Crime Machine

37

OPP SERGEANT TYLER ADAMS used his right-hand tactical glove to pull back his sleeve and check his field watch. He was on the ground in a specialized assault vehicle along with five members of a Tactics and Rescue Unit, three guys and two females. They were as fit as a SWAT team could be, as highly trained. All of them were expert in special weaponry, explosives and marksmanship.

They were crammed into the Forced Entry and Rescue truck, parked in a field behind a barn off Highway 124, waiting for the chopper that would carry the other half of the team. The FEAR truck is a highly modified Hummer that can drive through pretty much anything. It features a hydraulic lift system that is useful for surprising an enemy by ignoring the ground floor and inserting personnel directly into an upstairs bedroom.

The team were double-checking their weapons and supplies, the flashbang and Stinger grenades, the nine- and ten-millimetre Heckler & Koch submachine guns along with the sniper rifles, and a bulky infrared motion sensor that filled up most of the interior. Adams checked his watch again. The chopper was due in three minutes.

Information was thin. A man in his fifties, armed to the teeth, had taken over the Magnet-One Ranch three miles up the road, one of the bigger mink-farming outfits in the province. Husband away at the auction in Algonquin Bay, wife and kids possible hostages. According to the 911 call from a terrified ranch hand, the guy was claiming credit for chopping heads in Algonquin Bay.

Adams was new to the position as commander of the TRU team. The last commander, Glenn Freitag, had successfully taken down many highly defended grow ops and defused his share of nasty hostage situations, but his last deployment was to take back a park that had been commandeered by militant Mohawks, and it had gone terribly wrong. A couple of Indians were shot dead and Freitag was reassigned and off the force long before the SIU and all the public inquiries had finished digesting it.

A SWAT team is not for show, Adams thought. It’s a loaded weapon and you don’t draw it out of the holster unless you’re serious.

He heard the whup-whup-whup of rotors and stepped out of the truck. He had to squint, his eyes dazzled by sunlight on snow. The Eurocopter TwinStar came over the trees, scarlet against an indigo sky, low enough for its twin engines to kick ground snow into Adams’s face. His number two’s voice came over the radio, crystal clear on the new FleetNet frequency. “So what happened to the blizzard?”

“We shipped it to Algonquin Bay. They responded by sending us a total wacko.”

“Nice. We’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll in here, just tell us where you want us.”

Cardinal and Delorme were only a couple of hundred yards into the bush, but already you would never have known there was a highway nearby. The snow was mid-shin level, just high enough to get into their boots. Cardinal pointed to the west where a line of hydro poles stretched over a slight rise in the terrain. “Keep those as a landmark. Even if we get totally disoriented, we can follow them home.”

“I plan to stay oriented, thanks.”

They walked on, enveloped in the deep hush of snowfall, the only sounds the nylon of their parkas rubbing against itself, the occasional muffled snap of a twig, and the huff of their breathing.

They passed a dilapidated shack on their left, all but hidden among the trees. In summer it would have been invisible.

“Trapper’s cabin,” Cardinal said. “Totally illegal, no doubt.”

For a while the wind was somewhat baffled by the woods, the odd breeze causing a sudden vortex of snow. But soon it came in earnest and drove the snow into their faces. Cardinal could no longer hear their steps, or Delorme’s breathing, only his own.

They stopped and listened. Cardinal called out—once, twice—and they waited for an answering cry, but none came.

“This is so not good,” Delorme said.

Cardinal pointed to the hydro wires, still faintly visible. A single heavy wire branched off. “That’ll be for Lloyd Kreeger’s place. Black Lake’s the only thing on the map around here.”

“Well, if those hunters are here, presumably they’ll figure that out too.” The fur trim of Delorme’s hood was entirely white, as were her eyebrows and eyelashes.

“I’m still not seeing any tracks. Not that they’ll last long in this. Let’s follow the wire. They could be further up ahead. If they’re not, we’ll stop at Kreeger’s and get warm and alert search and rescue. They’ll come out the minute this is over.”

Cardinal angled off to follow the direction of the new hydro line. The snow flew thick and wild. The hydro line was getting harder to make out.

Cardinal stopped and called out again. Even though the temperature was now well into the sub-zero zone, he was sweating. “Voice isn’t going to carry far in this. Are you up to keep moving? We could go back to the trapper’s shack, wait till visibility improves.”

“We must be pretty close to Kreeger’s, no?” Delorme’s white eyebrows looked like stage makeup. “I say keep going.”

She pressed on ahead of him.

