by Bob Mayer
The Russian held the M-203 tight against his shoulder, aimed directly at Rivers-- no grandstanding with it held loosely at his hip, aimed in the general vicinity. Vladislav might have been scum, but he was well-trained scum. Chase was surprised that he hadn’t shot Rivers as soon as he saw him, but Chase sensed a certain degree of machismo, of wanting Rivers to suffer, to grovel, on Vladislav’s part before he dispatched the old man. It was what a man who oversaw the rape and torture of schoolchildren would do. It was also a mistake.
Chase centered the night scope’s cross hairs on Vladislav’s chest. Chase’s finger caressed the trigger and he began to get the rhythm of his heartbeat moving from the subconscious into his conscious. His breathing grew shallower, slowing his heart further.
He moved the crosshairs from Vladislav’s chest to the bridge of his nose. Always go for the headshot if available had been the rule at SOTI training. After all, it was highly possible Vladislav was wearing a bulletproof vest.
He was walking along the tracks slowly, but he almost appeared to be standing still in Chase’s sight. His time sense was slowing everything to a crawl. The space between breaths seemed interminable, between heartbeats several seconds long.
Chase felt the tiny sliver of steel under his left index finger, flat and cool on the skin.
He remembered what Thorne had said about Rivers. The look on the old colonel’s face over the dead fire.
Chase relaxed his finger. He had to give the Colonel a chance at his revenge and he knew the old man wasn’t giving up this easily. Chase blinked. Or was it that he wanted Vladislav to kill the Colonel and end that half, allowing Chase to kill Vladislav and make a clean sweep of it?
Vladislav was less than twenty feet from Rivers. He stopped the weapon still tight to his shoulder.
“Colonel Rivers. You should have left me alone. You should have taken your retirement pay and played golf. Or gone fishing. Who are you to come after me?” Vladislav’s voice went up. “Your own government protects me. How did you ever think you would succeed?”
Vladislav laughed and Chase saw the dual M-16-40mm muzzles waver slightly. Rivers must have seen it also because he dove forward, arms grabbing over his right shoulder for whatever was on his back.
Vladislav fired the rifle, the round going over Rivers’ diving form. The colonel had what had been on his back in his hands now and Chase recognized it just as Vladislav did-- a wooden crossbow hung from a sling. Rivers pulled the release and the bolt leapt forward as the Russian brought his weapon to bear on the prone old man.
The flint tipped bolt hit Vladislav’s neck, slicing through the carotid artery on the left side. The M-203 dropped from stunned fingers. Whether it was the result of the bolt hitting or sheer shock at what Rivers had done, Chase didn’t know. He didn’t think Vladislav did either as his hands clawed at the bamboo shaft protruding from his neck.
He was trying to say something as Rivers got to his feet and walked toward him. Chase could see the mouth moving, but at this distance, he heard nothing. Vladislav went to his knees, and then rocked back into a sitting position, his hands still around the shaft, blood pouring over them.
Chase got up and began moving down the mountain as Vladislav’s life flowed over his hands, down his chest. Rivers stood there staring at him, the years of hunting over, revenge completed. Chase thought they were speaking, or at least Rivers was, but he couldn’t make it out as they were close together.
Chase was less than two hundred feet from the rail line, about sixty feet up when Vladislav died. His upper body slumped backward over his lower legs, a profane position but one he deserved.
Chase was watching, still making his way down, when Colonel Rivers’ head exploded in a puff of bone, flesh, blood and brain. The echo of the shot raced by a split second later. Rivers’ body fell on top of the man he had tracked for two years and finally caught up to.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Chase froze, becoming one with the mountain, muscles tightening, expecting the next shot to hit his own head. He remained perfectly still for a minute.
He heard a noise to his right, stone on stone, as a rock tumbled down the mountainside. He shifted only his eyes in that direction, knowing that movement would be picked up quicker than his still form in the darkness.
