The Gatekeeper

by Michelle Gagnon

  “I’d never sue such a lovely lady,” George said.

  “Jesus,” Jake groaned. “So how many agents did you bring?”

  “Three from the field office, since it was last-minute,” George said, suddenly all business. “Just so you know, they’re under the impression we’re bringing you in.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow, and George shrugged. “Hey, only way I could get any official support. Bureau rules. And even then I had to link it to the kidnapped girl.” He glanced around. “She behind one of these trees, too?”

  “We think they set off on foot, probably across the river. She’s with three of my men, her mother and her sister,” Syd said. She’d retrieved the radio and was tinkering with it. “Maltz, do you copy?”

  The only response was static.

  “And unless the kid joined a biker gang, it appears they’ve got company?” George asked.

  “Definitely. We’re not sure how many, though.”

  “Christ, Jake. I can always count on you to get my ass in a sling.” George rubbed his chin. “All right. We’ll head north on route 128, across the river. With any luck, we’ll pick up their signal. I’ll see if I can raise the locals to help.”

  “You sure the locals aren’t the problem?” Syd asked skeptically.

  “My, aren’t we paranoid. You really are a spook.” George grinned. “I assisted on a case up here a few years back. If it’s the same sheriff, he’s good people.”

  “We’ll have to chance it, Syd,” Jake said, gazing toward the river. “ Madison can’t walk, she’ll be slowing them down. They’re probably running out of time.”

  Twenty-Six

  Madison covered her ears. It was like being in the middle of a war movie, but so much louder in real life. She’d had no idea guns were so deafening. She didn’t know how anyone could stand shooting them.

  The commando-boys had stashed her, Audrey and Bree behind a rickety shed on the outskirts of a ranch. There was a house a few hundred feet away, but despite the noise nobody had appeared at the windows-probably empty. They’d been headed there, hoping to find a working phone, when all hell broke loose. Maltz had ordered them to stay down while he and the other men handled the situation. That was what he’d called it, a “situation,” as if this was all a big misunderstanding, not life and death. She had no idea how many people were out there trying to kill them, but it sounded like hundreds. The three of them huddled together, hands over their ears, terror in their eyes.

  “There are too many of them!” her mother yelled as a spray of bullets sent a chunk of wood flying off the shed.

  Bree spoke, but her words were overwhelmed by a rapid pounding that tore up the ground twenty feet away.

  “We have to run for it,” her mother said, eyes wild. “Get to the house, call for help.”

  “I can’t run, Mommy,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

  “I’ll go,” Bree said.

  It took a second for Madison to process the words and realize that Bree was serious.

  “No, honey…risky…” her mother’s voice was drowned out by another explosion.

  Madison recognized her sister’s grave expression, the same look of intense concentration that terrorized opponents during field hockey games. She reached out a hand to stop her, but Bree was already on her feet, running for the house.

  She zigzagged crazily, bullets spitting up clods of dirt around her. It was amazing that Bree knew to swerve like that, Madison thought, impressed. She’d already covered half the distance. Madison had forgotten how fast she was, she’d been an all-star forward back in California but ditched field hockey after the move. Bree said the team at the new school was lame, they’d never win, but Madison figured she had another reason. Watching her slip through the trees, fast and sure-footed, it looked as though she would have dominated every game.

  “Is she going to make it?” As her mother spoke there was a brief lull in the shooting, and her voice was overly loud. She sounded hopeful, and scared.

  Madison didn’t answer. She watched, riveted, as Bree vanished into another stand of trees. There was more cover now, she’d made it through the open field and only had ten feet to go. “She is,” Madison breathed, hardly believing it. “She’s going to be okay.”

  Suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows on Bree’s left. Madison opened her mouth to scream a warning, but it was too late. The man lunged for Bree, driving her sideways with a long sweeping tackle. Madison felt her mother clutch her hand, heard her shrieking as they both watched Bree vanish beneath him.

  “I’m getting really tired of warehouses,” Rodriguez said in a low voice.

