Winterkill - C. J. Box [119]
Despite the icy wind in his face that made his eyes water and blurred his vision, Joe’s mind raced.
He thought about the words on Cobb’s computer screen: THEY’VE ESTABLISHED A PERIMETER. HELP US, MY LOVE. “My love”? Cobb had said he admired Brockius, but . . .
Joe shook it out of his mind. At this point he wasn’t sure that it mattered. Maybe later, once April was safe. There was no time now.
If he could somehow buy an hour back, he thought, he would pay anything.
Spud’s driver’s license should do it, he thought. The ear definitely would, as unorthodox as it was. Even if Munker and Strickland didn’t back off, surely Sheriff Barnum would move to retreat or delay the assault, wouldn’t he? Not because he cared a whit about the Sovereigns, but because Barnum was politically sensitive and the next sheriff’s election was a year away. Barnum didn’t have as much invested in this thing as Strickland and Munker did. Barnum could come out looking good by putting his foot down, stopping the assault by pulling his deputies out of it. That was how Barnum operated, after all. He wanted to look good. Robey! Maybe Robey was up there, Joe hoped. Robey could shut things down in a hurry and threaten action against Melinda Strickland and Munker if they didn’t back off. Although Strickland didn’t care much about the law, she might listen if Robey convinced Barnum to pull his men out.
He hadn’t really thought through what Romanowski had told him about Melinda Strickland and Dick Munker, but he knew they spelled trouble. The thought of Melinda Strickland sitting, as Tony Portenson had described her, bundled in blankets and cuddling her dog as she ordered her minions to ascend the mountain, made him coldly angry.
Because he wasn’t paying attention, he almost missed a turn; he would have been launched over a bank into a deep slough. But he corrected himself at the last moment and leaned into the track of the road.
Think of something else, he pleaded to himself. Something better.
So he tried to imagine how he would feel coming back down this road in a little while with April bundled up in his lap. Under his helmet, he smiled. And he vowed to make that scenario real.
A man on a snowmobile blocked the road that led to the compound, and Joe figured he’d probably heard him coming from miles away. The man wore a heavy black snowmobile suit and had an assault rifle clamped under his arm, and he waved his hand for Joe to stop. Joe slowed—his broken rib and the muscles in his back were screaming from riding so hard and so fast—and he unbent from his forward lean while the snowmobile wound down. Joe stopped a few feet in front of the man. Early-morning light filtered through the canopy of pine trees but was absorbed by the heavy snowfall, giving the morning a creamy gray cast.
“Turn it off,” the man ordered, nodding at Joe’s snowmobile, which sizzled and popped as it idled.
Joe ignored him and raised the shield on his helmet with a squeak that broke a film of ice from the hinges. Joe’s breath billowed in the cold from the exertion of the ride.
“Oh, it’s you,” the man said. “I recognize you from the meeting at the Forest Service.”
“Are they up there?” Joe asked anxiously.
The man nodded. Joe recognized him as Saddlestring police, but didn’t know his name.
“Anything happening yet?”
“I haven’t heard anything. No shots fired,” the officer said. “Our radios are off, so I don’t know if they’re negotiating or what.”
Joe exhaled deeply. Thank God, he thought, I’m not too late. “I’ve got an emergency message for Sheriff Barnum.”
“I can’t let you in,” the officer said.
“I said it was an emergency, deputy.” Joe’s voice took on a mean edge that he didn’t recognize. “No one has been able to reach him because all the radios are turned off.”
The officer hesitated. “I can’t exactly call ahead and ask about this.”
“No, you can’t,” Joe said.