Mourning Dove

by Aimée

  Ella ducked down and saw a man lying faceup, blood on his chest. He’d probably been hit in one of the original volleys from outside.

  “Cover and advance?” Blalock suggested. Ella noted he was equipped with his duty pistol rather than a submachine gun.

  She nodded. “I’ll go first.”

  Ella moved around the rear of the truck, took a quick look, then sprinted north toward the white Ford, watching for someone to pop their head around a fender or above the bed. She doubted anyone would be dumb enough to take a position inside a cab, where they could be easily trapped.

  Crouching beside the front fender, she looked down the line of vehicles toward the east. A perp was down on the dirt about fifty feet away, groaning and holding his thigh. He had his hands up, obviously surrendering to someone she couldn’t see from her angle, someone from Sanders’s team.

  She took aim, watching, then heard either Justine or Blalock coming up. It was Blalock, who inched around the back of the vehicle, then took a covering position. Justine came next.

  There was a burst of gunfire at the northeast corner, then it stopped. Deciding on her next move, Ella was about to slip to the next vehicle when a call suddenly came over her radio. “Clah, is that you at the west end, center, behind the white Ford?”

  “Yeah,” Ella whispered back.

  “Can you give me some cover fire? We got caught crossing the open flank. My backup went down and I’m alone against the north wall, close to the center, under a red Dodge. Somebody has me pinned down,” Sanders said.

  Ella looked over at Justine and Blalock, who nodded. “Hang tight. I’m coming. When I get there, crawl to the west toward me.”

  “Hurry,” Sanders said, his voice hard.

  “Once I start to move, shoot into the northeast corner. Try to pin them down,” she whispered to Justine and Blalock, who’d also picked up the radio call.

  “Why you? There are a half dozen of us in here,” Justine whispered, shutting down her call button to keep her words off the radio net.

  “Yeah, why?” Ella responded, also blocking the call.

  “We’ll cover you,” Blalock whispered. “Sanders is up to something.”

  Ella nodded, then sprinted around Blalock and Justine, took a quick look to the east, then zigzagged across the clear space between the second and third rows. Justine and Blalock had already opened fire, so anyone aiming for her would be taking a risk showing themselves. Ella reached the end truck, a green Chevy, diving to the ground beside the rear tire. The north wall was just to her left. She couldn’t see any legs, so maybe the other side of the truck was clear as well. The red Dodge was the third one down, so she’d have to work her way past two other vehicles, hopefully without encountering a perp.

  Inching around to the tailgate, she pulled the lever and jerked the tailgate down, her pistol ready. Nobody was lying on the bed. Pistol forward, she took a quick look around the vehicle. It looked clear to the end, but that didn’t mean somebody wasn’t between the trucks.

  In a crouch, she moved toward the front end of the driver’s side, hugging the Chevy. Suddenly a bullet struck the side mirror, sending glass flying. Jumping up onto the running board, she tried to hug the door. She saw a black sleeve, then heard a bullet thump against the west wall of the building and a simultaneous shot.

  Getting as low as possible, she reached down for her radio. “Sanders, it’s me, Clah. Stop shooting!”

  “It’s not me, it’s one of the perps at the east end behind one of the SUVs,” he said. “Move to the other side of the truck and work your way down.”

  She reversed her direction, chased by another bullet as she went back around the tail end of the Chevy. She waved to Justine and Blalock, who could see her now, and inched down the row, hoping that all the vehicles south of her had been cleared.

  Getting to the front of the Chevy, she saw movement at the east end, beside one of the wrecks, and dove to the ground just in time as a bullet struck the Chevy’s headlight.

  Ella grabbed her radio again. “Justine, there’s a shooter behind one of the wrecks. Can you return fire?”

  “Ella, the angle is wrong. Stay put until we move north one more row.”

  “Sanders, where are you?” Ella called.

  Sand kicked up just to her left, and there was a thud in a tire behind her as two more shots went off, and she rolled out into view of the perp beside the wreck. He raised up, and quickly ducked back as gunfire from her and her team struck the engine block of the stripped vehicle he was using for cover.

