State of Threat (State of Arizona Book 2)

by Doug Ball

  Within thirty minutes the fire had been dowsed, smoke was cleared enough for Investigators to enter, and LaTroy was resting on a gurney at St. Joseph’s ER.

  #

  “Governor, our bad guy is just making a statement with this explosion. He’ll be in touch soon to follow up and take credit.

  “One man is not accounted for in the center and there are body parts throughout the rubble. It was done at a time when no one should have been near the front door. We’ll find out more about the deceased when the manager of the Center gets in from his home in Apache Junction. He had the day off due to two long days of work.

  “We have one known survivor sitting in a hospital somewhere, probably St. Joes, with at least a broken left arm. He will probably give us our best info until we find someone who was walking by and saw someone or something near the main doors. At that hour of the day there should have been hundreds that used that sidewalk on their way to the office. We are looking along with troops from PPD, FBI, and Maricopa County. Our troops are there also, all except Leon. He’s chasing another lead.”

  “Could you hold a minute, Officer Brown, there’s a FedEx man at the door.”

  “Oh, goody, another note. I’ll wait.”

  The Governor sat her cell phone on the desk and signed for the thin package. Same markings. No return address. “Hey, Muscles, it’s time to work again.”

  The big cop came in, opened the letter as per the routine, and made his copies before packaging it for transport to the lab. “Here you are, Governor. Sounds like he is getting serious.”

  The Governor picked up the cell and read the note to Tan.

  Madam Governor;

  By now you have seen the flood of our warning. Your financial situation as a city is going underwater as you gather the funds to pay me off. One half billion as prescribed or the entire city goes under. Enjoy your downtown clean-up program.

  Three days. Noon.

  A hungry man

  “Tan, this guy is sick. How does he expect anyone to come up with that amount in the proportions he has given us? We cannot even sell property fast enough to get the funds.?

  Tan looked around at the rubble and first responders digging through it. The fire investigators were picking up pieces of metal and collecting them in one spot. Each piece was photographed in situ, numbered, and tagged.

  A pair of paramedics wandered through the wreckage picking up pieces of bloody tissue and bone, dropping them into a pair of heavy duty plastic bags. One of them called, “Over here.” and started digging through the pile in front of him. Within moments he pulled two thirds of a skull out of the rubble. “What color hair did the booking agent have?”

  “Black, Hispanic, upper plate, tat on ear lobe.”

  “This would be him then. Got the black, not upper teeth, and a tat. He went quick. There is a lower jaw here that we can match to the dental charts if there are any. The fillings look like south of the border work.”

  “Dental charts are on the way. He had an exam not two weeks ago. His brother is getting them for us. The wife is a basket case. She saw it on the news, rather than being told by authority first. Of course there was no name on the news, but she knew he was gonna be the only one in the office today. Everybody else, except the cleaning crew, got at least the morning off. Lots of bookings for this place.”

  The two medics walked back to the ambulance that brought them to the scene, catching the eye of the police scene investigator on the way out.

  Chuck went to St. Joes to get a statement from LaTroy. He wasn’t happy with the assignment.

  Tan went back to the office, calling his wife on the walk, and sat behind his desk with the door closed and the lights out staring at his Marine memorabilia. His horror stories flashed through his mind. Calling his pastor, he left a message asking for prayer for the man’s family, LaTroy’s healing, and his own horror.

  #

  A fingerprint showed on the paper the ransom note was written on.

  #

  “Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, how may I help you?”

  “Lady, I just found a gun in a trash can. I don’t like guns. I don’t want this one to fall in the hands of a dumb kid. Got any suggestions?” The man’s voice had a heavy Maine accent.

  “If you’ll tell me where you are I will send a unit to your site with all the lights and sirens going.”

  He did.

  “Sir, one last thing. Do not handle the gun if you haven’t already. Set it down and don’t touch it anymore if you have.”

  “Lady, I am not stupid, do you hear me?”

