Chapter Four
Now
And thereby hangs a tale…
I waited. I did not wait very patiently (frankly, patience has never been one of my strong suits), but I did wait until we managed to get out of Phoenix proper before I turned in my seat and fixed Thomas with the old proverbial steely eye.
"Okay, give, FBI Man. What is all this weirdness about two feebs going poof?"
Thomas grimaced, Iverson cleared his throat, Williams kept his eyes glued to the road and I grinned like a shark. You know, lots of teeth and no humor at all. There is nothing a feeb hates worse than being called a feeb, unless it is being caught in a crossfire and discovering he forgot to put his vest on. I do so love to yank Thomas's chain.
"As you know, any felony committed on the Reservation automatically becomes a Federal matter because the Rez is Federal land."
Oh, the thrill of it all. He was going to go all pedantic and professorial on me. Like I didn't grow up in Arizona? Like I didn't run wild on the Rez with friends and not a few relatives? Mom is one-half Navaho, which makes my brothers and me one quarter and actually allows us to be put on the rolls as Navajos. Whoopee. Why? I suppose if we needed or wanted Federal help with school or something, it might be worth the trouble, but we knew who our family was and who we were and we never saw the need to put it in writing. Some things are just written on your heart.
When my brothers and I were growing up, the main reason to be anxious for summer vacation was not for school to be out, we always liked school. I know, we were considered totally weird. So why else did I gravitate to the "Situation Team?" Anyways, we were anxious for school to be out so we could go visit my mom's grandparents, the ones on her mother's side. Did I mention that the traditional Navajo family is pretty much a matriarchy?
Well, it is. If the wife gets all bent out of shape at the husband, divorce is a piece of cake. She just sets his stuff outside the house, the stuff she does not want, that is, and he better pack it up and run on home to his mama. You see, anything he brings with him to the marriage, now belongs to her. That can get very touchy when you start dealing with herds of sheep and horses and such. Kids are born "to" the mother's clan and "for" the father's clan. If there is a breakup in the marriage, there is never any question about where the kids go. They stay with their mother's clan.
Among the "progressive" Navajos, the civil law has taken the place of the Navajo traditions and I am not so sure that is such a good thing. There is a pot load of alcoholism and assorted other addictions among the "progressives" that still live on the reservation. About 80, as a matter of fact, and the scary thing is that those stats are not just the over eighteens, they include 10-year olds and up. Now if that is not enough to make you wonder what the world is coming to, I do not know what is. A 10-year old alcoholic? What will he or she be by the time they are legally old enough to vote?
Ah, man, there I go again, off on a tangent. Where was I? Oh, yeah. "Okay, Thomas, what big, bad crime had your guys running around on the Rez?"
"Drug running and murder."
I thought about that one for a moment and nodded, "Okay, that gets my attention; it sure as heck is not parking tickets. So what were they doing in one of our choppers?"
"They had gotten a tip that the truck of one of the suspects they were trying to trace had been seen up near the Arizona-Utah border. That area is a little short on decent roads and you can see someone coming a good ten miles away. The dust cloud is better than a siren for announcing your presence."
I had to agree with him on that one, especially since this year had not just been dry but it had been dryer than usual. The dust just sort of hangs there one sixteenth of an inch from the ground, like a time bomb waiting to explode. All it took was a breath of air to blow it into a cloud that could be seen for miles. If you have never seen a full blown dust storm…lucky you.
"Okay, I can see where a helicopter would make a much better bloodhound than a couple of pickups. So you conned the 943rd into letting you have a chopper and crew and off you, or rather they flew, heigh ho, heigh ho."
"Right. Only now, we have one HH-60G Sikorsky "Pave Hawk" twin-engine helicopter, one pilot, one co-pilot and one extremely rattled flight engineer shaking like a baby and no FBI agents."
I chewed on that statement for a bit before asking, "You are sure this is not a sophomoric joke? Those Airedales do like their jokes. I think there is something that is hard wired into a chopper pilot's genetic code that demands a constant stream of practical jokes."
He shook his head, "No jokes, Rachel. We have agents on the site where the chopper landed. No FBI agents. When the pilot called in to report what had happened, he was told to put down right where he was and for everyone to remain in the chopper. Once he managed to get air control to believe his story, that is. There are no footprints leading away from the chopper and we have teams walking the route from where the chopper landed to the point the engineer says they disappeared. So far, no sign of a set down or a body impact or anything out of line."
I was working on that one when Airman Williams swung into the right lane and down a long off ramp. The New River truck stop was one of the places along the road that we knew we would be able to find diesel. I glanced over at the gas gauge; it registered half full. We probably had another hundred and fifty to two hundred miles left in the gas tank, but that engine drank diesel the way an Englishman drinks tea so we do not take any chances. When we find diesel, we top off.
I was feeling a bit peckish, so while Williams took care of filling the tank and Thomas and Iverson started plotting map coordinates and plans of attack and such things as men plan when they have no blooming idea what they are going to do next, I headed inside to scout out the lay of the food.
