Skeleton Canyon (36 page)

“Mutual aid nothing!” Joanna cut in. “This is your case, too. Aaron Meadows’s Suburban is parked a mile or so back. We’ve just crossed Sycamore Creek and are heading south and east from Cottonwood Creek Cemetery. Ernie Carpenter will be able to tell you where that is. We’re in a county-owned white Blazer. The suspects are in a dark green Hummer. They’ve got a hostage in there with them. Tell Ernie it’s the parrot guy. I believe at least one of the suspects is wounded. Chances are, the hostage is as well.”

“Damn!” Adam York muttered. “Do you want us to call for other backup?”

“You can call all you want, but I believe you two are it,
^”
Joanna told him. “The way the washes are running right now, I doubt anyone else will be able to get here. That’s why I asked about the chopper.”

“Hang in there, then,” Adam York told her. “Ernie and I are on our way. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Following the speeding Hummer, Dick Voland’s Blazer rumbled south. After winding past the crumbling remains of what had once been an adobe ranch house, the road deteriorated to little more than a rutted cow path that led back up into the Peloncillos, heading from there on down into the Guadalupe Mountains and the Baker Canyon Wilderness Area.

“If he decides to really go off-roading on us, we’re screwed,” Voland told her. “I’ve heard those Hummers can handle a sixty percent grade if need be, and he’s got at least eight more inches of ground clearance than I do. In any kind of rough terrain, I don’t think the Blazer can keep up.”

Sitting in the rider’s side, Joanna had been remembering the last time she had been stuck in the boonies with a potentially explosive situation. That had been up in the Chiricahuas in the dead of night. She had made a call for backup and had been assured help was on the way, but when push came to shove, Joanna had been entirely on her own.

Dick Voland wasn’t all that easy to work with at times, but right then she was glad to have him. She was especially thankful for his more than capable driving. “If the driving had been left up to me,” she said, “the guy probably would have lost us a long time ago. In the meantime, all we have to do is keep him in sight long enough for the helicopter to show.”

“If it shows,” Voland muttered. “When it comes to calling for reinforcements, I don’t have much faith in the feds.”

Up to a point, Joanna agreed with him. But if the feds were one thing, Adam York was something else. She had total confidence in the man’s ability to deliver.

“Don’t worry,” Joanna said. “They’ll be here. After all, we’re after these guys because they may have killed somebody. The DEA wants them for smuggling Freon. When it comes to the availability of crime-fighting resources, holes in the ozone are a higher priority than holes in people’s bodies—to some of the folks from D.C., anyway.”

“If you ask me, that sounds like the tail wagging the dog,” Voland grumbled.

Despite the seriousness of the moment, despite the fact that they were even then in a hot pursuit chase with lives hanging in the balance, Joanna found herself laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Voland demanded after the Blazer lurched around two more curves and then launched itself into space across another bone-jarring dip.

His question sobered her, made her recognize what was most likely something close to stress-induced hysterics.

“Nothing,” she said finally. “This job is turning me into a total pragmatist. I’m in favor of what works—whatever that may be.”

In the space of little more than a mile, the relatively flat desert gave way to foothills and a mile after that to genuine mountains. The twisting trail seemed more appropriate for mountain goats than it did for vehicular travel. Part of the time, Joanna was able to keep their quarry in visual contact. Most of the time she and Voland kept track of the Hummer’s progress by following the faint tracks left in the rock-strewn roadway. Once back on the mountain grades, progress was much slower.

“What if they make it to Mexico before we catch them?” Joanna asked as she peered anxiously into the sky, hoping to see some sign of Adam York’s helicopter. With the clouds gone and the sky washed clean by rain, there was nothing overhead but limitless blue that was gradually giving way to pale stars and evening shadow.

“Then we get Frank Montoya to see what kind of a peace treaty he can negotiate with the
federales
down in Sonora so we can get them to track the crooks down and ship them back.”

They traveled in silence for a little while before Joanna took the microphone out of its holder. Calling in to Dispatch, she asked Larry Kendrick to notify authorities in both New and Old Mexico, telling officers in those jurisdictions that assistance might be required.

