In The Company of Wolves_Follow The Raven

by James Michael Larranaga

  The Phoenix office had botched the investigation twelve years earlier. Why hand it back to them again? This was his case and he wasn’t about to hand it off. He needed to know what happened, and he knew Autumn could give him more information than anybody in Phoenix.

  “I’ll interview her myself,” he said.

  “You have to go back there this week,” Kruse said.

  “Give me a couple of days to prepare. And I need at least one day to rest up. This is a vacation, after all.”

  “Very well, but I need to know exactly what day and time you’re returning to the site. I want Agents Clark and Backstrom from HQ here to witness it.”

  That’s what this is all about for Agent Kruse, a big show for the home office. It reminded Quin of Ben Moretti’s flashy presentation to Rebecca Baron. He sold the dream while distracting her from the dark side of her decision. And he felt Kruse might be doing the same thing, selectively showing the good results from the paranormal team, but ignoring the downside, the trainees who’d flamed out searching for the unseen—desperately seeking results or seeking a way out of the paranormal research.

  There were times when Quin thought he’d heard a sound, a pebble bouncing off the hardwood floor, screams in the distance, or the call of ravens. This was one of those moments as he awoke in his childhood bedroom on a black leather couch, probably hand-picked by an FBI-authorized interior decorator. Black, they always went with black, a covert color that easily conceals sweat and blood.

  He heard voices outside his window whispering, even laughing, and he stood up and walked barefoot to the window. He opened the blinds just a quarter of an inch. It was morning, nearly seven, but he saw nobody. The voices stopped as if the speakers had seen him first. Stepping back, he listened and there it was again, a hushed conversation somewhere outside. He tugged on the cord, lifting the blinds, filling the room with morning light, and the voices were gone again. A dream, he thought. He was working too hard, not getting enough sleep.

  He felt a presence behind him and turned to see Hawk standing there with two steaming mugs. “See something?”

  Quin rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Thought I heard somebody.”

  “It’s only us out here,” Hawk said. “Coffee?”

  He accepted the hot mug, feeling more awake already after a couple of sips. “How was your trip through Dakota country?”

  Hawk closed the door. “We must talk.”

  “Oh yeah, I can tell you more about yesterday—”

  “You have a relative named Nizhoni?”

  Quin hadn’t heard her name since he was a child. “Yes, how did you know?”

  “We stopped along the way and spoke to her about the case.”

  “Nobody on the rez talks about it.”

  “Given enough time, people come around, Quin.”

  “And?”

  “Your father traveled across the border.”

  “Yes, I went with him often,” Quin said. “Autumn did, too.”

  “What was in the truck?” Hawk asked.

  “Sometimes he hauled sheet metal into Mexico, other times it was auto parts into the States.” He thought back on those day trips with his father, riding shotgun with Autumn, the panoramic view through the truck’s windshield.

  “Was he a…?” Hawk asked, his voice dropping low.

  “A mule? Carrying drugs? He would never…did Nizhoni say that?”

  “No, not mule; a coyote moving immigrants, laborers, families.”

  Quin had never considered that possibility. How many children question what their parents say they do for a living? “I never saw him loading people into his semi.”

  “Maybe you weren’t there on those trips?” Hawk suggested.

  The tunnels would make it much easier to load people into that truck.

  “God, she could be right,” he said. He reached for his phone and showed Hawk the map. “Tunnels run underneath us and the entrance to one of them is within walking distance. People could travel underground and surface right here.” He zoomed the map in.

  “Then your father could’ve driven them further north.”

  “A modern-day underground railroad,” Quin said. He’d never thought of his father as anything other than a long-haul trucker. A reclusive man who drank too much on his days off and did God knows what while he was on the road. He chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “My parents argued so often,” Quin said. “I never figured out what was the cause of all their tension. Was it money, booze, or women? Could’ve been any or all of those things—or was it their secret business of smuggling people?”

  “They must’ve needed the money,” Hawk said, defending him.

  Quin knew the bureau statistics on human trafficking. It was a $100 billion industry. Some bounty hunters made a lucrative living freeing people from forced labor, but other bounties in that line of work disappeared, never to be heard from again.

  “If Nizhoni is right, if my father was involved in human trafficking, that could explain the attack on my family.”

  “How will you get her back?”

  Quin had been up most of the night wondering the same thing: what’s the best way to rescue Autumn and Marta? He wouldn’t settle for a positive ID; he needed time with her to learn what had happened. And to do that, he’d have to bring her back here, to the bureau field office that had once been their home.

  “I’m meeting Autumn and her daughter. And I’ll need your help and Jimmy’s to bring them across the border,” Quin said.

  “When? How?”

  “Later this week. But you and Jimmy need to find us two golf carts.”

  Hawk’s eyebrows rose. “We have time for golf?”

  “Carts will be the getaway vehicles, Hawk.”

  “Gas engine carts go the fastest.”

  “Battery-powered are quieter.” He spared Hawk the minor detail that they’d drive the carts underground.

