Texas Hero

by Merline Lovelace

"You'd be offering state-of-the-art networking ca­pability to whoever occupies the building. And..." Her voice dropped to a throaty purr. “I guarantee I could save you a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars."

  She'd pulled the figure out of a hat, a sheer guess based on the size of the project. As she'd anticipated, though, the combination of succulent Wonder curves and a possible hundred grand in savings proved ir­resistible.

  The contractor's eyes gleamed under the rim of his hard hat. "A hundred thousand, huh?"

  A teasing smile played at her lips. "I'm good at what I do, Mr. Foster."

  "I'll just bet you are."

  His glance dropped to her chest again before shift­ing to the inspector waiting patiently a few feet away.

  "Look, I'm going to be tied up here for most of the day. Why don't we get together for a drink this evening and discuss all this money you're going to save me?"

  Mackenzie let her smile curve into a seductive promise. "My cell phone number's on that business card. Call me."

  "I will." Grinning, he tucked the card into his pocket and gave it a pat. "Talk to you tonight, Ms. Blair."

  Oh, you'll be talking to me before then.

  On that smug thought, she strolled to the Mustang.

  A quarter mile from the site, she pulled to the side of the road and extracted a wireless earpiece. With the plastic piece tucked comfortably in her right ear, she keyed a special code into the receiver. Foster's angry voice stabbed into her head.

  "...filed for those permits two months ago. I wish to hell you folks would get your act together."

  Wincing, Mackenzie adjusted the volume. She'd tagged her target, temporarily at least. She'd replace the tag with a more permanent one tonight. Hum­ming with satisfaction, she called in a quick order to OMEGA's communications center to monitor the transmissions and drove off.

  She connected with Renegade at the stairs leading to the Riverwalk. He'd planted both fists on the stone balustrade. His gaze was locked on the scene below.

  The San Antonio PD had cordoned off a section of the river and commandeered one of the colorful river barges. Several uniformed and plainclothes po­lice officers occupied the boat, which floated at the end of a long tether.

  Dr. Alazar was in the barge, as well, along with her flame-haired assistant. As Mackenzie watched, Ellie slipped the heavy instrument that could only be Discoverer Two off her arm and passed it to the grad student.

  "How's it going?" she asked the man beside her. "It's not."

  His face grim, Jack turned to give her a quick run­down. His startled glance zeroed in on her cleavage. "Good Lord!"

  "Hey, thanks a lot! At least Foster liked the new me."

  Renegade's gaze whipped up to lock with hers. "You made contact?"

  "And then some." Grinning, she tapped her ear. "He's right here, inside my head."

  "Dammit, Mac, you shouldn't have tackled the guy alone. You shouldn't have tackled him at all, for that matter. That's my job, or Cyrene's."

  "You were busy. And he was an easy mark. I'm a walking window into everything the man says or does. At the moment Danny Boy is... Hmm. It sounds like he's taking what we used to refer to in the Navy as a leak."

  "Has he talked to Scarface?"

  "No. But he wants to continue our conversation. We're having drinks later tonight."

  "Does Lightning know about this?"

  "Lightning's the one who said to tag the creep."

  She was stretching things a bit there. She knew it. Jack knew it.

  "Last time I checked the field manual," he drawled, "tagging didn't include dinner or drinks."

  Since there was no such thing as a field manual for his line of work, Mackenzie decided to ignore the comment.

  "Bring me up to speed on the salvage operation," she said instead, turning her attention to the barge. "What's happening?"

  "Ellie laid out a search grid based on the angle of the gouge mark in the stone. They've been sweeping from left to right." Frustration edged his voice. "They're almost at the end of the grid."

  "They haven't found anything?"

  "Are you kidding? They've found everything but the kitchen sink. That'll probably turn up, too. In the meantime, they've racked up an impressive collec­tion of tire jacks, switchblades, car keys and coins in a dozen different currencies and denominations. But no bullets."

  "Hmm. Where's Cyrene?"

  ‘‘Over there, at that restaurant. Second table to the left, by the rail."

