Fallout

CHAPTER 30

“How did Craig ever find this place in the dark?” said Goldfarb from the passenger seat as Jackson turned off at Antelope Trail. “It’s a wonder the place hasn’t been condemned.”

The rental car bounced on the ruts in the dirt driveway, and Goldfarb winced, cradling his newly bandaged hand. The broken little finger seemed more a wound to his pride than a serious injury.

“People out here like to do things their own way, I suppose,” Jackson replied, pulling the car to a stop. A Nye County Sheriff’s car was already parked in front of the trailer. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

“I’m glad somebody’s on the ball. We were a bit late picking up our own search warrant.” He climbed out of the car, frowning at the dilapidated fence, the clutter in the yard, the rundown appearance of the homestead. “I can’t believe Craig came out here alone at night, especially after what happened to us at Connors’s house.”

Jackson slammed his car door, carefully stuffing the keys in his pocket. “At the time Craig had no reason to suspect the militia was involved in his murder case.”

Goldfarb shaded his eyes to stare at the makeshift firing range in Jorgenson’s back yard. “The guy was a serious sportsman. From the looks of the holes in those targets, he used bigger ammunition than .22 caliber. What do you want to bet we’ll find some automatic weapon cartridges?”

“I don’t bet,” Jackson said, standing next to the shorter agent. “Especially in Las Vegas.”

They walked up to the trailer entrance, which had been draped with yellow POLICE LINE tape. Goldfarb straightened his tie, scanning the area. Jackson strolled around back, studying the exterior of the trailer.

Goldfarb knocked at the half-open front door and called loudly. “Hello? This is the FBI, with a search warrant. Anybody home?” He didn’t want to surprise the local law enforcement officers, especially if they were the “Ready, Fire, Aim” type.

After an uncomfortably long pause, a muffled voice came from inside. “In back. Come on in — just don’t touch anything.”

Goldfarb stepped inside and peered around in disgust at Jorgenson’s sloppy quarters. Of course, he himself had been a bachelor once, but Julene had cured him of those habits. In the cramped living room, magazines lay strewn on the floor next to an easy chair — American Rifleman, Soldier of Fortune. A bowl of pretzels sat in the kitchen, a pile of dirty clothes thrown next to an empty laundry basket with one white sock dangling over the top. The unmistakable odor of disinfectant filled the trailer.

“Back here,” came a man’s voice down the hallway. It sounded familiar somehow.…

Hanging from the walls were pictures of men standing in groups, around a table at a restaurant, in front of an NTS drilling bit as big as a house. As Goldfarb glanced at the photos, he noticed no family pictures, no children, no women, no parents, not even a photo of Carl Jorgenson himself.

The bathroom door stood halfway open. The naked lightbulb splashed yellow-white light on the linoleum, where Craig had found the forklift driver’s body late last night. Goldfarb slipped his badge from his jacket and rapped lightly on the door. “Hello? Are you the sheriff? I’m Ben Goldfarb, FBI.”

“Agent Goldfarb — how ya doing?” A gruff voice came from behind the door, and the smell of disinfectant came strongly from the tiny room. Was the guy cleaning the toilet with a toothbrush? “Anyone else out there besides you?”

“What’s going on?” Goldfarb pushed against the door, but the sheriff must have been standing right behind it. “You shouldn’t be altering a possible crime scene —”

A sharp click echoed down the hall, the unmistakable sound of a cartridge being chambered in a rifle. Goldfarb whirled to see a long steel barrel poking out of the single bedroom down the hall.

His system instantly went into overdrive. He slammed forward into the bathroom door, while reaching under his jacket for his shoulder harness. “Jackson — they’re armed!”

He heard an “oof” from within the cramped bathroom as he drove the door into the man inside. A crack of gunfire erupted down the hall; a bullet splintered the flimsy paneling of the trailer walls.

