Under Cover Of Darkness

by Elizabeth White

  “Be still!” he shouted in Spanish. “Don’t move or you’ll roll into the river!” There was another moment or two of confused motion, then gradual stillness. Jack kept the note of command in his voice. “You’re locked in from the inside. Somebody reach up—careful now—find the latch.”

  After a moment he heard, “Hecho, Señor.”

  “Okay, I’m opening the door, but come out one at a time.”

  The latch was old and cranky, but Jack managed to wrench the door open and slide it backward. Arms and legs and bodies were crammed inside the van like fish in a trawler. In spite of his warning, three men scrabbled for the outside, sending the van deeper into the water.

  “Careful!” Jack slid backward to the ground and held out his hand. “Slow now, I said one at a time.”

  Small, wiry people in an amalgam of outdated clothes and plastic tennis shoes crawled out of the van. He worked patiently, steadying the half-floating vehicle as best he could, handing the Mexicans to safety one by one. Imagining a muscle-bound archangel keeping the van from sliding through the supporting vegetation into the water, Jack whispered a thank-you to heaven and kept working.

  The last to exit was the driver, a long-haired individual sporting a Fu Manchu beard and enough cheap gold chains to sink the Titanic. Jack collared him; the man gave a surprised yelp and submitted without a struggle as Jack yanked both his arms behind his back. Expecting the rest to have scattered to the winds, Jack turned to find the group, about twenty-five in all, huddled in the broken cane along the riverbank.

  “Come with me,” he ordered, then marched the whole crew toward the Sunset truck, whose windshield was smashed into a lurid spiderweb of cracks. Jack helped everybody into the back of the truck except the driver. He hesitated before closing the door, but decided they’d be safer out of sight. The arrest wouldn’t be complete until he returned to Fort Worth and confronted Warner.

  He handcuffed Fu Manchu to the side mirror outside the cab.

  “You got a cell phone?” Jack asked in Spanish. He wanted to call an ambulance for Rook.

  The driver shook his head.

  Jack would bet it was in the bottom of the river right now. Pressing the heels of both hands to his temples, he walked down the dark road. Something felt unfinished. Where was the border patrol vehicle that had run the van off the road?

  If the splash a moment ago had been the gunman on the bridge, was he dead? Or was he waiting for Jack to approach in order to finish the job?

  He stood there waiting, knowing he must look crazy to the sullen driver. Jack was beyond caring. He’d come this far, and either God was God—or He was not.

  Jack chose to believe He was.

  Lights approached from the bridge. Headlights and an interior light, a rotating blue strobe. Border patrol.

  The cruiser approached and braked with a jerk within a couple of feet. Jack waited, balanced feet apart, both hands shielding his eyes against the lights.

  Dennis Carmichael got out of the car, gun drawn.

  Right behind him, Meg stepped out, handcuffed.

  “Look here, Torres,” said Carmichael. “I brought you some company.” He put the gun to Meg’s head.

  The sight of Jack, covered in blood, hands awkwardly raised in the glare of the headlights, undid Meg completely. She lunged toward him.

  “Stop right there,” growled Carmichael.

  “Don’t move, sweetheart,” Jack said hoarsely. “Carmichael, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

  Meg jerked to a halt and glanced at Carmichael.

  “Keep your hands where I can see ’em, Torres, or I’ll drop her.”

  Meg started to cry. “Jack, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Jack swallowed. “Carmichael, let Meg get back in the car. Whatever your problem is, we can work it out without her.”

  “After I went to all the trouble of getting her down here?” Carmichael shook his head, pushing the gun harder into the base of Meg’s skull. “She knows too much.” He clicked his tongue. “Thought you were smarter than that, Torres. She had a video clip of one of your planning meetings.”

  Meg made a distressed noise. Only Jack’s cautioning look held her still.

  His gaze narrowed on Carmichael. “Rook told me you’re El Lobo, but I didn’t believe him.”

  Carmichael grunted. “Torres, you really should be more considerate of the people you hang around with. First Valenzuela, then Rook, and now your little lady. You’re a walking death trap.”

