Blue Wolf In Green Fire (35 page)

Service didn't tell the others about Daysi and the wolves.

The wind howled and battered the heavy canvas walls throughout the night.

They were all awake at 4 a.m., stoking the fire and readying breakfast. Nantz called Service's cell phone at 5 a.m. “Weather's marginal,” she told him. “Tucker's willing to try, but we might not be able to get back in here. We've got strong winds and blowing snow. We can use Menominee as our alternate. The snow's lighter down there.”

“Stay on the ground,” Service said. “We have the animals located.”

“Call you later, okay? I do,” she added, her two-word code for she loved him.

“No flight this morning,” Service told the group. “Nantz will keep us posted on the weather.”

“Won't let up twenty-four hours,” Allerdyce said, stretching and getting up off the floor. “Worse tonight den last night.”

Zambonet grimaced. “The National Weather Service says it will start to tail off later today.”

“Twenty-four hours,” Allerdyce repeated. “You'll see. What's for breakfast? We got bakery?”

Service grabbed the poacher's arm. “Call Aldo, tell him it won't be this morning.”

“I'll walk over dere later,” Limpy said, watching Shark scramble eggs. Limpy had a radio. Why wouldn't he call his grandson?

Zambonet spent the early morning checking his equipment and talking them through what would take place once they had the wolf in a leghold trap. He took a radio collar out of a box. It looked different from the ones Service had seen in the biologist's office.

“Built-in GPS,” Zambonet said. “If we can get this on the male, we'll be able to track him precisely. This collar's accurate to three feet.”

“You use these all the time?”

“Nope. I bought this with my own money. Been saving it. This is a matter of national security, right?”

Service grinned. Yogi was on board.

After eggs, hash browns, and venison chops, Shark began assembling the makings of hunter's stew for lunch. The others went out to collect more wood, each coming back with his clothes caked with snow. Limpy disappeared. To Aldo's camp, Service assumed. The old reprobate was not going to admit to having a radio.

Service probed the snow with a stick, estimated nine or ten inches and still accumulating. Jesse Fulsik called in from Houghton with a weather update from there. “Clear and still,” he told Zambonet. “Clear up to our asses and still snowin'.” The Keweenaw had twenty inches on the ground and counting. Zambonet wanted his equipment within fifty yards of the capture site. Service knew they couldn't get a truck to Aldo's camp and decided they would have to use the snowmobiles to carry the gear. He explained the situation to Zambonet, and together they transferred equipment to two of the snow machines.

Carmody called at 3 p.m. “This has to be quick,” he said, his voice barely audible. “We're in the Mosquito.”

“Where in the Mosquito?”

“No clue, lad. She's gone steely-eyed and tight-lipped. I'll give you a shout.”

“Another wolf was shot the other night when you called.”

Carmody grunted. “Not us, lad. She had hold of a gun that night, but not the fifty.”

“Is the fifty with you?”

“I can't say. She holds information tight. I'll be in touch.”

If Wealthy Johns didn't shoot the third wolf, who did?

There was a lot to think about before Carmody got to the area. He wished Shamekia would call today, but knew she wouldn't.

Freddy Bear Lee called at 7 p.m. As Limpy predicted, the snow had intensified throughout the day, sagging the roof of the tent. Shark and Gus and DaWayne Kota went outside periodically to scrape it off.

“Service, Fred.”

“Yah.”

“I got the fax. The shooter was a woman, Grady.”

The message caught him short. “SuRo?”

“Your friend got the video cleaned and it's still a bit of a blur, eh, but you can make out the face and it's definootely not Genova. I talked to your friend about an hour ago and she's running the photo through the Interpol and FBI computer databases of mug shots to see what pops up. She's also talking to somebody in London.”

At least SuRo would be clear. “Have you informed Cassie Nevelev?”

“Hell no, but the feds and Feebs still have a lot to explain about why they're on Genova's ass so hard. Where you at?” Service told him. “Middle of the bloody wilderness, eh,” his friend said.

The word made him smile. He remembered reading a recent Jim Harrison description of the U.P. as “undistinguished and slovenly, a wilderness by default,” spared development only because there was little of value to the rest of the state. He had long admired the writer's work, but Harrison might sing a different tune if he saw the Mosquito.

