by Jon Land
Kristen would languish through the long nights alone downstairs in the senator’s townhouse, glad at least to be able to share the hole her emotions had fallen into. The only man she could see herself taking up with again would be one who could provide the kind of strength she tried to provide Samantha Jordan during her worst spats with depression. A friend first, who asked for nothing more than what she was capable of giving, who wouldn’t let her down.
Following Kristen’s desperate call from Colorado, Samantha Jordan hadn’t let her down. With Kristen on the verge of slipping into a vortex of hopelessness after the gruesome death of her brother, she had reached down and pulled her up.
“We’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning at the Pentagon with the head ordnance officer for all stateside military bases,” the senator said as her driver pulled the Lincoln away from the curb.
“On a Sunday?”
“The Pentagon knows who to open their offices up to, babe.”
“Have you found out anything about Paul Gathers?” Kristen asked her.
“From what I’ve been able to piece together, his assignment was strictly routine.”
“But did you speak to him?”
“It’s not time to force the issue yet, Kris. But when the time comes, there’s no one better at doing the forcing.”
At the Pentagon Sunday morning, it was all Kristen could do to keep up with the senator’s pace down the corridors. The woman was a dynamo. Nothing and no one got in her way. She had bulldozed her way through subcommittee after subcommittee until the spot on the appropriations committee opened up. The party hierarchy was afraid of what she might do if they didn’t choose her. Samantha got the seat.
Jordan double-checked the number on the office they had stopped at and then stepped in without knocking or announcing herself to the receptionist.
“Senator Samantha Jordan, Colonel,” she announced to a uniformed figure seated behind the desk after closing the door. “And this is my chief of staff Kristen Kurcell.”
Colonel Haynes came out of his chair, checking his watch. “I’m sorry, Senator, but I thought our appointment was for—”
“I’m a little early. Now let’s cut the bullshit and get right down to it, if that’s all right with you, Colonel Haynes.”
“Of course,” Haynes said, tripping over his words. “Of course, Senator.” He didn’t sit down.
“I want to talk to you about Miravo Air Force Base in Colorado.”
“Miravo?”
The senator turned to Kristen and nodded.
“My brother saw something happen there last Thursday night,” Kristen began and then proceeded to tell the story, steeling herself from more tears when she came to the part about identifying David’s body.
Colonel Haynes listened intently, an increasingly perplexed look drawn over his features. When Kristen had finished, he moved from behind his desk deliberately and closed the door to his office.
“Senator Jordan,” he said, standing rigid, “what’s your security clearance?”
“I serve on two subcommittees of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Colonel. My clearance is G-5, and they don’t come any higher than that.”
“Then I’m going to assume for the moment that Ms. Kurcell’s is the same. I think the two of you should sit down.”
“I think we’ll stand.”
“As you wish. Senator, your assistant—”
“Chief of staff.”
“—chief of staff claims Miravo is abandoned, mothballed.”
“Yes,” Kristen chimed in. “As of yesterday anyway.”
“That’s impossible. You see, it’s been up and functional again for six months.”
“Not according to the logs furnished my subcommittee, Colonel,” said Jordan with a hard edge to her voice.
Haynes hedged. “I think perhaps my superiors should brief you on this.”
“You report directly to the Joint Chiefs, Colonel, and both of us know it. I believe you can handle the chore equally well.”
Haynes nodded slowly. “Miravo’s reopening was authorized under a blank standard your appropriations committee authorized, Senator.”
“Wait a minute, did you say reopening?”
“Yes. Miravo along with several other mothballed bases in strategic locations across the country.”
“Why? What exactly is it that was supposedly authorized by my committee?”
“The dismantling and destruction of nuclear warheads in accordance with the latest disarmament treaties. Miravo and the other similarly isolated bases were retasked and reoutfitted accordingly.”
“I’m telling you it was deserted,” Kristen insisted.
“Then you weren’t at Miravo.”
“I’m sure it was Miravo. Christ, I was almost killed in the hills surrounding it!”
“I toured the base myself just last month, ma’am.”
“My brother was killed because of something he saw going on there. I was almost killed because I followed his trail to the base.”
“I’m sorry about your brother, but he couldn’t have been at Miravo.”
“You’re saying the base was active Thursday night,” Kristen badgered.
“Yes.”
“As well as yesterday?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Haynes relaxed just a little. “Senator, I’m going to order a full investigation. I’m going to—”
“No,” interrupted Samantha Jordan. “No investigations. I’m flying out there today to see for myself, and I’d appreciate it if base personnel were not forewarned of my coming.”
“That’s highly irregular, Senator.”
“So is Miss Kurcell’s story.”
“Which, apparently, you believe.”
“Yes,” Jordan said, eyes on Kristen. “Yes, I do.”
