The Zozobra Incident

by Don Travis

  Gene shook his head. “And we oughta let them. When did you last strap on that glider?”

  “Before my gunshot wound.”

  “Aw, crap! How do you know you can even fly the damned thing anymore?”

  “It’s like riding a bicycle. Once you master it, the skill’s yours forever.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t buy that wagonload of pumpkins. And let’s get one thing straight. SWAT’s going to be right in the middle of this. We need them.”

  “Okay, but you keep control of the situation.”

  “Do my damnedest. But what if it’s not the mesa? Say it’s a warehouse, for instance?”

  “Then I’m screwed, unless I can manage to land on the roof.”

  The banker’s secretary tapped on the door and asked us to join Stan in the president’s office upstairs. Wilfred Wiseman, Central Avenue’s chief executive, was older than sin, reminded me of pictures of Machiavelli, and was the nicest guy in the state of New Mexico. He wasted no time.

  “Stan’s going to prepare the paperwork. You go over to the brokerage house and arrange for them to bring us about two million dollars in stocks and bonds. We’ll have your money by early afternoon. Sorry to ask for so much collateral, but we’re doing an end run around the loan committee, and I want to be able to justify our actions.”

  “I appreciate the cooperation, Mr. Wiseman. I need small, unmarked bills. Will that be possible?”

  “I believe we can put together a million in hundred-dollar denominations, with some cooperation from the other banks.”

  “That should be satisfactory. I’d like the currency in four or five sturdy canvas bags like the armored car services use.”

  “Not a problem. And I sincerely hope you secure your friend’s safe release.”

  CHARLIE WEEKS and Del Dahlman joined Gene and me in the bank’s boardroom. Charlie was a trouper and made no objections, but Del was as firm as my ex-partner in telling me exactly how nutty my plan was.

  “Has it ever been done before?” he asked as he ended his dissertation.

  I shrugged. “Damned if I know. But I’ll tell you one thing, Del Dahlman. A few years ago, if you’d been the one kidnapped, I’d have jumped off the frigging mountain for you.”

  That shut him up, but Charlie immediately raised an issue I’d been trying to ignore.

  “Hazel’s gonna be a problem.”

  “Which is why she isn’t at this meeting. We’ll present her with a done deal. At least the planning stage will be. I’ll just have to go deaf for the rest of the day. You have any problem with the role I’ve laid out for you?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Sounds simple enough to me. I just pretend to be you and drive right up to the hoods with the money.”

  “You realize there’s some danger, don’t you?”

  “For all of us, but I can handle what comes my way. We don’t look much alike, but I guess I can fool them in a closed car. At least for a while.”

  “Del, will you do what I ask?”

  “These guys are looking at you, not me. I’ll go about my business, but keep me informed, okay?”

  “Let me explain something. Puerco Arrullar has made a threat against you, Hazel, and my neighbor, Mrs. Wardlow. I want all three of you in my house until this is all over. Gene will have a street full of police officers in the vicinity and two in the house with you. If things go wrong, that thug’s liable to come after you.”

  “Look, I sit around on my butt all day as it is, but being cooped up with Hazel for half the night? That’s cruel and unusual punishment. Give me something less dangerous—like jumping off Sandia Peak with you.”

  Gene tried again. “He made a threat against you too. The smart thing is for you to hole up in that house with the rest of them and let us handle the Brown Saints.”

  “It won’t work. In the first place, he’s going to expect me to be on the scene. If I’m not, he’ll kill Paul.”

  “That doesn’t hold water. You’re sending Charlie as your stand-in. If things go the way you plan, Puerco won’t even see you until the last minute. Let’s follow your plan, but let a trained police officer with paragliding skills take your place on the mountain.”

  “Nobody respects the dedication and ability of the Albuquerque Police Department more than I do, but I am trained, remember? I’ve got to do this, Gene. Paul Barton is in this mess because of me, and I’ve got to get him out of it. Now how about the equipment and cooperation I need?”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll do it alone.”

