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  “Kate, come in, have a seat. Please tell me you’ve got something. I would like to get this thing wrapped up quickly, for everyone’s sake.”

  Deputy Kate Steele pulled a small notebook from her shirt pocket.

  “No recently fired or disgruntled employees at the school.”

  “That’s good. I would hate to think it was an insider who would do such an idiotic thing.”

  “Principal Newlin did give me a list of recently expelled students, dropouts and major troublemakers. It’s not a long list, eight boys and two girls. The boys are all members of a gang called the Little Brothers and Sisters.”

  “Little Brothers and Sisters? New gang?”

  “A mix of Anglos, Hispanic and Native kids. Kids on the edge. Principal Newlin says they are mixed up but mostly lonely types.”

  Sheriff Hanks shook his head. Lonely boys? In his day even the biggest loser had at least one good buddy. What was the world coming to?

  “Tell me about the girls?”

  “They have created minor problems compared to the boys. But, they were overheard talking about getting back at the school for being put on detention.”

  “Why were they on detention?”

  “Smoking in the lavatory, fighting with other girls and stealing money from purses. The usual sort of thing that happens with troublemakers their age.”

  “Budding bathroom muggers maybe?”

  “Girls have been settling their differences in lavatories since before my time. I’m going to talk with everyone on the list she gave me. At this time I consider all of them potential suspects. Maybe working together as a group. And don’t be naïve, Sheriff, girls can be just as bad as boys.”

  Deputy Steele read off the names to the sheriff. He knew most of the kids. Three of the boys he had coached in little league baseball. He remembered seeing the girls riding their bikes around town only last summer. How could someone go from bicyclist to bomb threat maker in a few short months? It all seemed so ridiculous.

  “Divide the list in half. I’ll take five of the boys. What did you learn from the tape?”

  “I listened twice. The roughness of his voice sounds like an older man, a smoker. This may sound odd, but to me his voice sounded frightened, even sorrowful, like he was speaking with regret.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The Hispanic accent is rural sounding,” continued Deputy Steele. “He also has a bit of a Native American tone to his voice, but not like the San Carlos Apache accent.”

  “Ever heard a Mescalero Apache accent?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “I think that is what we are hearing.”

  “Okay.”

  “What else do you have?” asked Sheriff Hanks.

  “The caller’s sentence structure might indicate a lack of formal education, except for one thing.”

  “What’s the exception?”

  “He said the bomb would go off at nine o’clock sharp,” said Deputy Steele. “That specific wording doesn’t jibe with the rest of his words. Nine o’clock sharp is more the type of phrase a businessman or an educated person would use.”

  “Maybe he heard it on a television detective show. Lots of dumb criminals get their ideas from the boob tube.”

  “Maybe. The more I listen to the tape, the less I believe it is high school kids we’re looking for.”

  “An older friend of a high school kid?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We have got to start somewhere. We should focus on these kids and see if we can make a connection.”

  “Give me five names and let’s get started,” said the sheriff. “There is going to be a lot of heat from parents and the school board to solve this thing pronto.”

  “I know. Fifty or sixty parents came and got their kids in the hour I was at the school. Quite a few more called the principal’s office and said they were on their way to pick up their kids. This put quite a scare into a lot of families.”

  “Sheriff! Sheriff!”

  The panic in Helen’s strained voice sent a chill through Zeb’s bones. The shrillness of Helen’s statement had a life and death quality to it.

  “It’s another bomb threat. It sounds like the same man.”

  Sheriff Hanks picked up his phone. All he heard was static, a loud click and the hum of dial tone.

  “Shit! Goddamn it!”

  “The grade school. This time the man said he planted a bomb in the grade school--in the boiler room. It’s set to go off at one!”

  “This is insane. We’re dealing with the lives of little children here. Helen, call the school. Have them get everyone out. Now! Kate, call Josh Diamond at the gun shop. Have him take his dogs there on the double. I’ll call Delbert on the radio on my way up there and have him meet us.”

