IT WAS A CAR CHASE in slow motion: Joe fuming and driving under the duel handicaps of his anger and his sneak lights while the vehicle he was following ground on a half-mile ahead on the rough gravel road. Although they could only see Stenko’s vehicle in short glimpses as they drove on the tops of rolling hills or Stenko did, Joe started to discern that Stenko (or Robert) was driving erratically—racing ahead, sagging back, taking stretches of the road too fast and other stretches with ridiculous caution. He’d also noticed tire tracks meandering off the gravel road to both the right and left before correcting.
His mind raced with scenarios to fit the facts as he knew them. The scenarios made his heart race, and he didn’t want to share them with his daughter. She was smart, though, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she was making the same speculations as well.
Was the driver injured or hurt, he wondered? Was there a fight going on inside the car, causing the driver to veer off the road and over-correct? And he thought about that message Sheridan had received and he knew that whoever had sent it—whether it was a suddenly hostile April or someone who’d taken her phone away from her— the situation had changed drastically from what it was. He could only guess where it would lead, and he found it hard to imagine a narrative in which April would be perfectly safe.
He located his cell phone on the seat next to him and handed it to Sheridan and asked her to speed-dial Coon. When she connected she handed it over.
“Where are you guys?” Joe asked. “I’ve been following the subject vehicle for half an hour.”
Joe could hear the roar of the props through the earpiece and he could barely make out Coon’s voice. He heard Coon shouting to Portenson that,
Then: “Joe, can you hear me?”
“Barely.”
“I’d use the radio, but Agent Portenson thinks Stenko may have a scanner.”
Joe shrugged.
“Anyway, the pilot says we’re ten minutes from Pumpkin Buttes. That’s where the cell phone pings have been coming from. Does that make any sense to you? I don’t know the geography around here.”
Joe nodded. “Yup. I’d be able to see the Buttes in my rearview mirror if the sun was up. Right now, we’re headed east on gravel roads through the oil field. I can’t tell you what road we’re on because I haven’t seen a number or a sign. But if you tell the pilot to head due east/southeast from the middle butte you should soon be over the top of us.”
Joe could hear Coon yelling the directions. While he did, Joe checked the coordinates from his dash-mounted GPS and read those to Coon.
“Okay,” Coon said. “We’ve got you located. We’re on our way.”
“Hey,” Joe said. “Are you tracking
“Didn’t I tell you?” Coon asked.
“No,” Joe said, feeling his neck get hot. “You must have forgotten.”
“Don’t say anything inflammatory,” Coon said. “I’ve got you up on speaker.”
“Look,” Joe said, “don’t do anything crazy.”
“Stenko is a dangerous man,” Coon said.
And suddenly Joe visualized the helicopter swooping in over his pickup toward Stenko’s car, guns blazing. Coon and Portenson would
Joe and Sheridan exchanged glances. She said, “Don’t tell them, Dad.”
He put the phone face down on his thigh to cover the mike. “I might have to,” he said.
She looked away.
To Coon, Joe said, “Promise me you’ll make your presence known to them without any hijinks. Promise me you’ll give them plenty of opportunity to pull over and give themselves up.”
Muffled conversation on the other end. Joe muttered to Sheridan, “I’ve got nothing to bargain with right now. They know our location and Stenko’s location. They can do anything they want and they know it.”
Coon came back, said, “I give you my word.”
Joe said, “What about Portenson?”
“He gives you his word, too.”
Said Joe, “He did that once before. When he broke it he told me, ‘Never trust a fed.’ Put him on. I want to hear it for myself.”
After a beat, Portenson said, “Damn it, Joe. We want Stenko alive and kicking. We need his testimony.”
Joe felt a wave of relief, said, “Okay, then.”
Suddenly, the cab of his truck exploded in white light as the helicopter bathed it with their halogen spotlights. They came swooping down with a roar. Sheridan covered her eyes with her hands and Joe squinted in order to see.
Just as quickly, the spotlights shot ahead up the two-track and found the fleeing vehicle, lighting it up as if it were daylight. Stenko was driving a battered silver SUV with Wyoming plates. Joe could see the silhouettes of two heads in the vehicle, one dark-haired and one light-haired, the dark-haired one driving.
Two people, not three, Joe thought. Who was missing or hiding? Robert?
“Is that April?” Sheridan shouted over the roar of the helicopter.
