Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)

by Jeff Carson

  And then he turned and did just that.

  Chapter 14

  Wolf opened his eyes and stared at the fabric stretched taut in front of his face, unable to comprehend what he was looking at.

  He shifted and the swish of his bare legs rubbing on a sleeping bag pierced the utter silence.

  “Wolf.”

  Flinching, he twisted to his left at the sound of the female voice. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me. Luke.”

  She flicked on a flashlight and the interior of a dome two-person tent lit up. She squinted and pointed the beam at her wrist.

  Beneath the askew sleeping bag Wolf saw she was wearing a tee-shirt and underwear, and at that moment he realized he was wearing the same thing.

  “It’s midnight. You’ve been sleeping like a dead man, and I mean a dead man, for fourteen hours. Since ten this morning.”

  Wolf sat up and ran his tongue across the top of his mouth. “Water.”

  “Right next to you.”

  Wolf found the water bottle, sat up straight, and sucked it down in one go.

  “Are you hungry? You have to be hungry.”

  Wolf nodded. “I’d eat a horse right now.”

  “Granola bars are next to you, too.”

  Wolf found the box, unwrapped one and ate it, recalling the canoe ride down the river, breaking into Beer Goggles, the ride from Margaret, and then Kristen Luke in sweat pants. It was all a surreal blur.

  With each bite he felt his strength grow. As he finished the last mouthful and peeled open another bar, he felt wide awake and alert.

  “Where are we?”

  “Some place safe.”

  “Where? A campsite?”

  “Yep.”

  “Where?”

  “Southwest of Aspen, on the way to Crested Butte. We’re going to Gunnison.”

  “Gunnison? Why?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Wolf ran a hand through his hair. It felt smooth and clean. “There’s no straight shot of highway between Aspen and Gunnison.”

  “Nope.”

  “So we’re in the middle of nowhere, on the back roads.” Wolf asked.

  “That’s the idea.”

  Wolf tipped the final drops of liquid out of the bottled water. “Can I see that flashlight, please?”

  She handed it to him and pulled her sleeping bag up against her chin. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Have fun.”

  Wolf peeled the zipper back a quarter circle. “My pants?”

  “They’re hanging off the back of the truck. They might still be a little wet.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you puked all over them, so I washed them.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks.”

  Wolf found his shoes at the foot of his sleeping bag and slipped them on. The inner soles were cold on his bare feet. “I guess the same goes for my fleece jacket?”

  “No. I didn’t wash that. It was disgusting.”

  “Ah.”

  She rolled over in her sleeping bag and then held up a piece of clothing. “I found this in Valerie’s truck, along with all this camping gear. Luckily for us Patterson’s parents seem to be outdoor buffs. This sweater looked like it fit you, so I didn’t bother getting down and dirty with your jacket.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Wolf put on the sweater. It was a zip-up, thick and lined with soft fur.

  Stepping outside, the skin on his bare legs tightened with goose bumps.

  A lone cricket chirped somewhere nearby, and there was a muffled pop.

  Wolf pointed the flashlight beam at a fire pit and saw a few charred logs still smoldering. He swept the beam around in a circle. They were socked in on all sides by dense forest, with no distant view anywhere, at least that he could tell.

  He clicked off the flashlight and found he could see plenty fine with the ambient light of the half moon that peeked through the trees. Straight above him the sky was spray-painted with countless stars.

  Feet crunching on dry twigs and pine needles, his eyes stung as he walked through a stream of smoke. A few paces away he relieved himself and surveyed the dark forest.

  When he returned he was surprised to see Luke fully clothed in her sweatpants and sweatshirt and leaning logs together in the fire pit. “Get me that newspaper?”

  Wolf saw where she pointed and did as he was told, and then watched as she expertly started a blazing fire.

  The blossoming flames warmed his legs. Not in the least self-conscious, he stood close to the fire in his boxer shorts. This particular beautiful woman had seen it all before.

  “You’re looking chipper,” she said.

  “I am? I feel better.”

  She stifled a yawn. “Good. You looked like shit earlier. Now you look like you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Really skinny. But like you.”

  They both sat cross-legged on the cold ground.

  He rubbed his hands near the fire and felt like he was absorbing the power of the flames. Like some sort of superhero recharging himself. The ache deep in his thigh snapped him out of his fantasy.

  Luke gazed into the fire with wide eyes. Her hair was pulled back, revealing her tight jaw line. Her otherwise beautiful face looked more troubled than he’d ever seen her.

  Wolf picked up a twig and pushed it in the dirt, trying to quell the anger rising within him. “So I was out pretty good, huh?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember you peeing. A helicopter.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t expect …”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Didn’t expect me to be such a wreck as people like to put it lately?”

  Her face softened. “Why’d you pass out? Is that normal?”

  “Some sort of inner ear thing. A disorder that seems to get worse the more I move around. Then there’re all the injuries and stiffness, which won’t get any better unless I exercise. It’s a nice negative feedback loop I’ve got going.”

  They sat in silence, staring into the fire.

  “So you want to get started on that long story?” he asked. “Preferably starting with why you lied about Carter Willis?”

