Shadow of the Wolf Tree (12 page)

“We're just warming up,” he said and mashed the accelerator. It was nearly midnight and they had a long drive to get where they needed to be, and there were no shortcuts.

17

Near Hermit Lake, Northeast Iron County

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006

Mead Road was a misnomer, more a minefield of loose, sharp rocks than a seriously graded route. The army man called on the cell phone just as Service and Friday turned southeast on the road.

“Major Sutschek, CID.”

“Grady Service.”

“A photo is in your e-mail; also a copy of the warrant, though our people will bring real paper after you apprehend.”

“You wanted to talk to me? We're in the area now, close to where she's alleged to be.”

“Specialist Provo has been on the run almost four years, Detective. She doesn't use cell phones, the Internet, or credit cards. She knows how to stay under the radar. Most of our runners are caught, or turn themselves in within a year.”

“Why'd she run?”

“We don't know. She was a good soldier, excellent skills, bit of a loner. Her comrades called her Nympha.”

“What's that mean—she sex-crazy or something?”

“No, it's just what they called her.”

“Spell it.”

“Roger—nora-young-mary-paul-henry-adam.”

Service wrote the word in his notebook. “Did she do Iraq?”

“No, her unit's just in the pipeline now, in California.”

“Did she join up in Kingsford?”

“No, she was a transfer from a Colorado unit.”

“MP out there?”

“Yessir, since 1987.”

“Is it hard to get transfers these days? In my day it wasn't easy.”

“Manpower's down in a lot of units. Recruiters are struggling to reach goals, and standards are quietly being lowered, which means soldiers can move around a lot easier than in a normal peacetime,” said Sutschek.

“Why'd she move?”

“Finished her degree at Adams State College, in Alamosa, Colorado, got a job in Michigan.”

“She has a college degree and the rank of specialist?”
Not to mention a decade and a half of service. Odd shit, all this. When Lars dealt with her, she didn't yet have a job, or was it a place to live? Getting old,
he told himself.

“Not uncommon in the all-voluntary military.”

“What's her degree?”

“Secondary education major with minors in history and environmental science. She told her commanding officer she came here because she wanted to teach in Michigan.”

“Colorado girl originally?” asked Service.

“Nossir. Army brat, born in Germany and moved around. Her old man was Special Forces in Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm. He retired as a senior master sergeant in 1995 with twenty-eight years of distinguished service. Took sick after he retired, and was part of a large class-action Gulf War Syndrome lawsuit. He died of cancer, January '02.”

“His health—or his death—have anything to do with her behavior?”

“We don't really analyze such things, Detective. Just like civilian law enforcement, we just get the warrants and go get 'em. The Judge Advocate takes care of it after that.”

“Why Michigan?” Service asked, thinking out loud. “The economy's in the crapper here.”

“You should ask her if you find her. We've been close to her a couple of times, but she's got almost a sixth sense about incoming heat. The last sighting was in Colorado. If you grab her, we'll come get her. Thanks for checking with us.”

“Sighted where in Colorado?”

“Let me check my file . . . okay, town called Penrose,” said Sutschek. “That's south-central. She was training there when she bugged out.”

“What sort of training?”

“Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, SERE Course D-2G-0014, part one. Not Special Ops SERE, but tough in its own right: Five days of classroom and field training in physically hostile terrain, especially mountains and desert. Her company commander sent her, planned to use her to augment training for the rest of his people. Part two was to be winter survival, six months later.”

“Where was the training?”

“A closed section of Great Sand Dunes National Park, north of Alamosa.”

“So the Michigan Guard sent her back to Colorado to train, near where she went to college, and she bugged out?” SERE had been called Escape and Evasion in Service's day.
E & E—Jesus
!

“Pretty much,” Sutschek said.

“I'll get back to you, Major.”

“Good hunting, son.”

Service shut the phone.
Son
? He guessed he was older than the CID man.

“Do we have a plan?” Friday asked.

“You stay with the truck while I creep the place.”

She said, gesturing left, “Fire number 9122.”

He kept driving southeast, found a place to pull off the road, made sure he had his spare keys in his coat, and got out.

“Two is better than one,” Friday said.

“You ever work the woods at night?”

“I can learn.”

“I'm sure you can, but not tonight. I need you here in case she comes out in a vehicle. I'm going to call for backup.”

He gave her a quick overview of his AVL, which was slightly different than that used by the state police. He saw that Kragie was about ten miles north of their position just into Baraga County and called him on the 800.

“Three Two Twenty, Twenty Five Fourteen. Your AVL up?”

“That's affirmative.”

“Think you could start moving in my direction? I'll be on foot. Check in with my partner when you get here. Twenty Five Fourteen clear.”

“Moving your way. Thirty Two Twenty clear,” Kragie replied.

“A CO named Kragie is coming,” Service told Friday. He grabbed a bottle of water, stuffed it in his pack, and headed cross-country toward the camp road that he'd seen running north from the red fire number.

Light was fading slowly, creating smudges of shadow he used to cover his movement. Day birds were silent and night birds seemed not to have found their voices in the cumbrous air.

The modest cabin looked relatively new, one story, a screened porch on three sides, huge windows. There was a lone outbuilding near the woods. He moved to the smaller building and saw that it was nearly all windows, roof to floor, with a steep, peaked roof. He looked inside, saw a large object . . . the silhouette of a tepee in the center of the open room.
No, not a tepee. Easel, like artists use,
he corrected himself.

