Smith's Monthly #22

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  The cart was heading into the switchback far, far too fast. It would never make it. Craig instantly knew what the plan had been.

  With the Senator driving and on the cliff side, there would have been no chance for him to get out with Danny beside him. But there was no one blocking Danny.

  “Jump!” Craig shouted.

  Danny dove across the seat and out the passenger side at the last possible instant, just as the cart tipped toward the driver’s side and went over the rock edge.

  Somehow Danny managed to clear the cart, rolling once on the pavement and coming up hard against a rock with a sickening thud.

  The cart, with the two sets of clubs rattling and banging, rolled over and over down the steep rock face, filling the valley with a smashing sound that echoed off the rock hills.

  Clubs flew everywhere as the cart gathered speed end-over-end. The top of the cart ripped away like paper, spinning in the air. A couple of the heavy batteries under the seat flew away like large missiles.

  Danny’s massive golf bag came loose and did three end-over-end flips, scattering clubs and gear everywhere.

  Fiberglass from the cart’s side panel exploded in fragments as it smashed into a massive rock.

  What was left of the cart finally did a quick flip and disappeared over the cliff face and into the deep canyon in front of the green. The sound of it smashing into the rocks and brush at the bottom was like nothing Craig had ever heard.

  The echo of the sound took a long time to die off.

  If the Senator had been in that cart, he could have easily been killed in the “accident.”

  Craig had his cart stopped and was bending over Danny as the young pro groaned and sat up. He was going to be bruised and scraped, but it didn’t look like anything was broken.

  “Don’t move,” Craig said.

  Danny ignored him and tried to stand.

  “I said don’t move!”

  “But I have—”

  Craig flipped the kid over on his face on the cart path and pulled his arm behind it, leaning on the arm and Danny’s back with one knee.

  “You struggle and I break the arm,” Craig said, using his weight to hold the younger man down. He wasn’t going to take any chances with someone who could try to kill a Senator.

  Danny spit out some gravel and blood. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “You know as well as I do,” Craig said, pushing down even harder on the arm, making Danny jerk in pain and scrape the side of his face on the hot concrete path.

  Craig glanced around. Both Hagar and the agent who had been behind the green were heading at a run up the cart path toward him. The agent was going to beat the local detective, but not by much. Maxwell was coming down the trail in a cart, going as fast as he dared. The Senator and Bonnie were out of sight up near the tee box.

  “You’re not going to be playing much golf where you’re going,” Craig said to Danny, pushing a little more on the arm and back with his knee. “Attempted murder of a United States Senator should get you about fifty years.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Craig pressed down on Danny’s arm just a little harder with his knee, cutting off the kid’s excuse in a gasp of pain.

  “The FBI guys are almost here,” Craig said. “As a suggestion, I would recommend very highly you tell them everything. You might just get out in time to make the Seniors’ tour if you do that. Maybe even earlier.”

  “You don’t understand,” Danny said, clearly on the edge of tears. “I had to. My wife. You don’t understand.”

  Now the wife comment shocked Craig. He was about to ask another question when Maxwell slid the cart to a stop behind the one Craig had been in. At the same moment the agent from behind the green, clearly out of breath and sweating from the hard run in the heat, came around the switchback where the Senator’s cart had gone over.

  “Is he all right?” Maxwell asked as Craig got off the young pro and yanked Danny to his feet.

  “For someone who’s going to spend a large part of his youth in jail,” Craig said, “I think so. Better read him his rights for attempted murder and whatever else you might want to add on. I think he might have a few things to say.”

  Maxwell nodded for the other agent to take Danny and do just that.

  “Wait,” Danny said. “I can get you who’s behind this, but you have to save my wife.”

  Craig looked at Maxwell. Clearly Maxwell was just as puzzled as Craig was.

  “Read him his rights,” Maxwell said, “And then we’ll talk.”

