The Blood of Patriots

by William W. Johnstone

  Dickson felt sick as he heard her ask why she had to pull over. He told her there was something he needed to do. There was silence for a moment, the squeak of a tire against the curb, then Dickson heard scuffling and sharp, muffled sounds. Slaps? He thought he heard Angie say something but he couldn’t be sure. There was too much other noise—wire hangers moving on metal bars, boxes falling. Then he heard a sound and knew what it was: his daughter had screamed a short, choked cry.

  “What’s going on?” Dickson demanded.

  “He is putting your daughter on her back,” Gahrah said, his voice losing none of its silky poise. “He is wearing his Bluetooth in case you want me to stop this. Of course, if it falls out I won’t be able to reach him.”

  Dickson raised his hand to call the number he’d input, dispatch at the police station. “I’m calling the—”

  “Police? They will not get there before he has finished raping her. And yes, he is willing to go to prison for me.” Gahrah’s voice became uncharacteristically hard. “He will die for me. And you will be in the same place because next time it will be your wife or your sons. Perhaps, with the boys, we will use the knife to make sure they have no sons.” Gahrah sat back, his voice resuming its normal tone. “Or you can stop all of this now.”

  Dickson heard a few shrieks. From behind his mouth or a gag—he couldn’t be sure.

  His resolve crumpled to ash. “Stop it! Stop him!”

  Gahrah leaned forward casually and killed the mute. “Shatri!” he said. “You may stop!”

  The sounds of struggling ceased. There was only sobbing.

  Dickson’s hand fell to his side. “Tell him to let her out.”

  “They will finish their route.”

  “Christ, he just assaulted her!”

  “She will consider herself fortunate when she realizes that you have saved her, that she is safe now. You will reinforce that later at home. And, Mr. Dickson, you will never deliver an ultimatum again.”

  Dickson was not just beaten, he was without hope. Whatever Vito had been doing he obviously got out, got away, before anything like this could happen. There was nothing a man himself would not endure to spare his family this kind of trauma.

  He left the center in a daze and threw up his lunch on the street. He didn’t know if anyone had seen him and he didn’t care. He was in hell and it was worse damnation to know that he had brought his family with him.

  He went to his car and sat there crying until he had nothing left. Then he called the bank and said he was going home for the day.

  When he left, Hamza followed.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  No one became a cop unless they liked danger, at least a little; no one became an undercover cop unless they liked danger a lot.

  John Ward had always loved taking risks. As a kid, a playground wasn’t just a playground. It was an adventure. He would approach each piece of recreational equipment as a challenge: how to ramp up the thrills. With a swing it was easy: you got a good arc going back and forth then slipped your arms inside the chains that held the seat. Unencumbered, you were free to launch yourself into space. With the slide, it was trying to walk down the slippery, shiny metal surface. Monkey bars were more exciting, he discovered, if you tried to work them sideways, facing sideways like a fly on a wall and using the same-side arm and leg to try and climb. Even a broken wrist and countless bumps on the head didn’t stop Ward from always going back and risking more. Though even he had to admit that transforming himself into a mountaineering Frankenstein Monster, a pastiche of West and street, was probably the most reckless expression of that.

  Yet in his adult life there had always been a correlation between risk and purpose. One fueled the other and he had never yet found the limit of that synergy, when one would fail to drive the other. That was especially true when pain was factored into the equation. His torso was protected by the thick bandages and flannel shirt, but all that did was prevent further injury. The breaks he had still punched like little awls through leather. But it was okay. Once, in his rookie year, he’d been palm-heeled in the face by a drug dealer in Washington Square Park. The pain of a broken nose, the taste of his own blood on his tongue, made him chase the guy even when his legs told him to stop. Another time he’d been hit by a car while pursuing a perp across Broadway. He kept going, despite a hairline fracture to his hip. It isn’t only a matter of using the pain or refusing to succumb to it. He believed the shock to his system helped him get through the moment, like an afterburner.

