“Because I never want to see him again.”
Piper looked at me, an eyebrow arched.
“Keith McCluskey is an addict,” Eva said. “Most of the time, he’s high on coke and self-righteousness.”
“How’d you two meet anyway?” Piper asked.
“I was in Houston,” she said. “And I had a kilo of product in my purse.”
“You’re a mule?” I said.
“I stole it from my husband.” She shook her head. “I wanted to sell it and use the money to get away from him. From Mexico. It was the only thing of value I could get.”
I stared at the sky where the helicopter had been and decided not to ask her about the money she mentioned back at the motel.
“The parties, they weren’t as much fun anymore.” She hugged herself. “The violence got worse.”
“What happened?” I said.
“One of Keith’s associates arrested me when I tried to make the sale.” She paused. A trickle of sweat fell from the end of her nose. “Do you know what happens when anybody associated with the organization is arrested by the US authorities?”
“They take away your decoder ring.” Piper blew a strand of hair from her face.
No one laughed because there was nothing funny about the situation.
If somebody was arrested, the cartel immediately suspected them of talking in exchange for a lighter sentence. Extreme paranoia formed the narcotrafficker baseline. On the other side of the equation, a person arrested with that much contraband could expect the DEA to threaten serious prison time if they didn’t work as an informant. Hello, rock, meet hard place.
She could, of course, have told her husband immediately what had happened, but that would have exposed her theft of the cocaine.
“I was scared,” she said. “And Keith was handsome and strong and so confident. He took me to a safe house instead of jail.” Eva wiped her face. “He told me what I wanted to hear. There was a way out. All I had to do was trust him.”
I nodded. “And you believed him.”
She shrugged. “I had no choice.”
“How did the boyfriend-girlfriend part come about?” Piper said.
“The next night he took me to a nightclub.” Eva smiled. “We met some friends and had such a good time.”
“Life’s just a party,” I said. “What’s it matter who’s paying the tab?”
“Parties are fun.” Eva nodded. “Until they’re not.”
- CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE -
Sinclair smiled. He told Sadie to slow down.
Keith McCluskey’s men in the Porsche hadn’t gone far.
They’d been following the SUV for about two miles when a large but thin cloud of dust swirled across the highway, dissipating in the weak summer wind. Then, the helicopter had appeared and flown a few circles around an area south of the road before zooming away.
The driver of the Porsche seemed to know where he was headed. He slowed and then crossed the highway, stopping on the south shoulder.
Sinclair directed her to stop on the north side by a rocky outcropping that jutted from the shoulder about ten feet above the grade of the highway. The tiny hill was flat, topped with a pair of scrawny cedar trees. He estimated they were a little over a half mile away from the minuscule gray figure that was the Porsche.
“What are you doing?” Sadie fidgeted in her seat. “We finally gonna kill somethin’?”
Sinclair pulled a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. He adjusted the zoom, and the lenses brought the scene into focus.
Two men from the backseat of the Porsche got out and took up position along the fence line, about ten feet away from what looked like an opening that led to a dirt road. They hid themselves in the brush that grew intertwined with the barbed wire, effectively disappearing from view. The vegetation was so thick, Sinclair doubted they’d be visible if he was standing a few feet away.
The Porsche pulled forward and stopped about twenty meters on the other side of the opening. The driver and the fourth man got out and took cover opposite the first two, as invisible as their colleagues.
Sinclair lowered the binoculars and eased himself out of the passenger seat. He figured the chopper had radioed the position of the target to the men in the SUV, and now they were simply waiting.
Sadie got out as well while Sinclair removed the sniper rifle and a portable shooting stand, a foldout seat-and-table combination that was easy to transport.
“What do you want me to do?” Sadie said.
“Use these.” He tossed her a pair of earplugs. “It’s gonna be loud.”
Sadie shoved the plugs in and followed him as he gingerly made his way up the rocky outcropping.
At the top, he paused and caught his breath. The pain in his side pulsated, following no discernible pattern. He ignored the discomfort and opened the shooting platform. Then, he sat, jammed his earplugs into place, and pressed the massive rifle against his shoulder.
“This is gonna be so cool.” Sadie stroked the back of his neck. Her voice was muffled due to the hearing protectors.
Sinclair closed one eye and peered through the scope, searching for the target. He closed the bolt, made sure the safety was off.
The magnification of the scope was significantly greater than the binoculars, and everything was clearer and closer. And shakier.
The range finder in the scope indicated the men from the Porsche were over a thousand yards away, nearly three-quarters of a mile. At that distance, with optics this powerful, each beat of the shooter’s heart seemed like a minor earthquake, causing the crosshairs to quiver and move slightly off target.
The men waited. Sinclair did too, watching through the scope.
“Can I look?” Sadie said.
“No.”
From beyond the fence line, Sinclair thought he could detect a trickle of dust in the air, a fresh disturbance that didn’t have anything to do with the earlier cloud. Hard to tell from that far away, maybe a vehicle of some sort moving along the dirt road.
“I want to shoot something, too.” Sadie knelt beside him.
His breath caught in his throat as a wave of pain rippled through his stomach.
