Dark Mountain (The David Wolf Series Book 10)

by Jeff Carson

  More than a few miles an hour would risk catastrophic vehicle damage. Over and again, he had to creep to a complete stop to pass over some of the rocks without tearing a hole in something vital on the bottom of the SUV.

  According to his Garmin GPS, he only had two miles to go, but he swore he could’ve walked faster, and after another few minutes at crawling speed he was prepared to pull over and do just that. But the road mercifully smoothed for the last mile and he glided further up the valley at just under ten miles per hour.

  Finally, he came to the end of the line—a small clearing where the road stopped and a narrow trail up into the trees began. A brown sign, pitted by a shotgun blast, said Dark Mountain Lake—4.7 miles.

  He parked and got out into air that felt thin, even to a Colorado native who’d lived in the Rockies all his life. A chill burrowed into his jacket. The lead-colored sky darkened by the second and a low rumble of thunder came from up a steep-walled valley that lay in front of him.

  Wasting no time, he zipped up his jacket and tightened his boot laces for the hike. He put on his backpack, which contained his emergency dry clothing, the Garmin GPS, and Fabian’s fetid gear for good measure.

  He shouldered the M4, put a hand on his Glock, pocketed his multitool, and locked his SUV, hoping he would see it again.

  With a hard exhale, he marched past the sign into the dripping forest.

  Right. Left. Right. Left.

  “Henning! Henning!” Paul Womack slapped the unconscious squad leader on the cheek. “Wake up! Hey!”

  Wolf fired another burst toward the rock outcropping. The wind blew heat from his barrel back in his face.

  A Taliban fighter stood from his cover and caught one of Wolf’s rounds in the forehead. A pink mist puffed behind the enemy’s head as he dropped, and then the action ground to a halt.

  Wolf aimed, waiting for more movement. None came, but he kept his rifle raised.

  Two medics rushed over and knelt next to Henning. “What happened?”

  “Artillery round landed right next to him,” Womack said.

  “He’s cyanotic.”

  “Suction.”

  Through the ringing in his ears and radio chatter Wolf could hear Henning gurgling.

  “Suction!”

  The second medic, SPC Mac Johnson, put a suction bulb that looked like a turkey baster down Henning’s throat and started pulling out clotted blood.

  Wolf flicked his eyes between the action on the ground next to him and the threat ahead.

  Womack had his own rifle raised now, scanning the brown, rock-strewn landscape that had served as their enemies’ ambush point.

  Mac removed the helmet and assessed the damage to Henning’s head wound. “Shit.”

  Wolf looked down and saw that shrapnel had become lodged deep in Henning’s temple.

  “Airway cleared,” Mac said. “All right.” He pulled out a J-shaped tube and put it down Henning’s throat.

  A ground-mobility vehicle pulled up and stopped a dozen yards away.

  “Wolf, Womack,” the first medic ordered, “get him onto the GMV.”

  Wolf nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  They were sitting ducks and everyone knew that more artillery shells could be on their way, so they moved fast.

  Womack grabbed Henning by the shoulders and lifted while Wolf took his legs.

  The sergeant was thick and muscular, and lifting his dead weight took more than a bit of straining.

  Just then, Wolf spotted another enemy rise from the rock outcropping and point the muzzle of an AK-47 at them.

  “Incoming!” Wolf froze, then backtracked toward the GMV.

  Red blossoms opened up on the Taliban fighter’s chest, dropping him dead. Mac had seen the enemy at the same instant and fired a three-round burst.

  In the commotion, Womack stumbled and released his grip on Henning’s shoulders.

  As if in slow motion, Wolf watched Henning’s head drop to the ground, sounding like a sack of sand as it made direct contact with the spot where the shrapnel was embedded.

  Wolf’s knees nearly buckled from the firing of his nerves. “Oh, shit.”

  Womack stood with his arms out, staring down at Henning with wide eyes.

  “Go! Go! Go!” someone yelled from the GMV behind them.

  Womack blinked, looking left and right as if trying to find someone else to take his place.

