by Jordan Dane
“Okay, I’m ready.”
She hit the keyboard and made her connection to Mercer. He’d sent her a text message that he’d have his laptop in a private office at police headquarters. She secured the encrypted link and Mercer flickered across several monitors.
“Hola, jefe. This is Saxon Abbott, the genius you sent me.”
“Greetings.” Saxon waved and slouched back into his chair.
“Good to see both of you. Hey, Karl. I miss you, buddy.”
The dog thumped its tail on Nilah and whimpered when he heard his master’s voice. Mercer sprawled across the screens with a smile and put his boots on the desktop.
“I appreciate you clearing time for this, Abbott,” Mercer said. “You’re a good guy.”
“Don’t let that get out.” Saxon shot a glance toward Karl. The dog stared at him with misty eyes and droopy jowls. “Hey, Mercer. I don’t think your dog likes me.”
“Huh. I’ve always known him to be a good judge of character.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Saxon asked.
“I take it you had a fruitful day?” Mercer asked. His fierce eyes locked onto Nilah.
She took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, we’re ready to do this, but I wanted to fill you in.”
Nilah told him what they had done—and what they were about to do—while butterflies deep in her belly did their best to impersonate vultures. After she was done explaining, Mercer smiled.
“Look at me, Nilah.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been rambling and forcing her explanation with more detail than he needed—geek speak overload. When she raised her eyes to meet his on the monitor in front of her, it was as if Mercer sat inches from her. She could always connect with him.
“I trust you and your instincts, Nilah. No one does it better,” Mercer said. “You got this and Abbott is there with you. He’s got field experience. You’re ready.”
“Yeah.” She leaned closer to the screen and grinned. “Thanks, Mercer.”
She ended the video call and sat in silence as she gathered her thoughts. To his credit, Saxon didn’t disrupt the stillness. If she had to share her pod with anyone, Saxon made it easy.
“Time for some digital justice. Let’s do this.”
Chapter 7
Tierra Del Este Trail
El Paso, Texas
5:20 p.m.
Nilah and Saxon arranged for a face-to-face with the Galvez cartel’s number two man, Victor Rangel, but the online task had not been easy. Mercer could only imagine how cagey Rangel had been. The man had bounced his communications within the NovaREAL website between several avatars that pinged off fake IP locations across the world. Nilah and Saxon didn’t panic. They stuck with their vital task until they got it done.
Rangel thought he’d met online with Elliot Ziffle. If the Jaguar wanted his money man dead, Victor Rangel would not come to talk.
When the man finally set up the details for the encounter—a hiking trail under development off Zaragoza Road on El Paso’s east side—Mercer and Keiko didn’t have much time to get to the location. They’d planned to be early, but if Rangel had the same intentions, they’d be walking into a trap, especially if Rangel had been ordered to kill Ziffle.
For the sake of transparency and good faith, Mercer notified Detective Santiago Gonzales and called for backup. The El Paso PD arrived on time and pulled in behind him at the trailhead.
Mercer secured a small video cam to his shoulder. It would give eyes and ears to Nilah and Saxon and his team. He didn’t always indulge in documentation of what he did. Vigilante justice worked best in secrecy. He’d done it for Nilah.
“You getting our video feed, Wizard?”
“Yes. Watch your six, Wolf. You too, Lotus.” Nilah’s voice cracked.
The sun hung low in the sky, shedding its last glimmer of light in vivid streaks of ginger and scarlet. The dense trees were backlit and glowed as if they were on fire, but it would soon be dark. Time wasn’t on their side.
Two vehicles were parked near the trailhead. Mercer suspected one belonged to Victor Rangel. A second car posed a problem.
“Run both plates,” Mercer told Santiago. “The second car could be one of Rangel’s men, but if it’s an innocent civilian on a hike, we could have a potential hostage situation. Warn your men to be on guard. We don’t have time to run a background check on a DMV tag.”
Detective Gonzales gave the order.
