Alive and Killing (A David Wolf Novel)

by Jeff Carson

  He blocked it out and surveyed the laminated topo map with Officer Richter looming over his shoulder.

  “Looks like there.” Richter poked his finger on a spot on the map.

  Wolf looked up and to the left. There was a valley cut in between the tall peaks, and according to the map, there would be only a gradual elevation rise for over a mile into the valley. There were two more similar valleys well ahead of them, but this was where they’d seen Jeffries. And sure enough, this first offshoot valley ended at a point that was close to the four-wheel-drive trail—the only other vehicle access point for over twenty square miles.

  “That’s it,” Wolf nodded.

  “What’s it?” Luke asked shuffling up next to them.

  “That’s the valley Jeffries must have walked in from,” Wolf pointed.

  She followed his eyes and nodded, and Wolf saw her wince a little bit as she did so.

  He gave her a concerned look, this time ignoring the flash of defiance in her eyes.

  “Drink a lot of water,” he said.

  She nodded with resignation and unscrewed her canteen.

  They set off again, continuing up the main trail for another five minutes and stopped.

  “Here?” Officer Richter asked from behind Wolf.

  They were at the mouth of the narrow valley that meandered off the left side of the trail. Faint lines forked through the dry grass, forked again, and joined countless times, worn by deer, elk, bear, mountain lions, and other native game animals of the area, and then disappeared into a dense pine forest.

  They walked through the brittle grass, and buzzing insects hopped like popcorn in a pan. A grasshopper landed on Wolf’s cheek, and he swiped it away, ignoring the memory the tiny creature triggered.

  Just as it was heating up to unbearable, they stepped into the fragrant pines which offered shade every few feet. Wolf moved to the left, toward the trickle of a stream, to give him something to follow other than the meandering game trails. The line of men and women behind him followed, but was spreading thin, and he noticed that Luke had moved up a couple spots, to fourth in line. She now moved as quickly and gracefully as the first day he’d met her, perhaps getting a second wind on the flat terrain.

  After they continued up the valley for another twenty minutes, it gradually dawned on Wolf that a quiet had descended on them. Save the bubbling of water in the gully, the only sound Wolf heard were the scrape and crunch of his boots, and his easy breathing. There were no tittering chipmunks or squirrels, no birds whistling, no rustle of branches in the trees. Even the buzzing insects had stopped.

  Then he caught the first whiff of death. He stopped and turned to Officer Richter, who was still close behind him. He was standing straight with wide eyes, and he nodded to Wolf. He’d smelled it too.

  Wolf heard an officer mumble to another about it down the line, and soon there was a low grumble of voices.

  Wolf pulled his Glock and racked the slide, and heard half the men and women do the same thing behind him.

  They followed the creek around the next bend, and then something besides more trees finally came into view. It was a small, green-roofed shack made of decaying wood, no more than fifteen by twenty by ten feet. There was a boarded up window facing them, and a single pipe vent on the roof.

  Wolf stopped and held up his hand, gun pointing to the sky. He heard the shuffling footsteps behind him halt, and a few hushed whispers, and then nothing.

  Wolf squinted, studying the vent. There was no smoke. Then he studied the area. There were no vehicles, and there was no movement of any kind. He saw that there was another building. It was tough to see at first, almost invisible, because it was painted forest green, and tucked into the trees.

  And there was the smell. There was no getting around it now. Every breath was saturated with it.

  He moved toward the back of the cabin, breathing through his mouth, keeping his pistol pointed forward.

  Long grasses tickled the rear of the cabin, and on the side of it was a small stack of firewood that had been dwindled to two rows, surrounded by flakes of bark and splintered pieces of white pine. Recently used.

  At the front of the cabin were two windows with a red tic-tac-toe pattern of wood trim in each. Both were boarded with plywood from the inside, as the glass inside the small squares was either hanging in shards or gone.

