People will kill their puppies to stop global warming these days.
– DAVE SNYDER, transportation policy director, San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association, 2007
Rapid City, South Dakota
MARYBETH WAS THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED BY THE HOSPITAL staff to go see the girl who had been admitted that afternoon under the name of Janie Doe. A nurse told Joe that unknown female patients under the age of eighteen received that moniker at Rapid City Regional Hospital.
He sat with Sheridan and Lucy in the reception room. Not until he realized he’d read the front page of the Rapid City Journal for the fourth time without retaining anything did he toss it aside. His eyes burned with lack of sleep, and he was dirty, tired, depressed, and thoroughly flummoxed. Sheridan slept fitfully on a couch, overcome by exhaustion and emotion. Once, when she was crying in her sleep, Lucy went over and sat next to her and put her hand on her older sister’s head and stroked her hair.
The late-summer sun was ballooning outside the west windows and throwing discordantly festive peach-colored light into the room. Joe refused to be impressed. As it got later and the sun went behind the Black Hills, the hospital seemed to rest as well. Others in the reception area left one by one after visiting whomever they were there to see.
Joe smiled at Lucy. “Hungry? It’s past dinnertime.”
Lucy, who was always hungry, shook her head no.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
She shrugged and pursed her lips, the precursor to crying herself. “I’m sorry I got so mad at you and Mom,” she said.
“It’s okay. You just wanted to help.”
“I wanted to see April again,” she said, and the tears came.
Joe said, “Come here,” and held out his hand. She slid away from Sheridan and sat next to him and burrowed into his side. He put his arm around her and his muscle memory told him it wasn’t Lucy at all but a much older girl. The Lucy he remembered was small, a thin stalk with downy white-blond hair. It was as if she’d grown into an adolescent overnight.
“How can it not be her?” Lucy asked after a while.
“I don’t know.”
“Does it mean April is still out there somewhere? Is this the wrong girl you found?”
He squeezed her tighter. “I don’t know who she is or why she said she told us she was April. I don’t know if the real April is out there or not. For whatever reason, she pretended to be April to all of us.”
“It’s just so unfair,” Lucy said. “To make us believe like that.”
Joe said, “There has to be a reason, but we don’t know what it is. Maybe your mom will find out something.”
“I hope so. If anyone can, it’s Mom.”
WHEN MARYBETH AND LUCY had arrived in Marybeth’s van, he’d had a few moments alone with his wife without Sheridan or Lucy. Marybeth’s first thought, that they’d simply located the wrong girl, was dispelled when Joe explained what had happened. How he’d called out the new cell phone number to Coon, how Coon had been able to get his people in Cheyenne to contact the phone company and track it under the original judicial authorization. “For once,” Joe had told Marybeth, “she didn’t turn her phone off right away after she sent the text. The FBI was able to pinpoint a tower. Luckily, there was only one road in the area and we were able to get there fast. Fifteen more minutes and…” he left the sentence to hang there with meaning.
Coon and Portenson had loaded the girl on their chopper and taken off en route to the nearest large medical facility: Rapid City. According to Coon, Janie Doe had lost consciousness in the air. The Crook County Sheriff’s Department arrested Corey Talich and sent for a state helicopter to airlift Chase’s body to town. Joe had climbed back up the mountainside, dreading Sheridan’s reaction when he told her.
“What about Nate?” Marybeth asked him. “Where is he?”
Joe said, “As soon as the chopper came over, Nate vanished. He didn’t want Portenson to see him and grab him. He knew we had to get April-or whoever she is-out of there fast.”
“Where is he now?”
Joe shrugged. “You know Nate. He’s probably hiding out with some falconer buddy of his. Those guys take care of each other.”
WHILE THEY WAITED for Marybeth to return, Joe looked up at the silent wall-mounted television and was surprised to see a visual of Leo Dyekman’s ranch house. He didn’t need to turn up the volume to follow the story. A local correspondent did a stand-up on the front lawn of the ranch house and theatrically gestured behind him. The camera zoomed in on the front door and panned across the crime scene tape. The initial on-the-scene report was followed by a clip of Portenson, flanked by local law enforcement, speaking behind a podium. Coon was at his left, avoiding the camera lens and looking uncomfortable. There was a photo of a handsome older man in a tuxedo identified as David Stenson, aka “Stenko,” who looked remarkably like Ernest Hemingway, Joe thought. Then came a grainy, poor-resolution photo of Robert standing in what looked like a rain forest. Joe guessed the image had been taken from the ClimateSavior.net website. A graphic read ARMIED AND DANGEROUS. Joe guessed “armied” instead of “armed” was a result of the news staff’s hastily assembling the report.
The reporter on Dyekman’s lawn threw it back to the anchor, an attractive brunette who looked all of twenty-five years old and was obviously reading from a teleprompter by the way her eyes tracked across the screen. The face of Leo Dyekman filled the screen, followed by a Chicago Police Department booking photo of Nathanial Talich.
There was a long-distance helicopter shot of the mountains that zoomed in on the overturned vehicle on the floor of the canyon. Under the graphic IN CUSTODY was an old booking photo of Corey Talich.
Joe waited, hoping there would be news of the arrest of Stenko and Robert. Instead, the local news switched to an interview with a rancher complaining about his fences being knocked down by buffalo from Custer State Park.
MARYBETH FINALLY came back shaking her head, her face ashen.
Joe and Lucy looked up expectantly.
“She could almost be April,” Marybeth said. “She’s fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, it’s hard to tell. But she’s blond, tall, and attractive. I tried to convince myself that it might be her, that her looks had just changed as she got older. But no, it’s not her. Not at all.”
Joe said, “Is she awake?”
Marybeth was stoic. “No. She’s just out of surgery for her leg injury so she’s still under. But it isn’t the bullet wound that’s the problem. It’s the loss of blood. The doctor said blood loss was severe.”
Joe waited for a beat, said, “Is she going to be okay, then?”
Marybeth’s face twitched and her eyes filled with tears. “Maybe. Doubtful. They don’t know for sure. The emergency doctors said the blood loss could create something called hypovolemic shock. That’s when not enough blood flows through the organs. It made her heart beat too quickly and made her blood pressure drop. It could have long-term effects on her brain. When someone loses that much blood… they just don’t know what kind of internal damage was caused. It could be days before she wakes up, if she wakes up at all. And if she does, well, they just don’t know.”
Sheridan stirred and sat up rubbing sleep from her eyes. She said, “Who is she?”
“We don’t know,” Marybeth said. “She had no identification on her of any kind.”
Said Sheridan, “Why did she chose me? Why did she even start sending me texts?”
There was no answer to that.
“I mean, she knew all about us. Our pets, Lucy, everything. How could she know all that if she isn’t April?”
Joe and Marybeth exchanged looks. Joe hoped Marybeth had an answer.
Marybeth said, “I’ve been thinking about it. April wasn’t the only child in the Sovereign Camp that day. Maybe this girl knew April. Maybe they were friends and April told her all about us.”
Sheridan hugged herself, unconvinced. “Okay, but why would she text me? Doesn’t this girl have family of her own? Why me? Why us? And why would she wait so long after April told her about us to contact me?”
“There’s only one way we’re going to find out,” Joe said. “She’ll have to tell us.”
Lucy had listened to everything but said nothing. Finally, she declared, “April is still alive. This girl knows where she is.”
Marybeth sat on the couch next to Joe and Lucy and ran her fingers through Lucy’s hair. “If only it were so,” Marybeth said sadly.
JOE AND MARYBETH sent Sheridan and Lucy to the cafeteria so they could get dinner before it closed. It also gave them a chance to talk without the girls around.
Marybeth said, “One thing I do know is this girl, whoever she is, is all alone. Maybe someone somewhere has reported her missing, but we don’t know that. I have a feeling she’s been on her own for quite some time, though. I can’t ascribe her contacting Sheridan as some kind of malice on her part. I never even considered the possibility. She needs our help, Joe. Maybe this was her very strange way of asking.”
Joe said, “I was wondering how long it would take for you to say that.” He still couldn’t get over the shock of finally finding April, only to find out she was someone else.
Marybeth took both of Joe’s hands in hers and looked deeply into his eyes. “We’ve got to help her, Joe. Even if she’s not conscious, she needs to know we’re here and we care about her. Can you imagine waking up in a hospital and having no one-I mean no one-there to hold you?”
He shook his head. It was unimaginable.
She said softly, “Maybe it was supposed to happen this way. Maybe we’re being given a second chance to make up for what happened to April.”
Joe didn’t know what to say. The implications of Marybeth’s statement made it suddenly hard to breathe.
“Are you here for Janie Doe?” someone asked.
Joe and Marybeth looked over to find an overweight woman in an ill-fitting business suit carrying a clipboard. Her face was a facsimile of sympathy and understanding. Joe didn’t resent her for her show of false concern and expression of faux familiarity. He thought it must be tough to be her.
“Yes,” Marybeth said. “We’re here for her.”
“So you’re the parents?”
“We’re not her parents,” Marybeth said, shaking her head. “We’re here as, well, what are we, Joe?”
Joe shrugged. “We thought she was someone else,” he said to the hospital staffer.
The staffer, whose hospital ID read SARA MCDOUGAL, waited for more explanation with her eyebrows arched.
“I’m sorry,” McDougal said, finally, “so you’re not related or friends with Janie Doe in any way?”
Joe and Marybeth shook their heads, but Marybeth said, “We want to be here for her, though.”
“Even though you say you don’t know her?” McDougal said gently, trying to tamp down the doubt and suspicion that lurked beneath her question.
“That’s correct,” Marybeth said.
“Well, that’s interesting.”
Joe said, “Yup.”
McDougal made a point of reading the document on her clipboard studiously, although it was apparent she was really trying to figure out which way she wanted to go with the discussion. She said, “I hate to ask you at a time like this, especially given your, um, lack of a relationship with Janie Doe, but do you know who is responsible for paying for her medical care? Does she have insurance?”
“We have no idea,” Marybeth said flatly.
“Is she a resident of the county?”
Marybeth said, “I doubt it. We heard a rumor she might be from Chicago, but we’ve got no proof of that.”
“Does she qualify for Medicare? Medicaid? Does the State of Illinois have some kind of insurance for its residents?”
“I don’t know,” Marybeth said, steel in her voice.
“How are we going to resolve this?” McDougal asked. “Someone’s got to be responsible.”
“I’m losing my patience with you,” Marybeth said to her. “I know you have a form to fill out, but this is a very difficult situation without easy answers. We’ll work something out, I’m sure.”
After McDougal walked away, her heels clicking down the hallway, Joe asked Marybeth, “Work it out how? This is going to cost thousands of dollars. And if she requires long-term care… how can we help her?”
He was surprised when Marybeth responded with a slight conspiratorial smile. “I’ve got an idea,” she said.
Before she could explain, Coon stormed down the hallway. “Joe, there you are. Stenko and Robert’s trail has gone cold and we need to talk. Do you have a minute?”
“Slow down,” Joe said to Coon. “Let me introduce my wife, Marybeth. Marybeth, this is Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI.”
Coon took a breath and said to her, “I’m sorry I was rude. I have better manners than that.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Thank you for what you did to rescue the… girl in here.”
Joe could tell she struggled through the last few words.
Coon was confused and looked to Joe for an explanation.
“It’s not April Keeley,” Joe said. “We don’t know who she is and we won’t know unless she comes out of her coma.”
“What?” Coon cried, and bent forward at the waist with his palms out, as if someone had delivered a blow to the back of his neck. “I was hoping she could help us find Stenko. She’s the only one who knows what they’re up to or what they might do next.”
“She can’t talk,” Joe said.
“She may never talk,” Marybeth added softly. “She has very little brain activity. They don’t know if they can bring her back.”
He turned and walked away, cupping the top of his head with his hand, saying, “Jesus, help us.”
