Black Thunder (36 page)

“I’ll do that now,” Blalock said. “I’ll also update the ATL, and advise all the agencies to use tactical channels in case the suspects have a scanner.”

They reentered the house and helped the crime-scene team as they waited for news. While they were working, Blalock received a call on his radio.

He put it
on speaker so Ella and Dan could hear the helicopter crew’s report. “We’ve got a pickup under surveillance on an oil field access road. It fits the make and model you gave us, and there appear to be two individuals inside. We ran the license plate, and the vehicle belongs to Talbot.”

Acting on the news, Ella and Blalock climbed into his sedan, and within seconds were racing north, monitoring
updates from the helicopter. Nez followed in his sheriff’s department unit.

“Set up roadblocks just inside the Colorado state line, north of La Plata,” Blalock told her, his eyes on the road. “Act on my authority.”

“They might have been in Colorado by now if they hadn’t taken the back roads,” Ella said. “Guess they picked up the initial ATL on their scanner and were hoping to avoid the roadblocks.
Think we can beat them to La Plata, Dwayne?”

“Find out everything you can on the conditions of those unpaved county roads. They get a lot more rain up there this time of year than we do.”

Ella made two quick calls, then hung up. “According to the state police, the public roads have been poorly maintained this season—budget cuts again. There haven’t been any road closings, but it’s slow going,
and the roads will be even worse on the stretch east toward the La Plata highway.”

“Hastily laid plans. I would have gone south on the dirt roads instead and tried to get lost in the Albuquerque area,” Blalock commented.

They rode in silence, cruising quickly along flat stretches of highway, then onto the mesas west of the La Plata River. Three miles south of the New Mexico community of La Plata,
the road divided and Blalock took the westernmost route on the advice of the helicopter observer. Other units coming in behind them could cover the road if the two suspects reversed direction.

“Unless they change course they’ll reach the highway you’re on within five minutes,” the helicopter observer said. “You just passed that junction.”

Ella looked back down the highway. “They’ll be coming
out behind us. So we’ve managed to get ahead of them.”

“We made good time. And with units following them on the back roads, they have no place to go—at least by vehicle.”

“The GPS shows a cutoff just ahead where they could turn east. How about if we set up a roadblock this side of the intersection, just around the curve ahead?” Ella said, pointing.

“Good choice,” he said. “We’ll block the highway
past that culvert. The ditch will keep them from going east or west.”

Seconds later, they stood, armed, behind Blalock’s vehicle, now parked sideways across the narrow highway. Ella had a shotgun and Blalock’s M16 was propped against the car. All they had to do now was wait.

Seven minutes later, Blalock got a call on his cell. He listened intently for a few minutes, then answered, “Okay, keep
circling the area. We’ll continue north and keep them from going into town.”

“Hop in,” he said, handing Ella his M16 as soon as she tossed her shotgun onto the back. “Keep it handy. Our subjects spotted the chopper and drove off-road into the tall brush. Officers in the pursuit vehicles followed and found the pickup empty except for a twenty-two rifle. Harrison and Talbot took off on foot, heading
north into the tree line.”

“Do you think they’ll circle to the east and try to reach the road that way?” Ella asked as Blalock spun the vehicle back around, accelerating north again.

“Naw, it’s open ground and the helicopter would pick them up in a nanosecond once they reach the clearing,” Blalock said.

“We should have Nez and his deputies cover the road behind us anyway. Should I make the
call?” Ella asked, and reached for the mike as he nodded.

“Meanwhile we’ll drive into La Plata, then cut west and try to intercept them. They’ll have to come out of cover sooner or later if they hope to find another vehicle. If they hoof it west, they’ll enter the Ute Mountain Rez, which is pretty desolate. There are almost no roads in that particular section, so they’ll have a hard time finding
new transportation.”

They entered the western outskirts of the small, semirural village of La Plata within a few minutes, and quickly reached a dead end. About a half mile ahead, to the west, they could see a white farmhouse surrounded by dark green fields of alfalfa.

Ella pointed to a spec in the sky. “There’s the helicopter.”

