One Mile Under

by Gross, Andrew

  Dani said, “I just wanted you to know that. All of it.”

  “I’m glad we got to spend that time together, Dani. Though a part of me wishes we had just gone to see the hot springs.”

  She laughed again. “So what are we going to do …?”

  “You’re going to rest up and keep out of sight. That’s all.”

  “And what about you? I thought tomorrow we could get together and have breakfast? And talk about what’s next.”

  Hauck blew out a breath. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be here tomorrow, Dani. I was going to call you and let you know. I just hadn’t made my mind up until a while ago.”

  There was a pause. It was filled with anticipation. “You’re heading back there, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “To Templeton,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, or even how to explain it. Only that he didn’t want her to come along.

  “Ty, I know you are.”

  “I have to, Dani. There’s stuff to finish there. Stuff you don’t even know.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said quickly.

  “You can’t.”

  “I’m the one who got you into this. I’m—”

  “It doesn’t matter how I got into it, Dani. I’m in, that’s all that matters. There’s nothing more you can do. None of this would have ever come out if it wasn’t for you. You put it all together. You saw through Wade. You knew Trey and you saw what was happening when few people would have. That’s your skill. But it’s time for my skills now. It’s just how things work out sometimes.”

  “Do you even have a plan?” she asked.

  “The makings of one,” he joked, trying to break the tension.

  “I’m not sure the ‘makings’ of one is going to be enough this time.”

  “I’m sure it’ll evolve, as it goes along.”

  “Please don’t joke, Uncle Ty …” Hauck got the sense that she was crying. “I’m scared for you. I can’t help it. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me. But I need you to stay safe as well. I want you to stay out of sight with Geoff until you hear back from me. And don’t go out. I’m going to email you a number. It’s a friend in D.C. If you don’t hear back, you tell her everything. She can help. And please don’t let Wade know that you’re even here.”

  “Okay.” He heard her sniffle again. “I don’t even know if I’ll see you again.”

  “You will.”

  “Promise me …”

  Hauck drew in a breath. An honest one. “I can’t promise something I can’t keep, Dani.”

  “You have to.”

  Hauck closed his eyes and could almost feel the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Promise me something else then?” She sniffed.

  “Name it.”

  “When you nail him, Robertson, remember to give him a knee to the balls for me. And Trey.”

  Hauck laughed. He shut off the TV to get rest for tomorrow. “I’m not sure how that will all play out, Dani. But I give you my word I’ll sure try.”

  ONE MILE UNDER

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Hauck’s first stop upon arriving back in Greeley was the Weld County district attorney’s office.

  He asked for the DA, Littlejohn, but was told he was in Denver for the day. ADA Adams was around, but at the courthouse. He should be back in an hour. Hauck told the receptionist he’d wait.

  He stepped outside. He took out his phone and dialed up Chuck Watkins. The farmer’s wife called him in from the fields. She told Hauck she’d tried to keep her husband resting, but he just kept insisting he was perfectly okay. Hauck was glad to hear he was back at work. After asking Watkins about his arm, Hauck asked him, “Did you have that conversation we spoke of with your friends?”

  Watkins said he had.

  “And are they back in?”

  “Some. Maybe.”

  “What about you?”

  The farmer paused. “I guess between my land, my son, and a little dignity, there’s not a whole lot more left these bastards can take from me.”

  “So I guess I’ll take that as a yes,” Hauck said.

  “I expect you will.”

  “You know, maybe it would be best to have your wife go and stay with your daughter in Greeley for a few days. The minute they get word of this, there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Funny, she was just asking about going there,” the farmer said with a full understanding of what Hauck meant.

  “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  The hour passed and finally a young ADA finally stepped out of the elevator, a thick messenger briefcase slung over his shoulder, accompanied by a female colleague, who had an armful of files.

  Hauck got up. The ADA looked just a few years out of law school. Hauck had stopped by before he left the first time up there and was told that none of the crimes were committed in his jurisdiction. “I thought I told you I would discuss what you said with my boss and if there was anything to discuss further, we’d be in touch,” Adams said.

  “What you said was to come back when there was something to follow up on that happened in your jurisdiction.”

  “And …?” The ADA looked exasperated.

  “Something has.”

  The prosecutor excused himself and led Hauck into his small, cramped office, stacks of briefs piled high on the desk and credenza. He dropped his satchel on his desk and tossed a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup into the trash. “Okay.” He motioned Hauck into one of the two chairs in front of him. “Let’s hear what you have.”

  “The last time I was in I was with my niece, Dani. Actually, my goddaughter.”

  “I remember.” Adams nodded.

  “She was abducted yesterday afternoon. In Templeton. In the café on Main Street.”

  Adams showed surprise. “Abducted …?”

  Hauck took him through what had happened. From being chased through town and picked up off the street, forced into the car and bound, then thrown into the water storage tank. How the conduits to the river were opened and she had to make her way through them against the flow, and how she’d come within an inch of drowning.

  The young ADA’s eyes widened.

