Winterkill Part 22

Danke schoen, auf wiedersehen,Danke schoen...

The song started up again, as soon as it was over. Jeannie had heard it six times now. Again, it was louder. The ba.s.s beat reverberated through the metal frame of the trailer, sounding to Jeannie like the devil's own heartbeat. song started up again, as soon as it was over. Jeannie had heard it six times now. Again, it was louder. The ba.s.s beat reverberated through the metal frame of the trailer, sounding to Jeannie like the devil's own heartbeat.

"Why do they keep playing it again and again? Can you make them stop?" April said.

Another sound emerged, layered beneath the snappy tune of "Danke Schoen." The first hints of it were distant: A knife being honed on a sharpening steel. There was a slight pop and the sound of tearing, like fabric being ripped, accompanied by a high-pitched, otherworldly squeal that set Jeannie's teeth on edge. April cried harder, her body shaking. The squealing was now ear-piercing. It began to overwhelm the Wayne Newton song.

"You know what that is?" Clem said, now awake. "That's a rabbit being skinned alive."

Jeannie didn't ask him how he knew that.

Finally, it stopped. The rabbit panted shallowly, then died with a death rattle.

April was now shaking, her hands covering her ears, her eyes closed tight.

Then the bra.s.sy music started up again, louder. Then the background sound of the knife being sharpened.

Danke schoen, darlingDanke schoen,Thank you for walks down Lover's Lane...

PART THREE.

Whiteout

Twenty-five.

The telephone next to the bed burred at 5:05 to the bed burred at 5:05 A A.M. and Joe picked it up on the first ring. It was County Attorney Robey Hersig.

"Did I wake you up?"

"It's okay," Joe said. "I've been awake most of the night." Marybeth had slept poorly again, tossing and turning and pining for April. Joe had tried to calm her, with partial success. After she went back to sleep, he replayed in his head the conversation he'd had with Nate Romanowski, playing "What if?" What if, he wondered, he told Romanowski he needed his help? What if he turned Romanowski loose?

"Joe, did anybody notify you about a meeting this morning at the Forest Service office?"

"Nope."

"I didn't think so. Anyway, Melinda Strickland and Sheriff Barnum have called a meeting for seven-thirty. All county law-enforcement personnel have been ordered to be there. They've requested that all state personnel be there as well, so I a.s.sume that means the state troopers and you."

Joe closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "What's going on?"

"h.e.l.l has broken loose."

The coffee in his road cup tasted bitter and metallic as he drove toward Saddlestring. It was unusually dark out for seven, and it took him a moment to see that the cloud cover was so dense and far-reaching that it blocked out the rising sun. It was as if a sooty lid had been placed over the valley. The only gap in the lid was a razor-thin band of orange that paralleled the eastern sagebrush plains. That band was the only hard evidence that it was daylight. coffee in his road cup tasted bitter and metallic as he drove toward Saddlestring. It was unusually dark out for seven, and it took him a moment to see that the cloud cover was so dense and far-reaching that it blocked out the rising sun. It was as if a sooty lid had been placed over the valley. The only gap in the lid was a razor-thin band of orange that paralleled the eastern sagebrush plains. That band was the only hard evidence that it was daylight.

Joe knew that a big storm was coming.

He remembered the feeling he'd had in the wooded bowl before hearing Lamar Gardiner's gunshots. It was the feeling of artillery being moved into place prior to a barrage. He felt it again-only this time, it was worse.

Joe was shocked at the number of law-enforcement vehicles parked around the Forest Service office off Main Street. He parked half a block away and approached the building on a buckling concrete sidewalk. The air was still but seemed supercharged with rising humidity and low pressure. It was still unusually dark out, and Joe recalled the otherworldly half-light created by a solar eclipse the previous summer. He looked at his watch and saw that he was right on time for the meeting. was shocked at the number of law-enforcement vehicles parked around the Forest Service office off Main Street. He parked half a block away and approached the building on a buckling concrete sidewalk. The air was still but seemed supercharged with rising humidity and low pressure. It was still unusually dark out, and Joe recalled the otherworldly half-light created by a solar eclipse the previous summer. He looked at his watch and saw that he was right on time for the meeting.

The reception and conference area had been completely transformed since his visit on New Year's Eve. The standard-issue government desks had been turned and shoved against the walls to create more s.p.a.ce. Deputies, town police officers, and state troopers milled in the open area drinking coffee. Joe had never seen so many big guts straining against uniform shirt fabric in one place at one time. Although there was little talking this early in the morning, he heard the clump of heavy boots and the creak of leather from holsters and Sam Browne belts. Deputies McLanahan and Reed were missing from the room, and Joe guessed they were still on roadblock duty. He scanned the room for Robey Hersig and found him near the back to the side of the coffee urn.