  The front door was warped from years of blocking the elements. However, it blocked nothing now, because it stood wide open. Inside was dark and featureless, except for two legs protruding into the entryway. They wore standard issue tan Army combat boots, and the pants were standard issue as well. Above that was impossible to see without getting close.

  As Wolf approached, more of the dead body came into view, wearing a full ACU with desert camouflage. There was noise here. It was an angry buzzing, and it was getting louder. A cloud of flies jumped and swarmed as he stepped into the doorway, revealing the gray flesh of a dead man’s face. The skin was broken and gouged, from where the insects had dined. None of the features of the man’s face would be recognizable, even to his mother.

  “Whoa,” Luke said in his ear.

  Wolf turned. “Yeah.”

  “Anyone else in there?”

  Wolf stepped further in, opening up the view for the others behind him.

  “Nobody,” he said.

  There was a single bed against the far wall with a ripped up, brown, feather mattress that was probably as old as Wolf. On it was a twisted sub-zero sleeping bag that looked much newer. There were two more identical-looking sleeping bags wadded up in their sacks and laying underneath the bed. A small wooden table sat against one of the walls, with three rickety chairs, and a black heating stove was in the center of the cabin with the iron door wide open. Inside was a pile of gray ashes, and a few had spilled out onto the splintered, warped, floorboards.

  He stepped out quickly, and put his sleeve over his mouth, then looked toward the other structure that was over near the creek. The structure was stark opposite the cabin. It was clean, a perfect rectangle, with smooth walls, painted a fresh coat of forest green.

  It had a two hatch doors on the end of it that swung outward.

  “It’s a shipping container,” Special Agent Brookhart said, banging the side of it with his hand. The metal reverberated loud.

  “It’s a C-H-U,” Wolf said.

  “A what?” Officer Richter asked.

  “NATO troops have been using these for years. They’re housing units, converted from old shipping containers. Container Housing Units. C-H-U’s. They call them CHUs,” Wolf pronounced it shoos. “They ship these things by plane and sea to bases all over. Usually using private cargo companies.”

  Brookhart put latex gloves on and unlatched one of the doors, and then he swung it open. An instant later he stumbled back, like he was ducking from an explosion blast.

  “Jesus!” he said coughing uncontrollably.

  There were two more dead bodies inside, lying on their backs, with the undersides of their combat boots pointed out. Wolf holstered his gun and covered his mouth with his sleeve, then walked to the doorway. He unlatched the second door and swung it open, illuminating the full interior.

  The inside was hot and humid, and Wolf didn’t dare to breath one molecule of the stench inside, keeping his face tightly pressed against his sleeve.

  The two men stared at the ceiling through cloudy, unseeing eyes. They were both much more recognizable than the third man in the cabin, and Wolf could see that they were both members of the missing EOD team.

  Wolf pulled his sleeve away to talk. “Marcus Quinn, and Wade Jeffries.”

  Brookhart came up next to him, holding his breath with clamped lips, and swiped through some pictures on his phone. “Yep.”

  “And that stands to reason that’s Chad Hartley in the cabin,” Wolf said, shoving his face against his sleeve again and sucking a breath through his coat fibers.

  Wolf wanted to turn around and leave, to dive out of the doorway
of the cramped, hot, liquid-like smell, but he stepped forward instead. The dead man on the left, Marcus Quinn, had a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. It looked liked he’d been executed from the front. It was too neat, too central, to be otherwise. He was dressed in the same way as the dead man in the cabin, the combat uniform that was identical to thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East.

  Wade Jeffries, however, had that same green civilian Columbia jacket Wolf had remembered from the trail, and the Boston Red Sox hat firmly fixed to his head. The jacket was pierced and stained red in the chest, and in the arm. Wolf thought back on the night he and Jack had heard the two rifle shots.

  Wolf looked at Jeffries’s tattoo, then he looked at his face. He had looked somehow different that afternoon, he thought, and then he realized why. Jeffries had been wearing a handkerchief that day, and it had been obscuring the lower part of his face from Wolf most of the time. Wolf wasn’t used to seeing the man’s jaw line and neck so clearly.

