I took out the man’s Sig. His eyes widened. I smiled, and smashed the weapon across the side of that dyed-black facial hair. His eyes rolled back, and he made no sound at all as he slumped onto the desert floor.
‘Come on,’ I said to Terry. ‘Let’s leave these two mutts and get the fuck out of here.’
We took time out for a quick sweep of their Chevy, but it told us nothing we didn’t already know. In the boot – or trunk as they might call it – we found a shotgun and also a rifle broken down into its hold-all. We relieved them of these weapons, too. As we headed back towards Roswell, we both had some thinking to do.
‘I don’t know what to make of all this,’ I said. The more I turned it over the less sense I found. ‘Vern is supposed to be in Nevada, but his car turns up in New Mexico. We turn up in New Mexico, and we’re confronted by two men from Nevada. What does that suggest to you?’
‘That we’re on the right track,’ Terry said.
‘Yeah. But what does it all mean for Vern?’
Terry shook his head. ‘Nothing good.’
I thought about that for a few moments, before nodding absently. Terry was right. Whatever had become of Vern, even if he was still alive, none of what we had discovered so far augured well for him.
6
When you wanted to speak with the Judge, you had to accept all the paranoid bullshit that went with that request. Having been thwarted in his attempts to deal with the men who had treated him so badly at the bar in Corona, Kane had called the man responsible for assigning the tracking job to him in the first place.
The gated home in Ruidoso stood on the very edge of the Mescalero reservation, located slightly within the southern lip of Lincoln County. Tucked deep within the woods, the property overlooked the canyon and beyond that the mountain range away in the distance. It was a secluded spot, with a lot of acreage between homes.
A great place in which to lose yourself.
Joe Kane made good time as he took the slick canyon roads before turning off onto the uneven gravel track that led the way to the Judge’s place. Ornate steel gates guarded the entrance, but these were opened electronically after he pressed a buzzer and looked up into the overhanging security camera. The cabin was an architectural mish-mash of old and new, where rock and timber met steel and glass. There he had to suffer the indignity of three pat-downs and a pretty aggressive body search before he was allowed into the palatial home’s recreation room, where the Judge held court. Whilst the home and the grounds were pretty enough, Kane considered the location itself to be a major disadvantage to the man who owned it, but it wouldn’t do to let the Judge know that.
The man’s real identity was Mangas Crow, and he came from a long line of Apache men who went by the same title. Mangas was a name for chiefs and warriors of the past, and so became dynastic within some families. Although various casino and hotel conglomerates celebrated other men as tribal elders within the Mescalero reservation, all leadership roads led directly to the man who over the years had simply become known as the Judge. No major decisions relevant to the tribe in this part of the state were made without first his counsel and then approval if that was required, and absolutely nothing of consequence occurred without his knowledge.
As Kane entered the room, the Judge was sitting before a massive widescreen TV, playing Assassin’s Creed on an Xbox. He was sprawled out alongside a young girl who looked to be in her mid-to-late teens. The girl wore a flimsy nightshirt and very little else. One leg was tucked beneath her on a massive leather sofa that threatened to swallow her whole, whilst the other rested across the Judge’s lap. From the vulnerable pose, and the fact that the girl’s foot was idly toying with the Judge’s groin, Kane assumed she was not the man’s daughter. Neither was the equally young girl who sat with her knees drawn up on the floor. If possible, she wore even less clothing. To Kane’s mind the girls were thin and undernourished, and he suspected they were both high on something. He did not approve of young women from the tribe being used in such a way, but he kept these thoughts to himself.
One of the men who had patted Kane down leaned forward to say something into the Judge’s left ear. Crow nodded, flicked an irritated hand in the air, then paused the game. The girl lying next to him whined, curled both legs up beneath her and slumped to one side as she started playing with her hair. The Judge slapped her backside, and the sharp sound cutting through the warm air inside the room suggested the smack had not been playful. With a yelp, the girl stood and ran barefooted up a flight of wooden stairs that seemed to float unsupported against the side of the house. The other girl stood and joined her in just as much of a hurry. It seemed to Kane that such behaviour was commonplace here inside Mangas Crow’s property.
Without turning, the Judge indicated that his visitor should step forward. Kane did so. He kept his eyes respectfully low, though inside he seethed. It was not often that he had to kowtow to any man, and doing so stuck in his craw no matter how powerful the person expecting this show of reverence. It bothered Kane more than most, because Mangas Crow had not earned his authority amongst the local Apache community. He had bought his way in with money earned from oil, timber and casino resorts.
‘You have news?’ the Judge asked.
Crow was in his mid-fifties, face cracked and lined, greying hair worn long and tied with a multi-coloured band to form a tail. He was tall and powerful, but overweight due to his lavish and sedentary lifestyle. He looked like a retired American football linebacker. When out on the res he wore a great deal of denim, but when lounging around his house the Judge habitually wore a loose white cotton tunic and elasticated pants. Kane despised the man, but was happy to receive a healthy annual salary for providing certain services both within and without the tribal jurisdiction. Unfortunately, that occasionally entailed dealing with the man in person. When Kane spoke, he did so with feigned reverence.
