An undercover FBI agent is murdered and left to rot in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Smuggling drugs and illegals across the border, has become a game with no rules. It’s a treacherous place where fools and losers often pay with their lives. It’s a play board filled with ruthless players, their hearts as cold as the gold they pursue.
Brad Hanley, FBI Director of Border control, fears he has a mole in his task force. He wants his fiend, Detective Lance Tallbear to consult on the crime and interpret the clues left at the scene and help find the traitor in his midst. Going undercover after a recent undercover agent’s murder to infiltrate the deadly Sinaloa Cartel seems like an impossible task. Tallbear owes Hanley a debt of honor, but finds himself questioning if his friend’s favor is worth losing both Sally Yazzie, his new love, or his life.
An undercover FBI agent is murdered and left to rot in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Smuggling drugs and illegals across the border, has become a game with no rules. It’s a treacherous place where fools and losers often pay with their lives. It’s a play board filled with ruthless players, their hearts as cold as the gold they pursue.
Brad Hanley, FBI Director of Border control, fears he has a mole in his task force. He wants his fiend, Detective Lance Tallbear to consult on the crime and interpret the clues left at the scene and help find the traitor in his midst. Going undercover after a recent undercover agent’s murder to infiltrate the deadly Sinaloa Cartel seems like an impossible task. Tallbear owes Hanley a debt of honor, but finds himself questioning if his friend’s favor is worth losing both Sally Yazzie, his new love, or his life.
The Killing Ground
Chapter 1
Brad Hanley brushed aside the horde of flies covering his dead agent’s face. He stared solemnly at the lonely expanse of desert around him, surrounded by cactus and dusty saltbrush. The man’s outstretched arm and hand reached skyward, his mouth open and choked with earth. He appeared to be screaming in anguish. Agent Otiz’s appearance reminded Hanley just how badly he had failed the man. In his vehicle, Tyler Anhill, the Native American that had discovered the body, waited. Closing his eyes, Hanley muttered to himself. “You deserved a far better resting place, Dan.”
Hanley removed his sunglasses, scratching his head. The problems he faced with his drinking problems paled against what he faced now. After his accepting the assignment as agent in charge of Cartel Counter Intelligence along the border, too many operations had gone wrong. He was now positive there was a traitor in the ranks of his department.
Ortiz’s assignment kept off the books, letting no one know of his role. Somehow, someone had discovered and betrayed him to the Sinaloa Cartel. He put his glasses back on, knowing the solution to his problem required someone who could read people, adapt, and, if needed, think on the run.
Hanley looked at the ridge overshadowing the burial site, deciding to place an observer on the slope with a telephoto lens to keep the area under surveillance. He hoped the killer might return to make sure they had overlooked no evidence tying them to the scene. Agent Otiz’s suffering was over, but his body’s location and condition could still offer clues to his killer.
Another set of trained eyes might work out how Dan Ortiz had ended here. The best tracker he knew was his friend, Lance Tallbear. Hanley looked back at his car, reflecting on the Indian sitting there and the story that brought him to this place.
***
Tyler Anhill needed a successful hunt to feed his growing family. His Tucson car wash job ending when the monsoon season started and school letting out. It sent a flood of high school students into the Tucson labor market to crowd out his only opportunity for employment. He’d been born and grown up in hardship on the reservation. It was something he knew only too well.
Only now, Anhill had an extended family to feed.
He’d come north from inside the Tohono O’odham Reservation to enter Kirkowian Pass, south of Phoenix, in search of a plump buck for the family freezer. Out of season, and against the law to hunt for them, his kids still needed to eat. He watched the deer move into the open at first light. It passed a clump of catclaw and browsed on the sparse grass there.
On the hunt, and not owning a rifle, he used his father’s ancient bow as he worked his way over the ridge. Anhill moved silently, to advance slowly along the wash, staying upwind of the six-point buck. With stealth, he moved forward, knowing it would supply meat for both his family and his parents. He nocked his arrow, drew the bow taut, and held his breath to steady the shot.
