Cold River Resurrection (15 page)

C
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32

Cold River Police Department

Smokey slumped in the chair in Nathan’s office and closed his eyes. Nathan was looking intently at his computer screen.

“Tough duty in there, huh?”
he said.

“Yep.
” Smokey closed his eyes.

He knew that Martin would be looking for him in seconds. He had needed to make a point, and now he needed to calm down. In the end, the feds wouldn’t care if he lost a friend, if he was tired, but they would care if he didn’t give them Jennifer Kruger.

But he wasn’t going to do that. They would lose her. He would take Oakley to her, and then keep her safe himself.

She’s the key to what was going to happen next.

There was a knock on the door and Chief Martin Andrews entered, followed by Oakley. Oakley walked over and shook hands with Nathan.

“Good to see you, Sergeant Green.
”

Nathan stood and shook hands, and then walked to the door.

“You can stay, Sergeant,” Oakley said.

“Not on your life,” Nathan said. “I know when I don’t want to know.” He chuckled and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Oakley took Nathan’s chair.

“Kal-leed was, is, a Muslim, part of a group of terrorists who are operating in and out of the United States, planning to destroy lives and property. He was raising money for the terrorist operations by dealing with Mexican drug cartels.”

“Meth cartels,” Smokey said, keeping his eyes closed.

“Yes, meth cartels, and in particular, a new and violent one.

“Kal-leed lived a pretty good lifestyle in Portland,” Oakley continued, “and his lifestyle was part of his cover. He had many sides . . . a terrorist, a druggie, and . . .” Oakley paused and looked at Martin, then Smokey.

“And he was one of ours.”

Smokey opened his eyes. “He was talking to the feds?”

“That’s right,” Oakley said. “He was talking to us, and we were paying him. Giving us information on the druggies, and we were working on getting information about the terrorist
’s plans.”

“And he was killed,” Smokey said. “But you don’t know who did it, the druggies or the terrorists, right?”

“Pretty much right,” Oakley said, “but it was probably the druggies. He was living a fast  lifestyle in Portland, starting to come to the attention of his fellow terrorists who were cramped up in an apartment. Kal-leed had a Mercedes, and a lot of women. He wasn’t so sure that he was going to meet the seventy-two virgins when he died, so he was doing his best to find them in Portland in this life.”

Smokey snorted. “Seventy-two virgins? In Portland? So you’re saying he was a pedophile?”

Oakley laughed.

“We just hadn’t maneuvered him into the situation where he was comfortable telling us about the terrorist activity, but we were getting close. He wanted out. Someone got to him first.”

“What about the girl’s hand?” Martin asked.

“We think his latest ‘virgin,’” Oakley said,
“was Sherell, a hooker. We don’t know why she was killed, or where the body is, but we do think she was murdered.”

“They want Jennifer because of the hand,” Smokey said. “Somehow the woman, the ex-girlfriend of Kal-leed
, had something they want. There is something on the body, something they have to retrieve. The hand is the key.”

Oakley made arrangements to meet Jennifer at Smokey’s house in the morning and left to join the rest of his group.

Smokey opened his eyes and looked at Chief Martin Andrews. “So, Chief, what do you think he left out?”

Chief Martin Andrews laughed. “Almost everything, Lieutenant. We know we can count on the feebs to leave out just about everything, and pretend that we think they are keeping us in the loop. Things just don’t change.”

If I weren’t so tired, Smokey thought,
I would laugh.

By the time he saw Oakley in the morning, a lot more people were dead.

C
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33

Sidwalter

Laurel moved quietly around her room as Jennifer napped. She wanted to reach over and touch Jennifer, but decided instead to sit at her desk and watch Jennifer sleep.

I really like Jennifer, hope Dad does too, but he sometimes is too quiet for his own good. Oh, I know that she’s a
Šiyápu, but that doesn’t matter, there are some pretty good ones. She is so funny. She and I talk like my girlfriends, like my partners, and I like that. She seems to know what I think and like and we sometimes laugh the same, and the same time and at the same things. I showed her my plans for my very own “MySpace” and I think she thought I was way too young. Oh well.  I told her my dad wouldn’t let anything happen to me, that if someone tried to hurt me, that person would be in a lot of trouble. She looked at me like she knew that  and she said she trusted my dad to take care of anyone around him.

Then she said the funniest thing. She said  she thought that people must feel better around my dad, that she felt safe when she was with them.

I told her that I had always felt safe, except for the time when my friend Owen at school dared me to climb the elm tree in the school yard and couldn’t get down. I told Jennifer that I liked her and she hugged me. She smells good. I told her that I seen my dad looking at her, looking at her when she walked away, and she laughed and said that she had already caught him doing that. I like her laugh.

I have decided that I wasn’t going to let them go off without me, that if Dad and her go somewheres I am going with them, even if I have to sneak along. My
dad won’t stay mad at me for long.

He never does.

C
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34

Southern Oregon

Aboard Lear
N783PA

“Bring him with you,” Enrico Alvarez said. He spoke softly into his cell phone. The Lear slowed down as it lost altitude over Crater Lake. They were heading due north for a straight-in approach at The Sunriver Resort Airport.  He listened, smiled, and snapped the phone closed.

He had leased a private lodge out of Sunriver, a resort community south of Bend, Oregon. He would be far enough away from what was to happen, yet close enough to be on the
Indian Reservation in an hour. He could even have the Lear brought up to the airport in Madras.

Enrico looked out over the green carpet of forest as they made their approach. He liked it here in the United States, but only for a little while. It was fun to go, but he didn’t exactly trust the people he had paid to keep his identity from being known. He traveled as Fernando Rodriguez, a businessman from Mexico City. In fact, the plane was registered to a legitimate business in Mexico, and he had a very clean passport in the name of Rodriguez. But still, the
federales
in the U.S. might get a wild hair and find out who he really was. They wouldn’t be able to resist arresting me, he thought, even after all I have done for them.  He looked around the plane.

