Under the Color of Law (33 page)

He swung the Bronco around, hoping he hadn't been made, wondering what in the hell was going on.

The tape across his mouth didn't keep Charlie Perry from giggling.

Although the blindfold kept him from seeing things, the helicopter ride had been exciting.

For a while they'd gone up and down like a bumpy roller coaster with the blades thud, thud, thudding, and the wind swoosh, swoosh, swooshing outside. It had been lots of fun.

Now he was swishing along in a car. This was better than Disneyland, where his father had taken a picture of him pulling Donald Duck's tail.

Charlie tried to grin. The tape across his mouth made it impossible, his ankles and wrists were hurting a little bit, and he wished someone would take the blindfold off. He wondered if he'd done something bad, and what was going to happen next.

Muddy slush from the ranch road splat ted the truck windshield. Kerney turned on the wipers while Sara weighed in with her take on the Straley interview. Hamilton Terrell had been the point man for the operation since day one. He'd married Phyllis Terrell to position himself favorably with Proctor Straley, and then used Straley to wangle his way onto the Trade Source board. After that it had been just a matter of swaying the board with the promise of a lot of easy money from the public coffers.

Kerney agreed it had all been a setup to mask SWAMI and set the stage for Terrell's secret trade mission. Both had to be tied together, otherwise all the killing made no sense. But proving anything still remained highly remote, getting to Terrell wouldn't be easy, and time was running out.

Most of the tire tracks on the snow-covered road gave out when they reached the Pine Hill Navajo Reservation cutoff. They passed the snow-tinged butte of El Moro National Monument. The powerful, beautiful presence of it made Sara want to stop and play tourist. She wistfully thought about asking Kerney to bring her down on a weekend jaunt, and quickly nixed the idea. There might be no weekend jaunts with Kerney if she didn't stay alert and focused.

The vehicle tracking Kerney reported in. He had a five-minute ETA to Applewhite's location. She asked about road traffic. No vehicles other than Kerney's were traveling east. She told the surveillance driver to keep it that way.

Applewhite had spotted Detective Sloan when she'd passed him at the Paxton Springs cutoff. She got confirmation from the chopper pilot that she was still being followed.

"Keep him out of my zone."

"Affirmative," the pilot said.

"Are you authorizing deadly force?"

"Do whatever it takes," Applewhite said, as she eased to a stop along a straight stretch of road.

"Is anything else moving toward me?"

"Negative," the pilot said.

"Close the road behind me," she said.

Applewhite staged a one-car accident. She drove the car at an angle off the road, turning the wheels to put it into a skid. She backed up and adjusted the car's position so that a raised front hood would keep Kerney from seeing in as he approached. She pulled Perry out of the backseat, put him behind the steering wheel, took off the blindfold, ripped the tape from his mouth, locked him inside the vehicle, and popped the hood.

Charlie gave her an insipid smile through the car window. She got a rifle and ammunition out of the trunk, moved over a fence into tree cover, and waited.

The cop in Kerney would force him to stop and investigate.

Taking him out would be another enjoyable hit. But the prospect of whacking Sara Brannon made Applewhite break into a big smile.

Bobby Sloan saw the helicopter land on the pavement and went cross-country through the trees to get around it. He caught a glimpse of the pilot watching him and talking rapidly into his headset as he bounced by. He ground the Bronco through a snowbank to get back on the road and the front wheels bottomed out in a ditch. He slammed the gearbox into reverse and the back tires screamed as he inched his way out.

Just as the rear wheels gripped solid, Sloan heard the chopper. He geared into low, took the ditch at an angle, and spun rubber down the road. Before he could make the curve, the chopper dropped down sideways in front of him. The door on the chopper slid open, and the windshield exploded in Sloan's face as he took fire.

He felt a nick on his neck as he gunned the Bronco back into the trees.

The back window blew out and he could hear rounds slamming into the tailgate. He redlined the engine, bounced off a tree, topped a rise, and barreled down to the highway.

