“That’s me. Who are you?”
“Clinton.” He closed his eyes, his breaths slowing. They even sounded better now that he was sitting up. “Clinton Butler.”
“Nice to meet you, Clinton Butler.”
He nodded a little, leaning over some as he took more breaths, most of them shallow. He coughed, and I thought that might be a good sign. Maybe his lung wasn’t collapsed, just a little clogged. He turned his head and spat on the floor, thick, dark blood staining the dirt. He coughed a few minutes longer, spat again, but then his breathing eased.
I helped him lay back. He closed his eyes and rested for so long that I thought he might have gone back to sleep, but then he peeked at me with his one good eye, the one eye that wasn’t so swollen that it wouldn’t open more than a narrow slit.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know. They moved us yesterday afternoon, but they put us in a panel van and there was no way of knowing how far or in which direction without windows. For all I know, we’re in the same place, they just drove in circles to keep us from realizing it.”
He nodded. “They must have found the other house. Gray Wolf.”
That was my hope, but I’d been afraid to let myself think it.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
I’d had plenty of time to stare at him while he was unconscious, plenty of time to realize he looked vaguely familiar despite the swelling and bruises on his face. I’d seen him before.
“Casper Police Department,” he said. “I was undercover there.”
I nodded. “A detective with the operation. You led a team upstairs.”
“I did.”
“Glad to see you survived the ambush.”
“Thanks to one of your operatives. Ryan Babcock.”
“Then how did you end up here?”
He groaned. “Kirkland Parish.”
I nodded again, remembering the names they’d made me speak when they recorded the video. Becky Kay and Clint Barrow.
“You’re Clint Barrow.”
“That was my undercover name.”
“You were working on the Mahoney case.”
“I’ve been working the Mahoneys most of my career.”
“That’s why they wanted you.”
“They wanted me because my boss is in their pocket and I dared cross him.”
It was all starting to make a little more sense now. “Homeland Security. I knew they had that FBI agent in their pocket, knew they had a couple of politicians. But I never would have imagined they had Homeland Security.”
“Apparently. I hadn’t realized it until I saw them go after Ryan myself.”
“Ryan? Why?”
He started to shake his head and it set off another round of coughs. He grabbed his chest as he doubled. I could only imagine how intense the pain was in those broken ribs. He was clearly exhausted when he lay back again, but he remained focused, his gaze on my face.
“She’d seen too much. They knew they could keep me in line, but they couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t put two and two together and tell someone back at MidKnight.”
“What did she see?”
“The Mahoneys using Gray Wolf technology to track us down. Homeland Security headquarters in Cheyenne. My face.”
I reached up and ran my hands over my dirty, short hair. Puzzle pieces. I moved this information around in my head with what I already knew, but I couldn’t quite find where it fit.
“Jack Mahoney has everyone convinced that he’s here in Wyoming, but the man pretending to be in charge isn’t a Mahoney. But his nephew was here, slipping information to them about an operation we were planning against their warehouse in Cheyenne. They moved that operation up here to Casper—according to our information, but it seems that that was just a cover—and waited for us to come and try to take them down again. They must have known we were coming because of you, because of your reports to your boss.”
“Probably. But they wouldn’t have gotten all the information from my reports. I didn’t know about the change you would make at the last minute.”
“True.” I thought about that, thought about the people who had known. It was an idea that I came up with after everyone was gone, late that night. I remembered saying something to Sutherland as I left her home that night, saying that I thought it would be a good idea. “We were in her house,” I said almost absently.
“Who? Sutherland?”
“Yeah.”
“She wouldn’t have…”
He coughed again, but it was less violent this time. It took him a second to catch his breath, a second to clear the phlegm from his throat. The whole time he studied my face like he wanted to punch me, or something.
“Don’t get me wrong. I trust Sutherland with my life. I don’t think she’s the leak.”
The intensity in his gaze softened slightly. “She wouldn’t.”
“No. But someone could have overheard. We were in the kitchen doorway and there were lots of people on the ranch that night.”
“Not Casper PD. We’d all gone back to the city.”
“And not the sheriff’s office. But her operatives. My operatives. Her ranch hands.” I shook my head. “I don’t know who might have been standing around.”
“Maybe it wasn’t someone on the ranch. Maybe they have the place wired.”
“We check for bugs daily. We’re very careful about that stuff.”
“Yeah, well, technology is constantly advancing. Maybe you weren’t checking for the right stuff.”
I’d considered that, but David was brilliant. I doubted he would allow anything to get past him. Especially not something electronic. He and Ricki were constantly researching, constantly developing their own technology. I really didn’t think anyone could create anything that he wouldn’t be able to detect.
But I could be wrong. They’d just had a baby and he had been separated from his family for the past week or more. Maybe he was distracted just enough…
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”
“I’ve been working with the Mahoneys for years. I’ve seen what they’re capable of. I was with one group of Mahoney thugs who managed to sneak a fucking machine gun into a police station without anyone ever figuring out what they’d done. They can do some pretty amazing things.”
