Broken Heartland (17 page)

“Yeah,” she said, “but you don't usually carry a gun. Not that I've seen.”

“Well….” The chairman paused and thought about it. “I don't know,” he admitted. “I was planning to search the Bible camp. And this whole thing feels like a life and death situation to me, especially after what happened in that accident and what could still happen to my son.”

She didn't like guns, or knives, or violence. The last time she'd seen her real mom and dad, they'd been trying to kill each other…and willing to use her to help. But that was a long time ago. If the pistol made the chairman feel better, she didn't mind.

“Here,” she said. She'd been pretty sure it was in there. She liked to get a better look at birds and wildlife sometimes.

“What is that? A monocular? Let me see.”

She handed it over, ready to receive a little praise for having come better prepared than he was.

“This is only a five power scope,” the chairman complained. He took it out of its case and put it to his eye. “Hardly helps at all.”

“You're welcome,” she said.

She reached out to snatch it back when he said, “Hey, wait. Something's happening over there.”

“What? Let me look.”

He kept a firm grip on the scope. “Garage door's opening,” he said. “Car's backing out. Looks like there are a couple of people in uniform there beside it.”

He wasn't going to give up the glass, so she looked for herself. She could see the open garage door, the car, and the figures, but not well enough to recognize a person or a make and model.

“Who are they? What are they doing?”

“Can't tell,” he said. “This thing doesn't have enough magnification.”

“Then let me try. Maybe I have better eyesight.”

He wouldn't give it up. Another figure came out of the garage after the car continued backing out, turned, and took to the road.

“We gotta do something about this,” the chairman said.

Yeah, Heather thought, like share the monocular. That made her all the more surprised when he handed it to her.

“You stay here and watch the house,” he said. “I'm going to follow that car.”

She wasn't sure that was a good idea, but he didn't stick around to argue. He was already trotting back up the road to where he'd left his Escalade. Rather than go after him, she took advantage of her chance to use the scope.

The chairman was right. It wasn't really powerful enough. And the car was already kicking up too much dust for her to tell anything about it except that it was white. The three people in front of the Siegrist place were heading for the garage, the two in uniform preceding the last to come out. She couldn't make out features from here, or even tell if those were really uniforms, but there was something about the big one, the one in what looked to be camouflage. Something about the way he moved. And his hair. He didn't have any.

She turned and tried to wave down Chairman Wynn as he sped by in his Cadillac SUV. He didn't slow at all. She put the glass back to her eye in time to see the garage door begin closing.

Only one man in Benteen County shaved his head like that, then left it uncovered for all the world to see.

So, what the hell was Uncle Mad Dog doing at Galen Siegrist's farm, today of all days? And that man behind Uncle Mad Dog…had that been a gun in his hand?

***

A million things to do and only one man to do them. That's how it felt to the sheriff. He stood in the parking lot next to the handcuffed patrolman and watched children, teens, and teachers mill around the field near Heather's battered Honda. He turned and glanced at the wrecked patrol car, where Doc and his two volunteers awaited rescue. He swung back and looked at the school and the ruined entry to the gym. Chucky was still in there somewhere, or nearby, and still armed. Too much, but all those people, that kid with the gun, they were all the sheriff's responsibility.

You had to start somewhere. He began with his cell phone. Heather had started walking in his direction. He watched her answer her own phone on the first ring.

“Tell Juhnke to get those kids out of here fast,” he said.

She acknowledged him and turned back toward her car and the crowd in the football field.

“Chucky was in the gym,” he told her, “in the heating vents. He's probably out by now. I think he's got another target, but get those kids away from the school.”

“Where…?” she began.

“The courthouse,” he decided. “Make sure nobody heads back toward the school or into the neighborhood behind it.”

“Right,” she said. He could see her talking to Juhnke and waving her arms and pointing in his direction. Juhnke soon had his students sprinting across the field, away from the gymnasium.

