Foreign Deceit dw-1

by Jeff Carson

  Foreign Deceit

  ( David Wolf - 1 )

  Jeff Carson

  Jeff Carson

  Foreign Deceit

  Chapter 1 — Monday

  “What? Why you stopping?” Connell yelled from below, making his way up the rocky slope.

  “I think I found something,” Wolf said, wiping his forehead-sweat with his uniform sleeve. He plopped his buffalo felt Stetson back on his head and looked again to the forty foot sheer cliff immediately to his right. He looked down the trail to Connell who was hiking toward him like a muscle bound mountain goat.

  He decided a change of position was definitely in order. Any other officer, and he wouldn’t think twice. But this wasn’t any other officer.

  Wolf walked the ten feet to the tree line, and to the oval discoloration in the rocky soil he’d spotted a few seconds earlier. Only after stepping over it and turning towards Connell’s approaching scrapes and grunts did he bend down to study his find.

  Connell charged over the rise to the granite shelf. “What? What the hell do you think you found now?” He sucked in air through his clenched teeth and hocked a spit off the cliff edge. “Fuckin’ Hardy Boy.” Sergeant Derek Connell’s chest rose with alternating flexed pectorals. His thick arms slapped on his hips, threatening to rip the tight sleeves of his brown uniform shirt.

  Wolf ignored him and plucked a small yellow spongy piece of material from the confines of the slightly darker dirt, and then looked out over the vista. Bright flecks of light shimmered on the distant valley floor off the metal corrugated roofs in town.

  He stood and listened to the conifers. They were dead still, no wind. Wolf was thankful for that as he steeled himself for where he needed to go — where he needed to look.

  Focusing on his footing, and keeping a wide berth of Sergeant Connell, Wolf made his way left and forward to the ledge. Though the rock shelf was virtually flat, no more than a five degree slope towards the sheer drop, he was taking zero chances, shuffling carefully, left foot always forward.

  “What?” Connell’s eyes widened.

  Wolf nodded his head to the cliff, then concentrated back on his footing, but not before shooting a fast sideways glance to Connell. That’s when Wolf saw it — a thought materializing in Connell’s small brain that had no choice but to be telegraphed through the unconscious movements of his eyes.

  Wolf’s pulse quickened as he stopped dead, looking up at Connell with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” Connell furrowed his brow.

  Wolf stuck out his left arm towards the cliff and pointed his index finger down, not shifting his gaze from the muscle-bound behemoth of a cop.

  Connell walked towards Wolf, shooting a nonchalant curious glance to the ledge — pretending to shoot a curious glance?

  Wolf studied the scene unfolding in front of him with a surreal interest, as if outside his own body. A long time question in Wolf’s mind was being answered with clear certainty. If there was an inkling of doubt in Wolf’s mind what was happening, he pushed it out instantly. There wasn’t time for any doubt.

  “What? What do you see?” Connell was only five feet away and steadily walking forward, his eyes focused behind Wolf.

  Wolf took the bait, looking towards the cliff edge.

  The movement was lightning fast, absolutely no hesitation on Connell’s part. But Wolf hadn’t hesitated either. Turning his head, he brought himself down into a crouch, the full force of the shove just missing, palms bouncing off the side of his ducking head, ripping hair and sending his cowboy hat flying over the precipice. Reaching the low point of his squat, he lunged towards the tree line, took four running steps, and turned back fast.

  Connell was already on him, his massive muscular frame coming with outstretched arms, ducking into Wolf’s abdomen.

  Wolf was six foot three and two hundred pounds, but Connell was a rhino, at six one and two hundred forty pounds of performance-enhancing-drug muscle, who would have little trouble of tossing him ten feet in any direction given the right leverage.

  Wolf grabbed him with all the strength he could muster in a right arm head-lock and sprawled his legs backwards just before Connell got there, sending Connell face first into the dirt. Growling low, Connell flailed with animalistic force underneath Wolf’s body.

