All the Wrong Moves

by Lovelace, Merline

  “Only about a third of those dents are mine,” I informed him loftily as we strapped in. “The rest come compliments of my ex. So does the Bronco, for that matter. I traded my semi-new Mazda for this pile of junk and a quickie divorce.”

  Despite my bad-mouthing, the Bronc turned over with barely a wheeze. Mitch waited until we cleared the gate to the parking lot to pick up on my last comment.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Six months, twelve days, four hours.” I turned onto the on ramp for I-10, thought about his ringless left hand and took a shot. “You?”

  “A little longer.” His boot slammed the floorboard. “Jesus! Watch the truck.”

  “I got it.”

  I wedged in behind a new-car transport rumbling over from the GM plant in Juárez with a good seven or eight inches to spare.

  “How much longer?” I asked, curious.

  “Thirteen years, give or take a few months.”

  He didn’t amplify and I didn’t press, although I suspected the demise of a thirteen-year marriage might have something to do with the rough patch Tess Garcia had mentioned.

  Interstate 10 curved north, and we cruised toward the high-rises of downtown El Paso. Framed against the backdrop of the Franklin Mountains, their glass walls shimmered gold and coppery in the sun.

  “We ran the boot print,” Mitch said, frowning as I whizzed past a string of slower moving vehicles. “It’s from a size nine-and-a-half medium Justin Rancher with a dual density EVA outsole.”

  I’d spent enough time in Texas to recognize the brand, if not the EVA stuff. As the name implied, it was the boot of choice of working ranchers in the area.

  “The tread was fairly new so the FBI is canvassing retail outlets in a tristate area.”

  “How do rancher boots fit with military sniper rounds?” I wanted to know.

  “Good question. I’m hoping your marine friend might suggest an answer.”

  We took the exit for Highway 54 and headed north. The high-rises quickly gave way to apartments and residential areas. A few miles on, the family neighborhoods yielded to the bars, strip joints and tattoo parlors found within close vicinity to military installations worldwide.

  The Smokehouse was considered safe in that no one had been knifed there in recent memory. Although it wasn’t much more than a hole-in-the-wall, the restaurant was at least three or four rungs up the couth ladder from Pancho’s. Its walls weren’t plastered with pictures of swim-suit models, and the only things that crunched under my boots as I wove a path through the jammed tables were peanut shells. I hope.

  What made the place so popular was that its menu consisted of barbeque, barbeque, and more barbeque. You could get it sliced, shredded, pulled or still on the rib, all served with heaping sides of slaw, fries and slow-simmered beans. But that’s all you could get.

  Since the owner had done a hitch in the Corps and proudly displayed the eagle, globe and anchor above the cash register, his place was usually crammed with marines from the detachment at Bliss. Those of us wearing the uniform of other branches of the service were lucky to get a foot in the door.

  Danny had arrived early and was fighting off his pals to hold a table. I wove my way through the jumble of boots and uniforms in his direction.

  “You’re looking good, Dan-O.”

  And then some! In fact, he looked almost as good as the first time we’d met, when his razor blue eyes and quicksilver grin had drawn me like a moth to the proverbial flame.

  The grin came out again, making me question why I’d let his gung ho personality douse the fire.

  “Back at you, Sweet Cheeks.”

  His glance cut to Mitch, noting the Border Patrol patch and the holstered Heckler & Koch on his hip. I made the intros, they did the hand crunch thing, and we all went to the counter to place our orders. The Smokehouse’s amenities don’t run to a waitstaff.

  “So what’s this about?” Dan asked when we’d taken our numbers and carried our soft drinks back to the table.

  “Putrefying flesh.”

  “Huh?”

  “I ran into some out on the Fort Bliss range. Maybe you saw the news coverage this morning?”

  “That was you? The ‘unidentified military officer’?”

  His sympathy for my traumatic experience lasted only a second or two. Then he recalled the identity of one of the corpses and his blue eyes went flat and cold.

  “The news stories didn’t say what went down out there. Hope to hell Hooker took a long time to die.”

