by Jeff Carson
That shut her up. He stepped back behind the boy and looked over at Tyler. Even in the darkness, he could read the concern on his little brother’s face.
“What?” Tyler mouthed.
McCall looked his brother in the eye for a moment, and then to the black forest, searching his thoughts for answers.
Everything was unraveling too fast. Options grew to plans in his mind, then popped like bubbles.
They were going to survive this. That was a certainty in his mind. He had to think about the positives, and think about what he wanted, not about what he didn’t want.
Officer Patterson following them had been an unforeseen complication, but this was good. The plan was originally for the boy to disappear, with Tyler, alone. McCall was going to stay, wait a few minutes, and then go berserk with the rest of law enforcement, steering them in a false direction while Tyler took care of the dirty work. But Patterson had followed, so now McCall was out here in the woods. There was no way his brother would have been able to handle the two alone, not with his bad arm.
This was good, he told himself again. Because now Wolf had somehow found out about them, and if Patterson wouldn’t have followed, McCall would have stayed, and would be sitting in handcuffs right now, or dead after a bloody shootout. Now McCall and Tyler had escaped the lion’s den, and had two hostages for insurance.
Shit. Panic flooded him, and for a second it seemed there was no way he could hold it back. He was too smart to kid himself anymore. Hostage situations never worked out well for the hostage takers. Never. Not in America. Not in this century.
They had to run intelligently. Wolf had already warned them there was no way to escape in a vehicle. In the last text message he’d even used the road name Tyler had driven up here on. McCall thought Wolf was bluffing because the bulk of their entire police force was a mile behind them at the festival grounds.
McCall liked their chances for escape, but they would need to be quick. They’d packed a few pounds of gold in the SUV, just as an insurance policy in case something did go wrong. And it had gone very wrong. The stash would be enough dead weight to carry around without hauling these two around on top of it. He felt nothing for the boy. The kid had had a loving father, and that was more than he’d ever had. But he did feel a twinge of regret about having to kill the cute little Officer Patterson, but he could put the blame squarely on that kid renting mountain bikes.
“All right. Just a second, stop,” McCall said.
They all stopped, and the girl turned around with a defiant look.
“You can’t do this. Just leave us alone,” she said in an icy tone.
“Shoot them,” he said. He’d have killed them himself, but his brother had the sound suppressor.
He turned to look into the woods, and waited for the deed to be over.
Three thumps, in quick succession, came from the catwalk behind them, as if someone was running up fast. McCall twisted, and shined his flashlight just in time to see a rock bounce to a stop.
“Wha—“
A horrific animal noise came from in front of them, and McCall spun around with his flashlight. It was a man coming straight at them, screaming psychotically with a pistol pointed forward.
McCall raised his pistol and shot as quick as he could. In between the deafening flashes of brilliant light coming from the barrel of his Glock, he could hear the spits of Tyler’s gun next to him.
Then something connected with his arm, pushing his aim to the right, just as he fired another shot. He watched in agony as his pistol erupted with fire, and his brother’s head jerked away, hit in the temple by his own round.
McCall reeled in horror as his brother’s body crumpled onto the ground. He pointed his flashlight beam for an instant, studying his brother’s lifeless body, and then he turned with a surge of fury. Before he could raise his gun again, something hit the side of his head. It was so loud in his skull and so jarring that his whole body went limp for a second. The next thing he knew he tasted dirt, and something hot stung his temple. Then a spear of pain ripped through his head, and then there was nothing.
Chapter 55
Wolf, Luke, and Patterson followed the doctor into the bright room. The shades were pulled up, letting the morning light reflecting off the mountains through the windows. Machines beeped and pumped, and tubes snaked off them to the bed and underneath blue sheets where Rachette was laid out.
Rachette cracked an eye when they reached his bed. “Hey,” he said with a dry voice. He looked at Wolf with basset hound eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Wolf shook his head. “For what?”
