Cold River Resurrection (25 page)

C
hapter
60

Aboard Gulfstream 550

Weasel had the plane rolling as Smokey eased down in a leather covered chair, gear and officers piled up behind him. On another day he would have appreciated the plush cabin and all of the comforts the G-550 had to offer. He tried to ignore the pain of his wound, and waved Sarah away as she started to hover.

“Amy, bring your laptop up here,” Smokey said, motioning to the girl. Amy sat across from him as the acceleration of the take-off pushed him back in the seat. She placed the laptop on the table and turned the screen so Smokey could see it. Smokey looked at the outline of the Western United States on the display. Amy pointed to Utah and at a flashing red light.

“That signal is for the dart I shot at the men below the cliff, and I now think that I hit the woman, Jennifer. Each dart has its own code, like a transponder.”

“What’s that signal
?” Smokey pointed at Central Oregon.

“That’s the dart we shot the night before,” Amy said. “Don’t
know if it hit anything, but we couldn’t find it.”

Smokey
called for Weasel to join them. The pain in his shoulder flared, as if someone had just stabbed him with a butcher knife, again and again. He pointed to the screen. “Can we catch them?”

“Depends on where they are going
,” Weasel said. “They are about an hour and a half in front of us. If they operate at normal cruise speed with a Bombardier Learjet 45 they will be cruising about fifty miles per hour slower than we are.”

Smokey’s cell phone rang. He reached for it and couldn’t make his arm work. He could feel blood seeping down his chest. Sarah leaned over him and picked it up, her face a mask of worry.

“Smokey’s phone,” she said, and listened, and then said, “I’ll put it on speaker, he’s here.”

She placed the phone on the table and said, “
It’s Oakley.”

“
This is what we have,” Oakley said. “We’re tracking the Lear, they are in southern Utah now, and I’m told that you are following them in some way as well. We think that the Alvarez Cartel, with Alvarez himself on board, is taking your daughter and Jennifer Kruger to a ranch north of Hermosillo, Mexico, where they have a meth superlab.

Smokey felt cold. “Alvarez? The YouTube guy?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Oakley said. “They have filed a flight plan for Phoenix to refuel, then on to Hermosillo. However we believe they can make the distance without refueling.”

“W
here the hell’s Hermosillo?”

“
Hermosillo is only a hundred eighty miles south of the border. Less than four hundred miles south of Phoenix. And, they have their own airstrip on the ranch. Twenty miles from Hermosillo.”

“They won’t land in Phoenix,” Smokey said. “It’s a ruse, they can’t afford to be caught with two kidnapped prisoners.”

“We have HRT gearing up now, heading for Luke Air Force Base, and will be waiting to assist.”

It’s a ruse, Smokey thought. I know the way this fucker thinks, the
YouTube guy; he won’t let himself get caught that easy.

“Just in case,” Smokey said, “can you send us maps of the ranch, GPS coordinates of the private airport, any contact people who can meet us on the ground.”

“On its way,” Oakley said. “I’ll be in touch every few minutes.” He broke the connection.

“Weasel,” Smokey said. Weasel leaned over the seat.

“Get me a running clock for touchdown at the meth lab.”

“In my head, right now I’d say that we will be there in two hours and fifteen minutes. I’ll give you an exact as soon as I get back to the cockpit. We might even make up some time on them if they pretend to make a landing in Phoenix, then continue on.”

The feebs finally help us, huh? Hope so, I sure hope so. If there’s ever a time for the feds to help us poor old Indians, now’s the time. Ain’t ever gonna be another time for me if they don’t. And if I can’t find Laurel alive, I’ll stay in Mexico and kill as many druggies as I can.

Now’s the time.

Smokey leaned forward and put his head down. He was aware that the sun was setting. The fight to come would be in the dark. He fought the fear that he would never see Laurel again, fought what it would do to him. He couldn’t think about that,
not yet anyway. The pain from his wound was making him dizzy. He knew he should take something for the pain. It might make him function better, but he didn’t want to lose any edge.

Make the pain work for you.

With his head down, he felt a light hand on his shoulder, and reached up with his right hand and covered it. With his head down he spoke, quiet, almost a murmur, so Sarah leaned forward to his chest.

“Sarah.”

“Yeah, I’m here. We’ll get her back, both of them, Smoke.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky, a whisper. “When Laurel was a baby,” Smokey continued, “I would take her in a backpack in the mountains behind the old place. I would tell her the names of the trees, both in Sahaptin and English. Remember when she was a toddler?”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah,”

“I would walk along behind her, just letting her go anywhere on the trail, exploring. Once, she ran out ahead of me on the trail and ran around a corner. I waited until she discovered she had been going on without me, and she ran back, tears in her eyes, yelling my name.”

