Vindicator

by Denney Clements

  After hugging his son and unloading his car, Emery switched on his cell phone. He had two voicemail messages, one from Natascha Schroeder, left Saturday night, and the other from Aaron Renke, left Monday morning. He turned on the phone’s speaker and played the messages.

  Schroeder’s was brief: “We had nothing to do with the home invasion, Emery, and we appreciate that you didn’t drag us into your personal issues again.” Arrogant little asshole, he thought. She'll get hers in due time.

  Renke’s message was more substantial: “Mr. Emery. You can come by my office any time during business hours and pick up your revolver. It came up clean on our check of the serial number, though I am a little curious about how a gun purchased recently in Missouri ended up in southwest Kansas. I’ve decided I can live with my curiosity, however, so I’m not passing that information on to the 25th Circuit prosecutor, who’s too close to Gov. Hodge. Also, I've been reading your blog. The most recent entry is very thorough. Perhaps we can have a chat about it sometime. Or you can call me if you like. You have the number on your display. Finally, I note that the Clark place seems to be empty and that Ted Brody has left town, too. I have no doubt the family members are safe. We’re still keeping an eye on the house. Bye.”

  “Sounds like you’ve made a new friend, Poppy,” J-3 said.

  Emery nodded. “Yep. The question now is whether I need that gun back.”

  “I can get you another one, but it’ll take a few days.”

  “No, I’ll run down there and get this one.” He tapped the “Reply” display on his phone screen. “While I'm gone you can start on our Google Earth project.”

  Renke answered after two rings. “Mr. Emery. You’re back on the grid.”

  “I am. Is it too late for me to come by? I’d like to get that piece today, if possible.”

  “Planning to use it?”

  “I hope I never have to fire it again. But I’d like to have it with me.”

  “Dangerous world isn’t it Mr. Emery. How soon can you get here?”

  “I’m in Garden City. Less than an hour.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Mike Harmon sends you his regards,” Renke said as he handed Emery a box containing the .38. They were sitting in his office. “He assures you your case, into which the Thursday event has been folded, is the KCID’s top priority.”

  Could it be that the attorney general of Kansas, with all the investigative resources at his disposal, has no clue about the ARC or secret license tags assigned to hooded goons? Emery decided he dare not tell Renke about the ARC and the secret tags until the nature of his relationship with Harmon became clearer. So he said, “That’s reassuring, sheriff. Thanks.”

  “You can call me Aaron if you like. I have this feeling we’re going to know each other awhile.

  Feeling guilty about withholding information from his new friend, Emery smiled and said, “I suspect we will. I like this town and I love Carol.”

  “When are you two getting married?”

  “Not clear. Got a few problems that need resolving first.”

  “Are Carol, Ted and Rose OK?”

  “They are. She’s recuperating in peace.”

  “I think I know where they are, but I won’t tell anyone. They have a right to their privacy.”

  “I appreciate that. You mentioned your message that you had some thoughts about my recent post.”

  Renke nodded. “This was the first attack of this kind in my county, ever. But I did some checking. There have been several other attacks of a similar nature – unarmed hard cases in black hoods and light combat outfits beating up on citizens from other counties over the past three years. None of them have been cleared by law enforcement. The trail goes cold after the attacks happen. The victims suffer damage to internal organs, broken bones in one case, requiring long recoveries.”

  “Any deaths besides the Los Llanos murders?

  Renke shook his head. “None that we know about. Before Los Llanos, they seemed to know how far they could go to achieve their objectives without creating dead bodies. They're also good at leaving no forensic evidence at their crime scenes – until you shot the blue-eyed man and got us some blood and bone. We're hoping the lab techs can find a match in the DNA databases. The techs also found fibers from their gloves, also a first. We think they got shook loose because you and Ted fought back so hard. This appears to be the first time they encountered resistance they couldn’t overcome.”

  “Did you share this information with Harmon?”

  “I'm going to. I assume he’s unaware of the pattern. Just discovered it myself yesterday.”

  “I don’t suppose you could share the reports and background material on these cases?”

