by Jenna Kernan
“What happened? Where’s Selena?” Gabe asked Frasco.
“He took her. My parole officer. I should have known. Coming back here two days in a row.”
“Ronnie Hare?” Gabe asked.
“He took her.”
Gabe straightened, stunned. He had chatted with Ronnie Hare in his office, trusted him...because he was Apache.
Dryer trotted up to join them. Gabe didn’t have time to fill him in.
“Where did they go?” asked Gabe.
Frasco flapped his arms. “I don’t know. Only know he took her and the rig.”
Gabe glanced at the empty place where the 18-wheeler should be parked.
“He must know you’d call me,” said Gabe.
“Who are we talking about?” asked Dryer.
Frasco filled him in. “Hare took Selena about forty minutes ago. Maybe an hour. I’m not sure. Found out when I woke up and found my wife crying in the living room.”
Dryer frowned. “The guy who was here the day we discharged you?”
“Yeah. You met him,” said Frasco.
“Hare would be a perfect messenger for the cartel. He’s all over both reservations and he’s got legitimate reason to talk to all kinds of ex-cons,” said Dryer.
“He warned Ruthie not to call you. Said they’d kill her.”
He looked to Frasco whose face was now drawn and pale. He knew as well as Gabe did that it wouldn’t matter if he called or not. They were going to kill Selena either way.
“He took the truck and a driver,” said Dryer. “He’s moving something.”
“Precursor. Got to be,” said Frasco.
“Gambling that you wouldn’t call me or knowing he has time to move it.”
“Takes more than a few men to ready that kind of load.”
“And move it where?”
Frasco gave him a bewildered look. “I don’t know.”
But Gabe had to know. He had to get to Selena. Because he knew what they’d do with her when she finished her run.
“Who is Hare working for?” asked Gabe.
“Not sure,” said Frasco. “Could be the Mexican distribution organization or someone else.”
“Takeover,” said Ruth. “Salt River instead of the Wolf Posse. Better location.”
The all turned to Ruthie, who had both fists gripped in her graying hair.
“What?” asked Frasco.
“I heard him. Something about Escalanti’s men and...they need a driver.” She pointed at her husband. “Why did you tell him that all our girls can drive?”
Frasco moved to his wife, reaching for her, but she batted away his hand and turned to Gabe.
She was babbling now, her words coming fast, choking past the tears. “They said if I called the police they’d...they’d... I was... And he said he’d kill her... He threw her phone... They left. He has her.” She looked to her husband. “Do something!”
“Which direction?” asked Gabe.
Ruth Dosela pressed her hand to her forehead, glancing frantically about the icy front yard. “I don’t know,” she wailed. “I don’t know.”
Frasco gathered her in his arms and gave her a little shake. “Think, Ruthie.”
“West,” said Ruth. “They turned to the west, towards Black Mountain.”
Gabe’s heart sank. That was the direction from which they had just come and they had not encountered Selena and her flatbed tractor trailer. That meant Selena had either passed the station before they left or she had turned north in the direction of the restricted area and Wind River settlement. If they were an hour behind, Selena might already be off the reservation, unless they had to first load a flatbed with fifty-gallon barrels of precursor.
Kino spoke to Ruth Dosela, clasping her elbow and steering her back to the house where he turned her over to her daughters before he backtracked to his unit.
“We’re moving out,” said Gabe to Juris, Kino and Dryer.
“I’m going with you,” said Frasco.
Gabe hesitated. He didn’t take civilians into danger.
“I’m working with DOJ. Dryer told you that,” said Frasco.
Precious seconds ticked by.
“She’s my daughter, Gabe,” said Frasco. “I got her into this. Let me help get her out.”
“Get in,” Gabe said, motioning toward his SUV.
They left behind his sobbing wife, son and frightened daughters.
Gabe returned to his unit and reversed out of the drive with Juris, Kino and Dryer all following in their vehicles. Once heading west on Wolf Canyon Road, he radioed to Jasmine, putting out an all points on the trailer. He wasn’t hopeful, however. It was a big territory with so many little back roads to hide a tractor trailer. But not all of them were plowed. Could a trailer make it over roads with half a foot of snow pack? He feared it could.
He saw where Selena had clipped the snowbank on the right side sending a spray of ice into the road. The snow left a clear wet tire print for about ten yards and then disappeared. Both the warmth of the day and time were working against him. The next intersection was four miles up. He knew he would have to turn toward Black Mountain or head north toward Wind River. Since they had not seen them going to Black Mountain, Wind River was the logical choice. But if she had turned off any of the side roads before Black Mountain, then he’d be heading the wrong way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gabe’s gut churned as he clenched the wheel and continued to search for some sign that he was still on Selena’s trail.
Frasco pointed. “There!”
Gabe looked in the direction Frasco indicated and saw the large double tire track where Selena had clipped the snowbank as she made the turn to the north in the direction of Wind River. And then he knew. Selena was an excellent driver. This hadn’t been an accident on her part. The last time had been intentional and this was, as well. Selena was leaving them an ice trail. A trail that any Apache tracker would find simple to follow. She was in trouble and he could read her call for help in the crushed snowbank as clearly as any sign he had ever seen.
