Earthway (24 page)

“Let me talk to him,” Ella managed through clenched teeth.

“Hang on.”

A moment later Ford answered. “Before you say anything,
I made sure I wasn’t followed. I wouldn’t have risked endangering anyone, but I had to answer that call. What you need to remember is that I’m a minister—first, last, and always.”

“Your actions may have ended up endangering both Teeny and you,” she said.

“Bruce has told me that the person out there can’t come into the compound without frying himself. We’re safe inside. He won’t even be able
to get a clear shot at either of us as long as we stay away from the windows.”

“
Listen
to him, Ford, and do whatever he says. He’ll keep you alive.”

Ella hung up and briefed Blalock. “Looks like we’ll be the first ones on the scene, so let’s go in quiet and fast. If it’s not Henry Mike, and I suspect it isn’t, we’re up against another unknown. That makes it even more urgent that we catch whoever’s
there.”

“I hear you,” Blalock said.

Ella contacted the station, advised the officer en route of her plans, then ended the transmission.

Once they were through Shiprock and within a mile of Teeny’s place, Ella pulled over to the side of the highway. “Wanna grab the shotgun? It’s time to armor up with some serious firepower,” she said, opening the storage compartment and bringing out a ballistic
vest. “You wearing, right?”

“You didn’t think this manly chest was entirely mine, did you?” Blalock said, thumping his vest. “I noticed you’d stopped wearing yours—not that I’ve been staring at your . . . torso, Clah.”

“It’s been too hot lately,” she said, taking off her jacket.

“I’d rather sweat than not be able to anymore.”

“Good point.” After strapping on the heavy tactical vest, she struggled
back into her jacket, then brought out the case holding her long-range rifle and ammunition. “How good a sniper are you?”

“Truthfully? I suck. Wish we had time to go by my gun safe and pick up the two HKs. A submachine gun could swing any firepower problems back to our side.”

Ella had used one of the Bureau-supplied Heckler and Koch MP5 weapons favored by many SWAT and other teams, and found
them very accurate in urban situations and for clearing buildings. But the terrain around Teeny’s place was more open, and she preferred the precise, longer range of the Remington .308 with the variable scope.

“How about the shotgun then?” Ella held up a bandolier with extra twelve-gauge shells. “I’ve got slugs and number-four buckshot loads.”

“Your rifle will give us the range, so I’ll take
the buckshot and increase my chances of a hit, Ella. What’s the plan?”

“The suspect will probably be positioned so he can keep an eye on the west, the direction he’d undoubtedly reason help from the tribal police is likely to come. Once we get an indication of his likely, or last, location from Teeny, we’ll
approach him from the opposite side of the building, using it as a screen.”

“Sounds good.
You can keep him pinned down with the rifle, while I advance from around the other end of the building.”

Ella placed her rifle on the backseat beside Blalock, who’d taken that position so he could hold the shotgun for a quick exit. “I’ll try to get a fix on our suspect,” she said, climbing in behind the wheel and phoning Teeny.

“Last time the cameras caught a glimpse of him, he was on the north
side of the compound, hiding around the cottonwoods at the base of the hillside,” Teeny said. “From what I can tell, he’s armed with either a rifle or a shotgun.”

“My vehicle’s unmarked, so we won’t be sending out any alarms when we drive past your building. We’ll park out of sight, then approach from the south. Hang tight and stand by on the phone. We’re coming in.”

Ella turned around in the
seat. “Dwayne, you’re going have to duck down so he can’t see you as I drive past the compound. Once we get around the corner and out of his view, I’ll pull over. Hopefully he won’t have shifted positions much, but be ready to move once we stop. Teeny says our man is armed with either a rifle or shotgun,” Ella said, adding, “This is sure turning out to be one heckuva morning.”

A
s they drove past the compound, Ella tried to locate the suspect without turning her head. That would have been a dead giveaway if he was checking every passer-by. She called Teeny to verify. “You sure he’s there, Teeny?”

“Absolutely. My cameras don’t lie.”

