by Aimée Thurlo
The blanket fell, and she stood there naked and afraid. Then she picked up his vampire scent, and her fear was transformed into a seductive smile. She wanted him now, and not just his body. She wanted his blood.
Fighting the memories of Annie in his arms, Lee scooped the blanket up and held it against her. “Wrap this around yourself, and don’t drop it again or I’ll let you stay cold. You’re coming with me to Grants, to the police station.” She grabbed the blanket with one hand, tried to drape it over her shoulder, and it fell off.
She then began to cough, struggling against the gag in her mouth. He removed it. “Behave yourself, or it goes back in your mouth.”
“I need both hands to wrap the blanket around myself,” she said with a smile. “Or maybe you can just hold it against me while we walk? I like a man’s touch.”
Lee frowned. “Sorry. I’m definitely not in the mood.” He let go of her other hand.
The second he did, she ducked away and ran up the trail, shouting at the top of her lungs. He chased her at less than half speed for a hundred yards, breathing as if he were an asthmatic low on inhaler, pretending to be struggling against the growing light. Then, he stopped, listened for a moment, and jogged back down the hill to his squad car.
“I hope she remembers I was going to Grants,” he muttered as he started the unit and backed around. The freeway exit was about two miles away, and he knew where he was headed next.
As he roared up the ramp onto I-40, which in his Lee Nez days had been part of Route 66, he thought of Annie, then remembered it was Diane who was in trouble. It took a while to make the switch mentally, and he cursed whatever it was in his head that kept bringing back the memories. They were interfering with more important things now—the living, and Diane deserved better from him.
He concentrated all his thoughts toward the past twenty-four hours, then recalled everything Muller had said, and what he’d said back. Finally he was back on track. Logically, they had Diane in Grants, it was the only place nearby that was large enough to hide without sticking out as strangers.
Now, he was using himself as bait, but, hopefully, when the sharks came looking, they’d go for the big fish first.
Lee pulled up at a roadblock southeast of the Bluewater Lake turnoff just before dawn. It was bright heading into the sun like this, and he was grateful for the protection of the windshield and his own powerful sunglasses. He’d stopped a few miles back to put on extra sunblock, not knowing how long he’d be out of the unit in the oncoming sunlight.
Grants police officers, Cibola County deputies, and auxiliary volunteers armed with riot guns, hunting rifles, and an assortment of handguns nervously manned the post, and if he hadn’t been in a squad car, he’d have had a fifteen-minute wait at least. A dozen or more eighteen-wheelers were lined up, their trailers being opened two or three at a time as the vehicles were thoroughly searched.
A Grants PD sergeant came up to his unit after he’d been motioned forward to the barrier, which was comprised of four department vehicles that blocked the center of the east-bound lanes. Vehicles, once cleared, were waved past on the right shoulder only.
“Good morning, Officer Hawk. Lose that fine-looking FBI partner of yours already?” The sergeant, a red-haired Hispanic Lee recognized as Isaac Jaramillo, pointed his finger at Lee, a gesture, unbeknownst to Isaac, that was considered threatening to Navajos.
Lee had long ago learned to ignore the cultural ignorance of basically decent people and look for their positive qualities. Also, today his mind was on other more important things than raising other people’s political consciousness.
“Agent Lopez came through earlier with some other Bureau people, right? Coming into Grants from the east?”
“So I heard. I didn’t see her myself, but there were three other agents in the vehicle, Takes three of them to equal you, right?”
“They’re only FBI. I’m a full-blooded Indian.” Lee shot back, remembering that expression from a favorite movie of his, one where the good Indians won and the bad FBI lost, more or less.
“What time was that, and was she still in that Bureau sedan?”
“Don’t think so.” Sergeant Jaramillo turned and yelled to another officer, who was waving an old man in a pickup through. “Bancroft, that good-looking FBI woman. When did she come through, and what kind of vehicle was she in?”
The officer looked at Jaramillo, then at Lee in his state patrol unit, and shrugged. “I’d just come on duty, maybe ten P.M., ten-thirty. I think the vehicle was a blue Ford SUV. One of the big new ones—an Expedition, Excursion, or something like that.”
Jaramillo looked back at Lee. “Close enough?”
Lee nodded. As he’d suspected, the vampires had changed vehicles again, and passed through before he’d gotten Muller’s call. “Yeah. If you run across her, let me know. I’d like to talk to her privately, not in front of the other agents, and especially not on the radio net.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t we all? Hey, you blew your chance. “The sergeant winked.
“Isaac, one more thing, and I’d like you to pass this on to everyone at the roadblock, and arrange to have your replacements do the same, okay?”
“What’s that, Hawk?”
“Every time you see tour or more adult Navajos coming through here, no children aboard, give me a call on the radio, okay? Especially if one is a young woman with a light streak in her hair. If you can’t get me on the radio, give me a call on a land line. Here’s my cell number.” Lee handed him a card with the number on the back, then described the others as best he could in case they decided to come in separate vehicles.
“Witnesses?”
“Could be. Let them through without saying anything, though, but get their plate numbers. They’re nervous around cops, and I want to interview them away from this chaos.” He waved at the line of traffic, getting longer as morning traffic increased.
