24 Declassified: Head Shot (2009) (13 page)

Armstrong said, “Search planes and helicopters would be a big help. We could get county and state police pilots to start combing the region.”

Wright said flatly, “I can light a fire under them to make that happen.”

“But it’s got to be done discreetly. A mass panic is the last thing we want.” Wright blanched. “My God, no! That would ruin the Round Table!”

Jack said, “We don’t know what the Zealots are up to. Whatever it is, it’s vital that they not get into Sky Mount to carry it out.”

Don Bass said, “That’s something we can do something about! Sky Mount’s greatest strength is its defensibility. It’s protected by concentric rings of security cordons. The only viable approach is from the east. The mountains provide a natural defense barrier on the other three sides. We’ve got shooters posted on the high ledges just in case any strike force is mountain goat enough to scale those peaks.

“That leaves us open on the east. We’ve got the county and state cops controlling all access roads to the park. From there Brand takes over and our cordon is even tighter. Nobody can get
in or out of the main gate without proper ID. Between our men on the gate and the police auxiliaries outside, we’ve got the firepower to repel any mass attack.”

Jack said, “Suppose they get close enough to crash the gate with a truck loaded with explosives?”

“The inside of the drive is rigged with a bed of concealed spikes a dozen yards long. If the gate goes down the spikes come up and they’ll rip to pieces the tires of any vehicle before it gets more than a couple of feet inside.”

“How about if they skip the gate and crash through a section of the fence?”

“The reinforced stone fence pillar posts are strong enough and too close for any truck to get through.”

“What about cars?”

Don Bass stroked his chin. “You might have something there. We’ll post some extra snipers and run roving patrols of crash cars along the inside of the fence line to harden the targets. We’ll pay a double bonus to the crash car drivers—I don’t think we’ll lack for volunteers.”

Jack said, “Sounds good. What about an air assault, a private plane that’s a flying bomb designed to crash into the building?”

Anne Armstrong said, “We’re ahead of you there, Jack. You came into the middle of the movie on that score. We’ve got the Air Force and the Air National Guard posted to forestall just such an attempt. The air space for a several hundred square miles around has been declared a restricted no-fly zone for the conference. Any unauthorized aircraft entering the zone will be forced down or shot down. Besides which, it would take a hell of a pilot to be able to fly through these peaks to make the approach.”

Don Bass added, “But in case some hotshot should get through, confidentially, we’ve got an anti-aircraft nest set up in the heights armed with a couple of Stinger missiles as a last resort.”

Jack said, “Glad to hear it.”

Cabot Wright shook his head sadly. “Lord! The precautions that must be taken merely to hold a peaceful and positive gathering whose purpose is the betterment of society and the national—and global— economy! It’s enough to drive one to despair . . .”

Jack said, “That’s the way we have to live today.”

The double doors opened and Larry Noone entered, purposeful, grim-faced. Don Bass said, “What is it, Larry?” Noone said, “Those ATF agents have just been

found.”

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 A.M. AND 10 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME

Lone Pine Gorge, Colorado

The car was at the bottom of Lone Pine Gorge. The gorge was a narrow, rocky, V-shaped cleft in the foothills of Mount Nagaii.

Jack and Anne Armstrong had to approach it by a dirt road that turned west off Nagaii Drive, traversing several miles of woodlands before curving north to run along the bottom of the slope. The rutted road was in bad shape, and it was a rough ride for the Mercedes.

The road skirted the gorge, bypassing it. The mouth of the cleft was obscured by a lot of brush and would have been easy to miss had it not been for the cars and emergency vehicles parked outside it.

A woodland path branched off the dirt road, leading into the gorge. The path was too tough for the Mercedes. The two agents had to get out and walk. They were challenged by a county sheriff’s department deputy posted at the foot of the path to keep out civilians and other unauthorized personnel. They showed their CTU ID cards and were allowed to proceed.

