Читать книгу Tribal Law - Jenna Kernan - Страница 12

Chapter Five

His second in command, Detective Randall Juris, was the first on the scene followed closely by Gabe’s youngest brother, Kino. Both ran without lights or sirens.

Juris pulled to a stop and exited his unit with gun drawn.

“Clear,” said Gabe, and Juris holstered his weapon.

The detective paused at the rear of the truck and massaged his neck with one hand as he regarded the two dead bodies. Then he glanced to Gabe. Juris was in his midforties and had worked as an extra in several Western movies. His rugged good looks and classic Indian features had softened with age and the expansion of his middle, so he now seemed a little too top-heavy to ride a horse. As a detective, he no longer wore the gray shirt and charcoal trousers of a patrolman. Today he was in jeans, boots and a fleece-lined denim jacket.

“Where you want me?” he asked.

“Take him.” He motioned toward Frasco Dosela.

Juris ordered the bleeding, older Dosela up and he made it to the front fender of the box truck unassisted. Juris searched him, cuffed Dosela’s hands before him and led him to the detective’s unit. Juris retrieved a towel from his trunk and offered it to Dosela with a warning.

“Don’t bleed on my upholstery,” he cautioned, as he put him in the backseat.

Dosela pressed the towel to his bleeding head with both hands.

Kino left his unit and stopped beside Selena. Kino was nine years Gabe’s junior, newly married to a Salt River woman and was a two-year veteran of the force, so he still wore the patrolman’s uniform, including the charcoal-gray jacket that had the tribal seal on one shoulder and the police patch on the other. Unlike Gabe, Kino wore his hair long and tied back with red cloth as an homage to their ancestry. But they shared above-average size, athletic frames and a calling to serve their people through law enforcement. Kino’s ready smile was absent today as he looked to his chief for direction.

“Keep an eye on this one,” Gabe motioned to Dryer. “Tell me if he stops breathing or comes around. And radio in an all clear.”

“Ambulance?” asked Kino.

“Take too long. We’ll transport.”

Kino took over the watch beside Dryer.

Gabe took hold of Selena’s elbow and led her to the front of her truck. Before he could question Selena, Juris reported that he had found two quart-size plastic baggies that appeared to contain crystal methamphetamine.

Gabe’s heart sank still further at this news. Drugs. Selena was transporting drugs in her box truck. And she was driving. He glanced to Selena and met her gaze. She dropped her chin. He’d never seen anyone look more guilty in his life.

He spoke to Juris but never took his eyes off Selena. “Thank you. Give us a minute, please.”

Juris retreated.

“Selena?”

She reached for him and he stepped back, widening the space between them. She wasn’t going to grab his weapon or pull some other stunt. He needed to start treating her as any other suspect. But he couldn’t. Not Selena.

He felt sick to his stomach.

Her eyes flashed back and forth, reminding him of a cornered animal. He noted the speed of her breathing and lifted a brow in worry.

Finally she spoke, the words bursting forth in a harsh whisper. “You have to send Kino to my house. Someone.” She glanced about again. “Someone you can trust. Please, Gabe.”

Gabe could almost feel Selena’s panic. Her entire body trembled as she spoke.

“Please. Send someone to protect my family. Right now.”

“Protect them from what?”

She lifted her hands, gesturing wildly. “I don’t know. More gunmen. My dad said that if we didn’t do this, they’d hurt us. Gabe, please, if they find out you stopped us, they might...might...” She pressed her hand to her mouth as her eyes went wide with horror. She dragged her hand clear. “Tomas is in school. They might go there. Oh, Gabe. Help them.”

“Slow down, now.” He tried and failed to resist the urge to place a hand on her shoulder. She trembled beneath his touch, seemingly frightened to death. “Who threatened you?”

“I don’t know!” She clamped a hand over her mouth again, then let it slip. “Someone. My dad knows. Some Mexican gang. And Escalanti. He mentioned someone... Escalanti is his name. They need Apache transportation on the rez and we have to bring barrels. Some kind of barrels.”

Gabe’s mind flashed to his uncle’s request that he search for blue fifty-gallon drums.

“What kind of barrels?”