  “It was only by a miracle she made it out. I found her on the riverbank. This all happened about the same time someone took a couple of shots at me on Charles Watkins’s farm. I’d say mine was a pretty lucky escape as well—not quite as lucky for Mr. Watkins, who was hit in the shoulder. But I’m only here to focus on Dani’s situation right now.”

  “You’re saying all this happened yesterday?”

  Hauck nodded.

  “Did either of you file a complaint with the police?”

  “I’m going to give that question a little more credit than it probably deserves.” Hauck forced a smile. “Given the circumstances, I felt pressing a case against them from here was the last thing that was in her best interests.”

  Adams nodded, giving the impression that he understood, slumping back in his chair. “So where is she now?”

  “Safe. She said she’d be happy to give you a full deposition of what took place. If it was brought to trial I’m sure she’d be delighted to come back and testify. With some assurances, of course.”

  “You mean that we’d prosecute?”

  “And adequate protection,” Hauck said.

  Adams tapped his fingers against his desk and nodded. “You said you only wanted to focus on Ms. Whalen’s situation. Why?”

  “Because she can identify who did this to her. The two people at the water facility were a John Robertson of Alpha Group, who, by the way, was the same person I described last week who was on the river in Aspen at the time Mr. Watkins’s son was killed.

  “The other was a Randall McKay, also of Alpha, who I believe is Mr. Robertson’s boss.”

  Adams made some notes. “We’ll have to hear her story in full, of course, before we could even contemplate taking this further. And I’ll need to discu
ss this with my boss.” The pallor on his face seemed to say that he was unsure whether this was the case of a lifetime or the one that was going to cut short his once-promising career. Hauck wondered where the next position could be, a place lower down the rung than Greeley.

  “Just to be clear,” Hauck said, remembering what Jen Keeler had told him, “isn’t RMM a contributor to Mr. Littlejohn’s last campaign?”

  “This isn’t the Wild West, Mr. Hauck.” The ADA grew annoyed. “No matter what you think.”

  Hauck got up. “You claimed that your office wasn’t beholden to anyone, Mr. Adams. Here’s your chance to prove it.” He took out a card from his wallet. “Here’s how to reach me.”

  He thanked the ADA for his time. He hadn’t come here expecting anything more. In fact, he had gotten exactly what he came for.

  Within the hour, about as long as it took for Adams to reach his boss’s ear, he figured what he’d told them would get to RMM.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  His next stop was at Jen Keeler’s. There was a staff meeting going on inside, but when she heard Hauck was in the office she stepped out.

  “I’m glad to see you,” she said, her eyes indicating it was true. “I heard you had some trouble up at Watkins’s farm the other day. Everyone had the impression you had gone.”

  “I’m not so easy to be rid of,” Hauck joked. “Anyway I hear he’s doing okay.”

  “He’s a tough one,” Jen said. “So what brings you back?”

  “That lawsuit you showed me the other day. Watkins’s …?”

  She nodded.

  “I want you to dust it off and get it started again.”

  “Nothing would make me happier.” Keeler’s eyes brightened. “However, it’s not mine to file. It will take one or more of the defendants to agree to it. Preferably Mr. Watkins, of course, as he’s the lead complainant.”

  “I think you’ll have that within the day. What happens when you get the go-ahead?”

  “We’ll file an immediate motion with the state. And have a copy delivered to RMM’s headquarters. To let them know they’re served.”

  “That ought to stir the pot pretty well.”

  “You see the papers today?”

  “You mean about the buyout?”

  Jen nodded soberly. “Then you know what a lawsuit like this now will do …?”

  Hauck smiled. “I thought that’s exactly what you were trying to do, Ms. Keeler.”

  That gleam in her eye, the one between skepticism and growing trust, became even brighter. “You know the farmers here, they’ve had a lot of false hopes in the past few years …”

  “Get things rolling,” Hauck said. “I’d like that lawsuit in their hands as soon as you get the call.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Hauck finally made the drive back out to Templeton and Watkins’s farm. There was a flurry of activity as Hauck drove up. The farmhands were bringing in some equipment, boarding up the windows, corralling the horses, as if a storm were coming in. He spotted Watkins in back, his arm in a sling, spreading out bales of hay from a small flatbed. They were building the bales up as possible cover.

  “How’s the arm?” Hauck asked, as he went around the side.

  Watkins stopped his truck. “Not as good as it would be if you hadn’t showed up the other day. The doc said it went clean through. Two of my hands decided to stick around. The others have family. I told them to go. I don’t know if they can shoot, but I figure, three is better than one, if it comes to that.”

  “Four,” Hauck said. “And we can use every hand we can get. What do we have for weapons?”

  Watkins climbed down and took Hauck inside. There was a locked wooden case on the wall. He pulled it open. Inside, there were four hunting rifles with scopes. A Remington hunting rifle with an illuminated scope. That was good. There was a Winchester pump-action shotgun that would be of use at close range, and Hauck hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “Here, I owe you this.” Hauck took out the Colt 9 mm he had taken the other day.

  “Hold on to it. Not exactly Fort Bragg …” the farmer said, “but I’ve bagged a few choice elk in my day with that Remington. And that shotgun’s not much fun for anyone within ten feet if it comes to it.”