He could see Applewhite's car in the distance and the tiny outline of a vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

He downshifted and waited for the chopper to come at him again. Cold air whistled through the vehicle, freezing his face as he punched the accelerator. He felt tired, woozy, unable to focus. He looked down and saw his blood-soaked shirt. He put his hand up to his neck and felt wet spurts as his heart pumped his arteries empty.

Realizing he was a dead man, he tried to squeeze the wound closed anyway. His foot found the brake and the Bronco did a quick three-sixty before tilting on its side and spinning into a tree. Just before impact Bobby Sloan passed out.

Kerney saw the stranded car two hundred yards ahead and slowed. He touched the brake, scanned the vehicle for damage, and couldn't see any.

"What do you think?" he asked Sara.

"I can't tell from here."

He caught a flash of light at the edge of some trees off the south side of the road. He touched the brake again.

"I saw it," Sara said, opening the glove box. She grabbed Kerney's 38, checked the rounds in the cylinder, and emptied a box of ammunition in her coat pocket.

"Do you think it's a setup?"

Kerney unsnapped his holster.

"It may be nothing."

He upshifted, and tried to look inside the car. The raised hood obstructed his view. It was a late-model four-door Ford, just like the one Charlie Perry had been driving. His misgivings jumped ten notches.

"Get down," he snapped.

"I'm going to ram it."

He gunned the engine, drove off the road, and hit the Ford at a slant.

Airbags filled the cab, rounds blew holes in the passenger window and deflated them. He hit the gas pedal hard. Metal crinkled and snapped as he slammed the Ford further off the road. The truck lurched to a stop and Sara followed him out the driver's door and crouched with him behind the protection of a tire.

Rounds peppered the Ford, shattering glass. Kerney took a quick look inside and saw a body slumped awkwardly in the driver's seat.

Blood splatter stained the windshield. He sneaked another look at the trees, took fire, and spotted the shooter's position.

"There's a dead man in the car. The shooter is south of us, in the trees, half a click to the left about ten yards in. Look for the tree with the broken branch."

Sara got a fix on the location.

"Give me covering fire," she said.

"I'll go."

"You can't run that fast, Kerney." She moved away before he could stop her, snaking her way back to the truck.

Kerney followed her, ducked behind the open truck door, reached up, and cut away the deflated airbag from the steering wheel with a pocket knife.

"What are you doing?"

"I can drive faster than you can run," he said.

"You cover me." He pulled out spare magazines and stuffed them in his back pocket.

"We both go," Sara said.

Kerney looked at her hard, ready to argue.

"We don't have time for this, Kerney," Sara snapped.

"Take the right flank."

"Okay." He levered the driver seat back as far as it would go, crawled into it with his head below the windshield, and geared the engine into reverse.

"Ready?"

Sara nodded and moved back to the car. A bullet took out another window in the Ford. Kerney hit the accelerator, raised up, spun the wheel, and headed for the wire stock fence, firing out the driver's-side window in the direction of the trees.

Sara ran zigzag around the trunk of the car to the fence line. Rounds dug into the snow inches away from her. Kerney rammed his way through the fence. Sara crawled under the wire, firing as she went. She got up and started running in a low crouch.

Kerney closed on the sniper's position. The front wheels dipped into a trench and the driver's-side mirror blew apart. He wheeled the truck, hit the brakes, and heard bullets dig into steel. He bailed out, looking for Sara. He saw only her tracks in the snow. He called to her and got no answer. He slammed in a fresh magazine, crawled under the truck, and scanned for any sight of her. A single rifle shot rang out.

"Sara," Kerney yelled.

He saw her rise up out of the trench a hundred feet away and start running for a tree. He emptied the magazine at the sniper and loaded another clip. Sara made it to cover and pointed at the tree closest to Kerney. She pulled off two rounds and kept firing while Kerney sprinted forward.

He slid headfirst behind the. tree, emptied the magazine at the shooters position, fed in another clip, and looked at Sara. She patted her chest and pointed ahead, signaling her next move. Kerney shook his head and watched helplessly as she reloaded and crawled away from cover. He pumped rounds and watched as she disappeared from sight into the grove.