  Then into his communications watch Maxwell said, “Get the Senator down here and hidden in the canyon. Quick. And block entrances to this area from both sides. I want a medical evacuation helicopter here as quickly as possible, and a secure room ready in the hospital.”

  Craig was impressed. Maxwell was thinking clearly and quickly.

  “The Senator went over in the cart, I assume,” Craig said, smiling at Maxwell who was staring down the hill at the scattered clubs, parts of a cart roof, and Danny’s almost empty bag.

  “He had an accident, as far as the world is going to know tonight,” Maxwell said.

  At that point Hagar made it up the final stretch looking white and out of breath. Running up a steep hill in desert heat could hurt anyone. It clearly hadn’t done Hagar any good.

  Maxwell stepped over to Danny who was finished having his rights read to him by a still-out-of-breath and sweating agent. “So how can you help us?”

  “I’m supposed to meet the man who kidnapped my wife tonight in my room at nine, if the Senator can’t make the flight to Washington. And they will release her then.”

  “Release your wife?”

  “They took her on Friday,” Danny said, panic in his eyes. He had blood dripping down the side of his face and one leg looked like it had been scraped with sandpaper, but he wasn’t seeming to notice. “They said they wanted to make sure I would help. If I didn’t, or told the police, they were going to kill her and me.”

  Maxwell nodded. “So why did you go ahead and wreck the cart without the Senator in it?”

  “I didn’t do that,” Danny said. “The brakes failed like they were supposed to. I was just insurance, to make sure that if the brakes didn’t fail, I made the cart go over the edge with the Senator in it. But don’t you see, I had to, to save my wife.”

  Craig shook his head. “You and your wife would have never lived to see your home again.”

  Danny looked even paler than he had a moment before.

  Maxwell nodded. “People who would do this can’t leave witnesses.”

  Maxwell glanced back up the cart path. Then to the agent Maxwell pointed at the spot where the cart path became very steep. “Sweep that hillside for a buried transmitter. I bet we’ll find a matching one inside the braking system of the cart.”

  Craig glanced down the cliff face. “If there’s anything left of the cart.”

  Maxwell glanced down the hill. “There’ll be enough. Let’s just hope they were stupid enough to leave us some prints as well.”

  “Oh, my,” the Senator said as he and Bonnie and another agent came down the path. “Danny, are you all right?”

  “I’m so sorry, Senator,” Danny said. Then he dropped to the path and broke into sobs.

  “Danny?” the Senator said, clearly shocked as he stared at the young pro, then at Craig and Maxwell.

  Craig stepped toward Bonnie and the Senator. Bonnie gave him a quick hug.

  “It seems Danny was blackmailed into helping them,” Craig said. “And I’m afraid, Senator, that you’re not going to get a chance to make that birdie putt.”

  The Senator glanced down over the edge of the cart path at the scattered clubs and parts of a cart on the steep, rocky cliff, clearly understanding how close he had just come to being hurt or killed. “I doubt my putter survived that crash anyway.”

  “Senator,” Maxwell said, “we need you down near the canyon so we can airlift you out. Just in case the wron
g people end up watching.”

  “I’m going to the hospital, huh?” the Senator asked, clearly understanding the plan.

  “Actually, yes,” Maxwell said. “And then directly to the airport where you’ll catch a flight to Washington under complete secrecy.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said to Maxwell. “Good luck catching whoever is behind this.”

  “We’ll have a report to you tomorrow,” Maxwell said. “We only have to keep the charade up for the night.”

  The Senator nodded, then turned to Bonnie and Craig. “I don’t know even where to start thanking you.”

  He shook Craig’s hand firmly, then Bonnie gave him a kiss.

  “It’s been our pleasure, Senator,” Bonnie said. “Thirty-three of the most enjoyable holes of golf I have ever played.”

  The Senator laughed and stepped back and looked at Bonnie’s tight shorts and white blouse. “Young lady, trust me, it has been my pleasure as well.”

