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In the harshly illuminated parking lot, dozens of reporters straightened as the barracks door opened. The lights from within silhouetted Garth, who stepped from the building and walked toward them. The weather had shifted, cold enough to bring frost from his mouth. Garth had no idea how the media had gotten word of the attack so quickly. If one of his officers was responsible, he swore to find out who it was and give him the worst duties imaginable. Since Jackson didn't have a TV station or a large newspaper, most of the men and women converging on him must have come from Idaho Falls (a drive-able 180 miles away) or from Casper, Laramie, and Cheye
"Is it true that six men were shot--"
"Ranch thirty miles north of--"
"Explosion destroyed--"
"Sniper--"
"Helicopter--"
"Okay, all right." Garth gestured for quiet. "If all of you talk at once, I can't hear your questions." The television lights glared at him, hurting his eyes. "I have a brief statement. At four-thirty this afternoon--"
Suddenly, the front door to the barracks banged open. As Garth turned, he saw a trooper hurrying toward him, a concerned look on his face.
"What's the matter?" Garth asked.
Cameras flashed as the trooper motioned Garth away from the reporters and spoke in urgent hushed tones.
Garth spun toward the reporters. "This'll have to wait. There's been a--"
"Captain!" a trooper yelled from the front door.
A siren wailed in the fenced-off parking area behind the barracks. Roof lights flashing, a highway patrol car rounded the building and skirted the reporters. An officer was silhouetted in the front seat as the car reached the main road and sped north toward Jackson, disappearing around a curve in this sparsely populated section of the valley. Moments later, a second patrol car followed, lights flashing, siren wailing.
Some of the reporters raced for their cars.
Or possibly they aren't reporters, Garth thought.
Others stayed, demanding to know what was going on.
"Tell us what happened this afternoon!"
"Are these incidents co
Headlights blazing, a state police van hurried past, reached the road, and followed the three civilian cars that chased the cruisers.
Chapter 6.
Opening and closing his knife, the man who'd shot the sniper watched from a road on a bluff across from the police barracks. He was forty years old, tall and lean, with an etched face. His powerful forearms resulted from years of pounding a hammer onto an anvil, forging blades. He used various names. Currently, his devotion to knives had prompted him to choose the alias of Bowie. Sitting in his car, he used a night-vision magnifier that wasn't affected by the stark contrasts of light and darkness in the parking lot a quarter mile from him. While he listened to the sirens, he studied the sequence of vehicles speeding away: the first cruiser, the second cruiser, the three civilian cars, then the police van.
Damned smart, Bowie thought.
He spoke into a two-way radio. "It's a shell game. The target's in one of the police vehicles. The question is which."
A voice from one of the pursuing civilian cars said, "I vote for the van."
"Or maybe the target's still in the barracks," Bowie replied. "Maybe those police vehicles are decoys. We don't have enough perso
"Wait!" the voice blurted. "Ahead of us. One of the police cars is pulling to the side of the road."
"For God's sake, don't stop," Bowie ordered.
"But we need to act like real reporters. Real reporters would stop."
"That's what they want you to do. You'd be caught between the cruiser that stopped and the van behind you. Meanwhile, the first cruiser would get away. That must be where the target's hiding."
"Okay," the voice said five seconds later, "I didn't stop. In my rearview mirror, I see the other cars--the reporters who left with us--they're stopping. Shit. The cruiser ahead of us. It's stopping!"
"Drive past it!"
"It's turning sideways! It's blocking the road!"
Chapter 7.
Cavanaugh crouched out of sight in the police car's back seat. Feeling the state trooper expertly skid the cruiser sideways to block the road, Cavanaugh braced himself and reminded the driver, "Leave room for them to drive around!"
There was always the chance that actual reporters were in the pursuing car. On a hunch, the reporters might have decided to ignore the patrol car that stopped and to follow the one in the lead. If so, with the road blocked, the driver of the pursuing car would now stop and demand to know what was going on. But members of the assault team would want to get away.
Hurrying from the cruiser, Cavanaugh and the policeman took cover behind the engine, the only place in an unarmored vehicle that would stop a bullet. The pursuing car took advantage of the space the patrolman had left and veered toward the shoulder, passing the cruiser's back fender, throwing up dust. As it sped farther down the road, Cavanaugh aimed a powerful flashlight, centering the beam on the license plate.
"Got it!" He shouted the numbers and letters to the trooper who repeated them into a radio microphone attached to his collar.
The second cruiser arrived, and Jamie hurried from her hiding place in the back seat. Meanwhile, Cavanaugh's driver chased the escaping car, his siren wailing.
A moment later, the van arrived. William got out.
"It worked," Jamie told Cavanaugh.
"Not just yet." As the other cruiser joined the chase, Cavanaugh walked along the road, in the direction from which he'd come. The trooper who'd driven the van followed him, accompanied by Jamie and William. Cavanaugh turned left toward a dark lane that led into a gravel pit. He aimed the flashlight and saw a shadowy pickup truck parked between mounds of earth. In case there'd been a gunfight, the occupants would have been out of the line of fire. Even so, they'd obeyed instructions and taken cover behind the truck's engine.
"Mrs. Patterson? Kyle?" As Cavanaugh shone the light, keeping it away from eye level, he saw two people rise from behind the truck.
"More excitement," Mrs. Patterson said. "I don't know how my husband ever put up with it." But something in her voice suggested that some aspects of the excitement were enjoyable, that she now understood why her husband had liked being a police officer.