‘I believe the men we seek were here and that they were close by. I personally saw no sign of them, I only heard of it from others. But then their vehicle was found way on the other side of Roswell, and the police and FBI circled the wagons. My information is that the vehicle was empty when it was discovered. It would seem that the trail has once again gone cold.’
The Judge settled himself deeper into the sofa’s cushioned seat. He let the moment hang out there long enough to become unsettling.
‘Let me get this straight, Joe Kane. You asked to meet with me here to waste my time telling me about an empty car? A car you don’t have in your possession, and never even saw. A car that may or may not have been driven by people who may or may not have been the ones we seek.’
‘That is not why I came here to speak with you. You asked me for news, and that is all I have. For the moment. It is not why I came.’
‘So why are you here?’ The Judge turned an irritated scowl towards Kane.
Whether the man was desperate to get back to his game or the girl, Kane neither knew nor cared. He cleared his throat to settle his temper. ‘I seek your indulgence and require your influence, Judge. Need your reach.’
‘Would this have anything to do with the incident you were involved in last night? At the bar in Corona.’
‘You know about that?’
‘As you mentioned, I have reach. People tell me things.’
‘I will deal with that in my own time. However, while I was there I recognised a man in that bar, a man I need to speak to. Given the circumstances, on this occasion you may be able to find out where he lives a lot quicker than I can.’
‘So you wish for me to do your job for you, Joe Kane.’
Kane kept a lid on his rising temper. He could hold his own in most company, but he was outgunned here. The pristine white walls would be scarred by his blood before he had a chance to make a strike of his own. He was no fool. He knew precisely what discretion was the better part of.
‘Only those aspects to which I currently have no direct access,’ he insisted. ‘I have tracked these people before, I will do
so again. I do not doubt that. This time, however, I suspect they have outside help. The man I seek may or may not lead me further, but until I ask him for myself I cannot know for certain.’
The Judge angled his head, considering. ‘They are being helped, you say.’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘To what end?’
‘I do not know. Escape, I must assume.’
‘Very well.’ The man gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Let me have the name and I will have the information for you within the hour. Keep your phone charged.’
Kane gave him the name, then added, ‘Some of those roads I travel have no cell reception, Judge.’
‘All the better reason to keep on the move, Joe Kane. Keep mobile. Keep talking to people. Before you leave, though… what do your instincts tell you?’
Kane did not need time to deliberate. ‘That they remain close. For now.’
‘And yet you also believe they are looking to escape.’
‘I do. But I believe they have unfinished business here first.’
‘You understand how important it is that these men be shown the error of their ways?’
‘I do, Judge. Of course.’
‘And that they must then be persuaded to visit with me at the scene of their crime?’
‘You made that clear when you gave me the task.’ Kane eyed the man warily, wondering why he was now raking over past conversations and decisions already made.
Crow nodded a couple of times, looking within himself. For a moment he looked lost, but with a blink he was back in the room, looking hard at Kane.
‘I trusted you with this errand, Joe Kane. I thought by now you would have brought me answers. Brought me justice. Was I wrong to put my faith in you?’
‘Judge, I tracked them all the way to Las Vegas. I flew up there and would have had them in reach had they not seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. It is hard to track men who leave no trace of themselves.’
‘Perhaps this is the fault of the tracker.’ Crow’s eyes had become black pinpoints.
Kane felt the atmosphere in the room shift. He sensed rather than saw Crow’s henchmen standing more alert, coiled now as if ready to act if he did. Even armed he would not live beyond taking two lives himself. Unarmed he would simply stare them down and hope to capture their spirits at some time in some place in the future.
‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I do not believe my work could have been bettered, no matter who you sent. My honour is at stake here, and I will not rest until these men lie at your feet begging for mercy. They were in the wind, then they were not, but now they ride the breeze once more. They can be found again, and I will be the one who finds them.’
The room was silent for a moment. Kane could hear the waterfall beyond the back garden of the house as it spilled into the river at the far reaches of the property, crashing against the boulders along its path. He had felt for some time that it was his destiny to die within the sound of running water, and hearing it now he decided he could be at peace with such an ending. He did not believe his time was over yet, however.
‘Find them, Joe Kane.’ The harsh edges had left the Judge’s face. ‘You and I have a history, and I wish you no ill. I am a patient man, but it stretches only so far. As does my loyalty. Find them before I have to send someone else after them. And if I have to do that, make sure you lose yourself along with your prey.’
As he drove back towards the desert plains, Kane felt his features increase their rigidity. His fury was tightly wound. After the Judge called him with the information he had requested, he knew where to look for answers. But there was a fire in his heart now that would burn for many days. A fire stoked not by fear, but by a raging determination.
7
When the call eventually came in from Drew, it was not everything I had hoped for. Not to begin with, at least. His investigators had drawn a blank when it came to checking out security feeds at the hotel. I was not at all surprised. The places that didn’t give a damn about handing over something usually requiring a search warrant either recorded over their disks or did not record in the first place. Those who both recorded and retained daily footage refused to co-operate without a legal imperative.
