Buch lesen: «The Guardian»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Abby Stewart was not lost. Maybe she’d wandered a little off her planned route, but she wasn’t lost.

She was a scientist and a decorated war veteran. She had GPS and maps and a good sense of direction. So she couldn’t be lost. But standing in the middle of nowhere in the Colorado wilderness did have her a little disoriented, she could admit. The problem was, the terrain around Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park tended to all look the same after a while: thousands of acres of rugged, roadless wilderness covered in piñon forests, and scrubby desert set against a backdrop of spectacular mountain views. People did get lost out here every year.

But Abby wasn’t one of them, she reminded herself again. She took a deep breath and consulted her handheld GPS. There was the shallow draw she’d just passed, and to the west were the foothills of the Cimarron Mountains. And there was her location now. The display showed she’d hiked three miles from her car. All she had to do was head northeast and she’d eventually make it back to her parking spot and the red dirt two-track she’d driven in on. Feeling more reassured, she returned the GPS unit to her backpack and scanned the landscape around her. To a casual observer, the place probably looked pretty desolate—a high plateau of scrubby grass, cactus and stunted juniper. But to Abby, who was on her way to earning a master’s degree in environmental science, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was a treasure trove of more than eight hundred plant species, including the handful she was focusing on in her research.

Her anxiety over temporarily losing her bearings vanished as she focused on a gray-green clump of vegetation in the shadow of a misshapen piñon. She bent over, peering closer, and a surge of triumph filled her. Yes! A terrific specimen of Lomatium concinnum—desert parsley to the layman. Number four on the list of species she needed to collect for her research. She knelt and slipped off her pack and quickly took out a digital camera, small trowel and collecting bag.

Intent on photographing the parsley in place, then carefully digging it up, leaving as much of the root system intact as possible, she missed the sounds of approaching footsteps until they were almost on her. A branch crackled and she started, heart pounding. She peered into the dense underbrush in front of her, in the direction of the sound, and heard a shuffling noise—the muffled swish of fabric rubbing against the brush. Whoever this was wasn’t trying to be particularly quiet, but what were they doing out here, literally in the middle of nowhere?

In the week Abby had been camped in the area she’d seen fewer than a dozen other people since checking in at the park ranger station, and all of those had been in the campground or along the paved road. Here in the backcountry she’d imagined herself completely alone.

Stealthily, she slid the Sig Sauer from the holster at her side. She’d told the few friends who’d asked about the gun that she carried it to deal with snakes and other wildlife she might encounter in the backcountry, but the truth was, ever since her stint in Afghanistan, she felt safer armed when she went out alone. Flashes of unsettling memories crowded her mind as she drew the weapon; suddenly, she was back in Kandahar, stalking insurgents who’d just wiped out half her patrol group. As a woman, she’d often been tasked with going into the homes of locals to question the women there with the aid of an interpreter. Every time she stepped into one of those homes, she wondered if she’d come out alive. This scene had the same sense of being cut off from the rest of the world, the same sense of paranoia and danger.

Heart racing, she struggled to control her breathing and to push the memories away. She wasn’t in Afghanistan. She was in Colorado. In a national park. She was safe. This was probably just another hiker, someone else who appreciated the solitude and peace of the wilderness. She inched forward and pushed aside the feathery, aromatic branches of a piñon.

A small, dark woman bent over the ground, deftly pulling up plants and stuffing them into the pockets of her full skirt. Dandelions, Abby noted. A popular edible wild green. She replaced the gun in its holster and stood. “Hello,” she said.

The woman jumped and dropped a handful of dandelions. She turned, as if to run. “Wait!” Abby called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” She retrieved the plants and held them out to the woman. She was young, barely out of her teens, and very beautiful. Her skin was the rich brown of toffee, and she had high cheekbones, a rosebud mouth and large black eyes framed by lacy lashes. She wore a loose blue blouse, a long, full skirt and leather sandals, with a plaid shawl draped across her body.

She came forward and hesitantly accepted the dandelions from Abby. “Gracias,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.

Latina, Abby thought. A large community of Mexican immigrants lived in the area. She searched her mind for what schoolgirl Spanish she could recall. “Habla inglés?”

The woman shook her head and wrapped her arms around what Abby had first assumed to be a bag for storing the plants she collected, but she now realized was a swaddled infant, cradled close to the woman’s torso with a sling made from the red, blue and green shawl. “You have a baby!” Abby smiled. “A niño,” she added.

The woman held the baby closer and stared at Abby, eyes wide with fear.

