The Kill List (Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Book 3)

by JT Sawyer

  “And where were you right after sunrise?” said Julie. “I mean, you’re the only one who has a knife, Brian.”

  “Taking a piss—you my parole officer now, needing to know my whereabouts twenty-four seven?” He opened his coat and removed the blade from its sheath, letting the clean silver edge glint in the sun. “Here, you want to inspect the weapon? Go ahead.” He took a step forward, motioning with the blade down for her to take it. “Shit, you can have it if you want. I didn’t kill Nicholas.”

  The large figure returned the blade to his beltline and knelt back down to continue filling his water bottle.

  Mitch looked him over. He still couldn’t read the granite-faced man but he didn’t see any blood stains on the knife to indicate that he’d hacked up Nicholas—although he could’ve already washed them off. Then again, Julie had blood all over her after she’d helped him up. The ground has been impossible to read so I can’t rule her out. Does she have a knife hidden on her? He started to dismiss the notion while glancing at her diminutive frame and seemingly frail disposition but then recalled the arm strength she demonstrated in pulling him up from the cliff. Or maybe there are others out here. He shook his head, his mind reeling from all the possibilities.

  “Look, all of these little bitch-and-moan sessions are bogging us down,” Mitch said. “That’s probably to slow our progress forward. We need to just haul ass out of here and get to the cabin before this canyon is underwater.”

  “Agreed,” said Lisa, stepping out from the shelter.

  “I’m gonna fill up my water bottle and then we can head out. I’d suggest you all do the same. It’s going to be a helluva push.” While everyone gathered their few items and rehydrated, he snuck off a short distance to retrieve his GPS tracker, tucking it into his pocket and rejoining the group as they trekked north.

  Chapter 19

  San Juan National Forest, Animas Dam Headquarters, Seventy Miles North of Durango

  Declan White arrived at the United States Bureau of Reclamation field station an hour before his shift began. It was his twentieth year working for the USBR and the new Animas Dam was the third waterworks project he was in charge of overseeing in the Upper Colorado Division. Compared to the others, the Animas was small and had been reduced in size from the original proposal due to lawsuits by environmentalists during the planning phase. In the end, the USBR had compromised and scaled back the project to include the present location which comprised a total of twelve miles of the canyon. A four-hundred-foot cement retaining wall was in place at the lower end with the USBR gauging station and water spillway occupying the upper end where Declan was standing. The past five months of labor were finally coming to fruition with tomorrow’s release of water from the Animas River, which flowed perpendicular to the canyon. He still had to send his work crews to the lower end above the concrete embankment next week to extract the heavy winches that were used for lowering supplies to the engineers during the past few months of construction.

  Declan remembered exploring the canyon in his youth and coming across prehistoric ruins and evidence of early settlers. Later, during fall elk hunts in the region, he had taken refuge in an old forest service cabin that had been abandoned in the ’80s. The dilapidated cabin, four miles south of his present location, would be underwater soon along with miles of rugged wilderness. Earlier research by federal archeologists and botanists had failed to turned up anything of significance in the canyon so it was deemed the least likely to suffer catastrophic impact once the dam was constructed.

  A small tributary of the nearby Animas River was going to be diverted temporarily to fill the canyon, which Declan estimated would take approximately seventeen days to completely reach capacity. Anything occupying the bottom of the gorge would be permanently submerged or obliterated from the scouring action of the boulders, debris, and trees.

  Declan grabbed a pair of binoculars and scanned the forest below the northern portion of the dam. Ah, such lovely country to go to waste but it’s not like we don’t have a hundred more canyons around here just like it. He thought about the myriad benefits of having this manmade reservoir in place: helicopters would be able to fill up their tethered water buckets to put out wildfires; nearby towns would have a backup drinking source during drought years; and eventually the state would stock the depths with farm-raised trout for fishing. He even planned on taking his grandkids canoeing on the waters in late summer once the county hydrologist had given the green light.

