by Aimée Thurlo
“Let’s go now, then. We’re on a time crunch.” Diane looked around the room quickly.
“You’ll be back.” Lee smiled, opening the apartment door.
A few hours later, Lee was lying on the roof of Bowlegs’s old hogan, his rifle by his side as he watched and listened. It was dark, and he was waiting for Muller and the couple with him to arrive. They’d be watching for him, but he was invisible to anyone approaching unless they came by helicopter.
Diane hadn’t called, but Logan’s secretary from the Bureau had contacted him on the cell phone, reporting that Agent Lopez was still in a meeting, and would meet up with him later at his destination.
Lee had expected Diane to call him once she was on her way, but she hadn’t done that. Maybe she was in a blackout area, but a hall hour had gone by already. It was too soon to worry, she was a trained agent and could take care of herself. Still, he couldn’t quite get her out of his mind.
Finally he reached for his cell phone, and punched out the numbers of the FBI office in Albuquerque. “This is State Police Officer Leo Hawk. I need to know what time Agent Diane Lopez left her meeting with SAC Logan.”
“One moment, Officer Hawk, I’ll check.”
Lee waited, and the longer the seconds went by, the more he was convinced that something was wrong. He sat up, ready to move, when the switchboard operator got back on the line. “Officer Hawk. Agent Lopez had no meeting with SAC Logan after the general conference early this morning. Isn’t she with you?”
Lee cursed, hung up, and climbed down from the hogan. He was running down toward where he’d hidden his police unit when the cell phone vibrated against his chest.
He switched his rifle to his left hand, stopped, and pulled the phone from his shirt pocket, looking around for signs of Muller, Diane, or anyone.
“Diane?”
“Yes, and her new best friends. It’s good to talk to you again, Officer Nez. Or should I call you Officer Hawk now? After all these years, I thought you’d have made sergeant by now.”
CHAPTER 17
Lee tried hard not to show any fear in his voice. “You have the woman FBI agent, Major Muller? What are you hoping to do, use her as a hostage to buy your escape?”
“That, and perhaps another item or two. Come on, don’t play stupid with me. You know what we were looking for near that Navajo hogan. And now you’re going to give it to me, aren’t you?”
“Even if I can locate that box again, it might be too dangerous for anyone to move or handle. The container has probably fallen apart by now. Do you know what the radiation would do to you if the container has broken open? Sunlight will kill you in minutes. Imagine what this form of radiation can do.” Lee was trying to come up with an angle that might give him a way to save Diane.
“Probably nothing. I worked in a nuclear-power plant in East Germany during the seventies, and never experienced any problems, even once when there was an accident. I believe that only ultraviolet radiation will harm someone like us, but I’m willing to risk your life to be certain. You do want to save your woman partner, don’t you? This way, you could make up for the one you got killed so long ago. Where’s the noble warrior I’ve always read about in those stories of the Old West?”
Lee tried to come up with some kind of miracle, an instant plan that would give him an opportunity to turn things around, lie wasn’t about to live with the blood of another innocent on his hands. I led lost Annie, but he wouldn’t lose Diane to his enemies as well. The death of the only person he’d ever really loved was already enough for him to earn’ through the decades, and he was beginning to care about Diane, probably too much.
“The woman isn’t my partner, she’s just an ambitious federal bureaucrat after the plutonium and your hide, in that order. Her career comes first, not the life of a fellow officer. If you doubt my words, consider her dead partner and her dead supervisor. All I want is to put you in your coffin for good. Kill her, and I’ll just have one more excuse to hunt you down.”
Lee kept talking. “But don’t try to play games or push me. I can keep you from getting what you want and you know that or you wouldn’t be trying to make a deal with me. I suppose a trade is what you’re asking, isn’t it, vampire?”
“Are you really willing to risk the life of this good-looking woman oxer a little overheated metal? What is the plutonium to you? It’s just been sitting there for half a century, and nobody but you and I even remember it at all. Hell, even the spy who helped me set up the ambush is dead. I killed him myself just to keep it our little secret.”
Muller was arrogant, but not quite sure what Lee’s angle was, and that encouraged Lee.
“I’ll tell you what, Muller. If you can get past the roadblocks, and the police and federal officers on patrol for three murdering terrorists, you can come and look for the plutonium with your pale-skinned friends. But I have a feeling that not even a vampire can get around this big state without a vehicle, and you can’t carry the plutonium under your arm and run off, can you? You need me, and don’t you forget that. If I discover or even suspect you’ve harmed another person in my state, Agent Lopez included, I’ll have every armed man in New Mexico on your trail, and a hundred scientists arguing over who gets first look at this box of mine. Try me.”
Lee disconnected the call before Muller could respond, and climbed into his unit. He’d just started the engine when the phone rang again. He let it buzz three times before answering.
“If you hang up on me again, she dies!” Muller yelled. “We do this my way!”
Lee hung up and held his breath. It seemed like an eternity had gone by before the phone rang again.
