The Warning

by Saul, Jonas

  Chapter 45

  A hockey puck would be easier to find at the bottom of a lake than locating Sarah. Parkman was still an hour out of Fredonia and he knew he was lost. Once he got to Fredonia, then what? He had no idea where she was going or what she was attempting to do. Without the proper resources to back him up it would be quite difficult to coincidentally walk right into her. That’s why they had Amber Alert.

  Parkman had no Amber Alert for Sarah Roberts. All he had was a handwritten note to go on.

  He needed help. He grabbed his cell phone, which still had a decent charge as he hadn’t been using it, and called his own department. When the main desk answered he asked to be put through to Winnfield.

  “Yup,” Winnfield answered.

  “It’s Parkman. I need your help.”

  “My help…” Winnfield yawned. “Why do you need my help? You’re still working with the FBI aren’t you?”

  “Was I ever?”

  “True. What can I do for you?”

  “Listen, I’m going to be driving into a little town called Fredonia in the next forty-five minutes or so. It’s in northern Arizona. I need you to find out what police calls they’ve had in the last three to four hours. I’m looking for something strange, not your usual domestic calls. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, but I might have to go upstairs for this.”

  “Don’t. I need you to do this without anyone knowing. Make up some bogus reason and get a list of calls. There shouldn’t be too many as it is only just after seven in the morning. Winnfield, I’m counting on you. Tell me you got this.”

  “I got it, but you owe me.”

  “Done. I owe you. Call my cell as soon as you have something.”

  Parkman tossed his cell on the passenger seat, drove and waited. It took twenty minutes to hear back. In that time he had ground through two toothpicks. He popped a third in his mouth and answered the phone.

  “Parkman, its Winnfield here.”

  “I know. What do you have?”

  “Before I tell you, you should know the dispatcher gave me quite the run around when I called. Said there was paperwork to release this kind of information. I had to tell her you were down there working for the FBI. I dropped Jill’s name. Then the woman hung up on me. I called back and on the third try she answered the phone again saying she had to verify my story.”

  “Shit. Does that mean Jill knows where I am?”

  “You didn’t tell me she wasn’t supposed to.”

  “I kinda did, but anyway, did you get anything?” Parkman asked as he heard a beep telling him someone was calling through.

  “There were two calls around Fredonia itself. Nothing stood out. One was a rig had blown a tire about two miles out of the city and some of the rubber had flown into the side of some guys pickup truck. Another was a couple kids were found behind some bar sleeping off the booze. That was it. Why did you need this anyway?”

  Parkman chewed his pick. Now what? “Damn,” he said and smacked the steering wheel.

  “I asked why you needed to know about Fredonia. You gonna tell me?”

  “It’s a long story and one most people wouldn’t believe,” he said as he glanced at the papers no doubt written by Vivian. “Are you sure there was nothing else?”

  “There was a call come in from a State Trooper who was pulling a car over about forty to fifty miles south of Fredonia, but I didn’t think that mattered. Besides, it was something about a car losing control and officer was going to offer aid. He hadn’t checked back in yet, but that’s not unusual and it’s forty or more miles away from Fredonia.”

  That had to be it. Even if it wasn’t, he had nothing else to go on. In his gut, something was telling him to play that out.

  “Anything else on this Trooper?”

  “Let me look at what I wrote down,” Winnfield paused. Parkman could hear him tapping a pen. “Lone female driver. Saw her at the truck stop near Fredonia. Bruised face. Passed the cop going eighty at least. Lost control on the big curve on Highway 89 as she entered Kaibab National Forest area. That’s all the dispatcher had.”

  That was it. Sarah was up to something.

  “Thanks, Winnfield, you did great. I’d prefer if you didn’t tell anyone about this. Dump the information you have. I’m going to call Jill now and let her know. I’ll see you when this is over.”

  He pulled the phone away from his ear and clicked it off as he heard Winnfield asking another question.

  Fredonia was at least fifteen minutes away and then he had forty more miles to go on the south side where this big curve in the road was.

  The time for being discreet was over. He hit the gas and turned on the dash light.

  He decided to wait on calling Jill. After he checked this only lead, he’d call her and explain why he wasn’t in contact for the last few hours.

  He knew she’d be traveling to the Motel 6 and he didn’t want to disturb her. Vivian’s paper message discarded by Sarah was a wild hunch that he thought he would deal with on his own. If it panned out, the FBI could swoop down on this barren land within an hour.

  He’d apologize and solve the case.

  Or he’d apologize and lose his job.

  Or worse, be brought up on obstruction charges.