  Declan scanned the treetops many miles away and thought he saw a wisp of smoke rising up from the canopy near a small bend in the canyon a few miles south of the old cabin. But it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Sure as shit hope there ain’t some dumb hiker that snuck past all the barbed wire along the trailheads to see the canyon one more time.

  Declan ground his teeth and let out a muffled sigh. He wasn’t about to delay months of preparation and postpone opening the floodgates tomorrow. He went back inside and checked the police log on his desk to see if there had been any reports of protesters attempting to gain access to the canyon but nothing showed up. He thought about calling the sheriff’s office in Durango about the possibility that he had seen smoke in the canyon but then he questioned if it wasn’t a vestige of early morning fog burning off in the first rays of sunlight. Yeah, that’s what it was—fog.

  He glanced out the large bay windows overlooking the dam and caressed his thick beard. No point in pulling the sheriff and his boys out here and sending them down into the canyon. Hell, that’d take nearly half a day right there just to get them out to that old horse trail above the cabin and then the better part of the afternoon walking down to where I thought I saw smoke. He stroked his beard with more force and then abruptly turned away, heading back to his office to look over his notes for tomorrow. Yep, fog—had to be.

  Chapter 20

  With sunrise nearing, Dev finally got word from Petra about the location of the GPS signals. He texted her the coordinates along with satellite imagery of a remote stretch of canyon, seventy miles north of Durango. He mentioned how it had been a source of contention for environmental protesters. She examined the map and compared it to the one sheathed in a clear plastic bag on the evidence table.

  Brenner and Roth walked in, discussing the next step in unraveling the mysterious events at the house.

  Dev tucked away her phone as the men approached, still deciding how to surreptitiously reveal the information she had without drawing attention to her clandestine intel-gathering methods. “This canyon on the map, is it Animas Canyon, the region that’s about to be flooded?” said Dev.

  Brenner leaned forward, eyeballing the map and then looking back at her. “Could be—what makes you think that?”

  “I overheard one of the locals in town saying something about a place north of town that was going to be underwater soon once the new dam was opened. I thought I saw a map similar to this the other day when I was reading the newspaper.”

  “Animas—yeah, that sure does look like the layout of the place,” said Roth, who moved in between the two, snatching the covered map off the table. “I helped provide security protocols for the Bureau of Reclamation guys when they were deciding how to close off the roads and hiking trails. Guess I didn’t notice the place from this piss-poor map.” He shot a glance over at Dev. “Strange that you did.”

  “The geologists never got back to me about this map,” said Brenner. “They must be out in the field so it might be a good bet to look into Animas.” Brenner removed his hat and rubbed his bristly scalp. “That’s gonna be a bit of a drive down rutted roads to get there—over an hour then a few more to walk down into the canyon.”

  “Good thing you’re with me then,” said Roth. “We can be at the airstrip in Bayfield in an hour and I can have my agency helicopter meet us there.”

  Dev was surprised at Roth’s generosity. She hadn’t had time to review the information Petra just sent about Roth but was sure there was more to his motives than what was
dictated by his authoritarian role.

  “I’ve gotta grab some of my things. I’ll meet you in Bayfield in an hour,” said Brenner. “Maybe Ms. Leitner can drive down with you,” he said to Roth as he brushed past them.

  As Dev walked with the husky marshal down to the driveway, she scrolled through her texts from Petra. One stood out, causing her to hesitate in mid-step. Internal video footage from a salvage yard across from the federal impoundment lot shows Roth inspecting Kruger’s vehicle and removing something from the side quarter panel days after Kruger’s accident.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Ah, no, my family just keeps sending me these crazy messages about getting back home. Like I’d leave here without Mitch.”

  “So they don’t approve of him either, eh?” Roth said, shaking his head as he opened the door to his SUV. “Maybe you should listen to those with good common sense.”

