24 Declassified: Head Shot (2009) (14 page)

Not so unusual a sight in the West, where biker gangs were more numerous and firmly established than in the more urbanized areas east of the Mississippi.
Denver and its surroundings had more than their fair share of renegade motorcycle clubs.

These two specimens were emblematic of the type. Each sat astride a heavy-duty Harley customized with extended front forks and all the trimmings. The duo were down and dirty in greasy, well-worn denims, but their machines were in top shape, their gleaming streamlined shapes marred only by a coating of dust picked up while cruising the dirt road. The machines
weren’t dirt bikes built for off-roading but rather muscular cycles designed for high- speed highway long hauls. One thing outlaw bikers can do is ride, handling their machines with the facility of a Cossack on horseback, taking them to the streets or the back trails as they pleased.

Jack’s activities in the past had caused him to work undercover operations among outlaw motorcycle clubs with a penchant for gunrunning and operating meth labs, so he eyed these two with a professional interest.

One of them was medium-sized, with long, greasy black hair slicked back and a hipster goatee. His eyes were banded with oversized sunglasses that looked like the kind worn by patients recovering from cataract operations. Jack figured there was nothing wrong with the cyclist’s eyesight and that he sported the shades because they provided a kind of effective half mask, obscuring his features. His face above and below the dark glasses was wizened, sharp-featured, and weasely.

The other was big, hulking, pumped up with that comic book superhero physique that comes from steroid use. Reddish-gold hair was combed up in a pompadour and hung down the back of his neck in a classic mullet. His nose was crooked from having been broken several times, and he had a wide, jack-o’-lantern mouth.

The smaller of the two was saying, “We saw that some joker must’ve gone off the high side but we couldn’t see nothing from up there so we came down for a better look.”

The deputy said, “There’s nothing to see so you can go back the way you came.”

The big biker said, “That’s some drop. How many people got killed?”

Taggart said, “You can read about it in the papers.”

The big biker snickered. “Reading? What’s that, man?”

His buddy laughed, said, “That’s telling him, Rowdy.”

The deputy said, “You can practice by reading a few traffic summonses if you like.”

Rowdy said, “Hey man, what’re you picking on us for? We ain’t doing nothing.”

Taggart said, “Go do it somewhere else.”

The deputy said, “We don’t rightly care for your kind hereabouts. Make yourself scarce, unless you’d like to spend ninety days as a guest of the county.”

Rowdy turned to his buddy, said, “You heard the man, Griff. No point hanging around where we’re not wanted.”

Griff said, “I can take a hint.”

The dirt road was narrow and the bikers had to
manoeuvre
their machines to turn around. Their backs were to Jack and for the first time he could see their colors, the emblem of their club that was sewn to the backs of their sleeveless denim vests.

Their insignia depicted a demonic, quasi- humanoid Gila monster straddling a souped- up cycle on two stumpy legs. It bore the legend: “Hellbenders M.C.”

Hellbenders Motorcycle Club. Jack had heard of them. A tough outfit, very tough.
They’d been in the headlines about six months ago when some of their leaders had been swooped up in a high- profile gunrunning bust.

One area of equipment where their bikes came up short was in the muffler department. The choppers took off with an earsplitting crack of iron thunder. The machines churned up dust clouds as they vroomed east on the dirt road, heading for Nagaii Drive.

The deputy and Taggart watched them go. The deputy muttered, “A- holes. You know if you search them bikers you’d find a half-dozen violations easy. And you know what’d happen if I did that?”

Taggart said, “No, what?”

“The sheriff’d have me on the carpet for a royal ass-chewing, for diverting precious departmental resources on them hog-riding fools when we’re already stretched thin providing security for the Round Table.”

Taggart laughed. “That’s why he’s sheriff. He’s got his priorities right. Nothing’s more important than making sure that nobody crashes that private party for Richie Riches.”

The deputy said, “Soon as they haul that wreck with those two stiffs in it out of here, I got to go back to patrolling Sky Mount.”