  Ella cursed. The last two bullets that had nearly struck her had come from where Sanders had supposedly been, not the northeast corner. He’d set her up, then tried to take her out himself when the perp behind the wreck had missed. But he’d missed as well, and she wouldn’t be able to prove a thing.

  With a muttered curse, she focused on her next move. Her immediate concern was getting out of this alive. “Third team coming in, center row,” Ella heard over the radio. Her chances were getting better. There would be more firepower now that FPD was reinforcing the assault. She looked beneath the row of trucks, and saw the red Dodge. No Sanders. Knowing he couldn’t rush her with Justine and Blalock keeping watch up high, she ejected her spent clip and slipped in another.

  Adrenaline pumped in her bloodstream as she thought of Dawn. The fear that she might not live to see her child again filled her with determination. Jumping up onto the bed of the truck in front of her, she looked around the cab toward the Dodge to the east. Sanders was either hiding behind the front of the vehicle or underneath. Either way, he couldn’t take another shot at her without poking his head up.

  Ella decided to take the top route. Hoping Justine and Blalock were in a position to cover her, she jumped onto the top of the pickup, ran down the hood, and dove into the bed of the Dodge. Looking into the cab of the truck through the back window, just in case, she saw a red-shirted man in front by the hood, aiming a pistol straight at her.

  Before she could move, two shots rang out and the man fell. Ella dropped down to her knees and looked to her left. Samuel Blacksheep had come up the north wall behind her, then taken the perp out when he raised up. “Yeah, I know, Clah. Officially, I’m not on the operation anymore. But I’ve got my reasons for ignoring orders.”

  “Whatever they were, I’m glad you showed up,” she said, climbing out on his side onto the ground. “I’m going after that second guy behind the wreck at the east wall. Will you cover me?”

  He nodded. “Go.”

  Ella slipped around to the front of the Dodge, glanced down at the dead man, then sprinted east. The man back there tried to look up, but covering fire from behind her forced him back down. Ella dove to the ground, aimed her pistol under the derelict vehicle, and stared right into the man’s face. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “I quit.”

  Samuel was the first to arrive, and he went around the back to cuff the man as Ella stood. “Good hunting. And we have someone left to question,” he said.

  Ella took a look around, and all she could see were SWAT members and her approaching team. “You saved my neck, Samuel.”

  “I came in behind your team and saw you working up the line. You were doing just fine without me until that last shooter showed up. He must have moved around a lot, because those bullets that kicked up right beside you couldn’t have come from his last position.”

  “Maybe it was friendly fire,” she said. But she knew better. Sanders, wherever he was now, was going to remain in her crosshairs.

  Two hours later, Justine and Ella were still at the scene, helping the county and Farmington PD process the evidence despite being out of their jurisdiction. As expected, all but two of the vehicles were stolen, cooling off before being moved out of the area. Those two that were being stripped had their most valuable parts already boxed up, ready to sell.

  As she and Justine were looking at the list of vehicles and their serial numbers, Blalock walked over and motioned them away from the stolen parts
storage location.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Blalock said, keeping his voice low. “I saw the round you suggested we look for in that tire, one of those that barely missed you. The first thing the FPD tech that dug it out said was, ‘Hey, that’s one of ours’, meaning a nine-millimeter one hundred-twenty-four-grain Gold Dot hollow point—department issue. None of the perps were using those rounds in their weapons, based on what’s been recovered so far.”

  “Were any of the perps wearing black jackets or shirts?” Justine asked. “Ella said that some of the shots coming at her came from a man with a black top.”

  Blalock shook his head. “The prisoner, and the five that went down were all wearing other colors. One of the dead perps was wearing a brown long-sleeved T-shirt, but he was taken out early in the firefight behind the first row of trucks.”

  Ella remembered seeing him. The facts were clear to her, now, and the implication pointed toward Sanders and the weapons-smuggling operation. “Sanders,” Ella said flatly. “Where is he?”

  “Outside, talking to his captain and Sheriff Taylor.”

