Coyote's Revenge

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Sure. But seriously, how dangerous can Edgewood be?”

  “MOVEMENT AT THREE O’CLOCK.”

  “Copy that. I’ll circle round.” Aiden crept through the southern portion of his property silently, more fleeting than a shadow. The evening was pitch black with no moon at all, the cloud cover blocking out what little light the stars would have provided. The absence of wind made the slightest sound echo into the darkness, which didn’t matter since he made no sound.

  He edged across the property he knew as well as his own bedroom. He’d lived here for fifteen years now, but more than that he’d walked the property nearly every day. It was more than a place to lay his hat. It was his home. The fact that someone was violating it made him want to put the gun away and pummel the man with his fists.

  Instead he inched forward and reported back to Dean who was waiting in the first-floor study. “He’s disabled the remote perimeter cameras and is moving toward you now.”

  “Copy. I’m in position and waiting.”

  Aiden pushed thoughts of Madison from his mind. He needed the ice now. He needed to maintain his cool. Capturing this intruder was secondary, although it would no doubt go a long way toward making Madison safer. In the long run though, he needed to find out who he was reporting back to. There were two ways to do that. Send him back to Martin, who would take several days to process and interrogate him. Or capture him and make him talk tonight.

  If everything went as planned, he’d have answers in the next hour.

  “I have a visual now. He’s entering through the back terrace.” Dean clicked off.

  Aiden could make out Dean and the intruder through his night-vision goggles. Dean had his stun gun raised and was ready to take the shot when a car pulled into the front drive, setting off the motion sensors and lights.

  “Drop back,” Aiden said, and Dean faded into the night.

  Nate walked through the front door, turning on more lights and calling out.

  Aiden was in the house in seconds, but not before Nate had entered the study, not in time to warn him. The intruder had his weapon pointed at Nate by the time Aiden burst into the room.

  “Drop your weapon, Mr. Lewis.” the man said, “Or I shoot your brother.”

  “I don’t think so.” Dean stepped out from behind the curtains, his weapon inches from the intruder’s head. “You drop it.”

  “I will kill him.” The intruder’s eyes were locked with Aiden’s. “Do not test me on this, Mr. Lewis. Instruct your man to back down. Tell your brother to keep his hands up high, and drop your weapon.”

  “Aiden?” Nate’s hands were shaking, but he held them high, just as the man said.

  “That’s good, Nate. Dean, you back away like the man said. Just like in Mexico.”

  And then Aiden took the shot. He didn’t wait, didn’t think. He just took the shot.

  Nate looked at the dead man on the floor, at Aiden, then at his hands which were now splattered with blood. As understanding dawned, he turned and vomited in the trash can by the desk.

  Dean knelt by the body and immediately searched the man’s pockets, while Aiden walked to his phone and punched in Martin’s number.

  “No papers. There’s a cell, but it’s clean.” Dean threw him the phone.

  “Check the screens. See if anyone else is out there.”

  Dean nodded, sent a questioning look in the direction of Aiden’s brother who had yet to move, then walked to the computer and began tapping keys to display monitor feedback fields.

  “Screens show no activity.”

  “You shot him.” Nate continued to stare at his hands. “You killed a man.”

  “I need to talk to Commander Martin. This is Lewis.”

  “This isn’t Iraq. We’re in Montana, and this is your house.” Nate looked over at the body, then sat on the couch and leaned forward, arms propped on his knees, lungs working to draw in deep breaths of air.

  “Do not hyperventilate,” Aiden said, then turned back toward the phone. “I need to talk to him now. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  “You have a man’s brains on your wall.” Nate looked up to confirm his own words, began to turn green again, and turned his gaze back down at the carpet.

  “Lewis here. I have a package to pick up, sir.” Aiden held the phone a little away from his ear. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  Aiden paced the floor, stepping around the body and his brother. “No papers, and a clean phone. No, sir. He was not on our watch list. It appears he was working alone.”