  Purpose and pain. Together, they fueled his determination to reach the tree line.

  Using the studded stirrups as brakes, Ward went down the cone of rock on his belly. It struck him as a big, fat firehouse pole that was well off the vertical. It guided him, prevented him from rolling down helplessly. He kept his hands beside his shoulders, the leather helping him to add some drag to his fall. In that way he half-slid, half-pushed himself down the slope. He was even able to find small, nublike handholds here and there that were invisible from above. Those helped to keep him from building up too much speed. The biggest discomfort was the bunching of his shirt, which rode up to his chest within moments and stayed there. He should have thought to tie it down somehow. The good news was the bandages held and prevented him from abrading the flesh of his belly.

  The slope became a little less severe the lower he got. Toward the end he felt more like Spider-Man than just a guy sliding down rock. Ward actually had to push himself down the last 200 feet or so as the momentum alone no longer carried him. He made a soft landing on the fringes of the foliage, flopping over onto his back so the vines and thistles didn’t rip up his face as he came to rest. Breathing heavily, he lay on his back in the dusky quiet and pulled down his shirt. It had been bunched up there so tight he had to rip it to get it down. As he flattened the frayed edges, his eyes rolled up to the top of the cliff. He couldn’t believe he’d attempted the descent, let alone made it. He still had about a thousand feet to go to the floor of the valley but he was eager to see what his journey had given him in terms of reconnaissance. He looked for the nearest tree; there was an aspen seven or eight feet farther down. He sat up, took off the bindings and stirrups, then rose on a pair of very wobbly legs. After a few seconds he dropped back on his seat.

  You can’t see anything sitting on your butt, he told himself and got up again. He kept his legs under him long enough to stumble down a grade to the aspen. He hit it with a hard hug but at least he remained standing.

  Not only was he closer but he had navigated to the east. That gave him a better, though still not optimal, view of the valley floor. Through the foliage he could see a few feet into what was definitely a cave. Lanterns had been turned on—the glow was too steady to be a fire, and interlopers wouldn’t want smoke to rise from the site—and there were probably four people inside, judging by what appeared to be the number of off-road vehicles outside. Even with the binoculars, he couldn’t tell much. The ATVs still were not clear enough to see what, if anything, they had been used to carry. He hadn’t heard the engines in a while; he suspected that if the men had brought anything up it was offloaded by now.

  “All of which still tells you a big fat nothing,” Ward muttered. Even if one of the riders showed himself, Ward was still too high to ID him. “And for doing what? Driving around on public land and going into a cave?” He needed to get to the valley floor.

  If he moved now, he still had some light to make it down. But he also ran the risk of being seen or heard by the people inside, especially if he accidentally sent some rocks rolling down the slope. It would be safer when they left—save for the one who Ward guessed was a permanent fixture up here. That was what the rifle was for.

  Ward started down. He was surprised how far back he was forced to lean in order to remain upright. The footing was not as inviting as he had imagined, with roots and gopher holes or soft mole furrows buried beneath fallen leaves or concealed by grasses. It wasn’t like a pothole in a street or a tree root that
split the sidewalk. You could see those. Unlike the first portion of the descent, this section required careful navigation. It reminded him why he always preferred the city over the country. It was one of the arguments he and Joanne had at least once a week.

  And I was right, dammit, he thought.

  The detective wondered where the wildlife was—not that he particularly wanted to run into any of the creatures Randolph had mentioned. A chipmunk or raccoon he could handle. Then he realized there was no water on the slope, except what washed down during rains, which might explain why the undergrowth was so thick. None of the larger herbivores came around to eat it.

  His ribs were acting up now too, reminding him they were there, and broken, with little stabbing pains every time he drew a breath. Ward hadn’t realized how hard he was breathing until it started to hurt. He didn’t slow his pace but found that taking shallow breaths more often mitigated the pain somewhat. It didn’t help that he was trying to keep an eye on the cave in the event that someone came out and he had to make a hard stop.

