The Dunn Deal

by Catherine Leggitt

  tinted windows, I pulled the small object toward one eye to inspect it. A radio, the kind a sheriff might clip to his uniform with the clip still attached. I wiped the radio on my jacket. Does it still work? No time to check just now. I patted the floor around the place I’d found it, sending splashes of water onto my legs. Not finding anything else, I slid the radio into the front pocket of my jacket.

  Meanwhile, the battle between soldiers and dogs continued.

  Once they rounded up the dog pack, they would search for me in earnest. Likely my absence had already been reported. As soon as they concluded I’d run out through this particular mine shaft, which would be easy to deduce since the dogs had been freed, they’d start looking through the cars. I had to find another place to hide.

  How in the world would I ever get out? Obviously, no one would come to rescue me. No one even knew where I’d gone. I gave myself a mental head thump, wishing I hadn’t been quite so hasty in my zeal to have Rogers apprehend Colter. What was I thinking?

  I closed my eyes to picture the layout of the compound from my previous visits. On the left side of the two-story barn, the office must be heavily guarded; it was the building with the surveillance camera and the German shepherd. I should stay away from there.

  What was on the other side?

  A shack. Not an important building, it was small and unmemorable. It might not even be in use. How could I get there?

  I scooted to the front of the van and peered out the side window. The group of soldiers rounding up the dog pack had doubled in number. They would soon be victorious over the dogs.

  With so many men facing this direction, I’d have to be careful climbing out. I couldn’t chance sneaking out the way I got in. I grabbed Molly’s fur and nuzzled my face into it, hoping to gather courage. We’d have to jump out the other side. Luckily, the van had tinted windows. I rolled down a window facing away from the doggie roundup, wiggled out, and jumped to the ground.

  Oh my goodness! That stung my feet. Several pains throbbed in my legs and back. I guess I am old after all, like everyone says.

  Molly stuck her head out the window and whimpered. I hobbled a few steps, wincing in agony until the pain dissipated. Then I reached back inside to pull her out.

  Had I been noticed?

  I stooped as low as I could, given the new crick in my back, and scooted down the back side of the row of charred vehicles. At the end of the row, I stopped a moment to consider escaping through the chamber. If only I knew where those four other tunnels led. Which one would get me to the boulder-door exit?

  The barking died down. I watched while guards led several of the largest dogs away on leashes. The Doberman’s head stuck out above the pack. The other dogs, mostly medium-sized, followed. For the moment, no one looked my way.

  I took a deep breath and ran for cover at the far side of the building with Molly sprinting ahead of me.

  “You there. Halt!” A voice ordered from behind. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  These men practiced marksmanship. The voice sounded close. I couldn’t discount that threat so I stopped cold.

  Molly darted ahead, sliding effortlessly through a small gap between the charred boards. On the other side, she whirled to a stop, walked back a few steps and cocked her head.

  “Go,” I said. “Get help.”

  Molly whimpered and stepped closer.

  I glanced back at the approaching guards.

  Please God, make her go. “Run, Molly!”

  Molly let out one final whimper before veering away. The guards focused on me without noticing her black-and-white tail when she bolted away on the other side of the wall.

  A burly guard grabbed my arm and spun me to face him. “Thought you’d get away, did you?”

  My heart thundered in my chest and I panted so hard I couldn’t speak.

  A second guard caught up, seizing my other arm as if he considered my ability to get away a serious threat. Sandwiched between them, I didn’t resist when they hauled me toward the office.

  As we reached the building with the surveillance camera, the door flew open and out stepped the unholy threesome: Bodhi, Kingfisher, and Colter.

  Colter surveyed the scene with distaste. “You are proving to be way too much trouble, Mrs. Sterling.” He shook his head, disgust reflected in his expression. When he stepped down, he lowered his eyes to the ground as if considering the next course of action.

  Bodhi came toward me, jerking his head like a bird on alert for predators. When he came closer, I wondered again about his erratic movements. He stepped so close that he invaded my personal space. Was he trying to sniff my shoulder? In reflex, I stepped back as far as I could while the guards still held my arms.

