by Aimée Thurlo
“It would only put you in much greater danger.” Diane shook her head. “We hope to remove it as soon as we can, and finally return it to the government.” She came up beside Lee. “Don’t you think that’s the best way to handle things?”
Lee nodded. “Your uncle was quite a man. It’s good to see his nephew has followed in his footsteps. You saved our lives last night. Now we can go. Just be very careful around strangers,” he said, giving him a description of the vampires, “and stay close at home at night. Your dog serves you well, give him plenty of food and water.”
“I’m always careful at night. My uncle also told me about the evil ones, those who hunt their own kind while in the skins of wolves and wildcats. He said they would hunt you, in particular, now that you’ve become a walker of the night. Has that come true as well?”
Both Diane and Lee nodded at once, and Buck was surprised. “You’ve seen these Navajo shape-shifters, and they’ve attacked you, a non-Navajo?” He shook his head slowly as Diane nodded again.
“They’ve attacked more than once, and one woman, in the form of a black panther, killed my Anglo partner in Las Cruces.” Diane’s voice grew cold and calm. “I’m going to hunt down that bitch.”
“There have been many stories, but they are never mentioned outside a hogan. These creatures are said to be strong and smart, but they lack the cunning of the animals they become. They still think like humans. That is their one weakness, I have heard.” John turned around, and began to put kindling on the dying embers of the fire.
“Yes. I’ve been hunting these creatures for many years, and have always prevailed. But their packs keep coming, and I’ve never been able to have a moment’s peace near the Dinetah, Navajo country. These Navajo witches can smell the part of me that is a night walker, and they crave my blood to make them immortal.” Lee finally put his pistol away, and wiped the perspiration off his brow with the back of his sleeve.
“Is there any way for Lee to cover his tracks and avoid their detection? Perhaps you’ve learned something as a medicine man than can help him?” Diane watched John as he placed a sturdy wire grill upon four strategically placed rocks, then began to search along a small wooden shelf attached to the bottom of a log. She wondered if he was going to prepare some sort of herbal remedy and smiled when she saw him reach for a jar of instant coffee.
John placed a speckled blue coffeepot onto the grill above a hot spot. “Human scent is powerful, well known to all animals, and a good predator like a wolf or mountain lion can smell humans far away. The unique smell of a night walker must be even stronger to the skinwalkers when they inhabit the bodies of animals. Maybe if you had a dog, your animal could smell them coming as well. But you have your own qualities to defend yourself, don’t you, enemy-slayer?”
“My abilities have served me well against the Navajo witches. They pose a threat to me, but it’s one I’ve been able to handle. The ones who arc more than a match for me are the walkers of the night. They’re more powerful than I am. The ones after us now are killers, and we need to find them again so we can settle this once and for all.” Lee brought out the bottle of sunblock from his pocket, took off his baseball cap, and began to rub lotion onto his face, neck, and hands.
“Don’t forget the spots where your jacket is torn, you’ll have exposed skin there,” Diane reminded.
“You are welcome to stay here until night again,” John Buck suggested.
‘Thanks, but no. We have to leave soon. They can’t face the sun for as long as I can, so they must be holed up somewhere, perhaps the old hogan, or their van,” Lee pointed out.
“More likely they’ve left. They didn’t have time to hunt for us, find the hidden container, and fix the tire all before sunrise,” Diane said.
She continued. “I doubt they’d remain in the hogan where we could find them. We wouldn’t need to assault the place, just burn it down or crack it open to let the sunlight in. That would be enough to fry them, wouldn’t it?” Diane checked Lee’s expression for an answer.
“I’m glad you’re on my side. Those methods would have worked against them, I’m sure.” Lee smiled. “You’re right, they’ve left in the van. I would have done the same thing. And I wouldn’t have gone back to my apartment either.”
“They might decide to remain on base, at least until tomorrow night. They know it wouldn’t be easy for us to follow them there. Then they can risk coming back later for the you-know-what.” Diane smiled at John, who understood why she wasn’t being specific.