“It was my fault all this happened,” he said, clamping his eyes shut, like the thought hurt him more than the three gunshot wounds to his body.
“You saved my son’s life, Tom,” Wolf used such a loud and clear tone that Rachette opened his eyes.
Wolf nodded and glared at Rachette. His eyes filled with tears, and he made no attempt to hide it. Instead, he reached up and patted Rachette on the head.
“You didn’t get shot here, did you?” Wolf asked.
Rachette broke into a smile and winced in agony the instant he started laughing.
“Careful, son,” Doctor Sobel said, and he gently pulled Officer Patterson out of the way and stepped close to Rachette. After checking the various monitors, he turned to Wolf and looked over his glasses. “Let’s try to keep the jokes to a minimum. The staples in his abdomen are rated for grins and giggles only.”
“I’m all right, doc,” Rachette said. “I’m all right.”
Doctor Sobel stepped away and picked up his clipboard off the food tray.
“You gonna tell me what happened up there?” Rachette looked at Patterson.
Patterson gave a sideways glance to Wolf, then looked at Rachette. “You redeemed your idiocy just in time. They were just about to shoot us. If you hadn’t come out of the trees and thrown yourself into three bullets, Jack and I would be dead.”
Rachette closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I just remember yelling and then dying.”
Patterson and Wolf exchanged looks.
“You lost a lot of blood,” Wolf said. “You got a personal chopper ride here.”
Rachette nodded. “And what happened to them? McCall and whoever that asshole was with him?”
“It was his brother. And they’re dead,” Wolf said, glancing at Patterson.
Rachette watched Wolf’s eyes, and then shifted his gaze to Patterson. “Good job, Patterson,” said Rachette. A sliver of devotion had found its way into his voice.
Patterson looked unnerved. “Uh, sure. Hey, that’s what we do, right?”
The room was at once silent as each officer processed Patterson’s words. So true.
Luke gently gripped Wolf’s arm and held up her phone, which was lit up with the name Brookhart. Wolf nodded.
“Good job,” Luke said to Rachette, and then she turned and walked out.
Rachette and Patterson watched Luke leave the room. “Who was that?” Rachette asked with a confused look.
“Special Agent Luke, FBI, Glenwood Springs. She’s helping with the case.”
“Ah, nice,” Rachette looked back at Wolf, and then danced his eyebrows toward the closing door.
“And the idiocy returns,” Patterson said, “and so soon.”
“This idiot saved you from certain death, missy,” Rachette sniffed and looked at Wolf, “don't you forget it.”
“My hero,” she said rolling her eyes.
“Where’s Jack?” Rachette asked Wolf.
“Out in the lobby with Sarah.”
“And he’s okay?”
Wolf nodded, and laid his hand on Rachette’s shoulder. “Good job. I’m gonna go now. You rest, and I’ll be back.”
Rachette’s eyes glistened with tears, and he nodded.
Patterson hovered a hand over Rachette’s shoulder, then over the other one, and then settled for patting him on the head. “Good job.”
Rachette closed his
eyes and took a deep breath, and they turned to leave.
“You have to teach me to ski this winter!”
Wolf and Patterson turned around and saw Rachette craning his neck forward, glaring at Patterson.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“Okay. What? Why?”
Rachette closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Because you’re my partner.” Rachette huffed another deep breath and looked to fall dead asleep.
Patterson pulled the corners of her mouth down, and left the room.
“Doctor,” Wolf motioned, and Doctor Sobel followed him out of the room.
When they got out into the hall, Wolf turned to him. “How’s it looking?”
Doctor Sobel lifted his glasses onto his gray head of hair and nodded. “It’s looking good. The abdomen shot missed the liver and stomach, and we got the bullet out without complications. The leg will heal, but I’m afraid it could take a long time, and he may have a slight limp. I’m not so sure about that last skiing comment, let’s put it that way. The arm will be fine. It was a clean through and through shot on the top of his forearm, and missed all the tendons.”
Wolf nodded, and shook his hand.