  Wolf kept his legs wide and stiff, pushing Connell down, and then dug into Connell’s belt holster with his free left hand, straight for Connell’s service Glock. As soon as Wolf got hold of it, Connell went berserk. With a vicious twist, his arm swung back knocking the gun out of Wolf’s grip, sending it flying, bouncing off the granite, and into a bush nearby.

  Letting go of the headlock, Wolf pushed off Connell’s shoulders, back further into the trees, and reached for his own Glock, getting a fistful of air. He looked down in panic to Connell’s hands, which were balled into massive white fists. No Glock.

  They stared at each other, the only sound their panting and Wolf’s thumping heart. Wolf scanned for his weapon on the ground, and Connell stalked forward.

  Wolf looked over his shoulder for any sort of inspiration, advantage, or opportunity to present itself. A fallen tree directly behind him caught his eye — a thick branchless Ponderosa Pine log suspended horizontally two feet off the ground.

  He looked back to Connell and began shuffling backwards fast. Once he felt the wood against the back of his knees, he sat, flailing his arms out in a show of unbalance, his face opening into a surprised look. Connell sensed his opportunity and charged like a linebacker, his hands outstretched in front of him, eyes focused on Wolf’s neck.

  Wolf laid back fast, grabbing underneath the log on his right side as Connell came diving over after him. Wolf pulled himself down, under, and through to the other side of the pine log, causing Connell to leap-frog him, landing on vacant dirt where Wolf was a split second before.

  Keeping hold of the wood, Wolf allowed his arms to stretch their full length. As Connell got up, Wolf pulled with his arms and pushed off his steel-toed boot tips, launching towards Connell’s rising form.

  His head-butt slammed into Connell’s nose with a crunch, toppling him onto his back with thick arms stretched to his sides.

  Wolf clamored over the log and sat hard on his chest, diving down with right elbows to his face, the full force of his muscle and body weight behind them.

  Sergeant David Wolf stood up tall, tilted his head back and sucked in air greedily, his lungs burning with each rapid breath. A full minute later he bent down and pressed his index and middle finger into the slick red muscle-bound neck up against the jawline, feeling for a pulse. It pumped strongly.

  Sergeant Derek Connell was a massive specimen, and was going to be tough to move off the mountain. Or maybe he wouldn’t need moving. Maybe he’d come to and be able to walk himself down. Wolf didn’t know. Connell was alive, that’s all he knew. He would need facial reconstructive surgery, that was another thing he was pretty sure he knew. Wolf couldn’t remember how many blows he’d given him.

  A long rumble of thunder echoed from the southwest. An early afternoon storm was looming dark in the distance, just on the other side of the 12,329 foot South Rocky Peak. Another batch of monsoonal moisture flowing into the state from the southwest was close enough to bring the smell of rain, but the storm looked like it would skirt them to the north. Over the next couple hours, there would surely be more widespread severe weather.

  Wolf stood up and exhaled loudly, looked back down at Connell, and stepped away. He walked to Connell’s Glock 22, stepping right next to his own in the process. How he missed it in the heat of the moment, he had no clue. Connell must have removed it while he was sprawled in the headlock. Bending to pick it up, he heard a voice in the distance.

  “You guys up
there?” officer Rachette said in the far distance. He followed with a loud whistle.

  “Yeah! Up here!” He hurried to Connell’s Glock 22, removed the magazine and pulled back the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He threw the Rocky Points Police issue Glock 22 off the cliff with the full force of his arm, and reared back and tossed the magazine well into the pines beyond Connell’s unconscious body.

  Bugs in the surrounding trees ramped up their hissing, the worst of the commotion already forgotten in their tiny memories. A bird flapped past him and coasted out over the expanse — over the immense drop that lay before him.

  The air was hot and still. A chipmunk cackled somewhere up the gradual slope in the pines behind him. Sweat trickled down his temples, down his neck and onto his shirt collar. He tasted coppery blood in his mouth.

  Wolf inhaled deep and walked back to the edge. His body was humming, his movements fuzzy, body saturated with adrenaline.

  Looking over the edge, he finally saw what he knew he would see minutes ago. His mind pictured the teenager slipping up top, tumbling off the edge, deafening wind rushing through his ears, and the slam into the scree field below.