  Zeb’s mind did a triple take as it flipped through a catalogue of haunting memories of the grotesque octopus of a boiler in the basement of the grade school building. As a child he had helped his father deliver coal to fire the furnace. As a member of the school board he had led the charge recommending conversion to a gas boiler. Only last week he had called the school to tell them the old coal chute window was open. It was odd he had noticed it at all. What had caught his eye was a stray cat scampering out the backlit window. It would be nothing for someone to push the window all the way open, slip in and plant a bomb next to the gas furnace.

  Zeb was only eight when his first glimpse of the basement monster caused him to lose weeks of sleep and struggle with dozens of nightmares. In his youthful, imaginative dreamscape he had envisioned the furnace as a cross between a fire-breathing dragon and a demonic octopus. Nipping at his heels, it had chased young Zeb into a friendless, dead-end alley. Flames rising from the depths of the beast’s belly had shot searing spears of heat licking at his face. The machine’s pipes had become wildly gyrating arms with suctioned tentacles whose only desire seemed to be to snatch little Zeb and carry him off to the fires of hell and eternal damnation. The memory sent shudders through his spine.

  “Deputy Steele, take the emergency patrol car. It has our best first aid equipment. Helen, call the fire department. Tell them to get up there immediately.”

  A quick call to Deputy Funke assured Zeb his team would be at full strength when looking for the bomb.

  For the second time in half a day the sheriff was overcome with a gut wrenching angst. Luckily he caught another break. The kids had finished eating lunch and were outside playing. Teachers were quickly hustling them to a vacant lot.

  Josh Diamond’s dogs were tugging hard against their restraints as they stuck their noses near the old coal chute. He waived them away from the opening.

  “My dogs are onto something, Zeb. Let’s get in there and have a look.”

  Sheriff Hanks was the first of his team on the scene, or so he thought. He stuck his head through the old coal chute opening. Josh, his dogs settled ten feet back, joined Zeb at the opening. A ray from a flashlight jerked across the cement floor in tandem with the stride of an intruder. The sheriff took his weapon from his holster and drew it up by the opening. He looked again as the flashlight beam appeared with a body coming around the corner. He lifted his gun and found Delbert in the crosshairs. “Shit.” Delbert was in the boiler room. Had he forgotten to tell Delbert to wait outside the boiler room door? He distinctly remembered otherwise. Zeb began to shout, “Del...” at precisely the moment Delbert looked toward the coal chute window. Delbert could not have heard the sheriff’s voice over the explosion.

  “No,” cried Sheriff Hanks. His plea was in vain. In what seemed like an eternity a brick flew through the air, destined for Delbert’s skull. Another brick flew through the air striking Josh in the ribs and wrist. Josh’s position protected Zeb who caught only a smattering of loose mortar across the face. Kate, approaching the scene, ducked just as a brick flew within inches of her head. Broken bits of brick and mortar struck her face. Her only injury was a tiny cut over her right eye.

  The explosion and its immediate eff
ects happened in slow motion and seemed more like a dream than reality.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sand-colored Toyota Camry had been easy to steal. The man had simply driven his pickup truck to the base of Mount Graham. He had hidden his truck in the dip of a small wash behind a large boulder. From there he had walked a mile or so along a low mountain trail to the parking lot used by day hikers. Just in case someone called in the car as stolen during the short time he was going to be using it, he had quickly switched the license plates for a stolen set. If all went well, the hikers would not be back until after his job was completed.

  Using the same screwdriver he had used to change the plates, he popped it into the ignition and was gone. The whole operation had taken only three minutes. It was a seven minute drive back to town. The clock on the dashboard read 12:15 as he pulled onto the street in front of Diamond Gun & Ammo. His timing, so far, was impeccable.