  “Come on!”

  At the sound of Wolf’s voice, Womack snapped out of his trance and picked up Henning again. They moved quickly to the GMV and two Rangers helped them put the sergeant in the back.

  As the GMV drove away, Wolf and Womack were left exposed in the open. Sensing that Womack was still reliving earlier moments, Wolf gripped his shoulder and pulled him toward an ancient rock wall.

  They sat down heavily behind the cover and Wolf eyed his friend. “You okay?”

  “I dropped him.” Womack’s skin was whiter than the snow capping the mountains in the distance.

  “He fell, Paul,” Wolf said. “We were taking fire.”

  Womack closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “Shit, shit, shit …”

  Wolf felt sick to his stomach at the sight of his friend’s soul tearing apart. He’d forged a bond with Womack as they’d walked through the fires of hell together, but this was too much to bear.

  “I pulled him away from you,” Wolf said. “It was my fault. I thought I’d shot all the enemies. I should’ve known there was another. We wouldn’t have been caught off guard.”

  Womack turned to Wolf and looked like he was going to say something, like That’s bullshit. I dropped him. Thanks for trying, though. Or something snappier. Paul Womack had a way with words.

  But instead his friend’s eyes grew distant and he said, “Fight’s over.”

  The fighting might’ve been over, but then again there could’ve been more combatants in waiting less than a click away, ready to fire more artillery, and air support still hadn’t arrived to make sure they were all vaporized.

  But Womack stood up and walked away from Wolf.

  Nearby thunder snapped Wolf from his memories. What little sky he could see through the forest canopy was dark, and the sound of howling trees rolled down the valley until the surrounding pines were creaking back and forth.

  Rain spattered the ground, and then Wolf. They were fat beads mixed with pea-sized hailstones, but he was sheltered well inside the forest and had only felt a few drops. So far.

  Keeping his pace, he pulled out the GPS and found a blank screen due to weak signal. He knew GPS signals propagated through the worst of elements without degradation, but passing through thick forest was another issue. If he wanted to find his spot, he’d need to be in the open.

  He hoped his waterproof backpack performed as advertised.

  His watch said 7:13. Still plenty of time.

  The air crackled and a flash lit everything, and before he could flinch thunder cracked.

  Somewhere inside the forest to his left, a tree crashed to the ground. An animal shot across the trail ahead of him in a blur, and he caught a glimpse of a bear before it vanished into the woods.

  Wolf checked his rear and upped his pace into the teeth of the storm.

  CHAPTER 29

  Patterson remembered how much she hated squad-room coffee and dumped another packet of raw sugar into the cup and stirred.

  There was another flicker of lightning outside and ridiculously close thunder.

  Damn it. She looked at the hot cup of coffee in her hand and thought about Wolf and Rachette again. Disgusted, she dumped the liquid into the sink.

  “I know the feeling.” Charlotte stood looking at her. “I can’t picture eating or drinking anything. I just keep thinking about where Tommy is.” Charlotte began to cry again but put up a hand to stop Patterson from comforting her.

  “Shit.” Charlotte turned around and sat in front of her computer. “When is he gonna call us back?”

  They both stared at the desk phone for
a moment.

  Patterson went back to pacing the room, then, with renewed restlessness, walked to the kitchenette and dug under the sink, finding a box of chamomile tea. She held up the box toward Charlotte, then dropped it back under the sink and closed the cabinet.

  Charlotte stared through the room and rubbed slow circles over her belly with her hand.

  The sight made Patterson close her eyes and tilt her head to the ceiling. She wasn’t a religious person, but she considered herself spiritual and in touch with her inner self, which she felt gave her intimate knowledge of the workings of the rest of the universe.

  She was never one to pray or attend church. But now she pleaded to a higher power, something outside herself altogether, to help them. To give them all a break.

  And she asked for relief from all the guilt. She’d let Wolf and Rachette down and, if that wasn’t enough, she’d kept the truth a secret from Charlotte.

  Charlotte had closed her eyes now, continuing her belly rub with her other hand.