Maybe she was an illegal, afraid Abby would report her to the authorities. “Don’t worry,” Abby said, unable to remember the Spanish words. “I’m looking for plants, like you.” She broke a stem from the desert parsley and held it out. “Donde esta este?” she asked. Where is this?

The woman eyed Abby warily, but stepped forward to study the plant. She nodded. “Si. Yo conozco.”

“You know this plant? Can you show me where to find more? Donde esta?”

The woman looked around, then motioned Abby to follow her. Abby did so, excitement growing. So far, specimens of Lomatium had been rare. Having more plants to study would be a tremendous find.

The woman moved rapidly over the rough ground despite her long skirts and the burden of the baby. Her black hair swung behind her in a ponytail that reached almost to her waist. Where did she live? The closest homes were miles from here, and the only road into this section of the park was the one Abby had come in on. Was she collecting the dandelions because she had an interest in wild food—or because it was the only thing she had to eat?

The woman stopped abruptly beside a large rock and looked down at the ground. Desert parsley spread out for several feet in every direction—the most specimens Abby had ever seen. Her smile widened. “That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. Muchas gracias.” She clasped the woman’s hand and shook it. The woman offered a shy smile.

“Mi nombre es Abby.”

“Soy Mariposa,” the woman said.

Mariposa. Butterfly. Her name was butterfly? “Y su niño?” Abby nodded to the baby.

Mariposa smiled and folded back the blanket to reveal a tiny dark-haired infant. “Es una niña,” she said. “Angelique.”

“Angelique,” Abby repeated. A little angel.

“Usted ha cido harido.” Mariposa lightly touched the side of Abby’s face.

Abby flinched. Not because the touch was painful, but because she didn’t like being reminded of the scar there. Multiple surgeries and time had faded the wound made by shrapnel from a roadside bomb, but the puckered white gash that ran from just above her left ear to midcheekbone would never be entirely gone. She wore her hair long and brushed forward to hide the worst of the scar, but alone in the wilderness on this warm day she’d clipped her hair back to keep it out of the way while she worked. She had no idea what the Spanish words Mariposa had spoken meant, but she was sure they were in reference to this disfigurement. “Es no importante,” she said, shaking her head.

She turned away, the profile of her good side to the woman, and spotted a delicate white flower. The three round petals blushed a deep purplish pink near their center. Half a dozen similar blooms rose nearby on slender, leafless stems. Abby knelt and slipped off her backpack and took out her trowel. She deftly dug up one of the flowers, revealing a fat white bulb. She brushed the dirt from the bulb and handed the plant to the woman. “Este es comer. Bueno.” Her paltry Spanish frustrated her. “It’s good to eat,” she said, as if the English would make any more sense to her new friend.

Mariposa stroked the velvety petal of the flower and nodded. “It’s called a mariposa lily,” Abby said. “Su nombre es Mariposa tambien.”

Mariposa nodded, then knelt and began digging up a second lily. Maybe she was just humoring Abby—or maybe she really needed the food. Abby hoped it was the former. As much as her studies had taught her about wild plants, she’d hate to have to depend on them for survival.

She turned to her pack once more and took out another collection bag, then remembered the energy bars stashed on the opposite side of the pack. They weren’t much, but she’d give them to Mariposa. They’d at least be a change from roots. She found three bars and pressed them into the woman’s hands. “Por usted,” she said.

“Gracias.” Mariposa slipped the bars into the pocket of her skirt, then watched as Abby took out the camera and photographed the parsley plants. On impulse, she turned and aimed the camera at Mariposa. Click. And there she was, captured on the screen of the camera, face solemn but still very beautiful.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Abby asked. She turned the camera so that the woman could see the picture.

Mariposa squinted at the image, but said nothing.

For a few minutes, the two women worked side by side, Mariposa digging lilies and Abby collecting more specimens of parsley. Though Abby usually preferred to work alone, it was nice being with Mariposa. She only wished she spoke better Spanish or Mariposa knew English, so she could find out more about where her new friend was from and why she was here in such a remote location.

Though the army had trained Abby to always be attuned to changes in the landscape around her, she must have gotten rusty since her return to civilian life. Mariposa was the first to stiffen and look toward the brush to the right of the women.

Abby heard the movements a second later—a group of people moving through the brush toward them, their voices carrying in the still air, though they were still some distance away.