I was in luck. They had a little deli in the back of the store and I got the kid working the counter to make me up a half dozen Italian subs. I grabbed a couple of bags of those ruffledy potato chips and, glory halleluiah; they had salt and vinegar chips! Do you know how hard those things are to find? I love them and when I can find them, I buy them by the case. I restrained myself, maintained decorum and only grabbed three bags of them. Okay, okay, three was all they had so that was all I could grab. I toted that up to the register, wandered back to load up on sodas and water and by that time, Williams had come in to pay for the gas with his handy-dandy Government issued credit card.
I told him to put the food on it and tossed him a roll of paper towels to add to the growing stack of munchies. I caught his wistful sideways glance at a bag of cookies and grabbed a couple of those as well. His face lit up as only a hungry young man's can. I hoisted the bag with the chips in it, grabbed the sandwich bag and left the sodas and cookies for the pack mule….errr, Williams.
Back at the hummer, I stowed the goodies, grabbed a bottle of water when Williams arrived with his load and took a stroll around the vehicle to make sure it was holding up. It is a nervous habit I have. I always do a walk around when I stop for gas or food or ahem. It may sound silly to you, but ever since someone stole a tail light from my car while I was eating breakfast years ago I have made it a habit to check things out. Yes, they stole the tail light, innards, screws, lens and bulb. I always figured they must have needed it a lot more than I did to run the risk of going to jail for a simple tail light. I stopped at the front and looked over Dan's shoulder at the map he and Thomas had spread out on the hood.
Sure enough, it was just like in that song. "Lots of circles's and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining the circles's and arrows." I studied for a minute and then decided to put my two cents worth into the pot.
"Let me guess. This little X between the Kaibito and Navajo rivers is where we need to go?"
Thomas nodded.
I reached across him (okay, so I managed to get a bit of a thrill out of it) and pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket. "By the way, I sure hope you are not attached to that suit, because it is going to be ribbons by the time we get through."
He shook his head. "Smith is on his way up with my go-bag."
"Okay. You are going to have to get on the horn and give him very specific directions because we are not going to Page."
Everyone just looked at me like I had lost my mind.
"Hello? Just who was born and raised in this state?" I rolled my eyes and waited for the silly light bulbs to go on over their heads. "Okay, when we get to Flagstaff, we leave I-17 and head north on State Road 89. That reminds me, Williams, top off in Flagstaff and make sure the Jerry Cans are full. No diesel where we are headed unless you haul it in yourself." I waited for his agreement and bent back to the map, "We stay on 89 until we hit a spot in the road called The Gap." I circled it on the map. "Nope, it is not a city or a town or even a wide spot in the road; it is a sign. That is all it is. We will haul off to the right on what is laughingly called an unimproved road. This is mapese for forty miles of two lane hard dirt. And it is also just about how far it is from 89 to Kaibito which is a wide spot in the road. There is a Laundromat, a café, a post office, a grocery and a two pump gas station, population…just over fifteen hundred. There we pick up State Road 98, cross the river and go exactly nine point seven miles and turn North on another unimproved road. This one is barely one lane, so tell Smith to make sure he has four-wheel drive and a high clearance. I'll get on the phone, call Grandmother Agnes and tell her I am bringing company for dinner." I dropped that bombshell and strolled away very pleased with myself.
I found a quiet spot behind the building and I called the Tuba City Navajo Police Station. I got the dispatcher, explained who I was and we swapped Clans, chit chatted a bit, and found out we were related back a ways. That sort of thing always helps when you are asking for a favor. I asked her if she had a vehicle anywhere in the vicinity of Agnes Billy's outfit and if she did would they pass along the message that the daughter of her granddaughter was coming with friends and the man she would marry when he learned his manners. That got a laugh from her and a promise to do what she could to warn Agnes that she had company coming. I thanked her and strolled back to the vehicle smug as a Mississippi riverboat gambler with four Aces and a joker.
Chapter 4
Then
The next 12 hours were the longest that any of the four men had ever experienced. Sleep had been impossible. Every time one of them started to doze off, the wind seemed to sense it and screamed like a child, a man in agony, a woman in mortal fear, a dying dog, a cat, a friend. At one point they even thought they heard an odd whomp-whomp-whomp followed by a chorus of male voices screaming in fear until suddenly all the sounds were gone.
Exhausted, cranky, cramped, hungry and thirsty, they crawled out from their makeshift shelter and gazed at a dawning day that was clear as a still pool of water. All four made a fast break in different directions for that most important of morning rituals. Moffitt got back to the jeeps first and pulled the canvas back and started to make a small fire for coffee and tea, if there was enough water for both.