  Dev just raised her eyebrows and wanted to break the man’s jaw with a right hook. Instead she got in the SUV, changing the subject to the weather while trying to plan her next move, wondering how far Roth’s deception went.

  Chapter 21

  Mitch studied the topographic map he had removed from Daryl’s pants pocket back at the log shelter, tying in the contour lines on paper with the landscape features around him. A jagged protrusion of rock to his right matched up with the map. He determined that they had less than two miles to go before reaching the cabin. Mitch still wasn’t sure it would be there but it had provided a focal point for everyone and he was determined to at least see if there was a trail out of this hellacious gorge.

  Brian caught up and stood next to him, catching his breath from the slight incline he’d trudged up. The two women were fifty yards behind, with Julie coaxing the melancholy Lisa to continue moving forward.

  Mitch stowed away the map in his jacket and glanced at the game trail ahead, which was devoid of any tracks, human or otherwise. He looked at Brian and moved closer to him.

  “Say, you started talking yesterday when we first met about some feds arriving at your prison in regards to Kruger’s death.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. There was inquiry into how he died.”

  “That’s kind of unusual don’t you think? That’s something that could be read about in the cause-of-demise report via email. What were they asking about in particular?”

  “Well, that’s the thing—it was just one guy. He was with the U.S. Marshals office. Kept asking about whether Kruger had said anything before he died—he was very specific and kept asking if Kruger had kept a journal of any kind in his cell. He didn’t seem too interested in the actual attack or the perps that shivved the man.”

  Mitch’s eyes darted around the canopy of trees, trying to piece together what Brian told him. He could hear the two women approaching and took a step back then switched his attention to the trail ahead while hiding his interest in what he’d just learned.

  “Not much farther to the cabin now. Should be there within the hour,” Mitch said.

  The two women stopped and sat down on rock slabs, wiping the sweat off their faces.

  “And then what?” said Brian. “What if we’re just walking into another trap or dead end?”

  Before Mitch could answer, he swiveled his head in either direction, staring up at the slivers of open sky above the trees. “A plane—I hear a low-flying plane.” He ran forward twenty feet to get a better glimpse through a large open area in the canopy then waved the others over. “This is a long shot but gather up any dry bark or kindling you can find. We’ll see if we can get a smoky fire going. That plane may be circling the region for a while if they think we could be down here.”

  Everyone scrambled around, desperately plucking dead standing twigs and anything else that could ignite quickly. Mitch squatted down on top of a flat slab of basalt that was as big as a canoe then he removed a bullet from his pocket along with the 9-volt battery and wire from the night before. As he proceeded to work, he kept looking up intermittently at the others working in the distance, each of them ducking into the brush to gather kindling.

  A few minutes later, he had the gunpowder extricated from the brass casing and began preparing the wire around the battery terminal again. The noise of the plane had faded and then disappeared altogether. Mitch looked up and searched the heavens for movement but it was gone. We should probably stay put here for a little bit and see if it returns. This may be the only decent spot that’s open enough to get a column of smoke up through the trees.

  He glanced back down the choked valley but didn’t see any of the others. Mitch stood up and jumped down off the slab, trotting forward to where he’d last seen Julie. He saw her tracks in the mud, the clear narrow imprint of the toes showing clearly. With the weather improved, it was the first time he’d been able to make out a crystal clear track on the ground since this ordeal began. He paused in mid-analysis as he saw Julie stumble forward, holding one hand on the back of her head. Her eyes were wild and a crimson bead trickled down behind her ear.

  “Brian killed Lisa with a rock then tried to strike me down.” Her legs buckled as she fell into Mitch’s arms.

  He lowered her to the ground and kept his eyes trained on the path she had just come from. Brian—why did he use a rock if he had that knife?

  “Where is he?”

  Julie kept her hand pressed into her head. “He ran off when he saw you coming this way.”

  “And Lisa?”