Smokey stopped, the possibility of losing Laurel hitting him, and he struggled. Sarah squeezed his shoulder, and he shook his head. He loved her, and he loved Nathan and his men, and he knew that they would die with him if that’s what it took to get Laurel and Jennifer back.

“Attention in the cabin,” Weasel’s voice came over the speakers, saving Smokey from a certain melt down.

“The feds have sent us a feed to their fighters in the air, a flight of F-16’s out of Luke Air Force Base. They’ve been tracking the Lear for several minutes now. The Lear’s onboard radar will let their pilots know that they are being shadowed. Here goes –.”

The speakers crackled with static, then cut into a fighter pilot’s transmission.

“…to Eagle Flight leader.”

“Eagle Leader..”

“We believe that the Lear should have contacted Phoenix ATC by now for landing instructions so we’ll have ATC contact them. If they don’t acknowledge, divert them with force to Luke.”

“Eagle Leader copy. We’re maintaining a visual on the Lear, three miles back.”

The static dimmed and Weasel’s voice cut in.

“We should know something soon, since the feds have decided that they will not stand by and let Laurel and Jennifer be taken to Mexico.”

A great leap of faith for them, Weasel thought, since no one actually saw Jennifer and Laurel being put on the Lear.

“Okay, they’re not responding to ATC,” Weasel said. “I’ll put Eagle Flight back on.”

“…is the United States Air Force, please acknowledge on this frequency.”

Smokey listened as Eagle Flight leader repeate
d his directive to the Lear 45.

“Eagle Flight Leader to Command, I’m getting no response.”

“We copied. Try a visual on the cockpit.”

“Eagle Flight Leader’s moving up.”

As Smokey waited he turned in his seat, knowing that he had to stand up, stretch if he could, getting so stiff he couldn’t move.

“Sarah, help me a second.” She put her arm out and Smokey pulled on it, pulling himself off the seat, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Eagle Flight Leader to command,” the pilot’s voice boomed over the speakers again, “I have a visual on the cockpit, both pilot and co-pilot of the Lear see me.”

“Eagle Flight, they’re not responding
to my signal.”

“Command to Eagle Flight, force them down.”

Force them down how, Smokey thought. What is the procedure?

Smokey stood, the cabin swimming, holding onto Sarah until the dizziness went away, his stomach churning, wanting his daughter to be out of harm’s way.

“Eagle Flight to Command, I’m going to fly in to turn them.”

Smokey looked around the cabin at his team, the officers motionless, listening to the drama ahead of them.

“Eagle Leader, he’s making a sudden turn to his starboard…”

Aboard Lear 45

As threatening as it was to be on the plane, Jennifer dozed, snuggling with Laurel as well as she could. The blindfold was maddening, but she couldn’t move it with her hands tied. The plane made a sudden turn, throwing Laurel away from her lap, and the girl cried out.

Their captors yelled in Spanish,
just as surprised as Jennifer was.

The plane righted, and Laurel scrambled back.

“Jen, what happened?”

“Sudden turn, I guess
. Maybe we’re landing,” Jennifer whispered. But she thought that the turn was too sudden for a normal turn to a landing pattern. 

Something’s going on, and I hope it’s not going well for the assholes who have us. I get the chance, I’ll send the one they call Alvarez home to whatever god he worships.

Right the fuck home.

She had a sudden vision of a bearded God holding a quaking Alvarez by the throat.

Yeah, if God doesn’t do it, I’ll send you home to Jesus all by myself.

Aboard Gulfstream 550

The voice from the F-16 came back on the speaker.

“Eagle Flight Leader to Command, the Lear’s now following us, heading on our coordinates to Luke, going down to flight level 25.”

Smokey thought it might just work, praying for his baby and Jennifer to get low, to keep their heads down when the plane was assaulted by HRT. He closed his eyes.

It seemed to take forever for the plane to land, and during that time, no one spoke. The voice finally came over the speakers in the Gulfstream.

“Gear down on the Lear,” Eagle Flight leader said. “We’ll shadow from above.”

“Roger, Eagle Flight Leader.”

Smokey sat up and looked around the cabin. It was dark now, the sun having set in the last half hour. They kept their speed up on the Gulfstream, still hundreds of miles behind the Lear. They would ask for a landing at Luke as soon as Oakley said he had Jennifer and Laurel safely in hand.