“You and me both, brother.”

“I don’t know what the big deal is. It ain’t like that heap was going anyplace.”

“It had a couple of ATF guys in it, so that makes it Federal.”

“Big deal.”

Taggart joked, “Maybe they were drunk when they went over the edge.”

That got a laugh out of the deputy. “That’s what I’m going to do when the conference is done—get drunk. And not before then. They’ve got us all pulling double shifts while it’s on. All leaves and days off canceled for the duration.”

Taggart said, “Times are tough all over.”

Jack and Anne Armstrong had to cross the road to get to where their car was parked. Their path crossed that of Taggart and the deputy. The deputy had seen their credentials when they first arrived so he let them pass without comment.

Jack and Taggart made eye contact. Jack said, “Small world.”

Taggart smiled. “Miller Fisk is mad at you.”

“He can have a rematch anytime he wants.”

“He ain’t that mad. Anyhow, Hardin’s got him pulling roadblock duty way up in the hills right now. He’s so teed off at Fisk that Fisk is lucky he’s not cleaning latrines at the station instead.”

“Is Hardin mad at him for abusing a prisoner or for getting chopped down to size?”

“There’s a question. You’ll have to ask Bryce the answer to that one.”

“And you?”

“Far as I’m concerned, that overgrown plowboy got what’s been coming to him for a long time. ’Course, I ain’t related to him, like Bryce is.”

“Is that right?”

“Fisk is Hardin’s nephew. You don’t think Fisk made the MRT because he’s a regular Sherlock Holmes, do you?”

Jack said, “I’m going to try to not think about it at all.”

Taggart said, “Not a bad idea. See you around.”

Jack nodded to him. Anne Armstrong was already in the car, waiting for him. She looked pleased. She said, “I just finished talking with Central. Good news for a change.”

Jack said, “What’ve you got?”

“A lead, maybe. They’ve turned up somebody who’s seen the blue bus.”

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 A.M. AND 11 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME

Dixon Cutoff, Colorado

Cletus Skeets said, “Is there going to be any reward money in this?” He pronounced it “ree-ward.” He was of medium height, reedy, with muddy eyes, a three- day beard, and a prominent Adam’s apple.

Anne Armstrong said, “It’s possible, Mr. Skeets.”

Skeets indicated Ernie Sandoval. “Because that’s what he told Mabel. That there was a reward.”

Ernie Sandoval, a CTU/DENV investigative agent in his mid-thirties, was short, chunky, moon- faced, with close-cropped dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a thick mustache. He’d been doing some good old-fashioned legwork all morning, canvassing stops along some of the back roads in the Red Notch area. He’d found a possible lead at the Pup Tent, a
greasy spoon
diner located on the Dixon Cutoff, a pass between Mount Nagaii and Mount Zebulon that was used by local drivers and long- haul truckers.

Jack Bauer, Armstrong, Sandoval, and Skeets were standing in the parking lot of the Pup Tent, a roadside eatery on the north side of the east-west running Dixon Cutoff. The diner was a white wooden- frame building that looked like what it was, an overgrown hot dog stand. A hand- painted marquee on the roof depicted a cartoonish hot dog in a ten-gallon hat and cowboy boots firing off a pair of six-guns. The legend beneath it read: “Ask about our famous foot-long Texas Wieners!”

The structure sat in the middle of an elongated gravel parking lot, extra-sized to accommodate big-rig trucks whose drivers wanted to grab a bite on this side of the mountains. There were no big rigs in the lot now, just Armstrong’s Mercedes, the Toyota pickup that Sandoval had been making his rounds in, and a couple of cars belonging to diner patrons and personnel.

Sandoval had warm brown eyes and an engaging smile. He said, “That’s not entirely accurate, Mr. Skeets. What I told your employer was that we are prepared to pay a modest sum in the event that the information you supply helps us to locate the people we’re looking for.”

Skeets said, “That’s a reward, ain’t it?”