  It happened when he was about one hundred feet from the bottom of the slope. Two men emerged from the cave. They stood just outside, smoking cigarettes. Ward had descended west of the cave mouth so he could observe it at an angle; he was well out of their line of vision. It was dark and they did not look up.

  And then a third man emerged. He did not look up either. But Ward looked at him. Carefully, through the binoculars.

  The drama had come full circle, and the detective tasted something vile in the back of his throat. The man was holding an AK-47 assault rifle, no doubt purchased from someone like the New York gunrunner. They could be purchased legally, but Ward was willing to bet none of these guys wanted their names attached to that gun. The Russian-made weapon could fire 600 rounds with an effective range of roughly 350 to 450 yards on full or semi-automatic settings, respectively. That was a lot of firepower, enough to bring down a herd of deer, the hunters who were stalking them, and any ducks that happened to be flying by. It was not a hunter’s weapon.

  What made this one especially creepy was the bayonet attachment.

  I’m guessing you’re the permanent resident, Ward decided. The kid could take out a snooper or innocent hiker up-close or with a short pop at a distance. Chances were good no one would find a body or two up here, especially if they were left near a watering hole where huge chunks would vanish overnight.

  Why an AK-47? Ward wondered. Up here, where shots would echo—and where any hunter’s rifle would have a distinctive, single burst—a handgun with a silencer made more sense. Then there was the way the kid was examining the gun. Ward was disturbed by the way he turned it over, hefted it, sited it without firing. It suggested that this was the first time he had held one. Since the team had obviously been coming here for a while, that suggested to Ward the gun wasn’t necessarily for use in this little stronghold.

  Something else was clear now as well. The young men weren’t just using this cave as a clubhouse.

  Somehow, Ward was going to have to get inside.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  For the first few moments—after realizing that there was a real situation at hand—John Ward felt strangely at home. Not relaxed, just on familiar turf. He was doing what he spent most of his professional life doing—watching—and it sat on his shoulders like a seasonal coat taken from storage.

  Then the particulars of the job itself took over, as they always did. Ward hugged the tree with his side for about an hour, watching, daring not to move. When the men went back inside he moved lower on the mountainside and found a place behind a boulder where he could sit and watch. He realized, then, that he had left his snacks in the saddlebag.

  Randolph would’ve remembered, he told himself.

  Of course, Randolph was a professional local. He knew his work and he knew the land. Ward was winging it. All it had taken was two days to remind him that as great and eclectic as New York was, it wasn’t the world. And as tough as New Yorkers were, it was a thick skin they’d developed for specific kinds of challenges. Mountaineering was not one of them. It only just occurred to Ward that he had been so fixated on getting down that he had no idea how he was going to get up again. He had vaguely assumed Randolph could come through the valley and get him. But what if these guys didn’t leave? Any of them? One man with an AK-47 was bad. Three or more, even if they were only armed with handguns, were far worse, especially at the fortified end of a path that was barely wide enough for their own ATVs. Even police tear gas might not get them out; not until Randolph found out how far into the mountain that cave went or whether it was ventilated by natural shafts or other openings.

  Randolph called around nine p.m. The men had long since gone back inside. Ward hunkered down against the rock, cupped his hand around the phone, and answered with a quiet, “Yeah?”

  “You okay?” Randolph asked.

  “Yeah,” Ward said. He was listening with one ear facing the general direction of the cave. “What you got?”

  “A dead end for them,” the farmer told him. “According to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site, that cave doesn’t have any other naturally occurring opening. That was as of two years ago, and someone would’ve heard explosions or jackhammering or anything like that.”

  “I don’t think they’d want another opening,” Ward told him. “Makes it that much more likely they’d be discovered. How deep does it go?”

  “Four hundred meters back before it falls into a pit. Looks like it was cut by the same waters that carved the valley.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, you sound funny. You sure everything’s okay?”