  I left it to Mitch to reply.

  “Long enough.” He leaned forward and engaged the captain eye-to-eye. “The FBI lab is working the ballistics, but it looks like someone pumped specially chambered M118LRs into both victims.”

  Danny grasped the significance of those rounds instantly. “You think a marine sniper took the bastard down?”

  “I think it’s a possibility.”

  “If so, we should pin a medal on the shooter. Hooker smuggled the weapons that killed good men.”

  “Unfortunately, that had yet to be proven.”

  Dan’s upper lip curled. “Because he got sprung on a technicality. If I was Hooker’s attorney, I’d be checking my six.”

  Checking six being the military’s polite way of saying the sleazy lawyer better watch his ass. Mitch ignored the editorial.

  “Got any marine snipers assigned to your school, Captain Jordan?”

  “None that fire anything smaller than a Stinger missile.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I know every one of the instructors.”

  “How about the students? How many are going through the schoolhouse at present?”

  Dan sat back in his chair, his eyes narrowing. “Is this an official inquiry, Agent Mitchell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why here?” He paused and let the noisy conversations and rattle of cutlery underscore his question. “Why not on post, at the school?”

  “Various law enforcement agencies will contact your detachment commander, if they haven’t already. When Lieutenant Spade mentioned she had an in at the school, I figured I’d cut right to her source.”

  Dan didn’t appear to appreciate being tagged as a source and shot me an unfriendly look.

  “Hey, I’m not real happy about all this, either,” I protested. “My team and I were up half the night cleaning human remains off a sensitive piece of equipment. We’ve also put our test schedule on hold to process data gathered at the scene, which means we’ll be stuck out in Dry Springs for longer than anticipated. You ever been to Dry Springs, Dan-O?”

  Mitch overrode my mostly rhetorical question and zeroed in on the tight-jawed marine. “How many students currently in training?”

  “Thirty-eight. Twenty-nine in the Stinger Gunner/ Avenger Crew Member class, nine going through Surface-to-Air Weapons Officer training.”

  “You have access to their duty history. I need to know if any of them ever trained as a sniper or served in the same unit with the men killed in the Colombian shoot-out.”

  Dan wanted to tell him to take a flying leap. The signs were subtle but I picked up on them. His bulldog chin went square. His blue eyes turned arctic.

  “Someone knew Hooker intended to try to get back into the U.S.,” Mitch said quietly. “When, where, how. They were waiting for him and took him out. That’s murder any way you cut it.”

  He let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing.

  “Whatever you and I may think of Hooker’s actions and ultimate demise, Captain, I’ve sworn to uphold the law and you to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. No one in this country, not even Patrick Hooker, deserves a self-appointed firing squad.”

  Wow! That was some heavy stuff. I was feeling the weight of the Constitution on my shoulders when Dan-O scraped back his chair and dug out his wallet.

  “I’ll clear your request with my CO and provide whatever information he deems releasable.” He dropped some bills
on the table. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better skip lunch and get back to the school.”

  Mitch and I watched him thread through the crowd, shoulders rigid, chin jutting. More than one pair of eyes cut from the captain to us.

  “That went well,” I commented dryly. “Think he’ll come through with the requested information?”

  “Yeah.” Mitch’s gaze followed the stiff-necked marine. “He knows I can go over his head and get it from Headquarters. Better for the school to cooperate and, if necessary, work damage control with the local authorities.”

  MITCH and I departed the Smokehouse two shredded beef sandwiches and a pile of grease-soaked fries later.

  I drove him back to the Ysleta station and he gave me the promised two-dollar tour. The yard was buzzing with agents coming off shift and others preparing for the afternoon muster.

  Tess Garcia lifted a brow when she spotted Mitch doing tour guide duty and gave me a friendly wave. The warning she’d issued at Pancho’s kicked around in the back of my mind as I gained a distinctly sobering insight into a border patrol agent’s typical duty day. And I thought I had it rough out there in the desert!

