An Obvious Fact (22 page)

He reached into a shooting bag and produced a pair in a plastic case. “Believe it or not, I use them for bird-watching.”

Vic struck out in front. “I believe you.”

We weaved our way through the pines that gave the Black
Hills their name and up a wash where the hillside must've collapsed after the road had been put in. There was some brush at the top and a lot more trees, so we could move without being seen toward the southern point of the high ground.

When we got there, I kneeled down and studied the small box canyon below. It was a relatively impossible site to sneak up on, with rock walls on three sides, and if I were a betting man, I would've guessed that the canyon had started out shallow but had at one point been excavated and used as a quarry, the walls now creeping up quickly around the structure.

If Nance was looking to build an impregnable fortress, he could've done worse. The bunker that Eddy the Viking had made reference to was about halfway up, and if it had started as a Quonset hut, it had evolved from there. The building was a concrete fortress with no windows and a razor-wire perimeter, and there were concrete vehicle blockades leading toward the entrance down by the main road.

“Hell.”

Dougherty handed me the binoculars, and I lay down on the edge to take a closer look. There were security guards in black polo shirts near the entrance and down by the gate, including Frick and Frack, the same men I'd seen at Nance's house and the shooting event.

There were a couple of black Jeeps parked close to the building, black being the new black, but nothing else out in the open. “So, what could Nance be doing down there that's so important that he has to have armed guards around the place?”

Corbin was the first to respond. “Something worth a lot of money.”

Vic was more succinct. “Something illegal.”

Tired of resting my weight on my elbows, I rolled over onto my back and handed the binoculars to my undersheriff. “It's the Alamo.”

She held the glasses up to her eyes and kept them there for a long look. “Then let's go get a couple hundred thousand Mexicans and take 'em.”

“No, this is where we hand the stick off to Stainbrook and the ATF—they're set up for this kind of foolishness. We'll head back into town and tell them to get a task force out here to shut down Nance and Kiddo's operation.”

Vic continued to focus the binoculars on the compound below. “I'd say just Nance's operation, 'cause it sure looks to me like they're taking Billy ThE Kiddo for a proverbial ride.”

I rolled back over. “What?”

She handed the binoculars back to me. “Isn't that shit-for-brains getting loaded into one of the Jeeps?”

I focused in and sure enough, Frick was stuffing the Hollywood biker into the passenger seat of one of the Wranglers as Frack climbed in the back. “Could you see if Kiddo was handcuffed?”

“Yeah, he was.”

I watched as they pulled out, were let through the gate, and then headed toward the main road. I turned to Dougherty. “Where do you think they're going?”

“This way, I'd imagine; the only thing in the other direction is the airport.” We stood and hustled back toward the Dodge. “You think they're going to fly him out of here?”

“If he's lucky.”

When we got back to Vic's rental, you could clearly see down the hill and there was no Jeep Wrangler coming our way.

“They must be going to the airport.” Corbin opened the door and tossed his bag in the back. “Nance has a jet, one of those twin-engine Cessnas, so we'd better hustle if we're going to catch them.”

Vic was already in the driver's seat, and I threw myself in in the nick of time, the Dodge roaring sideways as we shot by the precipice and down the long slope. “Slow down when you go past the cutoff; we don't want to draw their attention when we go by.”

Dougherty hung between the bucket seats. “The cutoff to the bunker is past the airport road, so just slow down when you get there. You can't see the hangars from the bunker, either—it's too far up the canyon.”

We slowly turned at the airport and drove down into the parking lot. I drew my .45 as we did a quick circle around the half-dozen buildings, still seeing no Jeep.

“You think they're inside one of the hangars?”

“Not with the kind of aircraft you described. They would have to have that thing out here and warming up with a crew.” I glanced at the gravel road that ran alongside the runway. “Where does that road go?”

He looked through the windshield past us. “There are a few hay fields down that way and some dirt roads that peter out into the forest before you get over to 24 or 183.”

Vic turned to look at him. “So, there's nothing down there?”

“Not really.”

She gunned the Challenger and laid a twenty-foot black strip on the tarmac. “They're going to kill him.”

We swung around another corner as Vic leveled out the
Dodge and lit up all the cylinders, bringing the Hemi on line like an orange javelin. Dougherty flew across the backseat and crashed into the other side.

“I'd put my seat belt on if I were you, troop.”

