Before either of them could say anything else, though, the door opened and a woman walked into the room. She was Mexican and probably around forty years old, with a lot of dark hair and a hawklike face that showed a lot of Indian blood in her ancestry. She wore jeans and a red silk shirt and had an earthy sexuality about her. Laura pegged her right away as the sort of woman who would be the colonel’s mistress.
“You can go now,” she said curtly to Ricardo. “I will look after this little one.”
“You are sure, Señora Garvas?” Ricardo asked. “You are not even armed.”
“I need no weapons to take care of a little gringa bitch.”
Laura felt a strong, instinctive dislike for the woman, mixed with a healthy dose of fear. This Señora Garvas had a cruel look about her. Her dark eyes flashed as she looked at the captive, and Laura suddenly had visions of being strung up to a post while the señora lashed her with a whip.
Ricardo got to his feet, and Laura wanted to cry out for him to stay and not abandon her to Señora Garvas’s not-so-tender mercies. She knew it wouldn’t do any good, though, so she kept quiet as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Señora Garvas sauntered over to face her, standing there with her hands on her hips and an unfriendly smile on her face. “You know why I am here?” she asked.
“To ... to stand guard and make sure I don’t get away?”
“That, and to make sure you do not harm yourself. The colonel fears that, knowing what is in store for you, you might seek to end your own life.”
So they had her on suicide watch. To be honest, the thought of killing herself hadn’t even entered Laura’s mind until now. She was too much of a fighter for that. She was too busy trying to think of some way to get herself and her friends out of this mess before any more of them could be hurt.
“You don’t have to worry,” she said to Señora Garvas. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“You had better not. My orders are to keep you unmarked for Señor Willingham. He will not pay five million dollars for damaged goods. But if you give me trouble ... I can make your life a screaming hell, chica, without ever leaving a mark on you.”
Laura didn’t doubt it for a second.
With a contemptuous snort, Señora Garvas added, “Although why any man would pay so much money for a pale little thing like you is beyond me. You are too young to know shit. A real woman requires years of seasoning to be truly worth anything to a man.”
“And I guess you’re well-seasoned.”
The smile disappeared from the woman’s face and was replaced by an angry snarl. Her hand started to come up in a slap aimed at Laura’s face. She stopped the motion well before the blow could land.
“I will allow you that bit of disrespect,” she said. “The next one, you will pay for.”
Laura looked down at the floor and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you, truly?” Señora Garvas laughed. “I think if you had the chance, you would cut my still-beating heart out of my body and laugh in my face as I died.”
Laura didn’t respond, but the scenario did sound pretty appealing to her. She had never considered herself a violent person at all, but after everything that had happened to her and her friends, maybe she was changing. Maybe she was coming to realize that some people were cold and empty and evil, and they had to be dealt with as ruthlessly as possible.
Maybe she was coming to understand that no matter how deeply it might be buried, there was something savage inside her, too.
Twenty-one
Tom’s cell phone rang while he and Bonnie were having a tense supper with Kelly. Since returning to the house after the meeting at City Hall, nothing had happened—no contact by the kidnappers, no calls or visits from the FBI or any other authorities. The reporters had all left, as had the two Laredo police officers. The FBI tech with his electronic equipment was the only outsider still there.
“I don’t understand it,” Kelly had said earlier. “It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours yet. It’s like they’ve all given up and written those girls off.”
Tom and Bonnie had done their best to assure her that wasn’t the case, but deep down, Tom feared that it was, at least where the authorities were concerned. He was plenty old enough to remember an embassy full of hostages sitting in Tehran while the people in charge dithered around and wrung their hands, unwilling to take any risks that might actually accomplish something. This situation was similar, although on a smaller scale. To the politicians in Washington, covering their asses was more important than rescuing those girls. Doing the right thing mattered a whole hell of a lot less than not doing the wrong thing—which in their minds meant anything that might hurt their chances of getting reelected.
It was a mess, all right, and Tom hated to think that the country had gone so far down that path. But that was why he had decided to talk to the relatives of the missing girls. So when the phone in his pocket rang, Tom felt a surge of hope. He answered it and heard a familiar voice say, “Tom, this is Wayne Van Sant. I’ve been talking to some guys I know, sounding them out about that idea of yours.”
“Glad to hear it, Wayne,” Tom said as he got to his feet. “Hang on a minute.” He took the phone away from his ear and said to Bonnie and Kelly, “I’ll be right back.”
Bonnie frowned a little. Tom knew that look of suspicion. He would deal with it later.
He left the dining room, went through the kitchen, and stepped out into the backyard. He said into the phone, “Okay, Wayne, go ahead. We can talk freely now.”
“What’s the matter, there still a bunch of cops at your sister-in-law’s house?”
“Worse, a suspicious wife.”
Van Sant chuckled, but Tom could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “I’ve spoken to a dozen of the other dads, and they’re all interested in helping out any way they can. And I mean any way.”
Tom’s pulse quickened. He said, “That’s good to hear. The first thing we need to do is get together and hammer out a plan.”
“That’s what I thought, too. You know anything about Laredo?”