After all,
Joanna thought,
cooperation is the name of the game.

By the time she finished with the radio, they had left the streambed far below and were climbing up and out of yet another canyon. In the process, they crossed two broken fence lines. There were padlocked gates on each of them designed to keep out unauthorized interlopers. The driver of the Hummer had ignored the No Trespassing signs and had circumvented the locks by simply plowing through the barbed wire, popping the strands and knocking out fenceposts. Since the fences were already down anyway, Dick Voland followed suit.

Half a mile beyond the second fence, they found themselves in the middle of a small herd of panicked goats.

“Those don’t look like mountain goats to me,
^”
Voland said.

“They’re not,” Joanna told him. “They’re feral—domestics that have gone wild after being left behind by a disgruntled goat farmer. It happened when the federal government took back his land in order to create the Baker Wilderness Area. They’re thriving out here because there are very few natural predators left.”

“If they don’t get the hell out of my way,” Dick Voland growled, “I’ll be happy to introduce them to an unnatural predator—me.”

Once the Blazer made it through the herd of panicked and milling goats, there was no sign of the Hummer. “Where did they go now?” Dick demanded.

“Let me out again,” Joanna said. “I’ll walk around and see if I can pick up the trail.”

She found it, eventually, but it took time—time they didn’t have. The sun had disappeared completely. Dusk had deepened even more before Joanna once again spied the Hummer’s distinct tracks leading off through knee-high grass. As she climbed back into the Blazer, Joanna scanned the sky once more. There was still no sign of Adam York’s helicopter.

This time the tracks led off across rugged terrain where there was no hint of a road. Voland had to pick his way slowly, concentrating on every move, while Joanna tried to keep track of the Hummer’s fading trail. They were both so engrossed in their own responsibilities that they were caught unawares by the springing of a well-calculated trap.

In Spanish, the word
peloncillos
means “little baldies,” These mountains had been given that name because of the distinctive volcanic outcroppings and knobs on top of almost every hillock, ridge, and mountain in the range. The Hummer’s driver had led them up to the crest of one of those knob-crowned ridges. Still following the trail, the Blazer rounded a semitruck-size boulder only to have the Hummer, headlights doused, roar out from behind that same rock.

The enormous, almost-armor-plated front end of the Hummer smashed into the Blazer on the driver’s side, tipping the smaller Chevy over onto its side and sending it tumbling down a steep bank. As the Blazer tipped to the right, the shoulder belt clamped tight across Joanna’s clavicle and ribs while the seat belt grabbed across her abdomen and pelvis. With debris from the cargo space raining down around her head, she felt something whack her in the face. For a time, she thought she had blacked out. Then, when she could see again, she realized her temporary blindness had come from having the explosively opening air bag inflate in her face.

By then the Blazer had come to rest. Looking across the seat, Joanna was horrified to see Dick Voland, limp and unmoving, slumped over the airbag-covered steering wheel. Joanna tried the door, but it was jammed. She was starting to climb out the window when a shotgun blast shattered the twilight. A scatter of buckshot slammed into the side of the Blazer and rattled through the surrounding rocks and underbrush.

Joanna instinctively reached for her Colt. Then, seeing Dick’s shotgun still fastened in place between them, she wrested it out of its clamp.
Let’s fight fire with fire,
she thought grimly.

“All right,” she shouted, cupping one hand to her lips in hopes of making her voice carry better. “You’d better give yourselves up. Now. Before someone else gets hurt.”

The answer to her challenge came in another well-aimed blast from the shotgun.

Joanna fumbled open the glove box, found a box of extra shotgun shells, and shoved those into her pocket. Dick Voland still hadn’t moved, but there was no time to check on him. With her chief deputy unconscious, Joanna knew she had no choice but to try to draw the suspects’ fire—to lead them away from the helpless officer before they could come down the ridge and finish him off.

Needing a decoy, she clambered over the backseat and found a loose gym bag full of clothes. Holding the gym bag ready at the window, she called out again.