  After promising to keep Mitch posted on the EEEK data dump, I rattled off in my Bronc. The promise had nothing to do with any desire to see Agent Mitchell again. Okay, maybe a little.

  First, though, I needed to check with my boss at DARPA about proprietary rights and release of said data. Turning over a re-synthesized boot print to federal authorities was one matter. Releasing everything else EEEK’s computerized brain had ingested was another.

  I spent most of the afternoon in the air-conditioned comfort of my office on Fort Bliss. After checking in with my team and confirming they were hard at it, my first task was to compose and zing off a detailed email to my boss. I could have called, but he spends most of his day in meetings and I wasn’t in the mood for an extended game of telephone tag.

  I also took the time to skim through several new test proposals that had landed in my in-box while I was out in Dry Springs, communing with snakes and scorpions. One looked really interesting. Non-line-of-sight goggles that supposedly would let the wearer see around corners, over obstacles and through walls. I got caught up in the specs and spent some time trying to decipher them.

  I hit the Post Exchange and Commissary before leaving Fort Bliss. Thinking to reward my team for their reluctant cooperation last night—and ensure their future cooperation without having to resort to begging, pleading or whining—I stocked up on frozen pizzas for Rocky and Pro-Sport Multivitamins with high oxygen radical absorbance capacity (whatever that was!) for Sergeant Cassidy. O’Reilly got the latest issue of Chess Moves. Pen a Nature’s Rhythms CD featuring a collection of whale songs.

  Since I was in town, I also decided to swing by my apartment and check my mail. That led to an extended session in my very own shower, which I actually had room to turn around in. I followed that unparalleled luxury with a quick wash/tumble dry of my ABUs.

  Consequently it was dark when I finally headed back to Dry Springs and almost midnight when I turned off on the spur that led to our site. I was humming along with Travis Tritt when I spotted the flashing red lights in my rearview mirror. Cursing, I glanced at the speedometer and saw I was only going twenty miles over the limit. Hardly worth worrying about out here in Nowhere Land.

  Still cursing, I slowed down and pulled over. Moments later, the Dry Springs Volunteer Fire Department’s only pumper roared by. The wash made my Bronco shimmy and rattle like an old tin cup.

  I got a weird feeling as I watched the fire engine zoom over a small rise. It looked like it was headed straight for my site.

  I shoved the Bronco into gear, stomped on the gas pedal and dug in my breast pocket for my cell phone. I was stabbing frantically at the speed dial button when I topped the rise and spotted the red glow lighting the night sky.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I reached O’Reilly after three frantic tries and shrieked into my cell phone.

  “Dennis! What’s going on?”

  “The lab’s on fire!”

  “No one’s in there, are they!”

  “No.”

  His reply shoved my heart back down my throat and into my chest.

  “What about the lab’s W-K unit?” I asked when I could breathe again. “Did it kick on?”

  “Don’t know.”

  With all our expensive test equipment, the CHUs we used as a lab had been rigged with a waterless fire suppression system that was supposed to be kind to the environment as well as our computers and electronic media. We’d never had occasion to test it before.

  “Gotta go,” O’Reilly gasped, sounding close to hyperventilation. “The fire truck just pulled up.”

  “I’m right behind it.”

  Mere moments later I brought the Bronc to a screeching halt a safe distance from the pumper. I scrambled out, my horrified gaze on the flames leaping from the lab. Obviously, our handy-dandy, environmentally friendly fire suppression system had failed its first test.

  While the DSFD volunteers un-snaked their hoses with Sergeant Cassidy’s able assistance, I raced over to the rest of my huddled squad. Pen was in the faded Stanford University T-shirt she wore to sleep in. Poor Rocky was shaking and twitching almost uncontrollably. Dennis’s frizzy hair stood straight up. Below that orange crown, he was naked except for his black-rimmed glasses and a pair of boxers. I’d never seen his pudgy, milk-white torso before and sincerely hoped I never would again.

  “How did it start?”