“You okay?”
“Y-y-yes.” He tried to concentrate on the view from his scope. “I’m fine.”
She stood.
The dust cloud in the scope grew larger.
Sadie tapped him on the shoulder, fracturing the image into a thousand tremors.
“Behind us. There’s somebody coming,” she said. “I think it’s the police.”
- CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR -
The air around the stock tank seemed to have grown hotter. The cow manure and stale water smelled stronger, the buzz of the horseflies louder.
I checked my cell, saw a weak signal, one bar that came and went.
“Who you gonna call?” Piper said. “The police?”
“I was gonna update my Facebook page.” I put the phone away. “Do they have a ‘Screwed’ status?”
Piper chuckled once, and took off jogging down the path leading away from the stock tank. Eva and I followed.
The track had been headed south, but the road leading away from the water circled back to the east. A hundred yards later, just past a rusted windmill, the road arced to the left again, north in the general direction of the highway.
The three of us jogged and then ran, sweating profusely. Rehydration was going to be an issue sooner rather than later. Each of us glanced repeatedly skyward as we ran, fearful for the return of the chopper.
Another bend in the road and we stopped.
A battered Dodge pickup was parked by a small corral and another windmill, this one functioning.
The truck was old, cracked windscreen, black paint faded to gray, speckled with spots of rust and bare metal.
A man in his thirties with a sun-weathered face and a droopy mustache stood by the front of the truck. He wore a sleeveless denim shirt, a South Texas–style straw hat—low crown in the front,
higher in the rear—and a pair of thick-soled cowboy boots that came to his knees.
His jeans were open at the waist; he was in the middle of urinating.
“Howdy.” He finished and zipped up.
“We need a ride.” I wiped sweat from my eyes. “Can you help us out?”
“Big old chopper overhead.” He tilted his hat back. “And you with a fancy machine gun.”
“I’m a DEA agent.” I badged him. “This is an emergency.”
“That a fact?” He spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. “We don’t get too many federal emergencies around these parts.”
“People are trying to kill us.” Eva stepped forward. “Please, we need to get to the nearest town.”
He looked at Eva and then at Piper, eyes lingering over the places men like to examine closely.
“Don’t get many pretty women here on the ranch.” He took a step closer to Eva.
She didn’t say anything. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat, damp.
“Crazy stuff I seen coming over the border.” The man shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe it.”
“We need to hurry,” I said.
“I ask for help.” He shook his head again. “But the Border Patrol’s got nobody to send. And now a DEA agent’s here?”
“Hey, cowpoke.” Piper spoke for the first time. “You know what a euro is?”
The guy frowned. “I ain’t stupid.”
“Good for you.” She stepped forward, bringing the subgun up. “Now answer the question.”
The cowboy stared at the weapon, eyes wide.
“This is worth nearly a thousand dollars at the currency exchange in San Antonio.” I pulled a five-hundred euro bill from my pocket. “There’s four more if we can get to a town where we can find a car.”
He nodded slowly, pointed to the truck. “Y’all get in the back.”
“No.” Piper aimed her submachine gun at his head. “Toss the keys instead.”
The man gulped. Then he reached in his pocket and dropped a ring in the dirt.
I picked it up.
In the front of the truck was a milk jug full of warm water. I looked longingly at the liquid but didn’t take a drink. Instead, I put the container in the shade under a large post oak a few feet from the windmill.
A roll of duct tape sat on the floorboard. I grabbed the tape, bound the cowboy’s hands in front of him and then led him over to the tree.
“Sit.” I shoved him down.
He leaned against the trunk.
I tossed the keys to Piper. “Where’s your knife?” I asked him.
He didn’t reply.
“Tell me where your blade is.” I knelt so we were eye to eye. “We can’t waste any more time.”
He hesitated, then said, “My belt. On the right.”
I patted him down and found a lockback Spyderco clipped to his waistband. I took the knife and tossed it in the brush about thirty feet on the other side of the windmill. His cell phone was in his shirt pocket, an old-style Motorola with three bars of service. I put it next to the water in the shade.
Piper started the truck, told Eva to get in the middle.
“You should be able to work free from that tape in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“If I was a revenge-minded man,” he said, “I might get the notion to hunt you down.”
“Don’t.” I tucked a wad of currency in his shirt pocket. “Here’s five thousand euros.” I stood and paused, looking down at him. “I’m sorry. Really.”
He shook his head and spit in the dirt.
Piper tapped the horn, and I ran to the passenger side.
“You’re just going to leave him?” Eva said.
“Yep.” I slammed the door, rested my subgun out the open window.
Piper drove. The truck bumped along for a couple hundred yards until the dirt road widened and then ended at a break in the fence line, the highway just beyond.
She stopped, the front of the truck barely through the gap, the fence line bisecting the Dodge between the bed and the cab.
No traffic.
She pulled onto the shoulder slowly.
The fatigue must have caught up with me because it took forever for the significance of what happened then to register.
The engine compartment shredded as a hail of high-powered bullets tore it to pieces.
Steam, fluids, bits of metal flew everywhere.