Selena threw up her hands. “What difference does it make? They might be headed there right now.”

“Selena, if you were threatened, why didn’t you call me?”

She slapped a hand over her eyes. “Because I didn’t want them to kill you, too.” She dropped her hand and gave him a beseeching look. “Please, Gabe. Send someone!”

He lifted the radio he kept on his hip. Selena batted at his hand and he retreated another step.

“Not the radio! They listen. Mr. Dryer said so to my father.”

Gabe lowered the handset. “I already used it to call for backup and signal the all clear.”

“Did you mention our names or Mr. Dryer’s?” asked Selena.

“No.”

“Please don’t.”

He clipped the radio back to his belt. Then he called Juris. The detective appeared almost immediately. “Call Officer Cienega and tell him to go out to Selena’s place in our unmarked unit. Don’t park where he can be seen but keep an eye on her family. Then send the closest unit to the high school. No radio contact. Tell them to use cell phones only. Finally get two units at each end of this road. No traffic in.”

“I’m on it.” Juris reversed course.

Selena’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you.”

He tried to ignore her watering eyes as he led her back to his vehicle.

“You carrying a weapon, Selena?”

She gave him a horrified look. “No.”

“I have to check.” He took no pleasure in patting her down. He had spent more nights than he cared to remember trying to figure how to get his hands on Selena. This had never been one of the possibilities. She was clean, as she had said.

He opened the door and she slipped in. He knew he should read Selena her rights, but he just could not summon the will.

“I’m under arrest. Aren’t I?”

He gave her a grim look. “Not yet. Wait here.”

He closed the door, knowing she now had no choice but to stay put. She was locked in behind the cage that separated his front and backseats, and the doors did not open from the inside.

Through the windshield, Selena cast Gabe a long look that seemed like regret.

Kino called to him.

“He’s waking up.”

Gabe headed over to the prison official.

Dryer now sat up, shivering in the thin nylon DOC windbreaker. Black Mountain had four seasons, something the rest of the Arizona residents couldn’t seem to remember. The wind made his pale skin blotchy and pink as a strawberry. His light blond hair had been clipped in a stylish cut, but strands of feathery hair now fell over his forehead. The man was muscular and fit, too fit for a guy who pushed paper for a living. But that wasn’t his only job, Gabe thought. He also arranged transportation from manufacturing to distribution. A bit of a drug-family middleman, Gabe thought.

“You frisk him?” he asked Kino.

“No. Not yet. He’s just coming around.”

Dryer still seemed dazed, judging from his out-of-focus stare. Blue eyes, Gabe realized. He looked like a weatherman or TV personality and stood out here like an albino puppy.

Gabe snapped the cuffs on him. Then he and Kino assisted Dryer to his feet. The man swayed.

Gabe patted him down, beginning with his shoulders. He quickly found an empty shoulder holster and a hip holster that was not empty. He relieved Dryer of his phone and an automatic pistol with a sixteen-round clip, tucking the weapon in the back of his waistband. Gabe suspected that the gun Jason Leekela had brandished belonged to this man.

“Any more weapons?” he asked Dryer.

Dryer groaned.

Gabe’s search reached his hips.

“You got anything sharp in your pockets?”

“No.”

“Where’s your ID?” asked Kino.

Dryer snorted in a humorless laugh.

“I don’t carry ID when I’m working undercover,” said Dryer.

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. Any federal operations on his reservation had to be cleared with his office. Kino looked to Gabe for direction, their gaze meeting for an instant before Gabe turned back to Dryer.

“Who are you?” Gabe asked.

“I’m with DOJ.”

Department of Justice. But of course he had nothing to back up his claim.

“Boy, you better not be,” said Gabe.

“Well, I am.”

Gabe stared at Dryer, who now stood with his hands cuffed behind his back. His jacket and shirt dangled open, revealing his body armor and the empty holsters.

“You hear me?” said Dryer. “I’m a special agent.”

Juris joined them, standing beside Kino to watch the unfolding developments.

“You believe him?” asked Juris.

“Easy to check.”

“Does Dosela know?” Juris asked Dryer.

“I sure hope so. I recruited him.”

“What about Selena?” asked Gabe.

