Deserted

by E. H. Reinhard

  “We’re just heading out from the hotel now. We just need to return our rental cars, and we’re good to go.”

  “How long does that usually take?”

  “I’m guessing that it’s going to fall into the after-hours thing,” I said. “Park the cars and put the keys in the drop box, grab a shuttle to the airport.”

  “Okay. If you start getting tight on time, make sure you let me know. I’ll scoop you up from the rental car return if need be.”

  “Appreciate that, and will do.”

  “All right. We’ll see you guys in a bit.” Chris hung up.

  I put my phone back in my pocket.

  “News?” Scott asked.

  “It was definitely our girls at that truck stop. Chris saw video that was sent to him and confirmed. The girls were there on video last night and this morning.” I glanced at my watch and caught the time—a couple minutes after ten. “Let’s get a move on here, get these cars returned, and get on our way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The pilot had just informed us that we’d begun our descent to El Paso. We’d spent our time in the air to that point, roughly two hours, going over the aerial views of the property and reading what we had on the possible persons inside. Just as we boarded, Gallo received a call that the plane sent to the Levy homestead had completed the flyover and taken a few pictures. While we didn’t have photos in hand, the pilot stated there was a red semi on location and a fire was burning on the property. He reported seeing a number of people on scene. Gallo said that the supervisory agent in El Paso was gathering men and would be ready for us when we touched down. The agent, Philben, also requested our shoe sizes, which I thought odd until Gallo explained that was for boots for the desert terrain we would be traveling to.

  The plane Gallo had acquired for our use was some kind of luxury business jet. I had no clue as to why the Dallas office would have access to such an aircraft or, if the Bureau did have access to private jets, why our team wasn’t flying on one at all times. When I pressed the question on Gallo, he simply said it belonged to another division that didn’t need it at the moment.

  I rearranged myself in my plush ivory-colored leather chair, which was more home recliner than business-class-airline fare. The chairs in the aircraft were grouped together in pairs—Beth sat at my left shoulder nearer the window. Directly in front of us was a kitchen-sized glossy wood table that served as a work surface and separator from Bill and Scott, who sat facing us on the other end of the table. To my right were Gallo and Chris, seated at an identical chair-and-table arrangement on the other side of the cabin. Leather love seats took up the rest of the front of the cabin to the wall separating the passenger compartment from the cockpit. The barrier wall held two forty-some-inch monitors—one on each side. At my back were the lavatories and a closed door, which Gallo said led to the sleeping quarters.

  Gallo made a couple marks on a sheet of paper in front of him. He stood with the page and took the single step across the airliner’s walkway to our table. Then, he set the page down and put his fingertip on the marks. “This is our aerial shot of the place. There only looks to be the one dirt road in and out. We’ll need people on it here and here”—Gallo pointed to each selected location—“This looks like it’s mostly desert and brush around this place. In order to get this whole property surrounded, I have to think we’ll need at least twenty men. Hell, maybe more.”

  “And what’s the idea? Try to call them out?” Beth asked. “If they have hostages inside, we’re going to be kind of limited on what we can do.”

  “We’ll run it past the local office and see what they think. Try to put together the best plan for the scenario we are presented with.”

  “The supervisory agent didn’t mention how many men he had on hand, did he?” Bill asked.

  “He didn’t,” Gallo said. “We can always get the assistance from local law enforcement if needed.”

  “And he was meeting us at the airport, or we were headed to the field office?” Scott asked.

  “Field office. He said that he’d send someone out to pick us up from the airport and gave me a number to call when we touched down.”

  “Got it,” Scott said.

  We flew mostly in silence for the twenty minutes until we touched down. Our plane taxied toward a large white hangar with an open door. We stopped just outside the building, and the pilot informed us the door would be open momentarily. Our group rose from our seats and grabbed the items we’d brought into the cabin—our suitcases were below. We thanked the pilot as he stood at the doorway of the plane and we walked off down onto the tarmac. A man I hadn’t seen before assisted us with our bags—I had no idea if he’d flown with us or was airport staff. We walked toward the doors of the airport and up the stairs to the main level, heaving our bags up step by step until we entered the terminal.

