Cold Winter Sun

by Forder, Tony J.

  They had brought coffee and toasted bagels with them, purchased from a nearby gas station on the short drive over from the FBI field office. Those were now long gone, and Wilson had become restless the more thirsty and hungry he got.

  ‘I still worry they ducked out of there during the night,’ he said, nodding towards the cheap motel across the road from where they sat.

  ‘How many times are you going to say the same damn thing in a slightly different way, Eugene?’ Green complained.

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘I can’t believe you’re not worried. It’s not right. They ought to be out there by now looking for Vern Jackson. Instead they’re what… having a lie-in?’

  ‘In case you’d forgotten, it was my idea to sit on them. My idea that they might figure out what we did and decide to sneak away.’

  ‘Okay, okay. But what do we do if we’re already too late and they sneaked out of the back door or in another vehicle?’

  ‘Hey, here’s a thought: we could actually search for Vern Jackson ourselves, rather than waiting for these two jerkoffs to do our job for us.’

  ‘We could, but they have an inside track and we don’t. They work for a powerful group, with huge influence, who will clearly stop at nothing when it comes to finding Jackson.’

  Green looked across at him. She tilted her head to one side. ‘You did not just say that.’

  Wilson shrugged, raising his hands at the same time. ‘What?’

  ‘Does what you just said describe anyone else, Eugene? Have you ever heard of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Way I understand it, they’re a pretty powerful group, with some high-clearance influence, whose very job it is to stop at nothing in attempting to locate this young man.’

  ‘Heather, you wear me out,’ Wilson said, shaking his head. ‘Look, we agreed yesterday when we were sat in the sheriff’s office that this was a decent plan. It was like having another couple of agents out there working on our behalf.’

  ‘Yes. But not if we’re sitting here alongside them. It only works that way if we’re back at the office doing the best we can to find Jackson through other means. That way there’s them doing their thing and us doing ours.’

  ‘But you were the one who said we ought to be here watching them in case they slipped their leash!’

  ‘I know that, Eugene. But that was only because there was no other plan for us to work with. I figured if we had to involve these two idiots, the least we ought to do was make sure they were still with their car and not a whole state away by now. And if they look as if they’re on the move we can–’

  Wilson frowned. He hated it when she spoke to him as if he were a child. ‘What? You just thought of something?’

  ‘No.’ Green shook her head and pointed. ‘Barclay and Garcia are on the move.’

  The green Chevy reversed back out of its bay, turned and came towards the road. The moment they saw the left indicator come on, both agents ducked down in their seats because the vehicle was about to turn across the main street and complete its manoeuvre right by the parking lot they were sitting in.

  When they sat up, the Chevy was gone. Green checked the laptop monitor, relieved to see the GPS hot-spot moving with the Chevy as it headed west out of Roswell. Wilson started their SUV and pulled out to follow at a safe distance.

  ‘I hope they’re not just going for breakfast,’ he said.

  ‘If they are, let’s join them and be done with this charade. That bagel was delicious but it was also a long time ago and I’m starving.’

  They continued along West Second Street, and where Route 70 turned north they kept driving west on the 380. A few blocks later, they too started heading north, only on the 141 instead.

  ‘Border Hill is up ahead,’ Green said. ‘Wonder if that’s where they’re going.’

  A few minutes later they realised that wasn’t happening, the Chevy now several miles ahead of them breezing by the Border Hill turns. It wasn’t long before the town gave way to scrub and then working farmland, which at this time of year was mostly barren and little more than desert dust. Green kept her eyes on the monitor of the tablet they were using.

  ‘They’re turning west again… no… hold on… make that north-west. They’re on Route 246, Eugene.’

  ‘Better make sure we don’t get too close. I know we swapped out the SUV so they won’t recognise this one, but where we’re headed it’s best we keep a good distance between us and them.’

  ‘Yep. We could be headed back into Crozier’s county.’

