Cold River Resurrection (24 page)

C
hapter
57

Gulfstream Five-fifty

Weasel reached forward and touched the controls of the Gulfstream Five-fifty and sat back, the onboard computer doing everything but gas up the finest business jet in the world. The Five-fifty was a fifty million dollar aircraft, with a waiting list for delivery for even the average billionaire.

He looked over at Charley, his co-pilot and friend. Charley was an Ogallala Sioux, and a former Air
Force pilot. They were flying the G-550 for a consortium of Indian casinos, flying high rollers from Asia to a selected few casinos. Weasel was the chief pilot for the leased plane.

Weasel loved flying. He had grown up on the Cold River Indian Reservation, and had escaped by going to flight school right out of high school, courtesy of the tribes. He had flown for Freedom Airlines right out of flight school, and for a time, had almost forgotten that he was Indian. One day a couple of years ago, when he was flying out of LAX, the
tribal chairman of the reservation had called him and had him pay what was owed – a dangerous rescue flight to Peru – and an even more dangerous flight back to a reservation under siege. Weasel’s landing of a G-5 on a reservation highway had made him a hero at home.

Cindy is visiting my mother, how strange is that? My
Šiyápu wife and our boys visiting my mother.

He smiled, thinking of his nine and twelve
-year-old sons on the reservation. They had been raised in Los Angeles, so it wouldn’t be easy for them, but they would cope. Starting a family relationship with my people. And I have become Weasel again, my childhood name.

“Charley.” Weasel looked over at the right seat. Charley raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“I’m gonna go check on the passengers, go to the head, get a snack. You want anything?”

“No, I’m good, I can wait for San Diego.”

The passengers were a group of Japanese men, industrialist billionaires, flying around to various Indian casinos, spending money that only the super rich can afford. A kind of VIP in platinum letters. But hey, it allowed Weasel to fly the finest jet in the world, and be home often.

“Your aircraft,” he said to Charley, as he unbuckled.

Weasel went back and nodded at the two groups of men, three around a table playing cards, betting loudly. One reading, and one sleeping.

“Hai!” A short round man threw cards on the table and grinned. He looked up.

“Hello, Captain.”

“Everything alright?” Weasel stopped at the table.

“It is fine, Captain. We are enjoying the cruise, waiting to see who wins the most at the very fine Barona casino in San Diego. And we have dates there waiting. Will we be on time?”

Weasel looked at his watch.

“We’ll land in ninety-three minutes, if the air traffic control people cooperate.”

“Excellent, thank you
captain
.”

Weasel smiled, and walked to the back of the plane. When he returned to the cockpit, things began to be less than fine.

“Weasel,” Charley said, “you got a call when you were away.”

“What call?”

“Someone on your reservation, man called Bluefeathers.”

Oh shit. What does t
hat weathered old man wan? But I can’t refuse. I owe. And besides, he is part of me.

Weasel dialed, then listened, thinking that he has known since that last time that it wouldn’t be the end. And he knew the ways of the rez. He was
expected
to be the go-to person, the one they counted on, and he knew that whatever the cost, he couldn’t refuse. He had to go. He said one word.

“Yes.”

Weasel listened for another minute, nodding, his stomach doing a slow roll. Well, it wouldn’t be dull. He waited for Bluefeathers to finish, but the old coot had to take the passengers off his hands.

“I’ll be there, Madras airport,” Weasel said. “Thirty minutes, and get the red carpet people from the casino to take these passengers off my hands.”

He closed the phone and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Unlike the airlines, they frequently used their cellular phones, and allowed their passengers to do so as well.

“
Where the hell’s Madras Airport?” Charley asked, his voice showing his interest for the first time in the flight.

Weasel gave him the GPS coordinates from memory. “Call Seattle Center and change our flight plan. We’re gonna pick up some additional passengers. I’ll call the rez and have our casino people take our high rollers to Kah
-Nee-Ta, treat them well.”

