by Gavin Reese
“No doubt. What do we do from here, with Jonathan, I mean?”
“I don’t see any reason to tell him about the filing, because we don’t know it’s going to be charged and the guy is a mental wreck already. We can’t tell him, and we can’t let him keep hanging himself out there for us, either. Our loose, unofficial tolerance of his surveillance stops, we have to put our foot down, politely at first, and let him know that any further action he takes will jeopardize the investigation. If he balks at that, we have to let him know we’d consider filing Interference charges against him if he continues.”
“Yeah, ‘cuz that same discussion went so well behind the Gas ‘N Go station.”
“This time, it’ll be official. Make him understand, it’s the best thing we can do for him right now.”
Fifty-Three
Hillside south of Cleveland’s property. Tonopah, Arizona.
Jonathan turned his cell phone off several hours ago, even before he ascended the rugged desert mountain to again surveil the desert property. He didn’t want any distractions that would take his focus off the target or give away his position. Certain anyone within fifty yards could hear his cell phone ring, he couldn’t risk some random desert hiker hearing the phone or its vibrations, finding him there, and taking action against him. Tonopah had more than its fair share of residents who didn’t want to live under normal societal rules, which would have mandated the hypothetical hiker to call the police if they saw a suspicious man watching their neighbor’s property; out here, the greater probability remained that such a hiker would directly confront Jonathan and, potentially, propel him into a deadly force situation by using the gun they almost certainly carried to encourage him to cooperate. Tonopah remained too Wild West for that degree of carelessness.
After enduring several hours under the sun’s intense, broiling heat, Jonathan saw Cleveland and another white guy, who looked like Paul, drive into the property in an older Ford Bronco and park under the carport. During his previous weeks of intermittent surveillance, Jonathan never saw Cleveland arrive at the property and leave soon thereafter; however, he frequently made several daily trips away from the desolate property. Having determined he had little to gain from continued static surveillance, he hoped to follow Cleveland after he left again and learn where he spent his time away from home. While commissioned in the Army, Jonathan had been temporarily assigned to oversee the in-country operations of Army CID and, during the time he spent working with their investigators, got quite a bit of mobile surveillance experience as they followed suspected enemy informants and, once, a traitor, around Baghdad. The biggest differences today were his lack of both authority and immediate backup.
Jonathan had seen no other vehicles at the desert property that day, so he hoped Cleveland would soon leave to drive his visitor to another location. After quickly descending the south side of the rugged mountain out of Cleveland’s sights, he jogged roughly two miles west to Mr. Trujillo’s car, which he had again borrowed and left concealed in a wash just south of the Tonopah-Salome Highway.
Once back at the car, Jonathan dropped his dusty backpack and hide kit into the trunk on top of a blanket he had spread out to both keep Mr. Trujillo’s car clean and avoid raising suspicion. He shed his BDU top and foxhole cover, but kept the camo trousers on to fit in with the more solitary local residents. Jonathan climbed into the driver’s seat, over which he had spread a second protective blanket, turned over the ignition, and dropped the transmission into drive. He piloted the sedan a mile-and-a-half east to within eyesight of the intersection of 411th Avenue and Tonopah-Salome Highway. Jonathan slowed the sedan and pulled into the mouth of a shaded wash on the south side of the road that allowed him to watch that intersection and just barely glimpse anything that drove away from the target residence.
Only about five minutes after he stopped in the shaded wash, Jonathan saw the Ford Bronco emerge from the isolated driveway, turn west on Tonopah-Salome Highway, and then head north on 411th Avenue. With his quarry already a half mile ahead of him, Jonathan waited only another few seconds to start the sedan and follow the Bronco. It’s just us on the road right now, can’t risk being very close.
