The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  T.J. moved.

  He slid his second leg beneath him, slowly rising to his feet.

  Bee Dee stepped back. Jake exhaled.

  Atkins used the barrel to raise T.J.’s chin. “Next time I don’t wait ’til three.” He threw the reins over the horse’s ears and returned the rifle to the scabbard. “Move out.” Bradley set off as Atkins swung back up into his saddle, waiting for the path to clear.

  They walked into the encroaching darkness, the forest thickening, the moon filtering through the branches in slats of light. The horses’ metal shoes scraped rock and shale and every so often they heard the occasional hoot of an owl. After another twenty minutes, Jake spotted a light in the distance, too bright to be the moon. The light grew in intensity and size as they approached, a lantern hanging from a tree branch.

  Bradley stopped and dismounted. Only then did Jake see another person standing in the dark, backlit by the lantern’s glow. He carried a gun, but it was not a rifle. A magazine protruded out the bottom, the kind of gun carried by soldiers. He appeared young, perhaps in his early twenties, with the start of a wispy beard. He said something in Spanish, and a second man materialized from the dark. He looked older but not by much. His white tank-top T-shirt was stained and dirty and his camouflage pants sagged, revealing the blue ink of a tattoo across his stomach. He clenched a cigarette between his teeth as he took the reins and led the horses and donkey farther up the trail.

  “Move,” Atkins said to the four of them.

  They followed the animals into a small garbage-strewn camp. A camouflage plastic tarp, its four corners tied with rope to the trunks of trees, hung shoulder high above the ground to create a lean-to. Plastic bags and tin cans littered the ground, along with empty jugs of what looked like juice, propane tanks. Nearby, logs had been set on end, a small camp stove on one, a few pots and pans on another. Clothing hung from ropes strung between trees.

  “Welcome to Shangri-la, boys,” Atkins said.

  KNOCK-ME-STIFF RANCH

  GOLD CREEK, CALIFORNIA

  The smell of coffee only partially masked the lingering odor of charred wood left after the fire. Eileen Harper filled two of the three mugs. Molia put a hand over the third. “I’ll pass on anything else hot tonight,” he said. His coughing had lessened but now, when it came, it came in bursts. The paramedics had wanted to take him to the hospital. Molia refused.

  Bennett suggested Sloane and Molia move to the main house, but Sloane declined.

  “You’ve been generous enough. Nobody’s coming back tonight.” The real question was, what did Bennett and Eileen want to do? The stakes had been raised, and by a considerable amount. Sloane didn’t want to put either of them in further danger. “This might be a good time to take a couple days of vacation,” he suggested.

  Bennett looked to Harper, some unspoken message between them; Sloane thought for sure he and Molia would be packing. “It’s like Sherriff Barnes said. This is my home, too. Our home,” Bennett said. “We don’t like thinking that what you’re suggesting is taking place right under our noses, but I’m not leaving my home.”

  Sloane looked to Harper. “Tommy’s still in that place,” she said. A few minutes later she and Bennett left Sloane and Molia alone.

  “I guess we’re on the right track,” Sloane said.

  “That might be the understatement of the week, given that someone just tried to roast my nuts,” Molia said, anger seeping into his voice.

  “But Barnes is right.” Sloane said. “What we have are threads, and I’m not exactly sure where the hell to go from here.”

  “I am,” Molia said. “The second floor of the fucking Sutter Building.”

  In the commotion and aftermath of the fire Sloane had forgotten that just before walking out the door Molia had left him a riddle about how they might get into the second floor. He’d said it was a word you couldn’t yell in a crowded movie theater. Every constitutional law professor posed the same question to his first-year law students as a means to explore the degree of free speech accorded by the First Amendment. What about yelling “fire” in a crowded theater? Is that protected speech?

  “Fire,” Sloane said. “What you can’t yell in a crowded theater.”

  Molia smiled. “I would have picked a different riddle if I’d have known it was going to prove prophetic.” He fought back another coughing fit and sipped water. “Here’s the question. The security guards don’t have a key to access the second floor. So in the event of a fire, how does the fire department gain access?”

