Cold Land: A Mystery Thriller

by John Oakes

  Bang. Bang.

  Jake and Jerry fell silent, ears perked.

  Bang-Bang-Bang.

  The shots rippled through the distance greeting their ears in slightly distorted fashion.

  “I’d swear that’s an AR-15,” Jerry said, taking the words right out of Jake’s mouth.

  Officer Neff scrambled back into his cruiser, pealing out in reverse without even closing his door. He wiped out into the trees as he made a jagged reverse turn onto the road, then over corrected the other way too, into sturdy trees ripped his door the wrong way, pressing it flat against the front quarter panel.

  “He’s driving like he’s hurt,” Jake said.

  “Or just scared shitless.”

  “That too.”

  Officer Neff’s cruiser came to a complete stop. Then the call came over the radio for back up. “Shots fired. Shots fired. I need multiple officers…”

  Officer Neff jumped out of his cruiser and rather bravely, Jake thought, ran along the road and took up a position behind a tree right at the entrance to the drive way.

  “We gotta get Nelson,” Jake said. “He’s in the back of that little SUV behind the semi truck. Officer Neff can cover us.” Jake motioned with a hand, before Jerry could protest. “You drive up the road then cut across the meadow at an angle, right through those trees bordering this property’s driveway. You pull right up to the bumper of the RAV and you’re covered while you fetch him out of the back.”

  Jerry’s mustache twitched. He finally eyed Jake, his jaw jutting in and out, making some sort of appraisal.

  “Now, Jerry,” Jake said. “Before the real shooting begins.”

  “God forgive me.” Jerry put the cruiser in gear and sped along the dirt road. When they got close Jake pointed to cut across the grass. “Go. Here!” Jerry swerved off the road and they tumbled over uneven ground and through the trees lining the big driveway. Jerry braked to a skidding stop, resting only inches from the RAV-4. In a fluid movement, he put the cruiser in park and knelt down out of his door. He held a hand up at Officer Neff then pointed to the SUV. Jerry crawled over, popped the rear hatch open and, like a sight for sore eyes, there Officer Nelson lay with his arms and legs tied behind him. Jerry searched his pockets but couldn’t produce a cutting tool. He left Nelson and crawled on hands and knees back to the cruiser. “Dammit, a knife! He’s tied to the rear seat mount.” He dug through the center console, cursing himself for misplacing his pocket knife.

  Jake reached down and pulled a four inch dagger with a synthetic grip out of his boot, turning it before Jerry’s stricken face. “Will that do?”

  Jerry grunted as he took it and scurried back to Nelson, sawing swiftly through his binds.

  Something caught Jake’s attention out of the corner of his right eye. Some big hoss in a beige t-shirt and stained dungarees was peeking around the front end of the semi some eighty feet away.

  “Now, who are you?” Jake slipped down behind the door, and laid his hat on his chest. “Miss Sarah’s got helpers here too.”

  Jake peered over the window again. The big man had cropped hair and reddish cheeks and was leaning his round sweaty head out even further, taking great interest as Jerry pulled Nelson out of the SUV.

  How someone could be that sweaty in such cold weather befuddled Jake, but that wasn’t his main concern. “Don’t come out here, young man.”

  The big man took a tentative step out from the cover of the semi, revealing the double-barreled shotgun he held in one hand.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  More AR-15 shots rang out from somewhere behind the big man, but with an echoing, tinny quality. At the end of the massive driveway, there appeared to be a large shop, not a garage per se. Jake didn’t have to see the guns to know the shots were coming from inside, so far still aimed at Officer Neff dow the other side of the driveway.

  Jake couldn’t stick his head up to check on Neff or Jerry, but he kept an eye on the big fella with the shotgun, working his way around he corner, bringing his weapon to his shoulder.

  “Jerry, we got company,” Jake said.

  Jerry scooted across the bark with Nelson in tow, opened the rear door and threw him in.

  The activity caught the big fella’s attention, and he readied to fire.

  “Jerry, down!”

  Jerry hit the deck, and Jake ducked back behind the door, arm over his eyes.