  ‘I bet he’s seen it. You want to call him or wait and see if he shows?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll show.’ Agent Green nodded to herself. ‘The sheriff has a taste for it now, you can count on that.’

  * * *

  Lincoln County covered a little under 5,000 square miles of New Mexico, yet only 20,000 people or so lived there. That was a whole lot of area for the sheriff’s department to police, with manpower in ever-dwindling short supply. As he did every working day, Crozier had headed out of the building to cruise the roads and towns around his county. There were probably more cattle than people to tend to, but he still took his job seriously. Most of the time he found himself acting as more of a social worker or arbiter in minor disputes than a sheriff laying down the law, but that was the way he liked it. Even so, today he had made special preparations. Before he left the office he arranged with Mitzy Gray, the civilian who managed the administration staff, to monitor the GPS tracking device attached to the car driven by the two guys out of Fresno, and to contact him on his radio when there was any sign of movement.

  Crozier had eaten breakfast as usual, and afterwards on a hunch set off in the general direction of Corona. He took a couple of unusual routes across country, coming at the area from a slightly different angle. It was good for him to change things up once in a while, he figured. Your eyes could get tired and your senses lazy if you took the same old roads every time.

  He had to admit that when the radio crackled he felt a jolt of excitement. Over the past few days it had become clear to him that something was going on in and around his boundary lines. Something major. There were enough comings and goings to suggest that, even without the sour feeling that had sat in the deep pit of his gut ever since hearing about the confrontation between Joe Kane and the Barrow boys. To his mind, the only way people like that came together was when bad things were either happening or were about to.

  Mitzy called out the directions each time the tracker made a turn. The moment Crozier heard her mention Route 141 he saw the little area of Border Hill in his mind and knew trouble was coming his way. It was like sensing a storm brewing in the distance beyond the horizon, or feeling the chill coming from a cold winter sun. Deep inside his bones there was an inkling of foreboding that demanded to be heard. Crozier swallowed hard and stood on the accelerator, determined to meet it head-on.

  28

  ‘You know we’re being followed, right?’ Terry said to me after we had pulled off the road.

  I nodded. ‘Yep. All the way from Roswell. When we pulled in here he drove right by a minute or so later. A small truck.’

  ‘You think it’s that sheriff we ran across in Corona? I had the feeling he didn’t buy into our story. Could be he took an interest in us.’

  ‘Where did you pick him up first?’

  ‘Shortly after we left the Weather Balloon.’

  My friend was good. I had not spotted our tail until we were driving away from the heavy police presence resulting from the mess we had helped create. ‘Then no, it’s not the sheriff. He would have stepped in the moment we entered Chastain’s place. Besides, we’re out of his jurisdiction.’

  Terry grunted. ‘Right. You’re right. So then maybe the two retards we took out on the side of the road changed cars – Mr No Neck and Mr Snakeskin.’

  ‘Barclay and Garcia,’ I said.

  He snapped his fingers. ‘That’s them.’

  I thought about it. Shook my head. ‘Whoever’s behind us is pretty
good. I mean, there were a couple of times when I asked myself if I was wrong about being followed. I don’t see either Roadrunner or Coyote being that adept, do you?’

  Terry laughed at my description. Then he shrugged. ‘So someone new in the game.’

  He was about to say more, but paused. I left him with it for a short while. Eventually he nodded to himself. ‘The Indian back at the Weather Balloon. He caught my attention. I wondered about him when I saw him sat at the exact table I would have chosen had I been looking out for someone. He was smooth the way he broke our eye contact, but maybe too smooth now that I think about it more. It wasn’t quite natural. Almost as if he gave it some thought first.’

  ‘The Indian?’ I said, fixing him with a narrow stare. ‘Do you mean a gentleman from the Indian subcontinent, or a Native American?’

  The look he gave me back was not one of amusement. ‘You know what I mean. Either way, it’s him. I know it.’

