by Max Austin
Joaquin went to the window and looked out at the river that tumbled through the narrow canyon. Clouds were pushing into the area, but he could still see a slice of blue sky.
Today, he thought, is going to be a good day.
Chapter 35
If you spent a million bucks to build a log cabin, Vic thought, you’d end up with Joaquin Zamora’s hunting lodge: a rambling firetrap made of varnished logs and cedar shingles, with a covered porch facing the sunrise. Smoke curled from a chimney crafted of rounded stones, no doubt taken from the Rio Chama.
The lodge sat next to the rippling river on the one patch of flat ground at the bottom of the steep-sided canyon. Vic squatted behind a juniper on the eastern slope, across the river from the lodge, watching it through the scope of his rifle.
A couple of hunters had stepped outside earlier; one took a steaming piss off the porch. They were back inside now, staying out of the bitter cold. Vic was dressed as warmly as possible, with only his face exposed to the icy wind, but he still shivered inside his coat. He couldn’t stay out here for hours, waiting for Zamora to show himself. The storm clouds were closer now, rolling over the mountaintops, pregnant with snow.
He took his face away from the scope for a minute, resting his eyes. Morning light crept down the facing slope. As the sunlight hit the lodge, the honey-colored logs seemed to glow.
Movement on the porch. He put his eye to the scope, and saw three men amble outside. All three were Hispanic, with goatees and ducktails and black sunglasses. They wore bulky camouflage coats and insulated pants and lace-up boots that clumped on the wooden porch. Even with the scope, it was hard to tell one man from the other.
The one in the middle held a steaming white mug. Vic briefly craved coffee, but put it out of his mind as he shifted from one face to the other. The men were whewing and laughing about the cold, their breaths clouding the air around their heads. The one with the coffee took off his sunglasses and wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. In the seconds before the shades were back in place, Vic got a good look at his squinty eyes and high cheekbones. Definitely Zamora.
Vic peeled the glove off his shooting hand. The rifle was freezing, the trigger an icicle. He centered the crosshairs on Zamora’s chest. Took a breath and let it out slowly.
He squeezed the trigger, and his view through the scope blurred.
As the crack of the rifle shot echoed around the canyon, Vic looked up from the scope and saw a man fall. It wasn’t Zamora. One of the others had stepped in front of him just as Vic fired.
He rammed another round into the chamber, but it was too late. Zamora plunged into the lodge, the heavy door slamming behind him.
The other man, the beefiest of the three, pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it around, trying to see where the shot had come from. Vic didn’t worry about him. The sun was in his eyes, and Vic was out of pistol range anyway. Nobody would try to splash across that frigid river to get closer.
He swept the rifle back and forth, looking through the scope, hoping against hope that Zamora would pop up somewhere, trying to make a break for it.
The front door opened, and two other hunters came out onto the porch. Neither was Zamora. Both carried AR-15 rifles. They didn’t bother to battle the sun’s glare as they tried to aim. They blindly pulled the triggers, the rifles chattering as bullets raked the hillside, kicking up stones and dirt.
Vic shot one gunman between the eyes. He fell over backward, still holding the trigger, and bullets ripped through the shingles above the porch, spraying splinters into the air. The other rifleman stopped to reload, which gave Vic a second to work the bolt. The crosshairs settled on the man’s chest just as he brought up his freshly loaded rifle to spray more lead over the hillside. He never got the chance.
The one with the pistol shouted and hammered against the wooden door, but the men inside wouldn’t open up for him. Vic focused on that door, hoping Zamora might peek out, but he knew it was a lost cause.
Bad luck. No other way to look at it. For that bodyguard to step in front of Zamora at just the right moment to catch the bullet? Odds were a million to one.
An engine roared to life on the far side of the lodge, where a long gravel driveway stretched away to meet the highway in the distance. Vic kept watching, waiting for the vehicle to appear.
Gunshots popped to his right, and he lifted his eye from the scope to see a man coming around the end of the lodge. This guy wasn’t spraying randomly. He had a semiauto rifle up to his shoulder, sighting along the barrel, aiming at Vic.
Dirt and weeds kicked up a few feet short of Vic’s position. He pointed his rifle at the gunman and fired without using the scope, mostly trying to scare him into hiding so he could watch for the escape car. The bullet hit the man in the knee and he went down, screaming.
A black four-door Jeep appeared on the far side of the lodge, racing away on the dusty driveway, quickly out of range.
The wounded man wailed in Spanish, calling on God to help him. Vic was tempted to shoot him again to stop the noise, but there was no point in it. No point in staying here any longer, either.
Zamora was gone. Vic had failed. And Ryan was as good as dead.
Chapter 36
Penny was shocked by Vic’s voice over the crackly telephone connection. He sounded croaky, as if holding back a sob. She’d known Vic since she was a child and she couldn’t imagine him shedding tears. But that’s how hard he’d fallen for Ryan and fatherhood.
“Slow down, Vic. I’m not following you.”
“One of Zamora’s bodyguards stepped in front of him just as I fired. I took him out, along with a few others, but Zamora got away.”
“Shit.”
