by Archer Mayor
Around its lower left edge, barely caught by the outermost halo of Sam’s flashlight, there was a flicker of a movement as her quarry ducked around the gantry’s base for cover.
“I got you now,” she muttered, and ran again with renewed purpose.
But she hadn’t gotten him. Scrambling down the embankment leading to the tower’s foundation, entering the concrete-lined empty pool that had once served to absorb the rocket’s fiery blast, she swung around the same corner she’d seen her prey take, and found nothing.
Once more, she stopped dead still, listening.
He was inside, and she could hear the rhythmic pattern of feet climbing a metal ladder.
It defied logic—amid a square mile of forestland, in the dead of night—to climb a tall object with no hope of escape. It spoke of the raccoon heading for a tree, solely in the hope of a little respite before death.
Sam’s response was equally impetuous. With backup almost in sight, informed of the situation, and a surround-and-hold scenario available within moments, she nevertheless killed her light and acted like Brio, perhaps influenced by his sacrifice. She ran through the small service entrance she saw in the steel wall, and entered the heart of the empty, cavernous, sixty-foot-tall rocket gantry—abruptly feeling like a mouse at the bottom of an enormous, jet-black, hollowed-out, square-sided silo.
For a fraction of a moment, she almost considered her situation, and how rashly she’d acted.
Until she heard the resumption of heavy shoes pounding on steel rungs, high against the structure’s far wall.
Quickly detaching her darkened flashlight from her shotgun barrel, she laid it on the ground, turned it on, and moved far to one side, shouting up and across the darkness, “Drop your gun and come down. NOW.”
The flashlight showed little except the rubble-strewn surface of the gantry’s battered floor. But that wasn’t why she’d placed it there.
Almost on cue, she heard her quarry’s footsteps pause on the steel rungs above, just before a volley of gun flashes broke out overhead, and the now distant light’s beam became wreathed in splintered stone dust.
Sammie aimed her shotgun at the last muzzle flash and fired two responding rounds of double-aught buckshot. There was a scream of pain, the rattling of a handgun bouncing haphazardly down the ladder, and silence.
Sam commanded, “Come down or the next shot takes you out. DO IT NOW.”
Slowly, the sound of his descent drowned out by the arrival of backup troops, Sam first heard and then saw by the glow of a dozen bobbing flashlights, a limping man being escorted toward her. He was bleeding from several wounds to his arms and legs, and had to be supported by both arms.
As they came eye to eye, he snarled, “Bitch.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Pisser to be shot by a girl, huh?”
* * *
She found Lisa Schamberg and Brio where she’d left them, with Lisa now struggling to control her dog from getting up and running in circles.
“That adrenaline, or is he okay?” Sam asked, drawing near.
“Both,” Lisa reported, laughing. “The bullet grazed his skull and disoriented him a little. I’ll have him checked out, but he looks like he’ll make it.”
Sam crouched down beside them as the handler kept running her hands along his body. Lisa buried her face in his fur and gave him a nuzzle. When she looked up, Sam could see that her eyes were damp. “How ’bout you?” Sam asked.
“I’m good.”
Sam kept watching her silently. Lisa returned the gaze, blinked a couple of times, and finally added in a broken voice, “I thought I lost him.”
Sam slipped a comforting arm across her shoulders.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Willy sat in his car outside his daughter’s day-care center, warmed in the morning sun that was slanting through his window. The center was on a residential street, a dead end, which heightened its isolation and sense of security.
His seat was half reclined, his head resting partially against the door post behind him. It was not a good defensive position—atypically for him. He was vulnerable, exposed, and with no sight lines established for any approaching threats. And he was fighting back tears.
His phone lay in his lap, his hand still partially curled around it, from when he’d disconnected just moments ago. He’d been wishing Emma a good day as the call came through.
He was grateful for the timing. The kids were inside for the moment, the street empty of people still doing their morning routines behind closed doors. He was free to be alone with his emotions.