“You’re with me, Detective.” Mercer kept his voice low. “Have your team fan out.”
Gonzales nodded and gave orders to his three-man team. When Mercer moved out with Santiago, Keiko gave him a subtle signal and took off on her own.
“It’ll be dark soon and this is Rangel’s turf. Stay sharp, Lotus.”
Mercer spoke into his com unit as he crept along the rough trail, weapon drawn. He’d taken the main trail system with Santiago. Keiko split from him and took on the challenge of weaving through the tree line to the right of the path.
“Rangel specified Rainbow Point,” Mercer said to Keiko. “According to the trailhead sign, that’s up ahead, two miles.”
“Copy that,” she said.
Santiago gave the same instructions to his team and kept moving.
Mercer had chambered a round in his Glock and held the gun tight in his hands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Santiago and his men evenly spaced and fanned out with their eyes alert.
As he neared the rendezvous point, Mercer saw something through the trees.
“I see him.”
***
In the Laramie Mountains
Zion War Room Bunker
“Did Mercer say he saw Rangel?” Nilah crossed her arms. “This is taking too long. I want this to be over…the right way.”
Saxon Abbott watched Nilah pace the tight space of her pod like a trapped animal in a cage. She stared at the overhead screens that showed the feed from Mercer’s shoulder cam. It tore him apart to feel so powerless, being the new guy.
Stetson, Ciara, and Maddox had come to the War Room to watch the sting on Rangel go down. Even though they knew Nilah better than he did, no one distracted her from her self-imposed misery. They were all going through it.
“My fingers are ice. I can’t feel them anymore.” She shook her hands, but kept her eyes on the monitors as she paced.
Saxon didn’t know what to say that would make her feel better.
“It’s hard to sit on the sidelines.” Saxon would’ve given his left nut to be on the mission. “Victor Rangel will be there. We did our jobs and now it’s up to Mercer and Santiago to make it happen.”
“Saxon’s right, Nilah,” Stetson said. “None of us like sitting a bench when we want to be with our team on the ground, but that’s how things go sometimes.”
Stetson brushed back a strand of Nilah’s hair and gave her a brotherly hug.
“I know I should be more worried about our objective, but that’s not what has me in knots,” she said after she pulled from Stetson’s arms. “I don’t want Mercer or Keiko hurt. I can’t help but feel responsible. It’s got me second guessing every line of code and communication with Rangel.”
Saxon knew how she felt. His cockiness and big mouth insulated him, but that didn’t mean he never had doubts, especially when his work might put his team at risk. Like Nilah, he was worried, too.
“You’re not alone, Nilah. I had a hand in how this’ll play out, but Mercer has backup. He’s doing it right.”
Saxon had never met anyone like Nilah Rolstad. They’d clicked on all levels. She navigated the dark web like the ultimate hacker. He didn’t have to explain his thoughts. She’d kept up with him and even shot by him with moves he hadn’t seen, something he’d never admit to anyone else.
Yet the woman fretting over her team got to him the most. Nilah had mad computer skills and an intellectual capacity he admired, but her vulnerability touched him deepest and she didn’t try to hide it. Nilah had a heart bigger than Texas and that was saying somethin
g.
“Wait a minute.” Nilah pointed to the bank of monitors. “There’s something by that tree. Is that what I think it is?”
***
Tierra Del Este Trail
El Paso, Texas
6:00 p.m.
“I have a body.”
In the waning light of day, Mercer spied a dead man slumped against a tree. Keiko beat him to the corpse.
Keiko knelt by the body and placed a finger on the man’s neck to check for a pulse.
“He’s still warm. I bet we just missed the show.” She shook her head. “He’s dead, but I recognize him from his rap sheet. It’s Victor Rangel.”
“What the hell?” Mercer furrowed his brow. “Who shot—” Before he finished, Mercer heard one of Gonzales’s men call through the trees.
“I got another body over here.” The officer knelt on the ground. “He has a bullet to the shoulder, but the one to his heart punched his ticket.”
