Dead Heat

by Allison Brennan

  “Hello, Isabella,” the man said. “I’m so happy to finally meet you. Do you know who I am?”

  She knew because Uncle Jaime had told her many times. “You’re my father?” Her voice was small and whispery.

  He smiled wider. “Yes, I am your father. I have wanted you to live with me for a long time.” He took her hand, then stood back up and walked her to the doorway. A woman appeared. Older than her mama but younger than her abuelita. “Letitia will show you to your room so you can take a bath and put on pretty clothes and maybe sleep for a bit, okay? Then we’ll have dinner together, just you and me, and get to know each other better. Okay?”

  She nodded because she had to answer, but didn’t know what to say.

  Then she asked, “Can my mama come live here, too?”

  He stopped smiling. “We’ll see,” he said in a tone that Bella knew meant no. Her mama used that tone a lot.

  She really wanted to go home.

  * * *

  Jaime Sanchez has caused Vasco far more problems than he was usually willing to tolerate, but he needed the man for a while longer.

  It didn’t make Vasco happy.

  Jaime said, “We found the boy. We have him secure, and will be transporting him to the compound tonight.”

  “Kill him already. He’s the reason the police are so close. We’ll use another kid. Why you didn’t kill him when you found him the first time, I don’t know. Sometimes, Jaime, I wonder about your intelligence.”

  “It takes time to train them. He was prepared.”

  “He was fooling you. Not me, but you. And you bought it. He needs to die. But we have another problem. The FBI agent who’s been working with the DEA is related to a mercenary down here, someone I’ve managed to avoid for the last seven years. Now I can’t. That doesn’t make me happy.“

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And that’s the problem. You go after the FBI agent and the hammer comes down. If they get any closer, we’re taking them all out, not just that bastard DEA agent. Understand? You don’t like getting your hands dirty, but you’re going to be getting dirty, Jaime.”

  “I didn’t go after her! I swear!”

  Vasco laughed. “Don’t play me for a fool. DeSantos was a bigger fool for listening to you. He ultimately had to pay the price, but don’t think I won’t make you pay if there’s one more fuckup before we destroy the Vallerjos. Once we take out that gang, we’ll be on equal footing with the Texas Mexican Mafia. If we fail, I will slit your throat myself. Understand?”

  Jaime nodded. He didn’t have a choice.

  And it didn’t really matter. Vasco planned to kill him in the end, anyway.

  “Now I’m going to make sure that dinner is perfect so I can finally get to know my daughter. It figures that Mirabelle couldn’t give me a boy, but I’ll marry her off at sixteen and she’ll start having my grandchildren. She’ll have babies until I get my flesh-and-blood boy.”

  * * *

  The snitch was a hooker who went by the name of Lana. Lana had given the DEA information on occasion. She was the preferred whore to certain men who knew certain men. It wasn’t that they talked to her, unless it was to tell her to get on her knees, but she was around, and being around had its advantages.

  She didn’t share everything, but she knew what was worth sharing—information that couldn’t be traced back to her. Her mama didn’t raise no fool.

  So when she got a call from a friend of a man she knew, a friend who dropped all the right names and places, she went to the meeting. She’d already been paid a thousand bucks for sharing information she’d overheard; if they wanted to give her more to keep her ears open, she’d take it.

  But when she opened the door to the motel room with the key that had been left under the mat, she realized that maybe she had her daddy’s pea-brain after all.

  She faced a gun. With a silencer. And a person in a mask aiming it at her ample chest.

  Lana realized that maybe the information she’d most recently sold had come too easily. They’d found out, and she was being terminated.

  No words were exchanged, no pleas heard, because three bullets hit her center mass before Lana figured out that her initial thought was wrong.

  Lana didn’t see her killer step over her body and take her purse because she was already dead. No surveillance camera caught the crime because there were none pointing toward the cheap motel.

  Five minutes later a small fire destroyed the leather gloves, black jumpsuit, and ski mask that the killer wore. It also burned the thousand-dollar bundle that had been used to pay Lana to set up the ambush.

  The gun, however, would be hidden, to plant later when someone needed to be framed.

  CHAPTER 27

  The staging area for the second phase of the operation was by necessity a mile from the abandoned row of warehouses, off the main highway, down an unused, packed dirt road. Boulders provided a natural barrier, but it would be difficult for anyone to spot them unless they had air surveillance.

  Two decades ago the whole area had been owned by private military contractors serving the many Air Force bases in southern Texas; after the bulk of the base closures, they shut down. Many went bankrupt, or simply walked away from their business. Over the years, they’d been leased by the city, but for the past five years, they’d been virtually untouched, their fate ruled by the economy.

  Lucy stood apart from the DEA agents who controlled the scene. Ryan was silent at her side, watchful as Juan had ordered him to be. She didn’t want a bodyguard, but she was grateful for a friend. “Do you think Kane might be right?” Lucy asked Ryan.

  “Any op like this is dangerous,” Ryan said. “But according to Tom and Clark, the source is reliable.”

  Tom and Clark were the two undercover agents who’d been watching the warehouse from a strategic vantage point. Unfortunately, because the row of warehouses was in the middle of open space bordered by an unused junkyard, they couldn’t get as close as they would like.

