Conard County Justice (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 42)

by Rachel Lee

  By the same token, since Duke had chased those two guys, their timetable may have sped up. Or maybe the two intervening burglaries had merely been diversionary. Maybe they had their sights on bigger targets, like Duke and Ben.

  Duke interrupted the heavy, tense silence. “I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter before it gets dark, maybe move the truck farther away so it doesn’t provide concealment. You two button up the house. Curtains closed. Later we can turn out all the lights and keep watch.”

  “Great evening,” Cat said, winking at Ben.

  He smiled faintly. “Oh yeah. Standing post. Love it.”

  During the passing hours, she had grown considerably more convinced that Duke had been right about what was coming down. She hoped not, but her stance was shifting. Maybe it helped that Ben had no problem believing the theory. She sure hoped she’d brought what they’d need.

  * * *

  THE GROUND HADN’T yet become muddy from the snowflakes that melted as soon as they fell on it. It had, however, softened just a bit, silencing Duke’s footsteps as he slipped around to the back and began his patrol of a wide perimeter. He didn’t wear the goggles because he wanted his full field of vision. Peripheral vision was great at detecting movement.

  Much as the early twilight messed with depth and shadows, he could still see enough. The falling snowflakes amplified the remaining light. What he sought was any evidence of someone having been out here creeping around. This wasn’t the kind of place a person might take a casual walk. Too far away from anything else, including other dwellings.

  He also needed to scout the terrain. From a tactical and strategic perspective, knowing the ground was essential. Where could a team hide when approaching the house? How many significant ditches and dips lay out here? Any formations large enough to hide behind? Easy approaches?

  The tall evergreens that lined the property about three hundred feet from the house didn’t worry him. They’d be temporary cover at best. But a gully deep enough to provide concealment for someone to approach the house? Big problem.

  Each time he paused to view the ground, he looked back to the house, considering angles of attack, soft points to approach.

  Because the first thing he’d done was move his rental truck down the driveway, so it was near the road, he didn’t have to take care of that. Insofar as possible, it didn’t announce that Ben had visitors. But mostly he didn’t want to give them a place to hide.

  Duke didn’t want to scare them off. He wanted these creeps to come after Ben. He wanted to take them down. For Ben, because he deserved to live without fear, especially fear that his relationship with Larry had brought hell raining down on him. Larry wouldn’t have wanted that, nor did Duke.

  And of course he wanted justice for Larry. Assuming these guys were out here trying to bury something to protect brass or others back home, he might never get to the root cause of it. Not ever. Duke was resigned to that. What he wasn’t resigned to was letting his brother’s murderers get away with it, with letting them get away with all the other people they’d frightened.

  Nope, time for justice.

  Chapter Eleven

  “We go tonight,” Man One said.

  The three of them huddled beneath the tall evergreens, more shadows among already deep shadows. The steadily falling snow magnified a little bit of light despite the darkness above. Enough to see by. Maybe too much. Man One was past caring.

  “Are you serious?” asked the second man. “Damn it, I haven’t even finished searching for the information on the computer or the flash drives. We might already have it.”

  “Yeah,” agreed the third man. He’d seen plenty of action during his years in uniform and wasn’t afraid of it. The only thing that truly scared him was stupidity. He didn’t want to be stupid or to be led by it.

  “The guy’s there. He’s sleeping. We can handle him and take our time to search.”

  Man Two bumped his head as he moved. A quiet curse escaped him. “What about that truck down by the end of the driveway? Somebody else is in that house. Just maybe.”

  “I don’t freaking care,” said the first man. “You two wanna spend the rest of our lives out here hunting for something we can’t find? You want to bring huge numbers of staties down on this place because we commit so many burglaries? At this point it’s hardly likely that we’ll have this gig much longer. They’ll call us failures, refuse to pay what they owe us and send someone else out here.”

  “Sure,” said the second man.

  “It’s a wild-goose chase,” the third man agreed morosely. “I mean, damn! What if all the information was in Larry Duke’s head? We’re going on a lot of supposition here. Like, if he dumped a disc or a drive or a file on someone else that they’d even know what to make of it. They’d probably just trash it.”

  “Word,” said the second man reluctantly.

  “Exactly,” said the first man. “The longer we’re out here, the more I start wondering if someone isn’t trying to get rid of the three of us.”

  Shocked silence greeted the words.

  After a minute or so, Man Two asked, “Why would they want to do that?”

  “Damned if I know. This whole op is so fishy I’m wondering how I ever got talked into it. Well, money, I guess. Retirement ain’t so easy. But apart from that, it didn’t sound so damn difficult. It wasn’t difficult until Larry Duke said we’d never find the info. That’s when it all blew up.”

  “True,” the third man agreed. “I thought it would be simple, too.”

  “In and out,” said the second man. “It should have been.”

  Instead...

  Man Two stirred again. “But they have no reason to get rid of us.”