The waiting area was full of officers, all looking exhausted, hanging on Patterson’s hushed words.
“So? What did the doctor say?” Officer Wilson asked Wolf.
Wolf nodded, “He’ll be fine. Let’s give him some time to rest, everybody. He needs it. And the music festival goes on.”
The room bustled as the officers stood and streamed out.
Wolf walked through the waiting room into the bright entryway of the hospital, and was greeted with a sight he wasn’t prepared for.
Special Agent Luke was talking with Jack and Sarah. Sarah was smiling wide and nodding, gripping Jack next to her as if he would blow away in the wind if she let go.
Wolf took a deep breath and approached.
“Hi,” Sarah said. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and she wore flannel pants. Despite being ripped from slumber in the middle of the night with uncertain news about her son, for the second time of the week, she looked surprisingly chipper and as flawless as ever.
“Hi,” Wolf said, feeling his face flush a little. Exactly why, he wasn’t sure. “I see you’ve met Special Agent Luke.”
“Yes, and I was just meeting Jack, here,” Luke said with a flash in her eye. “What a beautiful son you two have.”
Jack gave an awe-shucks grin and leaned against his mother.
“Hi David,” a deep voice said behind him.
Wolf turned around and stepped aside for Mark Wilson. “Hello, Mark.”
Mark passed by, holding two cups of Styrofoam coffee. He handed one to Sarah, stepped close, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“Is Officer Rachette going to be all right?” Mark asked.
Wolf nodded, and looked down at Jack. “He’s going to be fine.”
Jack was glaring into nothing. Wolf reached down and brushed his hair. “You okay, buddy?”
Jack looked up and nodded.
He didn’t look it. He’d experienced a lot more first-hand violence in the last week than most people would in a lifetime, and he wasn’t even thirteen yet. Wolf sighed, and they stood in awkward silence for a beat.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, I’ve gotta get back.” Luke gave a quick wave and walked away.
Sarah, Mark, and Jack watched her leave through the glass doors and then looked at Wolf. Sarah’s lip turned up a little.
“I’ll be back,” Wolf said, and walked outside.
It was sunny outside and a warm breeze pressed his t-shirt against his chest. There were a few people walking in the parking lot, but Luke was nowhere in sight. He sighed and adjusted his sling, which sent a wisp of air into his shirt that tickled over his arm bandage and the rest of his scabbed-over wounds.
“Looking for me?”
Wolf turned and saw Luke on the sidewalk. Her head was tilted, and her brown hair flowed behind her in the wind.
“Yeah,” Wolf said, “actually I was.”
“She’s beautiful, your ex-wife.”
Wolf nodded. “Yeah. She is.”
Luke brushed her hair behind her ear and smiled.
“What did Brookhart have to say?” Wolf asked.
Luke pursed her mouth and shoved her hands in her pockets. “They found a shit load of gold in a safe at McCall’s house. Took them all night to crack it, but when they opened it, it was full of over three hundred pounds of gold bars.”
Wolf whistled. “Wow. That’s like…five million dollars in gold?”
They started walking down the sidewalk.
“Six point two four million. And that’s not including the stuff in the SUV.”
Wolf whistled again.
Luke nodded, “Yeah. And they found a lot of stones and gems in the safe, too. According to Brookhart, they look really old, with carvings in them. Then there were a few pieces with the gold and gems still in tact. A couple old bracelets, and a dagger. They took some pictures and sent them to DC, and some analysts think the dagger is part of the Bactrian stuff, like you were talking about, and the others are probably part of what was looted from the national museum during the civil war.”
“Too bad for Clark and the McCalls,” Wolf said.
“They also found out that our pilot, Ryan Clark, was a cousin of Tyler and Adam McCall,” said Luke.
Wolf nodded. “And it was the McCalls in the picture. It took me the drive from Glenwood last night, then a few hours to sleep on it, but I think I’ve got everything figured out by now.”