  “I don’t know,” Sloane said. “I suppose they’d break it down.”

  Molia shook his head. “Then they’d have property damage, and the county would get the bill. And you can’t expect the fire department to stand around waiting for a building owner to show up with the key while the building, and possibly others around it, burn.”

  “So what then?” Sloane asked.

  “Every building has to have what’s called a Knox-Box on the outside. It’s a county ordinance in Virginia, and I noticed that Bennett has one on the post by the front gate. If he’s not home and the fire department needs access to his property or to get back into the hills to fight a fire, the box has a key to the gate.”

  “And there’s a Knox-Box on the side of the Sutter Building?” Sloane asked.

  “You can see it on the videotape I shot. And I’m betting that inside is a key not only to that front door, but also to the second floor.”

  “Okay, but even if we get the Knox-Box open tell me how we get to the second floor with the security guards sitting at their desk every minute of every day? I don’t think they’re going to believe you and I are the cleaning service.”

  “They won’t believe you and I are anything. I’m going to do this on my own.” This time the coughing became violent. Molia bent in pain.

  “The only thing you’re doing is taking a trip to the hospital.”

  “Not a chance,” he said. “They upped the ante. We need to counter.”

  “Then whatever your plan is, I’ll do it.”

  “You can’t; if you get caught we strike out twice. Who retries the case?”

  “I don’t intend on getting caught.”

  “You going to guarantee that?”

  “We’re both tired, okay? And I’m just as pissed as you. But that’s all the more reason to think this through. Whatever your plan, you can’t do it in your condition. If I get caught, then Lisa Lynch retries the case. But before I sign off on this, maybe you better tell me what you have in mind.”

  “First, get Alex on the computer. I need to ask her a few questions. Is she as good at this computer stuff as she appears to be?”

  “Better.”

  Molia nodded. “Then all we need to find out is just how well Eileen can sew.”

  NINETEEN

  ELDORADO NATIONAL FOREST

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  Blue-gray moonlight trickled through the canopy in uneven streaks. The guards moved the only lantern from the hanging branch to beneath the camouflage tarp, and the hissing propane reminded Jake of Big Baby’s pronounced lisp, which made him shudder at the man-child’s pledge to be waiting for them back at Fresh Start.

  After they had unpacked the contents of their backpacks and the mule packs, Atkins had instructed them to load the garbage into their packs. He tied everything onto the mule and he and Bradley packed it out. Jake knew it was only a short reprieve, but the thought of not having to worry about Atkins, even if only for a few hours, actually brightened his mood.

  After feeding them beans out of a tin can, the guards spent the rest of the night trying to scare them, talking in broken English about bears being able to smell a human from miles away.

  “You fuck around,” the younger of the two said, revealing stained teeth, “and we put the chocolate bar in your pants and tie you to a tree.”

  The second man, who Jake considered the “cook,” because he had attended to the beans, sat on a plastic bucket drinking tequi
la from a small bottle and scraping the blade of a machete over a stone. When it came time to bed down the guard took their shoes and had them lay shoulder to shoulder on their backs. He snapped a leg iron on their right legs and ran a heavy chain through rings welded onto the shackles. The chain moved and clinked like a metal snake across the ground. No one would be making a run for it in the night. The guard wrapped the excess around a tree trunk, snapping a padlock through two links. The temperature continued to drop, and Jake spent a fitful night on a piece of plastic over hard ground with only a thin green blanket for warmth. When he finally dozed off it felt like he’d been asleep minutes when the guard kicked his socked feet, unlocked the padlock, and pulled the chain through the irons.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Jake’s body protested. His back ached, and he had a kink in his neck that ran down his right shoulder. The others, T.J., Bee Dee, and Henry, moaned and yawned in similar discomfort. None looked to have slept much. The cook sat on his upturned plastic bucket, stirring the contents of a steaming pot over a camp stove’s blue flame. He’d lined up four metal mugs on a tree stump, the handles of spoons sticking out.

