The side of his head hurt and something wet trickled past his ear. That sobered him up. If they were going to kill him, he couldn’t wait for a rescue. He had to break the zip ties and be ready to try something when they opened the tailgate again. He had nothing to lose.
Let’s see how strong you are, amigo. Scrunching himself up, he tried to slip his hands over his butt. It would take a while, but he figured he had hours.
CHAPTER 17
Steel sensed Christie’s stress as soon as he woke up. They were still on the freeway and she was on the phone, talking to her brothers. She hung up and talked without looking at him, her voice shaky.
“I talked to Harry while you were sleeping. He said they’re going to kill him.” She wiped an eye. “Harry gave clues about a different truck, new pavement, and the moon. I told Dale and Clay to search any recently paved roads for a dark pickup. Harry was talking about us driving Dad’s old pickup, which was blue.”
She heaved a breath. “I updated Colonel Jeffries but didn’t tell him where we’re going or the target. He wasn’t happy about the missing tracker and didn’t seem to know about our car switch. DEA told him Marita had no family. She’s an only child and her parents were killed by the cartel. They’re checking on relatives.” Her eyes revealed sadness.
He straightened. “Tell me word for word what Harry said.”
She did, and he said, “Harry’s smart, like his sister.”
She didn’t smile.
He saw how tired she was. “Did you tell Dale and Clay that it’s likely a man and woman are driving the truck?”
“Yes. Clay said they were going to drive back south and look more closely at the side roads to see if they can spot new blacktop.”
“Great. Pull over. I’ll drive.”
They got out, but before they switched seats Steel held her, careful of her wound. “Harry will be okay,” he whispered. “He must have heard them talking about killing him. We can confront the Colombian with it and maybe win more concessions.”
She gripped him, the side of her face resting on his shoulder. “Are you just trying to make me feel better?”
“No. The Colombian promised Harry will live if we do the Op. But now we know he’s lying. We can push for more now.”
She pulled her head off his shoulder. “I love you.”
“I’m both sorry and glad you’re here.” He kissed her under the moonlight and squeezed her lightly. “Things will feel better after you get some rest.”
They got back into the car and he drove while she curled up on the seat. He was starting to feel this was all going to end badly. There were too many uncertainties. He wanted more control of the situation. The only way to do that was to put pressure on the Colombian. It was the one variable they could influence.
In twenty minutes the phone rang. He answered right away. Christie still slept.
The Colombian said, “You’re not on speaker.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“It’s good she’s resting. She’s going to have to be alert soon.”
Steel didn’t reply, thinking about what he wanted to say.
The Colombian continued. “I want Vincente and his men to suffer. You remember the photo of Marita’s face? That’s what I want to happen to all of them before you kill them. Do it, or Harry will have that done to his face.”
Steel thought about it. The young man who held the dynamite might be able to do something like that to Harry, disfigure him with a knife. He didn’t want to do that to anyone.
“Don’t think about it, gringo. You have no choice.”
“I’ll do it if Christie is out of this.”
“If she doesn’t participate, we kill Harry.”
He heard no room for bargaining in the Colombian’s voice. “Harry said you’re planning to kill him anyway so I don’t trust you.”
“I gave you my word.”
Steel glanced at Christie. “You’re going to have to do more than that, because your word doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Steel. Are you sure you want to go down this road?”
“I want a hand-off with Harry to Christie’s brothers right after this job. It has to be set up so they see him and know they can get to him safely when we’re finished. Otherwise it’s a no, now, to going after Vincente.”
The phone went dead.
His fingers tightened on the wheel. What would Christie think of him if Harry ended up dead? Odds were against Harry surviving anyway, but he didn’t have the courage to tell her that. And some part of him wanted to believe they could still save her brother.
He resisted calling the Colombian back and drove for a half hour before the phone rang again. Waiting until the third ring, he finally answered it. He was glad Christie didn’t wake up.
It was the Colombian. “All right. I can live with your request. But I’ll pick the place and situation. You make sure Vincente and his friends suffer and die today. And Christie stays in the game.”
“Call us by one p.m.”
The call ended.
“Damn you!” he muttered. He couldn’t wait to put a bullet in the Colombian’s head.
It soured him further that he had committed to killing seven more men to save Harry. No. To save all of them. To save his life with Christie.
No one was following them so he assumed the Colombian was driving ahead of them. He might have changed vehicles, and he had the two men who helped kidnap them to help with surveillance. Maybe they were using two vehicles, or even three.
He thought about the Colombian and his associates. The guy that had held a shotgun on Christie at the first rest stop acted like ex-military. He could have been hired to help. But the woman and man holding Harry were sloppy, indicating they weren’t hired but had a personal motive. The young man wearing the C-4 vest also wasn’t a professional so for him it was personal. It seemed likely that at least Harry’s two captors and the young man were related to the Colombian.
