Drone: An Eli Quinn Mystery Read online

  I took it up to twenty feet and moved it a ways to the southeast, toward the McCall ranch house. Hovered it again, then rotated it slowly 360 degrees. The screen was black, black, black, then suddenly lit up bright white with what appeared to be three people and a dog, then black, black, black until it was back in its original position, facing southeast.

  Despite the silent night, the drone was not particularly noisy from this distance. I took it up to a hundred feet and a little farther out, and we could barely hear it. I flew it slowly, blindly, toward the target. Within seconds we couldn’t hear it at all.

  After a couple minutes the screen lit up briefly, a blip on the left side that was quickly gone. I commanded the drone to hover. It took me a moment to get it to fly backward. The blip came and went again. The drone inched forward slightly, hovered, swiveled to the left. The blip came into focus, far away, but clearly a horse. I tilted the drone up slightly. Two other horses came into view. A slight turn to the right revealed partial outlines of the ranch house, dull but noticeable, especially on the western side, where the afternoon sun’s heat must have been stored in the block walls.

  Sam and Beach looked over my shoulders. Solo didn’t seem overly interested in the infrared image, but he sat patient and alert. I was pretty sure he knew something was up. Heck, we’d discussed the plan in front of him.

  About ten feet outside the front door someone stood sentry, didn’t move. I couldn’t make out much detail, only enough to be sure it was a human. Someone else was outside the back entrance, walking in random patterns within a small area.

  “Guarding the front and rear,” Beach whispered. “Guy in front’s a pro. Guy in back’s bored. What’s that?” He pointed to a faintly glowing rectangle in the back of the house, northeast corner.

  “Maybe they’ve got a fireplace going in that room,” I said.

  “It’s still eighty-five degrees out,” Sam pointed out.

  “What else would create that much warmth?” Beach said, but we all knew the likely answer.

  I pointed to two vehicles out front. The fact that we could see one clearly in infrared meant it had arrived recently, engine still warm.

  “Looks like a pickup,” I said.

  “And the other one?”

  “Hard to tell. It’s barely warmer than the background. I’m guessing BMW.”

  “Can you get a closer look?” Beach asked.

  I flew the drone straight ahead to what I figured was a good two hundred feet from the back door. We could see the man outside more clearly now. Definitely a man, average height but thick in the chest, an apparent pile of muscle. He stopped pacing and looked up, put his hand on his hip, maybe a gun there. I backed the drone off. He looked left, right, seemed to be listening, then ran his left hand through his hair, removed his hand from his hip, and resumed pacing. Tough Guy No. 1.

  “Around front?”

  I maneuvered the drone in a circle around the west side to the front, careful to hold the ranch house in view and keep the drone beyond hearing range. The bigger man in front came into clearer focus. Bigger than the guy in the back. Arms folded. Back ramrod straight. If he hadn’t lit up in infrared, I’d have thought him a statue. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing sunglasses, but I knew who it was. Didn’t see a gun, but knew there was one, and where it was.

  A pair of headlights appeared on Deadman’s Drive. We didn’t need the drone’s infrared to see them. The vehicle turned toward the ranch house. The height and position of the headlights gave it away.

  “Same van I saw earlier today,” I said. “Eighty percent odds anyway.”

  “Call for backup?” Sam said.

  “No time,” I said. “They know I know something. They don’t know what, but they’re not stupid. They waited for darkness and they’re going to clear out. Based on the size of the van, there could be thirty or forty people in that room, and if we don’t do something, well, you know.”

  Beach and Sam nodded. I hit a button and we discussed the situation while the drone flew itself back to us.

  “So there’s at least three of them,” Beach said.

  “Probably four,” I said. “Could be more.”

  “These operations usually involve small groups,” Sam said. “The fewer that know what’s going on, the better.”

  “Let’s assume four,” I said.

  “And there are four of us,” Beach said, a well-deserved compliment to Solo, who wagged his tail in appreciation.

  “We’ll have to make it work,” Sam said.