Several miles north, the Bronco turned into the Gas ‘N Go station where Jonathan had previously met Detective Landon for his recent woodshedding. He’d now spent enough time in that area to understand he couldn’t simply pull off the road, wait out the Bronco, and resume following Cleveland once he returned to the road. Not much choice, he thought, gotta stop close, hide in plain sight, and run a ruse. As he neared the station, Jonathan saw the Bronco had parked in the middle of the lot’s west side, directly in front of the convenience store entry doors. He slowed, turned left, and drove into the lot’s south entrance near two rows of awning-covered fuel pumps. He soon realized the Bronco’s driver, whom he immediately recognized as Cleveland, had stayed in the running SUV and only the passenger had gone inside. Jonathan piloted the sedan toward the lot’s northern entrance and targeted a group of faded yellow paint-marked parking spaces on the east side of the north lot. He found an isolated spot near the north entrance and 411th Avenue that allowed him to stay a good distance from the convenience store doorway and the fuel pumps. After parking the sedan, Jonathan exited the car and opened the hood, in hopes of presenting himself as a stranded local motorist; he positioned the sedan to avoid as much human contact as possible and did nothing to draw additional attention to himself or appear desperate for aid. This’d be a bad time for Cleveland to get a good look at me, he reasoned, best to stay under the hood if I can.
Within three minutes of parking and raising the hood, Jonathan had to fend off a Good Samaritan who offered to either help him diagnose the problem or drive him where he needed to go. Thankfully, the anonymous motorist accepted his explanation that the car’s owner was already on his way to get him. Standing near the front driver-side quarter-panel, Jonathan used the raised hood to shield himself from Cleveland’s view. The Bronco had been parked at the convenience store long enough that Jonathan began to wonder if he’d been spotted and Cleveland now waited him out. Several seconds after that thought spiked his adrenaline, Jonathan saw the unidentified white male exit the front doors, and then immediately stopped to look in the direction of his apparently-stranded sedan. Shuffling around to the front of the car to keep the raised hood between them, he looked through the narrow slit between the hood and dash to watch the two men and the Bronco. Jonathan felt an increasing sense of danger, so he remained in front of the car, tinkering with lines and cables to further validate his ‘car problems’ while intermittently watching the duo. Digital Marine Corp-patterned desert camo NASCAR hat, brown t-shirt, tan work pants. Tan work boots, just like every other motherfucker out here. Jonathan also noted the shiny new Arizona license plate, which read “DRT1105,” and starkly contrasted the aging Bronco.
Jonathan watched the unknown male stride to the Bronco’s closed passenger door, where he stood for an uncomfortably long time before dropping a canned drink and bag of chips onto his seat. Without warning or apparent cause, Jonathan heard the Bronco’s transmission shift into gear as its rear, white reverse lights came on; at the same moment, the passenger purposefully walked straight at him and the sedan. Jonathan had not prepared for this possibility, so his mind whirred through a list of potential responses as the man approached. He prayed, as Cleveland had not exited the Bronco, that his identity remained safe and the passenger just wanted to offer help. As he neared, Jonathan gratefully confirmed he’d not been among the Chosen Few members that night at the Watering Hole, and he did not recognize the man as anyone else who had been at the isolated dive bar that night.
“Hey, man, you need a hand?” He stopped near the front, passenger-side quarter-panel and stood there, awaiting a response. Jonathan thought his accent must be from the South, maybe Kentucky or West Virginia.
Jonathan continued to look into the engine compartment, not wanting to allow the man a good look at him, b
ut that also prevented him from getting a good, close look at Cleveland’s unknown associate. Even through indirect observation and peripheral vision, Jonathan recognized The Chosen Few tattooed on the man’s exposed right forearm.
“Naw, man, I’m good, just waiting for the owner, should be here soon.” He continued examining the engine as though too preoccupied to obey social norms. “Thanks for askin’, though.”
The man stood in place for another few seconds before Jonathan heard the Bronco’s transmission pop into drive and he saw, through the slit, that Cleveland slowly drove the Bronco forward. Jonathan nervously watched the aging SUV stop perpendicular to, and directly behind, the parked sedan. Was Cleveland making it easier for the passenger to get back to the SUV, or was he shortening the distance required to force me into the back seat? Why is this guy still standing there watching me after I declined his help?
