Never-ending-snake (18 page)

“I’ve got someplace else I’ve got to be right now, so that works for me,” Ella said, noting that more than an hour had gone by. It was time for her to return to the station and check in with Big Ed.

Once in the cruiser and on the way back to the station, Justine gave Ella a worried look.
“What are you so tense about, Ella?”

“I’m not ready to talk about what I’ve got in the works, partner. Once I’m clear about our next step, I’ll explain.”

Ella joined the chief in his office a half hour later. Blalock was already there. As soon as Ella was seated and the office door closed, Big Ed spoke.

“The medical staff here says a transfer is possible, so I’ve arranged for the county’s medical
evac helicopter to take Adam Lonewolf directly to Kirtland AFB. That’ll avoid the Albuquerque commercial terminal altogether,” he said. “Residents are also used to seeing Angel Hawk on the hospital landing pad, so it won’t attract any undue attention. I’m having a couple of officers send in a fake call preceding the run in case the media is monitoring emergency radio traffic. We’ll just have
to be careful while getting Adam out of the hospital and loaded up so he’s not ID’d. Of course we’ll have to get the final okay from his doctors before we actually put him on the chopper. Last time I checked, he was critical but stable, and he’ll have a doctor with him on the flight.”

“Bureau agents and an Air Police detail will meet the chopper when it lands on base,” Blalock added. “Along with
a medical team.”

“It’s a solid plan,” Ella said, nodding thoughtfully, “but another diversion can’t hurt. Could you call a press conference at the station at the same time the airlift is happening, chief, and tell the reporters that Adam passed away during surgery? That way, if anyone does notice the chopper, we can stall for a few hours, then finally confirm that his body is being delivered
to the Office of the Medical Investigators
at UNM Hospital for an additional forensic examination. Dr. Roanhorse will back us up if necessary.”

“I hate to put out a false report, but I’ll make an exception under the circumstances,” Big Ed said. “Once the doctors have him ready to move, I’ll make sure radio traffic about the transfer of the deceased goes out as well—using a patient number, not
a name, of course. Once Adam’s underway, I’ll call and give you the word. Then you and Blalock gather up the family. They’ll be making the trip there with one of our officers, who’ll be driving an older model SUV. You two will follow in something nondescript and provide an escort.”

“We’ll get to it as soon as the press conference starts,” Ella said, reading the chief’s plan clearly.

“Looks like
you and I are going on a road trip, Clah,” Blalock said, heading out of the office and toward the side exit. “We’ll want to stay undercover and look like Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public all the way. I’ll dress like ‘Bubba’ on the weekend, dig up an old married-couple sedan, and throw my golf clubs in the back. Make like you’re a housewife traveling to the big city to visit your in-laws. Maybe you
could even wear a dress. No one will recognize you then. Including me. But wait . . . you
do
own a dress, right?”

“Let me surprise you,” she said.

“Bring some luggage we can throw in the back, too. That’ll cinch our cover.”

“I’ll meet you at your office in an hour,” Ella said. “I’ll bring some extra nine-millimeter magazines with AP ammo, just in case. You should pack some extra firepower,
too, maybe an M-16.”

“I see you’ve met my family,” Blalock said straight-faced.

Three hours later, as they entered the hills and winding highway near the remote community of Counselor, Ella’s cell phone rang. About an eighth of a mile ahead they could see the lead vehicle’s brake lights come on, and the car begin to
slow quickly. A large, foreign object was just off the highway to the right.

“TA to the right. Looks like the vehicle rolled over, scattering debris,” the officer riding shotgun with the Lonewolfs reported. “Appears to be injured at the scene, too.”

“Don’t stop, keep going,” Ella ordered the lead car as she glanced over at Blalock, who was driving, then at the traffic accident ahead. “It could be a diversion—a setup to take out your passengers. Call it in, but keep moving.
That’s an order.”

“What if—” the officer replied, but she cut him off.

“
My
responsibility. Get out of the area, and be on the alert for a second vehicle. I’ll check out the traffic accident. Stay on the line,” Ella snapped.

