by Aimée Thurlo
Lee didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be prying like this. Forget the question.”
He looked over at Diane, who was obviously embarrassed. “I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone in my life except for Annie. II I ever decide to talk about Annie, it’ll probably be to you. But not now, okay?’
Diane nodded.
As they rode down the highway, Lee thought about something that had bothered him for so many years, always in the back of his mind. If he had turned Annie, she’d probably be alive today. They’d discussed the possibility, of course, but Annie loved her teaching, and didn’t want to do anything that would force her away from that, so she’d said no. He had wished a thousand times since then that he’d tried to convince her otherwise.
After getting a call from SAC Lewis reporting that Muller’s vehicle was, indeed, headed west across Socorro County, which was a repeat of the vampire’s earlier route to Fort Wingate, they increased their speed, and Lee’s thoughts returned to their mission.
“Muller is going to be expecting a trap. We don’t know for certain that he recognized you as Lee Nez, but he does know we’re after him. Even if he doesn’t know you’re a night walker, we got away, and he has to assume the hunt will continue. Do you suppose he realizes that we know what he’s after?” Diane asked.
“We have to assume so. Even if he doesn’t fear us, there is John Buck to consider. Muller may believe that the medicine man told everyone, including local deputies, about someone roaming the forest near his place at night, taking pot shots at something. Let’s just hope Muller doesn’t go after Buck.” Lee liked the hataalii, and trusted him immediately, just as he had the man’s uncle, Bowlegs.
“So when and where do we make our move?” Diane asked. “We discussed a lot of possibilities earlier, but now we know what he’s trying to do, at least initially.”
“I figure we’ll have to nail Muller right by the freeway, just off the exit when he’s still out in the open. I’ll use the backup rifle I brought, and shoot from the underpass as they’re coming down the ramp. It’ll be less than a hundred yards. Inside the vehicle, they won’t be able to take advantage of their mobility.”
“You want me to disable the vehicle, then? Shoot out the tires?”
“Exactly. Once they’re disabled, we’ll move in and I’ll set fire to the SUV with the cook-stove fuel I put in the trunk. We’ll just have to hope a passerby doesn’t get caught in the middle or try to interfere.”
Lee knew it was risky, but he didn’t want Muller to get loose in the forest. It would be nearly impossible to track him down, and Muller’s ability to run would make him a hard prey to catch even if Plummer wasn’t with him.
“You should contact SAC Lewis and try to send him on a wild-goose chase at the last second to avoid his interference. He and whoever is with him won’t understand the need for overkill when it comes to eliminating a vampire,” Lee said.
“Neither did I, until Kurt Plummer walked away after what I did to him. I’ll take a position in the drainage ditch beside the intersection,” Diane suggested. “They’ll be in a crossfire.”
“Okay. Just don’t miss, and don’t stop shooting until I do. Co for the head shots unless you’re so close you can’t possibly miss the heart. These guys are tough, and they’ll be ready. Hopefully, they’ll be expecting us to hit them when they reach the forest or are around the hogan.”
“Well, if we pull this off, at least no one will ever find the bodies. We can simply maintain that we found the van empty.”
Lee looked down the road, spotting an exit ahead, but kept his mind on working out the details for tonight’s operation. Now that the FBI was watching Muller, Lee had to strike when the opportunity came.
Diane had contacted the SAC again, and Lewis had agreed to continue down the Interstate once Muller exited, then stop at Wingate Village and set up a roadblock where the frontage roads merged. They would catch Muller’s vehicle between them that way. It was a diversion, of course, to keep the rest of the FBI away from the scene, because Muller would turn off before he’d gone that far.
Now Diane, who’d had little sleep for two days, was trying to rest, but her eyes were open. Lee was wide awake, driving an extra shift, eager to bring Muller to face ultimate justice. Most of his life, Lee had been a walker of the night, and he couldn’t remember anymore what it was like to experience the darkness of night. Only by closing his eyes could he block out the light. He wondered ii this was the reason he was seldom sleepy anymore.