Dryer gave him an odd look. “She doesn’t know I’m DOJ. Too much risk.”

“For you or her?” asked Gabe.

Dryer shrugged. “Less who know the better.” He gave the three tribal officers a gloomy look.

“You going to tell her? Or should I?” asked Gabe.

“Doesn’t matter. I got to tell her something.” Dryer looked toward Selena and then he directed his attention to Gabe. “She’s in because her dad told her that they’ll kill their family if she didn’t drive.”

“Another lie?” asked Gabe.

“That one is true. These guys are animals.”

Gabe resisted the urge to shove Dryer up against the car for dragging Selena into this.

Instead of falling in with criminals, Selena seemed to have done something more dangerous. She had fallen in with their hunters.

He glanced back at the vehicle where she waited and met her gaze. The urge to go to her was so strong he had to brace against it.

Gabe lifted the radio from his hip.

“No. No. You can’t use the radio or I’m made. Nobody can know about this.” Dryer scanned the scene. “Tell your guys to block traffic. A miracle no one has been by yet.”

Not really, thought Gabe. He already had a man stopping traffic at both ends of this circular drive from Route 60. This little side road led only to the junkyard and then back to the highway. Nobody was coming down this road unless it was from the junkyard some half mile beyond his unit. The miracle was that Gabe had seen the box truck’s tracks at the first turnoff from the highway.

“Hey, did you call an ambulance?”

“It’s in Black Mountain. Take another thirty or forty minutes,” said Juris. “We can transport you and Frasco to the medical center. Be quicker.”

“What did you call in over the radio?”

“Ten seventy-one,” said Gabe.

“Shooting,” said Dryer. “That’s okay. We have to make something up. But we have to get the truck out of here. Sammy Leekela cannot see this robbery attempt and we still got to make the delivery,” said Dryer and swore. “Two years’ work.”

Gabe wasn’t moved. Now he was pissed. “Next time, maybe tell us you’re operating on our land.”

“Yeah, right.” Dryer lifted his joined wrists. “Cuffs.”

“Stay on until I have confirmation.” He wanted to punch him for involving Selena in this. “Who is your supervisor?”

Dryer provided the name and number. Gabe saw Dryer seated in the rear of his brother’s unit but left the door open. Then he gave Kino the information Dryer had provided.

“Use your phone to call Yepa,” he said, referring to his personal assistant. “Don’t use the radio. Ask her to call DOJ and then ask for George Hayes.” That was the name of the supervisor Dryer had given them. “Tell her not to mention the call to anyone. If Hayes exists, see if he’s got an agent named Dryer on our land and tell him to call me directly or his boy is going into a jail cell.”

Kino stepped away to make the call. In his absence, Juris and Dryer practiced staring unblinkingly at each other and Gabe tried unsuccessfully to keep from glancing at Selena.

His brother returned with an expression that told him all he needed to know. “Yepa spoke to Hayes, said he was rude, furious and demanded his agent’s immediate release.”

Juris’s mouth twitched. “I guess that’s a yes.”

“Did you tell her about the shooting?”

“No, Chief.”

Gabe’s phone buzzed and he fielded an angry call from Dryer’s supervisor. Gabe told Hayes his agent was under arrest, refused to let him go, hung up on Hayes and then ignored his second call.

“Turn him loose,” Gabe said to Juris who removed the cuffs from Dryer’s wrists.

“You going to let me go?” asked Dryer.

Gabe shook his head.

Dryer snorted in annoyance. “We need to get out of here now.”

“Why’s that?” asked Juris.

“We have to make a delivery. All of us. If we aren’t all three in Phoenix in about three hours this operation is blown.”

Juris motioned to the bodies lying in the road. “Don’t you think this might be an issue?”

“I can have a team clean this up,” said Dryer.

Gabe shook his head. “No.”

“We can save this operation. But we have to move now.”

“Is that the operation that I know nothing about that endangers two members of my tribe?” asked Gabe.

Juris and Gabe exchanged a look and Juris gave a halfhearted shrug, leaving the decision about what to do up to his chief.

“We’re bringing Frasco in. And you’re coming, too,” Gabe said to Dryer.

“No. You are going to let him and the girl go with me. I gotta make a call,” he added.