Gabe picked up the radio and called ahead to see if any of his men were in the vicinity of Wind River. Only Officer Cienega was nearby, at Broke Bow, north and west of Wind River on Route 260. He spoke to Cienega and told him to head east toward Wind River, keeping his eye out for Selena’s truck.
At the next intersection, Gabe spotted Selena’s turn before Frasco did. She’d entered the Piñon Lake area where she had been previously waylaid by members of a Salt River gang. This area was closed to all but Apaches and was used for ceremonies and retreats, and was a popular hunting spot among the tribe. Why had the traffickers chosen this spot? There was no cover. No building large enough to store the precursor and keep it from freezing.
And then an idea began to form in his mind. The caves. He’d explored them as a boy. They were always the same temperature inside, but in the winter no one went up there except a tribe member who might be bow hunting—like Dante Chee. Was this his secret spot that he would not share even with his brother?
Gabe felt a cold sweat as he realized he might have figured out the place where the barrels of precursor could be safely stored from the freezing temperatures and the site of Chee’s murder.
He used his mobile to call Juris and explain his theory. His second in command thought he might be on the right track.
Gabe continued along the narrow road, following Selena’s tracks as the snow drifts rose, penning them in on both sides. His heart was now pumping so hard that his chest ached. This was not the usual adrenaline rush that accompanied a chase. This was something low down and gut twisting. Worry, he realized, blinding worry over Selena’s safety.
He saw the place where the truck tracks indicated she had stopped.
Gabe
halted the string of vehicles well before the imprints and exited the SUV with Frasco. Dryer pulled in next. A moment later they were joined by Kino and Randall Juris. The five saw the prints of Selena’s truck and a second vehicle following behind.
“Company?” asked Kino.
“Large truck or a large SUV,” said Juris. “Anyways they were here first and Miss Dosela now has an escort.”
Gabe stared at the beaten-down snow on the bank that was wide as a sidewalk.
“Foot traffic,” said Frasco.
The bank had been crushed flat.
“They moved the barrels with a snowmobile,” said Kino, crouching down for a better look. “Dragged them on something from the looks of it.”
“Tarp, maybe,” said Juris. “Not a sled or board.”
It took more time than Gabe would have liked, but they saw the imprints of six men. One had been in the truck with Selena and five distinct tracks came from the second vehicle.
“Snow machine went that way. Toward the cave,” said Juris.
Gabe radioed the new information. They were looking for one or two men on a snowmobile in the Piñon Lake area and an SUV and a flatbed, possibly together.
“What are these marks?” asked Juris, pointing at the flattened snow at the parking area.
“I’d say that’s the bottom of the barrels of precursor,” said Gabe. “Do the marks match the barrels you saw down on the border?”
Kino squatted and took a closer look. “Yes. Fifty gallons each.”
They’d stacked them by the truck and loaded them onto the trailer.
“How many trips?” asked Juris.
Kino studied the scooped-out place that led uphill as Gabe cursed at the delay.
“I’m seeing at least eight. Can’t say how many barrels per load, but on a tarp, maybe two to six.”
Gabe did the calculation. “Say ten trips of four. At least forty barrels. They can’t be far ahead of us.”
“Road’s too narrow to turn around,” said Juris. “They went past the lake and will come back out on the main highway.”
Gabe looked to Kino. “You think they made it out of the closed area yet?”
Kino studied the tracks of the departing tractor trailer, judging time by the condition of the tracks, and shook his head.
“Narrow roads up ahead and there’s a steep grade up and down.”
Selena would be driving a heavy load on dangerous roads. That alone was enough to terrify him, but she also likely had a gun pointed at her.
If he could only get there in time, save her, he’d tell her what he should have said when she offered him back his ring.
They headed out, Gabe in the lead. He radioed Jasmine and told her to send everyone to the Wind River entrance to the lake.
Time seemed to drag, but it was only eleven endless minutes before he spotted her tractor trailer followed by a large black SUV. The load on her truck was wrapped in camouflage tarps and strapped down. Selena knew how to secure a load, so Gabe was sure the barrels were battened down tight.
Gabe stared at the truck rumbling downhill in low gear. They had found them on the most dangerous part of the drive, a thirty-degree incline on a narrow road that curved around the other side of the quarry cliffs. On the left was a wall of stone sheathed in a frozen cascade of glacier-blue ice. At its base lay a field of large boulders that had sheared away. To the right was a sharp drop-off, beyond which rose only the tops of the tallest pine trees. If he had tried, he could not have chosen a worse place to engage them.
Gabe lifted the handset. “Kino. Call for backup.”
“Roger that,” said Kino.
Dryer’s voice emerged from his radio. “I’m calling DOJ and FBI for backup.”
“Affirmative,” said Gabe.
The cavalry was coming, but just like always, it was the Apache scouts who would be there first.
Gabe drew his pistol and lowered his window. He didn’t shoot at the SUV. Instead, as the truck turned almost broadside to his position, he aimed high and shot at the load. He had the satisfaction of seeing a spray of liquid shower the tailing vehicle before the SUV skidded to a halt across the road and the shooting began.