Joe said to Marybeth, “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Take your time,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
JOE FOLLOWED COON down the stairs and out through a heavy door marked EMERGENCY EXIT-DO NOT OPEN into a side parking lot of the hospital. The night was crisp and cool, the stars beaming through light cloud cover.
Coon fished a pack of cigarettes out of his sport coat and tapped one out.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Joe said.
“Officially, I don’t,” Coon said, lighting up. “I haven’t for the past year. Want one?”
“No thanks.”
“So did she say anything at all before she went under?” Coon asked. “Anything at all?”
Joe shook his head.
“Man, this is terrible. Portenson sent me here to question her. We need to know what she knows.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. Like I said, Stenko’s trail has gone cold. Portenson’s pulled out all the stops to find him as fast as we can. His name and photo is out nationwide, and he’s doing press conferences and interviews one after the other. We’ve got the national cable news networks interested, and they’re lining up.”
Joe said, “I saw it on the news. I was surprised you guys went so high-profile so fast.”
Coon nodded and sucked on his cigarette. “Yeah, me too. We’ve really got our necks out there this time. With all the stuff that’s been happening with the Bureau in general and our incident this morning in particular, we can’t afford to screw this up worse than it’s already been screwed up. And my boss is nearly crazed. He knows if he doesn’t deliver Stenko within twenty-four hours and make that incident this morning peripheral to the big arrest, he’ll look like an idiot. We’ll all look like idiots.”
“But if you find him,” Joe said, “it may turn out to be Portenson’s ticket out of here.”
“That’s what he’s thinking,” Coon said. “You know how the bureaucracy works. He doesn’t even want to consider any other outcome at this point. Which brings us back to the situation at hand. Is there anything we can do to get that girl to talk?”
Joe said, “You’re starting to piss me off, Chuck. There’s an unknown teenage girl in there fighting for her life. As far as we know she’s completely innocent-maybe even a kidnap victim. My family’s been turned upside down. Show a little compassion, will you?”
Coon stopped pacing and looked Joe over. He said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. But I’m not sure what to do. Every minute Stenko is getting farther away and we don’t even know what direction.”
Joe leaned back against the brick wall of the hospital and bent a knee so his boot rested against it as well. “Are you searching the area of the crash?”
Coon said, “The sheriff has his people all over it. Your governor agreed to send troopers and DCI personnel. So far, no one’s reported anything.”
“Have they checked with all the local ranchers? Found out if they saw Stenko or Robert?”
“Yeah, all of that. Not all the ranchers were there, though, which leads us to believe that maybe the Stensons found a vehicle somewhere and took the owner with them.”
Joe whistled. He knew it would be a matter of time before someone local reported a missing person. But given the isolation of the area where residents might not see each other for days-or realize someone was not there-the delay could be fatal to the investigation.
“The pressure’s on,” Coon said needlessly, tossing the cigarette aside and digging for another. “When we left the crash scene with the injured girl, we might have lost our chance to get on top of Stenko and Robert. They couldn’t have gotten very far at that point. We might have been able to run them down.”
“You did the right thing,” Joe said. “You saved her life bringing her here.”
Coon snorted. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do me now.” Then, looking up, “I’m sorry I just said that. Really. You’re right, Joe. But you don’t have to be the one to tell Portenson what’s happened.”
“I’d like you to find them, too,” Joe said. “The only way we might be able to learn about who is up there in that hospital room is to find out from Stenko.”
“I might need a couple of drinks before I tell Portenson,” Coon said. “I’ve seen him blow up a couple of times and it’s not a good experience. I think my skin actually blistered the last time.”
Joe barely heard the last part of the sentence. He was recalling what Marybeth had asked him about Nate, and how he’d assured her Nate would be just fine. But would Nate, being Nate, seek sanctuary so he could hole up? Or would he…
Joe said, “Give me your cell phone. I might know how to find them.”
South of Devils Tower
EARLIER THAT AFTERNOON, AS THE THUMPING BASS BEAT OF the FBI helicopter faded away into the sky miles behind him, Nate Romanowski crossed a shallow creek and saw that someone had been there before him.
He was halfway across the creek, hopping from one exposed river rock to another to keep his boots dry, when he noticed that the side of the basketball-sized rock he was about to step on was glistening with moisture. It had been splashed as if someone had stepped on it, slid off, and wetted it. He paused and looked carefully downstream and up the creek. The water was cold and clear if not more than four inches deep, and there were sandy pockets downstream from the cluster of river rocks he was using to cross. The creek was perfect habitat for brook trout. He should have seen them shooting from the sandy pockets to the shadows like small dark comets as he loomed above them. But there were no fish to be seen. Which meant someone had already spooked them.
And in the mud on the far bank was a fresh footprint with chocolate-colored water swirling in the depression of a half-moon-shaped heel.
He bent down and studied it. The shoe that had made the print had a smooth sole and a squared-off toe. Not cowboy boots or Vibram hikers. A city shoe.
He stood up and rubbed his chin.
His intention before seeing the footprint was to continue down the creek until it joined a stream and to follow that stream to Sundance. He had an old friend in Sundance, a falconer and Special Forces operative he’d not seen in years but who would take him in.
But when he thought about it, and he looked at the moisture on the rock and the city shoe print in the mud, he changed his mind and his destination. And he checked the loads in his.454 Casull.
ONCE HE WAS ON THEM, their tracks became more glaring. Aspen leaves covering the trail were crushed into the ground by the prints, and spider’s webs that had been spun knee high had been breached and halved so that the threads seemed to reach across the opening in an effort to rejoin. There were two men ahead of him, all right. They were taking an old game trail south, mashing old and new deer tracks and mountain lion tracks. Different shoes; the square-toed hipster shoe that had left the track on the creek bank and a more traditional businessman’s shoe-worn heels, a rounded toe-that sank deeper into the ground because the wearer was heavier. The businessman’s stride was inconsistent, the right foot flaring off the game trail with regularity, while the square-toed shoe proceeded relentlessly down the middle of the trail.
Stenko and Robert.
As he tracked them and observed their path, Nate paused often to stop and listen. They weren’t that far ahead of him. But he heard no voices or sounds.
The tracks stopped at a rusted three-strand barbed-wire fence stapled to gnarled pitch wood posts. On the base of the nearest post there was a collection of old C-shaped staples on the ground in the grass, indicating that they’d stepped on the wires like stairs to climb over the barrier, but weight-probably Stenko’s-had overburdened the staples and popped them out. Because the wires were now free, it was easy to press them down and throw a leg over and continue.
The boughs of the old-growth pine trees closed over his head, and he walked in shadow. Following their trail was easy now, as the forest floor was carpeted with dry yellowed pine needles that had scattered on the periphery of every footfall.
Ahead, less than a quarter mile, sunlight poured through the trees. There was an opening.
The afternoon suddenly filled with the sharp barking of dogs. Nate dropped to his haunches. The eruption of barks echoed through the timber and originated a quarter mile or so ahead of him. Nate imagined the scenario: Stenko and Robert had just broken from the trees and were approaching a ranch house. Most ranches had a small pack of dogs roaming the premises whose purpose was to alert the rancher to the appearance of strangers.
THROUGH THE SCOPE of his.454, Nate watched the proceedings. He was looking for a good shot.
The ranch itself was ancient. Front and center was an unpainted clapboard house with shutters and shake shingles on the roof so weathered they were the color of concrete. There were several dark and sagging outbuildings to the side of the main house and a post-and-rail corral. In the corral near the barn three steers and a swaybacked blue roan grazed on haphazard piles of hay. The barn on the grounds sagged as well, and what little white paint remained on it curled from the siding like dried worms. The dogs he had heard barking all sat in front of the ripped screen door on a porch, looking at the opening as if awaiting someone to open it and throw food to them. He could see no human activity.
Next to the barn, in sharp contrast to the buildings, was a new-model black Ford F-350 pickup crew cab.
He thought: Stenko and Robert are inside with whoever lives here. And like all ranchers, no matter the circumstances, the owner drove a state-of-the-art pickup truck. Priorities.
THE DOGS backpedaled comically as the screen door was pushed out, clearing the way for whoever was inside to exit. Nate thumbed back the hammer on his revolver and squinted through the scope.
The first person he saw was an older bald man in his sixties or seventies wearing a pearl-snap-button yellow shirt, suspenders, and worn Wranglers. The man was unshaven and bespectacled in yellowed horn-rimmed glasses. His bald head was paper white on top and there was a clear line mid-forehead where his absent hat shielded the sun, while the rest of his face and neck were nut-brown. He held his hands out in front of him like he didn’t know where they should go.
Nate swiveled his weapon slightly to the right and his scope filled with the handsome, square-jawed face of Robert Stenson, who was immediately behind the rancher. But as he swept his weapon, he saw the pistol Robert held and the muzzle of it was pressed into the back of the neck of the rancher as he guided him outside. Nate’s finger tightened on the trigger but the rancher stopped on the porch and backed up into the crosshairs.
“Shit,” Nate whispered to himself.
The rancher was saying something over his shoulder to Robert. Nate peered above the scope. He couldn’t hear what the discussion was about, but he knew it was an argument. Without the aid of the telescopic site, he could see that Robert and the rancher were nose to nose, yapping.
“Step aside,” Nate whispered to the rancher. “Give me a clean shot and I’ll lend you money for paint.”
But the rancher kept it up until Robert closed in and lowered his gun and shoved the rancher ahead of him toward the pickup. Immediately behind them, an older man appeared in the doorway: Stenko.
Nate rotated his weapon again and peered through the scope. For a moment, the crosshairs kissed Stenko’s forehead. Until he ducked and Nate could see only the shadowed interior of the ranch house.
Again, Nate sat back and glared.
Stenko was doubled over, both hands on his belly. Nate could hear him moan. Despite that, Robert pushed the old rancher toward the pickup, staying so close behind him they looked like their belts were fastened together. Whatever dispute they had was over. Robert was in charge.
The two of them were now blocked by the pickup. Nate heard the door open and saw Robert push the rancher into the cab. Stenko was right behind them, still bent over, and he vanished into the back seat of the cab before Nate could fire.
The motor ground and took, and the pickup did a fast turn in the ranch yard toward a weathered two-track.
And they were gone.
NATE HOLSTERED HIS GUN and jogged across the ranch yard toward the barn and outbuildings. Ranchers always had extra vehicles, and in his experience the keys were usually in them. His boots crunched through the gravel and he got a glimpse of machinery in the shadows of the barn so he veered toward it.
Which was when he heard a muffled squeal, and a crash inside the house.
He paused. In the barn was a vehicle he could borrow so he could stay close to Stenko and Robert and the kidnapped rancher. But someone or something was in the house. The dogs watched him from the front porch as if wondering what his decision could be. That they didn’t bark at him seemed unremarkable at the time. For his entire life, he’d had an odd, tranquilizing effect on some animals. He had no explanation for it.
Nate sighed, shooed the dogs aside, and entered the old ranch house. It smelled of cooked meat and old people. The décor looked frozen in time from 1972-avocado-colored appliances, gold shag carpeting, a digital clock radio on the kitchen counter with large red numerals.
In the living room, a large woman in a floral printed dress was on her side on the floor in a hardback chair in the living room. Her arms were bound behind her back and her bare mottled ankles were tied to the chair legs with duct tape. The hem of her dress was pulled up because of her fall, exposing a meaty white leg. She had white hair, metal-framed glasses that made her big eyes look even bigger, and a sock in her mouth. She squirmed against her bindings, which consisted of shrugging her shoulders and wagging her head from side to side. He could see where she’d managed to wriggle across the carpeted floor and overturn a small telephone stand by banging it with her head. The phone lay useless near her hair. The cord had been cut.
The way she glanced down at her leg said to Nate she was embarrassed by the exposure.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She said, “Ooof.”
