Kirk Russell - Redback

They watched this routine three times before the divers left the coast, drove east through coastal mountains, and north on 101 forty miles to a convenience store lot, where in about sixty seconds they moved two big coolers from the Chevy into a white minivan. The Chevy with the divers headed south back down 101 and Marquez sent three of the SOU with it. Shauf and the others stayed with him and trailed the minivan to a small airport way up in Yreka.

As he drove he thought about Desault’s call and the time that had passed. His face showed the years of wind and sun. He was gray at the temples now. Gray was the color when he shaved and washed the razor, but he still had the rangy broad-shouldered strength and lankiness. Wildlife enforcement had been the right decision long ago, but he knew also that his role as patrol lieutenant of the SOU was going to end in the next few years. Chief Blakely, who headed the law enforcement end of the California Department of Fish and Game, wanted him to accept a promotion, move up the ladder, and bring his experience into one of the regional offices.

He’d floated a different idea with Blakely, that she create a new job in the field for him as he left the SOU. Her bemused smile told him how ridiculous that was. Thirty-eight warden positions were currently unfilled because the salary was so low. There was absolutely no way she could create a new position. How much of that did Desault know, and where did Desault get his cell number if not from Blakely? It would be easy to ask her.

Marquez had married Katherine and helped raise his stepdaughter, Maria, from age five and a half to adulthood. He was a legend among the commercial market poachers, but he took fewer risks nowadays. Poachers who had tried to track the team told stories and speculated that the SOU had secret airplanes and helicopters because they seemed to disappear and then arrive impossibly fast on the other end of the state. But that was the art of casting a long shadow, and that’s what they were up to again tonight. Half the team was with him and the rest working a sturgeon operation in the delta.

They could have busted the abalone poachers at the little airport in Yreka, but instead videotaped the coolers getting loaded into a Cessna. An hour and a half later, Oregon game wardens arrested three men, including a well-known Portland restaurateur as he came out to meet the plane when it landed. Meanwhile, Marquez and the team followed the minivan driver back out to the coast and arrested him and his companion outside a Crescent City bar.

Crescent City is way up on the north coast of California and Marquez didn’t get out of there until late. He never found the time to call Desault back and he didn’t get as far south that night as he’d hoped to. He slept four hours in a motel in Ukiah and at first light was on the road south again. He was late and as a consequence didn’t meet up with one of the ten wardens on his SOU team in time. An investigation would later determine fault, but for Marquez the results of the investigation would never matter. He believed that if he hadn’t slept in Ukiah, if he’d just pushed on, it would have gone down differently. He would always blame himself.

The sturgeon poacher, Jeff Holsing, parked in the lot outside the Cache Creek Casino and went inside. As he did, SOU warden Brad Alvarez eased his truck into a parking slot where he had a good view of both the casino and Holsing’s van. He flipped open his cell phone and called the warden he was working the operation with, Melinda Roberts.

‘Holsing just went into the Cache Creek Casino. How far away are you?’

‘An hour and a half, unless there’s traffic.’

‘I’m going in.’

‘Keep your distance.’

That went without saying and Alvarez passed over it. He glanced at the glass doors leading into the casino. He’s got to be meeting somebody in there.

‘Look for me at a blackjack table,’ Alvarez said. ‘Or maybe slots. Text me when you get close and I’ll order you a drink. What do you want?’

‘Margarita, no salt.’

‘You got it.’

She laughed and Alvarez, sitting in his truck, smiled. Truth was they’d both been up most of the night, and what he would do in the casino if he got the chance was get coffee and food.

‘I talked to the lieutenant,’ she said. ‘He said to tell you he’s on his way but still two hours out.’

‘I got a message.’

The real message was Marquez wanted them to be very careful. Marquez thought Holsing was already looking over his shoulder before they started tracking him. He thought Holsing was too jumpy and likely to be carrying a gun. But Alvarez wasn’t worried about whether Marquez got here in two hours or three. What mattered was that they didn’t lose Holsing as he delivered the sturgeon. They left it that Roberts would text when she was ten minutes away, and if Holsing moved before that he’d be back on the phone with her.

He saw rows of slot machines as he walked in. Even at this early hour Cache Creek was crowded with players. But Holsing wasn’t here for slots. He was at a cafe table eating breakfast with Carl Talbot, a twenty-four year old carpenter that Holsing had met with last week. The SOU didn’t know Talbot’s role yet, though it was Alvarez’s guess that they’d find out today.

When he was confident they weren’t moving soon, Alvarez checked out the food court and bought a mocha and a bagel. He sat where he could still see their table and ate the bagel, but left the mocha alone. He wanted the mocha to last, because who knows where it was going from here. Following Holsing was like watching a bad reality show. This one had started at 4:30 this morning when Holsing loaded five sturgeon into his van and then drove around in circles until meeting up with a middle-aged white male in a black Hummer at a Chevron station in Fairfield. He figured Hummer man was their buyer, but the sturgeon stayed in Holsing’s van.

When a waitress arrived with their check, Alvarez moved back outside and then to his truck, thinking, come on, Holsing, you can’t drive around with the fish on ice forever. He watched both come out of the casino. Holsing crossed the parking lot to his van, a tall skinny nervous guy with enough opportunistic charm to get by. He was also cruel. They’d watched how he beat his dog. He was in his van and backing up when Alvarez updated Roberts.

‘Holsing is rolling and it looks like Talbot is leading him into the Capay Valley. Where are you at?’

‘Stuck in traffic.’

‘How long?’

‘Forty minutes.’

‘OK, I’m going with them.’

Ahead, Talbot’s pickup turned left off the one two-lane road running through the Capay. Holsing followed closely on to a gravel road running across the valley floor toward the base of the mountains. When Talbot turned off that road it was on to a dirt and grass road leading up to a property that backed up to the base of the mountains. Pasture land and a ranch house. A big piece of land and he got the address as he rolled slowly past.

He gave Roberts the address and said, ‘I’ll go up that Forest Service road. I should have a view from there. Do you know where I mean?’

She did, and now Alvarez unlocked the Forest Service gate. He drove up to a bend where he could look down over the trees and see the house, Holsing’s van, and Talbot’s blue Ford pickup. He got out of the truck with his binoculars and phone and what was left of the mocha.

Below, and across the valley, the land was green with spring, though on the south and west slopes the grass had already gone brown. Ground fog lay in thin strands in pockets in the fields, but it would disappear soon. The light rain that fell in the late night had left the land damp, but the sky was clear now and the morning warming. After the night and the cold in the delta, the sun on his face felt great. He finished the mocha and checked out the house again with the binoculars before deciding to move up the road to the next bend.