  “No idea.” He shoved his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a forefinger. “Rock and I had hit the sack. Pen, too. Noel was still working out. He’s the one who spotted the flames and sounded the alarm.”

  We all jumped as an arc of water slammed into the metal-sided CHU. With sledgehammer force, it shattered the unit’s one window. To vent the flames, I learned later. At the moment, though, it was all I could do not to groan at the thought of the expensive equipment inside getting doused.

  While we watched, stunned, another emergency vehicle came careening down the spur road, its lights flashing and siren screaming. The siren cut off and the black-and-white pulled up a moment later. A tall, lanky individual in jeans and a tan shirt with one tail hanging out emerged. As he crammed on his straw Stetson, I recognized Deputy Dawg from our previous meeting.

  “Lieutenant.”

  I couldn’t remember his name so I acknowledged his greeting with a nod. His gaze skimmed over my companions, widening a little when it hit O’Reilly before returning to me.

  “Everyone accounted for?”

  “Yes.”

  His relief was patently obvious. Apparently Deputy Dawg didn’t like getting up close and personal with corpses any more than I did.

  It seemed like an hour but was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes until the DSFD doused the leaping flames and the fire sizzled out. I was staring in dismay at the blackened exterior shell of our lab when one of the volunteer firefighters approached. He pushed his helmet to the back of his head and squinted at me with his one good eye.

  Did I mention that in addition to running the only commercial establishment in Dry Springs, Pancho also serves as its mayor and a volunteer firefighter? If not, forgive me. It’s been an eventful few days.

  “We’ll go inside shortly to check for hot spots,” Pancho informed me.

  Sweat poured down his face and dripped from the ends of his mustache. A hot August night is a real fun time to rig out in full protective gear.

  “We notified the Fort Bliss Command Post when we got the 911 call. They have a unit on the way. Want us to poke around to see if we can determine how the fire started or wait for them?”

  Geesh! Shows you my state of mind. I hadn’t even considered jurisdictional issues until this moment.

  “Poke away.”

  He and one of his cohorts donned self-contained breathing apparatuses. To protect against toxic fumes that often resulted from elec
trical fires, I was informed. Switching on high-intensity search lights, they disappeared inside the lab.

  At that point I rallied my troops and mounted a belated raid on the fridge in the D-fac. We returned with bottles of water and a carton of cherry Popsicles from Pen’s private stash for the sweat-drenched volunteers. They carried their own re-hydrating supplies inside the pumper but seemed to appreciate the Popsicles.

  Engine #5 from the Fort Bliss range protection fire station arrived while Pancho and his buddy were still inside the lab. I identified myself to Assistant Chief Rodriguez and his crew, then one of the Dry Springs guys gave him a situational assessment. That basically boiled down to:

  “The fire’s out and we still don’t know the cause.”

  Nodding, Rodriguez instructed his crew to stand down. Helmets and and self-contained breathing apparatus went back in the unit. Fire retardant turn-out coats came off.

  When the team stripped down to boots, pants and T-shirts, I couldn’t help noting that, unlike the Dry Springs volunteers, these pros were almost as buff as Sergeant Cassidy. I was admiring the tableau they presented when Pancho stuck his head out the door. He’d removed his mask, so I had to assume the air inside the lab hadn’t registered any toxicity.

  “Lieutenant! You wanna come see this?”

  I didn’t. Not really. I knew I’d have to fill out reams of reports regarding damage to government property and dreaded what I might find inside. Consequently, my feet dragged all the way to the front door.

  My first, joyous impression was that the interior didn’t look all that bad. Then Pancho swung his high-intensity beam in a slow arc and burst my bubble.

  Water seeped from the scorched ceiling in silvery ropes and splattered onto the blobs of melted metal and plastic that used to be our computers. Our racks of test equipment hadn’t fared much better.

  “Look’s like the fire ignited over there.”

  My heart sinking, I followed the beam to Brian Balboa’s pride and joy. The mega-expensive data synthesizer would never gobble up gigabytes again.

  “Could have been a short,” Pancho mused. “Or . . .”