She was about to ask Mariposa if she knew these newcomers when the young woman took off running. Her sudden departure startled Abby so much she didn’t immediately react. She stared after the young woman, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

Mariposa ran with her skirt held up, legs lifted high, in the opposite direction of the approaching strangers, stumbling over the uneven terrain as if her life depended on it. Abby debated running after her, but what would that do but frighten the woman more? She watched the fleeing figure until she’d disappeared over a slight rise, then glanced back toward the voices. They were getting louder, moving closer at a rapid pace.

Abby slipped on the pack and unholstered the weapon once more, then settled into the shade of a boulder to wait.

The group moved steadily toward her. All men, from the sound of them. The uneven terrain and stubby trees blocked them from view, but their voices carried easily in the stillness. They weren’t attempting stealth; instead, they shouted and crashed through the underbrush with a great crackling of breaking twigs and branches. As they neared she thought she heard both English and Spanish. They seemed to be searching for someone, shouting, “Come out!” and, “Where is he?”

Or were they saying, “Where is she?” Were they looking for Mariposa? Why?

The first gunshots sent a jolt of adrenaline to her heart. She gripped the pistol more tightly and hunkered down closer to the boulder. For a moment she was back in Afghanistan, pinned down by enemy fire, unable to fight back. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, fighting for calm. She wasn’t over there anymore. She was in the United States. No one was shooting at her. She was safe.

A second rapid burst of gunfire shattered the air, and Abby bit down on her lip so hard she tasted blood. Then everything went still. The echo of the concussion reverberated in the air, ringing in her ears. She couldn’t hear the men anymore, though whether because they were silent or because she was momentarily deaf, she didn’t know. She opened her eyes and reached into the pocket of her jeans to grip the small ceramic figure of a rabbit she kept there. She’d awoken in the field hospital with it clutched in her hand; she had no idea who had put the rabbit there, but ever since, she’d kept it as a kind of good-luck charm. The familiar feel of its smooth sides and little pointed ears calmed her. She was safe. She was all right.

The voices drifted to her once more, less agitated now, and receding. They gradually faded altogether, until everything around her was silent once more.

She waited a full ten minutes behind the boulder, clutching the pistol in both hands, every muscle tensed and poised to defend herself. After the clock on her phone told her the time she’d allotted had passed, she stood and scanned the wilderness around her. Nothing. No men, no Mariposa, no dust clouds marking the trail of a vehicle. The landscape was as still as a painting, not even a breeze stirring the leaves of the stunted trees.

Still shaky from the adrenaline rush, she holstered the pistol and settled the backpack more firmly on her shoulder. She could return to her car, but would that increase her chances of running into the men? Maybe it would be better to remain here for a while longer. She’d go about her business and give the men time to move farther away.

She returned to the parsley plants. Digging up the specimen calmed her further. She cradled the uprooted plant in her fingers and slid it into the plastic collection bag, then labeled the bag with the date, time and GPS coordinates where she’d found it, and stowed it in her pack. Then she stood and stretched. Her muscles ached from tension. Time to head back to camp. She’d clean up, then stop by the ranger station and report the men and the shooting—but not Mariposa. She had no desire to betray the woman’s secrets, whatever they were.

She checked her GPS to orient herself, then turned southwest, in the direction of her car and the road. She had no trail to follow, only paths made by animals and the red line on the GPS unit that marked her route into this area. On patrol in Kandahar she’d used similar GPS units, but just as often she’d relied on the memory of landmarks or even the positioning of stars. Nothing over there had ever felt familiar to her, but she’d learned to accept the unfamiliarity, until the day that roadside bomb had almost taken everything away.

She picked her way carefully through the rough landscape, around clumps of prickly pear cactus and desert willows, past sagebrush and Mormon tea and dozens of other plants she identified out of long habit. She kept her eyes focused down, hoping to spot one of the other coveted species on her list. All the plants were considered rare in the area, and all held promise of medical uses. The research she was doing now might one day lead to cultivation of these species to treat cancer or Parkinson’s or some other crippling disease.

So focused was she on cataloging the plants around her that she didn’t see the fallen branch until she’d stumbled over it. Cursing her own clumsiness, she straightened and looked back at the offending obstacle. It stuck out from beneath a clump of rabbitbrush, dark brown and as big around as a man’s arm. What kind of a tree would that be, the bark such a dark color—and out here in an area where large trees were rare?

She bent to look closer and cold horror swept over her. She hadn’t fallen over a branch at all. The thing that had tripped her was a man. He lay sprawled on the ground, arms outstretched, lifeless eyes staring up at her, long past seeing anything.

