Open Carry

by Marc Cameron

  * * *

  Starnes’s background gave Cutter something to chew on during the flight. They were early—which was high on the list of Grumpy’s Man-Rules, so he didn’t mind waiting while Fontaine ran to the ladies’ room. She was a good kid, though she did offer up a little too much information about the effects of her morning protein shake.

  An abrupt voice drew his attention to the ticketing line. A bearded man in black and white plaid jabbed his finger at the Alaska Airlines agent, clearly angry about his seating assignment. The guy dressed like a lumberjack, but his smooth hands had likely never been within ten feet of an axe. The agent returned his wrath with an understanding nod.

  “I’m sorry, sir. The flight is full,” she said. “A middle seat is all I have left.”

  Lumberjerk leaned across the counter, his finger jabbing accompanied by a string of invectives.

  Cutter stepped up to the counter, close enough that his arm brushed the man. He expected to get a nose full of booze, but this guy was stone sober.

  The man spun. “I’m not done here.”

  “Oh,” Cutter said. “I think you are.”

  Fontaine walked up then. “Hey, boss,” she said. She’d obviously heard some of the conversation on her approach.

  “I have a middle,” she said to the ticketing agent. “You can let this guy take my seat if you want.”

  “What?” Lumberjerk said, incredulous. “I’d still be in the middle.”

  Fontaine grinned. “Yeah,” she said. “But you’d get to sit next to my boss for the whole trip. Believe me, he’d love that.”

  Cutter nodded, eyes narrow, jaw clenched. “I would.”

  “That’s okay,” the agent said, reading a message on her computer screen. “But Mr. Penobscot will not be flying with us today. We’ll refund your credit card, sir, but you’ll need to find another method of transport to Juneau.”

  Penobscot’s head began to shake. His lips trembled as he looked from the airline agent to Fontaine and then Cutter, before stomping off to talk to a supervisor.

  Lola Fontaine chuckled as they watched the man walk away, almost tripping over his own two feet.

  “You are in serious need of a Jiminy Cricket, boss,” she said. “And I am happy to help you with that.”

  Cutter sighed, calming down a notch as he turned to the counter.

  “Thank you,” the agent said. A few years younger than Cutter, she wore a dark blue Alaska Airlines sweater with a gauzy gold scarf.

  “My pleasure,” he said, meaning it, and informing her that he’d need an armed-boarding pass.

  Though not exactly rare, airline passengers with firearms didn’t come along all the time. The aftereffects of her confrontation with Lumberjerk had the agent a little addled, and it took her a moment to process what he’d said. He slid his credential case across the counter. She smiled when she saw his badge, then retrieved the form he needed to complete. Marshals Service badges are recessed into the outside of the credentials, so she looked at the silver circle star for a moment, before opening the leather case to peruse the photograph. She glanced up to study Cutter’s face before looking back to compare it with his photograph under the hologram on his credential.

  “Funny, you don’t look like Timothy Olyphant.” She slid the case back across the counter.

  “Pardon?” Cutter said.

  The agent’s smile broadened. “Timothy Olyphant. You know, he plays that deputy marshal Raylan Givens on that TV show Justified.”

  Cutter slipped the credentials back in his jacket pocket and gave a slow, contemplative nod. He looked at the agent’s name tag and then leaned in across the counter, giving her a wink.

  “The thing is, Alexis,” he said, “I’m not tryin’ to be Tim Olyphant. He’s tryin’ to be me.”

  CHAPTER 19

  CARMEN DELGADO SPENT THE COLDEST, DARKEST HOURS OF THE night slipping in and out of consciousness, curled in a ball where Chago had left her. The rhythmic surf and the cry of a distant loon—sounds that had offered comfort when she’d first come to Alaska—now only compounded her feelings of terror and isolation. The dirt made for a poor bed, but at some point, her body’s defense mechanisms kicked in and forced it to shut down, if only for a few moments at a time.

