by Marvin Tyson
“None of you are going anywhere but to bed!” Marty barked. “You have done more than me or Texas could have asked, and I’m sure there will be more to do when you’ve all healed up and haired over. Oh, yeah, and I’m sure Rick is close to hurting me over all the stuff Pat’s been through.” He glanced over at Rick, who glowered threateningly at him.
Sammy opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but the look on Marty’s face stopped him.
“There’s someone else on our side in Washington,” Marty said. “That someone has been keeping us informed about everything you’ve been doing, so he’s good. He called to tell us you were on your way to the airport before any of you could let us know. He said he would call back after you got here, so I’ll have him search for her.”
“The Arab!” Pat and Sammy yelped in unison.
“He didn’t have an Arabian accent,” Marty replied, looking puzzled.
Sammy and Pat looked at each other, baffled, but then a light came on for Pat. “The Arab and my young Marine captain are one and the same!”
Sammy spoke up. “The guys in the warehouse when Pat was brought in aren’t all of them. The Arab smoked four of them there, but there were four more, counting the ones who brought us in. It’s important for everyone to know there are at least four more of these vipers still out there.”
Chapter 31
Later Norma buzzed Marty. “Sir, our mystery man in D.C. is calling again. Do you want to take the call?”
“Yes, Norma. What line is he on?”
“Line two, sir,” she told him.
“This is President Kert,” Marty said when he answered the phone.
“I have more information for you,” the man on the other end said. “I found your girl. She’s a Native American, Uncompahgre Ute, more precisely. Her name is Sheila Littlefeather and she has likely gone home to her family outside Durango, Colorado.”
“Great job,” Marty said.
“My experience in this line of work tells me that you guys have the expertise to handle this while I continue my work here in D.C., so what’s our next step?” the voice asked.
“Let me check with some of my advisors, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Same number?” Marty asked.
“Yes, sir. I’ll be around.” The line went dead.
Marty buzzed Norma. “Norma, please get both teams together for a meeting in about an hour.”
“Will do, sir,” she answered.
Exactly an hour later, all the team members had arrived at the capitol. When everyone was gathered in a conference room, Marty served them a light lunch and brought them up to date on Sheila Littlefeather and the assumption she had returned to her home in Durango, Colorado.
Pat was the first to speak up. “We need to get someone there right away. De certainly can’t go with me, and I’m not sure about Sammy. I do have a couple of people I trust to call on who might be of help in Colorado.”
Sammy shook his head. “Pat, I love you, you know that, and I love having you around when the chips are down, but you are too close to having Rick’s baby to take this on. Besides, if the bad guys have anyone on this, it will likely be the same guys who did all this to us. And I’m going!”
De just stood up and handed his little pad to Marty. “Count me in, too.”
Marty said, “They’re right, Pat. I’m willing to bet Sammy’s right about those thugs who have been on your every move up to now. I’m sorry; you’ll have to sit this one out, although you can take a coordinator’s role here at the office.”
Pat sat back in her chair, disappointed at being left behind.
“Besides,” Marty said, “I’ve already gotten some veiled threats from your husband and, if anything were to happen to you and your little bundle of joy, I’d no doubt lose my head and a few more valuable parts of my body.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Okay,” she muttered.
“Good girl.” Marty beamed at her, thankful that had gone smoother than he expected.
Raymond Ramos, the most able of the old team, volunteered to go along. He stood and said, “I was part of the 82nd Airborne Division, 11-Bravo, I think I can still take good care of myself and any of you young pups,” he smiled. After hearing his service pedigree, De and Sammy agreed that another good, experienced hand might come in handy.
The three of them were on the way to Colorado an hour later in the same plane that brought them to Austin. The search for Sheila Littlefeather was in full swing, but they were running out of time.
Chapter 32
A Colorado State Police SUV was waiting when they arrived at the Durango airport. They tossed their gear in the vehicle and left quickly to find Ms. Littlefeather.
Pat had used her contacts to find out exactly where “home” was for Sheila Littlefeather. It was on tribal land a few miles outside of Durango. Land on the reservation was divided into individually owned plots of acreage and land held in common by the tribe.
Sheila’s family owned one hundred sixty acres of rock and scrub brush on the side of a steep mountain. A few scrawny goats were apparently the only livestock, and a tiny, well-tended garden by the house was the family’s “agricultural holdings.” The rest of the property was unfit for anything but a rock farm.
The long dirt road was dry and dust blew for miles as they sped down it. The three Texans were saddened to see shacks and hovels as they drove toward Ms. Littlefeather’s home.
They got there as soon as they could, but they were too late. Sheila’s mother, who wore a multicolored, shapeless dress, met them at the door, crying and obviously scared out of her wits. She asked them to leave before they could say anything. They stepped up onto the porch, saying they only wanted to ask a few questions. Then, through a screen door that had very little screen left, they spotted an old man lying on the couch, very badly beaten.
Sammy and Raymond forced by the old woman to get a better look. By this time, the old woman was screaming at the top of her lungs for them to get out. The state police officer who accompanied them heard the commotion from the car and walked to the door, but he was helpless; he had no jurisdiction because tribal law took precedence on the reservation.
