Bloodstone: A Murder Mystery on the High Desert

By Rod Collins

Hunted by the terrorist assassins working for the elusive Bloodstone, Lake County Sheriff Bud Blair uses the ego and arrogance of a former U. S. congressman to set a trap for a Colombian drug lord. NCIS, the FBI, and the U.S. Coast Guard wait for the trap to be sprung while Bud battles the paid assassins in the Oregon High Desert.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Bright Works Press
• Release date: Feb 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989576890

Rod Collins

ROD COLLINS is the Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors, a national management consulting firm, and a leading expert on the next generation of business management.

Book preview

Prologue

THE SHAGGY, GRAY-HAIRED, UNKEMPT FIGURE OF Bobcat Larson stopped behind a lean six-foot juniper that somehow grew out of a crack in a low basalt bluff. He pulled his greasy, flat-brimmed leather hat lower, and squinted against the rays of a setting sun. Without looking back, he motioned Bud and Roger up beside him.

Bobcat pointed at a boot print and some scuff marks where the man they hunted had skirted the low bluff and slid down the dusty, pine needle-covered bank. He studied the tracks and then eyeballed the far edge of a scab-rock flat decorated with cheat grass and struggling sagebrush. There’s your varmint, he whispered.

Where? Bud whispered back.

At the base of that little cliff over there… across the clearing… in the shadow just to the right of that leaning pine tree.

I see him, Roger said quietly.

Bud took the small ten-power binoculars from his shirt pocket and glassed the hiding place of Bobcat’s varmint. The man they hunted was sitting behind a fallen pine about thirty inches in diameter, his back up against a small ledge, a rifle across the dead tree. He appeared to be staring at the ground—like he was trying to figure out what to do next. Yeah, there he is, Bud said, And he’s not looking too good.

I wonder, Bobcat speculated in a whisper, if he knows a cougar is about to have him for supper. Look right above him…about ten feet…on that little ledge.

Damn, Bud whispered back, I want that guy alive.

Roger peeled off his jacket, wadded it up in a ball, and dropped to the ground in a prone shooter’s position. He pushed the bundled jacket out in front him a little, then nestled the barrel of his rifle on the makeshift rest.

You gonna shoot the varmint or the cat? Bobcat whispered.

Roger didn’t say anything. He just adjusted the scope for eightpower magnification, found his target, and then concentrated his attention on the head of the big yellow cougar. How far is it, Bobcat? he asked.

The old hunter squinted and stared, estimating the distance.

I’d say about two hundred and forty yards…maybe two fifty. Hard to tell in this light.

Roger’s big frame seemed to settle into the ground. He took his time, setting his sight picture to allow for bullet drop, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

The binoculars gave Bud a clear view. He watched the cougar twitch its tail and then bunch its legs up under its body, like a house cat getting set to pounce on a mouse.

The muzzle of the .308 belched fire, the heavy report rolling through the pine timber, and then the cat twisted and fell sideways off the bluff. The cougar’s one hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight smashed into the wounded legs of an average-sized man who began screaming like a rock concert fanatic. Judging by the screams, Bud thought the guy’s terror trumped his pain.

Bobcat grinned. Where’d you hit him?

Roger stood up, brushed the dust off his knees, picked up his brown khaki jacket, and then grinned at Bobcat. I was aiming for his right eye.

Did you hit it?

No. I think I shot him between the eyes.

Bobcat slapped Roger’s meaty shoulder and said, Well, son, if you practice enough you might just make a shooter yet. And then he let out a whoop and a laugh and danced an old man’s jig, thin arms and legs pumping in time to some tune that only Bobcat could hear.

Bud watched the exchange between the lean, seventy-something, retired government trapper and Deputy Roger Hildebrand, shook his head and said, Roger, what the hell did you do for the military? Between the eyes? At two hundred and fifty yards?

Roger just shrugged and said, Anyone in my unit could make that shot. It’s no big deal.

Bud stared at Roger for a long five seconds, and then just shook his head and pointed across the clearing at their quarry. Let’s go get the guy and see if we can get out of here before dark.