Nate said, “Don’t worry, I’m one of the good guys. I’m not going to hurt you. Who put the sock in your mouth?”
He flipped her dress back down and righted her chair before cutting the tape free with his Buck knife. She came up flailing and talking.
“They took him, they took Walter with them. They tied me to that chair and left me like that. I could have suffocated and died. The dogs could have come in through the screen and eaten me! It might have been days before anyone found me. And they marched Walter out of here at the point of a gun.”
Said Nate, “Do you have any idea where they’re going?”
She shook her head, “No. They didn’t say.”
“Do you have a car I could use? A truck?”
“In the barn,” she said, gesturing outside. “Walter! They took him. I just can’t believe he’s gone. He has a doctor’s appointment in Rapid City tomorrow. He’s been having, you know, incontinence issues. He’s not a well man, and it’s taken me months to convince him to go to the doctor at all-and now this!”
She reached out with both hands and squeezed Nate’s forearm. “He could die out there, you know. He doesn’t get out much. It’s been years since he’s been any farther away than Rapid City.”
“Call the sheriff,” Nate said. “Let them know what happened and give them a good description of your pickup, including the license number. I’ve got to go.”
“They cut the cord,” she said, shaking her head with disgust. “We have another phone in the bedroom and they cut that, too. Why did those men do this to us? Are they outlaws or something? The older one seemed kind of nice. The younger one-he gave me the willies.”
Nate remembered the cell phone Joe had given him and pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open.
“Forget that,” she said. “We don’t have cell service here.”
She was right-it read NO SIGNAL.
“Who are you, anyway? Why are you here?”
“Long story,” Nate said.
“Where’s my Walter? What are they going to do with him? He has a doctor’s appointment in Rapid City tomorrow.”
“You mentioned that,” Nate said, turning toward the screen door. “Look, I’ll send somebody here for you since you don’t have a phone. And I’ll do my best to find Walter.”
“Please, please,” she said, hugging herself. “He’s all I’ve got. And he’s got that appointment-I don’t want him to miss it.”
The screen door banged behind him.
THERE WERE PICKUP TRUCKS from the seventies, eighties, and nineties parked side by side in the barn as well as a huge sedan with tailfins. The keys were in them, but none of them would start. The pickup from the nineties wouldn’t even turn over because the battery had been cannibalized for use somewhere else. Nate kicked the bumper in anger, then ran back in the house. Walter’s wife sitting at the table, still stunned.
“I’m not having any luck out there,” Nate said. “Can I borrow whatever it is you drive?”
“I don’t drive,” she said, “haven’t for years. When I need to go to town Walter drives me. I guess I could learn but I keep putting it off…”
“Do you have anything that runs?” Nate asked, cutting in.
“The tractor runs,” she said.
“No, something faster.”
She tapped her chin with her index finger. “Well, Walter keeps his dirt bike out in the shed for irrigating. That runs.”
“Thanks,” Nate said, banging the door again.
THE DIRT BIKE was stripped down, battered, and muddy. A squared-off irrigation shovel was mounted into a PVC pipe Walter had fashioned and wired to the frame. The key was in it and Nate got it going on the third kick. The motor revved and popped is if were spitting mad, and the shed filled with acrid blue exhaust.
He guided it out through the door into the ranch yard and sat back in the saddle, getting used to the feel of it. The speedometer was broken, the dial frozen at 58 miles per hour. The gas gauge showed empty, but he hoped it was broken as well. The tachometer worked, as did the headlamp. As he raced through the gears he shot a backward glance over his shoulder.
Walter’s wife stood at the screen door, dabbing her face with a handkerchief with one hand, waving goodbye to him with her other.
He didn’t know Walter, but he wanted to return him unharmed. He had a doctor’s appointment, after all.
NATE’S TOUGHEST DECISION was when he reached the T of the two-lane highway. Robert and Stenko had either turned north, toward Devils Tower, or south, away from it. Nate knew if he didn’t make the correct choice, it was the difference between tailing them and possibly saving Walter or losing them forever. He turned south on U.S. 85 and opened up the throttle. The shovel head hummed in the wind and chunks of dried mud shook loose from under the dented fenders of the bike.
A lime-green Volkswagen beetle was in his lane. As he passed it, the faces of two college-age girls rotated toward him. The back of their car was crammed with boxes, pillows, lamps. Kids on their way to school to start the fall semester.
He read in their puzzled expressions that he must look like a demented farmer who’d lost his way.
NATE TORE THROUGH NEWCASTLE and didn’t stop. The dirt bike was starting to wear him down. His face stung from airborne insects that felt like pinpricks when they hit his skin. His hands and arms quivered from the hard vibration of the handlebars. The insides of his thighs burned because the motor was running so hot. He wondered if Walter had ever even taken the bike out on the open road and doubted the rancher had ever run it at highway speeds. It was like riding an electric razor.
A lone convenience store and gas station squatted in the desert brush at Mule Creek Junction. Nate glanced down at his gas gauge-still showing empty-and swung into the gravel lot.
He filled the tank and rubbed his face with his shaking free hand. If there was a car or truck of any kind for sale at Mule Creek Junction, he swore he’d buy it for cash or steal it if necessary. But the only vehicle-a dark red Ford Ranger pickup with bald tires-belonged to the attendant, a shockingly white middle-aged man with a dark maroon pompadour. When Nate went in to pay for the gas, the store was dark and crowded with ubiquitous snack racks and low-priced merchandise found at every truck stop in America. The owner apparently had a pawnshop operation going as well and had a wall filled with used firearms, auto parts, CDs, golf clubs, and dozens of other items tagged and stacked in two piles. He contemplated buying one of the AK-47s on the wall to take with him, but the idea of roaring down the highway in his shoulder holster and an AK strapped to his back was just too Mad Max.
The attendant arched his eyebrows like a fellow conspirator and said, “Don’t assume the AK can’t be converted to full auto by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Nate said, “I know that. I’ve done it. But I’m not interested right now. Just the gas, please.” He dug into his wallet and handed the attendant a $100 bill from a stack of them. “Unless you’re looking to sell your Ranger out front?”
The attendant looked up. “Then how would I get home?”
“I’m riding a bike. I’ll leave it. I won’t even deduct it from the balance.”
“I’m afraid I can’t sell the Ranger to you. It ain’t mine. It belongs to my intended, Jenny Lee. I’m just keeping it running until she gets out of the women’s prison in Lusk. Sorry.”
Nate shrugged.
The attendant said, “You look lost, mister. Can I help you with directions?”
Nate glared at him. “I’m not lost.”
The attendant nodded at the dirt bike outside. “Thought maybe you were looking for a moto-cross track or something. There’s one over by Edgemont.”
“No. I’m looking for a black Ford pickup.”
The attendant paused while he made change. “F-350? Crew cab? Crook County plates?”
Nate’s voice raised a click when he said, “Yes.”
The man nodded. “They were through here a half hour or so ago. Saw an old rancher type inside without a hat. You can always tell a rancher by his tan line. And then some Dapper Dan type comes in and gives me a $100 bill, just like you did. I ain’t seen two $100 bills in a single day since, well, I don’t know.”
Narrowing his eyes, Nate said, “Did you see anyone else in the truck?”
The attendant pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “I had the impression there was someone in the back seat. I didn’t see him outright, but the Dapper Dan guy turned around in the front seat and it looked like he was talking to someone before he came in.”
“Did the rancher look okay?”
“He looked old and crabby. Typical rancher.”
Nate nodded. “They were still headed south on Eighty-five?” He asked because at the junction there was a road back into South Dakota.
“Yup, south,” the man said. “Mind if I ask you why you’re chasin’ them on a dirt bike?”
Said Nate, “Yeah, I mind.”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” the man said, raising both of his palms to Nate.
“I’m perfectly calm.”
Nate asked the attendant to call the sheriff after he left. “There’s a woman all alone in a ranch house between Upton and Osage, about six miles from the highway. Her phone is out and she might need help. Her husband’s name is Walter, but I didn’t get a last name. You might ask the sheriff to swing by there to check on her.”
The man studied him for a beat, said, “I can do that.” Then: “You have bugs on your face. Doesn’t that hurt when they hit?” If there wasn’t genuine sympathy in the attendant’s tone, Nate thought he might have been tempted to pistol-whip him.
“Yeah, it hurts,” he admitted.
“I heard a story once,” the attendant said, leaning on the counter with $82 of Nate’s change still in his hand. “This guy was riding without protection like you and he ran square into a big old bumblebee. The bee struck him right in the forehead,” the man said, putting the tip of his finger on his own forehead as if Nate didn’t know where it was, “and it was just like a bullet, the impact of that damned bee. He never knew what hit him. The force of that bee knocked him silly and he spun out. He died a few days later in the hospital. Never even woke up.” As he ended his story, the attendant widened his eyes for emphasis.
Nate reached out for his change. “If he didn’t know what hit him and he died, how in the hell do you know it was a bee?”
The attendant nodded wisely. “It’s just a story I heard. I wasn’t there. What I was getting at is, do you wanna buy a helmet?”
NORTH OF LUSK in his new German army helmet fitted with a darkened plastic face mask, Nate braced himself and cranked the hand-grip accelerator back as far as it would go. The motor went into a high-pitched whine, and he prepared for the bike to shake apart. But he needed to locate the black Ford before it got to Lusk to see what direction it would head. There were three choices: west on US 18 toward Manville and I-25; east to Chadron, Nebraska; on US 20; or farther south on 85 toward Fort Laramie and Rangeland. Although he’d been trying to think it through, he had no idea at all where Robert and Stenko were going. He wasn’t sure even they knew.
Maybe a hospital, he thought. Stenko was obviously in pain.
Dusk threw gold light over the tops of the rolling hills and deep shadows into the draws. It was getting cooler. His back ached and his muscles were screaming at him from the constant vibration. His right inside calf was soaked with hot oil the motor was throwing off.
He topped a hill so fast he caught a few inches of air. The lights of the town of Lusk were splayed out ahead of him at the bottom of the rise. And the brake lights of a black Ford F-350 winked a mile ahead as the pickup slowed down at the town limits.
Because of the whine and the wind, Nate almost didn’t feel the burring of Joe’s cell phone in his front jeans pocket.
North of Rangeland, Wyoming
AFTER AN HOUR OF SMOLDERING SILENCE, ROBERT SAID, “I blame you for everything bad that’s happened.” Although he held the gun on his lap and the muzzle was pointed generally at the rancher, who drove, Robert was speaking directly to his father in the back seat.
Stenko, through gritted teeth, said, “I’m shocked.” Despite his condition, he still managed to project sarcasm. Maybe sarcasm was the last thing to go, he hoped.
The fight they’d had was vicious. It started when Stenko studied the numbers Leo had written on the napkin and said, “That rotten son of a bitch. These aren’t account numbers. These are the phone numbers of all of my Indian casinos. He just didn’t put hyphens in the numbers so you can’t tell at first. That rotten son of a bitch.”
And Robert realized what Stenko was saying-that the $28 million was out of reach.
“When I say everything, I mean everything,” Robert said bitterly. “I’m not just talking about the last two weeks when you corrupted me and made me see and do things I’d never even imagined. I’m not just talking about your great friend Leo who gave us worthless phone numbers. I’m talking about my whole life. Not to mention my entire generation. You people have ruined everything for us with your greed and your predatory consumption of all the resources of the planet. It’s like you were a bunch of drunks on the greatest bender of all time. You sucked everything dry and left us nothing but shit. When I think about it now, where I am, I think, How fucking selfish can you be?”
Stenko took it all like lashes that didn’t really hurt. Instead, he sat up enough to see clearly out of the window near his feet. Man, what a night. The long vibrant Technicolor dusk that dominated the western half of the sky for a half hour had faded into an exhausted twilight of blue-grays and midnight blue. Hard pitiless stars grew in intensity as the sky went black. The sliver of a moon looked like an afterthought.
