Breaking Point

They’re on their way now in a convoy of four-wheel-drives. The idea is they’ll flush Roberson our way and we’ll trap him in a pincer movement and he’ll have no choice but to turn loose his hostages and we’ll nail the son of a bitch in the morning.”
    Joe nodded in the dark. “So you’ll flood the zone with people until you corner Butch.”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “What do you think Butch will do when he realizes there is no helicopter? Do you think he’ll keep his end of the bargain?”
    “Batista thinks he won’t have any options at that point.”
    “Why is that?” Joe asked.
    “Because we
will
have aircraft coming. Roberson won’t know it isn’t a helicopter until it’s too late.”
    Joe felt a chill crawl down his neck. “What’s coming?”
    Joe could see Underwood’s teeth in the moonlight as he smiled. “This is what I was worried about earlier, but I wasn’t sure he could make it happen. Drones—two of ’em this time. One is assigned to the EPA, and it’s just an observation unit like the last one. Just cameras and shit on board. But the second one is the kicker. Batista threw my name around and got authorization for a military drone to be assigned to us. All the way from an airbase in North Dakota. That one happens to be armed with Hellfire missiles.”
    Joe was speechless for a moment. Then he said, “You’re going to blow him up?”
    “Into a million pieces,” Underwood said, shaking his head. “Just like one of the many Al Qaeda number twos. That is, if Roberson doesn’t release the hostages and give himself up. So he
will
have a choice in the matter.”
    “Aren’t Hellfire missiles used to blow up tanks on the ground?”
    “Yes, and terrorists in their bunkers. But they’ll work pretty damned well on domestic terrorists, I’ll wager.”
    Joe said, “If you want to start a war out here, this is the way to do it.”
    Underwood shrugged it off. “I’m not worried about that.”
    Joe said, “I am.”
    “Please,” Underwood pleaded, turning his back to Joe, “leave me alone.”
    “Good night, Mr. Underwood,” Joe said, and carefully reached up and clicked off the digital recorder again.
    “Game Warden,” Underwood said, a few minutes after Joe assumed he was asleep. “Now I have a question for you.”
    “What?”
    “If a war started, which side would you be on?”
    Joe hesitated. He said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
    —
    J OE WAS IN HIS SLEEPING BAG, staring back at the hard white stars, when he heard Underwood’s phone buzz again. Batista, no doubt, with more orders, he thought.
    Instead, Underwood walked over to Joe with the space blanket over his shoulders and extended the phone.
    “It’s your wife,” he said with irritation. “Make it quick.”
    —
    “A CCORDING TO THE BIO on the agency website, Juan Julio Batista was born in Chicago in 1965,” Marybeth said. “That makes him forty-eight years old—our age. There’s no mention of a wife or children. He worked for an environmental group called One Globe in the Denver field office from 1989 to 2003, when he was hired by the EPA. He was named director of Region Eight by the Washington bigwigs in 2008.
    “It says he graduated from Colorado State University in 1987. Majored in sociology and minored in environmental affairs.”
    “Anything else?” Joe asked, aware that Underwood was hovering.
    “Tons of media mentions,” she said. “He likes to give press conferences, and he’s mentioned dozens of times when his agency takes action against polluters.”
    “Hmmmmm.”
    “Let’s see,” she said, obviously scrolling through the site. “Region Eight oversees Colorado, Montana, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. But we knew that.”
    “Has he ever worked for Region Ten?” Joe asked.
    “I know what you’re getting at—Idaho. The Sackett case. No, he never worked there. I can’t find any connection.”
    Joe asked, “Anything at all to tie him to Pam and Butch?”
    “Nothing I can find.”
    “What about Pate?”
    “I found some mentions, but they just stop in 1988.”
    “That fits,” Joe said, and told Marybeth what Underwood had revealed.
    “That’s just . . . odd,” Marybeth said. Joe could visualize her mind racing. “I’ll dig deeper tomorrow at the library.”
    Marybeth had access to several state and federal databases from the library computers that she wasn’t supposed to have. She’d assisted Joe with investigations several