Chapter Fifty
“SEE ANYTHING?” GROMLEY asked, peering into the darkness, rain soaking him to the bone.
“No. That piece of junk sank fast as fuck,” Dupuis replied.
“Don’t you have any night vision in that truck of yours? You’ve spent enough on your arsenal in that thing.”
“They are on my list for our next real payday.”
The two police officers stood at the water’s edge looking out over the Mississippi.
Dupuis held a spotlight in his right hand, his Sons of Liberty AR was in his left.
He had affixed a SureFire light and Aimpoint red dot optic and Vickers Blue Force Gear sling just like he had heard spec ops did on some podcast.
They turned toward a splash upriver.
“What was that?” Gromley asked.
Dupuis clicked a button on the handheld spotlight and turned it toward the noise.
“Just a fish.”
Gromley hitched up his pants over his protruding belly.
“You stay here. Give it an hour.”
“Come on, Hound, no one can hold their breath that long. He’s gone.”
“Yeah? Well, you damn well better make sure.”
The older detective turned to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m getting out of this weather. Hang out so we can tell Bates we observed the area for an hour. Just fucking do what I say.”
“Yes, sir,” Dupuis said, the sarcasm heavy.
Walker swam at a slight downstream angle. It meant he would have a longer patrol to his destination, but he would get to shore faster and would not waste energy fighting the current. Instead that current would be an asset.
He dragged himself ashore and turned to look at the night sky, catching his breath.
Paladin.
“Pal,” he whispered. “Heir.”
Nothing.
He pushed himself to his knees in the mud.
“Pal, here boy,” he said louder.
Still nothing.
How far had he gone downriver?
A mile?
Two miles?
It was hard to tell.
Barefoot, in wet jeans and no shirt, it would take some time to make it back upriver. Whoever had attacked him might be long gone. But maybe not.
Walker inspected his speargun, ensuring it was in working order. Then he grabbed handfuls of mud and caked it across his chest, stomach, arms, and face.
It was time to go to war.
Sergeant Dupuis leaned against the brush guard of his Ford F-350 smoking his second Hooten Young cigar of the night. He had heard that Delta Force operators smoked them. His rifle was on the hood.
Every few minutes he would hear something and shine his spotlight in that direction.
He hit the light button on his Casio G-SHOCK, the same watch he had read that spec ops guys preferred. It had been forty-five minutes. Did he really need to wait fifteen more? Who would know?
He had grown tired of practicing his quick draw with his new Staccato C4X in the TXC waistband holster on his belt.
He had a Vortex red dot on it. Only old-timers still used iron sights.
A buddy who had stayed in the military had told him the most elite units were using these exact pistols, as were top tactical teams of federal law enforcement agencies so, of course, he had to add one to his collection.
The four-inch compact compensated pistol even took his Glock mags.
Now he was waiting and checking his watch every few minutes, thinking about the night vision and helmet he wanted to buy.
Maybe he should try out for SWAT. That had been his goal before Bates recruited him for COPE.
Kicking doors, executing high-risk warrants, and rescuing hostages sounded more high-speed than rolling through the Ninth.
But the extracurricular activities of COPE sure paid better.
If he wanted to keep building his arsenal, he needed to stick with COPE.
Besides, at this point he doubted that Bates would even let him leave.
He was dreaming about NODs and L3 Harris Next Generation Laser Aiming Devices when he heard a whimper.
He turned the spotlight downriver into the brush.
Then he heard it again.
What is that? A fucking animal?
Dupuis grabbed the rifle off the hood of his truck and made his way downriver toward the source of the noise, sweeping the path ahead with the spotlight, cigar clamped in his teeth.
The whimpers were getting weaker the closer he got.
He stepped over rotting logs and moved past cypress and oaks until he found the source of the noise.
A fucking dog?
Dupuis looked down, recognizing it as a Belgian Malinois.
The fucking thing escaped?
Bates would not be happy to hear that.
It looked dead but Dupuis could see a slight rise and fall of its ribs. He could also see where it had thrown up.
Should he just pop it in the head and toss it back in the river?