The trooper, listening as the old woman wailed her dismay, urged the team to leave. A girl, who appeared to be in her teens, came from the back of the dwelling and held the door open as the visitors walked out.
The police officer explained his situation, and Sammy led them back to the vehicle. “Let’s get out of here and see if we can find a medical facility we can direct up here.”
They got back in the SUV and headed back toward Durango. Less than a mile from the house, the old pick-up truck they had seen parked in the yard approached from behind with its headlights flashing. They saw that the young girl was driving and pulled off the road, meeting her half-way between the two vehicles.
“Some men got here about half an hour before you came,” she told them. “They were screaming for my sister and then they started beating my father. He told them he didn’t know where she was, and he didn’t. I guess they got scared off when my uncle called and my mother hollered some gibberish over the phone. They must have thought she was speaking the language, but nobody in our family speaks anything but English. Mother is a smart woman. My uncle is working in Wyoming and calls the family every week at the same time, so she must have been planning what to do.”
“Do you know where your sister is?” asked Raymond.
“Why should I tell you if I do?” she retorted.
“Well, for one thing, we didn’t beat anyone and we left when your mother asked us to. For another, you can see that we have a police officer with us, and the rest of us work for the government,” Raymond shot back. “We are here to help your sister, not hurt her.”
“Well, I believe that, but let me give you a tip.” She smiled. “Never tell a Native American to trust you because you’re with the government. That has rarely turned out well for us.”
“I thought that almost as soon as
it passed my lips,” said Raymond. “Sorry about that. It wasn’t altogether true, anyway, or it was misleading, at least. We work for the Texas government.”
She eyed him intensely, then said, “My sister went back to the job she had for a short while as a teenager, at the gift shop on top of Pike’s Peak. It’s closed to tourists right now because of unusually heavy and early snowfall, but the employees still have some things to do while they are closed.” She glanced toward the officer. “If you see any other cars up there, there are a few scientists doing weather and climate research at the summit. You should be able to get past the barricades at the bottom.”
“We’ll do everything we can to take care of your sister,” Sammy said, compassion in his voice. “Now please get your father some medical attention and we’ll go get your sister.”
They watched her turn back toward her home and listened as the trooper called the tribal police on his radio, asking them to hurry out there with medical help.
Sammy grinned as he watched the girl drive away. “I swear, if that girl was a little older, I’d be coming back when this is over.”
The trooper laughed. “I’ve seen her and her big sister around. They are unusually pretty. In fact, jaws drop everywhere they go, but the old man keeps a really tight rein on them, from what I’ve heard.”
Though it was still early fall, the farther up the mountain they went, the deeper the snow got. Although Pike’s Peak is normally open year round for tourists, the blizzard had dropped too much snow too fast for the crews to keep the road open and safe. The state used snowplows to clear the road for the scientists and workers but, by the time the three Texans and the Colorado trooper reached the break check station just past the lower gift shop, the snow on the road was six inches deep. The trooper stopped to put chains on the SUV and they continued while he explained everything on the radio to the officers watching the road. When he got to the barricades, he simply drove around them.
The morning’s snowfall covered any early tracks. No one had driven up the road, which meant the bad guys hadn’t found out where Sheila was unless they went up by helicopter, and most civilian birds wouldn’t fly that high, especially in this kind of weather.
Surprisingly, the snow and ice didn’t get much worse at the summit, although Raymond and Sammy both spent an extraordinary amount of time looking at their hands and the floor on the way up. It was easy to get frightened on the Peak, even when the weather was great. Neither Sammy nor De were used to going around sharp turns on a dangerously narrow, snow and ice-covered road while looking straight down a mountain for several thousand feet. A slight miscalculation in speed or braking by the Colorado trooper would result in a very bumpy ride down and probably a fiery end.
The big parking lot at the summit was empty except for two cars, and they guessed one of them belonged to Sheila Littlefeather. Sammy went to the back door while the rest went to the main entrance and called out for her. Sure enough, she almost ran over Sammy as she flew out the back door.
She looked like a frightened fawn as Sammy tried to assure her that they were there to help her.
“Whoa, young lady,” Sammy said, his voice soft as he held her lightly. “We know you’re in some trouble, and we’re going to take care of it. Let’s go back in.”
She led him back into the building, where the rest of the group waited. When she saw the uniformed officer, she began to calm down. As she stood there, looking small and scared in her worn jeans, plaid flannel shirt, tall leather boots, and an incongruous-looking white apron around her waist, Sammy thought of what the Colorado officer had said about jaws dropping when she was around. She was about the prettiest woman he had ever seen and, from the looks of the rest of the guys, they thought the same thing. Raymond draped his jacket around her shivering frame.
“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on,” Raymond said.
“You know all about what happened in Washington?” she asked.
“No, we don’t,” Sammy said. “We were in Washington; in fact, we were in your apartment, but the bad guys beat us there,” he told her. “We only knew you wanted to pass along some information you overheard to me and De here. The same men looking for you now beat up your father to get him to tell them where you were, and they’re partners with the ones who caused the injuries you see. We need to get that information you called us about.”