Every few yards they had to pause and wait until the wind dropped or changed direction enough to allow a glimpse of the hydro wire. It too was covered with clinging snow. There was a broken birch up ahead, one large branch angling down to the ground. Cardinal made note of it, happy for anything that might be a landmark. He called out again. They waited. Heard nothing. Moved on.

The shriek when it came was so loud, so inhuman, that Cardinal did not immediately associate it with Delorme. She staggered and fell in front of him, but he thought that was in response to the scream. He scanned the forest, but the world around them was a grey-white nothing.

Delorme was writhing on the ground. She was screaming again, but suppressing it so that it came out as a desperate growling.

Cardinal went to her. The iron clamps of a bear trap were closed on her shin.

“Try to hold still,” he said.

Cardinal was no hunter. He had never even seen a bear trap up close. He brushed snow away. The thing looked ancient, a malevolent jaw of black iron.

Delorme was hyperventilating, growling through her teeth.

Cardinal searched for a release mechanism amid the springs and levers. He found a loop of metal and pulled on it. It was rusty, but finally the long pin came free. He pulled the clamps apart and Delorme fainted, her head lolling to one side. Cardinal gently felt her shin. The break was palpable through her jeans.

Her face had gone white. That would be shock, the blood retreating from the extremities. The unconsciousness was merciful, but she was more vulnerable in this condition to hypothermia and frostbite.

Cardinal sat on his heels and pulled Delorme into a seated position so that her head hung down over her outstretched legs. He rubbed at her wrists and slapped her face lightly to bring the blood back.

She came to and vomited, choking. Cardinal turned her on her side and she cried out and vomited again, coughing into the snow. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. Oh, fuck, it’s bad, John.”

“We’re going to have to get you back to the trapper’s shack. I could try to carry you.”

“No. That would hurt worse.”

“Can you get up on one leg?”

Delorme grabbed a handful of snow, reaching past the steaming vomit, and washed it over her face. She took another small handful into her mouth.

“Pull me up.”

Cardinal got to his feet. He took off his glove and reached down. Delorme took off her mitten and put it in her mouth and bit down on it. Their hands locked together.

“On three,” Cardinal said. “One. Two …” On three he pulled hard and Delorme raised herself on her good leg, growling through the leather mitten.

She swayed against him and Cardinal thought she was going to faint again, but she didn’t. They arranged themselves so that Delorme had one hand on Cardinal’s shoulder and he had an arm around her waist. Every time she had to take a step, he held her tight, taking her weight.

Their tracks were already nearly obliterated. It took them more than half an hour to cover ground that had taken ten minutes. Delorme had to pause after each step and take deep breaths. Blasts of wind hurled the snow into their eyes, obscuring all but the few feet in front of them. Panic began to crash through Cardinal’s bloodstream. Finally the cabin came into view, pillowed in snow. It was boarded up, padlocked.

“Do you want to lie down while I try and open this place?”

“If I lie down, I’ll just have to get up again.” She leaned against a tree. Cardinal pulled her hood forward and fastened the snaps.

He examined the padlock. It was not the biggest lock he had ever seen, but he had nothing to bash it with. There was nothing under the overhang except firewood. He unzipped his parka and took out his Beretta. The first shot dented the lock. The second broke it open.

The shack wasn’t much, two tiny rooms with two bunks in each, a wood stove in the middle. Cardinal left the door open so he could see, and helped Delorme inside and onto the closest bunk. He wanted to ease her broken leg onto the bed, but she wouldn’t let him. She lay there, barely conscious, wrapped in her parka.

Cardinal went back out and pulled some firewood from the middle of the pile. He found a small hatchet and used it to split one of the logs into kindling. He primed it with some charcoal starter, lit it and closed the stove door.

Blankets were piled up on one of the bunks. Cardinal spread one over Delorme. He found a Coleman lantern that still had fuel in it and got it going. The cabin was lighter, but with the door closed and the windows boarded up, it still looked like midnight.

“You want me to try and take your boots off?”

Delorme didn’t open her eyes. Her cheeks were wet with melting snow. Cardinal got a towel, almost clean, and wiped off her face. Shadows pulsed around him.

There was nothing to do now but wait out the storm. He lay down on the other bunk and, without intending to, fell asleep.

“John. John, wake up.”

It was warmer now. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep.

“John, wake up.”

He sat up and rubbed his face.

“I heard something.” Delorme spoke in an urgent whisper, as if someone might be listening. “Someone in trouble.”

Cardinal pulled on his boots.

The cry came again, muffled, all but lost in the wind.

“Must be close,” Cardinal said, “or we wouldn’t even hear it.”