Roberto
sat in the rear seat. He was as ugly as sin, Enrico thought, with scars on his face and small dark eyes. Enrico smiled.  Roberto was the one who carried out the  beheadings, and he seemed to have a taste for it.. He trusted Roberto as much as he trusted anyone. Roberto liked to hurt people.

In front of Roberto were the Curillo brothers. Justine was not particularly bright, but loyal and ruthless. Jason, the younger brother
, could fly anything. Helicopters, this plane, anything. He had been an officer in the Mexican airforce, until he was jailed for flying powder on the side. Enrico got him out and made him more wealthy than he could imagine.

After landing, they will take a limo to the lodge
. Then he would have the gang leader brought up from the reservation, a deadly little Native Gang meth dealer.

Not as deadly as me.

Not by half.

The gang leader was a useful
gusano
, a worm. A
gusano
who was expendable. Once I get the information I need, Enrico thought, the worm was dead, and another young gang banger would immediately take his place. One who worked for Enrico.

Find the puta who discovered Kal
-leed’s body, and the hand of the whore. She doesn’t know what she has seen, but she might put it together. Kill the Indian who interfered with his men. Kill his family so the Indians will know to stay on the reservation, to never deal with us again. Take the woman, this Jennifer, back to Mexico with us. I just have to make sure it’s done right.
That’s why I’m here.

Too much at stake.

Do it right.

Make them fear. Keep the feds close. Keep them needing me to route out the terrorists.

Make billions.

C
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35

Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and Casino

Cold River Indian Reservation

Supervisory Special Agent Dennis Oakley sat in the Chinook dining room of the resort. Below the deck, the golf course wound along the river; the sagebrush hills glowed orange in the dying sun. He thought of the action about to take place. He would be lucky to have any credibility left with the tribal police if the U.S. Attorney had her way. They were all seated at a long table with Julie Sturgis holding forth. Oakley’s boss, James Russell
, sat to his right. The rest of the table was laden with U.S. Attorneys and lesser F.B.I. agents.

“We need to get this woman, what’s her name?”

“Jennifer Kruger,” Oakley said. He just wanted out of the room, away from this political confab. This was not going to end well.

“Right. We need to get this woman into our custody and quiz her again. She knows something, more than she remembered to tell the tribal detectives. Someone wants her bad.” She said ‘tribal’ with her mouth turned down, as if she had bitten into something sour. “Where is she now?”

“Lieutenant Kukup’s house, or somewhere with him.” Safer than we could keep her, Oakley thought. He decided to say what he thought.

“We could interview her again, leave her in the protection of the tribal police. That’s where she says she wants to stay,” Oakley said. 

Sturgis frowned at that, her brows arching in a pose he had seen before in court. A junior attorney down at the end of the table laughed. Oakley suddenly hated his job, the stupidity and arrogance of many of his co-workers, of federal attorneys in general.

Oakley looked up at Sturgis and spoke, his voice raising to carry the table. Russell stiffened beside him, a salad fork stopping halfway up from the plate.

“Lieutenant Kukup, ‘Smokey,’ is no beginner. I know of his service. He still belongs to an Army reserve outfit, was a ranger with three tours in Afghanistan, took part in some of the early fierce fighting in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He’s as good as you get, and his service to this country is part of the best. Let me tell you about Lt. Kukup: Staff Sergeant Kukup was awarded a Bronze Star in the fighting around Kandahar. His unit commander thought he should have been awarded the Medal of Honor.” Oakley looked at them and went on, telling of Smokey’s fighting ability, his loyalty. A story he realized was futile with this group, but nonetheless, needed to be told.

“Jennifer Kruger will be safe with Lieutenant Kukup.” He finished, and waited for the inevitable response.  

Sturgis didn’t buy it. And Russell, his boss, wouldn’t intervene. Russell didn’t get to be the F.B.I. agent in charge of Oregon without a keen sense of politics. His job was like most of the hierarchy of the federal government. And Julie Sturgis was a political appointee who was subject to being replaced at any time by the Attorney General.

He let a breath out slowly. There were some good people at the table. Some talented people, most from middle class, average homes. But something happened to many, if not most of them when they became a fed. Washington, D.C.
, and those who climbed up the corporate federal ladder to get there (usually over several bodies of their co-workers) became more important than the people in the communities around the country.

It occurred to Oakley that he couldn’t win this, and that in his failure to convince them to keep the Kruger woman on the reservation, that she would lose as well. Maybe lose her life. He had
no illusions about the feds ability to protect her. They could protect her, until they lost interest or Sturgis got what she wanted and then Jennifer Kruger would be tossed out of the federal loop, out on her own, without a thought from his boss and the U.S. Attorney. He knew it wasn’t personal with them. It was the way they operated. And people like Jennifer Kruger were the losers.

We lose
, too, Oakley thought. People just don’t want to work with us, don’t trust us. We treat them like shit, and they resent the hell out of us. And I don’t blame them.

Sturgis stood up. All of the minions at the table looked at her.

Oakley looked at the fading sunlight and waited for her verdict.

“Okay, I’m sure that Lt. Kukup has some skills courtesy of the army, but what we need is access to this woman, and to do that, I want her in Portland.”

Oakley turned to look at her. He smiled, more to himself than to her, but she took it as approval.

“Glad you feel the same way, Agent Oakley. Pick her up at first light. Use our helicopter and take her to Portland.”

Oakley stood up, not looking at the others.
People are gonna die over this decision.

He just didn’t know how many.

Or how soon.