“I’ve got things set here,” Wolf said. “Give me about a minute or so to get around the back of the barn and up to where I can get to Glory and then when you hear the bang, light up they’re bikes. I’ll signal when I’m in position.”
“Roger that,” McNamara said.
“When they go running toward the bikes,” Wolf said, “make your way to the front along the outside of the wall. I’ll grab the girl and Timmy, and we’ll tag up in the front drive and meet Ms. Dolly.”
McNamara’s chuckle came over the band as he replied, “Gonna be a pleasure. You copy, darling?”
“Roger that,” Ms. Dolly said. “Sounds like you boys are gonna have all the fun, though.”
Fun’s got nothing to do with it, Wolf thought as he straightened up by the rear of the tanker and looked at the arena. Another round of hoots and hollers began, and he figured this was as good a chance as he was going to get. He ran for the corner of the barn. The area was dark and the ground uneven, so he slowed down a bit.
This is going to take longer than a minute, he was thinking when something cracked loudly under his foot and sent him sprawling. Wolf twisted to land on his side, holding the bottle out of way. He knew he couldn’t afford to break it. Nor could he afford to damage the remote, which was in his pocket. He got to his feet, knowing he had no time to check. He wondered about the range of it now as well.
Hopefully, Murphy and his blasted law of inevitable SNAFUs wouldn’t be making an appearance tonight. Now that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness a bit more he saw what had caused him to trip.
An old rake was lying on the ground. He reached down and grabbed it. The end attached to the metal prongs was now broken, which explained the cracking sound, but the rest of the thick wooden handle felt solid.
Carrying it like a spear, Wolf continued on his trek, rounding the first corner and then the second one. He slowed his pace now as he grew closer, going past the Throne.
Then he heard a couple of grunts and saw the biker who had gone for the booze exiting the Throne carrying a cardboard box. He was panting, like he’d just trudged up a flight of stairs, and paused, setting the box down and taking out a pack of cigarettes.
Wolf knew he couldn’t afford to move up into position with that guy behind him. He looked toward the arena, saw no one looking his way, and ran to the rear of the Throne. Stooping to set the bottle on the ground, he straightened up and gripped the wooden shaft with both hands. He’d trained with the martial arts weapon, the bo, which was essentially a long wooden stick, in the army and knew it to be effective and silent.
The door to the Throne was ajar and Wolf could see light seeping through the gap between the edge of the door and the jamb. The biker stood sucking on a hand-rolled cigarette and the sickeningly sweet odor of marijuana filled the air.
Wolf pivoted and swung the staff against the biker’s temple.
Smoking’s bad for your health, Wolf thought cynically as the man crumpled. Turning, he caught a further glimpse inside the Throne. It contained an old, porcelain commode, all right, but there was an open trap door next to it. From what he could see, Wolf noticed that there was a set of stairs descending from the opening.
They must have been hiding Glory down in some underground room, he thought, but knew he had no time to check.
After retrieving the bottle, Wolf trotted over to the front corner of the barn and stopped. The beating of Timmy had begun again.
Wolf keyed his mic. “I’m in position. Get ready.”
“Roger that,” McNamara said.
His voice was a whisper.
Wolf leaned the staff against the wall and removed the remote and his lighter. After flicking the wheel and holding the flame next to the sodden material, the cloth started burning quickly. Wolf held the remote outward and pressed the activation button. The activating motor’s whine was barely audible, but it was enough. Putting his thumb over the release button, Wolf pressed down and a second later the Rice Garden collapsed with a resounding thud, stirring up a cloud of dust.
All the heads in the crowd rotated left toward the noise. Wolf cocked his arm back and hurled the flaming bottle directly at the gas tanker. The shattering glass made no more than a high-pitched tinkle that was followed a split-second later by a thunderous blast as the vapors ignited. The tanker rose several feet upward, spewing flames twenty feet in the air. The crowd recoiled almost in unison and then another blast, this time from the opposite direction, tore through the night.
