Into Thin Air Read online

  Chip raised his binoculars. “Down, down to the valley of the shadow of death rode the brave five hundred,” he intoned.

  The shooting had stopped abruptly and the commandos were rushing the house. Kurt steered the squad car down the slope toward a monstrous armored Winnebago positioned on the road near the mailbox. Neal Staggs was emerging from the coach door with the serene indifference of a summer camper stepping out for a swim. He had ditched his blazer and tie; his white dress sleeves were rolled back neatly.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Kurt said, jumping from the car with his .30-30 rifle.

  “We had the place boxed up and one of those crazy wetbacks inside started shooting at the chopper,” Staggs said, pulling a Smith & Wesson .40 from a hand-tooled leather holster that hugged his ribs. He peered around a corner of the Winnebago. “We had no choice but to respond,” he said.

  Kurt chucked back the bill of his cap. “Who are we talking about here?”

  “Dope dealers,” Staggs said. “House full of illegals. Jesus, Muller, don’t you know what’s going on in your own county? Maybe you ought to give some thought to enforcing the drug laws.”

  A photo ID was clipped to Staggs’s shirt pocket. Even in a firefight his graying hair remained in place like the aging preppie’s in the picture.

  “My man Jenkins found something in Quiroga’s journal,” he said. “The guy was working on a magazine assignment about illegals, tracing their squirrely little routes through Central America into the U.S. He was planning to make a trip out here to meet these people. They all do grub jobs in Aspen—dishwashers, janitors, most of them without papers.”

  Commandos crouched under jagged windows, huddled near the screen door. The helicopter still hovered overhead, a deafening whir.

  “We came out to talk to them about it,” Staggs said, raising his voice. “They opened up on us before we reached that gate over there. Jenkins is a year from his pension. He’s lucky to be alive. Most of his shoulder’s blown away.”

  “Where’d you get all this backup?” Kurt asked.

  “Grand Junction,” Staggs said. He seemed to notice Chip Bodine for the first time. “Had ’em on the ground in less than an hour.”

  One of the commandos kicked in the front door and a half-dozen men swarmed through the opening; others rose up and pointed their weapons into broken windows. There was a short burst of gunfire from inside.

  “I’m going to go sit in the car,” Chip said. “Wake me up when they start bagging the charred bodies.”

  Staggs looked annoyed. “Where’d you scare up this freak, Muller?” he said, eyeing Chip’s braid. “Rummage sale in the Haight?”

  Kurt used Chip’s binoculars to survey the outbuildings. The place had once belonged to a ruddy-faced organic farmer everyone called Adam Appleseed. For the better part of one afternoon, sometime in the late seventies, Kurt and Meg and Bert and Maya Dahl had made apple juice out here in Adam’s ancient New England wood-press. Kurt wondered whatever happened to Adam Appleseed. It had been years since he’d thought about this farm.

  “Any chance they might have a hostage?” he asked.

  Staggs lit a cigarette. His top button was unfastened and Kurt could see the gray pad of a bulletproof vest. “Now who would that be, Sheriff?” Staggs said.

  The bastard knows about Graciela, Kurt thought. He’s picked up the APB.

  An agent wearing a headset stepped from the Winnebago door. “Lead unit says all clear, sir,” he reported to Staggs. “Okay to proceed ahead.”

  “You coming?” Staggs asked Kurt. He tossed his cigarette and jogged off toward the house.

  “Let’s go, Bodine!” Kurt shouted at the county car. “And bring your rifle!”

  “Aw, Kurt,” Chip grumbled, “you know how much I hate to lug that thing around.”

  By the time Kurt arrived, three shirtless Hispanic males were bound facedown in the living room, their wrists and ankles secured by nylon tie-wrap. One of them, a teenager, was bleeding badly from the neck and choking with boyish sobs. The interior of the farmhouse lay in ruin, Goodwill odds and ends scattered about in pieces, army cots upended. Splinters of glass covered everything like a jeweled frost.

  A commando paced the hallway holding a brown-skinned infant, trying to hush the baby’s screams.

  Kurt propped his rifle by the door. “Jesus H Christ.” He rubbed his beard. “This is way over the top, Staggs.”