  “Now they do,” the first man said grimly. “From the minute we interrogated Duke, we screwed up. Made a mess. Even if we get out of here, we’re in trouble. Somebody might worry that we’ll be found out and can spill the beans.”

  “What beans?” demanded the third man. “We don’t have any beans!”

  “I do,” said the first man. “I talk to the boss. Why would anyone think I haven’t told you who that is?”

  “Aw, hell.”

  “Exactly,” said the first man. “We’re in it now. Whichever way we go. So tonight we go into that house, search it, then get the hell out of this state.”

  “But what if there’s another man in there?”

  “Then I hope it’s Daniel Duke,” said the first man.

  “You got a grudge?”

  “Now I do.”

  The other two had no idea what that meant, but they weren’t going to ask. They were stuck and figured the first guy would shoot them both in the back if they refused to follow him.

  Things sure changed when you were up to no good.

  * * *

  THE THREE INSIDE the house had agreed to spell each other on lookout duty, allowing the others to take naps. They’d opened the curtains at one window on each side of the house. The idea was to give themselves a full view of outside approaches without allowing anyone to scope the entire indoors from out there. The night seemed to devour the inside of the house, little light to break up the darkness. The only glimmer they had at all was reflected by the falling snow through the uncovered windows.

  Each of them took turns walking window to window to keep an eye on the land surrounding the house. The night-vision goggles that Cat had brought helped. Reasonably clear, green-tinged images made the house safely passable indoors and gave a clear view of the world outside the windows.

  And it was boring, Cat thought as she wandered window to window, riot gun in hand, peering out into the night. Those guys probably had goggles, too, if they were what Duke suspected.

  Well, if they showed up, at least they wouldn’t have an advantage.

  There’d been little time for it yet, but her mind kept trying to wander ba
ck to her lovemaking with Duke. She wanted to replay every detail repeatedly on an infinite loop. Except she couldn’t remember a lot of it.

  She almost giggled at herself. She’d been so swept away at the time, she’d hardly been aware of anything besides the stormy sea of emotions.

  Now this. Life had been rushing by. Too many things to think about, to worry about. No time for wandering through dreams.

  Nor could she afford to indulge now. The lives of others depended on her being alert, not dopey.

  She heard a creak on the stairs in the hallway behind her and turned to see Duke descending. “Cat,” he said quietly.

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  “I rarely sleep well on a night op. Doesn’t matter. Morning will come, and I’ll feel like a fool for putting everyone through this.”

  She pushed her goggles up, then realized that could be a mistake. Without their light amplification, total darkness surrounded her. “You’re not a fool. And you know they might not come tonight. What matters is that we’re here to look after Ben if he needs us.”

  “And tomorrow night?”

  She shook her head. “I already told you. I’m going to insist he come into town and stay at my place. Out here he’s hanging in the wind.”

  He caught her chin with his fingers. “You’re a great person, Cat.”

  “Right now I’m not being a very good sentry.”

  He laughed quietly. “I can see over your shoulder, Deputy. But you go cadge some sleep. I’ll take over.”

  “No.” She turned from him reluctantly and looked out the window. “We’re getting to the witching hour. Two sets of eyes would be better.”

  “Witching hour?” he asked. “I thought that was midnight.”

  “For this, I’d bet it’s more like 2:00 a.m. As the world falls into its deepest sleep.”

  “Those were the hours we preferred for operations,” he agreed. “I just thought ‘the witching hour’ referred to something else.”

  “It might. I don’t know.” She pulled her goggles down, treating herself to a few seconds of looking at him, then started her patrol again.

  “Stay back from the windows,” he reminded her.

  Yeah. Stay back because the guys out there might have night vision, too, and could catch sight of movement in here. And why had she started to grow so tense? A tightening through her muscles, the back of her neck prickling. Well, she was edgy.

  A level playing field? She didn’t think so. Those guys could move freely out there. Here inside, she and the two men were practically caged.

  “I’ll do the far side of the house,” Duke said quietly. “More eyes on. We can start switching off every half hour.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “When you did your recon, did you find any features that concerned you?”

  “Actually, yeah. From the kitchen side of the house. There’s a gully that could be deep enough to conceal crawling men. Assuming the snow doesn’t start to stick. Then it all becomes different out there.”

  Considering how much light was being reflected by the snowflakes that fell almost lazily, she couldn’t imagine what it would all look like under a white blanket out there. They might not even need the goggles from in here.

  Unless someone managed to get inside.

  “We need to get Ben,” she said before Duke could disappear to the other side of the house. “I don’t know why, but my skin is crawling.”

  “He’s already watching from upstairs.”

  “Oh.” So much for them taking turns.

  Duke faced her. “Your skin is crawling? Like somebody’s watching?”

  “Imagination, maybe. I’m wound up. It only just started, though.”

  His reply was quick. “Don’t ignore it. I never do.”

  He headed for the kitchen side of the house, and she resumed her patrol, easing to each window, minimizing any quickness of movement that might draw attention if someone was out there watching.

