The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The intruders came in the night.

Sutherland had slept a few hours only to wake up before dawn. She got out of bed and shuffled to her office like a sleep-walker, sat at her desk and booted up her computer. No message from Hawkins. She frowned. Then her sleepy eyes snapped open like window shades at the sound of her security alarm.

Bong-bong. Bong-bong.

Her security system was warning that an intruder had entered the motion detection zone. She had installed a camera at each roof corner and another at the old ranch to warn her of Border Patrol raids. The feeds came through on the seventy-two inch television screen mounted on the wall. The ranch camera had picked up the image of shadowy figures emerging from an SUV that was dark-colored, not white and green like Border Patrol vehicles.

And the figures moving toward the house wore black uniforms instead of Border Patrol khaki.

The intruders stirred up every paranoid fear Sutherland had ever encountered. She began to hyperventilate and tremble uncontrollably. Reminding herself that she was not completely defenseless, she began to get control of her emotions and silently scolded herself:

Don’t be a victim. Act.

She reached for the phone, put in a call to 911 and reported that she had seen prowlers around the house.

“Illegals?” the dispatcher said.

“I don’t know. It’s dark.”

“I’ll call the Border Patrol and send a cruiser.”

“How long?”

“Soon as possible. Keep your doors and windows locked.”

Sutherland frowned at the lame advice and hung up. It would take at least fifteen minutes for anyone to reach her remote house, and during that time she would be on her own.

She looked at the monitor again. The intruders were close enough to be picked up by a camera on the front of the roof. They were approaching the electrified fence around the house. The power running through the wire strands would only give a small jolt if touched. She hadn’t wanted the bodies of dead illegal immigrants or wildlife piling up outside the fence. But she had installed a switch that would allow her to ramp up power to deadly levels.

The figures were standing in a line in front of the fence, looking at the house. There were six of them, and they were carrying long-barreled weapons. One approached the fence. She increased the power level and an instant later saw a flash of light, like an insect hitting a bug zapper.

An outside microphone picked up a yell of pain. She dampened the power down until the figure fell away from the fence, then she increased it to near lethal levels again.

A couple of the intruders grabbed the limp form of the failed fence-climber and dragged it back down the trail leading to the ranch. She saw the figures get into the SUV. Then the headlights flashed on and the vehicle began to climb to the house. Moving fast.

The electronic barrier wasn’t built to withstand a battering ram on wheels. The SUV crashed through the fence in a shower of sparks and slammed into the front door smashing it to splinters.

She snatched up her laptop, shoved it into a rucksack, raced down the hall and ducked into a walk-in closet. She shoved aside the hanging clothes and pushed a hidden wall button. A two-foot-wide section of shoe shelves slid open and a light switch went on automatically. She slipped through the opening into a small room and bolted the door.

Sutherland had installed the room after seeing Jody Foster fend off a gang of home invaders in the movie Panic Room. The chamber had eight-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete walls, a first aid kit, food and water, a phone, cot and porta-potty. There was a chest with fresh sets of clothing and underwear.

She whipped off her pajamas and changed into jeans and sweat-shirt, keeping her eyes glued to the television screen that connected the room to cameras inside the house.

Masked figures in Ninja type uniforms burst into the house over the wreckage of the shattered front door. Caps were pulled down over their heads. The intruders searched every room, communicating with military hand signals. When they didn’t find her, they gathered in the studio.

She grabbed a phone from its wall hanger and called 911 again.

The dispatcher’s neutral voice said, “Hold on. A unit is on its way.”

“Tell them to watch their ass. These guys have guns.”

“What—?”

She clicked off and turned back to the screen. She guessed that the fence jumper must still be recuperating from shock because there were only five figures. One apparently noticed the camera high in a corner. He stared at it for a few seconds and pulled his scarf away from his lower face. There was something strangely familiar about the lopsided mouth and the yellow-toothed grin.

No. It couldn’t be.

The man picked up her new painting of the hummingbird from the easel. He stepped nearer the camera, drew his arm back and punched a ragged hole in the canvas with his gloved fist. He looked at the camera again, as if daring her to come out of hiding to save her precious art work. She watched, frustrated and angry, as the other intruders ruined paintings with fists or knives and threw them into a heap.

The leader poured the contents of a can of paint thinner on the pile. He produced a lighter and snapped the flame on. He moved the lighter back and forth near the paintings, smiling all the while at the camera.

