine properly.” He reached his hand out for hers and pulled her up off the cot where she had been lying, reading a book.

  “If you insist. But if your friend’s truck doesn’t start when we try to leave the restaurant, don’t think it had anything to do with me, OK.”

  An hour later, after driving the muddy Forest Service roads back to Pagosa Springs, Mitch pulled into Mike & Rhonda’s Diner near the edge of town. Across from the eatery was a world-famous hot springs resort comprised of nineteen different mineral springs jutting out of the bedrock.

  They went inside the diner and sat in a corner booth near the emergency exit. Even though they were away from the big city, their situational awareness was still ratcheted up, and it was an old habit for both of them to have their egress routes determined upon entering any room.

  A young waitress with corkscrew curls in her red hair ambled over. Mitch ordered a double cheeseburger with fries while Dev settled on fish and chips.

  Dev pointed across the San Juan River to the opulent resort. The steam from the hot springs was floating like wispy gray ghosts along the hotel grounds. “And after we’re through, we can walk over there and soak in those pools until the sun comes up.” Dev continued to gaze longingly at the mineral-filled springs as the waitress delivered their food.

  “You mean with all those plump tourists sipping on their daiquiris.” Mitch averted his attention from the hotel as he watched a large figure dressed in a black rainjacket stride in through the front door of the diner.

  “Hmm, this oughta be interesting. Never figured I’d run into Ed Roth again.”

  Dev turned to look at the man who was about to sit at the counter. He stopped and did a double-take, shooting a glance at Mitch. He sauntered over, his arms swinging forcefully at his sides.

  “Well, if it ain’t Davy Crockett. You on the trail of another international fugitive?” The hulking figure sat down at the table then reached over and took a French fry off Mitch’s plate.

  “Just like the U.S. Marshals, always wanting to overstep their boundaries and cross over where they’re not wanted.”

  Roth let out an irritated grin. “Not unlike the FBI, who think they can stick their dirty paws into everything because the powers in DC think your shit don’t stink.”

  Mitch chuckled and leaned back, shoving the plate towards Roth. “These are tainted now so go ahead and finish ’em up.

  The bulky figure extended a hand towards Dev. “Ed Roth—welcome to God’s Country.” He gave her a cop’s onceover. “You working a case with Mitch?”

  “Not exactly; we’re up on a spring elk hunt.”

  Roth raised an eyebrow and glanced at Mitch. “That so.”

  “Yep, I put in for a permit last fall and was one of the lucky few to get drawn. Only two hundred permits issued and I snagged one,” said Mitch.

  “Here for long or you headed back to Phoenix soon?”

  “I’m not in Arizona much these days. Since I resigned from the bureau last fall, I’ve been working freelance gigs teaching mantracking courses here and there.”

  Dev leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, quietly observing the intriguing interaction between the two men. Whilst both of them appeared relaxed, there was an undercurrent of tension surrounding the table.

  “Resigned, eh?” said Roth. “Never thought someone as straight-laced as you would get tired of doing the bureau’s bidding and huntin’ down his fellow kind.” He crooked his head back to look out at the parking lot. “Speaking of hunting, I don’t see a trophy elk stuffed in the back of any rigs out there—your tracking skills getting rusty after working the Anton Kruger case last year?”

  Mitch frowned then leaned forward, tilting his chin up and sniffing the air near Roth. “Maybe all the animals have been driven out by the aroma of pencil-pushers that’s overcome this region.”

  Roth moved his chair closer to Dev, leaning towards her. “So, how many times has Mitch recounted what must be his awe-inspiring tale of how he pursued an international fugitive through a canyon not far from here?”

  Dev was silent, keeping her untrusting gaze fixed upon Roth.

  “You mean the story about how the US Marshals under Ed Roth here seemed to take offense at having a bureau mantracker take over the hunt for Anton Kruger after he killed a deputy in Durango and eluded local authorities.”