  He jerked back, stepped away from the edge and looked back to Connell’s inert form. He still hadn’t moved. Wolf shook his head and rubbed a split on the inside of his cheek with his tongue. He walked twenty feet into the trees and spit blood into a bush, well away from the potential crime scene.

  “Hey what’s up?” Rachette scrambled up into view.

  “Found Jerry Wheatman,” Wolf answered, walking back to the ledge.

  “What? You did?”

  Wolf pointed down with a somber look.

  “Oh man.” Rachette exhaled staring over the cliff. “Jesus,” he pulled back from the edge, apparently letting his mind race through the same morbid hallucination.

  “I noticed this here,” Wolf said in a surprisingly calm voice pointing behind Rachette in the rocky soil near a thick Ponderosa Pine trunk.

  “This?” Rachette pointed at the dark soil covered with bright green metallic flies. They burst into a buzzing cloud as he tried shooing them away.

  “Yeah. I think it’s vomit,” Wolf said. “You can see the chunks of stuff. Not much left, but some left still.”

  “It’s puke? You think?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay, so what does that mean?”

  “Well, what’s in that vomit would you say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Looks like an overall yellow color. Looks like a ham and egg breakfast to me. All yellow from the yellow yolks of the eggs? Here’s some pink ham chunks,” Wolf pointed.

  “Yeah, okay. Yeah it does look like that.” Rachette said. “So, what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Obviously this person had last eaten breakfast. Maybe in town. Maybe someone freaked out up here after seeing Wheatman fall off the edge. Puked his guts out and ran. Or maybe he puked his guts out after pushing Wheatman off the edge.”

  “You think he was pushed?” Rachette turned, expelling a hefty black dollop of chew spit.

  “I think it’s possible.” Wolf looked into the trees at Connell who still lay motionless. “There’s not much to go by right here with the granite rock. I can’t get an indication of struggle or not. But there were two others with him. I could see a lot of signs on the way up. Looked like a girl and a boy by the shoe prints at least.”

  Wolf walked to the edge and looked over again.

  “Jesus, what happened to you?” Rachette was looking Wolf up and down.

  Wolf looked down at his uniform, dust powdered the whole left side of his body. A scrape on his elbow was draining blood down the length of his arm to his fingers, and his other elbow was covered in blood, not his own blood. His dark brown Carhartts were scuffed with dirt, a clump of burrs was velcroed to his leg.

  “Oh, yeah, that,” He slapped the dirt off his pants. “Give me your handkerchief, will ya?”

  Rachette gave him his ever present handkerchief from his rear pocket, and Wolf wiped the blood off his arm.

  “Sorry, I’ll buy you another one at Sheps.”

  “What the hell happened?” Rachette suddenly went wide eyed, then looked again over the ledge, then back to Wolf. “Where’s Connell?”

  Wolf huffed and nodded towards the trees. Rachette took a second to find Connell’s form amongst the sparse underbrush.

  “What the…” He swiveled his head back and forth. “Is that Connell’s blood?” He finally settled his eyes on Wolf’s forehead.

  Wolf wiped his head, putting another dark spot on the handkerchief.

  “Yeah. I think that’s from the head butt to his nose. He’s going to need some medical attention, but I suspect he’ll be able to walk his own ass down the mountain soon. I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  Rachette unloaded a bit spit on the rock and laughed, “Whoa-lly crap! You gotta tell me what happened!”

  “Hey, watch what you’re doing, don’t spit anymore. We’re treating this a crime scene. Connell and I already messed it up enough, no sense making it worse. And don’t worry about what happened here. He deserved it, that’s all you need to know for now,” he said, contemplating whether he should come out with it. “I don’t know what the heck happened, other than he started it, and I finished it.”

  “Sorry boss.”

  Rachette wiped his mouth and stepped into the trees.

  “Who else is on their way up? Are Wilson and Blaine coming?”

  Rachette was already halfway to Connell, “Yep, they’re right behind me!” He let out a long whistle as he looked down on Connell’s inert muscle bound form, “Yeah, that’s a broken nose… Hey Connell! Wow, he’s out.”

