by Rod Collins
“He’s starting to get the range dialed in,” he muttered, as he pushed a dripping TJ up on the bank and in behind a good-sized alder. “Stay here,” he said.
“Miranda. You okay?”
“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “I have a big splinter sticking out the back of my hand.”
“Okay. Stay low and head further into the trees. When we have enough cover, we’ll hook up, and I’ll see what I can do about your hand.”
Chapter 33
Round Up
BUD LOOKED AT HIS DEPUTIES and said, “Dell BeBe just called. He’s in trouble. He’s on Dog Lake in his canoe, and someone is shooting at them – ‘them’ defined as BB, FBI agent Miranda Wright, and the Reverend TJ Wildish. That’s all I have. And BB’s cell went offline. He’s not answering my calls.
“Karen, you keep trying his number. If he answers, relay anything useful he has to say. And call Dutch Vanderlin. Tell him what’s going on. The SWAT team won’t get here in time.”
“Lonnie, I want you and Bea to head for Lofton Reservoir. Take both vehicles. Plug the back road into Dog Lake. And hustle. Let’s see if we can trap these guys.”
“Larae, take Roger’s vehicle and follow us. I want you to block the Dog Lake road when we get beyond the houses on Drews Reservoir. Keep travelers out until we get this cleaned up.
“Roger, you ride with me. Everybody armor up. Use tac channel one. Let’s move it, boys and girls!”
“What about me?” Sonny asked.
“You got a rig?”
“Yeah, Deschutes County.”
“You up to a helicopter ride?”
“Oh, shit. You know I hate those things.”
“Yeah, I do. But I need some eyes in the sky. I’m worried about that Forest Service road running south from Dog Lake toward the California border. And if there’s any shooting, you duck this time.”
Sonny gave Bud a grim smile, and involuntarily rubbed the nasty scar on the top of his head, compliments of a chunk of lava blown his way by terrorists who blew themselves up and were trying to take some American infidels with them.
“You don’t need to remind me.”
Lake County District Attorney, Howard Finch, perhaps for the first time in his entire life, listened until Bud finished his torrent of orders.
When Bud stopped talking, Howard looked up at the officers, all of whom were taller than he – with the exception of Beatrice Tusk – and said, “Bring me pictures, maps, fingerprints, ID’s, reports, any and all physical evidence … the whole nine yards. Let’s collect ground-floor evidence on this. And for Christ’s sake don’t get hurt!”
***
The sound of four police vehicles, emergency lights pulsing and sirens screaming, had citizens of Lakeview rushing to store windows or stepping out of doorways to see what the racket was about.
Carol Conner, managing editor and chief reporter of the Lake County News, rushed to the front window of the newspaper office and watched. Her heart rate increased, and before the caravan turned the corner at the north end of the business district, she was on the phone with Karen Highsmith.
“Karen? This is Carol Connor. What’s going on? I think I just saw the entire Lake County Sheriff’s department go by at a very noisy, very high rate of speed.”
As his vehicle crossed the railroad tracks on the west edge of town, Bud grabbed his mic and said, “Control, this is County One. We have an emergency situation at Dog Lake. Shots have been fired. Switching to tac channel one.
“I want eyes in the sky. Sonny Sixkiller is headed for the airport. Hire the Forest Service helicopter out there. I need Sonny in the air and headed for Dog Lake ASAP.”
“Copy. Control out.”
Bud hesitated for minute and glanced at Roger. “What am I forgetting?”
“Ambulance.”
Bud nodded and keyed the mic. “Control, this is County One. Roll an ambulance. The EMT’s can rendezvous with Officer Holcomb just beyond Drews Reservoir. Have them use this channel.”
Nancy’s voice carried a hint of tension when she broke protocol and said, “Bud. What’s going on?”
He answered, “I don’t know. Dell BB called. He said someone was shooting at him, and then his phone went dead.”
“You be careful.”
He nearly smiled when he said, “Yes ma’am.”
Recognizable voices chimed in, one at a time, saying “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
Gus Hildebrand was chuckling when he keyed his mic and said with his good ol’ boy drawl, “County One, this is Lakeview Police Chief Augustus Hildebrand. You guys and gals need any help?”
Bud thought for a minute, and then said, “You could post a car on Drews Creek at the bridge and stop traffic until we get this sorted out.”
“I’m on the way, Mister Sheriff.”
“Stay out of trouble, Gus. County One out.”
