by Rhona Weaver
Win made the mistake of pausing long enough for Jason to get the cat carrier out of his truck and onto the washing machine in the mudroom. Win leaned over to peer inside and jerked back when a large, yellow, furry mass of teeth and claws lunged against the carrier door.
“Whoa!” He looked in from a bit more distance. The big green eyes narrowed and the cat let out a long, low growl and hiss. It reminded him of Agent Johnson. No doubt the mice would move out when this big guy moved in.
Jason was standing by the door and seemed to be holding his breath.
“Alright, I’ll give it a try, but just one week. And then you may be trying to find him another home. Does he bite?”
* * *
About the same time Friday afternoon that Win was being introduced to his cat, 449 miles by road to the southeast on the windswept Great Plains, a different meeting was about to commence. They were supposed to meet at 1800 hours at the Super Z Truck Stop off Interstate 90, one mile west of Spearfish, South Dakota, and just a few miles across the Wyoming state line. The small, wiry man was early; he always came early, couldn’t be too careful these days. He pulled his dirty black Stetson down tighter and dropped his head against the wind. He was leaning against the still-warm grill of a Peterbilt 379 loaded with steel pipe destined for the North Dakota oil fields. He’d hitched a ride with the driver this morning and they’d come across two states. He pulled up the collar on his ranch jacket. The chill was setting in as the sun faded behind a wall of clouds. He nursed the rest of his beer. Better to drink it slowly; he didn’t have the money to buy much more tonight.
The driver was walking toward him from the truck stop where he’d taken a shower and eaten an early dinner. “Hey, Bronte, I’m gonna get two, three hours of shut-eye in the sleeper—you can sit in the café. Don’t have to stand out here in the damn wind.”
The small man almost didn’t respond; he’d forgotten he’d been going by the name of Bronte today. He nodded and took the last swallow of beer. “Appreciate it, but no, this is where I get off.” He threw his chin toward the cab. “I’ll get my gear and move on.” He turned and dropped the bottle to the gravel.
“Okay, suit yourself.” The driver moved faster than the smaller man expected and was climbing into the cab, blocking the steps. “I’ll just hand it out to you. Hell, what you got in here? Bricks?” He passed the heavy military duffel bag down to Bronte’s waiting hand and retreated into the big rig’s cab.
Bronte eased the bag on down and heard the locks latch on the truck’s doors. Smart man.
As he headed into the wind toward the café’s white lights, he folded the nine-inch switchblade back on itself and slipped it into his jacket. Just as well, he was thinking. It might have complicated things. The men he was meeting would have money and if they didn’t, well . . . something would come up. Always did.
The oily gray gravel crunched under his worn boots as he made his way past dozens of parked tractor-trailer rigs toward the front entrance of the bright café. Most of the trucks were idling, and the low rumbling noise and diesel fumes were strangely comforting. The sounds and smells took his mind back to an earlier time when he’d walked in sandy gravel past rows of tanks and armored personnel carriers, not trucks. The rumbling had been much the same, just louder; the smell of diesel and grease had been almost intoxicating in the intense heat. The screaming mortar rounds had come in just then, and nothing had been the same since. Not one damn thing.
He spotted two of them from across the lot. They were getting out of an older Ford pickup; looked like Iowa . . . no, it was Nebraska tags. Both men were tall and stout. You’d figure them to be brothers even if you didn’t know they were. Both with dark crew cuts, both in combat boots, both with bad dispositions that got worse with a little drinking. He hadn’t seen them in well over a year. They’d been lying real low, which meant whatever they were all meeting up for had to be worth the risk. Them boys wouldn’t be showing up here if the stakes weren’t right high. He leaned against the side of the building and dropped the duffel bag at his feet. One of the brothers raised a couple of fingers to him and nodded in recognition. The late-afternoon sun poked from around the clouds and made another stab at warming up the barren landscape, but the cold wind cancelled it out. He glanced at his watch; it was almost 6:00 p.m., 1800 hours. Bronte knew the younger man approaching him from behind. He hardly turned his head when the newcomer spoke.
