Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER)

by Catherine Coulter

  “Once we climb up over this small rise, you’ll see a steep gully at the base of the hill where the cave entrance is. We’ll have only scraggly trees and some blackberry bushes for cover, and we’ll use them as much as possible. Be aware that if they have lookouts high up on the hill, they could see us at any time. Stay quiet.”

  Brannon motioned to his agents, and they formed a single line behind Dix.

  Dix crawled up to the edge of the rise, waved everyone to stop. He went down on his stomach in the snow, pulled out binoculars, and passed slowly from the top of Lone Tree Hill down into the deep gully in front of them some thirty yards away, then up the other side of the gully where the entrance was, some six feet up a gentle slope, thick with snow-covered scraggly trees and bushes, just as he remembered it. He didn’t see a guard, but he did see lines of boot prints in the snow, partially covered with the fresh snowfall but still visible, forming a trail going up Lone Tree Hill and disappearing over it, and coming back down the hill and across the gully to the cave entrance. Foot traffic, recent and heavy. Were they moving drugs out, or were they out of tuna fish? He scooted back to where the agents were squatted on their haunches, bunched together.

  He said, “The entrance is about six feet up the hillside. The boot tracks lead right up to it. They’ve covered the entrance with tree branches, so they have a limited view out. We’ll split up and come at the entrance from both sides of the gully.”

  Ruth said, “Dix and I will go in first, because it gets hairy real fast inside the cave. Remember, push hard to the right, because you’ll be on a ledge with a nearly sheer wall of rock below you about two feet to your left. I’ve told you about this already, but let me emphasize again, this entrance is dangerous. When you go into the cave, hug the wall on the right. If we take gunfire, hit the ground and stay away from the ledge on your left.”

  Mac Brannon looked around. “If I had to pick the perfect hidey hole, this’d be it. Easy to access from the highway and not more than an hour and a half from Washington.” He grinned like a bandit.

  While the agents crawled down the side of the bowl, fanning out, Dix whispered to Brannon, “You need to stay back, and trust that Ruth and I will take care of things.” Dix knew to his boot heels there would be at least one guard, probably right inside.

  The agents came in from the sides, silent figures clothed in black, now dusted with white. There was no movement they could see, no voices they could hear. There was no sign of anyone.

  Dix stood on one side of the entrance, Ruth on the other, his MP-5 in his hand. He smiled at her, then lifted the branches out of the way.

  Winkel’s Cave

  Team One

  Anna and her team held perfectly still in the winding passage and listened. It was a ghostly sound that echoed to them from the distance off the cave walls, an alien and frightening sound to some of them as it fell and rose and wailed in the silent air. To Anna, it sounded familiar and beautiful, and she knew immediately what it was.

  “Bingo,” she whispered.

  It was the distorted sound of a guitar being tuned. Soon they were listening to a classical guitar being played with incredible technique, the notes frenetic but perfectly controlled. Anna recognized it as “Rumores de la Caleta,” one of Salazar’s signature pieces.

  She turned off her headlamp and tunneled the flashlight between her palms so only a narrow beam of light aimed at her feet to show her where she was stepping, and made her way to the front of the line. She motioned for everyone to cut their lights and keep back. She walked forward ten steps through inky blackness, turned a sharp corner, and nearly walked into a huge stalagmite shaped like an eight-foot spear. She realized she’d seen it because it was illuminated from behind by an artificial soft gray light. So they’d brought in a generator, or batteries. There was light ahead. She switched off her flashlight, went back and beckoned for the team to follow her. They slipped to their knees, flattened, and looked down a path that curved sharply to their right.

  She motioned for them to stay still while she shimmied on her elbows to get a closer look. It was the huge vaultlike limestone chamber Ruth had told them about, illuminated by electric lanterns that threw distorted shadows on the walls. Its ceiling soared upward, with groups of stalactites fashioned in incredible shapes hanging down like chandeliers. But many of the limestone formations within reach had been wantonly torn apart and hurled carelessly across the chamber, and now lay in scattered chunks across the cave floor.

