P Deutermann - Spider mountain

“My head was on fire, I was soaking wet and bleeding like a stuck pig-you know, head wounds-and I couldn’t see or shout. So he pulled and I stumbled along behind him. He put me into some kind of van, put a towel around my head, and told me to shut up or he’d cut me.”

“I wanted to come back for you,” I said.

“No sweat,” she said. “I was only semi-conscious when I went into the water, but I still heard the gunfire. There was no way you could have done anything.”

“Still,” I said. “Your good buddy Gelber thinks I’m some kind of cowardly rat.”

“Gelber?” she said, surprised. “When did you run into him?”

I told her about the SBI sending in a posse, my final little seance with King, and his pungent parting advice.

“Gelber hates everybody,” she said. “Mostly himself, I think. He was involved in a bad ambush deal several years ago. He was the only survivor. Three other agents died. Screwed him up. They should have retired him, but he is one tenacious SOB. They call him Fang.”

“An interesting boss?’”

“To say the least,” she said. “He has no life, though, and when we normal humans wanted time off, he was eternally disappointed in our lack of dedication. So: Your turn-what happened to you after I went in?”

I told her. She nodded when I told her what Lucas had said about the Creighs wanting her brought in, dead or alive. She wasn’t surprised at King’s reaction to her theories about a child-trafficking ring in Robbins County. She did pick up on the fact that the FBI might have something on it. Then I told her the story Big John had told me about the foreign doctor, and what I’d witnessed at Grinny’s cabin.

“Son of a bitch,” she said, sitting upright and then wincing when the sudden movement pulled her stitches. She patted her scalp gingerly. “That’s a direct tie. Children at the Creigh compound? Foreign doctor? Airport security? That old hag is probably having them sterilized before she sells them. Did you tell Sam King this?”

“I told Hayes,” I said. “King actually didn’t want to hear it. According to him, your theories are tainted by a personal angle, and he’s sick to death of Robbins County legends. Like I told you, he invited both of us to go away. I think he regrets losing you at the SBI, but he as much as said that everyone up here would be glad to see the back of us.”

“Screw that,” she said promptly. “I need to talk to Big John and hear that story for myself, and then I want to find out what it was the Bureau was going to reveal to Sam King.”

“And how the hell are you going to do that?” I asked her. “They won’t talk to either one of us, and after what happened to Rue Creigh, we wouldn’t last a day if we step back into Robbins County. Mingo didn’t report Rue’s demise, which means the Creighs are taking that on as a personal vendetta.”

“Where’s Sheriff Hayes in all this?” she asked.

I described our conversation. “But you know what? I still think he’s not well,” I said. “I’d bet on a heart condition. I think he believes me, but he’s just not up to taking real action, especially if the SBI’s not willing to get out in front.”

“That pisses me off, too. Do you think Laurie May gave us up to Nathan and the rest of them?”

“If she did, it was under duress. Can’t prove that, but that’s what I think.”

“Yeah, me, too. How about Baby Greenberg? Can he help us?”

“Not officially. I can give him a call, see what’s shaking. Maybe he could find out what the Bureau has on Grinny Creigh.”

She beamed. “Now you’re talking. You have any real food here?”

“Um, I can get some. But look: Sam King hinted that SBI, and perhaps other alphabets, may have something working on this problem, and that the last thing they needed right now was interference from outsiders.”

“Horseshit,” she said. “I would have been told about anything SBI had going in Robbins County.”

“But you’re basically internal affairs, right? Why would you or your office have been in the loop for an undercover operation?”

She didn’t answer that. I asked her about her oblique comments to Greenberg that there was an operation going down.

“I may have been posturing,” she admitted. “He’s a fed. But Sam King is a senior manager. He’s got a full plate, just like everyone else, and he doesn’t want another helping of trouble.” She paused to take a breath. “You said yourself you think there are other kids up there. You heard her say she might have to ‘move’ the whole passel of them. I can’t abide the thought of that.”

“Because of what you think happened to your sister?”

“Partly, yes, of course. But more importantly, if there is some op underway in Robbins County, even if I wasn’t privy to it, it won’t happen any time soon. Most of headquarters knows when something like that’s about to bear fruit.”

“What if we lit a fire over at social services in Robbins County? Using the abused kids angle?”

“Against the Creighs? What was it that woman told you?”

I sighed. She was right. Now the question became whether or not I wanted to join this fight. Then I realized that, having taken Rue Creigh’s head off, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. It was just that years of police experience had taught me how badly Lone Rangers could screw up a perfectly good police operation. King had said exactly the right thing to give me pause. Carrie saw my hesitation.

“You want to bail, I can live with that,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I did that to you once already. No, I’m just trying to think of a way to go at this. Let’s get some chow and then I’ll call Baby.”

After a day of rest for Carrie and resupply for me, we met Baby Greenberg up at the main lodge dining room at six thirty. He listened to our tales of mutual adventure and said repeatedly that we were both insane. Carrie had put a headscarf over the wound on the top of her head, and of course Baby had to have a look.

“Damn, girl,” he said as she was repositioning the scarf. “Another inch lower and you could be in DEA management.”

We had dinner and he told us what he’d found out with a few calls to the FBI field office down in Charlotte.

“I had to tell a few lies about why I was asking,” he said.

“I’m shocked,” I said. “Shocked.”

“DEA and the FBI lie to each other all the time,” he replied. “It’s our way of showing bureaucratic affection.”

“They wouldn’t talk to Sam King over the phone,” I said. “They told him he had to go down there.”

“That’s just feds jerking state guys around, what can I tell you,” he said. “I called in on a federal secure pipe and we got right to it.”

“Which is?” Carrie asked. She’d had a glass of wine and seemed to be coming back to life.

“Apparently there’s a medium-sized federal task force in Washington working on the exploitation of children. It’s running under the so-called PROTECT Act.”

“Whassat?” I asked. The feds used to drive me crazy with all their acronyms.

“Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of April 2003,” he recited. “Or PROTECT.”

“This PROTECT bunch have an intel branch?” I asked.

“They do,” he said. The waiter brought our dinners, and we waited until he’d left. I attacked a bloody rare steak. Carrie looked over at my plate and asked if I didn’t want that thing killed before I ate it. Once the waiter finished with his is-everything-okay recital, Baby continued. “And subject intel branch has identified western Appalachia as one source for children being sold into international sex-slave markets.”

“Suspicions confirmed,” Carrie said, with a hint of triumph in her voice. “But western Appalachia is a big place. Any specifics?”