The call had been from a triumphant Sammie, relating that she was fine and unharmed, that they’d grabbed Charlotte Robinson’s killer in a showdown and he was spilling his guts from a hospital room under armed guard.
Willy didn’t give a damn about any of that. He’d already been told of some of it by Joe, in an earlier call, along with the news that Joe was leaving for Albany to receive a personal briefing on the whole operation—and did Willy want to join him, to congratulate Sammie in person?
Willy had opted out, claiming childcare obligations and a meeting with the Windsor cops in a couple of hours. That hadn’t been entirely truthful, of course.
Willy hadn’t wept in years—decades, really. And he wasn’t quite doing so now. Tears represented an aspect of his emotional makeup he’d pretty much quashed since childhood. He could whip out rage, bitterness, and even humor readily enough. But rarely sadness, and never fear. At the first signs of their looming, he shut them down with the forcefulness of a man fighting for a lifeline.
But after kissing Emma good-bye and hearing Sam’s exuberant voice on the phone, he was suddenly overwhelmed. The news of her being okay had startled him with its accompanying relief and gratitude, and—combined with his farewell to Emma just now—had confirmed in him an ingrained sense of insignificance. For all his public self-confidence, Willy was a man who struggled to simply stay alive. He doubted that anyone would feel the same relief for him that he’d just felt upon hearing of Sam’s survival. He realized now, for a fact, that he’d be destroyed by the loss of either Sam or Emma—while he had to acknowledge that either of them would survive his being lost to them. They would mourn his passing, and perhaps remember his good traits. But they would go on.
And so the barely withheld tears were also in anger—although not at being marginalized. In a man as complex as he, his slipping from everyone’s memory was cynically predictable. Willy’s fury was at himself, for thinking selfishly, for appearing narcissistic. He didn’t allow himself to weep, to display overt expressions of affection, reliance, or helplessness, less because they were signs of weakness, and more because they might bind him to other human beings—the only species on this earth that had betrayed him as a kid, and was now feeding his reluctant adult heart with love.
He shook his head, frustrated by this disturbance to his long-standing, now threatened, view of reality, righted his seat back, started his car, and headed toward Windsor.
* * *
“They here from Springfield yet?” Willy asked Colin as he was buzzed through to the back of the Windsor Police Department and met his old friend in the hallway.
The sergeant pointed over his shoulder at a closed-circuit television mounted onto Dispatch’s wall. “If I were a betting man, I’d say that’s them right now—sure looks like a car feds would drive.”
They walked outside to greet the two men getting out of the tinted-window, gleaming black SUV in the lot.
The driver was of special interest to Willy, who gave the man an affable smile as he made the introductions. “Special Agent Dorman, from Homeland Security; Sergeant Colin Guyette—Windsor PD.”
Dorman, not smiling, returned the honors by barely introducing his passenger, whose name Willy didn’t catch, before addressing Willy directly. “Before witnesses, I’d like it understood that if whatever you’ve cooked up here doesn’t meet with some high expectations, I’m going to take it out on you by filing cr
iminal charges against you—details and specifics to follow. You and I know what I’m talking about. Is that understood?”
Willy laughed, confident that the man could actually do no such thing, despite his suspicions. “What’s understood is that you made the trip, despite your dislike of me, and I appreciate that. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.”
Dorman turned to Guyette. “You good with our being here? This cowboy plays by his own rules. He pulled a fast one on us, and I want to make sure he’s not doing the same to you.”
Guyette waved his hands. “No, no. It’s fine with us. I’ve been helping him with this—”
“Colin brought it to me, on his own initiative,” Willy interrupted. “He deserves an assist if you people do that sort of thing.”
Colin was self-deprecating. “Yeah, well, whatever. Anyhow, my boss is on board, too. If you like what you see, we’ll be more than happy to see it all go federal.”
