Alive and Killing (A David Wolf Novel)

by Jeff Carson

  Agent Brookhart’s phone had had a couple bars of cell reception, so he’d snapped a photo of it with his phone, messaged it to their lab, and within a matter of one minute confirmed it to match the print at Special Agent Luke’s house the night before. It was Brian Richter’s fingerprint.

  It was three in the afternoon when they finally reached the Tahoe in the parking lot, and Luke looked worse than ever. Her eyelids were half closed, and her lips were dry and parted because of her slack jaw.

  The drive down the road to the highway had been hell for her, Wolf could see that, but he kept silent, and drove as fast as he could to keep her torture quick. When they reached the flat of the valley and turned onto the paved highway, Luke leaned the seat back and was asleep in two breaths.

  An hour later when the reached Glenwood Springs, Wolf nudged her awake.

  “Yeah?” Her voice was sandpaper on concrete. She cleared her throat and searched the cab at her feet.

  Wolf held up a bottle of water to her. “Looking for this?”

  She grabbed it and sucked it down greedily. After a few seconds of rubbing her head, she looked over at Wolf.

  “How long was I out?” She asked.

  “A little over an hour. I would have let you sleep a little more, but with your concussion, the suspense was killing me. I had to make sure you weren’t in a coma.”

  She nodded and took another sip of water. “So freakin’ thirsty.”

  “So how do I get to the rail yard?”

  “Screw the rail yard, it won’t tell us anything. The nearest place they have a customs office and off load anything from a rail car is in Grand Junction. I know a guy.”

  Wolf looked over at Luke. Her eyes were closed, and Wolf wondered if she really was awake.

  “Take a right on fifth,” she said.

  Wolf looked out the windshield and jammed on the brakes, and took a right on fifth.

  She cracked an eye. “Good job.”

  “Now what?”

  “Go to the truck yard at the end, and park in the visitor lot. I’m going to rest my eyes.”

  Wolf looked ahead, he could see the truck yard, and the entrance to it straight ahead.

  “It’s a half-block away,” Wolf said.

  “Mmmhmm.”

  A few seconds later they were in front of a low white building and parked. He looked over at Luke.

  She opened her eyes and leaned forward with a groan.

  Wolf shook his head. “Stay here. I’ll go inside, then we have to get you back to the hospital.”

  She smiled and opened the door.

  Wolf leaned over and got ready to stop her from toppling out onto the black top, but she shook her head slightly and seemed to come back alive. She slid off the seat, landed, and shut the door in a quick move.

  Wolf watched her stretch her arms over her head through the window, still waiting for her to crumple unconscious to the ground. After a few seconds, and an expectant look from Luke, he shook his head and then got out his own door.

  The parking lot smelled like tar and truck exhaust, and the black asphalt radiated heat up the pant legs of his jeans. Semi truck engines rumbled beyond a chain link fence, where a line of trailers were backed up to a long warehouse with gaping rollup doors.

  Luke walked across the lot and pulled open the entrance door, and then held it open for Wolf. They walked into a cool office space that had four messy desks with three women and a man sitting behind them. Free Bird, came out of an old boom box that sat on top of a file cabinet against the wall. Above it was a Hang In There cat poster. It smelled like air freshener and grease.

  A large woman with curly brown hair looked up and smiled wide. “What the hell you doin’ here darlin’?”

  Luke smiled and walked to the woman. They embraced in a long hug and then parted.

  “Mel, this is…Sheriff Wolf.”

  Mel eyed Wolf and then gave Luke a glance, and then Luke’s face reddened.

  “We’re working a case together,” Luke added.

  “Oh, okay. I thought you two were—“

  “Can I talk to Bob, please?” Luke asked, glaring at Mel.

  Mel smirked and sat down. “He’s in the back.”

  Luke walked through the office, nodding at a skinny guy with glasses who stared at her after she walked by. She opened a wood door, uncorking a cacophony of sounds, and walked through.

  Wolf followed, into a warehouse that was hot and full of the reverberating beeps of forklifts and the gurgle of diesel engines, which belted fumes straight into the tall warehouse, while industrial sized fans swiveled and attempted to blow them back out.

