The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (81)

“I saw something in the El Paso paper,” Letty said. “They’re supposed to get here when? Day after tomorrow?”

“That’s what this guy thinks. Maybe as soon as tomorrow night. Anyway, he says that there has been a militia patrolling along the river southeast of El Paso for several years. They’ve been especially active the last year or two . . .”

“Because they got operational money,” Letty said.

“Maybe. They’ve actually spotted and stopped a number of illegals and called in the Border Patrol. He said that they are armed. They claim that they only carry weapons in case they should run into armed drug mules coming across.”

“That doesn’t sound so terrible, if you gotta have a militia in the first place,” Letty said.

“Maybe not. But here’s the relevant part. He thinks that the militia may be run by a woman. His border patrolmen have encountered her a few times and she does the talking, not the guys. And she drives a Jeep.”

“That’s her,” Letty said. “Jane Jael Hawkes.”

“I sent her Army ID photos and her driver’s license photos to the intelligence guy, he’ll put them in front of people who’ve met her. That won’t happen until tomorrow, though.”

“All right. Well, I don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow, but something is going on. If you can think of anything, let me know.”

“Try not to break into any more houses,” Greet said.

“I can’t promise anything,” Letty said. “You know what? I’m scared. I finally got there.”





NINETEEN




Back up in the mountains well east of El Paso, ten miles off I-10, Hawkes could see almost forever to the southeast, with the orange ball of the sun dropping toward the horizon at her right hand. Curls of pale dust rose from the wheels of the pickups winding up the desert road toward the meet. It was hot, but no longer oppressive, and would cool quickly in the night. The skies were perfectly clear, and the stars and the moon would be a spectacle.

“We already got sixty and we’re still an hour away,” Rand Low said. He was exultant, pacing back and forth on a rocky ridge above the meeting area. Down below, sixty pickups were parked in a semicircle around what would be a bonfire later in the evening, after it got dark.

Militia folks wandered among the trucks, introducing themselves, drinking a little beer, eating cheese sandwiches, men and women in jeans and boots and cotton shirts, a sprinkling of camo. The license plates were from all over, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, four dozen from Texas. “We’ll have seventy, eighty trucks before the night’s done, more than a hundred guns.”

“Wonder how many of them are FBI?” Crain asked, with a tight grin.

“Might be one or two, but I sorta doubt it,” Hawkes said. “These are the cream of the crop. I’ve looked at every one of them six ways to Sunday. Still, we can’t take a chance.”

“Some of those boys and girls are gonna be right surprised tomorrow morning, when we tell them the truth,” Low said.

“If they want to bail, they can bail. We’ll tell them the truth then,” Hawkes said. “If there’s FBI among them, it’ll be too late for them to do anything.”

“Down there!” Low said. “Two more trucks. Goddamn, they’re coming in now.”

“Read your talk some more,” Hawkes said. Low had a speech written by Hawkes, meant to be delivered as the high point of the evening, something to get people churned. “You’re not gonna be able to read it when you get down there.”

“I know, I know, I know. I’m gonna shout it out there, gonna preach,” Low crowed. He looked down at the papers in his hand, curled into a tube. He’d already read it twenty times. Then, suddenly subdued, he asked, “How many you think will buy it?”

“All of them, until tomorrow morning,” Hawkes said, looking at the people walking among the trucks. “Some might drop out then and they’ll live to regret it. This will be the day when people will ask, ‘Were you there?’ This is where we draw the line.”

“Ah, God.” Low scrubbed at his hairline with open hands. “I ain’t felt like this since high school football.”

Duran was climbing the slope toward them, and when he came up, out of breath, he said, “I talked to Borrego. It’s definitely happening.”

“Of course it is,” Hawkes said. “I’ve known for two months.”

“Look at this,” Low said. More trucks climbing the mountain, five, six more, long rolling cigars of dust trailing behind them. Down below, a dozen men and women had clustered around a guy who was demonstrating a long, dark, heavy rifle. “That’s a Barrett fifty.”

“And that’s probably a guy we don’t need, a show-off,” Hawkes said.

“C’mon, give the guy a break,” Low said. “I wouldn’t mind trying it myself.”

“Bet ol’ Max would have loved to try it,” Low said.

“But ol’ Max is deader’n a doornail,” Hawkes said. She started thumbing her cell phone. “I heard some more about that from R.J. He wasn’t killed by that big DHS guy, he was shot by the girl. R.J. says she put three rounds in him, two in his legs and one in his forehead. The story is, her name is Letty Davenport and she’s a killer. R.J. says she’s killed before and she took Max down like he was the village ding-a-ling.”