  Van Dalen leaned forward to rest her elbows on the back of our seats. ‘Are you two always like this?’ she asked.

  ‘Like what?’ Terry and I said in unison.

  ‘So laid-back. Relaxed as if we’re out sightseeing. Someone is following you, you got into a shootout, men were killed, and you’re about to drive into more of the same it seems to me. And still you chat like nothing is wrong. You didn’t even bother to let me know we were being followed.’

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you needlessly,’ Terry explained. ‘And Mike and I have been in worse scrapes. One of the things you do ahead of a skirmish is to analyse the abilities of your opponents. From everything I’ve seen and heard so far, these men are pros, but professionals within their own sphere. I doubt they would ever have encountered people like me and Mike before. So, while I’m not being overconfident, let’s just say I fancy our chances.’

  ‘But you have no idea who they are.’

  ‘True. But I know their type.’

  ‘The men who probably have Vern and Bruce are just like those men who murdered Chastain, right? So they have no problem with killing. Vern could already be dead for all you know.’

  I nodded. There was little point in denying it. ‘Anything is possible at this stage, Chelsea,’ I said. ‘But with the vultures we seem to have circling, my hunch is Vern and Kelper are still alive.’

  ‘That didn’t help Chastain.’

  Her words stung, but she was correct. I had no doubt that he would have been killed anyway, but I felt a huge amount of regret that we had not managed to rescue him.

  ‘Our intention is to get in and get out without anyone ending up with so much as a scratch,’ I told her. ‘But conflicts don’t always go the way you expect. Me and Terry are good at what we do, but men in fear can sometimes do the most unexpected things.’

  ‘But you can’t know for certain that they’re not already dead. You just admitted that.’

  ‘True. But looking at it dispassionately, they were brought all the way out here into the middle of nowhere for a reason. That suggests whoever has them wanted time and space to question your boyfriend and Kelper.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she cried. ‘That means they’re being tortured.’ Tears gushed from her eyes, and her face creased in anguish.

  I turned and put a hand on hers to calm her, but she shrugged it off. I tried again, and this time she let it rest there. ‘Even if that’s true,’ I said, ‘you have to hold on to that thought as a positive thing. Because if that’s the case then it means they’re still alive. Terry and I don’t know what we’re going to find out there, and the chances are it won’t be pleasant. But if they are alive, then we’ll keep them that way.’

  Van Dalen sat back, her hand slipping away from mine. She stared at me for a moment before shaking her head, saying, ‘You don’t even know for sure that you can keep yourselves safe.’

  ‘There’s nothing certain in life, Chelsea. All I can promise you is that we intend to walk back out of this place we’re going into, and that we won’t be alone when we do.’

  We had pulled over to check out the location on Google maps and put a plan together. From what we could tell from the terrain, there were some sweeping hills on three sides of a deserted crop of buildings. On the other side, a relatively flat, curving track ran from the main road right up to whatever the place was. I zoomed in as close as possible, and after looking at it for a few minutes, Terry and I agreed that the area had once been some kind of business, probably a mill, and had been abandoned for many years. The different types of buildings had different types of problems, but both the wooden structures and the brick one with what looked like a slate roof were carrying significant cavities, which told us they were no longer in use. One of the wooden structures was what looked to us like the mill itself, and its appearance was one of complete neglect.

  We chugged our way through a large bottle of Coke and snacked on corn chips and Twix fingers. Terry and I were hungry, but mostly we wanted a sugar boost and to keep our fuel intake topped up. Van Dalen ate and drank about a quarter of what we did, but she seemed satisfied with that. While we took it in we also threw a decent makeshift plan together based entirely on what we had seen on the electronic map. Like all such plans, it was fluid and would evolve based on circumstances.

  I thought about what Van Dalen had said about us, how we were laid-back and relaxed. The truth was very different. We did not act that way because we were fearless. We did so because we had fears to overcome. You did not overcome them by dwelling on the negatives.