“We’re getting close. The next exit is the one we want to take,” Diane spoke, her voice taking on the matter-of-fact tone of an experienced cop. She was obviously resigned to the plan, and apparently had no more doubts about doing what had to be done. Last night’s experience had taught her a lot, Lee thought, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes.
Lee checked his watch. “We’ll be there in three minutes, give or take. According to your SAC, they are about fifteen minutes behind us. We should have plenty of time to get set up.” He looked ahead for the exit sign on the right side of the Interstate.
When they reached the exit, it only took five minutes for Lee to get into position, parking the car inside the wide, shallow tunnel on the northbound lane of the access road that passed beneath the freeway. He had a heavy-barreled Winchester varmint rifle in .30-06 caliber, again with iron sights. No scope was necessary with eyes like his.
He’d fire across the hood of the Honda, using the engine block for protection. Diane was farther out, lying in the drainage ditch beside the culvert where the exit lane intersected with the road passing under the Interstate. If things got too hot, she could duck inside the culvert.
He waited ten more minutes, then realized something was wrong. His cell phone rang, and he grabbed it instantly, looking up the freeway ramp, keeping watch.
“Yes?” he answered.
Diane spoke excitedly. “I just got a call from Lewis. Muller took a freeway exit farther back this time, and my SAC changed the plan. He’s decided to follow them off the Interstate and down the frontage road. I couldn’t change his mind.”
“We need to saddle up. Hurry,” Lee answered, then put the phone back in his pocket and set the safety on the Winchester before setting it on the backseat. Jumping inside, he started the car. Diane was running in his direction, and he pulled over and stopped long enough for her to jump in.
“Now what?”
Lee started to speak, but his words were lost in the concussion of an explosion somewhere close by that shook the light sedan. A fireball lit up the night sky, and he turned to see an inferno just off the freeway.
“That’s at the other exit!” Diane shouted. “Muller!”
“Hang on!” Lee spun the Honda around, and accelerated down the frontage road east, back toward Muller’s SUV and his FBI tail.
Diane grabbed her cell phone and started pushing buttons. She listened, and tried again. “I can’t get a response from Lewis. I keep getting an out-ot-service message.”
As they raced down the frontage road east, flames and black smoke continued to pour from a single object directly in front of them.
“Lewis and his partner should have stuck to the plan. Do you think Muller spotted them?” Diane kept trying, but couldn’t get a response on the cell phone.
“What kind of car were they driving?” Lee said, his voice sounding distant and detached. Below the billowing black smoke and the flames reaching twenty feet into the sky was the wreckage of a sedan. The doors had been blown off, and the interior was a wall of fire. Puncture holes were everywhere on the shell of the vehicle, but the vehicle tag was still readable.
Diane set down the cell phone and started shaking her head. Lee could see she was biting her lip, trying to control her emotions. Looking down, he saw his own hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly nobody could have pried them loose.
“Call for backup, Diane. Muller and Plummer did this, and we have to f
ind them before they get away.” Lee pulled up to within a hundred feet of the inferno. The body of the front passenger was ten feet away from the fire, his clothes still smoking. At least one arm appeared to be missing, and his pockets had been turned out, showing the body had been searched. The driver, still mostly inside, had been blown apart. Both men had probably died within a second or two.
He looked around, but no other vehicles were in sight. There were skid marks, however, that indicated a vehicle had accelerated away quickly, headed south beneath the freeway toward the east-bound on-ramp.
Diane had tears in her eyes, but she was speaking calmly and coldly on the cell phone as she put in an All-Points for Muller’s SUV.
“Diane.” She didn’t seem to hear him. “Diane!”
This time she turned in his direction.
“They’re headed back east. Let everyone know that they’re using explosives, probably a grenade or a big pipe bomb. Something that throws a lot of shrapnel.”
