Cold Winter Sun

by Forder, Tony J.

  The single-storey sheriff’s office and courthouse in Carrizozo was a plain, brick-built building with a canopy that looked like a long row of lower teeth supported by square concrete pillars. It was here that the sheriff had persuaded them all to come, having defused the situation at the bar – much to everyone’s immense relief. The agents drove their own vehicle, while he put the other pair in the back of his cruiser, hands cuffed behind them despite their protestations of innocence. Crozier had taken a handgun off each man, plus Garcia had also been relieved of that nasty looking switchblade.

  Garcia and Barclay were left to sweat for thirty minutes before being joined by Crozier and the two FBI agents. Once inside the largest of the sheriff’s office interrogation rooms, Crozier turned on the two men still howling their declarations of virtue and purity of thought.

  ‘Let me tell you what you are guilty of,’ he snapped, leaning over the table to stare down at the two seated men. He pointed at Garcia. ‘You, sir, are guilty of threatening an FBI agent with a switchblade. And now that I know who you are and have access to your record, you’re also guilty of a whole lotta other crimes that earned you a seven stretch in the High Desert State Prison in Clark County, Nevada.’

  ‘For which I did my time,’ Garcia snarled contemptuously, staring down at his cuffed hands resting on the table.

  ‘That may be so, but pulling a blade on a government agent could land you right back in there. Also, though I realise your Nevada concealed carry permits for the handguns are reciprocated here in New Mexico, they do not extend to my allowing you to carry them while you are here in my offices. So I don’t want to hear no more about your innocence or whining about your firearm.

  ‘As for you,’ he said, turning to the wide bulk of Barclay, ‘if we ignore your time in two correctional facilities, you are still guilty of pulling a loaded firearm on an agent of the FBI. So zip it, the pair of you, and let’s shake the wrinkles out of this thing and see if we can all figure a way forward.’

  ‘I want them charged,’ Wilson demanded.

  ‘You were coming at me, man,’ Garcia said, narrowing his pinpoint gaze and zeroing in on the male agent. ‘We had to defend ourselves. We didn’t know who the hell you were.’

  ‘Sure, because we were so brilliantly camouflaged behind our jackets with FB-fucking-I written all over them! Did you think we were attending a costume party, you fucking retard?’

  ‘Hey-hey-hey!’ Crozier slapped a hand on the table. ‘No need for name calling. Take the higher ground, Agent Wilson. Now, let me make myself clear. This is my jurisdiction. No federal crime has been committed.’

  ‘But we are federal officers,’ Wilson reminded him.

  ‘I know that. I can read the print on your jackets even if these two men can’t. But I’m telling you that this is my case until I hear otherwise from my bosses. Now, I can walk away and leave you four to bitch and whine about it amongst yourselves, come back in an hour and we can move on. Or we can save ourselves time and get the job done right now.’

  Wilson breathed out heavily. His partner, Agent Green, said nothing and appeared entirely at ease. With calm having been restored, he took them through the scene back in the saloon. It was Barclay who gave up their side of events, Garcia mutely fuming and not at all able to disguise it.

  ‘Which leads us neatly back to ascertaining who you two were really looking for,’ Crozier said. ‘Because like our FBI agents here, I’m not buying into the tall and heavy-set black man story. Why not just come clean now and we’ll see what we can do about it?’

  ‘For one very simple reason.’ Now Garcia was back into it. He seemed to have the shorter fuse. ‘Who we are looking for is none of your fucking business, man. When these two assholes approached us it was none of their fucking business, either. They had no right to question us.’

  ‘We had every right, dipshit,’ Wilson shot back, throwing a dismissive hand into the air.

  ‘And we had every right not to answer. Yet because I wanted to do my civic duty I did answer, but you weren’t satisfied with what I had to say and so you pushed it. You stepped into my personal space. You caused my reaction. I was never gonna stick you, man, but you got in my face over nothing.’

  ‘Fuck you, Garcia! I got you, man. I got you for threatening the life of an FBI agent with a knife. You’re going down for that, man.’

