Open Carry

by Marc Cameron

By the time Garza drove his skiff up onto the beach, Cutter had closed the distance to less than a quarter mile—near enough he heard the scrape of gravel against aluminum and the cavitation of the prop as it kicked out of the water in the shallows. Cutter’s gut seethed as Garza dragged the mute child out of the skiff like a rag doll and up the bank toward the dark line of trees.

  Traveling at near fifteen knots, Cutter estimated he was two minutes out, plenty of time for Garza to hide in the edge of the forest and pick him off with his pistol before he even got out of the boat. But the odds were high that the cartel boss had spent his adult life in bars and brothels. Cutter had grown up around the water—and as such, he knew something Garza was not likely to know.

  Two hundred meters out Cutter pulled the tiller hard toward him, standing his skiff on its side and making a tight arc to the right. Garza had been heading north so Cutter assumed he would continue toward the airstrip—or whatever his previous goal had been. Running parallel to the shoreline allowed Cutter to get ahead of him. A needle of rocks and scrubby evergreens jutted from the land five hundred meters to the north. Cutter banked the skiff quickly, slowing some as he skirted the point. Out of Garza’s sight for now, he reached for the anchor line and twisted it around the tiller, pulling it tight between the rotating throttle and the tiller arm itself. This jammed it open in a makeshift cruise control and allowed Cutter to keep the boat’s speed where he wanted it without having to be in the boat.

  He threw the motor into neutral, slowing just enough he could jump out when he reached the shallows. The water was well over his knees and cold enough to take his breath away. Standing beside the rear of the skiff, he pointed the bow northward, and then threw the motor into gear as soon as he was sure the prop could clear gravel. Cutter watched the little boat head out, outboard droning away. Hopefully, Garza would believe it was continuing up the coastline.

  Cutter had yet to spend much time in Alaska, but everywhere else he’d been in the world, animals preferred to travel in the cover of a forest. They also liked the ready source of food the water provided, making a trail inside the edge of the trees around any body of water a virtual certainty. Cutter had used these natural highways many times to great effect during his time in the military.

  The Glock still in his holster, Cutter trudged up the gravel bank. Keeping his eyes peeled to the south, he took the time to sit on a recently fallen tree and drain the water from his rubber boots—more to minimize the sloshing noise than to gain any comfort. This done, he popped the magazine out of his Glock and confirmed what he already knew. So far, he’d fired six rounds. His extra magazine had fallen off his belt somewhere, likely when he’d changed into the dry suit. Including the round in the chamber, he had a grand total of four remaining shots. He replaced the magazine and slid the Glock back into the holster, getting a mental picture of Garza dragging Cassandra into the woods.

  Four shots would have to do.

  Cutter was on his feet again less than two minutes after he’d come ashore, crossing the braids of an ankle-deep stream a half dozen times as he worked his way up the incline between the tide line and the forest. A river of cooler air poured down along the streambed bringing with it the smells of mud and mountain. Every stitch of clothing he had on was wet due to his quick exit from the skiff. On any other day Cutter might have felt a chill, but the anger in his belly provided him with all the warmth he needed.

  Just before the tree line he found a patch of skunk cabbage. Most of the broad succulent leaves had been grazed down to within a few inches from the soil. Large footprints in the mud and moss suggested more than one bear, a sow and two older cubs from the looks of the tracks. Black bears were not uncommon in the Florida swamps. He and Ethan had tracked many of them with Grumpy—who’d taught the boys not to underestimate the shy and secretive bruins, but to worry more about gators when it came to danger.

  The sound of lapping waves disappeared after only a few steps inside the dense forest. Huge Sitka spruce blocked out much of the light, allowing moss and ferns to grow rampant along either side of the trail, and giving the place a timeless, prehistoric feel. The sweet smell of wet ground and decaying wood hung in an invisible cloud among the mottled shadows.

  The trail was just where Cutter had expected it would be, up the gravel hill above the patch of skunk cabbage, about ten meters inside the tree line. It was wet from the recent storm, and three sets of bear tracks turned southward—ambling directly toward Garza.

