by J. A. Jance
“Where are you going to be?”
Jaime’s question was drowned out by the noisy clatter of an arriving helicopter. “In that, apparently,” she said with a nod toward the chopper, which was hovering for a landing.
“Sheriff Brady!” a woman’s shrill voice called over the noisy racket from the helicopter. “Sheriff Brady! They won’t let me through!”
Joanna glanced over her shoulder in time to see Marliss Shackleford twist away from the young deputy who was trying to restrain her and come striding forward.
“Can I have a few words?” Marliss asked. “Please?”
“Your first duty as incident commander,” Joanna hissed in Jaime Carbajal’s ear, “is to get that woman out of here.” Then she turned to face Marliss herself.
“Sorry,” Joanna told the determined reporter. “I’m afraid this isn’t a good time. Get out of here. Now!” Then she turned back to Cami. “What’s the pilot’s name again?”
“Chuck,” Cami answered. “His name is Chuck.”
It took some doing for the three women to climb on board. The steps were taller than either Cami or Joanna could manage on their own. Fortunately Jaime was right there to give them a needed boost.
“Earphones,” Chuck said as they settled in. Joanna inserted her radio’s earbud before putting on the aircraft’s padded earphones. Ali made no attempt at introductions until after they were all seated and strapped in with their earphones properly in place.
“I’m Chuck,” the pilot said with a half salute in Joanna’s direction. “At your service, Sheriff Brady. What can I do for you today?”
“Take us back to where you saw those trucks, and keep us out of range.”
“Will do,” he said agreeably. “As for staying out of range, I don’t want a hard landing any more than you do.”
They took off then. The aircraft wheeled into the air and set off toward the northwest. Joanna didn’t watch the altimeter. Her eyes remained focused on the horizon. A minute or so later she spotted what she was looking for: plumes of dust rising skyward.
She pointed. “That’s got to be our guys. Follow the highway but stay a long way above it. Once they hit that, we need to know which way they turn.”
Chuck took a position and held steady, hovering far above the spot where Holzmann Road intersected with the highway. The slow caravan came up to the intersection and stopped. Then, to Joanna’s dismay, they turned neither right nor left. Instead, they continued straight on, crossing the paved highway and continuing southward on a narrow dirt track that was far less traveled than the portion of the road north of the highway.
“Why are they going there?” Joanna demanded. “That part of road goes nowhere. The ranch at the end of it was abandoned years ago.”
Chuck turned the aircraft ninety degrees. From that vantage point it was easy to see that the road came to an end all right, stopping in front of some kind of metal structure large enough to be a pole barn.
Joanna went back on the air. “All units, continue to man the roadblocks on Highway 92. We still have the possibility of an active shooting situation here. TAC Team, suspects are continuing to travel south on Holzmann Road on the south side of Highway 92. Gather up some of those spike strips, come back here, and establish a third roadblock on Holzmann somewhere south of the highway. The suspects are either making a run for the border or they may be headed for a large structure of some kind that’s located a mile or so north of the border. And, Dispatch? Contact Leo Guzman, the local Border Patrol commander. Tell him we’ve located a possible smuggling operation here. See if he can have some of his agents respond, approaching the scene from the south. There’s no road there, but that’s why the Feds buy all those green and white SUVs.”
Below the aircraft, the moving caravan slowed to a crawl as the road went down into a steep gully. On the far side of that, the road was reduced to little more than a cow path.
“TAC Team, a mile and a half or so in from the highway, the road seems to be a lot worse. Yes, the van is four-wheel drive with good ground clearance, but I’m not sure it’ll negotiate both the gully and the sharp turn right after it. Set up north of the gully. We want that Sprinter ready to rock and roll if we need it.”
“Do you think they know we’re onto them?” Ali asked.
“If they’ve seen us up here, maybe,” Chuck replied. “But that road looks pretty challenging. I have a feeling they’re too busy driving to be watching the sky.”
