Ironwood Excerpt
1
STILWELL COULD HEAR the plane but couldn’t see it. The moon and stars were behind cloud cover, and the plane was no doubt running without lights as it circled above the island. The radio crackled and Quigley’s voice came through.
“Boss, you hear that?”
Stilwell brought his rover up to his mouth and keyed his two-way.
“Affirmative,” he said. “Hold your position. Be ready.”
He stopped looking up at the sky and used the binoculars to look down from his position toward Airport Road. He picked up an approaching vehicle, also running without lights, as it ascended to the mountaintop airstrip. He keyed the two-way again.
“Ground vehicle on approach,” he said. “No lights.”
“Copy,” Quigley said.
It was an ATV. It entered through the open gate and drove directly out to the airstrip. It sped down to the runway’s threshold, turned around, and backed into the brush. Then its lights came on — high beams from the front of the ATV and a powerful set of halogens across the top of its roll bar. The first third of the eighteen-hundred-foot runway was sufficiently lit for the plane circling above. Stilwell went back to the radio.
“Okay, we go as planned,” he said. “Move on my call.”
“Copy that,” Quigley said.
This would be Alton Quigley’s first test. He was two months new to the island, and Stilwell didn’t know what he had in him yet. But he believed that pairing him with Ilsa Ramirez was the right move. She was Stilwell’s most dependable deputy, something he could not have said a year ago. But now, after almost two years under Stilwell’s command, Ramirez had shaped up into a solid member of the Catalina substation’s team.
The drone of the plane’s single engine grew louder and Stilwell knew the pilot was bringing it down. He felt his pulse quicken with anticipation and the electric sense of possible danger.
Quigley and Ramirez were in an SUV parked in the shadows at the rear of an open hangar, out of sight from the air. Stilwell was in an unmarked hardtop ATV parked next to an equipment shed. There was nobody else. There hadn’t been time. The tip came in too late to recruit backup from the mainland. He had to make do with what he had while also keeping one deputy on post in Avalon should the tip be an effort to draw all law enforcement away from the town.
The plane’s engine throttled back as it floated down out of the dark sky to the partially lit runway. It landed softly, a testament to the pilot’s skill, and coasted toward the southern terminus of the airfield. The ATV pulled out of the brush behind it and followed it down the strip, its lights still blazing.
“Should we go?” Quigley said over the radio.
Stilwell shook his head in annoyance. Quigley was so hyped on adrenaline that he had either forgotten or was ignoring the plan.
“No,” Stilwell radioed back. “Stick to the plan, Deputy. We need to see the drop first.”
Stilwell had the binoculars to his eyes, watching what played out in the lights of the ATV on the airstrip. The plane had turned around at the terminus and was now in position to take off again. The pilot did not kill the engine; the plan was obviously to spend as little time on the ground as possible.
The cockpit door opened and an orange duffel bag was dropped to the tarmac. Someone wearing a black safety helmet with a smoked face shield got out of the ATV and approached the plane, staying clear of the still-spinning prop.
The man in the helmet came in under the overhead wing and grabbed the duffel bag. Stilwell keyed the mic.
“Okay, go,” he said. “Block that plane!”
Stilwell pinned the pedal down and the electric ATV leaped from its position by the shed blind, and soon he was racing toward the lights on the airstrip. He could see the deputies’ SUV break from the hangar with its lights flashing. It moved down the center of the runway, making it impossible for the plane to take off.
Stilwell saw the man in the helmet drop the duffel bag and sprint back to his ATV. He then did something Stilwell had not expected when he had hastily drawn up plans for the surveillance. He drove the ATV off the airstrip and into the brush that ran down the side of the mountain.
As the ATV plowed through the manzanita bushes that lined the airstrip, its lights went out and it disappeared into the darkness.
“Shit!” Stilwell said.
He followed, keeping his vehicle’s lights on. As soon as he was in the brush, the terrain dropped off and he went bouncing down the mountain at a forty-five-degree angle. He followed the sound of the fleeing ATV and the dust kicked up into his lights. He almost lost control on a sharp left turn when his front right wheel caught a rut. He overcompensated by jerking the wheel right, and the back end swung around in a 180 skid before coming to a hard stop. He started up again, and his lights came upon the runaway ATV now on its side next to the thick trunk of a live oak. Stilwell slammed down the brake pedal, skidded to another stop, and jumped out, pulling his weapon and flashlight from his belt holsters as he moved.
Gun up and wrist braced over the hand holding the flashlight, Stilwell approached the back of the upturned ATV.
“Sheriff’s department,” he called out. “Put your weapons down and your hands in the air!”
There was no response. He kept moving. Realizing that the flashlight made him an easy target, he flicked it off as he came around the end of the ATV and then turned it back on and focused the beam on the two seats. The driver was gone.
Stilwell swept the light across the thick brush but saw no sign of the man in the safety helmet. He knew it would be impossible for him to adequately search the mountainside for a runner on his own. As he stood there, annoyed with himself for not catching the man, he heard the rising sound of a plane’s engine and instinctively knew it was running down the airstrip to take off. He ran back to his ATV and grabbed the two-way out of the charging mount.
“Quigley, what is — ”
His voice was drowned out as the plane flew about seventy-five feet overhead.
There was no response on the radio.
“Quigley, Ramirez, copy me on your status.”
He waited. Nothing. Then the weak voice of Ilsa Ramirez came back.
“Officers down, officers down.”
Stilwell jumped behind the wheel of the ATV and pointed it back up the mountain. But the angle was steep and its wheels spun on the loose soil. It slowly made its way up, then popped out of the brush onto the tarmac. He saw the SUV with its doors open and lights on. In the beams of its headlights he saw two bodies on the tarmac. Neither was moving.
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