“Call it what you like. The information has to be verified and significantly useful in discovering the whereabouts of the persons of interest. In other words, if your tip pays off, we pay off.”

Skeets licked his lips. “How much?”

“That depends on how useful the information is. We won’t be able to assess that until it’s been properly evaluated and followed up on.”

“A couple of thousand bucks?”

“A couple of hundred bucks, maybe.” Sandoval was starting to get irritated. “We’re not exactly buying the plans for an atomic bomb here, we’re just trying to find some missing persons.”

Skeets got a shifty look in his eyes. “Well, I don’t know about that. I had to come down here on my time off. I work nights and I ain’t had my proper sleep. Could throw off my recollection, that is if I did see anything at all.”

Jack, impatient, decided to play bad cop to Sandoval’s good cop. He said, “Maybe a stretch in jail will improve your memory.”

Skeets tried to tough it out. “You got no call to arrest me. I ain’t done nothing. I got my rights!”

“You’re a possible material witness who’s impeding a Federal investigation. That’s grounds for holding you in custody for forty-eight hours. For starters.”

Skeets’s eyes bulged and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Now hold on a danged minute— ”

Jack had an inspiration. “Maybe you know a state cop named Miller Fisk?”

“Who don’t? Everybody around here knows him. They ought to, he throws his weight around enough. He’s a real mean SOB.”

“A session with Fisk might help you get your mind right. Why don’t we give him a call and tell him to come on down?”

Skeets held up both hands palms-out in a gesture of surrender. “You don’t have to do that! It’s all coming back to me now.”

“Okay—give.”

Skeets said, “I’ll tell you what I told Pedro.”

“Who’s he?”

“The dishwasher on the night shift. We was both working on Wednesday night. Thursday morning, actually. Mabel, she goes home at midnight, so there’s just me and Pedro holding down the fort. I do the cooking and he does the cleaning and we get by. Don’t get many customers between midnight and dawn, ’cept for some long- haul truckers and night owls with a load on who want to get something in their bellies to help them sober up. So the two of us is plenty.

“Anyhow, pretty late in the shift, it was dead quiet so I went out for a smoke. Mabel used to be a heavy smoker but she quit and now she don’t allow no smoking inside nohow. Not the customers or nobody. She knows if anybody’s been smoking in the diner when she ain’t there, she’s got a nose on her. I tried it once or twice and sure enough, as soon as she comes in, first thing at six o’clock in the morning, she wrinkles up her nose and sniffs around and says, ‘Cletus, you been smoking.’ She told me off but good both times and after you’ve been told off by Mabel, you’ve been told. So when I want a smoke I go outside, which is what I done that night.”

Jack said, “What time was that, Mr. Skeets?”

“Well, I went out a couple of times, but the time we’re talking about was four-thirty in the ay emm. I remember that ’cause I looked at the clock and said to myself, Just another hour and a half to go and I’m out of here. I went outside and sat down on the front stairs and lit up.

“No sooner do I fire up a smoke than I seen a pair of headlights coming. There ain’t much traffic at that hour and I said, Dang, don’t that beat all? Soon as I take a break, a customer rolls along. Figured it was a customer because there ain’t hardly no traffic at all at that hour.”

“Which direction was the vehicle coming from, Mr. Skeets?”

“East, from the east. Only it wasn’t no vehicle, it was a bunch of them. A regular convoy. A pickup truck, a couple of cars, and a bus, all riding together in a line. They didn’t stop, neither, but kept right on going.”

“They went west?”

Skeets nodded. “Yep. West, toward the pass. I wouldn’t have thought nothing much about it, ’cept for the bus.”

“Why is that?”

“It was a school bus. Just struck me funny somehow. I mean, here it is the middle of summer. Ain’t no school in session. Summer school, maybe, but they don’t need no bus for that and even if they did, they don’t run at four-thirty in the morning. Ain’t even no schools around here, for that matter. Sure ain’t none west of the pass. So I said to myself, What-all do they need a school bus for in July?”