“Why longer?”
“The court has to solidify their case against him.”
“You sent them the recording? Doesn’t that let Audra off the hook?”
“Believe it or not, solicitation and conspiracy can be bartered down to 5 years. Even if it’s five years each, that’s only 15 years. They still need her eye witness account for the Garcia murder to put him away for life. They’re hoping to find evidence of more as well, so they can seek the death penalty.”
Fetsko sighed. “So then what’s the next move?”
“I need to get Audra before the Grand Jury. That will give us enough to extradite.”
“Isn’t it odd for us to extradite a Mexican national to the U.S.?”
“We have Mexico’s full cooperation. They’re only too glad to get rid of him.”
“Why can’t they handle it?”
“We don’t want to leave it to them. First, Mexico’s sentences aren’t strong enough. If they only get him for the one murder, the max sentence is 20 years. Second, they would just as soon he got the death penalty, too. Arizona is only too happy to oblige.”
“So is there a date yet for the Grand Jury?”
“Nope.”
“Ye gods. So you have to wait for the Grand Jury, and after the Grand Jury, you have to wait till they give you the go ahead for extradition, and then it goes to trial? How long after that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve seen these things take up to two years.”
“Was it the plan from the beginning to keep the witness with you for that long?”
“I don’t think Michaelson thought it out that far. He thought she’d be dead, so he didn’t really care.”
“So, back to my original question: what are you going to do now?”
“I despise waiting games, but I don’t know what else to do. Once I’m back under the umbrella of Audra’s safe house, nobody can contact me without compromising its position. So, I guess I’ll have to stay here, or somewhere anyway, to wait to hear.”
“Oh, speaking of Michaelson, he’s suspended.”
Lucas looked startled. “I don’t honestly know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“Yeah. Me neither,” said Fetsko.
“Hmm…that helps me make a decision, then. I’m going to pack up, and I’ll set out after dark to find new digs. What about you?”
“I’m going to find a new hotel and use my other ID, but I don’t want to venture too far. Even though I can’t go see her, just being this close makes me feel better.”
Lucas nodded. “I understand.”
They agreed to leave separately as soon as it got dark.
Fetsko left first. Since his government vehicle was still sitting at the Holiday Inn, he decided to just go there until he could make better plans. At least he would be away from the their current hotel. He would call in a favor or two to get a different vehicle. He was still undercover as far as anything official was concerned, and he wanted to leave it that way.
The only agreement Lucas had about anything was to bring Audra before the Grand Jury, which meant getting her to Phoenix. He hadn’t yet figured out the safest way to do that…there was a lot of empty space between the compound and Phoenix. It would be better if he could find a private plane.
He made reservations for Barstow. He wanted to be close when the Grand Jury call came across. Maybe he could even steal away for a few hours to go see her.
He checked the room to ensure he’d left nothing behind, slung his pack over his back, and grabbed his motorcycle helmet. He had waited until nearly 11 to leave, hoping to discourage anyone from thinking he was with Fetsko.
He avoided the elevator, taking the stairs down, and crossing to the side door into the parking garage. He was walking toward the Harley, fastening on his helmet, when a shot rang out, tearing through his shoulder and knocking him down. He heard two more shots fired, then, oblivion.
# # #
Audra awoke suddenly, her heart beating quickly, and wondered what had awakened her. She looked around the room but saw nothing. She held her breath for a few seconds, but heard nothing.
She decided it must have been something in her dream that had awakened her. She was almost fully awake now and got up to go to the bathroom. She turned the fireplace on and turned the heat timer to thirty minutes.
She crawled back into bed and lay there. Something in her mind felt amiss, but she couldn’t say what. She hoped Lucas was okay.
As she lay there, she felt around her breasts and nipples. They were tender. It started the morning after Lucas left, and she just thought it was because they had been so active those couple of days. But it hadn’t gone away. If anything, they were even tenderer now. She wondered what that was about, as she turned on her side and slipped back to sleep.
33
Lucas awoke in excruciating pain. He was on a mattress on the floor in a dimly lit room in what appeared to be a slump block or adobe house. He tried to sit up, but the pain knocked him back onto the bed. That’s when he remembered the shooting in the parking lot, and the bullet tearing through his shoulder.
“Fetsko’s dead,” came a voice from across the room.
Lucas turned his head in the direction of the voice but couldn’t see anyone.
“You know, you’re hurting my pocketbook. I can’t even make my rent payment this month thanks to you.”
“Michaelson?” Lucas guessed.
“Bingo,” he said.
Lucas turned back to look straight up at the ceiling, taking the pressure off of his tendon.
“You boys have made big trouble for me. Lucky for you, Blanco’s in custody. But now you have to deal with me.”
Lucas moved his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how, but the bleeding seemed to be stopped. He took stock of the rest of his body and perceived that the rest of him was intact, and that, other than the immense pain, he was probably okay. He was pretty sure the bullet had gone straight through, so at least he wasn’t going to die from lead poisoning.
