Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(91)
He was also a regular contributor to an unruly website devoted to falconry, although he didn’t post items under his real name because he knew the feds were reading it, too. There had been items on the site over the years featuring the name and exploits of a fellow outlaw falconer in Wyoming with a Special Forces background and a legitimate new bird abatement service.
Members of this particular breed of falconer kept in touch via the website, although most members of the community had never met in person. They used it not only to discuss falcons and hunting, but also to alert others about strident local and federal law enforcement activities when it came to possession of eagles, which, although the ownership was technically legal for qualified master falconers, had all but dried up. The feds didn’t want private master falconers to hunt with eagles, even though statutes allowed it. Master falconers, especially those with a Don’t tread on me view of government in general, helped each other stay a few steps ahead of the federal bureaucrats who tried to shut them down.
Nate Romanowski, the legendary master falconer from Wyoming, rarely posted on the site. When he did, it caused a mild sensation within the tiny but fervent outlaw falconry community. But he’d done a post just the day before.
Youngberg found the number and punched it up. Someone answered on the third ring, and Youngberg could hear highway noise and wind rushing. The connection was poor.
“Is this Nate Romanowski?”
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
Youngberg identified himself and said he’d seen the post on the website.
“Go on.”
“I’m at a place called the Flying Saucer Motel in Roswell, New Mexico. I just rented a room to a fiftyish Mexican national named Orlando Panfile. With him was a very attractive dark-skinned woman in her early thirties and a little baby. She got my attention when she called the baby Kestrel, like the hawk.”
There was silence on the other end. Either the call had been dropped or Nate was forming his thoughts.
“I’m an hour away,” Nate said to Youngberg. “I’ll call when I get there.”
“They’re staying in unit number seven,” Youngberg said. “It has two bedrooms.”
“Good. Call me if they go somewhere.”
“Will do.”
“What is the man driving?”
“A white Toyota Land Cruiser with Texas plates.”
“Thank you. I know you didn’t have to do this.”
“We watch out for our own,” Youngberg said. “Someone has to.”
*
AN HOUR LATER, Orlando Panfile sat primly on the edge of the mushy bed in his bedroom and kept a close eye on the closed bathroom door. There was a Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver in his lap. Despite the wind outside rattling the windows and the shower sounds from the bathroom, baby Kestrel slept soundly in her car seat near the headboard. When Kestrel sighed in her sleep, Panfile smiled. She was a good baby, he thought.
The trip south had taken longer than necessary because he’d made several detours onto the obscure county roads and even deliberately gone hundreds of miles out of his way to the east and west on the journey. No one, he was sure, could have followed them. The killer of Abriella was still in jail as far as he knew, although he expected him to be released soon as a result of Orlando’s statement to the lawyer.
Panfile had kept Liv under control by separating her from her baby whenever they stopped for gas, restrooms, or food. As long as he had Kestrel next to him, he knew, she wouldn’t make a break for it or say anything to strangers they encountered. He hadn’t made an explicit threat, but he didn’t need to.
When they crossed the border into Juárez, he wanted Liv Romanowski to look fresh, clean, and unharmed, because there would be photos taken and posted. He’d texted his colleagues to make sure they were ready for them. They were.
He’d come to like her very much, as well as the baby. Liv was a good mother, and she was very clever. Liv had engaged him and suggested ways he could let her and Kestrel go with no repercussions. Her husband wouldn’t seek revenge, she’d assured him. She’d make sure of it, she’d said. She didn’t cry, didn’t plead, didn’t offer herself in a deal to be set free. She seemed to realize it was simply a business transaction and that he was doing what he was doing for that reason. He didn’t tell her that his people wanted Nate Romanowski to come for her so they could make a very public example of him. Still, though, she was at times very persuasive, he thought.
More than once she reminded Panfile of Abriella: beautiful, curious, resourceful, and possessing a ruthless streak. He had no doubt that if he’d given her an opportunity, she would have slit his throat and fled with her baby. He admired her, and he’d told her he would protect her and Kestrel from some of his more brutal colleagues.
He heard the shower stop, and a moment later the bathroom door opened with a puff of steam. Liv had a white towel on her head and another wrapped around her body. She didn’t even look at him. She checked on Kestrel sleeping in her car seat.
“She’s fine,” Panfile said.
Liv nodded. “Knock on the door if she wakes up. I don’t want you holding her. No offense.”
“I’ve got five kids of my own,” Panfile said, wounded. “I’ve held them all. I’ve changed their diapers. I know what to do.”
Liv turned her gaze on him and the effect was surprisingly chilling. It was as if she had the gun.