“Thank you.” Not daring to say more, he quickly nodded to Collins and left the room.
Collins closed the door after Jim left as Del Rio slowly sat back down.
“Well,” Del Rio said slowly. “How about that.”
****
By the second morning after the shootout, he was feeling a little better, enough to carefully take a bath at least. His left arm was wrapped in plastic to keep water out from under the cast and he had to be careful washing around the knife wound in his right shoulder, but he got it done. Collins had to help change the bandage on his back. Between the knife wound and the fall off the roof, both courtesy of Shelly, that shoulder was a mass of blue, purple, red and black bruising he never wanted to see or feel again. How Del Rio could even move the arm amazed him. At least the swelling above the eye was coming down, and the eye itself was mostly open, but he had a hell of a shiner going.
He was still standing tall, like the towering red rocks of the area, but this particular rock was frightfully battered and bruised.
Del Rio slowly got dressed in one of the new suits, grateful that short sleeve shirts had been included making it easier to slip his encased left forearm through on one side and not have to move his injured right shoulder too much to get that arm in the sleeve. He accompanied Collins up to Window Rock for what Yazzie had said was to be a small ceremony thanking the FBI for their aid. Apparently Del Rio hadn’t been expected to attend, judging by the surprised looks on Yazzie and his staff’s faces, but the crowd saw him. Led by Jim, they rose as one and burst out in applause.
Yazzie spoke in glowing terms of the FBI’s work in the case, thanking Collins and his team, and especially noted Del Rio’s efforts in saving Yazzie’s life. Collins took to the podium next and spoke briefly in mostly political-speak platitudes. Yazzie then presented a plaque, naming Del Rio an honorary member of the Navajo Nation, which he rose out of his chair to accept. One member of the press in attendance rose at that point to ask Del Rio a question, even though Collins had clearly stated earlier that Del Rio would not be taking any.
It was Cardosa. Ignoring the outraged looks, even those from the others in the media gaggle, Cardosa opened his mouth to speak, but he locked eyes with the one man in the room who could strike him dumb with just a look. Del Rio silently stood there and looked Cardosa into submission. After the trouble-maker had sat down without uttering a sound, Del Rio softly thanked Yazzie and the Navajo people; specifically pointing out the contributions and the sacrifice of one Navajo Nation Police Officer Lucy Chee, drawing another round of applause.
Jim then stepped forward and announced that a scholarship in Chee’s name had been started by the Nation to help send young Navajo girls to college to another round of applause that wrapped up the event.
The next morning, they buried Lucy Chee next to her parents. A traditional Navajo burial would have only been attended by the two men who had dug her grave and the two who had carried her to it, but newer ways were coming in, and this was not an ordinary burial. Every member of the Council was in attendance. Del Rio even spotted Chairman Sinquah in the crowd. Collins was there, both as an official representative of the Bureau and as Del Rio’s friend.
Lucy’s grandmother, the last of the clan, sat silently watching the ceremony. Del Rio had tried to return Lucy’s necklace to her grandmother, thinking the woman would want it as a reminder. Perhaps it had been a gift, or was a family heirloom. He wanted to see it back where it belonged, but as he drew it out of his pocket and held it out to her, the old woman closed his hand around it and gently pushed his hand to his chest. She then laid her hand just as gently on his cheek and walked away. Del Rio could honestly say he wasn’t disappointed to be able to keep it.
****
Later that afternoon, at the mortuary in Gallup, Shelly’s body was cremated and the ashes placed in a plain metal urn. Tso picked up the urn and, under orders from Yazzie, drove to the nearest trash bin to empty it. Del Rio hadn’t minded that either.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Collins packed his go-bag, which included some jewelry for Sharon that he’d picked up at Richard’s at breakfast with Del Rio that morning. While Collins paid the bill, Del Rio had wandered outside and was engaged in conversation with one of the vendors. After a few minutes, he joined his boss at the car, a slight smile on his face. He said nothing as they drove out to the airport.
Collins pulled out his bag and handed the keys to Del Rio.
“She’s paid up for the week,” Collins said. “I want you to take all the time you need and come back to work when you’re ready. Try not to threaten to send anyone else to Cuba while you’re here.”
Collins had delivered that last line with a smile, and Del Rio accepted the joke as intended.
“Will do, boss,” he said. “Safe trip back. I’ll call you when I get home.”
He hung around the airport long enough to watch Collins board a government G4 that had stopped over to pick him up on the way to D.C. from Los Angeles, which quickly flew off to the east.
Getting back into the car, Del Rio spent the next two days driving around the area, taking in some of the tourist sites: the Four Corners, an ice cave an hour east of Gallup, and the Grand Canyon. He spent the majority of his time driving around the reservations, taking in the scenery and the people who lived on them.
He was surprised to find four men waiting for his return in the hotel lobby; even more so by who they were. Norman Cashman was a United States Senator from New Mexico who had recently been named as the running mate for William Arthur’s run for the Presidency. The national election was just a few weeks away. All four were running for their current seats in addition to Cashman’s run to be one heartbeat away from ownership of the Oval Office.