“Ain’t seen you since that last stint in Leavenworth. You doin’ alright?” The younger man didn’t wait for an answer. “This better be worth it, I come all the way from Kansas City—hell of a lot warmer down there!”
The younger guy pulled up beside the small man, and they both watched the brothers finish fueling their truck. The collar of the younger man’s heavy coat didn’t quite cover the dagger tattoo on the side of his thick neck. He was the only one of the group with a heavy beard, and his was striking: It was reddish orange, the same color as his short-cropped, spiked hair.
“Damn, its cold up here. . . . Where the hell is Chandler?” The redhead dropped a ratty bag on the pavement and kept talking. “Hey, man, I hear Buck, Little Man, and Pedee have already been embedded. Buck’s in with some high-class security firm, and who the hell knows what Chandler’s got Pedee and Little Man set up doing in that Podunk town we’re headed to.” The man’s voice went up an octave and he grinned a sideways grin. “Yeah, boy! We’re putting the band back together!” He laughed that high-pitched, evil-sounding laugh of his.
The smaller man cut his eyes toward the redhead and sighed. He was thinking, This job better be good if I have to deal with this ass for very long. How in hell did he get out after only six years on two murders? Some “I did it when I was so young” or some “I had a sorry childhood” lawyer excuse, he figured. Not the real reason, the “I did it ’cause I’m a raving psychopath” real reason. Our justice system is going to hell. He wished he had another beer.
A late-model blue Cadillac pulled into an empty spot down from them, and a well-dressed cattleman type got out of the passenger side, settling his hat. The small man generally hated surprises, but this one turned out to be appealing. He pulled himself up straight and sucked in his stomach.
“What the hell!” It was the fool redhead.
“Watch your mouth around the Prophet,” the smaller man snarled.
The Prophet was pulling on a black leather coat. He was moving toward them. The brothers had parked their truck and were closing in on them—both had expectant looks on their broad faces.
Ron Chandler was grinning as he stepped out of the Cadillac and leaned an arm across the open door. “Hello, boys! Get ready to find some religion—you’re fixing to join the army of the Lord!”
Chapter Four
Whoa! Geez! Whoa!” Win flattened himself against the storm door in the dim light as a huge dark shape materialized between him and his truck. A massive black head swung up as the animal rose to its full height of over six feet—it was waaay too close. He’d already locked the heavy wooden door at the house’s rear entry and he was now trapped on the top step, unsuccessfully balancing his coffee cup in his left hand while holding the keys with his right. The bull arched its back and stretched its 2,200 pounds of pure power. This monster probably has muscles in its ears! Condensation rose from its dark nostrils, and it snorted a sharp warning at the intruder. It shook its head again, the menacing black horns glistening in the cold, damp air. Win was sure the dark eyes were searching for a convenient target. He froze against the aluminum storm door and held his breath as hot coffee streamed down his hand. This situation was most decidedly not covered at Quantico. Panic button on the truck keys? Nope, the animal was between him and the SUV; the truck alarm could stampede the creature right into him. Shoot it? No, he couldn’t shoot the thing. . . . He probably didn’t have enough firepower to bring it down, for starters, and even if he could, well, it would be downright un-American to shoot an animal i
n Yellowstone. Warning shots? Gosh, how embarrassing for the new FBI guy to wake the rangers with gunshots his first week at work. Many FBI higher-ups already thought they’d sent a loser out here—he wasn’t about to prove them right this morning.
He was hoping all the reports of bison having extremely poor eyesight were true. There was no doubt if this big guy spotted him, he’d squash him like a bug. Win’s knowledge of this beast extended only to the Discovery Channel, but he did remember hearing that most of the visitor injuries in Yellowstone were caused by bison, or buffalo, as he’d grown up calling them. Seconds passed, and the gurgling of the small stream and the steady drip of water off the roof were the only sounds. Then with a quick flick of its short tail and a parting snort, the bull slowly ambled away into the early light of the rainy dawn. Okay then, time for a tactical retreat.
“Well, Toto, we’re sure not in Kansas anymore!”