“Sounds like you admire them.”
“I would if they were on the right side.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I’d been fighting people like this most of my adult life, starting with terrorists in Afghanistan and then coming home to the Bazarovs and the Mahoneys. I had no admiration of these people. I was simply terrified that they’d eventually win this war and future generations would live in a world where right and wrong weren’t as clearly defined as they were now. That was something I didn’t want, especially now that I was a father and an uncle.
“What do you know about Jack Mahoney?”
Clint shrugged a single shoulder, wincing in pain after he did it.
“I know he was a law student when he realized what it was his father really did for a living. He hung out with him for a summer, watched the way he ran the organization, and decided he could do a much better job. He quit school and took over, pushed his own father so far to the side that the man tried to fight him for control. The old man ended up suffering a massive heart attack and Jack took over, taking what was originally a small, efficient weapon running organization into a massive criminal empire with its thumbs in everything from real estate to drugs to whores to the original weapons business.
“He keeps his people close. I suspect he uses blackmail to do that. He has dozens of politicians in his pockets, dozens of law enforcement officials in every major city in every state where he has business. No one has ever lived long enough to turn on him. The few cells we’ve been able to put down have sprung back up stronger than before.” Clint cleared his throat like he was trying to keep from coughing again. “No one knows what he looks like. We have a picture
of him, but it dates back to his law school days. That was more than twenty years ago.”
“He was in bed with the Bazarovs.”
“He was. That’s how we got involved. It looked like he was playing at terrorism, planning to help the Russians to influence American politics so that they could gain control inside our government. But now…I’m beginning to wonder if their business with the Bazarovs was something else entirely.”
“And what’s that?”
Clint was quiet for a moment. He studied my face as he struggled with whatever it was he was thinking.
“You became aware of the Bazarovs because of a case you worked through your Gray Wolf Security firm. But we’d been watching them since the formation of Homeland Security. They were on our radar because they were bringing weapons into the United States that were too hot to be selling on the street. My supervisors thought that they were planning some sort of terror attack on American soil. But when I dug into it after old man Bazarov was killed by your operative, I saw things…” Clint was quiet for a second. “I think the Bazarovs were just patsies to hide something Jack Mahoney was planning.”
I waited, not really interested in sounding like some kind of parrot by repeating myself over and over again. Clint closed his eyes, the squinting one as well as the other, less damaged, eye.
“I think Jack Mahoney wants to take out all his rivals. I think he wants to be the only organized crime leader in the United States. And I think he wants to take his power all the way to the top. I think he wants everything.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think Jack Mahoney is the ultimate terrorist. I think he wants to take over the government on his terms. I think he wants the whole fucking thing.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what he was saying.
“He’s taken out the Bazarovs. They were the top dogs on the west coast before Mahoney came along, before he entered into a partnership with them. Now they’re gone. The Callahans in Boston? It may be Jack McGuire who’s in charge of the Irish mafia out there, but everyone knows that Brian Callahan is the real boss. And he’s getting older, settling down with his new wife. He’s on his way out and Mahoney has people in there, people moving up the ranks of the mafia. Someday soon there will be a turf war and Callahan will be gone. Down in Florida? I just finished up an undercover assignment down there and I heard rumblings against the Alvarez family. They’ve been running things down there for thirty years, but the Mahoneys are moving in. Our little sting isn’t going to do anything to stop them down there.
“Jack Mahoney is moving in on the big crime syndicates all over the country. He has people in the government all the way up to the President’s cabinet. In another five, ten years, that man will be on the top, and he’ll have the President’s office on a damn string and there’ll be no stopping him then. We’ll all be answering to Jack Mahoney.”
I started to shake my head, but then recalled the face of the man who was in charge here in Wyoming. A man I thought I knew well.
“What do you know about Carrington Matthews?”
Clint was quiet for a minute, that one eye studying me closely.
“He inherited a shipping business from his father. He was married young, but his wife didn’t appreciate having a kid and she left the marriage. I know he ran into trouble with the Bazarovs when they decided they wanted to use his business to move their weapons. They threated his kid so he hired you—Gray Wolf—to protect her while he got out from that little deal. Instead, your operative killed old man Bazarov and got his boy sent to prison, shaking up the organization so much that it took months for someone to rise to the leadership and reorganize things. Then Matthews married your operative and went back to his business, living a fairly quiet life until recently.”
“What’s his connection to Mahoney?”
Clint cleared his throat again. “His father had a deal with the Mahoneys. They were moving weapons for him and trucking them across the states. Matthews thought he got himself out of the contract when he took over, but Mahoney likes to collect information on people, likes to use it to force them to do things when the mood strikes him.”
“You think Mahoney has something on Carrington?”
“I do. And I think he’s using it to force Carrington to run things here in Wyoming.”
“You know?”