“Do you ever think about what you left us?” Robert asked, his voice higher than normal.
Stenko said, “Doesn’t it matter that I’m doing everything I can to make it up to you?”
“It’s not enough,” Robert said with a snarl. “There are too many sins of the father.”
He was angry, manic. Stenko figured Robert was going to vent at him until he could reach some kind of equilibrium and calm back down. In the meantime, though, Stenko just let it roll. He threw his attention toward the dregs of the big western sunset and thought about how few sunsets he’d actually studied in his lifetime and what he’d missed. To think that this fireworks display occurred every night of the year-amazing. And there was no cost of admission. All one had to do was watch it. The thought of that-just watching the sunsets-hit him like a hammer. So simple. And it had taken more than six decades to experience the joy of a great sunset. How could that be possible?
It was then he knew this was it. It was crushingly disappointing for him to think that his last actual thoughts on earth might be about how beautiful the sunsets could be in Wyoming. He wanted more than that. He wanted some kind of reward, some measure of wisdom. Something from heaven. But maybe, he thought, God had priorities and a pathetic gangster from Chicago was pretty low on the list. He could live with that, so to speak. But in his hope for wisdom, he was stuck on how mundane his insights were. And when he put them into words, ah!-it was awful. They tended to resemble the phrases on the posters mounted to the ceiling he used to read in agony while on his back in the dental hygienist’s office. Crap like:
HAPPY IS THE HEART THAT HOLDS A FRIEND.
HE WHO LAUGHS… LASTS!
HARD WORK IS THE YEAST THAT RAISES THE DOUGH.
On it went. Sappy bromides from another era. Crap from hayseed publications like Grit Magazine, the only subscription his mother ever had.
Now here he was, wondering if he’d seen his last sunset and wondering if they’d always been that great. He doubted it. He wanted to think 99 percent of the time the sunsets sucked and no one noticed. That maybe this one was special.
And he almost completely tuned out Robert going on and on and on about how it was all his fault that Robert was wretched.
Stenko was ready to take responsibility for Robert’s wretchedness. It was just that he’d rather do so on his own terms. What a mistake it had been to try and reunite the family. How ridiculous it was that he’d fallen into a kind of pathetic role-reversal: the father desperately trying to gain some kind of approval from the son. Stenko realized how stupid it had been, how quixotic. To think that he could pick up the son who hated his guts and a girl who resembled Carmen and to somehow assemble them into what he remembered fondly as his only real family… was a failure. April/Carmen died once again and Robert tuned violent and then lost his mind. Stenko smiled with cynicism when he contemplated how badly it had gone. All Robert cared about was his silly website and his vapid efforts to save the planet. He didn’t know what April had wanted, and that continued to haunt him. April was special. What had happened to her was unfair. That she’d died in the crash Robert had carelessly instigated by grabbing for the cash in the box was more than tragic.
His attention drifted back over to Robert, who was still yammering.
“Al Gore said something recently that sounded like he was talking directly to me,” Robert said, “as if he were a human oracle who could anticipate my problems and address them directly.”
Stenko said, “A Gore-acle.”
The rancher chuckled and quickly looked away.
“What?” Robert asked.
“Never mind,” Stenko said. “What did he say?”
Robert snorted triumphantly. Stenko thought it was one of the five Robert gestures that at least came across as sincere.
Robert looked him in the eyes and said, “‘Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, What were our parents thinking? Why didn’t they wake up when they had a chance?’ We have to hear that question from them, now.’ ”
Finally, after several moments, Stenko said, “So do you want an answer or do you just want to ask the question?”
Robert narrowed his eyes. “What is your answer, Father?” Sarcasm dripped.
“My answer is I was too goddamned busy to contemplate the question. Not everyone has the time to sit around and be bitter like your generation of thumb-suckers, Robert.”
Again, the rancher chortled.
Robert angrily raised his pistol and pointed it at the rancher’s temple. “You stay out of this. This is between me and my dad.”
“Don’t shoot him,” Stenko said lazily from the back seat. “If you shoot him, we’ll crash again. One car crash a day is my limit.”
Walter the rancher said, “Can I ask how far you boys are going to take me from home?”
Robert said, “As far as we want to. Now shut the hell up and drive.”
Stenko didn’t like the dismissive way Robert talked to the old rancher. He also knew Robert wouldn’t want to leave a witness who could tell the cops which way they were headed and describe the vehicle. Robert had turned out to be much more cold-blooded than Stenko thought possible. And so damned bitter.
“I’ve got a question for you,” Stenko said to Robert. “Why in the hell is it you feel like you’re entitled to a perfect world? No other generation ever thought they were, I don’t think. What’s so special about yours that you can blame me for your misery?”
Robert rolled his eyes with contempt. “Maybe because no other generation was handed a planet ready to burn up. Maybe because we’re better informed and we know that.”
Stenko said, “So if you’re all so smart with your computers and iPhones and technology, why don’t you fix the problems you’re complaining about? You just want to blame other people-me-and bitch and moan. It’s your turn now, so why don’t you solve all these problems?”
“What do you think we’ve been doing, Dad?” Robert said as if talking to a child. “It’s hard to make up for a lifetime of abuse in a couple of weeks, you old fool.”
Stenko decided he didn’t want to argue anymore. His son’s words cut him deeper than he thought possible. No one had ever called him a fool, or to his knowledge ever thought of him as one. It hurt.
Robert was what he was, thought what he thought, believed what he believed. Stenko gritted his teeth and said, “So how much do I still have on my balance? I assume you’re going to apply the cash to my debt. How much is left?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around, son. I feel like my insides are on fire. I’ve taken so much morphine, I’m an inch away from killing myself with an overdose. I want to know what my balance is.”
Robert said, “Twenty-four million.”
Stenko was suddenly angry again. “That’s ridiculous. It keeps growing the more I do to offset it. How can that be?”
Robert wheeled around in his seat, his eyes flashing. “Goddammit, Dad, haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve been saying to you? Your lifestyle is such that your carbon footprint just keeps growing. You still own the casinos, right? You still own all of the real estate in Chicago and down south, right? And you don’t have access to your own cash. Every minute that goes by, your footprint gets bigger. You haven’t done enough or paid enough to offset the damage you’ve caused.”
Stenko sighed and let his head drop back into the cushions. “But I’ve done everything I can,” he said. “I’ve run around the country doing all these things. I killed for you-”
Robert cut him off. “That wasn’t for me, Dad. It isn’t my debt. It’s yours. Don’t you dare say what you did was for me. It was for you, so you could try to get to below zero, remember?”
“But you’re the one keeping score,” Stenko said. “You’re the one I’m trying to get to forgive me.”
“Don’t give me that role. I didn’t ask for it.”
Stenko closed his eyes and tried not to grind his teeth against the pain.
In the front seat, he heard Robert ask the rancher, “What the hell is that out there on the prairie? It’s lit up like an obscene riverboat or something. But it’s not a boat, is it?”
The rancher said, “That’s a power plant.”
“What kind is it?”
“Coal-fired,” the rancher said. “Coal trains come down from Gillette.”
Suddenly, Robert was talking to Stenko again. He said excitedly, “Dad, we might have just found it. We might have just found your way to salvation. It’s a miracle because there it is out there, right when and where we need it.”
Stenko had no idea what Robert was talking about. He didn’t care. He wondered if he would last the night.
“How long has that single headlight been behind us?” Robert asked the rancher.
“Since Lusk,” the rancher said.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why should I? You think the sheriff is chasin’ us on a motorcycle? Is that what you think?”
“You know, I don’t have any problem putting a bullet in your brain. You’re a damned rancher. You’re as much of a problem to the planet as my dad. I think you’re both useless.”
The rancher said nothing.
Robert said, “Take that exit. I want to check something out.”
Rapid City
JOE ENTERED THE RECEPTION AREA AFTER HIS DISCUSSION with Coon and strode over to Marybeth where she sat in an armchair. She looked up expectantly, and he squatted down beside her. Both Sheridan and Lucy were asleep on vinyl couches, and he didn’t want to wake them up if he could help it.
His voice was soft but urgent. “Coon managed to track the location of my cell phone. Nate is just about to enter the town of Rangeland from the north.”
Marybeth said, “Rangeland? What’s in Rangeland?”
“Other than Stenko and Robert, I don’t know.”
“That’s enough, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I’m going with them. They’re getting their helicopter ready at the airport, and we’re leaving in five minutes.”
“Any idea how long you’ll be gone?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. But I think this will all be over soon.”
She reached out and touched his cheek with her fingertips and glided them over his stubble. He knew she was thinking of Janie Doe when she said, “I hope Stenko can help us. When I think of that poor girl in there, I want to cry. It’s like she’s no one. No name, no anything. We’ve got to find out who she is, Joe.”
“Maybe Stenko…” he said.
“Let’s hope so.”
“Have the doctors said anything more?”
She pursed her lips. “I talked to one of them a few minutes ago. He said there’s been some brain activity, but it’s sporadic. She may or may not regain consciousness.”
Joe waited a beat while the significance of what Marybeth said gained hold. “Ever?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s possible she might come out of it. It’s happened before, I guess. This is where doctors become observers instead of experts-they’re hoping for a miracle just like we are. But he said there’s nothing they can do other than keep a close eye on her.”
Joe stood. “Maybe you should take the girls to a hotel. They shouldn’t be sleeping here.”
“I’ll wait a while,” she said. “In case Janie wakes up. But yes, I’ll find a place near here and get the girls a decent place to sleep.”
He put his hand behind her head and gently pulled her toward him and kissed her. He wasn’t sure what to say.
“Let me know as soon as you find out something,” she said.
“I will,” he said. “You, too.”
On the way out of the room, Joe lightly brushed Sheridan and Lucy with his hand so as not to wake them.
But Sheridan opened her eyes. She said, “You’re leaving without me?”
“Yes.”
She blinked back sudden tears.
Said Joe, “We make a good team. You were great, darling.”
“But you’re leaving me behind.”
“This time, yes.” He said, trying not to look over at Marybeth, who was no doubt watching the exchange with concern.
Sheridan turned away and stared out the window into the dark.
Joe squeezed her shoulder as he left.
THE LAST TIME he’d been in a helicopter, Joe recalled, was when he was doing an elk trend count north of Buffalo. The experience had been harrowing and he’d been violently airsick, much to the amusement of the contract pilot who, he thought, made many unnecessary swoops and fast turns.
The feeling all came rushing back as the aircraft roared and lifted and the lights of Rapid City started to rush by outside his window. Instinctively, he shifted his weight toward the center of the craft. He tried not to look down.
There were four seats in the chopper. The pilot and Portenson were up front behind the Plexiglas bubble, and Joe and Coon were directly behind them. All were strapped in, and Joe was the only one without a headset. It was too loud inside to talk normally, so he observed. He was curious why they’d invited him along and suspected Portenson was up to something. The senior agent had not stopped talking on his headset since they lifted off. Coon was listening in, adding things, scanning the ground as it shot by. The wash of lights from town was soon behind them. He gripped the armrests with all of his strength and tried not to notice that his stomach was churning. Stars and the sliver of moon filled the Plexiglas and framed the pilot. The flight deck was awash in ambient-lighted gauges and digital numerical readouts.
He jumped when Coon tapped him on the hand. Joe looked over and saw Coon gesturing toward a headset hung up on the back of Portenson’s seat. Still gripping the chair with his right hand, Joe put his hat, crown down, on his lap and fumbled with the headset until it was free, and managed to adjust it on his head. Coon reached over and clicked a switch on Joe’s armrest to channel A, which was internal to the craft.
“You okay?” Coon asked. His voice was clear, if detached. It seemed odd to be talking through electronics to someone three feet away.
“I hate flying.”
“I can tell.”
“How long before we get there?”
“Thirty minutes, maybe.”