The other three men were also Senators: James Trujillo was the junior Senator from New Mexico; the other two were Arizona Senators, Jonah Gibson and Peter Davies. They all rose as one as Del Rio walked into the lobby after a long drive.
“Agent Del Rio,” Cashman began after the introductions had been made, “we all wanted to take a break from our respective campaigns to come and personally thank you for what you’ve done here.”
“I appreciate all of you coming here,” Del Rio replied, still somewhat taken aback by their visit, “but I think you all could have waited until I got back to D.C. From what I’ve heard, you are all pretty safe bets for another term.”
“The one thing any politician never does,” Cashman said as the other men chuckled, “is to bet money on the outcome of any election. I think I speak for my good friends here when I say it is our great honor to come to you, and not the other way around. If there is anything any of us can do for you at any time, you know where to find us.”
Fortunately for Del Rio, who’d had his fill of politicians no matter how well meaning, the four men’s campaign schedules didn’t allow for a lengthy stay. By the third day after Collins’ departure, he was ready to leave and made the arrangements to head home early the next morning.
****
He was already at the airport, the rental car returned, before the sun rose, waiting for his plane to land. It was the same one that had brought him here several days ago; the pilot flying in from Flagstaff for the pickup.
To Del Rio’s surprise, Sinquah, the last person he’d expected to see this early in the morning, was waiting for him outside the terminal.
“Trying to sneak off without saying goodbye?” the Hopi Chairman asked with a wink.
“I’m not one for big ceremonies,” Del Rio replied. “I’ve had my fill this week.”
“You’re a hero,” Sinquah said with a shrug. “People like to make a big thing about heroes. It comes with the territory I suppose. You should be celebrated. You stopped a serial killer and saved an important agreement between two tribes.”
“You’re still going ahead with the land deal? I figured that would be dead in the water after all that had happened.”
“Yazzie is selling it to his people as impor
tant financially to both tribes; a fitting tribute to those who died because of it. Actually, I think there is a little bit of shame attached to anyone who agreed with Shelly on any issue at this point.”
“I suppose there would be at that,” Del Rio agreed.
“It is a good deal for both sides,” Sinquah said. “The Diné will benefit greatly, financially speaking, as will the Hopi, and we get back a small piece of land that was ours to begin with. There might be a complainer here and there, but we can smooth things out on both sides enough that it won’t matter.”
“Good,” Del Rio said. “At least something positive will come out of all of this.”
“Are you going native on us, Jack?” the old man asked suddenly, reaching out to lightly grab the silver chain around Del Rio’s neck. It was the original chain Sinquah had given him down in Zuni. In addition to the Katsina eagle he’d given Del Rio, there were now two more items attached to it.
Del Rio had gotten one of the vendors at Richard’s to drill a very small hole in the white buffalo he’d bought, careful not to damage it or ruin the piece’s beauty, and ran the chain through it. In between the buffalo and the eagle he’d placed the turquoise and coral piece from Chee’s necklace.
“Zuni, Hopi and Navajo together,” Sinquah said approvingly. “I like that. You do us all a great honor. Especially her. She was a remarkable young woman, but I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”
The old man’s eyes twinkled with merriment as Del Rio shot him a look, wondering how he’d figured out how close he’d gotten to Chee at the end. Sinquah gently let the chain fall back against Del Rio’s skin as the plane that would take him home glided in for a landing and started to roll up to where they waited.
“You have a place here among the Navajo, the Hopi, and even the Zuni,” Sinquah said. “If you ever need a quiet place, a shelter from the storm, it will be here for you. We all owe you that much at least.”
“What storm?” Del Rio asked, unsure of Sinquah’s meaning.
“The great storm that every hero must face, sometimes more than once,” Sinquah said. “It is the way of life to test those among us that we mere mortals call hero; to see if they are truly worthy of the name.”
“I’d say I just went through my test.”
“No, Jack, you have not,” Sinquah said in dead earnest. “You will think me a superstitious old fool of course, but I do see that your great storm lies directly ahead on your path. I fear what it will leave behind even if you should survive it. You will know it for what it is only when it is too late to fully avoid it. When it does come, remember there is shelter here for you.”
“I will,” Del Rio replied both confused and touched by the old man’s concern for him.
Sinquah then said something in what Del Rio assumed to be the Hopi language and asked for a translation.
“We don’t exactly have a word in Hopi for goodbye,” Sinquah explained. “The closest translation would be, ‘when next I see you’.”
“Until then,” Del Rio replied, shaking the man’s hand firmly but gently with his good arm before gathering up his bags and heading to the plane. Before he could take more than two steps one of the pilots bounded down the stairs and sprinted over to relive Del Rio of his luggage.