The big yellow cat gave him a distrustful, quizzical look; his cat wasn’t much friendlier than the huge bull. Win stood at the kitchen sink, ran cold water over his stinging hand, and dabbed the coffee off his coat sleeve. Yes sirree, talking to a snarly cat at 5:50 a.m. on a Monday morning. . . . Highlight of my day will likely be near-death by buffalo. He exhaled a deep sigh. I really need to get out more.
He’d worked all weekend and managed to clear a few paths through the upstairs storage room and the mess that would become his office. He’d made an introductory phone call to Jim West, his new supervisor at the Bureau’s Resident Agency office in Jackson, which for some reason the Bureau referred to as the Jackson Hole RA. Jim seemed like a nice enough guy, but he appeared totally disinterested in anything related to Yellowstone. He clearly had bigger fish to fry dealing with DEA and an influx of Mexican meth in the Jackson area. Win knew Jim West would have heard the sordid details of his fall from grace that led to his transfer to Yellowstone, but the man had the professionalism to welcome him to the FBI’s Denver Field Office. He rubber-stamped Johnson’s “suggestions” that Win reorganize the satellite office and hurried off the phone to whatever issue had brought him to his office on a weekend morning.
Win had also researched the four FBI cases Johnson mentioned as being active—four very routine cases. Even as a first office agent in Charlotte, Win had handled five to seven cases of much greater complexity at a time. He made phone calls to the two Park Service special agents whom Johnson had listed as lead investigators on those active cases. Who knew the Park Service had special agents? He hadn’t really expected them to be in their offices on a Saturday, but both agents’ voice mails stated they were out of Yellowstone indefinitely, working at some national park in Alaska. Oh, well. It occurred to him that once the office reorganization project was completed, he could very easily die of boredom.
* * *
With Johnson back at the FBI Academy at Quantico for two weeks of training, Win attacked the chaos at the office with a vengeance. By Tuesday morning, Jason’s craftsmen were at work performing their magic on the FBI’s long-neglected office space. On Wednesday there was a break in the weather’s awful snow-to-rain-to-ice routine, and Win decided it was way past time to get in some exercise over a long lunch break. The high-altitude headaches had become few and far between, and running had always cleared his mind and lifted his mood. After four and a half straight days of organizing and shredding files, he sorely needed that. He waved to the workers who were giving the wooden garage behind his house a new coat of paint as he started up the mountain highway leading past the hot springs terraces.
Win slowly jogged past the Road Closed—No Vehicles sign and then set a faster, steady pace up the winding mountain highway. He hoped to run two miles before he hit the snowpack. With the earbuds in, he didn’t hear his phone. He was just beginning to enjoy the freedom of the run when a ranger in a white-and-green Tahoe pulled alongside him and waved for him to stop. It was the same stern-looking ranger who’d been with Chief Randall during the events of Win’s first day in the park.
“Hey, see the sign back there?” Gus Jordon called out.
“It said no vehicles!” Win shot back, annoyed at the interruption.
“What do we have to say, no vehicles or idiots?” the ranger yelled back. “What do you think you look like running on a deserted road in the mountains?”
Win leaned back with his hands on his hips, trying to catch his breath. What obscure rule have I violated now?
The ranger answered his own question. “You look like lunch to every mountain lion or bear in the area—you can’t run up here alone this time of year! You don’t even have bear spray!”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Dead serious, Sport!” Gus’s tone quickly changed. “More important matters. Chief Randall sent me to get you. Couldn’t reach you on your phone, but the painters at your house saw you head this way. The Secret Service has called a spur-of-the-moment powwow on a potential terrorism threat, and the Chief thought there should be some FBI presence there.”
“What? I haven’t heard anything . . . from our office in Jackson. . . . Someone would have called me.” Win tried to slow his breathing. “I . . . I didn’t get the impression Chief Randall cared much for the FBI.”
“He cares even less for the Secret Service, so hop in and I’ll get you back to your house. The meeting’s in an hour at the Justice Center.”