Suddenly, a ghost white Hitch topped the dune and yelled at Moffitt to hurry. He turned and ran back down the dune leaving Jack to smother the fire, grab a Thompson and follow. As Jack topped the dune, he spotted the other three standing around what appeared to be a couple of dark lumps in the sand. He jogged to join them and suddenly backpedaled a couple of steps when he realized he was looking at the hideously mangled bodies of two men.
"Dear God! Where did they come from? And what happened to them?"
Hitch and Tully just stared and said nothing. Tully actually looked a bit green and Hitch was NOT chewing his gum.
Troy swallowed and knelt down beside the closest body, "Damn, they're in suits. Weird ones, but suits, and regular street shoes, ties, where the hell were they going? I think, well, what it looks like, back in England, before we shipped over, there was a parachute accident. Guy's chute didn't open and he fell all the way to the ground. It was ugly, like these guys."
Moffitt knelt down beside Troy and carefully turned the body over. It was like shifting a bag of rocks and he could hear bones grinding together. Hitch or Tully, frankly, Moffitt was afraid to move his head too fast and look, started vomiting. Jack had the urge to join him. Troy swallowed hard and checked for identification. "No dog tags. Huh. Who the hell are these guys!?" He finally found a flat wallet in a pocket and opened it.
"What the hell!?"
"What is it, Sam?"
"F.B.I. This guy is damn F.B.I.! What the hell is he doing out here…" He trailed off and stared at the identification in his hand. "No, can't be." He shook his head and passed it over to Moffitt.
Jack studied the wallet and his eyes went very wide. "1997? Surely the Germans would not make that kind of mistake with forged documents. This has to be forged!"
By this time Sam had been through both men's' clothing and had a small stack of paper, wallets, a couple of weapons of strange make and a couple of hand sized, folded up whatevers. "What the hell is Sprint? With a capitol S?" He tossed the small item to Moffitt who turned it over in his hands and discovered that it opened like a small notebook. A light came on, dimmed and he could just barely see the words, No Service. There was a keyboard on half of the thing, but the keys were so tiny that it surely was not some kind of new typewriter. He looked up to see Sam staring at him with an expression that he had never seen on the man's face. Fear, curiosity, anger, all seemed to be rolled into one. "What?"
"When did Alaska become a state?
"Alaska? A state? You mean as in a state of the United States?"
Troy nodded.
"Well, to the best of my knowledge, it isn't. It is a pretty, but useless chunk of snow and ice as I understand it. No natural resources, just deer, bear, whales, Inuit, and lots of trappers, oh, and a bit of gold. But a state? No."
Troy looked over at Hitch and Tully who shook their heads.
"Well, this guy is carrying a driver's license issued by the State of Alaska in the year 2002. Explain that to me."
"Some kind of bizarre error in Berlin's forgery ministry?"
"Sarge?" Hitch had conquered his stomach and was carefully examining the two weapons that Troy had laid aside. "This one here, it looks sorta like your .45 but it's smaller and it says "Sig Sauer" on the barrel. What the hell is a "Sig Sauer" and who makes it?"
While Troy and Moffitt stared at the gun and then each other, Tully chimed in with, "Hey, this un ain't even made outta metal!! It's like that fancy Bakelite stuff that they are making radios out of. G-Lock? Glock? How can a gun be made out of something other than metal?"
Troy gave it up and just sat down in the middle of the sand, "Hell, I don't know. I don't know who these guys are, where they are from, what the hell those guns are, I'm not even sure I know who I am any more."
Hitch shoved his hat back from his forehead and looked around slowly, "Well, if nothing else, we might want to get these poor fellows buried before the scavengers give us away to the Germans."
"Good point." Troy stood up, stared down at the two dead men for a moment and then turned back toward the jeeps. "Strip 'em. I'll get some canvas to bury them in, but I want every thing on those guys to turn over to headquarters. No body's gonna believe us anyway, maybe if we have enough proof, they won't laugh us out of Africa."
The three men carefully undressed the men and laid their belongings aside. Troy trotted back down the dune with a roll of canvas under one arm and a couple of collapsible shovels and an empty duffle under the other arm.
Tully and Hitch started digging while Moffitt and Troy wrapped each man in canvas. Moffitt used his fountain pen to write the names on the canvas. Timothy J. Norbel and John H. Verig. "Someday, someone might want to find them and give them a proper burial."
Troy grunted, packed the men's' belongings in the duffle and using the sun compass plotted the burial site on their map. "Yeah, probably, when all this insanity is over."
He carried the bag back to the jeep and returned with two more collapsible shovels. The graves were dug in short order and the bodies lowered. The four men stood with their heads bowed and finally Troy cleared his throat, "Lord, we don't know who these men are, what they are and if someone is just playing a colossal joke, but they belong to you now and when you see them, tell them we're sorry we couldn't give them a better send off. Amen." He coughed and starting back filling the holes. Less than an hour later, the four men had cleared their campsite and were ready to move on.
None of them had any desire to stay in the vicinity of the two graves and the strangers they had buried.
"Let's shake it."