  “Thank you, Sir, the unit is on the way, should be at your location in less than five minutes.”

  “Bye.” He hung up, walked to his car, and waited.

  11

  Reserve airstrip is a long way from anything. It was even seven miles out of Reserve, a mile or so out of sight from Hidden Springs, and 25 miles from Alma. All of these places were small communities where a stranger sticks out like a mashed pinky, but no one saw the drone doing figure eights, barrel rolls, and other maneuvers a stunt pilot might put a biplane through, except for two teenagers.

  Aka Adam Usafi watched with satisfaction as the ground controlled aircraft continued to fly all around the airport. It was not fast, but fast was never a goal. He continued to watch as the craft rolled into the turn and lined up on the runway. The drone placed its wheels on the runway not ten feet from the downwind end and rolled out with plenty of room to spare as it took the first taxi way and cut directly for his car. Without warning it turned and aimed directly at him. He stood still waiting to see how this would be dealt with. Not fearing death was a bonus for a man in his profession.

  The drone rolled at him. The propeller was spinning so fast it could not be seen as the craft came to within ten feet of him. The throttle cut, the brakes grabbed, and he reached out to touch the nose cone. A pusher prop made this a real safe vehicle to work with on the ground.

  Behind him, Usafi heard the crunch of tires on gravel strewn pavement as they pulled into the runway skirting. He turned to see the man he had seen in pictures and talked to on the phone so many times, but to this moment had not met. He wondered who the woman was driving. ‘Oh, well, Insha’Allah, just one more to kill here.’

  The man stepped out of the car, “Mr. Usafi, I’m Wings, or Jason Johns, whichever you prefer. It is a pleasure to finally meet you face to face.” He held his hand out which was ignored by the Muslim. He was tired of purifying himself after making contact with these infidels.

  Usafi looked at the woman. ‘Nice,’ he thought, ‘She may live a bit longer than I thought at first. We’ll see how cooperative and gullible she is.’ He turned to the man. “Show me.”

  Wings went through his spiel as he showed Usafi the controls on the box he carried. He turned the drone to face the runway and showed off the video feed from wing camera to the screen on the box. “The video held me up. The camera is light, but the receiver and screen have a bit more weight that I didn’t want in the box. I compromised and put in a five inch color screen instead of the 8 inch I wanted. As you can see it appears almost in 3-D. A better presentation of the distance to objects on the screen can be found by wagging the tail of the craft and changing perspective just a bit gives great results, watch.”

  He put the plane in an up wind position on the runway, taxied for a few feet, and wagged the tail of the craft. The screen became a confusion with close items being very much in focus and the distant was blurred, “Close items are seen in a small arc and due to the large dimension of the arc, the distant items are blurred due to the refresh speed of the camera and the size of the arc.”

  Although Usafi did not truly understand, he saw the difference on the screen very quickly and was able to get a feel for distance very quickly. “A little practice will give me much information that I will need in order to fulfill the mission. Teach me, please.”

  Two hours and one fuel refill, aka Adam Usafi was an expert on the device. He
had done touch and goes – he would need just one more take off. He would not need a landing when he reached the target. Working the craft with the GPS screen which showed the location of the drone over a map was the easiest part for him. The route he had planned called for a thirty minute cross country flight followed by ten minutes with the wing mounted camera pointed up a canyon straight into the target, which was so big an infidel could hit it.

  “Okay, Mr. Usafi, there’s one more thing this bird can do. That covered button at your upper right is an undercarriage ejection button. You can increase range by getting rid of the weight of the wheels and struts. Push it again, if you decide to do this, and a parachute comes out to land the bird safely. There is not a chute in it now, but it could be added at the rear of the maintenance cover. Didn’t know if you’d want it, but I set it up just in case. The chute is in my car.”

  “I will not be needing a chute. The undercarriage will not need to be dropped.

  “Thank you for this device. Come, your payment is in the trunk.”