  Boom. The shotgun blast tore through the cruiser, BBs pelting the outside and exploding the three front windows in a cascade of safety glass.

  Jake lurched over the console, reaching down below Jerry’s seat. He found the welcoming grip of his .45, pulled the hammer back and stuck his face and arms out the now open passenger window. Before the big fella thought to pull the second trigger, Jake fired twice, his .45 booming.

  The big man’s arms fell loose, dropping the shotgun, and a look of surprise flashed on his face. He turned and tried to jog back behind the semi, as if a bee had stung him and he was running to his mother. But his legs failed him, and he was dead before his considerable body smacked into the ground.

  “Jake!” Jerry yelled.

  “Fuckin’ drive!” Jake reached out and helped pull Jerry into the driver’s seat. Jerry hit the gas in reverse and tires dug into the bark driveway before getting purchase and rocketing them back through the line of trees into the clearing. They fetched some air after the first bump they hit, and all three men bounced like springs without their seat belts on. Jake had straightened his trigger finger and held onto his weapon with both hands, as they jostled their way backward into open space. Jerry eventually remembered to veer onto the dirt road and came to a stop. He worked a few centering breaths through his nostrils and one big bellow of air out his open mouth and seemed settled after that, eyes focused ahead where the windshield used to be.

  “Those twins tricked me,” Nelson said. Jake looked back and saw him curled up in the back seat. “I’ve been in there all night. “I’ve gotta pee so bad.”

  “You smell like you already did,” Jake said.

  “Let me out,” Nelson whined.

  “We’re still in range,” Jake said to Jerry.

  Jerry looked over his shoulder and reversed down the dirt road until back behind the cover of the trees half a mile from the shooting. All the while Jake brushed safety glass out of his hair and off his coat.

  Jerry got out and opened the back door for Nelson who hobbled out and pissed in the middle of the road. He turned back with dribble marks down his leg and crawled back into the seat, laying down again. “Can we get out of here?”

  Jerry stood by the door a minute, gazing off at the ensuing standoff, then dropped into the seat and called dispatch. “This is Agent Jerry Unger. Down from Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’m assisting Officer Neff at the scene of the stolen semi-truck trailer. We have multiple shots fired, and one of your patrolmen pinned down. When are you gonna get some goddamned firepower out here? For Pete’s sake already!”

  Jerry threw the radio down and said, “They shoulda had every badge within twenty miles here by now.”

  Jake’s gaze was fixed on the trailer just visible behind the row of trees. It seemed to be moving slowly. “This was well-planned out,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  Jake spoke up. “This was well-planned. Far better than we thought. This Sarah Paulsen isn’t just some mad mother bear. She’s got a brain and a half, too.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I don’t think she came here to go out in a blaze of glory. This ain’t political; it’s just a heist. Why would she not give up? Because she’s just that crazy or…” Jake pinched both of his index fingers into his thumbs. “…Or because she knows there’s an endgame?”

  Jerry looked back toward the tree line and the vehicles and buildings nestled behind it. “You thinking there’s a way out?”

  “I’m thinking it’s highly possible. Who’s got a phone?”

  Nelson shook
his head. “They took it.”

  “Well, mine, uh, broke,” Jake said.

  Jerry handed over his phone, and Jake dropped a pin on the map at their current location. “Turn around, and let’s see if we can’t find the back way into that compound.”

  Jerry raced along back roads, taking any left turn he could. When one turned out to be a dead end, they turned back and kept on until they found a way west and then south. One well-rutted dirt road veered back close enough to the half-mile clearing that they could hear the crackle of gunfire and just barely make out the compound through the trees. Jerry kept on and veered left at a fork in the road, easing the cruiser through a dense copse of thicket and elm that, in full greenery, would have made one invisible to the surrounding area. Even in the mostly bare branches it felt secluded. Jerry drove within a stones throw of the main structure of the compound, probably a house. They sat parked, listening to the sporadic gunfire.

  The pop of small caliber pistol fire mingled with the sound of police 9mm rounds and the flat clap of a carbine.

