this.'
'You've got a speaker on your cell?'
'That's what they said. It's a new one, haven't figured it all out yet.. .. There it is.' He pushed a button and Simons's voice filled the room. It sounded a little like a chipmunk on speed.
'.. , guys crawling all over, so I don't. . .'
'You're on speaker, Simons. Start over.'
Bonar leaned closer to the desk and heard Simons take a deep breath.
'Okay. This is the deal. I was off Twenty-three, running patrol south past the lime quarry, saw the crime- scene tape broken and what looked like lights through the trees, decided I'd drive in there and kick some kids' asses and haul 'em in for underage, and then I get down to the quarry and all of a sudden there's about a dozen suits around the car with their weapons out, screaming at me, and those big lights on stands set up all over the damn place, and a bunch of other people in white coveralls crawling over our scene like a bunch of friggin' ants.. ..'
'Hold it,' Halloran interrupted. 'Are you talking FBI?'
'They told me to get out, Mike. Just like that. Get out of my own damn crime scene on my own goddamned patrol in my own goddamned county, and when I went for the radio to call in, this asshole gorilla reached right inside my unit and took the mike out of my hand, said if I put it out over the radio that they were there, I'd spend the rest of my life looking out the wrong side of a concertina fence. Shit.' He paused and took another breath, this one shaky. 'I reached for the cell phone then, and next thing I knew I was looking into the muzzles of about half a dozen nines pointed right at my head . . .'
Bonar's eyes opened wider than Halloran would have thought possible.
'.. , and all I could think of was to tell the big muckety-muck that I'd already called the stop in to you directly, and if I didn't check back within the next minute like I was supposed to, they'd have twenty patrol cars out here, and how the fuck would they like that?'
Bonar grinned. 'You lied to the FBI?'
'I did.'
'Simons, you are my hero.'
'Yeah, well, I don't feel like no hero right about now. I feel like a man who ought to go home and change his shorts.. .. Oh, Christ on a crutch. Here comes the big A now. You're gonna have to talk to him, Mike.'
There was a spurt of static as Simons's cell changed hands, and then Halloran heard a deep male voice that he didn't recognize.
'Sheriff Michael Halloran? This is Special Agent in Charge Mark Wellspring. I want you to listen carefully.'
Halloran bristled instantly, straightened at his desk, and squared his shoulders as if he were facing the man head-on. 'No.' They could hear a sharp intake of breath through the speaker. 'First, I want an okay from my deputy that he's checked your credentials, and then I want to run them, and if they check out, then maybe I'll listen to what you have to say. Until that happens, you're just a bunch of thugs trampling my crime scene and drawing down on my officer, and that's exactly what I'll be putting out on the radio when I bring every other patrol I've got on the road down on you.'
He and Bonar stared at each other during the long silence that followed, then they heard Simons's voice again.
'Sheriff Halloran? This is Deputy Simons, sir.'
Halloran raised his brows at the 'sir.' Simons wasn't big on titles or proper forms of address-no one in the department was, really-and in that moment, Halloran understood the extent of his fear and felt sorry for the man. Like a lot of men of small stature, Simons did a lot of strutting, but right now he sounded like he'd dropped about six inches, and when you were only five-six to start with, that was a blow.
'Didn't have a chance to tell you, but I checked the creds first thing, Sheriff, and as far as I could tell, they're legit. And I took a careful look at the warrant. It's Federal, judge Peakons out of Milwaukee, got the right seal and everything, and the number's in the computer.'
'Okay, Simons. Good work. Put him back on.'
'Satisfied, Sheriff Halloran ?'
'Enough to listen to what you have to say, Agent Wellspring, and then we'll run our own check from here.'
'As you should. Firstly, this is no longer your crime scene. It is ours, and we are fully authorized and prepared to protect it by any means necessary. Are we absolutely clear on that?'
He wouldn't say another word until Halloran finally grumbled, 'We are.'
'Good. Secondly, this is a national security operation, our very presence here is closely guarded. . . .'
'Not very.' Bonar couldn't help himself.
Agent Wellspring cleared his throat but held his temper. 'Your man may have gotten in, Sheriff-that was our mistake-but I hope you notice that he hasn't gotten out yet.'
Halloran was turning bright red, and Bonar's forehead was so furrowed you could have planted corn in it.
'As I was saying, our presence here is guarded, and that's the way it will remain until our operation is concluded, at which time we will share with you any pertinent information gleaned from the crime scene, according to law. Until then, your transmissions are being monitored, and mister, your whole department is under a microscope. Are you hearing me?'
Halloran took a breath so he wouldn't explode. 'Loud and clear, Agent. I want my man back here in fifty- seven minutes. That's how long it will take him, if he leaves in the next sixty seconds.'
'Then you'd better hope he doesn't hit a deer on the way back. We're disabling his radio and confiscating his cellular phone.'
There was a sharp click of disconnection, and then silence.
'Jesus, Mike,' Bonar finally murmured. 'I'm starting to feel like we're standing in the path of an avalanche here.'
DINO WAS RIDING shotgun in the posh cockpit of the Monkeewrench RV while Harley maneuvered the massive rig over a dark, twisting Wisconsin country road that wasn't much wider than his driveway. They'd turned north off the freeway a half hour ago, but it hadn't taken that long for the absolute darkness of the empty countryside to swallow them. There were no signs of civilization, no happy green road signs that told them they'd ever see civilization again, and Gino was starting to feel anxious. 'How much further to the gas station?'
Harley reached over to press a display button on the GPS console. 'Five-point-six miles, give or take thirty feet.'
Gino relaxed a little and leaned back in the plush leather captain's chair, tweaking the lumbar support, just because he could. 'Good. This is starting to get a little too Lewis-and-Clark for me.'
Harley nodded, his face glowing in primary colors from the dashboard lights. 'I can't figure out what the hell they were doing on this road. This thing heads due north all the way to Canada. They should have headed east on Twenty-nine.'
Gino rummaged for the map Roadrunner had printed out after he'd traced Sharon's credit card to Badger State Feed and Fuel, and examined the network of red and blue lines. 'Yep, you're right. They should have stayed on Twenty-nine, but let me tell you from experience that there is no way of predicting what females will do once they're in a car. If there's an Amish sweatshop or a house made of beer bottle caps within a thousand miles, they're drawn to it like moths to a flame.'
'Those three aren't exactly the tourist-trap types.'
'They're women, aren't they? Hell, Angela's loaded with common sense, but the last time we took a road trip together, she made me drive sixty miles out of the way to see Bob's Kettle Moraine Grotto.'
Harley gave him a blank look, and Gino just shrugged. 'No clue. Still can't figure it out.'
Magozzi, who'd spent most of the trip in the office with Roadrunner, walked up from the back and knelt down on the console between Harley and Gino. 'The clerk who works the day shift at the gas station is on his way over there now to talk to us. He says he remembers them.'
'Let's hope like hell they asked him for directions, otherwise we're driving blind,' Harley grumbled. 'There's gotta be at least fifty weird little shortcuts from here to Green Bay they could have taken.'