It might wash up somewhere, but who the fuck cared? Gators would probably get it anyway.
Dupuis adjusted his grip on the spotlight, sweeping the powerful beam on the river and through the trees and bushes around him.
Fucking creepy.
It’s about time anyway. Pop this dog and get the fuck out of here.
The creature whimpered again. He would be putting it out of its misery.
He put the light on the dog and flipped the selector lever on his rifle to the fire position, moving his barrel to the side of the animal’s head.
The sound startled him. At first, he thought his ribs had caught fire but that did not make any sense.
The cigar dropped from his mouth and he looked down at his right side to see a stainless steel rod projecting from his rib cage.
As he struggled to comprehend what was happening, he heard branches breaking.
It sounded like he was being charged by a wounded animal, like a leopard or Cape buffalo that he had seen on the Outdoor Channel.
His brain still did not quite grasp the situation as a shirtless figure covered in mud sprinted from the undergrowth out of the darkness. The creature’s right hand held a stone. Dupuis was still struggling to make sense of it when the rock connected with his head.
Belle answered his call on the first ring.
“Why are you picking up the phone from a number you don’t know?”
“Chris, are you okay?”
“It’s after three a.m., what are you doing up?”
“I could ask you the same. I’m working on the manifests. I think I found something. What number is this? Did you get a new burner?”
Walker looked at the tailgate of the yellow monster truck and slowly ran his fingers through the damp hair on Paladin’s head. The dog was wrapped in an insulated poncho liner that Walker had found in the rear passenger area.
“I did.”
He had opened both of Dupuis’s phones using the dead officer’s face. One was clearly a burner, which was the phone Walker had used to call Belle. Being an analog guy and having to memorize phone numbers sometimes had its advantages.
“Well, why are you calling me at three a.m.? Find something in the SSE?”
“Not exactly.”
Paladin opened his eyes and looked up at his handler.
He had swallowed a lot of water, and Walker assessed that he had a broken rib or two from the rollover.
There was a danger that a rib had punctured an internal organ, but Walker did not think so.
Still, he needed to get Paladin to a vet to be sure.
“Well?”
Walker moved his eyes to the bed of the truck, where he had placed Dupuis’s rifle, pistol, Emerson folding knife, handcuffs, light, badge, wallet, and a stack of cash in a paper bag that must have totaled close to ten thousand dollars.
One of Dupuis’ boots was on it’s side. It had been at least three sizes too small for Walker’s foot.
After carrying Paladin to the tailgate and assessing him for injuries, he had wrapped him in the poncho liner.
He had then retrieved his speargun from where he had dropped it, after sending the shaft into the dirty cop, and returned to where Dupuis lay face down in the mud.
He extracted the shaft from the officer’s body, threw on the dead man’s rain jacket, and dragged him back to the truck, hoisting him into the passenger seat.
“I’ll explain when I see you. Do you remember where you dropped me off?”
“Yes.”
“Can you be there in twenty minutes?”
“Of course. Chris, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m okay. See you soon.”
He disconnected the call and continued to rub Paladin behind the ears.
“It’s okay, boy. You’re going to be okay.”
He then lifted Paladin from the tailgate and gently laid him on the ground next to the AR and bag of cash.
Then he clipped Dupuis’s folder to the right pocket of his own jeans, slid the Staccato into the holster, shoved it inside his waistband, and ensured the clips were in place over his belt just behind his right hip.
The handcuffs went in Walker’s back left pocket. The badge and wallet in his front left.
He then moved to the driver’s door and opened it, looking across at the corpse slumped in the passenger seat.
Walker slid into the driver’s seat and started the vehicle, its heavy engine roaring to life in the darkness.
He experimented with buttons and knobs until a light illuminated that indicated the car was in low four-wheel drive.
He took an ASP baton he had found in the side door compartment and stepped from the vehicle, using the adjustable seat to wedge the baton against the gas pedal.
He then reached across and put the truck in one low.
It lurched forward slowly in its lowest gear setting, one made to pull it from mud, sand, or snow.
Walker stood silent in the falling rain and watched it roll into and submerge beneath the waters of the Mississippi.