  Kingfisher hesitated on the porch, watching the other two. When he marched down the steps, his striped muumuu flowed behind him. He stopped less than an inch from my nose. “You surprise me. You’re an old lady. Why’d you let my

  dogs loose?” His eyes were lit with a scary light. “You’ll have to pay for that.”

  Again with the old-lady comments. At that moment, I certainly felt like an old lady. Old and powerless. But definitely not invisible. They could see me just fine.

  As I hung my head, I remembered the outrage these people perpetrated against my friends. I still had a little fight left in me so I drew a deep breath and straightened to face them. “You don’t suppose I’d be stupid enough to visit Deputy Colter without anyone knowing where I’d gone, do you? The officers will be along soon.”

  If only that information were true.

  Perhaps that possibility hadn’t occurred to them. Kingfisher stepped back and glared at Colter. Deputy Colter’s beady eyes flickered in surprise. He raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at me.

  Bodhi’s face twitched. “Bad karma.” Spasms contorted his face, but no one seemed to notice. Kingfisher stomped toward Colter. “I told you not to bring her here. What if this is a trap to lure us out into the open? What about her car? Where is it?”

  Colter swiped his mouth with one hand. “It is still at the office, but I seriously doubt that she is part of a trap. She is not smart enough to pull that off.”

  Bodhi fidgeted, jiggling his hands as if to shake off water. He jerked them behind his back and held them together, perhaps to stop the wiggling. Then he paced between me and the other two, alternately staring into the darkening sky and the ground. All of a sudden, he braked and raised a finger. “Council consensus is required before administering punishment.” His words sounded like he’d memorized the manual and recited it instead of talking. “Gather the war council.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Once again, I found myself inside the circular chamber. Only this time, they dragged me in fully awake. Why they thought subduing a fifty-something old woman required two muscular guards, I’ll never know.

  At the center of the chamber, the guards threw me on the rocky floor beside the table. Scratched elbows, scraped hands, bruised hip, and arm aching from being twisted. I felt as if I’d been beaten.

  Bodhi, Kingfisher, and Colter followed us while the guards stood at attention near the wall.

  Orders had been given to summon the full war council. Presumably, we’d wait in the chamber for the others to arrive. Whoever the others were. Would we have to wait until midnight?

  Three somber faces glared at me.

  I straightened my aching back and stared right into their eyes, feigning bravado.

  Maybe I could get a little information out of them while I had their complete attention, just in case I managed to get out of this mess alive. “Is this where you brought Baxter?”

  Surprised registered on Kingfisher’s face. He deferred to Bodhi.

  Bodhi’s mouth twitched, turning a crooked smile into a grimace. “All war councils are conducted in the chamber.” He yanked on his robe.

  “Did you have a war council to decide Baxter’s fate the night of his death? Is that what happened during the two-and-a-half hours no on
e can account for?”

  Colter glanced at Kingfisher. Resignation showed in the rigid set of Kingfisher’s face. A muscle pulsed at his jaw. “It was necessary to eliminate Deputy Dunn for the common good. His snooping threatened our entire operation.”

  All of a sudden, I knew what happened. “So you were in the black van, one of you or all of you. The van that Baxter radioed in about, the one with the stolen license plate. You ambushed him at the Night Owl and brought him here. Right?”

  No one denied it so I kept talking. “You held a meeting just before midnight and decided to kill him, eliminate him. You drugged him, took him to the top of that ravine, and threw him onto the piles of metal. Then you sank his patrol car in Rawlins Lake, thinking no one would discover his body or car for a long time.”

  Still no denials.

  “But you were wrong. Someone found him right away and also his car. You hadn’t planned on that, had you?”

  Kingfisher glared at Colter again. “Someone was supposed to have enough clout at headquarters to prevent a thorough investigation.”

  Colter scowled over the top of his glasses, the nostrils in his prodigious nose flaring.

