An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson

  Static. “Yeah?”

  “Keep a lookout for Lola.”

  There was a pause.

  Static. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. Over.” I stood and looked around the room for an answer, and, not finding one, asked in general, “Anybody got any ideas?”

  Nutter volunteered from the doorway. “Call Ellsworth Air Force Base and have them shoot the sons-a-bitches out of the air.”

  “Anybody have anything a little less drastic?”

  “Yes, but just barely.”

  I turned and could see that Henry was still looking out the window but was now pointing outside. “‘I think that there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.’”

  Ignoring the Sherlock quote, I walked over to where my best friend was standing, peering through the dusty slats of the venetian blinds in the late-afternoon sun at what filled the parking lot: the fifteen tons of white, mine-resistant ambush protected military juggernaut—the mighty Pequod.

  16

  “You have to admit that there’s a certain dramatic irony in driving this thing up Nance’s rear end, seeing as how he bought it and all.” Rumbling through the cutoff to the golf course, I revved the monstrous thing into second gear as it effortlessly climbed the hill.

  Henry was silent as I made small talk with Stainbrook. “So, tell me Eddy the Viking isn’t your second agent on scene.”

  “Eddy the Viking is not my second agent on scene.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m relieved. I thought we were in real trouble there for a minute.” I rounded the turns that flattened into the parking lot beside the clubhouse where the skeet shoot competition had been what seemed a long time ago. “So, Apelu, aka Big Easy, was Post’s confidential informant within the Tre Tre Nomads?”

  The ATF agent hung on to two of the straps, trying to keep himself centered in the backseat so that he could see through the windshield. “Big Easy was the primary, but there are others. We thought of approaching Kiddo, but he seemed like such a loose cannon we figured a week later he’d be attempting to negotiate another cable reality show.” His voice assumed a fake TV announcer tone: “Billy ThE Kiddo, ATF!”

  “It could still happen.” I spun the wheel starboard and sent the Pequod down the road past the utility buildings toward the airport. “So, Nance tags the original scientist who came up with the polymer, then works with Torres, Bodaway’s father, then gets rid of him, and partners up with Kiddo?”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  “How did he ever think he could get rid of a celebrity like Billy ThE and get away with it?”

  “I’d say he’s desperate.”

  “Why try and kill Bodaway?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe it just had to do with the daughter, but you can see from the score card that when these guys go to kill you they generally don’t miss, especially on a lonesome road at night.” There was a pause. “You really give a shit about this kid?”

  I glanced at Henry and sighed. “I do. That’s the case that I’m working on.”

  “Is that why you’re driving an armored military vehicle through a golf course right now?”

  “Ancillary; Nance and his plastic guns are your problem, but if I can work my case by helping you with yours, so be it.”

  “The daughter.”

  “Chloe.”

  “She says she found him on the side of the road?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe she did.”

  “Do we have any idea where she is?”

  I glanced back at him. “I was hoping you did.”

  He shook his head. “Not on our radar, but I’m sure we can find out.”

  “There were a lot of cell phone calls going back and forth between her and Bodaway.”

  “Maybe she was in on it.”

  “A beautiful girl, a handsome boy. Maybe they’re just a thing.”

  The ATF agent paused. “I never thought of that.”

  I pulled the MRAP around the corner and parked beside the Oriental poppy colored Challenger. “Agent, you’ve got to get out more.”

  Vic was standing on the hillside at the top of the berm, pretty much eye level with us as I opened the door of the Pequod and gestured like the lovely Carol Merrill.

  She put her hands on both sides of her face in mock enthusiasm and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard over the diesel engine. “Oh my, the fleet’s in.”

  I smiled at our conveyance. “I think we’ve got enough fuel to get the job done and make it back to a gas station—maybe.”

  She dropped her hands and looked at me. “Where’s Nutter and Dougherty?”

  “Babysitting Dog and waiting for the squad of highway patrolmen that are on their way.”

  “So, our job is to . . . ?”

  “Bottle them up till reinforcements arrive.” I climbed out and watched as she negotiated her way down the embankment. “Have they finished loading the stuff?”

  She swung the binoculars on her neck. “They’re finishing up now, but I’m thinking that they’ll likely go back to the bunker before finally heading out.”

  “I don’t think the air crew are armed, but we’ve got to keep that thing on the ground.”

  “Split up?”

  “Yep. You can take Stainbrook, and Henry and I will park the Pequod and blockade the bunker gate. We’ll see what their plastic guns can do against it.”

  “What are you going to do about Lola?”

  “What would they gain by hurting her?”

  “A threat—she’s the only ticket they’ve got to get out of here.”

  “They kill her, and they go nowhere.”

  She punched my arm and moved toward the Dodge as the ATF agent joined her on the other side. “That’s your negotiation stance?”

  I threw a thumb back at Henry, still seated in the passenger seat of the Pequod. “Got it from the Cheyenne.”