Then he touched the lighter to the pile which burst immediately into flames.

Sutherland shrieked in a voice that was part sob and part a scream of rage.

They’re burning my art.

But there was nothing she could do except watch as greasy smoke filled the room and the flames spread to the curtains and consumed the easel and palette table. The intruders hastily exited the burning house.

Choking fumes were seeping into the safe room.

Sutherland hit the kill switch for the ventilation system and tried to decide what to do. Maybe the room would be safe from the fire. Maybe it wouldn’t be. She wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

She grabbed a flashlight from a wall bracket, then bent over and lifted a ring on the floor of the room, opening a rectangular hatch. A short stairway led down into a tight space.

A musty smell greeted her when she unlocked a steel door that guarded a tunnel. She took a deep breath and crawled fifty feet into the tunnel to another steel door, which she pushed open, emerging into another small space.

She groped for a handle above her head, found it, pushed open a hatch cover, and climbed out of the tunnel into the pump house located on the other side of the fence.

The flashlight beam played on the shiny black paint and gold scrollwork of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle resting on its kick stand next to the pump. As a young woman, she had ridden bikes back in West Virginia, and had become pretty good at it. She used her mustering out pay to buy the customized Forty-Eight model Harley. The low-slung motorcycle was built for speed rather than comfort, but she liked the retro design, low profile and the kick from its 1203-cc V-twin engine.

She slipped into leather boots and pulled on a light black leather jacket from a locker, then opened the pump house door a few inches. She let out a soft cry. Her dream house was fully enveloped in fire and her RAV4 had been torched as well. Dark figures moved against the flaming backdrop.

She had intended to wait out the intruders, but one figure had broken away from the group and was walking toward the pump house. She’d be trapped.

She swung a leg over the seat of the Harley and hit the starter. The distinctive guttural roar of the motor was ear-shattering in the close confines of the pump house and the exhaust fumes filled her nostrils. She flicked the headlight on and twisted the handle grip. The bike leaped forward and the front tire knocked the door wide open.

She popped out and headed straight for the figure in black twenty feet away. She aimed right for his crotch. He stepped aside in panic, avoiding the oncoming Harley, but Sutherland heard a satisfying yelp of pain when the handlebar slapped his mid-section.

She held the handlebars tight to keep from losing control and gunned the engine, steering to the top of the long dirt driveway that led to the road. She could feel the heat from the blaze and heard what sounded like corn popping. Gunshots. She snapped her lights off, but knew that she was still a clear target in the light of the flames. She ducked her head low over the handlebars.

Sutherland knew every turn in the driveway and made it down to the road in seconds. The bike gained speed, flying along the winding country road at nearly seventy miles an hour. She slowed at the highway on-ramp, unsure whether to head north or south.

A line of blinking lights could be seen headed south from the direction of Green Valley. The police must have called in reinforcements. She killed the Harley’s lights and pulled off the road.

Two police cars and a border patrol SUV went racing by. She rode out onto the highway heading south. The cool desert air felt good on her heated forehead. She was pushing the bike at the top of its limits, when it dawned on her that she had no idea where she was going. Ahead of her was the Mexican border. Nogales. Back the other way was Phoenix.

After riding a few more miles she turned off the highway and headed southeast.

When she arrived in Tombstone, the tourists were still in bed and it was too early for the stage coach rides or the reenactment of the gunfight at the OK Corral site. She passed the office of the Tombstone Epitaph, and cruised past the old brothel and gambling house known as the Bird Cage back in Wyatt Earp’s day. The rumble of the motorcycle exhaust echoed off the false-front old buildings.

A coffee shop was opening its doors. Inside were a couple of people in 1800s costumes who worked for the western shows. No one seemed bothered by the young woman biker with the dirty face and the wild look in her eyes. She cleaned the dirt off her pudgy cheeks and her hands in the bathroom and when she came out, bought a large coffee and blueberry muffin. She felt better after a few sips of coffee. But she was still in shock over the destruction of her house.

It was no coincidence that the attack came within twenty-four hours of her internet fishing expedition.

She remembered the squared mouth and gapped front teeth of the leader as he prepared to destroy the first painting. He had deliberately exposed his face.

As impossible as it seemed, she had to accept the evidence of her own eyes.

This was not the first time the gapped-toothed man had violated her.

A glazed expression came to her eyes.

Someone was going to pay for this.

And she knew exactly who it would be.