If so, it pointed to a whole family in on revenge. Risky. He remembered the photo of Marita. If that had been Christie, her brothers wouldn’t hesitate to go after the killers either.
They had no choice but to keep going for now. Hopefully Christie’s brothers or Colonel Jeffries would find Harry so they could end all of this. Then he could send Christie home and hunt down the Colombian.
He wasn’t looking forward to California.
CHAPTER 18
Angel drove the rest of the night and through the morning. Used to days with little sleep, it didn’t bother him. He arrived in Vail at noon.
It was overcast, but the sun managed to send rays through a few breaks in the clouds. He thought it was beautiful the way the light created changes in color in the green forest and in the clouds. It reminded him of Renata. She always found happiness in nature’s beauty, a trait he admired in her and one he had taken on himself.
He found the address without difficulty and drove up the driveway without hesitation. Extremely observant, he prided himself on picking up details that most missed.
Almost immediately he spotted the guard lying fifty feet from the driveway in the woods, nearly hidden by the trees. He stopped, put on gloves, and walked carefully through the forest, searching for footprints or anything that might give a clue as to what had happened.
It was easy. Based on the shoe prints, he guessed a woman had killed the man. He squatted by the body, seeing the bruising around the eyes, nose, and especially the neck. The guard had possibly surprised the woman, maybe even captured her, but he had not taken her seriously enough. She had bludgeoned him to death.
The guard deserved to die for that sloppiness. Angel didn't feel he was being sexist with that thought. In fact he had trained some very capable women.
He walked back to the car, drove up to the house, and saw another man lying half off
the porch. Striding up to the body, he inspected it. Two bullets in the back.
He traced the trajectory, and again found the same woman’s prints east of the house. She impressed him even more. And the fact that she had killed two men took her out of his refuse-to-kill category of innocent women and children.
He walked west from the porch, the way the dead guard had been facing, and found a man’s shoe prints. It didn’t take long to trace them to the backyard, the third dead guard, and then to where the man and woman met, and split up.
They had approached the rear corners of the house. The balcony. Smart.
He also discovered boot prints. A half-dozen, leading east, along with the same woman’s and man’s shoes, along with a new set of woman’s shoes. The wolf in him wanted to investigate the boot prints immediately, but he couldn’t afford to leave his car in the driveway that long. Instead he carefully noted the direction, the sun’s position in the sky, and let it go.
Inside was a mess. Too many bullets. Very sloppy. Garcia and Hernando had tried to defend themselves and died for their failure.
He felt no remorse over their stupidity. Garcia had never been known for his intelligence. The man was also a coward. Diego had been planning to get rid of him on this trip anyway.
Garcia’s wife and children were missing. Not killed. Striding out the front door, he got into his car and left.
He headed east, using the sun to get his bearings. In a mile he came to a house that appeared vacant. Vail had a lot of house rentals. Parking in the street a block to the west, he took out a Glock and entered the woods.
He headed north, searching for the tracks coming from the west. He didn’t find them. They must have driven to the house. Taking a risk, he crouched and walked up to the side wall and peered through several windows. Empty. It was a curious puzzle. He loved it.
Once he was back on the road he called Diego and filled him in.
At the end of it, Diego asked, “What do you think?”
Angel appreciated the question. Diego treated him with respect, an equal, and knew his expertise deserved it. “Do we know who was with Steel in Colorado?”
“His girlfriend and her brother Harry.”
Angel considered that. “It’s unlikely that it’s just a coincidence that Steel and Christie are here, and a man and woman killed Garcia. But why?”
“I have no idea,” said Diego.
Angel had no solution to that question either. “A group intervened, I’m guessing after the fact. I doubt we’ll find Garcia’s wife and children.”
“How can Steel know that we are here? It makes no sense. And who intervened?”
Angel knew Diego was worried. “I think a third party is involved. Someone betrayed us. Perhaps the group was watching Garcia, and Steel interrupted their plans.”
“Talk soon, amigo.” Diego hung up.
Angel settled back in his seat. They were on a timetable, but he had to be patient. Needing more information, he decided to start at the beginning. Steel had been at the Macky Auditorium at Colorado University in Boulder, protecting a woman speaker. He drove the highway east through the mountains.
Details again caught his attention.
A black SUV on a scenic overlook had a smashed-in rear passenger window. A police car was parked on the passenger side. The officer stood beside the vehicle’s front passenger door, his head stuck halfway in through the open window.
Angel slowed to note the SUV license plate, and then drove on. He called Diego and asked him to contact their connection in the police department to see what he could obtain. In Mexico or Colombia he would have stopped and questioned the police officer. Here it would invite more risk and attention that he didn’t need.
Diego called back in ten minutes with the police report. “The SUV was rented by Steel. He and Christie left the auditorium parking lot, leaving three men dead. The men were attacking Afia Ameen. Christie’s brother, Harry Thorton, was also at the scene. Someone spotted a small white pickup with a cargo bed cover leaving the area.”