  The guard tossed them their boots to sort through. Jake slipped his on and checked out their surroundings. The camp looked worse in daylight, even with the garbage gone. The tarp strung over their heads hung catawampus beneath a canopy of branches and scrub. Logs of varying lengths lying end-to-end formed a crude perimeter, and Jake deduced from the dripping sap along the bark that the logs had been recently cut.

  The guard motioned for them to sit on the tree stumps. They watched with revulsion as the cook, a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, spooned a gray, lumpy substance into the four cups, scraping the remnants into the cup in front of Bee Dee.

  “Eat,” he said, turning to wash out the pot with water from a plastic jug.

  When Jake lifted the spoon the porridge clung to it.

  “Eat.” This time the order came from the guard, squatted on his haunches at the edge of the camp, automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, also smoking a cigarette.

  Jake brought the spoon to his mouth and stuck out his tongue. The porridge had little taste; the texture like paste, with a gritty consistency. Jake doubted they had any brown sugar to sweeten it, but he also knew there wouldn’t be a second choice or a second helping, and that it was important he eat as much as he could to continue to regain his strength. He took a spoonful and forced it down, then turned to T.J., who sat on the stump next to him looking miserable.

  “Hey, you got to eat,” Jake said. “Remember what I told you.” He looked from the guard to the cook, who had turned his back to them, wiping out the pot with a rag and eventually tying the handle to a string hanging between two trees. “Our dads are still trying to get us out.”

  T.J. sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Big Baby and T-Mac are going to kill us when we get back, if they don’t kill us here.”

  “We’ll worry about Big Baby when we have to,” Jake said. “But now you have to eat everything they give us.”

  “Jake’s right,” Bee Dee said, leaning in to join the conversation. “Eat it all.”

  “Try to just let it slide down your throat without tasting it,” Henry said. “It’s easier that way.”

  T.J. sighed, picked up the spoon, and touched it to his lips, like a little kid. He recoiled at the first taste and gagged but managed not to throw up. After another minute they were all shoveling the porridge lumps into their mouths until the clink of the metal spoons alerted the cook they had finished. He retrieved the cups and commenced cleaning them. The guard dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the ball of his shoe. “We go.”

  He directed them to retrieve the shovels and the pickaxes as well as bags of fertilizer, several lengths of the coiled black hoses, and balls of the twine. The cook exchanged his utensils for a second automatic weapon, and the two men, the cook at the front and the guard in the rear, led them out of the camp along what did not appear to be a designated trail, pushing back tree limbs and stepping over fallen logs and boulders. Occasionally the cook would lower his weapon and use the machete to hack through the undergrowth or at a low-hanging branch.

  Fifteen minutes into their excursion, Jake heard the sound of babbling water, a nearby stream or a creek. The cook pushed through brush, and they stepped into an area perhaps twenty feet square that looked to have been partially cleared of the immature trees, the ground dimpled with stumps. It seemed an irregular pattern; some of the smaller trees remained. The taller pines created a broad canopy but still allowed streams of sunlight.

  The guard instructed that their job would be to dig up rocks and throw them in a pile as they had done working in the garden. Within minutes Jake felt sweat trickling from his temples. As the temperature warmed, the guards let them lower their coveralls to their waists and remove their T-shirts. Bee Dee showed them how to fashion their shirts around their heads like turbans and said it would help them keep cool. The work was hard, but Jake actually found it refreshing not to be under Atkins’s thumb, and the guards allowed them to talk freely, something Atkins never would have allowed. The sound of their voices mixed with the sound of the pickaxes and shovels digging in the ground and the occasional ping indicating they’d struck another rock.