  He walked to the car and tripped the trunk catch from the button in the car. The trunk lid lifted. Wings pulled out the only thing in the trunk, a suitcase. It was heavy. He smiled. He pressed the levers on the suitcase and lifted the hinged lid. All he saw was dirty clothes.

  He looked up, “Hey, there’s no …”

  His words were cut off by a .22 caliber lead pellet in the temple. He fell head first into the suitcase, bleeding profusely onto the clothes. His feet were still on the ground.

  Adam Usafi turned quickly to the woman, pointing the gun at her torso. “Do you wish to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will be my woman. I will take you with me to the far reaches of the earth.”

  She smiled, “I think I would like that, Adam.” Inside she was shaking like the World Trade Center towers must have shaken when the planes hit.

  Adam Usafi lifted the man’s legs into the trunk of the rented car. The trunk lid went thunk, when he slammed it. He checked Wings’ car for a trailer hitch. They both got into her car, Usafi carrying the remote control for the drone and said, “Take me to the north a few miles, you will see a trailer on the left side of the road, pull in there, and back up to the trailer.”

  “I can do that.” She started the car and drove out to the pavement, turned left, and then right at the intersection. When she got to the trailer it was no problem to back up while Adam signaled until the trailer was hooked up.

  He directed her to drive back to the airport to load the drone.

  They spent the night in a Motel 6 in Globe after leaving the drone at the garage he had arranged for.

  She was not happy with the night in Globe. He was a man with very strange appetites.

  #

  Rachel entered the conference room which had become Tan’s hangout as he pieced things together and tried to make sense out of the garbage they were collecting. “I need to interrupt you for a moment or two?”

  “Sure, I got nothing better to do.” He threw his hands toward the ceiling.

  He saw the hurt on her face and realized how he had responded, “I’m sorry. Really I am. What is it you would like to talk to me about? I am listening. I probably need to get out of this place and play a round of golf or something to let my mind work in the subconscious.”

  She smiled at him, nodding. “I have been studying the ransom notes. There is a thread in them that you might wanna check out.”

  “What’s the thread? I’m ready for anything that even looks like a thread.”

  She smiled a Cheshire cat smile, “Each of them has references to water.” She pointed to the highlighted words on copies of each of the ransom demand notes. “See the flood, under water, washed up soon, and dried up river comments. Water in Arizona is not going to do much damage to the entire city of Phoenix unless it is an amount beyond any we’ve ever experienced. Rainmakers are a fantasy and ones who create that heavy a rain are the imagination of fantasy fiction writers. But, four lakes full to the brim caused to run all together would probably be more water than the Salt River’s bed could handle without seriously overflowing into the communities it passes through, the biggest of which is Phoenix. There would also be damage to Mesa, Tempe, the freeway system, Gila Bend, Yuma, and many other towns and communities along the way.”

  Tan lit up like a Christmas tree. “How would you make that happen?”

  Rachel sat in a chair looking at the map of Phoenix Metro area on the wall. “You’d have to blow the four dams holding back the lakes and then get rid of Granite Reef diversion dam so none of the water or force of the water would me stopped and rerouted. How could you make that happen?”

  “Lots of explosives in the right places at the right time. Beats me, I sure as all get out don’t know. Let’s find a damn expert.” He caught himself and then realized it was a different dam. “Go find us a dam expert.”

  Rachel walked out shaking her head and laughing, “Where does one find a dam expert?”

  ‘Google to the rescue,’ she thought. She punched in ‘dam expert, AZ’ and got a web site that listed all kinds of experts in water related areas of interest. Only one sounded like the expert she wanted. She called.

  “Argosy Hydraulics, how may I assist you or direct your call?”

  Two hours later she had her answers.

  “Tan, let’s talk.” She left her office and went looking for the man.

  #

  Leon called, “Tan, the drone maker is supposed to be in town tomorrow.”

  “That gets the timeline running faster, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Boss, it does. I’m on it.”