Michaelson spoke again, startling Lucas out of his inventory. He realized then that the pain was doing a number on his consciousness because he had temporarily forgotten that Michaelson was there.
“Where’s the girl?”
Lucas spoke slowly. “You honestly think I’m going to tell you that when I haven’t told anyone else, not even my partner?”
“You should have told your partner. When I realized he wasn’t any good to me, I shot him.”
Lucas closed his eyes. He realized that if he let Michaelson got it out of him, that he, too, would no longer be useful and might meet the same fate. He had to find some bargaining power quickly before Michaelson decided to torture him.
But his plan was preempted. Michaelson pulled up his chair alongside the bed, out of Lucas’s reach. “You notice I didn’t kill you,” Michaelson said.
“Because I’m the only one who knows where the girl is.”
“Mm-hmm. You’re doing a pretty good job of keeping yourself alive that way. Good strategy. However,” he said, “I think I have something that will change your mind. Something far more effective than torture. I have something you want.”
“Something I want?” Lucas couldn’t imagine what Michaelson thought he could persuade him with.
“Yes. Something even dearer to you than Audra.”
How did Michaelson know anything about my relationship with Audra? Oh, right. Brighton must have been reporting back whatever he surmised. God damn.
Lucas said nothing.
“Don’t you want to know what it is? Aren’t you even curious?”
Lucas was losing track of what they were even talking about. Curious about what?
Michaelson walked over to the window and bounced the shade up, allowing sunlight to flood the room, right across Lucas’s face. He came back and bent over Lucas, smacking him on both cheeks.
“Wake up, Roberts. Pay attention. Don’t you want to know what I have that could interest you more than Au
dra?”
Lucas still said nothing, but he held Michaelson’s gaze.
“Ethan’s not dead.”
What? Lucas’s mind wouldn’t even process that.
“What do you mean Ethan’s not dead?”
“I mean he’s not dead. We’ve been keeping him under lock and key in Mexicali.”
Lucas’s mind was spinning.
“But the body?”
“Yes. What about the body? Drowned. In the water too long to be recognizable. The body was the right age and size. All we did was put Ethan’s clothes on him. Too bad these half-white kids all look alike. No distinguishing marks at all, other than his face. And you guys didn’t even think to have his dental records checked.”
Lucas tried to focus on that, to think back to what happened in the days following the discovery of the body, but he couldn’t.
“You can have Ethan back…in exchange for Audra.”
Lucas felt his heart rate increasing, his head throbbing, and then nothing. He had fainted.
34
Audra was pacing the room. It had been too long. She should have heard from Lucas by now. She went down and asked Jerry and Gordon for the umpteenth time if they had heard anything.
By now she was pretty sure what was going on with her. Although she wasn’t actively sick in the mornings, she was really nauseous, and the only things that sounded good to her the rest of the day were soup, quinoa, and vegetables.
Her breasts continued to ache, and she remembered from biology class in high school that a woman’s breasts begin to form a network of ducts for milk production when they are pregnant. Even as little as she knew about pregnancy, she was sure that was what was happening.
She wanted to be elated, but the tenuousness of her situation and the uncertainty of her relationship with Lucas was not a happy circumstance. She had plenty to think and worry about, yet she knew she could not do one thing to change her situation. If she had been somewhere normal, she would have forced herself to continue her daily routine, but, of late, her daily routine had turned to sheer boredom.
She looked on her Kindle to see what she could do to truly occupy her mind instead of just entertaining herself, and she found a program she had downloaded last year to teach herself French. She had taken two years in high school in order to qualify for college acceptance, but she had practiced little. She had an advanced program along with advanced grammar packets and even mobile apps from Rosetta Stone that allowed her to listen and practice.
She decided to throw herself into the French until she heard something. She knew he had to be all right, and something was just preventing him from contacting them.
When she told Gordon what she was doing, he gave her a couple of French books he had--one novel and one volume of poetry and short stories.
# # #
When Lucas woke up the second time, he blinked at bright lights and loud beeping sounds. He looked around him and saw machines and an IV. Next thing he knew, the chief’s face was above him.
“Glad you’re back with us, Roberts,” he said.
Once again he tried to sit up, but this time he was tethered by tubes instead of pain.
“Just lay still. Your nurse will be in here soon.”
Lucas tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen and dry, and he couldn’t talk.
“Somebody tipped us off as to where you were, and then they apparently just dumped you at the side of the road. Some of Blanco’s men,” he said.
Lucas shook his head.
“Not Blanco’s men?”
Just then the nurse came in, and Lucas pointed at the water pitcher. The nurse poured him a cup of water, then propped pillows behind him so he could drink. After a few sips, he looked at the chief.
“Michaelson,” he said, hoarsely.
“Michaelson?” the chief asked. “Are you sure?”
Lucas nodded.
“You think it was Michaelson that shot you?”
Lucas nodded again. “I think he shot and killed Fetsko.”
The chief looked surprised again. “We haven’t heard anything about Fetsko. You’re sure it was Michaelson?”