Diane relayed the information, never taking her eyes off the smoking body of the passenger, Ray Lewis. She turned to Lee. “We can’t afford to wait for the fire department. If Muller is heading east, that’s where we’re going. I want those bloodsucking bastards.”
CHAPTER 16
Shit! I wish we had a radio. Diane was on the edge of her seat, her cell phone in her hand as she looked out the window to her right for signs of Muller’s SUV.
Every few minutes she’d get a call routed through the Albuquerque FBI office. Roadblocks had been set up at Grants and farther west as well, and local deputies and the Navajo police were alerted to check secondary roads throughout a hundred-mile radius.
“They’ll be getting rid of the SUV. They obviously knew the people they saw tailing them were cops who’d reported the vehicle description. Keep an eye out for the thing,” Lee advised. “If they’re thinking clearly, they’ll probably steal another vehicle, so maybe we’ll get an auto-theft report that we can follow up on.”
Diane nodded. She had been agitated for a while, suggesting possible moves made by Muller and his crewman to avoid detection. Now she was calming down, obviously trying to get inside the heads of the German vampires.
“What about the wife of the crewman? Ingrid Plummer.” She punched out another number on the cell phone. “This is Agent Diane Lopez again. I’d like a report from the team assigned to watch Kurt Plummer’s apartment. What is the wife doing?”
Diane listened lor a minute. “What? When? Why didn’t somebody notify SAC Lewis and me? Put out a bulletin on that woman. She might lead us to her husband and Wolfgang Muller. Also notify Base Security. They are to consider Muller and Plummer extremely dangerous, and be ready to use deadly force. Let me know immediately if any of these people or their vehicles are located.”
She disconnected the call, and released a long stream of obscenities.
“Let me guess. The wife has disappeared.” Lee sighed.
“The team that was supposed to take over the apartment surveillance for Lewis and his partner when they followed Muller arrived a few minutes late. The dumb asses assumed the wile was still in the apartment, but didn’t get around to checking on her vehicle until an hour ago. It was missing. They checked with the neighbors, who heard her drive off a few minutes after her husband left.”
“Are they looking lor her vehicle?”
“Yes. And her as well.”
“It’s my fault. I didn’t include her in the picture at all. She’s probably in on everything. There’s no way she wouldn’t know her husband is a vampire. She could even be one herself.” Lee used some of the curses Diane had employed earlier.
“She may have followed her husband in a loose tail, spotted Hay Lewis, then contacted her husband. They knew we were looking for them. They just outsmarted us. We can’t afford to let that happen again.” Diane kept her eyes open, looking at every side road that might have been used by Muller.
“Check and see if they have a cell phone listed. Maybe we can track down their calls if they try to get in contact with each other,” Lee suggested.
Diane nodded, and within five minutes had the answer. “A call was made From the cell phone in the same general area where Ray Lewis and Agent Harris were killed. Who do you suppose got close enough to throw the explosive device, the woman?”
“She may have pulled up behind Lewis’s car at the intersection where he was attacked, flagged them down, and then just walked up to the window and tossed in a bomb or grenade. They probably didn’t even recognize Ingrid until it was too late,” Lee said. “Like us, they probably only have a description of her.”
The cell phone rang again, and Diane listened briefly, then disconnected after only a moment.
“They found Ingrid Plummer’s car. It was in a supermarket parking lot in Alamogordo. Local officers are checking the area, trying to find her, or anyone who may have seen where she went,” Diane reported.
“She just switched vehicles. You might ask the officers to check and sec if any car-rental places are within walking distance of that parking lot, and if she could have rented a vehicle during the right time frame.”
“Good idea.”
They continued on for another ten minutes, then Lee pulled over at a gas station west of Grants. Parked back in the darkest spot of the lot was a Ford Expedition of the right color. “I just happened to notice. Good eyes, remember?”
They approached the vehicle cautiously, but it was empty and unlocked. The rental paperwork inside revealed it was the one they were looking for.