“Good girl,” he told her and hit disconnect. He turned to the highway patrolman. The man was still leaning face first against an adjacent pickup. “I want my people out of your vehicle. Where are your keys?”

“Let me go and I can….” He stopped. Maybe he sensed the sheriff's rage. “My unit's back doors are only locked from the inside. And I cuffed them with plastic. There's a cutter on that belt you made me drop.”

The sheriff had a razor-sharp pocket knife of his own. He grabbed the patrolman by the old-fashioned cuffs he'd applied and pulled him upright. “Let's go.”

The two trotted across the lot to the wrecked cruiser, and the sheriff made the officer stand well back while he opened the door so the three prisoners could scramble out.

“Bastard saw me with a gun and assumed I was the problem,” Doc explained.

“It was a mistake,” the trooper protested. “Anybody could….”

“Wouldn't look at any of our IDs,” Doc continued. “Wouldn't pay attention to the fact that we were all telling the same story. Then Neuhauser, he didn't help.”

The sheriff pulled his pocket knife out of his jeans. It made short work of the plastic cuffs. All three men glared at the patrolman as they massaged circulation back into their wrists.

“What did he do with Neuhauser?”

“I thought he was an innocent civilian,” the cop said. “I just told him to beat it.”

“Better and better,” the sheriff said. “Get your guns,” he told the pair of farmers. Their guns were on the front seat of the cruiser, on the other side of the cage from where they and Doc had been held. “Go to the courthouse as quick as you can. I've sent the kids there. Guard the place. And take this asshole with you. Have Mrs. Kraus toss him in a cell until I can get around to him.”

No one but the asshole argued. They rearmed themselves and prodded the patrolman into a battered crew-cab truck and headed into town while the sheriff told Doc about the six bodies in the basement. Heather trotted up and joined them in time to get the gist of it.

“Chucky?” she said. “I think I saw him run across the back of the school grounds and go through the fence into the neighborhood.”

“Toward our house?” the sheriff asked.

There wasn't much of Buffalo Springs north of the school. The neighborhood where the girls had been raised was there.

“Yeah. Looked like he was carrying one of those guns like all the Iraqis have.”

That would be an AK-47, the sheriff thought, weapon of choice for third-world militias.

Then she told them about seeing Chucky earlier that day, and how she'd thought she was rescuing him from Butch Bunker and Mark Goodfellow. Later, how he'd been lugging a trombone case into school. “You don't suppose…?” she said.

He did.

“Now what?” Doc asked, cutting to the heart of the problem.

Now he needed to go get Chucky, but how was he going to do that with almost no help and no idea where the kid was heading next? He didn't get time to answer. Heather's cell phone began ringing and, in the interval between rings, they heard sirens in the distance. The help he needed might not be a problem. Though getting it to cooperate, once the fate of the first officer into Buffalo Springs became known, could be.

“Hello,” Heather said. She listened as the three of them turned toward the road. He could pick out the flashing lights now. Two cars, no, three.

“Stay where you are,” Heather told the cell phone. “Dad,” she said to him, “I need to tell you a bunch of stuff, but first off, Heather's out at Galen Siegrist's farm. She was watching the place because we learned Galen was driving that school bus this morning.”

“Heather's here?” He couldn't quite get his head around that. First one daughter had driven home from KU. Now, it appeared, the other had come all the way from Albuquerque. Why? “And how'd you learn that,” he asked, “about Galen?”

“Chairman Wynn broke into the Bible camp and found some medical records. It looks like someone's planning some sort of organ transplant. That might fit in with the stem cells I found in the Dodge and left in the refrigerator at the Gas — Food. But now Heather says Uncle Mad Dog's out at Galen's and she thinks maybe Galen was holding a gun on him.”

“What?” the sheriff asked. Doc echoed him, but Heather didn't get a chance to answer and the sheriff didn't get a chance to sort out everything she'd told him because three Kansas Highway Patrol cars had swarmed through the gate to the school's parking lot and officers were tumbling out of them in bulletproof vests, wielding shotguns and demanding to know who was in charge here.

