The time passed quickly as a patchwork of fields, a web of country roads, and occasional blocks of buildings marking small towns passed beneath. The overcast remained a uniform dark gray. Soon Agee turned and shouted. “We’re only a few minutes out. I’ll pass with the cabin on your side, Mr. Chance.”
Sid saw his wooded hillside ahead as Agee steered a course that would put them only a few hundred feet above the terrain. Though most of the trees had leafed out, many still lacked their full foliage. He spotted the cabin nestled among the greenery, facing west, its front windows looking out on the valley below. The chopper headed just to the right of the rustic log structure. He felt a twinge of nostalgia as the wooded panorama unfolded before him as colorful as a multi-page spread in National Geographic.
“Here we go!” Sid yelled.
Agee had slowed their airspeed, allowing Sid a clear view of the area around the cabin. He looked for signs that anything had been moved or altered. A few logs lay haphazardly beside a stack out back that he’d cut for the fireplace. No smoke appeared around the chimney. He thought a strong wind might have blown them off the stack. All of Middle Tennessee had been plagued by strong winds lately. Checking the main trail that squirmed up from an access road to the north, he saw a clump of brush that appeared to have been pushed to the side.
Agee looked around after they had cleared the area.
“Want to make another pass?”
Sid shook his head. “Let’s go find the LZ.”
“Roger,” the pilot said.
Sid turned to Jaz. “Did you see anything?”
“Maybe. Is that pond on the back side part of your property?”
“Right.”
“I thought I saw something moving around it, but I’m not sure.”
Agee dropped just above the treetops beyond the next hill. It took them out of sight of anyone on Sid’s property. He turned toward the Landing Zone, the rendezvous site Sid had picked to meet up with Jaz’s administrative assistant. They soon descended to a cleared area beside the road where the red Lexus was parked. Cassie stood beside it, waving.
When they were on the ground, Agee left the chopper idling, its rotor turning slowly. Sid climbed down and helped Jaz out. They ducked their heads as they moved away toward the car.
“Don’t you two look cool,” Cassie said with a grin.
“Let’s hope we stay cool,” Sid said.
Jaz reached out to take her keys. “Thanks for bringing the car, Cass. Go hop in the helicopter and let Agee get you back home.”
When the chopper lifted off, they retrieved their weapons and other equipment from the trunk. They climbed into the car, and Sid directed Jaz to the road on the north edge of his property, where a cleared area well off the pavement provided his usual parking spot. Less than a hundred yards down the road stood a large red barn where a neighbor had stored tobacco. It was no longer in use. Lots of room to hide, he thought, but he had been in it before and knew doors on both ends were secured from outside.
“Let’s go check out that barn first,” he said.
“You think he’s hiding in there?”
“It’s possible. But more likely his car could be.”
He had donned his old cop belt from Lewisville, and he checked his equipment as he started toward the barn. Besides a gun holster, the belt held a spare magazine, handcuffs, a flashlight, a small pair of binoculars, and a civilian model of the Taser. Called the C2 Electronic Control Device, it would fire a pair of fishhook-like probes up to fifteen feet and penetrate two inches of clothing. Like all police officers who used them, Sid had taken a shot from one, experiencing the total loss of muscular control the electrical charge produced. He considered it the best non-lethal weapon around. He didn’t think he’d have a use for it on this mission, but he had brought it along anyway.
They found the barn secured as before by two-by-fours slotted into handles on the doors. Although there appeared no way somebody could have locked themselves inside, they drew their guns before Sid removed the barrier and opened one of the doors. A shiny black Ford Focus with a Nashville license plate sat inside.
“Apparently he has brand loyalty,” Jaz said.
“Erases any doubt, if we’d had any.” Wide cracks in the structure let in plenty of light, but Sid shined his flashlight into dark corners. “Now we need to find out what he has in mind for us.”
“Where do we start?”
“You said you saw movement around the pond. Are you sure it wasn’t an animal?”
“It definitely wasn’t a deer. Looked like a two-legged animal, and not a turkey.”
“Okay, let’s get started. Remember, this two-legged animal could bury us in an instant.”
“How well I know.” She rumpled her brow. “We need to keep our eyes moving.”
“I did a lot of animal tracking in my ranger days. Those clouds mean plenty of moisture in the air, so sounds will carry far and relatively fast. We’re in no hurry, so walk carefully. Try not to step on anything that will make a loud noise. If you hear natural sounds, like a bird’s call or the rustle of a squirrel, use it to help cover your movement. We need to maintain silence as much as possible. We’ll communicate by hand signal.”
He showed her a few basic signals they might use, such as stop, come, freeze, hurry.
“Looks like it’ll be hard to move stealthily with all the underbrush around,” Jaz said.
Sid shrugged. “Animals have the same problem, and there are plenty of them around. This’ll be a stroll down Broadway compared to what it’ll be like when the growing season gets under way. Just be careful and try not to snap any large twigs as you go along. There are tons of dead limbs around.”