Joe groaned.
“Joe, there’s a lot going on right now. Agent Portenson is in contact with the Rangeland PD and Platte County Sheriff’s Office. They know Stenko and Robert are in town, but we’ve asked them not to intercept them yet until we can figure out what they might be doing. For all we know, they’re going to a hospital or getting a room at a motel. We don’t want the Stensons to know we’re on to them.”
“Okay,” Joe said.
“I’m also in contact with our HQ. Your cell phone has stopped moving. It’s been pinging the same tower for ten minutes. That might mean the Stensons have stopped moving, too. But we need to find out.”
Joe nodded, seeing where this was going.
“We need you to make a call to your phone and get some information.”
Joe shot a glance in front of him to confirm his suspicion that Portenson had stopped talking to the Rangeland PD and was listening in. Yup, he was. And now he knew the reason they’d brought him along.
“I’ll call on one condition,” Joe said. “That the two of you swear that you’ll confine your actions to apprehending the Stensons and nothing beyond that.”
“I knew it,” Portenson said, breaking in. “You’ve got Nate Romanowski down there.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Who the hell else would it be?” Portenson spat.
Coon and Joe exchanged looks. Joe could tell Coon would make the deal. Portenson was the wild card.
“He’s a fugitive,” Portenson said. “And he pisses me off.”
Joe didn’t push. He waited. He ran the scenario through his mind.
Finally, he saw Portenson fire a punch through the air and heard him say, “Okay, damn you. We’ll confine our operations to the Stensons only. We won’t even think about who is down there with your cell phone.”
“You’ve burned me before,” Joe said. “You better not dream of doing it again. Remember when you told me, ‘Never trust a fed’?”
“In a moment of triumph,” Portenson conceded. “I used to have them. They’ve pretty much gone away since I met Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski.”
Joe chuckled at that. “So it’s a deal? I have your word?”
Coon said, “Yes.”
Portenson sighed and said, “Yes.”
Joe said, “I’ll make the call. Show me how to do it on this headset.”
Coon switched the channel again and gestured toward a keypad. Joe punched in the numbers. He heard the phone ring. As it did, he looked up and saw that Portenson had switched to the same channel so he could listen in. Joe reached up and snatched the headphones off Portenson’s head and shook them at Coon to warn him against trying the same thing.
Nate said, “Speak.”
“It’s Joe. I’m in the FBI chopper on the way to Rangeland. Do you have the Stensons in sight?” He turned his head so Portenson couldn’t read his lips. The agent was furious.
Nate hesitated.
“It’s okay,” Joe said. “I have a deal with Portenson not to arrest you.”
He heard Nate snort. Then: “I’ve got the Stensons under surveillance. They’ve got an old rancher with them, too. They stole his truck, made him drive. I followed them all the way.”
“Great work. What are they doing now?”
“They’re parked outside a bar. The old rancher and Stenko are still in the truck. Robert went inside.”
“What’s he doing?”
“How should I know?”
“Nate, the girl isn’t April. We don’t know who she is or if April’s alive. Stenko is the only man who could shed some light on it, so we need to keep him in one piece.”
“Gotcha.”
“Look,” Joe said, speaking very slowly and deliberately. He suspected someone might be listening in, perhaps at FBI headquarters. He chose his words carefully. “The feds have locked in on my cell phone. They know exactly where you are. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
A beat. “Yes.”
“We’re thirty minutes away.”
Nate said, “I’ll be ready.”
Joe hoped so.
He killed the connection and handed Portenson’s headphones back to him. Portenson angrily jammed them on his head, switched to the internal channel, and mouthed, “That was a rotten thing to do.”
Joe didn’t hear it because he hadn’t switched back to channel A.
AFEW MINUTES LATER, Joe could see that Portenson was in an animated conversation with someone. The way the agent nodded and gesticulated, it was obvious he was excited. Even over the engine noise, he heard Portenson say, “That’s what I’m talking about,” and again pump his fist in the air.
Joe looked to Coon, who indicated that Joe should switch back to channel A.
“What’s he so cranked up about?” Joe asked. “Did they locate the Stensons?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what’s the deal?”
Coon’s expression was noncommittal. “Our analysts suggest that the Stensons might have picked Rangeland for a reason, that their stopping there might not be random.”
“Yes?”
“If your theory holds up, that the Stensons are picking targets with large carbon footprints-with the exception of Rawlins and the ranch, where the reason was drugs and money-then Rangeland has quite a big prize.”
“It does?” Then it came to him. North of Rangeland was Esterbrook River Station-a power plant with three cooling towers that emerged from the sprawling high-grass prairie. “The power plant?”
Coon nodded his head and shot a glance toward Portenson to make sure his boss didn’t see them talking.
“I’ve been listening in on the calls,” Coon said, consulting his legal pad where he’d been jotting down notes. “Our guys and gals have been working hard. According to them, the Esterbrook River Station is a 1,650-megawatt power plant fueled by 135 coal cars per day. The coal is from Gillette and it’s shipped down here 24/7. The plant burns 135 train cars of coal-that’s 24,000 tons-a day.”
Joe had seen the coal trains for years parallel to I-25. He’d been oblivious to the fact that they all had a single destination.
Coon said, “The plant provides power to two million people in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa and feeds two of the three national power grids. But this is what may interest Robert: ERS emits approximately thirteen million metric tons of CO2 per year.”
Joe stared at him.
“Yeah, I said thirteen million metric tons per year. That’s a lot. And that doesn’t include the carbon produced by the coal trains or the coal mines.”
Joe looked out the window. The lights of Rangeland were a creamy wash on the southern horizon. But out across the dark terrain as far as he could see were individual ranch and farmhouses, single pole lights, outbuildings with lights on. If something happened to the power plant, everything would go dark. “So what’s Portenson so happy about?” Joe asked.
Coon waited a few seconds to speak, as if choosing his words carefully. “If the Stensons are going after that plant, it’s domestic terrorism. That’s what the FBI is supposed to be doing these days. It’s Job One. If Portenson can turn around the debacle this morning into stopping a massive act of domestic terrorism-”
Joe finished Coon’s thought: “He can write his ticket out of here to anyplace he wants to go.”
“Right.”
“What if Stenko and Robert just stopped to get gas?”
“Please don’t mention that possibility to my boss right now.”
Joe had been to Rangeland several times. It was a small agricultural town of not quite 4,000 people. It was low in elevation compared to most of the state, which was why there were farms instead of ranches. The terrain was flat and fertile all the way east to the Nebraska border.
As they roared south, Joe again looked down at what made Portenson so energized. The power plant was isolated but lit up like a Christmas display against the dark prairie. The three towers reached high into the sky and were illuminated in the darkness. He could see a train filled with coal heading toward it, and another train just behind the first. This is where it began, he thought. Coal was burned to superheat boilers, which turned river water into steam. The steam turned giant turbines that generated electricity and sent it screaming through transmission lines toward end users in eight states. Most of those users-like Joe-rarely thought about how the electricity got to his home or how it came about. All they-and he-knew was that when they flipped a switch, the light came on. The power came from somewhere, and he was looking at it.
Except when it didn’t.
Joe frowned to himself, said to Coon, “How in the hell could two guys from Chicago sabotage a power plant?”
Coon shrugged, said, “We don’t know. But we’re going to stop them before they do.”
And Joe realized what really made Portenson so happy. Thanks to Joe’s initial theory, the FBI had focused on Robert and the environmental angle. Things had fallen into place. The analysts were not only connecting the crimes, they were anticipating what the Stensons would do next. Coal-fired power plants with massive carbon dioxide emissions were a natural target. It all played out and fit the pattern. And Portenson was in the catbird seat. He’d be able to avert the plot before anything bad happened. He’d get the credit. Even if the Stensons were in Rangeland to buy gas.
The fly in the ointment, Joe thought, was if Stenko or Robert started talking after they were arrested and threw too much doubt on the FBI’s theories. If they denied ever targeting the power plant. Then Joe realized what else worked in Portenson’s favor. He was pretty sure that the Stensons wouldn’t be alive to talk. Not with Robert’s new propensity to try and shoot his way out of every situation and Stenko’s fatal cancer.
Which meant that Joe would need to get to Stenko before Portenson did.
AS THE PILOT negotiated with the Rangeland sheriff on where to land and Coon arranged for vehicles with the police department, Portenson turned in his seat and said to Joe, “You’ve got a call on channel C.”
His stomach knotted as he turned the dial two clicks. Joe thought: Marybeth. Janie Doe has taken a turn for the worse.
Governor Rulon said, “Finding you was not so easy. How is it going?”
“Not great.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I got a briefing from DCI and between these bad guys you’re chasing and the FBI, there are bodies all over my state from Rawlins to Devils Tower.” He didn’t sound like he was in a good mood.
“It’s been rough,” Joe said. “But we may finally be closing in on them.”
Rulon acted like he didn’t hear Joe. He continued, “Tell Agent Portenson that Wyoming has the smallest population of all the states. He and his minions are doing serious damage on our census count. Those are citizens and voters. I mean they were citizens and voters. At this rate we’ll lose a seat in Congress and our federal funding if he keeps up with all the bodies.”
By the set of Portenson’s jaw, Joe could tell he was once again listening in.
“He just heard you,” Joe said.
“Good! I figured he might be eavesdropping on a private conversation without a warrant.”
This time, Portenson ripped his own headphones off.
“He’s gone,” Joe said.
“So tell me, did you find the girl you were looking for?”
Joe briefed him on the situation.
Rulon said, “Unbelievable. So you think these bad guys might know where the girl you’re looking for is located?”
“Maybe,” Joe said.
“So where are you now?”
“We just got cleared to land in Rangeland. The FBI thinks the Stensons may be going after the power plant.”
“Jesus Christ! They had better not be!”
“I don’t see it,” Joe said, making sure Coon wasn’t listening in, either. He wasn’t. “I just can’t imagine they can waltz their way in there and disrupt the electricity. These Stensons are not geniuses, and one of them may be terminally sick. But that doesn’t mean somebody might not get hurt.”
“But the feds are coordinating with local law enforcement?”
“They appear to be.”
“Will miracles never cease.”
Joe shot glances at Coon, who was obviously engaged in another conversation, and Portenson, who took a cue from Coon and was adjusting his headset back on. Joe saw Portenson switch channels to Coon’s frequency. They were getting information from someone that was making them both sit up straight.
“Something’s going on,” Joe said. “Coon and Portenson are getting new information.”
“What?”
“I think I know, but I can’t say.”
Rulon said, “My lights are still on. So the Stensons haven’t done anything to the power plant.”
The ground rose up and Joe felt one of the skids touch the field. They were landing on the north side of town in an empty cornfield. He could see several police department vehicles parked on a service road beyond a barbed-wire fence.
“Sir,” Joe said, “we’ve landed. I’ll call you back as soon as I have something to report.”
“Keep the lights on, Joe. When the power goes out, bad things happen. Streetlights go out; computers go down; home oxygen units fail. Innocent people die, Joe.”
“Got it.”
“Plus, I’m watching a football game.”
“I’ll do my best,” Joe said, rolling his eyes.
Rulon said, “I hope you find your girl.”
“Me too, sir. Thank you again for letting me pursue this.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides, it sounds like it’s turning into something much bigger than anticipated, something you seem to have a penchant for. I bet being a normal game warden sounds pretty good to you right now.”
“It does. But I nailed the Mad Archer yesterday.”
Rulon said, “Again? Good work!”
WHEN BOTH SKIDS were firmly on the ground, Portenson turned in his seat and gestured for Joe to get out first. He was happy to comply. He almost didn’t notice that Coon hadn’t unbuckled his safety belt or that the pilot wasn’t turning off the rotors.
His boots thumped the ground, and he clamped his hat on his head with his hand to save it from the rotor wash. He felt more than heard the hatch close behind him.