  Kelly didn’t answer, but silently agreed. They were in a cluster of warehouses on the outskirts of Houston that were nearly indistinguishable from the ones in Laredo. It made Kelly recall what Jake had said the other day, about always feeling as if he was getting off the freeway in the same place.

  It was nearly four o’clock. They’d managed to grab the last two seats on a flight from San Antonio and landed a half hour ago. True to his word, Agent Taylor had wrangled a tactical unit from Houston to participate in the search. Not before Kelly got an earful from ASAC McLarty, however. Apparently the Phoenix D.A. had thrown a press conference announcing arrests in the Morris case, and the Bureau was happy to have everything tied up with a bow. McLarty was less than thrilled to discover that not only did Kelly suspect the Salvadorans were innocent, but that one of the nation’s most prominent businessmen might be involved. He’d told her in no uncertain terms to tread carefully.

  “You don’t find anything, I want you on a plane home tonight,” he’d thundered.

  “And if I find something?” Kelly asked, unable to keep the challenge from her voice.

  The only response was a dial tone. She suspected that no matter what happened, she probably couldn’t count on a good reference from McLarty in the future. Which was a shame, since he was the reason she’d transferred to this unit. But when her case in the Berkshires went sideways, Kelly quickly learned there was only one job McLarty was interested in protecting: his own. She shouldn’t have been surprised. During her tenure she’d served under her fair share of ASACs. But she’d thought McLarty was different. It was incredibly disheartening to have the wool ripped from her eyes.

  Kelly stood back. The tactical unit was going in first, for which she was secretly grateful. Over the past few days she’d had enough busting down doors to last the rest of her life. Rodriguez looked moderately better after catching a catnap on the plane. She still felt like crap, and hadn’t been able to reach Jake in California. She hated when they fell out of touch like this. The worst part was admitting that after a few days, she had to remind herself to call him. She suspected that wasn’t a good sign.

  Kelly shrugged it off, trying to get her game face on as the tactical team swarmed through the door. A series of calls echoed through the warehouse and bounced back to her and Rodriguez.

  “Ready to see what’s behind door number three?” Rodriguez asked, eyebrows raised.

  “I’m hoping for a brand-new car,” Kelly said drily.

  “All clear!” someone yelled from inside.

  Kelly reholstered her Glock as she entered. The warehouse was dark, solely illuminated by a dim bulb in the far corner. Suddenly, the lights clicked on-one of the agents must have found the switch. This warehouse was about double the size of the other two. On the near side of the room, a set of rickety card tables had been pushed together and were surrounded by folding chairs. Beer bottles, empty chips bags and decks of cards littered the surface and the surrounding floor.

  “Tire tracks,” Rodriguez noted. “Something big came through here.”

  “Definitely,” Kelly agreed.

  There was a pile of clothes in the center of the room. Two of the tactical team officers knelt beside it. The rest of the warehouse was bare.

  “Uh-oh,” Rodriguez said.

  Kelly crossed the distance quickly. As she got closer the clothes res
olved themselves into a body lying in a pool of congealed blood. Two more steps and she could make out what was left of his face. He was in his mid- to late-forties, tall and thin. He was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt.

  “Dead.” One of the officers glanced up at her. “You know him?”

  Kelly shook her head. “No ID?”

  “Not on him. We’ll check the rest of the place, but who knows…” He shrugged helplessly. “You should see those back rooms, they’re a mess. Looks like they had a small army camped out here.”

  “Doesn’t look like a skinhead, and he’s definitely not Mexican,” Rodriguez said.

  “Minuteman, maybe? And there was an altercation?” Kelly said.

  “We’ll get a team out here to dust for prints, have the ME give us a time of death,” the officer said.

  “No rigor, so not long ago,” Kelly said.

  “Unless it already passed,” Rodriguez remarked.