“Okay. Just east-bound, right?”
“Right. Don’t forget to brief everyone.”
Lee waved, and drove past the cars stopped ahead, moving around on the right shoulder and back onto the Interstate. The sun was coming up, and the small city of Grants lay ahead, mostly to his left among the jagged remnants of a geologically recent lava flow.
Somewhere, nestled among the tongues of that ancient red-hot rock, long since crystallized, were four people hiding, one a prisoner of the most dangerous creatures to walk this land since the dinosaurs.
CHAPTER 18
Lee stopped at a gas station beside a local fast-food restaurant, and gassed up the unit and bought a small foam cooler, a six-pack of sodas, and some ice. He’d need the sugar and fluids later on, he knew.
He suspected that the vampires had switched vehicles again since passing through the checkpoint, so he put in a call to the Grants PD dispatcher. Calls were coming in from all over the area, naturally, because of the current crisis, and every available officer was on duty now.
Without saying why, Lee asked that any calls concerning stolen or missing vehicles be relayed to him. He also wanted to know if any Ford SUVs matching the description of the vehicle Muller had used to get Diane and the others through the roadblock had turned up in the area.
The vampires would have to hole up for the day or continue driving whatever vehicle they had now, and the longer they drove around, the more likely they would be discovered. He was betting on their having found a hiding place while it was still dark.
Lee believed that they’d find a building in Grants or the immediate area and hole up. Most of the older houses didn’t have garages, but there were enough in the area to hide the vehicle with a good chance of avoiding immediate discovery.
He waited, eating huevos rancheros, bacon, and drinking coffee, wishing he had a quart of good calves’ blood for a quick pick-me-up instead of the sodas out in the cooler. Within the hour, his cell phone rang. “Yes?”
It was Muller. “You know who this is. Tell me you have the plutonium, and make it quick. I don’t w
ant any attempts to trace this call.”
The Germans didn’t know Lee had the ability to remain out in sunlight much longer than they did, so he used that fact to his advantage. “I could tell you I have the stuff, but it wouldn’t be true. I need more time. I have a problem with sunlight too, remember? My skin starts to smoke when I’m working hard and sweating off the sunblock. I keep having to take a break and get back into my car. I’m putting on sunblock now, then I’ll get back to the digging.”
Lee looked around, hoping that he wasn’t the unluckiest man in the world and Muller or his people could actually see him now, sitting in the back of a Grants restaurant.
“You have until tonight. That’s how long your FBI agent will live unless you deliver the plutonium. And if we meet up with anyone in the meantime, like a police officer, she’ll be the first one to die. Do you understand where I’m coming from, Officer Nez?”
“Exactly. But I can’t call off the search. I don’t have that kind of clout, especially concerning terrorists who’ve already killed law-enforcement officers. The best I could do was mention that you may have a hostage, and any officers shouldn’t make any quick moves if you’re spotted. If I were you, I’d start keeping my fingers crossed and hope that it’s really cloudy this afternoon so I can have the box in my car by evening.”
“Get it done.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now let me talk to Agent Lopez.”
“No. You have to trust me on this, Indian. She’s still alive.”
“Screw trust. How did you blow up the federal agents? A grenade? You know that wasn’t necessary. They had no idea who you really are.”
“That wasn’t me, not that I wouldn’t have done the same. Those men were following us. I had someone following them. But you’ve guessed that already. Enough chitchat. Get back to work. I assuming you’re digging the material up from some hole in the ground.”
“Possibly. Sorry, I’m not risking another blister until I hear from her personally. I can live without her, but if she dies, you won’t. Did you know that the governor is thinking of calling out the National Guard, and mobilizing local army units? New Mexico won’t be big enough to hide you then, Muller, and vampires will show up on aircraft thermal sensors. You can’t hide forever, even in the dark.”
There was a twenty-second pause, then Diane came on the line. “I’m alive, no thanks to you, Hawk. When are you going to give them what they want so I can walk?”
“Hey, you’re a hostage, try to act like one. I’m doing the best I can.” Lee hated having to take this tone when he didn’t feel anything but fear for her safety, but if Muller knew he could have it all his way, she’d never get out alive.
Muller came back on the line. “Okay, cop. Now get back to work. Just pray that none of your police dogs stumble across us, wherever we are. I’ll call you back later, but don’t try to find us. We change locations every hour.”
Lee knew that was a lie. The hazards of moving were too great. He knew the Bureau could get equipment in to get a relatively good fix on a call, but that would mean getting them directly involved, and that could result in getting a lot of people killed, including Diane.
Lee thought about renting a vehicle and driving around Grants, maybe getting lucky, but knew it would be just that if he spotted where Muller had Diane. He went to his unit and found a shaded spot to park, waiting for news that the plan he’d already set in motion was working. If the plan didn’t work out, he’d have to try and locate the plutonium in the hope of saving Diane.
Less than an hour went by before he got a call on the cell phone from Sergeant Jaramillo, who was still working the Interstate roadblock west of Grants.
“I just waved through a group of four Indian adults in a pickup, Patrolman Hawk. They didn’t have any youngsters with them. Is this what you had in mind?”