“They got on the highway going toward Albuquerque. I’m driving now, too, but they’ve got a big head start. And it’s starting to snow.”
“Oh, Vic.”
“I think I can outrun the worst of the storm, but it won’t even slow them down. They’ve got four-wheel drive.”
“Be careful. You can’t do Ryan any good if you drive off a mountainside.”
Vic coughed. “I had my chance, and I blew it. If any harm comes to that kid, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“There’s still time.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “We’ve got nineteen hours until the deadline. You can get back to Albuquerque and find Zamora.”
“If he’s even going to Albuquerque. He could pull off on some side road, go visit a friend, whatever, and I’d never find him in time.”
“No,” she said. “He’ll run home like a rat goes to his hole. That mansion in the North Valley is an armed fortress surrounded by thorns. He’ll think he’s safe there.”
“He could be right. If he’s got enough men and guns, there’s no way I can get to him.”
“You always find a way, Vic.”
“Sure. If I can set up, watch the target, wait for an opening. But we don’t have that kind of time.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“My mind’s a blank, Penny. I’m focused on driving through this snowstorm. If I let the thoughts in, I start seeing Ryan. All the different ways he could be hurt, maybe die. And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.”
“Come on, Vic. You’ve still got time to find Zamora.”
Penny glanced over her shoulder. Tina could emerge from the bathroom at any moment. She didn’t want her to hear Zamora’s name.
“I’ll do the best I can on these slick roads,” Vic said. “See you in three hours or so.”
“Anything I can do to help you get ready?”
“Get on Google Earth and find aerial photos of Zamora’s house. Maybe I can see a way in.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Just take care of Tina. I’ll see you soon.”
Penny dropped the phone into her robe pocket. The other pocket was weighed down by the gun Vic had left with her. She padded along the hall to the bathroom and listened at the door.
Wat
er running. Tina sniffing back tears.
She probably hadn’t heard a thing.
Chapter 37
Ryan sat on the hard chair, blindly listening, but the only sounds were the drone of a TV from the next room, the occasional clatter of canned laughter.
As morning dawned, he tipped his head back so he could peek out from under the edge of the brown pillowcase. He confirmed that his small room was empty except for the chair where he sat. The chair’s legs were firmly attached to the center of the hardwood floor with steel brackets and fat screws.
Ryan thought he must be in a house. The blank white walls had baseboards, not something you see in industrial buildings. An empty closet suggested a bedroom.
The room had one window, behind him, spilling a square yard of sunlight onto the dusty floor. The square was sectioned by stripes of shadow cast by iron burglar bars. No escape that way. No chance to reach the door, which undoubtedly was locked anyway.
He couldn’t do anything until he got free of the handcuffs. Which meant he needed his captors’ assistance.
Ryan stood, his knees creaky from sitting so long. The cuffs’ short chain slid on the chair frame a few inches, but not enough to let him stand up straight. He leaned to the right, balancing against the chair, and extended his left leg, waist high. His bare foot was within three feet of the door.
He needed the guards to come into this room. At least three feet inside. Right up to him would be even better. If they thought he was still cowed, still blindfolded, they might make that mistake.
And if the guards killed him when he made his move? Well, that was probably going to happen anyway. Better to go down fighting.
Ryan stretched the kinks out of his back and arms as best he could, then sat on the hard chair. He waited, listening.
Chapter 38
Joaquin Zamora watched the Jeep’s mirror all the way back to Albuquerque, but never spotted anyone following. He spent much of the trip on the phone, making arrangements while Chuy silently drove, so all was in readiness when they pulled into the driveway of his North Valley home. Joaquin looked over his shoulder to make sure the two sentries at the wrought-iron gate got it closed. He took a deep breath. Felt like his first one since that sniper took a crack at him at the lodge.
Curtains covered the narrow windows of the white stucco mansion. The only sign of life was the rifle-toting guard on the front stoop. Paco, looking grim behind his black sunglasses.
On the phone, Joaquin had ordered two of his men to take Rosa and the kids to her mother’s house in Barelas, and to stay there and protect them. But the rest of his men were here at the mansion.
Joaquin didn’t really expect the sniper to come here. But he hadn’t reached the ripe old age of forty-three by making assumptions or taking chances.
With eight armed men, Zamora could hold off an army. His two-story home was built like a castle, with thick walls and reinforced wooden doors, surrounded by a moat of open lawn and a wall of thorny hedge. The place was impenetrable.
Still, Chuy pulled the Jeep right up to the front door.
As soon as he was inside the airy foyer, Joaquin started shouting commands, moving the men to different stations, getting everything to his liking.
If the sniper came here, they’d be ready. And if the sniper didn’t come, Joaquin would hunt him down. Make a bloody example of him and the enemies who sent him.
He climbed the curving stairs, already plotting his revenge.
Chapter 39
Vic drove out from under the snowstorm as he went farther south, and he sped as much as he dared all the way back to sunny Albuquerque. Still, he lost three hours to the drive, hours he couldn’t spare.
The Cadillac stirred up dust as it ground to a stop in Penny’s gravel driveway. The car was filthy anyway, from snow and mud and slush. He’d get it professionally cleaned after this was over, assuming he survived.