En route to Huntsville State Penitentiary in Texas from Gainesville, Johnny Wareagle tried to tell himself that Chief Silver Cloud had been mistaken. If Traggeo was in prison, he could not have been responsible for Will Shortfeather’s disappearance, nor could the old chief’s vision of another, more recent murder be correct. Johnny wanted to believe that the killer was behind bars, as the sheriff’s deputy in Gainesville had assured him; that the years had finally blurred the great Silver Cloud’s eyes. But the resolve that had burned in the old chief’s stare ruled out any error on his part, a fact confirmed by the warden of Huntsville Sunday morning.
“Traggeo was granted early parole five months ago, after serving seven months of a five-year sentence,” he reported, a manila file open on his desk. A pudgy, balding man, the warden peered up at Johnny through Coke-bottle glasses.
“Who granted it?”
“The governor, it says here. Got a paper inside with his signature.”
“I didn’t think Texas was in the habit of granting early parole to brutal killers.”
“I don’t make the rules, Mr. Wareagle.”
“Is there a forwarding address?”
“Of course. Let me just—Wait a minute … That’s odd.” The warden looked back at Wareagle through his thick glasses. “I’m afraid many of the blanks on this form have been left empty.”
“Is there anyone here who can help me fill them in?”
“If you mean furnish information not present in this file, the answer’s no. Unless …” The warden sifted through the file once more. “Apparently Traggeo’s cellmate is still with us. Elwin Coombs, doing twenty years to life for murder. I doubt he’ll be cooperative, though.”
“Where can I find him?”
“You didn’t let me finish. Coombs has been cited numerous times for threatening guards. He broke a chaplain’s nose and hospitalized a psychiatrist, during an annual examination. He doesn’t like answering questions.”
“Where can I find him?” Johnny repeated.
The warden relented with a shrug. “He’ll be in the yard now helping to get the afternoon show of the annual rodeo ready.”
“Rodeo?”
The warden explained that every y
ear the prisoners of Huntsville Penitentiary put on a rodeo for the public. Admission was charged for bleacher seats erected in the huge yard and all the money went into a fund to be dispensed as an inmate board saw fit. The rodeo had opened on Friday and would close after this afternoon.
“He’s over there,” said the guard who had escorted Johnny into the yard, gesturing toward a corral. “Good luck.”
Wareagle glided toward it.
The huge, barrel-chested Coombs was pouring feed into the trough before the pen of one of the bucking broncos that were the rodeo’s central attraction. When he leaned over to drain the rest of a bag, Johnny shoved him through the rails into the pen.
“Hey!” he screamed as the bronco inside bucked and kicked at him. “Hey!”
Coombs climbed to his feet and circled away from the snorting monster. Its legs kicked out toward him and Coombs slammed against the pen’s rear.
“Hey!”
No sooner had he yelled than Coombs saw the huge figure of an Indian grab hold of the bronco’s reins and, impossibly, hold him steady.
“What the fuck, man?”
“We’re going to talk about Traggeo,” Johnny told him.
Wareagle gave the bronco just enough slack to lash out at Coombs again. Its hooves whistled by his face and grazed his shoulder.
Coombs waved his hands frantically. “Okay, okay! I’ll talk! Just let me outta here!”
“Talk first,” Johnny said and reined the bronco back in.
“Sickest fuck I ever met on the inside or the out, and let me tell ya, I met my share. I don’t know why they put us in together while he was here. It wasn’t like he was a bro or anything.” Coombs gave Wareagle a long look. “Least not of mine.”
“Mine, either. What made him sick?”
“Way he talked about people he had offed. Said it gave him a charge. Said he lived for it.”
Wareagle swallowed hard. His grasp tightened on the bronco’s reins.
“I remember him telling me he’d figured things all out. That’s when he shaved his head.”
“What had he figured out?”
“Didn’t make much sense to me. Something about absorbing people’s strength after he offed them.” Coombs looked at him shuddering. “Said he was gonna start wearing the scalps of his victims.”
It took all of Johnny’s resolve not to show any response. He thought of Will Shortfeather’s straw-colored hair atop Traggeo’s shaven head.
“Then one morning ’bout, I don’t know, maybe six months back, they called him to the warden’s office and he was history. Sprung from here just like that.” Coombs was trying to swallow. “He musta had some major pull. That’s all I know.”
“Who came for him?”
“I dunno. Shit, that’s the truth. Why don’t you ask the goddamn warden?”
“He doesn’t know, either. Tell me what you think.”
“I don’t think nothin’ … but I heard stuff. ’Bout the cars that came and took him away.”
“Go on.”
“They had government license plates.”
CHAPTER 16
The private jet landed in Denver five hours after taking off from Dulles Airport. Kristen Kurcell and Senator Samantha Jordan were the only occupants of the cabin. At the senator’s insistence, their presence and plans had been made known to no one else. A rental car would take the two of them to Miravo Air Force Base.
For Kristen, the turnaround seemed impossibly quick. The truth of her brother’s death had not even settled in, numbing shock still blurring the reality of it. And yet, not even twenty-four hours after identifying his body, she was returning to the place where he had witnessed something that had led to his murder.