  “They have a plan, they know what they’re gonna do next,” Beach said.

  “But they don’t know what we’re gonna do,” I pointed out.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Can you handle Lasko?”

  “I’ll talk sense into him,” Beach said. “He won’t be expecting that. I’m in uniform, and it’ll confuse him. Might at least occur to him that the whole cavalry is with me.”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “But he doesn’t know that. I just need him to hesitate.”

  “And if he draws on you?”

  “I’ll be expecting it.”

  “His gun is in the small of his back, Butch. Watch for it.”

  “Thanks Sundance.”

  “A shootout at the McCall Corral,” I said.

  “You bet your britches.”

  “Can we get back to work here?” Sam said.

  I sighed. “Be careful, old friend.”

  I turned to Sam. “You and Solo got the guy in back. You don’t need to get close enough for him to see or hear you. Just turn Solo loose. You know the command?”

  “I got it,” Sam said.

  We discussed the timing, how it all might go down relatively peacefully under Plan A or, if needed, the dramatically less peaceful Plan B. We quietly went over the bird signals Beach would make. They’d be fishy sounding, but we just needed a few seconds to enact the entire plan.

  “They’ll all have guns,” Beach said, pulling his out of its holster, clicking the safety off.

  “You have a gun,” I said.

  “You two don’t,” he said.

  He reached into his boot and took out another pistol, tried to hand it to Sam. She declined. “I’ve got Solo,” she said. “And I don’t know how to use one of those anyway.”

  He tried to give the gun to me. I shook my head firmly. He shook his, resignedly.

  “Goddamn karate cowboy,” he said.

  “Taekwondo,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”

  I boxed the drone up quickly and we left it there. I didn’t know when, or if, I’d be retrieving it.

  Chapter 22

  We put on our night vision goggles, walked as low as we could and still be quiet but swift. About fifty yards from the ranch house, we split up, Scooby Doo style. Beach went right, to circle around front. I went left, to circle in behind and to the east of Tough Guy No. 1, as close to the back door as I could get without him noticing me. Solo stayed with Sam.

  We couldn’t know what to expect inside, but we’d agreed on a likely scenario. There was a room full of immigrants, behind a locked door that might be locked, about to be moved to the van. If they were in fact locked away, they’d be a non-factor. If they were already on the move, the whole thing could turn into a nightmare.

  Lasko was out front, standing guard. Tough Guy No. 1 was doing the same out back. Ted McCall was presumably inside, or driving the van. Three minimum, likely four. There was only one vehicle out front besides the white van, so we weren’t expecting an army.

  Their tactical decision to turn the lights off, make it look like nobody was home, was to our advantage. We had night-vision. We knew where two of them were. They were on guard, but they didn’t know we were here or what we had planned.

  With my goggles I could see a faint outline of the house. Tough Guy No. 1 was visible as day. I approached silently. The horses whinnied and I froze. Tough Guy stopped pacing, looked into the dark night. I knew he wouldn’t see anything, b
ut I could tell he was agitated. He ran his left hand through his hair. Twice. Pulled the gun off his right hip and struck the classic pose of a cornered criminal, crouched and frightened. Not as tough as he’d seemed in my office. Maybe not used to using a gun so much.

  I found a rain barrel close to the house, crept up and crouched behind it. Everything was silent.

  Less than a minute passed before I heard Beach’s bird whistle, faint but obvious. It was a pretty bad imitation of an unknown bird, but Bad Guy No. 1 either didn’t hear it or didn’t think anything of it. I listened a tense moment for the second whistle indicating Lasko was under arrest, the signal for Sam to release Solo. Knowing Lasko, I wasn’t really expecting a whistle. And sure enough, there was a gunshot instead. Then another. I hoped they were from the right gun.

  Bad Guy No. 1 froze. Solo made almost no sound as he covered the fifty yards, quick as a bunny, and blindsided him. Solo barked once and had his teeth in the guy’s face and a good growl going while I sprinted to the back door. I was ready to risk my right shoulder to bust it down, but the doorknob worked just as well.

