Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)

by Jeff Carson

  “My son is a mile up that road.”

  Frye ducked down and put his back against his door. “What?”

  “Up that road. My son is up there. I think that truck that left is going after him.”

  Frye shook his head. “Shit. There’s still four of five cartel men taking cover between those trucks. And you want to drive right past them?”

  “Give me your keys.”

  Luke, Baine, and Benjamin slid next to them like base runners coming into third.

  Wolf held out his hand. “Now!”

  Frye handed the keys to Wolf. “I’ll be shooting from the rear.”

  Without another word Frye opened the back door, climbed in, and closed it.

  “Lay down some cover fire,” Wolf said as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Luke, Baine, and Agent Benjamin nodded with wide eyes.

  With knees jammed against the steering wheel column and his head tilted to avoid the ceiling he shut the door, put the key in the ignition, and pressed the gas.

  The V8 engine revved at the slightest touch and he silently apologized to Baine, Luke and Benjamin as he spat dirt all over them.

  Wolf watched in the rear view as Frye rose to his knees on the back seat. There was a loud pop inside the car as Frye shot out the rear window, and then his gun roared.

  Wolf mashed the accelerator and shot out the passenger window, then continued to fire as they sped up the dirt road and past the line of cartel pickup trucks.

  The engine screamed and bullets slapped into the side of the Caprice. He squinted as shrapnel hit his bare arms and face. With held breath, he waited for a deformed piece of lead to enter his body. Certainly with so many bullets hitting the car he was going to take at least one bullet. He knew what it would feel like. It would sting and then be unimaginably hot. But it would be a pain that could not compare to losing Jack.

  He pressed the accelerator hard into the floor, but the engine was already performing to its potential, pushing Wolf back into the seat.

  The sputtering fire of the automatic rifles was a blur outside, and then they were through.

  Chapter 43

  Pope always knew he would die in battle. From the day he’d taken Gabe’s advice and joined the Marines, he knew being a soldier was the life for him.

  Had his youth counselor from the Denver YMCA all those years ago lived longer, he would have probably been unsurprised by Pope’s dismissal from the Marines and his rise to the top of the biggest illegal drug smuggling operation the Rocky Mountains had ever known.

  Pope had always been a leader, even back in the day of wandering the streets of north Denver. He’d always been a commander, a fighter who was willing to do the dirty work. When you were abandoned by your parents, that’s what you had to do. Nobody else was going to look out for you. Nobody else was going to tell you that you had what it took to be great. You had to take greatness and wring it by its neck, and then shove it in your pocket.

  Pope’s eyes had stopped streaming tears. His cheeks were dried by the air howling through the passenger window as he sped at seventy miles per hour up the dirt road.

  He was at the end and he knew it. And just as in life, he was going to die with greatness. To do so, he would have to take it. He would have to make it happen.

  Everyone was going to die today. It was going to be something people talked about in awed whispers for generations.

  As he approached the crest of a hill he hugged the right side of the road, because, though cataclysmic and memorable, a fiery head-on collision would have been a trivial way to die after coming so far.

  After coming so far? Where exactly had he come to? What had he been fighting and killing all these people for?

  With that thought he drifted back into the center of the road as he topped the hill.

  He lifted in his seat as the tires left the road. There was no oncoming car on the other side. No crash to end his miserable life.

  There was only a straight downhill cut through the pine trees and a clearing at the bottom. In the clearing, on the right side of the road, was a dilapidated building. The twisting wooden fire tower told him this was his destination.

  Fine. Everyone would die.

  He let the truck continue at breakneck speed for another few seconds and then pumped the brake.

  The rear swayed side to side as the wheels skidded, and the building came up fast. With expert precision he slid sideways and then stopped alongside the building.

  Quickly he scanned the rear field behind the firehouse and saw a man looking in his direction.

  Just as the truck rocked to a stop he jammed it in park and got out, not bothering to waste the extra second to turn off the engine.

