Stark nodded slowly.
“We all knew they were responsible for it,” he said.
“They have some demands, and they say they’ll kill the other hostages if those demands aren’t met.”
“Money? Ransom?”
“No. They want the town of Shady Hills dissolved, and they want everybody to move out of the retirement park.”
“Good Lord!” Stark felt anger shaking him deep inside. “All this can’t be about just a piece of property! There are other places they can run their stinking drugs!”
“It’s about power,” Reuben said. “They’re just trying to show everybody they’re so big and bad, they can have anything they want. Or anybody.”
“What does that mean?” Stark asked with a frown.
“Their other demand is that you be turned over to them, Mr. Stark.”
“They’ll release the hostages if I surrender to them?” Suddenly, Stark had to laugh. “Where do they want me? I’ll go wherever they say if they’ll release those kids.”
“I’m sure they plan to torture you and kill you, sir.”
“I’m sure they do,” Stark said. “That doesn’t matter.”
“That’s very noble of you—”
“Not one damned bit,” Stark broke in on Reuben’s protest. “Nobility doesn’t enter into it. It’s just a matter of logic. One broke-down old geezer in return for eight kids with the rest of their lives still in front of them? I’ll make that deal any day of the week, Reuben.”
“I know you would, sir, but there’s also the matter of dissolving Shady Hills and vacating the park.”
Stark rubbed his jaw and admitted, “Yeah, that’s trickier. There’s something else to consider, too.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to let those bastards win,” Stark said.
Reuben smiled faintly.
“I was hoping you’d say that. That thing you said yesterday that I didn’t hear . . . I think it’s time.”
Stark nodded and said, “You let me handle that. You’re a law enforcement officer.”
“I’m the chief of police of a town that won’t exist anymore if those animals get their way. I’m ready to stop them, whatever it takes.”
“Are you sure about that?” Stark asked.
“Yes, sir, I am. As sure as anybody ever was about anything.”
Stark nodded and said, “All right, then. Let me say good-bye to Hallie and the others, and then we’ll go get started.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s visiting hours at the hospital,” Stark said. “We’re going visiting.”
The two drug smugglers who’d been captured by Reuben and Keith Hamlin a few nights earlier were still under police guard at the Devil’s Pass hospital. They were being held in windowless rooms, and an officer was stationed outside the door of each room. Stark and Reuben went to the room of the man who’d accidentally shot himself in the foot after being hit in the groin with the baseball bat.
“I’m Chief Torres from Shady Hills,” Reuben told the cop on duty at the door. He showed the man his identification. “I need to talk to the prisoner for a minute or two.”
The cop shook his head and said, “I can’t let you do that without permission from Chief Feasco, sir. I can call him if you want, but I’m sure he won’t want you to talk to the prisoner without the man’s lawyer present—”
“José Delgado, right?” Stark asked.
“That’s right.” The cop frowned at him. “I know you. You’re that guy Stark.”
“The mayor of Shady Hills,” Stark agreed. “So I guess you can say I’m here on official business, too.”
“All right, let me call the chief—”
Reuben put out a hand to stop him.
“Two minutes,” he said. “That’s all we’re asking.”
“Without permission from my boss? With no lawyer around?” The cop shook his head. “That’d cost me my job. No way.”
“We’re just trying to help those kids who were kidnapped,” Stark said.
“I don’t care, I can’t—”
Stark didn’t let him go on. His patience had run out, and since there was nobody else in the hall at the moment . . .
Stark hit the cop as hard as he could, a powerful punch that drove the man back against the door, which swung open under his weight. The cop slumped senseless to the floor, his body holding the door open.
“Well, it’s official,” Reuben said dryly. “I’ll be going back to jail.”
“At least you’ll have some company this time,” Stark said as he stepped over the stunned officer and bent down to grasp his shoulders and drag him farther into the room.
The prisoner lying in the bed was groggy from the pain medication being pumped into him. His eyes widened as he struggled to force himself more awake and alert as the two men approached.
Stark said, “I’d look at his chart, but all that medical gobbledygook doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“He’s got busted balls and a hole in his foot,” Reuben said. “What else do you need to know?”
“That ought to be enough to start,” Stark said. He took hold of the drug smuggler’s bandaged foot and twisted it, while Reuben clapped a hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his screams.
Reuben leaned over the bed and said, “You’re bound to have heard about what happened yesterday. There’s a TV on the wall. So tell us . . . where would the cartel take those kids?”
The man’s eyes were wide now with pain and fear. He shook his head as much as he could with Reuben’s hand clamped to his face.
Stark twisted the wounded foot again, and the prisoner’s back arched up from the bed.
“I don’t like doing this,” he said. “But parents don’t like waiting to find out if their kids are dead, either. They sure as hell don’t like burying them.”
“You’d better tell us what we want to know,” Reuben warned the man. “We’re already gonna be in a lot of trouble. Finishing the job on you won’t make it that much worse.” His voice became even harder. “And it’ll be worth it, you worthless piece of—”
The man started to nod, his head jerking up and down frantically.