  Officer Wilson clamored up the trail into view.

  Wolf stepped towards the ledge again. “Alright, Rachette, you’re with me, we’re heading down. Wilson, come here.”

  They all took another look over the cliff edge.

  Wilson approached wheezing hard, and peeked over at the body below. “Good lord. That him?” He turned quickly away from the cliff and walked towards the pines.

  Wolf grabbed his radio and checked its functionality. It was scoured deeply and dusted with dirt, but static emitted from the speaker as he pushed the button.

  “All right everyone, we’ve found our victim, appears DOA, but we’ve gotta move fast in case he’s still got vitals. We need everyone moving with full medical north on the West Base Loop. He’s at the base of Skipper Cliff. We also have an officer in need of medical assistance on top of the cliff. Officer is unconscious, may need to be evac’ed off the mountain. We need to move fast. Storms are going to be popping up this afternoon. It’s going to be a lot of rain and lightning. Let’s move fast guys.” He put his radio back on his belt.

  A cacophony of affirmative radio calls barked through all their radios. Wilson had hiked up, staring dumbly down at Connell, who’s forearm was now raised up lying against his forehead. He had come to and was starting to move around.

  “Wilson, make sure he gets attention, make sure the guys on the West Base Loop trail find where they need to go down at the base of this cliff. We’ll have Blaine join you. Where is he?”

  “Uh, he should be right here. He was behind me.”

  “Let’s go,” he nodded at Rachette walking away from the cliff top and back down the trail. He stopped suddenly, “Give me one of those.”

  Rachette dug in his back pocket and pulled his can of snuff out with a smirk, “I thought you were quitting?”

  Wolf took a pinch and threw the can back. “Yeah, not today.”

  Chapter 2

  Wolf led officer Tom Rachette down the slope towards the staging area. The trail was smoothed from the bouts of torrential rain of late. He went fast, following the original line of signs he saw on the way up with Connell, now obscured by the foot falls of four officers. Rachette followed silently for a good hundred yards, then went down in a
loud thump and sliding noise.

  “Ah!” Rachette bounced up from his butt and looked at the ground.

  Wolf turned and gave Rachette an appraising look.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said brushing himself off. “So you think there were two others with the Wheatman kid when he fell?”

  “Yep,” Wolf turned back down the hill. “There’s fresh tracks, after the rain from two days ago, and nothing else but a few deer from what I saw. Two teenage boys, one teenage girl. Wheatman drops off the cliff, and now we have left one boy, one teenage girl,” he said. “And in a frantic hurry. Here.” He pointed, stopping suddenly at a steep slope of loose dirt.

  There were two sets of footprints, obviously pointed downwards, heels digging in hard. One set of prints a boyish set of boots, one a smaller thin shoe model. They were stumbling and stopping, helping each other after falls.

  Rachette bent down. “Could be a couple of boys, just a smaller boy.”

  “Could be. But we both know who these three are. It was Mulroy’s girl, the Wheatman kid, and the Fitzgerald kid. They’ve been inseparable all summer.”

  Rachette sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Another rumble of thunder shook the air, still many miles away. Wolf looked at the sky behind the peaks. It was pitch dark save the continuous flickering of lightning from within. There was a torrid downpour being unleashed. If the storm expanded over the peaks in the next hour it was going to be tough going for the boys. Wolf looked to the task ahead of him and Tom and envied them.

  Chapter 3

  Wolf climbed into the Explorer with a grunt, his body stiff, muscles stuffed with lactic acid. Living on a ranch in the mountains, at nine thousand plus feet, one tended to build up a strength and stamina seldom seen by most frequenters of exercise gyms. Tack on that he was an avid outdoorsman, and Wolf normally wouldn’t have felt the slightest bit of fatigue after climbing up and down a relatively short section of mountain. But this morning his adrenaline injected muscles had been tested to the point of failure numerous times within the span of a minute. Ten years ago, his Special Forces hardened body would have been accustomed to it. But this was ten years later, and he was downright sore.