The big straightaway along the airport gave us the advantage by allowing the muscle car to flex and catch up with the cloud of dust roiling from behind what we assumed was the Jeep. “I sure am going to be disappointed if we're following some rancher on his tractor.”

She put her foot even farther into the Dodge's accelerator. “I'll tell you here in a second.” There was another turn, and I had to admire the way she flat-tracked the Challenger, throwing it into the gravel curve and keeping her foot in it the whole way as she focused on her prey. “Oh, you are mine, chickenshit.”

The vehicle ahead had followed the road to the left and quickly passed over an elevated bridge, where I could see that it was, indeed, the Wrangler. “It's them.”

Vic sawed the wheel, and we shot off the road into the hay pasture, taking a more direct route to the bridge. “Got it.”

Even though we were pounding the undercarriage of the low-slung muscle car, we made time, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen when we attempted to get back on the elevated gravel road or, worse yet, the bridge.

We screamed along, the bridge appearing to be approaching at an alarming rate; if we missed it, we would most certainly end up crashing into the guardrail buttresses or flying into the creek.

I braced a hand against the dash. “. . . Vic.”

“Got it.”

The Dodge flew up the embankment, skipped the edge, and, slamming onto the road's uneven surface, slid completely sideways, the buttress of the bridge looking more and more like a gigantic, swinging cudgel. “. . . Vic.”

“Got it.”

From the back, Corbin's voice sounded surprisingly conversational. “We are all going to die.”

Whipping the wheel to the right, she nosed the hood of the car forward into the narrow aperture. We all held our breath as the tires pulled free, but the car met the road and blistered the wood planks, soared over the downgrade, and blew into the hundred feet of remaining gravel road before thundering over a cattle guard into an expansive hay field still scattered with the thousand-pound square bales.

The Wrangler, traveling at a slightly more sedate pace, was running along to our right. Frick turned and looked at us as if we were crazy.

“I think we've caught up to them.”

The Jeep swerved, and one of the hay bales, very green with alfalfa, shot between us. On the other side, we regained sight of each other, and I could see Frick had his window down and was giving us a questioning look.

Hoping to avoid anything dramatic, I pulled my badge wallet from my pocket and flashed it at him about the time that Vic swerved to miss another bale.

My hopes of keeping things civil were dashed as the back window on the Jeep began rolling down, and I could see Frack brandishing some sort of automatic machine pistol.

I gave it one last try, yelling over the noise of the two engines. “Absaroka Sheriff's Department—pull over!”

Frick ignored me, and Frack pointed the pistol at us.

“Vic.”

“Got it.” She locked up the brakes on the car and then swung hard, careening behind the Wrangler and then gunning it and coming up on the other side.

Corbin's voice rose from the back. “Won't the doors stop bullets?”

“No, they won't; even a .22 will go through most modern car doors, and maybe through the other side as well. Roll your window down—it'll give you another layer of insulation, if it makes you feel better.”

“The window will stop a bullet?”

“Can't hurt.”

Thank goodness the hay field was relatively smooth from years of plowing, and thank more goodness it had just been swathed, so that Vic could at least see where the really rough patches were. She swerved around another bale and angled toward the Jeep as he attempted to steer clear of her.

I could see that Billy ThE was handcuffed to the dash and didn't look too comfortable with the situation. It was about then that the rear window on the other side of the Jeep began rolling down and the automatic pistol made another appearance.

“I don't think they want to talk.” She sliced around another bale and came in hard this time, clipping the back quarter of the Jeep, but Frick corrected and continued on.

Dougherty swung up between the seats again. “Do you want me to shoot?”

Vic and I both answered as one: “Just put your seat belt on!”

Pulling to one side, I slid my Colt from the holster just as Vic handed me her Glock. “Shoot 'em.”

“I'm going to give them one more opportunity to stop.”

“You're going to get us killed.” She slid in behind the Jeep as Frick began a slow turn to the left in an attempt to stay in the field. “Hopefully Frack won't shoot out of the back.” Watching Frick slalom through the bales, Vic stayed close but then swung out again, positioning us on the left as I hung my badge out for them to see.

“Absaroka County Sheriff. Stop the vehicle. Now!”

We hit some bumps, and there was some noise, but it was only when I saw the barrel of the automatic smoking that I realized that Frack had fired.

I glanced into the rear and could see that Corbin's eyes were wide as he looked at the holes punched in the interior panels of the car. “Are you hit?”

“No, and I'd just as soon not be.”

