by JT Sawyer
“What the hell was that all about?” whispered Dev, finishing her cup of coffee. “I couldn’t tell just how much of that was alpha dog banter and how much was built-up resentment.”
“Probably a little of both. Eddy Roth is the U.S. Marshal that was attached to a case I did up in these parts last summer. It was a mantracking assignment and Roth was one of many federal dilettantes hanging around, trying to get in on the action.”
Mitch turned his head as he watched Roth’s Suburban pull out of the parking lot. “Frankly, I’m shocked to see him still here in the Durango region. I thought he was transferring back up to Denver last I heard. He’s the kinda guy who’d be swatting at every insect around him while squawking about how his feet are cold.”
Dev emitted a crooked smile. “You just described me, I think.”
“Trust me, darlin’—you’re no Ed Roth.”
Chapter 2
Back at the campfire that evening, Dev was sitting down on her folding chair with a fleece blanket wrapped around her, enjoying the warmth of the blaze. The rainclouds had dispersed for the first time in days, and the stars and Milky Way were visible. She inhaled the cold night air and marveled at the view above.
“Just so we’re clear, I could never live here. I’ll take triple-digit heat and searing sunlight any day over this.”
Mitch took a swig of beer and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll still keep ya. You’re worth every minute of whining.”
She slugged him in the arm. “This is the first complaint in three days of suffering that I’ve muttered so be nice or you’ll get another bruise worse than that one.”
He laughed and scooched closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders while kissing her. “Ooh, I didn’t know you were gonna be so rough with me.”
“Just how rough is yet to be determined if you keep rubbing those scruffy cheeks against mine.”
She grabbed his beer and leaned back. “Thanks. Maybe you can get one for yourself and then tell me a campfire story—like the one about this guy Kruger. You’ve never mentioned that case before.”
Mitch shrugged his shoulders as his face went taut. “Pretty damn unpleasant chapter in my life and in my work with the bureau.”
Dev poked a stick into the fire, her eyes focusing on the coals while she occasionally cast a glance at Mitch.
“I can tell what that look means—that I’m not gonna get any rest until I spill the beans.”
“I know all too well how work can grate on the soul. But the snippets I’ve heard so far have got me mighty curious.”
Mitch stood up and sighed. He walked over to the woodpile and tossed three more pine logs on the fire then settled back into his camp chair. “Hope you don’t mind staying up late, young lady.”
He reached back into the cooler and pulled out a cold Heineken, twisting off the top and taking a drink before beginning. “Anton Kruger had connections to an organized crime group in Eastern Europe called Evsi. Their factions in the U.S. were confined to the larger cities, with two of the most prominent being in L.A. and Denver, where they dealt in high-end designer drugs and human trafficking.” Mitch kicked a pinecone into the fire, watching it ignite into a fury of flame.
“Last June, Anton was in L.A. brokering a new deal on expanding Evsi’s reach further into Denver.”
“That’s ambitious. Doesn’t seem like they could wield that much clout from drugs and prostitution in such a landlocked city.”
“Exactly—but the Evsi mob had configured a new type of money counterfeiting system and were going to be selling their wares here in the U.S. Anton was the envoy sent over here to make those connections and seal the deal. Only, the guys at the Department of Justice in Denver were on to him, one guy in particular named Daryl Warner, who has since retired. He had been gathering intel on Kruger for several years. Anton decided to avoid the airports and drove from L.A. to Vegas then was on his way to Denver when he got smacked in the face by Murphy’s Law.”
Mitch got up and arched his back in a stretch then began walking around the firepit. “Thinking he’d avoid the main highways, he took a shortcut through southwest Colorado. Only the jackass is driving like he’s on the Autobahn back home and takes an icy mountain overpass too fast, crashing through a guardrail just outside of Durango. When he wakes up two hours later in the hospital, he’s cuffed to a bed with a deputy outside his door. Supposedly, he had the counterfeiting plates with him in the vehicle but they were never found. These were the masters for printing money, alleged to be some revolutionary new type of die-casted plates according to the DOJ guy.”