“Our hogs!” someone yelled, and the crowd began running toward them.
Wolf was already moving toward the arena, the staff at the ready.
One of the two bikers holding Glory turned his head just in time for Wolf to smash the end of the bo across the man’s face. His nose exploded in a mist of crimson and he dropped. Wolf brought the solid portion of the staff down on the second biker’s forehead and he dropped too. Python whirled and dropped Timmy, reaching down into his beltline for something.
Wolf didn’t wait to find out what it was and shifted his weight, bringing the end of the bo upward in an arcing motion to catch the underside of Python’s chin. He staggered back two steps, which Wolf took as a testament to the big man’s toughness. He shook his head, trying to shake off the black lights that Wolf knew must be circulating behind the biker’s eyes.
Been there myself, he thought.
Pivoting again, Wolf cracked the end of the staff against Python’s right temple and saw the other man’s eyes roll upward exposing nothing but white sclera. As added insurance, Wolf twisted and delivered another snapping blow, this one catching the huge biker on the left side of the jaw as he dropped. A spray of shattered teeth burst forth in a geyser of reddish foam as he dropped.
Although he hated to do it, Wolf hurled away the staff and grabbed Glory’s arm. Her eyes flashed at him with an almost vacuous look.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “Help me with Timmy.”
It seemed to take a few seconds for his words to register and it flashed in Wolf’s mind that it was time they didn’t have.
“Come on,” he yelled, as he grabbed Timmy under the arms and lifted him. “We’ve got to move now.”
Glancing over at the conflagration of the motorcycles, Wolf saw the majority of the crowd was still over there about two hundred feet away. He slung Timmy’s body over his left shoulder and grabbed Glory’s left arm, pulling the girl along. After a few hesitant steps, she started moving faster and her feet fell into a consistent running pattern.
They were approaching the access road now … Perhaps only twenty yards more.
Voices, excited and yelling, sounded behind them.
Keep moving Wolf told himself. Don’t stop.
He wanted to look for Mac, to make sure he was on his way too, and, suddenly, McNamara was there next to him and grabbed the girl’s right arm.
“Good thing I’ve been doing them miles with you in the mornings,” he said.
Wolf grunted in response.
They continued down the roadway. The crack of a gunshot sounded behind them.
Wolf felt no impact, but knew that meant nothing.
Another shot echoed, this one sounding like a rifle.
“Anybody hit?” he asked.
“Not so far,” McNamara said, his words coming out between gasps.
Suddenly a pair of headlights illuminated about thirty feet in front of them and the Escalade skidded sideways to a stop. The front and back passenger side doors flew open and Wolf thought that no LZ chopper ever looked as good at this moment. He covered the distance in a matter of seconds and threw Timmy into the back seat. Mac was pulling Glory into the front. Both doors slammed shut and the Escalade peeled out and headed down the access road toward the highway.
“Cut the lights, darlin’,” McNamara said. “We’re giving them too good a target if we’re lit up.”
Ms. Dolly’s hand moved and the view through the windshield eclipsed into blackness.
“I’m gettin’ real used to these here goggles,” she said. “Now I know what I want for Christmas.”
“Better get that letter off to Santa then,” McNamara said with a laugh.
Wolf adjusted the unconscious Timmy onto the seat and peered out the rear window looking for muzzle flashes but saw none. The twin fires on each side of the yard glowed like gigantic, flickering candles against the velvety blackness.
“We’re gonna have to call Hernandez,” McNamara said. “Looks like he’s got another case of open burnings to investigate.”
Wolf grinned.
Dirk studied the chaotic scene through the night-vision scope mounted on the rifle for a few minutes more and then flipped the safety on and got up from his prone position on the shallow hill. He took out his cell phone and punched in the number. Perkins answered after the first ring.
“What the hell’s going on over there?” he asked.
“Wolf and McNamara grabbed the girl and another person,” Dirk said. “A young male, from the looks of him. They should be on the highway by now.”
“Anybody giving chase?”
