“That’s exactly why she called, if she’s fallen in with them. You’ve got to factor in her state of mind, Dalton — the bipolar, the abduction, the indictments, the campaign pressure.”
Dalton thought a moment. Reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his M9 combat sidearm. The hammer caught on his pocket liner and he almost dropped the gun.
“There’s three Chaos fuckers left,” he said. “If you go by the TV station raid. We can take them.”
“Three at least,” I said.
Dalton turned to me, frowning. “If you could shoot phone video of me fighting them, it would help me in November. Better than any ad I could afford. Can do?”
“I might be a little busy for that,” I said. “Put the gun away until you need it.”
“Fine. Okay. We just have to make sure Natalie is safe, Roland. She’s all that matters to me.”
Dalton worried the gun back into his pocket. I checked my watch.
“Back to the Bighorn,” I said.
I parked off the road across from the motel. Yellow crime scene tape rippled across the entrance. More crime scene tape across the office and several of the bungalow doors — notably six and nineteen. A San Diego Sheriff cruiser parked outside the office. Another in front of bungalow eight. No other cars. A coyote trotted across the lot, tail bushy and low.
I got the binoculars from under the seat, glassed the hills behind the motel. Old tailings from the mines glittered blue and yellow in the lowering sun, the windows of the rock homes peering out from low ground like snipers. Atop a distant boulder I saw the sudden flash of sunlight on glass, then movement. A woman?
Dalton’s phone:
“Our federal government ruined the Bighorn, thanks to you, Roland. I take great umbrage at that. Dalton? Natalie is dying to see you. Retrace your way to Christmas Circle and continue north on Borrego Springs Drive until you come to San Ysidro Drive. Go right. It’s a dirt road. Park in the shade of the Serpent. You can’t miss her. She’s thirty feet high, three hundred and fifty feet long, with the head of a dragon and the tail of a rattlesnake. Get out of your cute little BMW and stand still with your hands up. Any different, we’ll cut you to ribbons.”
“Please be careful, Dalton,” said Natalie. “Please do exactly what we say. Everything depends on you.”
We, I thought. But Dalton didn’t skip a beat.
“I love you, Nats.”
“I always hated it when you called me that.”
“I didn’t know. There’s so much I need to learn.”
“I never spent much on myself,” said Natalie. “Target and JCPenney for me. Why did you tell everyone that I’m crazy and spent all the campaign money?”
“I needed an out. I’ll set the record straight after you plead guilty in court. Don’t worry!”
“I worry a lot, Dalton. Come and get me. It’s time we see each other face-to-face.”
I headed into the traffic circle, merged behind a gleaming silver-and-black motor home that went back toward town. Four bikes on the back, two of them small and pink — a late spring fling for Mom, Dad, and the girls. I continued north.
The sun hung fat and orange in the west. I made the right onto San Ysidro and saw the enormous iron head of the Serpent glaring down from the cloudless blue. I thought of Odile’s vision of Natalie Strait coming to harm in the desert. Slowly picked my way across the sand flat and parked in the shade of it. Shut off the engine.
An openmouthed dragon towered above us. Red-rusted tendrils dripping from its jaws, sabers of bared teeth, iron spikes flaring back over its eyes in a crown of rage. Big enough to eat the little-pink-bicycle family and their shiny motor home in one bite. One of many Ricardo Breceda sculptures scattered throughout the Borrego desert.
“Wow,” said Dalton.
No cars. No people.
I got out, went to the front of the vehicle and raised my hands as instructed. Dalton did the same. I could see down the length of the Serpent all the way to the rattlesnake tail, roughly a football field away, its long body looping up from the sand in diminishing arches, scaled and spiked, a serpent in a sea of sand.
From under the last rising coil Broadman’s silver Tahoe emerged toward us. Followed by a black Yukon.
“Game on,” said Dalton.
“Steady,” I said.
“My middle name.”
Forty-One
The Tahoe came slowly toward us and parked next to the first coil of the Serpent, just a hundred feet away. The Yukon swept wide across the flat to our left and parked lengthwise, its left flank facing us. Two men I didn’t recognize braced long guns on the hood, aimed our way. The driver’s window and the window behind it both rolled down and gun barrels glinted in the sun.
Jackie O climbed out of Broadman’s silver Tahoe, her sunglasses just like those in Lark’s video, and a machine pistol in her hands. Unmistakably Jackie O. So unique yet so ordinary. The face that had launched a thousand futile searches.
Natalie Strait dropped to the sand in her desert fatigues and combat boots, landing lightly and throwing her big dark hair back with a shake of her head.
“Jesus,” whispered Dalton.
It was as jarring a change as I’d ever seen in a person in such a short time.
Behind her followed Cassy Weisberg with a little machine gun of her own. A wide-brimmed straw gardening hat with a chin strap. A little piece of my heart fell away when I realized she’d been part of The Chaos Committee all along.
Then Broadman, dressed in white, a white ball cap shading his face, a large black backpack over one shoulder. He had a smartphone in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“Keep those hands up,” he called out. “Otherwise, you can probably guess what.”
He dropped his phone into his pants pocket, slung the black backpack off and handed it to Cassy.
They came toward us slowly — Broadman, Natalie, Cassy, and Jackie O — stopping forty feet from where we stood. Then Cassy continued. Her pale face was shaded by the hat. She dangled the backpack from one hand and kept the machine pistol tucked tight to her side, pointed at us. Stumbled once, slightly. Handed Dalton the pack.
“Put it on,” she said.
“If you put it on, he’ll blow you up,” I said.
Dalton gave me a look of disdain as he worked on the pack and rolled his shoulders.
“Okay, Sarge. I’m all strapped in, so let her go.”
“Not up to me, PFC Strait. It’s up to Natalie. She knows her own mind now, and has the strength to speak it. Chaos has set her free.”
In the shimmering distant mirage I saw two vehicles moving slowly across the desert toward us. Tiny things with puffs of dust settling behind them. My confederates, answering the call of the Vigilant, I hoped.
“What do you want from me?” asked Dalton.
“I want what Natalie wants, Dalton. I’ve been a fan of hers since you showed me those pictures in Fallujah and called her a schizoid sexpot. Step closer to us. Halfway but no more.”
Dalton stopped halfway.
“Tell him what you want, Natalie,” said Broadman.
“First I want you to apologize for belittling me and cheating on me and blaming me and trying to send me to prison for something that was your idea.”
“I’d drop to one knee,” he said. “But…”
Instead, he sat heavily on his good leg well clear of a patch of cholla cactus, and extended the other leg in front of him. Looking up at her he clasped and pumped his hands as if in emphatic prayer.
“I, Dalton Strait, do apologize to you, Natalie, my one and only true love from the beginning, for all the terrible, cowardly, dishonest, and genuinely shitty things I’ve done. I owe you everything that is good in my life. I have squandered much. Please forgive me. I will never let you down again. Give me a second chance.”