“Being on base would protect them from me, that’s for sure. They’re protected from civil authorities there unless we go through channels, and neither one of us has any evidence to go in and arrest them,” Lee said. “We’ll have to wait them out, but they’ll be ready for us next time.”
“I have a plan, and I’ll tell you about it on the way back,” Diane said. “But first I need to get our car back. How about if I bring it over here so you won’t have to expose yourself to sunlight for more than a few minutes?”
“Check to see if they found and booby-trapped it first. Assume nothing.”
John Buck cleared his throat, and they both looked over. He held out two glass mugs. They were a shiny carnival glass like gold, looked brand-new, and were brimming with steaming coffee. “You can’t leave before you have your morning coffee. I got these mugs inside boxes of oatmeal years ago, and now have a special occasion to use them. I’ve always doubted the stories my uncle told me about the deepest secrets of the Dineh, but last night I found them all to be true.”
“Is that good news, or bad?” Diane asked, accepting the first of the offered mugs.
“Like everything else in nature, I can’t judge its value. To me, it’s just a fact of life.” John handed Lee a mug, then picked up a third, an old coffee-stained cup with the faded logo of the Washington Redskins.
“Thank you for your friendship, and the friendship of your ancestor,” Lee offered, raising the cup to his lips gratefully.
Lee drove skillfully down the Interstate, eyeing each van he saw closely, not expecting to spot the one he’d seen last night, but knowing from Murphy’s Law that a vehicle with no spare tire was more likely to have a flat than one equipped for an emergency.
Diane had postponed telling him her plan. She wanted to make sure it felt right to her first. Now, exhausted, she was asleep on the backseat, her head resting upon her jacket, and he saw no need to awaken her, though they’d agreed to take shifts on the driving, two hours on, two off, so they’d both get a chance to rest.
Diane had found the ear, which had not been disturbed or tampered with, apparently, and when they left John Buck’s home, they went by his uncle’s last hogan just to verify that the vampires had cleared out. The van was gone and the hogan open to sunlight as Diane had predicted.
Wearing his cap and sunglasses, Lee backtracked quickly to check for his rifle, but it was gone. That was not unexpected. Muller or his crewman had taken it with them.
Diane checked the spot where she’d hit Muller’s partner, and his blood had oxidized, leaving only a brown, rusty spot on the ground. Deeply indented footprints showed that Muller had found the injured vampire and carried him inside the hogan. There they found another spot of blood, not affected by sunlight, where the vampire had lain until he healed.
Diane had used a cell phone to contact her Bureau SAC, Ray Lewis, asking him to contact law-enforcement agencies statewide and have them keep an eye out for the vehicle. If they spotted the van, they were to avoid contact, but inform Diane and Lee. Diane promised to give her SAC more information later that day, and gave him her cell number. Though he pressured her unsuccessfully for details on the two men in the van, she refused to identify them, though she gave descriptions.
Lee munched a granola bar, the last one of his share of the remaining snacks, while downing the rest of the calves’ blood from the thermos. He still had plenty of strength and mental awareness remaining. The animal blood and high-calorie intake helped c
ompensate for all the energy he had used to heal himself last night.
He’d had an extra change of clothes in the trunk, and wore them now instead of his bloodstained attire. Those clothes had been placed in a plastic trash bag and thrown into a restaurant Dumpster in Grants.
There was the sound of movement behind him, then Lee saw Diane in the rearview mirror, sitting up and yawning. She checked her watch.
“Hey, you let me sleep an extra hour.”
“How do you feel?”
“Less sleepy. But you need to get some rest too, if we’re going to be watching for Muller and his crewman tonight.” Diane reached for a granola bar Irom the pack on the rear floorboard.
“You mentioned earlier that you had a plan. Ready to talk about it now?” Lee glanced back at Diane again. “Remember there are two canteens, no blood in either one. Just water. Drink up, you don’t want to dehydrate.”