Bobcat nodded, and without looking at Roger, he asked, You want the tail or the scalp?

Chapter 1

HE AWOKE TO THE SMELL OF fresh coffee and a soft voice saying, Morning, Sunshine. He rolled over on his back and looked up into a pair of beautiful, smiling green eyes.

He grinned and said, The future Mrs. Blair, I presume.

Not if you don’t get up and get going.

Don’t want to. He patted the comforter and said, Let’s just stay here and have breakfast in bed.

Not today, but tomorrow you can bet on it…tomorrow.

He spread his arms out on the bed and intoned, Alas, my fair maid, I fear that man is born to sorrow.

If you don’t get moving, I’ll give you some sorrow. She grinned, set a cup of coffee on the bedside stand, pulled his old blue bathrobe up to her chin and crossed her arms. I gotta get. When are you picking me up?

You sure you gotta go?

I’m sure.

Dang. Well, first I have to question those two idiots Stone Fly left me. Then I have my report to write. Then I have to call Bruno and see if he can fly us to Yakima. I’ll do that when I get to the office.

And if Bruno can’t fly us up?

I’ll rent a really, really fast car.

Call me when you know. I’m worried about Mom. I called her yesterday and she kept repeating herself. I’m going home to pack some things. Call me.

She leaned forward, kissed him on the forehead, and then left the room. A few minutes later he heard the engine of her Toyota pickup start up, and then the crunch of tires on gravel as she backed out of his driveway.

ASA CONNOR, OWNER-EDITOR AND, AS HE frequently put it, chief cook and bottle washer of the Lake County News, was waiting on the sidewalk when Bud backed into his reserved Sheriff parking spot.

As Bud stepped out of his pickup, looking fresh and ready for the day—boots polished, starch in his khaki shirt—Asa said, Good morning, Bud. Brought the latest edition for your approval.

Hell, Asa, you don’t need my approval.

I’d like it if you’d read it anyway. Scooped the big boys on this one. Had it out on the AP wire before they ever knew what hit ‘em.

Come on, Asa. They were all over it before I called you.

Yeah, but they couldn’t quote the sheriff of Lake County.

How have they treated me since?

Asa grinned. Why you are the fair-haired boy, the type of law enforcement officer this country needs. You broke up a big terrorist operation and saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives. Nothing but praise for you and your injured officers. Trouble is, it’ll probably go to your head, because it actually happens to be true.

Bud sighed and shook his head. Come on in. I need a cup of coffee. Want one?

Coffee in one hand and a cinnamon roll in the other, Bud studied the big picture of the bomb crater, and read the lead story in the Lake County News. He snorted at the headline, and read it aloud. Sheriff’s Department Wins Gun Battle with Terrorists.

He shook his head again and said, Good Lord, Asa.

Asa looked peeved. What would you have me say, Bud? ‘Sheriff’s Department Makes Nice?’

The article was an almost exact quote of Bud’s angry statement to the some hundred or so reporters from the national and local press that thronged to the blast site, keen on finding enough sensational news to feed what Bud termed a blood-thirsty public. Competition to be first had led The Oregonian to speculate about terrorists in advance of any solid evidence, and it had pissed off Bud to the point that he broke his own first rule: Never talk to the press.

FRIDAY MORNING, ACTING ON AN ANONYMOUS tip, Lake County Undersheriff Sonny Sixkiller, Deputy Roger Hildebrand, Deputy Larae Holcomb and State Trooper Charles Prince stopped a hay truck approximately two miles north of Fort Rock.

As the officers approached the truck, three unidentified individuals with automatic rifles fired at the officers. State Trooper Prince was hit by a bullet. His vest protected him, but the impact ruptured his spleen. During the firefight, the assailants detonated explosives hidden in the truck. The assailants were killed and all four officers were injured by the blast.

The officers were taken by both Oregon Air Life and ambulance to Saint Charles Medical Center in Bend. State Trooper Prince was reported to be in stable condition following surgery. He is expected to make a full recovery and return to duty following a period of convalescence.