  “Let me make this call and see where we have to go,” Gallo said.

  I wheeled my bag around the back of a row of chairs and had a seat. Beth did the same, plopping down next to me and putting one leg over her other knee. Bill wheeled his suitcase over toward me and set it at the end of the row. He left it and started toward a group of vending machines across the corridor, another bag over his shoulder.

  “Sir, I believe federal regulation states that you’re supposed to keep your luggage in your sight at all times,” I said.

  Bill turned and walked backward, showing a smirk and middle finger, as he continued in the direction of the machines but kept eyes on his suitcase.

  Beth looked around left and right and up and down the terminal’s hallway, which was mostly empty, filled with not much more than the vending machines Bill was at, a couple restaurants, and some small stores with the metal gates drawn in front—closed for the night.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Coffee,” she said. “If this turns into an all-nighter, I want to keep this caffeine flowing.”

  “We’ll find some,” I said. “I’m going to need one or two as well.”

  Bill returned from his vending machine trip with a candy bar and two big energy drinks. He stuffed one of the cans into the bag hanging from his shoulder and cracked the top on the other.

  “I thought the wife made you give those up,” Beth said.

  “I think she’d rather me be alert and on my game. Plus, she isn’t here and will never know.” Bill pressed the can to his mouth and tilted the end toward the ceiling for a long drink.

  “Okay.” Gallo slipped his cell phone back into his pants pocket. “Our ride, or rides I should say, are going to meet us at the baggage claim. Look for the two guys who look like FBI agents was what Agent Philben said.”

  Beth and I rose, grabbed our bags, and followed the rest of the group down the concourse. We stopped at a still-open coffee shop and grabbed a couple of cups before riding the escalators down to the baggage area. The long rectangular room with the carousels was mostly empty aside from a handful of travelers and a couple people who appeared to be airline staff in some form or another.

  The two men in suits, the agents we were to meet, weren’t too hard to pick out. We met with them and had a quick round of introductions. Agent Hayne was an inch or two over six foot and around two hundred pounds—his hair was dark and short, his face shaved clean. Agent Easley accompanied Hayne. Easley was a bit shorter and looked squarer in the shoulders, with a short blond spiked hairstyle—a full mustache sat on his upper lip. The pair would be easy enough to distinguish. We followed the two agents from the baggage area out the sliding-glass doors to the curb designated for arriving flights. Two newer white Chevy Suburbans sat at the curb, waiting for us. We loaded our bags inside and split ourselves between the two vehicles. Beth, Scott, and I rode with Agent Hayne while Gallo, Chris, and Bill rode with Agent Easley.

  Agent Hayne pulled from the curb. “Are we headed straight to the office?”

  “Um,” Scott said from the front seat of the truck. He looked over the back of his seat at Bet
h and me in the back. “Straight to the office and deal with getting a place to stay after?” he asked.

  “I guess I’d rather do that,” I said. “Provided it’s not an issue with our bags and getting a ride back to the hotel later.”

  “I don’t see that being a problem,” Hayne said.

  I glanced at Beth, who shrugged.

  “Okay. Looks like straight to the office,” Scott said. “What’s around there for hotels? Just so we know when we need to find lodging.”

  “There’s a bigger one about three miles south of us that’s fairly nice—forget the chain off the top of my head. We actually have to go right past it to get to the office and back to the airport. Pretty convenient location. I’ll point it out as we pass. You should be able to see it lit up from the road.”

  “Perfect,” Scott said.

  We drove the rest of the twenty-five-minute trip toward the Bureau office mostly in silence. Hayne pointed out the hotel he’d spoken of, and he made a short phone call to someone I assumed was the supervisory agent, Philben.