“Three women in their early twenties to thirties, at least one of them really attractive, and an old man, perhaps?”
“How did you know?”
“Superior brainpower. I’m not some local hick cop.”
Jaramillo laughed. “You owe this hick cop a dinner at Sadie’s, you know? Or better yet, tell that FBI lady what a good-looking man I am next time you run into her.”
“I hope to do that,” Lee replied. “But, for now, which way did the pickup with the Indians go?”
“I watched until they got out of sight. They exited just east of state road 605. Looks like they’re heading into town. It’s a green Ford, an F-150 about three or four years old.” He gave Lee the tag number as well.
“Thanks again. Let me know if you see any other group of three young Indian women and an old man pass by. Okay?”
“Bueno. Catch you later.”
Lee walked out to his unit and got inside quickly. The sun was high in the sky now, and he was grateful for the sunscreen and tinted windows. He backed out of the parking slot easily, and headed away from the roadside business zone that lined most of the isolated communities in New Mexico and, to a certain extent, all of small-town America.
Five minutes later, he started driving down every residential street, systematically watching for that green pickup, hoping to see them before they saw him. Unless he missed his guess completely, they’d be searching for a holed-up Navajo vampire-cop, cruising around with their windows open, trying to pick up his scent.
He didn’t have the ability, no full vampire did either, but he knew from grim experience that a skinwalker could detect a half vampire from quite a distance, and somewhere there were three full-blooded vampires holed up inside a house, shed, garage, or business. With the police looking for them, they’d avoid hotels or motels, where the desk clerk would have seen them coming in.
Lee intended to use the skinwalkers like bloodhounds to pick up Muller’s trail. The skinwalkers would eventually find them if the vampires were here, and all he’d have to do was watch the watchers.
After an hour and a half, Lee finally located the green pickup, but only the old man was inside. It occurred to him that the women had split up, being dropped off in different neighborhoods to walk the streets. This would enable the skinwalkers to cover a larger area. The Navajo man was probably going to pick up the women once they finished searching their assigned neighborhoods.
He followed the driver, keeping his windows up so he wouldn’t broadcast his scent. Lee’s experience told him that the skinwalkers would work as a pack when they struck. If they were armed, they might attack in daytime in their human forms, but with all the extra police in the area, he expected them to avoid using guns and attracting unwanted attention.
Keeping his distance, he was able to guess the pattern the old man was following—a simple sequence, moving south to north whenever possible.
This went on for hours. Finally, near three P.M., when Lee had nearly run out of time, the old Navajo witch approached one of the women—not the pretty young one Lee had “met”—and she ran up to the truck, obviously very excited. Lee pulled to the curb around the corner and watched. The woman pointed down the street, then jumped into the vehicle, which hurried off. They were apparently going to pick up the other women.
Somewhere along that street in front of him, Lee knew, was the source of the skinwalker woman’s excitement—Muller and the other two vampires—and hopefully, Diane, alive and pissed off as hell.
At least one of the vampires was sure to be keeping watch, so it would be dangerous for him to drive or walk down the street, especially in his marked state police vehicle. He’d have to keep his distance a while longer and see where the skinwalkers directed their efforts. At least his borrowed state police unit was one of those that didn’t have the emergency lights on the top of the roof, which would have been a dead giveaway even at a distance.
Lee drove down a side street, then parked the unit at a convenience store. Quickly he changed his look from a denim jacket to a longer one of black leather. A lot of cops in New Mexico drove their units off-duty, but he didn’t want to be recognized. Emptying the small
cooler and placing the handheld police radio inside, he was set. He thought about affecting a limp, but knew that it was something he might forget about at the wrong time and give himself away.
Strolling along the side of the street slowly, cooler in hand, he hopefully looked like someone either coming home or heading for work. Reaching the spot where the woman skinwalkcr had flagged down the pickup, he sat down on the curb beneath the shade of an elm tree, as if he were waiting for a ride.
Ten minutes later, expecting the pickup to arrive any moment, Lee was surprised to see a Grants police car cruise slowly by, then stop a few houses down from where he was seated. An elderly Hispanic woman came out of an old, well-maintained adobe home, and waved at the officer.
The officer got out of the vehicle, and walked over to the lady, who pointed toward another house with a rental sign out on the dried-out, weed-filled lawn at the corner of the next block.
“Damn, lady. If they’re in there, watching, they’ll see what you’re doing!” Lee muttered, standing up quickly. “Come on, Officer, keep your cool and don’t do something stupid.”
The officer motioned the woman back toward her house. As soon as the woman headed for her door, the officer walked quickly over to his unit and jumped inside.
Lee reached inside his “lunch box” for his handheld radio, but the officer was already on the radio, apparently. “Unit fourteen requesting immediate backup at 2115 South Acoma. Possible 10–27 suspects occupying rental house at this address. Dispatch please relay to all available units. Officer requests backup.”
Lee thumbed the switch on his own transmit button, hoping Muller wasn’t monitoring a police-band radio. “Unit fifty-one. this is State Police Officer Hawk. Remain in your current position. I have this site under observation and am approaching your unit from behind on foot. Repeat, hold your position.”