Then something caught his eye.
Dirty clothing hung strewn on a small cot near the back. He was sure that those garments did not belong to any of the Crawfords. One was a pink blouse that had silvery sequins on it, which confirmed what he had suspected—this was where they had been keeping the runaway girls. It was their prison, a hole in the ground, a dungeon, a temporary stop before…
“You can’t just leave us all down here,” JT mumbled through his bleeding teeth. “We’ll get out. When we do, we are coming after—”
“Just shut the hell up,” Maggie chided.
“Listen to Ma, dickhead,” Henry added.
Wolf was nodding along. “Sit,” he said to them.
The Crawfords, plus one, all crowded together onto the single cot at the rear of the shelter. Maggie sat in the middle, scrunched tight between her two boys. Deputy Kristina chose the opposite side from JT and squeezed in. Her shoulder pressed up against the cinderblock wall and jutted forward. She looked extremely uncomfortable, but remained silent.
Wolf began to back his way up the stairs, still aiming the shotgun at them.
“You are not just going to leave us tied up down here, are you?” JT asked.
“That is just what he is planning to do,” Maggie answered for Wolf. “Now, just shut the hell up, boy.”
“But he hurt my jaw, and my ribs, Ma.”
Wolf ignored the complaint. Instead, he remained focused on understanding how an asshole like JT could have ever become such a good cook. It didn’t make much sense, but much in life didn’t make sense.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he backed away far enough to swing the heavy metal door closed, secured it with the padlock, and tested it. It would hold, but for how long…?
Tammy had tears in her eyes when he joined her. “I can’t leave him down there like that.”
“Yes, you can,” Pearson told her. Then she winced from the pain, and her knees almost buckled.
Tammy helped to stabilize her. “But, he’s got all the money. I got nothing. I gotta stay. You two go on and get out of here. I promise you, I won’t open it up until you call me and tell me I can. You can trust me. I owe that much to those poor girls.”
“No,” Wolf said.
“But he’s all I got.”
“Then you don’t have much,” Pearson said. She winced and her eyes stayed closed.
“But he’s got all the money. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Pearson replied, regaining some of the strength in her voice.
Wolf lowered the shotgun. “If money is your problem, I can fix that.”
“What do you mean?”
“How much do you need?” he asked.
She looked puzzled. “I don’t know. A lot, I guess?”
He nodded.
- 37 -
IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE
WITH TAMMY ON one side and Wolf on the other, they brought Pearson back into the house and set her on the couch by the fireplace. Wolf stooped to examine the wound again. It was getting worse. He could smell it. She needed to be taken to a hospital, and soon. Whatever he was going to do to find the girl, he was going to have to do it alone.
But would there be enough time?
The Crawfords would be able to break out from the shelter in at most two or three hours of solid effort. While a young runaway might not have been able to escape that cramped dungeon, the two linebacker-sized, corn-fed boys would be able to get through the door, if given enough time. He had already considered parking their jacked-up truck on top of the door, at least one wheel of it, or finding something that would keep it closed, but he could think of nothing else at the moment that would work for as long as he would need to keep them bottled up.
“You weren’t going to shoot them, were you?” Pearson asked, breaking his train of thought. “You can’t. You know that, right?”
He turned away.
She grabbed his arm. “We can call the FBI. They’ll come and figure this whole mess out. They’re good at that. These people will get what they deserve. I’m sure of it.”
“Will they…? You really think so?” he asked skeptically.
Pearson drew a breath and winced. “Maybe you are right. But what now? What else can we do?”
“Your contact can confirm where that phone is, right?”
“Yes?” she said questioningly. “But, you can’t do anything about it. Not alone. I’m going to go with you, at the very least.”
“No, you are not.”
“You can’t say that,” she said. “I’ve got to go along. You don’t even know how to work a damn smartphone.”
He laid a hand on her forehead and brushed her hair back with his thumb.
“Plus, you have no plan for this. Let me help you with that. Let me come. I’ll be okay. Just get me some…Advil or something. A few stitches. I’ll be fine.”
“No, you will not,” he said. “I will improvise—” He stopped, paused, and then like tumblers on a lock clicking into place, he knew exactly what he could do to keep the Crawfords shut away down in that hole.
He almost smiled.
“I will be right back,” he told Pearson. “Wait here.”
“No, stay. With me. Don’t go. We go together.”
“Give me twenty minutes,” he said. “Then we will get you to a hospital.”
“But I am going with you. Wherever you go, I go. That’s final.”
He ignored her and stepped away. Tammy was sitting in the chair across from him. “You heard what I said, right?”
She nodded.
“Can you keep an eye on her? Yell out to me if there is a problem or anything changes. I will be close by.”
“I…okay,” she said, nodding.
Wolf left the house and went to the adjacent barn. Through the open door, he’d seen just what he needed earlier. Stacks of chemical fertilizer in plastic bags. Ammonium nitrate, which would suit what he had in mind. Also inside the barn, he found a well-stocked workbench.
Perfect.