  Anna started when she saw a low limestone arch that covered an indented niche in the far wall of the cavern, stacked floor to ceiling with what had to be kilo bricks of cocaine. She’d made her share of drug busts and she’d seen bricks of pure cocaine before, straight from Mexico or Colombia, cocaine that hadn’t yet been cut by local dealers. But she’d never seen so much of it in one place, except in a picture. It had to be worth millions of dollars.

  On the opposite wall were stacks of bagged marijuana in even larger plastic bags, and a jumbled pile of weapons, from AK-47s to .38 Specials. Next to the guns were stacks of canned goods and dozens of bags of tortilla chips, cookies, a store’s worth of junk food. She saw a half-dozen coolers, portable heaters, Coleman stoves, and two Porta Potties. All the comforts of home.

  She smelled chicken noodle soup cooking over one of the Coleman stoves. There were air mattresses and blankets stacked against a wall and strewn about on the floor.

  She saw Salazar, sitting in a director’s chair, his head bent low as his long fingers moved over the guitar strings. He was dressed in jeans and a thick crew sweater, boots on his feet, looking quite comfortable. She realized he was playing softly, but the incredible acoustics in the cave amplified the music, exploded it outward. His music would cover the sounds of their movement.

  On either side of Salazar sat three collapsible tables, and there were men sitting at two of them, playing cards. Two of the men were eating the chicken soup she’d smelled. She counted ten of them, plus Salazar. They all looked rather bored. Only a few of them appeared to be listening to the music Salazar was playing. She supposed they’d had to live with it since he’d moved in. During the previous night?

  Bored or not, they looked like hard-asses, and they each had a SIG556 SWAT semiautomatic rifle close by, with a thirty-round magazine, reliable as sunrise, and meant to kill hard.

  She looked down at her watch. Brannon and his crew should be ready at the back entrance.

  Anna whispered to all of them, “Ease up and take a good look. Locate all ten of the gang members. Look for available cover. Then we’ll hold here until Brannon’s team sets up a crossfire.”

  Winkel’s Cave

  Team Two

  There was a yell from inside the cave, and it gave Dix time to flatten against the hill, then automatic rifle fire spewed bullets out of the rear entrance. One rifle, one guard. Dix waited until he finished off his magazine, stepped forward and fired into the cave.

  They heard a scream that echoed back to them and faded as the man fell over the edge and crashed down on the rocks and the river below.

  There was silence again. Dix said over his shoulder, “They had to have heard that, so they might come at us. Remember, press against the right-hand wall. Let’s get this done.”

  Winkel’s Cave

  Team One

  Anna’s team heard the burst of automatic fire coming from the rear of the cave. She hadn’t realized they were so close.

  “Go!”

  They fanned out through the front opening of the big chamber, went down on their stomachs and took cover.

  Anna yelled out, “Federal agents! Drop your weapons or we will shoot!”

  Some of the gang had already grabbed their weapons, realized they were cornered, and froze for an instant in shock and surprise before one of the men yelled, “Take them out!”

  Salazar simply sank down to the floor when the gang opened fire, his guitar cradled against his chest, and crawled behind a big slab of limestone. Good, Anna thought.
She didn’t want that beautiful guitar to get destroyed. All of her agents opened fire at once, and she saw one gang member who was shooting wildly toward them was hit, three bullets to his chest. Griffin had come up behind her, and when he fired his MP-5, another man went down to his knees and fell onto his face.

  They saw Dix and his crew run in through the back entrance of the chamber, firing steadily, saw another gang member’s forehead bloom in red. The men scrambled behind tables, behind the Porta Potties, but they were flanked and found no cover.

  The noise was deafening.

  It was over in under two minutes. Ten gang members lay on the cave floor, dead or wounded. One DEA agent had a shard of flying limestone embedded in his arm.

  The agents held their fire and looked around the vast chamber, making sure all ten men were accounted for. The silence was broken only by moans and curses. It had been a bloodbath.