Vic swerved around another bale, and I turned to see that Frack was aiming at us again. I extended both of my arms, a weapon in each hand, aiming low at the Jeep's tires, and began pulling the triggers until there was nothing left.

In a second I had blown out both tires, but the Wrangler was veering toward us now, and I could see Frick lowering his window, both men attempting to take careful aim at me.

Grabbing the extra magazines from my belt, I dropped the empty and jammed the fresh rounds into my Colt as Vic locked up the brakes, using another bale for cover and swinging behind the still speeding Jeep. “Okay, I'm ready to shoot them now.”

“About time!” She turned the leather-clad wheel, and we feinted to the right—getting the backseat gunner to move to the other side—but then swung the Dodge's seven hundred horses back up on the driver's side. We overshot a bit, but by the time we drew even, I had the .45 fully extended and aimed directly at the driver's head, just hoping I didn't miss and hit Billy ThE.

As is usually the case, that split-second hesitation cost me.

There was a swale in the field, and both vehicles were thrown to the right, causing me to lose my position in the seat and hit my face on the door. I could feel the blood spilling from my nose as I clambered back up and swiped at my face in an attempt to clear my eyes; once I did, I could see both Frick and Frack extending their pistols and smiling.

It was about then that they ran head-on into one of the thousand-pound bales.

“That's something you don't see every day.”

We'd pulled up beside the Jeep; the driver had buried its front into the bale, and its rear end was now sticking up off the ground at about a thirty-degree angle.

Keeping my sidearm on the door, I tossed Vic hers, and she went around to the other side with Corbin following her with his own drawn. “You two get Frick and Frack, and I'll get Kiddo.”

The body of the Wrangler was crumpled and had impinged the door, but I pulled the handle and bent the door back on its hinges as the airbags deflated. Kiddo was slumped in his seat, handcuffed to it with the chain running through the chicken bar. I felt for a pulse and it was strong, so he wasn't dead. “He's out cold.”

Vic had opened the other side and unceremoniously pulled the driver out, allowing him to sag onto the ground. “This one's alive—barely, but alive.”

Reaching up, I pried open the rear door and stepped aside as Frack tumbled out. I went through the motions—flipped him over and took the machine gun—but could plainly see that he'd shot himself a number of times on impact. “This one's dead, a bunch of times over.”

I went back to the front, adjusted Billy ThE's seat, slipped off the safety belt, and pushed him back. “Check the driver for cuff keys, would you?”

Corbin was already on it and patted the now-moaning Frick as Vic collected weapons. Dougherty brought the keys around, and I uncuffed Kiddo, pulled him from the vehicle, and placed him on my shoulder. I carried him around and laid him on the trunk lid of the Dodge, where I noticed he'd pissed himself.

Corbin looked around my shoulder. “Are you sure he's alive?”

“He's breathing.” I glanced over at Vic, who was kneeling by Frick. “Can he talk?”

She reached down and none too gently smacked his face. “Hey, asshole, can you talk?” His face rolled a little to the side, and then he sputtered and raised a hand, which Vic immediately grabbed and placed under her knee. “I said talk, not move.” He cried out, and she shook her head. “Stop being a pussy.”

He gargled something about his knee killing him, and it was possible that he had a point, in that it was bleeding and had already swollen to the size of a cantaloupe even with the constriction of his BDU pants.

My undersheriff kneeled a little more pointedly on his arm. “Talk, asshole. My experience with types like you is that your mouths always work.”

I moved in, getting the wayward attention of the driver. His eyes steadied on mine. “How are you doing, Mr. Frick?”

He gasped. “How the hell do you think I'm doing?”

I studied his knee, broken nose, sloped collarbone, and
what looked to be a couple of broken fingers on his other hand. “Well, you look like shit.”

“We need medical attention.”

I glanced through the open doors of the Jeep at the body on the other side. “We? Nope, I don't think so. Your buddy's dead as Kelsey's nuts—must've shot himself about nine times—and I think your prisoner just has a case of the vapors.” I studied him. “Where were you headed?”

“Lawyer.”

I glanced around. “I don't think you're going to find one out here.”

He yelled it this time. “I want a lawyer!”

“And I want answers—maybe we can work out a trade.”

Spitting the words, he repeated himself. “Lawyer.”

Vic picked up the bloody machine pistol from the ground—where I had put it down in order to get Kiddo out of the vehicle—and sprayed the fender of the Wrangler with a frightening series of shots, then carefully placed the muzzle close to the guy's eye. “You feel the heat from that, shithead? Try and imagine how hot it'll be at over fifteen hundred feet per second when I pull the trigger again.”