Deputy Larae Holcomb was treated for a broken ankle, cuts, bruises, and contusions. Her condition is listed as fair. Undersheriff Sonny Sixkiller was treated for a minor head wound from rock shrapnel. Deputy Roger Hildebrand was held overnight for observation and then released.

An FBI forensics team examined the blast site, a crater estimated to be ten feet deep and 100 feet wide. They collected soil samples, the body of one assailant, other evidence, and left by helicopter. There is no word yet from the FBI as to the identities of the assailants, but witnesses said the body recovered at the scene appeared to be a foreign national of Middle Eastern origin. According to Lake County Sheriff Bud Blair, the weapons used by the assailants were AK-47s.

In a statement to this paper, Deschutes County Sheriff Cal Redmond gave high praise to Sheriff Blair and his officers. Sheriff Blair marshaled his resources skillfully and organized a textbook operation. There was no way these guys were going to escape. Thanks to Sheriff Blair, we had a cork in the bottle almost from the beginning. I think that’s why they killed themselves. They knew there was no way out.

In addition to injuring the officers, the blast also started a sagebrush fire that spread into the pine timber north of the blast site. According to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service estimates, the fire was held to about 500 acres due to quick action by Forest Service and BLM retardant planes."

BUD LOOKED UP FROM THE PAPER, sipped his coffee, then spun around and stared at the big Lake County map on the wall. He was seeing a bloodied Deputy Larae Holcomb, her ankle obviously broken, gashes in her lower calves, blood coming from each ear, dazed, confused, nearly unconscious.

And he was seeing the bulky frame of Deputy Roger Hildebrand rising from the sand like a phoenix, dusty, and slightly befuddled. He had been protected by a low berm of dirt, but the concussion had knocked him out.

He also had a flash recall of Bremerton Detective Gino Maretti swatting him on the back of the head and telling him, We ain’t got time for no weepies.

He shook it off and turned back to Asa. I didn’t tell you everything.

Asa sniffed, and said, Like who Deputy Larae Holcomb is or where she came from?

Bud nodded. New to us, did lots of undercover work in the Sacramento area. Good cop. I had her working undercover in Fort Rock as a bartender. She was trying to sniff out a meth lab. Anyway, he continued, we had a lot of help from an NCIS agent…a real agent, not some desk jockey. He tipped us off. He was hunting his sister’s killer and unearthed this people-smuggling operation by accident. And he took down four of the assailants by himself.

Bud shook his head and chuckled. I found two of them, arms wrapped around a big ponderosa pine, tied wrist to wrist. They were still quarreling with each other like a couple of old hens when…uh…I brought them in. Still have them in our fine jail.

Asa gave a small smile. "Mid-Eastern?

No. Just a couple of dumbshit baddies from the Seattle area.

I heard the other bad guys were Mid-Eastern.

Bud’s tone was challenging. Where did you hear that?

Well, from a friend who watched the whole thing from the top of Fort Rock.

Won’t wash, Asa. The distance is too great to make out that kind of detail through the best of binoculars.

Asa grinned, ran a hand over his close-cropped gray hair, and then said, It seems your watcher plan worked. My friend got suspicious of Cowboy and stayed up late one night. Sort of sneaked in and took a peek. Said he saw two or three people who looked like Arabs.

And he just happened to give you a phone call.

That’s the size of it. Wouldn’t give me a name.

I’ll give you one: Stone Fly.

Is that the NCIS agent who took down the four bad guys? When Bud didn’t answer, Asa nodded to himself and said, Now the question is, why do that?

Bud thought about the computer disc in the small fireproof safe hidden in his cabin out at Dog Lake. Yeah. Why would Stone Fly trust me with information he wouldn’t share with NCIS?

Bud shrugged. Maybe he doesn’t trust his own organization. And, maybe he wants our citizens to realize those boys are waging war on us. Maybe. Or maybe he believes a small town editor hasn’t been corrupted by political influence and will tell us the truth.

Asa rose and said, Elliptical thinking is what we have here. We’ll be doubling back on ourselves before you know it. He pointed to the paper. Enjoy the article about Lake County’s heroes. Sit still, I’ll let myself out.

Bud looked up at him. When you going to Bend?