He turned as the motor roared and the helicopter lifted off. Behind the Plexiglas, Portenson waggled his eyebrows and waved good-bye with a sardonic smile on his face. Coon looked away, embarrassed.
Behind him on the edge of the field, the Rangeland police officers scrambled back into their cars and pulled out one by one and U-turned onto a gravel road that headed south. Joe sank to his haunches with one hand on his hat. He watched the taillights of the cars get smaller down the county road and the chopper move across the sky. He didn’t stand until it became quiet, as the thump-thump-thump of the rotors faded out.
Joe rubbed dust from his eyes and sighed a heavy sigh. Then he heard a dirt bike motor cough and come to life. A single headlight blinked through a hedgerow and turned toward him once the rider found an opening in the brush. Joe started walking toward the headlight.
Nate was wearing a ridiculous helmet that looked like a German army helmet. His face shield was pushed up on top but spattered with starbursts of insects. He looped around Joe and stopped the bike just ahead of him. The motor popped and spat as Nate gestured to Joe to get on behind him.
Joe threw a leg over the saddle and tried to balance himself without having to hold on to Nate.
Joe said, “I was hoping you’d have a car or a truck.”
“Nope. I’m actually starting to like this thing.”
“Are Stenko and Robert still here?”
Nate nodded. “They were when I left them.”
“And my phone?”
Nate turned and grinned. “I found a bread truck at the truck stop gassing up. I opened the back and tossed it inside amongst the buns. The last I saw of it, the truck was headed south on I-Twenty-five toward Cheyenne.”
Joe nodded. He figured he and Nate would have no more than fifteen minutes before Portenson realized what had happened and turned back around.
Rangeland
STENKO WATCHED THROUGH PAIN-SLITTED EYES AS HIS SON emerged from the bar with a grin on his face. Robert twirled something on a string or chain. He’d been gone a long time, it seemed. Stenko had taken the rest of the morphine, and the spent plastic pill bottles lay open on the floor of the car near his feet.
Robert threw the door open and jumped in. He was ebullient. He said, “So are you ready for one great and glorious last act?” His smile was maniacal.
Stenko grunted. It hurt to talk.
“Hey,” Robert said, suddenly alarmed. “Where’s that rancher?”
“Got away.”
“You let him get away? You old fool. What’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry,” Stenko moaned. But he wasn’t. Ten minutes before, he’d turned to Walter and told him to get the hell out of there. The rancher had asked about his truck. Stenko had said, “Run, you idiot, before my son comes back and puts a bullet in your head.”
Reluctantly, Walter had gotten out and done a stiff-legged jog in the general direction of the interstate highway.
“He’s going to talk,” Robert said. “I was going to make sure he kept quiet.”
“He overpowered me,” Stenko lied. “He’s a strong old fart.”
“Christ, is there anything you can do right?”
Stenko thought: The role reversal is now complete.
He said, “Guess not.”
“SO THE TOUGH THING for me,” Robert said, starting the motor and backing out of the gravel parking lot, “has been to reconcile myself to the fact that once again you’re not going to come through for me. I have to wrap my mind around the fact that all the money is out of reach and we can’t use it to save the planet your generation trashed and left us with. You’d think after thirty years of living around you, I’d be used to crushing disappointment, right? But damn if I still don’t keep coming. This time, you really had me for a while. But in the end, well, in the end it’s like it always has been. A big fat zero.”
“You’ve got some cash,” Stenko said, his voice thin. “And we did some things.”
Robert swung out on the dark road. A passing streetlight reflected blue on his bare teeth. “Yeah, we did some things. But in the end, Dad, it was just jerking off. There were no bold strokes. No real blows were struck. Christ, you ended up with a bigger footprint than when we started.”
“That’s because you were keeping track. You saw it as a way to get all my money,” Stenko said, regretting the words as soon as they came out of his mouth.
“That’s right,” Robert said. “Blame me. Blame your son. Just like always. Blame your kids while you make the world a worse place to live.”
Stenko reached over and put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. He said, “I don’t want to argue anymore, son. I don’t. You can say whatever you want. I’ll take it. I don’t have the strength to fight.”
Robert shook his hand off and it dropped to the seat. He drove silently, pouting. Robert was always the angriest when Stenko said something true about him. But now was not the time to remind Robert of that.
Stenko said, “The fight went out of me when April died in that crash back there. That poor girl. I had my chance with her, to do something good. And look what happened.”
Robert snorted, said, “Her again. You’re just like you were about Carmen. Have you ever thought about maybe using some of those feelings toward the kid you have who’s still alive? The real son? Not the dead daughter or fake daughter?”
“Really, son. I don’t want to fight.”
More pouting.
Changing the subject, Stenko said, “What was that thing you were twirling when you came out of the bar?”
“Oh this?” Robert said, handing it over, his smile returning. “This little old thing?”
Stenko took it. It was a large laminated card strung from a lanyard. He pulled it close to his eyes. There was a photo on it, a magnetic strip on the back, and a name: LUCY ANNETTE TUREK.
“Who is Lucy Turek?” Stenko asked.
“She’s my new girlfriend,” Robert said.
“That was quick.”
“Dad, if you haven’t noticed, I’m a pretty good catch.”
Stenko bit his tongue. Then: “What does she have to do with this last act you mentioned?”
Robert cleared town and turned onto a service road that went north. Old cottonwoods laced their branches over the top of the road and formed a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a faint glow of light.
Robert said, “Here’s what I was thinking. That big coal-fired power plant must have a lot of local employees. It turns out they have three hundred workers, and it made sense to me that a few of them would be in the bar closest to the plant. Damned if I wasn’t right.
“So I sit at the bar and start talking to a pretty one next to me. That’s her keycard you hold in your hand: Lucy Turek. I start asking her about what it’s like to work at the power plant, what she does, blah-blah-blah. Like I’m interested in getting a job there myself or something. She answers every question. Finally, when she begins to trust me because she wants me to take her home, I ask her how much access she has to the plant. That really gets her going, because she tells me how she’s got a senior clearance that can get her into the control room and she can even take the security elevators to the top of the boilers, which apparently is some kind of big deal. I get her to explain to me how the power plant works, and she goes on and on and I keep buying her drinks. I don’t really care how it works. I know what it does: it consumes tons of fossil fuel and churns out tons of carbon into the atmosphere that will eventually heat up our planet and kill us all.”
Stenko looked from the key card to Robert and back. The glow at the end of the tree tunnel was getting brighter.
Robert said, “So I ask her, kind of playful, how she’d get back at the company if they fired her for no good reason. Lucy is kind of feisty and I’m sure she’d be a little tiger in the sack, so I knew if they fired her, she wouldn’t take it lying down. So she tells me about these gigantic boilers they have. Five-thousand-ton hanging boilers made up of miles of superheated tubing that rise over three stories tall. That’s where they heat the water to drive the turbines or some kind of shit like that. Anyway, Lucy said the boilers have to run on negative pressure. That didn’t make any sense to me either, but I kept pressing. Finally, she got to the point. If the doors to the hanging boilers are opened and the pressure escapes-the boilers fail. That shuts down the plant in a serious way. Millions of people would lose all their power, and the company would lose millions of dollars while all the repairs were made. It might take down the entire power grid. It could take them days or weeks to get the thing running again. That’s how she said she’d get back at them-in the wallet.”
Stenko nodded.
Robert gestured toward the trees through the windshield. “And for however long it took, the planet would get a break. Carbon wouldn’t be pouring up through the stacks. The offset would be tons and tons of carbon not going into the atmosphere.”
Stenko said, “Lucy told you a lot.”
“As I said, she likes me. She’s my new girlfriend, even though I’ll probably never see her again.”
“And she gave you her key card?” Stenko asked.
“Well, not exactly,” Robert said, not looking over. “I followed her into the restroom and hit her head against the wall and took the lanyard from around her neck.”
“My God,” Stenko said. And as he said it, they cleared the tunnel of trees and the massive power plant filled the northern sky, lights blazing.
“So if you ever meet Lucy Turek,” Robert said, “be sure to thank her. She’s the sweetie who made it possible for you to go out in a great blaze of glory. Because of her, you may just be able to get to below zero after all.”
The headlights lit up a ten-foot chain-link fence that now bordered the road. Ahead, Stenko could see a dark guardhouse. There was a metal lockbox with a slit to slide the keycard in to open the steel-mesh gate.
“She said there wouldn’t be a guard this late,” Robert said. “Cool. Now all you have to do is go inside wearing that lanyard. You can get anywhere you want to by swiping that card through the readers. Find the security elevators and go to the top floor. That’s where the hatches to the hanging boilers are located. If someone tries to stop you, just shove them off the catwalk. The boiler hatch opens by turning a big wheel, according to my sweet Lucy. Open the hatch and jump in. The open door and the presence of your body will shut down the whole system and you’ll leave this planet as a hero.”
“Are you coming in with me?” Stenko asked.
Robert said, “Are you kidding? This isn’t my problem you’re trying to solve.”
Stenko sighed, “Of course not.”
“Think of what you’re doing as a gift to me and the younger generation,” Robert said. “After a lifetime of committing environmental crimes, you’re sacrificing yourself for us. For me. It would make me happy, Dad. It’s the one thing you can do for me to make up for everything else. You can go out a martyr for Mother Earth.”
Stenko’s eyes flooded with tears. They were tears from the pure physical pain that laced his guts, but also because of April and her innocence and how she was gone. But most of all the tears were because of Robert and what he’d turned into.
“Are you really this broken?” Stenko asked. Oh, how it hurt to talk.
Robert glanced over. His eyes were cold. “What are you babbling about, old man?”
“You’re not very sentimental, are you?”
“I learned from the best about selfishness, Dad.”
Robert looked up at the rearview mirror and made a face. “There’s that damned single headlight behind us again. What’s up with that?”
Rapid City
Sheridan rolled over and yawned and remembered she was in a hospital and why she was there. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then looked over at Lucy, who was still sleeping, and her mother, who’d finally dozed off.
There had been a sound that had jarred her awake. She looked down the hall, assuming it was a nurse or staffer who’d passed by, but she couldn’t see anyone. She stood and looked out the window at the night and the still parking lot below.
Then she heard it again: the rapping of knuckles on glass.
She turned and saw him, a cop in a khaki uniform on the landing of the emergency exit that went to the stairs. He gestured at her and pointed at the handle of the door. She thought he looked vaguely familiar, and when she opened the door she recognized him from earlier that day. He’d been one of the deputies who’d arrived at the scene of April/Janie Doe’s crash.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, stepping into the hallway. His hat was clamped under his arm and he carried a plastic grocery sack. “They shut the elevator down to visitors at night, I just found out. Anyway, the sheriff sent me over here to talk to Agent Portenson and Agent Coon, but I don’t see them anywhere.”
“They’re gone,” Sheridan’s mom said from her chair. “Is there anything we can do?”
The deputy shrugged. “Is Joe Pickett here?”
“He’s with them,” her mom said.
The deputy’s face fell. He clearly didn’t know what he should do next. He said, “We found some personal items in the wreckage of that car. The sheriff bagged them up and asked me to deliver them to the FBI, thinking they might help somehow. Now I’m not sure who to give them to.”
“What kind of personal items?” her mom asked cautiously.
The agent flushed. “Just some feminine things, you know. Underwear, tampons, that kind of thing.” When he said the words, he looked away from Sheridan. “Plus, a pocketbook thing. Do either of you know a girl named Vicki?”
Sheridan felt the skin of her scalp pull back. “No,” she said, “but I think I know where she is.”
Her mom asked, “What’s her full name?”
“Damn, I forgot. Let me look it up,” the deputy said, digging into the plastic bag and pulling out a small leather purse with a metal clasp. He opened the clasp and drew out a small stack of papers, photos, and cards. “This here is a library card from Chicago, Illinois. It says it belongs to Vicki Burgess.”