  “I could slap your ass in jail overnight, and that’s probably what I oughta do. But I’ll play my part—under protest. I hope you realize if you get shot up, I’ll get raked over the coals. Probably end up back on night patrol for the rest of my career.”

  “I know, and I apologize for that, but have a little faith, will you?”

  THE REMAINDER of the day was spent playing hurry up and wait. I spent part of it rechecking the condition of the paraglider in the garage. Then I fretted until the bank delivered the money. The hardest part of that deal was getting them to do it in a public manner, wheeling an armored car ostentatiously down my block and unloading four canvas bags of cash in front of the house. That caused a flutter of curtains up and down the street, but I was counting on another kind of watcher somewhere in the vicinity. I wanted Puerco to know the money was available.

  Police cars came and went throughout the day as shifts changed, and one of them, carrying the communications and night vision equipment I required, backed into my driveway. The cruiser remained there so the paraglider could be stuffed into the trunk after dark. At five thirty, Charlie Weeks arrived with Hazel. She’d almost finished delivering her tirade by the time Del showed up around six. Mrs. Wardlow joined us right after that.

  My cell phone didn’t ring until almost nine o’clock, by which time I had hunkered down in the backseat of that same police cruiser now parked in a Smith’s supermarket lot at the far eastern edge of the city. I quickly activated the recording device and answered, trying for a fine mixture of anxiety, which was easy, and confidence, a little harder task.

  Puerco didn’t fool around. “West Mesa. You got till ten o’clock to get to the top of the mesa. After that the kid starts losing fingers and toes.”

  “No need for that.” I gave Tom Clark, my police driver, a thumbs-up. He immediately climbed out of the vehicle to raise Gene on a handheld radio. It was a go, and my partner needed to get his people moving while I kept Puerco engaged in conversation.

  “I’m satisfied with the deal so long as you agree this takes care of the problem. No more demands. No more threats.”

  “I get my money, that’s the end of it.”

  “Good. I have to warn you the other people you mentioned are all here at my house, and there are cops all over the neighborhood.”

  “Cops know what’s going on?”

  “Of course they do. I told you yesterday my neighbor called them. They knew about the kidnapping before I did. There was no way to prevent their involvement, so I used it to my advantage. Yours too.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The more of them tied up here on Post Oak Drive, the fewer you have to worry about. Now what are my instructions?”

  “Put the money in Barton’s old Plymouth. Backseat, not the trunk—”

  “I don’t have the keys to Paul’s car.”

  “Check the floorboard.” He gave an ugly laugh. “But you’ll have to punch out a window. My boys didn’t want no neighborhood thief to boost your ride. Drive to Coors using Paseo del Norte. Take Unser past the Petroglyph Park and up the escarpment. Drive to the road that takes you to the park. You know, the one where they fly model airplanes all the time.”

  “La Boca Negra?”

  “I guess, but turn north away from the park. Drive two miles and stop in the middle of the road. Somebody’ll direct you from there.”

  “I’ve never been in Paul’s car. I don’t know if the odomete
r works.”

  “Then guess at it. You’ll see a flashlight when it’s time to stop. And come alone. When you see that flashlight, get out of the Plymouth and open the trunk and all the doors. Better not be nobody hiding in that car. All I wanta see is you and my money. You got it?”

  “Got it. And Paul?”

  “When I count the money, you get your honey.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Still nursing a headache, but he’s okay. Whether he stays that way is up to you.”

  “One thing, Puerco. I’ll have a police escort to the top of the escarpment. That’s the only way the detective in charge will agree to the deal. He doesn’t want me hijacked on the way to meet you. Don’t let the police convoy spook your men.”

  “I said no cops!” Puerco shouted.

  “Not my call. If I refuse, he’ll confiscate the money and the deal goes down the drain. He’s as serious about this as you and me.”

  “Their doors stay shut and they turn around as soon as you’re up on the mesa. Somebody’ll watch them out of sight, so you better be sure they don’t try to pull no tricks.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s it, motherfucker. Be there by ten.”