“I’ve known for months.”
I got up and began to pace again, my thoughts on Joss.
What about your wife?
That’s what I’d asked the second they showed me into the office, the moment Carrington turned around and faced me.
What about her?
Do you realize what it would do to her to know you were here, to see you in this place?
It’s my job to protect my family. And, believe it or not, my being here is doing that.
I had thought it was just an excuse when he first said it. But now? I could see the truth in it.
“Jack Mahoney has his fingers in a big pie out here,” Clint said. “He’s working a deal that I was only beginning to figure out the details of when that ambush happened. But I’m pretty sure he’s here. Somewhere. And I think our only chance to take him down is about to slip through our fingers.”
“What is he up to?”
Clint hesitated. He cleared his throat again, but it didn’t work this time. He began to cough, hard racking coughs that caused beads of blood to splatter the wall beside him. He covered his mouth and gagged a little. I crossed the room and grabbed a rag from a pile in the corner, dirty rags that were probably the last thing an injured man should press to his face. But what other option did we have?
When the spasm passed, Clint lay back, clearly exhausted.
“Real estate,” he mumbled. “It’s something to do with real estate.”
It didn’t make sense to me. Why would a criminal like Jack Mahoney care about a little real estate? He clearly had his eyes set on a larger prize. But Clint was clearly spent.
I started to get up, but he grabbed my wrist.
“You know Sutherland,” he said, his voice so weak I had to strain to hear him.
“I do.”
“What kind of life has she had?”
It was an odd question. I thought about it for a moment.
“It’s been hard. She was a foster kid who spent her whole childhood looking to belong to some sort of family. Just when she found it, when she married into a great family, she lost her husband and her father-in-law in the stretch of just a couple of months. She’s been on her own since, raising her daughter, and struggling to keep that damn ranch from the auction block. She didn’t know a damn thing about ranching when she inherited it, but she’s somehow managed to keep it going anyway.”
A smile touched Clint’s bloody lips even though his eyes were closed and his breathing had slowed.
“She’s strong.”
“She is. And fiercely independent. Won’t let anyone help her no matter how pure their intentions. Not even me.”
“You feel responsible for her.”
“She’s my best friend’s widow. I’d give my life for hers.”
“I’m glad,” Clint mumbled. “Glad she has people.”
“Why? Who is she to you?”
Clint peeked at me through that one good eye. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“She’s my sister.”
I knew he was lying before the words were even fully out of his mouth. I stood again, pacing the room in the small space in front of the little box bed.
“That’s bullshit! Sutherland was abandoned in a hardware store outside of Houston when she was an infant.”
“Yeah. Sutherland’s Hardware. That’s why they called her that.”
“You couldn’t possibly—”
“I was six, but my memory of that day is surprisingly clear. He took us to the hardware store because he knew I liked it there. We used to walk the aisles together and talk about th
e different tools, the screws and nails, the things we could do with them. He walked me to my favorite aisle, the one where they kept the huge sheets of plywood. I loved that smell.” Clint sighed, a soft smile touching his expression for a second. “He put the baby in my arms and told me to stay there. Said he’d be back in a minute. I think I stood there a good two hours before the baby got to restless for me to keep her quiet.”
“Sutherland never—”
“She didn’t know. They separated us when she was two.”
“They told her she was alone.”
Clint nodded. “The infinite wisdom of the state. They thought an infant on her own would have a better chance of being adopted. Imagine my shock when I used Homeland Security resources to find her and realized she’d never been adopted. They never even tried as far as I could tell. They just lost her in the system, forced her to move from foster home to foster home just like they did to me. But she was alone and never knew she had someone out there, looking for her.”
“Why didn’t you find her sooner?”
“Do you know how hard it is to approach someone who doesn’t even know you exist? Not the easiest thing in the world. Besides, I’ve been working undercover for ten years. Not really the ideal way to approach my long-lost sister.”
“Does she know?”
“I’m not sure. She fainted when I told her.”
I stared at him, a whole world of emotions rushing through me. Anger and frustration and, interestingly enough, a little jealousy soared through me. I didn’t have time to analyze it all, but I knew one thing for sure. I couldn’t let this man die. I’d already stood back and watched one man in Sutherland’s life die. I couldn’t do that to her again.
We would have to get out of this one way or the other.
Fuck me!
Chapter 13
Sutherland
The truck rolled four times, ending up on its roof in the ditch. I don’t know how long I lay there unconscious, but when I came to, I could hear footsteps approaching the driver’s side door. Again, I wished I’d thought to put my pistol in the glove box. It would truly come in handy right about now.
I lay still, playing dead. My only hope was that they would believe I hadn’t survived the crash. Or that they didn’t really want me dead, just out of commission. I had no idea what the end goal was supposed to be here. The thing was, however, Elizabeth needed me. I couldn’t let them cut me down right here in the middle of the highway. She’d already lost her father, she couldn’t lose me, too.
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