Her mom covered her open mouth with her hand.
Even though it seemed like alarm bells were going off inside her head, Sheridan said to the deputy, “Can we look at what else is in the purse?”
Thinking: Who is Vicki Burgess?
How did she get my name and number?
The deputy straightened the stack of papers to put them back into the purse when he said, “Oh, there’s a photo. Two girls in it. I bet one of them is this Vicki Burgess…”
Rangeland
Nate leaned forward on the handlebars of the dirt bike and opened it up. Joe bent with him. The electric steel-mesh gate Stenko and Robert had just passed through was closing. Joe squinted over Nate’s shoulder as the bike sped up, trying to gauge whether they could really get through the opening in time. He didn’t think so.
He hollered, “Stop-we won’t make it!” then barely had time to duck his head into Nate’s back as they shot through the gap, the edges of the gate and steel receiver frame less than an inch each from the widest part of the handlebars.
Incredulous, Joe looked over his shoulder to see the gate lock shut behind them. He hadn’t imagined what had just happened after all.
“How did you do that?” Joe asked Nate, but it sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Don’t know,” Nate yelled back. “I just opened up all the way and closed my eyes.”
“You closed your eyes?”
The taillights they’d been following were less than 200 yards ahead of them now. The vehicle had slowed and was swinging into a parking lot outside the front vestibule door of the power plant.
“Here,” Nate said, handing back his.454 to Joe. “You might need this to start blasting as we go. I think Robert might have seen us, and you know how he is.”
“Remember,” Joe said. “We need Stenko alive.”
And it was if someone had flipped on a switch for the sun. Joe, Nate, and the bike were bathed in brilliant white light. They hadn’t heard the helicopter coming because of the whine of the dirt bike engine.
“Not us, you idiots!” Joe yelled, looking back into the blinding lights and pointing ahead of them with the muzzle of Nate’s.454. “Put the light on Stenko and Robert! They’re up ahead of us!”
And thinking what a bad idea it was to be waving a handgun in the air at an FBI chopper that had already gunned down a man just that morning who did the same exact thing…
ROBERT SAID, “Shit. They’re all over us.”
Although the spotlight had yet to find them in the parking lot, it was bright enough behind them to illuminate the few rows of cars and trucks that belonged to the midnight shift. Instead of parking the car, Robert killed his lights and roared forward across a small lawn toward the front doors.
He said to Stenko, “That helicopter is going to find us any second, Dad, and I see flashing lights out on the road coming from town! Get out, get out, get out… get inside.”
But Stenko wouldn’t move. He slumped against the passenger window, his cheek pressed to the glass. His eyes were wide open, but without expression. Robert saw the open empty morphine bottles on the floor of the car, said, “Stupid old man,” and shoved Stenko in the arm hard, trying to wake him. Stenko’s head lolled back, his mouth open, a string of saliva like a slug trail connecting his upper and lower lips. The front doors of the vestibule were right outside his window now, and Robert braked.
“Ten steps, Dad,” Robert pleaded, his voice cracking. “Get out. Ten steps and you’re in.”
But Stenko refused to move, and he disappointed Robert once again.
Robert cursed and ripped the lanyard out of his father’s fist. He’d do it himself. Get inside, take the elevator to the top, and open the hatch to the hanging boilers. But he wouldn’t jump in. Opening the hatch would do enough damage. Robert had his life and his mission still ahead of him. What good would it do anyone to become a martyr for the cause? He wasn’t like his old man, after all.
He threw open the door and bounded up the front steps, rejoicing that the spotlight on the helicopter hadn’t found him yet. As he approached the vestibule, he looked over his shoulder and saw the beam flashing over the cars in the parking lot like the vengeful eye of a Cyclops.
He swiped the key card, and a red light on the box switched to green. But the door didn’t give when he yanked on it. That’s when he saw the dial pad on the side of the lock box and the LED display that flashed ENTER THREE-DIGIT CODE. Damn that Lucy, he thought. She hadn’t mentioned a code.
He said to no one in particular, “Fucked again! Stenko fucked me again!” and tried combination after combination on the box with one hand while digging for the pistol in the back of his belt with the other. He tried the most obvious codes first. After all, how complicated would they make it for a bunch of power plant workers? He tried “1-2-3” and “3-2-1” and “1-1-1” and “2-2-2.”
The night was suddenly incredibly loud and obtrusive. There was the thumping of the blades from the helicopter that still hadn’t located him, the sirens of every cop car in Rangeland bearing down on the power plant, and a high whine getting higher by the second.
When he keyed “6-6-6” he heard the lock click open.
As he reached for the handle he looked over his shoulder and saw the bike coming straight at him from the parking lot. The driver wore a war helmet and had blond hair streaming behind. Instead of slowing down for the three concrete steps to the vestibule landing, the bike veered to the right toward a handicap ramp incline and then sped up. Someone dropped off the back of the machine and rolled away. And before he could untangle his pistol from his shirttail, his vision was suddenly filled with an extreme close-up of a muddy, knobbed tire…
JOE ROLLED TO HIS BELLY and looked up as Nate shot up the stairs and jumped the bike full speed into Robert standing in front of the glass doors as if pausing before he entered. The impact made a fat hollow sound followed immediately by broken glass as Robert’s body was hurled through the vestibule into the reception area inside. Both Nate and the bike lay in heaps on the landing. The alarm system in the power plant whooped, and emergency lights on the walls flashed.
Getting his legs under him, Joe stood up uneasily in the grass. He brushed gravel and dust off his shirt and spit a pebble out of his mouth. Nate’s gun was near his feet, and he picked it up and cocked it.
Inside the building, he could see the soles of Robert’s splayed shoes on the floor. Robert was flat on his back and not moving. As Joe approached, he saw the blood-rivers of it running across the marble floor from gaping, pulsing holes in Robert’s throat, neck, and groin where he’d been slashed by the broken glass. The distinct impression of a motorcycle tire could be seen on Robert’s face, which was dented in. His pistol had been thrown to the far side of the room and was under a chair, well out of his reach.
“Is he dead?” Nate asked, scrambling to his feet and standing shoulder to shoulder with Joe on the landing.
“If he isn’t, he soon will be. We need to get him to the Rangeland ER.”
“Bullshit,” Nate said, taking his revolver back from Joe. “He sure as hell didn’t get April to the ER when she was bleeding to death. And he planted all those damned eucalyptus trees…” With one swift movement he straightened his arm and fired, blowing the top of Robert’s head across the marble tiles.
“Oh, man…” Joe moaned.
“Go find Stenko,” Nate said, holstering his gun and ignoring Joe’s pained expression. “I gotta get out of here before Portenson finds me.”
Nate righted the dirt bike, kicked it twice to start it, grinned when the motor fired up, and roared away.
THE CHOPPER WAS TOUCHING DOWN on the far side of the parking lot and the Rangeland cops and county sheriff’s convoy was pulsing through the front gate when Joe found Stenko’s dead body slumped over in the front seat of the stolen car.
Joe threw open the door and reached in and grasped Stenko’s neck and shook the body anyway, saying, “Who is she, damn you? Where did you find her?”
Stenko’s head flopped from side to side, and his eyes were cold and dead. His body seemed light and unsubstantial-the shell of the man who’d once worn tuxedos to Chicago charity events and who once bore a resemblance to a virile Ernest Hemingway.
Joe let him drop to the seat cushion.
“Damn you,” he said again.
Rapid City
Sheridan handed the battered photograph to her mother. The image of the two girls had been cut with scissors or a knife from a larger photo. Because of the clothes they were wearing and their formal smiles and the sliced-off heads, arms, and dresses of others who had been standing close to them, she thought the original might have been a family portrait of some kind.
There were two of them in the photo, two blond girls. They looked like sisters, but they weren’t.
The deputy said, “Do you recognize either of these two girls to be Vicki Burgess?”
Sheridan’s mouth was so dry she had trouble saying, “Yes. The one on the right.”
But it wasn’t Vicki Burgess’s likeness that had shocked her.
Her mother took the photo and her eyes widened. She whispered, “Oh, my God.”
Lucy reached up and took it from her mother. Her eyes moved from one figure in the photograph to the other.
She said, “That’s April,” and tapped her finger on the girl on Vicki’s left. “She’s alive,” Lucy said.
Her mom walked away, digging her cell phone out of her purse to call her dad.
Rangeland
Joe sat in the open doorway of the silent helicopter with his head in his hands. The parking lot and vestibule area were whooping with red and blue wigwag lights from the dozen PD and sheriff’s department vehicles that surrounded the death scene. Portenson was ecstatic, running from place to place, firing off orders, alerting the brass in Washington, D.C., what had happened, physically moving local law enforcement away from where they were gawking at the body of Robert in the reception area. Men and women from the midnight shift inside the plant had wandered down to the front as well and were being herded back toward the elevators before they could track blood across the floor.
Coon walked over and leaned against the aircraft next to Joe.
“I’ve got one happy boss right now,” he said. “Do you know what he screamed at me when we saw it was Robert inside the building? He said, ‘Hello, D.C.! Here I come!’ ”
Joe grunted. “Can’t say I’ll miss him.”
“Me either.”
A minute passed by. Bruises Joe didn’t know he had from falling off the dirt bike began to ache on his legs, ribs, and butt.
Coon said, “Should I even ask who it was driving the bike?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. Any idea which way he headed?”
Joe shrugged. Hole in the Wall, he thought.
Coon said, “You’ve never seen a guy more scared than that bread truck driver when we landed the helicopter in front of him on the highway. I think the bureau will need to pay for some dry cleaning.”
Joe didn’t respond.
“That was a pretty good trick,” Coon said. “You want your phone back?”
As Joe reached for it, the phone lit up and burred.
Marybeth.
Chicago
TWO DAYS LATER, JOE, MARYBETH, AND LUCY OCCUPIED THE middle seat of a black GMC Suburban with U.S. government plates as it cruised slowly down a residential street in an old South Side neighborhood. Sheridan was in the seat behind them. The street was narrow, the sidewalks cracked. Homes that looked fifty or sixty years old lined up one after the other on both sides of the road. Most had enclosed porches and neat, close-cropped lawns. Parked cars had Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks bumper stickers. Towering leafy hardwood trees blocked out the sky. The morning was cold and dark, and the wind that had cut through Joe earlier while he opened the car door to let his family in reminded him that no matter how cold it got in the mountain west, it was colder and damper in the Midwest. Maybe, he thought, it was why they were so damned tough.
The Suburban was full of people. Coon sat in the front seat next to the Chicago-based FBI agent driver and the Chicago Police Department liaison. In the third seat with Sheridan were two senior representatives from the Illinois Child Welfare Agency. They’d introduced themselves at the airport as Leslie Doran and Jane Dickenson.
Joe was a red ball of raw nerves. He found it hard to let go of Marybeth’s hand in the car. He needed her; she was stronger about this. He wore a jacket and tie with his Wranglers and Stetson as well as a light raincoat he’d owned for fifteen years. Sheridan and Lucy wore dresses and tights, and Marybeth wore a dark business suit. Joe reached up and worked a finger between his neck and collar and tried to loosen it.
“This is exciting,” Lucy said. “It feels like we’re going to church.”
“Yes it kind of does, honey,” Marybeth said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Sheridan said to Lucy under her breath from the back. “You should just stop talking.”
“Oooh,” Lucy purred. “Someone is very prickly today.”
“Girls,” Marybeth said.
The liaison, a beefy square-jawed man with gray-flecked red hair named Matt Donnell, winked at Joe and Marybeth with empathy that said, Been there, then told Coon, “We’ve got four cruisers in the neighborhood within a minute of the Voricek home ready to move in on my call. I doubt we’ll need them, but they’ll be ready.”
Coon nodded, said, “Good. Do we know who’s in the house right now?”
