No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds Novella (Kindle Single) (9 page)

With the binoculars still pressed to her face, Joanna felt her heartbeat accelerate. Her officers’ lives were on the line down there. A guy she suspected of being a stone-cold killer, someone who was armed and dangerous, was headed in their direction. She had put her people there, but she was not. As far as Joanna Brady was concerned, she should have stayed on the ground with them, but at this point all she could do was watch from the sidelines.

The Hummer topped the rise and ground to a sudden stop. Joanna was sure shots were being exchanged, but over the noise of the helicopter there was no way to tell for sure. A moment later the Hummer’s driver bailed. Joanna could see that the guy was holding his weapon pointed at the Sprinter. She couldn’t see the bullets flying from the barrel, but her soul registered every one.

Then the guy took off running, dodging away from the Hummer and trying to disappear into the desert.

“Shots fired!” Ruiz shouted into his mic. “Runner!”

“Stay on him,” Joanna told Chuck. “On him but out of range.”

“Roger that.”

It wasn’t until the aircraft flew closer that the suspect seemed to notice its presence. He stopped and looked up. Then he raised his weapon, pointed it in their direction, and tried to fire again.

“He should have studied geometry or physics,” Chuck observed with a laugh. “No way can he reach us up here with that thing. Every time he pulls the trigger, he has that much less ammo. Bad for him. Good for us.”

Joanna knew Chuck was trying to lighten her load, but her whole being still locked on the drama unfolding below, and she was in no mood for joking around. She watched as the TAC team spread out in pursuit of the gunman. Her heart was in her throat, knowing that every step they took carried her officers closer to the shooter and put them in even greater danger.

Then, as quickly as it began, it ended. Joanna saw the guy start in alarm and look back over his shoulder just as a black-and-brown streak crashed into him.

“Spike’s got him!” she shouted into her own mic, recognizing the canine member of her department’s K-9 unit. “Suspect is on the ground!”

Within moments the officers converged on the scene. Takedowns were always the most dangerous part of any pursuit. She continued to hold her breath until Armando Ruiz’s elated voice came through her radio.

“Suspect in custody!”

“Great job, guys!” Joanna said. “Great job!” There were tears of gratitude in her eyes. She had to wipe them away before she spoke again. “Somebody needs to go check out the barn. I have a feeling the other four guys who drove inside won’t be walking out. Chuck, how about we go find my Yukon. I can see where it’s parked from here. Since there won’t be any traffic, you can put this thing down right there on the highway to let us out. I want to go see what, if anything, this creep has to say for himself.”

•   •   •

Knowing how much was at stake, Ali had stayed quiet and motioned Cami to do the same during most of the firefight. After all, Joanna’s officers were caught up in a life-and-death struggle, and Sheriff Brady didn’t need comments from the peanut gallery while those lives were on the line. Ali kept her phone on silent, but she knew from the constant buzzing that there had been a flurry of missed calls. When she checked, she saw they were all from B.

Chuck landed in the middle of the pavement. “I’m assuming you’re not ready to bail right now,” he said as Ali rose to exit. “How about if I go back to the airport and be on standby. Give me a call half an hour before you’re ready to leave for Sedona.”

“Thank you,” she said. “We will.”

Once she was back on solid ground, Ali called B. “Sorry to leave you hanging like that,” she said, “but it’s over now. The TAC team caught the guy. They probably wouldn’t have managed it without having Chuck and his helicopter at our disposal.”

Just then a marked patrol vehicle, a Tahoe with a woman at the wheel, pulled up. “Sheriff Brady,” she called through the passenger window. “TAC team is calling for you. Four gunshot victims in the barn down the road. No survivors.”

Ali watched as the horror of those words flitted briefly across Sheriff Brady’s face, then she straightened her shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “If it’s all right with you, Deb, I’ll ride with you.” She turned to Ali. “How about if you and Cami wait here? I’ll have someone come pick you up and take you back to the department for your car.”

“Of course,” Ali said. “That’ll be fine.” She tried to be gracious, but it was clear she had no other choice.

Cami, on the other hand, was totally engrossed with her iPad. “Thanks for the info, Stu,” she said.