As the moving trucks continued creeping southward, Larry Kendrick’s voice came through the radio. “Border Patrol has been notified. Officers are en route. TAC team is traveling south on Holzmann Road and will let us know once they’ve established their position.”
By now it was clear that the metal-roofed building itself was most likely the trucks’ intended destination. “Pull back up before they get there,” Joanna warned Chuck. “If they get out to open the door, they’ll hear us. On the off chance they don’t know we’re here, let’s try to keep it that way.”
Chuck immediately complied, taking the chopper a fair distance to the west, away from both the moving trucks and the barn, before hovering again. “This should put us out of earshot,” he said. “There’s a pair of binoculars stowed back there. They might be strong enough to give you a view of what’s happening on the ground.”
A moment later Ali tapped Joanna on the shoulder and passed the binoculars forward. It took a moment for Joanna to adjust them to the size of her face. After that, it took even longer to change the focus and eventually locate the barn. She found it just as the first truck reached the barn and rolled right inside without pausing and without needing someone to get out and open the door. The other trucks followed.
“Whatever that building is, it has an automatic door of some kind,” Joanna informed the others. “They’re all inside.”
The helicopter hung motionless in the air while Joanna continued to peer through the binoculars. Finally Chuck spoke. “Maintain position or . . .”
Joanna held up her hand. “Wait,” she said. “They’re coming back out.”
“The trucks?” Ali asked.
“No, some other vehicle—one vehicle only. TAC Team, heads up. Bad guys are coming your way. Are you in position?”
“Roger that,” Deputy Ruiz replied.
“There’s another bird in the air,” Chuck said, nodding toward the east, where a dot on the horizon gradually resolved itself into an approaching helicopter.
“That’ll be Border Patrol,” Joanna said.
On occasions like this, it was beyond frustrating that ongoing differences in radio frequencies made it impossible for Joanna to communicate with Border Patrol radios directly, but she was glad reinforcements were arriving on the scene. Even though she wouldn’t be down on the ground with her TAC team where she felt she should have been, she could, thanks to Ali Reynolds, be her guys’ eye in the sky.
“Let’s move in a little closer,” Joanna told Chuck. “Okay, TAC Team, the vehicle appears to be a black Hummer. Looks like it has one occupant. Repeat, one occupant only.”
“There were five trucks and five drivers,” Ali said. “What happened to the others?”
“I hate to think,” Joanna answered.
Deputy Ruiz was still talking spike strips. “Those strips of ours aren’t going to help much with a Hummer. The guy will hit the gas, go off road, and drive around them.”
“If that happens,” Joanna said, “then somebody had better figure out another way to take out his tires. Four-wheel drive is fine. On rims? Not so much.”
“We’re on it.”
“Jaime, are you there?”
“Here, boss. What do you need?
“What’s the situation where you are?”
“City of Bisbee has officers on-site to man the roadblock. I can take two deputies and go serve as backup for the TAC team.”
/> “Do that, but have somebody take my Yukon out of the roadblock, bring it along, and fill that spot with another vehicle. I left the keys inside. Once I get out of this helicopter, I’m going to want to have my own wheels.”
Chuck had moved the helicopter closer to the action. They were high enough to see the moving Hummer on one side of the curve and gully and, half a mile or so beyond it, the TAC team’s Sprinter parked with the front of the vehicle pointing back the way they had come. That way, if they needed to leave in a hurry, they wouldn’t have to turn around first.
“Okay, TAC Team, he’s incoming,” Joanna announced. “He just ducked into the gully. When he tops the rise, you should have visual contact, but so will he.”
With the binoculars still pressed to her face, Joanna felt her heartbeat accelerate. Her officers’ lives were on the line down there. A guy she suspected of being a stone-cold killer, someone who was armed and dangerous, was headed in their direction. She had put her people there, but she was not. As far as Joanna Brady was concerned, she should have stayed on the ground with them, but at this point all she could do was watch from the sidelines.
The Hummer topped the rise and ground to a sudden stop. Joanna was sure shots were being exchanged, but over the noise of the helicopter there was no way to tell for sure. A moment later the Hummer’s driver bailed. Joanna could see that the guy was holding his weapon pointed at the Sprinter. She couldn’t see the bullets flying from the barrel, but her soul registered every one.