  “Here we go again,” said Roth, crunching his fists together. “Don’t give me that juris-dick-tional bullshit like last time. You waltzed into our operation when no one asked you to except that lard-ass boss of yours in Denver.”

  “I’m sure no one’s recited the tale as much as you have, Ed,” said Mitch. “Why don’t you tell us the way it really unfolded, seeing how you were actually back at the incident command post the whole time while my guys and I were pounding the ground? Your version has probably gone from the two days I spent in the field tracking Kruger to you and your boys slogging through the wilds for a week while fighting off bears and bandits along the way.”

  Roth finished another French fry and slid the plate aside, grinding his teeth before letting out a partial smile. He looked over at Dev. “You sure you can’t do better than this guy?”

  Roth folded his arms across his chest and seethed out an exhale. He looked at Dev and then at Mitch, letting his eyes drop down to Mitch’s right hip, where his Glock was holstered under his jacket. “You carrying a piece there, fella? Hope you got a concealed weapons permit for that—you ain’t in Arizona any longer.”

  Mitch put his hands on the table, nodding to the crease in his jacket where his pistol was located. “Damn, these smartphones just keep getting bigger all the time but thanks for the advice.”

  Roth got up and pushed his chair into the edge of the table, causing it to rock. He ran his tongue over his teeth and let out a faint grin. “You all drive safe now, you hear.” As he walked away, he thrust his palm onto the shiny badge clipped onto his belt while grinning at Mitch. “And watch that speed limit—the fines can be hefty around these parts.”

  “What the hell was that all about?” whispered Dev, finishing her cup of coffee. “I couldn’t tell just how much of that was alpha dog banter and how much was built-up resentment.”

  “Probably a little of both. Eddy Roth is the U.S. Marshal that was attached to a case I did up in these parts last summer. It was a mantracking assignment and Roth was one of many federal dilettantes hanging around, trying to get in on the action.”

  Mitch turned his head as he watched Roth’s Suburban pull out of the parking lot. “Frankly, I’m shocked to see him still here in the Durango region. I thought he was transferring back up to Denver last I heard. He’s the kinda guy who’d be swatting at every insect around him while squawking about how his feet are cold.”

  Dev emitted a crooked smile. “You just described me, I think.”

  “Trust me, darlin’—you’re no Ed Roth.”

  Chapter 2

  Back at the campfire that evening, Dev was sitting down on her folding chair with a fleece blanket wrapped around her, enjoying the warmth of the blaze. The rainclouds had dispersed for the first time in days, and the stars and Milky Way were visible. She inhaled the cold night air and marveled at the view above.

  “Just so we’re clear, I could never live here. I’ll take triple-digit heat and searing sunlight any day over this.”

  Mitch took a swig of beer and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll still keep ya. You’re worth eve
ry minute of whining.”

  She slugged him in the arm. “This is the first complaint in three days of suffering that I’ve muttered so be nice or you’ll get another bruise worse than that one.”

  He laughed and scooched closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders while kissing her. “Ooh, I didn’t know you were gonna be so rough with me.”

  “Just how rough is yet to be determined if you keep rubbing those scruffy cheeks against mine.”

  She grabbed his beer and leaned back. “Thanks. Maybe you can get one for yourself and then tell me a campfire story—like the one about this guy Kruger. You’ve never mentioned that case before.”

  Mitch shrugged his shoulders as his face went taut. “Pretty damn unpleasant chapter in my life and in my work with the bureau.”

  Dev poked a stick into the fire, her eyes focusing on the coals while she occasionally cast a glance at Mitch.

  “I can tell what that look means—that I’m not gonna get any rest until I spill the beans.”

  “I know all too well how work can grate on the soul. But the snippets I’ve heard so far have got me mighty curious.”

  Mitch stood up and sighed. He walked over to the woodpile and tossed three more pine logs on the fire then settled back into his camp chair. “Hope you don’t mind staying up late, young lady.”