  “I could.” Renke handed Emery a sheaf of papers.

  His sense of guilt deepening, Emery thanked the sheriff, shook his hand, collected his gun and the papers and headed back to Garden City.

  That evening, using a high-quality magnifying glass that Emery kept in his tech bag, they pored over a Google Earth screen grab that J-3 made while Emery was in Ouimet. The kid downloaded the image into a flash drive, saving it down as a high-resolution bitmap. A clerk at an office supply store expanded the image and printed it in color on high-grade paper.

  The result of the kid’s efforts was a reasonably sharp rendition of the building that likely housed the Agricultural Research Center. The building, which J-3, using Google Earth metrics, estimated to be 25,000 square feet in size, consisted of three conjoined rectangles at the southern edge of a long, narrow stretch of rocky scrub land. The land west and south of the building had been broken out for farming; circles as much as a mile in diameter, indicating fields under center-pivot irrigation from the aquifer, dotted this segment of terrain.

  The main section of the building faced east. It stood about 100 yards from a public road, CR 3125, which appeared to end a few miles north of the facility. It intersected with no other roads. A wide, treeless lawn bordered the east side of the building, but a paved area stretched between the north side and what appeared to be a fence. Two smaller wings jutted from the west wall of the main building. Between them was open space studded with roughly a dozen trees, a courtyard perhaps. The fence – it was hard to tell what kind from the satellite photo – bordered the entire property. The structure was situated about six miles northwest of the Eminence, a tiny town that hugged K-156, 21 miles east of Garden City.

  “There’s no other building in the county that could be the ARC?” Emery asked.

  “This has to be the place, Poppy. I went over the satellite pictures for the entire county, which were made two years ago, according to Google. The only other big buildings appeared to be hog shelters. They were long and narrow.”

  Emery squinted through his glasses as he moved the magnifying glass up and down over the image. Then he exclaimed, “Aha.”

  He turned to the kid, his finger on some spots just north of the building, in the middle of the parking lot. “See these? I think this is a WiMax tower array.”

  J-3 nodded. “Sure. Hyenas like these would need high-speed broadband communication for Internet, TV and phone. This is where they hang out when they’re not out busting heads or blowing up innocent people.

  “No cars or trucks in the picture. Looks deserted.”

  “Maybe it was deserted when this photo was made,” Emery said. “Or maybe they keep their vehicles inside, out of sight. They’d have to avoid detection by the locals.”

  “Maybe some of the locals are in on it.”

  “Could be. Let’s scout out the place tomorrow. As it looks like only one way in and out, we’ll rent a fast vehicle for the outing. They’ve seen the Grand Prix. With luck, we won’t run into them.”

  “Let’s take the pistol and shotgun with us in case we do,” J-3 said.

  Chapter 28: Reconnaissance

  November 30, 10:10 a.m.

  “Man, this is some bleak-ass territory,” the kid exclaimed as he piloted their rented gray
Ford F150 toward Eminence. “No wonder no one lives out here. All this space, with gray on top and brown on the bottom, would drive a person insane. I hope there are some trees or other cover near that building. Otherwise, we’re going to have trouble casing it out.”

  “We might need to work around it,” Emery said. “That’s why I chose this four-by-four truck with the big engine instead of that Dodge Charger you wanted. Plus, this vehicle looks less out of place on a country road.”

  The kid glanced over at his father, grinning. “I wanted to drive that hemi so bad.”

  Fifteen minutes later, about three miles west of Eminence, they reached Garfield County Road 3125 and turned north. The road was wider than Emery had expected and had recently been repaved.

  The kid slowed the truck to 50 mph. After 10 minutes, the building, sand-colored, flat-roofed and windowless, came into view. J-3 slowed the truck to 40 mph. Emery crawled into the back seat, pushed aside the shotgun and picked up his new zoom-lens camera, purchased an hour earlier in Garden City. He lowered the side window, admitting an icy breeze, and began shooting pictures of the building.