Trees grew on both sides of the gorge entrance, meeting overhead to form a canopy of foliage. The path was little more than a trail, accessible only to heavy-duty SUVs rigged for off-road running. The overhanging trees formed a tunnel through a hundred feet or so of greenery. It was cool and dim under the trees except where sunbeams slanted through gaps between the boughs.

The tunnel ended, opening into a steep-sided ravine bright with sunlight. A thin trickling creek ran through the middle of the bottom of the gorge. Tufts of dry, weedy grass sprouted in clumps along its length.

The rocky terrain otherwise supported little in the way of vegetation. The north side featured a projecting ledge about two hundred feet above the ground on which stood a single tree. A long-dead tree weathered silver-gray, its twisted branches bare of any foliage. Jack guessed that this was the lone pine that had given the gorge its name, although as far as he could see there was nothing about it to identify it as a pine.

Jack was feeling better, his headache had lessened, possibly because of the aspirins or being at a lower attitude or a combination of the two. The left side of his face where he’d been struck still felt stiff and swollen, though.

A few vehicles—a tow truck and two police SUVs—had managed to bull their way up the trail path and into the gorge. A knot of people was centered around a wreck at the bottom of the ravine.

The wreck had been a dark green sedan; now it looked like a piece of metal that had been wadded up into a ball and thrown away. Jack looked up to see where the car had gone off the edge of Rimrock Road some eight hundred feet above. He had to tilt his head far back to see it, so that he was looking almost straight up. Police and emergency personnel were clustered around the wreck. A few paramedics stood off to one side, waiting; there wasn’t much for them to do until the two occupants were freed from the wreck. They’d have little more to do when that time came than to declare them DOA, dead on arrival.

Some mechanics from the tow truck were wrestling with a Jaws of Life device to pry open the collapsed metal, but the wreck was so crumpled up that they were unsure of where to begin applying the pressure and had already gotten off to a few false starts.

Jack stood at the edge of the group, craning to see inside the wreck. A pulpy mass of flesh and tangled limbs was sandwiched inside the collapsed heap, in such a condition that it was impossible to tell if it comprised one body or two.

A man in a pair of gray twill coveralls who’d been laboring in vain to pry open a compressed metal flange looked up and said, “This ain’t working. We’ll probably have to cut ’em out with a torch.”

A county deputy said, “Can’t do that here, too much risk of fire.”

The mechanic said, “No gas in the tank. It busted on the way down and spilled the contents all over the gorge. Lucky it didn’t catch fire and burn.”

“Yeah, lucky.”

“You don’t want to start fooling around with a torch with all that spilled gas around here. Might start off a real blaze.”

“Best tow it into town then.”

“How? Got to have at least two working wheels on it to give it a tow and there ain’t none of them. Nothing to tow.”

A man in a short-brimmed hat and a dark suit who’d been listening to the conversation put himself forward. “You can’t just leave them out here, for God’s sake.”

Anne Armstrong told Jack, “That’s Inspector Cullen of the Denver branch of the ATF.” She spoke in a low voice so that only he could hear it.

The mechanic said, “My advice is to hook it up to the tow truck winch and drag it out of here to the dirt road. Get a flatbed truck out there. Flatbed couldn’t get into here but it should be able to handle the access road.
Hoist the wreck on the flatbed and take it to town where we can open it properly with the right tools.”

Cullen said, “Do it, then.”

The mechanic looked him up and down. “And who might you be, mister?”

“Cullen of the ATF. Those are my men in there.”

“Oh. Sorry. You’ll sign the authorization? I got to know who to bill for it, the county or the state or whoever—”

“The Federal government’ll pay for it. Give me the paperwork and I’ll sign it and you can get the show on the road.”

“Coming right up, mister. Again, sorry about them fellows of yours. These mountain roads are a tricky proposition in even the best of weather.” The mechanic went to the tow truck to get the paperwork.

Jack and Anne Armstrong went over to Cullen. She and Cullen were professionally acquainted, having worked joint operations in the past. Cullen had a wedge-shaped face with narrow slitted eyes, a knife-blade nose, and a thin horizontal slit of a mouth. Armstrong and Jack expressed their condolences.

