Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(64)

The army of federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel had removed most of the bodies, but a swarm of crime scene techs were still at work, searching every building and seizing evidence, as the last storm petered out.

Even Maximus seemed happy when we climbed up the porch of one of the cabins that agents said was unoccupied and heated. We crammed in there and kept warm while they found dry clothes for us all.

While we waited, Karl Paulson, the FBI supervising special agent in Cheyenne, filled us in on what had been found, learned, and done since we went into the canyon after Maestro’s surviving men.

Due to the violence of the storms, the helicopter had stayed grounded, though the pilot planned to fly as soon as the weather cleared. In the meantime, Paulson had left it in the hands of the local county sheriff to set up roadblocks outside the matrix of logging roads beyond the wilderness area.

The Laramie morgue was overwhelmed by the number of corpses. A decision had been made to keep the sixteen bodies of the ranch hands and their families local for identification. The forty-two bodies of the cartel gunmen and the corpse of Dale Cortland were being sent to Denver in a refrigerated truck for autopsy.

“We have any idea who the four who made it out of here are?” Mahoney asked.

“Only that they occupied the three upper cabins,” Paulson said, taking us out on the porch and pointing to them. “Two unidentified males lived in one on the left. Unidentified female in the center. Two more unidentified males on the right.”

“You found nothing that says who they are? No documents? No computers?”

“If there were computers, they’re gone, maybe taken by the cartel. Someone went through the cabins before us.”

We wanted to see for ourselves. The cabins were spartan—simple twin beds, wood-burning stove, and gas lamps for light. Except for the clothes hanging on hooks and the basic toiletries in the bathrooms, there was literally nothing that said anything definitive about the occupants.

“It’s going to be fingerprints and DNA from here forward,” Sampson said.

“What about the ranch hands’ homes?” I said. “And the ranch office? This is a big business. There have to be computers and records.”

Agent Paulson nodded. “That’s all there in the ranch manager’s building down the road.”

Mahoney said, “I want it all shipped to Quantico for analysis. And I want agents going to adjacent ranches. Find out what they know about the people who worked here and the Brazilian company that owns this place.”

The rain finally stopped. We went up in the helicopter for the last hour of light.

The pilot took us over the wilderness area and did a loop above the logging terrain, where there was indeed a maze of two-track roads crisscrossing the mountains for as far as you could see. We spotted quite a few pickups next to skidders and filthy logging crews packing it up for the day but nothing suspicious before we banked southeast and headed back to Laramie for the night.





Chapter





74




The three of us had been up since three a.m. eastern. The flight, the lack of sleep, and the twelve-mile hike in the rain was catching up to us, but we needed to eat so we went to the chophouse across the street from our motel.

The food was good, and we ate ravenously. Sampson had talked to Willow, who was playing games on Jannie’s phone and was up way past her bedtime. She was staying at our house, so I texted Bree and Jannie to make sure they got her to bed soon.

“Thanks,” Sampson said. “She gets a little addicted to the phone.”

“Story of their generation,” Mahoney said, yawning.

“Oh,” Sampson said, looking at his cell phone. He turned it to show me a photograph of a stunning mountain scene with granite peaks reaching toward a sapphire sky. “Taken two days ago in the Bob Marshall Wilderness by our packer. His wife wants to know if we’re coming. We’re running out of time for this year. It’s almost the end of August.”

“It is beautiful,” I said, looking at the picture.

“Good for the soul.” Sampson sighed and put his phone down. In the hurly-burly of the events of the past weeks, I’d forgotten how much he wanted to go on that trip, how much he needed to go on that trip to finally let go of Billie.

The thought must have crossed Mahoney’s mind too. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and then said, “You know, John, as much as I value your contribution to this investigation—and yours, Alex—for the next week to ten days, it’s going to be a whole lot of hurry-up-and-wait for the lab reports, DNA, and fingerprints to come back and for the computers to be analyzed.”

Sampson’s brow furrowed. “What are you saying, Ned?”

“I’m saying you’re in Wyoming, for Christ’s sake, which is a lot closer to Montana than the District of Columbia. You’ve got a window of opportunity. Why don’t you rent a car, call your packer, and tell him you’ll be ready to go the day after tomorrow or the day after that?”

“We don’t have our gear with us,” I said.

“But it’s organized, correct?”

“Over-organized,” Sampson said. “We’ve been packed for two months or more. It’s all at Alex’s house in dry bags.”

“Have Bree express-ship them first thing tomorrow morning,” Mahoney said. “You’ll meet the gear wherever you’re going.”