by Chuck Dixon
“Don’t let anyone near the car. Okay? We clear on that?”
“Yeah.”
“You have one job, Dale. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I won’t.”
“Move now,” Levon said and slipped away into the scrub.
Dale rose to a crouch. His knees ached. He made a last check of the shotgun and rifle. Rounds chambered. Safeties off. The Beretta was slung over his back. The M4 in his fists. He willed himself to move to the right and clear of the pines. He made his way down toward where he recalled the SUV was parked.
Golden light glowed from the casement windows of two of the buildings. Somewhere a gas generator throbbed. Voices in Spanish came from one of the shacks. Thin voices from a speaker. As he got closer he heard a wave of laughter from an audience. One of the bunkhouses pulsed with the blue glow of a television inside.
He dropped to the cover a thick tree bole surrounded by a thick skirt of ivy at its base. He had a clear line of fire toward the Kia sitting fifty feet from the nearest shack. Dale dropped to one knee and sighted over the rifle held to his shoulder. His ears reached out for fresh sounds. His eyes searched for any movement in the blackness between the collection of buildings.
Dale’s clothes were damp with sweat. His mouth was arid dry. He knew the feeling. He’d been here before more times than he could count. He shook off the chill. He worked his mouth to make a few drops of spit. It was hours since his last cigarette. It surprised him. He’d forgotten all about the pack of Pall Malls crinkling in his shirt pocket.
The canned laughter rose in volume in response to a shrill voice in Spanish from the television. “Esa fue mi hermana!”
A cracking sound echoed from the shacks. It was followed by a rapid series of pops and cracks. Levon was working his M4 somewhere inside the collection of buildings. Dale sighted his rifle. No signs of movement. More sounds reached him. The pop-pop-pop of Levon’s mike-four was answered by the throaty roar of a larger bore weapon. Followed by the chugging of what Dale knew to be a Kalashnikov being fired on full auto. A trio of red tracers arced up over the rooftops to vanish in the trees. The AK went silent.
Voices, real voices, rose now. Men shouted urgent commands. Curses.
Shadows fluttered against the wall of a shack. The voices were clearer now, reaching Dale over the open ground. A man ran into view, sped along by a fresh explosion of fire from Levon’s rifle. The man was naked but for a pair of bikini underwear slung under a belly that wobbled as he ran. The sight might have been comical except for the black shape of a weapon in his hand.
Dale sighted before the man, laying the tang midway between the running figure and the Kia. In the splinter of time before he pressed the trigger home he saw the man had something clenched in his teeth. It jangled with a metallic sound — a key chain.
A three round burst fired a tick to the lead of the running man. The guy ran headlong into the rounds, going down screaming with shots to his legs. Still screaming, the man pulled himself along the ground by his hands toward the Kia. Dale stood for a better angle and sent another three round burst into the fallen man’s center mass. The man lay still.
A boom followed by flying wood chips and bark raining on Dale’s head and shoulders. A man stood in the partial cover of a corner of the nearest shack. He was pumping a fresh round into a shotgun. Dale returned fire as he dropped. The shots went wild. The shotgun man, emboldened, stepped from cover. He had the shotgun raised to his shoulder, barrel trained lower now. He racked and fired three charges of buck in as many seconds.
Shot whistled past Dale, snapping the tops from the milkweeds he lay in for cover. He lay on his side throwing fire toward the shotgun man who was haring for the Kia. The guy was a cool one, popping rounds into the pump gun as he moved. He was almost to the door of the vehicle. Dale’s rounds chased him in a sweeping arc but none connected.
The shotgun man paused in mid-flight. He looked like someone who was planning a road trip and had the thought he’d forgotten something. His legs folded under him and he dropped to the weeds.
“Coming to you!” Levon’s voice clear in the sudden silence.
Levon moved from the cover of the shacks at a fast walk. The M4 shouldered. He fired two controlled bursts at the place where the shotgun man had dropped. He kept moving forward, pumping two rounds into the near-naked guy at point blank range.
"Clear." Levon stood scanning the dark. The rifle was lowered to his chest. From one of the shacks came mariachi music: blaring horns and a man singing in a trilling tenor.
Dale stood on shaking legs to walk toward Levon.
“You okay?” Levon said.
“I think so,” Dale said. He looked down at himself. No bleeds. He didn’t hurt anywhere but he knew that meant nothing.
“There were seven. These two are the last.”
“This one has the car keys.” Dale tilted his chin at the white figure lying face down in the weeds. Blood gleamed black on the flabby flesh. Dale stood panting. He could feel his heartbeat driving hard in his arms and his neck.
“You all right, Dale?” Levon stooped to pick up the key chain gleaming silver in the moonlight.
“Sure. Fucking A. I feel great.” And he did. The aftermath of an adrenaline rush combined with the familiar thrill of having gone into a shit storm and come out the other end alive. He laughed and put his hand over his mouth to muffle it.
“You know what?” he said. “I’ve never been more hungry in my life.”
“Good. Means you’re alive.” Levon turned to head back to the shacks.
“Where we going?” Dale said. He trotted to Levon’s side.
“We’re not done here.”
