Prolonged Exposure pс-6

by Steven F Havill

  “So, ten-thirty.” I looked at my watch. “It’s nine-fifteen right now. If Browers spent the night at Wilson’s Tank and then, come dawn, made the hike up hill, he’d make that seven miles by ten easily. He’ll be there waiting.”

  Tierney frowned again. “How many men are on that crew?” I asked, and counted flags.

  “Four, right now,” Tierney said. “But what makes you so sure that he’s going to go that way?”

  “We’re not, except for one major thing. There’s nowhere else for him to move without being seen. And it makes sense that he’d stick with familiar turf. And he knows exactly where to find himself a tough, dependable vehicle-and it’s just the kind he could easily sell across the border.”

  “One of our trucks? But they’ve got our logos all over ’em.”

  “A little paint takes care of that, or a heat gun,” I said.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “First, I want you to get on the radio, and order your work crew to stop in Regal.” I pushed myself to my feet. “We don’t know what kind of radio Browers has, but make it sound innocent, in case he’s listening. Some kind of repair that just got called in that they need to do before going up in the hills. You know your system. Make something up. Just don’t say anything to tip Browers off. Tell your men that another work crew is going to meet them at the church in Regal just as soon as they can get there.”

  Tierney looked sideways at me. “Then what?”

  “Then I’d like permission to borrow a couple of your trucks for a little while.”

  Chapter 43

  At ten minutes after ten that morning, three white Posadas Rural Electric Co-op trucks ground their way up a steep, narrow two-track that angled eastward, working its way up the south slope of the San Cristobal range.

  The second and third vehicle in line were standard one-ton four-wheel-drive utility trucks, their beds including enough gear and utility boxes to make a plumber drool with envy. Leading the pack was a high-slung Chevy Kodiak, a big blunt-snouted diesel-powered monster that carried the cherry picker and about four tons of other expensive equipment, including a generator big enough to power half of Posadas.

  Behind in Regal, six bemused Electric Co-op workers sat on the steps of the Iglesia de Nuestra Madre Catholic church, watching us rumble off into the distance, leaving behind as collateral a handful of high-mileage patrol vehicles, my daughter Camille, and Deputy Skip Bishop.

  I rode in the lead truck and tried to make myself comfortable while at the same time fighting not to crush Estelle every time the Kodiak waddled and jolted over another set of rocks. Half the time, I needed the palm of my hand up on the roof liner to keep my skull from making dents.

  Bob Torrez idled through a particularly dense stand of junipers, their limbs raking the side of the truck. The trail curved north into a narrow canyon, switchbacked out again, and then actually ran downhill for a while before angling up into a dense thicket of scrub oak.

  “This road is supposed to fork somewhere up there,” I said.

  “Supposed to,” Bob grunted. He looked right at home with the yellow hard hat. I looked in the rearview mirror and watched the two trucks behind us-Eddie Mitchell and Tom Pasquale in one, and Martin Holman and Tony Abeyta bringing up the rear.

  I had a nagging apprehension that we were putting all our eggs in one basket, but we now knew that Andrew Browers had driven south, just as we had suspected. There had been no way to conceal the tire tracks of the heavy RV when he had turned off of the state highway and headed south.

  With one of the department Broncos, Deputy Tom Mears and Dale Kenyon had set off to follow the tracks. As they worked their way south and we formed a pincer coming north, Andrew Browers would be caught in the middle.

  I chose to put the largest truck first because I wanted to be able to see, and its windshield being six or seven feet off the ground made that easy.

  We drove out of the canyon, and for a moment, directly ahead and below, Mexico stretched out to the horizon. The clouds were beginning to break, the last strands of moisture burning off. To the east, I could see an airplane making lazy circles as it worked its way along the border.

  We turned left, following the terrain, the oak brush as high as the doors of the truck. Another hump in the side of the slope brought us to an old slag pile, where years ago someone had hoped to strike it rich. “Tierney said that once we went by the stone foundation, the fork was about six-tenths of a mile,” I said.