  My neck ached from staring up. I reached behind my head to rub it and give it a little support. “Then you had to kill poor little Mary because you saw her on your surveillance camera.”

  Kingfisher looked away. “Mary shouldn’t have come here.”

  I shivered, remembering what I saw at Mary’s house. “But you cared about her. How could you…kill her like that?”

  Going from zero to a hundred, Kingfisher’s eyes blazed when he screamed, “We are not talking about this anymore! Got it?”

  I blinked and shrank back. Guess I’d better not push that button right now. “So, what’s this soldier thing all about?” I glanced at each face in turn. “Do you make drugs to finance the war games? Or do you do war games to cover up making and selling drugs? What about the ‘God-speaking-to-you’ part?”

  Bodhi’s hands clenched and unclenched out of control. He clasped them together behind his back. “War is coming. We must prepare.”

  I wanted to ask more, but Kingfisher’s eyes still flashed. “We need to search her. What if she’s wearing a wire?”

  A wire? Oh no. I couldn’t let him search me. He’d find the radio and the picture in my pockets. “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t know how to use a wire. I’m no good with technology. Ask anyone who knows me.” I patted my jeans pocket but didn’t feel the crunch of the picture inside. I reached in. The picture was gone! Colter must have taken it when he drugged me.

  Colter’s beady eyes narrowed, and then he shook his head. “She does not have a wire. She went through the office metal detector without setting anything off. We have had her here ever since.”

  I didn’t know the office had a metal detector. But thank you, God, for that.

  Kingfisher paced back and forth in a short space. “Okay. Too much talking. We must secure her until the others arrive.”

  Colter glanced around the chamber. “The sarcophagus.”

  The what? I followed his gaze to the wooden coffin I’d crawled out of a couple of hours earlier. Decorations on the front of the box stood out like ugly red scars. I guessed they were symbols, slash marks carved deep into the surface and painted red.

  Together, the three men hauled me to my feet and dumped me into the box like a bag of laundry. The lid slammed down. Luckily, I had that layer of cloth in the bottom to cushion my fall, but I’m sure I sustained a few more bruises from their roughness. Kingfisher assigned an armed soldier to stand beside the box in case I tried to escape. The other guards were sent to watch the entrance to the mine shaft.

  “Just shoot her if she crawls out,” Kingfisher said loud enough for me to hear.

  Something akin to relief at being left alone in the dark washed over me. At least for the moment, they wouldn’t hurt me. When I’d settled on my back in the most comfortable position available, I found that I could still hear muffled voices from the center of the chamber, about twenty feet away. I lay as still as possible trying to understand the words.

  Kingfisher’s voice sounded grim. “No one leaves here until the meeting.”

  “I need to move her car and check the office,” Colter said. “To see if they’re onto us.”

  Kingfisher sounded unconvinced. “You got us into this predicament, bringing her out here. You’ll risk more trouble going into town.”

  Bodhi’s voice sounded as jerky as his movements. “The police scanner.”

  Kingfisher sounded incredulous. “You have a scanner in your patrol car?”

  “Yes,” Colter said. “But they must know my car is gone. If they suspect I took the Sterling woman, they would not risk my hearing their plans on the scanner.”

  In the pause that followed, I imagined Kingfisher pacing again while he appeared to consider Colter’s request.

  “Why should we trust you? What’s to stop you from taking off and leaving us to suffer the consequences?”

  Colter snorted a hollow laugh. “Where would I go? Do you doubt my loyalty to this cause? My best bet is here with the army. We have all the ammunition we need now.”

  Ammunition? They must be talking about the wooden crates in the tunnels. I remembered the wooden boxes with stenciled letters the leaders posed beside in the photo. Maybe that’s what Mary had on Kingfisher. They were posing beside a new acquisition of ammunition. Where did the crates come from? I’d bet those guns and ammo were illegal.

  My backache prompted an involuntary shift of position. The radio in my pocket clanked against the wood. I had forgotten all about it. Did the radio still work? I pulled it out and turned it in my hands. I couldn’t see a thing. I held it right in front of my eyes, but still couldn’t see it. I’d have to open the lid to let in a little light and hope no one noticed.