  But there was no way Patterson was going to tell a pregnant woman that her husband was not just missing, but hogtied, naked, and freezing on a bed of hay like an animal. And, oh yeah, remember Wolf getting his pinkie blown off a couple of years ago? Yeah, your husband’s finger’s been severed, too. So he’s probably convulsing and delirious with fever right now.

  “Hey.” Deputy Yates marched into the squad room with a line of deputies behind him.

  “Screw it,” Charlotte said. “I’m calling him back again.”

  Charlotte dialed and planted her elbows on the desk. She pressed the phone to her ear.

  “What’s going on?” Yates asked Patterson.

  “We’re calling a deputy in New Mexico for the tenth time.”

  “I meant, what’s going on? Where the hell is Wolf?”

  Patterson felt heat rise in her face. “I don’t know.”

  Yates looked at her. “Shit. We need him right now. He’s not answering any of my calls. This isn’t like him, and I’m starting to get worried. Have you talked to him?”

  “I did earlier.” She shrugged. “He said he was looking into it. He didn’t want me with him. What was I going to do?”

  Yates shook his head and watched Charlotte dial her phone again. “Okay, why’s she calling a New Mexico deputy for the tenth time?”

  “Eleventh now.”

  “Why?”

  “Trying to figure out what’s going on down there. We had a deputy who was working with us for a while, then he went quiet. Supposedly they’re in Ethan Womack’s place of employment.”

  “The gun shop?”

  She nodded.

  “Hello? Hello!” Charlotte sat straight. “Hey, yeah … okay …”

  “She’s through,” Yates said.

  They watched Charlotte nod and grunt into the phone for a few seconds and then Yates said, “Okay. Listen, with MacLean and Wilson gone, and now Wolf AWOL, I’m in charge.”

  Patterson nodded. “Okay.”

  “So I want to have a sit-room meeting in fifteen, all right? You two can brief us on what you’re finding out, and then we need to get a handle on what we’re going to do. Wandering around a few hundred square miles looking for a beat-up Ford F-150 is like … I don’t know … hard. And waiting for MacLean, Wilson, and Lorber to let us know what they found isn’t gonna cut it. We gotta get proactive.”

  She held back telling him that that’s exactly what she and Charlotte were doing. Yates only wanted to help and he had nothing to do. He wanted direction. With their deputy in danger, they all did.

  “You got it,” she said.

  Yates turned around. “Nelson! Let’s go.”

  Deputy Nelson broke off from the other group and followed Yates. They walked to the darkened situation room and opened it up, flicking the lights on and disappearing inside.

  Charlotte plugged her free ear with a finger. “Okay … okay …”

  Patterson went to the edge of her desk and sat.

  “Okay.” Charlotte looked up at her.

  The two of them had started the past hour like everyone else: waiting for Sheriff MacLean, Dr. Lorber, and Undersheriff Wilson to give them an update on the situation down in New Mexico. But that had meant sitting and twiddling their thumbs while the three men flew in a helicopter to Ashland and caught a turbo-prop flight to Taos.

  Of course, after that, they’d have been shuttled by vehicle to wherever they were going, who knew how many miles from the airport, then briefed on the situation.

  That meant at least a four-to-six-hour wait before getting anything meaningful from their away team.

  So, they’d taken matters in their own hands and picked up the phone, starting with the sheriff himself in Taos. The man had been reluctant to speak to them at first, but Charlotte poured on the tears and pleaded. She showed her whole hand, telling the man she was pregnant and desperate to know what had happened to her husband.

  When he’d tried to placate her, she freaked and demanded to speak to someone who could help, said she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Of course, none of it had been a ploy or an act and the sheriff had no choice but to give in, handing her off to work with one of his deputies. That deputy had handed her off to the next.

  And so it had gone on for two more phone calls until she got hold of a deputy named Gritzel.

  Now they might as well have been in the Taos Sheriff’s Department vehicles, because they had a confidant on the inside.