  “You all heard the radio traffic, and it was recorded over the network. I was supposed to rescue Sanders, but suddenly he ‘disappeared’ and I started taking fire. I think he tried to set me up.”

  Blalock nodded slowly. “I’m interested to read how he explains all this in his debrief and the action report. Sheriff Taylor will get custody of the evidence, so we don’t have to worry about Sanders tampering with the bullets and audio, but, since we’re outside the Rez and dealing with possible corruption, I’m going to get some federal people, maybe ATF, to start watching Sanders.”

  Although no one had heard him approach, Samuel stepped around from behind one of the trucks, just five feet away. “That’s a good idea. He was a solid partner before shipping overseas. But lately he’s been working against me. Jimmy apparently sent me an express-mail package, but I never got it. The only reason I discovered it at all is that a couple of days ago I ran into the department secretary and she happened to mention a package from Jimmy that Sergeant Sanders had accepted on my behalf. It came on the day my brother died. I’d moved recently, and my mail was being forwarded to the station. I asked Sanders about it, but he claimed that our secretary was mistaken—it was to him from a relative also named Jimmy.”

  Samuel looked around, then motioned them closer, and spoke softly. “So I decided to search his office today when he was out and see for myself. The desk locks are easy to pick. Inside, I found what looked like the last part of a kid’s story Jimmy had written. I recognized my brother’s handwriting right away. He was a wannabe writer, remember? The tale didn’t make much sense with the first four pages missing, but what caught my attention was that it didn’t read like one of Jimmy’s stories. It looked more like some kind of code using a mix of Navajo names I recognized and some others I wasn’t sure about. I made a copy, and put the original back so Sanders wouldn’t know I’d seen it.”

  Samuel shook his head, his face grim. “But the bottom line is that Sanders lied to me, and he stole something my brother had intended me to have. Maybe Sanders was the one who took the stories from Jimmy’s house, too. I’m not sure what went on overseas, but if it has to do with those stolen weapons I’ve been hearing about, and Jimmy’s dead because of it, Sanders is involved.”

  “Maybe now’s the time to tell you about the first half of Jimmy’s story,” Ella said. “He sent me pages one to four but I haven’t exactly been ready to share—until now. But first, let’s catch the bad guys,” Ella added.

  Ella was at the county jail waiting outside the interview room where the perp she and Samuel had captured was being questioned by representatives from several agencies. As she waited, she got Big Ed on her cell phone.

  The car-theft gang had been struck a mortal blow, and the investigation regarding Jimmy Blacksheep’s murder had led to at least two viable suspects. These events had taken some pressure off Big Ed, and he had an upbeat tone for a change. “I just got a call from the Bureau. They’d been checking the gunrunning suspects’ bank accounts for suspicious activity and there’s more money in them than can be explained by their salaries, though my guess is that most of their take is in cash,” he informed her. “Based on black-market gun sales, their estimated profits could go up as high as half a million.”

  Ella whistled low. “We’ve got Richardson and Sanders in the hot seat. We’ll keep pushing.”

  “Do that.”

  Ella closed the phone and filled in Blalock, who was keeping his back to the wall—figurative and literally. “Have you checked with Neil Carson?” she asked.

  “Yes. Apparently, that e-mail Richardson got was backtracked by the techs to Kent Miller, who was Jimmy’s sergeant. He’s one of Carson’s short-list suspects in the ‘accidental’ deaths of those two soldiers in Jimmy’s unit over in Iraq, the ones we think Jimmy called Konik and Bula.”

  “Miller? We’ve been trying to find him for a week. He was supposed to be roaming around fishing spots and unavailable.”

  “Well, he’s surfaced now, and Carson has a location. Based on the computer used to send the e-mail, Miller’s in an older section of Farmington at his brother’s home. The brother’s a gunsmith, wouldn’t you know. Carson wants to nail Miller before Sanders or anyone else can warn him, or Miller has a chance to destroy any evidence he might still have in his possession.”

  “I think Carson’s right about that,” Ella said.

  “The big guy also gave me a serious heads-up. Calvin Sanders and Miller were first on the scene in Iraq when those two soldiers died, so it could have been staged.”