  Chapter 46

  Sarah reached Six Mile Road and turned. To get here she had to leave Highway 89 and access Highway 389, which meant entering the bottom end of Fredonia. Luck allowed her to do this while remaining unseen by anyone who might recognize the cruiser.

  She drove slowly so as not to raise too much dust, which would announce her arrival long before she wanted them to know she was here.

  A rudimentary plan had formed in her mind. Precision was all she needed to execute it. A little good fortune this morning would go a long way, she told herself, but as long as I stay on point, everything will work out.

  At least that was what she was trying to convince herself of.

  Within ten miles she passed a driveway with an iron gate meant to keep out anyone and his neighbor. The driveway looked long, heading at least half a mile into the shrubbery. Without slowing the vehicle, Sarah continued down Six Mile Road for another minute until she found an old landfill company that had closed long ago. The building in the back of the lot had boarded up windows and a chain link fence surrounded the parking area with a sign on it that told everyone to keep out.

  She pulled into the recess by the gate and stopped. There was no time to investigate this Mormon compound. She had to do this on the fly. She remembered back in early 2008 a compound in Texas was invaded by the FBI. Why it stuck with her was that they had removed over four hundred children of families where there was one husband and many wives.

  Maybe that was why this compound was such a good cover for people kidnapping young girls. It allowed them to manage their prisoners without the scrutiny of outsiders. One distinctive feature that stuck with her, as she was in this line of work, was the security tower that the Texas compound had. She’d seen it on Oprah. They maintained a little two story tower that oversaw the compound. It had resembled a small air traffic control tower.

  Beside her was the cop’s iPhone. He’d left it on the seat plugged into the charger when he got out to investigate her accident. Accessing the record feature, she pressed the button, allowed it to record nothing for three minutes and then said her message.

  After that she gathered everything she would need, placed it in the front seat beside her and turned the cruiser around to start heading back toward the compound.

  When she was about thirty feet from the Iron Gate she dropped the gas pedal and aimed for it. The black bar on the grill of the cruiser smacked the gate hard enough to break it open. A small swerve left and then right was all Sarah felt as she kept the car under control and sped down the long driveway.

  Fear covered her like a cloak. She shook it off, knowing she had no time for fear. She had to assume their defenses would be down due to the time of day. Also, she hoped they weren’t so unw
elcoming that they’d open fire on an intruder, even one in a police car.

  A guard shack came into view. There was nowhere to turn off the driveway coming into the compound. She would have to continue right at the little shack.

  Off to the right a large white building came into view. She assumed it was their Temple. Smaller buildings were scattered around. As she got within fifty feet of the guard shack she could see the structures were more like little school houses of some kind.

  The cruiser caught the attention of two women hurrying along in long blue dresses, their hair done up in large buns.

  It also caught the attention of the man stepping out of the guard shack.

  Sarah reached over and grabbed the State Trooper’s hat which she placed on her head and ducked down as low as she could in the driver’s seat. The last thing she wanted was for this guard to try and stop the vehicle. On this gravel driveway she’d have a hard time avoiding him at the speed she was going.

  Luckily, as she raced by him, he didn’t step out to persuade her to stop. She saw him waving his arms, trying to get her attention.

  In the rear view mirror Sarah watched him run back into his shack probably intent on calling the people in charge here or Armond.

  She drove down the line of blue houses, waiting for any sign of resistance. For the size of this compound she was surprised that she didn’t see more people.

  At the end of the line, she turned the vehicle away and aimed it down another road that appeared to lead to a fence line. It took mere seconds for Sarah to exit the cruiser, set everything she needed into the Trooper’s hat and then she reached in, put the car in drive and shut the door.

  The cruiser drove away from her slowly. It went straight for at least twenty feet then started to slide off the little road. Sarah gathered her belongings in the hat and as she ran for the nearest house she looked back one more time to see the cop car driving toward the fence line over the hard baked earth of Arizona.

  At this early hour she assumed everyone would be either still sleeping or performing some task as required by the Mormon faith. She had no idea where people would be congregating or even if Armond was here with his captives. All she was going on was what Vivian told her. And even then, it had only been an address and a warning.

  Maybe she had the wrong place? Maybe this was it for her? The only thing left was to be arrested for breaking into a compound and fleeing a crime scene. Multiple crime scenes, she reminded herself.

  Just before reaching the edge of the building and cover, Sarah looked down the stretch of the road and saw no one in pursuit. Other than the guard and the two women she saw walking moments ago, the place looked deserted.

  As she ran into the open door of the first building she wondered if Vivian’s warning was about to come true. Was this a trap? Regret is a hard pill to ease down the throat.