After another seven uncomfortable seconds passed, Jonathan decided on an unexpected, non-conventional approach, and steeled his resolve to see it through. He suddenly stopped toying with the engine components, dropped his hands in apparent disgust, and stared directly up at the man. Jonathan saw he had unkempt red hair, about three or four days’ growth of patchy facial hair, bright blue eyes, and a face full of freckles. He stood about 5’10”, weighed something around 180, probably all of 24 years old, and clearly thought he could handle himself. “Something I can do for ya?”
The stranger simply returned Jonathan’s glare for several seconds as the rolling plup-plup-plup of the Bronco’s exhaust marked the tense moments now passing between them. The man didn’t avert his gaze when he finally decided to answer. “Nope, just thought you might be tired of fryin’ out here, thought it’uz the neighborly thang to do. You say you’re good, ‘en I’ll leave you to it.” Still locking eyes with Jonathan, he remained there until Cleveland impatiently revved the Bronco’s engine behind them. Jonathan saw the ginger’s continued eye contact exuded confident indifference, not rage, anger, or hostility, although all those emotions appeared readily accessible, constantly lurking just below the man’s surface. He turned, walked the few feet to the Bronco, opened the creaky passenger door, and climbed into the SUV without another word. Still using the slit beneath the raised hood, Jonathan saw Ginger continue to watch him as the Bronco drove away. His anxiety lessened significantly as the SUV turned from the parking lot onto northbound 411th Avenue and disappeared over the first rise in the roadway.
The sound of the accelerating and departing Bronco further calmed Jonathan’s fears about an imminent confrontation, but he knew he would soon be in even greater danger when he continued following them, especially after the passenger had taken such an interest in both him and the sedan. Jonathan understood, however, that allowing his own safety concerns to take precedence would require him to start this whole process all over again on another day, and with another car and another ruse. I can’t run this same game again without attracting attention. He hated to waste this opportunity now that Cleveland was on the move, well aware the local geography did not easily lend itself to creating a second chance to follow the desert dweller. After deciding his best and most viable option would be to follow the Bronco, Jonathan determined to lessen the danger by increasing his following distance and resolving in advance to immediately turn and run if they recognized him. Sure would be nice if Landon and his detective buddies were the ones out here doing this, like they oughta be.
After dropping the car’s hood back into place, he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned over the ignition. The sedan had been parked just long enough that the air conditioner, still turned to ‘max high,’ felt like a blow dryer. He turned the AC off and rolled all the windows down, backed from the parking space, and piloted the sedan northbound to pursue Cleveland and The Ginger. Contemplating the personal jeopardy in which he had voluntarily propelled himself, he darkly chuckled and thought back to his oath. Enemies foreign and domestic…just never expected to be involved on the ‘domestic’ side…
Topping the first rise himself, Jonathan saw Cleveland’s Bronco drive up the eastbound I-10 on-ramp toward Buckeye and all points east. He accelerated quickly now that his quarry traveled at freeway speeds, and narrowly maintained control of the sedan when he himself turned right onto the rough, unmaintained freeway ramp. Upon entering the interstate, Jonathan quickly reached eighty miles an hour and maintained that speed until he saw the Bronco about three-quarters-of-a-mile ahead in the slow lane. The line of traffic passing the aging SUV confirmed to Jonathan it traveled slightly under the posted seventy-five miles-per-hour speed limit, which could have been a mechanical limitation or a counter-surveillance tactic to identify anyone who followed them. Aside from the retirement communities scattered around the Phoenix area, almost no one drove the speed limit, much less under it. Jonathan understood any driver who wished to maintain watch over Cleveland would be quickly exposed, so he could not risk getting any closer without announcing his presence.