“Not much,” Tom admitted. “I can sort of find my way around, but that’s all.”
“There’s a local gun club with a shooting range on the north side of town. Several of us are members. Why don’t we all meet there, say around eight o’clock?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Van Sant gave him directions for finding the shooting range, then said, “You know, Tom, some people would say we’re crazy to even be thinking about this.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I’d rather be crazy and have those girls back home safe and sound.”
“That’s the truth,” Van Sant said with a catch in his voice. Tom was reminded that while he loved Laura and Kelly and wanted to do whatever he could for Laura, the men he would be meeting tonight had all lost daughters to the Night Wolves. All the fear and anger he was feeling would be even stronger in them.
“We’ll get ’em back,” Tom said. It was a promise that he intended to keep—or die trying.
Bonnie’s suspicions grew even stronger when Tom announced that he had to go out for a while that evening. He could tell that by looking at her, but thankfully she didn’t ask him any questions, and Kelly was too worried and upset to hardly notice that he was leaving. Tom had a feeling, though, that Bonnie would have a few things to say when he got back.
He followed Wayne Van Sant’s directions and found the gun club without any trouble. It was a sprawling building that looked like it might have been a bowling alley at one time. About a dozen cars were parked in the lot. Tom added the rental car to them and walked inside. He heard the sound of firing from the shooting range.
Van Sant met him. “Come on back,” the lanky black man said. “Everybody’s anxious to talk to you.”
There were a dozen targets ranged against the far wall, but only half of the stations had shooters at them, banging away with an assortment of handguns. Other people were standing back, watching and
talking among themselves, although the shooting made conversation difficult. Tom made a quick head count and saw that there were fourteen men here—and to his surprise, two women.
He hadn’t counted on any of the moms being involved in this. While he respected the right of women to be in the military, and knew quite well that many of them had performed admirably in combat in far-flung corners of the globe, men of his generation were still just a little uneasy about the whole idea. He could adapt to it, though, if necessary.
Tom’s arrival changed the atmosphere in the room. The shooters gradually became aware of that and stopped firing. As the shots died away, everyone in the big room turned to look at Tom and Van Sant.
“This is Tom Brannon,” Van Sant said, raising his voice into the silence that seemed to echo slightly after the racket caused by the target practice. “He’s the one I told you about.”
“The man behind the Patriot Project, out in Arizona,” said one of the men. He was medium-sized and mostly bald, with thick glasses perched on his nose. “I looked him up on the Internet and read all about him. That whole thing struck me as vaguely racist.”
Another man gave a curt laugh and said, “Don’t mind Craig, Mr. Brannon. He’s our token liberal. Don’t ask me why he’s a member of a gun club.”
“Blast it, Wally, don’t stereotype me,” Craig snapped. “I just happen to have somewhat different views than you do.”
“Yeah, I think gun control means hitting what I aim at,” Wally drawled.
One of the women said, “Will you two clowns shut up? This is serious business here.” Tom recognized her as the one who had mentioned piloting a chopper during Desert Storm. She turned to him and went on. “We’re here to listen to what you have to say, Mr. Brannon. We’re desperate enough we’ll consider just about anything if it means a chance of getting our girls back.”
“That’s what it means,” Tom said. “A chance. And by the way, everyone, don’t bother with that Mr. Brannon business. My name is Tom.”
The woman stuck her hand out. “Sonia Alvarez,” she said as she shook hands with Tom. “This is my husband Ignacio.”
“Nacho,” the man said with a faint smile as he shook hands, too.
“Craig Lambert,” the bald-headed “token liberal” said.
“Wally Chambers.”
“Ed and Nora Gilman.”
“Bert Hermosilla.”
One by one, the people in the room introduced themselves to Tom and shook his hand. He tried to keep all the names straight, even though that wasn’t really his strong suit. He didn’t see Joe Delgado or Frank Ramirez, but he wasn’t surprised by that. He expected they would be in touch with him later, once they’d had a chance to get together with their acquaintances who might want to take part in this effort.
When the introductions were over, Wayne Van Sant said, “Why don’t you tell us just what it is you have in mind, Tom?”
“Of course,” Tom nodded. “Simply put, the United States authorities won’t go into Mexico to recover those kidnapped girls. The Mexican authorities won’t do anything about it, either.” He looked around at the group, his face growing grim. “That leaves it up to us to rescue them.”
“Become vigilantes, you mean?” Craig Lambert said. “Take the law into our own hands?”
“What I mean is that it’s time to take the lives of those girls we love in our hands and save them.”
That brought mutters of agreement from the group. But one of the men spoke up in a pragmatic voice, saying, “There are only a few of us, and we’re just common folks. How can we fight a group like the Night Wolves? They’ve all had military training.”
“So have we,” Sonia Alvarez said as she turned to face the man who had asked the question. “Nacho and I were both in Desert Storm. Wayne was there in Baghdad when Saddam’s statue came down.”
“I was in Grenada,” Wally Chambers said. He shrugged and added, “I know it didn’t amount to much, but I’ve been under fire before.” His round face, which seemed much more suited to a cheerful expression, hardened into a stony mask. “I don’t mind being under fire again, either, if it means getting my daughter Lindy back safe and sound.”