Suddenly there was a loud gunshot. Ella felt a jerk on the steering wheel and the front end of
the vehicle veered hard to the right. “Tire’s gone and we’re taking fire! Hang on!”

Ella did her best to control the SUV as it dropped into the shallow drainage ditch, but she could barely hang on, much less steer. She thumped her head hard on the roof of the car, then slammed her shoulder against the driver’s side window as the front end came up the far bank.

The soft earth dragged the crippled
car to an abrupt stop in a cloud of dust. Ella dropped down hard, bumping her stomach against the steering wheel. The impact knocked the wind out of her for a second, but then another bullet hit the rear of the vehicle, and that jarred her into action.

“Out—my side!” she yelled, pushing open her door and diving to the ground. Seeing the butt of her rifle beneath the door, she reached over and
grabbed it.

The back door on her side opened slowly, then she heard a groan and a thump on the ground. “Dwayne? You okay?”

There was a one word curse, then another groan. “I’ll live,” Blalock said. “Your damn rifle came down on my foot, and the shotgun bounced over the back of the seat. Give me a sec. . . .”

Another bullet struck the side of the car, motivating Blalock. He dove away from the
car, then turned and shoved the door shut with his left hand. Rising to his knees, he pulled out his pistol, crawled to the rear of the car, then looked around the rear bumper. “He’s got us pinned. I vote for a new plan.”

Ella checked her rifle and realized the scope had been damaged. She’d have to aim down the barrel, but it would still fire, and the barrel hadn’t been dropped into the dirt,
so blockage wouldn’t be a problem. She flattened on the ground and fired beneath the car, hitting one of the cottonwood trees. The entire car reverberated from the blast.

“Damn, that’s loud!” Blalock grumbled, but he dropped to prone, rolled back to the rear tire, and fired two quick shots with his pistol.

“Ella, Ella? Can you hear me?”

Ella recognized Teeny’s voice coming from the telephone
that was still inside the car, but she couldn’t answer now. Her gaze remained on the cottonwood tree ahead until she saw movement. Both she and Blalock fired, and once again the car shook from the blasts.

“Ella, you’ve got him on the run!” Teeny yelled.

They heard two blasts from another weapon farther ahead, then silence.

“That’s a shotgun,” Blalock said, sneaking a quick look.

Ella scrambled
up to her knees, set down the rifle, then found her cell phone on the floor of the front seat. “Teeny, I’m here. Was that you firing?”

“Yeah. The guy ducked down just as I fired some buckshot
in his direction. I think he’s taken off now. Move on in, and I’ll provide cover fire.”

Blalock stood, then opened the back door and retrieved the shotgun. “Glad to have an armed ex-cop around. Shall we?”

They advanced carefully, using the shallow ditch as cover, but once they reached the cottonwood trees it was clear that whoever had been there was gone. They found one brass .308 shell casing half buried in the dirt, apparently missed by the shooter, who’d again tried to police his brass.

A thorough search followed, revealing boot prints running down the gully to a side road that led from the
highway to a trucking company’s yard. Blalock volunteered to ask workers there if they’d seen anyone as Ella called to have her vehicle towed to the department’s repair shop.

Leaving Blalock to his work, Ella went to the compound gates where Teeny, at the door and holding a Remington pump shotgun, let her in. Ella followed Teeny inside and joined Ford at the monitors. They replayed what the cameras
had recorded, but all they could see was a hooded figure wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. The distance was too great to show any distinguishing features.

“He stayed far enough from your cameras so the image would be marginal at best. That was no accident,” Ella said.

“Then maybe it was Henry Mike. He’s been around similar equipment in the military,” Teeny said.

“So have most people who
ever worked security. And if it’s not Mike?” Ford asked. “Any ideas who it might have been?”

“I think this shooter was smaller than Henry,” Ella said. “That guy’s a moose. I’ll have to check on Dr. Lee’s whereabouts, but this doesn’t strike me as her thing either, and the shoe size is wrong, too. To me, this had the earmarks of a law-enforcement professional, or maybe military. The way
this person
moved also makes me think we’re dealing with a man.”

