Cold Betrayal

by J. A. Jance

  “Leave them be,” Governor Dunham said.

  “You shut the hell up, too,” Lowell ordered again. “In my world, women speak only when spoken to.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bill Witherspoon interjected. “You can’t talk to her that way. She’s the governor of Arizona!”

  “Watch me,” Lowell replied. “Just watch me.”

  With the phone put away, Ali had the Glock back in her hand. The earlier trembling that had afflicted her texting ability had diminished, but she had no idea what to do. She was painfully aware that, with the door shut, she was blind to what was going on just beyond the door. She had no idea where Lowell was standing or what kind of weapon he had in hand. Most likely some kind of automatic. How else could he assume he’d be able to hold six people at bay and impel them to do his bidding?

  As for Ali, if she emerged from the bathroom to face him, she’d most likely be walking directly into his line of fire. She had confidence in her shooting ability, but with him looking straight at her, he’d have the drop on her. In addition, in the close confines of the cabin, any stray shots risked the possibility of hitting the marble backsplash and ricocheting into the very people Ali was hoping to save.

  “Who are you?” Lowell demanded.

  Ali was riveted when she heard her husband’s answer. “I’m B.—B. Simpson.”

  “Well, Mr. Simpson, the driver of this vehicle seems to be otherwise occupied. Can you drive this thing?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do it, then,” Lowell ordered. “Go up front and get us the hell out of here.”

  B. rose and headed toward the cab. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Leave the connecting door open. I’ll give you directions as we go, but if you try anything funny, like running us into a tree or a fence post or a utility pole, I’ll put a hole the size of a dinner plate in the middle of the governor’s chest. Got it?”

  “Got it,” B. replied.

  The body of the Sprinter shifted as B. moved forward. Ali imagined Richard Lowell sitting with his weapon still trained on Virginia Dunham’s chest. With B. in the cab, he was somewhat protected from bullets shot from Richard Lowell’s weapon but not from Ali’s.

  “You don’t need the rest of these people,” Governor Dunham asserted once again. “Let the others go.”

  “Like I said, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  A few seconds later, B. shifted the idling Sprinter out of neutral. Ali shifted her stance, leaning against the wall for support lest some sudden jerk or bump betray her presence. They lurched onto the pavement and, after a moment, were speeding in what seemed to Ali to be a northerly direction. For a time no voices came from the cabin. The only sound was the rumble of moving tires on pavement.

  “Where are we going?” Governor Dunham asked several minutes later. “What are your intentions?”

  “Where I’m going is none of your business, but my intention is to use you and the others as an insurance policy to get me there.” After a pause Lowell continued, “Hey, driver. Take the next right and stop at the security gate. After we drive through, the gate will close automatically.”

  “What’s your name?” Ali heard Lowell ask.

  “Bill,” the chief of staff answered. “Bill Witherspoon.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal. When we stop, you hop out and key in the code 1556. Come right back once the gate opens or somebody dies.”

  The vehicle slowed. When it came to a stop, Ali felt a slight wobbling as someone moved through the vehicle. A door opened. As Witherspoon’s two-hundred-plus pounds exited the vehicle, it shifted slightly when the load lightened. Now there were only four hostages left in the cabin. That meant fewer people in immediate danger, but still plenty of people at risk. The van moved forward and stopped again. For a moment, Ali hoped Bill Witherspoon would take advantage of being outside and make a run for it, but he did not. The vehicle shifted again as the chief of staff returned, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Go to the third hangar on the right,” Lowell ordered.

  Standing in the dark, it was only then that Ali realized they had come to an airport of some kind. Since they had only just pulled off the paved highway, she doubted that it was the landing strip at the top of The Encampment. It had to be an airport somewhere else, but where? Colorado City, maybe?

  The Sprinter was moving forward when she heard Lowell’s voice again. He sounded disturbed. Upset.

  “Who the hell would be coming in at this time of night?” Lowell demanded. “Hey, driver. Get us out of sight, quick. Pull into the slot between the second and third hangars and douse the lights. Do it now! As soon as that plane lands and the pilot goes away, let me know.”