  Mackenzie spotted the pale-haired agent at the open-air restaurant on the opposite side of the river. The elevated deck gave the agent a bird's-eye view of the barge as well as the curious crowd that had gathered to watch. With Renegade and Cyrene flying cover, Mackenzie opted for a closer view of the ac­tion.

  "I'm going down to watch. I want to see Discov­erer Two up close and personal."

  She had taken only a few steps before she heard a high-pitched pinging. Dr. Alazar's assistant gave an excited exclamation.

  "I've got something on the screen! The digital dis­plays indicate it's a spent forty-one caliber hollow-point casing, two hundred grain, number one hun­dred. Probably a Speer, although it could be a Remington."

  Brushing past Mackenzie, Jack went down the stone stairs two at a time. Part of him went tight with dread at the possibility the police might soon have evidence linking Dan Foster's murdered wife to the attempts on Ellie's life. Another part of him hoped they'd make the connection and he could convince Ellie to get the hell out of Dodge.

  If he couldn't, those handcuffs were sounding bet­ter and better.

  Grabbing the mooring line, Jack leaped onto the barge. It rocked under his weight and earned him a frown from the plainclothes detective and a grunt from Eric Chapman. The kid spread his legs wider to brace himself and held the detector steady over the water.

  "It's showing a depth of seven and a half feet," he informed the wet-suited diver beside him.

  "The water's only a little over six feet deep at this point,'' Ellie told Jack in an aside."That means the bullet's burrowed into the mud."

  A uniformed officer propped his elbow on the barge railing to add support for the heavy detector Eric held suspended over the river. Discoverer Two pinged noisily as the diver opened the air valve on his tanks, wrapped his bps around his mouthpiece and pulled down his face mask. Black fins waving, he went over the side with and hit with a splash. He glanced up to take a bead on the wand and dove straight down.

  Shoulder-to-shoulder, Jack and Ellie peered over the railing. Mud swirled to cloud the green water. Air bubbles bobbed to the surface. The muted pops when they broke sounded so much like the silenced shot Jack had head last night that his palms got slick with sweat where they gripped the rail.

  Dragging his gaze from the swirling water, he scanned the scene. He spotted Cyrene, seemingly re­laxed and at ease as she sipped a frothy pink drink at a patio restaurant and let her glance drift over the gawking onlookers. Mackenzie was on the steps, di­viding her attention between the voice in her head and the drama being played out before her.

  Despite the added security, tension wrapped Jack in a tight coil. Scarface was out there. In one of the high-rise hotels overlooking the river. Lounging at a table in one of the restaurants. Mingling with the crowd. Watching. Waiting.

  Jack could feel the killer. Smell him. He just couldn't see him. He edged closer to Ellie, angling his body to shield hers. His nerves were stretched so tight the whoosh of the diver breaking the surface damned near had him flinging her facedown in the barge.

  Muddied green water streamed over the diver's mask. Spitting out his mouthpiece, he shoved his mask back on his head with one hand and held up the other.

  "Is this what we're looking for?"

  The expended shell gleamed in the sunlight. Un­like the artifacts Ellie and her team had recovered from the archeological site, the copper casing was clean and new and bright.

  "It's a forty-one hollow point," Ellie confirmed with a single glance. />
  "Same caliber as the bullet that killed Joanna Fos­ter," Detective Harris muttered.

  Flashing Jack a quick glance, he dug a plastic ev­idence bag out of his pocket. In their first meeting, the SAPD veteran hadn't tried to disguise his cyni­cism about harebrained professors who stirred up more controversy than they could handle. He was coming around. Fast.

  "We'll run it through ballistics ASAP," he prom­ised Jack. "Should have a comparison between it and the bullet that killed Mrs. Foster by late this after­noon. Tomorrow at the latest."

  Jack grunted, not happy with the prospect of an­other day's wait. Ellie didn't much like it, either. Frowning, she glanced at her watch.

  "It's just a little past noon. I need to go out to the dig. I don't want to waste the rest of the day."

  "Sorry. Consider it wasted."

  "I'll go on out," Chapman volunteered.