“Okay, we need to make a deal,” Muller snarled. “Get the plutonium, bring it to me, and you get the FBI woman alive and still relatively uninjured. But, if anyone makes a move on us, if we suspect anyone but you is anywhere close to us at all, she’ll be the first of many to die. You already know how difficult we are to kill. We could take dozens, maybe even hundreds, of lives.”
“We’re still assuming that the plutonium won’t kill me when I go get it.” Lee tried to sound unemotional, but he was elated that the plan he’d come up with off the cuff was starting to develop, “Prove to me that you haven’t killed the FBI woman.”
He waited on the line for a moment before Diane’s voice came on. “Sorry to interfere with your little vendetta, Officer Hawk. I thought I had a meeting, but got hijacked on the way downtown. I shot one of them, the one who set me up with the phone call, but she’s healed up again already. You know how they are. Just like you, but even bigger assholes.” Her words were measured, and there was anger in her voice. Maybe she was furious at his apparent disregard for her life, or maybe she understood his strategy and was skillfully playing along. Hopefully, Diane would remain smart, and alive. “Remember what I said about the body count going up if you try any more tricks,” Muller said, taking over the phone again. “I’ll be in touch. Once you have the merchandise, we can discuss where to meet.”
Lee understood the significance now of Lewis’s pockets being searched after he’d been killed. Ingrid had found Diane’s and his phone numbers, probably in the SAC’s notebook. Ingrid had posed as the new SAC’s aide, and neither he nor Diane had known her voice.
He called the state police dispatcher and left word that the fugitives had picked up a hostage. He didn’t mention Diane by name, afraid that some of the ill-trained auxiliaries manning roadblocks would make things worse, not better. But he had to tell the FBI about their agent, so he dialed again and let the Albuquerque Bureau know that Diane had apparently been lured into a trap, and was now held by Muller.
They should be observed and reported, but not approached without backup. Diane wouldn’t have expected anything less. By then, he’d reached John Buck’s home in his borrowed state police cruiser. Lee turned off the engine, and waited inside, behind the wheel. It was customary when approaching a Navajo dwelling to wait to be invited. If no one came to acknowledge his presenc
e and wave him inside, it meant either no one was home, or he wasn’t welcome, and should leave.
The medicine man wasn’t in his medicine hogan. There was a flickering light through a house window that suggested a television set was on. A curtain had moved when Lee drove up, and soon the front door opened.
“Come inside, Officer,” John said, just loud enough for Lee to hear, all the time watching the yard. His dog was by his side as he came in, and Lee noticed Buck’s rifle just inside the door on a small wooden table.
Lee went inside quickly, thanking the medicine man for his hospitality and accepting the cup of coffee offered.
“You’re alone tonight?”
Lee nodded. “And my partner, the woman who was with me, is in the hands of my enemies, the walkers of the night. We were forced to split up for a while, and that’s when they lured her into a trap.”
Buck nodded. “She’s a brave woman. Is she still . . .”
“Alive? For now, but they intend to use her to force me into bringing them the box I hid the night I met your uncle. She’s a hostage.”
“And you need my help. What can I do?” The middleaged Navajo man reached for his rifle.
“I would be grateful if you can do two things for me, but I must tell you that both could be very dangerous.” Lee didn’t want to put anyone else at risk, but too many had died already, or were in danger, for him to turn back now.
“Life is dangerous. None of us will get out of it alive. What is it you need, someone to watch your back?”
“Something much more important than that. I’m going to leave you a cell phone, and a unit to recharge the battery. I’ll show you how to use it in a few minutes.”
“I’ve used one before, but no need. There is a telephone farther down the highway at a neighbor’s home. I can use that to call whoever you want me to.”
“This phone will save you precious time, and I have another to use, so I won’t do without. I’d like you to keep watch over your land, yet stay hidden as you did when you observed my visits. If the night walkers return, or anyone else comes to dig anywhere within a five-minute walk of the old hogan, here is a list of numbers I want you to call.” Lee handed him a page from a small pocket notebook.
Buck looked down at the paper. “Police, FBI, state and federal government, fire departments, and the television stations in Albuquerque. What do you want me to tell them?”
Lee thought about that for a moment, then wrote three sentences down on the back of the paper.
The medicine man looked at the paper again. “The terrorists who killed the FBI agents are here. I think they’re trying to dig up buried explosives. Office Hawk asked me to call for help.’ Are explosives hidden there?” John asked.
“Worse than that. What’s there may be radioactive. Tell whoever arrives in response to your calls that you heard they have plutonium out there. They should check for radiation before digging. And stay away from there yourself.”
“My intentions exactly. You said there were two things you needed me to do?” John Buck placed the paper under a salt shaker on the table.
“I know it will be very distasteful for you even to talk about it, but I need to find out if you suspect anyone around here—Navajos—of walking the path of Navajo witches, the evil ones?” Lee was careful not to mention the word “skinwalkers” around the hataalii. Speaking about skinwalkers was said to summon any who were close, though he’d learned a long time ago that smelling like a night walker was a guarantee.
Buck quickly took a pinch of corn pollen from a medicine pouch and said a blessing for both of them before answering.
