SEAL's Code (22 page)

D
anny got a
call from Wilson, who, as it turned out, was home again, although training in the desert outside Las Vegas. He promised he’d be there in less than four hours, which would mean he’d be breaking the speed limit the whole way.

Danny was relieved he would have someone else with recent knowledge of the goings on at the reservation who could assist Sanders in ways Danny couldn’t. Several of his grandfather’s buddies had returned his calls. He’d asked them if they’d seen Zelda, and of course everyone was concerned. He knew they’d be calling everyone they knew, asking the same questions. The Navajo oral social media was in full swing. If she’d been seen anywhere, they’d know about it soon. He recalled how he could never get away with anything, how eyes were always on him, reporting back to his mother every little thing he did something, and it used to drive him completely nuts. He and Wilson never got away with anything.

Now that network was going to perhaps save some lives by shortening the time it would take to get important information on Zelda’s whereabouts. Perhaps Sarah, too.

Sanders and Lyle arrived just in time for the dinner Luci had made. Danny was anxious for an update.

“We sent it by courier to Washington, D.C. and I got it escalated, so we’ll see,” Sanders said. He seemed to be in a better mood. “You may not believe this, but the fact that they want Zelda is probably a good sign.”

“How so?” Luci asked.

“Well, I mean, they’re fishing for something.”

“Or trying to close a loose end,” Lyle offered helpfully. He was rewarded with a shocked look from Luci and a scowl from Sanders. “I mean, she’s the first one of—of—of a certain age, you know? Not young. And, well, look at her,” Lyle had turned bright red. He looked around the table for a friend and didn’t find any. “Why would anyone want to mess with that woman?”

Sanders was lost in thought, dropping a forkful of lasagna before it hit his mouth. “Holy shit. It means she knows something,” he said as he looked up to Danny across the table. “She knows something she doesn’t realize she knows. And they know she’d have told us if we’d only spent more time around her.”

“They wanted something from her,” Lyle said.

“Her
computer
, but we had it,” Danny said. “It has all the information on Sarah’s emails with those two imposters.”

“But they don’t know that, Danny. Only I knew they shared the same—” Luci stopped. “Unless Yellowhorse knew it, too.”

“She might have told them she was bringing the computer. Maybe she thought she could rescue Sarah. Maybe it’s why she didn’t tell us. She knew we wouldn’t let her do it. Now this is really making sense. Brave, but a big fuckin’ mistake,” Sanders finished, following it with a string of muttered swear words.

“This is totally consistent with my mother,” Luci said.

All of a sudden, Wilson stepped through the doorway, carrying a black duty bag, just like the one Danny had, probably loaded with enough firepower to start a small war. The look on Wilson’s face was one of complete focus and determination. In that split second, Danny knew that all the training, their past, their pains, separations, failures, and ordeals made them the kind of men they were.

Anyone who underestimated them would be the loser. And they had the backing of all the spirits of their ancestors, either living or dead.

After bringing Wilson up to date, showing him the messages on both accounts, they discussed what to do next.

One by one, several of the People began to phone information to both Danny and Wilson. People had seen Zelda at the trading post. Then at the bank. She drove north, deeper into the res, toward Tuba City. Someone else called and said they’d seen Yellowhorse with a certain Sheriff Payette Fisher.

They were headed west in Fisher’s Tahoe so fast they were going to see themselves coming and going, his grandfather’s friend said. The old man spoke to him in Navajo, “Your grandfather will find them, Danny.
Old goatface
will make sure the mourning mothers of the desert will tear them apart limb from limb.”

For the first time since he was a child, he believed the stories.

Danny and Wilson
loaded up in Wilson’s truck with more firepower than Danny thought possible. For a SWCC boat guy, Wilson was certainly into explosive devices and weapons. Both cousins were grinning from ear to ear, like in the days when they were going hunting with Danny’s grandfather.