The bosses, they’re gonna kill us for this. Might lose my job again. We’ll see how much pull the old coot Bluefeathers has after this. We might as well file an amended flight plan. I think that could be the last legal thing we do with this aircraft.

Weasel, former airline captain, formerly known in Los Angeles as Leonard Mitchell, spoke softly to his co-pilot.

“My airplane,” he said, as he started his descent for something that was sure to be interesting, certainly dangerous, and terminally stupid. 

Twenty
-nine minutes later, he made the landing at the Madras Jefferson County Airport, eight miles from the rez.

“You ever been a hero on your rez?” Weasel asked Charley. He turned the big plane and found the taxiway, pointing the nose toward a small terminal.

“Maybe a little, being an airforce pilot and all,” Charley said, grinning over at Weasel.

“Well you will be one on my rez, after this.” Weasel said.

If you live, Charley. If you live. Because I think on this one, there will be a whole lot of  people shooting at us.

Sort of  like the last one.

Only this one sounds like it will be worse.

Another foreign country. People with guns.

Worse.

And it was.

C
hapter
58

“You really should be in a critical care unit for a day so we can watch you.” The doctor checked the tape on Smokey’s neck.

“Just make these tight enough to where I can move and not rip them open again.”

The emergency room doctor, Doctor Evans’s replacement, was on loan from a Portland hospital, and he was not happy. “You need to be back here soon, then, no later than tomorrow.”

“I’ll either be back tomorrow, or dead,” Smokey said, and then spoke softly to himself. “They took my daughter, and there will be a lot of them dead before they get me.” He looked at the doctor.

“Help me up.”

Chief Martin Andrews stuck his head in the room
. “Plane will be at the Madras Airport by the time you get there.”

Smokey tried to stand, his head spinning, and he put his hand out for Martin.

Gotta go, need to get going.

“Doc, we need to have a meeting in here,” Smokey said. The others were filing into the ER room. Sarah wore full battle gear, followed by Nathan, and the young woman Amy, with her computer.

The others crowded around.

“As you know by now,” Smokey said, “the cartel has Laurel and Jennifer. We think they flew out in a Lear approximately two hours ago.” A sudden picture of Laurel came to him, of her laughing at him when he came home from work, and he stopped.

She can’t die

He shook his head. “We have a Gulfstream coming to pick some of us up, and we’re going to get them back. It won’t be pretty. We may have to go into Mexico to do it, and this is strictly volunteer, except for Nathan, I need you with me
Uncle.”

“I’m going,” Sarah said.

“Kincaid and Burwell,” Smokey said. “Sergeant Lamebull, Sarah, Nathan, and myself. That’s it. The rest will guard the reservation.” He looked at Martin Andrews.

“Chief, any comments
?”

“We’ve been down this path before,” Martin said. “I’ll get in touch with Oakley, not to alert them of your plans, but if you have to cross into Mexico, you’ll need them to get you back without getting shot down.”

Smokey stood and took a step, then stopped and waited for the spinning to subside. Sarah held up a camo shirt and helped him into it. “Where’s the computer girl, Amy?”

“Right here.” Amy stepped forward, holding her laptop, looking at the screen.

“Where are they now?”

“Over Utah, I think.”

Smokey turned to Martin. “We need to get some expertise here, range of the Lear, where they filed a plan to, might stop for fuel, maybe we can intercept them before they cross into Mexico.”

Martin opened his cell and stepped away.

“Amy.” Smokey motioned her forward. “Amy, can you show us how to run the program?”

She shook her head. No. “It would take too much time,” she said. “Besides, they killed my friend. I’m coming with you, you need me to track them.”

Smokey didn’t argue. She was right, they needed her.

“How many people will the Gulfstream hold?”

“We can probably take six or eight with gear,” Sarah said, “with enough room to bring them back.” She put her hand on Smokey. “Hold still.”

He turned and held his arm out, unable to move without the room spinning.

“Oakley will help on this end, feebs are starting to track the Lear,” Martin said, walking over, cell phone up to his ear. He held a finger up, listening. He looked at Smokey.