Someone was coming down the mountain above the south side of the rail line, about two hundred meters from where Chase was. Whoever it was had a long rifle in his hands. Chase very slowly lowered himself into a prone position, pointing downhill. The man reached the two bodies and bent over, checking to make sure they were dead.
It was Fortin. Chase recognized him as he stood up and ran his fingers through his hair
He slung the rifle over his shoulder just as Chase fired.
The round hit Fortin exactly where it was aimed-- in his left thigh, spinning him three hundred and sixty degrees before leaving him on the ground. He struggled to get the rifle off his shoulder.
“Don’t even think about it,” Chase called out as he stood. He had the night scope centered on Fortin’s forehead. He was looking right at Chase, his eyes magnified in the reticules. Chase carefully made his way down slope, never removing the CIA man’s head from the center of his sight picture.
Fortin remained still as blood pumped out of his leg and spasms of pain crossed the face in Chase’s sight.
“Fucking Chase,” Fortin acknowledged. Chase came to edge of the camp and paused, ten feet away. “I should have known you’d be too stupid to listen to advice. This isn’t your fight.”
With his right hand, Chase pulled the Glock out of its holster. Chase quickly exchanged the rifle for the pistol, never leaving the CIA man uncovered except for a split second.
He didn’t make a move. Chase realized Fortin was confident he would walk-- or crawl, given his wound-- out of this. His next words confirmed that.
“Would you at least allow me to stop the bleeding? I don’t think you hit an artery, but I’m losing blood here.”
Chase didn’t say anything, amazed at Fortin’s confidence. Chase wondered where a man like him came from? What did it take to develop an ego like that?
Fortin must have taken Chase’s silence as acquiescence and pulled a bandage out of a pack at his waist. Chase followed every move, the pistol centered on the CIA man’s forehead as he bound his leg, ready to shoot if he made the slightest hostile move. He cinched down the bandage with a grunt of pain. Chase noted he wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest under his thin jacket and Chase shifted his aim toward the larger target of the man’s chest.
“I’ll let you walk,” Fortin said. “This business here--” he nodded his head toward the two bodies a few feet away-- “is over. I’d call it pretty even.”
“You’ll let me walk?”
“You’re not that stupid, are you?”
“You fund the Patriots?”
Fortin laughed. “Jesus, man. Get real. We try to keep a tight leash on them. You local yokels should be glad we take care of that.”
“I’m not local. And the CIA has no legal authority to operate domestically.”
“Oh, yeah, right. That’s the FBI’s job. And they’ve done so well at it. Ruby Ridge. Waco. Nine-eleven. Out-fucking-standing job.” He laughed once more despite the pain from his leg. “It’s not like they don’t need some help.”
“You called in that false report about the Blazer in Wyoming didn’t you? To let those guys get away?” The answer was clear on Fortin’s face. “And your people hacked that vehicle registration out of the Wyoming database. They killed a cop for God sakes.”
“Hey, the two killers are dead down the trail there,” Fortin said. “And right now we’re keeping tabs on something going on in the militia movement that’s bigger than that. Bigger than this.”
Even if he was talking about another Oklahoma City, Chase didn’t care. “And the drugs? The Patriots you supplied; who supplied Vladislav. Hell, you connected the two.”
“Hey, if we didn’t do it, real bad guys woul
d.”
“’Real bad guys’,” Chase repeated.
“It’s small time stuff. Less than ten percent of the shit that comes through the border. And it gives us great infiltration into the suppliers, into the terror networks, the financing, into really making a difference where it counts. And we turn the profits around to our country’s benefit. If Congress wasn’t such tight-asses we wouldn’t need the money to fund our black ops.”
Fortin sat up, testing his leg with a grimace. “Fuck, man. I can’t believe you had the balls to shoot me.” He shook his head, as if trying to accept that reality. “You split now, we’ll call this over. I’ll never see you again. You’ll never see me. Hell, you can keep your fucking job.”
“How did you know about this meeting?” Chase asked.
