The Emerald Scepter Page 24

  “You’ve already had your fun. What do you want from me?”

  “We’ve still got a score to settle. I’m taking the balance out of your hide.”

  He signaled his men. Then he and his men moved forward to the base of the rock and began to climb. They looked like big black ants climbing up the side of the hill. There was no escape. She turned around and took a deep breath. She would simply make a running start and jump off into space. Clayton and his men would have made the climb for nothing.

  She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them to prepare for her leap she saw a dark spot against the cloudless sky.

  She turned and faced forward. Clayton and his men were about half way up the hill.

  “Hey, Clayton,” she yelled down. “Did you ever tell your friends why you got kicked out of the army?”

  The line of men stopped and turned toward their leader. “Don’t listen to that crazy bitch.”

  “Not so crazy that I don’t know you liked pictures of naked little boys.”

  She saw him reach for his holster and stepped back from the ledge. A pistol shot rang out, but the bullet harmlessly pinged off the rocks. As the echo faded she heard another, more reassuring, sound from behind her. She turned and saw that the black dot had doubled in size. She stepped forward again.

  Clayton had holstered his pistol. He started to reach for it again, but realized that she could easily move out of the line of fire so he started climbing instead, moving past his men. He made it to the top of the ledge just as the Border Patrol helicopter swooped overhead in an ear-shattering clatter of rotors.

  The chopper made a tight banking circle and came to a hovering stop over the side of the hill. As the men retreated down the rocks under the rotor downdraft, a stentorian voice issued from the helicopter’s loudspeaker.

  “Throw your guns to the ground or you’ll be shot!”

  Clayton’s men bolted for the woods, but the helicopter anticipated the move and rotated sideways. Muzzle flashes blossomed brightly in the open side door and the bullets kicked up fountains of dirt. The men who were trying to escape tossed their weapons aside and flopped down on their bellies.

  Only Clayton was left standing. He wheeled around and saw Sutherland standing at the edge of the pinnacle, a big smile on her face.

  The loudspeaker voice shouted an order:

  “Man with the gun. Throw your weapon down or you’ll be shot.”

  Clayton ignored the warning. He wanted to wipe the mocking smile off of Sutherland’s face, but he had learned as a soldier to deal with the bigger threat first. The helicopter was only yards away. A big noisy target. He was quick enough to spin around and snap off a round of shots. And he might have done just that if he hadn’t seen Sutherland raise her hand.

  She said, “You like birds, Clayton. Here’s a big one for you.”

  He couldn’t hear her words over the helicopter noise, but the gesture was unmistakable. He shouted with rage, brought his weapon up and aimed at Sutherland instead of the chopper. Before he could squeeze the trigger he was practically cut in half by hot lead.

  His legs buckled, he pitched forward and in the lingering last moments before a black curtain of death fell over his eyes he saw Sutherland, still standing there with her middle finger in the air.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  While the hovering Border Patrol helicopter kept watch, the agents on the ground rounded up the attackers and marched them down the trail. The failed look-out, Vinnie Tartaglia, was already in handcuffs. Word of the Ramsey Canyon shoot-out had spread over the police radio network. The parking lot around the visitor center swarmed with sheriff’s men and local police. More vehicles lined the road.

  Sutherland hoped to slip away on her bike in the confusion. She would have made her escape if the Harley’s tires hadn’t been punctured. A deputy-sheriff told the police that Sutherland had been up on the mountain, and she was suddenly enveloped by big men in uniforms who wanted to talk to an eyewitness.

  Sutherland played dumb and said she had been hiking in the preserve when a bunch of strangers started to chase her. She had called a border agent she knew and he alerted the patrols. But a deputy noticed the Harley’s flat tires and that started a new round of questions.

  “It looked to me like these guys were after you, specifically,” the deputy said.

  Sutherland stuck with her story, but she knew it was only a matter of time before someone ran a background check and pulled up her psychiatric history. They would run a fingerprint check on the dead man, or one of his thugs would start talking. More questions would follow. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw McHugh arrive. She gave him a big hug and whispered in his ear:

  “Don’t mention my house burning down.”

  McHugh had a puzzled look in his eyes, but he nodded slightly to say he understood. He told the deputy that since he got the original call, he would interview Sutherland. He took her aside and said, “What’s this all about?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Can we get out of here?”

  By then, the first agent had lost interest in Sutherland in favor of the desperadoes. McHugh recruited a couple of men to load the motorcycle in the back of the truck and offered Sutherland a ride to Tubac.

  Sutherland was steeling herself for the first glimpse of her house, but as the gutted building loomed at the top of the hill, she fought hard to stifle a whimper. The walls were standing, but black halos framed the windows where tongues of flame had blasted out the glass.

  They got out of the Border Patrol truck, ducked underneath the cordon of yellow tape that surrounded the house, walked past the burned-out hulk of her RAV4, and eased through the gap that the attackers’ SUV had punched in the electrified fence. They stopped at the front entrance. The stench of burned material issued from the house. McHugh pointed a powerful LED flashlight into the gutted interior of the house. The beam reflected off dozens of jagged surfaces.