He had an overpowering urge for a cigarette but fought it off. He stood near the tree line to observe, let it get darker, and began to feel a nip in the air.
High forties tonight, but damp and dewy already. No light in the cabin, no music, no sign of life. Easy does it,
he reminded himself.

He had installed his ear mike as he'd made his way from the truck. The transmitter was beneath his coat. He tapped it, whispered, “Dark, no movement inside. Click once if you copy.”

He heard one click.
Attagirl.
Friday was on the ball.

He saw three doors into the cabin, all of them up on the veranda. From his vantage near the woods he could see two of the three. He waited until the dark was nearly complete and started slowly across the grass toward the cabin. Three sets of steps led up to the porch. He went to a set of stairs, got on his knees, and looked for motion detectors, any kind of sensors.
Stairs clear. No cameras on the roof corners. Maybe out in the trees? Damn things were ubiquitous nowadays. Too late and too dark to check for them.

He crossed the porch slowly, looking around, until he was next to a storm door, the outer glass etched opaque by wind and weather.
Difficult to see inside. No flashlight,
he reminded himself. He stared through the storm door, saw that the inner door was open about a foot.
Somebody in a hurry getting out, or someone losing their short-term memory? That last one describes you, pal.

He moved on, checked all three doors, found the same thing at each of them. Don't believe in coincidence.
Neither someone in a hurry, nor with a forgetful mind. All three doors left open suggests purpose, intent, a plan. Why? Bad vibrations.

Back at the wood line he took a position so he could see two of the three doors, and weighed his options:
Obviously nobody here.
He had a grab-and-hold warrant for Provo, but not a search warrant for the camp. That had to be issued locally
. Can't go in without supporting paper.

He hit the transmit button. “Three Two Twenty, you close?”

Click.

“I want you to run the entry road dark. When you break into the open yard, hit your blue lights and music. My partner will follow you in, pull to your right. Copy?”

“Copy. When?”

“Now works for me.”

He could hear the tires whoosh on the grass before he could see the trucks. When the lights came on, the camp area was flooded with steady and rotating blue and white lights. No one tried to bolt or skulk from the cabin.
Fuck. So much for Plan B.

He walked over to Kragie's truck. “I had a report of a military deserter here.”

“It's always something,” Kragie said. “Figured you were trying to flush someone.”

“Nobody home.”

“What now?”

“Pull your truck forward toward the south door and put a spot on it.”

Kragie did as instructed. Service went onto the porch, backlit by the spot, turned on his own SureFire, and looked at the open door inside. The wire was dark but visible.

He went back to Kragie and lit a cigarette. Kragie held out a thermos of coffee.

Friday joined them. “We've got a trip wire inside the door and I'm thinking there could be wires on all three. We need a search warrant and we need to get inside. You know this place?”

“Think so. Let me check my plat book. I don't get down this far too often. It's Simon's turf, but sometimes we work it together.”

Service poured a cup of coffee for Friday, took a sip, handed it to her.

Kragie said, “L. Charfoosh—comes up for deer season, lets people use it at other times. Good man, no problems, retired military. Army colonel, I think. Simon and I have had coffee with him.”

“Can you call him, ask permission?”

“Can try. You want to get a warrant?”

“Yep, even if the owner says okay.” With a reliable snitch you might chance an entry. But Allerdyce was in the category of totally unknown as far as informants were concerned. “You got the magistrate's name in Crystal Falls?”

“Somewhere in my truck.”

“Call him, tell him we need a search warrant, and go pick it up. Friday and I will hold down the fort.”
Everything by the book,
he told himself. Not a posture he liked.

“Going to take some time. Did the information come from a good informant?”

“Impossible to answer.” Surely Allerdyce was the most knowledgeable poacher in the U.P., but was he reliable as a snitch? That was far from certain. “We've got all night,” Service said.

“All night, and no beer,” Friday said, passing the cup to him. “You want me to call the bomb squad?”

“Yeah,” Service said. The state police had the only bomb squad in the state, with technicians dispersed to various posts.

“The BSRV is in Marquette. This will take a while.” The Bomb Squad Response Vehicle; COs called it the B4: The Big Blue Boom Box, or sometimes the Shrapnelmobile.

“They can use their AVL to find us, but give them the address too.”

“On it,” she said, trotting toward his truck.

• • •

At 4 a.m. someone from the bomb squad went through a window and found the trip wires connected to igniters attached to bundles of cheap and harmless sparklers. The lead bomb disposal technician from the Marquette regional forensics laboratory came out in his blastproof suit and held them up. “We're all set for the Fourth of July picnic,” he said drily. “Shit,” Service said.
Mind-fuck time. Someone playing with us—Limpy, maybe
?

“You talk to that retired colonel?” he asked Kragie.

“He was glad I called, and said it was okay to go in.”

“Can you get him on the line for me?”

Kragie popped the numbers into the cell phone and handed it to Service.

The man sounded wide awake. “Charfoosh.”

“Colonel, Detective Grady Service, DNR. I'm with Officer Kragie at your camp in Iron County. Do you loan out your cabin?”

“From time to time, but only to people I know.”

“Recently?”

“No; last person up there was me during deer season. Why?”

More than six months ago.
“Somebody's been inside, Colonel. Doesn't look like there's any damage, but you'll want to do an inventory. The county will keep the case open until you can verify nothing's been stolen.”

“I appreciate it, Detective.”

“Retired Army?”

“Yessir. Special Operations.”

Service rubbed his eyes, disbelieving. Outfits like Army Special Ops and Navy SEALS were small, discrete worlds.
Go ahead, he urged himself.
Ask. “Ever hear of an NCO named Provo?”