  I came in low and hollered “McCall!” just as a deafening shotgun blast lit the room and peppered the door jamb above my head. I dove ahead and to my left behind a couch. Two more shots rang out, the pellets wasted on the wall behind me.

  Three shots. If the shotgun was legal, he’d have to reload. Iffy, but I had to think and act quickly. There’d been no other shots fired, no shouts between men. I used my powers of deduction to conclude that McCall was by himself and I had only seconds to do something or become a target again. I turned my phone on and raised it above the couch. My phone didn’t get shot. I brought the phone down, moved to the left and raised my head up enough to see the heat signature of a good-sized man fumbling to reload a shotgun in the dark. Another man, smaller, crouched against the wall just inside the front door. I bounded over the couch, took two steps and launched into an awkward, flying kick that would have embarrassed Master Choi. Just as the larger man was swinging the gun back at me, my feet struck his chest. He flew backward and lost the gun. I fell inelegantly to the hard floor, added a bruised hip to the injury list.

  The kick had been pathetic, and he was on his feet quickly. He flicked a wall switch and a light came on, blinding me. I tore the goggles off, blinked and was pounded to the floor by his shoulder. My whole upper body suffered the impact. My ribs complained loudest.

  It was definitely Ted McCall. He was tough, had fighting skills, and wasn’t afraid to use them. I knew it beforehand because I’d looked it up. I knew it now because he was kicking my ass. I also knew I did not want to wrestle. But here he was, straddling me and pinning my right shoulder to the floor and about to finish the job. I didn’t have many moves left.

  Fortunately, McCall’s moves were of the classic Western variety. He wound up his right arm to deliver the knockout punch, and before he connected I shoved the palm of my left hand at lightning speed into his lower jaw. Broken, I was pretty sure. His jaw, I mean. My hand was fine. I used the soft, meaty part. As his head rocked to the side, his punch still landed, modestly, on the side of my face, popping my lip back open and seriously adding to the pain of my already sore cheekbone. Maybe broken, I wasn’t sure.

  I growled out a battle cry and somehow kept my focus in the face of intense pain.

  He was straddling me and swung again. I caught his forearm and used the momentum of the punch, with a little help from my legs, to throw him off me. His punch hit the floor. Knuckles broke loudly as he flew from my grip. I was on my feet but he was already scrambling at me. When he lunged for my legs I delivered a simple but rock-hard front snap kick that snapped his head back and knocked him out. I knew instantly it was done.

  Only when he went limp did I realize that I’d delivered a kick meant to kill, not subdue. Part of me worried I might actually have killed him. Most of me didn’t care.

  Beach was standing by the front door, watching, his gun pointed at the unarmed, evidently terrified Michael Derbin Smith, who was still crouched by the wall.

  “Don’t worry,” I said to Beach, putting my hands on my knees to catch my breath. “I got this.”

  “I coulda shot your guy,” Beach said, pointing his pistol at McCall, “but it looked like you had it under control.”

  “Totally,” I said.

  He used his boot to get Mikey face down on the floor, zipped his hands together behind his back with a plastic tie, then hustled out the back door.

  “That’s a helluva dog,” I heard him say.

  “Down, Solo,” Sam said.

  The growling stopped.

  Sam walked in. Solo burst past her and headed straight for Ted McCall and began barking. It was the first time I’d ever heard him bark more than once. He wouldn’t stop.

  “Down, Solo.”

  He barked again, looked at me like I was an idiot. Barked once more.

  “I know, buddy, I know. Down.”

  Solo backed off, looked like he was about to argue with me, then, finally, sat. Whined a bit.

  “There’s our drone pilot,” I said to Sam.

  I fished through McCall’s pockets. He was still breathing. I had mixed emotions about that. I found keys, tossed them to Sam and pointed to the door in the northwest corner of the room.