Cardinal stepped out into the storm. Snow blew hard across the opening in his hood. He had no peripheral vision at all. He made his way back the way they had come as far as the broken birch. The cry came again. Cardinal strained to see through the snow. A dim flash of orange.

“Hold on there,” Cardinal called out. “Police.”

The figure came lurching toward him, yelling incoherently, a man in a hunter’s vest.

“It’s okay,” Cardinal said. “You’re okay. Police.”

“There’s a man. You have to help me. A man. He killed my brother. He killed him. He’s insane. He’s going to kill me too.” The man ran toward Cardinal, tripped and sprawled into the snow.

“Are you one of the Burwells?” Cardinal said.

“What?” The man was on his knees now, swaying, stunned. “Yes. Tony Burwell. Please, you have to help me. There’s a fucking lunatic out there. A bunch of them. They shot my brother. They tried to shoot me.”

“All right, you’re okay now.” Cardinal had drawn his Beretta, safety on. “Where’s this man?”

Burwell didn’t appear to hear him. He scrambled to his feet. “They took our wallets, they took our guns, they took everything. They killed my brother! Get me the fuck out of here!” The man broke into sobs. “Oh, Jesus …”

“It’s okay. You’re all right. There’s a cabin nearby.”

“Jesus, my brother. Fucking insane people out here.”

Cardinal led him to the cabin. The moment he opened the door, the man sank down in a corner and hugged his knees to his chest. “Shut the door, man. Shut the door. They’re gonna find us.”

“What happened?” Delorme said.

“Mr. Burwell was attacked, along with his brother. His brother’s dead.”

“You got to get me out of here,” Burwell said. He seemed unaware he was shouting. “I do not want to be here. Can’t you radio for a helicopter or something? I need to not be here.”

“There’s nothing flying in this weather. We’re just going to have to wait it out. Tell us how it happened.”

“Oh, God. We got lost. My brother and me. It was my fault. I was supposed to bring my GPS and I forgot—I just fucking forgot. We didn’t have a compass or nothing. Storm’s about to hit and we see a hydro wire. Follow it a ways until we come to this tiny lake. House on the far side. Like a real house, not a cabin. So we head for it and—Jesus, I still can’t fucking believe it—my brother ends up with his leg in a trap. Can you believe that? A fucking trap.”

“I can believe it,” Delorme said faintly.

“Go on,” Cardinal said.

“Oh, God.” The man squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, God. I panicked. I just totally panicked.” He turned pleading eyes to Cardinal. “He was screaming. My brother was screaming and I was trying to figure out the trap and I couldn’t. I mean, I’ve never even seen a trap like that.

“So I run to this house, screaming and yelling for help, and bang on their door. Guy answers. Big guy, maybe fifty, fifty-five, and he’s got a gun in his hand. That should have clued me in right there.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“A girl. Girl maybe thirteen.”

“Was she with him? Was she a hostage? What was the situation?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, man. My brother was in a fucking trap, I was in total panic mode. I just wanted someone to come and help.” Burwell squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into his knees. When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. “She called him Papa.”

“Papa.”

“Papa. ‘You want me to go, Papa?’ But he said no. He throws on a coat and comes with me.” He collapsed once more into sobs.

Cardinal found a bottle of whisky and poured some into a glass. He handed it to the man and he drank it down in one shot. He poured him another and offered some to Delorme, but she shook her head.

The man started to calm down. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to get hysterical.”

Cardinal went to the door and opened it a crack. “The storm’s easing off a little. I’m going over there.”

“Don’t do that. I can’t go back there! You can’t make me go back there!”

“You don’t have to.” Cardinal pointed to the other tiny room. “There’s another bunk in there. You’d better lie down. You’ve had a terrible shock.”

“Oh, man. Shock is not the word. I think I’m gonna go out of my mind.”

“So go lie down.”

The man went in to the other bunks and threw himself down on the bottom one.

“John,” Delorme said in a low voice, “you can’t go alone.”

“They won’t know I’m alone—and they won’t be expecting police anyway. They won’t be expecting anyone. Not in this weather. You’ll be all right with him.”

“I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about you.”

“They have an old man hostage. I have to at least take a look.”

“John, we have to call for backup.”

“They won’t come. Look, it’s one man and a girl. And they don’t know we’re out here.”

Once Cardinal had closed the door, the only sounds Delorme could hear were the hiss of the lamp, the wind outside and the occasional crackle from the stove.

From where she was lying, she couldn’t see into the darkened other room. She called out, “Are you okay?”

No answer. She lay listening, the pain in her leg a deep throb. The sounds of the wind and the stove reminded her of camping trips she had taken with her parents as a little girl. The guy in the other room began to snore.

