The Warrior's Way (Apache Protectors: Tribal Thunder)

by Jenna Kernan

  “You’re on leave.”

  “They’ll want me back for this. I’ve got to go. Now.”

  *

  JACK GOT HER to the police station in Piñon Forks. There Jack saw the news on the television as she tried unsuccessfully to reach her supervisor.

  Someone had hit three locations in Phoenix at once. Apparently dressed as employees of the natural gas company down there, they had blocked and dug up the streets right over the major pipelines. They used backhoes and took out the major excess flow valves first, then waited for the gas to accumulate before igniting the free-flowing stream.

  You didn’t need to be an explosives expert to know what happened next. They had it on every downtown security camera. The workers, the breaks and the resulting fireball. Three sites. Two downtown, both banks, both among the largest buildings in the city. The third site was south, on the edge of town, an industrial complex used by a mining company as a distribution center. It was unique, Jack thought, because of its size, 250,000 square feet, and because it was owned by a company that violated the earth. Mining again. Just like the Lilac copper mine.

  It was BEAR. He was sure of it.

  That meant Kenshaw was right. The ecoextremist group wasn’t broken. The cells were all working independently now and each had their own target. He couldn’t keep himself from glancing out the window at the gently flowing river. The river where he learned to swim, canoe and fish had become an enemy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  This could not be happening. Sophia hunched over the phone and spoke to her captain, Larry Burton.

  “But I should be there,” she said, working hard to keep her voice level.

  Burton’s tone was rushed, as if he was on the move as he spoke. The man did not have time to chat.

  “You’re still on administrative leave.”

  “But—”

  He cut her off. “I asked. It’s a no. You are not to report.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “You need to be requested back.” He spoke slowly now, as if to be certain she heard and complied. “That’s an order. Now I have to go.”

  She gave up on the voice-modulation thing. “I’m an explosives expert!”

  “And you are not the only one in the Bureau, Rivas. We can manage without you. Okay?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Sit up here twiddling my thumbs?”

  “I’m sorry, Soph. Gotta go. I’ll call when I can.”

  “Wait. Is it BEAR?”

  There was silence. “I can’t talk about an active investigation.”

  “There’s a shaman here. He told me yesterday that the pipeline was a target.”

  “And why didn’t you call that in?”

  She wanted to say because she was on administrative leave.

  “I did call it in. I left a message with your administrative assistant and I phoned Luke Forrest and told him. He said the Phoenix field office was aware that the pipeline system was a potential target.”

  “Next time speak to me directly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She thought she’d gotten through to the right people. Had she made another mistake?

  She saw her position eroding like a tree undercut by floodwaters.

  “Maybe I should just drive down there.”

  “No. I gave you an order. And, Rivas? Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Okay?”

  She closed her mouth but then opened it again. Sophia regretted her words even as she spoke but she could not remain mute.

  “The tribal council up here on Turquoise Canyon believes that BEAR will strike the reservoir system. Anytime now, since the first cell has hit their target.”

  “We don’t know it’s BEAR.”

  She did. She felt certain and until she had credible evidence to the contrary, she was sticking with that theory.

  “Can you at least send up the National Guard?”

  “Sophia, they’re deploying the National Guard and every available law enforcement agency to Phoenix.”

  “Highway patrol?” she asked, her voice a croak.

  She was met with silence.

  “Larry?”

  “Yes. Highway patrol, too. Listen. I got to go. Stay out of trouble up there.” The line went dead.

  Sophia stood there with the phone pressed to her ear, the line buzzing with her mind. They blew up the pipeline, just as Kenshaw Little Falcon had told her they would. And they would hit the reservoir, too. And if the larger Alchesay Dam was as poorly secured as Skeleton Cliff, it would make an easy target. Easier now if they also pulled the highway patrol.