  Wolf turned and walked out of the container. He sucked in a lungful of air walking away from both of the structures for a ways. He turned around and saw Luke coming out of the container.

  She shook her head. “Looks like Quinn was executed.”

  Wolf nodded. “And Jeffries was hunted. My hunch was right that night. He’d been hit by two rifle shots. Probably bled out underneath a hundred pounds of gold.”

  “They brought Jeffries here, and the gold. And, they had to chase you two, and get rid of the body next to the fire.” Luke whistled. “That’s one busy night.”

  Wolf nodded. That was a busy night.

  The forensics team began preparing their gear and suiting up, and the rest of the team cautiously examined the perimeter of the land for clues.

  Wolf stood with Luke, sucking on his water bottle. He offered her a sip and she took it. When she handed it back, he didn’t grab it, he was fixated on the two officers examining the exterior of the container. One of the team members was looking up at the top edge of the roof, and calling another officer over to look.

  “What is it?” She asked.

  “Good question.” Wolf walked to the two officers. “What is it?” He asked.

  The officer pointed to the container with his thumb. “They painted the container recently, probably to conceal the numbers underneath. Looks like they even did some sanding,” he pointed, “right here where the serial number usually is. You can see some dust and chips on the ground.”

  “Yeah?” Wolf said, stopping next to him.

  “So, a serial number is how they keep track of shipments, who owns what container, what’s in them, where they are. All that. But these guys screwed up, if they were trying to hide what container this was.” The officer smiled, and pointed up at the top edge of the container. It looked like he was pointing at a small bolt that was painted over.

  “I don’t see what you’re pointing at,” Wolf said.

  “That, is a radio frequency ID tag.”

  Wolf nodded and looked back at the officer. “Which…will tell us the information about this container?”

  The officer nodded. “Where it came from, who took it, what was in it, everything.”

  “How do we read it?” Wolf asked.

  The officer shrugged and rubbed his chin. “Take it down to the rail yard, or a trucking company that uses active RF ID scanners, have someone scan it, then we’ll get a lead.”

  “Bag that and give it to me,” Luke said, appearing at Wolf’s side.

  Wolf and the officer looked over at her.

  “Please,” she added curtly.

  Chapter 41

  Rachette sat with Jack and Patterson in the SUV, eating burgers and fries.

  “What about Schwarzenneger?” Jack asked from the back seat, using his best Schwarzenneger to ask the question.

  Patterson rolled her eyes. “When are you guys going to stop? Let’s just say I’ve met everybody. All celebrities. Then we can move on with our lives. Enough with the questions.”

  Rachette smiled at Jack in the rearview mirror and took a sip of his Coke.

  They continued eating in a comfortable silence, sitting in the festival grounds parking lot, listening to a local country music act on KBUD radio. The activity on the grounds had already seemed to climax. A piece of tape here, a pound of a nail there, workers now milled about, making sure everything was set up so that the music could kick off without a hitch.

  Tires crunched behind them, and Rachette saw it was a police SUV with the green and black logo of the GSPD.

  “Aha, the replacement for Richter,” Rachette said, watching the SUV pass behind them and down the parking lot.

  Patterson looked at Rachette. “Have you talked to Sheriff Wolf today?”

  Rachette shook his head as he watched the SUV’s brake lights flash. It turned into a spot and rocked to a stop at the other end of the lot.

  “Not since last night.”

  Rachette flicked a warning glare at Patterson. Patterson nodded with a knowing look. They weren’t supposed to be talking in front of Jack about what’d happened the night before. There was no sense in freaking the kid out when he was already under twenty-four-hour guard.

  “I was just wondering when he was coming back.” She added in a happy tone. Then she turned to Jack and made a fist. “The fun starts tonight!”

  Rachette wadded his wrapper and shoved it in the bag. “Yeah, t-minus six hours. Yay.” He opened the door, stepped out, and swiped the crumbs off his shirt. “I’ll be back.”