  “Don’t shoot me!” They all heard Salazar’s voice, saw him rise slowly from behind the slab of limestone, cradling his guitar against his chest. “Don’t shoot me!” he shouted again. “I am Professor Salazar, and I have been their prisoner, do you hear me? They came and took me, trussed me up and blindfolded me and brought me to this place. You have saved me from these men.” He spared a glance at the dead and moaning men scattered all around him. He looked scared out of his mind, his face dead-white except for a splatter of blood from one of the gang members near him. “Please. I will tell you everything I know.”

  There was a sudden yell. “Die, then, you lying pig!” A gang member lying on his side six feet from Salazar pointed a .38 and shot him. The bullet exploded through Salazar’s guitar and punched into his chest. Dix was closest and fired twice. The man grabbed his neck, his blood fountaining out between his fingers before he slumped down, his head falling against his weapon.

  Salazar lay moaning on his back, blood covering his chest, his guitar in shards next to him on the ground, the strings loose and broken, the beautiful wood scattered like pieces of shrapnel.

  Brannon shouted, “Dave, see to Salazar. Okay, guys, careful now. Disarm and cuff the wounded.”

  There was no victory cheer, no high fives, only heavy breathing, relief on every face as the agents went from man to man to find any still alive.

  Griffin examined each man’s face. The man he and Delsey had seen running down the alley the other night wasn’t among them.

  DEA agent Dave Parmenter, also a paramedic, went to his knees beside Salazar. “It’s bad. We need an ambulance, Dix, right away.” As he spoke, Dave was already pressing his hands with all his strength against Salazar’s chest.

  Griffin said, “We should call in a helicopter.” He started hobbling as fast as he could back toward the passage, but a DEA agent raced past him to the cave entrance and a cell connection.

  Some of the agents got the two wounded gang members ready to walk or be carried to the front of the cave; another covered the dead with blankets.

  Salazar still lay on his back, unconscious now, and next to him was a broken stalagmite streaked with blood.

  It was Dix who carried Salazar out on his back. They were all standing outside the front cave entrance, Salazar still on Dix’s back, when the helicopter blades whumped in overhead and the pilot brought it down in a narrow clearing, with feet to spare between the blades and the pine tree branches. Two medics jumped out of the helicopter, eased Salazar onto a collapsible gurney, and slid him in. “We can fit the other two wounded,” the pilot called to them, and the men were loaded in. Dave climbed in with them, and the helicopter lifted off.

  “Got to admire that pilot,” Mac Brannon said, watching the helicopter blades whip so close to the tree branches that snow went flying.

  The snow had stopped falling for the moment, and the sun glistened off the white hills, making the world look perfect again.

  Dix straightened and twisted his back around, trying to loosen up. “I’d rather not do that again,” he said. “I hope Salazar makes it. I’d hate for my back to have suffered for nothing.”

  Henderson County Hospital

  “I hate this place,” Griffin said, staring around the emergency room, the walls painted what was supposed to be psychologically soothing pale green but looked more like week-old artichokes to him. Only he and Anna had come to the hospital; all the other DEA agents had stayed at Winkel’s Cave, doing an inventory of all the drugs and overseeing their removal. His last view of them was high fives and huge smiles. As for Anna, she couldn’t stop smiling, either, a huge blazing smile. “An op that went perfectly,” she said for the third time, rubbing her hands together. “Can you believe it, Griffin? It went perfectly!” She was manic, adrenaline still pumping a wild cocktail in her blood. “I’m guessing at least five hundred kilos of cocaine. It’s the biggest bust I’ve been in on. I wonder how long they’ve been delivering drugs at Winkel’s Cave?” On and on she went, questions pouring out of her mouth. She was right, it was an amazing operation. And all the agents had survived, plus they’d closed down a big distribution center and wiped out the MS-13 gang activity in the area. At least for a while.

  Anna pulled off her black wool cap and grinned up at him. “Did I tell you you’re amazing, Griffin? You made it through the cave, even that one gnarly section. Let’s find Dr. Chesney so she can look at your leg. You’ve got to get it strong again; otherwise, you’ll never be able to hold my weight.” Whatever that meant.