Then the guy took off running, dodging away from the Hummer and trying to disappear into the desert.
“Shots fired!” Ruiz shouted into his mic. “Runner!”
“Stay on him,” Joanna told Chuck. “On him but out of range.”
“Roger that.”
It wasn’t until the aircraft flew closer that the suspect seemed to notice its presence. He stopped and looked up. Then he raised his weapon, pointed it in their direction, and tried to fire again.
“He should have studied geometry or physics,” Chuck observed with a laugh. “No way can he reach us up here with that thing. Every time he pulls the trigger, he has that much less ammo. Bad for him. Good for us.”
Joanna knew Chuck was trying to lighten her load, but her whole being still locked on the drama unfolding below, and she was in no mood for joking around. She watched as the TAC team spread out in pursuit of the gunman. Her heart was in her throat, knowing that every step they took carried her officers closer to the shooter and put them in even greater danger.
Then, as quickly as it began, it ended. Joanna saw the guy start in alarm and look back over his shoulder just as a black-and-brown streak crashed into him.
“Spike’s got him!” she shouted into her own mic, recognizing the canine member of her department’s K-9 unit. “Suspect is on the ground!”
Within moments the officers converged on the scene. Takedowns were always the most dangerous part of any pursuit. She continued to hold her breath until Armando Ruiz’s elated voice came through her radio.
“Suspect in custody!”
“Great job, guys!” Joanna said. “Great job!” There were tears of gratitude in her eyes. She had to wipe them away before she spoke again. “Somebody needs to go check out the barn. I have a feeling the other four guys who drove inside won’t be walking out. Chuck, how about we go find my Yukon. I can see where it’s parked from here. Since there won’t be any traffic, you can put this thing down right there on the highway to let us out. I want to go see what, if anything, this creep has to say for himself.”
• • •
Knowing how much was at stake, Ali had stayed quiet and motioned Cami to do the same during most of the firefight. After all, Joanna’s officers were caught up in a life-and-death struggle, and Sheriff Brady didn’t need comments from the peanut gallery while those lives were on the line. Ali kept her phone on silent, but she knew from the constant buzzing that there had been a flurry of missed calls. When she checked, she saw they were all from B.
Chuck landed in the middle of the pavement. “I’m assuming you’re not ready to bail right now,” he said as Ali rose to exit. “How about if I go back to the airport and be on standby. Give me a call half an hour before you’re ready to leave for Sedona.”
“Thank you,” she said. “We will.”
Once she was back on solid ground, Ali called B. “Sorry to leave you hanging like that,” she said, “but it’s over now. The TAC team caught the guy. They probably wouldn’t have managed it without having Chuck and his helicopter at our disposal.”
Just then a marked patrol vehicle, a Tahoe with a woman at the wheel, pulled up. “Sheriff Brady,” she called through the passenger window. “TAC team is calling for you. Four gunshot victims in the barn down the road. No survivors.”
Ali watched as the horror of those words flitted briefly across Sheriff Brady’s face, then she straightened her shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “If it’s all right with you, Deb, I’ll ride with you.” She turned to Ali. “How about if you and Cami wait here? I’ll have someone come pick you up and take you back to the department for your car.”
“Of course,” Ali said. “That’ll be fine.” She tried to be gracious, but it was clear she had no other choice.
Cami, on the other hand, was totally engrossed with her iPad. “Thanks for the info, Stu,” she said.
“I’m trying to tell you the same thing Stu is,” B. said impatiently when Ali returned the phone to her ear. “He’s spent the whole time working his magic. Hans Holzmann didn’t show up at work today. His wife reported him missing earlier this afternoon. She said he left home in the middle of the night—told her that there was some kind of emergency at work, except he didn’t go to work. Stu also managed to pick up on a trail of Holzmann’s credit card transactions: He bought gas and a sandwich in Blythe, California; stopped at a McDonald’s in Gila Bend; bought another tank of gas in Sierra Vista at ten thirty this morning. And guess what? That extra vehicle parked out in front of the house belonging to Mr. Holzmann the elder turns out to be a Range Rover.”