“There is a family, of sorts, that lives across the freeway up along a ridge, a few miles from here, just below one of the big power lines. They’re Navajo, but they keep to themselves. Few speak to them, and nobody goes around there. Animals which wander onto that land seldom return, and some have been found mutilated, with perverted things done to their bodies. Some say wolves from there have been among their sheep, but not killed them, yet we all know the Mexican gray wolf no longer roams these hills. I keep my flint and protection against evil close by, and they haven’t come for me. They fear my medicine, and my .30-30.” He patted his rifle.
“You’ve already risked a lot, and I’m asking you to place yourself in danger for me despite the fact that I’m a stranger. Thank you and stay safe. I have to go now.” Lee stood, and nodded to John Buck.
“Good luck to you, night walker. Bring back the woman safely. You need a woman like that one to share your secrets, not an old man like me.”
Lee thought about Diane as he drove back toward the Interstate, taking his spare cell phone out ot the glove compartment and turning it on. Then he put the images of her aside and proceeded beneath the underpass south onto the opposite slope of the valley.
He parked the patrol unit behind some trees halfway up the reverse slope, and moved quickly on foot uphill, stopping every few minutes to listen and catch his breath. Alone and with little fear of being observed, he could move quickly now, and silently, like the wind. He was searching for a dwelling in the forest.
He found two houses, but one was abandoned, and the other was unoccupied at the moment. Lee continued his search, covering several miles during the night, but found no animals or people at all. It was close to daybreak when he finally discovered a small clearing in the trees. Ten feet from the low flames of a small campfire were three young Navajo women and an old man, all naked, sweat beaded upon their bodies, on their knees around a half-dressed figure on the ground.
It was completely dark, a moonless night illuminated only by the stars, and although he could see perfectly well, the motionless figure was closer to the fire than the Navajo witches, so they could see it. There was a breeze blowing in his face, so he was in no danger of being detected by smell.
The Navajo words they were chanting sounded strange at first, then he realized it must be some skinwalker version of a Sing or blessing. The women were taking the clothes off the reclining figure, and it soon became apparent from the way they pulled and tugged at his arms and legs that the person, a middleaged man, was either dead or unconscious.
They stripped off all his clothes, and the old man took the pants and boots, putting them in a pile beside him. The three women then removed his watch, and a wedding ring, arguing back and forth over who got which.
The smallest of the women, slender with a light streak in her waist-length black hair, and probably in her midtwenties, at first appeared to have lost the argument. She sat back, licking her arms like a cat. Behind her, next to her well-formed backside, Lee could see a wallet that the young woman had concealed from the others.
Lee sat motionless as black fur began to form on her skin, and her head began to lengthen. Holding her arms out, her fingers began to contract, like the special effects of a horror movie, and her nails began to condense into claws. He had a feeling this would be a real-life catfight.
One of the other women, the oldest of the three females, looked at the shape-shifting and began to laugh, pointing toward the east, where the sky was starting to lighten.
The woman who’d started to assume the form of a cat snarled, then sat down, quickly assuming human form again. Then she stood, turning her back toward the others as she surreptitiously picked up the wallet. She kicked the reclining man, and Lee realized he was undoubtedly dead.
The two women who had taken the ring and watch stood, picked up a blanket from beyond the fire, and walked off together up the hill. The old man cackled, stood, and hurriedly put on the dead man’s pants. Carrying the boots, he walked off after the two women.
The one left behind stood and looked around. Lee got a good look at her face. The woman was young and attractive, somehow familiar to him. He tried not to stare at her body, and felt uncomfortable knowing that he could see her but she had no idea he was there, in the dark, watching.
Convinced she was alone, the woman grabbed the dead man by the heels and pulled him over to
a small arroyo. Using her bare feet, she rolled the body off the edge and into the wash.
Walking back to the fire, she picked up the remaining blanket, draped it over her shoulder, then walked down a narrow trail in the opposite direction from the one the two women and old man had taken.
Lee stood and circled around quickly, finding the path the young woman skinwalker had taken, but remaining downwind so he couldn’t be detected. If she’d taken the form of a mountain lion or panther, it would have been much more difficult.
Within a minute, the woman came along, looking through the wallet and chuckling, oblivious to everything else around her and clearly unafraid. She had the blanket wrapped around her now, her long hair pushed to one side, dangling down in front over one shoulder. Her eyes shone like black pearls, and she smelled like smoke and piñon pitch.
Lee stepped out and grabbed her arm before she knew he was there, placing one hand over her mouth. “Police! Don’t make a sound,” he whispered harshly.
She tried to shout, but in a blur of motion, he shoved his handkerchief into her mouth, and she gagged, but couldn’t scream.
He turned her around, holding her with one arm around her upper body like a vise, and held out his state police badge with the other so she could see it.
“I’m State Policeman Leo Hawk, and you and your witch friends just robbed and maybe even killed a man. You’re under arrest.”
He pocketed the badge, then maneuvered her around so she could get a good look at him and vice versa. His mouth dropped, and he realized why she looked familiar. The Navajo witch reminded him of Annie, so much so, she could have been her sister. The eyes were different, though, full of anger, not love.