Cullen said, “Mountain road my eye! Dean and O’Hara have been working this territory for years. They were both expert drivers. If that is them in the wreck.”

Jack said, “Do you have any reason to doubt it?”

“The condition they’re in, their own mothers wouldn’t recognize them. But I’m sure it’ll turn out to be them, worse luck. It was no driving mishap that did them in, though.”

“I’d say that’s a sure bet.”

Cullen turned his narrow-eyed gaze full on Jack. “You know that or are you just guessing?”

“We lost a man at Red Notch last night and it was no accident. He was shot dead.”

“Who was it?”

“Frank Neal.”

“Too bad. He was a good man. So were O’Hara and Dean. And it happened last night?”

“Yes.”

“Dean and O’Hara went missing the night before, Wednesday. I figure that that’s when whatever happened to them happened. The car wasn’t found until today. Somebody reported a gap in the guardrail up top yesterday, but the wreck couldn’t be seen from up there so it wasn’t followed up on. A Boy Scout troop hiking in the area found it early this morning.

“Neal was killed last night, eh? That compound’s a death trap even after it’s been abandoned. Who did it? Zealots?”

Jack shrugged. “No proof on that either way yet.”

Cullen shook his head. “They were always a screwball outfit, but nothing compared to some of the other groups on our list. No history of any real violence apart from minor scuffles at demonstrations, breaking windows, resisting arrest, that sort of thing. We monitored them more as a preventive measure than anything else, to make sure they kept out of trouble.

“Well, they’re in it now, right up to their necks. Too bad killers don’t hang anymore. Lethal injection is a whole lot less satisfying somehow. But I’ll settle for it when we get the bastards.”

Anne Armstrong said, “Were your men working on anything specific on Wednesday night?”

Cullen shook his head. “Routine monitoring, maybe stepped up a notch on account of this Round Table meeting. What about your man?”

“Just doing a follow- up, checking out the compound.”

“The Zealots must’ve gone kill-crazy. Maybe Prewitt had a divine revelation that the time had come for him to take up the sword.”

“He’s not the type for divine revelations. More likely he reasoned that events required him to seize the world- historical moment.”

“We’ll ask him before he’s wheeled into the death chamber on a gurney.”
Jack said, “Got to find him fi
rst.”

Cullen said, “We’ll find him.”

The mechanic approached with a clipboard with a stack of papers attached. Cullen said, “Excuse me, I’ve got to take care of this.”

Anne Armstrong said, “We’ve got to be going, too. I’m sorry about your men.”

Cullen said, “That goes for me, too. I liked Neal.”

“I’d appreciate it if you could send me a copy of the autopsy reports on O’Hara and Dean.”

“Will do. Keep me posted on anything you get.”

“Of course.”

Cullen went into a huddle with the mechanic, scowling as he scanned the estimate of charges. The CTU pair drifted away.

Jack said, “I’m sure a postmortem will show that Dean and O’Hara were dead before they went over that cliff. I’d also like to have them tested for traces of CWs in their bloodstream.”

Anne Armstrong said, “It can be arranged, but this wasn’t the time and place to bring it up. That aspect will have to be handled with extreme delicacy.”

“But quickly. The Round Table is already in session.”

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” she said. “I think we’ve seen all there is to see here.”

Jack nodded. They went back down the ravine and through the arcade of overhanging trees to where their car was parked. Jack said, “There’s a familiar face.”

He was referring to the MRT’s Cole Taggart. Taggart and a county deputy were having words with two bikers. The bikers looked like the real thing, hard-core outlaw motorcyclists. “One-percenters,” as they were called, their own mocking self-description to distinguish themselves from the “ninety-nine percent of respectable, law-abiding motorcyclists” that industry spokesmen and proponents for responsible biking enthusiasts routinely invoked to polish up the public image that in their view had been tarnished by the fringe outlaw element.