She could see the vehicle clearly now, upright, but with a badly dented roof and a broken windshield. The left front tire was in shreds—a blowout, apparently, judging from
the chunks of rubber along a hundred feet of highway. To the left of the vehicle, the ground was littered with what looked like body parts. Her stomach sank. Considering the alternative, she almost hoped it was an ambush, but there was no way the gunmen she’d dealt with could have known about this trip and had time to set this up.

“What now, Clah?” Blalock said. He’d slowed down to fifteen miles
per hour as they approached the scene. “Looks nasty, but it could still be a setup. We gonna stop?”

Ella reached for her handgun, ejected the magazine, and replaced it with one containing armor-piercing rounds. She then checked the highway ahead, and behind them. “We’ve got to check this out. No options.”

Blalock braked to a stop, looking out on the scene. His service handgun was out and on
his lap now. “Those aren’t body parts, they’re pants and shirts. There’s a closet full of clothing spilling out of that old Chevy, and stuff in boxes, too. Looks like everything they own is in and around that wreck.”

“Somebody’s still alive. There’s a woman sitting in the shade over there, with a child, I think,” Ella said, wishing she hadn’t worn a dress now. “We’ve got to go over there and
make sure.”

“
I’ll
make sure,” Blalock replied, reaching down to his left and bringing up a Bureau issue HK MP-5 submachine gun. “Take this and cover me while I walk over for a look-see.”

“Yeah. You’ve got the vest, not me,” she replied, looking down at her outfit. She was wearing a dusty rose knit top with an ornamented V-neck, and a long crinkle skirt in coordinating dusty rose and sand, with
a tiny pattern of Southwest plants and animals in matching hues. The silver concha belt added to what her daughter called “the hot Navajo momma” look. Last time she’d worn it was to an evening program at Dawn’s school. It definitely didn’t shout “cop,” and that had been the idea.

Taking the weapon and extending the stock came automatically for Ella, who would never become a soccer mom with this
set of skills. Her window was already rolled down, so all she had to do was swing it around and aim.

“Watch for a third party,” he warned, climbing out.

Blalock walked around to the front of the vehicle, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. “Ma’am, I’m with the FBI, and help is on the way. Are you injured?” he called out, watching the woman closely as he stepped off the shoulder of the
highway.

“I don’t know. I bumped my head and everything is foggy. My husband said he was going for help, but I lost track of him. And my little girl, I think her arm’s broken.” The woman tried to stand, then slumped back to the ground.

Blalock stopped. “Where did you last see your husband?”

“By the road, I think.”

Ella, who’d been looking for someone hiding behind the car, saw movement on
the ground to Blalock’s left. As an
arm came up from behind a bush along the drainage ditch, she swung the HK around.

“To your left, Dwayne.” Her sights captured a man’s head and bloody arm.

“Help,” he called, his voice weak.

Blalock, his pistol out and ready by his side, walked toward the man.

Ella covered him until she saw him stop and holster his handgun.

“It’s for real, Ella. Go help
the others.”

Ella thumbed the safety on the automatic weapon, then placed it on the floorboards and climbed out, bringing the first-aid kit from underneath the seat. Pistol jammed into her belt, she hurried toward the woman and child, grateful to hear a siren in the distance. Help was on the way. Now if she could only avoid getting her skirt caught on the brush. . . .

Fifteen minutes later,
they caught up to the rest of the transport team and the Lonewolf family. Much to Ella’s pronounced relief, the rest of the trip to Albuquerque went without incident.

Once the Lonewolf family was settled in base housing and the patient secure at the hospital, Blalock and Ella hit the road back to Shiprock—a three-hour drive on Highway 550 with little more than the beautiful desert scenery to
keep them distracted.

“That was top-notch housing the base commander chose for the family,” Blalock said.

“Sergeant Lonewolf’s not just a tribal hero—he’s the country’s hero, and a real one, too. A quarterback who passes for the winning touchdown, or the forward who scores the most three-pointers in a come-from-behind victory isn’t a hero. They’re just skilled athletes—and maybe a bit lucky.
A real hero is someone who chooses to put his own neck on the
line in order to save others—above and beyond what’s expected of him, or her,” Ella said. “Sadly enough, war and real heroes all too often go hand-in-hand.”