“More likely, it’ll mean getting yourselves killed, along with the girls,” Craig Lambert said. Several men muttered angrily. Lambert looked around with a defiant jut to his chin and went on. “We’re not a military force. No matter how much we want our daughters back, we’re not equipped to ... to go to war with Mexico to rescue them!”
Everybody started talking at once, trying for the most part to override Lambert’s objections. Tom raised his hands and said sharply, “Settle down, folks! We won’t accomplish anything by arguing about it.” When quiet had descended again on the shooting range, he continued. “We wouldn’t be going to war against Mexico, just against Los Lobos de la Noche.”
“Which amounts to a small army in itself,” Lambert pointed out.
“I’m told they only number about a hundred men.”
“A hundred well-armed, well-trained, cold-blooded killers, against a dozen or so middle-aged parents who find it a challenge just putting on a school carnival,” Lambert said.
“There’s more to us than that,” Sonia objected. “We can fight!”
“With what?” Lambert wanted to know.
“We all own guns,” one of the men said.
“Target pistols and hunting rifles and shotguns,” Lambert said. “That’s hardly a match for the armament the Night Wolves can muster. My God, I’ve heard they even have rockets!”
“It’s true we’d probably be outgunned,” Tom said quickly before another uproar could build. “But we’d be fighting for our families. That’s got to give us some sort of advantage.”
“Nine times out of ten, a noble cause is no match for superior firepower.”
“You’re right,” Tom told Lambert, “but what about that tenth time?”
Lambert just frowned and didn’t answer. He had made a good point, though, as much as Tom hated to admit it. If they went down into Mexico both outnumbered and outgunned, they stood a good chance of not coming back.
“We have to figure out a way to put our hands on some better armament, that’s true, but if we can do that—”
“Even if we do that, how do we know where to look for the girls?” Lambert asked. “As far as I can tell, the authorities have no idea where they are right now. They could be anywhere south of the border. We can’t just wander around looking for them. We might never find them.”
That was another good point. Tom didn’t know how to respond to it.
He didn’t have to, because at that moment, the door of the gun club opened and Texas Ranger Captain Roy Rodgers walked in.
They were busted.
Twenty-two
Tom stood there looking steadily at Rodgers as Wayne Van Sant stepped toward the Ranger and said, “This is a private club, Captain—”
Rodgers held up a hand to stop him. “I’m aware of that, Mr. Van Sant.”
“You can’t come in here without a warrant.”
“If I have reason to believe that a crime is being committed, I can.”
Van Sant shook his head. “There’s no crime going on here. Just a peaceful get-together of club members.”
“What about Mr. Brannon there? He doesn’t belong to your club.”
“He’s a guest,” Van Sant said stiffly.
Tom had already figured out that Rodgers must have followed him here. That was the only way the Ranger could have known about the meeting. After Tom had talked to Brady Keller, Rodgers had been suspicious. Now, after what had happened at City Hall, the Ranger had even more reason to think that Tom was up to something; otherwise he wouldn’t be here with the parents of the missing girls.
“I think there’s a reasonable chance under the law that you folks are committing the crime of conspiracy at the very least,” Rodgers said, raising his voice so that he could address the whole group. “There may be other violations you could be c
harged with. If you all go back to your homes, though, I suppose there won’t be any need to bring the law into this.”
“It’s not home as long as my daughter isn’t there,” one of the men said hollowly. Others muttered agreement.
“All the law enforcement agencies involved are continuing to investigate—”
“What good does it do to investigate when the government won’t do anything about it?” tall, balding, bearded Ed Gilman demanded. Beside him, his pretty blond wife Nora nodded.
Wally Chambers said, “Ed’s right. Even if you knew where the girls were, you couldn’t go after them. The Feds won’t let you.”
Rodgers’s jaw tightened. “If the Rangers are able to obtain that information—”
“The FBI will step in and prevent you from acting,” Tom said. “As long as the Mexican government doesn’t want anything done about this, our politicians will go along with them.”
“That’s crazy!” Rodgers burst out. “America won’t stand for it!”
“Think about the president and the party she belongs to,” Tom said slowly. “They’ve done nothing for the past fifty years but tell us that America is to blame for everything that’s wrong in the world. Every chance they’ve gotten, they’ve gutted the military with cutbacks. They’ve given a pulpit to every fringe nutcase who comes along, and carried political correctness to such an extent that you can’t say Merry Christmas to your neighbor anymore. If somebody sneezes and you say ‘God bless,’ you’ve got to worry about being arrested for violating the civil rights of one of those nutcases.”
“Oh, please,” Craig Lambert said. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s getting there, Craig,” Wayne Van Sant snapped. “It’s sure getting there.”
Tom went on. “With all that going on in Washington, and with the politicians on the other side getting elected more often than not because they’re the lesser of the two evils, do you really think anybody’s going to risk a war with Mexico over a few teenage girls?”
Rodgers flushed in anger and frustration, but he said, “There’s all sorts of diplomatic pressure that can be put on—”
Invasion Usa: Border War Page 14
