In Desperation

68

Phoenix, Arizona

T hree Sheriffs’ SUVs cut a fast-moving line over the scrub, stretching toward the abandoned buildings of the airfield.

A hot wind lifted desert detritus with the dust clouds churning in their wake. Their wigwagging emergency lights underscored urgency. Deputy Pate was driving the lead car. FBI Agent Bonnie Larson was his passenger. As they arrived, Larson scanned the structures. No vehicles, people or indications of activity.

“Let’s start with the hangar. The doors are open,” Pate said into his shoulder microphone. “Chet and Marty, take the east entrance. We’ll take the west. Somers, Briscoe, take the back side.”

“Ten-four.”

Pate got his shotgun, Larson unholstered her Glock-27 and they positioned themselves on either side of the hangar’s west doors, which were open to a gap of some fifteen feet. Larson’s heart rate picked up and she started processing the situation.

One thing for sure: It was quiet.

Deathly quiet.

Before Hackett pulled away from Virginia Dortman’s property, he made a judgment call.

He had no grounds to detain Gannon and Cora, but he knew that after he’d invited them to identify Tilly’s shoe-evidence that she’d been present-they’d get to the airport, one way or another.

“I’ll lead you in. You follow me in your car. But you do as I say,” Hackett instructed Gannon before they set out across the expanse to catch up to Larson and the deputies.

Hackett knew it ran up against the rules, but it was a matter of control. They were closing in on Tilly’s kidnappers and he couldn’t risk Gannon rushing off on his own and jeopardizing the work of the task force.

Not at this stage.

Hackett would keep an eye on him.

As they neared the buildings, Hackett saw the SUVs and the deputies holding their positions. In his rearview mirror, he found Gannon and Cora’s small Pontiac. He lowered his window, stuck out his arm, signaling for them to stop and keep back, way back, behind him.

At that moment the radio on Hackett’s passenger seat crackled with a dispatch from Larson.

“We’re going in, Earl.”

Waiting for their eyes to adjust to the light, Larson and Pate inched around the big doors and assessed the hangar’s interior.

Soaking wet trash and rags were strewn everywhere.

Disgusting.

No sounds, until Pate’s command boomed. “Maricopa County Sheriff! Come out with your hands open and held up above your head!” No response.

After a full minute and a few soft dispatches on the radio, they moved in. Larson was suddenly reminded of her grandfather’s cabin in northern New York; the gas smell of his small outboard motor. Before she became an agent, Larson worked as a state trooper. In that time, she had seen people who’d been shot, drowned, burned, frozen, stabbed and buried alive but she’d never seen anything like… Oh Jesus… She was overcome as she and the deputies realized what the garbage was…

“Oh Jesus Christ…oh Christ!”

Staring at the drenched rags, Larson soon picked out arms, legs, a head, then another, all severed.

The floor was slick with blood.

Larson saw the blood-splattered chain saw. “Oh Jesus!”

Struggling to make sense of the scene, she stepped back and held the back of her hand to her mouth as some of the deputies shouted and pivoted with their weapons extended, wary of suspects at the scene.

Someone got on their radio and called for an ambulance.

It didn’t matter. Everyone was dead.

Larson’s radio crackled.

“Bonnie, I heard shouting. What do you have?” Hackett asked.

Outside, the wind had carried the chaos beyond the hangar and over the desert to Hackett’s car, where his radio blurted Larson’s response.

“Homicides, at least three, possibly more. They look fresh.”

“Any indication on the victims?”

“Three adult males, two appear to be in police uniforms. They could be our kidnappers with the Norte Cartel. It looks like we have additional body parts, two severed male heads. It’s really bad, Earl- I’ve never-”

Upon hearing the distant voices of alarmed cops, Gannon and Cora rushed from their car to Hackett’s.

“What is it?” Gannon leaned into the open passenger window.

“What did they find?” Cora’s eyes were rimmed with tears.

At that moment Hackett’s radio crackled with another dispatch from Larson as she fought to keep control of her emotions.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Earl. Do not come in here. You do not want to see this!”

That transmission stole Cora’s breath. Hackett fumbled to turn down the volume but he had the radio with the loose swivel knob.

“What is it?” Cora’s eyes bulged. “What’s happened?”

Hackett shot a look to Gannon that demanded his help.

“We don’t know for certain,” Hackett said. “They’re assessing the scene.”

“Is my daughter in there?”

Gannon tried to pull Cora back to the car but she broke away, ran toward the hangar before he caught her. She fought him, battled furiously, refusing to surrender to the horror that awaited her while Gannon and Hackett got her back to her Pontiac Vibe.

Hackett radioed for an ambulance.

They opened the front passenger door, Cora sat sideways, her feet on the ground, staring inside her car, the car she drove Tilly to school in, the car they drove to church in, to the mall.

Then Cora stared at the hangar, shaking her head.

“It’s not true. She’s not dead. Because if she’s dead, it’s my fault,” Cora said. “She can’t be dead. Tell me it’s not true, Jack. You tell me my daughter’s not in there!”

“We don’t know, Cora.”

“Oh God.”

Her shoulders shook as she sobbed. She slid from the passenger seat to the ground, pounding the sand. Gannon slid to the earth with her, holding her as the dust swirled around them, as sirens wailed and helicopters hammered the sky. They stayed that way while investigators processed the scene.

Two scared kids in a Buffalo kitchen, waiting for Dad to get home .

There are times in your life when you think, this is it. Everything important ends here. Gannon thought it was all over, that day in the kitchen when he was eight. He’d never forget that look in his father’s eyes like something was lost. They’d wrecked his new car. All those overtime shifts he’d worked.

They’d taken something from him.

And Gannon thought it again when he was twelve and Cora, Mom and Dad were screaming at each other before she left. At first, all he felt was disbelief. Cora had to be kidding, she wasn’t really running away. But time passed, tightening on him like a vice, crushing him with the truth: Cora was gone for real. Gone for good.

He’d lost his big sister.

How would he overcome the blow?

He’d reached another ending when his parents died in the car crash and he watched their caskets lower into the ground.

He’d lost his family.

Then days ago, out of the blue, he received a miracle in the form of Cora’s call. Across a chasm filled with pain, he found the sister he thought he’d lost forever. He learned he had a niece.

But the miracle came with a tragedy.

His niece’s face in the FBI’s gallery of kidnapped and missing persons.

He sees the family resemblance and wants to reach out and hug her.

It can’t end here.

It just can’t.

Gannon was numb, oblivious to how long he and Cora had kept a vigil in the desert until Hackett tapped his shoulder.

“We’ve conducted searches of every building, Jack, and we have not located Tilly.”

Cora blinked as if staring into a pinpoint light of hope.

“That means she’s still alive?”

“There’s reason to hope so.”

At that moment, Gannon’s cell phone rang and he climbed to his feet and walked away to answer it.

“Jack, this is Isabel Luna. We need to meet immediately. I have information.”

“Isabel, this is a bad time. I can’t come to Mexico.”

“I’m not in Mexico. I am in Phoenix.”

“What?”

“I have information that is critical to your case. Tell no one about this call and come alone to meet me at this location. Do you have something to write with?”

“Isabel, you’d better tell me.”

“Jack, this is absolutely critical to your case. Do you understand?”

Gannon glanced around to confirm he was out of earshot.

“Okay, go ahead.”