  Meg watched Jack’s face change in that instant. Cold, controlled, and implacable rage infused every line of his body.

  “Jack, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I tried to tell him you never told me anything.”

  Carmichael chuckled. “Did you know she’s in love with you, Torres? Too bad you won’t live long enough to take advantage of it.”

  Meg could see Jack’s hands, curled above his shoulders, tremble. But his eyes, fierce and steady, begged Meg to be still. “Carmichael, why are you doing this?”

  “Tell him, honeybunch.” Carmichael slid the gun around to Meg’s cheek. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”

  Meg couldn’t see her captor, but she could smell rancid hatred pouring off the bulky body crowding hers. Feel the gun, cold and blunt, pressed against her cheekbone. Numb with fear, she locked her gaze on Jack’s. She could see his courage warring with anxiety for her safety. It bolstered her own faith.

  “I guess you’ll have to explain it to him yourself, Mr. Carmichael,” Meg managed to get out. Very much to her own surprise, she stepped away from the gun and turned to face her captor.

  Carmichael looked poleaxed. “That’s far enough.”

  Meg looked over her shoulder and gasped. A small, deadly pistol had materialized in Jack’s hands, pointed over Meg’s shoulder at Carmichael’s head. A smile curled his lips.

  “Drop the gun,” Jack said calmly. “You could shoot me, but I’d get you, too, and that’s not what you want.”

  “What you got in that little popgun, boy?” Carmichael jeered, recovering from his shock. “One shot? What if you miss?”

  “I assure you, I’ve been practicing just for this.” Jack stood feet apart, with the gun braced in both hands. “You know I’ve been looking for Rico’s murderer.”

  Carmichael swallowed, but steadied his gun. He seemed to have forgotten all about Meg. “You’re a messed-up kid, Torres. I saw you rescue those wetbacks I ran off the road. There you stand, one of those pro-life, born-again believers, ready to kill a man in cold blood.”

  Meg’s hands went to her mouth as she backed away from the coldness in Carmichael’s eyes. This man had been responsible for the death of Jack’s partner. She’d never known a killer before. She’d actually ridden in a car with this awful man for six hours.

  “If I explained it to you, I don’t think you’d understand,” Jack said in a strangled voice. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “Let’s just say we got a little payback going on.” Carmichael’s voice hardened. “You brown-skinned hotshots got no business taking over the agency. We’re already overrun with Mexicans, half the population of Texas don’t even speak English anymore.”

  “This won’t get you a promotion.” Jack jerked his chin up. “Come on, Carmichael, put the gun down and let me take you in. You need help.”

  “You want to help me?” Carmichael uttered a short laugh. “The ultimate irony is, you aren’t really nativo yourself.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed to slits. “How would you know that?”

  “Your mother was the wetback prostitute who cost me my arm.” Carmichael was practically spitting with venom.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jack growled. But he looked uncertain. “What makes you think—”

  “It happened the night I fished the two of you out of the river,” Carmichael said. “It was near-about flood level that night, and the rest of your little flock didn’t make it across.”

  In the wash of light from the S
UV, Jack looked stricken, his eyes like black holes in his face.

  Relentless, Carmichael continued. “Your mama’s name was Adlin. Right? She was young and pretty, and you were just a little fellow. I found both of you a place to stay with some other Mexican women. In return for not sending you back, I came back for some entertainment.”

  “Shut up, Carmichael,” Jack said abruptly. Meg saw the tremor of his gun, and her lips began to move in prayer.

  Carmichael’s words continued to boil out like poison. “You were playing with a couple other brats in the hallway. Playing with a knife. I guess you thought I was hurting your mother when you ran in. When I tried to put you back out, she grabbed the knife and stuck it in my shoulder.”

  Meg could see Jack’s chest heaving. Holy Spirit, she prayed, keep him, oh keep him. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer. She fell to her knees.

  The motion drew Jack’s attention for half a second.

  Carmichael took advantage and fired.

