The Bleeding Edge

by William W. Johnstone

  “Stay where you are!” the other deputy called.

  “Wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” Stark said.

  “Who are you?”

  “John Howard Stark. Sheriff Lozano knows me.”

  “What happened here? We had reports of shots fired and some sort of explosion.”

  “That about sums it up,” Stark drawled. “A gang of thugs came in, shot the place up, and threw a couple of Molotov cocktails.”

  “The volunteer fire department is on the way.”

  “That’s good,” Stark said, “but the fire will probably be out by the time they get here.”

  The deputy at the spotlight angled it down as two more cruisers pulled up behind the first one.

  “Come over here, Mr. Stark,” he said. “Are you some sort of spokesman for the residents of the park?”

  “No, I just thought somebody ought to meet you fellas and let you know what was going on.”

  “Are you people at war out here?” the second deputy said in a disgruntled voice. “Human heads, gunshots, explosions . . . I thought retirement was supposed to be peaceful!”

  “I reckon we all make mistakes, Deputy,” Stark said.

  By midnight, deputies were still canvassing the residents of the park, but the details had become relatively clear, Sheriff George Lozano explained to Stark.

  “They drove in, came straight here, and then started raising hell,” Lozano said. “They kept it up all the way out of the park. So it’s pretty obvious that their anger was directed at you, Mr. Stark, and at you and your wife, Mr. Gomez.”

  Lozano looked over at Fred as he added that part.

  “It’s because of last night, when they tried to rob me,” Fred said.

  “Possibly,” Lozano said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “They brought an awful lot of firepower with them to get even for a simple home invasion gone wrong, though.”

  “Those fellas don’t like to do things halfway,” Stark said.

  Lozano just grunted. The three of them were standing outside Fred’s mobile home. Burned spots in the grass were visible in the glow of the headlights from Lozano’s sheriff’s department SUV.

  “Are you sure you’ve told me everything you know about this?” the sheriff asked.

  “We’re as baffled as you are, Sheriff,” Stark said.

  That wasn’t exactly true, but Stark was puzzled at the sudden escalation of violence. If the thugs had shown up and made an attempt to get Antonio out of Fred’s house, that wouldn’t have surprised him. From the looks of things, though, he wasn’t sure they even cared about Antonio anymore.

  “Well, if you think of anything else, you be sure to let me know,” Lozano went on.

  “Here’s something else, Sheriff,” Fred said. “What are you going to do about this?”

  “I’m doing everything I can. My men are getting descriptions of the suspects’ vehicles. We’ll try to track them down.”

  “What about protecting us from something like this happening again?”

  “And how am I going to do that, Mr. Gomez? This is a big county, and I’m like everybody else in the world. I’ve had to deal with budget cuts. I don’t have the resources I once did.”

  “If the government would just quit wasting money on a bunch of politically correct crap, there’d be plenty left over to pay for law enforcement,” Fred snapped.

  “You’re talking to the wrong man. Tell it to the politicians.”

  “Sheriff’s an elected office,” Stark pointed out. “You are a politician.”

  “Not like the ones who dole out the funding and don’t have a clue what they’re—” Lozano stopped short and took a deep breath. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

  Stark shrugged.

  “You’ve got problems. So do we. What do we do if that bunch comes back?”

  “Call 911,” Lozano said curtly. He turned and walked toward his SUV.

  Fred stood beside Stark and asked as the sheriff drove away, “What are we going to do if they come back, John Howard?”

  Stark’s mouth was a tight, grim line as he gave Fred the only answer that was left.

  “The same thing that folks have been doing for a long time when the wolves start howling in the night,” he said. “We stand up for ourselves. We fight back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt in the incident. We spoke with Sheriff George Lozano about it.”

  A close-up of Lozano’s weary face appeared on the screen as he said, “At this point we have a pretty good idea who’s responsible for this outrage and expect to make several arrests shortly.”

  A couple of guttural grunts came from Gabir Patel. After a moment, Tomás Beredo realized that the Lebanese man was laughing. The two men sat in the dining room of Beredo’s ranch house enjoying a leisurely breakfast and watching the news on a flat-screen TV hung on the wall.

  “You hear that?” Patel said. “He says they’re going to make several arrests.”

  Beredo waved an impeccably manicured hand.

  “We have nothing to fear from Sheriff Lozano.”

  “In your pocket, eh?”

  “Strictly speaking, no. But he fears us. He fears for his family’s safety if he becomes too zealous in his actions toward us.”

  “He would fear you even more if you took his son or daughter and cut off a finger,” Patel suggested.

  “If it becomes necessary,” Beredo agreed blandly.

  The camera had cut back to the host of the local morning news show, a Hispanic male almost as handsome as Beredo himself. He was saying, “We have a crew out at the Shady Hills Retirement Park this morning, and our own Tiffany de la Garza spoke to some of the residents.”

  A live shot of an impossibly beautiful field reporter appeared on screen. She was holding a microphone as she said redundantly, “We’re here at the Shady Hills Retirement Park, the scene of some shocking violence last night.” She turned to one of the people standing near her. “How did you feel when the shooting started?”