  I stared at my phone, checking for messages and sending off a text to Karen, assuring her I was safely in El Paso and had not died in a fiery plane crash. Hayne exited the freeway and drove down city streets. I got a view out the windshield through the gap between the front seats and saw mountains breaking up the horizon in the distance. Hayne made a right into the parking lot of a lit-up rectangular three-story building. Square windows broke up the flat natural-stone-colored sides of the complex. The facility’s entire perimeter was wrapped in a black metal fence. Hayne pulled up to the guard shack at the gate. Our group showed our credentials and passed through. Hayne didn’t head for the main building or the parking area but drove around to the back of the facility and pulled up to a large metal building that matched the color of the main complex.

  “Philben said he was getting everyone gathered in the garages.” Hayne put the truck in park and killed the motor.

  We stepped from the vehicle, and after waiting a moment for Agent Easley to pull up with the rest of our group, we all headed for the metal building’s service door next to a large overhead garage door. Hayne swiped a keycard in the door and opened it. Our team funneled into a large garage area filled with equipment and cars—in the center of the garage, I spotted a group of four men staring at what looked like a map on the hood of a black sedan.

  One of the three men, in his early fifties with a gray-and-black stubbly beard, stood up straight and looked over at our approaching group. His face was square, and his barrel chest made the suit he wore look a size too small. The man scratched at the front of his short gray and receding hairline. “You’re the group from Dallas and Manassas?” he asked.

  “We are,” Scott said from behind my back.

  The man took a step forward from the car and stretched out his hand. “Agent Matt Philben.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kitty

  Kitty stared out of the small rear window of Ben’s pickup truck. The gravel road crunched under the truck’s tires as they made their way to the brothers’ home. Kitty grabbed the seat back in front of her and pulled herself forward between the gap of the front seat and the truck’s passenger window.

  She put her face near the nape of Kerry’s neck and spoke quietly. “We shouldn’t have left.”

  Kerry turned her head toward the passenger-side glass. “Quit worrying and relax.”

  “Daddy is going to be mad,” Kitty said.

  “He’s not even going to know. Geez, just sit back and be quiet.”

  Kitty leaned back and pressed her back against the rear seat cushion of the bench seat.

  “Something wrong?” Bobby asked, seated at Kitty’s side.

  “No.” Kitty clasped her hands in her lap and stared out of the side glass at the moonlit desert passing by.

  “We’ll go right back as soon as we grab the booze.” Bobby reached out and placed his hand on her knee. He gave her a playful squeeze and shake of her kneecap before letting go.

  Kitty smiled and turned her head to face him. “So what have you guys been doing?”

  “A little of this and a little of that. We work on a ranch a few days a week for a guy named Peter Elliot. When we’re not doing that, Pop has been working on a new truck, so we’ve been giving him a hand with that. A couple of cash jobs sprinkled in.”

  “When did you guys move?” Kitty asked.

  “A few years back. Dad thought it would be a good idea if we got out on our own.”

  “Been staying out of trouble?” Kitty asked.

  Bobby laughed. “Not if we can help it.”

  “Yeah, us either. We’ve been pretty good with keeping our noses clean, though. When we feel like being mischievous, we travel a bit.”

  “Smart. Why didn’t you ever think of that, you little shit?” Bobby reached forward and swatted the head of his brother, who was driving. “You’re supposed to be the genius. Ben wants to go to college. Did he tell you guys that?”

  Ben looked into the back of the truck over his shoulder. “You hit me again, and I’m going to mess you up.” He looked forward again and casually lifted his beer from a cup holder for a drink.

  Bobby chuckled and looked at Kitty. “Little Ben here grew a couple inches and gained a few pounds, and now he thinks he’s hot shit.” He reached forward and swatted at his brother again.

  Ben jerked his head, and the steering wheel along with it, to avoid the strike. The pickup fishtailed on the single-lane gravel road.

  Bobby leaned back into his seat. “He conveniently forgets the twenty years of ass whoopings that I’ve given him.”

  “Whatever,” Ben said from the front. “Keep pushing me.”

  “How far is your place?” Kitty asked.

  “A couple miles yet,” Bobby said. “We’ll grab a few bottles and take them back to the house.”