  The building was sequestered inside 16-foot hurricane fencing topped with coiled razor wire. Probably electrified, too, Emery imagined. Heavy black metal mercury vapor light fixtures were mounted along the roof line. At least three security cameras were mounted among the lights. He drew back and raised the window as they came abreast of the building.

  As they neared a wide concrete driveway, which ran about 100 yards between the road and the building’s huge north-side parking lot, Emery peered closely at the gate through his camera lens. Mounted on thick gray steel pillars, the gates were fabricated of thick horizontal steel slabs in heavy rectangular steel frames. There was no guard station, but cameras were mounted on each of the pillars. Access, Emery imagined, was controlled from within. Or perhaps vehicles assigned to the ARC had transponders that opened the gates automatically.

  He snapped a few more photos through the window glass as they rolled past the gates. Then Emery noted that the two gate cameras were tracking their vehicle. He doubted the lenses could penetrate the truck’s side windows but slid toward the right side of the truck just the same. There were no vehicles in the parking lot. But the north wall of the building included two huge black metal doors more than wide enough to admit large vehicles, even semis.

  Just past the facility, CR 3125 became a dirt road. J-3 moved the truck north until the building disappeared below the horizon. He pulled to the side of the road and stopped. “Now what, Poppy?”

  “See if you can pick up that homing device.”

  The kid pulled the rectangular receiver from his coat pocket. He booted it up. “Bingo. That van is in there.” He showed his father the device’s screen, which displayed a map showing CR 3125 with a red dot blinking beside it.

  Emery took some close-up snaps of the screen. “We have confirmation that this is one of the places the hyenas operate from, maybe the only place. Head on north a bit.”

  The kid set the receiver aside, started the truck and moved on north. After two miles, CR 3125 ended.

  “Engage the four-wheel drive and head east off road,” Emery said.

  “What’s wrong, Poppy?” J-3 asked as he steered the truck off the road.

  “I may be paranoid, but there could be a reception committee waiting for us back at that facility. They were tracking us with the cameras as we went past. They know we have only one way out – on a road.”

  “Ah,” the kid said. “Prudent move, Poppy.”

  As the Ford bumped across the scrub, tires flattening prickly pears and yuccas, Emery picked up the camera and pointed it to the rear. He turned it on, opened the truck’s rear window and extended the zoom lens to the 15x setting. He scanned the land they’d just traversed. As he watched, a yellow Hummer H2 popped above the horizon, moving fast. Before he could speak, he felt the Ford pick up speed.

  The gap between the vehicles increased. Watching with his camera while shooting snapshot after snapshot, Emery could tell that the F150 was the better vehicle for this terrain. It was bouncing over the humps in the terrain – his head bumped into the roof once or twice – but the Hummer bounced higher. “See if you can speed it up. I think we can outrun them.”

  The Ford jerked forward over a low rocky ridge, going airborne by maybe five feet. J-3 executed a perfect four-point landing in the dry wash below it, braking a bit as he turned southeast to follow the wash. He accelerated.

  As Emery watched, still making photos as fast as the camera would allow, the Hummer turned to the Ford’s new course. But as it hit the ridge, it lurched into the air and landed in the wash on its driver’s-side wheels. The driver over-corrected. The right-front wheel slammed to the rocky soil at a 45-degree angle, then buckled. The Hummer rolled over, teetering wheels up momentarily, then settled driver’s side to the ground. As the Ford pulled away, Emery saw a door on the Hummer’s upside flip open. A man’s head and torso emerged from the opening.

  “Wee-hoo,” J-3 yelled. “We got ‘em, Poppy.”

  “We sure did, kid.”

  The crack of a rifle stanched their jubilation. Looking back through the camera lens, Emery saw the man in the H2 tracking the Ford with a long gun. “Veer to the north, kid.” He snapped off more photos, zeroing in on the gunman’s face.

  J-3 slowed the truck, turned leftward and hitting the gas. The truck jumped the banks of the wash into the scrub. Another perfect landing. They heard the rifle crack again. Another miss. J-3 slowed the Ford, executed another leftward turn, then accelerated. The H2 was now out of view.