“I’m trying to tell you the same thing Stu is,” B. said impatiently when Ali returned the phone to her ear. “He’s spent the whole time working his magic. Hans Holzmann didn’t show up at work today. His wife reported him missing earlier this afternoon. She said he left home in the middle of the night—told her that there was some kind of emergency at work, except he didn’t go to work. Stu also managed to pick up on a trail of Holzmann’s credit card transactions: He bought gas and a sandwich in Blythe, California; stopped at a McDonald’s in Gila Bend; bought another tank of gas in Sierra Vista at ten thirty this morning. And guess what? That extra vehicle parked out in front of the house belonging to Mr. Holzmann the elder turns out to be a Range Rover.”

“And Hans Dieter Holzmann just happens to drive a Range Rover,” Ali supplied.

“Bingo.”

“From what we’ve been able to learn, the shooting that started this whole mess was first called in around two
A.M.
The satellite shot was time stamped eleven
A.M.
It takes eight and a half hours minimum to drive from Rolling Hills, California, to Holzmann Road in Cochise County.”

“So Hans Holzmann knew something had gone haywire with the shipment at almost the same time the cops did. He immediately hopped in his car and came straight here.”

“Right,” B. agreed. “Which makes me wonder, what if he was lured here? What if this was nothing but an elaborate trap?”

“So far the body count here on the ground is up to five,” Ali told him. “Based on that, I’m thinking things are looking pretty grim for Mr. Holzmann—maybe for both Mr. Holzmanns.”

An unmarked patrol car showed up, this one an aging but well-preserved Crown Victoria. The man at the wheel was older than the other people Ali had seen in Joanna’s department. “I’m Detective Ernie Carpenter,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to take you two ladies back to the Justice Center.”

“Before you do that,” Ali told him, “I think there may be another problem.”

When she finished explaining the situation, Carpenter got on the horn to request additional assistance. Ali heard the weariness in Joanna’s voice as she replied. “All right, Ernie. Take one of the deputies and go check it out. In the meantime, give Ali the keys to my Tahoe. She can drive herself back to the department, but tell her to watch out for spike strips.”

“All right, ladies,” Ernie said when she finished. “Help yourselves.”

Yet another departmental SUV, a Tahoe again, appeared on the scene. Ali wondered how many of those were part of Sheriff Brady’s collection of rolling stock. As the SUV followed the Crown Vic up Holzmann Road, Ali turned to Cami. “In other words, here’s our hat, what’s our hurry, and don’t let the door slam on our butts on the way out?” she grumbled. “How about a little gratitude?”

They climbed into Joanna’s Yukon. The seat was set so far forward that Ali could barely get her legs under the steering wheel. Once she finished adjusting the seat and the mirrors, she turned to Cami. “You know what? This sucks. We’re the whole reason the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office is on top of this right now. If it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t know about the trucks, wouldn’t know about the bodies in the barn or whatever it is, and wouldn’t have caught the shooter. I’m a little tired of being told to sit down and shut up, aren’t you?”

Cami nodded. “Right,” she said. “It’s like we’re suddenly invisible or something.”

“The shooter is in custody. So what say we go check out what’s happening with Helmer and Hans Holzmann?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Ali turned the key in the ignition, put the Yukon in gear, executed a U-turn, and followed the other two vehicles north from Highway 92. Even there, the road was in bad enough shape that she was glad they had a high-clearance vehicle complete with four-wheel drive. The road ended abruptly at a closed gate with a row of newly leafed cottonwoods on either side. Beyond the gate was a house, barn, corral, and outbuildings—the same ones Ali remembered seeing on the satellite image earlier. The Ranger Rover was where they had seen it, too. The Crown Vic and the Tahoe were parked directly behind it, but neither driver was anywhere in sight.

Ali pulled up to the gate and stopped. Cami rolled down her window. “Should we go in or wait here?” Cami asked.

There was something about this whole situation that was bothering Ali—something that wasn’t right. “No,” she said. “We should just turn around and go back.”

As Ali put the car in reverse and turned to see where she was going, a giant of a man materialized from behind one of the nearby trees. He reached in through the open window and grabbed Cami. Using only one hand, he managed to wrestle her out of her seat belt and drag her, screaming and struggling, out through the open window. The window control buttons were right there on Ali’s armrest, but by the time Ali realized that, Cami was half in and half out of the car, and she couldn’t touch them. A hard clap on the head silenced Cami. As she slumped in the man’s arms, Ali saw the gun in his left hand.