Chapter 34
Major Crimes Unit
SPECIAL AGENTS LEROY WILCOX and Douglas Brant sat in padded office chairs, a big mahogany desk between them and Special Agent Richard McDonald – a thin, wiry middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, his hair grown long on the sides and then combed over to hide a growing bald spot.
His slight stature and academic look belied an iron will. A keen intelligence, coupled with an eidetic memory made him, in the opinion of almost every agent who ever worked with or for him, “One hell of an FBI agent.”
Special Agent McDonald, head of the Portland FBI Major Crimes Unit, rocked back in his expensive five-point, ergonomically engineered chair and said, “So … you have a tip from an anonymous source.”
Brandt and Wilcox glanced at each other and nodded. They weren’t quite yet willing to give Butler up.
Wilcox said, “Yes.”
“I’m a suspicious man, Agent Wilcox. On the one hand, I see a BOLO for Agent Butler. On the other hand, I hear you have an anonymous tip. It makes me wonder if the two are connected.”
Brandt frowned and snapped at McDonald. “You want to hear what we have to say or not?”
Special Agent McDonald rocked forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the desk, hand clasped under his chin. He glanced from Wilcox to Brandt and then down to the surface of his desk. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, then took a deep breath. He straightened up and pulled a blank note pad across the table from a nearly empty inbox. Pen in hand McDonald said, “Okay. Tell me.”
When Wilcox finished the story he and Brandt had agreed upon, McDonald stopped writing, put his pen down, and asked, “What do you need from me?”
“Okay,” Wilcox said. “Do you have anything on human trafficking? Could it be true?”
McDonald, animated for the first time, said, “Yes. There is human trafficking going on. Primarily young women. We have insider information, but we have yet to figure out how it’s being done. The capture part, we understand. Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable, easy to lure. I think a fifteen-year-old girl may be about the dumbest animal on the planet. But how they are smuggled out of the country is still a mystery. Trucks to Mexico, and then air to the Mideast maybe.”
“How about ships?” Wilcox asked.
McDonald shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. We spot check invoices, make unannounced inspections, pay dockworkers under the table. All we really have are rumors.”
“What if we gave you a solid tip? Would you go after it?”
McDonald rocked back in his chair again and said, “Have you talked to your boss?”
They both shook their heads.
“Why not?”
“Our snitch tells us there’s a leak inside this office. That may be why you never find anything on the docks.”
“You don’t know who to trust?”
“That’s it.”
“And you don’t trust your boss.”
Brandt leaned forward and said, “Yeah. We do. But he’s so damned naïve, and so political, we don’t know if he can keep it to himself.”
&nbs
p; “And if he doesn’t?”
“We might lose a boatload of young women.”
McDonald rocked forward and reached for his phone. “Let’s get your boss in here, and let’s get Dutch involved. I think I can convince him to keep the circle small. But you may have to give up your source.”
Chapter 35
Hunters
ANOTHER ROUND from the rifle across the lake ricocheted into the timber, the slug pulling a small fountain of water from the surface before clipping a low-hanging branch from a small pine tree. BB watched the branch float to the ground, then dragged TJ behind the largest tree he could find. “Get out of that life jacket, and keep your ass down.”
Miranda’s three measured rounds of pistol fire startled BB, and then he found himself shaking his head in admiration for her spunk if not her good sense. “Did you hit it?”
“Hit what?” she muttered in exasperation from behind a stump, leftover evidence of logging from years past.
“My house.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Oh, shit. Save your ammunition. We might need it later.”
“I’m pissed,” she said, holding up her left hand, a thin stream of blood running down her forearm.
“Save that, too. Right now, I need to know if your cell phone is working.”
“I can’t open my pack.”
“Toss it over here.”
TJ caught a glimpse of a man running through the small pine trees south of BB’s house. “BB,” he said, “I see a guy going to our left and maybe another to our right. I’m not sure about the second one, but I did see something moving over there.” He pointed in the direction of Bud’s A-Frame.
As he unzipped Miranda’s dripping daypack, the sound of another rifle shot from the direction of his house told BB what he needed to know. “There are at least three of them.”
He pointed behind them and said, “You two boogie on out of here. There’s a little meadow about four hundred yards due east. Stay in the timber, when you get there, and wait. I’ll be along shortly. And don’t shoot me. I’ll whistle before I come in.”
BB watched Miranda and TJ crouch and run through the trees until they were out of sight. He shook the contents of Miranda’s wet daypack out on the ground. “Thank God,” he muttered when he saw a cell phone, nice and dry in a Ziploc bag. He crawled in behind a large pine and powered on the phone. When the screen lit up, he realized with mild surprise he’d been holding his breath. From memory, he keyed in Bud’s cell number and hit send.