  * * *

  Garza listened to his pursuer’s boat continue north, no doubt trying to reach the airstrip and cut him off. It was probably some policeman with an overinflated sense of his own importance in the wheels of justice. Americans were like that, firm in their misguided belief that one puny effort could matter.

  The sound of the motor faded, and Garza crashed into the brush, dragging the girl by the arm and cursing the watery grave of Ernesto Camacho for bringing him to Alaska in the first place. Had he been the screaming sort, he would have screamed. Handmade Brazilian loafers were not meant for salt water and mud.

  The girl, who had been so docile back on the boat, had become a terror to deal with. There’d been no need to tie her at first, but now she jerked away from him, walking well ahead. He was forced to trot, which made his feet hurt worse and his head feel as though it was about to explode.

  He cuffed her hard when he caught up, bringing a trickle of blood from her ear. Instead of crying, she just glared at him, making gurgling grunts and hisses like a wounded beast—and then scrambled to her feet to run down the muddy trail yet again. He would have put a bullet in her head, but the noise of the shot would have given away his location. Instead, he picked up a stone the size of a lemon and threw it, striking the girl hard between the shoulder blades. She fell face first into the trail. When she turned back to him, her face and hair were caked in thick mud. Hateful eyes looked like a demon straight from hell, but she did not cry out.

  Garza strode up and hauled her to her feet by the elbow, not caring if he wrenched her small arm from its socket. “Stop running!” he hissed. Fatigue and nerves pressed at his chest, driving away his breath. “Go slowly, or I will break your foot. Do you understand?”

  The girl merely blinked at him, as if he were speaking a foreign tongue.

  A muffled woof drew his attention back to the trail. He turned to find two black bears sitting on their haunches staring at him with pig-like eyes. He had never seen a bear in person, not even in the zoo. They were frightening enough, looking at him as if he were breakfast. He’d always thought they would be larger. These were maybe two hundred pounds, like furry hogs. One of them ran a long tongue over its nose, then chomped its mouth as if tasting the scent of human on the air.

  Garza pointed the pistol at this one, wondering if the nine millimeter would even faze such a beast. Perhaps they were small for bears, but they were definitely larger than him, and more heavily armed.

  “Go!” he said, his voice shakier than he would have liked. He swallowed, took a deep breath, steadying his nerve. “Go, I say!”

  An unearthly growl came from among the ferns to his left, deep and throaty, like a smoker clearing his throat—if that smoker had been four hundred pounds of tooth and claw. Of course, he thought, these small things were cubs. Their mother crashed through the brush and stopped at the edge of the trail. Swatting the ground with her forefeet, she loosed a terrifying roar. Her fur was long and thick, so black as to be almost blue. She woofed, and then rose up on her hind legs. The pistol in Garza’s hand suddenly felt insignificant and puny.

  “Please leave!” Garza implored. He grabbed the girl and held her in front of him like a human shield.

  The mama bear barked an order that left no room for argument and the teenage cubs ambled obediently into the brush behind her. She slapped the ground again, making a hollow, otherworldly thud.

  Garza stifled a scream, shoving the girl forward. Surely the bear would consider a child to be the better alternative for a
quick meal.

  Cassandra fell into the muck headfirst. She got to her feet and brushed the mud and sticks off the front of her fleece jacket—and then turned to face the big sow, ten feet away. The bear continued her rumbling growl, rocking back and forth, woofing, slapping the ground. Garza felt certain the horrible thing would charge at any moment and tear the girl to shreds. As soon as it did so, he planned to run away as fast as his handmade Brazilian loafers could carry him.

  Too far gone to feel fear, the child raised her hands high above her head and clapped them three times. The sow stopped growling and sniffed the air. She turned her great head back and forth as if trying to focus. Cassandra cupped her hands and clapped again, louder this time, standing her ground.

  The pig-eyed bear looked from the girl to Garza, as if deciding who it was going to eat first.

  A deep voice from up the trail nearly sent Garza out of his skin. The bears were not fazed.