Jaz followed behind him as he took a roundabout path through the woods. He found it slow going stepping over trees that had fallen during the winter. It was almost impossible to move along without making any noise. An occasional deer or rabbit crossing their path up ahead provided sounds that had a natural similitude. He knew they caused no more disturbance than the wildlife.
But was somebody watching and listening?
After nearly thirty minutes, they stopped in a thickly wooded area. Trunks of towering red oak and white ash trees provided good cover as they looked down on the pond Jaz had seen from the air. Spotting no one among the nearby trees or the banks of the pond, Sid motioned Jaz to follow him down to the waterside. He pointed to a few footprints in the soft dirt and whispered next to her ear.
“He was here, but he’s moved on.”
“What now?” she asked.
“He may have been spooked by the chopper, but we didn’t make a second pass. Let’s move up to the north side of the cabin. There’s a good observation point there. And a nice little surprise.”
The clouds continued to thicken and lower until they seemed to form a dark, lumpy canopy you could almost reach up and touch. The air had cooled and smelled of rain. Sid wished he had brought a waterproof jacket, but that would have spoiled the camouflage effect.
The thick underbrush slowed them at one point when Jaz’s pants leg got snared by the thorny tentacles of a briar bush. Sid used his gloves to help free her. They kept a few feet of separation most of the time to provide a less-inviting target. A careful survey of the area showed no further sign of Carlos Ruiz.
But where was he?
Chapter 41
The cabin rested on a flat area at the crest of the hill, sitting at the edge of a precipitous drop to the west. A six-foot deck extended toward the wide valley below, supported by tall posts Sid had dragged up from the access road. The east side of the cabin provided the only ground access, with a small wooden porch and a sturdy wood door with double locks. Sid knew they were no match for a dedicated criminal, such as the one they faced now. When they reached a point in full view of the home he’d visited only once since leaving about a year ago, he signaled Jaz to stop and stay down. He kneeled behind a tree, pulled out his binoculars, and focused on the porch.
The first thing
to catch his attention was a chair. A chair he had fashioned by hand, like everything else about the cabin. It should have been locked away. It meant Carlos Ruiz had been inside.
And could be now.
Sid scanned the area from the fire pit at one side to the outdoor shower he’d rigged on the other side. Nothing moved. Then he spotted something odd. Several tin cans had been strung together, probably with the ball of twine he kept in the cabin. As he looked about, he spotted barely visible evidence of string winding through the trees several yards out. It was the shooter’s early warning system.
If Ruiz was inside, they had a problem, even if they avoided the makeshift alarm. A frontal assault was out of the question unless they had something like a flashbang grenade. They could wait until after dark to make an attack, but Ruiz might have an additional warning scheme they couldn’t see. Sid had chosen to come in the daytime, figuring he would be less likely to expect them then.
While he weighed the alternatives, gazing through the binoculars, the cabin door opened. A man stepped out onto the porch, gazed slowly from left to right, pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette. Sid tightened the focus and saw a pleasant looking young man with short black hair. He wore a blue shirt and jeans, a pistol stuck under his belt. It was no small .22 but a full-sized semiautomatic.
Ruiz let himself down gently onto the chair, as if bending his upper body would be painful. No doubt a result of the gunshot, Sid thought. But it apparently hadn’t nicked a lung as he puffed deeply on the cigarette. Sid shoved the binoculars back into their pouch and moved toward Jaz in a low crouch. He signaled her to remain silent and follow him.
In a near crawl, he crossed to where the ground began its drop-off to the west. Just below the crest of the hill, which put them out of sight of the porch, he began to pull small limbs and brush away from several large rocks. As he moved the rocks, gray roofing shingles appeared, and beneath them a piece of blackened plywood about four feet square. Jaz reached him as he lifted the plywood to reveal a large hole in the ground. She grinned. It was the entrance to the cave he had told her about.
They crawled in and Sid pulled the plywood back over the opening. He switched on his flashlight.
“It’s a little snug,” he said, squirming around her while making a sniffing sound. “Your perfume makes a cave almost pleasant.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Please do.”
He shined the light down the tunnel, which went fairly straight with a slight downgrade. Nothing had changed since his last visit. He had stumbled upon the cave a year after arriving at the property. It varied in height from three to four feet, requiring a crawl to negotiate.
“This comes out under the deck?” Jaz asked.
“Right. I have no idea who or what tunneled it out, but it apparently follows a fracture in the rock. Keep your head down, so you don’t bang it on a jagged piece.” He directed the beam along the ceiling. “We need to move quickly so we can catch him on the porch. It looked like he might stay there for awhile.”
“It’s times like this that it pays to be small,” she said.
“Okay, little partner, let’s get with it.”
He crawled along, keeping as much pressure as possible off his left arm, holding the flashlight, shoving an occasional rock aside. On his first trip in here, he had been wary of animals, but with both ends sealed, he expected no visitors.
He could see Jaz’s flashlight beam over his shoulder occasionally. After a few minutes, he paused and called to her. “Everything okay?”
“Peachy. How’s that arm doing?”
“It isn’t too happy, but it’s still working.”
