Below Zero

“Don’t know,” Joe yelled back, as the SUV took a sharp right off the road and bounced through untracked sagebrush. The spotlights lost it for a moment but found it again as the helicopter hovered overhead.

Portenson’s sharp voice filled the night: “You in the SUV . . . this is the FBI. You need to pull that vehicle over right now and come out with your hands in the air. I repeat, this is the FBI and you need to stop the vehicle immediately and get out.”

Joe felt himself gasp as he saw something come out of the driver’s side window—an arm, a hand, a gun in the hand . . .

Three heavy concussions from the handgun and three orange fireballs into the sky. The helicopter banked sharply to the left and roared away, the spotlights crazily strobing the distant hillsides. The SUV plummeted into darkness as the aircraft fled.

“Oh no,” Joe said. “I don’t know if the helicopter got hit but Stenko’s trying to get himself killed!”

“And April,” Sheridan cried.

The shots had been wild, Joe knew. The driver couldn’t have aimed so much as stuck the gun out the window and fired. Still, it was provocation enough for the FBI to return fire.

Joe turned off the gravel road into the brush. The tires heaved over sagebrush and Sheridan was tossed around inside, her arms flying. He thought if he could cut the corner and head off the SUV, Stenko might think he was surrounded and give up.

The chopper did a long arc through the sky and came back. In seconds it was once again back over the top of them, this time without the spotlights. Instead, Joe could see what looked like two red eyes like fireflies dancing on top of the SUV. He recognized them as laser sights that were likely mounted on automatic weapons. The FBI could open up any second and cut the SUV—and everyone in it—into pieces.

Panicked, Joe grabbed his cell—which was still connected to Coon and the speaker inside the copter—and shouted, “They’ve got a hostage in the vehicle . . . a minor.”

Silence. Joe knew what he’d done. Sheridan glared at him. Whether April was actually a hostage or was along for the ride could be sorted out later, he thought.

“A hostage? Who is the minor?” Coon asked, after no doubt being fed the question from Portenson. Joe noted that only one red eye remained on the top of the SUV. He guessed Coon had lowered his weapon while he questioned Joe. Which meant Portenson had not.

“Our foster daughter, April Keeley,” Joe said in a rush of words. “She’s the one who’s been texting my daughter.” In his peripheral vision he could see Sheridan slump into the door.

“Impossible!” Portenson shouted, once again apparently wresting the phone away from Coon. As he did, the second laser eye blinked out on the top of the SUV. “Is this your idea of a joke? Is this aimed at me because I was there when she died, Pickett? Are you trying to say she’s alive and with David Stenson? Come on . . . I was there.”

“I know you were,” Joe said. “But she claims to be with Stenko. Which is why you can’t attack that vehicle until we figure this out. Do you understand? If you do, the only way you’ll ever get out of Wyoming is as a civilian because you completely botched this thing and got a teenage girl killed. And worse, you’ll never see the end of me.”

Portenson sputtered something.

“I’m not kidding,” Joe said. “Leave that vehicle alone until we can get a visual in the light and see for sure who is in it. We need to make them give it up without a fight so April can get away.”

He tossed the phone aside. The helicopter spotlights came back on and lit up the SUV.

To Sheridan, he said, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

That’s when the passenger door of the SUV opened and a female flew out into the dirt, arms out and hands clawing the air, blond hair flying like flames behind her in the harsh beams.

“DID YOU SEE THAT?” Coon shouted to Joe.

“Yup. I’ve got her,” Joe said.

“Pick her up and we’ll stay with the vehicle,” Coon said.

Sheridan shouted, “Oh, no! I hope she’s okay!”

Joe slowed down, hit his high beams, and cut the sneak lights. The scrub brush obscured where she’d landed. She’d not gotten up. Sheridan unbuckled her seat belt and shinnied halfway out of her open window, shouting, “April! It’s me, Sheridan! Are you okay? April!”

Joe heard the pop-pop-pop of additional shots up ahead as Stenko or Robert fired wildly again at the helicopter, but he didn’t look up. April was somewhere in the brush, possibly hurt, possibly dead.

The automatic weapons in the helicopter opened up and the sound was like twin buzz saws. Joe looked up to see angry streams of tracers pouring from the chopper into the SUV, raking it from hood to tailgate. Windows exploded and pellets of glass cascaded like droplets from a splash in a lake. The SUV lurched forward until one of the wheels dropped into a badger hole, where it stopped abruptly and rocked. Plumes of radiator fluid rose from the undercarriage. The helicopter hovered, looking for signs of life, before slowly descending and kicking up dust.

“Dad!” Sheridan shouted, pointing to a thin figure rising from the brush like a specter. Joe braked and swung his hand spotlight in the direction Sheridan was pointing.

The woman was thin with scraggly blond hair, hollow cheeks, and haunted eyes. She wore an open flannel shirt that hung from her skeletal frame over a stained white tank top. She held her hands up and grimaced. Her open mouth revealed missing teeth. Even at that distance Joe knew a meth addict when he saw one. Sheridan slid back into the cab. Disappointed and confused, she said, “Who is she?” Then: “Oh my God, Dad, was April in the car?”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said, watching the skids of the chopper kiss the top of brush as it settled to earth. “I think April’s long gone.”

“Then what’s going on? Why did those men in the helicopter say it was April’s phone?”