  There was another pause as Aiden again held the phone a bit from his ear.

  “Dean and my brother Nate. Yes, sir. I’ll put you on speaker now.”

  “This is Commander Patrick Martin with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. I need everyone in the room to identify themselves for the record.”

  “Agent Dean Dreiser.” Dean never glanced up from the computer monitors.

  “Agent Aiden Lewis.” Aiden looked at his brother and nodded.

  “Nate Lewis.”

  “Is there anyone else in the room?”

  “Only the deceased, sir.” Aiden sat down across from his brother and locked eyes with him.

  “Nate, as Commander, a representative of the U.S. government, and officer in charge of this operation, it is my duty to inform you this is a covert operation. As a covert operation, all parties involved, including yourself, are under direct orders from the President of the United States to limit any intelligence gathering or dissemination to other sanctioned members of this operation previously approved by myself or the President.”

  Martin paused. Aiden watched Nate as the words sank in, saw his gaze move to the dead man, slide off to the white carpet that had turned crimson, then move back to the man on the floor and remain there.

  “I’m sorry you had to see the death of this man, Mr. Lewis. It’s very important you tell no one about what happened tonight. Your brother is involved in an ongoing operation of extreme importance to national security, and you stepped in the middle of it. You’re going to have to deal with that, and you’re going to have to deal with it alone for now. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Should I receive any indication you have discussed the events of tonight with anyone—including your wife, your priest, or the guys you see at the coffee shop—-you will be arrested and kept in a government facility until such time this operation is no longer active and pertinent to national security. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.” His voice shook, but he was nodding his head nervously up and down. “Yes, sir.”

  “Aiden, take me off speakerphone.”

  Aiden reached across the desk, picked up the phone, and spoke with Martin another fifteen seconds. When he disconnected the call, he turned and spoke to Dean first. “We’re authorized to run prints on him and put it through the database. A team will be here within two hours. There’s a field kit in the bottom drawer.”

  Dean nodded and set to work.

  Aiden pulled a still stunned Nate to his feet, “Come on, bro. Let’s get you some coffee.”

  NATE VISIBLY CALMED down once they were in the living room, though he was still a little unsteady on his feet.

  “Sit down for a minute.” Aiden made coffee from the high- end espresso machine on his bar and handed it to Nate. “Drink this. It’ll help some.”

  Nate looked as if he was going to argue, then seemed to reconsider. With a shake of his head, he accepted the tiny cup and swallowed the scalding espresso.

  “Better?” Aiden asked.

  “I guess.”

  Aiden sat down across from Nate and looked directly at his brother.

  “I work for USCIS—a branch of the US government. I’ve been an agent there for seven years now. Mostly on domestic missions. Sometimes overseas.”

  “That’s why you disappear for weeks at a time.”

  “Yeah.”

  Aiden stood, walked to the windows, and stared out at the darkness. Wondered what he
could tell Nate. What he should tell him. “I’ve wanted to explain for a long time, but I didn’t want you to worry. And they prefer we inform as few people as possible.”

  “So you’re an undercover agent?”

  “Something like that. We mostly monitor terrorists, run-up leads, track suspects. Sometimes we’re on more active missions.”

  “I guess you’d call tonight an active mission.”

  “Tonight wasn’t supposed to happen.” Aiden walked back to the chair across from his brother and forced himself to sit down, though sitting was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

  “So who was this guy? And why was he in Edgewood?”

  “I believe we’ll find he’s a part of Dambusters.”

  “Dambusters?”

  “An international operation that was stopped two weeks ago. Details of the operation were supposed to be leaked to the media tomorrow. It’s been in the works for over a year. It became an active mission in August when it was confirmed simultaneous operations were planned to blow ten dams in the US and Canada. We stopped all those ops two weeks ago. Caught all ten operatives, but the mastermind slipped through our net.”