  He stopped a half block before the gun shop and parked on the opposite side of the street. This gave him a clear view of the gun store and any movement inside. No one could come or go without his immediate awareness. The tinted windows on the Camry were another reason he had chosen it. He opened a map and set it on his lap as cover in case someone should walk by. They would assume he was a tourist, probably checking directions. Slouching low, he pulled the brim of his baseball hat to the top of his sunglasses. He stuffed some Copenhagen chewing tobacco between his cheek and gums. His reconnaissance had paid off in spades. He knew the movements and habits of Josh Diamond, Proprietor, Diamond Guns and Ammo as well as anyone could have, right down to the fact that he would be working alone today. The inside layout of the store and where specific guns were kept was etched into his brain.

  In the next fifteen minutes, one lone truck passed by. An old woman was driving, likely on her way to the grocery store three blocks down the street.

  At 12:25 p.m. he sharpened his focus on the front door of the gun shop. If things went as planned, the owner of the store and his two dogs would soon be racing out the door and into a pickup truck parked at the side of the building. The gun shop had only one additional employee. A caricature of a man in a small boat catching a whale in the front window of the gun shop wished ‘Gabby’ good luck in an annual fishing contest over the next three days in nearby Rocky Point, Mexico. The thief knew this was the worker who was out of town.

  As the clock switched to 12:34, Josh Diamond and his dogs zoomed out the front door. Josh stopped only for a brief moment to make certain the door had locked behind him. He kenneled the dogs in the back of his truck, popped a flasher on his roof, and tore off in the direction of the grade school.

  Twenty minutes, the man figured, twenty minutes to get what he needed; get in, get out and then get the hell out of town. As the owner’s pickup truck made the first available left turn, the man in the Camry put the car in gear and drove into the alley behind the building that housed the gun shop. He parked behind the abandoned, boarded up building next door. As he stepped out of the car, small gym bag in hand, he eyed the alley up and down--nothing. The only sound was a slight wind flapping a forgotten, tattered old advertising banner that had seen better days.

  At the back door the man went right to work. First things first. The electrical box that fed the building and controlled the alarm system and surveillance cameras was padlocked shut. He was prepared for this. He grabbed his cutters, sliced it off, and put the padlock in his pocket. Reaching inside the box, he flipped off all power to the gun shop. He shut the electrical box cover and slipped a duplicate padlock in place. No sense arousing suspicion if someone wandered by. The gym bag was on the ground. In went the metal cutters and out came a thin piece of metal. He knew there was enough space to slide the metal tool through the small crack between the door and the jamb. In it went. He felt for the resistance of the wood that sat in the U-hooks. With a quick, hard, upward jerk of the instrument he dislodged the two by four piece of wood. He heard it crash to the floor. If there was a secondary alarm system, it either hadn’t been triggered or was a silent one.

  He returned the tool to his gym bag and grabbed another tool of his trade. This one was more sophisticated and perhaps even one of a kind. The man had made it himself. It was also a thin piece of metal with a small hinge six inches from the end. When a trip mechanism at the opposite end was pushed, the hinge flipped to ninety degrees and the self-locking mechanism made it rigid. It slid through the narrow space. He pressed the end and heard it click into place. He maneuvered the tool, something he had practiced hundreds of times, to precisely where he wanted it. With a simple twist of the wrist the dead bolt flipped open. He pushed on the door and was inside. No alarms sounded. He smiled victoriously.

  He dropped his tool into the small gym bag, picked it up and carried the tools of his trade inside. The door behind was quickly, noiselessly shut. Making his way from the back of the store to the sales room, he kept his eye on the street. Much to his satisfaction there was no movement out there. He walked deliberately to the front door and flipped over the open sign. With the lights off and closed sign showing anyone passing by would assume the owner was still at lunch and likely not lean against the glass to peak in.