“Who?”

“My contact who works with the distributor.”

“Name,” said Gabe.

He provided it, but it meant nothing to Gabe.

Dryer explained the basics. DOJ had the location of the meth lab on Black Mountain and Dryer would tell them where it was, but only if Gabe let him go. Gabe needed to know where the drugs were being received to figure out their distribution operation. Specifically where they were keeping the ingredients for production.

Gabe thought he could find the tractor trailer bed now functioning as a meth lab unassisted and from there he might locate the blue barrels. But it would be faster with the help of DOJ.

“Listen,” Dryer continued. “I have the lab and I have the American supplier, Cesaro Raggar. But we want to shut down distribution and production. So far all Raggar’s orders come through Nota. But we don’t know who is delivering messages from the Mexicans to Escalanti. Nota is Escalanti’s man. But I need time to connect Escalanti to the operation and find the Mexican’s go-between.”

“Manny Escalanti?” asked Juris, naming the head of the Wolf Posse.

Dryer nodded.

Selena had mentioned Escalanti a few minutes ago. She was terrified of him and with good reason. Manny Escalanti had become the leader of the Wolf Posse after the murder of his predecessor, Rubin Fox. Nota was a known gang member. Gabe knew the posse sold the weed they got from Mexico. He did not know that the gang took orders from a Mexican cartel or that they were producing methamphetamine.

Gabe returned Dryer’s phone and listened while Dryer placed a call.

“Listen, we’re going to be late.” A pause. “Icy roads is all. Have to put chains on the tires.” Another pause. “Chains. That’s what they use.” Dryer listened. “No, there’s snow. Fourteen thousand feet, remember? It’s a frozen wasteland up here.” A pause and then. “Sure. I’ll be careful.” Dryer disconnected and tucked away his phone.

Juris gave his captain a look. “You going to let the Doselas do this? They leave the rez and we can’t protect them.”

Gabe didn’t like that one little bit.

“Clearly someone knows your route,” Gabe jerked his thumb to the back of the truck where the two bodies had been placed.

“You ID them?” asked Dryer.

Gabe provided the name of the known gunman.

Dryer nodded. “Oh, yeah. That figures. That’s the junkie brother of the guy who runs the yard. Sammy must have tipped him off somehow.”

“That where the lab is, on Leekela’s place?” asked Juris.

“Yes. In a tractor trailer. Leekela is paid to look the other way. His brother must have found the lab and decided to make a few bucks.”

“What exactly is your operation and how does it involve the Doselas?”

“It’s the first delivery. If we make it, then they plan to put Frasco’s family in charge of transportation, bringing the chemicals to the lab and the product from the lab. We’ll have the precursor’s location. But we pull a no-show in Phoenix, then these rats will scurry back into their holes. One of those holes is likely on your reservation, Chief. And it’s full of fifty-gallon barrels of precursor. Enough to supply Raggar’s customers with meth for years. This is big, Chief. I’m ordering you to release the box truck and the Doselas to me immediately.”

Dryer’s order seemed the last straw for Detective Juris. He wheeled on Dryer, aiming a finger at him like a gun as he spoke to his chief.

“He doesn’t call the shots here.”

Gabe lifted a hand in conciliation. “Let’s take it easy.”

But Juris was past that. “He can’t set up a sting operation on our reservation without letting us know.”

“See, now that’s the trouble,” said Dryer. “Every time we let you know anything, they move the operation.”

“That was before we got Tessay,” said Gabe.

“You got that first lab up on Nosie’s land thanks to your brother Clay. But not the second mobile meth lab on the Leekela place,” said Dryer.

That was true.

“The precursor? Any leads?” asked Dryer.

“I found you,” said Gabe.

Dryer huffed. “An undercover federal agent. Not stellar. You can detain me, but I have immunity.”

“Don’t you always,” said Juris, regaining his control and his stoic expression.

Dryer shrugged. “Bottom line, you haven’t found that second mobile meth lab or the precursor.”

“It’s twelve thousand acres,” said Juris.

Dryer ignored Juris and directed his attention to Gabe. Gabe knew what Dryer implied—someone was informing the cartel of their movements. Someone on the inside.