  “He was the mastermind?” Nate turned and stared back toward the study.

  “No.” Aiden sat down and ran his hands through his hair. “We don’t know who he was or why he was breaking in here.”

  “You lost me.” Nate picked up his cup, realized it was empty and set it back down.

  “The mastermind is a man named Coyote. I tagged him on a flight from Dallas to Salt Lake.”

  “The same flight where you met Madison?”

  “The same flight. He used Madison for cover on that flight. Drugged her. Maybe he hurt her. She doesn’t remember.”

  “She doesn’t remember? You mean she doesn’t know? And you haven’t told her?”

  “No, I haven’t. And don’t think that hasn’t torn me up. I keep thinking it will come back to her, but so far it hasn’t. And then—”

  “Then you fell in love with her.”

  “Yeah.” Aiden allowed his head to drop between his hands and his shoulders to slump, allowed the weariness to creep in for a moment. “I didn’t plan that.”

  Nate reached over and rubbed his brother’s neck. “You killed that guy in the other room.”

  “Agents do that sometimes.”

  “You couldn’t just hit him with something?”

  Aiden looked up, thought of all the men he had killed in the last seven years—five men total. Not that many in USCIS tallies, but the way he’d killed them, nearly all eye to eye, had earned him his title of Iceman. And truth be known, he didn’t really dream about them at night. No, his nightmares were still reserved for the one man who mattered most.

  “You’re not forgetting he was holding a gun to your head, are you? He would have killed you, Nate. I know his kind. They don’t hesitate. The only solution is to kill them first.”

  Nate paled, then swallowed hard. “Guess I owe you one.”

  “No. You don’t owe me. You’re forgetting I owe you. I’ll always owe you.” Aiden stood and paced back to the window.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Dad, Nate. I’m talking about the bear. If I hadn’t hesitated, he’d still be here. I’m the reason he died.”

  Suddenly, Nate was beside him, turning him, looking in his eyes.

  “You are not the reason Dad died, Aiden. The bear is the reason Dad died. A bullet would not have stopped a nine-hundred-pound grizzly. We’re lucky she didn’t kill you too.”

  Then Nate’s arms were around him, and they were embracing in a way they hadn’t in years. The weight of the guilt he’d been carrying lifted off him as the tears clogged his throat.

  “Don’t mean to break up a family moment, but I think I found something,” Dean drawled.

  Aiden and Nate pulled apart, made man noises as they dried their eyes, and slapped each other on the back. They followed Dean into the study, careful to walk around the body, and stopped in front of the computer.

  “Ran the prints. Looks like we have Coyote’s brother.”

  “Coyote. Isn’t he the mastermind you were looking for?” Nate looked from the monitor to the body and then back toward the monitor again.

  “Yeah. The question is why did he send his younger brother here?” Aiden rubbed his eyes as he punched in Martin’s number. When the line connected, he relayed the information, listened for less than a minute, then disconnected.

  “Martin confirmed. Last known alias is Donato Mancini, Coyote’s brother. Hasn’t been spotted in the last three years.”

  “Why was he here in Edgewood?” Nate asked.

  “Apparently Coyote has connected Madison to me.”

  “But you said the operation was over, shut down, everyone’s been captured, or nabbed, or whatever you spy guys do to them. So what’s the point?”

  “Dambusters is over,” Dean agreed. “Standard operating procedure would be to move on to his backup plan.”

  “Or begin working his next mission,” Aiden said.

  Dean closed down the computer, stopped, and looked at Aiden with the same puzzled look Nate wore. “Why would he risk sending family to come back here?”

  “The same reason that has inspired men since the battle of Troy,” Aiden said.

  “I don’t follow, boss.” Dean sank onto the couch, staring out at the rain that had begun to fall. “If it’s not on the Comedy Channel, I’m afraid I haven’t seen it.”

  “Revenge,” Nate said softly.