  She lowered the phone to its cradle and met Jack’s gaze. He was waiting for her. Waiting for the awesome weight of responsibility to settle over her. She could choose to do nothing, wait and see. If she did that, she might still be reinstated, but this place and his people might be washed away. Or she could act and lose everything.

  “They pulled the highway patrol,” she said.

  Jack’s forehead furrowed as his brows dipped low over troubled eyes.

  “We should leave,” she said.

  “There are too many of us. Our senior center is in Piñon Forks. Our day care. Our schools. Our medical clinic. Our new woman’s health center. Even if we got every single person clear, for how long? Days? Weeks? It’s not possible.”

  She wanted to get him to leave with her but could not find the nerve to ask him.

  “We can’t leave,” said Jack. “You can. You should.”

  He was trying to save her. Well, she was not leaving Jack Bear Den here to die. Even if he had tried to seduce her into staying. And it had worked, darn it.

  “Take me to see Alchesay Dam.”

  The frown vanished. On the way she mentioned her reservations. Not the obvious ones, like losing her job, being arrested and prosecuted, and likely spending a very, very long time in a federal prison. No, she stuck to the practical.

  *

  THEY REACHED THE larger dam and power station by midmorning. She was relieved to see that Alchesay Dam was better guarded than Skeleton Cliff. They had the National Guard on site in plain view with the highway patrol. The barricades were larger than at Skeleton Cliff Dam and there was more than one. A truck or car could not gain access via the road that crossed the dam from either side.

  The National Guard sat in a Humvee at the barricade before the power-station gate. In addition, there was a floating barricade on Goodwin Lake supported by a patrol boat ready to intercept any leisure boater who ventured too near.

  Clearly they believed this was BEAR’s target. What if the beefed-up security here actually served to make Jack’s reservation more vulnerable?

  If she was in charge of an attack, she would certainly move her aim to Skeleton Cliff and possibly Red Rock Dam below his reservation. Breaching them both might create enough hydraulic force from the released water in Canyon Lake and Two Mountain Lake to destroy the smaller Mesa Salado Dam. No question that the water would overflow. And with three power stations knocked out, the city would go dark. All those humming air conditioners, which made life in the desert possible, would go silent.

  “We’re on our own, you know,” she said after scouting Red Rock Dam and finding it vulnerable. “No one is coming.”

  Sophia glanced at Jack. Last night she had thought that she had found a man who was different. He was strong and self-contained. He had purpose and vision. And it had all been an illusion. Had he used her to get this help, or had he been as moved as she was?

  They needed to talk. Her about last night. Him about the personal bomb that just went off when she opened those test results. But that wouldn’t happen because she needed to circle the wagons.

  Regret scalded her. She wished, hoped... It didn’t matter.

  She’d come and consulted. Now it was time to go.

  Nothing was going to stop her from getting through this inquiry and getting reinstated. Nothing. Not him. Not his tribe. Not the senior center that sat beside the river.

&nb
sp; “How do I get the explosives to set up the blast?”

  *

  JACK HAD THE miners of Turquoise Canyon on the ridge site within the hour. They knew how to blast away a boulder and how to drill a hole for a charge. They did not know how to take down the tonnage needed to completely block the river and be strong enough to hold when the flood waters crashed against it. If the explosion went wrong, all they would do was add rolling jagged torpedoes of rock to the destructive force of the water.

  Did Sophia have the expertise they needed?

  Wallace Tinnin arrived as the men were drilling the holes in the rock.

  He regarded the operation with hands on hips and the kind of grim acceptance he often used when facing an unpleasant task.

  “Sorry I’m late. We have another report of a runaway.”

  Jack swiveled his head toward his chief. “Another since Kacy Doka?”

  “Yeah. That’s four.”

  “Another girl?” asked Jack.

  Wallace nodded. “I’ve got a bad feeling. These girls aren’t tied up with gangs. All I can find, they’re sweet and never been in trouble.”

  “Their families?”

