Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn - 02 - Broken Shield

by J. D. Rhoades

  __________

  Sam Hough knew there was something hinky as soon as he looked up from filling out his deposit slip and saw the guy in the hoodie walk through the door. For one thing, it was hotter than the hinges of Hell outside, and who wore a sweatshirt in that kind of weather? Plus, the guy was no teenager. He looked to be in his mid-forties, although it looked like at least the last few had been hard, care-filled ones. But even without that, Hough would have known the guy was trouble. It was in the eyes. In seventeen years of law enforcement, he’d seen that look a few times, even in the quiet suburban department where he’d spent most of his career. It was the look of someone with absolutely nothing left to lose, the look of someone who just didn’t give a fuck anymore.

  “Psst,” he whispered across the dark-wood standing desk where another officer, a young Latino named Mercado, was finishing his own deposit slip. He didn’t know Mercado well; he was fairly new and they’d always worked on different shifts so far. But he knew Mercado’s partner, Green, pretty well. He and Green had had a few beers down at their favorite sports bar, and Green never seemed to have any complaints.

  Mercado looked up, puzzled. Hough jerked his chin at where Hoodie Guy was getting in the shortest of the three teller lines. Mercado clocked him immediately and looked back at Hough.

  “You have got to be shitting me,” he whispered. He’d figured things out right away. Good.

  “Guess he’s not from around here,” Hough said, “Or he wouldn’t have picked this bank.”

  “You got that right.” Mercado looked at the security guard. “What about him?”

  Hough smirked. “His job’s to call us, right?”

  “Hah. Right. So how do we…”

  “I’ll get in line behind him,” Hough said. “You get next to him. He tries anything, we take his ass down, hard. I don’t want any gunfire in here if we can help it.” Mercado just nodded and moved to the teller line beside the one where Hoodie Guy was standing, hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor. The hood was pulled up and over his forehead.

  This guy cannot be serious, Hough thought. He might as well have stuck a sign that said BANK ROBBER to his back. He moved in closer, got in the line just as it moved. Hough looked over at Mercado. Mercado glanced significantly to the door. Hough looked. He saw his own partner, Lee Curtis, walk in. Curtis was tall and thin, a former high school basketball star who’d kept his lanky, angular gracefulness even into middle age.

  “Yo, Sammy,” he called to Hough.

  “Hey, Curt,” Hough said. “C’mere a minute.” Curtis ambled over, wearing his usual easy smile on a face that looked like it never left the farm. The smile slipped a bit when he caught sight of Hoodie Guy, who hadn’t turned around at the exchange like some other people had. He raised an eyebrow at Hough, who nodded. Curtis got in line without another word. And now we’re three, Hough thought. The line moved again.

  __________

  Preston fumbled with the note in his pocket. He’d written it on a slip of soiled and creased scrap paper from the glove compartment, and now it felt damp with sweat. He found himself absurdly embarrassed at how shabby it probably looked. Get a grip, he told himself. It’s a robbery note, not a dinner invitation. He fought down the hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble up out of his throat.

  The line moved again. One more to go. He felt the weight of the gun in his waistband. His chest felt tight. He could feel the hammering of his heart and wondered why everyone in the bank couldn’t hear it. Despite the heat of the sweatshirt, the sweat trickling down his back felt ice cold.

  The line moved.

  Preston pulled the note out of his pocket, shoved it across the counter, harder than he’d intended. It skittered across the smooth surface and onto the floor behind the counter. The young blonde female teller, obviously nettled, bent down to pick it up. She was looking at it as she came back up from behind the counter, her brow furrowed. He saw her eyes grow wide as the import of the note sank in. He reached for the gun…

  Only to find his arms seized from behind and yanked up to the center of his back. He was propelled forward, into the edge of the counter, his breath coming out in an agonized whoosh as his sternum crashed into the hard unyielding surface. He cried out in shock and pain. Someone screamed, very near. Then he was on his face, on the floor, hands still wrenched painfully behind him. He heard the click of metal on metal and felt the cold rings of a pair of handcuffs encircling his wrists. Tears of frustration and rage sprang to his eyes as a harsh voice grated in one ear. He felt the steel of a gun barrel jammed hard and painfully into the other.