  The elderly man seemed a little overwhelmed by having the microphone thrust into his face, but he recovered and said, “Well, I was scared. It sounded like a war. I was in Vietnam, you know, and it sounded like the Tet Offensive all over again. Not quite that bad, of course, but you get the idea.”

  The reporter, who hadn’t been born until long after the Tet Offensive was over, just gave him a blank smile and said, “What about you, ma’am? Were you frightened?”

  The woman she had spoken to said, “You bet I was. Guns were goin’ off everywhere, and then there was this explosion. Why, I was so scared I almost—”

  “Thank you,” the field reporter cut in before the woman could go into detail about how she had almost reacted to the raid. The reporter turned away and the cameraman swung to follow her as she spoke to another man standing nearby. “How about you, sir? What do you think about what happened her last night?”

  The park resident, a tall, powerful-looking man with thick, gray-shot dark hair and a mustache, said, “What do I think? I think it’s a shame such things can even happen in this country. There was a time when a bunch of lawless thugs wouldn’t dare attack innocent folks like this because they knew if they did they’d be met with hot lead. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if that was the case again.”

  “Sir, are you advocating vigilante justice?” the reporter asked breathlessly, as if sensing controversy and higher ratings.

  “I’m advocating something that goes way back in this country, the idea that people have a right to protect themselves, especially when the government can’t—or won’t—do it. That’s not vigilante justice, that’s just justice . . . and common sense.”

  “So you’re saying the residents of the park should fight back if they’re attacked again?”

  “Some of us already did,” the man said. “Next time there’ll be more of us standing up to those punks.”

  The field reporter was starting to look a little uneasy. This i
nterview was straying into a politically incorrect area that could be dangerous.

  “You almost sound like you’re daring them to come back,” she said.

  The man shook his head.

  “No. I hope they don’t ever show their faces around here again. We’re peace-loving folks here at Shady Hills and just want to be left alone. But we won’t be bullied, and if we’re hit, we’re gonna hit back . . . hard.”

  “Would you mind telling me your name, sir?”

  “Not at all.” The man looked directly into the camera with eyes that were as hard as flint. “It’s John Howard Stark.”

  The answer didn’t surprise Beredo. He had thought that the man looked familiar, and now he realized that he recognized Stark from newspaper pictures dating back to Stark’s previous clash with the cartel. He had known that Stark lived at Shady Hills, of course; Jalisco had told him that much. And now he had seen Stark, the man filled with arrogant defiance, for himself.

  “Stark,” Patel said. “The one you were talking about a couple of nights ago.”

  “Yes,” Beredo said with a nod.

  “I don’t like him. Like the girl said, he dares you to act.”

  “He will regret that,” Beredo vowed. “He will die screaming, but only after he knows that he is responsible for the deaths of everyone he holds dear.”

  “Yes,” Patel said. “Like all the other Americans, he must be taught that he cannot defy our glorious cause.”

  Beredo didn’t give a damn about any “cause” other than his own ambitions, but he didn’t see any point in saying that to Patel. If Hezbollah and the cartel were to come to an arrangement, it would be because the deal was beneficial to both sides, not because either side really cared about the other.

  Beredo took out his phone and called one of his lieutenants.

  “I want to see Ignacio Montez,” he snapped. “Right away.”

  This John Howard Stark could not be allowed to live. If Montez wanted to protect his own place in the scheme of things, let alone move up in the cartel, he would see to it that Stark was dealt with, and that the problem of Shady Hills Retirement Park was taken care of.

  Otherwise heads would roll, and none of them would belong to Tomás Beredo.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The president was flipping through the pages of his morning briefing: gas prices nearing five dollars a gallon, more saber-rattling in the Middle East, protesters wearing Nike T-shirts, drinking Starbucks coffee, and Web surfing on their iPhones while waving signs and loudly proclaiming that all corporations are evil and should be abolished . . . all business as usual, in other words.

  Then he stopped and his eyes narrowed as he read the report from Texas.

  “What’s this?” he asked his chief of staff. “Doesn’t the president of the United States have better things to do than worry about some minor disturbance in a state full of conservative yahoos? Why should we give a damn what happens down there? Our party hasn’t carried Texas in the past thirty years!”

  “That fellow Stark is involved,” the chief of staff explained. “His name is flagged, just like you ordered, sir.”

  “Oh, yes,” the president said with a frown. His predecessors had all kept track of John Howard Stark, so he’d thought it would be a good idea for him to do the same. “Wasn’t there something a few months ago about a possible civil rights violation . . . ?”

  The chief of staff shook his head and said, “Nothing ever came of that. No matter how Justice spun it, there was just too much evidence that Stark was defending himself. The three defendants in the case are still awaiting trial.”

  “So what’s this about?”

  “Some sort of gang attacked the mobile home park where Stark lives. We don’t really know why.”

  “Do we know who’s involved?”

  “DEA says there are indications that it was one of the cartels.”

  The president shook his head in confusion.

