“Duane, we’re in trouble.”
“What can you see? What kind of sounds can you hear in the background?”
Montez stepped forward and took the phone from her. “Did you know Nichole works out for an hour everyday? She does it to keep her body in shape for her new boyfriend. I can personally attest to this fact.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“I’m asking the questions, not you, Mr. Dalton.”
No reply.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid your lapdog, Mr. Kramer, is no longer with us. Fortunately for me, we had a little chat before he… departed. Your ex-wife seems quite eager to cooperate. She graciously supplied your telephone number.”
“What do you want?”
He reached out and bent Nichole’s little toe the wrong direction. It strained and broke. She screamed.
“Okay. Please don’t hurt her again. My daughters.…”
“Was that a question?”
“No!” he yelled.
“Their future depends entirely on you, Mr. Dalton. Do have access to the Internet?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to go to the following Web site.” He provided a numbered Internet address. “Did you get that?”
“Yes.”
“You have sixty seconds. Let me know when you’re online.” He turned toward Nichole. “Mr. Dalton sounds concerned for your safety. Perhaps this will be over as soon as we hoped.” He knew Dalton heard the comment. “You have forty-five seconds.”
“I’m logging on right now.”
“Thank you for being prompt.”
Montez ignored her pleading expression, secured her arms to the table, and stepped back. He turned on the overhead spot and admired his handiwork. Perfect.
“Thirty seconds.”
“I’m typing the address.”
“Very good, Mr. Dalton. You’re doing well.”
Montez knew what Duane Dalton would see once he viewed the streaming image coming from the camcorder. The mother of his children, naked, bloody, and strapped to a torture table. He hadn’t made her incisions especially deep, but they looked adequately shocking.
He waited, tapping a finger on the handset.
Dalton’s shout distorted the tiny speaker. “You sick son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing to her?”
Montez approached the laptop’s Webcam, presented the stun gun, then plunged it into an open cut on Nichole’s torso. Her scream drowned out the electrical crackle. She whipped her head back and forth in agony.
“Stop! Okay. Okay. You’re asking the questions.”
“Your momentary lapse in concentration is understandable, given what you’re seeing. But after your next outburst, it will be much worse. I hope you can appreciate the seriousness of her situation?”
“Please don’t hurt her again.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“Please, do share.”
“Colonel Montez de Oca.”
“Retired.”
No response. In the background, Nichole Dalton cried.
“Were you aware there was going to be an attempt on my life?”
No answer.
He gave the woman another jolt. She screamed louder.
“Wait! Okay. Yes, I knew.”
“You see? We can have an honest conversation. All it takes is the proper motivation on your part.”
Montez unfolded a white sheet and draped it over the woman. Red splotches began forming above the cuts on her torso.
“My colleagues have expressed interest in coming in here and meeting your ex-wife. I haven’t allowed them to. Yet.” He held a box of condoms up to the camera. “I have a week’s supply for all six of my men. I trust that such a prolonged interaction won’t become necessary?”
“No, it absolutely won’t.”
“I have no interest in you, Mr. Dalton, or your ex-wife. My sights are… let’s just say they’re above your pay grade.” He held two small photographs up to the Webcam. “I’m sure it’s difficult to see the mother of your daughters in such a horrible situation.”
“Please, leave them out of this. They’re only children.”
“That depends entirely on you, Mr. Dalton. My men have also expressed interest in meeting them as well.” He turned to his left and snapped a finger. Arturo, his right-hand man, dragged two chairs from the shadows and placed them next to the table. Two more men, each with a blindfolded and gagged young girl, hauled them into the chairs and held them in place by their shoulders. Both were crying and shuddering with fear.
“Please, I’m begging you. Leave them out of this.”
“I see no reason to indulge my men as long as you cooperate.”
Nichole managed to stop crying long enough to say, “I’m here, babies. Mommy’s here.”
He snapped his finger again and Arturo covered her mouth with duct tape and blindfolded her.
“Please don’t hurt them. I’ll do what ever you want.”
“I’m prepared to give Nichole an injection of morphine. Would you like me to do that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not without compassion, Mr. Dalton.” He stabbed a needle into a patch of undamaged skin and depressed the plunger.
Nichole groaned through the tape covering her mouth.
He lowered his voice and leaned over her. “This won’t act as quickly as an intravenous injection, but in a few minutes you should feel better.” He placed the syringe on the table and leaned into the camera. “Mr. Dalton, you and I are now going to discuss our situation. I trust our conversation will remain confidential?”
“Yes.”
“Do I need to remind you what will happen otherwise?”
“No.”
He inserted a thumb drive and opened the record program on his laptop computer. “Very good. Shall we begin?”
Chapter 11
After a fuel stop and head call in Seligman, Nathan and Harvey were on their way to Page, Arizona, near the Utah border. In Page, they topped off the Bell’s tanks and resumed their flight. Passing beneath them was some of the most beautiful territory Nathan had ever seen. The reddish-orange rock formations seemed random and yet master-planned. Truly God’s country, but a nasty place to lose an engine and crash—nothing a spatula couldn’t clean up.