  “That’s some nice driving, kid,” Emery said fervently.

  J-3 actually blushed. “Thank you, Poppy.”

  He slowed the truck to a more leisurely pace. Bumping eastward for about six miles, they came upon a farm-to-market dirt road and turned south. At K-156, five miles to the south, Emery told J-3 to turn east toward K-23, then south again. He did not want to cross CR 3125. They’d take the long way back to Garden City. Fifteen minutes passed before he stopped watching the road behind them.

  Shortly after 1 p.m., they stopped at Edna’s Café in Cimarron for a bite of lunch. They took a table at the back. Their waitress, a plump young woman in a pink uniform, said, “You were in here about a month ago, talking to Elmer and Henry and them.”

  “I was, Jeanette,” Emery said, reading the name badge pinned below her collar. “Nice to see you again.”

  “You made them boys famous. They’re still trying to live it down. But we sure like your blog here in Cimarron.”

  After she took their orders, J-3 said, “You lead an interesting life, Poppy.”

  “A little too interesting. My heart’s still racing from being shot at today. I honestly didn’t think there was much risk of violence or I wouldn’t have brought you along.”

  “If you hadn’t, you’d be lying dead back in the badlands with 30.06 slugs in the head and heart. Lighten up, Poppy. We used their own energy against them. Judo on wheels. Plus, we had a good time, right?”

  There was no arguing with that.

  But later, when he tried to explain the experience to Carol in landline-to-landline call, he earned himself a long moment of chilly silence. Finally, she said, “You put your son’s life at risk, not to mention your own, and you're telling me what a rush it was. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I honestly didn’t anticipate they'd come after us like that. If I had it to do over again, I'd go by myself. But you understand that I did have to go.”

  “I hate it but I do. So I guess it’s not all bad that your son was with you. They might have gotten you if you'd been alone.”

  “The kid freed me up to get some unbelievable pictures, which I'll post along with my account of the outing.”

  “I can’t wait to see them,” she said dryly.

  The following morning, in two cars, they headed north out of Garden City on U.S. 83, cutting east toward Hays on I-70. There, they returned the C
ivic to Juwan. Emery and the three young people had lunch at the student union on the university campus. Sadie and Juwan reported no security concerns but Juwan, who was a man in love, promised Emery privately that he wouldn’t let lust breed complacency. When lunch was done, Sadie hugged Emery goodbye. This was the high point of his day.

  Father and son got back onto I-70 for the long trip to Lawrence. The sky was dark when they arrived at a small North Lawrence bungalow that J-3 dubbed “the safe house.”

  A skinny multiply tattooed and pierced young man who called himself Stigmata lived there. As if to explain the name choice, he showed Emery irregularly round scarlet tattoos on the backs and palms of his hands. “Stiggy,” as J-3 called him, showed Emery to a small bedroom at the back of the house, told him he could park the Grand Prix in the garage and wrote his wireless router security code on a scrap of paper. Emery thanked him for his hospitality, adding “I'm not sure how long I'll be here. It’s a nice little house. You own it?”

  “Inherited it from my grandma but I'm happy to share it. You can stay as long as you need to, as long as you kick in for food.”

  Father and son motored across the Kaw to the Wal-Mart, where Emery bought two throwaway cell phones. Then they drove to the historic district for another dinner with Alice and Biddle. As host and hostess were blissfully unaware of the home invasion in Ouimet, the Emery men told them their sojourn in western Kansas had been uneventful.

  Chapter 29: Harmon-izing

  December 2, 2 p.m.

  The following afternoon, Emery posted his first story in a week:

  TAX-SUPPORTED THUGS PREY ON KANSANS

  In sparsely populated Garfield County, Kansas, six miles from the town of Eminence, sits the 25,000-square-foot state-owned Agricultural Research Center. But even though Gov. Mabel Hodge and the Legislature have appropriated $1 million to the ARC for the current fiscal year, no research takes place there. Instead, the building provides sanctuary for a group of men whose sole apparent purpose is to inflict misery on the taxpayers whose resources they consume.