Sanders and Lyle also checked and loaded their weapons. Sanders called in details of what they’d discovered and where they were going, unable to give a specific address.

“Even if I knew where it was, there aren’t any addresses,” he told someone over the phone. “I’ll try to report in along the way. When is the help coming? Any chance we can get some air support?”

Danny heard Sanders salivating over the prospect of catching the Sheriff, and he hoped the man could reel in his emotions and not wind up causing any of them or the women danger. It was one thing to get excited for a firefight, quite another to get distracted with hatred and revenge. He made a mental note to watch the agent carefully.

Luci was quiet as she watched them clean, check, and load everything up, then put on their vests, gloves, and other tools. It occurred to Danny she was getting an inside look at his life as a SEAL. He was hoping her silence didn’t mean she had second thoughts. He held her in his arms and hoped it wouldn’t be the last time he would do so. He reassured her, kissed away the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

“Don’t you lose heart, Luci. We have one advantage. They don’t know we know about them.”

“But shouldn’t you wait to get help?”

“No time, sweetheart. That might take until morning. Besides, I’ve got Wilson. The dark of night is when Wilson and I are the strongest. It is how we were trained, how we learned the old ways. You have to trust us. Trust in our training.”

She’d nodded, and then he held her shaking body and heard her whisper, “I’ll say a blessing. I’ll ask Emma and a few of the ladies to join me and we’ll do a blessing ceremony.”

“Yes. Do that. Ask for protection.” He reached down inside his shirt and pulled out the little packet he’d been given with the corn pollen. “This went with me overseas and protected me. This will bring me home.”

He waved goodbye to her from the passenger seat as Wilson fired up his truck and headed out, Sanders and Lyle right behind them.

As they traveled the dusty, bumpy road to the highway, he thought about the fact that he’d been trained to do hostage rescues for overseas missions. He never thought he’d have to do one at home, in the land of the People, rescuing his own family members, protecting his own tribe. The fact that they had so many accomplices from the community made him feel like the leader his grandfather had been. If only they could find Zelda and Sarah. If only they could get there in time.

He heard the singing again and realized he welcomed it. He found strength in their voices raised to the stars, singing to The First Slender One, the warrior protector in the constellation Orion. The words of the singers silenced as one lone voice came to him from across the desert.

‘Ch’al. We go with you on the great mission to save the innocent ones. You grow wise with age. You honor the lives lived before you were born with your sacrifice and service. Go with the blessings of all the People.’

‡

S
heriff Payette Fisher
never liked the reservation, but using the People there was good business. He wondered if he’d ever been a good cop. He couldn’t remember back that far. So now he was streaking off into the deep part of the place he hated, with another one of his boys. There were lots of details coming unraveled. The town had been buzzing when Danny came back. And, he’d never thought the FBI man was much of a threat, since he’d gotten rid of two of them already, guys who just walked right into his trap.

He could feel Yellowhorse’s resolve dwindling. So he’d probably have to take care of him, too. God, the bodies were piling up. Probably meant it was time to start looking for another pasture to graze from. All this was getting too high profile.

He’d told Mr. Amauro so yesterday. The man clearly didn’t have any idea how formidable the Navajo could be when they were united. With the girls disappearing, satisfying the greedy intentions of his Las Vegas, well-connected partners, came the added baggage that eventually they’d realize someone from outside their culture was preying on them. They wouldn’t take it forever. There wasn’t any amount of money that could make them sell their girls forever. He’d tried to explain that to Amauro, suggesting perhaps they find more runaways, especially the young girls who came from Mexico with nothing, who haunted Las Vegas on a regular basis. There were little drug hotties who got snagged using and couldn’t get out of the cycle, potheads trying to drop out or run away from an abusive home, get a job dancing or working in a topless bar, doing extra things out back for extra tip monies. The Mexican girls who came up were always the easiest to get.