  Hawk and Jimmy drove off into the morning heat in search of golf carts in Nogales while Candace sat outside with Quin on the front step holding a warm mug of coffee. She was uneasy with him as she nervously stared out at the desert horizon. He was one of those entrancing people whose presence had a powerful gravitational pull. He was seated next to her in blue jeans and dirty bare feet, sipping tea, hardly saying a word.

  “So this was your home?”

  He glanced back at the house behind them. “Years ago, not anymore.”

  “Of course, but in a symbolic way, you’ve returned home.”

  “The prodigal son has returned,” he wisecracked. “Is that the theme of the story you’re working on?”

  “No, and why would you label yourself that way? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I left Autumn out there.”

  “You were a boy, you couldn’t live here alone searching for her.”

  “I should’ve returned sooner,” he said. “I waited too long. I only returned because I had nothing better to do.”

  She knew this wasn’t entirely true. Hawk had shared with her stories of Quin’s accomplishments, how he’d recaptured people skipping out on bail and partnered with the FBI to track fugitives, even dangerous escaped convicts.

  “You returned here when you were ready.”

  “There’s something you might help me with,” he said. “It’s why I let you come down here.”

  She thought about the morning when she’d talked her way into his truck, expecting to tag along. She’d thought she was so persuasive, and now she realized Quin had had a plan of his own all along.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Research.”

  “The case? Certainly; I’d like to review the files with you and then—”

  “No, something more pressing.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “It’s confidential. You can’t tell anybody about what I’m asking.”

  He reached out his hand and she shook it.

  “You have my word. Tell me,” she said
, begging.

  “Have you heard of remote viewing?”

  She thought for a moment. “No.”

  “Do you believe in a third eye? That the mind can see beyond?”

  “Intuition? Sure, there are some people who are very intuitive.”

  “More than intuition. I’m talking about seeing and traveling with your mind to faraway places.”

  “ESP?” she asked in disbelief.

  “A form of ESP,” he said, describing how remote viewers entered a hyper-conscious state to retrieve information about objects or people. “The deeper a viewer goes into his or her mind, the more detailed information they can bring back,” he said. “All of this is done by tapping into the collective unconsciousness, something everybody has the ability to do to some extent, but very few people take the time to practice.”

  He described the months of training and testing the recruits endured, how Kruse gave them targets to search for with their minds, how little time they had off, and how they were kept cloistered away at the state security hospital, away from bureau agents. Quin told her how he would bounty hunt on weekends to get a break, but how the other recruits rarely strayed from the hospital grounds.

  She was skeptical, unsure if he was exaggerating or possibly high on his tea. “Agent Kruse taught you this method?”

  He shrugged. “I have my own way, different from what Kruse teaches the remote viewers.”

  “Your method is better?” she asked.

  “That’s what I need you to find out. I’m concerned about them. Before I left, a team member, Susan Johnson, had a breakdown. Kruse removed her from the program. It’s possible that Dillan, one of the other remote viewers, is suffering from side effects, too.”

  “Is his technique dangerous?”

  “Something is happening to the recruits. Can you find out what and research it?”

  “I’m happy to help,” she said, but asked, “If you knew back in Minnesota that you wanted me to research remote viewing and its effects, how come you had me drive all the way down here with Hawk and Jimmy?”

  “You needed to see the miles and miles of Indian land, what we’d all given up,” he said. “I knew Hawk would show you. And I hoped that once you saw it, smelled it, and tasted the journey, you’d be committed to the rest of it. What you saw on your journey should also be in your story.”

  “Hawk bought a t-shirt at the Corn Palace that said, ‘Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.’ He acts like you’re all on a mission. He thinks very highly of you.”

  Quin smiled. “Did he show you the security cameras?”

  “Yes.”

  “Homeland Security has everything under surveillance. The threat of terrorism from abroad or homegrown is on their radar. Agent Kruse received more funding for RV after the 9/11 attacks. Now he’s got to prove it works.”

  “Oh, I thought Hawk was just acting paranoid.”

  “He’s aware of his surroundings. When a person sees things that others miss, that doesn’t necessarily make him paranoid,” Quin said.

  “No, of course not,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that Hawk seems to have a lot riding on you. On our night on Hinhan Kaga Paha he compared you to Crazy Horse.”

  Quin nodded and sipped.

  “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “I’ll ask you the same question.”

  “Crazy Horse was a great leader,” she said. “He embodied the spirit of independence, and you do as well, correct?”

  “Some would agree.”

  “What are you breaking away from, Quin? What does Hawk mean?”

  “Crazy Horse died only after he’d given himself up to the government. He surrendered to save his people,” he said. “Hawk is saddened that I work with the FBI because the government has never been fair to our people.”

  “But you trust the bureau, right? They’re helping you find Autumn.”

  “The bureau has a reputation for coming onto reservations and causing trouble, dragging people off to prison, covering things up.”

  “Nizhoni said the bureau abandoned your family’s case.”

  He nodded.

  Is it possible that Quin joined with the FBI for this one purpose, to find his sister? She wanted to ask him, toss the idea out into the conversation, but she felt he might pull away, deny it. Instead, she offered him encouragement. “I hope you find every answer you’re searching for.”