Dorman pressed his lips together tightly before continuing, “Okay. The bait was you got proof somebody’s sabotaging U.S. military equipment. That correct?”
“Basically,” Willy said cheerfully as Colin gave him a doubtful sideways glance.
* * *
After bringing the two HSI agents up to speed, Willy and Colin drove them to a nearby apartment a short way down Union Street, to where they’d temporarily safeguarded a contented Chris Walker. He’d had no complaints being kept under wraps, with access to TV and all his meals being paid for by the State of Vermont.
“Okay,” Willy told him after everyone had settled down inside the small but tidy top-floor apartment, “Chris, it’s time for you to earn your keep.”
Walker responded with predictable sharpness of mind, “Huh?” prompting Dorman to roll his eyes at his colleague.
“Remember how I told you we’d take care of you if you did the same for us later on?” Willy reminded him.
“I guess.”
“This is later on.”
Walker had been eating a raw hot dog, without a bun, his teeth and wounded lip having improved at least that much. He paused to swallow before saying, “Okay.”
“We need for you to call Robb Haag, tell him you’ve been in the hospital because of what happened to you—call it an infection of one of your injuries—and that you want to come back to work for him. Tell him you need the money.”
“But I don’t like working for him.”
“I know that, Chris. This is make-believe, okay? We just want Haag to come out and pick you up at the hospital. Tell him they’re letting you out in a bit, after a few more tests, and that you’ll be waiting for him at the front of the hospital, on the edge of County Road, okay? That last part’s important—on the edge of the road, where he can pick you up without having to pull in.”
Walker was staring at him intently enough to have been reading his lips, and now nodded solemnly. “Edge of the road. Got it.”
* * *
“Since we’re all so cozy,” Alex Dorman said an hour later to Willy as the two of them were clustered together with Colin in the back of an unmarked van in the hospital parking lot, “I hope it’s okay if I make it perfectly clear that I know you were the one who fucked us over regarding Sunny Malik—up to and including breaking into his place and torturing him to get information.”
As Willy opened his mouth to respond, Dorman held up his hand. “No, no, no. Stop right there. That was a statement of fact. I don’t want you to argue, or lie, or do anything about it. You’re in deep enough as it is. I just wanted you to know that despite what you woodchucks might think of us, we are not complete idiots. Plus, we got your decoy from the other night and squeezed him hard enough to throw the book at you.”
“Okay,” Willy said slowly, inviting more.
For all that was coming out of his mouth, Dorman was being perfectly affable, which made Willy almost more nervous than if he’d been screaming at him.
“The bottom line, Kunkle,” the fed continued, “is that unlike you, I’m a team player. That’s why I’m here right now. But I give you fair warning: You come to my town again, and pull shit like that, I will respond. Does that sound legit?”
Willy was famous for shooting his mouth off, and often using a conciliatory opportunity like this to make matters worse. But this time, perhaps moved by his morning’s moment of self-reflection, he merely said, “Yes, it does.”
Dorman seemed appeased. “Then tell me why the hell you chose this weird spot for an ambush.”
Colin laughed as Willy explained, “You mean risk a shoot-out in front of a hospital? Can’t beat the commute if things go wrong.”
Dorman stared at him, not bothering to comment.
Willy laid it out. “The hospital’s up the hill behind us, pretty safe from any gunfire; the town forest is directly across the street—great for safety and hiding backup; County Road—the hospital notwithstanding—is pretty empty most of the time; and we’ve got cutoff driveways in front of and behind the pickup spot.”
“Not to mention the road’s boxed in by a ditch on one side and an embankment on the other,” Colin chimed in. “The real point of this thing is that Haag has a half dozen heavy weapons hanging on his wall, and we wanted him away from as many of them as possible.”
“You guys are the locals,” Dorman conceded, his tone doubtful. “If he’s that dangerous, you sure about your setup?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Willy said airily. In fact, he was, as usual, taking a calculated gamble. There was a school of thought that believed in applying full force and all resources to every problem, almost regardless of known factors. Such believers were never wrong, in Willy’s retelling, even when they failed spectacularly, because they could quote “The Book” as their guiding light, chapter and verse, and therefore blame it by extension, win or lose.