  Justine came up to her a moment later. “Bad news. Sanders didn’t report to his police chief after he left the riding academy. His own PD is worried that he might have been ambushed by another carjacker after he left the scene. They have officers out looking for him.”

  “They don’t have a clue. He’s probably making a run for it,” Ella said.

  “Or warning the men Richardson’s supposed to meet,” Blalock suggested.

  “We better move fast, or we’ll lose them,” Ella said.

  “Who do you want to trust at this point? Where do we go for backup?” Blalock asked.

  Ella considered it for a moment. “ATF. They and you will provide the jurisdiction. We’ll also take Samuel with us, and ask Big Ed to find trustworthy backup for us in FPD. But we can’t wait. While they’re getting our backup together, we’ll have to roll.”

  “Agreed,” Blalock said.

  As they hurried outside to their units, Ella recalled the two recent firefights she’d been thrown into. The suspects might not go down easy this time either, especially if Sanders was among them. But Navajo blood had been spilled, and balance needed to be restored.

  TWENTY

  Ella, crouched low near the front grille of her vehicle, stared through binoculars at the wood-framed white house sitting on a gentle sloping hill. They’d ordered the perps to come out, but their response had been a swift and deadly burst of automatic gunfire that had sent everyone diving for cover and shattered the windows on Blalock’s car, which had been parked across the street closest to the house.

  “They’re armed to the teeth in there. But why on earth are they fighting? It’s broad daylight and there’s no way out,” Justine called in over the radio.

  Justine, Officer Blacksheep, and two ATF men were covering the rear and one side of the house, which was essentially surrounded now, and they were all on the same tactical frequency. “The house is alone up there, surrounded by a big, open lawn and a cliff on the left nobody could climb up without mountain gear,” Justine added. “If they try to make a run for their cars, they won’t get ten steps.”

  “I’ll tell you why they’re going to fight it out,” Carson said, speaking into his radio. Leaving Richardson in jail, the CID man had insisted on taking part in the operation and had arrived at the same time as Ella and the others. “They’re facing life or a firing sq
uad for their crimes while in the military, then civil charges as well, including homicide. Men who’ve just come back from combat often have a tough time adjusting. Adrenaline gets in your blood when you live on the edge for months at a time. Going out in a blaze—fast and hard—might appeal to them a lot more than life in prison.”

  Once again Blalock brought up the bullhorn and ordered them to come out. They all flattened again as a renewed burst of fire peppered Blalock’s vehicle in response.

  Samuel and Blalock scrambled away from it, using the vehicle as a screen until they reached Ella’s car.

  “Come on up and play,” someone yelled from the house.

  Ella didn’t recognize the voice—maybe it was Miller or his brother. An uneasy silence settled over the area once again. Ella glanced at Blalock. “We’ll have to wait them out. In fifteen more minutes, we should have enough backup and firepower to come up with a plan.”

  “Sanders and Miller are both cowboys. I spoke with their company commander, and these guys were always proactive, pushing for action. If you don’t go after them, they’re going to come out for us,” Carson said. “You’ve got to understand their mind-set. They want something to happen.”

  “Better to have a good defense than a weak offense. These guys are packing more firepower than we are right now, but if they come out firing, we should still be able to pick them off. If they wait us out, then we’ll have the manpower to force a surrender. Either way we win,” Ella said.

  Blalock gave her an approving nod. “Sounds right,” he said softly.

  “One thing we need to take into consideration is that we have no idea what’s in the basement,” Justine said. “That makes them a possible danger to the surrounding community. For all we know, they collected bombs and plan to blow up the block.”

  “They’ve been doing this for the money, and the adventure. If they decide to commit suicide, my guess is that they’ll do it in a firefight, not in a sudden blast,” Ella said. “Either way, we’re not in a position to stop them from doing anything inside at the moment. Two of us need to move back across the street and take up positions at either end of the Bureau car so they won’t be able to use it as a screen. Then all we need to do is sit tight and stay sharp. We’ll lessen casualties that way,” Ella answered. “Worst-case scenario, we use tear gas or set fire to the house.”