  “This won’t be an easy story for you, Candace.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s hard to distinguish between good and evil. When a wolf kills a deer, is that wolf evil?”

  “No, it’s the natural order of things,” she said.

  “When a wolf kills cattle, is that evil?”

  “Well no, the wolf doesn’t know that a rancher owns the cattle.”

  “And when the rancher kills the wolf to prevent it from hunting his herd, what is that?”

  “It’s a dilemma, I suppose.”

  “When I return to Mexico to save Autumn and my niece, I have the same dilemma,” he said.

  “They’re your family.”

  “But Marta has a father. He would claim the same thing; they’re his family, too. Hawk is right; my work with the FBI forces me to enter another man’s land, to tear apart his family.”

  “You and the FBI are wolves,” she said. “There are many cases of the FBI paying informants, creating sting operations that are nothing more than entrapment.”

  He didn’t accept or deny it, but she could see he was considering the possibility.

  She sipped her coffee as he sipped his tea. Was he high or comfortably numb? He seemed uneasy here, preferring to sit outside rather than in the house, constantly looking out at the horizon, rarely making eye contact with her as he spoke. Pensive was the word she would use to describe Quin’s personality. Sometimes he was deeply present and at other times, his mind seemed aloft, floating away.

  “While you’re working on Autumn and Marta’s rescue, I’ll research remote viewing,” she said.

  He stood up and stretched like a cat after a long nap. “And find out what’s happening to Dillan Mercer, while you’re at it.”

  Hawk, Jimmy, and Quin devoted a full day in experimenting with the golf carts to prepare them for their subterranean journey. By the end of the day, Quin wondered whether all of Jimmy’s tinkering would make much of a difference. The kid insisted he could make the vehicles go over their standard top speed of twenty-five miles per hour to forty, and he wouldn’t rest until he could prove it. Puffed up by his experience working summer jobs at a private golf club, he lectured Quin about electric golf cart motors. There were two basic kinds; motors optimized for torque, and those optimized for speed. Most of this Quin already knew. He watched Jimmy bend the rod that governs a golf cart’s speed so he could easily increase it by five miles per hour.

  “We need to go faster,” Quin said.

  “I can give you speed or torque, not both,” Jimmy said, wiping his sweaty brow with his forearm.

  “What difference does it make?” Hawk asked.

  “Torque motors give us more pull, carry heavier loads, and are better on inclines,” Quin said. It was why he always drove a truck, so he could haul heavy loads without burning out his engine.

  “But they’re slower,” Jimmy added. “We’ve invested in speed, and I’m gonna increase the voltage and RPMs to go faster. Comes at a price, though: we can’t carry as much weight.”

  “We have two carts to distribute the weight,” Quin said.

  “How much weight we talkin’ about?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah, what’s the plan?” Hawk said.

  He was still formulating a rough, ad hoc strategy. “Agent Lopez and I will return to the Mexico side, where we found Autumn and Marta. Rather than bring them through customs at the border crossing, we’ll meet you and Jimmy at one of the tunnel entrances nearby. My sister, niece, and I will ride with you underground back here.”

  Jimmy scratched his sweaty scalp
. “We drive the getaway cars?”

  “Four adults and a child on two carts?” Hawk said. “That’s a lot of weight.”

  “Plus the back-up batteries,” Quin said.

  “Why do we need back-ups? How far are we going?” Jimmy asked.

  “I don’t know yet, the maps don’t show distance,” Quin replied. “But there are a lot of dead batteries down there.”

  “Any inclines in those tunnels? Do we have to climb?” Jimmy asked.

  Quin wiped his hand on his jeans, took his phone out of his pocket, and called the only person who might know.

  “Yeah?” she said, half-shouting over what sounded like talk radio.

  “Lopez?” he asked, putting her on speakerphone.

  “Hold on,” she said, lowering the volume on her stereo. “Sorry, I listen to books on CD while I drive.”

  “What book, dare I ask?” Quin said.

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

  “A romance novel or something smutty?” he asked, looking up at Jimmy and Hawk smiling.

  “It’s a self-help book, okay?”

  “A quit-smoking meditation?” he teased.

  “No, How to Quit Loving Your Ex-husband,” she said. “Once I do that, then I’ll focus on the smoking thing.”

  “Sorry, Lopez,” he said, kicking himself.

  “No, it’s all right.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Phoenix, with my kids,” she said. “On my way back down to Nogales.”

  “We need to know about the tunnels. Are there inclines down there?”

  “God, you’re really planning to use the underground highway, huh? It’s like the world’s longest gravesite. People get lost down there, go crazy, and many die. The locals say the tunnels are haunted.”

  Quin suddenly regretted that he had her on speakerphone. He could see the doubt on Jimmy’s face and the angst in Hawk’s eyes.

  “We’re not afraid of chindi,” Quin said, bolstering his men.

  “As for inclines, you have to descend into them and ascend on the way out,” she said.

  “Besides that, do you have any elevation info on your maps?” Quin asked.

  “They’re tunnels; who would build hills inside tunnels?” she said. “Should be a smooth ride except for debris and garbage.”