  Luke walked straight to a glass enclosure along the back wall. Inside sat two men, both pecking on dirty desktop computers that looked older than the building.

  “Kristen! What the hell you doing here?” One of them said, standing up from behind his desk.

  “Hey Bob. How are you?”

  The man beamed a smile and pulled up his bifocal glasses, revealing blue eyes that were bloodshot. He ran a hand over his gray Elvis-quaff of a hairdo and wiped it on his greasy blue overalls, then extended it to Luke.

  Luke shook her head and gave him a hug. The man closed his eyes and tilted his head into her hair, putting a lot of tenderness into the embrace, and then they parted.

  “Bob,” she said, “this is Sheriff Wolf, of the Rocky Points Police Department.”

  Wolf took the man’s hand. It was slick with grease and scratchy with calluses.

  “David,” Luke said, “this is a good friend of the family’s.”

  “So, how’s your mother doing?” Bob asked.

  “She’s…she’s doing okay.” Luke said, “Listen. Can you help me with this?”

  Luke set the RFID tag out onto his desk.

  Bob pulled his glasses down off his head and looked at the wafer-like piece of plastic, and then he looked up at Luke. “Help, how?”

  “Can you read it?” Luke asked.

  “This is a GAV active ID tag. It’s battery operated, so we’ll need the internal battery to be juiced in order to read it. And of course, you need a proper scanner.” He looked up at Luke and didn’t blink. “Of course, I have one.”

  “My hero,” Luke said with a straight face.

  “What’s this from?” Bob asked.

  “A shipping container,” Luke said, “we need to know where it came from. When. Who. Etcetera.”

  Bob walked past them into the warehouse. “Come,” he said.

  Wolf and Luke followed him down the long warehouse between five-story metal shelves. Forklifts whirred across aisles in front of them with flashing lights, men shouted, and the same classic rock station blared.

  “Brad!” He yelled over the noise.

  A huge guy with a hard hat and a flannel shirt looked up from a clipboard.

  Bob walked up with the RFID tag in hand and held it out to him. The big man pulled a scanner gun from his hip and scanned it, then looked down at the display on the back of the device.

  Bob pulled out a pen and tiny notebook from his breast pocket, then stepped close to the other man, and scribbled a note.

  “Thanks,” Bob walked away, and Wolf and Luke followed him all the way back to the office.

  “Apparently the battery still had juice,” Bob sat back down with a grunt into his chair, and pulled himself against the desk. He clicked the grease-laden keyboard for a few seconds, then clicked the mouse, and looked up at Luke. “You talk to him lately?” He asked, apparently waiting for the computer to react to a command.

  Luke scoffed in response, and this seemed to be an expected answer for Bob, because he nodded once and looked back at the screen.

  A few seconds later, Bob twisted the monitor toward them, sending a pencil onto the floor. “There we have it.”

  Luke bent down and looked at the green typeface on the screen. “What are we looking at here?”

  Bob pointed at the screen, “There’s the origin, there’s the contents, there’s the desti
nation.”

  “Origin, Bagram Air Base,” Luke said, reading the screen, “Afghanistan. Contents, Combat Dry Goods? Destination, Grand Junction, Colorado.”

  Luke and Wolf exchanged glances.

  Bob pointed again. “Looks like it was air freighted out of Bagram, then shipped ocean to Tacoma, Washington. Then railed to Grand Junction. Then…then, that’s it, I guess. No other information.”

  Wolf bent down and pointed at the screen. “Here. Here’s what we need.”

  He was pointing at a single line. It said, World Cargo Airlines, Flight Number 638.

  Chapter 43

  Wolf and Luke drove to the FBI field office and parked in the lot next to Wolf’s RPPD vehicle. He eyed the SUV as they got out, calculating that it had been sitting in the lot for a couple nights unattended, except for the few minutes he’d dug inside of it last night. There were still no parking tickets, and no sign of vandalism. Not that he’d expected any. As for his Toyota pickup truck over at the GSPD station, he had basically abandoned that vehicle.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

  “Nothing,” Wolf said, turning away from his SUV. “Just thinking about the truck at the GSPD station.”