It might just work.

C
hapter
61

Luke Air Force Base

Outside of Phoenix, Arizona

HRT briefing

The F.B.I. regional Hostage Rescue Team was assembled, the room noisy as the sixteen team members found seats. Oakley stood at the lectern, looking over the room. If anyone could pull this off, they could. The bad guy might just be willing to be called out of the plane. Oakley waited to be introduced. They had twenty minutes until the Lear would land on the air base. They needed all of that time and more to brief and get out there.

Colonel Pulowski of the 61
st
Fighter Squadron “Top Dogs,” moved to the lectern. 

“Gentlemen.”

The room grew quiet.

“Gentlemen, while you are here on this operation, we will do whatever we can to assist you in your mission.” He motioned for Oakley.
             

“I’m SSAIC Oakley, assigned to the Bend, Oregon field office. I’m going to make this quick, since the Lear will be landing in,” and he looked at his watch, “landing in nineteen minutes.”

“We believe that Enrico Alvarez, from Hermosillo, Mexico, is on board, with some of his enforcers. Alvarez runs a superlab in Mexico, crosses the border at will under the guise of being a businessman.”

A tall agent in the front row raised his hand. Oakley pointed.

“Sir, is he the YouTube asshole?”

“He’s the one. Put film of the heads of police officers his people killed on
YouTube to warn other police not to cross him. He’s a killer. Enrico Alvarez.

“Alvarez is on board the Lear
45, and we believe that he has kidnapped two people from the Cold River Indian Reservation, a Jennifer Kruger,” Oakley put her picture on the screen, “and nine-year- old Laurel Kukup. Laurel is the daughter of Cold River Tribal Police Lieutenant ‘Smokey’ Kukup. He’s in the air in a G-550, about an hour behind the Lear. He won’t be a factor here. In your packets you have pictures of Alvarez and his crew, as well as Jennifer Kruger and Laurel.”

Oakley held up a packet. “There is also a brief of the assault on the Kukup family home on the reservation. You should know that Smokey and a small team of officers killed eleven bad guys who were armed with automatic weapons and RPG’s. His
daughter Laurel, shot one of them as he came in the door. We need to do this right. Smokey will do virtually anything to get his daughter back. He was an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. He will lay waste to some bad people to get his daughter, or, to avenge her if something happens.”             

Colonel Pulowski held his hand up from the side of the lectern
and listened with an earpiece. He looked at his watch.

“Gentlemen, the plane is ahead of schedule. We now have fifteen minutes until touchdown.”

The team leader stepped up and motioned to the door. The team hurried out to the waiting vehicles. The plan was to force the Lear down on an unused runway, far from the buildings, and surround the plane with heavy vehicles, fire trucks for cover, and call to the pilots to order the passengers off the plane. It was as sophisticated as they could come up with given the short time frame.

Oakley watched as the vehicles sped toward the runway, then climbed in the passenger seat of the
colonel’s car. They would follow at a distance and observe the take-down.

The operation went as planned, until the moment the door opened on the Lear.

The plane touched down, shadowed by the flight of F-16’s, and followed a pickup operated by HRT, with the “Follow Me” signs. The Lear came to a stop at a midpoint on the runway, and the engines spooled down. The HRT members quickly surrounded the plane. The bad guys inside the plane could surely see that they had no options.

After a minute, the door opened.

Oakley watched with binoculars from a hundred yards away. A man with a white shirt stood in the doorway.

The Captain, gauging from his shoulder boards.

Oakley knew that an HRT agent was giving instructions with a loudspeaker, and he saw the captain’s hands go up and he walked down the stairs and toward a black Suburban. Another person wearing a white shirt came next, the co-pilot.

Well at least they can’t fly the plane now.

HRT agents were running for the plane, taking positions on either side of the door, as well as under the nose and tail. An agent was yelling to those inside the plane. One by one the passengers came down the ramp, hands up, to be taken into custody by HRT members.

Th
is doesn’t look right, Oakley thought.

HRT agents boarded the plane, fast, clearing the small space in a matter of seconds.

The report came fast over the radio.

“Clear!”

“No, I repeat, no hostages on board. Appears initially to be a group of Malaysian investors,” the team leader said.

“Drive up there,” Oakley urged the colonel.

We got the wrong fucking plane.

But w
here was Alvarez, and where the hell are the hostages?

Oakley picked up his cell phone, and called Smokey.
This was going to get bloody.