  “He looks too good for that. In this heat, no AC, even in a sheltered area he’d be in much worse shape.” Kelly wasn’t a doctor, but she’d seen enough dead bodies to get a sense of these things. She wondered who he was, and why he’d been killed. She shook her head, frustrated. This case kept raising more questions than it answered. “I want his photo run against missing persons reports filed in the past week.”

  “Just in Houston?” the tactical agent asked.

  “Let’s start there, then expand to the rest of the state.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Rodriguez said. “We made good on the warrant. That should get McLarty off your back, at least for now.”

  “Maybe,” Kelly said, distracted. There was something glowing twenty yards away, toward the rear of the warehouse. “What’s that?”

  Rodriguez followed her across the warehouse. Kelly knelt to examine the strange powder: it shimmered iridescent blue, almost seeming to pulse.

  Rodriguez reached a finger toward it. Kelly grabbed his hand, stopping him. “Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Didn’t your mother ever say if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it?”

  Kelly waved over the head of the tactical unit. He trotted toward them, slowing when he saw the powder.

  “Holy shit,” he said in a low voice, stopping a few feet away.

  “Can we get a-”

  “Everybody out! Now!” he hollered, turning and circling a finger in the air. At his tone the rest of the unit froze, then retreated for the exits.

  “What is it?” Rodriguez asked, sounding scared. He took a few steps back, tracking it. His footprints glowed phosphorescent.

  The agent noticed. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to remove your shoes without touching them. Then we go outside and wait for a Hazmat team.”

  “Shit, are they ruined?” Rodriguez looked down, panic seeping into his voice. “I love these shoes.”

  “What do you think it is?” Kelly asked the tactical commander. They watched from twenty feet away as Rodriguez gingerly pulled off one shoe with the toe of the other, then beat a path to them in his socks, careful to avoid the small puddles of blue.

  “Not exactly sure, ma’am. All I know is if it glows, we go. Standard procedure.”

  “How long until we can get a crime scene unit in here?” Kelly asked, following him to the door.

  He shook his head. “I got a feeling,” he said grimly, “that this is going to be a hell of a lot bigger than one dead guy.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Maltz had his back pressed against a tree. He could see Fribush and Jagerson behind a tractor about a dozen yards to his left. Jagerson had taken a hit. He was clutching his leg while Fribush bent to examine it. They were pinned down. There were two, maybe three hostiles at twelve o’clock, about twenty yards away from him. Another two at ten o’clock, aiming at Fribush and Jagerson. The rest had either fallen behind or were holding their fire, though he doubted these amateurs would be that smart. So far they’d been tentative-a good spray of fire was enough to send them diving for cover. But Maltz was running out of ammo, and they knew it. They were getting bolder, advancing. Dangel had never made it back from the van run, which meant he was probably down, and if Jagerson couldn’t be moved, Maltz didn’t love the odds of them completing this mission. To be brought down by a group of hacks would be the ultimate insult, he’d prefer to swallow his gun. And he hated the thought of these rednecks getting hold of the girls and their mother, even if they were the biggest collective pains in the ass he’d ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

  Where the fuck was Syd? he thought, checking his radio again. It spit out a stream of static, and he cursed silently. If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely upgrading, this subpar civvy shit was worthless. He tried transmitting their position via Morse code again, compressing the talk button, hoping someone out there was paying attention.

  “We got her!” A voice yelled. Maltz’s heart sank. He craned his head around the side of the tree, careful to stay out of the line of fire. A guy in a leather vest with scraggly hair was dragging one of the girls-the older one, without the cast. Crap. Maltz wondered where the other two were, if they’d been smart enough to hide.

  “Stop shooting or I kill the bitch!” the guy yelled.

  Maltz braced himself against the tree trunk. His rifle was specially equipped with an infrared laser, allowing him to see exactly where the shot was going, even at a distance of a few hundred yards. He sighted down his rifle: Bree was an inch too tall, just blocking a perfect head shot. Maltz gritted his teeth, mentally willing her to move to the side, duck down, something. She stumbled slightly and his finger tensed, but the guy yanked her up again. They were fifteen feet away now. If he had a good opening, there was no way he could miss. The girl stumbled again, and he had a clear shot. Maltz steadied his aim, braced to squeeze the trigger…

  “Wait! Please don’t hurt her.”