  With a laugh at Bonnie’s blushing red face, the Senator winked at Craig and turned and headed down the cart path.

  All Craig could do was chuckle at his beautiful wife.

  Twelve minutes later the Senator was airlifted out on a stretcher, headed for the hospital and his home in Washington.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sunday, April 9th

  2:36 p.m.

  BONNIE SAT ON the bed with Craig in a room on the hotel’s top floor and watched as the last of Danny’s scrapes were treated.

  Clearly Maxwell and the other FBI agents had been using this room as a base. It was bigger than her and Craig’s room, yet considerably smaller than the Senator’s massive suite. From the looks of the table and kitchen area, a number of agents had been going and coming from here twenty-fours hours a day. Right now Maxwell and three agents were here, as well as Hagar and Danny. The agent working on Danny’s cuts and scrapes clearly had a good knowledge of first aid.

  After the Senator was airlifted away, they had decided that to get Danny back into the hotel without arousing suspicion, she and Craig would walk him in. It would be logical that if he wasn’t under suspicion for any crime, that he would be with his playing companions.

  As Danny was being treated, he told what had happened to him and his wife over the last week. To Bonnie the story he told had a ring of truth through it. But on top of that, she wanted to believe him. Craig was clearly not so sure.

  It seemed that on Friday morning, while Danny was at his golf course for a few hours, Danny’s wife, Steph, was taken from their apartment in Sedona. Danny guessed that there had been three, but by the time he got home only one was waiting for him. Danny had seen the man who wasn’t masked a few times this weekend around the hotel, and the guy had come to Danny’s room last night.

  Danny said he had told the man that he wouldn’t cooperate unless he could have proof his wife was alive every day. Danny looked up at Maxwell. “They threatened to kill her, but I held to my demand.”

  Maxwell nodded. “Go on. What did they do then?”

  “They let me talk to her for a few seconds Friday night late, and again last night,” he said, barely holding it together.

  Craig glanced at Maxwell. Bonnie knew exactly what Craig was thinking. If there were phone calls, there could be traces on those calls. Maxwell nodded, clearly thinking along the same lines.

  He turned to one of three agents standing nearby. “Get Danny’s room and home phone records and get those calls traced.”

  “They weren’t on my room phone,” Danny said. “The guy always handed me a cell phone and told me to punch redial.”

  “Damn,” Maxwell said.

  “How about the face of the phone?” Bonnie asked. “Could you see the number?”

  Danny shook his head. “The guy had it taped over.”

  “Smart,” Hagar said.

  Bonnie had to agree.

  “It was so hard,” Danny said, “not calling the police.”

  “You should have, you know,” Maxwell said.

  “I do now,” Danny said softly. “But I was so afraid they were going to kill her.”

  Bonnie had no doubt not calling the police was going to be one decision Danny would regret for a long time. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

  “What did they say was going to happen?” Craig asked.

  “That an accident was going to hurt the Senator during the golf tournament today, and I was to make sure the accident happened no matter what.

  “Did they say what kind of accident?” Maxwell asked.

  “Just a cart accident on a steep hill,” Danny said. “When I saw the 16th hole yesterday I knew that was where it would happen. They said if the Senator was too injured to get on the plane, my wife would be released tonight. If not, I would never see her again. And they would make sure I never saw anyone again.”

  “Get on the plane?” Hagar asked, stepping closer to Danny. “You sure he used those exact words?”

  Bonnie had been just about to ask that same question, but Hagar beat her to it. That detail had to be an important part of finding who was behind this.

  Danny nodded at Hagar. “That’s what he said.”

  “The vote tomorrow against Charles Robins’ companies?” Craig asked Maxwell.

  “Sure seems that way,” Maxwell said. “We’ve had the Robins’ estate under surveillance since the accident.”

  There was a silence in the room.

  “Okay, what time are you to meet your contact?” Maxwell asked.

  “Six, in my room,” Danny said.

  “It’s four now,” Hagar said, glancing at his watch.