  He let out a low whistle. “Lots of sharp edges. Air’s full of toxins. I wouldn’t go inside if I were you.”

  “I already know what’s inside,” she said in a whisper. “It’s the wreckage of my entire life.”

  The border agent shuffled his feet, unsure how to respond. “Let’s go back to the truck.”

  Sutherland took a last look at the house. The sight dismayed her, but seeing the ruins up close had a calming effect as well, because it was a done deal and there was nothing she could do to change it. They walked to the truck where McHugh leaned against a fender and lit a cigarette.

  “Thought you didn’t like toxins in the air,” Sutherland said.

  “It’s a scientific fact that tobacco is a good toxin.” McHugh exhaled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils like a friendly dragon. “You must have had the place insured,” he said, hopefully.

  “Yes. I’ve got enough insurance to cover the cost of a new house.”

  “Great! You can replace this mess with an even better casa.”

  “All my artwork went up in smoke. That’s something insurance can’t replace.”

  “Hell, yes. That is tough,” McHugh said. “But it could have been worse. The house and art are gone, but you’re still in one piece.”

  “Thanks to you,” she said, “You saved my butt.”

  “All I did was make a couple of quick phone calls. The helicopter was only a few minutes away, checking out the border fence, and there are always patrols in the mountains. They’ve learned to shoot first and ask questions later, since an agent got killed by smugglers.”

  “I also owe you for helping me slip away from the sheriff.”

  He chuckled and said, “That was the hard part, I’ll admit. But the only thing you owe me is an explanation.”

  “I guess I do,” Sutherland said. She’d told him what happened on the mountain and nothing more.

  “You said on the phone that
those guys in the canyon were the same ones who burned down your house.”

  “The man they shot was the leader of the arson gang. I saw his face up real close when they did this.”

  “Why were these guys after you?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  Sutherland laid out the bare facts. She told McHugh how she had seen the attack party on her security cameras and the about the escape through the secret tunnel to the pump house. And how she went to Tombstone then Ramsey Canyon to hide.

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “It’s way out their league. This is much too big for the locals.”

  He scratched his chin. “Hell, I always thought it was funny, a young woman like you, living up here alone in the hills in a new house with that electric fence. You’re in the witness protection program, and these were the people you’ve been running from.”

  “That’s not a bad guess, even if it is wrong. Actually, I’m a computer consultant and I’m involved in a hush-hush project that involves national security. Someone got wind of what I was doing and tried to stop me.”

  “If this is a government deal, why can’t you get the feds to protect you?”

  “Because it would mean bringing more people into a project only a handful know about. That includes you. That’s as much as I can say.”

  McHugh figured that he had hit a wall with his questioning. He pointed to the house.

  “What are you going to do next?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “I’ve told my wife about you. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stayed the night. Longer if you want to. We’ve got lots of room since the kids went off to college.”

  Sutherland suddenly realized that she hadn’t had a decent sleep for two nights.

  “I don’t want to put you out, but I wouldn’t mind a place to catch some Zs.”

  “No trouble at all. C’mon then. I’ll call my wife on the way.”

  Sutherland glanced at the rear of the truck. “They did a number on my bike. I’ll probably have to go to Tucson to get new tires.”

  “Maybe not,” McHugh said. “Get in the truck and we’ll see what we can do.”

  They drove to a garage in Nogales on the U.S. side of the border that was owned by a Mexican-American friend of McHugh’s. Using an amazing mental inventory file, he plucked two slightly worn tires from the hundreds stacked on shelves. It took him another ten minutes to replace the damaged ones.

  McHugh lived in a modest ranch house in Rio Rico, close to Nogales. His wife was friendly and talkative, and reminded Sutherland of some of her family back in West Virginia. She was a good cook, as well, and Sutherland asked for seconds on the tamales.

  Mrs. McHugh must have noticed her guest’s eyes drooping because she led her to her bedroom even though it was fairly early in the evening. Sutherland’s clothes were grungy and she accepted the offer to wash them and pajamas to wear. She took a long, hot shower and slid beneath the cool sheets.

  She closed her eyes and considered her situation. She was a target, and the people who were after her had a long reach. Anyone around her was in danger. She would take a short rest and do what she did best.

  Disappear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Hawkins stirred in the cocoon-like warmth of his sleeping bag and glanced at the glowing hands of his wristwatch. He yawned, unzipped the bag, grabbed his computer and stepped out of his tent into the cold night. A welcome scent wafted on the crisp air. The guards were brewing a pot of coffee on a gas stove.

  A guard waved Hawkins over and filled a mug for him. The first sip was like hitting the switch on his brain ignition. The potent concoction made the strongest Starbucks brew seem like water.

  “Good?” the unlikely barista said.

  “More than good,” Hawkins said.

  He went over to the lean-to he had erected close to the lake the day before, set his computer on a stack of boxes and booted up. He called up the data Fido had fed into the system after returning to the docking port. An orange-and-black image showed the lake floor moving under the AUV’s camera. Information giving time and depth streamed along the bottom of the screen. A vertical portion of the picture off to the right showed the results of the side-scan sonar.

