“Man with the gun. Throw your weapon down or you’ll be shot.”
Clayton ignored the warning. He wanted to wipe the mocking smile off of Sutherland’s face, but he had learned as a soldier to deal with the bigger threat first. The helicopter was only yards away. A big noisy target. He was quick enough to spin around and snap off a round of shots. And he might have done just that if he hadn’t seen Sutherland raise her hand.
She said, “You like birds, Clayton. Here’s a big one for you.”
He couldn’t hear her words over the helicopter noise, but the gesture was unmistakable. He shouted with rage, brought his weapon up and aimed at Sutherland instead of the chopper. Before he could squeeze the trigger he was practically cut in half by hot lead.
His legs buckled, he pitched forward and in the lingering last moments before a black curtain of death fell over his eyes he saw Sutherland, still standing there with her middle finger in the air.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
While the hovering Border Patrol helicopter kept watch, the agents on the ground rounded up the attackers and marched them down the trail. The failed look-out, Vinnie Tartaglia, was already in handcuffs. Word of the Ramsey Canyon shoot-out had spread over the police radio network. The parking lot around the visitor center swarmed with sheriff’s men and local police. More vehicles lined the road.
Sutherland hoped to slip away on her bike in the confusion. She would have made her escape if the Harley’s tires hadn’t been punctured. A deputy-sheriff told the police that Sutherland had been up on the mountain, and she was suddenly enveloped by big men in uniforms who wanted to talk to an eyewitness.
Sutherland played dumb and said she had been hiking in the preserve when a bunch of strangers started to chase her. She had called a border agent she knew and he alerted the patrols. But a deputy noticed the Harley’s flat tires and that started a new round of questions.
“It looked to me like these guys were after you, specifically,” the deputy said.
Sutherland stuck with her story, but she knew it was only a matter of time before someone ran a background check and pulled up her psychiatric history. They would run a fingerprint check on the dead man, or one of his thugs would start talking. More questions would follow. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw McHugh arrive. She gave him a big hug and whispered in his ear:
“Don’t mention my house burning down.”
McHugh had a puzzled look in his eyes, but he nodded slightly to say he understood. He told the deputy that since he got the original call, he would interview Sutherland. He took her aside and said, “What’s this all about?”
“I’ll tell you later. Can we get out of here?”
By then, the first agent had lost interest in Sutherland in favor of the desperadoes. McHugh recruited a couple of men to load the motorcycle in the back of the truck and offered Sutherland a ride to Tubac.
Sutherland was steeling herself for the first glimpse of her house, but as the gutted building loomed at the top of the hill, she fought hard to stifle a whimper. The walls were standing, but black halos framed the windows where tongues of flame had blasted out the glass.
They got out of the Border Patrol truck, ducked underneath the cordon of yellow tape that surrounded the house, walked past the burned-out hulk of her RAV4, and eased through the gap that the attackers’ SUV had punched in the electrified fence. They stopped at the front entrance. The stench of burned material issued from the house. McHugh pointed a powerful LED flashlight into the gutted interior of the house. The beam reflected off dozens of jagged surfaces.
He let out a low whistle. “Lots of sharp edges. Air’s full of toxins. I wouldn’t go inside if I were you.”
“I already know what’s inside,” she said in a whisper. “It’s the wreckage of my entire life.”
The border agent shuffled his feet, unsure how to respond. “Let’s go back to the truck.”
Sutherland took a last look at the house. The sight dismayed her, but seeing the ruins up close had a calming effect as well, because it was a done deal and there was nothing she could do to change it. They walked to the truck where McHugh leaned against a fender and lit a cigarette.
“Thought you didn’t like toxins in the air,” Sutherland said.
“It’s a scientific fact that tobacco is a good toxin.” McHugh exhaled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils like a friendly dragon. “You must have had the place insured,” he said, hopefully.
“Yes. I’ve got enough insurance to cover the cost of a new house.”
“Great! You can replace this mess with an even better casa.”
“All my artwork went up in smoke. That’s something insurance can’t replace.”
“Hell, yes. That is tough,” McHugh said. “But it could have been worse. The house and art are gone, but you’re still in one piece.”
“Thanks to you,” she said, “You saved my butt.”
“All I did was make a couple of quick phone calls. The helicopter was only a few minutes away, checking out the border fence, and there are always patrols in the mountains. They’ve learned to shoot first and ask questions later, since an agent got killed by smugglers.”
“I also owe you for helping me slip away from the sheriff.”
He chuckled and said, “That was the hard part, I’ll admit. But the only thing you owe me is an explanation.”
“I guess I do,” Sutherland said. She’d told him what happened on the mountain and nothing more.
“You said on the phone that those guys in the canyon were the same ones who burned down your house.”
“The man they shot was the leader of the arson gang. I saw his face up real close when they did this.”
“Why were these guys after you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
Sutherland laid out the bare facts. She told McHugh how she had seen the attack party on her security cameras and the about the escape through the secret tunnel to the pump house. And how she went to Tombstone then Ramsey Canyon to hide.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“It’s way out their league. This is much too big for the locals.”
He scratched his chin. “Hell, I always thought it was funny, a young woman like you, living up here alone in the hills in a new house with that electric fence. You’re in the witness protection program, and these were the people you’ve been running from.”
“That’s not a bad guess, even if it is wrong. Actually, I’m a computer consultant and I’m involved in a hush-hush project that involves national security. Someone got wind of what I was doing and tried to stop me.”
“If this is a government deal, why can’t you get the feds to protect you?”
“Because it would mean bringing more people into a project only a handful know about. That includes you. That’s as much as I can say.”
McHugh figured that he had hit a wall with his questioning. He pointed to the house.
“What are you going to do next?”
“I really don’t know.”
“I’ve told my wife about you. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stayed the night. Longer if you want to. We’ve got lots of room since the kids went off to college.”
Sutherland suddenly realized that she hadn’t had a decent sleep for two nights.
“I don’t want to put you out, but I wouldn’t mind a place to catch some Zs.”
“No trouble at all. C’mon then. I’ll call my wife on the way.”
Sutherland glanced at the rear of the truck. “They did a number on my bike. I’ll probably have to go to Tucson to get new tires.”
“Maybe not,” McHugh said. “Get in the truck and we’ll see what we can do.”
They drove to a garage in Nogales on the U.S. side of the border that was owned by a Mexican-American friend of McHugh’s. Using an amazing mental inventory file, he plucked two slightly worn tires from the hundreds stacked on shelves. It took him another ten minutes to replace the damaged ones.