Tomorrow. Prostate comes out the next day, two days in St. Charles and then I’ll stay in a nice suite at the Shilo for a week to ten days. Catheter time. They don’t want me traveling until I’m healed up.

And Agness is taking you up?

Asa grinned. Yep. And when I come home, she’s taking me to Reno.

Bud got up and shook Asa’s hand. Good luck, my friend. And congratulations to you and Agness.

Asa closed the door and Bud grinned at the thought of five-foot-three-inch Agness and the tall, lanky editor getting married. Bud liked them both. As the postmaster for Lakeview, Agness was also a fountain of information and a quiet political power in the county. A sensible, intelligent power, Bud thought.

Chapter 2

AGREEN, HOODED SWEATSHIRT KEPT THE morning chill at bay as John Bernard—aka Stone Fly, aka Gar—elbows propped on a weathered wooden picnic table, drank his morning coffee. A trickle of cold smoke drifted from the fire ring between his green scabrous sixteen-foot camp trailer and the picnic table.

The scratch of tiny claws alerted him to an expected morning visitor. A golden-mantled ground squirrel worked his way across the table in quick starts and stops, wrinkled his nose, and then reached out and snatched the peanut from John’s palm. The squirrel skittered across the table, jumped to the ground, and raced to the top of a two-foot chunk of gray basalt. The squirrel sat upright, stared at John while it cracked the shell, and stuffed its jaws with peanuts.

John chuckled. You remind me of some people I met in Afghanistan. You’re greedy, suspicious, and untrustworthy. I think I’ll call you Idi Al Greedy.

His pine-sheltered campsite overlooked the mirror surface of Timothy Lake a dozen miles south of Mount Hood, and he watched the morning sun slowly color the treetops on the ridges sheltering the lake. A feeding fish arched from the still surface, and the sound of the splosh came quietly across the lake a full second later. The expanding rings disturbed the reflected picture of the shoreline trees, and then sank back into the lake.

A white car-topper boat putted along the face of the dam at the west end of the lake. John recognized the boat as the same one he had seen each of the past three mornings. He put down his coffee mug and lifted the binoculars from the table. Nothing suspicious there. Just an older man trolling for trout…alone.

Sorrow, and a sense of great loneliness suddenly hit him, followed almost immediately by anger. Sorrow for his dead sister, raped and killed by Crazy Charlie, anger at a once-upon-a-time friend and teammate. John dismissed the fact that two sailors had killed Dena. Crazy could have, should have stopped them. The fact that Crazy killed both sailors later on made no difference. He was the big boar in the pig sty.

John shook off the feelings. In his business you had to develop a certain sense of fatalism or go crazy…or quit. He turned back to the squirrel.

You know, Greedy, I’ll bet you that old man has outlived his friends. Either that or his friends are too bunged up to go fishing. He smiled and added, Or he could just be an old curmudgeon.

It was John’s private game, the challenge of profiling people, inventing histories—all without knowing a single thing beyond physical characteristics and behavior in the setting of the moment. It had served him well from time to time. And it amused him when he discovered his intuitive guess turned out to be right—which it was—a large percentage of the time.

The cell phone had been off for the past three days, but his R&R was over tomorrow, so he had grimly, reluctantly, turned it on last night, wondering as he did if he shouldn’t just quit and go do something else.

And that thought brought back a clear picture of Larae Holcomb tending bar at the Christmas Valley Lodge. Honey-blond hair and bright blue eyes. A little taller than average, with a compact athletic figure. She was almost beautiful. And when she smiled, her whole face lit up, and she was beautiful.

He sat at a back table in the Christmas Valley Lodge and watched her every Saturday night for over a month as she tended bar. And he was there to stop Cowboy from raping her in an after-hours attack in a moon-lit parking lot.

The squirrel was back for more, so John swung his legs over the built-in bench and headed for the camper to get another handful of peanuts. He didn’t quite make it past the fire pit before the cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

He pulled the phone out, flipped it open and scanned the incoming number. He growled into the phone, Amanda, I’m still on R&R.