  When the sun crossed high in the sky they broke for lunch—hard bread, a hunk of cheese, and water. The food was bad enough to make Jake miss the Fresh Start cafeteria. While they ate, the guard and cook stood off to the side smoking and speaking Spanish. After lunch, the guard instructed Jake and Bee Dee to load some of the unearthed rocks into one of the backpacks along with several of the hoses. When they had, he indicated they were to follow him. Jake slipped back on his coveralls and hoisted the backpack on his shoulders. It was heavier than the night before and the dense foliage through which the guard led them tugged at his coveralls and left scratches on his arms. They walked perhaps fifty yards, until coming to the stream Jake had heard earlier. The guard took a deflated plastic water container, the kind that when filled held five gallons, and waded out into the knee-deep stream, instructing Jake and Bee Dee to follow carrying the hoses and pack with the rocks. As hot as Jake had been, the stream offered immediate relief, but within minutes his feet were going numb. The guard directed them to dump the rocks and use them to create a crude dam along the bank beneath a crop of bushes, the branches of which hung out over the water. As they built the dam the water began to pond deeper. The guard used a knife to cut a hole in the top of the plastic container and submerged it, wedging it with rocks to keep it at the bottom. In the shadows created by the overhanging branches, among the speckled rocks, the clear container was nearly undetectable.

  Next, the guard directed Jake and Bee Dee to give him a hose, and he wedged a threaded end between two rocks but did not screw it to the spout of the plastic container. He showed them how to lay the hose along the bottom and use rocks to keep it in place. Again, with the flickering shadows and varied colors, the black hose could not be detected. They proceeded downriver, unfurling hose as they went and threading lengths together when necessary. Jake could no longer feel his fingers or toes. His knuckles ached when he flexed them and he was relieved when they stepped back onto the bank. They pushed through brush and found T.J. and Henry still digging in the soil, the cook spreading fertilizer. The guard handed Jake and Bee Dee two of the pickaxes. Jake didn’t have to be told what to do next. He’d figured out the purpose of their excursion. They were creating a crude irrigation system. He and Bee Dee dug a shallow trench to bury the hose that would bring the river water from the stream to the ground. The question was why? Jake no longer believed this was all part of a hops-growing operation for some brewery. Businesses didn’t operate this way. From the moment Atkins slipped black hoods over their heads, to hiking in the dark, the number one priority seemed to be secrecy. And if two Mexican guards and four juveniles working for free were the best employees a brewery could afford, it had some real problems. It only co
nfirmed the urgency of what Jake had been plotting from the moment he watched Big Baby descend the bus stairs and announce his return.

  He and T.J. could not go back to Fresh Start. That was no longer an option. They needed to escape when they had the chance, here in the mountains. And now, Jake thought, he might just know how.

  THE SUTTER BUILDING

  WINCHESTER, CALIFORNIA

  In the end, Sloane had prevailed, which was to say common sense won out. Now he, not Tom Molia, sat in the cab of Bennett’s truck, talking to Alex and watching the entrance to the Sutter Building. He’d parked up the street from the orange glow cast by an overhead streetlamp, but close enough to observe the glass door entrance to the building. Tom Molia’s plan had a simplicity to it that Sloane liked, but it would also require some high-tech help from Alex to pull it off.

  “Okay,” Alex said. “Ed Means has received a call at home advising him that his shift has been canceled.” She was referring to the security guard scheduled to relieve the guard at the desk in the lobby at midnight. She’d hacked On-Guard’s computer system to find the schedule, names, and employee information, calling their fire wall juvenile. “Let me make a call to the lobby now.”

  Sloane watched the guard inside the glass doors while continuing to listen to Alex on his phone. The guard had his feet propped on the corner of the desk, chair tilted back, reading. He glanced at the phone, as if uncertain it had actually rung, which further confirmed it didn’t ring often, if at all. Which could be good or bad. Sloane felt a nervous twinge. If the guard became suspicious he was likely to call On-Guard to confirm. When it rang a third time he lowered his leg and sat forward, picking up the receiver. Alex must have had the call on a speaker because Sloane could hear the guard through his cell phone.

  “Sutter Building, Montoya.”

  “This is dispatch. Your relief has called in sick,” Alex said.