CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

 

 

Gavin Belmont shuddered as he stepped out of his car in the Vail Village parking garage. He’d never enjoyed Denver weather, preferred the oceanic cool of Maryland. But, Denver was tropical compared to Colorado’s mountains. It was only October, but it couldn’t be more than twenty degrees outside. How did the people in these mountain towns endure nine months of snow every year? Gavin would go crazy if he couldn’t wear t-shirts and shorts on the weekends, couldn’t get out on the open sea and feel the warm sun on his face.

He made sure to grab his US Marshal badge and service weapon before locking his car. Trusting Micah’s hunch and a couple of easily-photoshopped pictures might turn out to be a huge mistake, but something in Gavin wanted to believe the guy.

Micah’s first year in Denver, he’d been a mess. Gavin had tried to help him, to keep him on the path to learning how to cope with living anonymously as Micah Reed, instead of as Michael McBriar. For most people it wasn’t easy. Give up the person you’ve been for twenty, thirty, forty years? Takes days of practice sometimes just to make people respond to their new names.

Gavin had wanted the kid to succeed. Taken him on as a personal project, even though he wasn’t necessarily obligated to devote as much time to Micah as he had. Some Marshals gave WitSec entrants their new docs and a little starting-off money, then rode away, never to be seen again.

But Micah had kept relapsing back into drinking, always on the verge of losing his job with Frank, not accepting his new life and identity. Gavin felt terrible about that part because he’d known Frank forever, and had persuaded Frank to take on Micah as an assistant.

Even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, Gavin had been relieved when Micah had dropped out of WitSec. But even more astounding, had found some way to get sober that had—so far—been a lasting deal. And Gavin supposed that’s why he was here in Vail, paying a steep $20 to park in this concrete building, because some part of him wanted to believe that Micah had changed.

Gavin left the parking garage and took stock of Vail Village. Big hotel or condo complex immediately to his left named Mountain Haus. Circular brick courtyard out front. Little garden with some bronze statues. Next to that, a wooden covered bridge that led across a creek, still not quite frozen all the way. Beyond the bridge were shops and hordes of people.

Were they here to ski? With the setting sun, he couldn’t see the mountains all that well, but the strips of bare mountain between the trees didn’t look snowy enough for skiing.

Didn’t matter why they were here, though. Gavin had to figure out why the hell he was here.

He walked across a courtyard and paused at the covered bridge. Sighed, since he had no idea where he was supposed to look, or what to look for. It wasn’t too late to head back to Denver and book a red-eye to Dulles. Eat breakfast with his kids tomorrow, instead of eggs and hash browns at some overpriced Vail diner.

He cinched his wool coat tight. Maybe coming here had been a mistake, after all.

 

***

 

At the top of the parking garage, Everett Welker crouched and scooted closer to the barrier. He pulled his fleece skullcap down over his ears as the sun started to dip behind the mountains. The cold was coming on like a freight train.

Something across the courtyard didn’t look right.

He held a hand out behind him. “Toss me those binoculars.”

His four associates crouched, peering over the three-foot wall at the edge of the parking garage roof. Clifton, the cop holding the binoculars, placed them in Everett’s hand.

Everett focused on a man standing next to the covered bridge at the edge of the courtyard. Was getting harder by the second to see through this fading light. The man was wearing a long wool coat. Eyes darting left and right.

This guy was not a tourist.

Everett beckoned Clifton to scoot closer to him so he could get a better look. Passed the binoculars. “By the covered bridge. Eleven o’clock. What do you see?”

Clifton made a guttural hmmm sound. “Cop. Most definitely.”

“Is he one of ours? Doesn’t look familiar to me.”

Clifton shook his head. “Never seen him before, boss.”

“Son of a bitch.” Everett slapped the concrete barrier with his open palm. The cold stung his hand like the smack of a rubber band. “Any of you seen this guy before?”

The other three took turns spying through the binoculars, each one of them shaking his head afterward.

“What do you think?” Clifton said. “Local or fed?”

Everett took another look, watching the man in the wool coat lift a cell phone to his ear as he turned onto the covered bridge and walked away from Mountain Haus. What he actually thought was that those grimy Polacks, Zaluski and the Auerbach twins, had sold him out. They’d brought in the feds so they wouldn’t have to give Everett and his partners a bigger piece of the organ trade.

How would they swing it? Had Zaluski been wearing a wire during their conversation under the bridge back in Frisco the other day? Everett racked his brain to recall if he’d said anything less than vague during that brief meeting. He didn’t think so.

Maybe this guy wasn’t a fed. He could be some random cop from Colorado Springs or Durango, here as a favor to Nathan. Maybe they were planning to bring in this guy as leverage in the negotiations for the airport business. Claim this other cop was going to give them a better price for his services than Everett was asking. Get Everett to lowball his price.

Whoever the guy was, he wasn’t part of the plan. The Auerbach brothers were trying to pull some shit, thinking Everett wouldn’t be able to see the scam right in front of his eyes. But he wasn’t going to let this slip by without doing something about it.

He said, “Clifton, you go down there and check it out. Take one of our guys with you. Go look at our meeting space and find out if our contacts are still there. If anything is strange, kill those fuckers, and kill anyone else who gets in your way.”