  The miner had managed to dig a great scar in the earth, but then he had ran up against granite so hard and empty, he’d gotten discouraged. He hadn’t gone deep enough to bother with shaft supports. Just beyond the slag pile was a small heap of rubble that still showed some organization.

  “That’s the foundation, I assume.”

  Torrez nodded and pointed. “I’ve been hunting down this way. Got a eight-pointer about four miles south of here. This trail would have to cut downhill a bunch. I wasn’t anywhere near this far upslope.”

  “Tierney promised a fork,” I said.

  And sure enough, as the odometer rolled six-tenths, the trail did split. The right fork angled into another grove of oaks, and the left switchbacked up so steeply that we all held our breath as the big truck reared and bucked, its all-wheel-drive system clawing for purchase on the loose rocks. The other two vehicles held back until we’d cleared the top. The two-track crested a rise almost immediately and then skirted a grass and cactus meadow.

  We rolled for a hundred yards on packed soil, almost highway-smooth.

  “This is better,” I said.

  “Until up there,” Bob said. I could see jagged rocks ahead, and then the power lines as they appeared in the saddle-back. “About another mile and a half.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the second truck pull over the hill and accelerate across the smooth grass.

  “Pasquale wants the lead,” I said. “As always.” He pulled up within ten feet of our back bumper.

  Torrez took the opportunity to rest his arms on the steering wheel, leaning forward and gazing up the side of the mountain toward the cut. “I wonder where he is,” he said. “What do you suppose he’ll do?”

  Estelle’s mouth was set in a grim line. “That depends on how smart he is, or thinks he is,” I said. “He won’t know it’s not the electric company until we’re on top of him.”

  Bob slowed the truck to a walk, and I glanced at him. He was looking in the rearview mirror. “The sheriff may be having trouble with that last switchback,” he said.

  Sure enough, Holman’s vehicle hadn’t crested the rise to the meadow. Torres stopped the truck and I said into the handheld radio, “Hold up for a minute, Tom.” We sat for thirty seconds, the big diesel idling.

  That thirty seconds was Pasquale’s limit of patience. I could imagine the taciturn Eddie Mitchell enjoying the ride.

  “We’ll go check,” Pasquale said. The kid could drive backward as well as forward, and he reversed across the meadow. I had visions of him losing it at the last moment, the fifty-thousand-dollar electric company truck sailing ass-end-first right off the edge, crashing to junk on the rocks.

  He jarred to a halt, skewed sideways, and I saw both doors fling open. From a hundred yards away, it looked as if one of the deputies was pointing, but then I saw several puffs of smoke, followed eventually by the rapid pop-pop-pop of pistol fire.

  “What the hell,” I said, and almost instantly the radio cracked to life.

  “He’s got the truck!” Mitchell shouted.

  Torrez jammed the Kodiak into reverse and we jolted backward off the trail, sod and rocks flying. He spun the wheel and floored the accelerator, and we shot forward, cutting back onto the ruts. I saw Mitchell’s stocky figure race over the edge while Pasquale dashed to the truck.

  Even with the diesel of our truck bellowing for all it was worth, Pasquale had the smaller unit turned around by the time we arrived. He headed downslope without a moment’s hesitation, and I cou
ld see the tires of his truck crashing over rocks big enough to high-center a passenger car.

  We crested the hill in time to see Holman and Abeyta standing by the side of the road, gesticulating. Their truck, without them in it, had already backed far enough down the two-track that it had reached the fork, and it was now heading south on the other trail.

  “Go get the son of a bitch!” I heard Holman shout over the radio. Tom Pasquale needed no more incentive. We had a grandstand view as the two Electric Co-op trucks careened pell-mell down the narrow two-track that would along the foothills of the San Cristobals. The Border Patrol aircraft that had been orbiting farther to the east had swung overhead, a fast Cessna Sky Master that was going to be of little use other than providing eyes in the sky.

  Torrez eased down the hill, keeping the pace at a crawl as the heavy truck shifted this way and that on the rocks. Holman sprinted up the hill to meet us, his face purple with rage.