“We’ve got reinforcements on the way. You’d better give up while you still can.”

It sounded like empty saber-rattling, even to her, but when the echoing cliffs of the Peloncillos played the last word back to her, “can . . . can ... can”—it sounded more like a bad joke.

Joanna waited until the last echo died away. Then, heaving with all her might, she threw the gym bag out the window. Closing her eyes to avoid losing her night vision, she sent the bag tumbling down the embankment. It landed with a satisfying thump that sounded very much like a falling human body. The shooter—there seemed to be only one—must have been convinced as well. Another shotgun blast sent a hail of pellets pounding into the brush at almost the same spot where the bag had landed.

The diversion was enough to give Joanna a chance to slip out through the Blazer’s shattered passenger window. She sank to the ground and picked up a handful of rocks and gravel. “Do you hear me?” she demanded. “We know who you are, and we know you killed Brianna O’Brien. Give up while’ there’s still time.”

Hoping to keep the gunman off base by having to keep watch in more than one direction, Joanna tossed her handful of rocks and gravel near where the bag had landed and away from herself and Dick Voland. Again, the still twilight was shattered by yet another shotgun blast. With the gunman focused on more distant opponents, Joanna decided to attempt a frontal attack. That strategy would work only so long as she didn’t kick loose some rocks and gravel of her own, giving away her position.

Once the latest shotgun blast stopped reverberating through the rocks and mountains, Joanna heard the welcome but distant rumble of Adam York’s helicopter. The chopper was still too far away to do any good. The pilot seemed to be moving back and forth in a grid pattern. That probably meant they had temporarily lost the trail and were trying to find it again.

Joanna realized suddenly that while she was sitting frozen, listening to the approaching helicopter, up on the mountain, her armed opponent was probably doing the same thing. Counting on the helicopter to distract him, Joanna risked crawling a few more yards back up the steep hillside. She stopped and ducked behind a lush clump of bear grass. From there she threw another fistful of rocks off to the right.

This time there was no answering shotgun blast.
He’s getting smarter,
Joanna thought despairingly.
Smarter and that much more dangerous.

As the helicopter drew nearer, she could see the widening beam from a searchlight as the helicopter pilot and passengers scanned the darkened landscape. With the chopper that close at hand, Joanna suspected that another flash from the shotgun would be visible from miles away. With any luck, it would draw someone’s searching eyes in the right direction. The problem was, the shooter hadn’t fallen for Joanna’s latest gravel ploy. In order to draw his fire, she’d have to come up with something a little more realistic.

After a moment’s consideration, she shrugged her way out of her jacket, blouse, and bulletproof vest. Once she had her bra off, she slipped the vest, blouse, and jacket back on. Reaching down, she felt around for a few small rocks. Feeling a little like a modern-day David battling an armed and dangerous Goliath, she tucked three small rocks into one cup of the bra to give it some added weight. Then, swinging the bra around her head, she sent it sailing through the air.

Months of throwing the Frisbee for an absolutely inexhaustible Tigger served Joanna in good stead. She managed to get some real lift on the thing. The bra sailed up into the air. Some fifteen yards to the right, it was blown out of the sky by an-other roar from the shotgun.

With her own ears ringing from the blast and suspecting that the gunman’s would be equally affected, Joanna risked another foray up the hill, this time making for the cover of a lumpy boulder just below the crest of the ridge.

As Joanna expected, the helicopter, drawn by the sudden flash of light, headed straight for them. She was close enough to the top of the embankment now that she could hear some-one speaking. “God damn it,” he mumbled. “Damn it all to hell!”

She was close enough, too, to hear the sound of hurrying footsteps—footfalls that moved away from her rather than toward her. The sound told her that the gunman was most likely retreating, scurrying back toward the Hummer. Joanna remembered the cane and the smears of blood she had seen in the camper. That meant the shooter was probably wounded. By now Joanna was fairly certain the man was alone. She had some confidence that she could outmaneuver him as long as they were both on foot. Once he regained his vehicle—once he was driving and she was on foot—the odds would change dramatically. For the worse.