Chapter Two

Lieutenant Michael Dance had a low tolerance for meetings. As much as they were necessary to do his job, he endured them. But he’d wasted too many hours sitting in conference rooms, listening to other people drone on about things he didn’t consider important. He preferred to be out in the field, doing real work that counted.

The person who’d called this meeting, however, was his boss, Captain Graham Ellison, aka “G-Man.” Though Graham was with the FBI and Dance worked for Customs and Border Protection, Graham headed up the interagency task force charged with maintaining law and order on this vast swath of public land in southwest Colorado. And in their short acquaintance, Graham struck Michael as being someone worth listening to.

“National park rangers found an abandoned vehicle at the Dragon Point overlook yesterday,” Graham said. A burly guy with the thick neck and wide shoulders of a linebacker and the short-cropped hair and erect stance of ex-military, Graham spoke softly, like many big men. His very presence commanded attention, so he didn’t need to raise his voice. “The Montrose County sheriff’s office has identified it as belonging to a Lauren Starling of Denver. Ms. Starling failed to show for work this morning, so they’ve asked us to keep an eye out. Here’s a picture.”

He passed around a glossy eight-by-ten photograph. Michael studied the studio head shot of a thirtysomething blonde with shoulder-length curls, violet-blue eyes and a dazzling white smile. She looked directly at the camera, beautiful and confident. “Do they think she was out here alone?” he asked, as he passed the photo on to the man next to him, Randall Knightbridge, with the Bureau of Land Management.

“They don’t know,” Graham said. “Right now they’re just asking us to keep an eye out for her.”

“Hey, I know this chick,” Randall said.

Everyone turned to stare. The BLM ranger was the youngest member of the task force, in his late twenties and an acknowledged geek. He could rattle off the plots of half a dozen paranormal series on television, played lacrosse in his spare time and wore long-sleeved uniform shirts year-round to hide the colorful tattoos that decorated both arms. He didn’t have a rep as a ladies’ man, so what was he doing knowing a glamour girl like the one in the picture?

“I mean, I don’t know her personally,” he corrected, as if reading Michael’s thoughts. “But I’ve seen her on TV. She does the news on channel nine in Denver.”

“You’re right.” Simon Woolridge, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, grabbed the picture and gave it a second look. “I knew she looked familiar.”

“Like one of your ex-wives,” quipped Lance Carpenter, a Montrose County sheriff’s deputy.

“Lauren Starling is the evening news anchor for channel nine,” Graham confirmed. “Her high profile is one reason this case is getting special attention from everyone involved.”

“When did she go missing?” Marco Cruz, an agent with the DEA, asked.

“The Denver police aren’t treating it as a missing person case yet,” Graham said. “The car was simply parked at the overlook. There were no signs of a struggle. She took a week’s vacation and didn’t tell anyone where she was going. Nothing significant is missing from her apartment. That’s all the information I have at the moment.”

“Are they thinking suicide?” asked Carmen Redhorse, the only female member of the task force. Petite and dark haired, Carmen worked with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

No one looked surprised at her suggestion of suicide. Unfortunately, the deep canyon and steep drop-offs of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park were popular places for the despondent to end it all. Four or five people committed suicide in the park each year.

“There’s no note,” Graham said. “The Denver police are on the case right now. They’ve simply asked us to keep an eye on things. If you see anything suspicious, we’ll pass it on to the local authorities.” He consulted the clipboard in his hand. “On to more pressing matters. State police impounded a truck carrying a hundred pounds of fresh marijuana bud at a truck stop in Gunnison last night. The pot was concealed inside a load of coffee, but the drug dogs picked up the scent, no problem.”

“When will these rubes learn they can’t fool a dog’s nose?” Randall leaned down to pet his Belgian Malinois, Lotte, who’d stretched out beneath his chair. She thumped the floor twice with her plume of a tail, but didn’t raise her head.

“The logbook indicates the truck passed through this area,” Graham continued. “That’s the second shipment that’s been waylaid in as many months, and another indication that there’s an active growing operation in the area. We know from experience that public lands are prime targets for illegal growers.”

“Free land, away from people, limited law enforcement presence.” Carmen ticked off the reasons wilderness areas presented such a temptation to drug runners. “I read the first national parks had problems with bootleggers. Now it’s pot and meth.”

Graham turned to the large map of the area that covered most of one wall of the trailer that served as task force headquarters. “We’re going to be flying more surveillance this week, trying to locate the growing fields. We’ll be concentrating on the Gunnison Gorge just west of the park boundaries. The counters we laid last week show increased vehicle traffic on the roads in that area.”