  Calvin had emerged from his tent and followed the scent of coffee to its source. He brought his cup over to the lean-to.

  “Man, this tastes like Louisiana crude.”

  “Yeah. We can use this stuff in the DPV if we run short on fuel.” Hawkins pointed at the screen. “Have a look.”

  Hawkins called up the photographic image of the entire search area. Dotted parallel lines showed the path of the AUV as it moved from the bottom to the top of the slope and back down again.

  “Fido was a busy little pup,” Calvin said.

  Calvin’s finger traced several dark areas among the layers of rock strata. “These are all potential targets that could be cave openings.”

  Hawkins zoomed in on the individual targets, one after another. “There’s one problem. You know what real estate people say. Location times three. None of these openings line up with the camel’s hump or the mine shaft. They’re all off to one side or the other of the mid-line.”

  “Maybe someone made a mistake eyeballing the hump.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t see Kurtz sinking a mine shaft on the basis of an estimated position. Let’s take a closer look at the slope directly in line with the shaft.”

  He went back to the over-view image and called up that section showing the path in line with the shaft. “There,” he said, freezing the image on a huge boulder sitting in a depression. “Notice the shape of the shadow surrounding the rock.”

  Calvin squinted at screen. “The hole is rectangular, almost square. Mine opening maybe.”

  “That’s my take on it too, Cal. It could be a mine or maybe a cave entrance modified by human beings. Only one way to know for sure.”

  “I’ll get the dive gear ready,” Calvin said.

  The sun had risen, but the air was still cold and they shivered as they shimmied into their wetsuits. They ran a line down the sloping shore of the lake from the bumper of the personnel carrier. They would hold onto the rope as they made their way down to the water’s edge. A couple of guards carried dive gear and waterproof flashlights to the edge of the lake. With a few strokes of the keyboard, Hawkins programmed the vehicle to return to the boulder it had discovered on its initial search.

  Then he and Calvin pulled on their fins and air tanks with the attached Pegasus propulsion units, slipped into the lake and swam over to the floating dock. Fido’s electric motors hummed while the computer went through its positioning procedure. Hawkins and Calvin waved at the guards lined up at the top of the cliff then they dove a few feet and tested their air supply and communications systems.

  The AUV slipped below the surface with its headlights on. Propelled by the Pegasus thrusters, Hawkins and Calvin followed Fido, swimming parallel to the underwater slope. The color of the water shifted from silvery blue to navy. Their depth gauges were at one hundred fifty feet when Fido slowed to a stop and hovered with its headlight beams pointed at the massive boulder they had seen on the monitor. The rock was around twelve feet in diameter and wedged tightly into what had been the cave or mine opening.

  “This explains why Kurtz sunk the shaft,” Hawkins said. “There was no way he could get by this thing. And from the looks of it, neither can we.”

  Calvin poked his sheath knife into the tight seam between the bolder and the edge of the hole. “Where’s that SEAL can-do spirit, Hawk?” He patted a pack harnessed to his chest. “Ol’ Calvin packed some C-4 in his bag of goodies.”

  “You want to blast it? You’d need a nuke to pulverize this size rock.”

  “Not talking about blasting the rock
. I’ll set the charges around the perimeter and see if I can pop that bad boy out like a zit.”

  “You have a way with words, Cal. But won’t the explosion bring down the whole slope above the opening?”

  “Not if I set the charges right. I’ll blast the ledge at the same time. The pressure will push the plug from behind, the ledge will crumble like an old cookie, and she’ll roll over and out. Hopefully.”

  “Hopefully.”

  “That’s the best I got, Hawk.”

  “Then it’s good enough for me, old pal. Stay here, Fido,” he said to the hovering AUV. “We’ll be right back.”

  Hawkins pointed up. They rose up the face of the boulder, and then ascended the slope with strong, steady fin flutters. They were a few fathoms from the surface when they heard what sounded like a jackhammer. Then a buzz-saw went to work.

  They hovered, listening as the combined noise grew to a stuttering sound wave that was only partially dampened by the layer of water overhead. A second later there was a flash of light and the water thudded with the vibration of an explosion. There were several more buzz saw episodes, followed by a thrashing, pulsating sound. The surface was stirred up like water in a washing machine and they backed down the slope to get away from the turbulence.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there had been a fierce attack on land.

  From the lack of sound, it appeared, too, that there was a lull. Hawkins signaled Calvin to head up the slope.

  They surfaced cautiously through the roiling water. Black smoke drifted over their heads. They shed their tanks, weight belts and fins and crawled up to where they could peer over the edge of the cliff. The encampment was a scene of utter devastation.

  Where there had been a dozen or so of Amir’s guards were only broken bodies spread around. The troop carrier was a burning pile of blackened wreckage, and what was left of it was riddled with holes. Through the cloud of greasy smoke, Hawkins could see four helicopters circling the camel hump like hunting raptors. He recognized the slim fuselages of Cobra gunships. The larger helicopter was likely a flying command post.