  Barclay put an arm across his partner’s chest. Held it there a moment. He looked up at Crozier, who had been watching the exchange with interest.

  ‘Sheriff, since you’re the guy with the jurisdiction right now, let me lay this out as I see things. It’s up to you to arrest us, if you decide that’s the right way to go. You do that, we clam up and call for a lawyer. Our man is the best in the whole of Nevada, so I reckon that puts him top of the heap down here as well. He’ll tell you what I’ll tell you. My friend and I were provoked by two hostile FBI agents who refused to let us go about our law-abiding business. Other than the jackets they were wearing they offered no proof of identity. Under great strain and duress, my friend made a mistake, and that led to a chain reaction of sorts. No actual harm was done. Just a few feathers ruffled is all. My lawyer will demand bail and he’ll get it. We’ll be out of here, and with all the evil out there in the world, good luck to the agents in seeking a prosecution for something they started with no provocation from us.’

  Crozier chuckled, smoothing down his moustache. ‘You done this a time or two, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I have. And you know what I’m saying is true. So let me offer an alternative. One of the agents shows us a picture of the guy they are looking for. We tell you yes or no if it’s the same man. But, before we do, know that we won’t be telling you why we’re looking for him, only that we mean him no harm.’

  ‘Fuck that deal!’ Wilson said, springing to his feet. His chair shot back two feet with a loud screech. ‘We get jack shit and you get a walk. This time tomorrow you’ll be in the wind. No-fucking-dice.’

  Crozier turned to him. ‘Agent Wilson, please either settle yourself down or leave the room. Things could go the way the man says. You want to talk, get this laid out on the table now, or do you want to wait for the justice system to cough and wheeze its way to a court date which will probably never even take place?’

  Wilson put both hands on his hips and hung his head. His breathing was ragged through his nose, and a vein pulsed in his neck. His face was florid and looked as if it might burst.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Get it over with.’

  Less than thirty minutes later, Garcia and Barclay were being driven back to Corona by a volunteer deputy, having looked at a photo and denied that Vern Jackson was the man they were hunting down. At the table in the interrogation room, Crozier was chuckling.

  ‘Well done,’ he said to Wilson. ‘For a moment there I thought your partner was playing it too cool and you were sliding over from bad agent to psychotic agent. But I think they fell for it.’

  Sitting in the conference room now, pale morning sunlight spilling through the windows once again, Crozier thought back to those actions the previous evening. What neither Barclay nor Garcia appeared to have picked up on was the fact that, prior to the meeting between the five of them, the law enforcement trio had spent twenty minutes hatching a plan. They were in agreement that pursuing the weapons offence was pointless, but it was Green who suggested the con. She advocated getting the pair back out there as quickly as possible so that they could be tracked. Wilson and Crozier arranged for the green Chevy to have a GPS tracker hidden away underneath, so that the movements of Barclay and Garcia could be monitored. All they had to do was convince the witless duo that two FBI agents and the indignant county sheriff were at one another’s throats.

  It had been almost too easy.

  Now Crozier sat watching the screen of a borrowed laptop. Last night he and the FBI duo had watched it trace the movements of Barclay and Garcia all the way back to Roswell. So far this morning it had not moved at all. He picked up his ph
one and dialled a number. Agent Green answered his call right away.

  ‘They’re still there at their motel,’ he said. ‘Have you got a link yet to the GPS?’

  ‘It’s running and searching now, sheriff. Hold on a… there it is! We have them.’

  ‘You head back into my county and need any backup, you let me know.’

  ‘Will do. And thank you. I’m not sure where these two will lead us, but I have a feeling it won’t be too far away from Vern Jackson.’

  ‘Happy to help.’

  Crozier leaned back in his chair and gave a satisfied sigh.

  And happier still not to have pulled that trigger yesterday.

