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The cop turned and saw Lucas and Rae, in their body armor, jogging toward them.
He turned back to Letty and said, “What the hell?”
“We have a dangerous situation,” Letty said. “We don’t know what to do. We need to talk to the marshals and figure that out, but right now, I’ve got to call DHS and tell them what we’ve got here.”
—
Letty took outher phone as Lucas and Rae got to the cop and showed him their IDs. Lucas asked Letty, “What?”
“Trying to find out,” Letty said. “We need to tell this police officer what the situation is. Screw the top-secret bullshit.”
“I had a clearance in the Army,” the cop said. He was too heavy, had curly black hair and silvered sunglasses perched on his nose; he might have been a small-town cop in Alabama. “What’s going on?”
While Lucas and Rae explained the situation, Letty got Greet and said, “We’ve got a huge problem here, Billy. We spotted Turney trying to leave the ski valley in a motor home, an RV, like a big bus. We managed to stop that, but she had a rifle and opened up on us, and basically, she got away, at least for the time being. We’re in wild country, and we didn’t think we could leave the bus to chase her because there are three sick people inside, on stretchers, on the floor. We need to do something about them before we do anything else.”
Greet: “Let me see if I got this. You’ve got three sick people, and awoman who was driving the sick people got away and could be infectious herself?”
“That’s right, and we don’t know what to do about her, and we don’t know what to do about the sick people. They could be dying on us, and we’ve got nobody to go inside the bus to try to help.”
“Stay out of the bus,” Greet said. “Stay out. I’ll get the people up from Santa Fe. There are seven of them now at Catton’s house or up in Los Alamos. I’ll find a chopper and get them up there.”
Lucas had been talking to the cop, who was now on his radio, and Lucas called to Letty: “Tell Greet that we’re trying to block the valley road. We’ve got a state patrol car who can get across it in a few minutes. If we’re lucky, and if she grabbed a car up here, we’ll be able to stop her.”
Letty passed that on to Greet, who asked, “Listen, you think she might still be on foot?”
“She probably is,” Letty said. “She’d have to be lucky to have grabbed a car that fast, without us seeing it. She’s probably hiding and trying to figure out what to do.”
Greet said, “Then you gotta get her. Gotta get her. I’ll call you back in two minutes. Maybe five,” and hung up.
—
The cop wastelling Lucas that there were three more cops in the village, and he could get them to cover the bus, and he would check in the village to see if anyone had seen anything like a carjacking.
He added, “That bus got up here maybe an hour ago, maybe forty-five minutes, and stayed here—couldn’t go any further up the hill. Too steep and narrow. I did see a big SUV come down and stop next to it for a while. It looked like they were clearing furniture out of Ms. Catton’s house.”
“That’s up the hill?” Lucas asked.
“Yeah, but I think I saw Ms. Catton leaving, maybe fifteen minutes ago, in a silver SUV,” the cop said.
“What kind of SUV?”
The cop shrugged. “I don’t know. American, I think, maybe a Tahoe or Suburban? I never saw the front or back of it. Didn’t pay any attention.”
“Anybody in her car with her?”
“I didn’t look specifically,” the cop said. “But yeah, I think there was a guy in there. Maybe somebody in the back seat, too.”
“Was that Ms. Catton’s car?” Rae asked.
“No, I’ve never seen it before. Ms. Catton drives a Lexus.”
“Check with your men about a carjacking, then get them up here. Surround the bus, but don’t get close, and keep people away,” Lucas said. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Folks call me Tank,” the cop said.
“Okay, Tank, there are three very sick people in the bus, who aren’t going anywhere. If anybody comes up the road and tries to push past you to the bus, shoot them. I’m not joking about that. Some guys in white suits will be showing up to take care of them…and the bus.”
The cop asked, “You going after her? If she’s on foot?”