  Ali was gratified to hear Lowell sounding uneasy, both surprised and rattled. Wherever they were, he hadn’t anticipated having unexpected company. Ali knew that the runway at The Encampment was large enough to accommodate a small jet, but she had a hard time imagining that Colorado City boasted another nearby airport with runways long enough to handle a Citation X.

  And what about the plane that was landing? This close to zero hour Ali felt there was a good chance the new arrival might be Sheriff Danny Alvarado, but was he there as a friend or an enemy? Was he coming to support his officers or to help Richard Lowell make good his escape?

  Ali glanced at her watch for at least the hundredth time. Eleven forty-five. Twenty minutes had elapsed since the Sprinter had first pulled off the paved highway onto the shoulder. Less than that since Ali had sent her text to Stuart. Was that enough time for him to have summoned help?

  The Sprinter stopped again and sat idling when Ali heard Governor Dunham speak again. “What about that other plane, Mr. Lowell?” she asked. “What about the jet that’s due to land on your private airstrip and then head off for Caracas?”

  “I diverted it,” he answered. “I don’t know where you found that group of Keystone Kops pretending to be a SWAT team, but I can tell you for sure—they’re a bunch of useless city-slicker losers. City people always forget that kicking up dust out here in the desert is a dead giveaway.

  “When they started bringing in their vehicles and equipment earlier this afternoon, those plumes of dust were as plain as the nose on my face. They told me something wasn’t right, so I went up and had a look-see. They’re parked just out of sight and waiting for that flight to come in. Sorry to disappoint. There won’t be a plane showing up tonight, but there’ll be plenty of excitement to keep them occupied. When that tankful of Jet-A goes up, those guys will get their money’s worth.”

  His last words set Ali’s heart pounding. Lowell had convinced some poor sap to set fire to a tank of aviation fuel?

  “What tankful of Jet-A?” Governor Dunham demanded. “Are you saying you have aviation fuel stored on your property and you’re going to set it on fire?”

  “Not me, personally,” Richard Lowell said. “Robbie Miller’s in charge of that operation and happy as a clam about it, too. I gave him a stick of dynamite and some matches and told him exactly what to do—wait for my phone call. When I give the word, he’s to light the fuse and toss the dynamite in a big puddle of fuel that has somehow leaked out onto the ground.”

  “You can’t make Robbie do something like that!” Patricia shrieked at him. “You can’t!”

  The Sprinter rocked back and forth momentarily as if some kind of struggle was occurring out in the cabin.

  “Sit back down, bitch!” Lowell ordered. “One more outburst from you and you’re a goner.”

  Another rocking motion shivered through the rig. It was easy for Ali to imagine someone, Andrea Rogers most likely, bodily restraining Patricia and returning her to her seat, but the woman’s outrage was still audible.

  “You gave Robbie dynamite?” she demanded. “He has no idea how things like that work. What if he dies?”

  Even though Ali
was still focused on the conversation, the blindness of being in that locked, darkened room had fine-tuned her other senses. Because she was still leaning against the interior door, she felt another slight tremor in the vehicle and another slight shift—as though someone had once more exited the van. Holding her breath, she listened to see if anyone else had noticed.

  “If he dies, he dies,” Lowell replied disdainfully. “As for making him do it? Don’t be silly. I don’t have to make that dimwit kid do anything. He volunteered. Everybody knows how much Robbie loves fire. He’s followed me around like a puppy for years. It’s about time he made himself useful. He may be dumb as a stump, but he’ll follow orders, and once he sets that Jet-A on fire, your troop of SWAT guys will be so busy trying to rescue those girls that . . .”

  Ali’s heart constricted in her chest. Governor Dunham must have been on the same wavelength.

  “What girls?”