“You want to see the photos?” the Chippewa County sheriff asked.

“How?”

“I'll bring 'em to youse. She's only a baby blizzard, eh?”

Service gave him directions and GPS coordinates to where he had left his trailer, and another GPS fix for the camp.

“Be there sometime tomorrow,” the sheriff said.

“Bring your sled,” Service said.

“I never leave home without it.”

Two hours later the cell phone rang again. It was McKower. “Grady, I'm at Marquette General. The captain had a stroke this afternoon. He was shoveling snow and passed out. When he came to, he managed to call nine-one-one. I just talked to his doctor. The captain's left side is paralyzed, but this may pass. They're going to run tests, try to determine if there's permanent damage.” Lis sounded deflated. “Where are you?”

“In the northern Mosquito, near Fish Creek. We're trying to put a radio collar on the blue wolf.”

He imagined the gears turning in her mind. What the hell was he doing in the Mosquito? The turf now belonged to McCants. But she didn't challenge him. “They don't think he'll die,” she said after the long pause. “I'll keep you informed.”

“We got the video enhanced,” he said, “and a clear photo of the shooter. It's a woman.”

“Genova?”

“Freddy Bear says no. FEMUNSUB at this point.” FBI jargon for “female unidentified subject.” “You want to see the pics? Freddy's bringing a set to me. I can have him drop a set to you along the way. Does the chief know about the cap'n?”

“I just got off the phone with him. He's going to fly up, but right now all air traffic is grounded. The storm has socked in everything north of Cadillac. He'll probably be here early tomorrow. I would like to see those pictures.”

“Freddy will bring them. Tell the cap'n I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Just do your job,” she said. “That's what he'll want.”

He called Freddy Bear Lee on the cellular and asked him to drop a set of photos to McKower at Marquette General. Then he called Nantz.

“Hi,” she said, sounding tired.

“Captain Grant had a stroke. He's in Marquette General.”

“How bad?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“Lis says he'll live, but they don't know yet if there's permanent damage.”

“I'm so sorry. Is Lis with him?”

“Yes.”

“I could drive up there.”

“Let Lis handle it, hon.”

“We're not getting shit done here,” she said. “I loathe sitting on my ass, Grady. Tucker and I are sleeping in the hangar. No way are we ­getting ­airborne in the morning. The snow's letting up a bit, but the winds are still brutal and with this drifting it's going to be a battle to get the runway cleared.”

“Don't take a chance,” he said. “Stay on the ground until it's safe. The wolves will wait.”

“Okay, babe. Bad over there?”

“It's always bad when we're in different places.”

“Ooh, Service. Did I hear an unsolicited romantic, loving thought? You big old love-puppy!”

He felt a blush coming over him and changed the subject. “Genova didn't shoot those people at Vermillion.”

“Well, duh,” she said. “Who did?”

He didn't know, but he was determined to find out. “Talk to you later,” he said.

He immediately called Candace McCants. McKower hadn't brought it up, but this was Candi's territory now and she deserved to know what was going on. He remembered Sheena Grinda laughing at his lecture on teamwork and shook his head. Just like his old man, the do-as-I-say, not do-as-I-do school. He felt like a jerk.

“What?” McCants answered in the wary deer-season voice that all COs developed for two weeks each year when every time you picked up the phone there could be anything on the other end.

“This is Grady. I'm in the Mosquito near Fish Creek. I've got Zambonet, Gus, Shark, Bobber Canot, DaWayne Kota, and Limpy with me.”

“Allerdyce?” she said. “It sounds like Armegeddon.”

“The Mosquito is yours. You want to join us?”

She laughed out loud. “I wouldn't miss this to do squat jumps on Russell Crowe. I take it you have something going down.”

“Soon,” he said, leaving it at that. He gave her the coordinates and promised to explain further when she arrived. Next he called Sheena Grinda.

“I thought you passed away,” she said, digging him.

He cut her off. “I told you if we made a case, the bust would be yours.” He gave her directions and a list of equipment to bring and prepared to hang up, but her voice stopped him.

