Fatal Harbor (27 page)

And here I was, alone in a sheriff’s van, heading to jail.

I was thinking so much that I almost missed the vehicle that was now behind us.

It was a black Chevrolet Suburban, with tinted windows and no license plate up forward, which meant it wasn’t local, since New Hampshire requires vehicles to have license plates both fore and aft.

It had pulled out from a dirt driveway, sped up, and was now closing in behind us.

“Deputy Lindsay.”

“Yeah?”

“Check what’s coming up on our tail. The Suburban.”

He leaned over, looked to the rear. “So?”

“Deputy, in about one minute, we’re going to get ambushed. Better call for some backup.”

He flipped back to me, the friendly look entirely gone. His eyes were glaring at me, face flushed, as his hand went down to his holstered pistol. “You bastard, you set us up! That’s why you wanted your handcuffs off!”

“If I was setting you up, I wouldn’t warn you. You don’t have much time. Deputy, get to it, call backup!”

His eyes didn’t leave me as he evaluated my words, and he said, “Move, and you’ll be the first one hit.”

“Take a number,” I said. “Those guys are after
me
.”

Lindsay took his pistol out and, with his other hand, toggled the radio microphone on his shirt epaulet. “Dispatch, dispatch, this is Grafton Mobile One.”

Static crackled back at him.

His voice louder, “Dispatch, dispatch, this is Grafton Mobile One.”

More static.

“I think they’re jamming you,” I said.

“Shit.”

He tried his cell phone, said “shit” again, and tossed it on the floor.

The Suburban sped up, getting closer. Lindsay pushed by me, rapped on the mesh wire separating us from the cab. “Ski! We got trouble! My radio’s not working, and we got bad guys on our asses!”

Ski said something back; Lindsay said: “Then haul ass! See if we can make the jail in time!”

The van lurched as Ski sped up, and Lindsay came back, checked his pistol, took me in with a look, and asked, “Who’s after you? Same guy who shot you?”

“His friends.”

“They’re pretty pissed off.”

I said: “Whatever happens, don’t get involved. Keep your head down and—”

“The hell with that,” he said with determination. “You’re our responsibility.”

The Suburban came almost to the rear bumper, and then a hell of a thing happened. The van’s engine cut out and the Suburban passed us and Lindsay said, “The hell just happened?”

“They’ve just killed your engine.”

“How the hell did they do that?”

“I’m sure it’s top secret somewhere.”

The Suburban sideswiped the van, up forward Ski shouted, and the van skidded and went off the road, into a drainage ditch. Lindsay scrambled to keep his balance but he fell, as my county wheelchair and I fell on top of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I
screamed as my bandaged leg hit something, and there was a god-awful banging and tearing noise as the van came to a rest on its side. I was sitting on the tilted floor, and Lindsay was crumpled up in the corner, bleeding from his head, part of the lift mechanism pinning his legs down. I shuffled over to him, checked his pulse in the neck. Steady and strong. I only had seconds to do something. His pistol was in his lap. I grabbed it, wasted a second or two to find a spare magazine, couldn’t find one. There were shouts and a loud
bang
coming from outside.

I went back to the rear, popped open the door, and it flopped open. I lowered myself to the drainage ditch, dressed only in pajama bottoms and top, with thin hospital slippers on my feet. My feet were instantly soaked.

I peered around the edge of the van. The Suburban was parked just a few yards away, engine running. Driver was still inside, ready to speed away when the job was done. One man was approaching the still form of Deputy Bronski on the road. Another was flanking him, giving him cover. Made quick professional sense. Taking care of the closest armed opponent. Both had on jet-black fatigues, boots, web belts, black Navy watch caps, with earpieces and microphones set before their mouths. Each had a stubby automatic weapon in his hands, looking like a variant of the popular Swedish-made H&K 95.

I was spotted by the far man and he said something sharp and quick, and I think I surprised all of us when I fired first, sending off at least four shots as they quickly flopped to the ground and rolled to one side, weapons rising up.

By then I was trying to make my way through the woods.

