My .45 rose at the same time I heard Dad in my head. Gunfights aren’t won by the fastest man. It’s the guy who takes his time and aims. Sight picture. Line up. Shoot.
Daddy Frank Wadler’s silhouette against the glittering river disappeared behind the front sight as the Colt leveled.
I squeezed the trigger and it bucked once. Half-blinded by the muzzle flash, I saw the old man stumble sideways from the impact.
The Colt roared again as the helicopter clattered back overhead; the searchlight beam probed the woods and passed directly over us.
The old man who refused to die shot still again. Flinching at the pressure wave, I ducked. Tucking both elbows against my body and pulling the big .45 closer, I squeezed the trigger, and it bucked again, adding to the flashes. The old man grunted, folded sideways.
Taking a lesson from my two friends who were likely dead, I kept squeezing the trigger until the slide locked back. Muscle memory awoke, my thumb automatically pushing the magazine release button and dropping the empty. I slapped in a fresh mag as the old man disappeared from sight down the riverbank. A splash followed in the sudden silence.
Blinking my eyes clear, I rushed to the edge to see him half in and out of the river.
The helicopter swooped around, lighting the scene in harsh, bluish glare.
Shot to hell, that guy was tough as rawhide. Struggling weakly to stay on the surface as the current pulled at him, he raised the pistol in my direction and I emptied the second magazine.
That’s when still another horror arose that night when something huge swirled up from the black depths.
The jaws of an enormous gator that had to have been sixteen feet long snapped on that old bastard’s gun arm. Daddy Frank screamed as the gator rolled, dragging him under. The shriek ended in a gurgle as water filled his mouth.
The searchlight beam moved from the river and found me.
It held steady. An amplified voice filled the night. “You! On the riverbank! Put down your weapon! Federal agents! Put down your weapon now!”
Movement attracts attention. I held up my left hand, knelt, and gently laid the empty Colt on a mound of grass, then dropped to my knees with both hands in the air, waving to show they were empty. The helicopter’s light locked on me as Perry Hale and Yolanda flitted through the trees.
“We’re good!” His voice reached me through the clattering machine overhead.
“Thank God!”
“You’re on your own. We’re gone.”
And they were.
Chapter 77
Tac lights flitted through the trees like fireflies in a ragged skirmish line.
Perry Hale once again led the way with Yolanda on his heels. Moving downriver, they cut through the woods at a ninety-degree angle to the unidentified army headed their way. Soon they left the helicopter behind and, using a compass, made a wide sweep back toward their truck parked by the bridge.
When he was sure they were clear, Perry Hale stopped to feel under his vest for an entry wound. He breathed a little easier when his hand came out dry. “Hit me in the plates. You all right, Yoli?”
She patted herself. “I can’t believe they missed me.” She saw his bloody sleeve. “You’re cut.”
“Yeah, but I’ve had worse.”
Yolanda produced a compression bandage and wrapped it around his arm. “We made it out all right.”
“We did.” He checked his compass once again, then his watch. He pointed. “That way’ll get us out in an hour.”
“Wish we didn’t have to leave Sonny behind.”
“He’ll be fine. They’ll sort it out soon. Catching us would stir up an ants’ nest. He’ll check in soon enough.”
She slapped him on the shoulder to show she was ready and cut him a look. “Oh, and if you ever call me Yoli again, you’re gonna walk with a limp for the rest of your life.”
His teeth flashed. “Roger that.”
Chapter 78
Gerald Marrs was the DEA agent in charge. Hart Lowell commanded the ATF agents. They’d pulled everyone back to the highway turnoff onto the lane. Two undamaged SUVs that were at the end of the column were parked across the highway, blocking the road and their impromptu Command Post.
Two AFT agents wearing face masks brought Tanner Wadler into the headlights of a black Ford Expedition waiting with all four doors opened wide. Hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, Agent Marrs studied the young man.
“Somebody danced on your face, son.”
Tanner stifled a sob and pointed with his chin in the general direction of the barn’s ruins. “My daddy did. Is he dead?”