  Meg screamed as Jack lurched, his right shoulder a mass of blood and torn flesh. Carmichael met Meg’s eyes, smiling a little as he turned the gun on her.

  Oddly she wasn’t afraid, but consumed with fierce sorrow for Carmichael. Still on her knees, she closed her eyes as another blast of noise and the stinging odor of sulfur exploded around her.

  Her ears rang and rang, seemingly for minutes. But probably only a moment later she realized she wasn’t shot after all. She gingerly opened her eyes. The ululating noise cutting through the night came from sirens in the distance, along with the approach of lights.

  Meg staggered to her feet and turned to Jack. Facedown across the hood of the car, he gripped his shoulder in an attempt to stem the blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Carmichael!” Jack gasped, sliding to the ground at Meg’s feet. “Dead?”

  She glanced at Carmichael and nearly vomited. “Yes—”

  “Make sure.”

  “Jack, there’s no doubt.”

  “All right, get me something. Gotta stop the bleeding,” he said through gritted teeth. “Find something to—” He groaned, his head falling back.

  She fumbled in her pocket. “Here’s my bandanna.”

  “Tú eres una joven muy brillante.” Jack’s white smile glimmered. He’d once again told her she was smart.

  Inexpertly Meg tied it around Jack’s upper arm where pieces of charred, torn black T-shirt surrounded the wound. Feeling his gaze, she glanced at him, and found him lax, eyes half closed.

  “Carmichael forgot I’m left-handed,” he murmured in a deep slurred voice.

  Tightening the knot, she nodded and pulled him gently against her. “I hear sirens,” she said anxiously. “How’d they know to come?”

  “Don’t know. Did he hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Meg, I’m so sorry. This won’t happen again.”

  “You’re acting like you just stepped on my foot. Of course it won’t happen again. Carmichael’s dead.”

  Jack closed his eyes without answering.

  “Jack? What’s the matter?” But he had withdrawn into some private ocean of pain that she couldn’t penetrate.

  As the scene around her came alive with the arrival of local police—flashing lights, wailing sirens, crackling radios, shouts of command—Meg did the only thing she knew to do. She held on to Jack and prayed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Meg spent what was left of the night in a blur of the surreal. A uniformed Eagle Pass police officer helped her to her feet and pulled her aside for questioning, while another attended to Rook and Jack. A couple of border patrol cars came to take charge of the illegal aliens clustered near their rolled-over van, and the coroner arrived to deal with Carmichael’s body.

  When the ambulance arrived, Rook was quickly stabilized and loaded for transport. Somebody finally convinced Jack he’d be little good to anyone if he died from loss of blood; after reluctantly submitting to being strapped to a gurney, he was rolled away to be stuffed into the ambulance.

  Forlorn, Meg stood watching its lights strobing through the darkness.

  The young policeman who’d questioned her earlier cleared his throat. “Ma’am, where’d you want me to take you? It’ll be daylight soon.” He paused, scratching his blond buzz cut. “There’s a halfway decent motel or two in Eagle Pass.”

  She suddenly felt a hundred years old. She needed to call her parents. Call Bernadette. None of that sounded appealing.

  “I’m not tired,” she told the policeman. “Can you just take me to the hospital?”

  He looked at her doubtfully. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

  She straightened. “Hunky-dory. Let’s go.”

  While the young policeman drove Meg to the hospital, she used the time to call all the people who would be concerned about her. She assured them that she was a bit travel weary, but none the worse for wear. She knew she’d have to provide a better explanation sooner or later, but for the moment she avoided gruesome details.

  Her parents were naturally horrified, Bernadette all but apoplectic, as she had been trying unsuccessfully to reach Meg’s cell phone since dark. Sam—after making sure Jack was going to be all right—told Meg to get herself home so he could chew her out in person.

  “I’ll call you soon as I find out anything,” she told Sam and handed the nice officer back his phone.

  They pulled into the Fort Duncan Medical Center parking lot, which was all but deserted at that time of night—morning, Meg corrected herself as she got out of the squad car at the emergency entrance. She hardly knew what day it was anymore.

