The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (106)

“Deal,” Kaiser said. “You go on now.”

The man turned, walked back down the hill and out of sight.



* * *





Veronica stepped out from behind her rock and turned the radio up. They huddled around it and heard the man report back to the woman. The woman said, “Leave four men—the caravan is getting close and we may need the rest of you down here.”

“Got it.”

Then another man’s voice: “Don, I got about a fifteen-, maybe twenty-foot run to that big rock, the one on the left. They won’t expect it. If I can get to there, I can make it further up the hill. Maybe I can see down on them.”

The woman: “Don’t do that, Rick. We’ve got the problem contained, no point in taking a chance that you’ll get shot up.”

“Not much of a chance, if I could get up there . . .”

“Rick. I’m telling you . . .”

Then the man named Rick: “Those fuckers. He made me pee myself. I’m going up there.”

Kaiser said, “Goddamn it, it’s the jail guard.” He jogged to his right. “He’s going to try to . . .”

The beardless jail guard broke up the hill in a stoop, his AR in one hand, his other hand almost touching the hillside as he ran, running like he might have seen on a TV show.

Kaiser, tracking him with the shotgun, shot him in the legs and the man went down, screaming.

From down below, the negotiator shouted, “Stop. Stop. He wasn’t supposed to do that. He wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“Then come up and get him,” Kaiser shouted. “He’s hurt bad, he’s gonna need a medevac.”

“I’m coming up . . .”

The negotiator and another man hustled up the hill and the man on the ground sobbed, “I’m hit bad, man, I’m hit bad.”

Kaiser shouted, “Leave the gun. Take him and leave the gun. We’re going to pick it up. If anyone shoots at us, we’ll kill all three of these men.”

Janice Moreno said, “I’ll go. They’re less likely to shoot a woman. If you see anyone poke a head up, shoot him.”

Kaiser nodded: “Good. Go. Hurry.”

Moreno scrambled out from behind her rock, ran to the AR, picked it up, looked down the hill where the two militiamen were still only halfway down, then ran back to cover.

“Got it,” she said.

The wounded guard was put in a pickup and the pickup turned down the hill and disappeared.

“You think you killed him?” asked Lopez.

“I messed him up, but I was basically shooting at his ankles,” Kaiser said. “He’s gonna need a hospital, but I don’t think he’ll die. Does that . . . bother you? Me shooting him?”

Lopez: “Nope. I was more curious than anything. A good thing—they know we’re serious.”

The negotiator shouted up the hill: “We’re pulling out some of our men, but we’re leaving most of them. You stick a head up, we’ll kill you.”

“Likewise,” Kaiser shouted back.

“Fuck you, man!”

“Likewise!”



* * *





On the radio, they heard the negotiator talking to the woman. “We’re leaving four guys. They can’t get out and we can’t get in. I don’t think the Delta guy was lying, I think they’ve got food, water, cover, and guns.”

“Not to worry . . . Listen, did Rick and Bob still have their walkie-talkies on them?”

“I don’t know. I can check.”

“Wouldn’t be good if they were listening to us,” the woman said.



* * *





“She was right about that,” Kaiser said.

When the chatter ended, Veronica Ruiz said, “Okay. So we’re camping out for a couple of days. If only we had some weenies and marshmallows . . .”

“As a matter of fact,” Kaiser said, “If you check those grocery bags . . .”





TWENTY-FOUR




Letty walked down toward the border station, headed for the crowd still hanging there. An elderly man was pushing a weather-worn bicycle up the hill, and as they met, Letty asked, “Is there a sporting goods store in town?”

“Ham’s Guns ’n’ Gifts ’n’ More got some stuff,” he said. “It’s over there, around the corner.”

He pointed up the hill and she went back that way. As she turned the corner, she heard a single gunshot in the distance, a boom rather than a crack, that she thought might be Kaiser’s shotgun.

She whispered, “Shit,” and hurried along to a house with a sign stuck in the dirt by the front porch, with the store’s name on it. She climbed the porch and knocked on the closed door; a woman peered out past a safety chain. She asked, “Wut?”

“You got walkie-talkies?”

“You buyin’?”

“Yes.”

“Got a package of two for one-oh-nine-ninety-nine,” the woman said. “Work on nine-volts.”

“I’ll take them,” Letty said. “And the batteries.”

“Stay there.” The woman closed the door, came back a minute later with a plastic clamshell package that still had the $79.99 price tag on it.