He gratefully handed over the three bags, he had gained an additional bag of belongings during his stay, to the pilot and followed him up the steps. Before entering the cabin, he turned back and looked one final time to the east. The sun had just cleared Pyramid Rock and was casting its warming rays over the city.
For one brief moment, as he looked toward that shining orb, Del Rio thought he could see Chee’s smiling face.
BETRAYALS
By Richard Paolinelli
Other Tuscany Bay Books by Richard Paolinelli
NOVELS
Maelstrom
Escaping Infinity
JACK DEL RIO SERIES
Reservations
Betrayals
Endgames
NOVELLAS
The Invited
Legacy of Death
NON-FICTION
From The Fields
Perfection’s Arbiter
ANTHOLOGY APPEARANCES
Beyond Watson (Belanger Books)
Holmes Away From Home (Belanger Books)
Copyright 2016
This novel is a work of fiction, and any similarity
to real persons or situations is purely coincidental.
First Edition, 2016, W&B Books
Second Edition, 2017, Tuscany Bay Books
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.
Find out more about Richard Paolinelli at his website:
www.scifiscribe.com
To David, Gibson and Hiro.
May the next generations’ journey
be as wondrous as mine has been.
PROLOGUE
Port of Kronstadt, near Leningrad, U.S.S.R., September 21, 1945
“They all look far too young for this,” the woman remarked, not much older than the subjects of her comments, a few strands of blond hair poking out from under the plain red scarf that she’d put on against the chilly air that infiltrated the car despite the heater’s best, but ultimately futile, efforts.
“You said the very same thing about the last group, moya solnishka,” Stanislov Karpov replied, smiling at his wife, Tatiana, to take away any sting of rebuke from his reply. His endearment “my little sun” drew its customary smile in response even as she adjusted the blanket to keep their two-year-old son, Vladimir, warm in the back seat of the car. Others might describe Tatiana Karpov as being a rather plain-looking young woman, but in Stanislov’s eyes she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his forty years, and he never tired of telling her that. She, of course, never tired of hearing it.
Outside the car, a handful of meters away, gathered together on the dock near a plain-looking, all-white motor yacht, were two dozen men and women —none of them above the age of twenty —huddled together next to a very small amount of ordinary-looking luggage considering their number.
The first sunrise of the fall had brought with it a light dusting of snow from slate gray skies. Now, with the sun finally burning its way through the thick clouds, it had quickly melted away as the temperature had climbed to a balmy 10°C.
Fifty degrees Fahrenheit, Karpov quickly corrected himself mentally as he reached over to gently tousle his young son’s hair, grateful the child had inherited his mother’s looks and his father’s dark hair. All words and thoughts must always be in English no matter if this were the last day he would ever need to use the language, he thought with some sadness.
“They will be just fine, my dear,” the elder Karpov said as he fussed with his son’s jacket and blanket, making sure the toddler would be best protected from the full effect of the cold air outside when he opened the driver’s side door and stepped out of the vehicle. “The first group easily made it to England and these children of ours, here today, will just as easily reach their destination as well.”
“You make it sound like nothing more than a stroll in the park,” Tatiana replied, deftly undoing all of her husband’s work on their son’s wardrobe and quickly tucked him even more firmly inside both jacket and blanket as only a mother could, then the boy immediately went to work on undoing all of his parents’ ministrations as only a two-year-old could.
“We’ve spent many years preparing the way for them,” Karpov assured, taking pleasure in watching his son puzzle his way out of his prison of fabric. “They will get there without incident. It never ceases to amaze me that Comrade Stalin saw all of this coming and approved our little project nearly two decades ago.
“And now we see the fruits of our long labor.” He smiled as his young son freed himself for all of a few seconds before his mother deftly wrapped him back up again before he could begin to fully enjoy his newfound freedom. “You will not remember seeing this day, my son, but if they succeed in their missions you may live to see an ev
en greater day come to pass. Come now, it is time for us to send them off on their great adventure.”
Karpov opened the door and quickly made his way toward the group of waiting young people while Tatiana slipped out behind him and held her son close against her to ward off the chilly breeze. When the group of young people spotted Karpov approaching, they quickly assembled themselves into a tight line, alternating male-female, in front of the yacht. He felt the same fatherly pride in seeing them as he did when he watched Vladimir playing, eating, and sleeping at night.
“Good morning my children,” Karpov exclaimed, his smile wide and warm. They were not his own flesh and blood offspring of course, but he loved them all just as much as if they were. “And how are we all on this balmy morning in paradise?”
Smiles accompanied the replies of, “We are fine, Papa,” their nickname for him, and in English without a trace of the Russian accent that highlighted the slight accent Karpov could never fully exorcise from his own English. Their biological father he might not be, but he was so very much more their papa despite that fact.
Through his project, he’d raised all twenty-four of them almost from their day of birth. Raised them to speak and think like Americans. They’d learned English and English only, not even a single word of Russian ever, and he suspected that they were likely more immersed in the American lifestyle and culture than many actual American children were.
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