  She kept her attention on the fire. “I have a new partner now. The guy’s name is Tedescu. Terrence Tedescu.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “The reason I have Tedescu as a partner is because his partner was killed in the line of duty. Three and a half months ago. Like I said on the phone, the fallen agent’s name was Smith. Special Agent Paul Smith, who you knew as Carter Willis.”

  Wolf stabbed the flaming stick in the dirt.

  She waited for a response from Wolf and then continued. “You know my stellar history with men. I’ve got a little alarm in my head now that lets me know when there’s a real asshole around. Let’s just say the recess bell was always going off around Agent Smith.

  “Told me I smelled once. One night I was alone in the office, and he just kind of materialized out of the darkness and came over and sat on my desk. Leaned in close, sniffed, and told me I smelled.

  “Normally I would have punched a guy in the nose and watched him bleed for that, make him take back his words, but you’ve seen Smith. The guy was just too big.”

  Wolf picked up another twig and held it to the fire.

  “You know, I never said that I didn’t know who Carter Willis was. I said I’d check on him and let you know when I found something.”

  Wolf stared at her.

  She pulled her knees closer and studied the flames again. “I was under direct orders to not talk to you about it.”

  Wolf stood up. “So what? You knew how much this meant to me. He was found dead with Sarah for God’s sake.”

  “Yeah. I know. Found dead with the love of your life.” She rubbed her
forehead.

  He stared down at her. “Yeah. I did love her. Is that what this is about? You were jealous of us and you were holding back this information out of spite or something?”

  She lifted her chin. Her eyes shimmered like a rough moonlit sea and then flash-froze. “Get over yourself. I have a career, and I was under direct orders to not speak to you. Damn, that fall did knock you hard on the head. Don’t you get it? I was under orders. Orders I’m way beyond defying now, and now my career’s as good as toilet paper since I’ve aided and abetted you.

  “Shit, if it weren’t for me dragging your unconscious ass all over Colorado today, you’d be sitting in Denver, sweating and vomiting in an interrogation room with no windows, awaiting a prison shiv in your neck. Holding back? Out of spite? Please. I knew you couldn’t, wouldn’t have killed Sarah, because she was the love of your life. That’s what I’m saying.”

  She stared skyward.

  Wolf took a deep breath, letting the tension dissipate for a moment. He walked over and pulled his jeans off the back of the truck. The fabric was cold and damp.

  “Aiding and abetting.” He returned and laid the pants down next to the fire. “How did I go from a respectable sheriff of Sluice County to you guys thinking I killed Sarah, a Bureau agent, and now Gail Olson? And what about these guys watching my house? They’re the real deal Cartel? With men on the inside waiting to shiv me? I’m lost, Special Agent. How is it the FBI is unaware of them and going after me?”

  “Let me start from the beginning.”

  Wolf raised his eyebrows. “Good idea.”

  “Sit. You’re freakin’ me out.”

  Wolf exhaled and sat down.

  “As long as I’ve known Smith and Tedescu, since I came to the Denver FO a few years ago, they were both on a drug task force. You know, Mexican cartel marijuana grow sites in the national forests, that kind of thing, and now that weed is legal, they were monitoring fraud activity—people trying to circumvent the crop tracking software, point of sale monitoring, stuff like that.

  “A few years before legalization, when I was still up in Glenwood Springs, apparently Tedescu and Smith were involved in a big operation that went nuclear down in southern Colorado.

  “I guess they had encountered a few strains of pot in huge quantities that couldn’t be traced to the normal list of suspects south of the border.

  “They took what they had to the SAC. The SAC gave them the go ahead and a few men to start monitoring closer, and came to the conclusion there was a big widespread operation happening right under every official nose in the state.

  “Smith and Tedescu were calling these unknowns the ‘Ghost Cartel’. The problem was, they had no solid evidence of their existence. But they swore by the anomalies they’d been encountering. They worked on it for a number of months, six or seven, and eventually one day came out triumphant because they’d recruited an informant.

  “Their new asset wanted immunity and federal protection for himself and his family if he gave them the location of the Ghost Cartel’s main distribution center. We agreed, and the guy pointed us to some huge farm property in southern Colorado, southeast of Durango, near the New Mexico border.

  “Armed with a S.W.A.T. team, a grip load of agents, and the information everyone thought was legit, the SAC led an operation to the farm compound.

  “But, the informant went silent on the day of the bust, never showing up to the agreed meeting spot. Just changed his mind, or, they thought, more likely he was silenced. Whatever happened to the guy, the operation went ahead, and they sent everyone in.

  “Long story short, the place blew up, turning the sand to glass for a square mile. Huge, freaking, explosion. Eleven S.W.A.T. team members killed instantly, six agents, and a lot of casualties.”

  “I heard about this,” Wolf said. “We were told it was a Mexican cartel responsible for the explosion.”

  Luke nodded. “After the smoke settled, literally and figuratively, they started looking more closely into the informant and found that he was a well-known commander in one of the cartels in Mexico. He’d been up in the states on business under a different name.