He followed the deer’s silhouette, watching it draw ever closer. A clean shot, a clean kill. It was the least he could offer the deer’s spirit for the gift of life it would give his family. His breath release even, his finger tips relaxing. He led the animal slightly to get a clean kill shot with a hit just behind the shoulder, penetrating its heart. The deer’s head thrust clear of the mesquite clump. Anhill’s breath flowed smooth and steady, releasing the arrow.
At that moment, something startled the deer, its head jerking skyward as it turned to run. The shaft sunk deep into its neck, and it bolted, sprinting away into the glare of the morning sun. “Dammit,” Anhill cursed. Now, he would have to trail the buck until it weakened, stopped, and died.
He walked to where the deer had turned in the small clearing to discover an outstretched arm pointing into the morning sky. Its clawed hand held something shiny and black dangling from a lanyard in its twisted fingers. Horrified, he drew closer, his eyes locked on the contorted face of a man. His head and shoulder jerked back, rising out of the dirt beside the arm. Anhill turned and vomited in the brush at the clearing’s edge.
The man’s face stared up, streaked with blood and red clay, his hair matted back by the thick, sticky mud of the soil it had burst from. He gently poked at the hand holding the shiny black plastic piece. The object opened, revealing a gold symbol, name and the letters FBI. Anhill shrank back, instinct warning him to not get involved.
He should forget ever finding this grisly thing and continue to track the buck’s trail. As he walked, Anhill kept seeing the image of the man’s agonized face. The pain he saw there haunted him. After seeing the man’s name on the identification, he knew relatives of Agent Dan Ortiz would want to know his fate. The buck forgotten, he turned east and headed into the city of Casa Grande to report his discovery.
***
At eleven in the morning, Lance Tallbear rolled over as the front doorbell continued to ring. Groaning, he pushed aside the pillow to fumble for his pants beside the bed. He rose to face the day, brushing back his thick, black shoulder-length hair.
Glancing at the mirror near his bed, he winced, seeing the bullet and knife scars that marred his burnished six-foot body. They reminded him how violent many days of his police work often ended. He pulled on his shirt, grabbed his Stetson, and stepped from the bedroom, grimacing at wasting the first Saturday he’d had off in a month. Whoever was at the door better have a damn good reason for disturbing him.
He walked down the hallway, pulling on his pants, and crossed the living room in his bare feet to reach the door. He opened it with a quick, agitated pull. A man in a light gray suit stood there facing away from him, peering at Tallbear’s overgrown garden of weeds. There was something familiar about the stranger’s poise and manner. It clicked as he turned and pulled off his sunglasses.
“It looks a little different since the last time I was here,” Brad Hanley said, “But I remember being pretty drunk back then.”
Hanley had put on muscle since Tallbear had last worked with him, and looked to weigh around 225 pounds. His hair presented a with sprinkle of gray at the temples, early for a man of thirty-five, the result of too much anxiety over the promotion he’d heard, Hanley accepted. He, however, also appeared to be in much better shape than when they’d worked the Morgan case together two years earlier.
Tallbear sensed a tenseness in Hanley’s voice. The pain he exuded now differed from the last time they worked together. Hanley didn’t carry the burden of guilt anymore that had almost destroyed his life. Did he carry something just as destructive? Would his shaman’s training and skills might again be required? “Hell, Brad, it’s been a while since I saw or heard from you,” Tallbear said, extending his hand. “Why don’t you come in?”
The Superstition Mountains, the missing plane, Thomas Kane, Kamorov, and all that happened in that case still haunted Tallbear’s dreams some nights. The cost of the case, in physical pain and experience, had helped him focus on his future. It helped him decide he’d chosen the right path for his life in pursuing a police career instead of wearing the mantle of shaman for his people. That case’s outcome propelled his advancement to the rank of detective. “Don’t tell me you heard something about Kane or Kamorov?”
“Nothing on Kane. But we’ve heard rumors that Kamorov may be dead.” Hanley took a seat at the kitchen counter. “This isn’t a social call, Lance. I need your help with a crime scene brought to my attention this morning.” Hanley fidgeted, appearing nervous.