Diego paused. “What do you make of it?”
Angel considered the information. “It’s a mystery, but if Steel and Christie killed Garcia we all have to be careful.”
“I will warn Vincente to be on guard until we know who the opposition is. My brother is clever, not stupid like Garcia. If Steel is coming to us, all the better. Good hunting, Angel.”
Angel kept driving, enjoying the mystery. However something about this job made him uneasy. In his decades of working with Diego he had never hesitated. Never questioned. But he couldn’t deny a small feeling of uncertainty about this case. When he asked himself why, he had no answers.
In an hour he reached Boulder and found the University without incident. The parking lot on the side of the Macky Auditorium was taped off. It had to be where Steel had been attacked.
Not seeing anything useful, he drove away and pulled out his phone. He hit a number on speed dial.
A woman answered, her voice soft and loving. “Angel.”
“Renata.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
“I’m fine.” She was always worried. He thought it was due in part to being confined to a wheelchair and spending too much time in her head. But he loved her more than his own life and never held it against her.
They were twins and had always been close. No matter what happened in their lives, they would always have each other. She was the reason for his sanity and success.
He said, “We think Jack Steel and Christie Thorton killed Garcia and might go after Vincente. An unknown group intervened. And a white pickup truck was seen outside of Macky Auditorium in Boulder Colorado. Harry Thorton was also working with Steel and Christie.”
He stopped just before the highway junction and pulled off onto the shoulder. “North or south?” His sister always did best when presented with choices.
“North feels better,” she said. “But the white pickup doesn’t seem right.”
“Maybe they switched vehicles.”
“I sense a very dangerous situation here, Angel.”
He excelled in dangerous situations and wasn’t worried. “Thank you, dear sister. I promise to be careful.”
“You’re welcome, dear brother.” She paused. “Do you think we could take a trip?”
He smiled. “Of course! Anywhere.”
“I’m excited!”
“Me too. I will call soon.” He hung up, wondering where she wanted to go. It would come to her, like everything else did.
She had received strong premonitions for as long he could remember. At first she had been terrified of them, but eventually she learned to harness them.
When they were children, their parents had been killed by the Colombian cartel for refusing to sell their farmland. Taking Renata’s advice, he had pushed his sister in her wheelchair down ten miles of muddy roads to the nearest town. Eventually they ended up living on the streets in Bogotá.
With her guiding sight, and his smile and toughness, they had survived. Even thrived. He eventually commanded a small gang of thieves, never telling them his brilliance was in part driven by his sister’s gift.
Years later he was introduced to Diego. They were a successful team. And he told no one about Renata or her premonitions. If he had, she would have been murdered by his enemies long ago. He had hidden her from everyone in the cartel, as she had requested, only seeing her in secret.
She could guide him, and he could watch over her and provide for her. Oddly, her gift of premonitions didn’t work for herself.
As soon as he had been able to afford doctors, he had her examined thoroughly to find out why her body continued to weaken. The doctors found a benign tumor, inoperable due to its location near the spine and base of the brain. It was the reason she was confined to a wheelchair.
They had trie
d many therapies, including scores of alternative healing strategies, but nothing helped. He often wondered if the tumor somehow gave his sister the ability to have premonitions.
The tumor had continued to grow, creating more pressure in her brain. Then last month doctors told her that she had anywhere from a few months to a year left to live. That often gave him sleepless nights.
He drove back onto the road, turned north on the highway, and punched it. Clearing his thoughts, he focused. His work for Diego was usually almost too easy so the complexity of this case made things more interesting. Someone had taken a dangerous risk to kill a senior cartel member. After discovering who it was he would begin the vendetta against Steel’s people. The wolf in him would do what it did best. Hunt and kill the prey.
He drove over the speed limit for a half hour before he noticed something unusual. Two black SUVs with tinted windows appeared ahead of him. They looked identical. Finding it curious, he followed them out of instinct as they continued on the highway northwest. When they reached Estes Park, they pulled into a gas station.
He pulled over to the side of the road, watching. The men that got out to pump gas were dressed in all black. Short haircuts. And purposeful in how they moved, reminding him of military personnel.
After they finished, one of the SUVs continued northwest on highway thirty-four and one headed northeast on it. He could only follow one of them, so he called Renata, watching the two vehicles quickly pull away from him.
After explaining the situation, he said, “Northeast feels better to me.”
“I agree with your choice, Angel.”
“Thank you, dear sister. Talk soon.” He hung up, feeling safe and ready as he always did in these situations. Sometimes he felt all the years around Renata had strengthened his own abilities to see things.
He sped onto the highway. Canyons appeared, with more peaks, and there were a few straight sections. Traffic was light. In a minute he spotted the SUV far ahead on a curve.
He slowed down, keeping as far back as possible without risking losing them.
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