“Oakley says to remind you that Mexico is a sovereign nation, that the feds can’t help you there if you cross the border.”

“Tell Oakley that we are also a sovereign nation,” Smokey said, “but that didn’t stop them from attacking us.”

We’re gonna attack them so fast and hard they will think they are in hell before they get sent there, they harm my daughter further. And Jennifer.

Smokey held his hand out for his web gear and shrugged into it with Sarah’s mothering help.

“Let’s get moving,” he said.
“We will get my daughter back.”

In Afghanistan they thought I was crazy
, that I fought like a madman when we were shot at. These people who make war on my daughter, they better pray that it will be quick for them, ‘cause whether or not I get her back, I will kill them all.

I will.

They’re already dead, they just don’t know it yet.

Harm my Laurel, I’ll kill everyone they ever met.

C
hapter
59

Southern Utah

Aboard Lear

When Jennifer woke up she knew instantly that she was on a plane, even though she was blindfolded and her hands were painfully bound. The hum and vibration of the engines seemed close, as if they were in the back of the plane.

Jennifer’s shoulder ached where Laurel was laying on it. Laurel snored fitfully, murmuring. It hurt Jennifer to move. She tried to breathe through her nose but it was caked with blood, sounded like she was wheezing when she tried. Her mouth wasn’t much better; she thought two of her teeth were loose.

She remembered being bound and then kicked, Laurel crying out, screaming, and then being loaded on a small jet plane. After that, Jennifer didn’t remember much. She didn’t know how long they had been on the plane, but it seemed like several hours.

She had a sudden sense of panic, her breathing speeding up, breathing through her mouth now, and she thought that they would be killed soon. And poor Laurel. A child and a sweet kid.

I don’t want to die, but I will protect this child.

Laurel shifted and cried out. The voices in the front of the plane stopped, then someone laughed, then they started talking again.

“Shhhhh,” Jennifer whispered. She nudged Laurel with her shoulder.

“Jen?” Laurel sounded muffled, her face in Jennifer’s shoulder.

“Yes,
Honey?”

“Jen, I love you.”

Jennifer had a sudden burst of tears, soaking the cloth tied around her face, her welling up of emotion unexpected, too quick to stop. She worked her way lower in the seat, drawing Laurel more on top of her.

“I love you too,
Honey. So very much.”

“Jen.” Laurel whispered.

“What?”

“Jen, what
will happen to us?”

“I don’t know, but these are very bad people.”

“Jen, they’re in terrible danger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because my daddy’s gonna come for us, and he’s going to be very mad.”

Jennifer wished for the very same thing, but she had seen Smokey go down with the gunshot.

God, I hope so. I hope so, but I don’t see how he can survive the gunshot, let alone find us
.

“Jen,” Laurel whispered, sounding as if she were sucking her thumb.

“What, Honey?”

“Jen, D
addy’s coming for us. He isn’t dead, he’s coming for us.” She sucked on her thumb for another minute, and then said, “You’ll see.”

Smokey lurched out of the hospital and into the afternoon heat. The officers ran for their cars, Nathan and Sarah held Smokey up, with Chief Martin Andrews following.

“I’m go
ing to sit this one out,” Martin said. “Bluefeathers said it was to be your operation.”

“Bluefeathers did, did he?”

“He said to tell you to not forget about Laurel’s gifts, her special way of looking at the world.”

I’m her father, how can I forge?
I lost her mother, now I have lost her.

For a moment, Smokey stopped and his knees grew weak. Martin put his arm around him and pulled him upright.

“I know you have to go,” Martin said, “even if you should be in ICU right now.” As they approached the Suburban, Martin bent and whispered something to Sarah. She looked at Smokey and nodded.

Smokey got into the passenger seat of the car, clenching his teeth as the pain made him dizzy.

“Let’s get this thing moving,” he said, and Nathan accelerated out of the parking lot, escorted in front by Madras PD.

We’ve got a long way to go, Smokey. Gotta find baby girl. Gotta find my baby. Bring her back safe.