  “Exactly.” Aiden looked out at the storm and wondered if Coyote was crouched in the darkness watching him. “I ruined his plans, or at least I’m the one he can easily blame.”

  “So now it’s personal?” Dean asked.

  “Right,” Aiden said.

  They all walked to the front of the house. Aiden opened the door, and they stepped out onto the front porch into a Montana night that was cold and rainy. The wind had picked up and threw the cold drops back at them. By morning it would begin to freeze. Fall had arrived and winter would follow closely on its heels.

  Dean moved toward his vehicle after a brief “I’m back on patrol if you need me.”

  Nate and Aiden stood alone, looking out at the rain.

  “Martin was serious about what he said back there. Don’t mention this to anyone. Not even Janie.”

  “Bro, if I told my wife about this she’d come out here and kick your butt for allowing me to walk into the middle of danger with a capital D—though we both know I managed that just fine all on my own. After she kicked your backside into next week, she’d kiss you for saving my life, and round it all out by insisting you move in with us so she could watch over you. Trust me. I will not tell Janie.”

  Aiden smiled in the darkness. Janie was the mother hen of the family all right.

  “Where’s Madison?” Nate asked.

  “She’s with Sharon,” Aiden said.

  “Want me to call her?”

  “Yes. Check on them. I’ll clean up here. Dean’s headed to Maddie’s place, but I’d rather she not sleep there tonight.”

  “Done. I know I’m not trained like you are, but I can shoot, and you can trust me, Aiden. I’m family. I’ve got your back. You call me if you need anything. And we’ll take care of Madison.”

  “Thank you.”

  They shook hands in the way of brothers, and what had been between them since that night when their father had died was gone. The very last remnants of ice around Aiden’s heart cracked and fell away as he watched Nate walk into the night.

  He went back into the house to wait on the USCIS team. He would have to give his statement as he had so many other times. How many more nights like this were in his future?

  But he had resigned.

  He’d told Madison he was done, and he thought he was. This time though, they had come looking for him. This time they’d crossed a line, trespassing onto his land, coming into his home. A man had to
protect what was his. Had to keep his own family safe.

  Dawn was nearly breaking when the debriefing was finished and evidence had been washed away, though the crimson stain in the study would remain. Aiden reset the security system and crawled into bed for a few hours’ sleep. He wanted to call Madison, longed to hear her voice, but he wouldn’t risk waking her. It would have been a selfish thing to do. He satisfied himself with closing his eyes, picturing the way her brown eyes looked when she smiled up at him.

  He’d fix this. Somehow, he’d make it right.

  SERGIO STARED THROUGH his binoculars. Watched them climb into the truck. Studied the domestic scene and planned when he would strike.

  “Tonight?”

  “No,” Sergio said. “Not tonight.”

  “But—”

  “I will tell you when. It is not for you to know the time and place.”

  “Of course.”

  Sergio seethed as the Avalanche continued down the road, turned at the light, and drove toward Nate’s house.

  He had planned the exact moment when he would exact his revenge. The infidel would be made to pay, but first he would know what his sins had cost not just him and his family, but the American people. Aiden Lewis would suffer even as Sergio had suffered.

  Donato had made the ultimate sacrifice. Sergio was proud his brother had given his life for their cause. He had died a hero.

  Soon Mr. Lewis would sacrifice his family as well, but he would not have the satisfaction of knowing they had died for a higher purpose.

  The prospect excited him. USCIS agents thought they were so intelligent, and yet they knew so little. They had only found what he wanted them to discover.

  “HOW MANY HOURS IS THIS trip?” Madison forced herself to smile, but she wasn’t ready to climb into the van.

  “You have a book, don’t you?” Aiden asked. “We’ll be there before you know it, sweetie, but you have to get in the van.”

  “Yeah, Ms. Hart,” Melvin piped in. “This trip is going to rock.”

  Chants of We Will Rock You filled the afternoon air, causing Madison to look back toward her car with something close to longing.