  “He’s alone!” Holman shouted as he jumped up on the driver’s side running board of the Kodiak. “He doesn’t have the child or the woman with him!”

  “Oh Christ,” I said, “what’s he done with ’em?”

  “He must have left them behind, with the camper,” Estelle said.

  “Or under any number of humps in the sand along the way,” I said. “He knew exactly what the hell he wanted.”

  Tom Pasquale had slowed just enough for Eddie Mitchell to jump back aboard, and Mitchell certainly deserved a medal for bravery. No more than a hundred yards separated the trucks, and Pasquale was gaining.

  “I don’t think he hit him,” Holman said. “There was just an instant when Browers was out in the open, and Pasquale got off three shots.”

  “He was waiting for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Holman said ruefully. “One minute we’re fine, and the next instant he’s standing right where I am now, on the running board of the truck, sticking a pistol in my ear. He wanted us out, and I didn’t argue with him.”

  “Wise,” I said. “Bob, if we go any farther, we won’t be able to see them when they get below that swath of oaks.” He stopped the truck and the four of us climbed down.

  “He’s got Tony’s gun now, too,” Holman added. With a pair of binoculars, Bob Torrez watched the race.

  “It looks like Pasquale is chained to his back bumper,” he said, and below us and to the east we saw the two trucks dive into a copse of elm scrub where a mountainside spring had created a tiny patch of green. “He’s got a quarter of a mile, and he’s at the fence.”

  And, at that particular point, that’s all that separated the United States from Mexico, a well-made steel-post six-strand barbed-wire fence. Torrez raised the glasses and swept the view. “No federales, either.”

  The Cessna swooped low, entering a hard bank, keeping the two roaring trucks in clear view.

  “There will be,” I said.

  The two-track swerved out onto a flat, dry section of prairie, and Andrew Browers saw his chance. He skidded right, off the road, roaring through the low brush, hitting hummocks so hard that half the time his truck was airborne.

  And less than a hundred feet behind him were Pasquale and Mitchell. I knew that trying for a spectacular tire shot was impossible. All Mitchell could do was hang on with both hands and feet and hope that Pasquale didn’t miscalculate and put them on their roof.

  “He’s going to go for it,” Torrez said.

  I held up the radio and thumbed the transmit button. “If he goes through that fence, you just go right after him,” I said.

  “They can’t go into Mexico,” Holman said.

  “Sure they can.” I glanced at him and held out the radio. “Do you want to tell Pasquale to stop?”

  “Hell no,” Holman said.

  Browers crashed the fence dead center, taking one of the steel posts right on the massive power winch on the front bumper of the truck. We saw a burst of sand and flying metal, and the two trucks had themselves a doorway into Mexico.

  “Veracruz by nightfall,” I muttered, but I had spoken too soon. Tom Pasquale had other plans. Even as one vehicle swerved violently to the left to avoid a deep arroyo, the second merged with it. We saw a cloud of dirt fly heavenward, and the two vehicles jarred to a halt.

  For a moment, it was impossible to tell what was happening, but then Torrez said, “They’ve got ’em,” and a wide grin split his features. He shifted the glasses a fraction. “And here come the troops.”

  I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw two vehicles approaching on the Mexican side of the fence. “This should be interesting,” I said.

  Chapter 44

  “PCS, three oh three is ten-fifteen.”

  I laughed with delight. “God, he must have paid Mitchell to get to say that,” I said. “He’s got Browers in custody.”

  It took us a half hour to cover the same ground that the two fleeing utility trucks had covered in five or six minutes. Martin Holman and Tony Abeyta balanced on the running boards, clinging to the door and mirror frames. By the time we reached the break in the fence, Capt. Tomas Naranjo’s tan Toyota Land Cruiser was parked beside the two white trucks, with a tan Suburban just arriving.

  “You want to go in?” Torrez asked, hesitating.

  “Hell yes,” I said. “I’m not going to walk.”