“I’m going to contact SAC Lewis again. This time I’ll name names, and tell him that we suspect it was Major Muller and his crewman on Navajo land last night, in that van, and that they fired some shots at a tribal elder, according to our contact. We were alerted because we had obtained a Navajo informant who said Muller was connected to the training of the animals that attacked us and killed Agent Thomas. I’ll remind him that Schntzhund training is a German tradition. We just want to keep Muller and his crewman under surveillance because we have reason to believe either he’ll be contacting those Navajo animal handlers, or they’ll try to contact him. It’s too sensitive an issue, especially because the Germans are guests at a military base, to act without more information.”
She sat forward, her head next to his. “How’s that?”
He thought about it for a moment, enjoying her proximity.
“Well?”
“Usually Navajos give other Navajos time to think about things. We don’t rush.”
“I’m not Navajo, I’m Hispanic. We all like to talk at the same time, and never wait for answers. Where’s your cultural awareness, Indian?”
Lee laughed. “Okay. The idea is a good one and your speech sounds plausible. There is even a lot of truth mixed in there. It’ll give the authorities a reason to watch Muller, and maybe restrict his movements, especially with the present threat of terrorism. That will make it hard for him to leave the base without us finding out about it.”
“Exactly. He’ll have a hard time looking for that plutonium with people watching him.” Diane sat back and began eating her granola bar. “Whenever you want me to drive, just pull over.”
Hours later, just outside Las Cruces, Diane received a call on her cell phone. After a few minutes, she ended the conversation, and spoke to Lee, who was driving. “Muller and the van arrived at an Alamogordo car-rental place, then he and the crewman, whose name is Kurt Plummet, were picked up by a woman who turns out to be the crewman’s wife, Ingrid. The rental van was rented under a phony driver’s license.”
“Both men are at the Plummer apartment now, under surveillance, Diane continued. “And my guess came through on that aerial survey. Major Muller rented an aircraft used by a mining company to conduct aerial surveys. He needed his pilot credentials to get the aircraft, so he used his real ID for it. The flight plan said he flew in the area of Mount Taylor,”
“We know he didn’t go there, Mount Taylor is too tar east oi Fort Wingate, but it explains how he got his information on the location, or possible locations. Depending on how many hot spots he found, if that’s the way it works, he may not know for sure he was so close. Either way, he hasn’t dug up the plutonium,” Lee answered.
“What did your SAC say about the survey? He’s probably curious about what Muller is looking for, isn’t he?” Lee added.
“That was the part where I answered ‘I have no idea.’ You know what kind of reaction we’d have gotten if Lewis thought there was buried nuclear-weapons material sitting out there someplace.”
“The place would be crawling with feds, Muller would probably go deep undercover or leave the country, and I’d be back at square one.”
“Why don’t we just get the plutonium ourselves, if that’s what it really is, or in case it’s too dangerous to handle now, tell the Department of Energy or whoever? They could have a busload of experts from Las Alamos and Sandia Corporation out there in a few hours,” Diane suggested.
“I’ve thought of that many times, but always go back to the same selfish answer. I’d been putting it off for years, but now I think I know why I never dug it up.”
“I have an idea. It’s the one thing you hold over Muller’s head. Something you have that he wanted badly enough to risk his own life, and take the lives of many others. Is that it?”
“I’m afraid so. Worrying about who to trust in the military stopped being a concern years ago. But lor a long time, keeping the box from him was the single victory I had over the man—the vampire. I’d hunted him, of course, but never gotten close, not until now, but that was the only possible bait I had to lure him back. When I realized he was probably after it now, for whatever reason, I knew where he’d have to go. I only wish things would have gone differently last night. Another few seconds one way or the other, a direction he might have turned, and I could have taken him down.”
Lee was angry at himself, wondering if he’d held back for some deep-seated reason. I led blown his best chance, after waiting over half a century for it. Revenge, best served cold, was now going to heat up considerably.