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Killing men is work. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”
18
The largest building was the lab. Another was a kind of barracks with steel frame bunk beds enough for eight men. The smallest was storage, as well as what looked like a common room. This was where the television was along with a card table and chairs and an aging, sprung seat sofa. A mini-fridge and a microwave were in the corner of a makeshift kitchen area. There were five-gallon plastic drums stacked against a wall.
Two men lay dead on the floor by collapsed chairs. It looked like they were snacking on milk and cookies and watching television when Levon surprised them. They were young guys laying in a mix of spattered milk and their own blood. A shotgun leaned against the wall by the door. Out of reach when the shit came down. Might as well have been on the moon.
Levon stepped over them to snap the TV off. The silence left behind was filled by the returning cadence of night noises from the woods. Cicadas and toads.
Dale helped himself to an unopened bag of cream sandwich cookies he found in a cabinet. He washed them down with a can of Coors he found in a cooler. Nothing ever tasted so good.
Levon popped the top of one of the plastic drums. It was filled with sealed plastic baggies of equal weight containing what looked like powdery white rocks. Crystal meth. This was the product of the on-site lab — millions of dollars' worth in a dozen or more buckets.
“We need to take all of these with us,” Levon said. He sealed the lid back in place with a tap of his fist.
“The drugs? Why?” Dale said. His stomach rumbled. He was already regretting his snack.
“This has to look like a robbery. A rival outfit. It’ll have their bosses looking in all the wrong places for a while.”
Dale stood blinking. He didn’t like the idea but saw no other option.
“Start stacking them outside. I’m going to search the lab.” Levon left Dale alone with the dead men.
Levon returned to the lab building. One man lay dead in an aisle between tables loaded down with tanks and tubes and the other equipment required to cook the mix that became crank. This had been the first man to die. Levon had found him working alone. Two shots to the back of the head while he bent over a laptop. Close up. No wild shots in this contained environment lo
aded with unstable chemical elements. The last thing Levon wanted was an explosion and, worse, a fire. He and Dale would need all the lead time they could get before this slaughter was discovered.
Holding his breath, he took a face mask from a hook off the wall and strapped it in place. It smelled like the breath of the last man to wear it. Onions and beer. It would keep the dangerous fumes in the air out of his lungs.
He worked quickly, pulling boxes, cartons and crates from the shelves before tossing them aside. His boots crunched on broken glass scattered everywhere on the concrete floor. At the rear of the lab was a steel cabinet locked with a padlock. There was a ring of keys on the belt of the man on the floor. One of them fit the padlock. Inside the cabinet, he found what he was looking for.
Three canvas bags heavy with cash. All denominations of bills in thick rolls bound with rubber bands. Hard to tell how much was there. Mid six figures, he guessed from experience. His learning curve for rough estimating the value of bundles of currency had sharpened in recent months.
Levon hefted the bags and carried them outside. He found Dale bent over, puking up a stinking mess of Hydrox and beer. The plastic buckets were stacked.
“Back the truck up,” Levon said. He tossed the key ring to his half-brother.
The buckets were loaded into the cargo area and back seat of the Kia. The rifles went atop them. The money bags rested on the console between them and on the floor at Dale’s feet.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Levon said.
“We keeping this money?” Dale said. His arm rested atop a bag, the shoulder strap tight in his fist.
“I can’t see why not.”
“The drugs?”
“We’ll find a place to dump them. Or bury them.”
Levon piloted the Kia down the narrow jeep trail to where it joined the graveled fire road. He swung right to point them toward the county road.
“What about my truck? Can’t leave it there. Can’t move it either,” Dale said.
“One thing at a time. The Walmart in Haley. Is it a twenty-four hour?” Levon said.
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s go.”
They reached the county road and Levon turned left for Haley. Dale stared at the road ahead, the world of dark revealed only by the headlights stabbing into the night before them. He was surprised to find his hands weren’t shaking. He was less surprised when he realized he’d been sweeping the shoulders of the road for possible IEDs while his half-brother drove.
“Are ya’ll going to be all right?” Jessie Hamer said.
She looked from the kitchen to the family room where Merry had fallen asleep on the sofa watching a movie on TV. Sandy had covered her with a throw and headed off to bed an hour before.
“I hate to do this, Jessie. I really do. But Dale took me way out to God knows where and his damn truck broke down.” Levon sounded contrite on the phone. She could hear the sounds of the woods at night behind his voice.
“Well, she’s asleep now. I’d just as soon she spent the night here. I’ll call Fern to let him know what’s happening.”
“Very kind of you.”
“No trouble at all, Levon. Merry’s been a joy to have over. Do you want me to send Fern out to where you are?”
"I wouldn't know how to tell him where we are. Somewhere in the woods above the watershed."
“All right. You get here when you can.”
“Thanks so much, Jessie. I owe you.”
They made their goodbyes and she replaced the phone in the charger.
19
Walmart was a graveyard at two in the morning. They bought eight cans of Fix-a-Flat, two gallons of bleach, a cube of car-cleaning rags and rubber gloves. They bought cheeseburgers and Cokes at a McDonald's drive-through. They ate on the way back to Dale's truck. They passed two cars the whole way.
