Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(80)

Move: 1:00 a.m.



Nate read it twice. “North Park is in Portland, I take it?”

“Yes,” Geronimo said. “I’ve been there. It’s five or six city blocks right downtown.”

“Do you figure Axel is ahead of us?”

“Yes, I do, unless he stopped to get medical attention for his friend. He’s got probably an hour or ninety-minute jump on us.”

Nate nodded.

Randy said, “I overhead Axel telling the Blade that he was going to transfer your birds tomorrow to his buyer. He said there was a private jet waiting at the airport to take them to Saudi Arabia. I thought it was just bullshit at first, but I think it’s real.”

Geronimo added, “So it’s tonight or never.”

Nate looked down at his right hand and willed his fingers to flex. They didn’t. “There’s no way I can shoot.”

“I don’t have that problem,” Geronimo said.



* * *



—

    Thirty minutes later, Nate looked up as they passed a logging truck. He’d never seen logs so thick or cut trees as long. The truck reminded him he was in a different world from the Mountain West. A place where trees grew to massive size, the underbrush was thick with ferns and moss, and everything just felt extreme to what he was used to.

Randy sat in the passenger seat, having a monologue with himself. He was more than disillusioned with Axel Soledad. He was disillusioned with his antifa brethren. Hearing Axel go on about the tenets of the movement—abolish the police, abolish capitalism, return all lands to the indigenous people—made him question how realistic any of it was.

“I gotta get my head straight,” he confessed to himself.

Then Nate saw the highway sign for Portland International Airport.

“Take that exit,” he said to Geronimo.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


    The Reckoning


Joe waited in baggage claim at the Portland airport for his single piece of luggage to arrive. He loosened up his arms and legs from the stiffness that had set in from the flight. His injuries at the library had been minor, but he had the distinct impression that if he stopped moving for too long, he’d freeze up like a mummy.

It had been the last flight of the night on United Airlines, and most of the passengers from the aircraft had apparently used carry-ons, because there were only two other people at the carousel. One was a seventyish man with long silver hair and small round glasses who wore a tweed jacket. Joe thought of him as “old Portland.” The other was a young woman about Sheridan’s age with blue hair and elongated earlobe gauges that stretched nearly to her jawbone. She was clutching an overlarge teddy bear and she wore pajama pants and black combat boots. Young Portland.

“Are you from here?” she asked Joe. He could tell by the way she pursed her lips that she already knew the answer.

“Nope. Are you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re from here.”

The woman smirked and turned toward the luggage belt that had jerked and roared to life.

Joe’s piece came out first. It was a long black plastic case with a handle on top. It was obvious what it was: a battered rifle case.

The woman gave him a look of disdain. “What? Are you going bear hunting?”

“Teddy bear hunting,” he said.

“Very funny.”

“Don’t worry. Bears aren’t in season in Oregon,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a game warden.”

She rolled her eyes and apparently decided to end the exchange. That was fine with Joe. He grasped his case as it came by and turned toward the arrivals area.



* * *



—

As he limped down a long hallway covered with garish green-and-blue carpeting that hurt his eyes, Joe drew out his phone. He sent a quick text to Marybeth telling her he’d arrived in Portland, and another to Nate asking where to meet him.

After a beat, Nate replied: Outside.

Joe felt the cool humid air the second he pushed through the double doors. The air, he observed, was a salty mixture of pine, the Pacific, and engine exhaust. The pickup area was covered by a massive portico to keep visitors dry from the rain.

While he waited, Joe squatted down on the curb and unlocked the fasteners of the gun case. He felt like a backcountry hit man venturing for the first time into the big city. It was unnerving.

He looked up to see Nate’s Yarak van approaching and crossing over three empty lanes to pull up next to him. It was obvious that the vehicle had been through some adventures. Joe was well acquainted with bullet holes in cars, because every wreck in Twelve Sleep County was peppered with them.

He was suspicious when he didn’t recognize either the driver or the passenger. The man behind the wheel wasn’t Nate, but instead a big Black man with a mass of hair. The passenger was a pale, thin guy with ginger hair and a feral look.

The van stopped and the passenger window powered down.

“Joe Pickett?” the driver asked.

“Yup.”

“I’m Geronimo Jones. Your buddy Nate is in the back.”

He gestured toward Joe’s rifle case. “What did you bring with you?”