  “Good, keep me posted.”

  “You got it.”

  #

  Bruce walked up the door in the east valley home of Dorothy Harmon, rang the bell, and waited. He could hear music inside, country western, loud country western. This was his fourth time at this door. She was never home according to her neighbors. Someone was singing about truck and the cargo lights being romantic or something like that. He rang the bell again.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming. If you are a sales person of any kind I will kill you for waking me up from the first real sleep I’ve had in a week.” The door swung open.

  “Yes?”

  He flashed his badge, “May I come in. I’d like to talk about Roger Wolinski.”

  “The house is a wreck. I’ve been gone or arranging the funeral for the past couple of weeks. What’s this about? That idiot boyfriend of mine? He’s dead, Roger Wolinski is dead, just leave it alone.”

  “We’d like to find the man responsible for his death. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would. Come on in.” She led the way to a large room and out on to a patio. Grabbed a chair and flopped. “Yes, I am fully dressed. I got home at eight this morning after working the all night shift at I-10 truck stop restaurant and fell into bed as soon as Mirna dropped me off. My car is dead. That jerk, Roger, owed me money. He was goin’ to get rich, pay me back, marry me, and never let me work again. I wouldn’t have to get my butt pinched anymore, worry about how much I’d make that shift, and all that crap. He promised. He is dead, buried, and I am broke. His wife got the insurance, because he was too stupid to change the beneficiary. His boss was an Arab and I told him not to play with fire like that. Explosive heist and delivery ain’t no way to get rich with an Arab as a boss. Them boys are all terrorists, not benevolent bosses. He wouldn’t listen.” She broke out in tears that would make the monsoons look like a gentle shower.

  Bruce waited. He knew he was on the right track. She knew about the Muslim man.

  She stopped the sobbing on a dime and gave a nickel change. “I’m sorry. I thought I was done with this crying and sobbing. How can I help?”

  “Tell me about the Arab.”

  “I got a picture of him and Rog, with me at the ballgame. You wanna see it?”

  “Yes.”

  She left and returned in moments with a cell phone. Punched on the
thing until, “He’s the one on the right. My girlfriend took this picture because she was there with Mr. Azzulla.”

  “Would you please email that picture to me.

  “Sure. What’s your address?”

  He gave it to her as she punched it in and hit send.

  “Thanks. What name was that you said he was using?”

  “Mustaf Azzulla was all I ever heard. We all called him Mr. Azzulla, except Mirna called him, Mustaf. He was gonna marry her after the heist paid off. She is a looker, always beats me out on the tips cuz she’s such a big flirt with the truckers. I told her not to hold her breath ‘til the wedding, just wait for the blast. Was that it at the Center?”

  “Could be, but we don’t know yet. So far, only one dead. The Center will have to be rebuilt.”

  “Crap, I had tickets for George Strait in February. His final tour, you know.”

  “Yeah, unless he makes another comeback. Tell me about Mustaf.”

  “My height, taller than Mirna. Dark hair, eyes, skin. Wore cheap stuff that looked good or expensive. (I used to work in a men’s store.) Very nice most of the time, but could blow up in a nanosecond, whatever that is. Mean man when he was angry.”

  “How mean?”

  “Well, Mirna got sick and it just wasn’t convenient for him because he liked his sex, ya know. Mustaf came unglued and screamed at her that she was faking and finally rolled her over and spanked her with a broom handle until she relented and let him have his sex. She was sore for a week after that. Boss liked it ‘cuz she didn’t sit down on the job like she can do at times.”

  “She call the Police, make a complaint, anything like that?”

  “Naw. He said he’d kill her if she did. Mirna believed him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, he drove a rental and packed iron under his left arm.”

  “Thank you very much. I hope we can get him with what you’ve given me. Oh, did he tell you where he came from?”

  “California. Needles, California.”

  “Thanks again, I’ll get out of here and let you sleep.”