  “Spare me the violins, Muller.” The agent knelt down in the living room to examine a pile of weapons. A .30-06 hunting rifle, a twelve-gauge shotgun with a wired-together stock, several cheap makes of handgun. “You shoot one of my men, you pay for it. These pricks aren’t choirboys. Look at this shit.”

  A commando with charcoal streaked under his eyes walked into the room with a freezer bag of uncleaned marijuana. “More of this in the back, sir,” he said.

  Staggs turned to Kurt. “You’re a joke, Muller,” he said. “Any punk greaseball in the fucking Western Hemisphere can run dope out of your county.”

  Kurt could see a blood-spattered body lying on the dining-room floor. “These people didn’t kill Omar Quiroga,” he said.

  “Yeah? Well, the way I read it, the guy came snooping around out here for a story and stumbled on their plant shop,” Staggs said, “so they iced him.” He weighed the bag of dope in his hand, then unsealed it and crumbled a bud. “But what really bothers me about this, Muller, is who these assholes clock for. My sources tell me they’re in real sweet with an old friend of yours.”

  Kurt looked at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Agent Staggs!” Another commando trotted into the room. “There’s a door leading down into a cellar, sir. Looks like one of them was trying to get down there. A woman, sir. Her body’s in the kitchen.”

  “Seal off that door!” Staggs shouted.

  Kurt walked slowly into the kitchen. The body lay a few feet from the stairway down to the cellar. A quarter of her skull was bared to the brain, and her thick dark hair oozed with blood. The commandos were tracking through the red pool spreading from her head, leaving sticky bootprints across the checkered tile. One of them stooped to drag her into the next room.

  “Hold it,” Kurt said. “Get out of the way.”

  He knelt to lift her, his knees wetting in her warm blood. When he turned her over he saw that she was not someone he had ever known.

  “Toss in a teargas canister,” Staggs ordered the men assembled in the kitchen. “Anybody’s down there, he won’t be for long.”

  Kurt could hear the baby screaming in the hallway. He hoisted the dead woman into his arms and carried her to the back of the house, where he placed her on a cot and draped her body with a quilt. He didn’t want the child to see her mother this way.

  Chip Bodine couldn’t bring himself to enter the house. He circled around to the backyard and wandered over to examine a long, low-lying coop wedged into the side of a grassy knoll. A ramshackle structure held together with chicken wire, railroad ties, and splintering wood slats. Chip guessed it had been some sort of potato storage bin. He cupped his eyes and peeked inside but could make out nothing in the musty darkness. Bracing his rifle against a post, he sat down and sagged back against the rusty wire. The farmhouse was quiet now. He kicked off his sandals and closed his eyes. He knew Kurt would eventually find him. He always did.

  Suddenly something hard and blunt and metallic pressed into the back of his skull. “Don’ talk,” came the voice behind him. “Don’ say nothing or I blow you fucking head.”

  “Hey, amigo, ¿qué pasa?” Chip said.

  “Don’ turn around,” the voice said in broken English. He was kneeling behind Chip in the soft dirt of the coop. “Don’ make a quick move.”

  “I’m not with the guys who did all the shooting,” Chip said in passable Spanish. The blunt thing jammed against his skull was the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. “Mira,” he said, gesturing at his clothes. “I’m just an old vaquero.”

  �
��If you move to the rifle, vaquero,” the voice said, “I will kill you.”

  Chip fixed his gaze on the windows of the farmhouse, praying someone inside would notice his raised hands. “I don’t like guns,” he shrugged. “It’s going to stay right where I put it.”

  He felt a strong hand on his shoulder. “Okay, vaquero,” the voice said. “We go now to the car.”

  Kurt looked around the bedroom. The walls were bare except for a Mexican crucifix of bloody Jesus hanging at an angle like a license plate with a missing screw. Someone had constructed a child’s mobile out of string, drinking straws, and a deck of cards. There were rumpled sleeping bags, a couple of cots, loose clothing stashed in corners. He stepped over a drugstore baby-rattle to the shattered window and peered into the sunlight. A pleasant breeze ruffled the few leaves left on the apple trees. He felt angry and sick to his stomach. This is not why I wanted the job, he thought. In the beginning he had believed he could keep the peace without destroying people’s lives.