Luke stopped and turned to him. She nodded, “I think I do too.” Her eyes welled up and started dripping down her cheeks. “They found that my brother’s fingerprints at my house, and the one on the container, were too big to be real. Both sets were the same exact dimensions, just under two microns too big to be my brother’s real prints.”
“The old reverse-relief printout slathered with wood glue trick.” Wolf shook his head, “Clever enough to fool us I guess.”
“But getting the resolution right, and pixels per inch, and whatever else they didn’t know, meant they were off by two microns. I would like to think we’d have caught it eventually.”
She looked down at her feet and then looked up at Wolf. “Thank you so much.”
Wolf shrugged. “Why?”
“Brookhart also said you called last night asking to compare the writing on the note to Jeffries’s Army application.”
Wolf lifted his chin. “And?”
She nodded, and let the tears flow freely down her cheeks. “And now I don’t think my brother was involved in this.”
“No, he wasn’t. The way I see it is, that’s why the guy on the EOD team made that statement…that your brother had gone after the other three the next day. Because that’s exactly what he did. Your brother wasn’t in on the whole thing, he was trying to stop them, trying to reel in his men. I think he tracked them down, and the only way forward for Jeffries, Hartley, and Quinn was to kill him, and then bury his body in that explosion. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but your brother didn’t fit the profile of these other guys. They were all a bunch of misfits, with nothing to live for here.”
Luke exhaled. “Ask Danny, and he’ll tell you Brian was like that.”
“But you know that’s not true,” Wolf said. “You knew Brian. Was he like that? Would he fake his own death for some gold?”
Luke sniffed and shook her head. “No. He wouldn’t.”
Wolf nodded. “And that’s what Jeffries was telling you in that note, and why he was giving you gold bars. He regretted what they did to your brother. You deserve some of this too, I’m sorry, the note says it all.”
Luke wiped her eyes and nodded her head, stealing her expression. “So I think it all started with Clark and Jeffries, right? It had to have.”
“That’s what I think,” Wolf said. “It fits. They went to th
e same high school, and must have been friends. Jeffries comes across the gold somehow in Afghanistan, and he knows just the guy to help him get it out—his cargo pilot buddy, Clark. So they meet and go over their plan, probably right there at The Mountain Goat while Jeffries is in Colorado on leave. Clark agrees to help the team, for an equal cut, and then he goes and tells his cousins, which was bad news for the EOD team.
“The McCalls have a better plan. It’s a perfect opportunity that lands in their laps. These guys fake their own death seven thousand miles away, and all they have to do is wait for them to bring them their load of gold? With really no risk of bringing suspicion on themselves, because who would miss a bunch of already dead guys?”
“Jeffries mother and sister would,” Luke said.
Wolf nodded. “They would.”
“Best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” said Luke in a lofty voice.
Wolf looked up in thought. “Or, shit happens?”
Luke smiled.
“And yes,” Wolf said, “things like Wade Jeffries contacting his mother and sister, and Jack and I walking into one of their executions, unraveled their perfect plan in a hurry.”
Luke looked up at Wolf and then down at her feet, then she stepped into Wolf, got on her toes, and before Wolf could react, pressed her warm lips against his.
Wolf stood still in shock for a second, and then he returned the kiss, meeting her swirling tongue with his own. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and wrapped it around her waist, and she pressed herself close.
A few seconds later they parted, and Luke stared him in the eye. “My hero,” she said. “Thank you.”
Wolf chuckled and shook his head.
Luke’s face dropped, “What?”
“Nothing,” Wolf said. “You’re welcome.”
Luke pulled down her blouse and pulled her hair behind her ear, “When are you coming to get your truck?”
Wolf nodded. His RPPD SUV was finally out of the FBI lot and back in his hands, but the Toyota still sat at the Glenwood Springs PD station, helpless and abandoned. “Oh yeah, I probably need to come get that.”
“Want a ride?”
“Not today,” Wolf said, “there's too much happening here this weekend for me to go killing more time running around with you.”