  She had no idea what time it was when she awoke, but it was dark, so she suspected it was still the middle of the night. On her side, she opened her eyes and looked around without moving. Chago and Luis snored inside the Jeep a dozen feet away. Their seats were reclined and they’d left the engine running against the chill that blew in from the water. Carmen tried wiggling her ankles in an effort to loosen the tape and get back some degree of circulation. Luis obviously planned to kill her anyway and hadn’t cared if her feet fell off. The mere act of straightening out her legs brought tears to her eyes.

  Something sharp dug into the side of her face. She raised her head, fighting a searing pain in her neck, and rubbed her cheek against the ground. Whatever it was bit her again when she lowered her head. She jerked away this time, turning to investigate. A bit of shell that had been imbedded in her cheek fell away. It took her a moment to realize it, but she lay next to a large midden. An idea began to worm its way into her fevered brain. Sharp as razors, the broken clamshells left behind by a feeding otter should easily slice through the duct tape around her wrists and ankles. She smiled in spite of her circumstances, thinking that the Kushtaka, the malevolent otter beings so feared by ancient Tlingit and Haida, had provided the mechanism for her escape.

  Lack of circulation had destroyed most of the dexterity in her hands, but she was finally able to fumble with a piece of shell long enough to grasp it between her fingers and turn it backward against the tape. Under pressure from being applied so tightly, the tape separated amazingly fast and her hands pulled free after just a few moments of sawing.

  The Jeep rocked as one of the men inside stirred. Carmen froze, but neither sat up, so after a short wait, she drew her knees to her chest. Circulation returned, flowing back to her fingers, and she was able to quickly hack away the tape around her ankles. Overwhelmed with hope, she wasn’t as quiet as she should have been. Free, or at least more free than she had been, she took one last look at the Jeep. Still unable to walk, she crawled into the buck brush along the side of the road, pulling herself up the hill toward the forest as fast as she could move.

  Her knees and hands were raw and bloody by the time enough circulation had returned for her to pull herself to her feet. Even then she had to use a broken spruce limb to help her hobble over the mossy ground. She had no idea where she was, but was content to simply stay in the trees and put as much distance as she could between herself and the wicked men. She could see the stars were winking out through the treetops above, blackness giving way to the blue-gray light of dawn. The certainty that at least one of her captors would be up any moment drove her forward, deeper into the darkness of the forest.

  There had to be some cabin ahead or at least a fisherman with a gun. Everyone in Alaska had guns, didn’t they? Someone should be able to save her. Then she thought of the hours she and her production staff had spent in these woods and along the surrounding beaches without seeing another soul and her spirits fell.

  She was too weak to climb the larger pieces of deadfall, forcing her to skirt around them instead. The trees, the ground, the rocks, the shrubs—everything around her was varying shades of brown or green. She’d been walking for well over an hour when a sudden downslope caused her to lose her footing in the muddy turf. She landed hard on her bottom, her teeth slamming together with such force she was sure she’d broken at least one. The fall knocked the wind out of her and brought tears to her eyes. Then, a familiar odor hit her in the face. She couldn’t quite place it, but knew it was something civilized—like a boat or a cabin. A few more steps and she recognized the smell.

  A fire.

  Thoughts of rescue and survival, when everything had seemed lost, helped to draw her forward. Half running, half falling, she slippe
d and slid down the scant, almost invisible trail. The hillside grew increasingly steep with each passing step, forcing her to dig in her heels and cling to alder branches to help arrest her descent. Soon, even that didn’t help. A mini-avalanche of loose scree skittered down the slope ahead of her. Branches slapped her face. Sharp stones dug into her buttocks. It took everything she had to keep her feet pointed downhill.

  She came to a stop in the pile of loose gravel along the edge of the road. Wincing, she reached down to touch her ankle, then took a halting step to make sure nothing was broken. Her stomach heaved when she looked up. Less than a hundred feet away was the Jeep.

  The flight through the thick forest had taken her in a tight arc—and brought her right back to where she started.

  She’d been so focused on her own misery that she didn’t see that Luis had stepped to the edge of the woods to relieve himself. Half asleep, the sicario hadn’t even checked to see if she was still tied on the other side of the vehicle. He turned now at the clattering racket of her fall, staring directly at her. Luis paused for a moment, tilting his head as if to bring her into focus. Then he shot a glance behind him, no doubt checking to see if Chago was awake. He was not. Smiling, the man they called El Guiso put a finger to his lips and began to walk directly toward her.