  She approached a yawning nurse stationed behind a computer just inside the ER’s automatic doors. All was perfectly quiet, almost churchlike.

  “Excuse me, what happened to the two men who were brought in here about an hour ago?”

  “Gunshot wounds? The border patrol agent and the…whatever he was? Druggie?” The nurse frowned, taking note of Meg’s bloodstained jeans and shirt. Jack’s blood. “Are you related?”

  “Jack Torres is an agent, too,” Meg said. “And no, we’re not related.” She rubbed her aching head.

  The nurse’s face relaxed. “He’s still in surgery.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Meg’s voice wobbled.

  Compassion warmed the nurse’s eyes. “I’m sorry, darlin’, but I can’t tell you any more than that. But there’s a waiting room with a coffee machine up on the second floor outside the operating room. You can wait there.”

  “Thank you.” In an agony of anxiety, Meg wandered toward the elevator at the end of the hall. It occurred to her to wonder if anybody had called Vernon Rook’s wife, Dottie, but she didn’t know how to get ahold of the woman.

  In the waiting room, Meg stood looking at the coffee machine. She didn’t have any cash in her purse.

  For some reason, that pushed the tears in rivers down her cheeks. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she collapsed onto a chair. Her bloodstained clothes were beginning to smell, and she was tired and hungry and thirsty. Her head ached, too, so she loosened her braid and finger-combed her hair.

  She wanted Jack to be well.

  She wanted Jack, period.

  She remembered talking with him in the middle of the Water Gardens, both of them getting wet with spray. She remembered the way he’d come up out of the Trinity River at his baptism, his face lit with joy.

  She fell asleep remembering the way he’d said, “This won’t happen again.”

  Sometime later Meg awoke at a light touch on her shoulder. “Miss St. John?”

  She sat up, startled, disoriented. She didn’t recognize the nurse, couldn’t even remember where she was.

  Oh. Eagle Pass.

  “How is Jack?” Meg blurted, rubbing her eyes.

  “He came through fine. He’s in recovery, awake and asking for you.”

  Meg’s heart bounced. “He is? Where—”

  “This way.”

  Meg followed the nurse through a c
ouple of doors, warmed that Jack assumed she’d be waiting to see him.

  “How’s Vernon?” Jack demanded before she could get out a word.

  Meg blinked. “I have no idea.” She walked over to the bed and studied his face. He didn’t look too bad, for somebody who’d been shot. His right upper arm was bandaged, and an IV tube snaked into the crook of his left elbow. “How are you?” She reached out to touch the thick hair at his temple. He flinched, and she withdrew her hand, uncertain.

  “I’m fine,” Jack said. “Has anybody called Miss Dottie?”

  “Not yet, but I will if you’ll give me her number.”

  “No, I’ll do it.” The expression in Jack’s dark eyes was so remote that Meg hardly recognized him.

  Had she ever really known him? After everything they’d gone through, was it possible to know him at all? Everything she’d planned to say to him flew out of her head.

  “Jack, what are we going to do?”

  He looked away, a muscle in his cheek working. “I don’t know.”

  Meg watched Jack close his eyes. Guilt crushed her. He was in pain, grieving, and here she was worrying about her love life. “Jack, I’m so sorry—”

  “No, listen.” His gaze skimmed the hair spilling over her shoulders, then met her eyes. “I know this has been a pretty stark reminder of the way I live, but I warned you, didn’t I?”

  She gave a jerky nod, aware that her world was about to fall apart. “It was awful, but you’re alive and I’m alive—”

  “All things work together for good, right?” He smiled a little, a terrible, sad smile.

  “That’s true. You know it’s true.” Jack was behaving as if he were dying. Or going away, never to return.

  “Yeah, it’s good you found out, before…well, I’m so sorry for getting you involved in all this.”

  “You’re sorry?” She stared at him. “What am I, some brainless idiot who doesn’t have any choice in the matter?”

  Jack’s face reddened. “To be exact, you get half the choice in the matter. I don’t want the responsibility for another person’s life hanging over my head twenty-four hours a day.”