Trial By Fire

Ali nodded. Setting a trap to catch the guy at the intersection sounded good as far as it went, but it wasn’t nearly good enough. If the guy’s vehicle was stopped on the way back out to the highway, that would most likely mean whatever was going to happen to Sister Anselm would have already happened.

Too little, too late, Ali thought.

The e-mail alert sounded on Ali’s computer. Another new e-mail from Sister Anselm’s address had appeared in her mailbox. When she opened it, Ali’s heart fell. The speedometer read zero miles per hour.

“They’ve stopped,” she said. “The pin puts their latest position a couple of miles or so beyond the intersection.”

“Crap!” Robson muttered. He turned to the pilot. “You keep flying,” he said. “Can you tell me how to key in this last set of coordinates? If he dumps her there, that’s the only way we’re going to find her.”

Ali didn’t need to ask what would precede the dumping. Agent Robson knew, and so did she.

Robson held out his hand, and Ali passed the ATF agent her computer without a word of objection.

For the time being at least, Ali Reynolds and Gary Robson were both on the same side.

CHAPTER 16

The helicopter sped swiftly over a harsh desert landscape-spines of rocky ridges spiked with saguaro and dotted with low-lying grayish-green shrubs. Ali stared out of the aircraft’s glass windshield at the seemingly empty desert, hoping for a glimpse of blacktop or even a sliver of dirt road-something with a moving vehicle on it that would let her know they were getting closer. Something that would give her hope that they weren’t already too late.

A radio transmission laced with static came through the earphones. Ali didn’t hear what was coming through the radio, but she did understand the string of obscenity-laced invective that spewed out of Gary Robson’s mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Ali asked.

“That was the DPS. A car moving westward started down the road toward the state patrolman who had his car parked along with the spike strips. When the driver saw that the road was blocked, he pulled a U-turn and raced back in the other direction.”

“As you already mentioned, there’s only one way in and one way out,” Ali said. “At least that’s how it looks on the map.”

“Let’s hope so. A Gila County deputy is due on the scene in another five minutes. He’ll probably get there at about the same time we do, or maybe a little before. The deputy is driving an SUV that’ll be better suited to that kind of road than an ordinary DPS patrol car. The deputy will go after the guy, and so will we.”

“Did he see what kind of vehicle?”

“It was too far away. An American sedan of some kind. That’s good for us. If the road’s as bad as I think it is, that should slow him down. With any kind of luck, we’ll be able to lead that deputy right to him.”

Ali thought of how many high-speed pursuits she had reported on during her days as a newscaster in L.A., always with the voice of the eye-in-the-sky helicopter providing the narrative. They had often lasted for hours-endless hours of stultifying boredom, punctuated by appalling crashes and spectacular spinouts, with a dozen police cars converging on the resulting wreckage. But this lonely stretch of desert wasn’t a place where dozens of police cars could be summoned as backup.

Whatever happens will be up to us and that one deputy, she thought.

“If it comes down to him or us,” Ali told Robson, “I’m carrying a Glock and I know how to use it.”

Robson gave her an appraising look. “Don’t go all A

And I thought you were strictly a jerk, she thought, but that wasn’t what she said.

“I’m wearing a vest. I’m a decent shot, and beggars can’t be choosers. I have a feeling you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“Shooting someone’s no joking matter,” he said. “Target shooting is one thing. Shooting another human being is the very last resort.”

“I know firsthand about that,” she said.

Maybe there was something in her answer that told him she had done that, just as he had, too. When he finally figured that out on his own, he grimaced and gave her a grudging nod.

“All right,” he said, “but not unless I say so, as in giving you a direct order, and not if we don’t need the help.”

Ali nodded back.

“I understand,” she said. “Believe me,” she told him, “Sheriff Maxwell will be furious if I end up being a part of a shooting incident outside the boundaries of Yavapai County. He specifically asked me to avoid that.”

Fortunately Robson didn’t ask where she carried her Glock. The discreet small-of-the-back holster she wore under her tracksuit was none of the ATF agent’s business.

After that, Robson fell silent for several minutes while he stared at the ground. “There,” he said pointing. “I see the road.”

Ali looked where he was pointing, and she could see it, too-a silver ribbon of highway winding through an otherwise brown and green landscape. Soon she could see the other road, too, a dirt track leading off into the wilderness from the paved highway.

“The deputy just got there,” Robson a

Obligingly, the pilot took the helicopter up.

“There,” Ali said. “That plume of dust has to be him.”

Nodding, Robson went back to speaking to the people on the ground. “It’s looks as though he’s a mile or two away, driving hell-bent for leather.”

Moments later, Ali could see a green older-model car tearing up the road and spewing up a trailing cloud of dust.

“It’s an old Ford Gran Torino,” Robson said into the radio. “A muscle car, but that’s not going to help him on this road. It looks rough. Something’s going to break on that old crate and he’ll be stuck.”

Suddenly, as though Robson’s words carried the power of psychokinesis, the fleeing vehicle stopped abruptly, slewing off to one side as though something really had broken.

“Tie rod, I’ll bet,” Agent Robson diagnosed. “That guy’s not going anywhere.”

But as they watched, a tiny man scrambled out of the vehicle and trotted back to the left rear wheel, where he squatted down to assess the damage. Then, hearing the clatter of approaching helicopter blades, he shaded his eyes with one hand and stared up at them. With barely a pause, he leaped to his feet, flung open the back door, and grabbed something from inside the vehicle. Only when he aimed the weapon at them did the people in the helicopter realize what he was doing.

“Holy shit!” Robson exclaimed. “That crazy bastard’s got a rifle. He’s shooting at us. Take us up! Take us up!”

The highly motivated pilot required no urging. They were rising straight up with stomach-churning speed before the words were out of Robson’s mouth.

Ali didn’t have to hear the sound of the shots to know they had been fired upon or to know the degree of menace involved. The man on the ground was desperate. He had no intention of being taken alive. He was armed and dangerous and prepared to fight to the death.

“Shots fired; shots fired,” Robson reported over the radio. “Looks like a rifle of some kind,” he said to the pilot. “We need to stay out of range.”

“Tell me about it,” the pilot said furiously. “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?”

Ali was thinking about her Glock. If the guy was armed with a rifle, that meant her Glock wouldn’t be much help, and neither would whatever concealed weapon Agent Robson was carrying. No doubt he was armed with a handgun, maybe even two, but up against a rifle they would be seriously outgu