  “Congratulations, genius,” the voice said. “You just tried to rob the bank where half the cops in town come to deposit their paychecks. This is really not your lucky day.”

  It never is, he thought, as the cuffs clicked shut.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Donovan said.

  The loader squatted at one edge of a large rectangle of torn-up earth, turned to mud by the recent storms and churned into a chaotic series of rills and gullies by the comings and goings of tons of equipment. The land had been marked off with strings attached to small, upright bits of wood, showing where the foundations of a house would soon be poured. The front of the machine was a deep scoop, its once-bright yellow paint scratched and abraded off from repeatedly gouging into the thick, rocky soil. Clumps of muddy soil mixed with stones still clung to the front blade. A jointed backhoe arced up from behind the open driver’s seat like the leg of a giant insect.

  “Great,” Lofton said. “Now all we have to do is drive it ten miles back to my house with no one noticing.”

  Donovan pointed to the low-slung black trailer parked on the other side of the building site. “No, numb-nuts,” he said, “we hook that up to this truck, hot-wire the loader if we have to, and haul the fucker back. It’s the weekend. No one’ll notice the thing gone till Monday.”

  As it turns out, they didn’t need to hot-wire the loader; the operator had left the keys under the seat. It took them less than a half hour before they were pulling away, the big truck grumbling under the unaccustomed load of the trailer banging and squeaking behind them. “You ever run one of these things before?” Lofton asked.

  Donovan shook his head. “You?”

  “Naw. Too much like work.”

  Donovan shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

  “We’re just as likely to kill that girl tryin’ to dig her out of there.” Lofton squinted at the sun, lowering behind the trees. “Especially in the dark.”

  “Saves us having to do it later,” Donovan said. “Important thing is to get her out of there before someone digs the body out of your cellar.” The emphasis on the word your made it clear that Donovan still blamed Lofton for the mess. Lofton seethed inside, but kept his mouth shut. I’ll deal with him later, he thought. See if I don’t.

  __________

  Gabriella Torrijos looked unhappy. “It’s the best part of the story, Tony,” she said. “No, scratch that. It is the story.”

  “I know,” Wolf replied. “And you’ll be the first one I tell it to. On camera. I promise. But if you run with it now, whoever’s holding her might kill her to cover his tracks. We can’t let him know we know about this.”

  She stared at the ground, her anger apparent in the tension of her shoulders. “My producer told me I shouldn’t take this story,” she said. “Conflict of interest, he told me. You shouldn’t cover a story involving someone you’re…emotionally involved with.” He noticed she didn’t say love. She never did. But now wasn’t the time or place to go through that again.

  “But I told him you trusted me,” she went on. “I told him you wouldn’t talk to anyone else.”

  “Which is true.”

  “But now you tell me I can’t use the biggest part of the story. That I’ve got to make this another puff piece. I don’t do puff pieces any more, Tony.”

  “It’s just till we find her.”
/>   “If you do,” she said. She looked up at him, hurt in her wide dark eyes. “I’ve got to tell you, Tony, I’m feeling a little used right now.”

  He tried to contain his own anger. “I think you’re missing the big picture here, Gaby. There’s a girl out there we need to find. And I need your help.”

  She sighed. “I know, I know.” She gestured to her cameraman, a middle-aged black man with thinning gray hair standing a few feet away. He shouldered his camera and made his way over to them, a wary expression on his face.

  “Howard,” Wolf said.

  “Agent Wolf,” Howard Jessup replied.

  “Been a while.”

  “That it has. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Wolf said. “Just had to set some parameters for the story.”

  “Parameters,” Howard said. He looked at Gaby quizzically. She was looking away, her jaw set. “Okay,” he said. “Where we setting up?”