By the shocked look on Sheila’s face, they could tell she was hearing about her father’s beating for the first time. They told her as much as they knew, that her father was okay, with medical help on the way to him.
She accepted that, then pointed to Raymond, who was looking shaky and leaning heavily on a counter. “He’s suffering from altitude sickness. You need to get him lying down and to a lower altitude as quickly as possible,” she stated emphatically. “This is nothing to play with; he’ll be incoherent shortly if you don’t get him down. I don’t know how to run the hyperbaric chamber we have here or I would suggest getting him in it right away. Used improperly, though, the chamber can be even more dangerous than the altitude.”
Sammy helped Raymond out as the trooper pulled the SUV up to the door. “Look,” he said, “I’ll ride down with Miss Littlefeather while everyone else takes the SUV and goes ahead of us. When we get to a level where Raymond is safe and comfortable, we’ll talk to her and revise our plan.”
“That sounds good,” the trooper agreed, and he started Raymond and De toward the SUV. Sammy and Sheila started walking to Miss Littlefeather’s old wreck of a Ford. They were right in the middle of the parking lot when Sammy noticed the front end of another SUV poking out from behind the rocks where the road entered the parking lot. Just as he screamed for everyone to get down, shots started flying from the rocks and the far side of the other SUV.
“Three or four, what do you think, De?” Sammy yelled.
De held up four fingers as they hugged the snow behind the parking space stops.
“We have to get Miss Littlefeather out of this. I’ll lay down cover fire while you hustle her back behind the SUV,” shouted Sammy.
As Sammy finished his orders, Raymond pulled Sheila behind him. She helped him get balanced as he struggled with the disorienting effects of altitude sickness. Raymond only had a pocket pistol and the Colorado officer had his sidearm. It wouldn’t be much, but should get Sheila out of danger. Raymond opened up, his bullets wildly inaccurate, and so did the trooper, who had much better luck.
Raymond and Sheila safely made it to the refuge of the SUV, and the Colorado officer turned back to help Sammy and De. All hell broke loose from behind the rocks and two men broke cover, heading for a sign that directed tourists in the open season. Sammy and the trooper couldn’t raise their heads to fire back. The thugs were packing some serious firepower.
Chunks flew off the parking stops, but stopped instantly when some heavy stuff started going the other way.
Raymond, apparently through sheer mental toughness, fought back against the effects of altitude sickness. He grabbed a black bag from the back of the SUV, unzipped it and pulled out a .45 ACP MAC-10. He began spraying high caliber, full auto rounds back toward the crooks. It sounded like a full platoon of grunts were in a firefight on top of the mountain. The sign was flying apart around the bad guys, and Sammy saw them hightail it around the back side of the rocks. It was obvious the crooks had only expected a scared, lonely little girl to be on top of the mountain, not four men with automatic weapons. They were in full panic mode.
Then the Colorado trooper’s SUV went spinning toward the rocks with a snow rooster tail twenty feet high gushing up behind it. As it passed, they saw that Sheila was driving. She slowed enough for De to get in, and he and Raymond poured lead as fast as they could to keep the villains pinned down. The trooper’s SUV slid to a halt beside the other SUV. A few more shots were fired, then Sheila got out calmly, followed by Raymond and De.
As the trooper and Sammy approached the edge of the parking lot, they saw two bodies bleeding out in the s
now.
“What about the two that ran down that way?” Sammy asked, pointing in the direction he last saw the other men running before they disappeared in the still falling snow.
“They’re not going anywhere,” Sheila stated as she coolly walked to the side of the parking lot. She pointed down the hill, and they saw the two men lying face down in the snow below them.
“They just ran a hundred yards at top speed across this parking lot and then about three hundred after that through the air with bullets chasing them. We’re more than fourteen thousand feet up, gentlemen,” she grinned. “If those two old fat guys are still alive, you can pluck their hair out a little at a time and they won’t know it because they’re frozen. But they’re more likely dead. Flatlanders don’t sprint well at this altitude, even if they’re in good shape.”
Sammy and De climbed cautiously down to the men. When they saw the officer was following, they asked him to go back and help Raymond look after Miss Littlefeather. He had just gotten back to the car when he heard two shots ring out across the mountains.
When Sammy and De got back, the officer came up to them, a frown on his face. “Look,” he said, “I can’t just stand by while you execute people, no matter what the circumstances are. I’ll need a full statement from you guys as to what happened down there.”
“Not much to it, actually,” Sammy said, “they reached for their guns and we had no choice but to shoot. “
“In their condition?” The officer looked skeptical. “Did you recognize either of them?”
“Yep, both of them,” said Sammy. “We met them last time we were in Washington, I believe.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.” The officer shook his head, but they knew that was the end of it.
Chapter 33
Nobody talked much as they drove back down the mountain because the danger of the trip in ice and snow had everyone tense. At the foot of the mountain was an open café, and the group went in to get coffee. The place was small but warm, and there was enough room for everyone to sit. When they were settled in, everyone wanted to hear Sheila’s story.