  “Fine,” Ward said. “Say, listen. I, uh—Muhammad wasn’t coming to me so I came down the mountain to see what was going on.”

  The silence at the other end was as disapproving as an oath. After a long moment Randolph asked, “Are you safe?”

  “Yeah. Got a real good view, too.”

  “How the hell did you—” Randolph began, then stopped. “Never mind. You pick up anything new?”

  “A little. They’ve got at least one AK-47. Newly arrived, I think. Bayonetted. Three guys, so far, one lamp. I don’t hear a generator, so it’s probably kerosene.”

  “Bayonet? Why?”

  “So you don’t have to put a knife away after stabbing someone,” Ward said, still listening carefully for any sound from below. “If you want to make an initial approach, take out a guard before an assault, that’s how you do it.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. So I’m thinking this may be a training camp, but I won’t be sure until I get a look inside.”

  “Dammit, John—don’t be an idjit! Not a bigger one, anyway! Just hang tight—”

  “I can’t,” Ward told him. “We need to move while they’re probably down to just a night watchman. Then it’ll be one-against-one.”

  “One with busted ribs and a coupla years against a kid.”

  “Hey, the gray hair counts for something,” Ward said.

  “Yeah, slower reflexes.”

  “Experience,” Ward countered. “And if something happens to me, at least you know what’s going down.”

  “John, I do not like this.”

  “Me neither, but we’re low on options.”

  There was a long silence, then a resigned sigh. “All right. Check in again when you have something.”

  “Will do.”

  “Can you e-mail me from that phone?”

  “Yeah,” Ward said. “I guess texting might be smarter if I can cover the light. And I’ll tell you this, you were right about one thing, my friend.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It gets real dark out here.”

  “Just don’t do anything else stupid, and stay calm,” Randolph said. “There are lots of things out there that can make a man jump—owls looking for field mice, bats, possum. A scream’ll give you away too.”

  “I’ll bite my knuckles,” Ward said.

  “Freakin�
�� clown,” Randolph said angrily. “This ain’t no joke.”

  “I wasn’t joking,” Ward said as he clicked off—on Randolph, calling them both “idjits”—and turned back to the cave.

  He remained that way for two hours, crouched low behind the rock in an effort to stay warm. A cool wind was coming through the valley and up the mountainside; not only did it cause him to shiver, it shook small branches and leaves, stirred ground cover, and made it necessary to watch the cave rather than merely listen for any activity.

  Just before midnight, five men emerged. Ward could see little more than their small silhouettes against the steady orange-yellow light inside the cave. He noticed their arms moving lazily when they moved at all. One man rolled his shoulder in a stretching motion. The men were not wearing heavy garments despite the cold.

  You’ve been working out, Ward concluded. And not just to stay in shape. They could have done that at the local health club.

  Four of the men went forward and were lost under the tree cover. There was nothing but blackness and then the sound of the engines starting up. Within moments, four off-road vehicles went tearing along the valley floor—quickly, recklessly. That too, he guessed, was part of the reason they were up here. Learning to master fast approaches and getaways. The sound became an echo and then a hum before it was lost in the turns of the valley.

  Ward continued to watch the man who stayed behind. He came out after the others were gone, lit a cigarette, and remained standing in the mouth of the cave. It would be easy enough to take him out with a single shot. This wasn’t New York and there wasn’t a district attorney to squawk about Miranda rights. But, miraculously, these guys hadn’t yet turned him into a murderer.

  Besides, he reminded himself, you can’t question a dead man.

  Ward waited another half hour or so until the light went out before rising from behind the boulder. He shook out his cramped legs. It was utterly dark now, darker than a man-made blackout in a hallway in the projects, but he had used the last of the light to study the hundred feet of terrain leading down, and the hundred or so feet that led to the mouth of the cave. He had a course mapped out in his mind; hopefully, if he made any noise, the kid inside would think it was an animal.