Surrogate evil, p.29
Surrogate Evil,
p.29
Lee reached down and pulled out his long commando dagger, a six-inch, double-edged Sykes-Fairbairn blade. The balanced weapon had always fit his hand perfectly.
Glover took a step back, his eyes getting bigger by the second. “What the hell are you? Military? Cop?”
“You’re going down, Glover. Give it up and you’ll die in prison instead of here—now. You’ve got enough sense left to know I’m not going to have a scratch on me when I walk out of this dump. You, on the other hand …”
“You’ll never find the boy without me,” Glover said, his voice harsh. “You need me alive.”
“We pulled Tim from the cage in that fallout shelter last night, moron. Nobody needs you in any way other than dead. Give up and drop the knife before I get ugly.”
“Fuck you!” Glover fled into the kitchen.
Lee followed, but Diane was standing just out the back door, blocking the way. Glover never broke stride, yelling instead and charging at her with the knife. She fired twice, then stepped back. Glover’s forward momentum carried him into the utility space, where he struck the washing machine with a thud before bouncing back onto the floor.
Lee put away his knife, saw movement to his side, then waved to Jack, who’d stepped though the shattered front window into the living room while their attention had been diverted.
“I put some buckshot into his hand a minute ago and knocked the carbine away, but he wouldn’t give up. Then I had to duck away to reload. Is he dead?” Jack asked, his shotgun out as he walked across the sodden carpet. Water was trickling down in a small stream from between shattered ceiling tiles.
Diane stepped back inside via the utility room entrance and looked down at Glover. “Can’t tell for sure in the dark.” She reached into her pocket and fumbled for her flashlight. Her hands were shaking.
Lee stepped over, his pistol out again, and looked down at Glover. His shirt had been torn by an earlier shotgun hit, but he had on a vest underneath, which had stopped the buckshot from penetrating. Diane had been using armor-piercing rounds, obviously, and there were two entry wounds in the center of his chest. Bending down, Lee felt at the man’s wrist for a pulse. “He’s gone.”
“To hell—if there’s a God in heaven,” Jack declared. “Damn, I almost wish he’d have lived long enough to make it to trial. Some of the testimony would have been really interesting. Like that forest service water balloon. And the Nixon mask on the floor over there.” He pointed. “What’s that doing here?”
Diane walked across the small kitchen and aimed her flashlight up at the dining area ceiling, which was sagging in the center. Water was still dripping through several ever-widening gaps in the ceiling tiles and the carpet was pooled about an inch deep or more now.
Lee realized he hadn’t paid much attention to the water, having been so intent on Glover. Turning around, he saw a gym bag in the hall, just in front of the opened closet. He walked over and picked up the bag. It was unzipped, and inside were CDs, a computer hard drive, bundles of cash, and the .45 pistol with the laser sight. He zipped up the bag and looked into the closet. The inside floor was hinged, tilted up, and he could see a handle on the bottom. The top rung of the ladder had been split by the impact of a bullet.
“Glover started to come down after you? I heard a shot.”
Diane nodded. “Yeah, I’d managed to get Andy past me—good thing we’re small—and cut the tape on her hands and feet so she could crawl. But I wanted to back out of the tunnel so I could watch and make sure Glover didn’t poke his head down or try to follow. He stuck his carbine down to fire blind, I guess, and I drove him back with a shot. No way Glover was going to put a round in my ass.”
“Yeah. I had similar thoughts while walking around on the roof,” Lee replied.
“What’s in the bag that was so important he had to risk coming back one more time? His blackmail material, money?” Jack asked. He waved at Richie, who’d come up to the back door with Officer Moore—Andy. The two had pistols.
Lee nodded to Jack, then glanced over at the others. “You guys okay?”
Andrea’s face was bruised, her lip was cut, and there was a red streak across her cheeks where the tape had been. She looked down at Glover’s body. “I am now.”
“Hal’s still over at your place, Lee, calling the cavalry. EMTs, Captain Terry, Agent Logan,” Richie said. He was wearing a headset and pointed to it. “Any other requests?”