  “Somebody else showed up,” Jake said. “And they brought an M4.” The military rifle had found its way into many police armories. Its sharp report signaled that at least one more officer had joined Neff.

  “Finally,” Jerry said.

  The steady banging of an AR-15 echoing from the big shop added to the din.

  “They didn’t just put TVs on that truck,” Jake said. “They ordered ARs and God knows what else. Some of them guns go for fifteen hundred or two grand a pop, out of the box. Meanwhile they’re coming in handy for defense. Kinda smart when you think about it.” With a snap of his wrist, Jake popped the cylinder out of his .45 and plugged two fresh rounds in it from his coat pocket.

  “Now, hold on,” Jerry said.

  “Jerry.” Jake held up a finger. “I gave my weapon up before in good faith to the gods of procedure. But we’re either in this or we ain’t.” Jake snapped the cylinder shut.

  Jerry pulled out his 9mm and chambered a round. “Nelson, you can take my service pistol. I’ll grab the pump shotgun out of the back.” When Nelson didn’t immediately reach for the gun, Jerry looked him in the eye. “Are you capable of doing this?”

  “I’m not a—” Nelson swallowed. “I’m not a fighting type. I’m not that kind of cop.”

  “There’s only one kind of cop,” Jerry said sternly.

  “Good guys…” Jake gestured about the cruiser. “Bad guys…” Jake waved outward. “Simple. Plus, they’re shooting at cops. That’s a sacred brotherhood, man.”

  Nelson looked to Jerry, eyes wide.

  Jerry tipped his head to the side. “He’s not wrong, Nelson. But… best you don’t come if you’re not up to it.”

  Nelson sat back, trembling. “Maybe I’d just get in the way. I’m sorry, I—“ He held up his hands. “Like you said, it’s best I should stay here. I can radio for more backup.”

  “Sure, Nelson,” Jerry said. Then to Jake, “How many rounds you got left for that hand cannon?”

  “Ten plus six in the revolver.”

  “I’ve got two mags of seventeen plus whats in the hatch already.”

  “Good to know.”

  They each got out, only shutting their doors halfway, and crept up the road, scraping along the thick branches until the compound came into better view. The main structure to their right was a big, squat, brown house with dark brown trim. Light smoke billowed out of two separate chimneys.

  Up ahead, they got their best view yet of the shop, but couldn’t yet see inside. The drab single story structure had a metal roof and stood sixty yards from where Jake and Jerry sat crouched.

  The main attraction was the flurry of activity between the main house and the huge shop, where someone had made the captive driver pull the semi truck through at an angle. This provided cover for the men speedily unloading the truck and for Kenny who was hard at work, using the acetylene torch to cut through the trailer’s side.

  Kenny had cut through twenty feet of metal up top, and another man Jake hadn’t seen before was taking a power saw to the metal along the bottom. Together they’d opened a big hole in the side where two other men were using pallet jacks to pull whole pallets straight off the semi and onto a flatbed truck. For a moment, Jake wondered if the gunfire from the shop was really just a cover for the sound of the men violently gutting the CheapValue trailer.

  But then the scanner barked out behind them from the windowless cruiser, “Officer down, I repeat, Officer down.”

  Jerry waved his hand at the ground and Nelson turned the volume down.

  So the gunfire wasn’t just for sound effects after all.

  The cab of the semi was pointed straight at them, and the semi driver was in his seat looking anxious, trying to scan his mirrors for a sense of what was going on behind him. One of the twins sat in the passenger seat.

  “We need a plan,” Jerry said.

  “That semi is providing a lot of cover,” Jake said. “If we could move it up into this back road, we’d stop them unloading it and block off their escape.”

  “Smart,” Jerry said. “But there’s a lot of ground between here and the cab. A long few seconds of running, then we’d be slapping the bear in the nose.”

  “You stay here, then,” Jake said. “I’m gonna scoot around and make a diversion. Then you try and get that curly haired muppet out of the cab and tell the driver what to do.”

  “We need a signal?”