  She rolled her eyes and slipped inside, starting the Challenger with a subdued rumble.

  Stainbrook looked back at me with the door handle in his hand, more than a little concerned. “Does she know how to drive this thing?”

  • • •

  The flatbed was making the return trip to the bunker, and fortunately the occupants weren’t paying any attention to the road on the hill leading back into town. I’d let Vic advance a hundred yards ahead of me. I figured when she made her move I’d make mine, only slower, much slower.

  I glanced at Henry, who sat there studying the road ahead and bouncing in his palm the foregrip of the Sig Sauer machine pistol we’d confiscated from Nance’s dead gunman. “How are you doing?”

  “I am not sure.”

  Nodding my head, my eyes followed his to where Vic had inched forward a few feet, probably for a better vantage point. “I can tell. Mixed feelings?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “It’s not important what I call it.” I leaned back in my seat. “You’re sure you still don’t have any feeling for Lola?”

  He turned and looked at me.

  “Bodaway?”

  His eyes went back to the windshield, and I watched as his breathing slowed. “He has not had many advantages in this life.”

  “No, he hasn’t, and unfortunately I don’t think he’s going to be getting any anytime soon.” I waited before saying the rest. “I know this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but you can’t do everything for everybody, Henry.”

  “No, but the least I can do is keep his mother from dying.”

  I glanced around at the plethora of military overkill. “Hey, it was your idea to bring this behemoth to the party; you got something else in mind now?”

  He leaned forward, trying to get a better look
at the bunker. “If you roll up to the front with this, that should provide enough of a distraction to allow me to come in from the back.”

  “If there is a back. There aren’t any windows, so I’m not so sure there’s a door other than the one in front.”

  “What have we got to lose? You are going to need someone outside the vehicle, short of driving through the structure, which you cannot do without imperiling Lola.”

  “Shock and awe, huh?”

  He finally smiled. “You be the awe, and I will provide the shock.” He pulled the handle and climbed out, slinging the machine pistol over his shoulder and looking all the world like some high plains merc. “I will need ten minutes.”

  I pointed toward the muscle car. “Tell Bo and Luke Duke up ahead of us there.” As he started to close the door, I asked, “How long were you going to sit there before telling me what you were thinking?”

  The smile lingered, and he quoted me some more Arthur Conan Doyle: “‘When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.’”

  I took out my Colt and lodged it in the seat he’d been occupying up to now. “Get out of here before I shoot you myself.”

  The door closed, and he was gone into the twilight of early evening like an afterthought.

  • • •

  Ten minutes can be a long time, and this was one of those instances.

  I stuffed my pocket watch back into my jeans and cracked the door open, the windows being inoperable, as Vic walked up alongside, stepping onto the running board of the Pequod. “It’s been nine and a half minutes.”

  She glanced down the road. “They’re loading up smaller items for the final run, so I think it’s now or never.”

  “Okay. You guys head over to the airport and shut it down; I don’t even want that thing capable of flight.”

  “Take the keys?”

  “I don’t know if jets have keys.”

  “We’ll steal the distributor cap.”

  “I don’t know if they have those, either.”

  “Fuckin’ whatever, we’ll stop it, okay?”

  “If it seems secure, you can come over and help me.”

  “Deal.”

  “Don’t shoot anybody unless you have to.”

  She made a face, looking at my ride. “And don’t you run over anybody unless you have to.” She then bit my arm and was gone, more like a forethought.

  As I’d anticipated, she blasted the Dodge down the hill like an internally combusted luge sled, sliding through the s-curve and skidding onto the municipal airport tarmac next to the Citation jet.

  My approach was a bit slower but carried a great deal more majesty, kind of like a house on wheels. Approaching an astonishing twenty miles an hour, I wheeled the MRAP into the cutoff leading up the box canyon to the bunker.

  There were five men standing by the flatbed and a Suburban near the entrance, and they all turned to watch as I approached. I was wishing that Nutter had sprung for the sirens but figured the PA system would have to suffice.

  Lodging the oversize vehicle in the fourteen-foot opening of the closed gate, I parked in close enough so that the only thing that could possibly pass on either side would be a man on foot.

  I plucked the mic from the dash, flipped the toggle switch overhead, and heard my voice echo off the surrounding rock walls. “Howdy.”

  They didn’t move.

  So far, the awe thing was working pretty well.

  “This is Sheriff Walt Longmire, and I hate to ruin your day, but you’re all under arrest.”

  They still didn’t move, and I started thinking it was maybe too much shock. This particular thought was belied by their next action, which was to draw their collective weapons and begin pointing them at me. My next thought was to wonder whether Chief Nutter had opted for the bulletproof glass option.

  I decided to bluff my way in and keyed the mic. “I wouldn’t make a bad situation worse by doing that. We’ve shut down your escape plane over at the airport, and there are about a hundred Wyoming peace officers converging on this area as we speak.” I watched as they glanced around, but they didn’t seem awed or shocked anymore. “Honest.”