Tallbear observed Hanley, wondering if he was mistaken about solving the man’s former drinking problems. If not, what new ones prompted his appearance this morning?
“Who is it?” A silky voice yelled from the back bedroom.
“It’s the FBI,” Tallbear called back.
“Is that Sally Yazzie’s voice I hear?” Hanley said, craning his head to look into the bedroom.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis, Brad, and you don’t need-to-know. Give me a couple of minutes to finish getting dressed, and I’ll be right with you.” He excused himself, needing to say goodbye to Yazzie and pull his boots on.
Hanley smiled and moved to the door. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Five minutes later, Tallbear exited his new modular home dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve plaid shirt topped off with his gray Stetson. He pulled on a windbreaker, adjusted his holster, and moved to the car’s passenger side.
“Your place appears to be in a lot better shape than I remember,” Hanley quipped. “Didn’t think you’d get it together so fast after having it blown in half and burning like it did.”
“Depends on your point of view,” Tallbear said. “If I remember correctly, the last time you were here, in your condition, you saw none of my home from a standing position, much less before it blew up.”
Traveling in Hanley’s black Ford Explorer, they drove south on Highway 17 in silence. Tallbear could feel Hanley wrestling with his thoughts. The man needed to talk about something serious, but having difficulty. “I thought Irene Katz said you accepted a transfer to Texas to operate some new hush-hush FBI project. So, what brings you back here?”
“My current assignment,” Hanley said, “In fact, I’m taking you to a crime scene related to that project right now.” Hanley’s voice lowered, his eyes glazing over as he peered into the distance.
After what the two of them went through during the Morgan debacle, he could read the pain in his friend’s face. “It’s something bad. You’re trying to say is its nasty—aren’t you?”
The seriousness of the problem flashed across Hanley’s face, etched deep in his forehead furrows. Five years younger than Tallbear, Hanley showed the wear and tear bearing a mantle of FBI responsibility cost. “It’s the worst case I’ve ever handled, Lance. I’m not sure which way to proceed.”
The morning, bright, clear, and carrying a pleasant breeze, had darkened. The puffy white clouds and the promise of a glorious day drifting over the western horizon faded as they neared their destination. Only a soft breeze kept the morning air fresh, not allowing the sticky humidity to overcome them. The first of June, the desert was growing green, with the monsoon season beginning a little early.
School out. The start of summer meant relaxation for all except those in law enforcement. When people played, it was a time they often became careless. The predators, seeking easy prey, always appeared in greater numbers. The increase in targets of opportunity only added to the law’s burden of protection. Rumors of the fence project expanding led to increasing unrest all along the border. The push by law enforcement to capture both drugs and smugglers of people ramped up, leading to even more armed confrontations.
“Arizona’s on the hot-seat for both drugs and smuggling,” Hanley said. “We’re only a short-breath behind Texas in the problems we face. Today alone, the cartels and gangs will bring in several tons of marijuana, fifty keys of coke, heroin, and pills.”
“I’m aware of the numbers, Brad. What does it have to do with you?”
“My assignment is heading up a special unit to curb the outbreak of drugs and dealers along the border. Of late, my job has expanded beyond drugs.” Hanley said. “These operations also smuggle money, people, and anything that will turn a buck. Men, women, even small kids are being smuggled in to work as sex slaves. If you’ve been following the news, our president has declared we’re going to stop them.”
Tallbear shifted sideways in his seat. “And you’re the one assigned to do that?”
“That’s about it,” Hanley said. “Along with The Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, State Police, the DEA, ATF, the Tohono O’odham Nation Police, and all the other local jurisdictions.”
“Isn’t the federal government just going to build a solid wall along the border to solve the problem?”
“That fence is a pipe dream, or a bad drug trip, floating across the mind of a Washington politician,” Hanley said. “Most of that terrain is too rugged, filled with arroyos and volcanic hills that pop straight up out of the desert floor. Not to mention, that almost a hundred miles of that border are by sovereign treaty the Tohono O’odham Nation.”