“We need to keep the local deputies and area residents away from this house until we’ve had a chance to locate and review all of Glover’s blackmail material. There may be more than what I have in this gym bag. Lots of people will have secrets to protect and we don’t want anything to disappear. Tell anyone who shows up that it’s unsafe to come inside.” Lee looked up at the ceiling. “Come to think of it …”
“I’ll shut off the main power and gas,” Richie offered, then stepped back outside. “Hey, remain on the street, please, sir, ma’am,” they heard Richie yell. “Crime scene.”
Diane looked over at Andrea Moore. “You wanna go over to my place and change your clothes? Anything you can find is okay.”
“Yeah. I look like one of those girls in Chainsaw Hookers, don’t I?” Andrea said, looking down at her short skirt, halter top, and leather boots. A pistol was still in her hand because she had no place to stow it.
“Hey, don’t knock it. I saw that movie,” Jack said, and they all laughed. Andy hurried out back to avoid having to cross the street directly in front of the house.
“We’d better get outside and set up a perimeter,” Diane said to Jack. “Lee, you wanna stay in here and protect the evidence—and make sure Glover didn’t leave any explosive surprises? Okay?”
She tossed him the flashlight—for cover purposes only. He was the only one of them who could safely check out the entire house at 2:00 in the morning with the lights out.
Diane led the way out, followed by Jack. Lee glanced at Glover, who was still dead, and decided to return to the living room for a rug or throw to cover the body. Through the open door and shattered front window, Lee saw Jack and Diane meeting eight or nine civilians, most in obviously thrown-on clothes. Three of the men, including Mr. Weiner, were carrying rifles, but they were holding them casually, not presenting a threat.
“Glover. Did you get him?” Mr. Weiner shouted to Jack.
Jack turned to Diane. “He’s dead,” she answered immediately.
“Good,” Weiner said, nodding.
Mrs. Weiner started clapping and immediately the other neighbors joined in.
Lee, still carrying the gym bag, did a quick run through the house, looking for an obvious bomb, a booby-trapped weapon, or something equally dangerous. Ending up back at the kitchen, he saw Richie turning off the gas with a wrench and remembered thinking about covering Glover’s body. He looked in the laundry basket and found a satin designer sheet in a deep cranberry color. That would do.
Two hours later, Diane and Lee were seated at the kitchen table with SAC Logan and Captain Terry, Lee’s boss. Across the room, Hal and Richie were close to breaking into Glover’s website. When successful, it would corroborate the blackmail material they were already screening on the big laptop Diane was operating.
The CD, one of several taken from the gym bag Lee had liberated, was paused on the image of a local judge and a young man not her husband. Glover had been thorough enough to provide names and a crude audio narrative of the action, using a altered computer-generated voice that mimicked a popular TV newscaster. At least he’d had a sense of humor, Lee thought.
“Well, with these images, copies of documents from the gym bag, and the recorded conversations of the payoffs, we’ll have enough to begin the investigations of … how many is it now?” SAC Logan asked, looking over at the notes Captain Terry was taking.
“Harmon, the late deputy sheriff, two FAC developers, a county commissioner, the real-estate broker, the owner of that Buffalo tavern, two other businessmen, and the gunsmith at that shop in Albuquerque. That’s probably where he got the AP rounds and the bullet-resistant vest,” Diane said.
She looked at Lee, realizing she’d given out too much information. The only time Glover had actually used those AP rounds was when he’d shot Lee a few days back with the .45 pistol. That incident wouldn’t go into any of the reports, of course.
“Agent Lopez?” Hal called from across the room. “Excuse me, but there’s an e-mail you’re going to want to see.”
Diane walked over, looked at the screen, then asked for a printout. She returned to the table immediately. “Good news. All we need is a warrant and the Web site owner will give us legal access to all of Glover’s Internet files.”
SAC Logan nodded. “I’ll take care of this first thing in the morning. With what we have on these discs already, there’s no sense in walking up a judge. Agreed?”
The others nodded.
“I’ll be interested in reading the statements neighbors and other locals will be giving us,” Lee said. “Once they realize that Glover won’t be able to touch them now, I’ll bet everyone and their brother will come forward with information.”