Frick still said nothing, choosing instead to exhale, blowing the coagulated blood from his nose.

Vic obliged him by closing up one of the nostrils with the automatic, the heat of the muzzle sizzling the blood before he could turn his head away. “I'm betting there's another twenty rounds in this thing that I can use to fill up that empty head of yours if you don't start talking.”

“I'm not incriminating myself.” He closed his eyes and
swallowed. “But . . . um, whatta you want to know? I mean, off the record.”

I glanced back toward the municipal airport. “Somebody taking an early flight?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you guys supposed to join the bunker bunch on board?”

He said nothing until Vic tapped his temple with the Sig Sauer. “Maybe, all right?”

“How long before they start figuring out something went wrong?”

He thought about it. “The head guy, he's making financial arrangements, so they can't get out of here till he gets that stuff done, but it won't be long.” He winced. “Look, my fucking knee is killing me. . . .”

Vic moved and again reminded him about the 9mm.

“How fortified is the bunker?”

He snorted. “Forget it, Andy Griffith; you'll never get in there.”

I nodded. “These guys, do they have a stake or are they just hired?”

“Hired, but they're good.”

I looked down at him and smiled. “As good as you?”

• • •

I made Frick ride in the trunk with the dead Frack, mostly because there wasn't a lot of room but also because I thought he needed a lesson in humility.

We followed another series of hay fields, reconnected with
the gravel road that led around the airport, and swung back north to where we joined route 209 and finally 24, thereby getting back into Hulett without having to go near the bunker and raising suspicions. Vic parked the Dodge at the police station, and we tried not to draw too much attention to ourselves as we carried the bodies into the office, putting Frick in the holding cell.

“What in the hell?”

Chief Nutter held the door as we returned with Billy ThE draped between Corbin and me, finally placing him in the office chair. “Call in the EMTs down the street for the one in the cell and they can take the dead one, too.” I turned to Vic. “Grab one of those handheld radios, get back on that ridge, and keep an eye on them. Give us a call if anybody moves, okay?”

She grabbed a radio and, with an extended burnout from the parking lot, was gone.

Nutter placed his hands on his knees and studied Kiddo's still unconscious face. “This one alive?”

“Enough to piss himself.” I tapped the face of the star of
Chopper Off
with the back of my hand. “I would've figured he'd have been awake by now, but I guess not.”

Nutter disappeared into the back and came out with a couple of paper tabs in one hand.

“Ammonium carbonate?”

He nodded. “Smelling salts. Leftovers from my boxing days—they smell too bad to expire.”

He snapped one of the tiny envelopes under Billy ThE's nose and his head jerked back, his instinct to avoid the burning sensation in his mucous membranes foremost.

Catching his shoulder, I held Billy upright as he glanced around, stretched his jaw, and then began retching. I grabbed the trash can from under the desk and set it in his lap as he accommodated me by vehemently throwing up into it.

I held the can as I pointed for Corbin to get some towels from the bathroom. After a few moments Kiddo's stomach settled, or he ran out of things to throw up, and I handed him one of the towels Dougherty had brought back, trading the patrolman the trash can. “You might want to take that outside.”

I watched as he exited with the wastebasket and gave Kiddo a moment. “You know they were going to kill you, right?”

He took a breath, dry retching this time, and then fell back into the chair.

“They didn't need you anymore after you did all the polymer fabrication for Nance, and you'd become a liability, which is actually something you're probably used to being.”

He stared at me.

“So, Nance and his friends are going to try and fly the coop?”

He finally nodded. “He's got connections in Mexico. . . . Oh man, this whole situation has turned to shit.”

“I'd say that's the understatement of the year.”

The front door opened, and Henry entered with Agent Stainbrook, both of them wearing quizzical looks.

Corbin closed the door behind them. “It's Nance, and he's got his private army bunkered up over near the airport where they've got a jet warming up for a clean getaway.”

Stainbrook approached and shook his head at the biker. “You know, I had my doubts about you, but I didn't think you were this stupid.”

Kiddo shook his head. “You're one of them?”

The ATF agent slipped his badge from under his shirt and held it out to Billy ThE so that he could get a better than good look. “Yeah, and so was my buddy, Brady Post.”

Kiddo raised his hands. “I had nothing to do with that.”

Stainbrook's face stiffened. “To do with what?”