A long silence stretched out as they each remained in the privacy of their own thoughts. Ella stared at the desert outside her window wishing there was something more to see than
dry grass and the ever-present mile markers.

Never comfortable with long silences, Blalock finally spoke. “How are you planning to handle the issue of trust when your team finds out that you didn’t tell them about Adam’s transfer to Albuquerque?”

“Hopefully they’ll understand that they had to be at the station and on hand for that press conference. If the reporters decided they wanted to speak
to a member of the crime scene team, and we were all gone, questions would have been raised, and we probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.”

“Having Adam secure and out of the way should simplify our job. We have only one guy to keep out of harm’s way now,” Blalock said.

“That’s assuming Kevin was ever really the target. . . .”

“The shooters at the airstrip were hired guns, Ella. We’re
in agreement there. Since we still aren’t sure who the intended target was, we should concentrate on finding the motive behind what went down. Who might have wanted, one, or both, of those men dead, and why? We need to start pushing people harder,” Blalock said.

“I agree. I’m also hoping Teeny will be able to get something from the scrambled data on Adam’s BlackBerry,” she said, giving him the
details.

“I’ve been talking to gunshop employers who are active with the shooting clubs and service most of the gun owners in the area. I’m hoping lady luck will smile and one of them will be able to give us a lead to the two gunmen. My guess is that the pair practiced the hit, and that means they consumed
a lot of ammunition. The rounds recovered and the cartridge cases have established that
their the ammo was military surplus, probably bought in bulk. There should be a record of that somewhere, or, if not, a record of the theft.”

“That’s a good angle. The problem with the Four Corners region is that among the mostly honest, legitimate sportsmen and gun owners, there are still a few hardcore nut jobs worried about Armageddon or who believe the urban legend of impending gun confiscation.
Of course a lot of those guys already have more firearms and ammo than most small town police departments.”

Blalock laughed. “Truer words were never spoken.”

Ella mentally went over the details of the incident once again. “I still can’t wrap my head around what happened at that airstrip. Nobody in his right mind would go gunning for Adam. He’s the pride of the Navajo Nation—and New Mexico. They’d
have to know that every department in the area would go after them.”

“So you’re thinking it was a mistake?”

“Or a total lack of common sense by someone who was desperate. To me, it sounds like somebody panicked,” she said. “Maybe it has something to do with the money he was carrying. But we still can’t dismiss the possibility that Kevin was the real target all along. There’s a chance he’s holding
out on us—with the best of intentions, mind you, but still not telling us everything.”

“What’s going to make things really tough is your personal connection to him,” Blalock said.

“If you think I’m going to cut him some slack, you’re crazy. I’m on the job.”

“So there’s nothing between you two anymore?”

“He and I have a connection—our daughter. But we’re not romantically involved, and haven’t
been for ages,” Ella said. “And even if I cared for him, that still wouldn’t stop me from doing whatever I’m sworn to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let me make this easy for you. If you feel you could question him more effectively than I could, then go for it,” she said without hesitation.

“That’s an excellent idea, all things considered.” Blalock started to say more when his cell phone rang. He kept
one hand on the steering wheel and used his free hand to flip the phone open. “When and where?” he said, listening for only a few moments.

Noting the abrupt change in his tone, Ella’s sat up a little straighter.

“Understood—just information and no guarantees,” Blalock said, then after a moment added, “No problem. I’m on an errand right now, but give me an hour and I’ll meet you. I’ll have to
stop by my house to change clothes.”

Blalock hung up and glanced over at her. “You might want in on this, Ella. That was Dan Butler, one of my most reliable sources. He runs that little Farmington gun shop on east 550 past the country club.”

Ella nodded. “That’s the Double Barrel, right? He carries everything from Old West antiques to urban assault weapons.”

“That’s him. With the gun business
booming in this uncertain economy, he doesn’t want anyone to see him talking to law enforcement, local or otherwise. Dan’s concerned that it’ll look like he’s an informant to those ‘storm troopers’ who’ll soon be breaking down doors and taking away their guns. Something like that might cost him business—or his life.”