  The man in the field was the fat ass ex-sheriff, raising a pistol and looking shocked at Pope’s sudden appearance. He was out in the wide open, standing like a moron in the field with the cover of the trees at least a football field away from him.

  With his own pistol raised, Pope chose to run at the ex-sheriff diagonally, straight out in the open rather than taking cover behind the fire tower stairs.

  Pop-pop-pop. Bullets whizzed over Pope’s head—close, but no cigar. Pope jammed a foot into the soft dirt and crouched to one knee, and then with trophy-winning accuracy and speed he shot the man twice in the chest, dropping him to the ground.

  As the shots echoed down the valley, he heard pebbles crunch underneath a shoe directly behind him. He’d run around the back of the building and into an ambush from behind.

  But Pope’s name was on a plaque at Camp Pendleton, and as he twisted and locked the pistol sight on the kid’s chest, he fired, knowing the kid never had a chance.

  Chapter 44

  Patterson was as quiet as Lancaster on the outside, but was screaming on the inside.

  They were almost there. Just a single block on Main Street and they were going to be in the parking lot of the station, where, if all was going according to plan, three special agents were waiting to take Lancaster into custody—crouching unseen in the parking lot and ready to move just before they entered the building.

  Counting her, that was four against one, and she liked those odds.

  But they just needed to get there.

  As the SUV bounced into the parking lot and Lancaster swung into a parking spot, she took a steely breath.

  Hopping out and walking to the rear of the SUV, she almost collided with a Byron Deputy she recognized as Prough.

  Prough looked like he’d just finished running a hundred yard dash with a tiger chasing him.

  He stopped right in front of Patterson and gulped air. “You heard?”

  Patterson cringed and looked around the parking lot. There was no sign of FBI agents.

  “Some huge FBI sting up on Star Ridge Road gone wrong. Turned into a chase, and there’s a whole bunch of shots…”

  Patterson looked at Lancaster.

  Behind those mirrored sunglasses there was a twitch of his eyebrows, and that was enough for Patterson.

  Like the crack of a whip she drew her pistol and leveled it on Lancaster. “Freeze!”

  Prough went silent and stumbled backwards, catching a heel and landing on his ass on the asphalt.

  Patterson ignored the commotion, keeping her unblinking gaze on those mirrored shades. “Put your hands in the air right now.”

  Lancaster put his hands out and took a step back. “Whoa, deputy. What’s going on?” His voice had a high timbre she’d never heard before. Desperation. He was playing to Prough.

  Prough got up and drew his own weapon and pointed it at Patterson. “Drop your weapon, Patterson! Drop it!”

  Patterson shook her head.

  “Fire!” Lancaster yelled, like a quarterback trying to draw the defense offsides.

  Patterson flinched but kept her pistol level.

  “Fire, Prough! That’s an order!”

  “Stand down! Stand down!” Three FBI jacketed men weaved toward them through the cars, pistols drawn and aimed at Lancaster
.

  “Stand down, deputy,” the first agent said reaching Prough. “Male deputy. Stand down, now.”

  Prough swallowed and eyed the agents, and then lowered his weapon. “What the heck?”

  With a draw so fast it was a blur, Lancaster raised his pistol and fired over and over. Two of the FBI agents toppled backward.

  Patterson aimed her gun and squeezed the trigger at the exact same time, punching a hole in Lancaster’s chest. Then she shot again, and then again.

  As her hearing went muffled she watched Lancaster’s body convulse and spew blood as the other FBI agent emptied his clip into him.

  Holstering her weapon, she rushed to the first agent on the ground. He was grunting and howling in pain.

  The other man clenched his chest, rolling from side to side, and then a loud inhale broke his silence.

  With a flood of relief she realized they had both been wearing flack jackets and by the looks of it were just catching their wind.

  “Are you two all right?”

  After another few seconds they got to their knees and looked at Lancaster’s corpse.

  Patterson ignored the carnage and stepped up to the agent who had shot. “What happened up on Star Ridge Road?”