In addition to the more than thirty thousand acres within the national park, the task force was charged with controlling crime within the almost sixty-three thousand acres of the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area and the forty-three thousand acres of the Curecanti National Recreation Area. It was a ridiculous amount of land for a few people to patrol, much of it almost inaccessible, roadless wilderness. In recent years, drug cartels had taken advantage of short-staffed park service to cultivate thousands of acres of public land. They dug irrigation canals, built fences and destroyed priceless artifacts with impunity. This task force was an attempt to stop them.

A pretty feeble attempt, Michael thought. He thumbed a butterscotch Life Saver from the roll he kept in his pocket and popped it into his mouth. They were wasting time sitting around talking about the problem, instead of being out there doing something about it.

“If we want to find the crops, look for the people who take care of the crops,” Simon said.

“You mean the people who plant the weed?” Randall asked.

“The people who plant it and water it and weed it and guard it from predators—both animal and human,” Simon said. “Illegals, most likely, shipped in for that purpose. We find them and put pressure on them, we can find the person behind this. The money man.”

Here was something Michael knew about. “Human trafficking in Colorado is up twenty percent this year,” he said. “Some sources suggest a lot of victims who end up in Denver come from this area. We could be looking at a pipeline for more than drugs.”

“So the guys in charge of drugs offer a free pass into the country to people who will work for them?” Lance asked.

“More likely they work with coyotes who charge people to bring them into the country, but instead of going to their cousin in Fort Collins or their aunt in Laramie, they end up prisoners of this drug cartel,” Michael said. “And once they’ve worked the fields for a while or learned to cook up meth or whatever the drug lords need them to do, they take the women and the younger men to Denver and turn them out as prostitutes. It’s slavery on a scale people have no idea even exists anymore.”

“So in addition to drugs, we may be dealing with human trafficking,” Carmen said.

“We don’t know that.” Simon’s voice was dismissive. “It’s only speculation. We do know that if these people have workers, they’re probably illegals. Deport the workforce and you can cripple an operation. At least temporarily.”

“Only until they bring in the next load of workers.” Michael glared at the man across the conference table. “Rounding up people and deporting them solves nothing. And you miss the chance to break up the trafficking pipeline.”

“End the drug operation and you remove the reason they have to bring in people,” Simon countered.

“Right. And now they take them straight to Denver, where no one even notices what’s going on.”

“Back to the discussion at hand.” Graham cut them off. He gave each of them a stern look. “As a task force, our job is to address all serious crime in this region, whether it’s human trafficking or drugs or money laundering or murder. But I don’t have to tell you that in this time of budget cuts, we have to be able to show the politicians are getting their money’s worth. A high-profile case could do a lot to assure we all get to keep working.”

And drugs were worth more to federal coffers than people, Michael thought grimly. The law allowed the Feds to seize any and all property involved in drug crimes, from cash and cars to mansions.

“Tomorrow we’ll begin five days of aerial patrols, focused on these sectors.” Graham indicated half a dozen spots on the map. “These are fairly level spots with access to water, remote, but possible to reach in four-wheel-drive vehicles.”

“What about the private property in the area?” Michael asked. Several white spots on the map, some completely surrounded by federal land, indicated acreage owned by private individuals.

“Private property could provide an access point for the drug runners, so we’ll be looking at that. Most of the private land is unoccupied,” Graham said.

“Except for Prentice’s fortress,” Simon said.

Michael didn’t ask the obvious question. If he waited, someone would explain this mystery to the new guy; if not, he’d find out what he needed to know on his own.

“Richard Prentice owns the land here.” Graham pointed to a white square closest to the park—almost on the canyon rim. “He’s built a compound there with several houses, stables, a gated entrance, et cetera.”

“But before that, he tried to blackmail the government into buying the place at an exorbitant price,” Carmen said. “He threatened to build this giant triple-X theater with huge neon signs practically at the park entrance.” Her lip curled in disgust.

“He’s had success with those kinds of tactics before,” Graham said. “He threatened to blow up a historic building over near Ouray until a conservation group raised the money to buy the place from him.”

“At an inflated price,” Carmen said. “That’s how he operates. If he can figure out a way to exploit a situation for money, he will.”

“But the government didn’t bite this time?” Michael asked.

“No,” Lance said. “And the county fought back by passing an ordinance prohibiting sexually oriented businesses. He built a mansion instead, and spends his time filing harassment complaints every time we drive by or fly over.”

“So do we think he has anything to do with the crime wave around here?” Michael asked. Greed and a lust for power were motivation enough for all manner of misdeeds.