  He reached back into the cooler and pulled out a cold Heineken, twisting off the cap and taking a drink before beginning. “Anton Kruger had connections to an organized crime group in Eastern Europe called Evsi. Their factions in the U.S. were confined to the larger cities, with two of the most prominent being in L.A. and Denver, where they dealt in high-end designer drugs and human trafficking.” Mitch kicked a pinecone into the fire, watching it ignite into a fury of flame.

  “Last June, Anton was in L.A. brokering a new deal on expanding Evsi’s reach further into Denver.”

  “That’s ambitious. Doesn’t seem like they could wield that much clout from drugs and prostitution in such a landlocked city.”

  “Exactly—but the Evsi mob had configured a new type of money counterfeiting system and were going to be selling their wares here in the U.S. Anton was the envoy sent over here to make those connections and seal the deal. Only, the guys at the Department of Justice in Denver were on to him, one guy in particular named Daryl Warner, who has since retired. He had been gathering intel on Kruger for several years. Anton decided to avoid the airports and drove from L.A. to Vegas then was on his way to Denver when he got smacked in the face by Murphy’s Law.”

  Mitch got up and arched his back in a stretch then began walking around the firepit. “Thinking he’d avoid the main highways, he took a shortcut through southwest Colorado. Only the jackass is driving like he’s on the Autobahn back home and takes an icy mountain overpass too fast, crashing through a guardrail just outside of Durango. When he wakes up two hours later in the hospital, he’s cuffed to a bed with a deputy outside his door. Supposedly, he had the counterfeiting plates with him in the vehicle but they were never found. These were the masters for printing money, alleged to be some revolutionary new type of die-casted plates according to the DOJ guy.”

  Mitch sat back down again, finishing off his beer and clutching the empty bottle like it was a workout device.

  “So, do the local officers know who they have in their hands?”

  “Sort of—they know he’s a bad apple from their database but just how rotten is beyond their reach. The boys from the Department of Justice in Denver are thrilled—the Durango sheriff practically did their jobs for them. However, the US Marshals and FBI also want Anton because he’s been on their international fugitive lists for years.”

  “Why clamor for him like that? They’re all federal agencies.”

  “On the surface it would seem that way but the Marshals and the bureau have always had a sort of feud between them as a lot of our territory overlaps in terms of jurisdiction. The bureau has more clout and funding in DC though, and the Marshals have always been looked upon by the policy makers as this kind of Wild West throwback so they’ve been relegated to the areas of kidnapping and witness protection.” Mitch leaned back and grabbed his coat off the side view mirror of his vehicle and put it on.

  “Either way, the Marshals, DOJ guys, and bureau are all racing to Durango to get their hands on Anton Kruger and question him. This is a big case and it’s all going down in little ole Durango, Colorado.”

  “You were the bureau liaison who came here.”

  “That part came later. You see, Anton is a clever fellow and manages to pick the locks on his cuffs. He kills the deputy, a young man named Tom Mulhere, outside his room along with pistol-whipping a nurse; then he takes off into the woods behind the hospital. The whole city gets shut down and now all the agencies are scrambling to get their guys on the ground and apprehend him. That’s when my boss in Phoenix gets the call from the Rocky Mountain bureau chief to send my ass up here to track down Anton. The bureau chief knows about my tracking background from a training workshop I provided the year before in Denver for his guys, and he wants the agency to have its moment in the spotlight for the capture of a notorious international crime lord.”

  Mitch reached into the cooler and found it empty. Irritated, he removed a handful of ice and flung it onto the coals to watch it crackle and dissipate.

  Dev shook her head. “The way your agencies work against each other here in this country is astounding. It’s like a little internecine war going on instead of focusing on the bigger battle of actually catching the bad guys.”

  “Another reason I got out—too much meddling from above instead of letting the agents in the field do their damn job.” He exhaled and continued. “So by the time I arrive in Durango the next morning, this whole operation has turned into a shit-show with incident command posts for each agency set up around the hospital, local SWAT guys with their trigger fingers getting itchy, and reporters roaming the parking lot like the fire ants they are.