He hated the mindless Book approach—always had. In his experience, if you thought an operation through, and used tactics based on real-world calculations, you always had a better chance of success. Was it foolproof? Never. But if Willy screwed up, he wanted to know how, so that he could improve. The Book rarely supplied that latitude or learning curve.
As for Robb Haag, what were they dealing with? Someone disgruntled, presumptuous, impatient, antisocial, not as smart as his own arrogance would have him believe, and probably undermined by a nagging insecurity. This was the portrait Willy had gleaned from tracking the man’s footsteps. Yes, he had guns, and yes, he might use them if the circumstances were right, but within the context that Willy had established with this ambush? He thought not.
He found out soon enough. Despite his other character flaws, it turned out that Haag was punctual. Some five minutes after Chris Walker had been all but pushed outside to wander complaining to the curb—where, to Willy’s delight, he immediately sat down on the grass—a typical Vermont rust bucket hove into view from the south end of County Road and noisily rolled to a stop right next to Walker.
Colin raised his binoculars to make sure the driver was indeed the man they were after—and that he was alone—before keying the mic on his radio and urging, “Go, go, go, go.”
What happened next was textbook, and even impressive from their remote observation spot. Guyette had trained his people well, and briefed them precisely. Mimicking a training film, vehicles appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and black-clad, ski-masked officers burst from the nearby woods, armed to excess, screaming orders at the top of their lungs.
They surrounded Haag’s vehicle, pulled open his doors, dragged him from the car, and laid him flat on the pavement. Others quickly checked the car’s interior, including the trunk, before the team leader announced on the radio, glancing in their direction, “Scene’s secure.”
Willy looked at Dorman. “That work for you?”
The fed smiled back. “Yup.”
* * *
Lester chose his moment with care. By now, he had his suspicions about what role Pat Hartnett had played in the death of Ryan Paine, but he had no proof, and Hartne
tt was a fellow police officer—a double circumstance demanding discretion, tact, and timing.
He had dug into the man’s past with Nicole LaBrie’s help, and had found, if not a smoking gun, at least the history of two failed marriages, several official reprimands for faulty police work from Bellows Falls and the state’s attorney’s office, and a generalized portrait of a man who—in a way oddly similar to Ryan Paine and Dylan Collier—had managed to stay employed by just barely scraping alongside his employer’s expectations.
Sadly, as the public was becoming increasingly aware, police officers were cut from the same broad cloth of competence as most other professionals, despite recruitment efforts to accept only candidates glowing with integrity, dedication, long fuses, and good people skills.
Lester had decided to approach Hartnett off duty, but far from Dee Rollins, and to do so in an open, nonthreatening environment, which explained his now watching the casually dressed officer—fresh from clocking out at the PD and changing clothes—park his car outside Wilmington’s local grocery store.
Les additionally thought it would play better if he headed Hartnett off prior to any shopping, just in case ice cream or other perishable items might be on the man’s list.
As a result, having stationed his car near the store’s entrance, he got out and waited for Hartnett to draw abreast.
“Pat,” he called out in a friendly tone.
Hartnett cocked his head, carefully taking him in without breaking stride. Cops are a wary bunch, especially when caught by surprise. “I know you?”
“Lester Spinney,” he said, pushing himself off from leaning against his car to walk forward, his hand extended in greeting.
Hartnett stopped and shook hands in an uninterested way, muttering, “Oh, yeah. VBI, right?”
“Yeah. Good memory,” Lester praised him. He indicated the store. “I know you’re on your own time. I hope this is okay.”
Hartnett gave a shrug, his eyes maintaining the wariness common to people too used to being called on the carpet. “No big deal. Just getting a couple of things on the way home. What’s it about?”