  Chapter 45

  Having sat in disuse for twenty-five years, the firehouse was a weeded over one story over-sized garage with broken out windows. The structure sagged under its own weight, and the four-story tower behind it was roped off in case kids decided to climb its brittle wooden stairs.

  The building itself was a poor place for shelter, or cover from a gun-wielding mad man, but the entire property was surrounded by thick forest on all sides.

  As Wolf drove nearer, he saw the black pickup truck parked alongside the house and reminded himself just how well covered Burton and Jack would have been.

  But would they have been expecting danger from a lone visitor? Would they have been drawn out into the open?

  Wolf jammed the brakes and put it in park, and was out the door as the car slid to a full stop with his pistol raised.

  Frye spilled out of the back and strode next to him, covering the left side while Wolf took right.

  The pickup truck door was wide open and engine still running, making it impossible to hear anything but the metallic rumbling of the diesel motor.

  Wolf aimed inside, then reached in and twisted the key.

  They froze in the silence.

  “Jack!”

  Wolf’s chest constricted and his breathing quickened, and without a second thought he marched around the side of the house with his pistol raised.

  “Wait,” Frye hissed, taking cover at the corner.

  Wolf skidded to a stop, taking aim at the back of a man holding a pistol. Lowering his weapon, he realized it was Jack’s lanky form, with a muscular white skinned body covered in blood at his feet.

  “Jack.”

  Jack twisted around and fell onto one knee as he raised his pistol.

  “It’s me, dad!”

  Jack’s gun clattered to the ground. He blinked and tears fell down his cheeks.

  “I shot him. He missed me and I shot him. He’s not dead. I didn’t kill him.”

  Relief washed through Wolf, from his feet up to his head and back down again, and then tears welled up. Wolf walked up and pulled Jack into a hug.

  The man on the ground coughed, and Frye stood over him, kicking a pistol away from the body into the brittle grass.

  “Clayton Pope,” Frye said. “Known to be one of the highest ranking men in the Colorado Cartel.”

  The pile of heaving white flesh of a man was drenched in blood, which pumped out of a hole near his heart. His tattooed arm was slathered in red, making the sick rendition of the Pope drawn on it look even worse.

  “Where’s Burton?” Wolf asked.

  Jack pointed to the field. “He’s shot. The guy shot him, so I had to shoot him. I had to shoot.”

  Frye ran into the field toward Burton and knelt down next to him. “He’s alive! Shot in the right shoulder. Could have caught the lung.”

  Frye ripped his button-up shirt off and began dressing Burton’s wound.

  Burton squirmed and grunted while Frye called for an ambulance on his cell phone.

  “He’ll be all right,” Frye said. “You’ll be all right.”

  Wolf stepped to Burton and knelt down. “Hey, old man. You all right?”

  Burton nodded with clenched eyes and teeth. “Jack got him?”

  “We’ve got a helicopter coming up for you. Just sit back and relax,” Frye said.

  “Shit, I don’t need a helicopter.”

  “We’ll take the ride, and then worry about if you needed it or not.”

  Jack stood frozen behind them, staring at a bullet hole in the side of the run-down building.

  Wolf walked over and stood over Pope.

  “Did I kill him?” Jack asked with a cracking voice. “Shit … did I kill him?”

  Pope looked up at Wolf and smiled. His chest gurgled again and again as he laughed, his red teeth gleaming in the sun.

  Wolf aimed at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.

  “No. You didn’t.”

  Chapter 46

  Wolf tucked the gun in the rear of his pants and stepped away from Pope.

  Frye was standing next to Burton now, his hand lowering from his shoulder holster.

  “He was reaching for his gun,” Wolf said.

  Frye knelt back down next to Burton. “I’ll need to take that weapon, Wolf.”

  For the first time Wolf noticed the absolute silence beyond Jack’s labored breathing and Burton’s grunts. “I think the shooting is over back there.”

  Wolf walked back to Burton and knelt down. “Thank you, Hal. You kept my son safe.”

  Burton’s lips moved.

