by Jeff Carson
Ping!
The sound echoed through the squad room.
“Okay, done.” Lorber clicked the mouse. Then clicked again.
“Up there.” Rachette pointed at the screen. “That’s the route map option.”
“Yeah, I know.” Lorber ignored him, clicked at a different place. He was searching the history or something.
Rachette turned around and walked away. It was no use watching.
“There, there, there, there!” Lorber shoved his seat back into Yates, buckling the deputy on top of him. “Look, there. It’s showing in real time. He’s on County 17 …”
“We have to move,” MacLean said.
“I’m going.” Rachette was studying the map, tracing his finger along the route. “Up 734, left on 23 … right on 17 … where’s he going? There’s not gonna be cell service up there.”
“What’s going on?” A group of three FBI agents came striding into the squad room, a man with a black haired buzz cut leading the way.
MacLean cut them off. “We found the killer. He’s an employee of the county ME’s office, and he has two of our deputies with him.”
The lead agent frowned, stepped around him and looked over Lorber’s shoulder. “Who?”
“A man named Gene Fitzgerald,” Lorber said, looking like he was wanting to spit.
“You have a GPS device on him?”
Lorber leaned back, looking up at Rachette. “Our deputy’s ex-fiancé was dating the man. He suspected there was something wrong with him and put a GPS transponder on his car yesterday. We’re tracking it now.”
The agent pointed at the screen. “What’s this second blinking dot? It looks like it’s parked here, at the building outside.”
Lorber lowered his eyes and scratched his head.
The agent looked at Rachette.
He swallowed, thought of something to say, then decided on the truth for time saving purposes. “It’s my fiancé’s car.”
The agent blinked, looked back to his other two agents.
They were both eyeing him. The woman agent had her eyes scrunched up, obviously thinking how much of a scumbag he was.
“Where are they now?” Rachette asked. “We need to move. We’re already twenty minutes behind.”
“We need to know where they’re going before we move,” Lorber said. “Go up there and your radio’s gonna crap out halfway up. Your phone’s not going to work.”
The agent looked at MacLean. “We have a bird on the roof, one at the airstrip. The radios won’t be affected. And, no offense, but I recommend you give this operation over to us. We have much more training in this sort of thing.”
“Whoa, no way.” Rachette wagged his finger, making sure to make eye contact with all three of them. “That’s my fiancé up there, and that’s my partner up there. No way I’m not going along.”
“I thought it was ex-fiancé,” the female agent said.
He stared her down.
“He’s going,” MacLean said. “And I’m in, too.”
The three agents exchanged glances. It turned out the woman agent seemed to hold more clout than the others, because when she nodded, the black-haired buzz cut guy said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Chapter 38
Wolf stretched his neck to see out the front of the bubble window of the helicopter cockpit.
“There!” Luke pointed.
The pilot nodded and kept his current bearing.
Sunlight gleamed off the rain-soaked ground below. The sky to the east was like looking into a tunnel, with bands of rain bending northward, splashing against the mountains while cloud to ground lightning flickered every few seconds.
Wolf gripped his knees with white knuckles. But it was not the threat of getting struck by a million volts of electricity and plummeting into a mountain that concerned him.
“There they are.” They all saw the scene below without the aid of a tour guide. Luke was talking for something to do. Her eyes were wide, her knee bouncing.
A square log cabin was perched on a gentle slope above tree-line, beneath it a brown road wound up the mountain, ending at the cabin.
A group of SBCSD and FBI vehicles, some still arriving on scene after making the long drive from the bottom of the valley, were parked haphazardly around the building.
Another helicopter was hovering a few feet above the treeless mountain and rising fast—an orange helicopter with yellow stripes, the words Flight for Life on the tail. The pilot started talking into his microphone and swung the helicopter to the right to avoid it.
Two black FBI MDs were already parked on the flat part of the slope below with their rotors stopped—the helicopters Todd, Shecter, and Wells had arrived in from Durango.
Hannigan pointed at the ground. “Try and get over there.”
The pilot ignored him, swinging further away from the ascending helicopter.
Among the vehicles below was a white Honda Civic parked in front of the cabin. From their high vantage point they could see inside the empty trunk, which was popped open along with all four of the vehicle’s doors.
A few paces from the vehicle, nearer the cabin, stood a group of FBI jackets. A few paces from them sat a rectangular heat blanket, beneath it an unmistakable shape.
“Shit,” Luke said, the word sounding like a blast of static in Wolf’s earphones.
As the helicopter circled around and halted its forward momentum, Wolf caught sight of a group of agents clustered around the mouth of a hole in the mountain, halfway up the scree-covered slope behind the cabin.
Wolf looked back to the silver heat blanket and his heart clenched and stopped for what seemed like ten seconds.
“Who …” Luke’s question died in her throat.
Wolf willed her to shut up. To not complete the question, because then someone might have the answer and say it.
We have a woman DOA.
That was what they’d heard from ASAC Todd fifteen minutes ago when he and the other agents landed. Since that tidbit of information there had been radio silence. Since that information there had been anything but radio silence inside Wolf’s head.