  As I maneuvered my sore body in the box, every spot I touched the wood caused a stab of pain. A groan almost passed my lips and I gritted my teeth. I would not give up. Wiggling in short motions, I managed to turn over onto my stomach again and pressed my back into the lid like before.

  Ever so slowly, I pushed up until a little slit not more than an inch wide let in enough light for me to see the radio lying beneath me. It looked like Jesse’s walkie-talkie. I shifted weight onto my bent legs, balancing the lid in order to free my hands. By examining the dials and buttons I found the on/off apparatus. I turned it until I heard a click, but no green light. How could I tell if it was on or off now? What if it squawked and they heard it? I’d have to be careful. I hunted for the volume control. Would turning it clockwise raise the volume or lower it?

  Why didn’t I pay attention to these kinds of details? Why didn’t I know more about technology?

  Maybe the radio didn’t work in this tunnel. Mary said phones didn’t work in some places near mountains. What if the radio had rusted from sitting in water? Maybe it wouldn’t work anywhere. I slipped the radio back in my pocket. My thigh muscles burned with the tension of holding the lid, so I let it slide down again.

  The men continued arguing.

  Colter’s voice sounded as if he must be facing my direction. “So we are agreed. Someone must go into town.”

  Bodhi stuttered. “C-council will convene at twenty-four hundred. Authorization is r-required.”

  Colter persisted. “I will be there and back before midnight.”

  Kingfisher’s voice held an edge. “Very well. But be forewarned. If you aren’t back before the meeting, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

  During the subsequent scuffling, I imagined Colter dashing off through the tunnel. Why didn’t I watch him go so I’d know the way out? In case I got the chance to run.

  An eerie silence filled the chamber after Colter left. I pressed my back into the wood until I’d lifted the lid enough to peek out. The guard had his back to me. His head was turned toward the tunnel to the left of the table from my vantage point. Maybe he’d been watching Colter shuffle off. I
took note of that, just in case.

  In the center of the chamber, Bodhi and Kingfisher stood on either side of the table facing each other, hands folded and heads bowed. Sage wafted through the air. A thin line of smoke trailed straight up from the leafy bundle burning upright in the chalice.

  By then, my knees wobbled. They might give way at any moment. I let the lid down slowly, lying flat on my stomach to rest. My joints would never be the same after holding up such a weight. Trying to settle the rapid beating of my heart, I sucked in several deep breaths. The aroma of burning sage penetrated my box. I stifled a cough and forced my tense muscles to relax. A massage would be great about now.

  My chances for rescue did not look good. Could Molly get away from the compound without being caught? If she did, where would she go? Would Jesse hunt for me? Someone must have noticed my car in the parking lot by now. Why, oh, why didn’t I tell someone my plans?

  Dear God, please send someone to rescue me.

  I stewed in these thoughts without hearing another sound from the chamber. Apparently, Bodhi and Kingfisher felt no need to speak. Maybe they were meditating. How tired I felt. Must be way past my bedtime. I forced myself to inhale a few more deep breaths of soothing sage and felt the tension ease a little.

  My eyelids slowly closed.

  I don’t know how long I slept. My body felt stiff and sore when I awakened; I might have slept in the same cramped position without moving for hours.

  A commotion startled me. Confused over my whereabouts, I struggled. When I realized where I was, I focused on the yelling, trying to understand the confrontation that echoed through the chamber. However, the uproar had reached such a fevered pitch that I could make no sense of it whatsoever.

  I pressed my aching back into the lid and lifted it to peek out the slit again.

  A mob of soldiers in fatigues swarmed around Bodhi and Kingfisher. Considerable pushing and shoving took place while the rabble competed to be heard. Fear reigned. Harsh loud, grating voices echoed off the chamber walls making the complaints indecipherable. Kingfisher and Bodhi waved their arms, shouting from the center of the turmoil. Totally out of control, Kingfisher climbed onto the table with Bodhi clambering up next to him.