  24

  From his bag of tricks, Terry produced a couple of strip-shaped charges to use on the hinges of the side door. While I stood guard surveying the road and the homes around us, alert for vehicles and pedestrians, he moulded the charges into place, pulled back the covering film and set them to go. He stepped back a couple of paces and to the left, using the property wall as a shield. We exchanged nods. I was holding the grenade launcher, loaded with flash-bang stun projectiles, commonly used in hostage rescue situations by armed forces and police units across the world. I hefted it to my shoulder and with unhurried horizontal movements put a grenade through each of the three slit windows ranged along the side of the property. A moment later, Terry ignited the breach charges.

  From outside the bungalow, the pop-pop-pop of the flash-bangs sounded no louder than old-fashioned cherry bombs before their potency was legally trimmed in the late seventies. The breach was a different matter entirely. The charges went up with a fearful whump, accompanied by brief but dazzling flame and a gout of smoke. The shockwave was minimal, the blast contained, but if you were unprepared you would feel it. We knew going in that we would have a few minutes only to eradicate our enemy, locate our hostage, and get out of there. The phone lines at the Roswell PD building were going to be red hot in the wake of the blasts.

  Terry kicked aside the door now hanging lopsided on one sliver of hinge. He entered first, his M-16 automatic rifle supressed and swung around ready for business. I hooked the grenade launcher onto my belt, brought around my own M-16, and followed my friend through the door which now billowed thin trails of smoke resulting from the flash-bangs.

  Terry had chosen the stun grenades as opposed to those with dense smoke because he wanted us to be able to see clearly without having to wear masks once inside the property. We had no idea how many men were waiting in there, nor how heavily armed they were, but our expectation was that the element of surprise, combined with explosives and bright light, would be enough to destabilise them sufficiently to allow us to rapidly take control of the situation.

  We found ourselves in a hallway, one door to our left one to our right. Fortunately, both were open. Terry cut left, I went the other way. As I moved swiftly into a large living room with a carpeted floor, a tall figure stepped out from behind a bookcase which stood against the wall to my right. The figure was not Chastain. The man wore a dark suit and tie, pale blue shirt. His hand was reaching inside his jacket, where I caught sight of a crinkled brown leather holster and the pistol it was hugging. I had time to think of the man as brave but foolish as I put two rounds into his chest, followed by a third to the head as he was on his way down.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder – a signal from Terry that he had cleared the other room and was now behind me and we could move forward with me on point.

  Voices were coming from the next room. Yelling out, the words muffled and indecipherable. I moved ahead, my weapon raised, sighting down the barrel. I flicked the laser sight on, knowing that sometimes the red dot alone could freeze a man to the spot. At the doorframe leading into a room to our left I paused. I indicated with my fingers for Terry to move over to my right and cut across the living room to create a different perspective, where he could also see into what looked like an adjoining kitchen behind a wall that ran two-thirds of the way along the living area.

  I nodded once. In a double movement lasting only a fraction of a second I peeked out into the next room and ducked back again. Same as I had done out in the desert behind the red monoliths. Not long enough to get shot – as the two rounds that came my way and embedded themselves harmlessly in the far exterior wall testified – but just the required time to build an image of the room and its inhabitants.

  I glanced across at Terry. I held up two fingers, bent them back down, then raised one. Three men in total. One friendly. Two hostiles. The sound of explosives and gunfire echoed inside my head even though the actual sound had long since died away. I tried hard to listen, contemplating whether to attempt talking this through with whoever was inside that room next door. But time was wasting, and we could spare none of it for negotiation. If the police swooped down on us now, it would not matter why we were there, only that we were. And armed to the teeth.

  I flashed up the mental image of the room. Chastain seated facing the open doorway. One hostile standing directly behind him, the other to their left. I did all this in a matter of seconds.

  It was time to go.

  I stepped into the opening and fired immediately at the spot where the lone figure had been standing. He must have moved at exactly the same time I had, because my bullets smacked into the wall instead, scant inches behind his retreating back. I heard a door being wrenched open and footsteps racing across a hardwood floor.

  ‘One coming!’ I called out to Terry. I did not turn. He would know what to do.