  The moment we were done snacking, we moved further on up the road, and half a mile away from the mill dropped off the blacktop altogether. We bumped our way across the open land, avoiding fallen rocks, boulders, and clutches of wild shrubs and plants. After easing our way around a gentle curve, we tucked ourselves behind a hillside where we could not be seen from either the route we had come in on or the buildings on the other side of the steep rise. Which is where we sat finalising our strategy.

  ‘Our follower would have gone ahead on the road, probably intending to stop on the other side of the hill,’ I suggested. ‘Now, I suppose it depends on whether he’s looking for us or looking for Vern and Kelper as to what he actually does next. He’ll spot the mill, put it together with us peeling off the road, and will presumably lay up further ahead where he can’t be seen. That said, I would expect to encounter him at some point.’

  ‘I agree,’ Terry said with a firm nod. He turned to Van Dalen. ‘Now, listen up, because this is very important. Once again, I want you to leave the engine running while we’re gone. This time I also want you in the driving seat. I’m leaving you a two-way radio. Ignore any chatter you may overhear between me and Mike. What you listen out for are a series of squawks.’

  ‘Squawks? What the fuck?’

  ‘Clicks. The radio will give a harsh, static sound. A rapid double click means you get the hell out of here, you find the nearest and safest place with a signal for your phone, and you call Drew Mason.’

  ‘Can’t you just use words? Tell me what you need me to do when you need me to do it.’

  Back at the abandoned petrol station she had appeared to be lost in thought, but now Van Dalen was on the edge of her seat and fully alert.

  ‘Under normal circumstances,’ Terry said, nodding. ‘But the clicks are a shorthand. I may not be able to speak out loud, but with the radio send and receive button I still have a means of communication. Please, just listen and do as I say. When you reach Drew, tell him we’re blown, tell him exactly where we are, and then you drive further away and keep on driving. That’s two clicks, remember. Three rapid clicks means head back to the road and meet us at the entrance to the mill on the other side of these hills. Got it?’

  Van Dalen nodded. ‘Two clicks, scram. Three clicks, come running. Why not a single click?’

  ‘Because that could occur by accident.’

  ‘And do not divert from either of those,’ I told her. ‘I mean it, Chelsea. Terry and I believe we’re coming back and that the
next you’ll see of us we’ll be walking over that hillside, hopefully with both Vern and Bruce by our side. Either that or at the side of the road by the entrance. But no conflict ever went according to every step of the plan. It rarely lasts longer than the first encounter. So be prepared for anything, but be prepared and listen out for the squawks. Our lives may depend on it.’

  ‘What if that man following us finds me here on my own?’

  Terry shook his head. ‘He’s either lying in wait for us further up the road, or his interests have now turned to the place on the other side of this ridge. I’m betting it’s the latter, because I suspect he’s following us because he thinks we will lead him to Vern.’

  That was it. Terry and I grabbed our gear and left her there. Either she would be waiting for us when we came back or she would not. My bet was that she would tough it out. As young as she was, Van Dalen seemed pretty devoted to Vern, and whilst she was clearly frightened by the predicament she found herself in, I thought she appeared defiant enough to see it through.

  29

  I followed Terry who was walking briskly up the hill, the loose and dry soil not making life easy on either of us. We leaned into it, and despite my recent fitness regime I felt both calf muscles burn and spasm. Just before the crest we slowed and then got down on all fours, creeping our way to the point where we could see the lay of the land below us.

  It was an impressive sight, and exactly how it had appeared on the map.

  Scanning left to right, from the direction of the road, the first collection of old buildings looked as if they had been rickety from the moment they were built. The water tower did not look strong enough to support the enormous sealed tank that at one time must have held thousands of gallons of liquid. There were eight supportive legs, held firm by multiple crossbeams, but still it sagged uneasily to one side and looked as if it might topple over at any moment.