Cold Quarry (14 page)

She’d only traveled about fifty yards when I heard it. A hissing noise, like the air being let out of a tire, escaped from the bottom of the Jeep. A ball of fire enveloped the cab and at the same instant the roof appeared to implode briefly;
then the entire vehicle exploded with a deafening roar.

I dove for the shelter of a nearby ditch.

“What the heck was that?” Damon Farraday screamed.

Flaming bits of foam and other pieces of what was left of Gwen Hallston’s Jeep rained down across the woods. Farraday and Toronto had been standing another fifty yards farther away, shielded from the blast by the front of his Scout. Tawny was screeching inside her giant hood.

I jumped up and ran to my pickup, opened the door, and grabbed the fire extinguisher I kept behind the seat. Hallston was assuredly beyond help, but with the dryness of the brush and timber we could also have a major forest fire on our hands.

Toronto had grabbed a blanket from somewhere and he and I ran together to the remains of the Jeep. There was not much left of it or Gwen.

“Take the other side!” I yelled. I began shooting down the flames with the foam from the extinguisher while Toronto beat at several smaller flares that had already sparked in the grass. We spent four or five minutes knocking down what we hoped were all traces of the fire, but with the smoldering wreckage of the Jeep, now nothing but a charred piece of chassis filled with body parts, the danger remained high.

I called 911 on the cell and the dispatcher said people were on their way. She wanted me to stay on the line, but I was too busy watching flares. I walked back up the hill and gave the phone to Farraday, who appeared to be in a mild form of shock. He took the phone and started babbling. At least he would keep the line open.

“Hey, Frank,” Jake said, coming up behind me. “This may not be over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whoever planted that device on her Jeep might’ve armed the Ford and the Scout too.”

I looked at him for a moment.

“Get away from the vehicles!” I said to Farraday.

“Wha—?”

I grabbed him and helped him to his feet, walking him to a safe distance. Toronto lifted the entire giant hood from the back of the Scout and carried it over to us out of potential danger.

“Wha—what’s going on?” Farraday asked.

“I’m going to go check it out,” Toronto said.

“I’ll help,” I said.

“No. No sense
both
of us getting killed.”

He approached my pickup first, dropped to the ground, and rolled under the bumper.

A couple of seconds later he called out calmly. “There’s another bomb here.”

“Oh, Jesus, mother of God!” Farraday was blubbering into the phone. I took it from him and explained to the operator what was happening.

“I’ve seen this type of unit before,” Toronto said. “It’s on a timer. Set to go off a short while after the drivetrain starts rolling. You got any wire cutters?”

“In the tool chest in the bed,” I yelled.

“How about a flashlight?”

“There’s one in there too. You need my help?”

“I need your prayers,” he said.

He got the tools and the light and rolled back under the truck. He was under there for maybe a minute and a half.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Done. I’ve disarmed it and I’m removing it from the frame.”

“Good idea.”

He finished with what he was doing and crawled carefully out from beneath the Ford with the device in his hand. It looked like a large pale brick with wires sticking out of it.

“C-four,” he said, setting it down in the grass. “Pretty harmless by itself now. Needs an igniter to start the detonation chain.”

“Stonewall Rangers?”

“Maybe, although this work’s pretty clean. Has to be someone with experience.”

Next he moved to Farraday’s Scout.

“Same thing here,” he said from under the vehicle. “Not as well done though. Sloppy … they crossed a couple of wires. This one would’ve been a dud. Must’ve been in a hurry.”

He slid back out from beneath the Scout with the second device.

“You see anybody when you were driving in here?” I asked.

Toronto shook his head.

“How long had you been waiting for us?”

“I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes maybe.”

Sirens could be heard in the distance. Darkness was gathering and the glow from flashing lights appeared over the nearby hills.

“Look, man,” he said. “This dirt road continues all the way through to another highway on the other side of the ridge. I can make it in the Suburban so I’m out of here.”

“You’re what? Jake, we just had a bombing and a murder here. The sheriff, the FBI … they’re going to be all over this.”