  Jake shook his head. “You’ll know.” With that, he bashed through the dense thicket lining the other side of the road.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Peacemaker

  Jake holstered his weapon and used both hands to protect his face from branches as he plowed through the underbrush and the odd spider’s web left over from warmer months. Once through the densest vegetation, Jake could see where the clearing stretched out to his left and where the trees lining the compound stood to the right. The crackle of gunfire exchanged up and down the driveway had grown sharper with his approach.

  The thicket of small trees and bushes thinned to include more stands of tall grass and tapered to a point separating the compound from the clearing. Jake crouched and made his way forward to this point, getting as close to the action as possible while retaining cover. He took a knee in the last stands of tall grass and evaluated his position.

  To his left, he could see at an angle into the rear of the shop through an open garage door. Looking straight ahead now he was only forty or fifty feet from the flat bed and the thieves pulling pallets off the semi. Kenny and the man with the saw worked diligently, cutting another inch away from the trailer every few seconds.

  Jake sighed. “Sorry, hoss.” He lifted his pistol, aimed carefully at the bottom of the acetylene tank sitting on the flatbed and exhaled as he squeezed the trigger.

  The .45 bucked, and flame shot sideways out of the bottom of the tank. It rocketed the tank around like the hour hand of a clock, knocking Kenny off his feet. It careened off a pallet and exploded in a ball of fire. The tank itself blossomed apart in the explosion and cartwheeled across the grass, smoking and making strange tinny sounds like an out of tune banjo.

  Screams and shouts erupted as the truck unloaders dove off the flat bed, one of them with his flannel shirt aflame. Kenny appeared rattled by the blow from the careening tank. He clutched his stomach as he rolled off the flatbed and slid down the wall of the shop, crumpling in the grass.

  Jake wasn’t sure if the unloaders were armed, so he stayed put in his blind of dense brush. There appeared to be four men helping with this portion of the heist, evidence of Sarah Paulsen’s planning. Two of them had scampered inside the shop, and one emerged to aid the burning man, rolling him in the grass newly wet with snow, then pulling him into the shop as well.

  Jerry appeared off to the right, running from his cover in a crouch toward the cab of the truck. He pointed his 9mm up at the passenger door and shouted orders.

  One of the unloaders, a thick man
with a bald head and beard, poked his head out of the open shop door and spotted Jerry. He shouted over a shoulder, but it was unclear in the general din if anyone inside the shop heard him. The bald, bearded unloader took it upon himself to pull a pistol out of the front pocket of his bib overalls.

  Jake fired from cover, and sparks flew off the metal siding near the man’s face. It wasn’t a hit, but the spray of debris and the shock of the impact near his head sent the unloader wheeling back inside.

  Jerry had the semi’s passenger door open now. A pistol flew out and dropped to the ground. Jerry picked up the gun in his free hand and shoved it his rear pocket. Randy stepped out of the cab and onto the turf. He did as ordered, kneeling and putting his hands on his head. Jerry gave the driver instructions to start driving and cuffed Randy.

  As the semi lurched, two gunmen scrambled out from underneath, Rudy and another short man Jake had never seen, both holding AR-15s. Rudy spotted his bother with a look of confusion.

  Jerry stood Randy up and started backing toward cover with the slow-moving semi.

  Realization hit Rudy, and he leveled his rifle and ran toward them, shouting something. Before Jerry could turn to shoot, Jake fired. He’d led the running target, and his bullet pounded Rudy in the ribcage, sending him lurching sideways under the truck in a clatter of arms and legs and weaponry.

  Randy cried out, “No!”

  There was no time to reach Rudy or stop the truck before the trailer wheels rolled over him.

  “No!” Randy cried out again and wrested his cuffed hands from Jerry’s grasp. As he ran toward his brother, the side of the truck that Kenny had been cutting away opened like a flap in the air, threatening to take Randy’s head off. He barely dodged it and fell to the ground. Jerry dove away too, as the semi lurched into second gear, as it entered the exit road. The open side scraped against the thicket, and the big flap of metal bent back as if it might fold against the side, but before that could happen the thicket gave way, bending and breaking to let the semi and its ungainly flap by.