After a time she realized she was hungry and very thirsty. There would be nothing to eat in this bare-bones shack, but there were a couple of large bottles of water on a shelf near the stove. Beside them, a box of Lipton tea.

She pushed herself into a sitting position and nearly passed out from the pain. She gripped the iron frame of the bunk and waited for it to settle back into its former throb. She pushed herself to a standing position, putting all her weight on her good leg and leaning against the wall. It wasn’t much worse than sitting down.

The stove and the water were a couple of hops away. The first hop got her as far as the door frame between the two tiny rooms. She gripped the frame, sucking air through her teeth.

The man was flat on his back, his mouth open slightly. He was not that old, maybe thirty, but his features bore the bruised look of the utterly exhausted. He still had his coat on, the orange hunting vest closed over it.

Delorme took three deep breaths and made the next hop. She nearly fell, and had to grab onto a wall stud. A sliver bit into her hand.

She reached for a water bottle and got it and twisted the cap off. She poured water into a saucepan and put it on the stove. There was a tremendous crack of thunder and there must have been lightning, but through the boarded-up windows nothing of the outside world could be seen.

Cardinal stopped to wipe snow from his eyes. There were ice pellets mixed with it now that stung as they hit his face, but visibility had improved. He could see the hydro wire again, much farther away than he had thought. His feet were wet and cold, and he wondered how long he would have before frostbite set in.

An odd shape materialized amid the diagonals of snow, about twenty yards off. Dark grey on light grey, hanging like an ink blot among the trees.

As Cardinal approached, he saw that it was human, a man dangling upside down, his hands hanging as if in surrender toward the forest floor. One of his legs was folded down, the other was held fast by a rope that stretched upward into the higher limbs. The body swayed and turned.

Cardinal gripped his Beretta. The man’s face, inverted, was at the same height as his own. Cardinal took hold of one of the arms to stop the swaying. The eyes were open, a black, gleaming hole in the forehead.

Off to Cardinal’s right, faint depressions in the snow led in the direction of the trapper’s shack. Impossible to tell if there had been one set of tracks or two. He turned back to his original direction. There was something orange on the ground—possibly the hanging man’s safety vest. Cardinal went to it and started brushing snow away.

It wasn’t just a vest. Cardinal reached under the shoulder and turned it over. The hat fell off, and snow slid from the features. Again a bullet wound between the eyes. Cardinal found a wallet buttoned in the man’s cargo pants. Tony Burwell. The similarities to the hanging man beside him were those of a sibling: same widow’s peak, same dirty blond hair, same slightly protuberant eyes, long upturned nose, small ears. Brothers.

Cardinal reached into his parka for his cellphone. Not there. He found it in his outside pocket—not good in this weather. He hit the speed-dial for Delorme’s number. He listened to it ring five, six, eight times. The tiny screen showed strong signal, weak battery. That would be the cold; he had charged it the previous night.

“Delorme.” Her voice was all but lost in static.

“What’s your guest doing? Can you talk?”

He didn’t get much of her reply. He thought he heard the word “sleep.” Cardinal spoke as quietly as possible. “Can you get outside? Signal’s breaking.”

The phone crackled. Delorme’s fractured voice: “hear you.”

He repeated his message. “The hunters—the Burwells—are both dead. They’re both dead. Murdered. Can you hear me? Get cuffs on him if you can. I’m heading right back.”

No response except the hiss of dead air.

He put the phone in his inside pocket. Maybe his body heat would revive the battery.

Snow was jammed in the tops of his boots. He knelt to tie a lace, and as he did so, a sudden burn on his ear. He heard the crack a second later. A powerful weapon, fired from some distance. The snow had dropped for the moment, improving visibility. Cardinal ducked behind a tree that was not big enough to cover his entire body.

The shot had come from somewhere between him and the trapper’s cabin. Gusts of wind kept changing the visibility. He thought he saw a hooded figure bent low and moving. He took aim and fired. Cardinal was a good shot in a controlled environment, but he had no confidence in his talents under these conditions. What are you going to do now? he asked himself. What’s your next brilliant plan?

He scanned the trees. Nothing moving but snow and sleet. A stump and a fallen tree about ten yards up the trail. If he could get past that, he might have enough cover to get back to Delorme. Keeping low, he moved back slowly, keeping the tree between him and where he thought the shooter was positioned. When he was close enough, he jumped across an open space and landed hard behind the stump.

Another round whizzed by. The crack of the shot. Closer. Making a run for the cabin—left or right made no difference—would put him in plain view.