Fortin snorted. “We monitor all of Vladislav’s phones—land line and cell. As soon as he got the call from Rivers, I had a chopper come get me, drop me on the other side of the ridge just after dark.”
Just like in Wyoming , Chase thought.
“Rachel Stevens.”
“Yes?”
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
“That nut job was stalking her. She was a loose end that could’ve caused Vladislav’s cover to be blown. And we still used him for odd jobs. She was expendable. And she wasn’t a civilian. She was a player once she decided to carry that bag for Vladislav.”
“Did she know what was in the bag?”
Fortin shrugged. “Who the fuck knows and who the fuck cares.”
“I care.”
“That’s your problem,” Fortin said.
“You called in the partial plate on York.”
“Helped you out. He did steal the drugs off her. I saw that. Saw him drag her in his van. Then watched her get out without the bag and he left. Then I picked her up, closed her out.”
“You were mirroring me in Wyoming.”
“Bullshit.” But Fortin’s eyes shifted ever so slightly.
“You wanted me to take out the Patriots, and then you’d take me out, so there’d be no legal fall-out. They were cop killers and they killed a Federal Agent in their final gun-battle. That right, Hammer?”
Fortin didn’t say anything. He carefully moved his hand toward his chest. “I’ve got a SATPhone here. I’m going to call for my extraction. It’ll take them about thirty minutes to get me. That should give you plenty of time to get out of the area. I’ll tell them I got hit in the shoot out.”
“Why should I let you go?”
“You can’t shoot me. You couldn’t pull the trigger in Wyoming, there’s no way you can shoot a fellow federal agent in cold blood.”
Something on his hand glittered in the starlight. Chase squinted. A large gold ring on the middle finger. Chase had seen that ring before. In the video.
Chase pulled the trigger. The round hit Fortin in the chest, ripping through bone and muscle, right through the heart.
A surprised look coursed across Fortin’s face. Complete amazement.
“Why?” The word came out of his mouth like an afterthought. Chase was thinking of the man whose head had been cut off by the guillotine.
Chase stared directly into Fortin’s eyes, watching carefully. He blinked twice. Then he died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Chase slowly walked into his apartment. He put his pistol on the kitchen chair and dropped all his field gear in the closet and secured it. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and went into the bathroom. He turned the shower on, and then stripped his dirt-encrusted clothes off. He stepped into the hot water, the beer in hand. Chase leaned against the tile, feeling the water beating him on the back. He took a deep drink from the beer.
It was the way he had always come back from training in the army. Hot shower, cold beer.
It had taken Chase several hours, working through dawn, to arrange the bodies in such a manner that someone doing a quick investigation would conclude that Fortin had been killed by Vladislav, as the Russian was dying from the arrow in his neck. Chase knew the CIA would be out there sometime during the day and they would close the book on it without looking too hard. As Fortin had said-- it had worked out pretty evenly. Chase didn’t think anyone in the CIA would miss Fortin much. His death probably meant a promotion for whoever was going out there to sterilize the site. It wasn’t like they were going to call in a CSI unit.
Then Chase had walked down the mountain into the long valley, putting many miles between himself and the scene until he found a place where Masters could land the chopper. He was real happy to hear from Chase. He picked Chase up and flew him back to the landing zone, holding back on questions that had answers he really didn’t want to know. Chase drove home from the landing zone, finally arriving just moments ago, late in the afternoon.
The alcohol on an empty stomach and the hot water on his skin combined to make Chase dizzy. He sank down to the shower floor, letting the can fall, the golden beer swirling into the dirty water sluicing off his body and down the drain. He felt as if his head was going to float off his shoulders.
Chase stayed like that for a long time, falling asleep, until the hot water heater ran out. The cold splattering on his body brought Chase back. He reached up and slammed the knob off.
Chase staggered out of the shower and toweled off. He walked through the apartment naked, his feet slapping the concrete floor. He was lost, wandering, not knowing what he was looking for, if he was looking for anything at all.