He got out of the car and creaked up the back steps to the kitchen door. The hiking boots felt clunky, but there was no sense in changing. Not where he was going.
Penny unlocked the dead bolt and let him inside. She was still in her bathrobe, her hair mussed.
“I thought you were going to get some of the boys to watch you at the office.”
“It’s Saturday,” she said. “They’re busy. And I’m too tired to work anyway. I was up all night.”
“That makes two of us. Did Tina get any rest?”
“I don’t think so. She’s in the living room, staring out the window, like a puppy waiting for the master to come home.”
“She’s had quite a shock,” he said.
“I’m better now.”
He turned to find Tina leaning in the hallway door, dressed in the clothes he’d brought her, the sweatshirt’s sleeves hanging over her hands.
“Any news about Ryan?”
Vic shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. We’re still working on it.”
“Isn’t it time to call the police?”
Vic glanced at Penny.
“I’ve got one more thing I want to try,” he said.
“This is crazy.” Tina came closer. “We need police. We need the FBI. You two think you can handle this, but you—”
Vic held up a hand to silence her.
“You may be right,” he said. “But we’ve got an idea about where they might be holding him. I’d like to check it out first.”
Penny looked lost.
“Those aerial photos I asked for? That place in the North Valley?”
“Right,” Penny said, following his lead. “Let me get those for you.”
She went down the hall toward the spare bedroom that was her home office. Tina never took her eyes off Vic.
“I’m doing everything I can,” he said. “Kind of a wild-goose chase so far, but we might be getting closer.”
“I don’t like this,” she said. “Something bad could happen to Ryan while you’re screwing around.”
That stung, but he managed to smile at her.
“Allow me to ‘screw around’ for another hour. Then we absolutely go to the police.”
She started to say something else, but clapped her mouth shut as Penny returned to the kitchen.
Penny had printed the aerial photos of Zamora’s estate on slick paper in full color. One showed just the white stucco house, a two-story bunker with a red tile roof. The other showed the entire grounds, an acre of expensive North Valley real estate, including two cottonwoods so gnarly and ancient, the house must’ve been erected between them.
Inside the pyracantha hedge, most of the property was open lawn. The front yard was split by a paved driveway that ended at a turnaround in front of the house. The driveway was gated at its entrance and, even from this distant view, Vic could make out two sentries stationed there, their shadows long on the grass.
“No way to know when those were taken, of course,” Penny said. “But I imagine it hasn’t changed much.”
Vic traced the outline of the property with his fingertip. The thick hedge was broken in only two places: the driveway and a narrower gap on the opposite side, where an irrigation ditch cut into the northern edge of the property. The ditch gave him an idea.
Tina had moved closer without him noticing, until she was at his elbow, peering at the photos he held.
“Is that where they’re holding Ryan?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Vic said. “But the guy who lives there might know where he is.”
“Shouldn’t you get some rest?” Penny said. “You’ve been on the go for hours without sleep—”
“I’ll pick up some coffee on the way,” he said. “If this turns out to be nothing, I’ll call here, and we’ll figure out our next move.”
“The cops,” Tina said.
“I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”
Vic folded the photos. He stuck them in his hip pocket as he went out the door to the Cadillac.
Chapter 40
As soon as Vic was gone, Tina wheeled on Penny. The
heavy kitchen table was between them, and Tina leaned across it to shout at her.
“Enough is enough! We must call the police.”
“You heard Vic,” Penny said. “Give him an hour. He might yet resolve this without a lot of noise.”
“I don’t care about noise! I don’t care about whatever you two are mixed up in. I only care about Ryan.”
Tears sprang to Tina’s eyes. She angrily swiped them away.
“Take it easy,” Penny said. “Ryan will be okay. Vic won’t let anything happen to him.”
“I don’t believe you. You two are thrashing around blindly, trying to fix this thing, and it’s not working.”
“Give Vic a chance. He’s doing everything he can. Really.”
“Vic the paper-pusher,” Tina said bitterly. “Just because he owns some guns doesn’t make him a hero.”
“Trust me. He is extremely capable.”
“He’s not the police.”
“No, but he’s the best shot your boyfriend’s got right now.”
Tina sniffed. “Why should he put Ryan first?”
“Have you seen the way Vic’s been acting since you two turned up? He’s in love. He thinks Ryan’s his bouncing baby boy. He’ll do anything for him.”
“But he’s just one man.”
“Sometimes, one man is all you need.”
“We need the cops.”
A yellow telephone hung on the kitchen wall, its curly cord hanging in a tangle. Tina wondered whether the boxy old phone even worked. Maybe Penny kept it as kitsch. She crossed the kitchen and lifted the receiver before Penny could object. Sure enough, a dial tone.
“Put that down.”
The edge in Penny’s voice made Tina turn around. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to find Penny had pulled the pistol from her pocket. She held the gun close to her body, pointed at Tina’s chest.
“Hang it up. Now.”
Tina did as she was told, but anger bubbled within her.
“I knew there was a reason you didn’t want the police involved. What kind of crooked game are you playing?”