  “Okay.” Kitty went back to staring out the window. As the gravel road they traveled met a paved crossroad, a small two-pump gas station shot by outside at a four-way stop that Ben ran. The road turned to gravel again under the tires. Kitty sat quietly for the rest of the five-minute drive. Ben made a left turn and then a right down another gravel road. Kitty watched her sister leaning over and talking closely with Ben but couldn’t make out what was being said over the radio and sound of the tires on the gravel. Ben slowed, made a right into a driveway, and pulled up to the carport of a small brick ranch.

  “This is your house?” Kitty asked.

  “Yup,” Bobby said. “Well, technically, it’s not ours. But this is where we live.”

  She and Bobby climbed from the backseat when Kerry and Ben opened the doors and lifted the front seats. Kitty noticed an ankle-mounted pistol holster attached to Bobby’s leg as he exited. The group walked toward the house. Kitty watched as Ben and Kerry held hands walking for the front door.

  She turned toward Bobby. “Do you guys always carry?” Kitty pointed at his ankle.

  “Oh, yeah, I always wear that,” Bobby said. “Never know. Ben sometimes does, sometimes not. I’d rather have it and not need it than the other way around, you know?”

  “I do,” Kitty said. “So you guys are renting this place or something, then?”

  “The guy we help on the ranch owns it,” Bobby said. “I guess he used to have some of his laborers living here, but then they moved in their families and a bunch of illegals. Mr. Elliot wasn’t too pleased with that. So Pop was talking to him at the service station and said that we’d get everyone out of the house if he let us stay here. The agreement was that we’d then work for him on the ranch just as his laborers did. Mr. Elliot agreed, and Ben and I came over here and took out the trash.”

  The group stood at the doorway of the house, and Ben stuck a key in the door. He opened it, and they entered the small house.

  Kitty looked left to right as she walked inside. The place resembled a standard bachelor pad: a big television on a stand, a beat-up sofa, some empty beer cans strewn about. The home�
�s tile floor was a bit dirty. The walls had a tinge of yellowing from smoke. A couple assault rifles stood in a corner, leaning against the wall. All the light fixtures and the entire kitchen area looked untouched since the eighties.

  Bobby swung the front door closed at his and Kitty’s back.

  Kitty watched Kerry and Ben head into the kitchen before she entered the living room and had a seat on the couch.

  “Something to drink?” Bobby asked. “Maybe just have one and then head back.”

  “Sure,” Kitty said.

  Bobby went toward the kitchen.

  “Kerry!” Kitty called.

  She received no response.

  Kitty rose from the couch and walked into the kitchen after Bobby. Bobby went to the row of cabinets above the oven and began pulling bottles of alcohol out.

  “Where did Kerry go?” Kitty asked.

  “Um, I think she and Ben went in the back for a bit. So what are you drinking? We have vodka, whiskey, rum…” Bobby’s sentence trailed off as Kitty walked away.

  She walked down a short hallway. Long brown carpet led to an open doorway with the light on at the hallway’s end.

  Kitty looked in seeing her sister sitting on the edge of the bed. Ben was rummaging through the bedroom closet.

  “What’s going on in here?” Kitty asked.

  “Ben has some old pictures of us he’s trying to find,” Kerry said.

  “We shouldn’t stay too long.”

  “God, just relax, Kitty. Quit worrying. Go make yourself a drink or something.”

  Kitty rolled her eyes and left the doorway to return to the kitchen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  We went through a round of introductions with the team that would be accompanying us to move on the property. Supervisory Agent Philben said he had five men and he’d be joining us, making six, plus our group and the two agents already in the area. With our group taking point, we had a total of fourteen agents. From the points we wanted to have covered on the map, we wouldn’t have enough men. Philben made a call to the local sheriff’s department that covered the area and requested support. They agreed, and we planned to contact them when we got to the area. The photos from the flyover showed up a couple minutes after three o’clock. We’d looked them over, and they were pretty much what the pilot had reported: a semi parked in the driveway, a large fire burning, and what we could make out of a few people walking about and sitting around the fire.