The instant the skids hit the ground, Wolf was out of the cockpit and running. Luke’s footfalls were right behind him.
Through watering eyes, Wolf’s world turned into the bouncing vision of the silver blanket. There was the pounding of his heels connecting with the ground reverberating up into his brain. His breath catching in his throat, whistling with each inhale.
“Hey!” MacLean waved his hands in Wolf’s peripheral. “Hey!”
An FBI agent turned and held up his hands.
Wolf tacked to avoid him and kept running.
“Wait!” MacLean’s voice was close now. “They’re fine! They’re both okay!”
The words were like a brick wall. He skidded to a stop and looked at the sheriff, wondering what kind of sick joke the man was playing. How could someone be so careless with the words that were coming out of his mouth at such a time.
“Who’s under there?” Wolf pointed, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know.” MacLean grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back from the blanket. “I don’t know. But Patterson and Munford were just airlifted down. They were injected with Fentanyl, so the EMTs put em’ both on an IV cocktail. Patterson’s okay, but Munford’s worse off.”
Wolf blinked. “They’re both okay?”
“Yes.”
The FBI agent who had tried to block Wolf said, “The blonde, uh, Charlotte Munford had low vitals, but she was stable.”
“We heard on the way up that there was a woman DOA.” Wolf stared at the heat blanket, vaguely aware of the tears flowing down his cheeks now.
Luke shook her head and walked to the blanket. Kicking aside two rocks she lifted the crinkling fabric, exposing a naked woman beneath.
The woman was on her side, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her eyes open and staring at the ground next to her.
“Recognize her?” Luke asked.
Wolf nodded. “Lucretia Smith.”
“A local?”
“No.” MacLean said, giving the body a double-take. “That’s her?”
“That’s who?” Luke asked.
“A journalist.” MacLean bent nearer. “You’re right. I didn’t recognize her without all that makeup …”
Wolf slid his gaze up the mountain toward the FBI agents surrounding the mine entrance. “What are they doing?”
“When we flew in, he was down here pulling the girls out of the trunk. He saw us and ran into the cabin, and then he came back out with a handgun and started shooting up at us. He made his way to that mine entrance and disappeared inside.” MacLean shook his head. “Rachette flipped out when he saw Charlotte. He ran up and disappeared in there after him.”
Wolf looked at his watch. “How long ago was that?”
“Shoot … Twenty minutes? I guess twenty-five now.”
“Did anyone else go in?”
“No. It’s not stable.”
Wolf began jogging up the slope.
Luke appeared next to him, matching him stride for stride.
It was slow going, straight up the mountain at over twelve thousand feet elevation. His lungs pumped and he tasted copper on the back of his tongue. His legs knotted.
They passed agent Hannigan on the way up, who had his hands on his knees, striving to pull air into his lungs.
ASAC Todd, agent Shecter, Wells, and another agent Wolf didn’t recognize were watching them approach from above, not seeming too concerned with the opening in the mountain.
When Luke and Wolf got there, Wells was arguing with Shecter. Agent Shecter pointing at a crossbeam that had cracked down the middle at some point during the last hundred years. “… and I’m telling you, we’re all going to be buried alive.”
Todd nodded at Wolf, ignoring the argument. “You heard about your deputy going in here?”
“Yes,” Wolf said between breaths.
ASAC Todd got on his hands and knees and climbed inside the tunnel a few feet, pointing a flashlight inside. He crawled out backwards and shook his head. “I just saw two rocks fall off the roof of that tunnel.”
“Does Rachette have his radio?” Wolf asked.
Agent Shecter held up his own radio. “Been trying him. Radio doesn’t penetrate through rock, only works line of sight, and apparently he’s out of line of sight.”
“Every crossbeam is cracked, split, or missing altogether in there,” Agent Todd said. “I’m not sending anyone in. There must be other entrances. Let’s fan out and find them. Our perp’s not going to go in here without knowing he’s coming out some other hole. So let’s find that, instead.”
Wolf held out his hand toward Agent Todd’s flashlight. “I’m going in here.”
Todd shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”
“The guy’s not stable.”
“Which guy? Your deputy or Gene Fitzgerald?” Agent Todd asked.
Wolf looked at him. “Both. What I’m saying is, the guy might not be fleeing. He might be …” Wolf grabbed the flashlight from Todd’s hand and pressed the button. “I’m not asking. Let me have that radio.”
Agent Shecter hesitated, looking at his boss. Todd nodded and the agent handed it over.
“I’m coming with you,” Luke said. “Who’s got a flashlight for me?”
“No,” Wolf said. “You’re not. Agent Todd’s right. There are certainly other exits, some of these mines up here have dozens. We need to cover them. We can’t let this guy sneak out.”
Luke stared him down, her jaw shooting forward a touch. “Then why are you going in?”
“My detective might be in trouble.”
She looked defiant for another few seconds, and then Agent Todd put a hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged it away like it was diseased. “Be careful in there. And make yourself known if you come out somewhere else.”
“I’ll be the guy yelling don’t shoot.”