A call came in over the radio. “Suspects located. They’re running
east toward a small farmhouse about a mile west of the main highway,” the state police observer said. “They’re carrying a rifle and a big duffle bag.”

“Roger that,” Blalock answered. “We’re approaching the farm road just to the southeast. Keep the suspects in sight.”

The drive was bumpy, and they bounced around so much Ella had to grab on to the door handle.

A minute later, Blalock pulled up
to a closed metal gate that blocked the driveway. They were about a hundred feet from the front door of the wood-frame house, which was surrounded by a four-foot-high wire fence. Between them and the structure were several tall pines, with a narrow footpath leading through a wooden gate to the porch. An old station wagon and a relatively new, big Ford pickup were parked to the side underneath a
metal-roofed carport.

“The suspects climbed the fence and just entered the building through the rear,” the voice on the radio reported. “Looks like they kicked in the door.”

“Crap. Another thirty seconds was all we would have needed,” Blalock said, turning off the engine. “Keep your head down, Clah,” he said, opening the door and slipping out.

“Dwayne,” Ella called out, reaching across the
seat and handing him the M16 butt-first. “You’ve got more experience than I do with this.” She grabbed her shotgun and stepped out.

As they started toward the trees, several shots rang out, whistling past or thudding into the wood. Blalock flattened on the hard ground, and Ella, to his right, did the same, using the trees to screen herself from view.

“We’ve got hostages,” Harrison shouted from
somewhere inside. “Back off!”

Ella got Harrison’s cell phone number from the card he’d given her days earlier and called him directly, looking back and forth at the windows facing the road. There was a small window in the door as well, but it was covered by a stained-glass image.

“Ross,” Ella said, identifying herself, “you’re not going anywhere. Give up now before someone you
don’t
want dead
gets hurt.”

“We’ve got two hostages. If you try to rush the place, you’re going to need more body bags than you counted on.”

“You don’t want to do that. The drunks you killed might have ended up hurting someone else out on the road. I get that. They were accidents waiting to happen and you took them out to protect others. But the ones with you now are innocents.”

“Then don’t do anything stupid,”
Harrison answered. “Their lives are in your hands. We won’t kill anyone—unless you or your people try to get any closer.”

Ella heard weariness and resignation in his voice. “Ross, are you planning to come out?” Ella asked, still trying to get a handle on Harrison’s game plan.

“Yeah, but not yet.”

“When, Ross?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Don’t wait too long. Officers from several agencies are surrounding
the area, and before long someone else will be making the decisions, Ross,” she said, using his name once again. The police training manual said that fostered intimacy and sometimes got a suspect to lower his guard. However, she seldom had occasion to use the technique. That mostly worked with Anglos, but not so much with the
Diné,
for obvious reasons.

Ella looked at Dwayne. “He’s got a plan
in mind, but I’m not getting a read on it.”

“So you want to just sit here?”

“Actually, unless I hear shots, I think that’s our best option,” Ella said.

“Okay. Officially, I’m in charge, but you seem to have a handle on things. Since the tribe has suffered the most from these loose cannons, you should continue speaking for us here.”

The next forty minutes taxed everyone’s patience to the limit.
Justine and Neskahi had arrived, and more than two dozen officers from state and county were also present behind their parked vehicles, or hiding in the surrounding fields and forest. The perimeter around the farmhouse was all but impregnable now.

Ella considered calling Harrison and initiating another dialog when her phone rang. “You’re going to wait us out, aren’t you?” Ross asked.

“Yes,”
Ella said. “You were a police officer, so you know the drill, Ross. We already have SWAT from two agencies, complete with sniper teams, assault rifles, tear gas, flash bangs, an armored car, overhead capability, night vision—frankly the whole nine yards. Hell, I’ve even got the FBI breathing down my neck. This is already above my pay grade, so by the time it gets dark, some hard-ass former Marine
is going to be running the show. Count on it. Take the easy way out while there’s still a chance to settle this peacefully.”