“Ed’s there. He’s a piece of work. From what we understand he’s between jobs again, so he’s home. His wife, Mary Ann, is always home. And we’re lucky today because it’s an in-service training day for the school district.” He raised his eyebrows.
Coon said, “Which means she’s there.”
“Should be.”
“Have your guys actually seen her?”
“There’s a girl who matches the description. We checked her description against the school yearbook. She’s there, all right. Goes by April Voricek. Problem is, there is no known birth certificate for April Voricek, and no legal record of a name change from Keeley. It’s her,” Donnell said.
Joe felt Marybeth’s eyes on him and felt her squeeze his hand.
Lucy said, “I thought Chicago would be, you know, big buildings. Skyscrapers and stuff like that.”
Jane Dickenson chuckled in the back seat. “It does look like that downtown, honey. We’re a long way from the Loop.”
“This just looks like houses,” Lucy said, disappointed.
“Where do you think people in big cities live?” Sheridan asked her sister, annoyed.
Lucy shrugged. “I thought they all lived in apartments a hundred floors up. You know, cool places, like on TV.”
Joe thought, What if April hated the sight of him? What if she refused to come back because of what she thought he’d done? What if she was so damaged by what had happened that they didn’t even know her?
STARTING OUT WITH the photograph, library card, stubs for the “El,” and a middle school girls basketball schedule, the FBI had been able to pinpoint the likely location of April Keeley Voricek within a day and a half. Joe had been suitably impressed at what the Bureau could do with their technology, manpower, and a competent leader running the investigation: Special Agent Chuck Coon. Portenson, Coon said, was happy to turn over the case and get out of the way since he had bigger fish to fry: press conferences, conference calls filled with accolades from Governor Rulon, the acting head of U.S. Homeland Security, his superiors in Washington.
Coon said Portenson had already listed his home in Cheyenne for sale.
JANE DICKENSON talked over the heads of the Picketts to Agent Coon.
Dickenson said, “We’re finding out all sorts of things about the Sovereign network. There are a lot more of them out there scattered across the country than we thought. And since they completely distrust the government, they’ve been operating their own child placement operation for years. To be honest, most of the kids seem to be doing pretty well. But in some instances, they’ve shuffled kids from family to family across the country. And because it’s all privately funded-secretly funded, to be more accurate-the kids are under our radar. They’re out of the social welfare system, so we simply don’t know how many there are or where they are. We’re learning a lot, though.”
Coon asked, “How much do you know about Ed and Mary Ann Voricek?”
Joe and Marybeth followed the exchange in silence.
“We have a file on them,” Dickenson said. “But until yesterday it wasn’t high priority. A few years ago a neighbor made a call saying it seemed like there were a lot of children coming and going in that house. A caseworker visited them and saw no signs of neglect or abuse. Since our workload is massive and some of the things we have to deal with are horrendous, we concentrate on the high-priority cases. We just don’t have the manpower to snoop around a house when everything seems in order and the children seem to be on the right track.”
Leslie Doran opened a folder. “The Voriceks seem to take in these kids solely for the money. That’s my take on them, anyway. Neither Ed nor Mary Ann seems to be very committed to the Sovereign movement or survivalist cause. Ed might have had some peripheral contacts with them, but I doubt they’re true believers. If Ed sold Vicki to a brothel like you people say he did, he must have been in a desperate situation because we don’t have any record of similar allegations on him in the file.”
Donnell said, “Ed’s a gambler. He’s got debts to cover. And from what I’ve heard, he’s scared to death of Mary Ann finding out he’s still gambling. That may have been his motivation, the slimeball.”
Coon nodded. “What do we know about Vicki Burgess?”
“Not much. But we think she was in that campground six years ago. We think she might have known April Keeley then. The fact that they apparently reunited here in Chicago is providence.”
Joe closed his eyes.
COON TURNED TO MARYBETH. “What’s Vicki’s condition?”
“More hopeful,” she said, managing a smile. “There has been some brain activity, which is encouraging. The doctors are being cautious but they’ve upped her odds to sixty-forty for a full recovery. But there will no doubt be psychological issues to deal with if she comes out of her coma. And thanks to the Bureau, Vicki’s grandparents were located and have agreed to take her in.”
Coon whistled. “That’s fantastic. She’s still in Rapid City?”
Marybeth shook her head. “She’s been transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She’s got the very best care.”
Coon looked puzzled. Joe smiled inwardly.
“My mother,” Marybeth explained. “She recently came into quite a bit of money. I asked her to step up and help with the medical expenses.”
Coon looked to Joe and said, “Your mother-in-law is a very generous woman.”
Sheridan stifled a laugh and covered her mouth with her hand. Marybeth shot her a look.
Joe said, “She’s a peach, all right.”
“That she’d agree to pay for the care of a girl she didn’t even know,” Coon said, “I’d call her an angel.”
“Oh, she is,” Marybeth said, straight-faced.
Joe had been in his office and overheard Marybeth talking to her mother about Vicki at the kitchen table. When Marybeth suggested Missy step in, her mother had demurred by pointing out she’d never even met the girl. Joe thought the topic was settled when Marybeth went on to other things. Then, five minutes later, he heard his wife say:
“Is Earl aware that you’re ten years older than you told him you were and that you have four ex-husbands instead of two?”
Missy asked icily, “Why are you doing this?”
“I bet it would be a shock to him if he found out the truth,” Marybeth said conversationally. “Of course, he’d never need to find out if you and the Earl of Lexington performed a particular act of kindness.”
Joe always knew Marybeth could play hardball. She knew no bounds when her maternal instincts took over. Even Missy, who continued to surprise Joe with her ruthlessness, must have felt that she’d finally encountered a worthy opponent in her very own daughter.
THEY WATCHED from the Suburban as the liaison, Doran, Dickenson, and two uniforms knocked on the front door of 18310 Kilpatrick. Sleet had begun to fall and it smeared the windows of the SUV and made all of the dark-clad bodies near the door undulate.
The woman who opened the door was tall and wide and angry. She yelled, “Ed!” over her shoulder.
Ed appeared behind her. He was overweight with a perfectly round bald head and a comb-over that started just above his ear. He wore an open flannel shirt over a black wife-beater, and when he saw the police he went still and turned white.
Joe could see Mary Ann yell at him to do something. Ed didn’t do anything. He looked down at his slippers and stood aside for them to enter. Mary Ann continued to harangue him, but Ed looked beaten.
“That was easy,” Coon said to no one in particular.
In a few minutes, Jane Dickenson stepped back out of the front door and gestured a thumbs-up to the SUV.
“She’s here,” Marybeth whispered. “Are you girls still okay with this?”
Sheridan nodded grimly.
Joe said, “Your mother can go in there with you to talk to her. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“We want to do it alone,” Sheridan said. “If she’s going to talk to anybody, it’ll be us.”
Lucy said, “Do you think they’ll let me use their bathroom?”
IT WAS A LONG HALF HOUR for Joe and Marybeth. While they waited, Dickenson and Doran organized a team of their colleagues to lead children from the house into waiting cars. Joe noted that the children looked well fed and well clothed and normal, and he felt sorry for them. It wasn’t their fault their parents or guardians were Sovereigns and had opted to place them within their network of survivalists rather than government-sponsored foster programs. He hoped they would do as well or better wherever they wound up.
Mary Ann Voricek was brought out with her hands cuffed behind her and stuffed into the back seat of a cruiser. Her face was red and angry. Ed came out more passively. When the police officers led him toward the car Mary Ann was in, Ed stopped and gestured to another one. The officers exchanged smirks and complied.
When Sheridan finally came out the door and made her way toward the SUV, Marybeth sat up straight in her seat.
Coon said, “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll give you folks some privacy.”
“Thank you,” Joe said.
Sheridan climbed in and shut the door. “I can’t believe it’s her, but it is,” she said, flashing a grin. “She’s April, all right.”
“Thank God,” Marybeth said.
Joe felt as if something inside of him had been released.
“Lucy and April are sitting in there catching up,” Sheridan said. “She’s got lots of questions.”
“So do we,” Marybeth said.
Sheridan nodded. “She’s really worried about Vicki, though. She wants to go see her if she can. She said Vicki called her last week and told her what she’d done and that it would be just a couple of days before we’d all be together-April, Vicki, Lucy, and me. She told April we could all be sisters together.”
Marybeth shook her head. There was moisture in her eyes.
“It’s sad, Mom,” Sheridan said. “Vicki sort of worshipped April and April told her everything about our family, including our phone number. Vicki told April on the phone that she wanted to get us all together again-plus her. She just wanted to be a part of a real family. Isn’t that crazy? So when Stenko took her away from here, Vicki said she pretended to be April because April was the strongest girl she knew and she wanted to be strong, too. She told April that Stenko was nice to her and was going to give her money for plane tickets so we could all be together in a place without adults. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I think Vicki had had it with adults,” Sheridan said, grimly looking at Joe and Marybeth.
“My God,” Marybeth said. “I can see why she didn’t trust adults, but…”
Joe rubbed his eyes.
“But why didn’t April ever contact us herself?” Marybeth asked.
Joe knew what was coming by the way Sheridan avoided his eyes.
“She said that the last thing she remembered seeing in the campground that day was Dad standing across the road with all the other cops. She said she thought he was there to save her, but he didn’t. She thought we’d all just thrown her away. You can imagine how that felt to her.”
“That’s so sad,” Marybeth said. “And did you tell her the truth?”
Sheridan nodded.
“Does she believe you?”
“I think so. It helped that it was just Lucy and I. She trusts us.”
Marybeth paused for a long time. She said, “So will she come back with us?”
“I’m not sure, but she doesn’t know where else she will go.”
After Sheridan left and went back in the Voricek house, Marybeth said to Joe, “This may turn out badly. We’ve got to prepare ourselves for that. If she comes out of that house, we’ll need to set up counseling at the very least. There will likely be some really tough days ahead. That girl has been through things we can’t imagine, both before we took her in and for sure the last six years.
“And I’m worried, Joe,” she said, turning away from him, speaking to the rain-moist window. “Can I love her again like she’s mine? Can you?”
Joe said, “I don’t know.”
“Doing the right thing is so hard sometimes.”
APRIL KEELEY and Lucy and Sheridan came out through the front door one by one. When they were all outside on the porch, they stood shoulder to shoulder. April was in the middle. Joe could see Sheridan watching April closely. Lucy, too. April looked straight ahead, toward the SUV.
Joe noticed that the cops, social workers, and Coon stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the three blond girls.
Marybeth got out first. Joe could tell by the way she jammed her hands into her coat pockets that she didn’t want anyone to see they were shaking. He got out and stood behind her.
“April,” Marybeth called, “can I see you?”
April was frozen. Joe studied her without appearing to stare. She was taller, more angular. She had sharp cheekbones and white skin and acne on her cheeks and forehead. Her face was stoic, a mask that revealed nothing, the way it was when they’d first taken her in. She’d looked older than her years then and now her body had grown into the somewhat surly, defiant attitude that had come with her. He remembered how Marybeth described it at the time as a shell of self-protection. In the months before the Sovereigns arrived, the shell had shown cracks. Now, Joe thought, it was harder than ever.
“Go ahead,” Lucy said, reaching up and tugging gently on April’s hand.
April let go and started to walk forward. Marybeth cried out and ran until the two of them embraced. They held each other for a long time.
Joe didn’t move. He waited until April finally raised her head over Marybeth’s shoulder and looked at him. For a moment their eyes locked. For Joe, it was like looking into the eyes of one of Nate’s falcons. Whatever was going on behind those blue eyes was hidden from him and unknowable.
He mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
She blinked as if momentarily touched by his words-a crack in the shell?-and buried her head in Marybeth again. Sheridan and Lucy walked up and hugged them both.
Lucy said, “Come on, let’s go. Wait until you meet Tube. He’s our new dog.”