Bud answered on the third ring, the muted sound of sirens in the background. “This is Sheriff Blair.”
“Bud, this is BB. I’m on Miranda’s cell.”
“Are you guys all right.”
“No one’s been shot, but Miranda has a big ugly splinter through her left hand. A slug shattered her paddle. What do you have headed this way?”
“I have two officers who will sweep the back road from Lofton Reservoir to Dog Lake. Roger Hildebrand and I are headed for your place. We just hit the timber along Drews Creek. ETA seven or eight minutes … if I don’t hit a deer.
“And we’ll have Sonny Sixkiller in a helicopter in another five or ten minutes. He’ll be our eyes in the sky. So, tell me what you know.”
“Okay. There are at least three perps. One is still shooting blindly in our direction, every thirty seconds or so, from across the lake. I think he’s trying to make us think there’s only one shooter, so he’s staying put. TJ said he saw a man circling the lake to the south and maybe another circling to the north. We don’t know that for sure. Sounds pretty stupid to me … unless they don’t believe we spotted them.”
“I’m going to give the phone to Officer Hildebrand.”
BB could hear muffled voices and then Roger Hildebrand said, “Hello, Mister BeBe. What’s your location?”
“Do you know Dog Lake?”
“Yes, I caught a few bass and perch up there when I was a kid.”
“Okay. We’re on the east side of the lake. Agent Wright and TJ Wildish are headed for a little meadow about a quarter mile due east. They’ll hold there and wait for me.”
“Are you armed?”
BB nodded and said, “I’ve got an AR-15, two full clips, and my pistol. And Agent Wright has her pistol.”
“Good. I’d suggest you hook up with the rest of your party. Can a helicopter land in that meadow?”
“It’s big enough.”
“Good. Do you all need a ride out of there?”
BB nodded and said, “Yes. Miranda needs medical attention, and TJ isn’t worth a shit if he isn’t standing on concrete or asphalt.”
BB heard a chuckle. “I know what you mean. And you either have what it takes or you don’t. I’d suggest you save battery and check in again when you hear the sirens or the helicopter.”
“Okay. I’m going hunting now.” He shut the phone down and slipped it into his right front pocket. He took a deep breath to steady himself, unzipped the rifle case, and shook his head at the sour memory of a teenager shooting his partner Bud Blair. BB had reluctantly returned fire and killed the teenager. I thought I was long past this business of shooting people.
He worked the action, seated a live round in the chamber of the AR-15, and took a quick peek from behind the tree. “Damn,” he said when he saw the bullet hole gouged in the side of his canoe. Only the built-in flotation kept it from sinking.
He stuffed Amanda’s clutter back in her daypack and the spare clip in his pocket. I think I’d better stick with TJ and Miranda and get them out of here. Then I’ll catch these sonsabitches. I want to know who sent them. That’s the dude I want.
Chapter 36
Run
CLETUS WAS RESTLESS. BB’s apartment had no TV, no phone, and there wasn’t a computer to be had. He paced the small living room in the fourth-floor apartment and watched a white yacht ease into the boat basin below the redbrick high-rise. He wondered what it would be like to own a cabin cruiser. Or what it would be like to live here in this complex of gray-green boardwalks, docks, stores, restaurants, luxury houseboats, spas, beauty shops, and convenience stores – like the one on the second floor of BB’s apartment building.
A social animal, on a normal day Cletus was in constant motion. He was on the phone with his sports paraphernalia suppliers, with his umbrella supplier (two-dollars and no shipping charge for orders of five hundred or more), checking in with his sales people, and always checking the weather to see if it was time for umbrellas or Rose City t-shirts on folding tables at the major Max stations.
But this wasn’t one of those ‘normal’ days. The clear memory of a black pistol, and of Agent Butler, who Cletus knew had to be on the take, kept him inside.
Frustrated by his self-imposed restrictions, but knowing it was dangerous to be on the street, Cletus settled for a quick elevator ride to the little convenience store on the second floor. The smell of spices and fresh produce greeted him when he pushed through a glass door carrying the gold inscription of “Chin Lee Market.”
A very pretty Eurasian girl behind the counter, long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, smiled and said, “Hello.” Cletus straightened his shoulders and smiled back. The only word of Chinese he knew wasn’t something you said to young women, so he settled for “Hi.”