  SGT. CLARK, my driver, switched on the lights and siren and roared out of the parking lot. We hit I-40 East and breezed through Tijeras Canyon in record time, but it was going to be close. Even with the edge we’d gained by waiting for the kidnapper’s call virtually in the mouth of the pass through the Sandia and Manzano Mountains, it was still nearly an hour to the peak’s summit. Sgt. Clark was determined to shave ten minutes off that time—or kill us in the effort.

  He hit the exit at the cement plant, blew by the busy bar on the right, and ran the red light controlling traffic coming off westbound I-40. He ate up the long stretch past the fire station, the Italian restaurant, and a couple of service stations, but when we turned west onto the summit road, our pace slowed considerably.

  Typical of mountain tracks, the road took a tortuous route up the east side of the mountain. The cruiser’s headlights cut a faint tunnel through the absolute darkness. We were further slowed by the danger of wildlife crossing the road. As a teenager I had once confronted a black bear and her cub shuffling across the asphalt. More than once I’d nearly run up the tailpipe of tourists halted in the middle of the road to ogle mule-deer feeding on the shoulder.

  Faint traces of snow clung to the south-facing road banks, although none had fallen in the valley to the west of this massive hunk of rock. The lights atop the television towers came into view as we neared the summit of Sandia Peak. Clark turned into the parking lot below the gift shop and spoke for the first time since we’d left Albuquerque’s city limits.

  “The rangers are gonna steer clear of this area for a couple of hours. It’s illegal to launch after nightfall, you know. I’m gonna hang around and help until you’re airborne, but I’m gonna do it with my eyes closed, if you get what I mean.”

  “Right. Thanks. I shouldn’t have much problem launching alone, but I appreciate the company—just in case.”

  He pulled as close to the observation deck as possible, and we walked the rest of the way. I lugged the big bag containing the paraglider; Clark trailed along behind with the remainder of my gear.

  “Thought you’d use a power unit,” the sergeant observed. “Doing this with air currents alone makes it kinda dicey. It’s gotta be forty or fifty klicks, even as the crow flies. Not much chance of finding a cloud street.”

  He was referring to those extended columns of rising air that allow for long runs. So Gene had sent me a sail-savvy aide. I hoped the man didn’t have instructions to cuff me to the steering column and take my place in the harness. As tall, muscular, and tough looking as he was, he’d have a fight on his hands if he tried.

  “If I do, it’ll be pure luck. I’m counting on lee waves on the western slope of the mountain to give me enough altitude. As far as using a power plant, too much noise. I’d have to cut it before I got anywhere near the mesa, and then it would be too much added weight.”

  Clark shook his head. “Maybe it’ll work. Sandia’s a shade under ten five, and it’s five-thousand-plus feet down to the valley.”

  “Yeah, but not to the West Mesa. That’s seven hundred or so feet above the floor of the valley.”

  “More in some places. But you’ll catch a lift when you approach the escarpment.”

  “Probably not as much of a lift as I want, though. The cliff’s not on the windward side.”

  “It’ll still give you a boost. You got a target picked out?”

  For the first time I glanced through the dark night down at the city. Albuquerque looked twice its actual size. A carpet of twinkling lights blanketed the broad valley on both sides of the Rio Grande before crawling up the slope and halting abruptly at the base of the far escarpment. Everything beyond that was a huge black hole—the West Mesa.

  Fifty years ago a large Eastern property development company acquired most of the area, graded huge grids of unnamed and unimproved streets, and started selling individual lots. Legal and practical problems soon collapsed the project. As a result the whole massive area remained virtually unoccupied.

  The mesa had a grisly past. Bodies had a habit of turning up from time to time. Last year a woman walking her dog stumbled upon human remains. The police found a total of eleven young women, all thought to be prostitutes, in adjacent shallow graves. The discovery made national headlines.

  To the south of the mesa, Interstate 40 stabbed the landscape with a luminous lance. I pointed to a cluster of lights on the far side of the valley.