  “I’ll be over here,” Wolf said. Gaby didn’t answer. She began talking to Howard in a low, tense voice. Wolf walked over to where Leila Dushane was waiting.

  “Trouble in paradise, Boss?” she said.

  Wolf glared at her. “L.D.,” he began.

  “Shutting up, sir,” she answered briskly.

  They watched as Howard set up the camera and aligned the shot to put the bulky concrete structure of the Gibson County governmental center behind Gaby, the words “Sheriff’s Department” on the sign behind her arching over her head. When he was done, he turned on the recorder. He counted down from five with one outstretched hand, folding his fingers one by one. When he reached zero, Gaby’s face lit up in a professional but warm smile, all trace of her earlier anger gone.

  “Bob, we’re here in the Gibson County town of Pine Lake, where a mystery seems to have literally fallen from the sky…”

  “I hope this works,” Buckthorn’s voice came from behind them. Wolf and Dushane turned. He was standing there, in uniform, his hat in his hands.

  “Me, too,” Wolf said.

  “When do you expect the results from the lab?” Buckthorn asked.

  “Don’t know,” Dushane said. “I’m already getting a lot of whining about how backed up they are. I may need to get on the phone and kick some asses.”

  “You do that,” Buckthorn said. “That girl needs all the help she can get. She’s probably scared out of her mind.”

  Wolf nodded, studying Buckthorn’s face carefully. He saw the same determination to protect the innocent that had driven him into the Crimes Against Children Unit as a young agent, then into undercover work against exploiters of children and teenagers. “We’ll get her,” he said.

  “And the bastard who took her,” Dushane added.

  Buckthorn just nodded. “Call me if you hear anything.” He turned and walked towards his patrol car, putting his hat on as he went.

  “Man,” Dushane said, “did you see his eyes? And have you noticed the way he grinds his teeth?”

  “Yeah,” said Wolf. “I did. And I have.”

  “That guy’s intense.”

  “He’s a good cop,” Wolf said.

  “You don’t think he’s wound a little too tight?”

  “That’s what makes him a good cop,” Wolf said.

  “You’re not worried he might snap?”

  “Not really. No more that I am about me. Or you.”

  “Me?” she said. “I’m a goddamn poster child for mental health.” She watched Gaby winding up her story. “Okay. I’m going to go see if I can get the lab rats motivated. You and the missus can have some alone time.”

  Wolf let the jibe go. “I’m going to call Steadman first,” he said, referring to the current Deputy Director who’d run the operation that had gone terribly wrong, causing Wolf to go to ground in Pine Lake.

  “Pat Steadman?” Dushane asked.

  “Yeah,” Wolf said. “He might be able to bring some pressure from above.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.” She pulled out her cell phone. “They going to let us use the conference room?”

  “For the time being. It’s as good a place to run this investigation as any, until we get some idea of where the girl is.”

  “You really think she’s alive, boss?”

  “I have to,” Wolf said.

  __________

  Callie awoke to the sound of a rumbling engine. She raised her head and listened, straining her ears in the darkness. Some kind of truck, or heavy equipment. “Hey,” she tried to call out. “Hey! Down here!” her voice came out as a weak croak, barely audible even to her. She slumped in despair. But as the sound of the engine grew, her hope grew with it. Someone was coming for her. Someone would get her out. Maybe it was even her dad. All she had to do was hang on.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “God damn it,” Donovan said.

  Clouds had been gathering, swollen and menacing with the promise of more rain, dark and heavy enough to bring on the summer twilight a good hour and a half before the usual time. They’d gotten started moving some of the debris from the spot over where Lofton said the girl had been stashed. It took him a while to figure out the controls, and even longer to get the hang of working the articulated back arm with the scoop on the end. Donovan had leaned against the truck watching, a smirk on his face as Lofton struggled with the machine. More than once, Lofton considered steering the loader over there and running the son of a bitch down with it. He was about to do it at one point, but then he saw Donovan talking on his cell phone. Something told Lofton he was talking to Granddaddy, telling him what was going on. Donovan was Granddaddy’s emissary in this. Lofton would be deeper in the shit if he messed with him. But when this was over, and he was back in Granddaddy’s good graces—well, that’d be different, wouldn’t it?