“I know. That’s why I can’t stick around.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said, trotting to the Suburban.

“You’ll what?”

Farraday was still talking to someone on the phone. The skeleton of the Jeep was still burning and the sirens were getting louder. Toronto hopped into the vehicle, fired up the engine, and kicked up a cloud of dust and stone as he disappeared over a rise up the road.

15

“Pavlicek, I want to talk to you. Inside. Now.”

Two hours later, our macabre gathering in the woods still included a fire captain, two big red pumpers, several firemen, about a half dozen Kanawha County sheriff’s deputies and their cruisers, not to mention the state police bomb squad, a gaggle of swarming FBI agents, and my newfound friend, ATF Agent Grooms. Darkness had fallen. Flood lamps and headlights lit up the cold. Some kind soul had stuck a cup of hot black coffee in my hands.

Grooms pointed toward the back of a large black panel van parked in the line of rescue vehicles. I took another sip of coffee and followed him. The van’s doors opened as if by magic to reveal a mobile command post of sorts. Radios and terminals and sensitive monitoring equipment, most of the uses for which I could imagine but not precisely identify.

“This some kind of game to you, Pavlicek?” The doors closed behind us. With a gesture he bid me sit down in a rolling desk chair by one of the consoles while he took another opposite.

I kept my mouth shut. Shook my head.

“Now we’ve got a West Virginia Department of Natural Resources conservation officer murdered.”

“You finally ready to start arresting anybody?”

“Shit. You don’t even know what you’ve stuck your foot into and you want me to start arresting people.”

“Somebody
put those bombs under our vehicles.”

“You’re right. Somebody did. And we’re going to find out who it was.” He looked at a screen on the console for a moment. “What the hell were y’all doing up here in these woods this afternoon?” he asked.

“Hunting.”

“Hunting.”

“Yeah. You saw Farraday and the redtail.”

An ambulance had whisked the apprentice falconer off to the hospital for a checkup. The bird was calm and quiet now, sitting inside its giant hood in the back of Farraday’s Scout.

Grooms rubbed his hands together. “What was Hallston doing up here with you then?”

“Helping us look for Elo.”

“Elo?”

“The missing falcon that had been ill. Remember, I asked you about him?”

“Right. So what’s the big deal about a missing bird?”

“Well, I’m still curious about what caused Elo to get sick in the first place. So was Hallston.”

He thought about that for a moment. Then he appeared to dismiss it. “Mighty impressive the way you defused those other two bombs,” he said.

I shrugged, wondering if Farraday would back my story the way I’d asked him to, that he and I and Hallston had been the only ones present at the bombing.

“Something seems to be missing here.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

“Where’s your buddy Toronto?”

“I haven’t seen him this afternoon. He’s supposed to be following up with Chester’s veterinarian.”

“Back to the bird thing again.”

“Right.”

He propped his big foot on the counter and retied his shoe, then let it slide back down to the floor again. “So you think by us moving on the Stonewall Rangers now we can end all this, huh?”

“I don’t know. You still know a lot more than I do and I’m beginning to wonder. … But it sure seems like it would make a great start.”

He leaned forward in his chair with his elbows resting on top of his knees. He put his head down for a moment and massaged his forehead. He looked tired.

“All right, Pavlicek. Look, what I’m going to tell you right now is a matter of homeland security. You understand?”

I nodded.

“If it leaves this trailer, in any way whatsoever, both your ass and my ass will be so hard fried the charcoal will look worse than what’s left of that Jeep out there.”

“I get it.”

He let out a long sigh. “I can tell you we’re on the inside of this one and we think we’re ahead of the curve.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“The Rangers are definitely up to something then.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve infiltrated their organization.”

“Not exactly. Better than that.”

I wondered what he meant, but knew better than to probe further about it. “So you think they’re feeling the heat and have started killing people?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I honestly don’t know.” He stared at me, looking a little uncertain.

