Wrecked (Josie Gray Mysteries #3)(89)
Josie and Marta checked their firearms and extra duty revolvers and then put the department headsets on and checked the signal. They carried their Berettas at the ready position and walked quietly forward in a crouch, taking each step almost in tandem. They reached the barn and circled it slowly at a distance of twenty feet, searching for all of the entrance/exit points. There was only one traditional tractor entrance into the barn, and it was now partially obstructed by a section of the caved aluminum roof. When the back half of the barn had caved inward, the roof had fallen into a heap.
Once they had finished circling the building, Josie waved Marta over, behind the cover of a tree. It was completely dark now, but the stars were providing enough light that a careful observer could see them moving.
Josie whispered, “We’ll split and each take an entrance. Be careful though. It’s dark now, and he may be ready to head out.”
Marta nodded.
“If he has any sense he’ll have an escape route. He’ll take off on foot.”
“He won’t go south,” Marta said. “He’ll choose the police over the cartel.”
“We have Otto to the north; you take the east entrance where the roof has caved. I’ll take the west.” Josie paused and put her hand on Marta’s coat sleeve. “We’re trained to clear buildings, to clear rooms. We can’t bust into a caved-in barn and clear it. These old barns have storage areas and stalls that may have caved in. We’ll have boards scattered with no clear floor plan. We’ll just have to take it slow.”
“You’re sure we don’t want backup?”
Josie shook her head. “What happens if the state or the feds get involved? We lose him and we lose access to the cartel’s money. And all hope of brokering a deal to save Dillon. We need to move quick and quiet to keep the cartel’s men unaware.”
Marta nodded.
“Don’t enter until your eyes have adjusted, then it’s at a crouch, one step at a time. You clear the west side and we meet at the tractor entrance on my side. If you see signs he’s staying in the barn, you tap me on the headset. I’ll do the same. Your headset dialed in?”
Marta checked and nodded.
Josie pressed the button on her headset box that connected her to Otto, who was monitoring their conversation. She filled him in on the plan and he said he was ready.
“Gunfire as an absolute last resort, Marta. I suspect if Medranos’ men heard gunfire they would come, assuming it had to do with Wally. We can’t draw the cartel up here or we’ll all be dead.”
She nodded.
“You okay?”
“Let’s do this.”
*
Josie watched Marta slip behind the west side of the barn, and then Josie made it to the east side, peering between the slats in the boards as she walked along the outside of the structure. Ten feet down the side of the barn she spotted a pinprick of light coming from inside. She stopped and watched. The light wavered slightly, losing and gaining intensity. Josie signaled Marta, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You see light?”
“Nothing.”
“Give me a minute. Don’t move in yet,” Josie said.
She walked another five feet to a wider gap between two boards. Near the ground, one board was torn away from the building, leaving enough room for a rabbit to gain entrance, but not a human. Josie slowly lowered herself to the ground to get a better view of inside and smelled the moldy hay from long-ago-stabled horses. She could tell that she was looking into one of the old horse stalls. About five feet behind the stall there appeared to be a room, maybe a tack room or storage area, but it was hard to tell in the dark. In between the gaps of the boards Josie could see light. Someone was inside the small room, using a flashlight.
Josie stood again and moved several feet back to signal Marta. She whispered, “He’s inside a small tack room, maybe six by six feet. I can see the beam from a flashlight moving around.”
“I have access to the barn,” Marta said, her voice barely loud enough to register in the headset. “Fallen boards are everywhere, on top of old tractor parts and junk. But I won’t have access to that room from this side without making noise.”
“You stay there in case he bolts. I’m going in for him now. Otto. I’m going in.”
“Clear.”
Josie reached the entrance and once she was inside, she waited several minutes, adjusting to the inside of the barn with no starlight. The flashlight beam was clearly visible now. There was no door on the tack room, just a doorway. From her angle she could only see about two feet into the room. She was standing eight feet from the entrance and to the left. From the movement of the flashlight beam, it looked as if Wally was sitting in the back of the small room. The light appeared focused down and toward the ground in the back of the room, possibly from a headlamp. She took a deep breath to steady herself. If he saw her and made a loud commotion, they were in trouble. She didn’t have the backup in place to handle a cartel contingency, and she had placed her entire department in grave danger. The thought made her uneasy, but it was a calculated risk with the possibility of a huge payoff.
She stepped forward. The floor was dirt, and the barn still carried the pungent smell of horse manure, old decaying wooden boards, and oily tractor parts. She walked silently around the side of the tack room to peer between the vertical boards. In the dark barn, Wally couldn’t see her. She was more concerned with the sound of stepping on or knocking into something that she couldn’t see.