  He made a bee-line to the case that held handguns. It was locked. He knew smashing it might cause an alarm to go off. Reaching into the large outer pouch of his pack he grabbed a glass cutting tool. Placing the suction cup on the countertop, he arced a perfect circle, clicked the release and removed a six inch diameter piece of glass. His shopping took a matter of seconds as his gaze fell upon his personal preference, a .38 Colt Diamondback. He grabbed four of them, fondling the first for a few seconds. He then wrapped each, before carefully placing them into the small gym bag. The .22 was a no brainer, a Walther P22. It was for his partner. It needed to be small for his little hands. He turned to the case that held the ammunition, grabbed what he needed and stuffed that into the gym bag. A display rack held some gun cleaning kits. The Otis Elite was an easy choice. He eyed a wide variety of holsters. One grabbed his attention. It was a special military style that held two guns. It was perfect for a man who might get into a shootout. It disappeared into his gym bag too. He glanced at the clock. Eighteen minutes had passed since he entered. Two minutes to spare.

  With one last look around he headed for the back door. Something on the owner’s chair in the back office caught his eye. It was a Kevlar flak jacket that appeared brand new. Grabbing it, he chuckled, “Frosting on the cake.” With that he was out the door. On his way to the Camry he hurled a glob of tobacco laden spit at a board that covered the window of the abandoned building. It hit dead center, precisely where he had aimed.

  The chemicals in his brain lit up. Just one more thing he did perfectly. Life was great and it was about to get a whole lot better. Self-congratulations were in order.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Almost two days later Delbert had yet to regain consciousness. Doc Yackley said his vitals were stable. Other than that he told the sheriff all they could do was wait.

  “Delbert? Delbert can you hear me?” Little could Sheriff Hanks know that his voice landed on deaf ears and a badly damaged brain. Nothing was registering. The hodgepodge of signals coming from the command center of Delbert’s brain was functioning only enough to keep him alive.

  “Delbert? Delbert, can you open your eyes?”

  It seemed like such a simple request. All Delbert had to do was flip up his eyelids. But somewhere between Zeb’s directive to perform such a basic task and the reality of putting it into action laid an unseen barrier.

  “Jesus, Doc, his eyeballs are fluttering beneath his lids. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

  Zeb’s voice seemed to stir a reaction from Delbert.

  “Look, Doc. Look at that damn silly grin he’s got on his mug. I’d be willing to bet you lunch that he knows I’m standing right here by his side. Hell, yes. He knows it.”

  Doc Yackley looked glum. “Say something else to him.”

  “D
elbert? Delbert, it’s Zeb. Just relax and open your eyes. Come on, Del, old buddy. You can do it.

  Delbert’s eyelids may as well have been cemented shut. He could not produce a single voluntary action. Frustration flooded every inch of the sheriff’s being. He felt tremendous guilt, as though Delbert’s injury was totally his fault. Somehow this seemed even worse because the injured man was not only his deputy but also a longtime friend.

  Mrs. Corita Funke, Delbert’s mother, stood helplessly by, watching her son.

  “Corita, why don’t you stand on the other side of the bed and hold his hand? Grip it tight,” said Doc.

  “What are you going to do, Dr. Yackley? Is it going to hurt my boy?”

  “Don’t worry, Corita. I am going to use a bit of horse sense. It’s nothing I learned in medical school.”

  Doc Yackley placed his thumb and first finger over his patient’s shoulder muscle and bore down with the power of a vise grip. Nothing. Not even a reflex reaction. The expression on Doc’s face, if anyone had been looking directly at him, turned from glum to downright dour.

  His mother tried again. “Delbert, honey, you are lying in a hospital bed. Just keep your eyes shut and listen to me. You have suffered a concussion. You were hit in the head by a flying brick. You have been unconscious for two days. Del, my son, did you hear what I just said?”

  Nothing. Not even a single muscle twitched on the injured deputy.

  The attentive doctor watched closely for the smallest of reactions from his injured patient. A signal from Delbert’s injured brain moved his eyes making the eyelids appear to flutter by some purposeful act. His mother and the sheriff felt a ray of hope. Doc Yackley knew better than to be optimistic. Corita Funke placed her cool hand over her son’s forehead. She caressed it with all the love a mother has to give her only son. She was certain her calming assurances would quell his pain, help heal his damaged brain and bring him closer to consciousness.