  Carmen’s feet were rooted as surely as if the bloodied soles had dried to the ground. She fought for breath, only able to conjure a shattered scream when Luis was ten feet away.

  “Chaaaaago!”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE ALASKA AIRLINES GATE AGENT CALLED CUTTER AND FONTAINE forward early since they were flying armed, allowing them to introduce themselves to the flight crew without the prying eyes of other passengers. Cutter made his way down the aisle and adjusted the Colt under his fleece jacket before folding himself into his seat. Fontaine flopped down across the aisle. Everyone else had yet to board so neither bothered with their seat belts.

  “Thought you had a middle seat,” Cutter said.

  “Like I said, boss,” Fontaine said, “I’m here to back your play.” She leaned half into the aisle. “Do you have any friends in Witness Security?”

  Cutter raised a wary eyebrow.

  “Why? Weren’t you just talking about SOG yesterday?”

  Fontaine shrugged. “I’ll have three years on the job in August, so I can start putting in for promotions. Just thinking about all my options, that’s all. . . .”

  “Hmmm,” Cutter said. “Considering the fact that we have a teenage girl missing and a convicted rapist on the run, maybe you should start thinking about how we’re going to capture Hayden Starnes.”

  Fontaine looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. She sat back without another word and stuffed a set of earbuds in her ears. Her head was bouncing to the music on her iPhone by the time passengers began filing onto the plane.

  Cutter decided to take his own advice and pushed from his mind worries over task-force overtime, travel budgets, and his last conversation with Mim. He’d gone after sex offenders before, many times. It was at once grueling and rewarding work—like cleaning up all the dog crap from his grandpa’s backyard. The job was seriously nasty, but it made the world a lot more pleasant to walk around in after the job was done.

  Across the aisle, Lola Fontaine listened to her tunes and read a copy of the Economist, marking parts she found particularly interesting with a colored pen. Her outspoken demeanor often crossed the line into crassness, but her intellect was sharp and inquisitive. Judging from her ex-husband, she had sketchy taste in men, but Cutter couldn’t help but think she would probably be his boss before the two of them retired.

  The Alaska Airlines morning milk-run flight stopped in the southeast cities of Juneau and Sitka before touching down on Gravina Island, across the Tongass Narrows from the city of Ketchikan. A small ferry ran back and forth from the airport to the city at fifteen-minute intervals but Cutter and Fontaine were able to catch their air taxi directly from the airport side of the narrows.

  The twentysomething pilot looked much too young to be flying an airplane as large as the de Havilland Beaver. Cutter rode in the right front seat, but the pilot addressed his safety briefing primarily toward Lola Fontaine. He made a lame joke about her using the fire extinguisher to put him out if he happened to catch fire, and turned around often during the forty-five-minute flight to look at her when he spoke, though they were all wearing David Clark headsets. Cutter figured he’d have to get used to this sort of behavior from other men whenever he traveled with Fontaine.

  “Hope you brought a change of underwear,” the pilot said once he’d crossed Clarence Strait and reached an altitude of five thousand feet over the rolling green forests below. A wall of black clouds loomed ahead of them, beyond Prince of Wales Island and out over the Pacific. “They don’t call the Gulf of Alaska a storm factory for nothing,” he continued. “There’s a monster low out over the gulf that’s barreling in with some hellacious winds. Good chance you could end up staying here awhile.”

  Fontaine pressed her nose to the side window. “I see a lot of boats on the water,” she said, asking the question that was on Cutter’s mind. “Isn’t March a little early for salmon?”

  The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom. “They’re after the herring,” he said. “Or maybe kelp.”

  “Kelp?” Cutter asked.