"Thanks for calling," Joe said to Hersig. "I think."

Hersig looked anxious. "Joe, did you get a fax this morning?"

Joe said that the last fax he'd received from anybody was a list of food items that Elle Broxton-Howard didn't want to eat.

"You're one of the few, then." Hersig reached inside his blazer and handed Joe a folded sheaf of doc.u.ments. The cover page of the fax was addressed to Robey, and the letterhead showed that it was from the Sovereign Citizens of the Rocky Mountains. After the cover was page after page of dense legalese. Statutes were cited throughout, including the Uniform Commercial Code. Joe was puzzled, and glanced up to Hersig.

"What is this?"

Hersig smiled sourly. "Two things, actually. The first is a subpoena to appear before their court to defend against the charge of impersonating a public official. The second is a lien against the county courthouse, the sheriff's office, and my home for $27.3 million dollars."

"What?"

Hersig nodded, and swallowed dryly. "Subpoenas and liens were faxed all over the place during the middle of last night." He held his hand out-Joe noticed it was shaking slightly-and started counting off with his fingers. "The mayor, the town council, the county commissioners, the chief of police, the BLM director, Melinda Strickland, the governor of Wyoming..."

"Governor Budd got one?"

Hersig nodded and continued. "The Interior Secretary of the United States, the national Forest Service director, the director of the FBI, and I don't know who all else got them nationally. Those are just the phone calls we've received this morning. That's just the East Coast, which is two hours ahead of us. We don't know how many people in the West will call."

"What prompted this?" Joe had never seen Hersig so shaky.

Hersig's eyes narrowed. Joe thought Hersig was about to spit a name out when the likely bearer of the name walked into the room.

Melinda Strickland wore her Forest Service uniform, and her c.o.c.ker spaniel trailed behind her on a leash. She strode purposefully to the front of the room and stationed herself behind a podium. Sheriff Barnum flanked her on one side, d.i.c.k Munker on the other. Munker sucked on a cigarette with the same intensity as an asthma victim using an inhaler.

"Thank you all so much for coming," Melinda Strickland said, her manner incongruously pleasant. Joe noted that her hair was a mousy brown color once again. "As you know, a situation developed yesterday that compounded during the night. I see Game Warden Joe Pickett in the back there-he somehow learned about this meeting-and we all have our friend Joe to thank for bringing at least one of the murderers to justice!"

Joe wished he could worm himself through the back wall, as officers, deputies, and troopers all turned and looked at him. His fellow state employees-the troopers-clapped sharply, but they were the only ones. Joe knew that the others, especially the deputies, probably felt they'd been shown up. His intuition was confirmed when he noticed how Barnum was glowering at him from the front of the room. Someday, Someday, Joe thought, Joe thought, he and I will need to have it out. There are scores to settle. he and I will need to have it out. There are scores to settle.

"The important thing..." Strickland shouted over nonexistent applause, as if trying to bring the silent room to heel, "The important thing is that we've been antic.i.p.ating this situation for quite some time and we have everything completely and totally and awesomely awesomely under control. So now I'd like to turn the briefing over to d.i.c.k Munker of the FBI, who is heading up the operation on my behalf." under control. So now I'd like to turn the briefing over to d.i.c.k Munker of the FBI, who is heading up the operation on my behalf."

Munker extinguished his cigarette and turned to the podium, but Strickland thought of something and remained. She raised a thick stack of papers in the air and waved them. Joe recognized them as similar to what Hersig had showed him.

"I don't know how many of you got these during the night, but now you know the kind of twisted people we are dealing with here, ya know!"

Munker lit another cigarette and gave her a moment to leave the podium. When she did, he surveyed the room with amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes before stepping forward. He wore a gray sweater over a black turtleneck, and a shoulder holster. A two-way radio was hanging in a case on his belt.

Munker began by nodding toward Joe. "A federal official is murdered while in his custody. The reason he gets murdered is because he manages to escape under the nose of our game warden here. Then our game warden, with a steering wheel handcuffed to his wrist, chases the escapee through the snow only to find him pinned to a tree by arrows." His tone was accusatory, his eyes cold and mocking. "This is the man who is now our little hero. Well done, Game Warden."

Joe felt as if he'd been slapped. Even the deputies who had withheld applause seemed surprised by Munker's nastiness, and they didn't turn around to further embarra.s.s Joe. Only Barnum stared and smirked.

After a long, leisurely drag that allowed his comments to hang in the air even longer, Munker c.o.c.ked his head to change the subject. "Gentlemen, we are at war, and this is now a war room." Portenson wheeled a large chalkboard into the room. On it was a large-scale diagram of the Sovereign Citizen compound in relation to the two roads that approached it.