  He clunked the door shut and stepped along the matted grass toward the GSPD SUV. Both doors opened. Rachette narrowed his eyes and saw that one of the men was dressed in plain clothes, and the other was a GSPD cop in uniform. Strange.

  The cop nodded in Rachette’s direction and waved with a high hand.

  Rachette nodded back and hooked his thumbs on his belt. It was a move he did to make him look a little more authoritative. A sheriff-walk he’d seen countless times on black and white TV shows growing up in Nebraska.

  The plainclothes guy ignored the interaction, nodded to his cop companion, and walked away from them, toward the base facilities.

  The cop strolled toward Rachette and met him halfway, tipping his black baseball-style GSPD cap. “Officer Rachette?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Sergeant Adam McCall,” he said holding out a hand, “at your service.”

  Rachette shook the man’s hand. It was a firm grip, and the guy gave him a sincere look with intelligent dark green eyes. Sergeant McCall stood a couple inches taller than Rachette, and had what could only be described as a perfect beard. It was short, but dense, with brown swirls of hair that made Rachette want to try growing a beard again. He’d tried once recently, but found it was blotchy and completely unsymmetrical, like a hairy map of the Philippines pasted on your face, as Wilson had put it.

  “Thanks for coming on such late notice,” Rachette sighed. “You’re really helping us out.”

  McCall nodded. “You’re welcome. No problem. I heard about what happened, and to be truthful, I kind of felt like I was being passed up when I wasn’t picked to come here the first time, so believe me, it’s no trouble.”

  “Really?” Rachette asked with thinly veiled suspicion.

  “Yeah. I love the change of scenery,” he held out his hands and looked to the surrounding mountains, “and who doesn’t love Rocky Points?”

  Rachette laughed, and then nodded to the man walking in the distance. “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, that’s my brother. He wanted to come, too. So, he’s going to watch the music, and keep out of our hair.”

  “Oh, okay,” Rachette said, watching the man disappear inside the visitor’s center of the ski base complex. “I didn’t mean to scare him off. He’s welcome to hang with us if he wants.”

  “Him? Oh no, don’t worry. He just had to go take a leak. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of him.” He looked back at Rachette with that sincere expression again. “But I
appreciate you saying so.”

  Rachette nodded. “Well, if you could, introduce yourself to that group of officers there, eating near the food tent. They can get you up to speed. I’ll be up shortly, if you have any other questions. It’s not rocket science. Pretty much straight security for the next two nights, assuming there are no incidents, of course.”

  McCall nodded, “I’m fine with straight security. We don’t want any incidents.” He tipped his hat and headed toward the other officers.

  Rachette watched him go for a few steps, then walked back to his truck, thinking about beards, and how they can make a man look distinguished.

  Chapter 42

  Wolf, Luke, Officer Richter, a GSPD officer, and Special Agent Brookhart broke off from the group and headed back to the trucks. Luke had the RF ID tag in her hip pack, and she’d made it clear to Brookhart that she and Wolf would check into it. Brookhart seemed to have the same understanding as her brother: don’t disagree with a forceful request from Special Agent Luke.

  As they walked down the trail, Wolf was reasonably sure they’d have enough firepower with five people should they get attacked. But, to Wolf, it looked like whoever killed the EOD team was over and done with this place.

  The killer, or killers were done, and they’d left three bodies, and two mistakes. Two, because along with the RF ID tag in Luke’s possession, there was another piece of evidence that had been of interest at the cabin—a fingerprint. Surprisingly, there were none others found at the scene. Like it had been wiped, thoroughly. The heating stove, the doors, the inside of the CHU, the bed frames, the chairs in the cabin, the table—there were smudges, but no identifiable fingerprints.

  But there was one—a thumbprint on the door of the CHU. It was so perfect, so prominent in brown mud against the green paint, Wolf was reluctant to call it a mistake, and more inclined to say it was a calling card left for them to find.