  “Everything is OK,” Sam said in Spanish. She tried three keys until she found one that worked, opened the door and turned on the light. “Don’t worry. We’re here to help you.”

  I couldn’t see inside the room, and Sam just stood there a moment, didn’t say anything. Then, finally: “About sixty,” she said over her shoulder. “All women and children.”

  I stood over Ted McCall. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  “Don’t,” Sam said. She was at my side. The migrants were filing out, dirty, looking scared and hungry.

  I took a deep breath and looked at Sam. She’d been calm throughout. Now she was trembling.

  “Everything’s OK now,” I said. “You just said so yourself.”

  “Except now you really look like hell,” she said.

  Beach came back in, cuffed McCall, got on his cell and made the requisite call for backup that we no longer needed.

  I look at Sam, then looked down. Next to her was a girl, maybe six, with long, dark, tangled hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed or washed in weeks. She had adult-sized brown eyes on a small round face with strong cheekbones. I motioned to Sam with my eyes. Sam looked down. The girl looked up. Sam put her arm around the girl, and the girl leaned in. Solo came over, licked the girl’s hand, then sat.

  I didn’t know what to do next.

  Sam did.

  She moved in, put her other arm around me, her head on my chest, and squeezed.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  She was still trembling. She squeezed a little tighter. It hurt like hell and felt damn good. I didn’t say ouch again.

  Chapter 23

  After a late-night visit to the emergency room, some stitches and X-rays, I learned I was the lucky one. One broken rib, otherwise just bad bruises. Ted McCall was in intensive care, expected to pull through. I had roughly zero emotion in response to that news. I was more interested in Jackie Brand’s condition.

  “She came out of the coma this morning,” Sam said. “They think she’ll be OK.”

  I nodded. Sam didn’t see it. We were sitting next to each other, our feet on the flagstone rim of the fireplace, both watching Pinnacle Peak, splashed with the orange of a setting sun. Solo was curled up on the other side of the fire pit, one eye flicking back and forth as each of us spoke. I had a strong painkiller in my system that wasn’t working too well, except to make me tired and a little off-balance, and two shots of straight gin were kicking in. I could feel the pulse of a throb in my jaw and cheek, but it was subsiding into a sensation other than pain.

  “Why’d he try to kill her?” I asked. “I still don’t get that part.”

  I had it mostly outlined, but by now Sam would
have it all worked out.

  “Allegedly,” Sam corrected me.

  “Why’d he allegedly try to kill her?”

  “You’re the detective,” Sam said.

  “You’re the reporter.” She had interviewed some of the immigrants, been working on the story all day, and it was online now. I was too woozy to read it.

  “The immigration system has more side effects than most people realize,” she explained.

  “A lot of immigrant women are on their own. An undocumented woman has a harder time getting help from the immigration system. It’s harder for her to get a work visa, she’s less likely to be given political asylum. If an immigrant woman’s husband is arrested, she’s suddenly even more vulnerable, maybe has no way of supporting herself. If she’s abused, by her husband or by someone she’s been enslaved too, she’s got no way to prove it. The person abusing her may be undocumented, so she can’t even prove he exists or that she lives with him. She and her children end up taking whatever help comes their way.”

  “Opportunity,” I said.

  “Exactly, the root of most crime. Sheriff Otto’s roundups tend to catch more men than women and children. Apparently some bad cops have arrangements to find the wife and kids who’re left behind. Others are engaged at simply diverting women and children as they cross the border.

  “To McCall.”

  “Or people like him, who’ll then sell them or rent them out to pimps around the valley.”

  “Change how illegal immigration is dealt with….”

  “…McCall loses his supply.”

  “Jackie Brand wanted to end the roundups.”

  “Bad for business,” Sam said.

  “McCall had a great cover. Last guy you’d suspect of human trafficking.”

  “Maybe not the last.”

  “But not the first.”

  “No way,” she said.

  “Enough evidence to convict?”

  “The footprint photos will help,” she said. “They’ll probably make a deal with Mikey for his testimony.”

  “Lasko?”