Special Agent Amanda Spear, NCIS, headquartered in Silverdale, Washington, smirked at the sound of his voice. Not any more. And I’ve been calling you for three days. So…for three days you’ve been AWOL.

So fire me.

I remember some mornings when you were glad to hear my voice. But now…I have to wonder if you’re just a natural born asshole or if you have to work at it?

You make it easy, Amanda. So why are you calling me?

I want you to scoot back to Lakeview and keep an eye on Sheriff Blair…cover his back…

He paused, letting that information percolate through his brain. Okay, but the sheriff strikes me as perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Why the sudden interest?

Where have you been? Haven’t you been reading the papers?

No.

Well, what the hell have you been doing then?

Just feeding the squirrels. And taking care of some private grief.

Look, she said, for the moment, Lake County’s sheriff is one of the best known people in the world His picture has been on the front page of all the major nation-al and international newspapers…even on Al Jazeera’s website. Especially Al Jazeera. And we received a tip that he’s now a target.

From Middle Eastern terrorists, the Mexican Mafia, or druggies?

Special Agent Spears hadn’t answered, and in truth, John knew that she didn’t need to. His mind flashed back to Cowboy’s barnyard, two EMTs loading Crazy Charlie on a gurney and sliding him into the back of an ambulance, and with lights flashing, heading for the little city of Bend some sixty or so miles away.

Is that what Crazy’s telling you?

He’s dead, John. It looks like the EMTs killed him with an overdose of Cardizen, a cardiac drug, drove the ambulance to the hospital in Bend, then simply walked away.

Damn! I knew there was something wrong about that whole thing…about the EMTs…but I was too tired to think straight. He stopped talking for a few long seconds, then said, So someone arranged a phony ambulance pickup and killer EMTs in less than an hour? And what about Cowboy?

The docs patched him up, and he’ll live. But he’s not saying anything. I think he’ll talk eventually if we can guarantee his safety. The problem is, even though he and his minions were smuggling people, guns, explosives, and drugs through the county, I don’t think he knows a lot beyond his piece of the action.

John digested this new information, wondered briefly about who could organize a snatch operation in less than an hour. He nodded to himself, and asked, Amanda, do we have a mole?

He heard a slight tremor in her voice. John, I think it’s more than that.

Okay. So tell me.

He heard her take a deep breath, and then ask, Do you trust me, John?

That’s a strange question, Amanda. Any reason why I shouldn’t?

I suspect the SAC thinks I’m the mole.

Want to enlighten me?

What’s your location?

Are you kidding?

You got your other phone?

He stopped breathing for a long three seconds. Got your other phone was her code for they are probably listening. He just said, Shit.

She broke the connection.

Twenty minutes later, Idi Al Greedy was busy at work on a big pile of peanuts his benefactor had left for him in the center of the picnic table.

Chapter 3

BUD DRANK THE LAST OF THE cold coffee in his mug and munched on a stale day-old cinnamon roll while he reread the action report it had taken him two hours to write.

Too many players, he grumbled, but I think I’ve covered the basic action. He took the report to Karen Highsmith and asked her to make the requisite number of copies.

Suddenly he was bored with the whole thing. He pulled the phone directory from his top drawer and looked up the number for Kowalski’s Air Service.

Bruno’s wife, Julia, answered on the second ring.

Mrs. Kowalski, this is Bud Blair. I was wondering if Bruno could fly me and Nancy Sixkiller to Yakima this afternoon.

Let me get him on the radio. He had a charter to Reno this morning. I’ll get an ETA for Lakeview.

Bud’s Call Waiting beeped, but he ignored it while he listened to Mrs. Kowalski talking to Bruno. He could hear enough to know Bruno would be back at about 11:00 a.m.

He can give you a ride to Yakima at noon. Will you want him on standby in Yakima?

Wonderful! Yes, we’ll be on the ground for a couple hours, and then we need to get back here.

Okay, Bud. You’re booked. Do you want an estimate of charges?

No…today it doesn’t matter.

She hesitated and then asked, Ah…how’re the boys doing?

Boys and girls, Mrs. Kowalski, he said gently. "Boys and girls, and they are doing just fine. We’ll all be back to