  Hauck checked the action and sights on the Remington. Good to three hundred yards.

  “Listen, there’s something else going on.” Hauck told him where he went before Jen’s, to the DA. And about what had happened to Dani yesterday.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that.” Watkins winced with a mixture of disgust and anger. “How is she?”

  “She’s okay. She’s back at home. She actually wanted to come back up here.”

  “Good kid,” the farmer said. “I’m sorry she got caught up in this.”

  “She’s the one who put it all together. Without her, Trey’s death would still be just another accident. And RMM would just be another oil company on the news. I guess you heard?”

  “I read the news.” Watkins nodded. “Anyway, I’m sorry she had to find Trey, though maybe that’s the way it was meant to be. Maybe we would have all been better off if she hadn’t.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  “So let me ask …” The farmer looked at him. “You back here because of me and the rest of us and RMM? Or you here because of what they did to your goddaughter?”

  Hauck checked the action on the Remington. “Can I go for a little of both?”

  “Well, I don’t care. Whichever it is,” the farmer said, “you’re here.”

  It was almost dark when they got the defenses set, including the stacked bales of hay from behind which they could shoot. They punched out the window at the top of the barn, which afforded someone with a rifle a 180-degree perch. The old combine that Watkins used to harvest grain was revved up, the thrasher blades whirring. It could discourage someone from advancing on them.

  Two of the farmhands were all that was left. They all had a dinner of chili and bread that Marie had thawed. Hauck sat up high in the barn, with the Remington, looking out over the road and fields. Some Mexican music was playing from the barn. Hauck knew enough Spanish to recognize it as a love song. And about death.

  It seemed to fit.

  It grew dark. This was when they would come. He heard footsteps on the stairs coming up in the barn. No one knew what to expect. There was a nervous feeling in the air.

  The farmer stepped up to Hauck’s perch, holding the shotgun in his one good hand. “You sure they’ll actually come?”

  “Once they hear Dani’s safe and that she’s willing to testify. And about your suit …” Hauck rolled over on his side and kept his eyes on the dark road. “My experience is that they always come.”

  Watkins looked at him. “Just why are you back here, Mr. Hauck? The truth this time.”’

  Hauck shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to answer that myself a hundred times in the last few days. The best I can come up with is, there must be something about it I like.”

  “Like?” Watkins shook his head. “You’re long on courage then. But I’m afraid it’ll make for a short career.”

  Hauck grinned. “It just seems to stick in my gut when I see people using their power to step all over others. Especially when they hide behind some shiny government shield or a corporation. There are a lot of people who just get trampled upon on the way. I’ve found people are just waiting around for someone to take the first step. So I must like it. ’Cause I’m here.”

  “I know you were a cop and all,” the farmer said. “But me, I got something I’m fighting for here. Our lives are at stake. To me, it’s not just what’s right. I lost my son. It’s personal.”

  Hauck thought of Dani, who’d become as close as if she were his own, and what she’d been through. “Trust me, it’s personal for me, too.”

  Watkins smiled. “It’s enough to shake the idealism in anyone, isn’t it, Mr. Hauck? Anyway, only one thing I ask of you here …”

  “If I ca
n.”

  “You just point out the sonovabitch who killed my boy. That a deal?”

  “All right. But just so you know, I have my own gripes against him, too.”

  “Best shot then.” The farmer nodded. “You know, more I think about it, I think we’re here for the same reasons, Mr. Hauck.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Strip away all the idealism, all the wrongs, we’re really both just here to kill a man.”

  Hauck smiled. “Seems a good time for you to call me Ty.”

  “Chuck, then.”

  Up in the distance Hauck saw two sets of lights heading toward them. He yelled out, “Two cars coming in!” and checked his rifle. “Take your positions. Here they come.”

  “Lupe! Miguel!” Watkins hurried back down the stairs. The music cut off and Hauck saw the two farmhands scampering around outside. One had a couple of improvised Molotov cocktails—made from heating oil in beer bottles stuffed with a rag. The other jumped in the cab of the large combine and started the engine.

  The lights grew closer. Hauck trained his sights on the driver in the first car. He had night sights but they weren’t very good. Maybe for a buck creeping around the woods at a hundred yards. The rumble of the engines could now be heard.

  “Here they come!” Hauck said. His heart was beating fast. “Hold your firing till I give the go.”

  He steadied his shooting elbow on the window ledge and followed the lead vehicle in. He thought, though, that something didn’t figure. If it was Robertson, he wouldn’t have made such a visible show. These guys were all trained. Unless this was a diversion, and the main attack was coming elsewhere. He rolled around to the other side of the window and scanned both sides of the fields, searching for signs of activity.

  There were none.

  He brought the rifle back. His pulse picked up as he watched the lead vehicle, which he now could make out as a flatbed truck, stop along the fields maybe a hundred yards short of the driveway. His finger tensed softly on the trigger. “Everyone get ready …”

  The doors opened. Two men stepped out. Hauck followed them in his sight, squinting into the sight. The first wore a cowboy hat. He didn’t recognize either of them, and they didn’t exactly look like an elite team. They both had rifles. Two more got out of the pickup truck behind them.