Marrs jerked his chin in the direction of the fire. “Was he in there?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t know yet.”
Agent Lowell joined them, scratching his hooked nose. “You the one told Sheriff Gomez about the explosives?”
The young man swallowed. “Well, Uncle Alonzo told me he had some. I just figured that if I told the sheriff there was four hundred pounds, y’all’d move faster.”
“This guy’s name was Alonzo?”
Tanner went pale at the question. “Yeah. He dead, too?”
Lowell shrugged. “He is if he was in the barn.”
“He said there was plastic explosives under his seat.”
“He probably wasn’t lying.”
“Sir!” One of the agents with a battle-slung rifle pointed.
Lowell swung around when a group of men appeared at the turnout. They came into clear relief when four armed agents stepped into the light, bracketing a single individual who looked as if he’d been through a thrasher.
The man set a hat on his head just right until it suited him. “Glad I found it. I feel better when I have my hat.” He noticed a cuffed man with a Fu Manchu mustache and a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses on a Croakies strap around his neck. The man glared with recognition as he was dragged roughly away.
The man under the hat watched as the prisoner was stuffed into the back seat of an unmarked SUV. “Where’d you find him?”
Agent Lowell ran fingers through his gray hair. “Got pulled over coming out here. Driving a truck registered to a Sonny Hawke. His name ain’t Hawke, though.”
The stranger in the straw hat gave Fu Manchu a tight grin. “I recognize, you, too. You’re the guy who ran me off the road. We’re gonna have a talk about your driving before this is all over.”
The agents spread out and the stranger stepped forward. The badge on his shirt caught the light. “Sonny Hawke, Texas Ranger. I’ve been tracking a guy named Alonzo Wadler all across the state, and I imagine he’s probably floating in the air around us right about now. I believe I have a lot to tell you boys.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel didn’t happen without help. Friends and life experiences seasoned this work and brought it to its full potential. I’d like to thank the good folks here in the Lone Star State for their support and stories.
Thanks to John Gilstrap, who has been instrumental in my success, along with C. J. Box, Jeffery Deaver, Craig Johnson, Joe Lansdale, and dozens of friends and fellow authors who have been there as my writing career progressed. Y’all are great.
Much obliged to my outstanding agent Anne Hawkins, who believed in me from the start and continues to provide guidance. And a special thanks to my editor Michaela Hamilton and the great team at Kensington Publishing.
And of course, the love of my life is Shana, my anchor in this world.
Don’t miss the next exciting Sonny Hawke novel
HAWKE’S FURY
Coming soon from Kensington Publishing Corp.
Keep reading to enjoy a sample excerpt . . .
Chapter 1
My position overlooking a two-track pasture road cutting through the rough West Texas rangeland gave me a clear view of three late-model charcoal gray Expeditions speeding in my direction across the hot Chihuahuan desert. Thick rooster tails of dust boiled behind the dark vehicles. A dozen cattle grazing on protein pe
llets barely noticed the SUVs. The dusty vehicles shot past two horses standing nearby, heads drooping in the heat.
The late evening sun stretched across the sage and ocotillo-covered pasture fifty miles north of where we live in Ballard, Texas. Harsh and dry, the landscape was dotted with catclaw cactus, sage, and creosote that stretched to the distance.
Buzzards rode the thermals high above, winding above the landscape in endless spirals. It was wide-open country once home to the Jumano Indians, who were pushed out by the Apaches that held the area until they too were finally driven almost to extinction.
White thunderheads towered all around us, supported by dark gray foundations that seemed to rest on the thin ragged line of the blue Davis Mountains to the northwest. I was hoping the closest storm that looked to be 50,000 feet tall would collapse, pushing welcoming shock waves of blessedly cool air across the flat valley floor.
Beside me, my runnin’ buddy Sheriff Ethan Armstrong adjusted his straw hat and used his thumb to wipe a trickle of sweat from his temple. “Those two behind the lead car can’t be seeing a stinkin’ thing.”