Mitch sat back down again, finishing off his beer and clutching the empty bottle like it was a workout device.
“So, do the local officers know who they have in their hands?”
“Sort of—they know he’s a bad apple from their database but just how rotten is beyond their reach. The boys from the Department of Justice in Denver are thrilled—the Durango sheriff practically did their jobs for them. However, the US Marshals and FBI also want Anton because he’s been on their international fugitive lists for years.”
“Why clamor for him like that? They’re all federal agencies.”
“On the surface it would seem that way but the Marshals and the bureau have always had a sort of feud between them as a lot of our territory overlaps in terms of jurisdiction. The bureau has more clout and funding in DC though, and the Marshals have always been looked upon by the policy makers as this kind of Wild West throwback so they’ve been relegated to the areas of kidnapping and witness protection.” Mitch leaned back and grabbed his coat off the side view mirror of his vehicle and put it on.
“Either way, the Marshals, DOJ guys, and bureau are all racing to Durango to get their hands on Anton Kruger and question him. This is a big case and it’s all going down in little ole Durango, Colorado.”
“You were the bureau liaison who came here.”
“That part came later. You see, Anton is a clever fellow and manages to pick the locks on his cuffs. He kills the deputy, a young man named Tom Mulhere, outside his room along with pistol-whipping a nurse; then he takes off into the woods behind the hospital. The whole city gets shut down and now all the agencies are scrambling to get their guys on the ground and apprehend him. That’s when my boss in Phoenix gets the call from the Rocky Mountain bureau chief to send my ass up here to track down Anton. The bureau chief knows about my tracking background from a training workshop I provided the year before in Denver for his guys, and he wants the agency to have its moment in the spotlight for the capture of a notorious international crime lord.”
Mitch reached into the cooler and found it empty. Irritated, he removed a handful of ice and flung it onto the coals to watch it crackle and dissipate.
Dev shook her head. “The way your agencies work against each other here in this country is astounding. It’s like a little internecine war going on instead of focusing on the bigger battle of actually catching the bad guys.”
“Another reason I got out—too much meddling from above instead of letting the agents in the field do their damn job.” He exhaled and continued. “So by the time I arrive in Durango the next morning, this whole operation has turned into a shit-show with incident command posts for each agency set up around the hospital, local SWAT guys with their trigger fingers getting itchy, and reporters roaming the parking lot like the fire ants they are.
“The point-last-seen, that crucial area where the subject’s last tracks are found, as you know—that’s been trampled over by all the feds in the area, making my job nearly impossible. The whole time I have the Denver bureau chief breathing down my neck for results.”
“And meanwhile Anton is on the run, gaining time and distance while everyone bickers,” said Dev.
Mitch was getting a workout flexing his eyebrows in disgust as he conjured up memories of that ordeal. “I finally picked up his trail around mid-morning using a cross-cutting technique for homing in on his tracks. He had headed away from t
he city into a wilderness area within this rugged canyon. Anton was not the dumb city-boy I’d expected and he’d covered a lot of ground. If he hadn’t had an inordinate amount of barbiturates in his system that the ER doc gave him too much of, he might have actually gotten away.” Mitch settled back into his chair, his eyes transfixed on the flames. “I knew he had the deputy’s pistol so movement through the dense canyon was slow going. After a torturous trek through some of the worst terrain I’ve ever been in, me and my three-man tracking team finally caught up with him on the second day near an abandoned miner’s cabin. He was walled in and he knew it. A firefight ensued and he was eventually wounded by…by me, who got off the shot.”
“So Anton Kruger finally gets caught in a lonely canyon far from home. And what unfolded afterwards between all of your agencies?”
Mitch picked up a hefty pine branch and snapped it forcefully over his knee then tossed both pieces into the blaze. “When we’re flown back to the hospital grounds, the Marshals, or one guy in particular, Eddy Roth, whom you just had the pleasure of meeting, is doing all the chest-thumping for the cameras. Like he had been out there tracking down the fugitive when, in fact, he was probably at the incident command post sipping on a flavored latte and polishing his new boots. In the end, the bureau got the recognition but not without a turf war between the two field directors—bunch of fumbling kids trapped in men’s bodies.”