  “The point-last-seen, that crucial area where the subject’s last tracks are found, as you know—that’s been trampled over by all the feds in the area, making my job nearly impossible. The whole time I have the Denver bureau chief breathing down my neck for results.”

  “And meanwhile Anton is on the run, gaining time and distance while everyone bickers,” said Dev.

  Mitch was getting a workout flexing his eyebrows in disgust as he conjured up memories of that ordeal. “I finally picked up his trail around mid-morning using a cross-cutting technique for homing in on his tracks. He had headed away from the city into a wilderness area within this rugged canyon. Anton was not the dumb city-boy I’d expected and he’d covered a lot of ground. If he hadn’t had an inordinate amount of barbiturates in his system that the ER doc gave him too much of, he might have actually gotten away.” Mitch settled back into his chair, his eyes transfixed on the flames. “I knew he had the deputy’s pistol so movement through the dense canyon was slow going. After a torturous trek through some of the worst terrain I’ve ever been in, me and my three-man tracking team finally caught up with him on the second day near an abandoned miner’s cabin. He was walled in and he knew it. A firefight ensued and he was eventually wounded by…by me, who got off the shot.”

  “So Anton Kruger finally gets caught in a lonely canyon far from home. And what unfolded afterwards between all of your agencies?”

  Mitch picked up a hefty pine branch and snapped it forcefully over his knee then tossed both pieces into the blaze. “When we’re flown back to the hospital grounds, the Marshals, or one guy in particular, Eddy Roth, whom you just had the pleasure of meeting, is doing all the chest-thumping for the cameras. Like he had been out there tracking down the fugitive when, in fact, he was probably at the incident command post sipping on a flavored latte and polishing his new boots. In the end, the bureau got the recognition but not without a turf war between the two field directors—bunch of fumbling kids trapped in men’s bodies.”

  Dev craned her he
ad up as she watched a shooting star streak across the sky near Orion’s belt. “Ah, my poor Mitch—always the bridesmaid, never the bride, eh.”

  Mitch grinned and then it turned into a grimace. “I just wanted to get the hell out of there but the whole thing had ballooned into a media circus. Apparently it had been one of the biggest manhunts in recent history and this woman journalist out of L.A. kept referring to Anton as a modern-day Butch Cassidy. That’s the part that pissed me off the most—making this Euro-trash thug into some kind of celebrity. This woman conveniently forgot that Anton killed Mulhere, the deputy.” Mitch sucked in a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. “Mulhere’s poor mother was there in the parking lot when we got back. She offered a heart-wrenching handshake to me and the other men, nearly collapsing into my arms. Her life was shattered in one night when she lost her only son. The media focused instead on Anton’s mysterious ties to international crime and swept aside the victims.”

  “That was last summer, only a few months before we met outside of Phoenix, right?”

  “Yes. After Durango, I was tied up with flying back and forth to Anton’s trial in Denver to discuss my involvement in the manhunt. When I was finally done, I just sank myself into fieldwork back in Arizona.” He rested his hand on her leg. “That is, until this alluring vixen knocked on my bunkhouse door a few months later.”

  “Is Anton Kruger behind bars in the U.S. or was he extradited back to Europe?”

  “He’s lying in a shallow grave somewhere near Denver. He didn’t last more than a month in the penitentiary. A faction of Serbs who were business rivals, shall we say, shanked him in the bathroom one day.”

  “Good, then he died like the filthy animal he was,” said Dev.

  Mitch sighed and looked skyward. “The whole case didn’t sit well with me—all the infantile bickering between the agencies, the media circus at the crime scene, and later during the trial…” He paused. “And the image of Mrs. Mulhere, whose world was devastated because of the random event of Kruger driving off the highway, placing him in that hospital. She’s the reason I’m back here now. Trying to see how I can help her in some way.”