“But it sure is making the waters muddy for you at the moment, isn’t it?”

“It damn sure is.”

“So you’re saying, don’t let finding out who killed an old man flying his bird in the woods get in the way of catching some terrorists.”

“In the short run, maybe I am. Yes. If there were anything illicit about Chester Carew’s shooting, I can almost guarantee you it will come out in the wash.”

“But now they’re killing people with bombs.”

“You must’ve really pissed them off then. You’re just lucky it wasn’t you and your friend Farraday too.”

“The bombs were all on timers.”

“Appears that way … random … hoped to kill as many of you as they can.”

“When are you going to make your move?”

“Soon,” he said. “Very soon.”

“Seems to me we’re right back to where we were a couple of hours ago. You want me to trust that you guys have got it all correct.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“But what if the devil’s in the details?”

“What if the bigger question is: can we trust you?”

“You want to arrest me? Is that it?”

“No. I don’t want to arrest you. That might tip our hand to the Stonewallers. I just want you to be a team player.”

There was a knock at the back of the van. Grooms wheeled his chair over and pushed one of the rear doors open.

A woman in a dark jacket with the large letters ATF stenciled on the front stood there holding a printout in her hand.

“What’s up?” Grooms asked.

“We’ve got something we thought you’d want to see, boss.”

“What is it?”

The woman made a point of glancing over the top of her paper at me.

“It’s all right, Sally. Just give me what you got.”

She coughed. “The two remaining car bombs, you know, are C-four. And we’re pretty sure the one that boomed was of the same type. But in spraying the area with detection agents we’ve come up with a trace of Group One Inorganic Nitrate along the road.”

Grooms’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Ammonium nitrate? How much?”

“Like I said, just a trace. Minute amount. Could’ve even come in on any of these vehicles’ tires.”

“Probably just some spilled fertilizer.”

“That’s what we were thinking too.”

“Do a broader analysis though, as much as feasible. Check up and down the road for any more of the stuff.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll be right with you guys,” he said.

“Something unexpected?” I asked.

“
You’re
what’s unexpected, Pavlicek. But I’ve got to go.” He pushed himself out of the chair and I followed.

Halfway through the door of the van he turned to me. “So is this the end of it for you then? Or do I still have to wait for your call?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

He tapped his watch. “The clock is ticking. Remember what I said earlier. …”

Be careful who you trust.

“What about my truck?” I asked.

“We’re done with it for now,” he said.

“And Farraday’s hawk?”

“Farraday wasn’t injured, was he?”

“No, just a little shell-shocked, I think.”

“I’ll get somebody to drive the bird down to him at the hospital in just a little bit,” he said.

The inside of my truck was still warming up as I threaded my way among the various law enforcement vehicles parked along the dirt road and rolled down the hill toward the highway, following a state police van that was also leaving. At the intersection with the main road a police barricade blocked the exit. Two sheriff’s deputies nodded at me gravely as they let me pass.

There was another large assembly of klieg lights and vehicles parked along the shoulder here. A half dozen media vans, huge video cameras, and a satellite truck. I heard the guttural chop of air and saw the blinking red lights from a helicopter circling in the dark sky over-head. The county sheriff, Hiram Jackson, and another man stood before a group of fifteen or twenty reporters. Squinting into the bright lights, the sheriff was speaking into a bank of microphones.

Toward the back of the gathering, I noticed Kara Grayson. She was hard to miss, what with her bright blond hair and long dark coat, the same one she had worn at the house the day before; but she appeared content to remain in the background while the other reporters fired their questions at the officials. She turned from watching the sheriff to look at my truck as I passed.

We locked eyes for a moment before I’d driven completely by.

16

I wouldn’t see Jake Toronto again for almost twenty-four hours. He didn’t answer his cell phone, and when I called Betty Carew she said she hadn’t seen him or heard from him either. I picked up a sub and a couple of sodas in Dunbar and drove into downtown Charleston again, circling along the river and up around the surrounding hills through various neighborhoods, thinking about all that had happened.