  Then it started to rain. It started tentatively, a few fat, heavy drops that rang like tiny hammers on the metal nose of the loader. Lofton shut the engine down.

  “The fuck are ya doin’?” Donovan called over. “Ya afraid you’ll melt?” Before Lofton could reply, there was a flash of light, followed a few seconds later by a sharp crack, then a long, loud rumble of thunder that rattled the ground and filled the air with a bass vibration Lofton could feel in his chest.

  “Fuck you,” he called back. “I ain’t stayin’ out here to get struck by fuckin’ lightnin’.”

  Donovan shook his head in disgust and yanked the door of the truck open. He climbed in as Lofton hopped down off the loader and jogged to the truck. When he got there, it was raining in earnest, the big drops filling the air so that running was like dashing through a waterfall. When he got to the truck, Donovan was already in the driver’s side, lighting a cigarette. Lofton growled deep in his throat and ran to the other side.

  The door was locked. Donovan was looking at him, his mouth open in laughter. The sound was drowned out by the drumming of the rain on the roof.

  Lofton slammed his hand against the metal of the door. “God damn it,” he shouted, “Open the motherfuckin’ door, Donovan!” It was coming down in sheets now. Lofton’s shirt and pants clung heavily to him. Donovan laughed again and gave him the finger. Lofton pounded on the door. “You asshole!” he screamed. Donovan just laughed harder. If Lofton had had his gun at that moment, he would have blasted the window open and put a round right into Donovan’s laughing mouth. But all he could do was keep pounding on the door and screaming incoherently as Donovan’s muffled laughter filtered through the glass. Finally, Donovan relented, leaned over and opened the door. Lofton yanked it open and scrambled inside. The air conditioning was up full blast, and the sudden outwash of frigid air was like being dunked in ice water.

  “Ya look like a drowned dog,” Donovan said, still choking with laughter. It was all Lofton could do not to leap across the seat, wrap his hands around Donovan’s throat, and choke the life right out of him. But Donovan had picked his gun up off the dashboard as Lofton had clambered in, and he held it loosely in his right hand as he took a drag off the cigarette held in his left. He
laughed again, a sharp, mean sound. “That was feckin’ hilarious,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” Lofton said, which just set Donovan off again. Lofton looked at the gun, calculating his chances of taking it away and blowing Donovan’s brains out. Not good, he decided. The man was notoriously quick. Lofton was going to have to bide his time. He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead at the rain pouring down the windshield.

  “Ahhh, come on,” Donovan said in a voice dripping with phony solicitude. “You’re not mad, are ya? Are ya gonna cry, little girl? Huh?”

  Lofton didn’t look at him. “What are we going to do?” he said. “We can’t do anything until this rain lets up.”

  “We wait,” Donovan said. “It’s just a summer thunderstorm. It’ll blow over.”

  But it didn’t. Just as soon as it would start to die down, another squall blew up in its place. It went on till past dark, as they sat there. Donovan had eventually run dry of laughter, and now sat fuming, watching another storm build in intensity around them.

  “Fuck this,” he said, “it’s too dark. We’ve got no work lights. We’re gonna have to come back in the morning.”

  “And leave the loader here?” Lofton said. “Somebody’s gonna be looking for it.”

  “It’s Friday night,” Donovan said. “Driver’s probably out gettin’ drunk. No one’ll miss this thing till Monday.”

  “I don’t know,” Lofton said.

  “You got any other ideas?”

  Lofton shook his head. “Guess not.”

  “Come on,” Donovan said. “Let’s go get a drink ourselves.”

  Lotfon didn’t want to spend any more time with Donovan than he had to, but it looked like they were stuck together, at least for the moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”