We spoke barely above a whisper. “I’d be following a little farther behind, that’s for sure.”
Not far away, two dark Suburbans were parked in a wide clearing where the pasture road split in two directions to flow around the little ridge behind us. Eight men dressed in baggy clothes and white bandanas waited with automatic weapons. They were spread out in a skirmish line with their backs to us, watching the oncoming SUVs.
“I’d be standing closer to those cars.” Ethan cut his eyes toward me and absently pulled at the tender gray leaves of a nearby West Texas sage in full bloom. “When the shooting starts, everybody hunts a hole and I doubt sage and cactus’s gonna be much cover.”
“El Norte there’ll be the first to go. Why’s he standing right out in front of the car? He’d just as well have a big red target painted on his shirt. I’m burning up, and the least he could do is take off that blazer and roll up his sleeves.”
Ethan snorted. “El Norte. What kinda name is that for a cartel leader?”
“How do I know? I didn’t name the guy.”
The dark Suburbans split up and stopped, facing the other vehicles like gunfighters spreading out in a dirt street. The men inside waited as the boil of dust caught up and billowed around the cars.
“Dumb move.”
Ethan nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I’d’ve turned parallel for more cover and to get away if things go bad.”
“Bad guys aren’t usually the sharpest crayons in the box.”
The worst of the dust was gone when the doors flew open. The men waiting with their backs to us tensed as armed gangsters poured out onto the dry hardpan.
I watched the men face off. “I still think they should be using the SUVs for cover.”
“Amateurs.”
“Which one’s Gabe?”
I pointed at one of the men looking in our general direction. All but Gabe wore white T-shirts covered by unbuttoned plaid shirts. “That’s him in the black blazer that just got out of the Expedition, beside Guero.”
“He’s wearing a coat in this heat, too. What’s with that?”
I shrugged.
“Which one’s Guero?
“The only guy who doesn’t have a gun in his hand.”
“He looks like somebody’s grandpa.”
Hollywood’s version of a Mexican bad guy, the squatty man with thick rolled shoulders wore a gray mustache, loose-fitting off-white frontera guayabera shirt, and baggy khakis.
Beside him was Gabe Nakai, my dad’s ranch manager and a close friend. The hair rose on the back of my neck, watching my old buddy in the company of armed gangsters from Ojinaga, across the Rio Grande.
Ethan must have sensed how I felt. “It ain’t right, seeing him down there, is it?”
“That and the priest’s collar around his neck.”
“I’m still working on that one, too.” He tilted his head like a dog, as if looking at the scene from a different angle would help evaluate the situation. “That’s something else that doesn’t make sense in all this.”
“Ours is not to reason why.” Even I was surprised at my quote.
“Tennyson.”
“You did listen in Miss Adams’s English class.”
“Naw, just memorized those lines for the test and for some reason they stuck with me, too.”
El Norte still had his back to us, but his voice came loud and clear, a trick of the acoustics from the horseshoe bowl surrounding our position. His hair was so black and slicked back that it looked to be oiled. The side of his whisker-stubbled face we could see looked to be chiseled granite. “Guero! Did you bring my money?”
The Mexican national standing beside Gabe spread his hands. “My coke?”
El Norte flicked a command with his fingers. A gangster holding an AK-47 reached inside the open door of his SUV and withdrew a leather briefcase. He flipped the latches and dumped a pile of wrapped and taped packets onto the hood. The cartel leader waved his hand toward the drugs. “As promised.”
“Who uses brand-new English leather briefcases these days? It’s backpacks, mostly, from what I’ve seen.” Ethan sighed. “This is making my head hurt.”
I pointed at three more dark SUVs roaring down the dirt track, directly toward the scenario unfolding at an achingly slow pace. “Who’re those guys?”
“Don’t know.”
El Guero snapped his fingers and one of his men appeared with a briefcase. Holding it awkwardly in one hand, he clicked the latches and it opened, revealing the interior packed with hundred-dollar bills.