  He looked toward the sky. “Awful. Single parent. Drug users. Drug suppliers. Multiple run-ins with us and outside law enforcement. I swear, some of them hardly noticed their kid was missing.”

  That made Jack’s heart ache.

  “I want you on this.”

  Jack rested his hands on his hips, considering his argument. He was not going to leave his escort duty, especially after the attack.

  “But I’ll send Redhorse out to do preliminaries for now. We need you here.”

  Jack nodded, his hands sliding to his sides.

  “I spoke to Kenshaw,” said Wallace. “Asked him if he knew his cell had been activated.”

  Jack lifted his brow. Kenshaw had told them that his cell of BEAR had been assigned to the pipelines.

  “He said he wasn’t contacted,” said Wallace.

  Jack scowled. “You believe him?”

  Wallace inclined his head.

  “If what he said is true, then they know he’s working with the Feds,” said Jack.

  “Looks that way.”

  “You think they’ll try to get to him?”

  “Maybe.”

  Jack added Kenshaw to the list of people needing protection.

  Tinnin looked out at the men crawling over the rock.

  “We got enough material?”

  “We have the blasting caps, batteries and DET cord. She needed two burner phones. Those just arrived.”

  “She’s not using shock tubing?” asked Wallace.

  His chief’s family had a claim, and his chief knew how to handle explosives.

  “She said anyone could set that off. She wants full control. So she’s using an electric initiator. I’m not sure about the main charge. She seems worried,” said Jack. “She also wants everything we have left moved here to the station.”

  “Why?”

  “To secure it, but also to have it close at hand, near the river.”

  The station was in tribal headquarters and sat across the street from the river. If they got much closer, they’d need the tribes’ twenty-four-foot police boat.

  “She’s about to destroy her career. You know that, right? That hill goes boom and she’s just another unemployed Indian, maybe one going to prison.”

  “We can protect her.”

  Tinnin didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. She’s on our land. Unfortunately the FBI thinks it’s federal land.”

  He knew that. Knew the risk she was taking and it made him sick. In spite of whatever he did, there were some things he couldn’t keep from happening. His mind flashed back to Yeager Hatch, the comrade that none of them could reach in time.

  Jack watched Sophia moving along the ridge. She progressed with an intensity of focus and alertness that he had not seen before. But he had not seen Sophia on the job until today.

  The sun was descending toward the canyon ridge when she finally climbed up the rock to speak to them. The woman was as agile as a monkey.

  “Almost done,” she said. Her breathing was still heavy from her exertions. Sweat beaded on her brow and she worked to fill her lungs with air.

  “The explosives are set in two separate sequences. The first will take down that lower section and the second will remove this ridge. They’re going to feel it down in Piñon Forks. The debris will go a quarter mile, but shock waves will easily travel a mile. Might take out some windows.”

  “You think it’s coming, don’t you?” asked Jack.

  “I wouldn’t be up here if I didn’t. I’d like to ask that your department help guard Skeleton Cliff Dam. Maybe we can stop them.”

  “Better to be proactive,” said Wallace. “We’ve got Tribal Thunder watching the dam and we have snipers and drone surveillance. But we don’t know when or how.”

  “Drones?” she asked.

  “My son owns one,” he said. “Short range. Good images, though, in real time.”

  She nodded.

  “Any chance this will go off accidentally?” asked Jack.

  “None. I trigger the blasts with this.” She lifted her phone.

  Jack was about to remind her that any of the miners would know how to bypass any initiator she devised when Tinnin interrupted.

  “Couldn’t anyone do it from over there?” Tinnin pointed toward the ridge.

  “Anyone that wants to die. The shock wave from the blasts will kill anyone up here.” She pointed over the cliff. “Or down there. You’d have to be that close to manually fire the blasting caps.”

  “That’s your security system?” asked Jack. “You have to die to set them off?”

  “No. If there was time, you could run additional nonel tubing. Get far enough away or behind adequate cover.”