Reuben took his hand away from the man’s mouth and said, “Tell us where to find those kids.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“You think he was telling the truth?” Reuben asked as they drove away from the hospital. They had gotten out without anybody discovering what they’d done, but there was certain to be an uproar before much longer.
Stark said, “He was too scared, and hurting too much, not to. I can understand why people don’t like torture. They’d like to think that as a people, we’re too good to resort to anything like that. But when lives are on the line, sometimes you have to do something you don’t want to if you’re going to prevent something even worse.”
“You don’t have to justify what we did, Mr. Stark. I’d do it again in a second.”
“So would I,” Stark said.
Reuben rubbed a hand over his face, then asked, “Do we tell the Rangers what we found out? The FBI?”
“I might trust the Rangers. Not the feds. But I’d just as soon we didn’t tell any of them.”
“That’s what I figured. When you had that showdown with the cartel before, you went in alone, didn’t you?”
“Not alone,” Stark said, thinking about the friends who had been with him that day: Jack Finnegan and Henry Macon, who hadn’t made it out of the cartel stronghold south of the border. Nat Van Linh. Will Sheffield. And Rich Threadgill. The crazy man, Rich. Stark would have given a lot to have Rich Threadgill at his side right now, but that wasn’t going to happen. There wasn’t time. Any team he assembled would have to come from right here.
“You’re not going alone today, either,” Reuben said. “I’ll be with you. I figure all my officers will be, too.”
“They didn’t get to be Shady Hills cops very long,” Stark said.
“They won’t car
e about that. How about the guys in the park? You know any of them who’d be willing—and able—to do something like this?”
Stark thought about it and nodded.
“There are some old vets living there who are pretty hard-nosed,” he said. “Probably most of the men living in the park would be willing to fight, but there’s not many of them I’d take into something like this. They’d just get themselves killed.”
“You know, I ought to run up to Dry Wash and talk to Ben LaPorte,” Reuben said. “I get the feeling that some of those old boys who live up there are pretty tough.”
“That’s a good idea,” Stark agreed. “Ben talks quiet, but he doesn’t back down from anybody, that’s for sure.”
Reuben didn’t have to go up to Dry Wash, though, because as it turned out, Ben LaPorte and a dozen or so of his friends were waiting in the parking lot of the community center when they got back. Ben got out of his pickup and came over to intercept Stark and Reuben.
“Mayor,” he said with a nod. “We’ve all heard the terrible news. It’s all over the TV and Internet that those cartel animals want you in exchange for those kids. We’re here to back you up if they try to come after you.”
“Good to see you, Ben,” Stark said as he shook hands with the man, “and I appreciate that sentiment. I’m not gonna wait for them to come after me, though. I’m going to them.”
“You’re gonna surrender?” Ben sounded surprised.
“Not hardly.”
A smile appeared on Ben’s face as he nodded and said, “That sounds more like it. You’re goin’ after those varmints.”
“That’s the idea.”
“You found out where they’re holdin’ those kids?”
“We’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Count us in,” Ben said. “All the bunch who came with me today. We’ve got pistols, rifles, shotguns. . . .” He glanced at Reuben. “And maybe I shouldn’t be admittin’ this in front of the chief of police, but maybe a few weapons that aren’t strictly legal, too.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Reuben told him. “It’s not likely that I’ll be the chief of police much longer. In fact, we might want to get out of here before the Rangers or the feds show up and try to take us into custody.”
“I won’t ask what for,” Ben said with a smile. “Tell us where to meet you and we’ll rendezvous there.”
Stark thought about it for a moment, then said, “There’s a little mesa a few miles north of Dry Wash, east of the highway.”
Ben nodded.
“I know it. Highest point in these parts.”
“That’s where we’ll be later today. Don’t tell anybody you can’t trust with the information, though.”
“Count on that,” Ben said.
“We can’t hit them in broad daylight,” Stark mused, “but I don’t want to wait too long. I’m thinking dusk, when it’s mighty hard to see anything except shadows.”
“Will they wait that long to execute those prisoners?” Reuben asked.
Stark said, “I think I might know a way to stall.”
Hallie Duncan said, “Meeting in emergency session a short time ago, Mayor John Howard Stark and the city council of Shady Hills, Texas, have voted unanimously to begin the process of disincorporating the town. Although this will take some time to go through legal channels, Mayor Stark—or rather, former mayor Stark—issued a statement saying that for all intents and purposes, Shady Hills is no longer a town. Chief of Police Reuben Torres and his four officers, who were the only municipal employees so far, have been discharged from those positions, effective immediately. Also, Jack Kasek, the owner of Shady Hills Retirement Park, has voided all leases in the park and has advised residents that they have one week to vacate the premises.” Hallie looked directly into the camera as she continued, “These actions are being taken in the hopes that the violence and bloodshed which have plagued the area in recent days will come to an immediate end and that no one else will be harmed.”
