J. Jance - Trial By Fire

Fortunately Robson didn’t ask where she carried her Glock. The discreet small-of-the-back holster she wore under her tracksuit was none of the ATF agent’s business.

After that, Robson fell silent for several minutes while he stared at the ground. “There,” he said pointing. “I see the road.”

Ali looked where he was pointing, and she could see it, too-a silver ribbon of highway winding through an otherwise brown and green landscape. Soon she could see the other road, too, a dirt track leading off into the wilderness from the paved highway.

“The deputy just got there,” Robson announced. “They’re moving the spike strips so the deputy can get around.” He turned to the pilot. “Can you take us up higher so we can see more? As slowly as he was driving when he first turned off on that, he can’t have gone far. We should be able to spot him.”

Obligingly, the pilot took the helicopter up.

“There,” Ali said. “That plume of dust has to be him.”

Nodding, Robson went back to speaking to the people on the ground. “It’s looks as though he’s a mile or two away, driving hell-bent for leather.”

Moments later, Ali could see a green older-model car tearing up the road and spewing up a trailing cloud of dust.

“It’s an old Ford Gran Torino,” Robson said into the radio. “A muscle car, but that’s not going to help him on this road. It looks rough. Something’s going to break on that old crate and he’ll be stuck.”

Suddenly, as though Robson’s words carried the power of psychokinesis, the fleeing vehicle stopped abruptly, slewing off to one side as though something really had broken.

“Tie rod, I’ll bet,” Agent Robson diagnosed. “That guy’s not going anywhere.”

But as they watched, a tiny man scrambled out of the vehicle and trotted back to the left rear wheel, where he squatted down to assess the damage. Then, hearing the clatter of approaching helicopter blades, he shaded his eyes with one hand and stared up at them. With barely a pause, he leaped to his feet, flung open the back door, and grabbed something from inside the vehicle. Only when he aimed the weapon at them did the people in the helicopter realize what he was doing.

“Holy shit!” Robson exclaimed. “That crazy bastard’s got a rifle. He’s shooting at us. Take us up! Take us up!”

The highly motivated pilot required no urging. They were rising straight up with stomach-churning speed before the words were out of Robson’s mouth.

Ali didn’t have to hear the sound of the shots to know they had been fired upon or to know the degree of menace involved. The man on the ground was desperate. He had no intention of being taken alive. He was armed and dangerous and prepared to fight to the death.

“Shots fired; shots fired,” Robson reported over the radio. “Looks like a rifle of some kind,” he said to the pilot. “We need to stay out of range.”

“Tell me about it,” the pilot said furiously. “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?”

Ali was thinking about her Glock. If the guy was armed with a rifle, that meant her Glock wouldn’t be much help, and neither would whatever concealed weapon Agent Robson was carrying. No doubt he was armed with a handgun, maybe even two, but up against a rifle they would be seriously outgunned.

“DPS cars have shotguns in them. They may have rifles as well. Maybe we could borrow-”

“Borrow nothing,” Robson declared. “We’ll bring him and whatever firepower he has along with us.” He turned back to the pilot. “Fly us back to the junction,” he ordered. “See if you can find a spot in this godforsaken place to set this thing down.”

The pilot swung the helicopter in a tight circle, returning the way they had come. Below them they could see another towering plume of dust rising skyward as a Gila County deputy roared toward the shooter’s position. Since the bad guy was no longer moving, the distance between the two vehicles was closing fast. Robson, for his part, was trying to send out a warning that the deputy needed to exercise caution in approaching the scene, but due to varying frequencies between agencies, no one seemed to be in direct communication.

When Robson finished with the radio transmissions, Ali touched the pilot’s shoulder. “What about the coordinates you put in from the e-mail?” she asked. “Can you show me where that was? While you guys go after the shooter, maybe I can find Sister Anselm.”

Knowing they were out of range, the pilot nodded and sent the helicopter into a steep dive. “There,” he said a minute or so later. “Isn’t that her, there on the left, down in that gully?”

Ali peered outside, straining to pick out details on the ground. Finally she saw a tiny spot of something that was bright green-not the grayish green of the surrounding desert shrubs and prickly pear. If the figure dressed in brilliant green was Sister Anselm, she was lying in the middle of a deep gully, stretched out on a bed of reddish-brown sand.

“See that big rock back up by the road?” the pilot said. “If you use that boulder as a marker and go straight north from there, you should be able to find her.”

“Good thinking,” Robson said. “You go to her and see what you can do to help her. In the meantime, that DPS officer and I will fly back in to give the deputy some backup.”

Ali knew he was right. From the looks of it, and especially if Sister Anselm had been shot, they were already too late to save the nun’s life, but the deputy was driving solo into an ambush.

Back at the highway, the pilot determined that the only place he could set the aircraft down was on the blacktop itself. Once they landed, Robson leaped out of the helicopter. The man didn’t look like much of a sprinter, but he was. He galloped across the distance between the helicopter and the parked patrol car with surprising speed. Ali hesitated for only a moment before she, too, leaped from the helicopter. By the time Ali caught up with Robson, he and the highway patrol officer, Milton Frank, were already retrieving weapons from the DPS vehicle.

As Frank and Robson started toward the helicopter, Ali stopped them. “While you two handle the shooter, please give me your car keys, Officer Frank. We spotted the woman that man kidnapped a mile or so from here. She’s lying in a gully just off the road. She may already be dead, but it’s possible she’s injured. I need to help her.”

Frank turned to Robson. “Is she a cop?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gary Robson said. “She is.”

“Oh,” said the officer, tossing her the keys. “Why didn’t you say so? It’s against regulations, but under the circumstances, I think they’ll give me a pass. Do you know how to use a police radio?”

“I can figure it out.”

“There’s some first-aid equipment in the trunk if you need it.”

“Water?” Ali asked.

“That, too. Be careful you don’t run over the spike strips as you leave.”

With that, he and Robson set off at a run for the helicopter. Once the aircraft was airborne again, Ali looked up and down the deserted roadway, hoping to see some sign of arriving backup, but there was none. Grabbing first one set of spike strips and then the other, she dragged them off to the side of the road and left them there. Then, as she scrambled into the patrol car, she heard the familiar text message alert coming from her cell phone.

Inserting the key in the ignition, she was tempted to ignore the message, but she didn’t. When she looked at the readout, she was astonished to see the text message was from Sister Anselm. It contained one word only: “Help.”

“Coming.” Ali sent her one-word text message reply, then she started the patrol car’s powerful engine and swung it around in a circle and then on to the rutted dirt road.