Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Patterson sat in the rear seat of the Bell 206 helicopter alongside Rachette. Waze sat in the front seat next to the pilot, a capable man named John Dewer.

A radio communication came through on her headphones. “FBI 1 and 2, twenty minutes to destination.”

“Copy that,” Dewer said. “Sluice-Byron 1, ten minutes to destination.”

“Copy that,” the FBI pilot responded.

They were ten minutes ahead of the response team. Considering the storms in the area, they had gotten in the air fast. The flight time north to Doyle was just under an hour on a good day, but they were at the mercy of the weather, which was tacking on minutes.

She looked out the window at curtains of rain falling out of the clouds all around them. They were flying up a hallway of clear sky straight toward the town of Doyle.

Nobody at the Anniston County Sheriff’s Department answered any of the phone lines. And her Google search for the Sons of the Void compound near Doyle hadn’t produced anything. The FBI field office had no record of an address for that compound, and Wolf had failed to share his location with Rachette, or Rachette hadn’t listened if he did.

So, rather than flying blind, they had made Doyle their destination. But then what? Then they would have to start banging on doors for information—a further waste of time she was pretty sure they didn’t have.

A jutting patchwork carpet of grasses, pine forests, and farmlands slid by underneath them, and she scanned the woods below for clues.

Rachette sat to her left, bouncing his knee up and down. The movement in her peripheral vision clawed at her brain.

“What’s that?” Waze pointed out the windscreen; his voice alarmed through her headset.

A plume of smoke rose from the forest ahead on the port side.

The helicopter banked and leveled out, a new destination on the horizon.

Patterson caught movement on the road below and saw a long stream of motorcycles.

“Got a lot of bikers riding beneath us,” Dewer said.

“I see that,” Patterson said. “This has gotta be it.”

They went radio silent as they approached the scene. Every kilometer closer revealed more details of the destruction below. There had been a powerful explosion. The trees and brush flattened and bowed outward from a crater. Flames licked up from a cluster of trees, sending black smoke into the air.

Dewer hovered over the epicenter of the explosion.

Three buildings were demolished, flung outward, and shredded into millions of pieces. All sorts of debris blew in the rotor wash. The smoke was pushed away as Dewer lowered the chopper toward a flat, open spot.

“Over there,” Waze said.

A tall, muscular man wearing a sheriff’s department uniform stood among bent trees, waving his arms overhead. A little girl sat next to him on the ground, wrapped in a rain jacket like a blanket.

“Where’s Wolf?” Patterson asked.

Nobody answered.

Dewer set down the helicopter and ramped down the motor. Patterson got out into a cold rush of wind coming off the rotor, ducking as she cleared the blades at a jog. Rachette and Waze hurried and caught up behind her.

With a hand on her gun, she approached the man and the girl cautiously. The deputy was tall, redheaded, muscular, and unharmed by the blast that had leveled everything else around. The holster on his hip was empty, unthreatening.

“Who are you?” Patterson asked.

“Deputy Duane Larkin. Anniston County SD.”

“Get away from the girl,” Waze said.

The man calling himself Larkin shook his head. “It’s okay.”

“Step away from her,” Waze said, pulling his gun.

“Where’s Detective Wolf?” Patterson asked, looking around. Her eyes went to a piece of clothing hanging from a tree, fluttering on the breeze.

“He’s fine!” somebody called from behind Larkin.

There were granite rocks up near the trees, and out from behind one of them, an overweight man wearing the same uniform as Larkin walked into view. He was handcuffed at the front and escorted by another man.

She sagged with relief. “Wolf.”

He walked gingerly, but through a soot and blood-covered face, a white-toothed smile emerged. “Took you guys long enough.”