After passing over the huge, concrete monolith of Glen Canyon Dam, they snaked their way up Lake Powell, staying close to its centerline. On both shorelines, dozens of narrow bays snaked their way out from the lake’s main body. Party barges and waterskiing boats occupied most of them.
There were a million and a half places to dump a stiff out here. Blind luck had led to Kramer’s body being seen as it went into the water. What were the odds? Maybe not all that bad. There were probably hundreds of impromptu campsites along the shorelines with many of them outside designated areas.
“Let’s climb to five hundred AGL. This light isn’t great for spotting power lines.”
“No problem,” Harv said.
“We’ll be over the marina in a few minutes. We’ll reconnoiter the area before landing.”
“You want the controls?”
“You’re doing fine.” He refolded the Denver sectional chart, putting Bullfrog Bay in the middle of his knee board. “Fly a heading of… zero-three-zero. That should take us directly to the marina.”
“Zero-three-zero,” Harv repeated. “Our FBI escort should be there by now.”
“Yep.” He dialed in the UNICOM frequency and pressed the transmit button. “Bullfrog Basin, helicopter eight-zero-five-bravo-tango is five miles southwest of the airfield at four thousand three hundred inbound for landing. Bullfrog Basin.”
No response, but he didn’t expect one. Bullfrog Basin encompassed uncontrolled airspace. If any other aircraft were in the area, they would’ve responded.
They overflew a long finger of water with a small island. “There’s our destinati
on, the thriving metropolis of Bullfrog Bay, Utah.”
“It’s not so bad. Looks kinda quaint.”
“Let’s climb a little. We don’t want to be rude.”
“The airstrip’s at twelve o’clock, up on the bluff beyond that cliff face. This is beautiful territory. The sunset is making the landscape even redder.”
“Let’s make one orbit.”
There wasn’t much to Bullfrog Bay. Two large boat launch ramps flanked either side of the marina. Looped trailer parks and campgrounds shared the higher ground with several condo projects. The marina itself hosted hundreds of slips with about half of them covered. Harv was right. It looked peaceful, but crowded. The lower parking lots supporting the launch ramps were packed with SUVs and pickups. This place could handle a ton of boat traffic, and from the looks of things, did.
“Let’s head up to the airstrip and see if our FBI friend is there. I’ll tune in the AWOS.” He dialed in the frequency and listened to the automated weather conditions. Next, he transmitted their intentions on the UNICOM channel. Again, no response.
Harv made a flawless approach to the south end of runway 01. A few single-engine planes occupied a small transient parking area. A man standing next to a dark sedan waved.
“Our FBI escort,” Nathan said.
The light breeze from the south wasn’t a factor, so Harv set the ship down as far from the fixed wings as possible. Rotor downwash created a huge dust cloud, but the paved surface didn’t stir up much.
“Nice landing,” he said.
“Thanks.”
They removed their helmets and went through the shutdown checklist together.
The FBI special agent waved again. Nathan waved back. At least they were off to a friendly start.
Four minutes after touching down, they climbed out and stretched. The breeze felt warm, but not overly so. He gave his helicopter a pat on the fuselage and nodded to Harv.
They met their contact halfway.
To his credit, the FBI agent didn’t register any outward reaction to the scars on Nathan’s face. He’d probably been warned. Sometimes no reaction was a reaction. “Mr. McBride, Mr. Fontana, I’m Special Agent Jeremy Duns.”
They shook hands. Duns had a friendly smile and casual demeanor. Medium build. Dark hair. Probably in his early thirties. He wore his fieldpiece in a compact holster over tan Dockers. His green shirt had FBI embroidered in small gold letters. A class act. Nathan liked him.
“Let’s use first names. This is Harvey, I’m Nathan. My friends call me Nate.”
“Will I be calling you Nate?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Jeremy smiled. “I’ve arranged for your lodging down at the marina. It’s nothing special, but I think you’ll be okay with it. Is that your helicopter?”
“One of them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Harvey owns one too. We think of them as community property, though.”
Jeremy’s brow furrowed.
“We’re not.”
“I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean, you know, it wouldn’t matter if you were.”
“Don’t worry,” Harvey said. “We get it all the time.”
“Are you guys hungry? There’s a diner at the marina.”
“Now we’re talking,” Harv said.
“I took the liberty of contacting our houseboat’s owner through the park rangers. He’s expecting us tomorrow morning. I didn’t want him conveniently disappearing.”
“Good thinking,” Nathan said.
“Are you guys packing?”
He exchanged a quick glance with Harv, then motioned toward the helicopter. “We’ve got a duffel bag with some essentials. A couple of suppressed Sigs, Predator knives, field glasses, night vision goggles, and a handheld thermal imager.”
“You guys expecting a war to break out?”
“You know what they say. It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”
“You okay leaving your essentials in the helicopter?”
“We’d rather not,” Harv said.
“We can secure your bag in the trunk.”
Harv walked back to the helicopter.