  Maltz squeezed his eyes shut in frustration as the mother emerged from the shadows, hands held high. Jesus, he thought, shaking his head. Civilians.

  The scraggly guy’s head pivoted, ruining the angle, and Maltz sighed. Another figure appeared, hopping on one leg-the youngest. Fucking perfect time for a family reunion.

  He glanced over to Jagerson and Fribush. Fribush shrugged and indicated that he didn’t have a clear shot, either. Maltz clenched his jaw as the guy gathered the women in front of him. “All right, assholes, stop shooting or I’ll start.”

  Maltz hadn’t fired a shot in a few minutes, and neither had his men, but he figured this wasn’t the time to point that out. A pro would have demanded they throw down their weapons and show themselves; the fact that he hadn’t meant they still had a chance. He signaled for Fribush to keep a line on the guy. If Maltz could draw him away from the women, into a position where Fribush had a clear shot…

  “I’m coming out! Don’t shoot!” Maltz yelled, leaning his rifle against the tree. The guy’s head swiveled, searching for him. Maltz took a step forward, still obscured by the shadows. He had a Glock 19 tucked in a holster behind his shoulder. If necessary he could access it quickly.

  He heard voices approaching and took another step forward, breath tight in his chest. He hoped the rest were still leery of getting too close, otherwise they might be doomed.

  “Bunch of crap you put us through,” the scraggly guy griped, “crossing the river and shit.”

  “Yeah, well.” Maltz stepped to the side, and the guy tracked him. Untrained adversaries tended to follow with their bodies as well as their eyes, an instinct that only served them in dealings with other amateurs. One more step to the left and Fribush would be able to pick him off without risking the women. “Just doing my job.”

  “Who the fuck hired you?” The guy shifted as Maltz took another step, turning with him. Good, Maltz thought. Just one more foot…

  A sudden noise, from the direction of the house. They all froze. The guy reacted a second after Maltz, spinning to face it, opening himself up…

  They
didn’t end up needing the radio to find Maltz and the others, all they had to do was follow the gunfire. It bounced off the hills, sending them down a few wrong turns as they tried to pinpoint it. They were backtracking, and had reemerged on the main road when a cop car tore past, blazing lights and sirens.

  “I guess someone dialed 911,” Jake said.

  “Sounds like World War III out there,” Syd said. “Hope Maltz and his boys have extra ammo.”

  Jake hoped so, too. He was a little nonplussed by how calm she was. The hairier the situation, the happier and more at home she appeared. Something about that scared the crap out of him. George sat in the backseat, purportedly to keep an eye on them.

  “Yeah, stay on this guy,” he said into his radio. “And make sure your vests are on before you get out of the car.”

  Syd gunned it, hot on the heels of the cop car.

  “The sheriff knows we’re coming, right?” Jake asked.

  George shrugged. “He should. But it might not be a bad idea to keep your hands in sight when you get out of the car.”

  “Get him to shut those damn sirens off,” Syd said. “We gotta go in quiet.”

  George glanced at Jake and raised an eyebrow. Jake shrugged. “What the lady said.”

  “Okay, boss.” George conveyed the message to his team in the other car and the sheriff. The sirens abruptly stopped. Another cop car appeared behind them.

  They crossed a bridge over the river, bouncing over a cattle grate on the opposite side. The sheriff’s car took a sharp right onto a narrow lane that turned out to be a driveway. He wrenched the car onto the shoulder a few hundred feet from the house. Syd pulled in next to him, and the other cars followed suit.

  A lanky guy in a sheriff’s uniform and hat climbed out, tucking a rifle over his shoulder before approaching. His eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of them behind George. “Good to see you again, Agent Fong.” He shifted his gaze to Jake, then Syd. “You the folks kicked up this shitstorm?”