“Diane?” Lee caught her eye and indicated a man approaching. She kept her hand near her pistol, but quickly realized it was only an employee of the gas station.
“You cops or something?” the young man asked. He was Hispanic, wearing oily olive-green coveralls, and had dusty grease on his hands.
“Right.” Lee had his ID out before Diane could reach into her pocket. “We’re from the state police. A car was firebombed tonight near Thoreau, and we believe the occupants of this vehicle were involved. What do you remember about the driver, and was anyone else with him?”
“I remember hearing them drive up in a hurry, but I was working on a muffler at the time. There was a brief argument, somebody got slapped, and doors slammed. When I came out, the Ford was here, and a red Chevy Suburban was laying rubber east.”
“You see the tags?” Diane asked.
“No, ma’am, Too dark. But it looked new.”
“Did you examine the SUV, or look inside?” Lee asked.
“Sure did. It was unlocked, and I wanted to see if there was registration or some kind of address inside. These suckers are expensive.” The mechanic smiled, eyeing Diane.
“When the officers show up, make sure they get a sample of your fingerprints so they can match them against those found inside. It might save you some trouble later on,” Diane said, reaching for her cell phone again.
While she contacted local officers, Lee questioned the young mechanic about any details he remembered about the argument and anything he might have seen. After a few minutes, the man admitted hearing a man call someone an idiot. A woman had said something, then yelped. She was the one slapped, probably.
Lee and Diane were on the road again soon. While a local crime-scene team searched, then impounded the vehicle, other officers would scour Grants and surrounding areas for the red Suburban.
“Do you think they will be going back to Alamogordo?” Diane asked after they’d been on the road several minutes.
“Not really. There are too many people there who might recognize them, and now they’re on the run for something we can actually arrest them for,” Lee pointed out.
“Which means they’re going to go into hiding. I don’t think the heat will die down very soon, do you?” She thought about it for a moment. “They’re going to be going back for that box, if they really want it that bad. If they wait much longer, they have to assume you’ll finally turn it over to the authorities or hide it somewhere else
. By now they realize you’ve been hoping Mullet” would come back for it, which is why you never turned it in. They know it’s your bait.”
“These are very smart people, at least Muller is,” Lee said. “I doubt killing Agents Lewis and Harris was his idea. The woman probably did it to protect her husband. That would explain the slap and the argument. I bet they’re going to hide out until night, or try to travel by daylight in a covered vehicle.”
She nodded. “They’ve become federal fugitives.”
“Where would you go if you wanted to hide out a few days, Diane?”
“Me? If I hadn’t lived in Albuquerque half my life, that’s where I’d go. Lots of housing, plenty of strangers to hide among, and thousands of choices if you’re looking to steal some transportation. It’s also the biggest city anywhere close to Fort Wingate,” Diane replied. “Gallup is quite a bit smaller, and they would have to pass by us.”
“I agree. Then that’s where we go tonight,” Lee said. “Maybe, in the meantime, we’ll get lucky and somebody will spot that Suburban.”
There are more than a dozen tiny communities between Grants and Albuquerque, and though the trip normally took less than an hour, they had to pass through roadblocks manned by heavily armed officers at McCartys on the Acoma Indian Reservation and again at Laguna for that tribe’s officers. Both villages featured several side roads that the German Air Force fugitives could have taken.
Once in Albuquerque, though it was not yet sunrise, Lee and Diane were ordered to meet with a combined task force of federal, state, and local officers concerning the bombing of SAC Lewis’s automobile and the dragnet out for Muller and the Plummers.
The multistory FBI building was a few blocks from what was considered downtown, with easy access to I-25, which was only a short distance east. Lee had never been in the building, but Diane had her cubbyhole office on the second floor, he learned as they drove into the basement parking garage of the modern structure.
“The meeting is in the big conference room on the first floor,” Diane explained as they jogged up the single flight of stairs. She stopped at the stairwell door and adjusted her clothes.