“Thanks for not staring,” Nathan told the FBI man.
“I must admit to a certain amount of curiosity,” said Jeremy. “Those scars definitely give you a rugged look, a don’t-mess-with-me expression. I know a little about you guys. One of our Monticello agents went through the academy with Bruce Henning. They’ve kept in touch over the years.”
“Henning’s a good man. We didn’t exactly hit it off very well when we first met, but he came around, and so did I. It was my fault we got off to a rocky start. I appreciate you meeting us.”
“I’m glad to do it. This isn’t exactly the center of the universe. The lack of action is more than made up for by the scenery. But still.…”
He pointed to his face. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“What happened? Can you talk about it?”
He shook his head.
Jeremy remained silent for a moment. “I guess I’m fine with mostly paperwork.”
“A wise choice.”
The diner offered unhealthy food and typical marina decor—lots of brass and rope. Vacationing families, sunburned boaters, and weathered fishermen occupied most of the tables. The dim lighting offered adequate privacy from prying eyes, but a few patrons did double takes at Nathan’s face.
Harv ate an entire pizza, not one of those little designer jobs, but a full-blown, sixteen-inch combo with the works. At one point Nathan and Jeremy stared in awe. The man had a hollow leg.
An hour later, they were checking into a modern condo overlooking the marina. Jeremy told them the entire area’s lodging had been sold-out since early spring. The condo project’s owner had graciously tendered his own three-bedroom unit to accommodate them. Of course, pocketing three times the normal rent might have swayed his decision a tad. The FBI had its share of faults, but a lack of resourcefulness wasn’t one of them.
***
The following morning broke bright and clear. Another scorcher in the works. Nathan and Harv took a twenty-minute jog around the marina. Three S’s later and they were ready to meet old Mr. Houseboat.
Jeremy parked in a dirt lot to the east of the uncovered slips. “I’m not expecting our man to be real cooperative. The park ranger told me he was a first-class jerk.”
“He won’t be a problem,” Nathan said.
“If you say so.”
They walked across a connecting bridge onto the dock. “I might need you to play along with us. I want him to think you’re on his side, so do a little acting if we need it.”
Jeremy smiled. “Good cop, bad cop?”
“Something like that.”
At 0715 hours, most people weren’t up and around yet. They passed some buildings on the dock’s main structure that offered all kinds of recreational needs, from tackle to suntan lotion to groceries. Most of the slips hosted houseboats. A few fishermen were prepping their crafts for a day on the water. Twenty yards farther down the dock, one fellow already had his line in the water. Sitting on a metal folding chair and dressed in tan overalls, he glanced at the three of them before looking back at his bobber.
Someone was cooking bacon nearby.
The creaking planks under Nathan’s feet mixed with a newborn’s muffled cry. He didn’t know why, but the sound made him think of Holly. He kept his voice low. “This is a nice marina, not what I expected at all.”
“It’s a major hub for recreational activity.”
“I can see that.”
“I was afraid of this,” Jeremy said. “He’s not here.”
They stopped at an empty slip.
“You sure this is the one?”
“Positive. He was moored here yesterday. The bastard flew the coop. He knew we were coming. Wait… what are you smiling about?”
“Mr. Houseboat doesn’t know we have a helicopter.”
***
The man in tan overalls waited until the three men left the dock before pulling his cell phone.“It’s Arturo.”
“Report.”
“Three men came looking for the houseboat.”
“Describe them.”
“Two white, one Hispanic. One of the white guys was pretty big. Tall, I mean, and hard looking. The Hispanic guy was pretty tall too. I was too far away to see much detail, but the other white guy was FBI. I saw the lettering on his shirt. The two tall guys looked like government agents too.”
“Interesting.”
“I overheard them mention a helicopter. I think they’re going to look for the houseboat with it.”
“Get the tail numbers. Make sure you’re not seen following them. Park at a safe distance and use your field glasses.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And call me back immediately.”
Chapter 12
During the drive up to the airstrip, Nathan asked Jeremy to call the park ranger and ask if the houseboat had any distinguishing features. It did. It seemed Mr. Houseboat fancied himself as something of a pirate. His party barge hosted a large Jolly Roger on the stern of the sundeck. His sundeck canopy was light blue. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot.
They lifted off just before 0800 hours.
Nathan applied power and climbed. “We’ll check the north end first and work our way south.”
Jeremy had a pair of field glasses slung around his neck. “I’ve cruised this lake many times. He’ll be hiding in one of the fingers off the main body. But when we find him, where do we land? This is pretty rugged territory.”
“If we have to,” Nathan said, “we’ll come back with a park ranger on the water.”
Nathan maintained 500 feet AGL. It gave them the most bang for the buck. Jeremy kept his eyes in the field glasses, calling out the locations of any houseboats he spotted. The north end of the lake didn’t yield their man. The few scattered houseboats beached or anchored in the inlets were all Lake Powell rentals with light burgundy canopies.
Jeremy said, “I have to admit, this is the coolest assignment I’ve had in a long time. Looking at things from above is totally different.”