  “I think we should run that cording now,” said Jack.

  “There is no adequate cover,” she said.

  “We have nonel tubing in thousand-yard rolls.”

  “Which we are securing at the station. Right?” she asked.

  Tinnin nodded. “Yes, ma’am.

  “You plan to set it off remotely, then?” Wallace asked Sophia.

  “Yup. I’m using two burner phones and nine-volt batteries to boost the charge. Only I know the numbers for each phone and my phone is password protected.”

  Jack and Tinnin exchanged a look and Jack knew his chief was not happy that they could not initiate the blast without Sophia.

  “If the dam goes, will we have time to trigger both blasts?” she asked.

  “We’ve got eyes on the dam 24/7 and the power company has a siren they sound at noon and for emergencies.”

  Sophia surveyed her work and nodded. “I’m done here.”

  “All that’s left is to pray we never have to place those two phone calls,” said Tinnin.

  Waiting, Jack realized, was going to be hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sophia and Jack reached Piñon Forks after dark, hot, dusty and thirsty. The cool interior of the tribe’s casino bar welcomed as they arrived with ten minutes to spare before the happy hour food specials ended. He picked a booth and asked for menus. She studied hers and he lowered his to the table. He had to be starving, she thought, because they had missed lunch.

  “You already know what you want?” she asked.

  “Got it memorized.”

  When the waitress returned, he asked for water and then ordered chicken wings, southwest egg rolls and cheesy spinach dip. He asked Sophia to choose a drink and she picked soda, thinking she could use the sugar rush after the exertions of the day.

  The waitress made an efficient turn and retreated toward the bar to get her soda.

  “You don’t drink?” he asked.

  “Mom has a problem with alcohol.” Among other things. “I figure I won’t risk it.”

  Jack nodded. Alcoholism ran in families and she’d wager he’d seen his share of drunken brawls, domes
tic violence and the removal of a child or two from reckless endangerment or neglect. She rubbed her forehead, trying not to go back there in her mind. Still, she thought she heard her mother screaming at the cops and her husband and her kids.

  Sophia thought she was doing so well. She didn’t often think of the home she’d left. Home. She snorted. If you could call it that.

  Her siblings had been scattered by the foster care system or their own sadness. She didn’t know her older siblings, Brenda or Amanda. They were taken before she had memory of them. She recalled Marvin and Velma and when Wilbur was born, though she’d not yet been two. How many did her mother have now? She doubted Vera even knew. None of her siblings had tried to find her and she had not tried to find them.

  The drinks arrived. She finished hers before Jack had even taken a sip.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She said it automatically, as people do when someone asks how they’re doing. Fine. And you?

  Not fine. Not okay.

  She scoured the menu, already knowing what she was having but needing the privacy the shiny laminated booklet allowed.

  Oh, no, her eyes were not tearing up. She refused to allow it. Sophia dragged in a breath and blew it away.

  Jack placed one finger on the menu and pushed it to the table, pinning it beneath his index finger. She glanced up to find concern in his eyes.

  “Sophia?”

  “Was Ray right, Jack?” she asked. “Did you sleep with me to get my help?”

  The waitress returned with the appetizers and asked if they’d made up their minds. She ordered a burger and sweet potato fries. Jack told her he’d have the same, mostly, Sophia believed, to be rid of her.

  Jack pushed the egg rolls in her direction.

  She glanced from the peace offering back to him, waiting.

  “No. He wasn’t right. Sophia, you don’t know me that well, but I’m not like that. I don’t use women.”

  “I think you just did.”

  “You said you’d help us.”

  He was right. Much as she’d love to put this on him, she’d set the charges and laid the fuse.

  “So I did. Amazing what bad choices I’ve made since coming here.”

  He looked away. Seemed he didn’t like being labeled a bad choice. He faced her again just a moment later. The man was either a sucker for punishment or as strong as he looked.