“Service?”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

All the calls left him questioning everything. This job required him to keep too goddamn many people in the loop. He was separated from Maridly, who was flying hurt in bad weather with some old beau. Joe Flap was dead and the captain was on his back in the hospital. He had an explosion first assumed to be intended to release the wolves, but now looking more like a murder cover-up. He had the feds and FBI playing some kind of game that made no sense, and Natalie Namegoss and her Native American greenies threatening public pressure on the department. On top of all this, the damn blue wolf was still loose and snow was coming down by the dumpster load; last week it had been in the sixties.

Instead of settling into a funk, he suddenly felt alert and energized. Nantz had said to him one night that he was the sort of man who was born to ride a roller coaster, not a merry-go-round. She was right. But how often did roller coasters come off their tracks?

He came out of his reverie to find a grinning Limpy Allerdyce standing next to him.

“Kinda hard ta untie all da knots in da ole noggin sometimes, eh?” The old poacher handed him a cup of coffee and they went outside to have a smoke. When they got outside, Limpy took out a small flask and tipped some whiskey into Service's coffee. “Java, hooch, smokes, whatever it takes in our line of work, eh?”

Our line of work indeed, Service thought. They touched cups together and stood in the howling storm, poacher and guardian, side by side, joined for the moment in mutual pursuit. Grady's ex-wife had accused him of having a death wish, but she had been wrong. He wanted to live big and hard on the roller coaster, to live like this, where scores got kept and nothing but unknowns loomed ahead.

30

The group drove their snowmobiles to Aldo's cave-camp and found him outside and waiting for them. Had Limpy radioed ahead? Service wondered.

“They haven't moved,” Aldo announced.

“What's he talking about?” Zambonet asked.

“You'll see,” Service said.

Service, Zambonet, Limpy, and Canot followed Aldo on foot across a low-slung hill into a shallow valley lined by naked tamaracks.

A small woman was standing in the lee of dark, dense cedar slash. She wore knee-high mukluks over deerskin breeches dyed dark green. A black bearskin anorak stretched to midthigh. Her hood was down, her long black hair whipping in the wind, ice clots glistening. She was short and wide, with a long face and prominent cheekbones. She smelled heavily of castor oil and held Aldo's hand while he introduced her.

“This is Daysi,” Aldo said. “She'll show you.”

She tugged on Aldo's sleeve, stretched up, and whispered to him. Aldo spoke for her. “Just two, Daysi says. Otherwise, too much scent. Wolves don't like how people smell.”

Canot and Zambonet followed the girl into the cedar slash.

Limpy stared at his grandson, who ignored him. Service poked Limpy and led him back to the snowmobiles. Thermoses were taken out, coffee poured. No cigarettes were lit. DaWayne Kota offered a tin of chewing tobacco. They waited silently while the wind whistled harmonics through the rocky terrain and tree branches rubbed like fingernails dragged down blackboards, leafless limbs rattling like drumsticks in a grating cacophony.

When the lookers returned with Aldo and Daysi, Yogi Zambonet looked both elated and confused. Canot was grinning like he had just scraped clean a winning instant lottery ticket.

Zambonet let Bobber Canot explain. “There's a series of drumlins and the animals have been in the popples. Good vegetation in there, grasses layered underneath the snow, maybe the result of an old fire, definitely not cutover regrowth. It looks like a rendezvous site, but not quite, and it's too early for dens. I can't figure out why they're here like this.”

Service saw Daysi start her whispering routine again, but he said, “Daysi?” before Aldo could serve as her spokesman.

“I know where they'll den,” she said shyly.

“Too early,” Zambonet said. “Way too early.”

“Maybe it's her first time,” Daysi offered, avoiding the biologist's gaze.

“They're animals,” Yogi said.

DaWayne Kota spoke up. “I think she means maybe this will be the female's first pups and she wants to have things just right.”

“They don't think like humans,” Yogi said.

“Sometimes they just act like us,” Aldo said.

Zambonet nodded and turned to Bobber Canot. “Will the traps hold?”

The tracker looked at the others. “Our traps are designed to hold bears, but last year we trapped a ninety-pound male gray wolf that straightened out the drag chains.”

“That kinda stuff happens,” Shark said. He had been trapping and hunting most of his life.

“Three-quarter-inch steel?” Canot countered.

Wetelainen shook his head and stared off into the distance.