"We've had entrance and exit roads blocked," Munker said, pointing at red X's on the map. "The only way out, or in, is via those roads or over the snow to nowhere. As soon as this meeting is over, the roadblocks will be manned again. The compound is currently quiet after a full night of audio Psy-Ops-psychological operations. We're waiting on a warrant being signed by the judge, and when we have it we can apply even more pressure. Unfortunately, the judge received one of those doc.u.ments Ms. Strickland showed you earlier and he's a little shaken right now."

Munker smirked, and inhaled.

"These liens and subpoenas are old f.u.c.king news, gentlemen. The Montana Freemen invented the trick back in 1995. Those losers found out they could paralyze the local community and all of the G.o.dd.a.m.ned 'officials' in the State of Montana by sending those things out. Nothing makes a politician c.r.a.p his shorts faster than a threat of legal action. As some of you know, there are some dregs of the Freemen up there in that compound now, so they know how the scheme works."

Joe barely heard what Munker was saying. He was still stinging from the unprovoked attack that started the meeting. It seemed to have come from nowhere. Joe knew that it was calculated. Calculated to do exactly what, he wasn't sure. But it hurt.

When he glanced up, he realized that Elle Broxton-Howard was standing next to him. She looked at him with a mixture of false affection and pity. He hated that.

"... Sheriff, what can you tell us about Spud Cargill?" Munker asked, turning his head toward Barnum.

"Spud Cargill was thought to have been seen yesterday afternoon in a stolen vehicle driving like a bat out of h.e.l.l up Battle Mountain Road," Barnum said, pa.s.sing out copies of Cargill's photograph. Joe took one as the stack went by. It was a Saddlestring Roundup Roundup photo from two years ago, when Cargill caught a five-and-a-half-pound rainbow trout to win an ice-fishing tournament in Saratoga, Wyoming. "He was seen going up, and blew right through the roadblock, but he wasn't seen coming down. It's possible he came down between the shift change, but we have no information on that. There's too many old Forest Service roads up there to keep watch on all of them, but we've tightened up the security on the main roads as of today. Our a.s.sumption is that he is in the Sovereign compound, and the Sovereigns are harboring him. Last night, as many of you know, they refused to turn him over or even let us look for him. This leads us to believe that Cargill may have been in cahoots with them since the beginning." photo from two years ago, when Cargill caught a five-and-a-half-pound rainbow trout to win an ice-fishing tournament in Saratoga, Wyoming. "He was seen going up, and blew right through the roadblock, but he wasn't seen coming down. It's possible he came down between the shift change, but we have no information on that. There's too many old Forest Service roads up there to keep watch on all of them, but we've tightened up the security on the main roads as of today. Our a.s.sumption is that he is in the Sovereign compound, and the Sovereigns are harboring him. Last night, as many of you know, they refused to turn him over or even let us look for him. This leads us to believe that Cargill may have been in cahoots with them since the beginning."

"There's a leap of logic," Joe whispered to Hersig. Hersig pretended he hadn't heard.

"Cargill's partner, Rope Latham, is currently in custody. He's confessed to a.s.sisting Cargill with the murder as well as setting up the BLM employee."

"Has he confessed to being in cahoots with the Sovereigns?" Joe whispered, again for Hersig's benefit.

Hersig shot him an angry look that surprised Joe. Apparently, Hersig was more troubled by the lien and subpoena than Joe had realized. Hersig was dead serious this morning.

"What about the press?" Munker asked rhetorically, nodding toward Melinda Strickland.

She stepped forward as Barnum had. "We've been getting hammered with calls since last night, just hammered."

Joe stifled a smile.

"The Casper and Cheyenne newspapers, radio stations from all over the state, and network affiliates from Billings and Denver have been calling," she said, with a hint of pride. "CNN and Fox have contacted us as well. They're all trying to figure out where Saddlestring is and how they can get here with a satellite truck."

"Do they know about the storm?" a deputy asked.

Strickland nodded her head. "I told them about it, but most of them were already watching the weather. I guess this one's supposed to be huge, much worse than the Christmas storm."

Joe heard men mumble about the severe winter storm warning, and predictions of three to five feet of snow in the mountains.

"Which poses an opportunity, gentlemen," Munker interjected. "The last thing we want is for this to turn into a standoff that's the subject of every f.u.c.king twenty-four-hour news show in America. We cannot let these Sovereigns use the media to create sympathy, which they will do given the opportunity. They cannot be provided a forum for their twisted, antigovernment ravings. Believe me, I know. I was at Waco. I was at Ruby Ridge. I was in Garfield County, Montana, when the Freemen held out. If the press is here, we lose all tactical advantage. And there will be no possible way in h.e.l.l for an efficient solution."