  “Okay, we need to get you down there and set up,” Maxwell said. “We want to catch your contact to find out where they are keeping your wife. And who they are working for.”

  “That’s going to be a problem,” Bonnie said. “What happens if someone is watching? Danny can’t go into this meeting alone, but going into his room with one of your agents might stop the entire thing.”

  “I agree,” Hagar said. “These people were sophisticated enough to blow the brakes on a golf cart at the right point, it would be easy for them to be watching Danny’s room.”

  “Maybe even have it bugged, just in case,” Craig said.

  Bonnie couldn’t agree more.

  “My room’s been bugged?” Danny asked, clearly trying to keep up with all this.

  “In all likelihood that’s exactly right,” Maxwell said.

  “How about Craig and I go to Danny’s room with him,” Bonnie said, “stage a leaving, and hide out in the room until Danny’s contact shows up.”

  Maxwell nodded. “Might work. We can have you all wired and we can be staged in rooms in both directions down the hall to block any retreat.”

  “If we’re not going to take a chance of being seen,” Craig said, “I don’t see any other choice.”

  Neither did she.

  Just under one hour later she and Craig were walking with Danny from the elevator to his room, not really talking. Bonnie could feel the heaviness of the police-issue pistol against the small of her back, its metal cool in the air-conditioned hotel. It was the only place on her they could find to hide it safely. Craig had his tucked in the side of his belt and his golf shirt pulled out to cover it.

  Danny had memorized a few lines, and understood completely that he wasn’t to talk to Craig and Bonnie after they said good-bye just inside his room.

  She and Craig were going to station themselves inside Danny’s bedroom in the small suite. The moment Danny’s contact was let into the suite, Hagar and Maxwell and their people would be outside the door, ready to come through within ten seconds.

  A very long ten seconds, as far as Bonnie was concerned. While Danny was in the bathroom getting ready to go, Maxwell had told Bonnie and Craig and Hagar that he suspected that the contact wasn’t there for information about the Senator, but to kill Danny.

  Maxwell figured they were going to have to move fast.

  The plan
was that Danny was to let the man into the room, and close the door, giving Maxwell and Hagar enough time to get into position before coming through. When Bonnie and Craig heard Maxwell break in, they were to come in from the bedroom. At that moment Danny was to drop to the floor and stay there.

  It was a sound plan, but Bonnie had a fear it wasn’t going to work like they hoped. She didn’t know why she felt that way. More than likely just jitters.

  It had been a long time, since she had been involved in something like this. And then only once in her second year on the force. This was much more of what Craig did in his job as a detective. She very seldom had to stage raids on homes of domestically abused children. Usually she and her people just went in with a warrant and took the children out. At times it got ugly, but she always had plenty of help.

  They reached Danny’s room without seeing anyone else in the hallway.

  She knew that Hagar and Maxwell and their people had already taken their positions one-at-a-time in rooms along the hall. And more than likely Hagar and Maxwell had just watched the three of them walk by.

  Craig and Bonnie were also wired for sound, but Danny wasn’t, just in case the first thing the contact did was pat him down.

  Danny fumbled with the key card, then managed to get the door open. They all stepped inside and the door closed. The first thing Danny did was move to the windows and draw the curtains in both the living area and the bedroom.

  Then as Danny stood with Bonnie near the door, looking scared, Craig, gun drawn, silently and quickly checked out the rooms of the small suite to make sure no one else was in there. When he came out of the bedroom and nodded, Bonnie went into her script. If someone was listening, it needed to be clear to them what was happening.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” she asked.

  “I think so,” Danny said. “Just shaken up.”

  Bonnie nodded to him that he was doing fine. He looked like he might be sick at any moment.

  “Understandable,” Craig said. “But it was an accident. Remember that.”

  “Sure,” Danny said, his voice shaking. “Thanks.”

  “You going to be all right?” Bonnie asked. “You want us to stay with you for a little bit?”