  Chip Bodine was lounging back against an old coop, his rifle propped up beside him. You’ve got the right idea, my friend, Kurt thought. Leave the wet work to the professionals.

  Chip slowly raised his hands. He was talking to himself. A little strange, even for Chip. There was something troubled and urgent in his eyes. He stood up in the awkward, stiff-legged manner of a man with bad ski knees and began to edge sideways along the coop. He cleared the structure before Kurt realized there was someone behind him, a much smaller man with a grip on the back of Chip’s khaki shirt and a shotgun slanted upward against his skull.

  Kurt pulled the .45 from his holster and crawled through the window.

  “Sorry about this, man,” Chip said without moving his head. Long ashen lines creased his face. “I guess I fucked up again.”

  “Everything’s okay, Chip,” Kurt said, marching toward them. “Just stay loose.”

  “Stop there,” the gunman said to Kurt. “Don’ walk no closer or I pull the trigger.”

  Kurt recognized the man. He had seen him in town with the group of Hispanic service workers who hung out in the pool hall below the pharmacy. No taller than five feet five, long shaggy hair, Indian features, a tank top that showed off his muscled shoulders. Kurt remembered the cougar tattoo prowling the man’s forearm.

  “Now listen to me, son,” Kurt said to the gunman. “Listen very carefully. You don’t stand a chance here. There are men inside the house who are crazy. They don’t care about you or this fella here. If you don’t put down that shotgun real quick and give yourself up, they’ll blow you into small pieces and scatter your bones in the wind. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Throw the pistol,” the man said, guiding Chip to the dented old Buick parked next to a tack shed. “Throw the gun behind you and stand still. I shoot this cabrón.”

  Kurt stopped and holstered the weapon. He had seen the riflemen in the windows, their scopes trained on Chip Bodine’s chest. Several others were fanning out across the yard, running at a crouch, semi-automatics wagging in their hands.

  “Look around you, son,” Kurt said. “You don’t have a prayer. Now drop your gun and kneel down nice and slow, and place your hands on top of your head. Do it while you still have time. These guys are fixing to blow your shit away.”

  Chip looked scared. “Stay with us, Kurt,” he said. “Don’t let the cowboys handle this one.”

  “It’s okay, Chip,” Kurt said. “I think your friend is a reasonable man. If he does like I say, nobody’s going to get hurt.”

  By the time the two men reached the passenger door of the Buick a dozen barrels were sighted, focused, ready for the word. From the kitchen window came the tinny sound of a human voice filtered through a bullhorn.

  “We have you surrounded,” the voice said. “Put down your weapon and come forward with your hands above your head. I repeat—”

  “Give it a rest, Staggs,” Kurt said to the agent standing at the window. “The man’s got my deputy as a hostage.”

  There was a moment of uneasy silence. The car door creaked open. The gunman shoved Chip inside and crouched down next to him, the shotgun barrel visible against Chip’s throat.

  “You will not be allowed to leave the premises,” Staggs announced through the bullhorn. “I repeat, if you try to leave the premises you will be terminated.”

  “For Chrissake, Staggs,” Kurt said, “knock that shit off. The guy barely speaks English.”

  Chip sat behind the wheel. The engine cranked, a gassy roar; the muffler popped and clattered. There was resignation in the deputy’s eyes, a sad smile wrinkling his mouth. He had been with Kurt since the beginning, ten years in the department. Poker buddies. At Bert’s funeral Chip had pinned a beautiful red poppy to Kurt’s lapel.

  “This is your last warning,” Staggs barked through the horn.

  “No, goddammit!” Kurt shouted at him. “No shooting!”

  The Buick’s worn tires began to spin in place and the car lurched forward, peeling gravel, Chip steering the clumsy beast in a 180-degree turn. Gunfire erupted and bullets riddled the trunk, springing it open, the raised lid acting as a shield. All around the car, clods of farmland blew high in the air, a rain of loose dirt. Taillights spewed into a thousand scattered rubies. Yet the Buick bulled ahead, unslowed, cutting awkward S figurines across the field, plowing up dust, the tires miraculously intact. When the car reached the Emma road, it was out of firing range.

  Kurt expelled the breath that burned his lungs. “Good for you, you lazy old ski bum,” he said aloud.

