Chapter 1
You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst.
-William Langewiesche-
The night vision scope searches left and right over a green-tinged landscape, attempting to center crosshairs on the running man’s back, but he moves rabbit-quick, dodging erratically and using anything he can duck behind to put things between him and the hunter.
The scope loses the quarry as the man slips behind a boulder and sprints up a narrow side canyon. The sniper guides the drone using the keys and touchpad of the MacBook Pro as he watches the laptop screen rather than using the sensory goggles to guide the weapon. The running man stumbles, almost going down, but continues up the small canyon.
The sniper follows him with the drone, as patient as a buzzard over a dying animal. It is only a matter of time, the sniper knows, and then the man will die, taking what he has seen with him as he breathes a final time.
The canyon ends on a level plain, and there is no place to hide, no place to run as the man looks across a flat expanse of desert. He glances back once before sprinting across the open area.
The green image shows all his actions and the controller accelerates the drone toward the man, pushing keys to move the crosshairs up his back. He pushes another button and the image jiggles at the same time that three dark spots appear on the running man’s shirt. The man staggers as the crosshairs move to the back of the man’s head. The image jiggles again and the man falls. He does not move. The controller circles the drone several times over the man until he is sure, and then he flies the drone from the area. The controller relaxes, turning up his music as the song, Another One Bites the Dust, begins.
The controller smiled. There will be many more biting the dust before he’s through…
~*~
Hunter first saw the body in the bloody shirt lying facedown on a flat expanse of gravel and thin soil dotted with prickly pear and dark green creosote. The man lay facedown and motionless. Hairs on Hunter’s neck prickled as she looked around, but she saw no other living thing.
As she waited for her partner to arrive in the Jeep, Hunter squatted on her heels Indian style. She tilted up the brim on the straw western hat and wiped sweat and grit from her face with a handkerchief as she looked over things.
From his tracks and the position of his body, the man seemed to be heading for Tinaja Prieta Canyon, in the eastern edge of the rugged Chinati mountain range.
She heard the vehicle coming and stood so he could see her. Gary stopped the Jeep twenty yards from the scene and walked to Hunter’s side. He said, “What have we got?”
“Looks like somebody shot him with a .22. He’s been hit three times in the back and once in the back of the head. The three are grouped close, like the shooter was right there at his back. I’m pretty sure the head shot was the last one, and he fell and didn’t move after he hit the ground.”
Gary said, “He’s wearing the wrong clothes for out here.”
“Uh-huh.”
He went to the body, checking inside the back of the man’s collar. “Dior Homme. That’s a three hundred dollar shirt.”
Hunter said, “Are you serious? And how did you know that?”
“I was in California on vacation a couple years ago. We went to Rodeo Drive. You know, to be tourists and gawk at all the pricey stuff. They have a Dior Homme store there.”
Hunter looked at the dead man, “What is someone dressed like that doing out here?”
“Maybe a drug deal that went wrong.” Gary looked at the holes in the man’s shirt, “You think it could be a .25 instead of a .22?”
“Maybe, but look at the one in his head. It’s small. Had to be a plain .22 round, too, because anything more powerful would have exited the front. There’s no blood on his front.”
“Did you move him?”
“I checked for vitals, lifted him just enough to see there’s no exit wounds.”
Gary looked around, “Where are the shooter’s tracks?”
Hunter gave him a long look. “There aren’t any.”
“None?”
“This guy’s tracks, and now yours and mine are the only ones here.”
“Are you sure you didn’t miss them?”
“Knock yourself out. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
Gary walked over the area for twenty minutes, and then returned to Hunter and the dead man. “I followed his back trail that way for seventy, eighty yards and looked on both sides of his trail. Only found your sign and his.”
Hunter said, “I’d followed him three miles to here. I went back a couple hundred yards and rechecked. His and mine are all there is.”
Gary looked the area over again, “This is on a slight rise, after coming out of the canyon, and there is nada for a quarter mile around. You think he was shot earlier and walked this far?”
“No. Look at the blood. You can tell it leaked while he was in this position. He was shot right here.”
Gary tilted the hat back on his head. “How can that be?”
Hunter said, “I’m thinking somebody channeled Chris Kyle or Carlos Hathcock. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”
“But with a .22?”
“I know.” They were silent for a minute before Hunter asked, “Who’s coming out on this one?”
“Sheriff Montoya.”
“Is Danny bringing any deputies with him?”
Gary grinned at Hunter for calling the new Sheriff by his first name. Montoya had been Sheriff for six months, and was a little stiff when people didn’t address him by his title. “You just keep asking for it don’t you?”
“He told me I could call him that, just nobody else can. So, is he bringing anybody with him?”
“He didn’t say, but I caught radio chatter that several deputies are headed this direction.”
Hunter pulled the brim of her hat lower over her eyes to help cut the glare, “Let’s wait in the Jeep. It’s so hot out here I’m cooking.”
Half an hour later, S