  But it was too late. She was in the building and the room was empty. The people of this dwelling lived a quiet existence with a couple of chairs and beds lining one wall. Open doors at the back led to another room. Sarah ran for that room, pulling the cop’s gun out in case she needed it.

  This room was also empty but it contained what she was looking for. The closet was full of blue dresses and the bathroom on the side would allow her to fix her hair right.

  In a frantic rush, Sarah found a dress that would fit, threw it on and ran for the bathroom. One peek out the window told her no one was outside yet. It wouldn’t be long. She knew the guard was rallying help.

  Using pins she got her hair tied up in a ball that would resemble the Mormon women she passed but also cover the back of her neck. She found enough pins to tie the pepper spray into her hair securely.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and nodded. It wouldn’t pass close scrutiny, but it would get her where she needed to go.

  Now she was ready except for something to conceal the gun.

  Out in the main room she found a wicker basket. She dropped the gun in that and covered it with a shawl.

  Before leaving the building she took a sidelong look out the window. The guard from the shack was walking up the road accompanied by two other men. They were coming fast, bent on finding out what the cop had been doing. Sarah waited until they had passed the building she was in and watched all three of them start down the road toward the fence where she had dumped the car.

  In the distance she could see the top of the cruiser where it had stopped. She reached down and gently opened the window in front of her. Then she ran to every other window and opened them too. At the front one again Sarah could see the three men standing by the cruiser. She looked up and down the street seeing no one else.

  This was it.

  She set the cop’s bull horn on a little table by the front window and placed the iPhone behind it. With one last look outside, she accessed the iPhone’s voice recorder and pressed play on the file she’d recorded earlier in the cruiser.

  That gave her three minutes of silence to make her run for the Temple.

  Basket in hand, wearing a long blue dress and her hair in a bun, Sarah left the little building and walked as fast as she dared up the road toward the Temple. She got to the end of the line of little houses before she encountered her first Mormon. They passed each other with the barest of nods. She also passed the test. They thought she was one of them.

  It made sense to her. Young, pretty, innocent looking and in their own garb shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Although the bruised face might.

  The three minutes were up as she heard her own voice booming from the end house. It travelled through the crisp morning air causing goose bumps to rise on her arms.

  “We have you surrounded. This is the FBI.”

  Even now she doubted its veracity. Listening to it from afar only made her sound ridiculous.

  As she neared the Temple, she decided to try a back or side entrance. A turn to the left took her down a narrow road toward the back.

  Then she stopped. People were streaming out the back of the Temple. Dozens and dozens of women were running for the road, heading for a smaller building that resembled an office.

  Sarah turned away and walked up and into the nearest house, her basket swinging in her arms.

  Again this residence was empty. The advantage of living on a gated compound was you could leave all the doors open, evidently.

  She wondered why she was being so cautious. Normally she would’ve walked right up and joined the fleeing women to wherever they were headed. She is dressed just like them and she’d already passed one without batting an eye. Could it be that Vivian’s warning was scaring her into being too cautious? She normally would’ve boldly walked right up and in, so why was she fighting herself? Every minute counted. Why was she wasting time hiding? By now they would’ve discovered the recording was a fake so that ruse was wasted.

  Maybe that’s why they were taking the members and hustling them to some hiding spot.

  She decided she needed to be bolder. She walked back to the front door and stepped out onto the porch and that was when she saw one of Armond’s men, gun in hand running down the road toward her and the porch she stood on. He stood out from the rest of the people here with his black leather jacket.

  She hesitated, looked in her basket and turned back around to walk into the house. Once inside she pulled the gun out and flipped off the safety. In a crouch, Sarah stood below the front window peering out to watch where he went.

  He stopped out in front of the house.

  “Hello in there?”

  Should I respond or not?

  “I saw you go in, hello?”

  “Yes,” Sarah hollered back.

  “We’re gathering everyone in the basement of the office. We think the police are attempting some kind of inspection so leave this building at once and get to the basement.”

  “Okay. I’m sick, so I’ll be along in a minute.”

  She peeked back out. Armond’s man turned and headed away from her, running down the road towards
where she ditched the cop car.

  With the gun back in the basket and the shawl neatly in place, Sarah left the building and started up the road. The morning sun shone in her face, but through it she saw the women were still coming out of the Temple, now followed by small children.

  When she got close enough to the building everyone was entering, she saw another one of Armond’s men standing at the entrance. If it hadn’t been for the sun she would’ve seen him earlier. With no real plan other than to surprise them, she was running out of options. These people were hired killers and she was trying to liberate their captives. As much as she wanted to do this on her own she was starting to feel unprepared.