“Negative,” Dirk said, thinking that Wolf and McNamara did a fairly effective insertion and rescue.
But they’re still the B-Team, he thought. If it weren’t for my assistance at the end of it, that idiot shooting at them might have gotten lucky.
He slipped the rifle into its case, flipped down his own night-vision goggles, and trotted down the hill to where Charles was waiting in the Jeep. At least it was him and not his asshole brother, Clyde. Dirk smirked. It was funny how two guys who looked so much alike could be so different, personality-wise. Or maybe they weren’t, who knew. But Charles always seemed like the more easy-going of the two.
At least I think it’s Charles, Dirk thought with a grin. Only their mother and their hairdresser knows for sure.
It wasn’t even twenty-two hundred yet so he had plenty of time to make it back to the hotel in Mesa and grab a nightcap. As he got to the bottom of the hill, he scanned the area and saw the Jeep idling about fifty yards away in a flat section between two hills. Taking out his cell phone, he scrolled to Soraces’s number and hit the call button.
“What’s up?” Soraces asked.
“All set,” Dirk said. “Mission accomplished. Target got away unscathed, and will most likely be heading back to Phoenix with the girl.”
“Excellent. Any problems?”
“Not really. I took out possible threat just to on the safe side.”
“Explain.”
“Just one of the bikers,” Dirk said. “He was shooting at Wolf.”
“Did Wolf see you?”
“Of course not. I was set up on a hill about two hundred yards away.”
“Okay, good,” Soraces said. “Now go back to Mesa so you can get some sleep before your class starts in the morning. And tell Perkins to stay on them, all night if he has to.”
“Yes, mother,” Dirk said, and hung up.
Charles was going to love that order.
Better him than me, Dirk thought.
He was getting a bit tired of Soraces’s constant micro-managing. Dirk didn’t recall him being this overbearing on the missions they’d worked together in the past.
Must have a lot riding on this one, Dirk thought. Which means I’m gonna demand more money.
He slipped the phone into his pocket and continued walking as he tried to think of something pleasant. The twisting figure of the biker as the .223 round pierced the right side of his chest came to mind. He’d planned the trajectory so that the first shot struck just under the asshole’s right armpit and fired twice in case the first bullet hit a rib and went off course into the lung or possibly out through the abdomen. The second shot, delivered a second later probably entered almost at the same spot. The son of a bitch crumpled immediately.
It was a work of art.
He’d saved Wolf’s life, but his ultimate quarry would probably never know. Dirk chuckled. It was reminiscent of one of his favorite old James Bond movies, the one where Red Grant saves Bond during the attack on the gypsy camp.
Grant later informed him of this in the train car compartment and the look on Bond’s face was priceless, Dirk thought, remembering Robert Shaw and Sean Connery.
He wondered what their confrontation in the train car must have looked like on the big screen when the movie was first released.
Robert Shaw … What arrogance, what savoir faire … The stuff that great actors and great movie scenes were made of.
It was too bad that I’ll probably never be able to advise Wolf of this before I kill him, he thought. It would be fun to play Red Grant and do it right this time.
Chapter Twelve
ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL
UNINCORPORATED TOWN OF CROWN POINTS
GILA COUNTY, ARIZONA
Wolf sat beside McNamara outside the Emergency Room of the hospital in Crown Points. They were the only two people in the mid-sized room, which had three other rows of padded chairs, a coffee table with a stack of old, worn, glossy magazines, and a television set bolted high up on the wall. Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle, USMC, gesticulated with ludicrous exaggeration as Frank Sutton, playing Sergeant Carter, glared back at him. The volume was only faintly audible, but that suited Wolf just fine. He was still feeling adrenalized from their close encounter with the bikers.
Satan’s Spawn, he thought. Hernandez was right. They weren’t so tough.
“Golooloooly,” Gomer said as the laugh track exploded with a round of hearty bellows. Sergeant Carter fumed.
Wolf wondered with amusement what old Buck thought about Gomer and his portrayal of the beloved Corps.