  “The girls your guys think are heading out on that plane with me tonight,” Lowell crowed proudly, reveling in the idea that he had somehow managed to outwit everyone. “I figured the Brought Back girls wouldn’t have gotten away all on their own, and that told me it was time to get out. A load of girls was due to leave tonight, anyway. I decided to turn that full load into a partial. Couldn’t do a full one with me on board the same plane, but there was no sense leaving all that money on the table.”

  Governor Dunham had called that shot completely. A load of Not Chosens had indeed been set to go out tonight. Now instead of being shipped off into the sex trade, it sounded as though they were doomed to be burned alive.

  “Where are they?” the governor demanded urgently. “Where?”

  “In a locked room at the back of the hangar. I handled the deliveries myself over the last several hours, just to give the SWAT team something to watch while they were waiting. When I boogied out the side door of the hangar, I left my car parked inside. As far as they’re concerned, I’m there, too. By the time the fire cools down enough to sort through the bodies, they’ll be astonished to learn I’m not part of either group. By then, it’ll be too late and I’ll be long gone.”

  “Wait,” Governor Dunham said. “Are you saying other people are dead, too? Who?”

  “Does it matter? Now tell me, isn’t your little party due to start real soon?” He paused and chuckled. “That’s another thing. For this kind of operation, you need people who know a thing or two about being out in the boonies. You need people smart enough to walk through the wilderness without waking the dead. I heard your guys bumbling around in the dark and talking on my way down. I heard enough to know that midnight’s the witching hour—five minutes from now. Then all hell breaks loose.” There was another pause before he added, “Hey, driver. Is the pilot of that other plane out of here yet?”

  They all waited for B.’s response. None was forthcoming.

  “Driver?” Lowell called again. “Hey, what’s going on up there?”

  Half sick with relief, Ali realized B. must have somehow managed to exit the vehicle without attracting any attention.

  “You’re coming with me,” Lowell growled ominously. “Now.”

  “Leave her be,” Witherspoon objected. That was followed by the distinct sound of something hard striking flesh, a loud groan, and a sickening thump as someone crumpled to the floor.

  “Come on now, Gov. Move it. You try anything and this AK-47 is going to cut you into tiny little pieces.”

  That’s what Lowell was wielding—an AK-47? And the only weapon Ali had available was a measly Glock? Once again, Ali felt a shifting of the vehicle, as though several people were moving around at once. A front passenger door clicked open. That could only mean that Lowell and Governor Dunham were both up front, on the far side of the partition between the cab and the cabin. If Ali was going to do anything about this—and she wasn’t sure what—now was the time to do it.

  Holding her breath and with the Glock in hand, Ali cracked the bathroom door open and emerged into the cabin. Andrea was on her knees, trying to help Bill Witherspoon as he struggled to his feet. Agnes and Patricia seemed rooted to their seats.

  “Everybody out,” Ali hissed in an urgent whisper, opening the door to the luggage compartment and beckoning them toward it. “Go out the back door and make a run for it.”

  They did it at once. Bill Witherspoon was the last of the four to disappear through the opening. Ali moved forward through the cabin. She had just ducked into the galley alcove next to the doorway into the cab as an earsplitting blast of automatic gunfire filled the air.

  For a moment, Ali was rendered completely deaf. Her hearing was starting to return when she heard another shot—a single one this time—followed a moment later by another. Then the air filled with the sound of a woman screaming. “Help me, please,” Governor Dunham cried. “Please help me. I’ve been shot.”

  Ali started to step forward to do just that—to go help—but then the Sprinter shifted again. She knew what that meant. Someone had just climbed back inside, and she thought she knew who. Freezing in her hiding place, she pulled herself back into the kitchen alcove. She knew Richard Lowell. She had seen him at the hospital when he had come there trying to lay claim to Enid. But what if B. was the first one to come through the door? Or what if someone else did?

  When a man wearing a sheepskin jacket suddenly barreled through the doorway, Ali knew it was Richard Lowell. He appeared to be injured. He held an AK-47 in his left hand while his right hand and arm hung uselessly at his side. Intent on something else, he darted past Ali without a glance in her direction. When he reached the captain’s chairs, he slammed his weapon down on the tabletop.