  After unstrapping the heavy mental detector, the young grad student swiped the sweat from his brow with a freckled forearm. The sight of the gleaming copper shell casing had sobered him...and turned him into a reluctant ally.

  "Carstairs is right, Ellie. You shouldn't make yourself any more of a target than you already are."

  Her mouth pursed. Jack was all set to ask Detective Harris for the loan of his handcuffs when she caved.

  "All right. Tell the rest of the folks I'm sorry for leaving wrap-up operations to them. We'll convene in my room at 8:00 p.m. for a team meeting. In the meantime, I'll go through yesterday's field notes and start working on the draft report."

  That was the plan, anyway. She returned to her suite, took a quick shower to wash away the sweat and stink of stirred-up river water. After a quick sandwich ordered from room service, she settled in front of her laptop and attacked the field notes, but the constant comings and goings of Jack's associates played havoc with her concentration.

  With her fascination for all things electronic and near genius with computers, Mackenzie Blair was certainly an interesting study. Particularly after her sudden and rather startling transition from techno-geek to femme fatale. The calm, tranquil woman Jack referred to as Cyrene proved every bit as compelling in her quiet way.

  Ellie caught only snatches of their discussion of cover points and team surveillance of Mackenzie's upcoming meeting with Dan Foster. She couldn't miss, however, Blair's rueful grin when she reported the gist of her conversation with someone named Lightning.

  "You were right," she told Jack. "He had a few choice words to say about me tagging Foster."

  "No kidding."

  "He also reminded me I'm not—" She caught herself, threw a quick glance at Ellie and obviously modified whatever she'd intended to say. "I'm not one of you field jocks. I'm to take every possible precaution."

  At that point, Ellie felt impelled to intervene. Abandoning any pretense of working on her report, she swung around in her chair.

  "You don't have to do this, Mackenzie. I'm the one Foster and his hired gun may be after. You shouldn't put yourself in danger."

  "Hey, don't spoil my fun. I don't get the chance to come out to play with the big guys all that often." She checked her watch. "I'd better go start getting beautiful. It could take a while."

  Ellie said nothing more until Blair and the woman named Claire departed. Her eyes thoughtful, she waited for the door to click shut behind them before voicing the question hovering in her mind.

  ‘‘Who are those people, Jack? For that matter, who are you?"

  He took his time responding. Folding his arms, he leaned his hips against the back of the sofa. ‘‘Who do you think I am?"

  ‘‘Obviously not a small-time bodyguard in need of work."

  Flushing a bit at the memory of how she'd insisted her uncle hire him, believing he might need the in­come, she left her chair.

  "So tell me. Who are you? What do you do for a living?"

  ' 'Does it really matter, Ellie?''

  The question took her back nine years. She could almost hear the echo of her fierce arguments, see Jack's stony face.

  ‘‘No,'' she said softly. ‘‘What you do for a living doesn't matter. It never did."

  Jack took the hit without blinking. He deserved it. More than deserved it. Considering the discussion over, she started to turn.

  He caught her with a hand on her arm. Drawing her closer, he curled a knuckle under her chin.

  "I'm not saying I was wrong all those years ago, you understand?"

  "What are you saying?"

  Bending, he brushed her lips with a kiss so gentle Ellie almost melted on the spot. When he raised his head, his expression was so serious her stomach did a little flip.

  "This isn't the time or the place for promises," he said, his tone gruff. "Not with everything that's coming down on you right now. But if anyone walks away this time, Elena Maria, it'll have to be you."

  Chapter 10

  Ellie was still thinking about Jack's non promise when her team arrived from the dig. They'd shut down operations early. For good, this time.

  "The deputy director of the park service called," Sam Pierce related, his craggy face both resigned and regretful. "He asked for you. I gave him your cell phone number and the number here at the hotel, but he said I could relay the message."

  "Let me guess. NPS has pulled our funding."

  Pierce nodded. ‘‘They left just enough in the kitty to restore the site."

  She'd sensed it was coming. Given the pressure exerted by the Texas congressional delegation, the park service could hardly do anything else if they hoped to fund future projects. Still, the abrupt ter­mination stung. Fighting a crushing sense of disap­pointment, Ellie listened while the others briefed her.