Mercer reached for the small camera he wore on his shoulder.
“There’s nothing more to see, team. I’m shutting down the video cam. We’re losing daylight.”
He shut off the video feed before Nilah saw too much. She would fret over the bodies. No sense feeding her visuals that could fuel nightmares.
Mercer stared down at Victor Rangel.
“Rangel has a bullet in the leg and one to the neck. The neck is the kill shot. It looks like he bled out.”
Santiago Gonzales intervened.
“Officer Purdue, let’s retrace their steps and walk through what happened.”
Santiago and his man did a quick reenactment of the shootings to find a likely scenario. In the end, they decided Rangel’s leg wound had been the first bullet. Whoever the second man was, he had come to kill Rangel, but both men died of their wounds.
Mercer pulled Santiago aside, out of earshot of his men.
“How did a second shooter know Rangel would be here? Do we have a leak or is the Galvez cartel imploding and taking out management?”
“Could be both, but that NovaREAL chat room got me thinking.” Santiago shared his concern. “The Jaguar or someone from his crew could’ve found out about the meeting online and come after Rangel.”
“Or Ziffle. Whoever it is, they’re a step ahead of us. We need to ID the shooter.”
“I have a name. One of my men ran a fingerprint scanner and got a hit. His name is Armando Gallo and he works for the Jaguar, one of his lieutenants.”
“So we can rule out a rival cartel.”
“Looks like it.” Santiago nodded. “I’ve called my crime scene techs and the Medical Examiner. We’ll process the scene and I’ll put a rush on the autopsy.”
“Good. And if these men have cell phones, let’s ping their signal and see where they’ve been,” Mercer said. “This puzzle has too many moving parts.”
Mercer turned to go, but when a thought struck him, he caught Santiago’s attention.
“We have our shift at the safe house. If the cartel is shutting down, Ziffle would be a key witness for the Jaguar to eliminate. It’s looking like we don’t have to set him up as bait. The cartel already has him in their cross hairs.”
“I think it’s time we brought the U.S. Marshals in. They can take custody of him.”
“What about the immunity deal for Ziffle?” Mercer asked. “Have you heard back from the Attorney General’s office?”
“It’s done. I reviewed it before I came here. I haven’t said anything until we could see how this meeting with Rangel would go down, but I see no reason not to share the news with him. He’s done his part. Now it’s time to do ours.” Santiago clenched his jaw and heaved a sigh as he stared at the dead body of Victor Rangel.
“I’ll have my people send you the address of the safe house in an encrypted message. You can have the marshals meet us there at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
After Santiago nodded, Mercer signaled Keiko that he’d meet her back at the vehicle. It was time to take the next shift at the safe house, but he wanted alone time to think. Santiago and the El Paso PD would process the crime scene and do their best to triangulate the cell phone of Rangel and the shooter. They’d work with what they had.
That left Mercer keeping an eye on Ziffle’s sorry ass until the U.S. Marshals Service took over, but one other crucial element demanded his attention. Mercer had to follow the money. It was the only thing that made sense.
If the Jaguar had ordered his men to kill in his name, he realized it didn’t matter why or who was on his list. The ruthless man had millions of reasons sitting in the banks. In the end it always came down to money. The Jaguar had an exit plan and he’d been one step ahead of him at every turn.
Mercer had to do something unexpected to ruin the man’s strategy. It had to be crazy big and out of left field.
He’d reached a critical phase of his plan where anything could go wrong and topple his one shot at real justice for the death of his wife and child. The whole op had always been between him and the Jaguar and an unforgiveable debt to settle. From here forward, he had to rely on his gut to smoke the Jaguar from his secret lair, using the only thing that mattered to him.
When he knew he was alone, Mercer placed a critical call on his cell.
“Stetson? Change in plans. I need a favor.”
***
El Paso Police
Central Regional Command
Nearly midnight
Detective Santiago Gonzales couldn’t go home after investigating the crime scene where Victor Rangel and Armando Gallo were found dead.