“There’s no doubt Glover was a master at finding people’s weaknesses and exploiting them,” Captain Terry said. “And those he couldn’t blackmail he bullied. Locals would call the sheriff’s department, but things would only get worse for them if Deputy Harmon showed up. The few times Glover was arrested, his judge or political contacts would make sure he got off. Glover had a network going here, and now we have enough information to take all of these people down, too, or at least neutralize them.”
“Then there’s Sully,” Diane added. “Even dead, he can open new doors for us. We need officers to go over every piece of property he owned and check his computer for his supposed ‘kiddie porn’ customers. Both our agencies are working on that, right?”
Logan nodded. “And APD. Officer Moore’s commander is putting her on the team the Albuquerque department is adding. The county sheriff wants in, too. Apparently, he’d already suspected that Deputy Harmon was on the take and dealing drugs on the side. One of Harmon’s relatives owns the place where Glover was stashing his drugs, so there’s another possibility that needs to be explored. The sheriff’s embarrassed and angry that we were the ones who broke the case, so heads will be rolling.”
The four officers sat there for a few more minutes, no one saying anything. Finally Logan stood. “People. I’m going to check on the crime scene work, then call it a night. I recommend you all do the same. We’ve got to follow up in the morning.”
Captain Terry nodded. “I’d better run by the mess Hawk and Lopez made on the highway. The county is pressing to get a look at the two shooting scenes and the wreckage of their unit. If the wind had been up, that burning cruiser might have started a forest fire.”
“I’m thinking of dropping by the hospital and looking in on Felix—Officer Rodriguez,” Lee said. “He’s out of surgery?”
Terry nodded. “In recovery. His wife and daughter are there now.”
Diane moved over to Richie and Hal. “When you guys leave, lock up, okay? I’m going with Officer Hawk to the hospital.”
Ten minutes later, Lee and Diane were alone in the SUV, driving down the winding highway north toward the interstate. They rode in silence for a while, then finally Diane spoke. “That forest service helicopter and the water, good idea, Lee. The ground shook so much it raised some dust in the tunnel. I thought maybe Glover had set off a bomb.”
“Yeah? Guess it’s a good thing the crew refused to do what I really wanted.”
“What was that? Land on the roof?”
“Worse. I asked them to drop the water and the bucket. The water balloon from hell.”
Diane nodded. “That it would have been.”
Several more minutes went by and finally they reached the interstate. Taking the westbound ramp, they were soon driving toward the city. In the distance they could see the glow of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande Valley.
“Glad this is pretty much over?” Lee whispered.
“Very. I never thought I’d want to get into my conservative Bureau slacks and blouse again, but this slutty look and bimbo hair gets old in a hurry. But we did all right, Lee. Glover, Sully, and the others who’ve corrupted themselves are either gone now or are on their way out.”
Lee nodded. “Think we’ve made a difference?”
“To this community, yes. Together, we make a great team.”
“I like that word, lady.”
“‘Team’?”
“No, ‘together.’” He reached over and grabbed her hand, not letting go until they reached the hospital.
ALSO BY AIMEE AND DAVID THURLO
ELLA CLAH NOVELS
Blackening Song
Death Walker
Bad Medicine
Enemy Way
Shooting Chant
Red Mesa
Changing Woman
Tracking Bear
Wind Spirit
White Thunder
Mourning Dove
LEE NEZ NOVELS
Second Sunrise
Blood Retribution
Pale Death
Surrogate Evil
SISTER AGATHA NOVELS
Bad Faith
Thief in Retreat
Prey for a Miracle
Plant Them Deep
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
SURROGATE EVIL
Copyright © 2006 by David and Aimée Thurlo
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781466815704
First eBook Edition : March 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thurlo, David.
Surrogate evil : a Lee Nez novel / David & Aimée Thurlo.—1st hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN-13: 978-0-765-31615-8
ISBN-10: 0-765-31615-3
1. Nez, Lee (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Government investigators—Fiction. 3. Vampires—Fiction. 4. Criminals—Fiction. 5. New Mexico—Fiction. I. Thurlo, Aimée. II. Title.
PS3570.H825S87 2006
813’.54—dc22
2006006687
First Edition: December 2006
Aimée Thurlo, Surrogate Evil