Finally, he went into his bedroom and gathered clothes off the floor, pulling them on. Jeans. A t-shirt. Sneakers with no socks. He had no idea what he was doing or what he was going to do. He kept seeing Rivers’ head explode, Fortin’s eyes blinking.
Chase grabbed his Jeep keys and walked into the back. The new puppy must have been in Louise’s house. He’d noticed she didn’t leave Star out like she had Astral. She’d learned.
Had he? Chase wondered as he noted several sprouts of green in his garden.
Chase got in the Jeep and started the engine. He saw Louise come down the stairs with a large dog on a leash. It looked like a German Shepherd except it had short hair, more brown than normal for a Shepherd, and a broad chest.
“That’s not a puppy,” Chase said.
Louise seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Horace. But a puppy—well, I don’t think you could handle a puppy.”
Great , Chase thought.
“She’s Star’s mother. Chelsea. You can take care of each other,” Louise said. “She’s a Shepherd-Chow mix. A very good dog. She can always find her way home according to my friend at the pound once she settles in. You need a companion, Chase.”
She went around and opened the passenger door. Chelsea jumped in like she owned the Jeep and sat there, head as high as Chase’s. She stared at him for a second, then looked forward, ready to go.
“Thank you,” Chase said.
Louise put a hand on his arm. “You’re welcome, Horace.”
Chase paused, then reached out and pulled Louise tight. “Really. Thank you.”
* * * * *
Chase stopped by Merck magazine. He took Chelsea in with him and the two pit bulls whimpered when they saw her. He told Thorne that Rivers was dead, but that the Colonel had gotten Vladislav before he died. Chase gave Thorne the Montagnard bracelet he’d taken off Rivers’ wrist and told him where he’d hidden the crossbow in the mountains. Chase could have sworn he saw tears in that old man’s eyes as he took the bracelet and the grid coordinates. Thorne didn’t want to know any more than that and Chase didn’t want to tell him anymore, so that worked out fine.
* * * * *
Chase stopped by the office, leaving Chelsea in the Jeep with the keys in the ignition. His job was no longer hanging by a thread. Wrapping up three murders and a big time drug operation in one fell swoop had given certain people amnesia about his little escapade at the bank. His badge was on his desk, waiting for him. He knew Jeffrey Stevens would be more than willing to forget about the letter and allow the whol
e thing to quietly disappear when he heard about what else his wife had been up to with Gavin. But Chase also didn’t give a shit about his job, either with Boulder or with the feds either.
Chase was sure a psychologist would have had a field day delving into all the personalities involved in the case and their histories to explain why they had acted the way they had, but he wasn't a shrink. And the last shrink he had gone to had tried to kill him, so that wasn’t an avenue he wanted to pursue. All he cared about on that end was that the case was finally closed.
The only regret Chase had was that Linda Watkins had gotten away. He would have loved to track her down at the Boulder Country Club. Right there next to the tennis courts that Linda would never come back to.
Porter walked in as Chase picked up his badge. “Hey, partner.” A wide smile crossed Porter’s face.
Chase nodded. “Partner.”
“Good to have you back.”
Chase was looking at the badge in his hand. “I’m not sure I’m back.”
The smile was gone. Porter walked up and put a hand on Chase’s shoulder. “It’s your choice. But you’re a damn good cop.”
“I broke the law,” Chase said.
Porter took a deep breath. “I been wrong about a lot of things lately. Maybe I’m wrong about that. You did what you thought was right?”
Chase nodded.
Porter stuck his hand out. “Whatever you decide, you know you can count on me.”
Chase shook his partner’s hand. “I know.” He put the badge in his pocket and left.
* * * * *
When Chase walked out of the building, a black van was parked next to his Jeep. Chelsea was glaring at it. Chase pulled the Glock out of the holster as he approached and the side door opened. Cigarette smoke wafted out. Cardena waved for him to come in.
“Want a smoke?” Cardena asked as Chase got in the van and took the seat across from him, Glock still in hand.