  “Initially I’m going to use the detention center as a target. Gene had the Open Space people put a homing device in La Boca Negra Park, and when I get within range, I’ll zero in on that. My final destination is somewhere almost due north of the park.”

  “How will you operate from there? You’re going to spot them with this night vision equipment?”

  “That and the heat-imaging gear.”

  “It’s top-of-the-line stuff. It’ll paint a warm body clear as day.”

  “The special tape Gene put on the roof and hood of the Plymouth ought to make the car visible to me. The Santos are going to be somewhere out in front of that car, and I’ve got to disrupt their plans before they get close enough to discover I’m not the driver.”

  “It’s a quarter till ten. We better get you hooked up and ready to go.”

  Clark handed over a ballistic vest and a ballistic baseball cap Gene had sent, figuring that was better protection than nothing in case of a firefight. Then he scoped out a downhill slope long enough and clear enough for a run to fill the flexible paraglider wing. While he was doing that, I assembled the glider. Finally I checked that the Ruger Gene had loaned me was firmly in place. Then we were ready. I activated my PTT—push-to-talk transceiver—with the switch strapped to one of my fingers.

  “We’re ready here,” I said.

  Gene responded immediately. “Okay. Charlie headed out five minutes ago. The timing on this thing’s gonna be dicey, BJ.”

  “I know, but I’ll do the best I can. Charlie’s wearing my jacket?”

  “Right. And Hazel scared up a hat for him. She also dyed his hair to match yours. You know, I think those two are working on something together.”

  I laughed, breaking the tension as he had intended. “That’ll be one positive thing to come out of this mess.”

  “Roger. I’ve got teams at all four cardinal points. When you give the word, we’ll move from the Rio Puerco side, come down from the Paradise Hills area, up from I-40, and climb that blessed escarpment on the east side. The environmental people gave us some grief on that last one because our guys will be stomping all over some thousand-year-old petroglyphs. Have you tested the night vision equipment?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not going to do me any good until I get to the West Mesa. The city lights will blind me until then.”

  “How about the h
eat-imaging gear?”

  “Picked up Clark in the bushes and painted a coyote and a herd of mountain sheep about a hundred yards below us. Worked just fine.”

  “You sure you can still fly that contraption?”

  “I better.”

  “That’s reassuring. Have you tested your harness release and your reserve chute?”

  “I’m not carrying a reserve parachute, and the harness release works fine.”

  “You’re not carrying a chute?”

  “Extra weight.”

  “So you’re going to dead fall on Puerco in the dark without knowing how far you’ve gotta drop or whatever kind of ground’s below you. Providing, of course, you make it that far in the first place.”

  “You’ve described the situation perfectly. Pessimistically but accurately. I have a flashlight for the final landing. I’m going to launch now.”

  “Good luck, and keep in touch.”

  “Constantly. Well, here I go.”

  Clark fed out the fabric of my wing as I raced down the slope and stepped out into space. The moment my foot left terra firma, I was aware of several things at once. My heart raced like a revving motor. A dizzying sense of falling and loss of control. And fear. Fear for Paul.

  Chapter 33

  MY HEART almost stopped as I plunged toward a stand of trees on a promontory below. Then the sail took hold and billowed properly. My right foot snagged the top branch of a fir, jerking me sideways and spilling some air. Before I had time to panic, a lee wave—an updraft caused by warmer ground air pushing up the face of the mountain—sent me soaring higher than I’d anticipated. I shifted my body and tugged on my wing tether until the distant glow of the detention center’s lights was directly ahead of me.

  The night was still and calm. Except for the darkness, it could have been 5:00 p.m., the ideal time for soaring from Sandia Peak. The heavy overcast was a plus and a minus. There was no moonlight, but the city lights lit the underbelly of the clouds, making the night seem unusually bright. Gloves and a visored helmet made the forty-degree temperature bearable. I’d have to remember to flex my extremities to keep from going numb.