“Trying” was certainly the word of the day. I had to drag my bandaged leg behind me, the slippers were about as useful as wet cardboard, and after a couple of yards I was shivering from the thin clothing I was wearing.

I glanced back several times as I moved as fast as I could, going up a tree-covered rise, not thinking much of anything except to make some distance. Making distance meant time, and time meant the increasing chance that somebody would be coming by this rural road and would think enough of seeing a county sheriff’s van on its side to make a phone call.

Illusions? Had none. These were two very professional, cool, and capable men on my trail.

I paused, panting. Thought I saw some shadows moving down below, about fifty feet away. Two more shots from my borrowed Glock 10mm. Which meant about six rounds left.

Hell of a last stand.

I kept moving, tripped, and fell. Yelled out. Rolled over, sat up, looked at my leg.

The bandage on my right leg was seeping blood through my thin cotton pants.

“Day just keeps on getting better,” I whispered.

I got up, my slippers now black with dirt and debris, as well as my pants legs below my knees. Shivering hard now. Watching through the woods, boulders, and brush. Feeling at that very moment what a deer felt like in these woods every November.

More shadows moved down there.

Damn, they were good.

I kept moving, panting, crying out every now and then as a sharp rock or stick poked into my feet.

More distance made, but I was slowing down. To the right, an old cellar hole appeared, from some farm that had tried to make it here a century ago and had failed. I had a brief thought of going into the hole, burrowing in, and hiding, but those guys back there probably had thermal detection devices with them. Trying to hide in a hole like that would just make their job easy.

Above all, I didn’t want to make it easy for them.

I kept moving.

The hill got steeper and steeper. It felt like ice picks were being jabbed into my lungs. A shot from behind me.

I whirled, saw one of the gunmen slipping behind a birch tree. I brought up the pistol and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

I moved another foot or two, tripped once more, swirled and fell flat on my ass, my bottom now soaked through. I grimaced and stretched my legs out. I was sitting against a thick old pine tree.

I pulled the trigger again.

Nothing.

It was jammed.

I clawed at the action.

Jammed.

A spent 10mm cartridge was jamming the works.

I looked up.

The two gunmen were moving quickly and silently up the slope of the hill, not too far away.

Looked around on the ground for a stick or a length of wood or an abandoned screwdriver to pry out the empty cartridge.

Nothing.

Tried with my finger, broke a fingernail.

Raised my head.

The two men were so close that I could see that the one on the left had black bushy eyebrows, and the one on the right had thin fine blond eyebrows. Both had their weapons up to their shoulders, aiming right down at me. I even saw that the guy on the right had a shotgun-type weapon slung over a shoulder, which I thought was overkill.

Hah.

I threw the jammed pistol at the near gunman. Here we go, I thought. The circle was about to be closed. Was almost killed by my government some years ago in Nevada, and now the job would be finished in a minute or two, in my home state, by my government or somebody else out there associated with them.

They came closer.

I cleared my throat. “If you’re hoping for some begging, you’re wasting your time.”

The gunman on the left brought a gloved hand up to the microphone in front of his lips, murmured something, paused, and then nodded his head, like he had just been told something. He held up his right hand, palm up, and turned, ensuring that his partner saw the motion.

He came closer, knelt down on one knee in front of me.

“How you doing?” he asked, his voice deep Southern and relaxed.

“Had better days.”

“No, you haven’t,” he said.

“I think I’ll be the judge of that.”

He grinned, revealing white teeth that could put him on a
GQ
magazine cover. “Nah, you’re wrong, Mister Cole. ’Bout ninety seconds ago, we just got orders to cancel the op. So you’re good to go.”

I took a breath. The cold air tasted pretty fine. “You wouldn’t be lying, would you?”

He shook his head. “Nossir, wouldn’t do that.” He eyed me and said: “Can see you’re bleeding like a son-of-a-bitch. Wish I could stick around and help ya, but we gotta get movin’.”

“Like you helped the two deputies?”

“Ah, they’ll be copacetic, just you wait and see. Guy in the van’s got a dinged head, other guy’s out with a nap.”

“Looked pretty permanent to me.”