“Wait a minute,” Todd said. “This is stupid. You’re not going in there. You already have two injured deputies flying down to the hospital on that chopper. We have another of your deputies recklessly going in, and now you’re being reckless. I’m in charge here, and I’m saying …”
Wolf pointed his flashlight beam and ducked inside the hole. The sound of Agent Todd’s rambling was smothered by the yards of solid rock between them.
“All right, your funeral,” Todd said poking his head inside. Then a few seconds later he added, “be careful.”
Wolf listened to their shouts and retreating footsteps, then turned back to the darkness.
The beam of light penetrated a few yards in, and then bounced back at him on a stream of dust cascading from the ceiling.
Stepping toward it, he blew a jet of air out of his mouth, parting the curtain of dust for an instant, giving him a view a few more yards into the hole. There were just more jagged walls. More sagging, rotten wood clinging to a brittle ceiling.
He put the radio to his lips and pushed the button. “Rachette, you copy?”
The stream of dust grew, and then there was a steady hiss of sand, followed by a chest-compressing thump somewhere behind him.
“Shit.”
Pointing the beam up, he saw a rock drop from the ceiling directly above him and lunged to the side to avoid it. Stumbling, he slammed his shoulder into a wooden beam, sending the cross beam it was attached to crashing to the ground.
The first rock hit him in the lower back.
Chapter 39
Kristen Luke’s blood was boiling. Why exactly, was tough to put a finger on.
Humiliation. That was it.
She had insisted on staying by Wolf’s side and he had stiff-armed her. Worse yet, right in front of Brian and two of his Chicago transplant cronies.
Her ex-husband had tried to play it off, but she had seen the satisfied gleam in his eye for that split second. Agent Brian Todd knew her. Knew her very well. He had a knack for reading people’s thoughts and intentions through the most trivial of their actions. Besides, the guy knew her and Wolf’s history.
The stones of the scree slope clanked and slid underneath her, and she bent at the waist to stop from falling. She already felt the four men behind her watching her back. Maybe even giving each other sly, knowing smiles. Falling on her ass would be all she needed.
She heard a rumble and froze. Looking down, she wondered if she was going to start sliding at any second.
The men behind her froze too, their eyes wide.
“Look!” Brian pointed back at the entrance to the mine.
“Oh …” Luke clawed her way back across the slope, watching the hole as rocks trickled over the mouth of it. “What the …”
There was more rolling thunder coming from deep within the earth, and then dust belched out of the hole like rocket exhaust.
“No.” Luke was unaware of how many times she repeated the word.
“What is that?” MacLean yelled from the cabin below. “What just happened? Was that the hole?”
They were running back up the slope, and then they were hiking, lungs burning, and then they were stopping out of exhaustion and staring at the still-rumbling hole.
There was hissing and clacking and scraping, and then the silence took over.
“Get up here!” Brian yelled at the top of his lungs.
People below scrambled into action, yelling at one another and running toward them.
They look like little ants, Luke thought. And against the amount of rubble she just heard fall within that cave, they would be as effective as ants moving the weight of the mountain off of Wolf.
Sickening thoughts flooded her mind. She thought of Wolf compressed under rock, his last breath being squeezed out.
Staring at the mouth of the hole, she waited for a dusty man to emerge. But nobody came.
“We have to get in there,” she said.
Scrambling, they made their way back to the hole. Brian took a flashl
ight and bent inside. Luke followed close and ran into his back when he stopped.
There was nowhere to go. No more than ten feet inside a wall of rock smoldered with dust.
“Shit. That’s a lot of …” Brian let his sentence die.
Luke walked up and moved a rock, and the rock above it moved, which sent the much larger rock above it tumbling toward them.
“Back out.” Brian grabbed her by the waist and pulled. “Now!”
Out of harm’s way, they stared at the hole.
“What are we going to do?” She felt like she was about to hyperventilate. There was no way Wolf was dead. He would make it. He would have been past that point in the cave by now.
But mine shafts don’t just collapse. They stand on the verge of collapsing until something triggers it.
“The plan stays the same,” Brian said. “We find another entrance. There’s no way we get through that wall of rock.”
Footfalls and strained breathing came closer as the others came from below to join them.
“Stop!” Brian held up a hand and cocked his head.
She had heard it, too.
Pop. Pop. Pop-pop.
The sound of gunfire echoed and rolled through the air.
Four, five, six shots. Then it stopped.
“It came from over there.”
Over there was the direction of the scree slope they’d been scrambling down minutes earlier. Beyond the slope was a rise, and then sky. The gunshots came from over the rise.
They ran, Luke in the lead with Brian behind her. The others brought up the rear, leaving Sheriff MacLean sucking air with his hands on his hips.
The air was thin and her breathing strained, but she moved fast, her body fueled by adrenaline more than oxygen.
Reaching to the other side of the scree slope, she scrambled up the rise and paused at the crest of the hill. There was a steep decline on the other side covered in jagged rock and more loose scree.
From her vantage she could see it all happening below. Rachette was at least a football field’s length down the slope and scrambling over a rock outcropping. He stopped and aimed, and then his handgun flared, a ball of smoke drifting on the wind.