  “Big screw up. None of the brass could figure out how they messed up so big. In the end the Special Agent in Charge took the blame and got canned, and agents Tedescu and Smith were suspended and kicked down a GS level. And that was basically that. Until the whole Gail Olson thing.”

  Wolf looked at her. “Our famous drug runner from Byron County.”

  She nodded. “Yep.”

  “Our famous dead drug runner.”

  “Yeah. So she is.” Luke massaged her neck. “Anyway, when she was pulled over nine months ago, the bureau’s ears perked up at the details of her case. She had over twenty pounds of weed, no license to be carrying or distributing it of any kind, and it looked to be a hybrid of the same strain of pot Tedescu and Smith had been tracking years ago.

  “And then, this third-year college student brought in a team of high-priced lawyers who managed to get all charges dropped completely.”

  Wolf frowned. “I thought she was charged and somehow had her record expunged with the help of MacLean.”

  “Nope. Never even had a record. Not with the team of lawyers she had. They ended up proving she had no knowledge of what was in the car. They slapped a countersuit on the Ashland PD for unlawful search and seizure, and everything ended up getting washed.”

  Wolf shook his head. “That’s not what Baine found out.”

  “Well, whatever. That’s what happened. The point is, after Gail Olson, Tedescu and Smith got a second chance and somewhat vindicated, because it was clear that something big was going on, just like they had said a few years ago.

  “So Tedescu and Smith were partnered up again, and the first thing they did was start following Gail Olson’s activities, which eventually led them to Deputy Rachette, and the Sluice County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Wolf straightened. “Are you saying they thought we were the Ghost Cartel?”

  “They’ve been looking into you and the department. Let’s just put it that way.”

  “Are you kidding?” Wolf stood and laughed out loud. “So what? They think I’m some sort of drug lord?”

  “I’m not sure what the brass really think about you. But I know that the consensus with the agents is that you definitely had something to do with Agent Smith’s death.”

  Wolf glared at the flames.

  “And this anonymous tip didn’t help.”

  He shook his head. “They got a warrant to go in with this anonymous tip?”

  “To find a weapon that killed one of ours? We pretty much have a warrant print button on our computer keyboards for situations like that.”

  “What did they find?”

  “I don’t know. I’m incommunicado. But I’m betting my career that they found a pistol that shoots 9 millimeter Parabellums. Matching the gun that shot Sarah and Agent Smith, and probably Gail Olson. Like you heard Frye say on that phone call, the first half of the tip was right. They found Gail Olson’s body right where the caller said they would.”

  “But this guy, Tedescu. Smith’s old partner, he told you I was innocent.”

  She nodded.

  Wolf picked up a stick and poked it in the fire. “So what? These guys, Tedescu and Smith, were caught up with the Cartel?”

  She fished in her pocket and pulled out a key. “We have to go to a storage unit in Gunnison that supposedly explains everything.”

  Wolf stared at the glimmering key. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Tedescu.”

  “Where’s he? With the rest of them coming after us?”

  “I don’t think so. He gave me this key, told me ‘We were right, and you have to go here and prove it,’ and then he took off, clearly freaked out for the safety of his family after seeing that quad murder.”

  “Quadruple murder?”

  She exhaled and looked up, as though shuffling thoughts in her head. “Agent Tedescu came to
my apartment and got me out of bed at 4 a.m. yesterday morning, and then he drove me to Park Hill, where DPD was working a family of four found shot in their home. A lawyer and his wife and kids. Real messed up stuff. The DPD didn’t call us in. I have no clue how we were even there. Tedescu just wanted to see the scene. Had some sort of personal interest. I could see it in his eyes.

  “We went in, checked the bodies, and then he stormed out like he was spooked. Then that’s when we got the call for the emergency meeting. Everyone was mobilizing to come up after you.

  “Tedescu handed me this key, and told me you were innocent. He said whatever they found it didn’t matter, that you were innocent, and it was all a setup, and it would all be explained if we went to this storage unit.” She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. “Gunnison. Trout Creek Storage and Moving. Number 62.”

  Wolf looked at the piece of paper in her hand. “Tedescu was spooked, and then knew that I was about to be framed. Why didn’t he go to the Agent in Charge with this?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, he was spooked. He said he had to get his oldest son, and drove away in a cloud of smoke.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your SAC about this?”

  “With a key and talking about information in a storage unit that may or may not exist in the middle of the mountains? Not likely to sway the momentum this morning.” She lowered her voice. “You met Agent Frye, right?”

  He nodded.

  “He’s partnered with an agent named Cumberland most of the time.”

  “Yeah, I’ve met him, too. Hell of a guy.”

  “I watched him staple a picture of you on a target and empty a clip into it once. That’s the general attitude about you in the bureau. I’m not sure you would have survived the raid.”

  “Thanks.”

  She stretched her arms overhead and yawned. “Whatever. Listen, if I’m going to be lugging you all across Colorado tomorrow then I need to sleep.” She held up the key and dangled it. “So we’ll go here at sunrise, and we’ll get some answers. Until then, goodnight.”

  Wolf was wired and still had questions. Lots of them. But he held back at the sight of her. “Goodnight.”