  “Yeah.” The pilot banked back and forth in a series of slow S shape turns to give them a better view. A dozen fishing vessels dotted the water below. “You’re coming to Prince of Wales just in time for the spawn-on-kelp fishery. These guys go out somewhere behind one of the outer islands—I can’t remember which one—and harvest thousands of blades of broad-leaf kelp. Then they hang it on racks in pens they’ve built out of net. When the herring arrive, the same boats go seine them up and dump them in the pens. The fish do their part and lay their eggs on the kelp. Stuff brings good money, especially to the Asian markets. I think it’s pretty tasty but it’s never really caught on here in the US.”

  “What happens to all the herring?” Cutter asked.

  “They’re released to spawn another day,” the pilot said.

  The plane began to bounce as they flew into the turbulence ahead of the arriving storm.

  “Guess I better stop playing tour guide and fly the plane.”

  “By all means,” Cutter said.

  * * *

  The de Havilland Beaver touched down on the paved runway outside the city of Klawock thirty minutes later, bouncing twice and causing the pilot to throw a sheepish grin over his shoulder at Fontaine. Neither deputy had much gear and were able to offload quickly. The pilot taxied back onto the runway as soon as Cutter and Fontaine were out of his path. He had the plane back in the air by the time a dusty white Chevrolet Tahoe arrived at the edge of the taxiway.

  A slender Native man in a long-sleeve blue uniform shirt rolled down his window. “You guys the marshals?”

  Cutter nodded. “We are.”

  “Cool.”

  He sat looking at them for just long enough to make it uncomfortable, and then added, “I been thinking of applying with you guys.”

  The officer introduced himself as Jeremy Simeon of Craig Police Department. A sparse black mustache made Cutter guess he was in his early twenties. Thin to the extreme, the uniform shirt looked like it was about to swallow him. His wide smile looked too big for his face.

  “Trooper Benjamin asked me to pick you guys up.” He motioned toward the truck with a flick of his head. “He’s got his hands full with something else.”

  “Arresting Hayden Starnes, I hope,” Cutter said, tossing his duffel in the rear seat and leaving the front to Fontaine.

  Officer Simeon threw the Tahoe into gear and did a quick shoulder check to make sure he wasn’t pulling out in front of another aircraft before crossing the taxiway. “Nope,” he said. “Somebody’s gone missing.”

  “Millie Burkett,” Fontaine nodded. “We heard about her.”

  “Another some
body,” Simeon said. “Two somebodies, if you wanna know the truth. They work for FISHWIVES!”

  “I love FISHWIVES!” Lola said.

  Cutter leaned forward, making sure he’d heard correctly. “What’s FISHWIVES!?”

  Officer Simeon shot a glance over his shoulder and gave a long sigh. “Worst thing that ever hit this damned island.”

  CHAPTER 21

  LUIS SLAMMED INTO CARMEN HARD, TAKING HER DOWN WITH A FLYING tackle, riding her all the way to the frozen ground. She slid backward under his momentum, gravel grinding into her spine and shoulders as she bore the brunt of the fall. The tackle did half Luis’s job for him and shoved the loose flannel pants halfway down her thighs. Straddling her, the grinning sicario must have forgotten she was no longer tied—or else he didn’t care. He went straight for her breasts, clawing at them through her T-shirt as if he meant to rip them off her chest.

  Past pain, Carmen found her voice, shrieking in earnest now, and clawing at his face, intent on digging out his eyes. Planting numb feet, she bucked her hips. He was surprisingly light and should have been relatively easy to throw, but the flannel pants had formed a hobble around her legs and robbed her of leverage.

  He only hooked his heels around her knees, sneering lewdly, and rode her like a horse.

  Carmen’s thumbnail found purchase in his nostril, digging in and ripping sideways.

  Luis screamed and jerked away, rolling to the side, hand to his face. She rolled completely over the top and back under, ending up beneath him again, panting with fear and the effort of trying to escape.

  She kept clawing but her strength ebbed quickly and he rained down blows against her face. She finally fell back, stunned, but this only served to infuriate him more. He grabbed her by both shoulders and drove a vicious knee into her groin. Agony surged through her belly. She dry heaved, attempting to draw herself into a ball, but Luis pressed her to the ground. He leaned down, sinking his teeth into her shoulder.