Hanley motioned at the countryside flashing by outside. “The tribe has already claimed a fence will never cut their land and heritage. Their reservation extends past the U.S. border into Northern Mexico for about thirty miles. Many of ‘The People’ still live over there, and demand access to the United States side of their homeland.”
“Friend, sounds like you’re in a no-win situation.”
“It’s more serious than you think. Wait until you’ve seen the crime site.” Hanley turned off the highway south of Tucson, onto a dirt track, and headed deeper into Kirkowian Pass. “A local man from the reservation came up here this morning illegally hunting deer and stumbled on the scene.” Hanley said. “It was fortunate for us he had a change of heart and reported what he found to authorities in Casa Grande. They called our Phoenix office, who then called me.”
Hanley and Tallbear bounced down the dirt road with the smell of wet pine and scrub brush from the recent storm filling the air. Hanley turned onto a small plateau dotted with creosote shrubs and sparse clumps of bunchgrass, dotted with cactus and ocotillo.
They passed several mesquite trees and clusters of catclaw to stop near a Ford Explorer identical to the one they drove. A stout, annoyed looking young Mexican man, shorter and stockier than Tallbear, leaned against the vehicle. Just past two in the afternoon, they parked beside the other vehicle
Hanley stepped out, his arm sweeping to show the area in front of them. “This is the crime scene.”
Tallbear nodded. The area was still damp and muddy from the recent storm. Puddles of water, still present, spread across many places of the plateau in his view. He put on his hat, wondering how much he could help his friend. “There’ll be few tracks if the rain showers passed through during or after the time of the crime.”
Hanley pointed at the agent waiting by the other vehicle. “This is agent Raul Ortega.”
The young Mexican leaned against the car, his arms crossed. Most people would describe Ortega as being medium built and wiry. The man had deep brown eyes, a neat thin trimmed mustache, and struck Tallbear as someone serious about his work. He liked him without ever hearing the man speak a word.
“Ortega, this is Sheriff Lance Tallbear. Or should it be Detective Tallbear?” Hanley said, walking deeper onto the plateau.
The two men glanced at each other and followed Hanley.
They ducked under a Palo Verde tree to enter a small clearing. The area opened, and Tallbear faced an astonishing scene. In front of him, the muddied outstretched arm of a man extended skyward. A couple of his fingers pointing toward the heavens, like a kid in a classroom begging for attention. Something black and shiny dangled from the lanyard in his hand, rustling in the morning breeze.
Tallbear approached the body, and the object it held. He leaned closer, able to make out the features of a face staring upward, its mouth jammed open, frozen in a scream. The nostrils and mouth choked with mud. The man’s eyes, long since glazed over and clouded in death.
“I brought you here for a couple of reasons, Lance,” Hanley said. “I wanted to get your impressions of what you see.”
Tallbear strolled the area, observing the remaining tracks. He paused beside a creosote bush to inspect some broken limbs and followed several dual tire marks around the site. He tipped his Stetson back, waving Hanley over. “Not much is going to be learned from the tire tracks. Most of the tread marks washed away after the first storm rolled through or before the second set of showers arrived.”
He held out the piece of creosote bush, holding it for Hanley to smell. “These stems still have a strong smell of anise, showing they’re fresh, broken inside the last twelve hours.”
Hanley’s brow wrinkled. “What can you tell me about my agent?”
“From the body’s condition and smell, I’d say he’s been dead only a day or two. But I’ll bet his body didn’t end up here until last night at the earliest. Out here, predation by insects and animals starts almost immediately.” Tallbear knelt, using a pencil to poke the item hanging on the lanyard held by the dead man. “I’d also say your man died hard—very hard,” he continued. “How come you haven’t had the forensics boys up here yet?”
“What makes you think we haven’t?” Ortega chimed in.
“Simple observation,” Tallbear said. “There are no tracks other than the people who are present now.” He pointed to the surrounding area. “No tape, signs of digging, or prints of any kind. Except for a deer that passed by early this morning,” he said, pointing to a deer’s track.