Dev craned her head up as she watched a shooting star streak across the sky near Orion’s belt. “Ah, my poor Mitch—always the bridesmaid, never the bride, eh.”
Mitch grinned and then it turned into a grimace. “I just wanted to get the hell out of there but the whole thing had ballooned into a media circus. Apparently it had been one of the biggest manhunts in recent history and this woman journalist out of L.A. kept referring to Anton as a modern-day Butch Cassidy. That’s the part that pissed me off the most—making this Euro-trash thug into some kind of celebrity. This woman conveniently forgot that Anton killed Mulhere, the deputy.” Mitch sucked in a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. “Mulhere’s poor mother was there in the parking lot when we got back. She offered a heart-wrenching handshake to me and the other men, nearly collapsing into my arms. Her life was shattered in one night when she lost her only son. The media focused instead on Anton’s mysterious ties to international crime and swept aside the victims.”
“That was last summer, only a few months before we met outside of Phoenix, right?”
“Yes. After Durango, I was tied up with flying back and forth to Anton’s trial in Denver to discuss my involvement in the manhunt. When I was finally done, I just sank myself into fieldwork back in Arizona.” He rested his hand on her leg. “That is, until this alluring vixen knocked on my bunkhouse door a few months later.”
“Is Anton Kruger behind bars in the U.S. or was he extradited back to Europe?”
“He’s lying in a shallow grave somewhere near Denver. He didn’t last more than a month in the penitentiary. A faction of Serbs who were business rivals, shall we say, shanked him in the bathroom one day.”
“Good, then he died like the filthy animal he was,” said Dev.
Mitch sighed and looked skyward. “The whole case didn’t sit well with me—all the infantile bickering between the agencies, the media circus at the crime scene, and later during the trial…” He paused. “And the image of Mrs. Mulhere, whose world was devastated because of the random event of Kruger driving off the highway, placing him in that hospital. She’s the reason I’m back here now. Trying to see how I can help her in some way.”
“She’s the friend you’ve mentioned that you’re going to see after you drop me off at the airport?”
“That’s right. We’ve kept in touch all this time.”
Dev was rubbing her chin, huffing out a few sighs and darting her eyes at him then back at the fire.
“What?”
“I’m curious, Mitch. My father once spoke of a man named Kruger—someone he had heard stories about during his days with the Mossad. He told me that this Kruger was a war criminal in East Germany with the Stasi, the secret police in Berlin. He was responsible for assassinating hundreds of dissident politicians and journalists over several decades. After the collapse of the wall, he disappeared and was supposed to be a hired gun for various organized crime families in Bosnia, Ukraine, and Russia. I’ve only heard rumors that he freelances his services to the highest bidder and surfaces around the world on occasion.”
Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, that’s the same family. I’ve heard those stories too. Only the guy I was involved in hunting down was the son, Anton. After we apprehended him and were waiting for the helicopter to take us back to the hospital in Durango, he kept telling me how I’d pay. How he had this bad-ass dad who would set things straight.”
“The Kruger I heard of has never been identified. He may be dead—there’s been no mention of him for years.”
“I’m not worried. I looked into him as well. If he did exist, and if he had any clout, Anton would still be breathing today and the counterfeiting plates would have shown up by now.”
“And Mulhere, the mother, what are you meeting with her for?”
Mitch nodded his head slowly then interlaced his fingers. “She’s got pancreatic cancer and doesn’t have long to live according to our last phone conversation. She wants to discuss an idea with me and a few others who were connected with her son: creating a scholarship at the local college in honor of him.”
Mitch stood up and leaned forward to grab some firewood. Dev reached out and took his hand. “It’s late and that’s been a trying story to recount for you, I’m sure. Why don’t we head inside your canvas palace and get the propane heater going instead. One more night close to you would be nice before I head back home tomorrow.”