Something haunted him and he knew trying to sleep would be a waste of time.
After Mercer Broderick had speculated there could be a leak within law enforcement, Santiago couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility. One by one, he went down the list of anyone involved and struggled with the likelihood. He had to consider everyone—including Mercer.
The man had called in a favor, one that Santiago would be forever grateful for—after the CIA operative overcame insurmountable odds to free Santiago’s good friend—but did that give him a free pass? Yes, he owed Mercer and he hated doubting a man he had once trusted without question, but how far could he have blind faith in a covert CIA operative? Mercer had him second guessing his own people, but what better way for Mercer to deflect attention off a leak within his team than to point a finger elsewhere.
The pressure was mounting for Santiago to secure the arrest of the Jaguar. He’d bucked the system to keep his operation under wraps through Mercer. Once the El Paso brass found out what he’d done, only success would absolve him of the secrecy.
If he failed, his career would be over.
Santiago didn’t have a choice. He picked up the phone and placed a call to a source he had within the intelligence community, someone who would pick up his phone at any hour. After he told the man what he wanted and gave him Mercer’s name, the call ended with a promise to get back to him.
Being CIA, Mercer couldn’t have an op going on domestic soil. What had he been working on that put him on the trail of the Galvez cartel and the Jaguar?
Santiago would soon know how far he could trust Mercer Broderick.
Chapter 8
Angel’s Triangle safe house
Next morning
Mercer had another restless night where he dreamed of Keara and Braeden and an odd sensation of longing clutched at his heart.
The memories of his twilight sleep stayed behind to torture him with its fragile borders, a remnant of the line he’d straddled between his blessed dreams of Keara and Braeden and the harsh reality of being fully awake, without them. Even though he existed with his wife and child in the slivers of dreams—where he sensed their presence as he once had—it was never enough.
He would flash to his fondest memories and feel Keara sleeping next to him in comfortable silence. The warmth of her body. The smell of her perfume. Sometimes he would distinctly hear the measured sweet breaths of his son as he slept or catch a faint whiff of
Braeden’s hair after a bath.
When Mercer would open his eyes—to pretend for a precious second that none of the horror had happened to them—his desperate delusion never lasted long. He’d have to face the reality of their deaths all over again, a never-ending torment that riddled him with guilt.
He didn’t see an end to the pain. His vivid dreams made him wish he had a choice to step over the threshold of twilight sleep and remain with his wife and child, but he always woke up, utterly exhausted with grief.
Today had been no different. The marshals would arrive in thirty minutes. Keiko had come from using the bathroom and Ziffle sat at the kitchen table drinking the hot tea she’d made him.
But despite the stillness of the morning, something prickled Mercer’s skin and put him on edge.
He paced the living room and drew back the drapes, careful not to show signs of movement. When he heard the metallic clang of a cyclone fence gate, he peered through a slit in a curtain to see two men split up. One pulled his weapon and nudged his head to the other man, who ran off toward the side yard.
The men planned to hit the house from two directions and break through the only doors.
“We have company,” he whispered.
Keiko didn’t ask questions. She grabbed Elliot Ziffle by the collar and yanked him off his chair. For once, the man didn’t argue. His eyes grew wide and blood drained from his face, but he did as he was told.
“Move. Now.” She pushed him down the narrow hall toward the bedroom, manhandling him as she rushed him to cover.
She glanced over her shoulder and Mercer nodded before Keiko closed the bedroom door.
Whatever time he had before the men broke into the house, Mercer had to make it count. He crept toward the center of the living room—a prime location that gave him a good view of both doors—and retrieved his cell to hit speed dial for Santiago.
When the detective answered, he said, “We have a situation at the safe house. We’ve been compromised.”
“Mercer!”
He heard Santiago’s voice yelling, but he’d run out of time. Mercer kept the line open and placed the phone on a table next to him. The detective would know soon enough what compromised meant.