His windshield exploded and Frasco screamed. Gabe’s vehicle slid. They skated toward the embankment between the road and the drop-off. Gabe had to steer into the slide or risk sending them into a spiral. The SUV fishtailed but stopped short of the embankment.
“Grab my rifle behind you,” he said to Frasco.
Gabe used his car door and front fender as a shield. He looked toward the truck and saw Selena looking back at him in the large rectangular side mirror, her eyes wide. He knew someone was sitting next to her. He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected it was Ronnie Hare. He had just a moment of eye contact, meeting her gaze, and then she disappeared from sight in the mirror.
The gunmen in front of them exited their vehicle from both sides, gaining defensive positions behind their SUV. The men carried semiautomatic weapons, meaning that Gabe’s team was outnumbered and outgunned. But they had to get past the gunmen to reach Selena.
The air brakes of the truck shrieked and they all turned, showdown suddenly forgotten as the trailer began to turn on the narrow snow-covered road. There wasn’t room. Selena must know that.
“Oh, no,” he whispered, and then he could only watch as the drama unfolded in slow motion.
“Please, God,” called Frasco.
Driven by momentum and the steep incline, the tractor trailer jackknifed. The trailer left the road first, spraying snow into the air in a cascading wave of white. Gabe’s heart stopped as the straps failed and the barrels broke free, tumbling off the falling trailer. The loose load now bounced and rolled toward the incline, and Gabe knew that Selena had done this all on purpose. She was ditching the load and distracting the shooters. She was doing this to save him and in that moment he knew that the most important thing in his life was not his job or his duty to his people.
It was Selena and he was about to watch her go over that cliff.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Selena’s ears rang with the shriek of the air brakes, the scrape of metal on ice and the scream of her passenger, Ronnie Hare. Ronnie was not belted in and so when the truck teetered and slammed to its right side, he hit the door now below him so hard that he released his grip on the gun that he’d had pointed at her most—but not all—of the afternoon. When she’d been securing the load, he hadn’t seen her put the tire iron in her coat.
The trailer twisted and barrels spilled off the flatbed like bright blue beads. The trailer left the road, spinning out into space and then dragged them backward toward the incline. The truck skidded on the door where Ronnie now lay in a heap. Selena tried the door above her but could not lift it against gravity, so she cranked down her window as they continued their slow-motion glide to the embankment.
“Wait,” shouted Ronnie, lifting a hand toward her.
She didn’t. Instead, she unfastened her belt and tugged herself out, riding on her door panel like a surfer for just the time it took to seize the tire well and pull with all her might. She slid over the metal like grease on a griddle and bounced over the tire, dropping into space as the truck rolled upside down and fell from sight. She landed on her side in the deep snow just past the road. From the incline came the shriek of man and metal as the truck and trailer crashed into rock and trees on its deadly descent.
Her first thought was that Paula and Carla were going to kill her. Her next was of the five Mexican cartel killers shooting at Gabe.
She reached into her coat sleeve and came up empty. Where was that tire iron?
* * *
GABE AND FRASCO started running toward Selena, as another round of gunfire cut over their heads. Frasco scrambled back toward the SUV, but Gabe continued on,
exposed, out in the open, but he was now so close to the shooter’s position that the men behind the vehicle had not yet spotted him. When they did, he would be an easy target. But he had to get to Selena and that meant getting past these men.
The shots volleyed over his head. A spray of lead from the SUV and then a shot or two from a rifle behind him. Kino was the best shot on the force. But even an expert marksman could not outshoot the barrage of bullets spewing from the automatic weapons.
Frasco gave a shout and Gabe saw him limp behind his SUV holding his leg. Gabe’s rifle lay on the ground in front of his unit.
Kino, Dryer and Juris moved forward, one by one. Dryer was in the lead with the rifle, followed by Kino and Juris with pistols firing.
Gabe couldn’t see the truck and the sound of it tearing through the tree branches had stopped. Where was Selena?
Gabe looked under the six-passenger SUV and saw the lower legs of two men. He fired, hitting them both in the shins. Both went down, giving him much better targets. He aimed for mass and hit them in the chest—one and two. The men lay still and the others shouted, moving behind the wheel wells. One of the men inched around the rear bumper and shot past Gabe at his men who opened fire, driving him back. Gabe heard cursing in Spanish. Were these men from the Mexican cartel coming to retrieve their product from Escalanti’s care?
Behind him Kino shouted. “Dryer’s hit.”
Gabe turned to see Kino dragging a limp Dryer toward cover. Wasn’t he wearing a vest? Kino was on the radio in Gabe’s cruiser, reporting an officer down.
Kino shouted to Gabe. “Highway patrol, DOJ and FBI are en route.”
That got the gunmen’s attention. One of them peered under the vehicle at Gabe. Gabe rolled, coming to his feet behind the gunman’s SUV. He drove them toward the front end with a steady stream of lead to where he hoped Juris or Kino would have a shot. One man kept Gabe pinned, but judging from the shots, the second and third shooter still fired at his men.
“Hit,” shouted someone.
Gabe’s stomach clenched as he recognized it was Kino.
“How bad?” he called.