  Charlotte twisted her face as she listened to Gritzel’s voice in her ear. Then she clicked her computer mouse. “Okay, yes … all right, I’m opening it now.”

  She hung up. “He’s calling on Skype.”

  The icon on her computer screen bounced and chimed.

  “I love this dude,” Patterson said, leaning closer, because not only was Gritzel a responsive, helpful individual, he also embraced technology. During their previous conversation, it had been his idea to swap Skype addresses so they could have this little powwow in the first place.

  Charlotte clicked the video-call button. A deputy filled the screen, facing their direction, looking like he sat at a computer. Two more uniformed men stood behind him, looking over his shoulders.

  “Deputy Gritzel,” Charlotte said. “Thanks for including us.”

  Gritzel nodded. “You got it.” He was young with freckles and a mouth full of haphazard teeth only a mother could love.

  “These are Deputies Hendershot and Ulfers,” he said. “Guys, this is Deputy Munford and …”

  “This is Heather Patterson. Detective Heather Patterson,” Charlotte lied.

  “Yes, this is Detective Heather Patterson.”

  She waved and the two deputies behind Gritzel looked nonplussed to be staring at the two women, or rather, to have the two women staring at them.

  “Whatcha got, Deputy Gritzel?” Patterson asked, wondering why the two men were there in the first place.

  Gritzel’s fingers clicked on the keyboard.

  “We made it to Ethan Womack’s place of employment, T ’n’ T Guns, here on the north end of Taos. My sergeant is finishing up questioning the employees.”

  Charlotte cleared her throat. “What are Ethan Womack’s fellow employees saying?”

  Deputy Gritzel shrugged. “They’re acting shocked about the whole thing. They say he was their best gunsmith. Never caused any trouble at all. He was a little different, quiet-like, had some sort of head trauma when he was a kid, but they say he’s overall a great employee. Apparently, some sort of savant with guns. Worked really fast.”

  “And what about the aggravated assault?” Charlotte asked.

  “According to the owner himself, the guy deserved every bit of the beating he received. Called him retarded and made fun of his mother in a sexual way, who had died a month prior, mind you.”

  “Jesus,” Patterson said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do they know about his brother’s suicide?” Charlotte asked.

  “No. They
seemed shocked about it.” Deputy Gritzel looked over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, shocked.” The man behind him concurred.

  “Did Ethan ever have anyone else in there with him?” Charlotte asked. “Any friends?”

  “No. They say he was a loner. Like, true loner. No friends. Just his brother, who’d recently started showing up because he’d got out of Leavenworth.”

  “Are all the other employees accounted for?” Patterson asked.

  Gritzel gestured to the colleague behind him.

  “Yeah,” the deputy said. “It’s two brothers who own this place and then two employees, one of which is Ethan Womack. Four people total, and the other three are in there.”

  “What about other people who came in with Ethan in the last few days?” Charlotte asked. “Nobody hanging out with him? Nobody suspicious coming in and buying guns, maybe?”

  Gritzel shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Charlotte sighed heavily.

  Patterson put a hand on her shoulder. “Deputy Gritzel … what about his house? Anything new there?”

  “Besides Paul Womack’s body, the shooting trophies, the missing fifty-caliber … what else? I’m hearing Paul Womack’s been dead for a good seventy-two hours, but that’s not final until the coroner gives his report, which your sheriff will be present for in a few hours.”

  “How about those shooting competitions?” Patterson asked. “What do the gun-shop owners say about that?”

  “The guys working in this place act like it’s a harmless thing, like a boy scout going to an archery contest. Nothing violent-minded about it.” Gritzel’s hand grew large as he pointed at the computer screen.

  Patterson scratched her forehead. “Was there internet browsing history on his home computer?”

  “No home computer.”

  “No home computer?” She sounded more surprised than she’d meant to. She thought about the highly-edited suicide video and how it had to have been done on a computer. But where?

  “What about his work computer?” she asked.

  Gritzel tapped his nose with his finger. “That’s what we’re doing now.”

  He reached down, picked up the camera, and swiveled it to show them.