  Then he turned to Staggs. The agent stared back at him through the kitchen window, his jaw set, visibly angered that this was not going down by the book. Kurt thought about shooting him with his .45. Instead he ran for the squad car.

  He caught up with them on a stretch of Highway 82 that curled alongside the tree-shrouded stream of the Roaring Fork River. The Buick’s trunk lid bounced up and down with the contours of the road. Kurt kept his distance, not wanting to panic the gunman. He could see Chip’s nervous eyes darting back at him from the side mirror. If the deputy handled this Buick the way he handled a snowmobile, nothing was going to stop them from reaching Aspen in twenty minutes.

  “Deputy Brown, Deputy Muffin Brown,” Kurt spoke into his mike. “Do you copy? We’ve got a code three in progress. Please come in.”

  Muffin was at a trailer park in Woody Creek, talking to a woman whose estranged husband had threatened to kill her and her new boyfriend with a hunting knife. She was on the highway in less than five minutes.

  “Get some backup quick,” Kurt said into the mike. “See if our boys can set up a roadblock somewhere around the airport. I don’t want this guy anywhere near a plane.”

  “Where are the cowboys?” Muffin asked.

  “Back at the ranch,” Kurt said. “They don’t have anything much faster than a Winnebago. I haven’t seen them yet.”

  The highway lifted onto a narrow, winding terrace, a passage hewn into the dark shale wall of the valley. On the left the land fell away, an abrupt drop-off hundreds of feet to the river. The Buick’s tailpipe was belching black smoke. Only a four inch fringe of tiny aqua-blue squares clung to the rear window frame. When the trunk lid dropped with a sudden bump, Kurt could see the gunman grinning back at him, a wild expression on his face. He rested the barrel of his shotgun on top of the seat, leveling it at the sheriff’s car.

  “Holding course north northwest on Eighty-two,” came Muffin’s voice over the radio. “Triangle Peak now visible.”

  The trunk lid dropped again and the shotgun roared, peppering Kurt’s windshield with bird shot. He jerked the wheel and swerved onto the dirt shoulder, but lost little time guiding the car back on course. This guy was beginning to piss him off. Didn’t he realize Kurt was his only friend in the whole goddamned world?

  As Kurt pulled closer he could see the guy laughing at him, laughing and aiming the shotgun again. If he was this insane now, just for sport, what was he going t
o do when they hit the roadblock?

  Chip’s worried eyes stared at Kurt from the side mirror. Steady, man, Kurt. thought. Keep your cool. You could always drive better than you could ski.

  “Damn!” crackled Muffin’s voice. “Kurt, we’ve got company.”

  A huge motor stuttered somewhere over the ridge. The gunman heard it, too, and stuck his head out the window to search the sky. The rackety cadence now echoed across the hills, but Kurt couldn’t locate the source. Until the Buick rounded the curve ahead.

  The helicopter swooped down like a giant predatory bird, hovering eight feet above the highway, a fuming whirlwind of dust and scrub brush. Chip hit the brakes and the monster Buick locked into a slide, the chassis swinging sideways, burning rubber, a long high screech of resistance. The chopper rose effortlessly out of his way and the car disappeared beneath the skids like a stone hurled into a smoking cave. Kurt saw the vehicle emerge from the dust, dangerously close to the cliffs, and knew then that Chip couldn’t pull out of the spin. The Buick crashed through the railing and sailed out over the valley. The next few seconds were suspended in an eerie windblown silence while the car traced a perfect rainbow arch into morning sunlight. It landed on its roof with a frightening boom, tires springing free, the body tumbling, tumbling, pitched high by the bouldery moraine. Kurt slammed to a stop near the drop-off and watched what was left of the Buick explode into a ball of fire.

  He got out of his car and stood looking down at the burning wreckage. He thought about the poppy again. Chip had found it growing wild on the mountain. Ashes and sleep.

  The chopper touched down in the middle of the highway and cut its whistling engine. Neal Staggs hopped from the cockpit with two other agents and trotted to the broken railing. Kurt was vaguely aware that someone was running toward him, calling his name. It didn’t matter who. Nothing mattered anymore.

  “Hey, motherfucker,” he said, striding after the three agents gathered at the ledge. “Hey, Staggs, you done the wrong thing here, hoss. You fucked up my friend. Now I’m going to shoot your ass.”