  His back was turned to Ali. She could see a bright red spot leaking through his jacket and blossoming into a fist-sized stain just below his shoulder. Richard Lowell had been shot and was bleeding profusely. Grunting in pain, he struggled to pull something out of his jacket pocket. Only when Ali saw the phone did she realize what he planned to do. Richard Lowell may have been shot, bleeding, and maybe even dying, but he was intent on going out with a bang—by making the phone call and setting Robbie and the airplane hangar on fire.

  It took a second or two, but finally Lowell had the phone clenched in his left hand and was clumsily attempting to operate it with his thumb. Only then did Ali step up behind him.

  “Drop it!” she ordered. “Drop it now.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me, would you?” he panted.

  “Try me,” Ali said.

  Richard Lowell was not a tall man. Looking over his bloodied shoulder, Ali could see the face of the phone. His thumb was already poised over the top number on his list of recent calls when Ali did what she had to do. She simply pulled the trigger.

  Richard Lowell slumped to the floor. The phone flew out of his hand and disappeared under one of the seats. Without the phone, Ali had no way of knowing if he’d managed to complete the call or not. Looking at the man’s suddenly still body and realizing that she’d shot him full in the middle of the back, Ali didn’t need to check to see if he was dead. She already knew.

  “Drop your weapon and get on the ground!” someone ordered.

  Ali turned to see a man in full SWAT regalia appear in the rear door opening, the one through which Witherspoon and the others had exited. As he moved toward her, weapon held at the ready, Ali complied. She laid the Glock on the galley’s counter and dropped to the floor.

  “You need to check on Governor Dunham,” she urged as the officer fastened her wrists behind her with a pair of cuffs. “She’s outside the cab somewhere. She’s been shot.”

  36

  What followed was a forty-five-minute period of total chaos. For most of that time, Ali sat in one of the captain’s chairs with her hands cuffed behind her back and with Richard Lowell’s lifeless body on the floor at her feet. Through the window next to her Ali watched as a group of EMTs swarmed toward the Sprinter
and then left again on the run, pushing a gurney that they loaded into a medevac helicopter. It had arrived on the scene so promptly that Ali theorized that it had most likely been summoned by Governor Dunham herself and then held in reserve somewhere nearby, awaiting any possible casualties from the upcoming joint operation.

  The helicopter had barely taken off when a grim-faced FBI agent who introduced himself as Agent Malovich stepped into the van. The first thing he did was remove Ali’s cuffs. After that, he popped her Glock into an evidence bag. That was a mixed message. Ali couldn’t tell if she was in the clear or not.

  “Is the governor going to be all right?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Too soon to tell. There was a struggle over a revolver the guy had tucked in his pants. Governor Dunham went for it, and so did he. Looks like she got him in the shoulder but ended up shooting herself in the leg. We put on a tourniquet before the EMTs even got here, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to save the leg. Now, how about if you tell me what went on here.”

  “Do I need a lawyer? Are you going to read me my rights?”

  “No Miranda warning, and you don’t need a lawyer. We already talked to the people outside—three women and a man. According to them, this guy was armed, dangerous, and badly in need of being put down. They all say you’re a hero.”

  “First tell me about my husband,” Ali insisted. “He got out of the van earlier. He’s out there somewhere. With all the gunfire, I’m worried about him. Is he all right?”

  “B. Simpson? Let’s just say he’s not hurt, but he’s not all right, either. The other guy’s dead. Your husband says it’s his fault.”

  “What other guy?”

  “The county sheriff—a guy named Alvarado. He tried to bluff Lowell, pretended the place was surrounded even though his backup was minutes away. Lowell unloaded on him with his AK-47. Cut the poor guy to pieces.”

  “B. doesn’t even own a weapon. How can it be his fault?”

  “You’ll need to ask him about that, but later. He’s being interviewed now, too. So please, tell me what went on. I’m the first person you’re talking to about all this, and I certainly won’t be the last. Do you mind telling me what happened here?”