Everything got quiet. The tree with the broken branch was dead ahead.

He looked for movement. Every muscle in his body tensed as he searched for a hard target.

"It's clear," Sara called.

Kerney stayed zeroed in on the tree until Sara stepped out and waved him in. He found her standing over Applewhite's body. There was a bullet hole in her leg, but the killing shot had come from the rifle Applewhite had stuck in her mouth.

"Meet Elaine Cornell," Sara said.

"She was hard core to the end. Let's get out of here."

They drove back to the Ford. The man in the front seat was Charlie Perry. He had a nasty hole in his left temple.

"So that's Charlie Perry," Sara said.

"What's he doing here?"

"I think he was supposed to play patsy," Kerney said.

She reached inside the shattered car window, grabbed the microphone, and keyed it.

"Listen up, you bastards," she said.

"Elaine Cornell is dead, Agent Perry is dead. If you want more, bring it on."

She smiled sweetly at the incredulous look on Kerney's face and tossed the microphone inside the car. A helicopter came out of the forest and veered away. Sara's cell phone rang. She dug it out of an inside pocket.

"Maybe they're calling in their regrets," Kerney said.

"Let's hope so."

Kerney waited impatiently, watched the chopper until it moved over the Zuni Mountains, then gave the truck a quick look-over. The bumper was crumpled, a headlight shattered, and the grill was pushed in. There were scratches on the hood and bullet holes in a front fender, door, and window.

"I've been ordered back to Fort Leavenworth," Sara said with amusement.

She dropped the phone in a pocket and brushed snow off the front of her jeans.

"The Pentagon wants a peacekeeping mission drawn up. Seems there's trouble brewing somewhere in Africa."

"Do you believe that?" Kerney asked as he checked the engine for damage.

It seemed intact.

"Does that thing run?" Sara asked.

"It better."

Sara nodded in agreement.

"It's not unusual for the school to prepare tactical plans and operational field doctrines for peacekeeping missions. Geopolitical assessments based on proposed strategic military deployments have to be factored in if the mission is going to succeed."

"Really?" Kerney said as he cut away the deflated passenger's-side airbag. The road was clear in both directions.

"But do you believe it?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Sara said innocently.

"Aren't you interested in geopolitics and military field doctrine?"

"I'm deeply interested. Tell me about it while I drive."

Sara slid onto the seat.

"No, I'd just be babbling."

"Babble all you want," Kerney said as he pulled onto the highway.

"After what just happened, I need the distraction."

Sara prattled a little and Kerney asked stupid questions. Several miles down the road they found Bobby Sloan's body inside the Bronco and their survivors' euphoria vanished.

In the courthouse basement Tim Ingram got word of Applewhite's screw-up and went into damage-control overdrive. He ordered the chopper pilot and the surveillance team on the scene to shut down the highway in both directions-nothing in, nothing out. Kerney and Sara Brannon were to be held in protective custody.

He called the commander at Kirtland Air Force Base, invoked a Defense Department intelligence directive, and ordered the immediate dispatch of a security forces unit and a munitions team to the Ramah highway.

They were to relieve personnel on-site, secure the area, establish roadblocks, and remove all bodies and vehicles ASAP.

Helicopters took off with two combat control teams. Vehicles and heavy equipment rolled with munitions experts onboard.

By phone Ingram gave the base public-information officer a press release cover story. All news outlets were to be advised of an accident involving a military armament shipment on the Ramah highway during a heavy snow storm. Cleanup crews were en route. There was no danger to the public. Motorists were cautioned to detour around the area or expect long delays.

At computer consoles, team members sent top-secret encrypted messages to the White House and the Pentagon, conveyed satellite photographs of the failed hit to the Defense Intelligence Agency, forwarded Applewhite's recorded radio traffic to the National Security Agency, and transmitted Ingram's contingency plan to army intelligence.