Either you loved him, or you hated him, he thought. And it’s probably the latter in Buck’s case since it made the marines look pretty bad.
Mac, however, seemed to be enjoying the hell out of Nabor’s performance.
The hospital was hardly more than a big medical center but it was the only game in town. Both Timmy and Glory needed immediate care. Wolf mentioned that it would be prudent to request a rape kit be done on the girl, even though she claimed she hadn’t been sexually assaulted.
“But she woulda been for sure, if we hadn’t intervened,” McNamara said, putting his phone back into his pocket. “Hopefully, this close call will go a long way to bringing her back to her senses.”
Regardless, Wolf figured the poor girl would need a whole lot of counseling for sure. Thinking about what she’d narrowly avoided made him want to change the subject.
“What did Kasey have to say? Did you wake her?”
McNamara shook his head. “Nah, she was still up, waiting to hear from us. She was relieved that everything went okay.”
Wolf didn’t ask if she’d inquired about him, wanting to let things lie since a sort of truce had settled over his relationship with Mac’s daughter. He figured she’d finished blaming him for everything, and he didn’t want to change that.
“Made a point of asking what time we’d be back today because she’s going on a date tonight,” McNamara said.
That’s interesting, Wolf thought, and asked the inevitable question that hung in the air between them. “She say with who?”
McNamara shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “I didn’t ask her. But I should’ve. I’ll bet it’s with him.”
Wolf let a few seconds pass before he spoke. “Maybe it’s better to just let things run their course.” He thought about adding in jest that having an FBI agent in the family might be good for business, but didn’t.
“Where the hell are them gals with our damn chow?” McNamara said. “I’m hungry enough to eat a ketchup and horseradish sandwich.”
Wolf was feeling famished, too. He got up to go glance down the hallway to check and got an unpleasant surprise. Sergeant Hernandez was marching through the open glass doors with a determined gait, followed by a uniformed deputy and another man in civilian attire. He was a big guy, taller than Hernandez and had an air of authority.
Another cop, Wolf thought. And from the looks of it, none of the three appeared happy.
Wolf stepped back into the waiting room and said, “Here comes trouble.”
McNamara looked up. “Hernandez?”
Wolf nodded.
McNamara smiled and stood up as the trio entered.
“Well, well, well,” McNamara said. “Bout time you got here. We been waiting for almost an hour.”
Hernandez glared at him. “I want to talk to you two.”
“Go right ahead,” McNamara said.
Hernandez stared back at him, and then asked, “I assume you two are responsible for that fiasco out at Brasheer’s.”
“Well, we were out there,” McNamara said with a wink. “We called nine-one-one just like you told us when we saw something illegal going on.”
Hernandez’s mouth puckered slightly.
“So,” McNamara said. “You investigate those cases of open burning?”
“Don’t be a smart ass” Hernandez said. “What the hell happened up there? Looks like a fucking war zone.”
McNamara shrugged. “You said we could go up there and observe, at our own risk, and if we saw any unlawful activity to call you if. So we did.”
“I didn’t tell you to go shooting people,” Hernandez said.
Wolf and McNamara exchanged glances.
“We heard some gunshots going off, but we didn’t do no shooting,” McNamara said. “Like I told you, Steve here don’t even carry a gun.”
Hernandez glared at him for several seconds and then turned his gaze on Wolf.
“What about it?” he asked.
“It’s just like Mac told you,” Wolf said. “We snuck in there to observe. They were beating the missing girl’s boyfriend and forcing her to watch. I overheard them planning to do a gang bang. I was afraid they were going to seriously injure or kill the boy and then rape the girl. We couldn’t very well stand by and let that happen, so we created a diversion and managed to get them both out of there in the confusion.”
“A diversion?” Hernandez frowned. “What exactly was that?”
“I lowered the boom on their Rice Garden, and they ran over to check it. Those bikers were all drunk or high or whatever, and they were the only ones shooting.”
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