  It was the same voice he’d heard back on the boat, the man who’d shot at him from the water.

  “Hey, bear!”

  The sow woofed again at the noise, rising again on her hind legs.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, bear,” the voice said, deadpan. “I have nothing against you. I’m only interested in the coward who’d hide behind a child to save his own skin.”

  The words were surely meant to soothe the beast, but they had the opposite effect on Garza. He felt as if he might lose control of his bowels at any moment.

  The sow dropped back down on all fours.

  Cassandra continued to pop her hands together above her head.

  “That’s a good girl,” the voice said, slow and steady. “You go on and take your kids outta here.”

  Giving one final woof, the bear turned and melted silently into the ferns with her cubs.

  * * *

  Cutter braced his shoulder against the trunk of a thick Sitka spruce and watched the bear slip away.

  Garza took a half step toward Cassandra. “Come here, child,” he hissed.

  The front sight of Cutter’s Glock was already superimposed over the man’s chest. Beyond the cartel boss, he saw not Cassandra but the image of an Afghani girl of the same age.

  “Don’t!” he said.

  Garza froze, then raised both hands, though he retained the pistol.

  “Who are you? Some kind of policeman?”

  “I am,” Cutter said.

  “Money is no object to me,” Garza said. “You only need look the other way for five minutes.”

  Cutter didn’t dignify the words with a response. He took deep breaths, trying to control his runaway heartbeat. He could see Garza clearly enough, but no matter how many times he blinked his eyes, Cassandra was an Afghan child, a child he’d been unable to save.

  “Drop the gun,” he said.

  Garza let the pistol fall to the ground at once. “I am giving up.” He took another step toward the girl.

  “Don’t!” Cutter barked again.

  Garza turned his empty hands back and forth, more at ease now that he’d given up his pistol.

  “Now look here, Mr. Policeman, I have done as you ordered. I am now unarmed. At some point you must come out of your hiding place and arrest me.”

  His hand began to drop slowly, almost imperceptibly. His foot inched toward Cassandra, close enough to reach her now.

  Cutter blinked to clear his vision. This man would not put his hands on the girl again.

  “So what do you want me to do, Mr. Policeman?” Garza said. His hand dropped even further. “Shall I come to you?”

  “Don’t!” Cutter said through gritted teeth, a breath before the man lunged for Cassandra.

  Cutter’s first shot took the cartel boss in the left shoulder, shattering his collarbone. The front sight settled into crisp focus as the trigger reset. The boom of a second and third shot shook the forest in rapid succession on the heels of the first.

  Cassandra pressed her hands over her ears and looked stoically at Cutter.

  The cartel boss stood teetering for a long moment, blinking, his brain trying to work out what had just happened.

  His left shoulder was demolished, but he reached up with his functioning right arm, dabbing at the two holes in the center of his chest. The blood on his fingers convinced him that it was okay to collapse.

  Cutter stepped out from behind the spruce and covered the dying man with the last round in his pistol.

  He kicked Garza’s gun away and then took Cassandra by the hand.

  “Sorry you had to see that, sweetheart.”

  The Haida girl looked up at him and blinked her wide brown eyes. She gave an emphatic shake of her head.

  “You told him don’t,” she said.

  Cutter’s mouth fell open. “So you do talk.”

  Cassandra nodded, but she offered no more explanation.

  CHAPTER 51

  CUTTER LEFT GARZA WHERE HE FELL, WONDERING IF THE BEARS would come back before he could return with investigators to recover the body. He used the cartel boss’s skiff to get back to Tide Dancer and check on January Cross. Cassandra, apparently content to speak no more than her four-word utterance, sat at the bow of the boat and stared into the distance. This was a lot to process, even for Cutter. He could only imagine what it was like for a twelve-year-old girl.

  * * *

  Back on the boat, Cutter panicked when he walked into what he thought was an empty wheelhouse, until he saw January at the navigation station. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a cup of coffee in one hand, and the radio in the other. Her face lit up when she saw him.

  “He’s safe,” she said into the mic. “And he has Cassandra with him.”