“That one last year had five-inch tracks. This fella's bigger.
Heaps
bigger. Seven-inchers,” he said. “Like pie tins.”

“My kids don't get that large,” Zambonet said.

“This animal was trapped in Saskatchewan,” Service reminded the biologist.

“They get bigger up there, but this . . .” He didn't finish the sentence.

“The traps'll hold,” Bobber Canot said. “I think I can get down some decent sets. I took a good look at this fella's tracks. He follows the female, and their moves around obstacles are predictable. I'd like to give it a try. I'd sure like to see this big fella,” he said with relish.

Zambonet thought for a moment. “Can you get your sets down by dark?”

“Sure.” Canot looked at Wetelainen. “You wanna help?”

“You betcha,” Shark said, his eyes flashing.

It took ten minutes to get their traps and scents. Canot held up a trap. It was black. “The MB seven fifty,” he said. “It goes five, six pounds, and it's strong enough to hold a big bear. Leghold type with double underspring, offset jaws; we grind the jaws smooth to prevent injury, boil the traps in alder bark to knock off the metallic sheen, and set them flat on the ground, which makes them easier to hide. Each trap has two drag chains.” He rattled the huge chains.

“What about bait?” Shark asked.

Canot dug several plastic bottles out of a pack. “Castor oil and ‘Just Mice.' You ever see that movie
Cry Wolf?
About a cockamamie wolf researcher up in the Arctic? He s'posedly lived with the wolves and discovered they lived exclusively on rodents. Was a buncha bull mostly, them eatin' just mice, but they sure seem to like the smell of 'em just fine.”

Service watched the two men heft their packs and head out. Shark and Bobber were a lot alike, he decided, happiest when they were stomping around the bush.

Zambonet exhaled, his breath dissipating in the wind. “We need to be closer to the wolf, but we'll have to wait until they actually get him in the trap. When Bobber has him we'll take the sleds in and use one of them as a table to do what has to be done. Our first concern is the safety of the animal. We've got about one hour from the time we drug him. We'll need to move fast. I'll use the poke-stick to immobilize him. I'll hit him first with ketamine, one cc per ten pounds of estimated weight, followed by xylazine. He'll be awake the whole time, but unable to move.”

He quickly checked off what had to be done. “As soon as we start on him, I'll install a head shroud so he can't see, insert a digital rectal ­thermometer, and tag his left ear.” Zambonet showed the approximate location on his own ear. “Red for Michigan, yellow for Wisconsin, green for Minnesota. The tags let us see at a distance if a tagged animal is ours. He won't be able to see, but he'll hear everything we do, and this will jack up his heart rate. When his heart rate increases, so does his temperature. We measure pulse and temp. The two give us a measure of stress. His temperature is
critical.
We don't want it to exceed one-oh-six. When we're done, I'll stick him with yohimbine and then we'll carry him back to the trap site and monitor him to make sure he's gonna come out of it all right.” Zambonet looked at the others to see if they were listening.

Daysi said, “Can these drugs hurt him?”

Zambonet didn't pull his punches. “The muscle relaxants can cause problems—even kill an animal—but that's never happened to one of my kids, and it's only rarely happened in Alaska where they do this a lot. The relative risk-to-benefit ratio is good. The other shots will protect against parvovirus and other canid diseases. We have to knock him down to help him, but he won't feel any pain,” the biologist said.

Daysi said, “If you want, Aldo and me want to help.”

The biologist nodded his assent. “First we measure length and girth, and weigh him. I'll take a skin scraping to check for mange. After that, we inoculate with ivermectin and penicillin. Last we apply eye ointment.”

Zambonet took his two new assistants aside to teach them procedures and get his gear ready.

Limpy sat on a log watching and smiling at everyone like an imbecile. Everything about Allerdyce's behavior bugged Service, but he had other things to think about now.

Kota, Service, and Gus Turnage went to explore.

When they got out of earshot of the others Service told them, “There's a wolf killer headed here. We need to look at where the animals have been moving, see if we can find places where a long shot might be possible.”

“Why a long shot?” Kota asked.

“Single-round fifty cal,” Service said.

Kota nodded.