“I overheard some of them talking while I was hiding out about somebody shooting the main enforcer on the Tre Tre Nomads, but it wasn't me that did it.”

“Then who did?”

“I don't know—I don't kill people.”

“Your gun did.”

He made a face and appeared a little paler through the stylish facial hair and tattoos. “What are you talking about?”

“That .40 of yours was the weapon that did the deed, and we got an absolute ballistic match with the slug the sheriff here was able to dig out of your neighbor's yard from the time you attempted to shoot his lawn mower.”

He glanced at me. “You have got to be fucking kidding.”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Nope.”

“I haven't had that gun in forever—I think Nance had it when we were working on the design for . . .” He wiped the tears from his face. “It was just for show.”

Stainbrook pulled out another chair and slid in close to the former TV star. “Then you put on quite a show, my friend.”

Kiddo hung his head. “Look, this guy comes to me and says he's got this new space-age shit that's stronger than steel, says he's got it patented and everything, but that he's got to keep it under wraps to maintain his competitive edge. He had a shitload of money, and I had debts—with the production
companies and ex-wives and shit. . . . Then my show gets cancelled. When I started helping him, it was all about bikes, but then he started talking about the government and how that's where the real money was—you know, in guns.”

I sat on the edge of the desk. “Did he also mention it was highly illegal?”

“Oh, man, it was a business deal.” He sobbed. “I even came up with the idea of moving the samples in the hidden containers of the gas tanks. I was trying so hard to get him back on track and out of the gun thing.”

“I don't suppose you're aware of what happened to his previous business associate who ended up in a dumpster in Scottsdale with no hands and no head.”

He stared at me.

“I'm just trying to get a read on where your allegiances lie in all of this. Now, you can partner up with the ATF and me, or you can continue to play ball with the guys who were on their way to shooting you in the back of the head and burying you in a ditch beside a hay field—choice is yours.”

His eyes flicked among all of us like a raccoon fresh out of trees. “What do you want to know?”

“How many men does he have in there?”

“I really don't know; they kept me in the front with a blanket over my head.”

“What would you guess?”

“A half dozen, maybe.”

“Are they armed?”

“I don't think so. I mean, they're just going to Mexico.”

I let the absurdity of that statement pass. “Do they have supplies?”

“Like what?”

I fought the urge to pick him up by his Adam's apple. “Food, water?”

“I don't think so.”

Stainbrook's eyes met with mine. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

I stood, not liking the option, but knowing it was the most prudent. “Bottle 'em up and just hold 'em there till the cavalry gets here?”

He nodded. “They'll destroy the evidence, or as much of it as they can, but I don't want this asshole getting away.”

“I think we're all in agreement on that.”

There was a disruption at the door as somebody made to come in, but with the Cheyenne Nation blocking it, the chances of that were just about nil. But then the Bear stepped to the side and swept the door wide, reached out and grabbed whoever it was, and pulled him into the room one-handed.

After landing, Eddy the Viking stood there trying to look as if entering this way had been his idea. “Hey.”

Corbin, the one who knew him best, seemed to be the person he was talking to. “Can I help you, Eddy? We're, um, kind of busy here.”

“There's a gang of guys out front and they saw you carrying Billy in here and they say they're going to stir some shit up if you don't turn him loose or something.” The Viking shrugged. “I guess they're big fans of the show.”

Nutter shook his head and followed him toward the door. “Good grief.”

I pointed to the patrolman. “Corbin, go with them.”

“Right.”

He followed, and Henry let them pass but then held the door open after them just to give the troublemakers a look at the reinforcements. You could hear voices outside, but after a moment they died down, the Bear keeping his eye on them as he closed the door.

“There's probably something else you should know.” We all turned at Kiddo's voice as his head dropped to his chest. “I mean, something kinda important?”

“What?”

His head came up slowly. “They've got a hostage.”

“Who?”

Kiddo looked toward Stainbrook. “I want immunity. I want total immunity, or I stop talking right now.”

Stainbrook stood, spun the chair, and then sat again, laying his thick arms on the back and scooting in close. “Let me explain something to you. One of my best men is dead. A guy who has two kids and a loving wife in San Diego is never going to get to see his family again, because you or one of your scumbag friends shot him in the chest. Now, if you don't tell us everything you know right now, I'm going to find one of those really hideous federal prisons and drop you in gen-pop and let them see how they like that tough-guy, movie-star ass of yours.”