Goldfarb tried to push his way into the meager shelter of the bathroom, trapping the other man inside. The door smashed the stranger between the sink vanity and the wall. The trapped man cried out in pain.

“Drop your weapons! Federal agents!” Jackson yelled from the trailer’s cluttered living room as he charged through the screen patio door. A spray of bullets thudded against the far trailer wall as Jackson dashed back outside to cover.

Pressing his only advantage, Goldfarb kept pushing against the door, grinding the other man inside as he tried to squeeze himself out of the line of fire. His feet slipped on the bathroom linoleum, partially inside, hidden from the sniper in the bedroom.

He heard the sound of glass breaking from down the hall. Goldfarb heard a crash and more gunshots. Jackson’s voice was loud but in cool control. “Drop it, now! You heard me — surrender your weapon!” He must have run around the side of the old trailer and broken the sliding glass door into the bedroom.

The shooting stopped, but the man Goldfarb had trapped still struggled to get free, spewing a string of curses laced with anger and pain. Goldfarb finally got his head inside the door to peer down at a broad-shouldered man with close-cropped dark hair and a swarthy complexion, showing the heavy shadow of beard stubble.

“Why, Mr. Bryce Connors! How good it is to see you again!” Goldfarb smiled. “I see you’ve given up hanging out in libraries to take up a new career as a house cleaner.”

Using his weight, Goldfarb smashed against the bathroom door, jamming Connors inside against the sink and wall. “Oww! You’re breaking my ribs!”

Jamming his handgun into the back of his prisoner, Jackson marched out of the bedroom. The sniper was a thin, leather-faced man with a crewcut. He wore the outfit of a deputy sheriff. His eyes were small, dark, and darting in panic.

As Jackson and the sniper clumped down the hallway, their heavy shoes caused the flimsy trailer to reverberate. “You all right?” Jackson asked Goldfarb, looking from side to side.

“I’m just dandy,” he said. “I believe the other prisoner’s secure. I’d like you to meet Mr. Connors, up close and personal.”

He drew his handgun from the shoulder holster and squeezed into the tiny bathroom. But Connors crumpled over in pain and nausea, caught between the sink and the bathroom door, where a corner of the vanity had pushed into his testicles. His face had been pressed like a vise against the medicine cabinet that jutted from the wall. His can of disinfectant spray lay next to three blue rags on the floor. The place had been thoroughly scrubbed — not only of dirt, but of fingerprints, bloodstains, or any other evidence.

“Looks like somebody’s been doing a clean-up job,” Jackson said, still keeping his weapon on the dark-haired gunman.

“Not the kind of work I’d expect a deputy to be doing at a crime scene,” Goldfarb said. “We’d better get the sheriff on the line.”

When Goldfarb released the door, Bryce Connors slumped to the linoleum floor. He closed his eyes as his face contorted in a grimace. He cradled his genitals, but offered no resistance as Goldfarb cuffed him. Then, while Jackson held the handgun on the sniper, Goldfarb used the handcuffs on the man in the deputy’s uniform.

Goldfarb pulled a wallet from the man’s back pocket. “Deputy Sheriff Mahon. Hey, Jackson, I bet if you look closely enough, you’ll spot his ugly mug in one of Jorgenson’s photos on the wall.”

Jackson turned the sniper around. “Let’s make a phone call. The real sheriff should be interested to know one of his deputies is engaged in extra-curricular activities.”

With the two handcuffed men lying on the living room floor, Goldfarb frisked them for other identification. Unfortunately, from his tense conversation with Bryce Connors yesterday, Goldfarb suspected that the militia bomber did not know exactly what the Eagle’s Claw intended to do on October 24. But he supposed they would enjoy interrogating him anyway.

Jackson came down the hall, where he had found a box of materials the sniper had been trying to remove from behind a false wall in the bedroom closet. “Look at this.”

Goldfarb glanced at one of the self-published pamphlets, all bearing the image of an eagle with an upraised claw. “Don’t you just hate junk mail?”