  He lightly laid his fingers over her mouth to shut her up. He could feel her manic smile beneath his fingers. She said through his fingers, “I’m going to check on the status of the wounded gang members.”

  She was back in two minutes. “One gang member is on his way to surgery, two gunshot wounds, leg and belly. Will he tell us anything? Doubtful, since gang honor demands they keep quiet. We’ll see.”

  “What about the other one?”

  She shook her head.

  Griffin watched her pace back and forth in front of him, unable to keep still. Griffin sat there smiling up at her while he rubbed his throbbing leg. She leaned down and kissed him, then she was off when she saw Mac Brannon walk into the ER with Dix and Ruth. He watched her talk, gesticulating with her hands. It had felt odd not to be in charge of an operation, but he couldn’t complain. Everything had gone according to plan. It was a miracle. He wondered what Anna would say when she came crashing down from the ceiling.

  He thought about a cup of hot black coffee. He thought about how he hated hospitals, even when they were warm and comforting. And his leg started aching like a rotted tooth, but he could stand that. He had no intention of letting Dr. Chesney poke around anymore.

  Anna and her boss were still in animated conversation. He didn’t know where Dix and Ruth had gone to. He made the trek to the cafeteria, bought himself a cup of coffee and listened to techs, doctors, nurses, cafeteria personnel, and a score of visitors talk about the huge drug bust in Winkel’s Cave. He sat down and stretched out his leg and began to lightly rub it. He wondered idly if Salazar would survive surgery. At least he’d been alive when they’d wheeled him in.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Here he’d been driving across the country, enjoying seeing relatives and friends, excited about his new assignment with Savich in Washington.

  Three days ago it had all changed. You never knew what life would dish up, like a gorgeous DEA agent named Anna who’d shot an alligator when she was nine. He called Savich to fill him in on what happened.

  Anna joined him, and they went to the surgical waiting room on the third floor. They sat together, not speaking now, because Anna’s adrenaline levels were crashing, neither of them knowing if Salazar would live or die. Mac Brannon was sitting across from them, his cell phone attached to his ear.

  Salazar had been in surgery for two hours. An OR nurse came out periodically to give them updates. Salazar was holding his own; he might make it. Then again, he might not were the unspoken words.

  Griffin looked up to see Dr. Chesney staring at him,
as grim-looking as his mother when he’d pissed her off by leaving no gas in her car. He’d hoped Dr. Chesney was home making snow angels in her front yard, but no, there she was, looking at him from the waiting room doorway, her toe tapping. He gave it up and smiled at her. What followed was five minutes of questioning in an empty patient room, Anna standing beside him. He’d asked her to leave, but that hadn’t worked. Dr. Chesney said, “Okay, let me see the leg. Drop your pants, Agent Hammersmith.”

  Anna, curse her, was grinning as he pulled his pants down and sat himself again on the side of the bed. “Nice boxers,” she said. “I’ve always preferred commando, but black’s good, too.”

  Dr. Chesney gently lifted the bandage from his wound, but it still hurt. “You’re lucky,” she said after poking around. “The stitches have held, despite all the grief you put them and yourself through. Take some more aspirin when you need it. Like right now.”

  Anna brought him a cup of cold water from the fountain, and Dr. Chesney stood over him until he swallowed the aspirin.

  She lightly touched her palm to his cheek. “No fever. Good. Take care of yourself, Agent Hammersmith,” and she walked briskly out. Not a moment later a code red came over the loudspeaker.

  “It’s time for another update,” Griffin said, and limped to the nurses’ station, Anna behind him. Imagine a world-famous classical guitarist, a professor at Stanislaus, and, to top it off, a big-time drug dealer. He wondered how long it would take the media to flood Maestro, Virginia. They met the OR nurse in the hall. “He’s out of surgery, but his prognosis is uncertain. He’s still unconscious, so there’s no reason for you to remain. The surgeon told me to tell all your agents to go out and prevent snow accidents. As for you, Agent Hammersmith, he said you were luckier than you deserved, that if you’d ruined Dr. Chesney’s excellent work by crawling around in Winkel’s Cave, she’d stake you in the snow and leave you.”