“I tend to agree—but only to a point,” Ford said. “Oversized boots can create a false impression.”

Ella studied his expression carefully. He had that faraway look she’d learned to recognize. “What’s going through your mind, Ford?”

“I think the time’s come for me and Abednego to leave. You almost got killed today, and by staying here I’m endangering
Bruce as well.”

“That’s the worst idea you’ve had so far,” Teeny said firmly. “
You’re
the target. It’s the suspect we need to neutralize. By staying here, you’re insuring that he’ll have to come for you in a place we control. We drove him away, remember?”

“Yes, but he shot your vehicle—what, three times?” Ford noted, looking at Ella. “You and Agent Blalock could have both been killed.”

Ella
noticed that Ford’s fists were clenched around Abednego’s collar and the vein at his temple was throbbing. Anger . . . it was an emotion he rarely let escape.

“I’ve been shot at before, and chances are it’ll happen again. Risks are part of my job. This is what I’m trained for, Ford.”

“I want to stop the violence, not escalate it,” he argued.

“To stop it, you need to take a stand and fight.
The road to a greater good often demands payment in blood.”

“Even that of the gentlest man who ever walked the Earth,” he said, nodding and reaching for his cross.

“What’s next?” Teeny asked, eager to get back to the business at hand.

“I’m going to bring in my team and scour the area for evidence and possible witnesses. Then we’ll have to talk to Henry Mike’s neighbors and locate his wife,”
Ella said.

“I advised her to leave the Rez, but not to tell anyone where she was going,” Ford said. “Look for relatives and
friends of hers who live outside our borders. She knew that the more distance she put between Henry and her, the safer she’d be.”

“We’ll handle it, Ford, but you’ve got to stay here.”

“All right,” he said, looking back at his computer.

Ella felt him sliding away mentally,
going back to something he understood. But she knew he’d stay, and that would keep him alive. She’d ask him for nothing else.

Ella joined Blalock and her team and helped them sweep the area, searching for anything the sniper might have left behind, but he’d been pretty thorough. The only thing they managed to retrieve was the bullet lodged in their car. Like the other slugs recovered at the site
of the previous attempt on Ford’s life, it was a .308 hunting round in a caliber common to many military, sporting, and police-issue rifles. Unfortunately, the bullet was too damaged for them to be able to make a positive forensic link to a particular weapon.

Hours later, Ella met with her team back at the office. All but Marianna Talk, who was watching Jane Lee, were present. Blalock was
there, too, as well as Teeny and Ford, via telephone speaker.

“I spoke to Marianna. Dr. Lee called in sick today and hasn’t left her home,” Justine began.

“She’s also received no phone calls,” Teeny said over the speaker from the compound. “Ford’s found several more e-mails mentioning Red Rock. All of them were written an hour or so after the assault on Ella and Agent Blalock.”

“So we have
reason to suspect that she knows what happened. The question is, does she know who ordered the attack,” Ella asked, “and how much advance notice was she given?”

“That’s the key,” Blalock agreed. “The media reported the story almost immediately, so even if she knew about it shortly after it went down, it proves nothing.”

“It was on local radio stations ten minutes after it happened,” Anna said.
“Someone in one of the cars that passed the shot-up vehicle must have called it in. It didn’t take long for officers with drawn weapons to respond.”

“That sniper has serious skills. Hitting the front tire of a car going twenty-five—at that angle and distance—was an incredible shot,” Ella said.

“Maybe he was unbelievably lucky,” Justine said, then seeing the expression of disbelief on Ella’s
face, shrugged and added, “It happens.”

Anna Bekis opened the notebook on her lap, then glanced up at Ella. “You asked us to research the background of people here in our department and in adjacent agencies who might fit the profile. I’ve been taking care of that and have come up with something interesting. . . . It’s not exactly a perfect fit, but it was close enough to get my attention.”