“Nossir,” he said emphatically. “Ivan over there nailed ’em with a vortex gun. Drops ’em for about a minute or two, long enough to secure ’em.”

“What the hell is a vortex gun?” I asked, again looking at the stubby shotgun-like weapon on the second gunman’s back. Ivan spotted me doing it and said something loud and piercing in what seemed to be Russian. The man in front of me turned his head, spoke Russian crisply right back at him. A long time ago I could have puzzled out what they were saying, but those days were long gone.

“Sorry, classified,” he said, standing up. “And Ivan’s getting hot to trot. Made his bones back in Chechnya, can’t stand to be sittin’ still in one place. Don’t you worry, once we’re clear, I’ll call the cops, tell ’em where to pick you up.”

I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help myself. “Just like that? You want to help me out, and five minutes ago you wanted to take my head off?”

He grinned again. “That’s the job. Just following orders.”

“Stuff like that would keep me up at night.”

He slung his automatic rifle over his shoulder. “Maybe so, but you know what? I love it. I do what I have to do because of who I am, and I let somebody else worry about right or wrong, east or west, left or right, Muslim or Christian. All above my pay grade, and that’s fine with me.”

He touched his forehead with his forefinger. “Keep cool, bud. Looking forward to never seeing you again.”

Then he turned, said something in Russian again to the gunman called Ivan, and in a matter of seconds they were ghost shadows among the trees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A
week and a presidential election later, I was standing outside the main entrance to the Grafton County House of Corrections, leaning on a metal cane, wearing donated clothing from the county. It was a cold, crisp day, and I was supposedly a free man. Buildings behind me were surrounded with coils and coils of concertina wire. A black Chevrolet Impala came up to the parking lot and stopped, and Detective Pete Renzi stepped out of the car and walked over to me.

When he stopped, he dug out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and lit one up, took a deep drag.

“So you’re smoking again.”

“Damn observant,” he said, taking another deep drag. “The past couple of weeks would drive anybody to smoke, thanks to you.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Not here to get your apology.”

I leaned some more on my cane, felt the sharp wind cut through me. I kept quiet. He dropped the cigarette, ground it out with the heel of his shoe.

“Don’t you feel bad, nearly getting two sheriff’s deputies killed?”

“They weren’t killed,” I said. “Banged up a bit, but they weren’t killed.”

“And you can’t say anything about the Suburban that drove you guys off the road, or the two gunmen?”

“I’ve made at least two statements to the county attorney and the state’s attorney general. Don’t feel like saying anything more about that. Go check the interview transcripts if you’re still curious.”

I had a strong feeling he didn’t like what I’d just said, but I didn’t care that much. I was feeling the cold and I just wanted to leave.

Renzi said, suddenly, “I’ve been with the state for quite a few years, and I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen anything like what happened. All the evidence associated with you and this case—your clothes, your shoes, even your damn socks—disappear from a locked facility at the state’s crime lab. Gone. Which meant a shitstorm came my way and swept up some poor crime techs, barely making enough salary to support a family.”

“Guess you know I had nothing to do with it, being the guest of the county and all that.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Lewis. For a while, I was sure your pal Felix Tinios had something to do with it, but he had the typical ironclad alibi for the night the theft occurred. The bastard even had the same kind of alibi the night the Osgood house burned down. And here you are, free to go. No evidence, no probable-cause hearing, no trial. Congratulations.”

“Somehow I’m not feeling the sincerity, Detective.”

He took out the pack of cigarettes, looked at it, and then put it back into his coat. “Seems like a long time ago, I warned you off the matter of Curt Chesak. It’s obvious you went ahead and did what you wanted to do. Are you still on the job?”

“I’ve got more important things going on at the moment,” I said, raising up my cane a few inches.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ So let me ask you this. There were three male bodies found in the house after it burned down. Safe to say Curt Chesak was one of them?”

“You being a detective and all, I thought you might already know that.”

“Hah,” Renzi said, his voice flat. “Problem is, no fingerprints. Any recovered DNA hasn’t been matched with anything in any DNA database we’ve been able to access. Plus there’s the matter of the heads.”