  I moved my sight across to the left. The third hostile was panting. He had a gun pressed against Chastain’s temple. I looked into the eyes of the gunman and shook my head. His weapon hand was quivering, the grip too firm. I eased back the finger on the trigger of my own weapon. This man was going to fold. All it would take was for him to see that I did not intend shooting him.

  Only he didn’t fold at all.

  There was a gunshot, and the right side of Chastain’s head exploded across the wall. Without hesitation I painted the far window overlooking the garden with the gunman’s own blood, brains, and skull shrapnel. I had no time to feel anything about the man Terry and I had chatted with so amiably back at the Weather Balloon. He was gone, and nothing I did now could ever bring him back. Whoever our adversaries were they were now three down, if we included the driver of the SUV, but we had lost the man we had come to rescue. I turned as I heard firing coming from another part of the property. I dashed across to the kitchen area, saw Terry at the far end standing over the figure I had so narrowly missed. We looked at each other. I shook my head, and he sighed, shoulders slumping.

  That’s when we both heard the front door slam shut.

  I swivelled, my body joining my head in facing the passage leading to where I knew the front door to be.

  We had missed someone.

  Without thinking beyond the obvious, I threw my weapon to the floor and shrugged off my kit and belts. ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘Clean up, get back to the car and trawl the streets for me.’

  I did not want my weapons or kit to draw attention, but I still had a pistol tucked into the back of my cargo trousers. The shirt I wore was not tucked in and would conceal the weapon. I ran to the door, threw it open and sped out onto the front path. Another suited man was running hard in the direction of the pool close to where we had parked up earlier. I set off after him. I heard no sirens, but they would be coming fast. I knew I had no time, but I had to catch this man. He was now our only source of information.

  I pounded along the pavement, cut across the car park and up a dusty rise of soil and out onto a manicured field of lush green grass. There were few people around, and fewer still looked my way. I was gaining on the fleeing figure, but there was still a decent gap between us. He glanced back over his shoulder, and I saw the panic written all over his face. He stuttered briefly in his run, looking around to get his bearings, and then he cut across to his left heading towards the pool. Until that point I was running at a pace
designed for endurance, but I realised I could end the pursuit here because I was coming up closer on him with virtually every movement. We entered the pool area with perhaps five yards between us. Within a dozen more paces I was on him. I threw myself forward, head tilted to the side, and hit him with my best rugby tackle, arms wrapped around his upper thighs.

  We hit the water together.

  Momentarily disorientated and blinded, I clawed water from my eyes and felt my legs scrambling for purchase. As I turned my head a heavy fist smashed into my left cheekbone, and something detonated behind my eyes. We were in the shallow end of the pool, and my opponent had found his feet quickly, so had been able to pivot and hit me with his full weight behind the punch. My head spinning, instinct and experience told me to duck, shortly before his follow-up strike whistled over the top of my head. I sprang up and lurched towards him, but my equilibrium was still all over the place from the first blow, and I splashed back down into empty space in the water. After a moment, I looked up to see the man dragging his sopping-wet frame out of the pool using the ladder close to the corner.

  As I started after him, he turned and pulled a gun from the inside of his jacket. I stood in the water looking up at him as he raised the pistol and aimed it at me. I knew then I was going to die. The man had heard us blow away his companions, and judging by the determined look on his face, he had no hesitation in returning the favour. I did not bother raising my hands. I was no more than a few yards away from him, and he was going to shoot me no matter what I said or did.

  He couldn’t miss.

  I closed my eyes and waited to die.

  But instead of the sound of a bullet being fired, I heard the snap of the firing mechanism followed by nothing.

  Misfire.

  The gun was still working, but the ammunition probably hadn’t been watertight.

  The man tried to fire again, but in his panic and confusion had forgotten to first eject the dud round. I decided I wasn’t about to wait for him to clear the chamber. My thoughts still reeling, I heaved my body in the same direction, lunging in the water, knowing I’d made a real balls-up of the attack. By the time I dragged myself out of the pool, he had started running again and was further ahead of me than he had been at the start of the chase.