One of the things he had learned in Iraq was just how easy it was to make an IED—improvised explosive device. Nearly anyone with enough basic technical knowledge could assemble one from readily obtainable materials. From bags of sugar to unexploded ordinance to fertilizer and fuel oil. Even gasoline bombs in sealed containers could do a lot of damage. Many of the devices he’d come across had gone way beyond the basics and had shown a frightening level of sophistication for such primitive conditions. Given how many variations he’d seen, it would be as easy for him to construct a device as it would be to bake a pie. Maybe even easier. Because he was planning to bake the best damn pie in all of Nebraska.
In just a few minutes, maybe ten, he scrounged up a five-gallon bucket and mixed the other ingredients he had gathered into a smooth paste. From a shotgun shell, he created a tiny mechanical detonator using strips of duct tape and a ten-penny nail to act as a striker. It was all drop-dead simple. And simple rarely failed.
When he returned to the storm shelter, the door was already being tested from inside. One of the Crawfords was slamming into the steel door from below, and the metal bar holding it closed had already bent under the strain.
Wolf slammed the butt of the shotgun against the door and waited for the noise inside to stop. It did.
“Back up,” he yelled through the door.
Hearing nothing else, he unlocked the padlock and lifted the bar, pointing the shotgun one-handed into the breech he had created.
The door suddenly burst open, driving him backward and onto his heels. Henry stood there, panting hard. He was wild-eyed, and the rope that had tied him up now hung from one wrist.
The large man rushed forward. But Wolf, being even larger and faster, didn’t stay on his heels for long. He jabbed the butt of the shotgun upward and into Henry’s gut, causing the man to woof, double over, and drop to one knee.
Maggie came out from behind Henry. Her hands were also untied and she still had the rope in her hands.
She lunged at Wolf.
Before she could reach him, he fired the shotgun into the dirt near her feet, sending up a plume of dirt and pebbles. She froze and her hands went up to protect her face almost half a second too late, but her freezing in place had also been just enough of a barrier to block Otto and Kristina, who piled up behind her.
“Back,” Wolf said to them all.
“You bastard,” Maggie spat, blinking and wiping dust and gravel from her cheeks.
He kept her covered with the gun and kicked Henry toward the hole and forced the guy to go back inside.
Still holding her hands raised and squinting, Maggie said, “You better just give this up, or things are all going to go very badly for you. I can promise you that.”
“See this?” he said.
She looked at what he had indicated. He had constructed the IED inside a five-gallon bucket and wrapped the top and outside with more of the gray duct tape.
“Do you know what it can do?”
It took her a moment to realize it, but she obviously did come to understand what it was and what it could do. But she did not say anything about it, so he continued, “If you knock too hard against that door, this will tip over, and things will go…very badly for you.”
“You can’t just leave us down there with a bomb sitting on our heads.”
“Tell me where they are taking that girl.”
She ignored him. “There’s no food down there. No water, either.”
“Then,” he said flatly, “you’d better hope I find her quickly.”
- 38 -
NON-PERFECT CONDITION
TEXAS WAS JUST as shitty as all the other states Montez had driven through in the past few days, if not more so. He was tired and dirty, and his mood was tired and dirty, so his attitude was tired and dirty as well. He just wanted to get back to New York City and sleep for a week, preferably on a pair of soft, heavy breasts.
Ten minutes earlier, he and the kid had transitioned onto the sprawling property owned by his employer and passed under a sign cut from plate steel that read QK RANCH. Various other poster-sized signs along the gravel path made mention of the many exotic animals that lived on the ranch, presumably. Montez didn’t know much about animals, nor did he care much for them, but he’d been to the zoo and seen some on display there.
He hadn’t been impressed by them.
As the sedan inched along, he wrinkled his nose and sought for the handkerchief in his front pocket. The white cloth, however, was too used up to be an effective barrier to the foulness he now had to suffer through. Even with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner blowing hard and set on recycle, the interior of the car stank, just like the whole state probably stank.
Soon, they reached a chain-link gate, and a guy dressed up as a cowboy—complete with boots, hat, dungarees, and fat belt buckle that glinted in the sun—greeted them. The guy had some kind of black combat rifle slung low on a strap over one shoulder. Some kind of cowboy, or hunter, or something like that, Montez figured.
He was equally not impressed.
Punching the button to roll down the side window, he watched as the guy cautiously approached. Outside air mixed with the inside air, and the smell and heat grew even more foul—if that was at all possible. But that fetid odor now served to cover up much of his own human stench, and that of the kid, Eddie. It had been growing worse and worse over the past couple of days, which made him wonder if, when this was all said and done, if all the cleaners in all the world would ever be able to get that vile smell out of his expensive ensemble of fine wool and cotton.
“He’s expecting us,” Montez said to the cowboy before rolling up his window and waiting for the gate to open.
The cowboy with the boots and the hat strolled back leisurely and opened the gate, then waved them through and shut it behind them. They slowly followed the signs along the gravel road until they crested a small hill and drove into a valley where there was a sprawling ranch house with various four-wheel drive vehicles littered about under the shade of a few trees. Eddie drove toward the house and stopped the sedan just in front of it. Not a sound came from the smooth brakes, just tires crunching gravel.