  Julie pointed over her right shoulder as she started to weep. “He just struck her down as she turned around. He’s an animal.”

  Mitch stood up and walked ten feet ahead to where a small cluster of bushes gave way to an oval gap in the foliage, keeping his peripheral vision trained on Julie. Splayed on the rocks face up was the former doctor, the front of her forehead askew with bone splinters and brain tissue spread on the rocks beside her. Dammit, Lisa. Though he’d only known her for the past twenty-four hours, he felt a small pang of loss for the good woman she was. He looked at the head wounds and knew she had seen her attacker coming. Mitch scanned the mud and saw Julie’s tracks next to Lisa’s while larger boot prints twenty feet away indicated that Brian had sprinted off in the opposite direction. There was no way he could have struck Lisa. Julie is the killer! Brian must have witnessed the attack and took off running before she could move on him.

  Chapter 22

  Returning to Julie’s location, Mitch saw that she had buttoned up her shirt collar around her neck to cover the supposed wound. How is she connected to Kruger—she’s a journalist for Christ’s sake. But also someone with the heart of a killer. She can’t be doing this for money.

  “Did you find anything?” she said.

  He wasn’t sure how this was going to unfold or how many men she might have waiting at the cabin. He rubbed his chin and maintained his look of sadness for Lisa. “She was a good woman. Brian is someone that I’ll deal with when we catch up to him. We should keep moving forward before he gains any more distance on us.”

  “What if he’s waiting along the trail?”

  “My guess is that we won’t have any surprises until we reach the cabin. That’s supposed to be the end game all along, isn’t it?”

  “Right, we should be careful as we get closer.”

  Mitch pointed to the trail. “Why don’t you lead on? I wrenched my ankle back there.”

  She nodded and then sat up, moving past him back to the rock-strewn pathway. He studied her as she walked. Her gait had become more fluid, her foot placement smooth as she floated over the uneven trail with ease. She rarely looked back to keep tabs on Mitch and had gained fifty feet of distance from him while constantly glancing at something she had removed from her pocket.

  Chapter 23

  Ninety minutes later, the helicopter circled around a small meadow a mile away from the old horse-packing trail that led down to the cabin in Animas Canyon. The pilot set it down and Roth, Dev, and Brenner jumped out, scanning the forested ridges and cliffs in the
distance. Roth leaned back in to the pilot, telling him to kill the engine and wait for their return as they could be gone a while.

  Dev’s phone vibrated and she cupped her hand over the screen to study the text Petra sent. Facial recognition indicates that the woman with Kruger in old picture matches up with attached photo. Dev scrolled down and saw a brunette woman in her forties. She gasped, remembering the author’s photo in the book she’d picked up at the Bayfield gas station. Julie Gonzalez–she’s in on this!

  Roth unslung his rifle and walked past Dev, then led the way down the overgrown trail. A quarter of a mile in Brenner spotted a tan Toyota Land Cruiser hidden in the bushes. Dev glanced at the tires and could see the mud had already dried on the vehicle. If she had learned anything from Mitch about tracking it was to pay attention to how different soil types dry out in a variety of settings and temperatures. Dev pointed to the ground outside the driver’s door, where two sets of boot prints departed from the SUV, heading down the trail.

  She was nowhere near Mitch’s skill level at interpreting such field signs but she could tell that the men had arrived after the rain stopped around sunrise based upon the sheer amount of mud on the windshield and because there were no rain pock marks in the footprints.

  They encircled the Toyota, noticing a pair of bolt cutters inside and some discarded food wrappers.

  “Sure ain’t dayhikers,” said Brenner. “The road into this place is gated a few miles back and then has a considerable amount of barbed wire around it.”

  “Would you permit me to have a sidearm at this point?” said Dev to Brenner. He hesitated and then reached for his Sig-Sauer but Roth stepped between the two.

  “You’re shitting me, right? You ain’t giving this foreigner a sidearm.”