“It’s just up ahead,” Kristen told Senator Jordan, who had enjoyed the rare experience of driving so much that she insisted upon doing all of it herself.
The ride had stretched into early evening Sunday, only the two hours gained in the time difference allowing them to arrive before sunset. The base appeared after the next bend in Old Canyon Road. Kristen braced herself to reexperience the same emotions she had felt when she and Farlowe had approached it little more than twenty-four hours ago.
But all she felt when Miravo came into view was shock.
Miravo Air Force Base bustled with activity. Trucks moved about and were parked where none had been present just yesterday. And troops loomed everywhere, starting with those manning a pair of Humvee vehicles that straddled the main gate as a first line of defense.
“I’m going to have to see your pass, ma’am,” one of the armed soldiers said to Senator Jordan.
“Will this do?” she asked, flashing her senate ID.
The guard looked twice to make sure the picture matched her face. He stiffened briefly, saluted, and then said he would summon the base commander.
“I’m Colonel Riddick,” another man greeted the two women not five minutes later. Riddick was a stocky, big-boned man with a belly that hung over his waist. “What can I do for you, Senator, er … ?”
She had stepped out of the car to greet him. “Jordan, Colonel.”
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Senator.”
“That’s quite all right.”
“I’m afraid your presence here caught me by surprise.”
“As it was supposed to, Colonel.”
Kristen had joined Senator Jordan outside the car now, hanging back on the passenger side.
“That’s the problem, ma’am,” Riddick explained. “My understanding was that Miravo and other bases like it were financed off open appropriations. You shouldn’t know this place exists. No one on your committee should. That’s the way everyone from the President on down wanted it.”
“I’ll bet the towns in the area don’t even know, right, Colonel? Your civilian neighbors find out what’s going on here, they’re gonna come to Washington screaming.” Senator Jordan hesitated to let her point sink in. “Look, you can forget all about open appropriations. Before I authorize a billion dollars in spending, you can be damn sure I’m gonna get briefed on where the money’s going. In this case I happen to believe in what you’re doing. Others won’t once the truth gets out, as it always does. When the outcry starts, I want to have an argument ready. That’s why I’m here, Colonel.”
Riddick stood there taking it in. He nodded slowly in apparent satisfaction.
“Then allow me to give you the tour myself. We have on-site control teams, a half-dozen checks on each stage of the dismantling process. All our systems have redundant backups. You can rest assured we play things safe.”
“You said dismantling,” Jordan noted. “What about destruction?”
“That’s not our role, Senator. Miravo was retasked to act as a clearinghouse for ordnance stockpiled stateside. The weapons brought here were never shipped overseas, never became battalion specific.”
“Battalion specific?”
“Specific codes that can be authorized only by the President are required to unlock the firing mechanism of the warhead, and each overseas battalion is issued its own, specific to its ordnance.”
“You’re not saying the warheads are brought here unlocked.”
“Not at all, ma’am. They come locked, and requisite personnel are furnished with the proper code to unlock them just prior to removal of the warhead itself from the shell casing. We disassemble each unit into its component parts and then ship those component parts to bases specifically tasked to deal with them.” Riddick paused. “This will all become clear once you’ve seen the inside of the base, Senator.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Riddick led the way, with Kristen and Samantha Jordan walking beside him. He returned the gate guards’ salutes and led them into Miravo.
“How long have you been operating here?” the senator asked just inside the gate.
“Six months now,” Riddick replied, confirming Colonel Haynes’s assertion back at the Pentagon.
“Straight?”
“Well,
we do have occasional layovers between incoming shipments.”
“Just how long do these layovers last?”
“The longest was just under a week.”
“Do any personnel remain on the base?”
“Just a skeletal staff.”
Ask about earlier in the week, Kristen pleaded with her eyes. Ask if anyone was here Thursday night when David was killed.
But the senator ignored her.
“Guards?” she asked instead.
“Round the clock, of course. You’re about to witness our security precautions first-hand.” Riddick started walking again. “How much do you know about the nuclear disposal process, Senator?”
“Only that we have undertaken a serious commitment to accomplish it.”
“What about procedure, priority?”
“Extraordinarily little.”
“Then let me give you a little background, ma’am. First a question: what do you think the first nukes off line to be brought to places like this are?”
“The big ones?”
“Strategics?”
“Yes.”
“No, Senator,” Riddick corrected. “The big high-yield long-range missiles that could take out Rhode Island in a heartbeat don’t pose the biggest threat to the new order or world peace. It’s the smaller tactical units we’re responsible for dismantling here, because they’re virtually maintenance free and are easily transportable.”
“How are they brought here?” Kristen chimed in suddenly.
Riddick looked her way, his tone conveying a hint of annoyance. “Mostly they’re flown in.”
“Mostly,” she echoed. “What about trucks? Are shipments ever delivered by truck?” she asked, thinking about the tracks Sheriff Duncan Farlowe had discovered leading onto the base off Old Canyon Road.
“Occasionally, ma’am.”