  "We packed up all the equipment," Orin Weaver advised. "Eric loaded your van. I've got mine loaded and ready to go. I'll give you my input for the final report tonight and head home tomorrow."

  The forensic anthropologist had other jobs waiting, Ellie knew. He was a frequent consultant for local, state and federal law enforcement, and his services were in demand. She couldn't ask him to stay and work gratis.

  "Thanks, Orin." Forcing a smile, Ellie shook his hand. "I appreciate all you've contributed to this project."

  Dr. Dawes-Hamilton wasn't quite as ready to abandon ship. "I've got some grant money back at Baylor waiting to be spent," she told Ellie. "I'll press ahead with the authentication process on the artifacts we've shipped to the university and send you a copy of my findings."

  If the archeologist could use her department's grant money to authenticate the rifle and scraps of clothing found with the remains, Ellie could certainly scrape together enough funds to pay for DNA testing. Assuming, of course, the donors were still willing to provide samples.

  "You'll have to decide what you want done with the bits and pieces we recovered in the past couple of days," Sam Pierce said. "I imaged and catalogued them on the computer, but most of the stuff is just junk."

  The bits and pieces he referred to filled a large cardboard box. At Ellie's request, Eric lugged it in and deposited it beside her computer.

  ‘‘Nothing there the park service might want to add to their collection of items found in and around Mis­sion San Jose?" she asked Sam.

  "Nope."

  "I'll go through the box one more time. Maybe the archdiocese of San Antonio will be interested. Or the Alamo's museum director."

  "Maybe," Sam said doubtfully.

  "If not, I'll dispose of the unwanted items when I make arrangements for the site restoration."

  Which would take her all of a day or two.

  Ellie bit back a sigh. The project she'd begun with such enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity had gen­erated nothing but controversy and was about to ignominiously fizzle out. Adding insult to injury, someone apparently wanted to fizzle her out with it.

  Well, she hadn't completely finished with this pro­ject yet. Or with Mr. Dan Foster and his shadowy, frightening associate.

  When she indicated as much to Jack and his team s
ome time later, however, he flatly vetoed her sug­gestion that she slow roll the cleanup and shutdown operations in an attempt to draw out the killer.

  "No way! You're out of here as soon as you pack up and hit the road."

  "What good does it do to leave? Scarface could easily waylay me on the road or follow me home."

  "You're not going home."

  "Oh?"

  She threw a glance at Mackenzie and the woman they called Cyrene. Both returned it with absolutely blank expressions. Obviously, this was Jack's show. They'd take their cue from him.

  "All right," she said, swinging back to the man in charge. "I'll bite. Where am I going?"

  "You're taking a nice long vacation at an undis­closed location."

  "Don't be ridiculous. I can't just disappear indef­initely. I've got a house, a job, students who've signed up for courses that begin in less than a month."

  "They can sign up for other courses. Until we bring Scarface down, I don't want you in his line of fire."

  "I hesitate to point out the obvious, but I'm al­ready in his line of fire. Where I'll stay until, as you say, you bring the bastard down. Seems to me you have more chance of accomplishing that right here. It's just a matter of flushing him out of hiding."

  "Yeah, right. With you as bait."

  Deliberately, Ellie suppressed the queasy feeling in her stomach. She was no coward, but neither was she a fool.

  "Look, I'm not proposing to stroll around town with a target pinned to my back. I'm merely sug­gesting we turn the termination of the dig to our ad­vantage. We can leak rumors that I'm drafting my final report. Set up a press conference. Hint that I'm going to distribute vivid images of my research and visits to the Alamo along with copies of the report. Make Foster and his hired killer sweat and, hope­fully, provoke them into doing something stupid."

  "It's too risky. I won't let you stake yourself out like a sacrificial goat for a cold-blooded killer. Nor do I think it's wise to reignite the anger of every hotheaded Texan who thinks you're messing with history."

  Mackenzie broke her silence. "Ellie doesn't have to actually release the report to the media. All we need to do is make Foster think the release is im­minent. I can help there."