‘That’s a shame,’ I said, scratching my cheek and wondering where we might now find a lead. ‘We’re here in New Mexico because the vehicle is, but it would really have helped if we had been able to focus on Vern rather than his car.’
‘You and Terry might have better luck being… persuasive,’ Drew said then.
I smiled. Did he imagine we could simply walk into a hotel and put the squeeze on the management and security people? I thought about that for a moment, still holding onto that smile. Hold on, why don’t we simply walk in and put the squeeze on these arseholes?
‘We could make our way up there if things don’t go well here,’ I said without considering the very real difficulties involved in taking on such a task. I didn’t like the idea much, but it was the only one I had. It essentially gave us one shot, and it was a long way to travel on a maybe. Then some tumbler clicked inside my head and activated a thought.
‘Hold on a moment, Drew. You work with some pretty IT savvy people, right?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Some of the best brains in the business.’
‘Any of them happen to be a hacker?’
‘Potentially, many of them, I guess. It’s part of their… wait a second… are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?’
‘If you think I’m suggesting you have someone hack into the servers at that hotel, then yes I am. They could achieve in minutes what would take us hours. Days even. At least one of your employees must be close enough to the edge that they can be nudged over with some hard cash as an inducement.’
Drew was quiet for a moment or two, then in a voice dripping with unease he said, ‘Not an employee, as such. I don’t think I’d risk approaching any of my staff with something as illegal as this. But perhaps someone we have had work for us as a freelancer. Her ethics are a little vague, morals virtually non-existent.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Sounds like the ideal candidate. Put a little distance between you and your company as well. I like it.’
‘I’m not sure if she will do it, nor if she can do so while leaving no breadcrumbs.’
‘Only one way to find out, Drew. We’re winging it here, and currently spending valuable hours in a place your nephew may never even have come to. Terry and I are going to give this place a good go for the rest of today and tomorrow, but it would help to be fighting on two fronts.’
‘I understand that, Mike. But what if we can prove one way or another that Vern was or was not the man who checked into the hotel? How does that help you answer the question as to whether he then drove down to New Mexico?’
I heard understandable frustration in his question.
‘It’s a process of elimination, Drew. And some guesswork thrown in based on sound logic. See, if it was Vern who checked into the hotel, and the vehicle he parked in the hotel car park was the minivan, then we can regard that as a pretty positive sign. If it was not him, or it was him but not his car, then that’s a real negative. That might suggest Vern never left Vegas at all. In point of fact, you would most likely have to question if he even made Vegas in the first place if he doesn’t show up on that hotel security feed.’
‘Now I’m really starting to worry all over again.’
‘Nothing has changed, Drew. Not yet. Terry and I are here and I’m sure we’ll start to make sense of this, but the facts remain as they were before. We can extrapolate from some basic information, but not from nothing. At the very least, the hotel feed would be a starting point and we could do with one.’
‘I realise you’re working with nothing, Mike. I wish I had more. Hopefully I can get you what you need.’
Drew sounded both concerned and angry. With the situation rather than us.
‘If this were the alphabet,’ I said to him, ‘Terry
and I would be at about M and we have no idea whether to plough on all the way to the end or to head back to the beginning. If your hacker can provide us with a positive ID from Vegas, then it gives us something to go on.’
‘I guess it can’t hurt to ask,’ Drew finally conceded. He killed the call after promising to get back to me before the end of the day.
Terry and I were sitting in the Jeep, parked up behind a Whataburger. The cheeseburger and fries had been pretty good, if a little salty, and we washed our meals down with some serious quantities of Mountain Dew. We’d refuelled the pair of us, done the same for the Jeep a little earlier. We were good to go. Only we didn’t have a clue which way to head.
We had all the windows down, trying to get a cross breeze going, and the sounds of the streets washed in all around us. Gurgling engines. Cracks like rifle shots as tyres hits rumble strips in the road. Chattering voices. Blaring horns. Laughter. Music. Anywheresville USA.
‘I like this new you,’ Terry said as he munched his way through some fries. ‘This take-charge you. Reminds me of the Mike Lynch I fought alongside against the ragheads.’
I had to admit that I was feeling more like my old self these days. I had wallowed after being invalided out of the Marines. My trend was already downward when that happened, and I used it as an excuse to allow myself to get sucked in deeper. In the absence of the physical crutch I had once used, I found that a psychological one was equally good to lean on. At that time there was only room for me – no one else got a look in. That’s why I didn’t blame Donna for cutting out, though I still believed taking Wendy thousands of miles away from me was a little extreme. Maybe I deserved it. I did not believe Wendy had as well.
‘You’re still my tactical guru,’ I told Terry. ‘And my hit-man when it all gets tossed against the fan.’
He laughed at that, scrunching up the bag his food had come in. He sucked his teeth for a moment, before turning to me. He grew serious. ‘It’s good to be riding with you again, partner.’
Cold Winter Sun Page 5
