will these rubes learn they can’t fool a dog’s nose?” Randall leaned down to pet his Belgian Malinois, Lotte, who’d stretched out beneath his chair. She thumped the floor twice with her plume of a tail, but didn’t raise her head.
“The logbook indicates the truck passed through this area,” Graham continued. “That’s the second shipment that’s been waylaid in as many months, and another indication that there’s an active growing operation in the area. We know from experience that public lands are prime targets for illegal growers.”
“Free land, away from people, limited law enforcement presence.” Carmen ticked off the reasons wilderness areas presented such a temptation to drug runners. “I read the first national parks had problems with bootleggers. Now it’s pot and meth.”
Graham turned to the large map of the area that covered most of one wall of the trailer that served as task force headquarters. “We’re going to be flying more surveillance this week, trying to locate the growing fields. We’ll be concentrating on the Gunnison Gorge just west of the park boundaries. The counters we laid last week show increased vehicle traffic on the roads in that area.”
In addition to the more than thirty thousand acres within the national park, the task force was charged with controlling crime within the almost sixty-three thousand acres of the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area and the forty-three thousand acres of the Curecanti National Recreation Area. It was a ridiculous amount of land for a few people to patrol, much of it almost inaccessible, roadless wilderness. In recent years, drug cartels had taken advantage of short-staffed park service to cultivate thousands of acres of public land. They dug irrigation canals, built fences and destroyed priceless artifacts with impunity. This task force was an attempt to stop them.
A pretty feeble attempt, Michael thought. He thumbed a butterscotch Life Saver from the roll he kept in his pocket and popped it into his mouth. They were wasting time sitting around talking about the problem, instead of being out there doing something about it.
“If we want to find the crops, look for the people who take care of the crops,” Simon said.
“You mean the people who plant the weed?” Randall asked.
“The people who plant it and water it and weed it and guard it from predators—both animal and human,” Simon said. “Illegals, most likely, shipped in for that purpose. We find them and put pressure on them, we can find the person behind this. The money man.”
Here was something Michael knew about. “Human trafficking in Colorado is up twenty percent this year,” he said. “Some sources suggest a lot of victims who end up in Denver come from this area. We could be looking at a pipeline for more than drugs.”
“So the guys in charge of drugs offer a free pass into the country to people who will work for them?” Lance asked.
“More likely they work with coyotes who charge people to bring them into the country, but instead of going to their cousin in Fort Collins or their aunt in Laramie, they end up prisoners of this drug cartel,” Michael said. “And once they’ve worked the fields for a while or learned to cook up meth or whatever the drug lords need them to do, they take the women and the younger men to Denver and turn them out as prostitutes. It’s slavery on a scale people have no idea even exists anymore.”
“So in addition to drugs, we may be dealing with human trafficking,” Carmen said.
“We don’t know that.” Simon’s voice was dismissive. “It’s only speculation. We do know that if these people have workers, they’re probably illegals. Deport the workforce and you can cripple an operation. At least temporarily.”
“Only until they bring in the next load of workers.” Michael glared at the man across the conference table. “Rounding up people and deporting them solves nothing. And you miss the chance to break up the trafficking pipeline.”
“End the drug operation and you remove the reason they have to bring in people,” Simon countered.
“Right. And now they take them straight to Denver, where no one even notices what’s going on.”
“Back to the discussion at hand.” Graham cut them off. He gave each of them a stern look. “As a task force, our job is to address all serious crime in this region, whether it’s human trafficking or drugs or money laundering or murder. But I don’t have to tell you that in this time of budget cuts, we have to be able to show the politicians are getting their money’s worth. A high-profile case could do a lot to assure we all get to keep working.”
And drugs were worth more to federal coffers than people, Michael thought grimly. The law allowed the Feds to seize any and all property involved in drug crimes, from cash and cars to mansions.
“Tomorrow we’ll begin five days of aerial patrols, focused on these sectors.” Graham indicated half a dozen spots on the map. “These are fairly level spots with access to water, remote, but possible to reach in four-wheel-drive vehicles.”
“What about the private property in the area?” Michael asked. Several white spots on the map, some completely surrounded by federal land, indicated acreage owned by private individuals.
“Private property could provide an access point for the drug runners, so we’ll be looking at that. Most of the private land is unoccupied,” Graham said.
“Except for Prentice’s fortress,” Simon said.
Michael didn’t ask the obvious question. If he waited, someone would explain this mystery to the new guy; if not, he’d find out what he needed to know on his own.
“Richard Prentice owns the land here.” Graham pointed to a white square closest to the park—almost on the canyon rim. “He’s built a compound there with several houses, stables, a gated entrance, et cetera.”
“But before that, he tried to blackmail the government into buying the place at an exorbitant price,” Carmen said. “He threatened to build this giant triple-X theater with huge neon signs practically at the park entrance.” Her lip curled in disgust.
“He’s had success with those kinds of tactics before,” Graham said. “He threatened to blow up a historic building over near Ouray until a conservation group raised the money to buy the place from him.”
“At an inflated price,” Carmen said. “That’s how he operates. If he can figure out a way to exploit a situation for money, he will.”
“But the government didn’t bite this time?” Michael asked.
“No,” Lance said. “And the county fought back by passing an ordinance prohibiting sexually oriented businesses. He built a mansion instead, and spends his time filing harassment complaints every time we drive by or fly over.”
“So do we think he has anything to do with the crime wave around here?” Michael asked. Greed and a lust for power were motivation enough for all manner of misdeeds.
Graham shook his head. “Prentice likes to thumb his nose at the government, but we have no reason to suspect he’s guilty of any felonies.”
“Which doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty,” Carmen said. “Just that we can’t prove it—yet.”
Michael studied the map again. First chance he got, he’d check out this Prentice guy.
“Next on the list.” Graham scanned the clipboard again, but before he could continue, a knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” Graham called.
The door opened and a woman stood on the threshold, eyes wide with surprise. A fall of long honey-blond hair obscured most of her face, but she appeared young, and pretty, with dark eyes and a well-shaped nose and chin. She wore canvas cargo pants, hiking boots and a long-sleeved canvas shirt, open at the throat to reveal a black tank top trimmed in lace, and a hint of tanned cleavage. Michael’s gaze locked on the holstered weapon at her side—a .40-caliber Sig Sauer. He had one like it at his hip. So was she some kind of law enforcement?