  Tomas Naranjo leaned against the fender of his Toyota and grinned as we approached.

  “I remember seeing that break in the fence last week,” he said as we approached. “You know, those range cattle sometimes can be a real nuisance.” He shook hands with Holman and then me, and his grip was firm and friendly. “Senora,” he said to Estelle, and touched the brim of his cap.

  “We appreciate your cooperation, Captain,” I said, and turned my attention to the others. “Are you guys all right?” Pasquale clearly was. I could count every one of his teeth, his grin was so wide. Mitchell looked as if he was glad to be standing on solid ground. Andy Browers sat on the running board of the truck he’d taken, his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles locked together with a heavy nylon zip tie.

  He didn’t look up, just stared instead at the Mexican sand under his feet.

  “Where are Tiffany and Cody Cole?” Estelle snapped.

  “I have no idea.”

  I bent down and grabbed his shoulder. “You’re cute, you son of a bitch. Now where did you leave ’em last night?”

  He looked up at me, his face impassive.

  “Perhaps you could leave him with us,” Naranjo said mildly. “We have several experienced interrogators on our staff.”

  “They were at the camper,” Browers said, and spat into the sand. “They couldn’t keep up, so I told ’em to go back.” He looked up at me again. He licked his lips. “They were just in the way.”

  “Who’s idea was this whole thing?” I asked.

  “Cole. Paul Cole.” Browers looked off into space. “He had this whole big deal cooked up.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “And conveniently, he’s dead.” I saw a muscle twitch in Browers’s cheek. “Yes. We found the body, thanks to the little boy who you figured would never show up again-alive, anyway.”

  Browers looked up suddenly. “He run off,” he said. “If he’d done what I told him, everything would have turned out all right.” He turned to Naranjo. “I got twenty thousand dollars in there.”

  Naranjo tipped his head and regarded Browers with interest. “Twenty thousand? American dollars?”

  “That’s right.”

  Naranjo flashed teeth. “That’s enough to fix one of these trucks,” he said. “I don’t know about the other.” He reached out and patted a torn and battered fender.

  I straightened up and turned to Estelle. “Let’s get this creep back to town.”

  It took the rest of the morning to clean up the mess. Despite the shattered fence and 640 yards of clear southbound tire tracks, Capt. Tomas Naranjo, still amused, remained adamant that no one had trespassed on Mexican soil.

  Torrez,
Estelle, and I elected to ride back to the church in the Kodiak. Considering the circumstances, returning one of the three vehicles wasn’t too bad. The others piled into the federales’ Toyota and the accompanying Suburban, to be chauffeured back to the formal border crossing at Regal.

  Eddie Mitchell volunteered to stay behind and wait for the Posadas County wreckers to arrive and pull Matt Tierney’s trucks back. I think he looked forward to the stationary peace and quiet.

  We rumbled into Regal about ten minutes after the others, and Camille waved a greeting and broke away from the crowd.

  “Just another normal Posadas morning,” she said as I stepped down out of the truck. “And they’ve got Tiffany Cole and the boy. They’re both all right.”

  Estelle let out a deep sigh.

  “Where were they?” I asked.

  “Sitting on the step of the RV, at the spring, where you thought they might be.” She turned and gestured toward one of the patrol cars. “They were trying to raise you on the radio.”

  “I had it turned off,” I said.

  “So I gathered. Apparently, Tiffany decided just to sit and wait it out until someone came and got her.”

  “But the child’s all right?”

  Camille grimaced. “As good as he’s going to be, I guess. Physically, anyway.” She reached out and touched my arm. “I talked to Gayle on the cell phone. Tiffany Cole told one of the deputies that they would have made it across the border if they hadn’t been slowed down by having to drag the kid along.”

  “Wonderful people,” I said.

  Holman approached. “You heard?”

  I nodded. “Did someone call the wreckers?”

  “On the way,” Holman said. “Good work, folks. We’ll wrap this up and then head on back to Posadas to face the music.”

  I smiled at his worried expression. “I’m sure Posadas Electric has insurance. Or we do.”