  I’m not sure who fired first, or if it was even one of them, but at the report of the gunshot they jumped and one of them fired a round into the windshield of the MRAP, spidering the bulletproof glass.

  As a reflex, I shied against the door as another volley cracked the rest of the screen, but it held. “Oh, Nutter . . . you magnificent bastard.”

  Figuring there wasn’t much else for it, I slipped my foot from the brake and stomped on the gas. Until the thing came to a stop, I would just duck between the seats, along for the ride.

  There was a burst of noise as the giant wheels of the Pequod rammed into the closest truck and began climbing up its rear. There was more noise and a lot of yelling, which I hoped meant that the shooters were running for their lives, which is what I would’ve been doing. The Pequod kind of settled out as it ran over the pickup, but then I felt another lurch as it slammed into the flatbed that had ferried the supplies to the airport.

  I felt its tires give way and could hear the entire body being crushed under the weight of the fifteen ton military vehicle; at least Nutter hadn’t put the Pequod on a diet.

  The big truck lurched and grunted and, using the two civilian vehicles as traction, began grinding into the reinforced Quonset hut, taking the buttressed concrete front with it. The thing kept going, and I started getting the feeling that I should let up or I would be likely to run right over the building and flatten whoever might happen to be inside, including Henry, most likely Lola, and Nance.

  Letting up on the accelerator, I felt the Pequod reluctantly lose speed, and it felt like it might have grounded its front suspension into the collapsed wall. It settled like a whale in a deep surf. Carefully lifting my head, I glanced around but couldn’t see much on account of the amazing amount of dust in the air. As it abated in the slight breeze, I could see that my surmise had been pretty much on target.

  The gunmen were on the surrounding hillsides running for the tree line, and I didn’t blame them.

  The radio rattled on the dash of the big truck. Static. “Stainbrook and I heard shots; are you all right?”

  I gripped and keyed the mic. “Couldn’t be better.”

  Static. “What happened?”

  “They threw a few shots at me, so I ran over two of their trucks and into their building.”

  Static. “Where are the shooters?”

  “Scattered hither and yon.”

  Static. “Did you get Nance?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it. So is Henry.”

  • • •

  No one seemed to be interested in turning and throwing a potshot at me, so I pulled the handle and opened the MRAP’s unencumbered driver’s door. Stepping out onto the concrete rubble that had been the front wall of the bunker, I still held the mic. “What’s the status on the plane?”

  Static. “Grounded. There was one tough guy, but I popped him in the nose with the butt of my Glock and things calmed down.”

  I keyed the mic again. “Well, keep them there, and I’ll ring in when we get the rest.” I let go of the mic and watched as it launched back into the cab and ricocheted off the steering wheel.

  I glanced back at the two flattened vehicles behind me. “Wow, that worked.”

  Slipping my Colt from my holster, I carefully picked my way down the rubble and, peering under the lip of the Quonset hut into the darkness of the very long building, tried to figure out how I was going to get in. Whatever door had been at the front of the structure was now buried, so, crabbing along the side and using the running boards as a railing, I went around the back of the Pequod and spotted a portion of the concrete wall th
at had collapsed to the inside.

  Giving one more glance to the surrounding area, I could see that Nance’s rental army had gotten to the rock walls, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t get much farther with the noose tightening.

  Scrambling down the rubble, I raised a hand to steady myself on the Quonset’s arced metal ridge and swung into what must’ve been a waiting room or reception area. Fortunately, there were no bodies, and I was feeling relatively sure that my impromptu frontal assault hadn’t cost any lives.

  I listened, but there didn’t appear to be any noise coming from within. Stepping down onto the concrete floor, I could see a doorway to my left that must’ve led further inside, but with the interior wall having shifted, the jamb looked a little crooked, and when I tried the knob, it wouldn’t budge.

  Stepping back, I put a size 13 warrant into use, and the cheap, hollow-core door split in two. Leading with the Colt, I stepped inside.

  There were a few sparks from the fractured overhead lighting, but other than that, not much illumination. It was definitely a manufacturing setup, and a lot of the equipment was still here, obviously too heavy to be loaded on the jet.

  Working my way down the single aisle into the darkness, I thought about what a great target I must be presenting, backlit from behind. I figured that Henry must’ve found them and either had the situation in hand or was involved in some sort of standoff. Either way, I figured it was okay to yell. “Henry!”

  There was some movement in the shadows about thirty yards away, and I raised the barrel of the .45, taking aim. “Henry?”

  “Stop yelling; it is undignified.”

  I made out his familiar shape as he approached with the machine pistol at his shoulder. “Where were you?”

  He glanced past me at the wreckage. “Running in the other direction because a madman drove a truck into the building.”

  “See anybody?”

  He turned and started back. “Only a lowly gunsel whom I have tied to a chair.”

  “You only got one?”

  “Where are yours?”

  “Running for the Black Hills.” I caught up with him. “Does he know where Nance and Lola are?”