The headlights reflected yellow eyes near the bodies around Dale’s truck. Foxes. Black shapes slinked away low to the ground into the greater dark.
The truck was as they left it. The ATVs also. Levon played a light over the scene. The foxes had gotten to the body of the cowboy. The soft tissue of his face was eaten away, leaving behind white bone gleaming wet. The other two were undisturbed except for columns of ants.
Levon pumped the tires full while Dale cranked the engine to listen to the police scanner. A domestic disturbance in a trailer park. A single car accident near the high school. Levon tossed the empty aerosol cans into the truck bed. They both slipped on rubber gloves and wiped the borrowed rifles with rags soaked in bleach then tossed the guns near the bodies. Together they wiped down every surface inside and outside the Kia. They pulled off the gloves and stuffed them in the McDonald’s bag along with the rest of their trash. They transferred the buckets of crystal and cash bags to the bed of Dale’s truck.
“Your tires will last to get us home. Not much beyond that,” Levon said.
“Can you come take me to the Goodyear tomorrow?” Dale said.
“Yeah. You have a place to stash those buckets?”
“I got a garage. I’ll lock them in there.”
“Take me on home. We’ll get some sleep and finish this in the morning.”
They got in the county truck. Dale did a three-point and aimed them back toward the county road through the woods. The sky was turning pink through the limbs above. Dale was so tired he felt boneless. His mouth and his eyes were dry and itchy. Everything seemed unreal and far away. Everything was fuzzy around the edges.
“Take a shower when you get home,” Levon said.
“I know I stink,” Dale said.
“We both do. It’s not that. You need to get any residue off you. Wash all your clothes too. Better yet, burn them.”
Dale nodded. He turned onto the county road. Cars came down the opposing lane, headlights casting watery light in the gray gloom. People driving to work in Colby, getting an early start on the day. They came to a stop behind a school bus flashing red lights where it was parked outside the entrance to a subdivision. A half dozen kids lined up to board. Women waiting with them, watching the bus take off. They all turned to walk back home, talking in pairs. No one spared a glance at the county truck following the yellow bus away toward town.
“Did we do the right thing here, Levon?” Dale said.
“We did the only thing,” Levon said.
20
Danny Huff leaned back against the door of his state car to slip a pair of Tyvek booties over his brogans. He stood and adjusted his waistband to bring his holstered Colt revolver back to its accustomed place. He’d worn the big revolver so long there was a permanent indentation on his hip. He snapped his leather-clad badge onto his belt before flipping open a pair of Ray Bans from his shirt pocket. It was a warm one with summer almost here. He swept a hand through jet black hair and it came away damp with sweat. He left the suit jacket in the car.
He joined Ralph Durward on the gravel fire road. Durward had booties on over his trooper boots. The pink slip-ons contrasted with the trooper’s immaculately pressed navy blue uniform and light blue tie. Other state cops and county deputies stood about among the vehicles waiting for further orders. There were state and local SUVs and cruisers along with a county coroner truck and a big forensics bus driven up from the Montgomery barracks overnight. They were arrayed along the verges of the forest road.
“Special Agent Huff,” Bill said and extended his hand to Durward. “State Bureau is taking lead here and I lost the coin toss.”
"Glad to have you here, sir," Durward said. He took Danny's hand in a strong dry grip. Blue eyes in a sun-creased face like tanned leather. A lifer, the man gave away nothing. If he was glad about giving up lead or angry right down to the ground, Danny would never know.
“Have you been to the crime scene?” Danny said.
“I took a look. I can walk you through what we know and what we don’t know,” Durward said.
“Always good to know what you don’t know,” Danny said.
; The trooper grunted a reply and led Danny past the other lawmen to where bands of yellow crime scene tape were stretched taut between trees across the opening of a dirt track. Durward held up the tape to allow Danny to duck under then followed.
They walked the track alone. It curved down into a deep holler, sheltering trees seeming to rise higher into the sky as they walked.
“Any sign of tire tracks?” Danny said. He gestured to the road surface of packed dirt.
"A heavy rain two nights ago washed away anything useful. There are depressions from a vehicle being parked closer into the buildings.”
“Who found the bodies?”
"Kid down in one of the developments lost his dog. The family was up here hiking when the dog ran off. They came up this trail and ran across this site and called it in. County boys responded. Called us in right away."
“What about the other site?” Danny said.
“Found it when county boys went on a canvass for any campers or such might have seen or heard anything. Found the other three bodies and their all-terrains a couple miles uphill.”
“How long they been there?”
“Rough estimate only? A week or more. Animals have been at them. Bugs and such. Wild dogs. Same thing at Site Two. I’d bet even money they all died around the same time.”
“So, they ever find him?”
“Sir?”
“The dog. Did the family ever find the dog?” Danny said.
“No. They never did,” Durward said.
Following his walk-around, Danny called in the forensics team. They parked their big ass bus as far along the trail as they dared bring it. An environmental clean-up team assigned by the county showed up as well. Danny had to settle a disagreement between them before it turned into a feud. The forensics nerds would deal with all of the crime scene except the lab building. They could have that when the tox crew finished their evaluation and cleared it for entry.