  “I understand your loyalty to Sean’s brother,” Ryan said, “but you also need to look at where Archer and Donnelly are coming from. They’re DEA, they have rules and checks and balances, and they’re not going to go into a situation without as much intel as possible. Kane Rogan is making a knee-jerk response to partial information. He doesn’t know the source or even the location.”

  “You make sense.” And he did, but so far Kane had also given them verifiable information. Archer already knew about Trejo, so that information hadn’t come out of nowhere.

  “But, that said, I’m going into this eyes wide open and expect the unexpected.”

  She smiled up at him. “Glad to hear it.”

  They stood there and watched as Sam Archer gave final instructions to Tom and Clark. The two men, both in their thirties, fit the bill of undercover agents and could have been brothers. Both Hispanic, they wore faded jeans and dirty plaid shirts. They had an unmarked undercover car, an old El Camino that had more exposed metal showing than faded brown paint. An early morning rain shower had left a blanket of humidity in the air, and the dark sky threatened to dump more. Distant thunder rumbled, but she didn’t know if there’d be more rain or if it would pass them by.

  Sean called her as the El Camino drove off.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Waiting near the warehouse where we think Sanchez is going to show up.”

  “Based on?”

  “A snitch.”

  “Kane thinks it’s a trap.”

  “I know. I talked to the team about it, but they have additional intelligence on this location and think it’s good information.”

  “I’m with Padre.”

  “Jack’s Army buddy?”

  “We’re checking on a lead.”

  “On Michael?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “I don’t know anything specific. Call me when you’re done. And be careful, okay?”

  “Al
ways.” She hung up and itched to do something. Standing here, waiting for Sean, waiting for information, waiting for action, was going to drive her batty.

  The undercover agents returned fifteen minutes later, windows rolled down, music blaring, maintaining their undercover role. They turned off the car and approached Sam Archer. Lucy and Ryan inched closer so they could listen.

  “Report,” Archer demanded.

  “Something’s going down,” Tom said. “Two men, young, with guns are hanging at the door to the last warehouse on the strip.”

  “Guards?”

  “Our take, yes.”

  “Vehicles?”

  “None visible, but there’s a trucking bay that looks like it’s been recently used. They gave us a look, didn’t seem concerned, but watched us leave.”

  “Can we get heat signatures?”

  “Not at this distance.”

  Brad approached. “We need a plan, Sam.”

  “We need better intelligence, and two gangbangers with guns isn’t enough. You had this information on the warehouse yesterday—why didn’t you have people down here?” she asked the two agents.

  “It’s almost impossible to set up a good vantage point,” Tom said. “We were here this morning, and it was empty. It’s a good setup for them—nearly three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility, if he has enough people to cover each point. Junkyard to the north, easy to disappear.”

  “How close is the junkyard?” Brad asked.

  “Shared fence. Maybe fifty yards, max.”

  “Our thermal imaging unit should be able to read at fifty yards,” Archer said. “Team of two, covert only, take the scan into the junkyard. Give us something to work with.”

  “We got it, we know the layout.” Tom motioned for Clark to grab the equipment. They left in the El Camino, but went in the opposite direction so they could enter from the north through the abandoned junkyard.

  “Do we have blueprints on the warehouse?” Archer demanded. “People! I asked for blueprints forty-five minutes ago!”

  Brad said, “Rollins is on her way.”

  “I thought she was with the ex.”

  “Peña is in custody, and since all agents are either here or sitting on Peña’s house, Rollins is the only available agent.”

  Minutes later Nicole Rollins drove up in a government sedan. She had a file folder and ran over to where they stood outside one of the tactical trucks. “This is all we could find on the property. The analyst is trying to track down the last owners to see if they know more, but they’re no longer in business.”

  Archer grabbed the folder, opened it, and spread out a handful of sheets. “This was an aerospace facility?”

  “Long ago,” Nicole said. “Then auto parts, then leased when the county took over the property. Cops shut down a chop shop a while back, it’s been empty ever since. All these places are empty. But our McAllen office had the address on a watch list, and there was a major bust here last year. No connection to Sanchez or Trejo, but—”

  “It’s Sanchez,” Brad said with conviction. “Controlled by Trejo.”

  “If we’re right,” Archer said, “they’ve expanded exponentially over the last seven years. They used to be low-level scumbags—now they’re running an op this big?”

  “You said it yourself, Sam, back when Trejo went under—he has the balls for this.”

  Archer handed Nicole back the folder. “These plans are worthless. They could have done anything with the interior. Is there a second floor?”

  “Yes,” Nicole said. “One of the McAllen agents who was involved in the bust last year said there are four car bays on the main floor, and a staircase was added to put three offices along the south wall above a self-contained storage room. Beyond that, we don’t know. I can contact the PD and ask to speak to someone who was part of the raid last year, see—”

  Archer cut her off. “No. We don’t know who Sanchez and Trejo have in their pocket. The new police chief is solid, but we don’t know about every cop on the beat.” She glanced at Lucy. “Bet you didn’t know that your brother had a big hand in bringing down a corrupt cop here five years ago.”