But Amauro wanted virgins. Fresh, young things customers would pay a high price for. He suggested to Fisher that if he couldn’t deliver the goods, he might be able to find someone else who could. Fat chance at that. But of course, if Amauro went that route, and even if he failed, Payette Fisher would be sleeping with the lizards and buzzards in the desert.

No, a tropical island was feeling pretty good right now. Some place out of the reach of Mr. A and his cronies.

Yellowhorse had been fidgeting, holding onto the ceiling mounted hand grips, knuckles white and his lips in a thin line, swallowing every thirty seconds and making Fisher nervous.

The highway, if it could be called that, was an unpaved stretch of absolutely straight, sandy road that was hell on shocks and tires. That’s why the locals didn’t travel it at one hundred miles per hour, like he was. He wasn’t sure whether it was the speed or the mission that bothered Yellowhorse more.

“What’s the matter?” he shouted over the sounds of the tires trying to get impossible traction. “You’ve never traveled this fast before?”

Yellowhorse kept his eyes straight ahead, as if he could see something Fisher couldn’t. “You don’t want to hit a coyote, or a goat or sheep. They get loose. This is free grazing here. No fences, Sheriff.”

“That what’s bothering you?”

“I’d like to know the plan.”

“The plan?” Fisher tried to take his right hand off the steering wheel to grip Yellowhorse’s shoulder, but the truck swerved and he nearly lost control. At the last minute, his right front tire went into a pothole and the front of the chassis bounced into the air for what seemed like a foot. Yellowhorse was a big man, and his head butted the ceiling of the cab while Fisher’s barely grazed it.

Yellowhorse growled at him and held his hand on his head.

Fisher found himself getting more irritated the more Yellowhorse showed his dislike for their speed, their predicament, the fact that his head hurt—everything. “What’s the matter with you? You got any idea what’s fuckin’ at stake here? We have to get that computer and get rid of the Mrs. or we’re in for some years behind bars, George. And if we were to make a deal, our friends in Vegas would never let us breathe so much as two breaths of prison air. You know that.”

Yellowhorse swallowed and nodded slowly. Fisher didn’t like his stoical nature. He considered it a lack of honesty that he never talked about how he felt, except how it felt to get drunk and have ladies he normally couldn’t afford. He was a big talker about how his sexual prowess took them by surprise. Fisher knew the ladies were paid to give compliments and make the man feel like he was the best lover they’d ever had. But Yellowhorse was stupid enough to believe them.

“So the plan is, we make sure there’s no evidence we were ever involved.”

“Except people saw Zelda and me together.”

“Zelda? So it’s Zelda now? Not the fuckin’ bitch you were trying to talk into selling her daughter.”

“She’d never do that. She wasn’t that low.”

“Well, you said she got her on the pill. That was part of the plan at least. The only fuckin’ part of the plan that was accomplished.”

“You got the girl. What do you need with the mother? Something happens to her, they’re going to be all over us. Otherwise, they can’t be sure. Girls run away all the time. But you mess with one of the mothers or grandmothers, well, you don’t know them as well as I do, Payette.”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me Payette. I’m not your fuckin’ boyfriend.”

“Sorry, Fisher.”

The truck bounced. Fisher could feel one of his tires going partially flat and made a mental note to check the pressure when they got to Tuba City.

“I hated what happened to James.”

“He didn’t feel a thing. Bullet to the back of the head. He’s out there,” Fisher pointed to the blackness of the desert, “somewhere. He probably made a nice meal for a coyote and her cubs, the cycle of life and everything. You believe in that. You Indians believe in all that shit, don’t you?”

He could tell Yellowhorse had a thought about punching him, but knew it would probably wreck the truck and send them both flying out over the desert floor. No, best thing was to put up with the son of a bitch and just wait for the time to take the guy out quickly. He’d sew up this loophole, get the ransom money from Zelda, empty his bank account, and disappear over the border so fast they’d never know what hit them. He’d gone fishing in Mexico and knew a couple police force captains he could bribe into silence. He’d be gone before he wasted his money on continuing to buy their silence.