While the sheriff stood there feeling overwhelmed, Heather flipped open her jacket and showed them her badge. She nodded toward the sheriff. “He is.”

***

It started out great. The Kansas Highway Patrol officers were pros. Heather could tell that by the way they got out of their cars, their weapons immediately covering everyone and everything without seeming to do so. And their officer, the guy who asked who was in charge, followed that with the perfect question.

“How can we help you, Sheriff?”

Her dad was equally professional. He explained the situation with as few words as possible. That resulted in a couple of troopers being sent toward the gym and the school's heating plant. Two more were sent in a car to protect the kids at the courthouse. But then, as it had to, the matter of the wrecked cruiser came up.

“Is my trooper all right? And where is he?”

“He's fine,” Englishman said. “Now, we've still got a killer on the loose. There could be kids all over town after the way we had to clear the school. But only one of those kids has an AK-47 with him. We need to spread out, find him before he holes up or gets transportation. We need to….”

“We'll take care of that,” the officer said. “But my trooper. His vehicle's pretty banged up. Is he getting medical help?”

“Not exactly,” Doc said. The officer and Doc exchanged introductions and then Captain Miller asked for clarification.

“What does not exactly mean?”

Heather decided to be helpful. “He tried to kill me. Shot out the back window in my Honda.”

The captain seemed to notice the bullet holes in the nearby Ford about then, and the trooper's belt lying on the ground beside it. “Where's my man? What have you done with him?” Captain Miller didn't sound friendly or helpful anymore.

“The troopers you sent to the courthouse can check on him,” Englishman said. “I had a couple of my volunteers—the ones he disarmed and locked in the back of his vehicle with our coroner before he started shooting at my daughter—take him there. He should be in an eight-by-eight cell about now.”

“What? You arrested someone sent to help you?”

“He lost control of his vehicle pulling into the parking lot,” Doc explained. “After that, he lost control of everything. He started disarming those of us who were helping the sheriff. There was no reasoning with him. And when we heard shots just as Heather pulled into the lot, he assumed she was shooting at him. He fired his shotgun at her twice before….”

The officer swung on Heather. “Let me see your weapon, young lady.”

Heather spread her hands. “I don't have a weapon. Just some pepper spray.”

“There are bullet holes in that truck over there, right where it appears my trooper was standing. Who fired them?”

“I did,” Englishman said.

The captain swung on him, face beginning to glow as his blood pressure rose. “You shot at one of my men?”

“Warning shots,” Englishman said. “To prevent him from firing on my daughter again.”

“Your daughter is your deputy?”

“Yes, sir.” Englishman was getting a little hot under the collar himself. “You have a problem with that?”

“God save me from back country hicks,” the captain muttered.

“He has,” Doc interrupted. “Too bad he didn't save you from incompetent troopers as well.”

***

Mad Dog and Pam were ushered into one of the first rooms off the garage. It was painted a generic beige with matching carpet. There was no furniture, but it was crowded all the same. Three men, in addition to Galen, joined them there. None of the three were locals. Mad Dog had only seen one of them before. He was the little guy with the bad hair who had had Mad Dog thrown out of the church. The other two were big guys, middle-aged, muscular, without excess flesh. They wore good suits with conspicuous bulges under their coats.

One of them drew a short-barreled semi-automatic with a muzzle wide enough to launch ICBMs while the other put Mad Dog and then Pam against the wall and frisked them. He did it professionally. His hands went everywhere, but they weren't copping feels, not even on Pam. The pair had deep tans and one of them wore sunglasses pushed up to rest on the short hair above his forehead. All of the men but Galen had some sort of communications device in one ear with tiny microphones curving down in front of their mouths. They reminded Mad Dog of the Secret Service agents assigned to protect the president.

“They're clean,” the frisker said. “Nothing, not even clothes under their coveralls.”