  “Oh yeah, your truck. Do you want to have it towed to Rocky Points?”

  Wolf shrugged noncommittally, “I’ll figure something out.” Something that didn’t involve a couple hundred bucks for a tow, he thought.

  They walked to the front entrance, and Luke scanned an ID card. The door clicked open, and they walked along the terrazzo floor to the elevators, and pushed the button.

  Next to the silver elevator doors was a sign listing all the tenant businesses of the building. There was an insurance company, a construction company, and a law firm.

  “Kind of strange to see a field office inside here,” Wolf said.

  “Yeah, not exactly Chicago,” she said.

  They rode to the second floor, and Wolf followed Luke down the quiet hallway with the gray carpet, to the pair of unmarked wooden doors. She walked in and approached the reception desk.

  The receptionist looked up over her glasses and fixed a suspicious eye on Wolf.

  “Gwen,” Luke said passing without slowing.

  Wolf kept on her heels and tapped the counter on the way by, “Gwen,” he said.

  Luke stepped through the open doorway into a large common office area. A few agents sat behind desks on phones or pecked at keyboards. It looked more subdued that afternoon compared to the morning before.

  “How many agents are stationed here?” He asked.

  “We’ve got nine,” She looked around, only four other agents were in the room. “This is one of those field offices that will be first on the chopping blocks if funding gets cut.”

  “Then it’s back to Chicago for you?” Wolf asked.

  Luke shook her head. “Anywhere but Chicago.”

  Luke stopped at her desk and sat down, and then dug into her drawer and pulled out a bottle of aspirin and took a couple. She produced a bottle of water from the same drawer, took a sip, and then held up both to Wolf.

  Wolf raised his eyebrows and took them.

  “Take a seat,” she said. “I’ll check out World Cargo.”

  Luke fired up her computer and got onto the internet, and a few seconds later she pointed at the screen.

  “There we go,” she said, and she picked up the desk phone and dialed a number.

  Wolf sat back in the chair and glanced around the office. He saw one man glare over at them, and another one stare longingly at Luke, until he realized Wolf had caught him. Wolf was getting used to seeing these types of glances follow her wherever she went. Wolf wondered how aware she was of it all.

  The man who had glared, rather than stared, stood up and sauntered over. “Hey, Luke. What you got shakin’?”

  Luke nodded to the man without looking, and then tucked the phone against her shoulder and tapped the keyboard a few times. “Hi, this is Special Agent Kristen Luke with the FBI, I need to…”

  “I’m Special Agent Upton,” the man turned to Wolf un-phased and held out a hand.

  Wolf shook it. “Sheriff David Wolf, Rocky Points.”

  Upton raised his eyebrows and pulled the corners of his mouth down, and then appraised Wolf’s shoulder sling for a moment. Then he looked at Luke, who was now deep in a conversation on the phone, and he turned around and walked back to his desk.

  Wolf watched as Upton picked up the desk phone and looked at Luke through the corner of his eye. He mumbled something into the phone and then hung it up.

  Luke nodded at Wolf with wide eyes, and picked up a pen, “Captain, yes, okay. Clark. And can I please have his address of residence again, please? Thanks.”

  A few seconds later she ended the phone call and looked up at Wolf, “Captain Ryan Clark. He’s our guy.”

  “What’d they say?”

  She looked down at her notes, “They were flying a 747 400 that originated from Denver. The first officer on board was from Joplin, Missouri. The onboard mechanic, from Helena, Montana, and the Captain?” She looked up at Wolf. “The Captain was Ryan Clark, from Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He’s been a pilot for World Cargo for eleven years.”

  Wolf sat back and stared into nothing. “Let’s check him out.”

  Luke nodded and clicked the computer mouse a few times, then tapped the keyboard.

  A few seconds later a voice came from behind Wolf, “Special Agent Luke.”

  Luke kept her eyes on the computer screen, “Sir.”

  Wolf turned around, and saw a short man with black hair and a tan complexion glaring at Luke. He flicked a glance at Wolf but didn’t offer a hand or an introduction.