He should have brought knee pads, he realized, as his knees kept colliding with the hard surface of a rock. But he pushed ahead relentlessly and soon saw a slight turn that meant they were near the end.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “When we get out, you go around the left side of the cabin, I’ll take the right. Have your weapon ready and watch out for him. He may have left the porch. If he draws on you, fire.”
“Okay, boss.”
The exit beneath the deck was smaller and covered with a thin slice of Crab Orchard stone, a popular building material quarried about eighty miles up I-40. When he reached it, he told Jaz to shine her light while he pushed the stone aside. He needed a maximum effort with his good arm to dislodge the growth of weeds that covered it. When he got space for a good handhold, he eased the slab aside.
Looking up at the deck, he saw no one. He took out his Sig and swung his head around as he crawled to the ground.
All clear.
He signaled Jaz to come ahead. Taking her hand, he pulled her out, then glanced at their clothing and shook his head. They looked like dirt-smudged derelicts. Then he noticed it had started to rain. The deck above protected them, though water dripped through the cracks.
The cabin sat a few feet above them. The rock ledge at each side was like steps. Sid climbed carefully. He stopped and looked across to be sure Jaz was ready. Then he gave the signal to move out.
With no windows on the sides of the building, he had no fear of being seen if Ruiz had gone back inside the cabin. The rain began to pelt down harder as he looked about the area. He saw no movement. As he walked toward the front, he holstered his gun and pulled out the Taser. Ruiz alive was more valuable than Ruiz dead. At the edge of the porch, he squatted, swiped a sleeve across his forehead, and peeked around.
He froze as a muffled cry sounded from across the porch.
Had Jaz slipped and fallen?
As he watched, his heart pounding, Ruiz turned in that direction and reached for his gun.
Chapter 42
Sid aimed at the center of his adversary’s back and pressed the trigger. The twin probes streaked across the porch and lodged in their target before Ruiz could fire. He collapsed as his muscles lost all control. His gun fell to the floor.
Sid pulled the handcuffs from his belt as he ran toward the fallen man, breathing hard. He rolled him onto his stomach, pulled his arms together, and snapped on the cuffs. There on his left arm was the chronograph the old man had worn outside Sid’s office. He picked up Ruiz’s gun, ejected the magazine, and stuck it in his pocket. He quickly patted down the disabled man, finding a thin-blade knife strapped to his leg.
Jaz struggled to her feet beside the porch, brushing herself off. Her face looked ashen.
“What happened?” Sid asked.
“I tripped over a root just as I spotted him,” she said, the color returning as she shook her head. “And I was trying to be so careful. Did you Taser him?”
“Yeah. I figured we needed him to answer for what he’s done.” Sid reached out a hand to pull her onto the porch.
There was a sudden flurry of Spanish and a floundering around behind them. The Taser’s thirty-second charge had shut off, and Ruiz was doing his wet hornet impression. Sid stepped up and pulled the probes out of his back, then helped him to his feet.
“Carlos Ruiz, you’re under arrest for breaking and entering,” Sid said. “And that’s just a start.”
The hired killer looked confused, his face registering pain. “They didn’t tell me you were a cop.”
“I used to be. Right now this is a citizens arrest, but I’ll have a cop here shortly.” He turned to Jaz. “Is your ankle all right?”
“It’s fine.”
“Then keep your gun on him while I call my buddy.”
He took out his cell phone and called his deputy friend at the sheriff’s office. “I’ve got a guy named Carlos Ruiz in handcuffs, Cliff. He broke into my cabin and looks like he planned to steal everything. That should be good enough for a burglary charge.”
“Everybody okay?”
“Yes. I used my Taser on him. I’d appreciate it if you could come get him and hold him until Metro can pick him up. They should have at least one murder charge against him.”
“Okay, Sid. We’ll be there shortly.”
<
br /> Sid put Ruiz in the chair and tied him up. The only thing they got out of him was a brief taunt.
“As soon as I get in touch with my lawyer, I’ll be out of here.”
When the two deputies arrived to get him, they said there would be no phone calls until Metro came to take him over.
Sid’s phone rang while Jaz was driving down I-40 toward Nashville.
“When you get out of town, buddy, things start to move around here,” Bart said.
“Like what?”
“This afternoon the District Attorney announced that new evidence had come to light proving Djuan Burden innocent. Charges against him are being dropped.”
“Did they say who was being charged instead?”
“The police department will have an announcement shortly.”
Sid laughed. “If you’d like to make the announcement, I’ll give it to you.”
“Did you find him?”
“Carlos Ruiz is now in the county jail up there.”
“On what charge?”
Sid told him what had happened.
“Have you called anybody in Nashville?” Bart asked.
“I wasn’t sure who I should call. Here’s the rest of the story. I went to the U.S. Attorney yesterday morning and told him the FBI had evidence showing the Valdez-Delgado murder was done by a hit man.”
“And you asked him to contact the DA.”
“Yeah. He must have moved faster than I expected. Has the department assigned anybody to my assault case?”
“I have no idea, but I think you should call the chief directly. I’m sure he knows where the DA’s information came from.”
The Good, The Bad and The Murderous (Sid Chance Myseries Book 2) Page 21