  “Lean back and relax.” Frye said stood and dialed a number on his phone. “What’s going on up there? Okay … casualties? Dang it … all right. We’ve got a civilian with a gunshot wound. Medevac is on its way.”

  Jack stood motionless, staring at Pope’s dead body.

  Wolf put an arm around his shoulder and led him away.

  “You think he was the one who killed Mom?”

  “I think he was the one who gave the order.”

  “We’ve got one agent dead, three shot.” Frye pocketed his phone and closed his eyes.

  “Who was it?” Wolf’s asked, dreading the answer.

  “Benjamin.”

  Wolf nodded, feeling guilty for his relief.

  Frye opened his eyes and nodded. “Luke’s been shot, too.”

  Wolf jogged away toward the shot up Crown Vic.

  “I need your weapon, Wolf!”

  “So do I.”

  Wolf parked the sputtering sedan nose to nose with the first shot-up cartel pickup truck and got out. Two legs stuck out from beneath it, lying in a fresh stream of blood.

  Sirens blared in the distance and the first of a line of SBSD vehicles crunched to a stop on the county road.

  Wolf jogged past the line of pickup trucks, swerving around dead cartel members along the way.

  “Freeze!” An agent yelled, and suddenly there were ten guns trained on Wolf.

  Wolf froze and held up his hands.

  “All clear!” Another agent said. “It’s not one of them.”

  Wolf waited until each and every pistol was lowered, then walked toward a group of agents clustered around someone on the ground. He held his breath when he saw the person on the ground wore gray sweatpants, and he upped his pace when he saw them soaked in blood.

  “Stand back,” an agent said, his arms outstretched to the others.

  “Luke.”

  She opened her eyes and Wolf was immediately relieved at her healthy appearance. She looked more annoyed from the wound than in pain. “Are you all right? Is Jack all right?”

  Wolf nodded. “Yes. He’s fine.”

  “Stand back,” the agent said again.

  Wolf tried to glimpse
the severity of Luke’s wounds as he backed away. The agent was pressing a towel on her thigh. Other than that, she looked scratched up from the earlier car crash and that was it. Thigh wounds with the right bullets, however, could be fatal.

  “I’ll be all right,” Luke said with tears in her eyes. “They got Benjamin.” She nodded toward a body next to a vehicle down the line. An FBI jacket was draped over the torso and face of a man lying in red mud.

  Wolf nodded. “Stay put and let them do their thing.”

  An ambulance stutter-honked and approached between the growing congregation of feds and sheriff’s department vehicles arriving on scene.

  “I’ll see you soon.” Wolf peered through the dust and rushing men and women, and spotted Patterson as she climbing out of a vehicle in the distance.

  “Is Jack all right?” Rachette appeared out of nowhere next to him.

  “Yeah. He’s fine. Burton’s been shot. They’re sending up medevac to him.”

  “What was that?” Patterson asked as she reached them both.

  “Jack’s all right,” Rachette said, “Burton’s been shot.”

  “How bad?” Patterson asked.

  “He’ll live,” Wolf said.

  “Lancaster’s dead. Shot …” Patterson swallowed the rest of her sentence down.

  Munford and MacLean walked up, and then Baine, Rachette, and Wilson. Everyone was wide eyed, taking in the mayhem.

  “What the hell did the feds do?” MacLean said in a low voice. “We had them coming right into our hands, and they screwed it all up.”

  Wolf nodded. “The cartel must have seen them on their tail and ran. They knew they’d be trapped if they came to the cabin.”

  “No,” Patterson said. “The cartel wasn’t even thinking about going to where you were, because I never told them. I never told Lancaster.”

  “What?” Rachette squared off with her. “After all that, you—”

  “The FBI already had a plan in place,” she said. “It made no sense to put you guys in danger.

  “Sir, after you and Luke escaped, the FBI got an email from Luke’s partner—a guy named Agent Tedescu. It explained that Lancaster was working hand in hand with the cartel from inside MacLean’s department. There’s too much to explain now, but basically from the moment they got the email, they knew you were innocent. But they couldn’t get in contact with either of you.”