No sound except for the thud of noise-suppressed weapons amid the crackle and screech of destroyed machinery.
The truck rolled forward another foot or so and stopped, the transmission or motor damaged so severely that any further movement became impossible.
I looked, gun up. No targets.
Piper swore. And raised her hands.
They came from the fence line, a group of men in civilian clothes, assault rifles with silencers aimed at us.
“Throw your guns out.” The lead guy was on Piper’s side.
We did. Subguns and our Glocks.
“One at time, the driver first,” the lead guy said. “Step out with your hands up.”
Piper opened the door by sticking her arm outside and grasping the exterior handle. Her other hand was raised. She got out. Eva followed.
“Now you, stud.” A man on my side aimed at my head. He had a jagged scar on one cheek, nose to ear.
I did just like Piper, careful to move very slowly.
Scarface threw me on the ground, face down.
Sweat and dust in my eyes. The stench of hot metal and smoking rubber. Gunpowder.
People moving, the clank of weapons. The heat and dirt everywhere.
“Everybody on their knees.” A man’s voice. “Nice and slow. Hands on your heads.”
I blinked away dirt, pushed myself up, knelt. Piper was beside me, kneeling, Eva on her other side.
Two men faced us. Early thirties, crew cuts. Military bearing. One spoke on a radio. The other aimed a stubby assault rifle at us.
The guy with the radio was Scarface. He had eyes the color of concrete in winter, only with less warmth. A rifle sling bisected his torso, the muzzle hanging behind him.
Beyond those two, closer to the highway, stood another pair with similar demeanor.
The guy with the scar put the radio back on his belt.
“We’re federal agents.” I nodded toward Piper. “DEA.”
“What a coincidence.” He pulled a wallet from his pocket, flipped it open. “Us, too.”
“We’ve got backup on the way,” Piper said.
“No, you don’t.” Scarface shook his head. “You two have gone rogue. You’ve got diddly.”
Eva didn’t say anything.
“I’ve heard about you, good-looking.” Scarface leered at Piper and sat on his haunches in front of us. “We’re supposed to turn over the Mex in one piece, but you and your boyfriend we can keep.”
His voice had a singsong quality, the tone of somebody who was away from the prying eyes of the authorities and intended to make good use of the time.
“Bet you and my boys can have a nice time together.” He caressed her cheek. “A couple of ’em just got out of the stockade in time for this little shindig.”
Piper slapped his hand away.
“A fighter.” He nodded. “This is gonna be fun.”
The guy holding the rifle on us grabbed his crotch with one hand and laughed.
“Before the boss man gets here,” Scar Face said, “why don’t you and the Mex show us your tits?”
- CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE -
Sinclair placed the crosshairs in the middle of the Mexican woman’s shirt, the kill zone right between her breasts. The reticles of the scope jiggled, refusing to stay in the exact center of the target.
The three people he had followed across Texas were kneeling in a row in front of the ruined pickup, facing his location three-quarters of a mile away. One of their attackers knelt as well, back to the scope. The other attackers were out of view.
Sinclair’s angle
relative to their positions meant that the guy with his back to the rifle was between Eva Ramirez and Piper. Jon Cantrell, the cause of all this fuss, was a little off to the side.
Four tiny targets in a row, wiggly little blips so far away that the bullet would arrive three or four seconds before the sound did.
His gut rumbled, a fissure of pain followed by stillness.
Unfortunately, he’d only have time to take out Eva, not all of them like he’d planned, but the shot was going to be easy, all things considered. The amount of trigger pressure required to fire the rifle could be measured in ounces. He just needed to time the breaking point between the sear and firing pin with the thump-thump of his heart and the intake of breath.
“It’s the sheriff.” Sadie stood behind him. “He’s parking his car.”
Sinclair ignored the crunch of tires on gravel, the sound muffled by his earplugs. He took a breath and held it.
A vehicle door slammed.
Sinclair pressed his finger against the trigger. The crosshairs jiggled back into place.
Footsteps.
Sinclair increased the pressure.
“Hey, what are you doing up there?” A man’s voice.
“What should I tell him?” Sadie whispered.
“SIR.” The man’s voice. “Please back away from your weapon. NOW.”
Sinclair directed his mind and body to a still place. The crosshairs slid over the kill zone. He squeezed harder.
“Uh-oh, he’s coming up.”
The steel of the sear broke free from the trigger. The coiled spring unleashed.
Sadie backed into Sinclair’s shoulder at the exact instant the firing pin slammed into the primer. One one-thousandth of a second later, the 400-grain bullet reached the end of the barrel.
Even with earplugs, the sound was horrific, like all the engines at a monster truck rally roaring at once. The grass under the muzzle flattened for three or four feet in every direction.
Sinclair didn’t wait to see if he hit the target. He dropped the rifle, jumped up, yanked the nickel-plated revolver from his waistband.
Sadie squealed and pointed to the man in the khaki uniform at the base of the small hill, pistol drawn.
Sinclair tried not to think about the searing pain in his stomach. He shoved the girl away and fired twice at the officer.
The Contractors Page 27