Lucas nodded.
The chief stood and looked far away, as if putting a puzzle together in his mind.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, patting Lucas’s leg. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
Lucas just lay back on his pillows. At least he wasn’t in pain, but now he felt really hazy and suspected they were giving him some pretty strong pain meds.
As he drifted in and out of sleep and a morphine haze over the next two days, he would dream of Michaelson, of Ethan, and of Audra. As they lowered the amount of morphine they were giving him, and he began to be more alert, he began to distrust that the thing with Michaelson wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.
It made sense—sort of—he had probably been in some pain-induced hallucination. Fetsko had just told him about Michaelson’s suspension, and he had wondered where Michaelson was. The rest was a no-brainer. Of course, he would dream of Ethan, and, instead of Elena, Audra. All of it made logical sense.
That afternoon, when the chief came back to see him, Lucas told him that he doubted that it had been Michaelson after all.
“We all think it was more likely that it was one of Blanco’s men who had been following Fetsko and figured out you were there, too. Unfortunately, Fetsko hasn’t surfaced yet to either negate or corroborate your story.”
“Well, if my story was true,” Lucas said, “we wouldn’t expect him to surface, would we?”
The chief looked thoughtful. “No, I guess you’re right.”
Two days later they released him with a splint. He was healing remarkably well, the doctor had said, considering the injury. Lucas had been lucky that the shot had gone straight through, and at an angle that missed his heart. His pectoral muscle was torn, so they had him pretty well immobilized. They gave him a prescription for pain meds and gave him a number to call to set up physical therapy when he was ready.
His first thought was that he wouldn’t be able to ride the Harley, and his second thought was that he was in a hospital in Yuma while his bike was still in Calexico…at least that was where he had left it.
He decided to just get dressed and then call someone to come after him. Who, he wasn’t sure. The Marshals Service was more or less disavowing him at this moment, and no one knew where Fetsko was.
As he slipped into his motorcycle jacket, fumbling to figure out how to keep it on over the immobilized arm, a piece of paper fell out of his pocket onto the floor. He bent to pick it up and realized immediately that he wouldn’t repeat that movement anytime soon. He did manage to pick up the paper and sit back down on the bed.
Unfolding the paper, he read, “Call this number when you’re ready to make the exchange we discussed. M.”
So it had been Michaelson. Lucas’s first instinct was to give the paper to the chief, but then he started thinking about it. He re-pocketed the paper.
A nurse came in with his release forms. They required that he give an address where he would be staying, so he just gave them his parents’ address. He got up and started to move slowly out into the hallway.
He went to a nearby waiting room and sat down. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. He could call his parents to come and pick him up. However, he really wanted to get back to Audra. But the minute her name passed through his memory, the weight of Michaelson’s proposal struck him.
Ethan was alive? Why? Why had they kept him alive? Could it be true, or are they just using this to con me into bringing Audra to them? And why would they let me or Ethan live after I brought Audra? Not that I would care. My life wouldn’t be worth much if I turned Audra over to Michaelson. But Ethan! It was almost more than his mind could deal with in his weakened state.
He needed to rest. It would take his parents three hours to get there, even if they left in the next five minutes. If he called Jerry, he bet they could have him back at the compo
und in less time than that.
He felt around and discovered that he still had his special little cell phone on him. He got up, walked outside, and dialed.
“Jerry?”
“Where are you, man? We were starting to worry.”
“I’m in a hospital in Yuma. Can you come get me?”
“I’m sure Gordon can do something. Stand by.”
There was a few seconds of silence, then Jerry came back on the line. “We’ll take care of it, good buddy. Just sit tight on the same floor where you were a patient.”
“Roger.” The line went dead.
Twenty minutes later, two orderlies showed up with a wheel chair.
“Mr. Roberts? You’re taking life-flight to Edwards Air Force Base.” The one speaking gestured that he should get into the wheel chair.
“I don’t know who you are, Man, but you must be somebody important. I’ve never seen anyone who can walk be life-flighted before.”
Lucas just grinned.
Jerry was there to pick him up in a car when the helicopter dropped onto the pad.
They left the base and headed out into the desert. Lucas was back at the compound less than two hours after he called Jerry.
Audra came running, and Lucas quickly shed his jacket so that she could see he was injured.
“Oh, my God! What happened?” she demanded to know.
“C’mon,” Gordon said. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s all sit down, and you can tell us your whole story, Lucas.”
Lucas told all that had happened since he had left the compound, except that he omitted the part about Michaelson. He told them he had been shot in the parking lot and woke up in the hospital.
“But if you were shot in a parking lot in Calexico, how did you end up in a hospital in Yuma?”
“The chief said they just got a tip where to pick me up, went to where they indicated, and found me lying on a roadside between Yuma and Calexico.”
The color drained from Audra’s face. “Between Yuma and Calexico?”
“That’s what they said.”
She said nothing else, but concentrated on her food while listening to everyone else talk.
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