“But you didn’t know Kurt Plummer was a vampire too, not for sure. He moved so fast, I barely heard him in time. If . . .” Diane shook her head. “I guess I still had my doubts, in spite of all I’ve already seen.”
“That might have been my problem as well. It I could have taken out Muller at the same time you were handling his partner, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“No, we’d have dismembered their bodies, then waited for the sun to burn them up. And we’d have had to live with killing two more people, humans despite what they’d become.” Diane sighed softly. “Now we’ll have to try something else.”
“With the Bureau and local officers keeping an eye on Muller and Plummer, I think we should remain on standby in case they make a move on Bowlegs’s hogan again. We should be able to get there before them, even,” Lee proposed. “At least we’ll get advance warning.”
“Then let’s get to the safe house, shower and have a quick meal, restock our supplies and get back onto the road. It could be a busy night. You vampires never seem to get tired.” Diane yawned, then laughed. “I never thought the word ‘vampire’ would ever become so large a part of my vocabulary, much less my thoughts.”
“Just never forget that there are skinwalkers out there too, literally gunning for us,” Lee added. “Any large animal you see after sunset could be one of their kind, and unlike vampires, they are all predators. And, as we know now, they’ll attack non-Navajos too.”
It was sunset, and Lee and Diane were on I-25 heading north toward the town of Truth or Consequences. They planned to reach the fort Wingate area first, and have a trap waiting for Muller and Plummer if they made another move to locate and recover the box.
Diane’s cell phone buzzed. She picked up the small unit and looked at the number of the caller. “It’s my SAC,” she said to Lee, who was driving. “Hello?”
“Lopez, this is SAC Lewis. Wolfgang Muller and Kurt Plummer just left Plummer’s apartment in a dark green Ford Expedition with tinted glass and a rental tag. I’m with Agent Harris and we’re following at a safe distance. They’re headed north. Any ideas about their destination? Northwest again?”
Diane nodded automatically, despite being on the phone. “Northwest, toward the Thoreau area, would be my guess at the moment. We’re going to attempt to place ourselves in a position to intercept them. I’d advise you not to tip them oft by getting too close. These are military men, and are probably armed, especially if they’re consorting with cop killers. And they’re going to be watching f
or trouble.”
“I know how to tail a suspect, Agent Lopez. Just keep me informed of your position.”
Diane rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir. Let me know the route they take once they reach Carrizozo.”
Ray Lewis disconnected the call.
“This SAC of yours, Ray Lewis. When I met him, he seemed a little overconfident, maybe too complacent. Will he be able to maintain the tail without letting Muller spot him?” Lee asked. “Lewis doesn’t know how well the vampires can see at night, and he missed the tail the skinwalkers put on him in broad daylight.”
“He and I have always been at odds, and there might be a tendency lor him to be a little overeager, I suppose,” Diane admitted. “Whatever his skills as an administrator, he’s just not a good field agent.”
“That could get him killed. He’d have to be very lucky to take down Muller and Plummer, and even if he managed it, that would only be temporary unless he got them both in the heart or blew their heads off.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t be honest with him, Lee. He’d yank me off the case and confine me to a desk, answering the phone. Ray wouldn’t believe a word I’d said. You know that.”
“Then we have to make sure we do the job. Still have your knife?” Lee asked.
Diane nodded. “But I still don’t know if I can cut off anyone’s head. That’s so . . . calculated.”
“He’d do the same to you, or me. Muller may even think I’ve turned you, or am thinking about it. Until he knows for sure, he’s going to treat you like a vampire too.”
Diane looked at Lee for a long time. “Are you thinking about it?”
“No! I don’t even know if I could turn anyone into a vampire. What the hataalii did for me changed what I am.” Lee kept his eyes on the road.
“But if it’s in your blood, isn’t it in all your body fluids too? You said you thought that whatever did this to your body was like a virus. And you were married. Didn’t you and your wife . . . ?”