  Lola Fontaine’s voice broke squelch, chiding him for running off by himself. She and Trooper Benjamin were almost there. January had apparently given them a thumbnail sketch of what had happened, including Garza’s name. Cutter told them the situation was under control and said he’d fill them in on the rest when they arrived. He had, after all, been involved in a shooting. Broadcasting the details over an open radio channel was the last thing he wanted to do.

  January hung the mic back on the bulkhead and looked at him with a narrow eye.

  “Garza?”

  Cutter shook his head.

  “Good,” January said.

  Cassandra scooped up Havoc and disappeared down the companionway toward the quarter berth. She was still covered in mud and bits of moss, but no one said anything.

  Cutter hooked a thumb in her direction and looked at January. He whispered, “Did you know she could talk?”

  “She can.” January shrugged. “She just doesn’t.”

  It was a testament to the inner workings of January’s mind that she didn’t ask what Cassandra had said.

  “Carmen’s sleeping,” she said. “Poor thing’s been through hell.”

  Cutter put the back of his hand against her forehead. “How about you?”

  January leaned back in her seat and gave a long, feline stretch, her face in a twisted grimace.

  “Warm and dead,” she groaned, and closed her eyes.

  A horn honked from the shore.

  “That’ll be my partner and Sam Benjamin,” Cutter said.

  January’s eyes fluttered open. “Will you take my skiff and go get them?”

  “I’ll go,” Cutter said, giving her a grimace of his own. “But about your skiff . . .”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later Cutter had retrieved the trooper and Lola Fontaine, depositing them both on Tide Dancer. Carmen Delgado came out with January to meet them.

  “I hate to talk business,” Cutter said, looking up at Carmen as he tied the skiff off a stern cleat. “But did Garza or his men ever mention Millie Burkett?”

  Carmen’s eyes opened wider. “You think they got her?”

  “I don’t know,” Cutter said. “So, I’m guessing she never came up?”

  Carmen shook her head. “I was so busy worrying about myself that I forgot about
poor Millie. I guess I always assumed she’d just come home. You still haven’t found her?”

  “I’m afraid we did,” the trooper said.

  “I see.” Carmen sounded numb, too exhausted to show much emotion.

  Fontaine leaned backward against the outside wall. “Sounds like this Garza guy wasn’t even here when Millie was taken.”

  “She’s right,” Benjamin said. “I had dispatch check with the guys out at the airport. A Gulfstream overflew the island toward the Triple C Mine well after Millie disappeared. I’m betting Garza and his men were on it. I didn’t get anything back on him in NCIC, but Manuel Garza works with a cartel boss named Ernesto Camacho. He’s one of your Top Fifteen Most Wanted fugitives.”

  Lola nodded at Carmen. “Did you and your camera guy shoot any footage of Camacho?”

  Carmen shook her head. “We may have. We took some of the boat when it came into the bay, but it was so far away we never would have recognized anyone. We have to blur faces out anyway if we don’t get waivers.”

  “But Garza didn’t know that,” Cutter said. “It was a simple matter of you being at the wrong place at the wrong time—and Camacho wanting to silence you.”

  “But Garza said he killed his boss,” Carmen said.

  Cutter nodded. “Video of Camacho would tie the cartel to the mine. If they’re using it to launder money, that’s plenty enough reason to kill over.”

  “But that means someone else murdered Millie Burkett,” January said. “And it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  Carmen gave her a quizzical look.

  “Yeah,” January said. “Turns out I was a suspect for a while.”

  “Then who did it?” Lola Fontaine said. “Hayden Starnes?”

  “Maybe,” Cutter said. “But I’m not convinced. Whoever killed Millie is proficient at knots and is probably left-handed. And he’ll use a very specific kind of tool.”

  “Really?” January raised an eyebrow. She gave a slow nod. “I know who fits that description.”

  “I do too,” Cutter said.

  “Care to enlighten us?” Lola Fontaine said.

  “First things first,” Cutter said, looking at the trooper. “I’m sure you’ll want my pistol for the Garza investigation.”