* * *
Win walked into the large, modern conference room at 1:00 p.m. His supervisor had been livid when Win called to tell him about the meeting. There should be FBI agents from Denver’s Joint Terrorism Task Force attending, not some relatively new agent who’d only worked white-collar crime. Obviously, the Secret Service was stepping into the Bureau’s jurisdiction and a turf war was brewing.
The Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service in Montana lived up to his billing as an arrogant, condescending jerk. He wore a dark suit and drab tie. Maybe late forties, with thinning brown hair. His name was Jonathan Lomax, and Win disliked him immediately. Gus Jordon had told Win the guy was known for making a mountain out of a molehill and ramping everyone up for nothing.
“Glad you could join us, Agent Tyler. Been here since last week? Well, fine. We knew Agent Johnson was out of town. Didn’t realize the Bureau had another boy up here.” Lomax said “boy” with just the wrong tone, gave Win a lukewarm handshake, and dismissed him with a wave to the far side of the conference table.
Everyone in the group of seven was studying their phones and drinking coffee as they waited for the last few latecomers to show up. Win introduced himself to each person, collected their business cards, then settled in to take notes. His orders were to lay low, pay attention, and report back to Jim West ASAP when the meeting was over.
Win hadn’t met any of the others except for Richard Randall, the Chief Ranger, and Gus Jordon, the Deputy Chief Ranger. The local U.S. Marshal, Paul Robinson, walked in, threw his winter coat over a chair, set his black cowboy hat on the table, and shook everyone’s hand. The man looked exactly as Win pictured a U.S. Marshal from the Old West: tall and lean, with a handlebar mustache and thick, graying hair. Win wondered where he’d stashed his horse. They killed an extra five minutes waiting for the two guys from Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who showed up too casual and too late to be impressive. Both in their late thirties, in jeans and windbreakers, both wearing blue ATF ball caps—they looked more like trucking-company employees than federal agents. A slight Park Service employee eased in last and found a chair next to Chief Randall. Her pale eyes darted around the intimidating group as if she were thinking of running from the room.
The Secret Service SAC finally stood and got right to the point: Three sightings of groups of armed men had been reported by Park Service employees and other credible witnesses during the last seven days. The sightings had been of twelve to fifteen individuals in the northwest part of the park, in fairly inaccessible areas. Each of the witnesses described the subjects a
s carrying “assault rifles or machine guns.” That comment got everyone’s attention and the meeting’s mood took on a heavier tone. A projection screen dropped at the far end of the room, the lights dimmed, and Lomax nodded toward the nervous young woman.
“Virginia McCoy, a trail technician with the Park Service, took several photos late last week, on Friday afternoon. Ms. McCoy, give us a little background on the photos before we put them up.”
She took a deep breath and gave them a brief report. She’d been snowshoeing while checking the condition of cross-country ski trails when she saw movement on the opposite ridge, less than three hundred feet away. She’d taken the photos with her phone in light snowfall. None of the armed men acknowledged her, although she knew they saw her—the area she was traversing was high meadow; there was no cover. She seemed embarrassed that she hadn’t called out to them—questioned who they were, why they were there. She admitted their numbers and their armament made her fearful. She said the men had moved on snowshoes in single file along the opposite ridge and then disappeared from sight. Six grainy photos of several men atop a snow-covered ridge appeared on the screen.
There was an audible response from the group of federal officers when the photos appeared. Everyone was apparently expecting to be underwhelmed by the Secret Service’s evidence of bad guys roaming the hills of the country’s most storied national park. The photos were chilling. The men in the pictures wore military-style camouflage uniforms with backpacks. They carried rifles similar to AR-15s—those guys were not out elk hunting. Each of the group of twelve had a mask over his face and a formidable bearing. They looked like the real deal.
A second group of photos had been taken by two members of a bear research group working ten miles south of the spot where McCoy took her photos. Those pictures were taken mid-week but only received by a Park Service ranger on Saturday. Their quality was poorer, but the pictures clearly showed fifteen men in military uniforms with packs and assault rifles. The researchers told the ranger they were within one hundred yards of the men in a remote area near a backcountry trail.