“Okay, okay,” Harrison said after a long silence. “I’m sending the hostages out—but there are conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“They walk all the way out, hands up, and meet you behind the police line.
Nobody
comes up to grab them. We’ll have them in our sights. If you move
in, rush the house, or try any diversion whatsoever, we’ll know, and the hostages will die. Clear?”

Ella looked at Blalock, who nodded. “Deal. And you’ll come out after that, unarmed. Right?” She wanted to push Harrison a little. Maybe they could end the standoff without any blood being spilled.

“Yeah. We’ll come out. We’ve done what we set out to do—get the public’s attention. We made a video
and have just uploaded it to YouTube. Our defense, our message, is now there for all to see. We got drunks off the road—permanently. We stopped them before they could take other lives.”

“You didn’t just get drunks off the road, Ross,” she said. “The woman you killed hadn’t been drinking at all—she was a cancer victim barely able to drive home after chemotherapy. Her name was Alice Pahe, and she
was fighting for her life.”

There was a long silence at the other end. “I know. We discovered that too late, but she was dying anyway, so maybe we did her a favor. Suffering pets can be put to sleep—humans have to die an inch at a time. How humane is that?”

“Something’s happening,” Blalock whispered, pointing toward the front door, which was opening slowly. A tall, gray-haired man in his mid-sixties
wearing jeans and a sleeveless white tee-shirt stepped out. Beside him was a frightened-looking woman in a long, shapeless house dress. Both were barefoot.

“Hold your positions,” Ella called out over the radio net. “They have to come to us.” Glancing over at Blalock, she added, “Dwayne, use your scope and check them for explosives.”

“If they’re hiding anything, it’s got to be pretty small,”
Blalock said after a beat. “I’m guessing they’re clean.”

The older couple soon passed through the gate, closed it, and hurried toward two white sheriff’s department vehicles parked in the drive. When they reached safety, Ella and Blalock were there to meet them.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, urging them behind the engine block of a sheriff’s department SUV.

The man shook his head as he tried to
catch his breath. “No. Those men weren’t really interested in us. They kicked down the back door, came in, showed their guns, then had us lay facedown on the floor. After they tied us up, they didn’t pay much attention to us at all. They were too busy with a small computer, then some other stuff from inside their duffle bag.”

“They told us that if we stayed quiet, they’d let us go,” the woman
said. “Eventually, they untied us and told us to walk as fast as we could from the house—but not to run. If we did, they’d shoot us.”

“They also ordered us to close the gate after we got through, then come straight here and get behind cover,” the man added.

“Why ‘cover’?” Blalock said, quickly stepping out to look at the house.

“What was in their duffle bag?” Ella asked the couple, then reached
up to touch her badger fetish. It was hot, too hot.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The farmhouse suddenly blew apart. A massive shock wave of hot air slammed against them, followed by an enormous ball of fire and smoke. An ear-shattering boom shook the ground and rocked them off their feet.

“No!” the woman screamed. Her husband held her tightly against him as high-speed debris flew everywhere, rattling off glass and metal and whistling across the ground.

Officers
crouched and covered their heads as pieces of wood, metal, glass, and roofing material slowly rained down, like a thunderstorm right out of hell.

At long last Ella looked over the edge of the SUV’s hood, shielding her eyes from the glare. There was nothing but raging chaos where the ranch house had stood just seconds before. “Everyone, stay alert. This could be a diversion,” she yelled.

The
radio crackled. “No one came out,” the helicopter observer informed her as the aircraft circled to avoid the billowing cloud of black smoke.

Ella walked a little closer to the inferno, then stopped, and shook her head slowly. As Blalock came up she turned to look at him. “Did I cause this? Was it because I forced them to see what they’d become?”

“No way, Clah. They planned this. That’s why they
brought those explosives and had the video ready to upload. They wanted to go out this way—martyrs for the cause. A shoot-out would have taken away their credibility—at least in their eyes.”

Ella took a shaky breath. “They stole time from a woman fighting for every minute she could get and, now, laid down their own lives in payment. Balance is restored.”

*   *   *

The next morning, Ella walked
into the kitchen, suppressing a yawn as she groped, half asleep, for her coffee cup.