  “I need to talk to you,” the man said.

  Luke nodded, clicked a few more buttons, and then finally looked up. “Sir, we are kind of in the middle—“

  “Now,” he said, and he walked away down the hall at the end of the room.

  Luke rolled her eyes and looked at Wolf, and then she looked over at Upton, who was smirking in their direction. Luke grabbed the monitor in her hands and twisted it ninety degrees so Wolf could see it.

  “There he is,” she said quietly, and then she got up and walked away.

  Wolf leaned forward and studied the screen, ignoring Upton’s glare from across the room. He started when he saw the picture. It was the man he’d shot in the back of the head at the campfire. The image was unmistakable. Clark had closely cut light blonde hair with pale skin, and there were four moles underneath his mouth.

  Ryan Tyler Clark was his full name. He had four addresses listed for his previous residences. The first was a Carbondale, Colorado address, a few miles down the highway toward Aspen. The second was Delta, Colorado. Delta. The third was an address in Denver, and the fourth was Glenwood Springs, Colorado—the current address that Luke had just written down on her piece of paper.

  The next few lines were interesting. Apparently, he had changed his name in high school, while he was in Delta, Colorado. The next line gave explanation. His parents were deceased, both killed in an automobile accident, and he had moved to a foster home when he was twelve years old. While he was there, he’d changed his name. His original parents were named Patrick and Gale Jenson.

  Wolf stopped reading and looked up.

  Special Agent Upton had stood from his desk, and was glaring in Wolf’s direction.

  Wolf straightened and sat back.

  Upton sat back down slowly, keeping his eyes on Wolf.

  Wolf was contemplating ignoring the man, going to talk to him, or waiting for Luke, when she arrived and sat back down.

  “Sorry,” she exhaled and pulled her chair forward.

  “No problem,” Wolf said, finally peeling his eyes of Upton. Wolf pointed at the screen. “Captain Clark. Originally from Carbondale, then his parents were killed in a car crash. He went into a foster home at age twelve, in Delta, Colorado, where he changed his name to Clark. Moved to Denver for a while, for over thirteen years
, and just recently he’s moved to Glenwood Springs.”

  Luke exhaled and clicked a few buttons. Wade Jeffries’s file, complete with picture, flashed up on the screen.

  “Look here,” Luke said, “Jeffries and Clark went to the same high school.”

  Wolf nodded. “That’s the connection. That’s how the EOD team got help out of Afghanistan. The EOD team gets the gold and fakes their deaths, hole up in a container, and the pilot smuggles them out.”

  “How could the pilot do that? He just flies the plane.”

  “He would have had someone in on it. Someone at the air base. Probably a loadmaster…someone who would be able to put the container on, change the documents. I don’t know the logistics, but I’ve seen a lot of shady stuff going on at those bases, this wouldn’t be an impossible task. Difficult, but not impossible.” Wolf stared out the windows of the big room.

  “What is it?” Luke asked.

  “We’re still not accounting for one man. We’ve got your brother’s fingerprints in two places, and then there was Clark at the campfire, and Jeffries on the trail. So, who was this other guy?”

  “Maybe it was this loadmaster you’re talking about,” Luke said.

  Wolf narrowed his eyes, “So your brother is friends with the pilot and loadmaster? How? Through Jeffries?” Wolf stared for a moment, and then shook his head, “What about Clark’s last name. What was his name before he changed it again?”

  Luke looked at the file on the screen. “Jenson.”

  “Look into them,” he said.

  “Jen-son,” she said as she typed. “Okay, here. Patrick and Gale Jenson, killed twenty years ago in a car crash. They had one son, Ryan.” She ran her eyes down the screen. “I’m not seeing much. They were both thirty-nine years old. Head on collision. Gale was from Carbondale, and Patrick from Denver. Patrick worked for a grocery store.” She held up her hands.

  Wolf shook his head. “Let’s go to Clark’s place, see what we can find. We’ll need a team.”

  They both looked in Upton’s direction, then back at each other.

  “I’ll call Brookhart,” Luke said, “and I’ll see where Dan is.”