The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (98)

Colles: “We heard they were arrested. Are they talking about executing them?”

“Haven’t heard anything about that,” Letty said. “But . . . treason.”

Kaiser: “The council’s being held in the city jail, guarded by two guys with ARs. Letty and I could take them out of there and make a run for the mountain. There’s a tourist cave and a campground up there, a beautiful defensive site. If we could get the mayor and those guys to the cave, with some food and water, no way they could take us out.”

Letty: “Right now, they’re talking about being here until the day after tomorrow.”

They could hear a cacophony of voices then, arguments breaking out among the listeners, and Jackson said, “Hold there, for a minute . . .”

Then Colles: “You don’t know when this trial is going to be?”

“We expect we’ll find out at the noon meeting,” Letty said. “They’ve asked everybody in town to come to the meeting . . .”

Jackson: “Sergeant Kaiser . . . you believe there are only two guards at the jail?”

“Yes, sir. Letty has seen them.”

Another buzz of voices, then a new one: “Kaiser, you’re a stud. Could you take out both of the jail guards? Not kill them, but jack them up and push them into the jail? Lock them up? Take the hostages out of there?”

Kaiser: “I could. Depends on whether they decide to resist. If I had to shoot them, that’d attract a lot of attention. I don’t think I’d get much resistance: they’d be looking down the barrel of a twelve-gauge from ten feet. The fact is, I’ve got enough gear here that I can look like one of them, put on a bandanna. I can get close, I’m sure of that.”

Letty: “I don’t think . . .”

The new voice said, “Miz Davenport, we really need you at that noon meeting. Your information is critical and we need to keep it coming. If everybody is focused on that meeting, Kaiser could push those guards into the jail, lock them up, and then make the run for this cave. If he makes it, we’d be in a hell of a lot better position for retaking the town, with no hostages to worry about.”

Colles: “Have they taken any other hostages?”

“Not exactly,” Letty said, “though they have all those border employees in the station . . .”

More talk, then the new voice again: “That noon meeting starts in fifteen minutes. We’ll let you two decide whether to take the mayor and city council out of the jail. We don’t have the on-the-scene knowledge that you do, so you’re going to have to make the call.”

Letty: “We can do that.”

The new voice: “Any other critical stuff that you can give us now?”

“One thing,” Letty said. “All the trucks here have duct tape over their license plates.”

A second new voice, but much younger, and again, with a skeptical note. “Why is that critical?”

Letty shook her head at Kaiser, then said, “Because it means that they don’t want to be identified by their license plate numbers. That means they think they’re going to get out of here somehow.”

More garbled talk, then the first new voice. “Thank you for that. That is critical. You better get going now. We’ll think about it. Good luck.”

Colles: “Letty, don’t take any chances, goddamn it. If you get killed down there, your old man will be all over me.”

Letty smiled and said, “Yeah, I think you’re probably right about that.”



* * *





When they got off the phone, Kaiser said, “That guy who didn’t identify himself, the first one—he’s the weight up there, the one who says what they’re gonna do. Could be military or intelligence.”

“I picked that up,” Letty said. “But—what are we going to do? Are we taking those people out of the jail?”

“I have to go look at it,” Kaiser said. “If there are only two guards and nobody else watching, I can take them.”

“If nobody notices that the guards are missing.”

“There’s that,” Kaiser said. “If I get a five-minute lead, I’ll be at the cave before anybody can react. Or really, probably, a two-minute lead would be enough.”

They sat and stared at each other for a moment, then Letty said, “If you can pull it off, do it. Right now, sit here for a minute and try to visualize exactly what you’ll be doing . . .”

They sat there, Letty staring at the ceiling, Kaiser at the floor between his feet, then Letty said, “If the guards don’t have a key to the cells?”

“They must—in case there was an emergency or something.”

“So you lock them in the cells?”

“Have to. I gotta be fast with this. If they have two keys, and I don’t find the second one, they could be out of the cells ten seconds after I leave, before I even got the council in the truck. So I go in, I put them on the floor. I let the council out of the cells, we shake the guys down. Maybe yank them out of their uniforms, right down to their underwear. If I can get them locked up without being interrupted, we’re good.”

“Take their weapons,” Letty said. “Should be two pistols, two rifles, ammo . . . Maybe pull off their vests, give them to members of the council. Everybody around here shoots, and if that cave is as good as you say it is, you should be fine.”