J. Jance - Trial By Fire

Two blinks, then. Two blinks for no.

“I know there’s some bad blood between you and Serenity,” Hal said, “and between Serenity and me, too,” he added, “but don’t push them away. They’re both here. They’ve both been here all day. Let’s be kind. Let’s let them in again. Please.”

It was surprising to Mimi that Hal really didn’t understand. Not at all. She was trying to be kind to her children just then. She didn’t want them to have to suffer by seeing her this way. That was too hard on them, especially on Serenity, the one who thought she was so damned tough.

So Mimi blinked twice. Twice for no.

Hal sighed. “All right, Mimi girl,” he said. “We’ll do it your way. Is it time to push the button?”

Almost, but not quite. I could stay a little longer. I could stand it a little longer, if you’d just lean down and kiss me.

But he didn’t do that. Instead he punched the button, and she went sliding away. And she realized as she drifted away that she still hadn’t told him what she needed to say.

Because he hadn’t asked. Maybe he never would.

Another e-mail showed up in Ali’s in-box. Another e-mail from Sister Anselm. “They’re moving at three miles per hour,” she said, “and they’ve turned east.”

“Where?” Robson asked.

“Looks like Forest Road one forty-three,” Ali answered.

The pilot nodded in agreement.

“Look,” Robson said. “I’m not from here. Where does it go?”

“Nowhere,” the pilot answered. “Off into the Four Peaks Wilderness Area. There’s nothing out there but nothing.”

Ali stared at the pin on the computer with a feeling of dread. Whoever had Sister Anselm was taking her to a place where there would be no witnesses and no turning back. Even if Sister Anselm survived a ride imprisoned in an overheated trunk, she might not survive what came next. Ali’s computer offered their only hope of finding her.

On TV and in the movies, pursuits were always fast and exciting. This one seemed slow as mud. Ali looked at her watch for the third time in as many minutes and wondered if it was still running. The pilot had said they were twenty minutes or so out, but if the car they were after had already turned off the highway, whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon. Sooner than they could get there. Sooner than any of the ground units could get there.

Closing her eyes, Ali murmured a small prayer. “Please keep Sister Anselm safe. Please.”

Over the microphone she heard Robson talking to someone else. “Excellent,” he said. “According to what I’m hearing, that road has only one way in and one way out. Have them block it and lay down spike strips. Whatever happens, the guy isn’t going to get away.”

“What’s going on?” Ali asked.

“Units from the Gila County Sheriff’s Department are still on the way, but it turns out the Arizona Department of Public Safety had a vehicle in the area. That DPS unit is already at the intersection where the forest road comes back out to the highway. The officer has blocked the road with his vehicle and is laying down tire strips on either side of where he’s parked. If the bad guy tries to make a run for it and go around him, it won’t work.”

Ali nodded. Setting a trap to catch the guy at the intersection sounded good as far as it went, but it wasn’t nearly good enough. If the guy’s vehicle was stopped on the way back out to the highway, that would most likely mean whatever was going to happen to Sister Anselm would have already happened.

Too little, too late, Ali thought.

The e-mail alert sounded on Ali’s computer. Another new e-mail from Sister Anselm’s address had appeared in her mailbox. When she opened it, Ali’s heart fell. The speedometer read zero miles per hour.

“They’ve stopped,” she said. “The pin puts their latest position a couple of miles or so beyond the intersection.”

“Crap!” Robson muttered. He turned to the pilot. “You keep flying,” he said. “Can you tell me how to key in this last set of coordinates? If he dumps her there, that’s the only way we’re going to find her.”

Ali didn’t need to ask what would precede the dumping. Agent Robson knew, and so did she.

Robson held out his hand, and Ali passed the ATF agent her computer without a word of objection.

For the time being at least, Ali Reynolds and Gary Robson were both on the same side.

The helicopter sped swiftly over a harsh desert landscape-spines of rocky ridges spiked with saguaro and dotted with low-lying grayish-green shrubs. Ali stared out of the aircraft’s glass windshield at the seemingly empty desert, hoping for a glimpse of blacktop or even a sliver of dirt road-something with a moving vehicle on it that would let her know they were getting closer. Something that would give her hope that they weren’t already too late.

A radio transmission laced with static came through the earphones. Ali didn’t hear what was coming through the radio, but she did understand the string of obscenity-laced invective that spewed out of Gary Robson’s mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Ali asked.

“That was the DPS. A car moving westward started down the road toward the state patrolman who had his car parked along with the spike strips. When the driver saw that the road was blocked, he pulled a U-turn and raced back in the other direction.”

“As you already mentioned, there’s only one way in and one way out,” Ali said. “At least that’s how it looks on the map.”

“Let’s hope so. A Gila County deputy is due on the scene in another five minutes. He’ll probably get there at about the same time we do, or maybe a little before. The deputy is driving an SUV that’ll be better suited to that kind of road than an ordinary DPS patrol car. The deputy will go after the guy, and so will we.”

“Did he see what kind of vehicle?”

“It was too far away. An American sedan of some kind. That’s good for us. If the road’s as bad as I think it is, that should slow him down. With any kind of luck, we’ll be able to lead that deputy right to him.”

Ali thought of how many high-speed pursuits she had reported on during her days as a newscaster in L.A., always with the voice of the eye-in-the-sky helicopter providing the narrative. They had often lasted for hours-endless hours of stultifying boredom, punctuated by appalling crashes and spectacular spinouts, with a dozen police cars converging on the resulting wreckage. But this lonely stretch of desert wasn’t a place where dozens of police cars could be summoned as backup.

Whatever happens will be up to us and that one deputy, she thought.

“If it comes down to him or us,” Ali told Robson, “I’m carrying a Glock and I know how to use it.”

Robson gave her an appraising look. “Don’t go all Annie Oakley on me. I thought you were strictly media relations.”

And I thought you were strictly a jerk, she thought, but that wasn’t what she said.

“I’m wearing a vest. I’m a decent shot, and beggars can’t be choosers. I have a feeling you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“Shooting someone’s no joking matter,” he said. “Target shooting is one thing. Shooting another human being is the very last resort.”

“I know firsthand about that,” she said.

Maybe there was something in her answer that told him she had done that, just as he had, too. When he finally figured that out on his own, he grimaced and gave her a grudging nod.

“All right,” he said, “but not unless I say so, as in giving you a direct order, and not if we don’t need the help.”

Ali nodded back.

“I understand,” she said. “Believe me,” she told him, “Sheriff Maxwell will be furious if I end up being a part of a shooting incident outside the boundaries of Yavapai County. He specifically asked me to avoid that.”