  She looked out that same window again, wondering. Was someone looking in? She hadn’t noticed any movement, but she’d been distracted for a minute or two with Duke. Bad. Thank goodness Ben had decided to forgo sleep.

  Sentry duty had to be the worst assignment in the world. Things creeping in the dark, a threat possibly looming and weariness making it even harder to stay alert.

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Duke thought he caught sight of movement in the direction of that ditch that had snagged his attention. These guys, whoever they were, didn’t think anyone was watching for them. Reasonable stealth, but not the best.

  He peered more intently, waiting for a second movement before he sounded an alert. No point ramping everyone up if all he’d seen was a small animal.

  Five minutes later, he was sure. More than one thing moved out there, and they were spreading out slowly. Three.

  He couldn’t leave the window, needing to keep an eye on the three moving lumps, waiting for the image to clear up, and tried to judge how loudly to warn the others.

  He didn’t need to. Ben came clattering down the stairs.

  “Something’s moving,” Ben said tautly. “Kitchen side.”

  “Eyes on,” Duke answered. “It may not all be on this side of the house. Cat? You hear?”

  “I heard.”

  Duke looked at Ben. “Are they just planning a break-in? Or an assault?”

  Ben shook his head a bit. “I don’t have an assessment. I keep thinking of Larry. That was no simple break-in.”

  “No. We’ll keep watching, but get ready for an assault. We need to know how many are out there.”

  Cat joined them briefly. “I don’t see anything from my side, but I’ll go back to watching.” She hurried away.

  “Why would there be so many?” Ben wondered. “Three? More than three? What are they doing, raiding Fort Knox?”

  “Maybe,” Duke said heavily, “they don’t figure you’re alone.”

  * * *

  FOR THE THREE men crawling across the ground to the house, the situation had become clearer. There was more than one person in there, and they were moving around. Not much, but they were still moving. A glimpse here and there spelled it out.

  They were prepared to take out everyone if they needed to. Even if they never found the information, they’d have eliminated the one person who might know anything at all about what Larry was doing: his partner.

  That thought made the first man’s gorge rise, but he was a realist. The first person a guy was likely to spill classified info to was his wife. In fact, the military wives’ grapevine was legendary.

  Had to be the same for two guys, reasoned Man One.

  And if Daniel Duke was in there, so much the better. He hated Duke. Had hated him since the man had shown up armed to the teeth to rescue the first man’s squad. Single-handedly. Risking life and limb to do it.

  Duke hadn’t needed to come. Man One still believed he could have handled it, but no. Man One had come out of it feeling like he’d been punched, and people had talked about Duke getting the Medal of Honor for saving a pinned-down squad like some kind of screaming avenger. In the face of extremely heavy fire. Duke had been wounded, but he’d still managed to drag two of the wounded soldiers to safety and take out most of the insurgent nest.

  Sounded real good for Duke. Man One didn’t quite remember it that way. His squad could have handled it. Would have handled it.

  His bitterness had been slightly assuaged by the fact that Duke and he had both received the same commendation for that action. But not completely assuaged, because Man One should have received all the kudos. All of them.

  Being told to come after Larry Duke had been one of Man One’s deciding factors when he accepted this assignment. It might also have given him an additional reason to torture Larry.

  He wouldn’t think about that
now.

  He had a mission to accomplish.

  * * *

  DUKE WOULD HAVE liked to get outside for an improved view of what was happening. He knew better, however. He’d alert those men and probably become their first target.

  Given that they were creeping up so slowly, he was doubting more and more that they’d come merely to rob the place. No, they were staging an action, they knew Ben wasn’t alone and they didn’t intend to leave anyone behind.

  He could feel his scalp prickle and his shoulders tighten. The battle was about to begin. He just hoped they could stop those guys before things grew truly ugly.

  Another movement caught his eye, and he stared at it, for the first time seeing a silhouette that looked like an assault rifle. They were arriving with heavy firepower. Bad news.

  He called to the other two, “Getting closer. Armed. Watch it. They may spread out more to encircle the house.” He checked his clip. The shotguns were ready.

  Another minute or two crept by. Then one man rose up, leveled his rifle and fired.

  The bullet zinged through the window Duke faced. War had been declared.

  “Here we go,” he called out. “Stay low, stay alert.” As if they wouldn’t. They had to have heard the shot.

  And those men had just given up any hope of surprise. Which meant they knew someone was aware of them. Which meant they didn’t care but were prepared to take extreme action.

  The question was, were they expecting the kind of greeting they were about to get?

  * * *

  CAT JOINED DUKE at the kitchen window. “Have they divided?” she asked quietly.

  “They’re starting to. You take the front window, unless you want me to.”

  “I’m thinking about firing right now. A warning shot. No reason they have to get any closer.”

  He looked at her quickly before looking back out. Were they trying to set a trap or put an end to this?

  He reconsidered. Yeah, a trap would be nice, as it would separate them, but a whole lot more dangerous.