“Of course, There are yours and Hanley’s shoe prints in the area. Only one other distinct boot tracks are present. He wore a set of work-boots with a bad left heel. I’m going to assume those belong to the hunter who found the body. From other tracks, a coyote came by for a snack but left when the hunter appeared. The light scuff marks are your killers and mean he left before the last storm passed through.”
“I told you he was good.” Hanley said.
Ortega brushed off the comment. “I could have told you that much, Agent Hanley.”
Tallbear pulled his Bowie knife from his boot as he walked to a nearby clump of mesquite. He spread the branches, using the knife tip to point out a fresh cut deep inside the bush. “Your killer cut a branch from here to wipe and smudge most of his personal tracks and blur his identity. But using the length of stride between his visible steps, the man must be around six feet tall.”
Ortega huffed sarcastically. “You’re telling us he’s the same height as half the men in Arizona?”
“No, just an observation based on science.” He pointed around the area. “The important thing is that he even took the branch he used with him when he left to avoid giving us his DNA. I’ll also bet he wore gloves and made sure not to leave any trace evidence on the body.”
Hanley scratched his temple. “You’re saying he knows our procedures and forensics.”
Tallbear leaned against the Ford Explorer. Brushing back his Stetson, he looked into Ortega’s eyes. “Tell me what else you see, Agent Ortega?”
“I see one of our men tortured and buried alive,” Ortega spat out, his face turning crimson with rage.
Tallbear stared hard at him. “Maybe you could tell me why your dead agent is standing straight up in a circular hole.”
Hanley stepped forward, observing the hole’s outline. “He’s right.”
The group could all make out a concave roundness, three feet across, its outline surrounding the body. Ortiz appeared to have popped out of the ground, like a jack-in-the-box or a curious gopher. Several other circles of water were present in the surrounding area.
“I hadn’t noticed the roundness,” Hanley said, removing his glasses. “Or that there are several others present.”
“Don’t you remember digging a hole as a kid?” Tallbear said. “It always took more dirt to refill it than you took out, especially if you wanted to level it smooth. Otherwise, it always left a depression, one you rarely noticed until the next rain.”
Ortega straightened. “Yeah, so what are you saying?”
“Look around you, Agent Ortega,” Tallbear said, pointing to other circular spots between the plateau’s creosote brush and shrubs. Several round, shallow puddles were visible. “I don’t think you found a crime scene. You’ve discovered a killing ground.”
Detective Lance Tallbear, a Native American, has been asked by his friend Brad Hanley, FBI Director of Border Control, to help out when a gruesome killing ground is discovered. One of Brad’s best undercover agents has been murdered and left to rot in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona along with other innocent victims. The border area is a treacherous place where fools and losers often pay with their lives, smuggling drugs and illegals across the border has become a game and the Sintoa Cartel is at the forefront. As Brad’s agent had been undercover in the cartel it seems plain there must be a leak from within the force. Brad initially asks Tallbear to look at the crime scene and interpret the clues left behind but ultimately he wants help to uncover the traitor. Will Tallbear infiltrate the cartel as he will be unknown to the criminals?
It seems an impossible task. Aside from the obvious dangers the dead agent’s brother, Ortega, will be working with him and as his sole thought is to avenge his brother’s death his volatile reactions are a constant threat to the detective. Tallbear owes Brad a debt of honour but wonders whether returning the favour is worth losing both his girlfriend and his life. The fact that Satillo, the woman who leads the cartel, fancies him, however. could swing things his way.
Tallbear is a classic hero, able to fight the villains at their own game and at the same time protect as many of his own people as he can. In the clash between the two opposing cartels he manages both to save members of a Native American village held hostage and although badly wounded escape himself. The cartel head, Ms Satillo, is in some ways the typical amoral femme fatale but with great organisational intelligence; and her two henchmen, Silva and Courtauld are clearly individualised. The action moves along at a heady pace and the intricacies of the plot work well as various stories intertwine. The dialogue contributes well to the tale, filling the reader in on what is needed without any big info-dumps, while maintaining the tension as to whether Tallbear will give himself away or not.
The various scenarios of undercover cop, seductive villainess, proud Native American and diligent FBI man are not new but are handled with aplomb, making this an exciting and absorbing thriller.