They followed drifted-over wolf tracks through the wind, sometimes losing their way, but Kota and Service always managed to refind the tracks. After considerable hiking and looking around they squatted under a tree and talked.

There was a relatively clear area in front of them, at least a hundred yards long, but narrow. The wolf tracks passed diagonally across the area into dense balsams on the side of a low rise to the west.

Service looked at Kota. “They go through here to get to where the woman has been watching them. Wolves are like people. They like trails and shortcuts. They follow the same paths.”

Kota scanned the surrounding ridges. “It could be a killing field,” he said grimly.

“Okay, let's take a look,” Service said. “No radios.”

He sent Gus up one ridge and Kota up another. From below he used hand signals to guide them to locations that looked like good shooting perches. They were to approach each site carefully, not leaving tracks in the immediate areas they were scouting. After ninety minutes of looking, Service motioned for them to rejoin him.

“Goin' from or to their area, I'd want to get me a quartering side shot from up there,” Kota said, pointing at his ridge. “Good shot from there,” he added.

“My shot would be more north–south and longitudinal on the body,” Gus reported. “If you want a trophy, you'd want a side shot to make sure you had the best angle on vitals.”

And less chance of ruining the head, Service thought. The wolf killer always took the head, and he wondered why.

“Okay, let's get back to the others and clear the area. The animals may start to move around when it gets dark.” Which wouldn't be long.

Service told Gus, “McCants and Grinda are joining us. They'll cover one perch and we'll take the other. We'll get the tac plan worked out tonight.”

The others were on their machines and waiting for them. “Traps set?”

“Let's hope,” Canot said as they cranked up and headed back to camp. Aldo and the girl remained behind. Limpy looked back at Daysi from his sled in a way that made Service's skin crawl.

McCants and Grinda were waiting in the tent, gear unloaded, sleeping bags laid out, snowmobiles ready. Grinda was cleaning her forty-caliber SIG. She nodded when she saw Service. McCants high-fived him and smiled.

While dinner cooked, Limpy went outside to smoke. Service joined him.

“You ought not look at the girl like that,” Service said.

Limpy cackled. “Da womens want da same ting, Sonny. All of 'em da same, you mark my words.”

Nantz called that night. “Weather's lifting tomorrow morning. We can fly.”

Service passed the phone to Zambonet, who said, “That'll help. We want you to fly the female. When we get the male collared, he'll become primary. Good luck.” He handed the phone back to Service and left to talk to Canot.

Nantz said, “I talked to McKower today. She said the captain's resting comfortably, complaining about being in the hospital. You men.”

“The chief there yet?”

“Tonight, Lis says.”

“How're you?”

“Ready to fly,” she said. “What's going on there?”

“We have traps down. Now we wait.”

“I hate waiting,” she said. “For anything.”

He understood.

There was a noon message from Shamekia on the cell and he called up the number and punched it in.

She answered her own telephone. “You're late at the office,” he said.

“I needed to talk to you. A message wouldn't do. The shooter's name is Kitty Haloran. You remember the discussion we had about Minnis?”

Service searched his memory. “A couple of women came over and blew his identity. Minnis disappeared.”

“Haloran was the second CARP person to come out, and not a defector. My sources say she was sent to find and kill Bridget Galway, whom you know as Larola Brule.”

“Brule was IRA?”

“Affiliated group, not CARP, and a low-level functionary but with a grudge and she gave the Brits invaluable information.”

“And ended up with Fish and Wildlife?”

“As did Minnis. He's known now as Carmody.”

Service sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Fish and Wildlife doesn't deal with this kind of thing.”

“They do if they owe favors to other government agencies. And Minnis was effective. You would be amazed at the sins agencies will forgive in the interests of finding competent people.”

“Why would Fish and Wildlife need a killer?”

“They don't. They needed somebody fearless, and Carmody is that. Since he's been here his record has been exemplary. With one exception.”

“Genova?”

“Right on. FBI surveillance has seen him several times over the past eight years.”

“Why didn't they pick him up?”

“The Feebs on the scene probably don't know his background. To them he's just a Fish and Wildlife special agent with a taste for the lady.”

“Bullshit. They've put the hot lights on SuRo since the get-go. Why?”

“That one I can't answer.”

“Where's the Haloran woman?” Service asked.