“They must have gotten a deal on briefcases at Costco.” Ethan cut his eyes to see if I’d take the bait and continue our evaluation, but I wanted to hear what the gangsters were saying, so I concentrated on their conversation.
“Bueno,” El Norte waved. “Make the deal.”
Trouble started when the gangster tried to close the briefcase. Losing his grip, it flipped out of his hand, dumping the contents onto the ground. White paper cut in the shape of U.S. currency exploded in a cloud, fluttering to the ground and revealing that the authentic bills were only a thin layer on top.
El Norte shouted and retreated for cover behind an open car door. “Mátalos!”
Kill them!
The clear crack of a single gunshot opened the ball. To a man, the cartel soldiers on both sides raised their weapons and the world was filled with automatic gunfire. I found myself looking down the muzzle of a rifle pointed at one of the gangsters standing in front of me. My skin crawled at the flashes.
Reacting to the exchange of gunfire, Gabe grabbed Guero by his collar and threw him into the back seat of their Suburban.
The gangster who fumbled the briefcase struggled with the rifle slung over his shoulder, fighting to bring it to bear on the men who had opened fire. Half a dozen bloody explosions erupted from his light gray and blue paisley shirt. He wilted to the ground, face contorted in agony.
Men on both sides dropped like falling leaves while those who survived the initial exchange scrambled for cover. The hammering sounds of battle filled the air, echoing off the low rocky ridgeline behind our position.
The approaching vehicles rolled into the scene only seconds later, sliding to a stop in a thick cloud of dust. The lead car angled toward Guero’s parked SUV and sheared off the open driver’s door, crushing a gangster who’d taken cover there.
His yelp of terror and pain was high and shrill, butting through the air like a knife.
“Shit!” Ethan charged toward the car, waving his arms. “Stop! Everybody stop!”
I followed, rushing past one of several movie cameras filming the scene.
“Cut!” The director James Madigan rose from under the umbrella beside his canvas chair. “Cut!” He turned to a woman holding a sheaf of papers. “Who the hell are these guys?”
Hard-looking men rolled from the newly arrived vehicles. Dressed in eve
rything from torn jeans, tee shirts, track pants, and even an Adidas pullover, each one had the rigid look of those who killed for a living, obviously a hit team from a Chihuahuan cartel. Faces covered from their eyes down by a tangles of tattoos, they all carried automatic rifles.
An individual in a wife-beater shirt and torn jeans stepped out of the lead car’s front passenger seat and pointed at the director. The only one without a bandana, his face was a web of tattoos. The year 1518 was etched into his forehead. “Ese es Madigan. Mátalos!”
Those words sent an icy knife through my stomach. “Ethan! No! This is real!” The smooth Sweetheart Grips of my 1911 Colt .45 filled my hand. I waved at the confused movie production team and the uncertain actors. “Down! Down! Everyone down!”
You’ve heard of that old saw where in times of stress time slows down. People say it seems they’re moving through molasses, and they’re right. Even more frustrating, the people I was warning simply looked at me without understanding. It wasn’t their fault. Civilians hopefully go through life without experiencing trauma, and aren’t trained to deal with life threatening situations. Unfortunately for me, they also go through life expecting nothing bad to happen.
Most law-enforcement officers are on the other end of that spectrum. They’re always evaluating the world around them, thinking, “what if?” and planning for any and every event that might occur. But there was no training for what was unfolding on that hot desert floor.
Even Gabe, who’d been in more than his share of fights and gunfights, was startled at the sudden change from make-believe to reality. It took a couple of seconds before he could make sense of what was happening around us and shifted from a guy trying to make a few bucks as a movie extra, to a potential victim. Even he paused beside the open door to take in the scene.
I waved him back. “Gabe, get down! It’s real!”
A gangster, this time a real gangster, leveled an AK-47 and held the trigger down, shredding the surprised director who went backwards, to land in the dust. The cuerno de chivo, or goat’s horn, as they nicknamed the rifle because of the distinctive curved magazine, sprayed a stream of hot lead that also punched holes in anything and everyone around the shooter.
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