Mitch hadn’t felt the weight of his story until now and he realized just how tense he was. He relaxed his shoulders and felt his breathing ease up. He caressed Dev’s hand and pulled her close, staring up at the Big Dipper while the lonely call of a long-eared owl resounded from the still forest.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Dev and Mitch hastily broke down their camp and drove out to Durango so she could catch the afternoon connector flight to Denver, beginning the first leg of her long journey back home to Israel.
Though the morning departure from the backcountry had been amiable, Mitch knew that there were things he’d left unsaid and it created a mild sense of tension in the air between them. He was torn between wanting to follow her back to Tel Aviv and his desire to linger in the American West. During his months teaching mantracking in Israel, he’d pined for the open wilderness that he’d grown up in and he couldn’t wait to hike in the mountains again. Now, here he was having to say goodbye to a woman he cared for deeply, unsure if he could ever truly dwell in her world of skyscrapers and cramped neighborhoods. He needed a little time alone in the wilds to refocus on what he wanted to do professionally and personally before making any major decisions. She hadn’t pressured him in any way but Dev had made her feelings for him obvious on more than one occasion and she clearly wanted to move beyond a short-term relationship.
As he neared the curb at the airport terminal in Durango, he got out and helped Dev with her bags before giving her a last embrace. “Call me when you’re done with your meeting,” she said. “I want to hear all about it.” She kissed him and grabbed the collar of his coat. “Actually, I just want to hear your voice again.”
He could see the sparkle in her eyes and he didn’t want to ease up on his hug. “I’ll try—not sure what reception is going to be like. She’s tucked away in the mountains north of Bayfield.”
“Then I’ll call you when I get back home.” She grabbed her bags and smiled, turning and walking into the terminal.
Mitch watched her, staring at her raven hair and athletic figure as she strode away. Then he hopped back into his F-150 and drove north for a few miles to Highway 160, back towards Bayfield, which was nestled b
etween Durango and Pagosa Springs. On the cusp of town, he stopped at a small gas station to fill up his truck.
He headed inside the convenience store adjacent to the lot and used the bathroom then grabbed a cup of coffee. He looked in dismay at all of the choices for imbibing caffeine and the plethora of flavored creamers. He never understood why people had to ruin plain black coffee.
Mitch walked to the counter, handing the hefty older woman at the register a five-dollar bill. “Say, you don’t know how the roads north of town are looking, do you—up past Trew Creek Road?”
She handed him the change and then scratched the back of her head. “Should be fine last I heard. With the recent rains though it could be a little icy in some parts so just watch yourself.” She looked out at the parking lot. “Whatya driving?”
He nodded his head to the left. “That tan pickup out there.”
“Ah, yeah, you’ll be good. Just watch them shady patches on the curves.”
“Many thanks. You take care now.” He raised his cup of coffee up and smiled at her before heading out the door.
During the next thirty minutes, the traffic on the two-lane secondary road diminished until his truck was the only vehicle for miles. He glimpsed down at his Garmin GPS unit and noted that the turn-off to Barbara Mulhere’s place was coming up. He slowed his rig and turned on a narrow dirt road that looked like it was only maintained intermittently by the county. He could see a number of car and truck tire tracks heading up the incline, the knobby tread pattern and considerable width separating out the larger vehicles from the rest. The online maps that he had studied earlier for the region indicated that there were only three other homes up this road. He figured that the recent traffic was due to the rest of the invitees who were driving up to Barbara’s house as the other driveways were gated and the pathways overgrown.
He knew she didn’t get out much and had a nurse come to visit her and bring groceries twice a week. He admired her courage for all she’d had to endure during the past year with the loss of her son and her battle with cancer, which had finally gotten the upper hand. In his recent phone conversations with her, he never detected any self-pity for her current struggle, only gratitude in wanting to share her son’s legacy with others. The memorial she was proposing would fulfill that and Mitch would be sure to keep that flame alive any way he could. He had worked a lot of cases as a field agent with the FBI but none had touched him as personally as this one had. Maybe because he had lost his own parents at a young age and it only served to strengthen the bond between him and Barbara. He wasn’t sure why but Mitch felt like he needed to see her one last time and find out how he could contribute to easing her final weeks.