  “Why would they be interested in attacking a bunch of trailer trash?”

  The chief of staff winced.

  “I wouldn’t use that term to describe the residents, sir.”

  “Well, of course not,” the president snapped. “What sort of fool do you think I am, Ron? But that doesn’t change the fact that’s what they are, and I don’t understand why one of those drug cartels would even bother with them.”

  “From what I understand, in situations like this a lot of times the cartel wants to use the land as a drug-smuggling route. Maybe they’re trying to scare off the residents.”

  “Don’t they have enough ways to bring in their drugs?” The president snorted in disgust. “To hear some people tell it, our southern border is wide open anyway!”

  The chief of staff looked like he was trying not to say something. After a moment he responded, “The Border Patrol has had to make quite a few budget cuts—”

  “We’re still spending too much money on law enforcement that ought to go to social programs. You know that, Ron.”

  The chief of staff sighed and said, “Yes, sir. At any rate, that’s why that item was included in the briefing summaries, because of Mr. Stark’s involvement. Is there any action you’d like to take regarding it?”

  The president frowned in thought and finally shook his head.

  “Not right now. But alert the Justice Department to keep an eye on the situation. If Stark is involved in this, there’s always a chance it could escalate. There are certain news organizations that would love to distort the situation and make it look like he’s some sort of hero again.”

  “Yes, sir.” The chief of staff decided it might be a good idea to nudge the president on to another matter. “If you’ll look at the latest economic numbers, you’ll see that another three million people have given up and stopped looking for a job, so that means the unemployment rate will be going down again.”

  A broad smile wreathed the president’s face as he said, “Ah! Good news. And those shortsighted fools in Congress say that our stimulus policies aren’t working! The numbers don’t lie, do they, Ron?”

  Elsewhere in Washington on this hot, miserably muggy summer morning, a man was working out in his private gym. Despite the fact that he was in late middle age, he looked somewhat younger. Close-cropped gray hair and a certain weathered cast to his skin were the only outward signs of his years. He was bare to the waist, wearing only a pair of workout pants. His body was still lean and strong as he went through his martial arts routine. He kicked, punched, and easily defeated the opponent he could see in his head, and when he was finished a fine sheen of sweat covered his face and chest. He wasn’t breathing hard, though.

  “Bravo.” The comment came from a woman who’d been standing at the side of the room, leaning on a pommel horse as she watched him. She was half his age, about thirty, and beautiful with a supple, curved body revealed by the spandex leotard she wore and long red hair pulled back this morning in a ponytail. “You’re a remarkable specimen, Simon.”

  “You make me sound like an insect pinned to a board,” he said.

  “Not at all. You’re more like something that should be on display in a museum. There aren’t many like you around.”

  “Then that makes you doubly lucky to be with me, doesn’t it?”

  He slid his arm around her waist, pulled her against him, and kissed her.

  When she pulled away after a long moment, she said, “There’s a phone call for you. I told him he’d have to wait, that I couldn’t interrupt you while you were working out.”

  “Who is it?”

  She shook her head and said, “He didn’t give me a name. But how many people have your number?”

  Not many, he thought without replying. And the ones who did have it were generally worth talking to.

  He went over to the bar where she had set his phone down. He picked it up with his left hand. His right was missing the thumb and index finger, both of which had been shot off cleanly several years earlier.

  “Ryan,” he sa
id into the phone.

  That was his real name. He still used it despite the fact that officially Simon Ryan was dead and had been for a number of years. Making that true hadn’t been all that difficult, considering the help he’d had from friends in high places. Certain people in the government were more than happy to lend him a hand when he needed it, and in return he cleaned up the messes that they couldn’t clean up themselves. It was an arrangement that had made him comfortably wealthy.

  “Hello, Simon,” a familiar voice said in his ear. “Have you seen the news this morning?”

  “I don’t keep up with the news,” Ryan said. “The people I work for tell me all I need to know.”

  “There was some trouble in Texas last night.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  Although he had been born and raised in El Paso and had spent quite a bit of time in Texas, he didn’t remember any of it particularly fondly. He had spent time in a lot of other places, too, and he didn’t miss them. In the case of Texas, he hadn’t been there since the incident that had cost him those two fingers on his right hand.

  “An old friend of yours was involved.”

  “I don’t have any friends in Texas.”

  “What about John Howard Stark?”

  Ryan’s left hand tightened on the phone. Stark wasn’t the one who had maimed him, but it wouldn’t have happened if not for the rancher. Ryan felt a little grudging admiration for Stark—the man had gone against the odds, taken on something much bigger than himself, and somehow survived—but he felt a deep and abiding hatred for Stark that was much stronger.

  Over the years, Ryan hadn’t tried to keep up with what Stark was doing. He’d been busy with other things, busy carving out this new life for himself. He had heard about Stark being there at the Alamo when everything had gotten crazy and bloody, and that hadn’t surprised him. But since then . . . nothing. Ryan hadn’t even known whether Stark was still alive.

  “He’s no friend of mine,” Ryan told the man on the phone.