“Who are you?” Ali demanded.

“Who I am doesn’t matter,” he snarled. “What matters is this: You give me a ride and we go where I say. Now, unlock the back door here. The girl and I will ride in back. If you try anything—anything at all—she dies. Got it?”

Ali hesitated, but only for a moment. Cami was in mortal danger at that moment. And who had put her there? Ali Reynolds had. Ali glanced at the house to see if one of the officers had heard Cami’s scream. No one appeared at a door or peered out a window, so apparently they hadn’t. If Cami Lee was going to be saved, Ali Reynolds would have to be the one to do it.

“Got it,” she said.

“Well?” he demanded impatiently. “Are you going to unlock the door or not?”

“Just a minute,” Ali said. “It’s not my car. I need to find the right button.”

She made a show of pushing buttons, raising random windows up and down. By the time she finally unlocked the door, Cami had come to enough that she was the one who opened it. Her captor gripped the terrified girl with one hand while holding a handgun that looked like a .38 to Cami’s head. Her eyes were open wide with fear and pleading for help. She was obviously terrified.

Once the door opened, the man lifted Cami off the ground and shoved her into the vehicle. He had to push her bodily across the bench seat before closing the door behind him. In the split second he was preoccupied with that, Ali managed to extract the Glock from her small-of-back holster. Once she had the weapon out, she slipped it under her thigh where it was out of sight but still close at hand.

“All right,” the man said. “We’re in. Now turn around and get going.”

Ali listened for the distinctive sound of seat belts locking, but none came. The man with the gun wasn’t belted in, but then, neither was Cami.

Ali took her time and made several tries before finally executing the U-turn, hoping all the while that either Detective Carpenter or the deputy would emerge from the house and see what was happening. No one did.

“Where to?”Ali asked once they started back down Holzmann Road.

“Away from here,” he said. “The place is crawling with cops, and leaving in a cop car seems like a good idea to me.”

There was indistinct radio chatter on the radio. Nothing Ali heard told her that the roadblocks had been dismantled. She hoped they hadn’t been, but in an attempt to distract the man from what was being said over the air, Ali turned herself into a regular chatty Cathy.

“They caught your buddy,” she said conversationally. “You know, the guy in the Hummer?”

“They caught Julio? So what?” he said. “He’s got connections around here. He’ll get out.”

“I don’t think so,” Ali said. “He killed the four drivers,” Ali said.

A quick check in the rearview mirror told her that hearing about the dead drivers had blindsided the guy. “Julio killed them?”

“Yup,” Ali said. “Gunned them down right there in the warehouse. Your friend Julio sounds like the kind of guy who wouldn’t want to leave any witnesses behind,” she added. “Once he had all those LEGO boxes, maybe he was going to take you out, too.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“He said he’d come get me once the trucks were taken care of. All I needed was time to finish what I’d started. The thing is it took longer than I expected to get the old man to tell me where Hans was hiding.”

“You killed both of them?” Ali asked.

“Of course I did. Hans was a cheating son of a bitch,” he said. “That’s the whole reason I came here—to teach him a lesson.”

With his every casual admission, Ali slipped deeper into despair. If their captor was this forthcoming, it probably meant that the other two officers—both Detective Carpenter and the deputy—were dead as well. This guy was spilling out all the details because he had no intention of leaving Ali and Cami alive to tell the tale. Still, right at that moment, Ali knew her best option was to keep him talking.

“Cheating you out of stolen LEGO sets?” Ali asked.

“Look, me and Hans were supposedly partners,” he said. “It turns out he’s been robbing me blind the whole time, and I only just now found out. Those old sets he had stowed away here—ones I knew nothing about—are worth a fortune. Who would do something like that?”

“My father told me once there’s no honor among thieves,” Ali said. “Maybe you didn’t get the memo.”

“Shut up,” he said.

So Ali shut up. By then they were nearing the end of Holzmann Road and approaching Highway 92. Creeping up to the stop sign, she paused and looked both ways. There wasn’t a single vehicle in sight in either direction. That probably meant that the roadblocks were still in place.