Montez got out and stretched his arms and neck as the car ticked and cooled. He’d run out of cigarettes already but wished to hell he had saved just one for right now.
“It’s payday,” Eddie said as he got out.
The kid was damn well right, Montez figured. It had been a lot of work just for one girl, delivered safe and sound. But it would all be worth it. There should be a big score in it for the both of them. Montez grinned privately. The girl in the trunk hadn’t made a peep in the past few hours. He’d even gotten a little shuteye before the sun had come up, which hadn’t done him all that good. But he’d sleep for a week once they got paid and returned to civilization.
The door to the house swung open and a man limped out onto the covered porch. The middle-aged guy held onto the railing as he made his way down the two steps. He used an ivory-handled cane to help him cover the remaining distance, going at a frustratingly slow pace.
This man was Mr. Krieg, the boss. He was dressed in blue dungarees, a crisp white shirt with silver-threaded accents, and a bolo tie with a bright blue stone in it. On his head was a tan cowboy hat, also crisp and neat. Montez knew he would not be caught dead in an outfit like that, but he had to admire the way the man wore it. Made the guy look rich without him having to say it.
“Did you have any troubles?” Krieg asked.
“No, sir.” Montez straightened his suit as best he could. “None at all. Smooth and easy. No loose ends, just as we agreed.”
“Good.” Krieg nodded once and circled the car and glanced in the back seat.
He looked up. “Where is she…?”
Montez indicated toward Eddie with a nod. Eddie hustled to reopen the driver’s side door and pull a lever. The trunk opened and flipped up on its own. Montez grinned at the thought put into something so simple, yet useful. Quality car. He could load a body in the back without having to bend over to open the trunk. And, now that he had driven so far in it, he was already planning to use some of his cut to get one of his own when he got back to The City. Though, he wasn’t sure where the hell he would keep it parked, since it was so big.
Krieg limped to the rear of the Crown Victoria. He glanced down into the trunk, and frowned. Montez joined him, doing everything he could to read the details on the man’s face. He could not tell exactly what the guy was thinking, but clearly, the guy was disappointed.
“Help her out of there,” Krieg ordered. “Now.”
Montez nodded again to Eddie, who once more hustled around to the rear and lifted the girl out of the trunk and into his arms, proving the guy was stronger than Montez had first figured. The tied-up girl was limp and pale and bruised and covered in sweat, but she was still alive as promised.
Krieg frowned sourly. “She’d better recover quick, Mr. Montez.” Letting go of his frown, he directed Eddie to take the girl inside the house.
Montez took a step back from his employer, leather soles of his shoes crushing gravel against gravel. An unmistakable look of anger was coming from Mr. Krieg now, and it was telling Montez that it would be best to remain outside near the car for the time being.
- 39 -
NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
WOLF KEPT HIS speed to about ten percent over the prevailing speed limit, which happened to be seventy miles per hour, so he figured hovering up near eighty wouldn’t get him noticed. It was just below the minimum threshold where most cops would pull a guy over, and it was also just about as fast as Pearson’s rented Chevy would go before starting to shimmy and shake and drift about on the road, threatening to come apart.
At the rate they were currently traveling, she’d let him know with great precision that they would reach their destination in Abilene, Kansas in exactly one hour and fifteen minutes. And, some good news she’d dropped on him was that she figured she co
uld hold out for that long, maybe longer.
He was glad for a little good news.
His desire was to drop her off in Lincoln, Nebraska. But she’d waved that off, wanting instead to get as far away from those Crawfords, plus one, as she possibly could. Which was just fine with him, because he was not sure if he would ever return for them. Their fate for the next day or so was literally in the hands of God, gods, or whatever beliefs to which they subscribed. He wasn’t even sure they believed in anything at all, and, depending on what they decided to do, they might have the opportunity to learn the ultimate truth that all mankind wishes to know, but doesn’t want to spend time testing theories to find out.
Tammy had also decided to come along with them. She’d protested at first, but Pearson had been able to convince her that she’d have a solid job back in Chicago, if she wanted it. That seemed to be all that the former waitress really desired—a fresh start. Wolf had offered her money to leave and get away from her husband, but she had refused it, instead preferring to pay her own freight. He admired that. But, even though she wouldn’t take the money, she had made one small concession and agreed to stay near Pearson until she was fit to travel again.
Everything was now working out splendidly, except for the fact that Pearson was gut shot, the girl who called herself Melody was still missing, and he had just placed a large bomb over the heads of a family of not so nice folk, who, according to a theory he’d once heard about a cat and a box, were both dead and not dead, at this very moment.
“You really should let me go with you,” Pearson said. “You hardly know how to operate a smartphone, and you have no idea what you will find when you catch up with whoever took that girl. You need my help. Otherwise, you are going to get yourself killed. And,” she said with a grin, “I wouldn’t like that very much.”
He glanced over at her and stated flatly, “I will figure it out.”
“These guys kill people,” she warned.
He nodded. That did not bother him. He had killed people as well.
She huffed and resumed working on her cell, typing out a message he could not quite see well enough to read it, and while she typed, she only stopped to grimace in pain once.
Wolf Who Walks Alone: A Raymond Wolf Mystery Novel Page 16