  Before Lucy could comment, Brad said, “Listen, Sam, we have two teams of six, plus you and Lucy manning tactical, and two undercovers now in the junkyard.”

  “And we don’t know how many are inside, what kind of weapons they have, or whether the little girl is with them. We have to assume she is.”

  “No one has seen Sanchez,” Brad said.

  “He disappeared this morning. He could have been here all day.”

  Tom’s voice came over the com. “We’re in position. We see a vehicle approaching. A van.”

  “How many subjects?” Archer asked.

  “At least two.”

  “Can you identify the target?”

  “Negative. Two males.”

  “Do you have thermal?”

  “We have four outside, but can’t get a reading inside yet. We’re calibrating. We might not be close enough. They may have reinforced the interior walls.”

  “Don’t expose yourselves.”

  “Two white or light-skinned Hispanic males have entered the building. Two guards still outside.”

  “Either one of them Sanchez?”

  “Negative.”

  “Do you see any sort of security on the building? Cameras?”

  “Affirmative. Two cameras, one in the northeast corner facing the street; one above the doorway.”

  “Hold your position.” Archer turned to Brad. “We wait until they move. We can’t go on their turf without intel from the inside. Four subjects we know of. Could be more.”

  More waiting, and they didn’t know where Bella was. Lucy shifted nervously on her feet.

  Brad paced. “What about the neighboring buildings? Can we get in through one of them?”

  “Not in a vehicle, they’ll see our approach.” Archer considered, then said to the agents in the junkyard, “Tom, verify the angles of the cameras and see if there is any way we can approach from the rear or from the adjoining warehouse, any angle.”

  “Roger. Hold.”

  Archer said, “Brad, listen. I know you want Sanchez. I want him, too. And I damn well want Trejo. But we’re going to do this right, and we’re not going in hot when we don’t know what they have.”

  She glanced at Lucy. “You know, he could have bolted, left the information so we sit on our asses here while he slips out. It wouldn’t be the first time a top dog sacrifices his underlings in order to escape.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Brad said. “But we have no other leads. Nothing. All we have is this. We’re close, I know we are. If he’s not here, if he’s putting these men up as a distraction, we can get them to talk.”

  “If they know anything,” Nicole said. “They could be local hires, disconnected from his inner circle.”

  There was mumbling on the com, then Tom said, “We may have been made. We found two cameras, camouflaged, aimed at the junkyard.”

  “Get out of there!”

  Gunfire erupted from the com and Archer shouted, “Agent needs assistance! Team one, take the yard; team two, with me. Nicole, stay here with Brian and man the com.”

  Lucy jumped into the tactical van with Sam Archer, Ryan, and two other DEA agents, even though she wasn’t technically part of the team. The rest of their team followed behind, while team one, led by Brad, hightailed it to the junkyard entrance.

  “Tom! Report!”

  “Clark’s down. I have cover.” More gunfire, so loud it had to be coming from Tom.

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  It only took two minutes for the tactical team to reach the warehouse. They watched four males swarm the edge of the junkyard. There was a hole in the fence, and the two agents were effectively trapped behind rusting, dismantled vehicles until they could get backup.

  Gunfire burst out of a broken window on the second floor, aimed at their vans.

  Archer was calling for immediate
backup from both Hidalgo PD and the DEA, including air cover.

  “Team one, status!”

  Brad responded, “Shooters have Tom and Clark pinned down.”

  “Tom, can you walk?”

  “I’m not leaving Clark. He’s injured.”

  “Team one, can you get to them?”

  “We need cover.”

  Tom said, “The shooters are closing in.”

  Brad said, “We’re almost there.”

  Lucy listened in horror as the firefight in the junkyard continued, and they backed out of the line of fire from the warehouse.

  “The bastards aren’t getting out,” Archer said. “Quiroz, you and Regan get up on that roof and take care of the shooter upstairs. You’re cleared to take the first available shot.”

  “Roger.”

  Ryan looked at Lucy and said, “It’s going to be fine, kid.”

  “Just get them,” she said.

  Thunder vibrated across the sky, and fat drops of rain fell on the dry dirt. The four agents in the van behind them covered Ryan and Regan as they ran into the warehouse directly across from the target.

  “Donnelly, status!”

  “Hold,” Brad whispered.

  There was silence, the only sound the rain that fell suddenly and thickly all around. Sam was staring at the communications console as if willing it to speak to her.

  A single gunshot was heard, then Brad said, “One down.” Then, “Tom, hold tight, we’re coming.”

  “Clark needs an ambulance. It’s bad.”

  “It’s on its way,” Archer said.

  Ryan’s voice came over. “We’re in position.”

  “First clear shot,” Sam said.

  “Roger.”

  Sam muttered, “They’re not getting out of here. Is this a damn suicide hit? This makes no sense.”

  “Psychologically, Sanchez could be trying to mess with you,” Lucy said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “If you lose a man in an op, it doesn’t matter if we take down the four they have, it’s going to affect you.”

  “It’ll make me go after them in force. They don’t want my wrath.”