“You mitigate the situation,” I said. “You take in your bad son’s illegitimate child and raise her as your own. You show the world that even though your bad-seed son has no responsibility, you do. You clean up the best you can for your son’s indiscretion. You turn a negative into a positive. You also know that it’s only a matter of time before your crazy-ass son goes down, and you don’t have to worry about him anymore. It could have easily happened at the Appaloosa Club the other night. And when it does, you breathe a sigh of relief and go on.”
Cody turned and smiled. I could see his teeth in the dark. “You might make a good detective after all, Jack. But there’s something wrong with your theory.”
“What?”
“Why would John hand over the child to a known pedophile? Aren’t people going to find out?”
I thought about that for a while. Then it hit me hard. “Moreland is clever,” I said. “Clever enough to figure out a way for Angelina to disappear after a short while, maybe even to stage a disappearance or a kidnapping. I could see him making a tearful plea on television to the kidnappers, turning Angelina into a new Lindbergh baby who is never found. He’d be a hell of a sympathetic figure. And someday, if a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee has the gall to question him about taking the child from our home all those years ago, he says he felt horrible about it and did all he could to help the young couple adopt another child, but not nearly as horrible as he feels about her fate at the hand of kidnappers and what an outrageous thing to ask! He comes off looking like a tragic saint.”
Torkleson whistled, and said, “For the love of Pete.”
“Now you’re thinking like a Moreland, Jack,” Cody said. “Ten steps ahead.”
CODY KNEW THE LAYOUT and geography of the canyon because he had planned the raid on Coates months before, but he complained that it looked different in the dark and covered by snow. There was plenty of bitching when he said the only way to move in on the trailer was from behind it on foot because there was only one road into the campground, and we didn’t want Coates to see us coming. So we parked on the shoulder of a gravel road on the other side of the mountain from the campground and plunged into the forest to climb. The snow was fluffy and knee deep. There was no wind at all, so the pine boughs sported three or four inches of snow looking like foam on the top of a beer mug. It was impossible to climb through the thick trees without hitting boughs and dumping snow down our necks. We all wore high-topped winter boots. The beams from our headlamps flew around in the trees as we climbed, and it was hallucinogenic, so I tried to keep my head down and concentrate on the trail in front of me. The SWAT guys carried automatic weapons with scopes, and Morales and Sanders had brought their hunting rifles. The.45 was in my parka pocket.
I was sweating hard by the time we reached the top, but my thoughts of Angelina and Melissa and Coates and Moreland propelled me. I finally stopped throwing up when there was nothing left in my stomach.
As we grunted and cursed our way down the other side of the mountain toward Desolation Canyon Campground, the eastern sky started to lighten into a dull, creamy gray. I doubted we would see the sun itself.
CODY GATHERED EVERYONE when it got light enough to see without headlamps. From where I stood, I could see a big opening below me and ahead of me: the empty campground. There were picnic tables stacked high with snow, and steel cooking grates mounted on metal posts. The roads to and from the individual campsites were untracked except from mule deer, as was the access road from the highway. Sheer canyon walls rose on either side, which made it darker than it should be at seven in the morning.
We all stood in the trees breathing hard, flushed from the climb and the descent. Billows of condensation rose from our labored breathing. One good thing about the falling snow was it muffled sounds.
Cody bent over and pointed out Coates’s trailer. We could barely see the top of it through the trees a quarter of a mile away. As I’d heard about in the courtroom that day, the aluminum roof bristled with antennae and both satellite television and Internet-access dishes.
Cody and Torkleson debated the approach, and they decided to flank the park with two SWAT officers on each side of the trailer. Torkleson told his men to stay in the trees with clear shooting lanes. Cody reminded them the trailer had a back door as well.
Sanders and Morales agreed to split up, each going with two SWAT officers. Torkleson, Cody, the tech guy with his video camera, and I would move straight down the middle of the trees toward the back of the trailer, where Torkleson would establish a command post to direct traffic.
“Turn your radios down and put your earpieces in,” Torkleson told his men. “Communicate. Report what you see so we all know. This exchange is supposed to happen at nine, so we have an hour and a half to wait.”
“To freeze to death,” one of the officers said sourly.
“To save a little girl and put three monsters away,” Cody said.
As the men checked their weapons and equipment before splitting off into teams, I thanked each one of them for coming and I shook their hands. I hugged Morales and Sanders, and they hugged me back.
“We’re glad we could make it,” Sanders said. “We’ve got to square this thing.”
“We’ll get her back,” Morales said, fire in his eyes.
WE FOUND a small clearing 150 yards from Coates’s trailer and stamped the snow down with our boots. It gave us something to do, and the work kept me warm. We were on a steep hillside and could see out over the top of the trailer and the park and the access road. There was a thick U of four-foot-high juniper between us and the trailer to hide behind. Every few minutes Cody would raise his binoculars and study the trailer, watching for movement.
To me, Cody whispered, “I wish we could just go down there and cap the guy, believe me. But we have to do it this way, Jack.” He looked up to make sure Torkleson was far enough away that he couldn’t hear, and said, “You and I are dirty. We’ve got to get all these guys involved and let them make the arrest and the case. My name’s got to be out of it, and so does yours. Henkel will make the case for them when he testifies. I wish you hadn’t have shot him.”
“Me too,” I whispered back. “Something snapped inside.”
“It happens.” Cody grinned. I noted the frost on his eyebrows and three-day length of beard.
AT 8:45 we saw headlights coming down the access road into the park.
I couldn’t hear what the SWAT team was saying to Torkleson through his earpiece, but Torkleson said, “Yes, we see it. Can anyone get the make?”
He listened, nodded, and turned to us. “A yellow H3 Hummer.”
“Garrett’s car,” I said.
“Showtime,” said Cody.
THE H3 WAS MOVING very slowly. It wasn’t the snow that was holding it up but caution by the driver. I borrowed Cody’s binoculars and tried to see who was inside. The smoked glass made it difficult, but I thought I saw the silhouettes of two heads.
“I still don’t get Garrett,” I whispered to Cody. “What is it with him? I can’t figure him out.”
“Psychopath,” Cody said. “We may never understand. The kid crushed his mother’s head in with a rock while his dad looked on. This is one gene pool that needs to be drained for good.”
Realizing the implication of that statement, he said, “Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean Angelina, for Christ’s sake.”
I shook my head. “She’s our daughter, Cody. She has nothing to do with Garrett.”
But I can’t lie and say what Cody suggested didn’t shake me to my core.
GARRETT’S SUV SLOWED to a stop in front of the trailer. It was close enough I could hear the ratcheting sound of the emergency brake being pulled. I still couldn’t see who was inside. They kept it running, and the headlights were still on. If Coates was inside he would have to know they had arrived.