Kirk Russell - Redback

Marquez felt the change. He radioed Hidalgo and Green and gave them their position.

On the road to Palmdale the Mercedes and LeBaron were half a mile apart. The Mercedes turned off first and tracked down a dirt road running a straight half mile to a rundown ranch complex. A rooster tail of dust rose behind it, and the LeBaron came behind it a few minutes later. Marquez watched a man open sliding barn doors and both cars drive in. He brought the glasses back to the sagging ridgeline of the two-story house and told Steiner, ‘I’m going to call for more help in case we end up going in.’

For an hour nothing more happened and then a white refrigerated truck drove out of the barn and bumped down the dirt road to the highway. Marquez radioed Brian Hidalgo.

‘OK, now we’ve got a refrigerated truck with two Hispanic males leaving the ranch and turning south on to the highway. The name Campania Poultry is painted on the side. We’re going with it; stay with the ranch.’

An hour and a half later, south of LA, the refrigerated truck exited and drove past a new strip mall and subdivision and five miles out into dry hills. Marquez and Steiner hung back as it climbed into low hills and disappeared over a crest down into a valley. There, another vehicle, a black BMW four-door, waited on a dirt turnout. Beyond the vehicles the road dead-ended, so they’d have to come back out this way. The BMW driver got out and opened his trunk. The driver of the refrigerated truck and his companion were also out of their vehicles. One man relieved himself on the side of the road and Marquez didn’t see the suitcases. The men looked around and watched the road their direction, but he didn’t get the feeling this was a drug transfer.

‘If that poultry truck has the suitcases in it, he’s only going to be able to carry two of them,’ Steiner said. ‘He’ll have to put the other two in the backseat.’

‘Yeah, I don’t know what they’re doing here.’

‘They’re up to something.’

Marquez agreed. He just wasn’t sure what it was yet. When the BMW driver pulled two orange plastic gas containers from the trunk another thought hit him and he touched Steiner on the shoulder and said, ‘I’m going to radio for county backup.’ Now he hustled back to where they left the car and radioed for help. Then he pulled the car forward to where the men below could not see it and leaned on the horn. Sound carried out over the valley, but only briefly.

The low heavy whumph of the gas igniting drowned the horn. An orange-yellow ball of fire enveloped the poultry truck and the BMW was already accelerating their way.

‘Get in the car,’ Marquez yelled to Steiner, as the Beemer climbed toward them.

Now the BMW driver rode his horn and their bumper, and then tapped them hard as Marquez drove slowly and blocked them from passing. As the Beemer hit them, the car fishtailed and Marquez fought for control. He straightened it out. He swung over to the right and the Beemer roared up alongside with the front passenger window lowering. Marquez hammered the accelerator, turned into them and rode the BMW right off the road. It plowed down the embankment, making terrible metal ripping sounds as the rocks and brush tore its guts out. At the bottom it spun sideways. It slammed into a tree.

‘You’re fucking crazy, Marquez. We need to call an ambulance.’

‘Call it in.’

Marquez started down with his gun out, Steiner at the edge of the road on the radio. One man made it out a window before he got there, but that guy had a big bump on his forehead and a confused stare. Marquez walked them all back up the slope and with Steiner handcuffed the biggest and put restraints on the other. County backup arrived within minutes and the men went into county cars.

At the bottom of the hill the poultry truck still radiated heat, though a fire crew had sprayed foam and then cooled it with water. The stench was acrid, burned rubber and plastics. Part of the rear door had melted and after he got inside the county detective waved everybody back and then talked to Marquez.

‘I’m going to ask you to take a look and tell me what you can,’ he said. ‘There are four of them but it’s not pretty. You OK getting in there?’

Seeing the charred bodies of the Fab Four left Marquez quiet and he was only able to ID two of them. They’d need dental records for the other two. When he left there with Steiner they drove back toward Palmdale. A SWAT team moved in before they got there and Hidalgo radioed, ‘We’re in the barn with four suitcases packed with coke and we’ve made one arrest, a Jose Pinza, but I don’t think he knows much more than he’s supposed to guard these suitcases. Someone else took off on a dirt bike as we were coming in. We’re trying to find him, but he may have gotten away. Why did they kill those guys?’

‘That’s what we need to figure out and we’re not coming to you anymore, we’re heading back to the harbor.’

Marquez and Steiner put on tactical vests and DEA jackets in preparation for boarding and literally ran into a man leaving the boat with a duffel bag. The man dropped the bag and took off running. They lost him but got the duffel bag and as Harbor Police searched for him, Marquez and Steiner went through the bag. It held business records. Five minutes more and the man he’d chased would have gotten away with it.

Marquez locked the bag in their trunk and then boarded the boat with Steiner and two local officers. In the main cabin were benches with red cushions and a vending machine for coffee drinks and cocoa. There was a bar. You could whale watch from the bar. Below were sleeping quarters, a bathroom, and a tiny galley. They ran crime tape but they didn’t find anything.

When they got back to the Field Office the green duffel bag was checked in as evidence and inventoried. Marquez checked it out again immediately and took it upstairs. He spread everything out on a table and started going through it as he waited for Hidalgo and Green to make it back from the ranch. With Steiner he made one pass through all the documents in the duffel bag, and in the early evening after Steiner went home, he worked his way slowly back through the leather bound account books. Accounting wasn’t his deal. He wasn’t any good at it and it took him hours to figure out how they were coding things.

Hidalgo and Green picked up some food on their way in and brought him a burger and fries. When they walked in he said, ‘Look at this. There’s a plane in San Diego and this almond grower out in the valley. This could be how the Salazars move much bigger loads.’

They looked over his shoulder but they were done for the day. For Hidalgo and Green it could wait until tomorrow.

‘Try the burger,’ Green said. ‘It was good.’

But Marquez was just getting to his point. He looked at Hidalgo, and then Green.

‘The Salazars knew we were going after the tour boat. These guys died because they knew too much and we had them targeted. They lured them out to that ranch house and then sent someone to clean documents off the boat.’

‘Osiers,’ Green said, and Marquez didn’t answer because that didn’t explain it. He looked at Green, then Hidalgo, and said, ‘Let’s find this almond orchard and the pilot in San Diego.’

Before dawn Marquez retrieved his copy of the LA Times. When he slipped the rubber band off he found a sealed envelope with his name on it taped to the front page. In the envelope was a sheet of paper with typed excerpts of an autopsy report that could only have come from the LAPD detective, Ed Broward, though Broward didn’t sign it.

He read and then laid the sheet of paper on the newspaper. The skin of his face felt as if he had just walked into a very hot wind. When he picked up the autopsy report again, his hand trembled with anger and visions of revenge surged in him.