Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(83)
“We’re getting close to Buckbrush Road,” Joe said. “I’ll let you know how it goes. But you can tell Liv when she wakes up that Nate will be free sooner than we’d hoped.”
“I’ll call her right now,” Marybeth said.
“Call her? Isn’t she there?”
Marybeth said Liv had received a text message from her nanny. Something about a big problem with Nate’s Air Force.
“The falcons?” Joe asked.
“That’s what Liv said. A mountain lion or a bear got into the mews. Liv went out there to see what she could do. She took Kestrel with her.”
“She took the baby? At two-thirty in the morning?”
“Kestrel was awake when the nanny called,” Marybeth said. “Liv was feeding her. You remember those days. Time of day means nothing to a baby.”
“I’ll go out there as soon as I can shake free,” Joe said.
“She’ll appreciate that.”
Joe left it there. He hoped, in fact, that a bear or mountain lion had somehow gotten into the mews and that it wasn’t something—or someone—more sinister.
*
DR. ARTHUR’S HOME on Buckbrush Road was lit up like a riverboat when the law enforcement caravan swept under the archway and drove across a wide lawn toward it. The house was a New West three-story rustic mountain design built of prefab logs with a pitched metal roof and a massive river-rock chimney. Joe caught a glimpse of a massive elk-antler chandelier through the great room windows and he noted that the porchlights were on, there was light in nearly every window, and two of the three doors of the garage were open. Floodlights embedded beneath the eaves cast inverted Vs of light on the front of the house and a series of short lamps bordered pathways leading from the structure to various outbuildings. A dark barn sat next to it with a sign in front indicating there was a yoga studio inside.
The place looked strangely welcoming, Joe thought. Dr. Arthur obviously wasn’t waiting inside in the dark with the purpose of ambushing them. Either that, or it was a trap.
Light up the exterior grounds as much as possible, Joe thought, and it would be easier for Arthur to pick his targets.
Woods’s headlights lit up the interior of the garage as his SUV roared up into the driveway. Joe could see a bundle of what looked like clothing strewn beneath a workbench on the concrete floor at the far end of the garage.
Steck parked his SUV next to Woods and bailed out. He had a departmental AR-15 and he positioned himself behind the open door. The town police cars roared around Joe’s pickup into the front lawn and stopped. Their headlights lit up the front of Arthur’s house even more, and the multicolored wigwags from their light bars made the exterior of the home appear to be dancing in the dark. One of the town cops moved a car-mounted spotlight from window to window.
Joe stayed well behind the line of law enforcement vehicles. He pulled to the side, got out, and unlocked the large Kobalt gearbox in the bed of his pickup. He retrieved a tactical Kevlar ballistic vest and pulled it on over his uniform shirt. Then he dug his twelve-gauge Remington Wingmaster shotgun out from behind the front seat. It was loaded with double-aught buckshot and he racked a shell into the magazine as he walked across the pulsating lawn toward the back of Woods’s vehicle. He kept his eyes on the windows of the house for movement, especially the top-floor bedroom on the south side, which was the only one that was dark. But he saw no blinds being pulled or windows opening.
He was well aware that while the vest offered some protection, it wouldn’t stop a high-powered projectile fired from a high-tech long-range rifle. It was unsettling and terrifying, he thought. A bullet could be headed toward him at that second and there was no way he would know it was fired or to avoid getting hit. But at least, he thought darkly, Marybeth couldn’t chide him about not taking any precautions, like the usual case when he was shot down like a dog.
*
JOE JOINED WOODS, Williamson, and a town cop crouching behind the back of Woods’s SUV. Steck was behind his vehicle next to them with a town cop of his own.
Woods said to Williamson, “Send two of your guys around the back so they’re ready to intercept him if he comes out that way. I’ll wait until they’re in position and try to talk him out.”
Williamson nodded eagerly. He turned to his officers and said, “You heard him.”
The two town cops, who both looked to be in their early twenties and who both sported wispy cop mustaches, exchanged a baleful glance with each other before heading out. Joe guessed that they had the same contempt for the chief as Woods and Steck had with Sheriff Kapelow. Both, he thought, had the same fear he did: that they could be struck down at any moment by a sniper a long distance away.
When they were gone, the chief turned to Woods and Joe. He looked animated and gleeful, Joe thought. He was eager for a firefight.
“I wish you would have let me bring my MRAP,” Williamson said to Woods. “This here situation is why we need it.”
“You can go get it if we need it,” Woods said. “But right now we don’t know what we’ve got.”
Joe was grateful their departure from Saddlestring had been chaotic and rushed. He could envision the MRAP crashing through the front door of Arthur’s home with a giggling Williamson at the wheel.
After a few moments, one of the town cops reported via Williamson’s radio that they were in position.