Winterkill - C. J. Box [122]
Joe turned his back to her.
“What hostage?” Joe asked.
Munker’s voice was a whisper. Joe assumed Munker had it pressed against his lips to muffle his voice even further. “She’s the wife of that crazy minister in Saddlestring. Mrs. Cobb. I can see her in the trailer.”
Instantly, Joe understood, and his blood ran cold. He understood why Eunice Cobb hadn’t been with B.J. in the morning. He understood “My Love.” He understood where the Cobbs’ missing snowmobile had gone. She had come to the compound the night before to warn them in person after Joe’s visit, rather than e-mail. Maybe she had come up to assure the Sovereigns that they shouldn’t harbor Spud. For whatever reason—the increasing storm, or the fact that a convoy of law-enforcement personnel were coming up the road—she’d been forced to stay the night. She was probably in Brockius’s trailer when I came to the camp, he thought. She was the reason Brockius didn’t invite me in.
“How do you know she’s a hostage?” Joe asked. “How do you know she isn’t just visiting?”
“You’re one stupid motherfucker,” Munker replied in his deep cigarette-coated voice.
“Give me that!” Melinda Strickland said, reaching around Joe and snatching the radio from his hand. She settled back into the rear of the Sno-Cat.
A hot, white veil of rage covered Joe’s eyes, and it was all he could do to keep from launching himself into the cab. He sucked in a deep gulp of cold air and falling snow, forcing himself to stay in control of his actions. When he looked up, Barnum was eyeing him, as if waiting to see what Joe would do next. Panic flooded Joe as he looked into the cab and saw that Melinda Strickland was clutching the radio tightly to her chest. There was no way he was going to get it back without breaking her fingers.
Joe turned to Barnum.
“She’s no hostage, for God’s sake. Mrs. Cobb and her husband have been in contact with these Sovereigns since the beginning. They’re all part of the black-helicopter crowd. It makes sense when you think about it.”
Barnum raised his eyebrows and shrugged in a “Who knows?” gesture.
“Barnum, you need to call your deputies off,” Joe said, glaring at Barnum’s passive face. “Pull them off and they can’t continue the raid.”
“Hell, Joe, I don’t even know which ones are mine and which ones ain’t,” Barnum said, staring back. “They all look alike to me out here.”
Joe was too surprised to move for a moment.
“Besides,” Barnum said, reaching for the handle of the door, “It’ll be interesting to see how this thing plays out.”
Barnum slammed the door shut before Joe could stop him and he heard the lock click. He couldn’t fathom what was happening. He stood outside the cab of the Sno-Cat, furious, and depressingly alone.
THINK.
Joe was beside himself. No matter what he did, it wasn’t enough. He had never been in a situation that seemed so . . . inevitable.
A sudden scratch of static ruptured the silence that had reclaimed the scene after Joe’s outburst. Joe could hear the radio clearly through an open window in the Sno-Cat that had been cracked an inch to prevent the glass from steaming up inside.
“I can see Wade Brockius through the window of a trailer,” Munker reported over the radio. “He’s pacing.”
“Can you see the hostage?” Strickland asked.
“Not for the last few minutes.”
“If you took him out, could we rush the trailer and save her?”
“No. There are too many damned Sovereigns hidden in the trees.”
Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been slumped against the outside of the command Sno-Cat, but he now stood up. He rubbed his face hard. He didn’t know the procedure for a hostage situation—they didn’t teach that to game wardens—but he knew this wasn’t it. This was madness.
He reached into his suit and found his compact binoculars. Moving away from the Sno-Cat, he scanned the compound. The nose of Brockius’s trailer faced the road. Through the thin curtains, he could see Brockius just as Munker had described.
Then he saw someone else.
Jeannie Keeley was now at the window, pulling the curtain aside to look out. Her face looked tense, and angry.