Munker's face was red and he was practically snarling. "I've been there, fellows. I've been there when d.i.l.d.o Freemen wearing hoods patrolled their ranch for the cameras, making us look like a bunch of wussy a.s.sholes. I was there when info-babes showed up while the fire was still burning at Waco to ask us if the force we used was unreasonable.

"This storm is supposed to last at least three days. It's likely the airstrip will be closed and the roads will be closed. If film crews can't get here, it means there isn't any news. That's how it works. So we have a short window of time to act. In the past, too many of these situations have degenerated into f.u.c.king situation comedies. We can't let that happen here, gentlemen. And lady," he said, deferring to Melinda Strickland.

"Ladies!" Elle Broxton-Howard shouted, raising her hand next to Joe. There was a t.i.tter of laughter. Most of the men who turned to look at Broxton-Howard were still looking at her when Melinda Strickland spoke again.

"When I came here, I said we were going to stand up to these antigovernment outlaws," Strickland said, looking to Broxton-Howard to make sure the reporter had her pad out. "Some mocked me. Some doubted the seriousness of the situation. Now we know just how serious this situation is!"

Robey Hersig's a.s.sistant, an ancient clerk named Bud Lipsey, wearing a gray Stetson and horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, blew into the room. He raised a manila folder.

"The search warrant has been signed by Judge Pennock," Lipsey announced.

Munker smiled. Joe saw it as a leer.

"Let's regroup at noon," he said. "The sheriff, Ms. Strickland, and I will set our strategy and make a.s.signments."

Joe leaned against the wall and rubbed his face with his hands. He couldn't believe what was happening. Law-enforcement personnel filed out of the building charged with a sense of purpose. There was back-slapping and shoulder-punching. A small army had been a.s.sembled, to be led by Munker, Strickland, and Barnum against the Sovereign compound. It all felt horribly wrong. The room was too hot. Somebody needed to turn the thermostat down or open a window. leaned against the wall and rubbed his face with his hands. He couldn't believe what was happening. Law-enforcement personnel filed out of the building charged with a sense of purpose. There was back-slapping and shoulder-punching. A small army had been a.s.sembled, to be led by Munker, Strickland, and Barnum against the Sovereign compound. It all felt horribly wrong. The room was too hot. Somebody needed to turn the thermostat down or open a window.

When he opened his eyes, Elle Broxton-Howard was standing in front of him.

"Did you get my fax?" she asked.

Not now, he thought. he thought.

"We don't have any brown rice."

She smiled. "I can bring some. Or better yet, we don't do the interview at your house. I just need some quotes on how you trapped that bad guy. And I want to know more about what Mr. Munker was saying about the steering wheel. Is that true?"

Joe fought back an urge to shove her. "It's true."

She was joined by Melinda Strickland. Strickland was obviously concerned, which, to Joe, looked as patently false as all of her public emotions. It looked like she'd said to herself, "Now put on your frowny face." "Now put on your frowny face."

"Joe, we really have to talk."

Joe looked up. Elle Broxton-Howard stepped to the side. Munker and Barnum were still at the podium, but they were both looking toward Joe and Melinda Strickland, awaiting the outcome of what no doubt had been previously discussed among the three of them.

"Joe, we all really appreciate what you did when you arrested Rope Latham, but there are some issues."

In his peripheral vision, he saw Broxton-Howard scribbling the sentence in her pad. So this was for her her benefit, Joe realized. benefit, Joe realized.

"What issues?" he asked. He hated words like "issues."

"It's interesting that you didn't get one of the liens or subpoenas like all of the rest of us did," she said. "Or did you?"

He shook his head no.

"Joe, don't you feel that maybe you've got too many personal issues in this situation? Like with that little girl and all? Like maybe, you know, maybe you're a little too close to the Sovereigns up there, and that it would be best not to partic.i.p.ate in the search and all?"

He stared at her. Broxton-Howard wrote.

"This whole sad affair started when, unfortunately, Lamar Gardiner escaped from you. The arrest of Rope Latham was good and all, but maybe you should sort of take a break and get some rest and leave it up to the professionals."

A hot surge began to crawl up Joe's neck as he looked at Melinda Strickland, and beyond her at Munker. The flush spread through his chest, ran down his arms, and settled behind his eyes. He stared at them both with blinders on, his rage coursing through him.

"I can see what's happening here," he said. His voice sounded strained, even to him. "It's a case of target fixation, just like when Lamar Gardiner saw more elk than he had ever seen in one place before. Like when he was reloading with cigarettes so he could shoot and kill some more."