Slowing a bit further below the speed limit, Jonathan suffered the taunts of his fellow motorists and cautiously added an additional quarter-mile behind the Bronco. He maintained this following distance as the three men drove from Tonopah into the slower metroplex freeway system, during which the Bronco never deviated from the slow lane or exceeded posted speed limits. When the posted speed limit dropped to sixty-five, Jonathan saw the Bronco slow further, and understood Cleveland’s actions constituted active counter-surveillance measures. That old goat’ll do seventy, so he’s lookin’ for someone like me. Jonathan noticed the Bronco slowed further after it merged onto the northbound Loop 101 and maintained only about fifty-five miles-per-hour. The two vehicles, although substantially separated, created an immediate and proximal surplus of road rage among the drivers now whizzing past, and stuck behind, them. Fuck, man, Jonathan thought, I’m more likely to get shot by these road ragers than I am Cleveland and his pals.
Jonathan’s concerns, which had somewhat normalized during their extended, uneventful drive, immediately returned when Cleveland unexpectedly swerved onto the Peoria Avenue off-ramp without signaling. Still more than a half-mile behind Cleveland, Jonathan easily merged right to follow him and saw the Bronco in the left turn lane to go west at the light just ahead. As Jonathan started down the off-ramp and closed the gap to the stopped SUV, the traffic signal at the bottom of the off-ramp turned green, and the Bronco accelerated and suddenly turned right onto eastbound Peoria Avenue from the left turn lane. Jonathan interpreted the beginning of Cleveland’s obvious “heat-run” to mean the white supremacist had concerns about being followed. The good news is he didn’t just pull over and try to beat my ass, Jonathan thought, so maybe he hasn’t spotted me yet. The bad news, if he hasn’t spotted me, is that he’s about to get dirty, and this just got a whole lot more dangerous.
Jonathan calmly, and normally, merged into the right turn lane just as any other traveler would have done, without any risk of raising suspicions. Cleveland had showed his hand, and without the desired effect to reveal or shake his tail, so Jonathan expected Cleveland would continue violating all manner of traffic laws and drive like an absolute asshole to expose anyone still following him. He decided to follow Cleveland only until he made another abrupt turn, at which time Jonathan would continue straight to avoid being identified. I may not follow him to his destination, but I’m a damn sight better off than I was an hour ago.
At the bottom of the off-ramp, Jonathan caught the same green light and immediately turned right into the right eastbound lane. To his amazement, he saw Cleveland again turning right and proceeding south only a block ahead of him. Quickly merging left, Jonathan feared he had been spotted and wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. As he approached Cleveland’s turn, he looked right and felt immediate surprise and relief. What a fuckin’ amateur, he thought, smiling broadly. Jonathan merged into the left-turn lane and entered a Rio Arriba fast-food restaurant parking lot directly north of where the Bronco now sat
parked across Peoria Avenue.
After parking the sedan out of sight around the northeast corner of the building, Jonathan stepped from the sedan, stretched as though he had been traveling for hours, and used those few moments to surveil the parking lot around him. Seeing nothing of concern in his immediate vicinity, he walked into the restaurant grinning at his success, and, behind the protection of heavily tinted plate glass, watched Cleveland and The Ginger exit the SUV and approach the front door of the Big Bad Wolf Firearms & Trading Company. Jonathan saw the stucco building had been painted to look like red brick, which had kept the storied wolf at bay, with a bright yellow-and-black cartoonish sign above the entryway. Jonathan considered calling Landon and Wall to give them this information, but then realized he left his cell phone turned off and in the car. He chose not to risk exposing himself by being recognized on a second trip through the parking lot. It could wait, he thought, I don’t have anything worthwhile yet, anyway. Hell, the dumbass bumpkin could be lost.
With his prey out of sight inside the gun store, Jonathan stepped to the counter and ordered some tacos and a drink to blend in and quiet his growling stomach. While awaiting the order, he moved to the drink machine, which offered a great view south, and downed three cups of water before his order arrived. Jonathan carried his red plastic lunch tray from the counter to a table that afforded him a view of the gun store and its parking lot, and also let him maintain some distance from anyone else who came in to order food. He drank delicious, sugary ice-cold soda, slowly ate ground beef tacos, and safely surveilled the Bronco from inside the restaurant.