“And Hans Dieter Holzmann just happens to drive a Range Rover,” Ali supplied.
“Bingo.”
“From what we’ve been able to learn, the shooting that started this whole mess was first called in around two A.M. The satellite shot was time stamped eleven A.M. It takes eight and a half hours minimum to drive from Rolling Hills, California, to Holzmann Road in Cochise County.”
“So Hans Holzmann knew something had gone haywire with the shipment at almost the same time the cops did. He immediately hopped in his car and came straight here.”
“Right,” B. agreed. “Which makes me wonder, what if he was lured here? What if this was nothing but an elaborate trap?”
“So far the body count here on the ground is up to five,” Ali told him. “Based on that, I’m thinking things are looking pretty grim for Mr. Holzmann—maybe for both Mr. Holzmanns.”
An unmarked patrol car showed up, this one an aging but well-preserved Crown Victoria. The man at the wheel was older than the other people Ali had seen in Joanna’s department. “I’m Detective Ernie Carpenter,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to take you two ladies back to the Justice Center.”
“Before you do that,” Ali told him, “I think there may be another problem.”
When she finished explaining the situation, Carpenter got on the horn to request additional assistance. Ali heard the weariness in Joanna’s voice as she replied. “All right, Ernie. Take one of the deputies and go check it out. In the meantime, give Ali the keys to my Tahoe. She can drive herself back to the department, but tell her to watch out for spike strips.”
“All right, ladies,” Ernie said when she finished. “Help yourselves.”
Yet another departmental SUV, a Tahoe again, appeared on the scene. Ali wondered how many of those were part of Sheriff Brady’s collection
of rolling stock. As the SUV followed the Crown Vic up Holzmann Road, Ali turned to Cami. “In other words, here’s our hat, what’s our hurry, and don’t let the door slam on our butts on the way out?” she grumbled. “How about a little gratitude?”
They climbed into Joanna’s Yukon. The seat was set so far forward that Ali could barely get her legs under the steering wheel. Once she finished adjusting the seat and the mirrors, she turned to Cami. “You know what? This sucks. We’re the whole reason the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office is on top of this right now. If it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t know about the trucks, wouldn’t know about the bodies in the barn or whatever it is, and wouldn’t have caught the shooter. I’m a little tired of being told to sit down and shut up, aren’t you?”
Cami nodded. “Right,” she said. “It’s like we’re suddenly invisible or something.”
“The shooter is in custody. So what say we go check out what’s happening with Helmer and Hans Holzmann?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Ali turned the key in the ignition, put the Yukon in gear, executed a U-turn, and followed the other two vehicles north from Highway 92. Even there, the road was in bad enough shape that she was glad they had a high-clearance vehicle complete with four-wheel drive. The road ended abruptly at a closed gate with a row of newly leafed cottonwoods on either side. Beyond the gate was a house, barn, corral, and outbuildings—the same ones Ali remembered seeing on the satellite image earlier. The Ranger Rover was where they had seen it, too. The Crown Vic and the Tahoe were parked directly behind it, but neither driver was anywhere in sight.
Ali pulled up to the gate and stopped. Cami rolled down her window. “Should we go in or wait here?” Cami asked.
There was something about this whole situation that was bothering Ali—something that wasn’t right. “No,” she said. “We should just turn around and go back.”
As Ali put the car in reverse and turned to see where she was going, a giant of a man materialized from behind one of the nearby trees. He reached in through the open window and grabbed Cami. Using only one hand, he managed to wrestle her out of her seat belt and drag her, screaming and struggling, out through the open window. The window control buttons were right there on Ali’s armrest, but by the time Ali realized that, Cami was half in and half out of the car, and she couldn’t touch them. A hard clap on the head silenced Cami. As she slumped in the man’s arms, Ali saw the gun in his left hand.