Hallie’s statement went out on all the news channels, over the radio, and was posted on the Internet at the same time. It was seen in homes where people hoped desperately that it would be enough to bring their children home safe and sound. It was seen in homes where decent folks prayed for the same thing, even though they were far away and didn’t know the people involved. It was seen in the Oval Office of the White House, where the president felt a certain degree of satisfaction and thought that it was all the fault of John Howard Stark and those other crazy, right-wing conservatives down in Texas.
It was also seen in an isolated ranch house a few miles north of the Rio Grande, where Tomás Beredo looked at Gabir Patel and said, “You see? They have learned not to defy us.”
“They move slowly,” Patel said with a scowl.
“Everything is slow in America, especially where the law is involved.”
“And the American whore said nothing about Stark.”
“They will produce Stark when another three bodies are found tomorrow morning.”
“I hope you’re right,” Patel said. “My associates and I grow tired of these godless Americans and their stubbornness. The time will come when they are all wiped from the face of the earth.”
Beredo sincerely hoped not. That would be the worst possible outcome for the cartel. Without the stupid Americans to buy the cartel’s drugs, where would they be? It was becoming clear to Beredo that helping these Islamic thugs further their aims might not be the best long-term strategy for him and his friends.
But that was a problem to be dealt with another day. For now, the cartel had once again demonstrated its power for all to see, and that was what really mattered.
“You do plan to kill all of the prisoners eventually, don’t you?” Patel went on.
“Of course,” Beredo answered without hesitation. “The Americans must be punished, so they will never dare to go against our wishes again.”
“Would you give me two of them?”
The request surprised Beredo. He said, “Why?”
“I wish to behead one of the males and have the female stoned to death,” Patel replied. “And the whole thing should be recorded and sent back to my allies in Lebanon and broadcast as a sign to our enemies that judgment surely awaits them.”
Beredo thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and nodded.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “Soon, all of them will be dead anyway.”
If the mesa had a name, Stark didn’t know it. He hadn’t lived in the area long enough to know all the details about all its geographical features. But the mesa was a signpost of sorts, the first break in the table-like landscape, the first indicator that as one traveled farther west along the Rio Grande, the terrain would become more rugged, until the mountains of the Big Bend reared their craggy heights.
There was a ramshackle gate in the fence that ran along the highway and a trail that was nothing more than a pair of tire tracks worn into the ground over decades. The mesa was located on somebody’s ranch. Stark didn’t know who the land belonged to, but he hoped that the owner wouldn’t mind him and his friends gathering here to launch their mission of rescue—and vengeance.
They came by ones and twos all day so as not to attract attention: Dave Forbes, Keith Hamlin, Luiz Garcia, and Miranda Livingston, the former police force of Shady Hills who realized they would probably never get those jobs back; Ben LaPorte and eleven more men from Dry Wash—truck drivers, construction workers, mechanics, the sort of men whose work had actually built the country from the ground up and kept it running; half a dozen vets from Shady Hills who had fought in Vietnam or Desert Storm, men who had held themselves in combat readiness because that was what felt right and natural to them; and John Howard Stark and Reuben Torres, the men they would follow into battle.
They parked their vehicles on the other side of the fifty-foot-tall mesa, well out of sight of the road. As the sun began to slide down the western sky toward the horizon, Stark addressed them.
&
nbsp; “Here’s the situation, gentlemen. About ten miles from here is the ranch house where the rest of those high school students who were kidnapped are being held. Reuben and I got this information from one of the drug smugglers who were arrested a few nights ago, and we believe it to be true.”
Dave Forbes said, “Some of us heard about that, Mr. Stark. There are a lot of cops looking for the two of you.”
“And yet here I am,” Stark said with a grin. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a hunch some of those cops might not really be looking quite as hard as they pretend to be.”
That drew laughter from the twenty-two men . . . and one woman. Stark, being from the generation he was, wasn’t sure about taking Miranda Livingston along on a combat mission, but Reuben had vouched for her and warned that she might cause trouble if she didn’t get to go along.
“Once we knew the location,” Stark went on, “we were able to get some intel on the sly from some folks in the Border Patrol, since they’re still friends with some of you. They emailed Reuben some satellite surveillance photos of the area we’re interested in.”
Reuben held up his smartphone with one of the photos displayed on it. The screen was too small for everybody to see it, of course, but they knew it was there.
“We’ve studied these photos,” Stark said, “and we can estimate that although the cartel has hundreds, if not thousands of members, there are only between forty and fifty of them at the ranch right now. Which means that although we’ll be outnumbered, it’ll only be by about two to one. Those aren’t bad odds.”
“Most of the men who are there will be total badasses, though,” Reuben warned. “Don’t underestimate them.”
Ben LaPorte smiled and said mildly, “There are some who’d say that we’re a mite badassed ourselves, Chief.”
Reuben chuckled. “That’s true enough, Ben. And forget the chief business. Right now we’re all just American citizens, trying to do what’s right because the people who should be doing this job either can’t or won’t.”
The Bleeding Edge Page 26
