She did so, and Pike hoisted the giant to his feet, draping one of his arms over his shoulder and saying, “Walk, mother fucker.”
Pike drug him towards the door, Jennifer moving backwards behind him, her pistol trained on the men in the room. When Pike reached the blanket, he said, “Jennifer, clear the grocery.”
Jennifer whipped around him, entered the grocery, and found it empty. She said, “Clear,” and Pike came through.
They made it back to their car, the giant man groaning something, and Pike said, “Shut the fuck up. We’re going somewhere quiet and I’m going to ask you some questions about a van.”
He flung the larger man against the hood of their car, and the giant spit out, “I’m not Chief.”
Pike stopped what he was doing and said, “What?”
Grimacing, he said, “I’m not Chief. He’s the one in the chair.”
Jennifer said, “What did he say?”
Pike raised his pistol and brought it down hard against the giant’s temple, knocking him out. He let the body slide onto the hot concrete.
“He said we have to go clear the damn bar again. Follow me.”
Before she knew it, he was inside the grocery. She raced to catch up, finding him stopped just outside the doorway, waiting, his eyes and pistol on the blanket. She ran up behind him, squeezed his shoulder, and he entered, both of them splitting left and right to dominate the space.
The bartender had his hands in the air, standing still. Jennifer cleared her side, turned around and saw Pike ordering the remaining men to get on the ground.
They started to do so and Pike pointed his pistol at a stocky guy with a cleft palate, saying, “Not you, Chief.”
The man’s face registered shock, and Jennifer exhaled, knowing they’d found him.
Man, this was a lot of work.
Chapter 22
The sun had set by the time I received the information I’d requested from the Taskforce. I told Jennifer to head to the Papago Farms FOB while I transferred it to a thumb drive, figuring that since they were on two-week rotations, they were running twenty-four hour operations and could help me even if it was way past business hours.
I’d hoped that Chief would have detailed information on the whereabouts of the Ghost, but he had not. The good news was he admitted to helping the Ghost cross the border, which was the first indication that we were on the right path. The bad news was he seemed to believe Mexico wasn’t his final stop, but he had no idea what it might be. He claimed to not even remember what name the Ghost was traveling under, but I figured that was bullshit, since he’s the one who’d forged the TO tribal ID the Ghost had used to cross the border. On the other hand, he’d spilled just about everything else I’d asked him, to include the story of the van and the men who’d driven it, so maybe he was telling the truth. Either way, it didn’t really matter, because I had my own way to find the name, which was why I was driving back to the FOB.
We had made it out of the grocery store before it penetrated Chief’s criminal brain that I was taking him with us, quite possibly off the reservation that protected him. He’d shown his first signs of resistance, trying to squirm out of my hands. I’d set the tone early, hammering his gut and then bouncing his face on my knee when he doubled over.
He’d fallen to the ground, writhing and moaning, and Jennifer hadglanced back from her security posture. She started to say something and I shook my head, letting her know I wasn’t about to lose it and was playing an act. I told her to unlock the trunk of our rental and she’d done so. I’d hoisted Chief to his feet, put on my mean face and said, “Too bad being a federal agent doesn’t matter on the rez. I’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
I slapped one hand on his throat and another on his crotch, lifted him up and slammed him into the trunk. He started to scramble and I folded his legs up, shoved them in, then slammed the lid. Jennifer was giving me the side-eye, and I put a finger to my lips.
We’d driven out to the desert, Jennifer behind the wheel, and I’d instructed her to hit as many potholes as she could. We’d found a dirt road, took a left, and bounced down it for about a mile. I saw some sort of dilapidated shed off the road, closed on three sides with a metal roof and surrounded by trees. I’d told Jennifer to park, jerked Chief out of the back, and thrown him in the shed.
I’d only gotten to the part of the act where I pull a knife out before he started singing. I didn’t even have to smack him around. I’d kept asking questions while Jennifer took notes, and eventually we both ran out of steam. I’d pressured him on the name—and I mean some serious pressure—but he didn’t cough it up.
We put him back in the trunk and I’d called the Taskforce, telling Jennifer to head back to the FOB.
Veep said, “Tell me you got something.”
“I’ll send a complete SITREP shortly for Wolffe, but tell him verbally I have a direct line on the Ghost. He’s in Mexico, but I don’t know where or how he’s traveling. I need you to send me the complete biometric profile we took of him.”
Veep said, “That’s easy. I’ll get it run to you immediately. What about the van? Any leads on who broke out the Ghost in the first place?”
“Yeah, I’ll include the particulars in the situation report, but basically it’s a drug-running gang. One’s named Flynn, one is Taco, and one other is either Tusk or Pinky. Flynn is the only name I got that wasn’t a nickname.”
“Bikers?”
“I don’t know. My source said they use the Tohono O’odham Nation to slip across the border and bring back loads through the Nogales port of entry, but he didn’t know about any specific gang affiliations. I have a cell that’s got their contact numbers in it, but the source said they always use burners, new ones each time. He never initiates contact. They do, and it goes from there. They might—I say again,might—still have these phones, but probably not.”
