Hawke's Target

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “Some friends I met.”

  They heard him talking to a man with a deep voice before he came back on. “You have a map or something?”

  She and Perry Hale exchanged grins. “I have a paper map, and we’re using the map app on the phone.”

  “Don’t you lose signal with that thing? I do all the time.”

  “Only in rare occasions with the app. Where are we going?”

  “There’s an old iron bridge on the Sabine. My friend here says meet us off CR1455 where it crosses the river. It’s a hangout for fishermen and kids. See you there.”

  Chapter 53

  Salvadore Williams rode shotgun while his bald, pointy-headed cousin named Kevin drove the pickup. The windows were down and cool late evening air blew through the cab. Salvadore rode with his arm hanging out the window.

  I was in the middle of the rump-sprung bench seat, and it was a good thing the windows were down. I had to keep my head turned from Kevin’s breath that was hard as kerosene.

  I’d just hung up when Salvadore shook a Camel from the crumpled soft pack in his shirt pocket. “Here’s what you do to get to the barn that gal of yours is talking about. Foller the river north from the bridge. You’ll be halfway there when you see a bayou coming into the river on your right. Keep on a-goin’ for a ways past where folks dump trash, and you’ll come to a skinny dirt road cut through the trees. There’s usually a couple of flat-bottom boats either tied up there or pulled up out of the water. The barn she’s talkin’ about is maybe a mile away.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  Salvadore and Kevin snickered. “’Cause we’ve lived here all our lives and fish that river pretty regular. That bayou I was tellin’ you about leads up to old man Wadler’s girlfriend’s . . .”

  “Wife now,” Kevin cut in.

  “Right. Though she ain’t hardly full growed. When he takes a notion, he uses them boats to run the river and bayou up to her house about three, maybe four miles into Loosiana as the crow flies.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Salvadore cut his eyes at me. “I don’t tell no tales.”

  Kevin slowed and turned onto a narrow ribbon of highway with crumbling shoulders.

  “We’re almost there now. It ain’t far.”

  “Good. They’re waiting there.”

  * * *

  Kevin slowed again when we came to the iron bridge. He turned left off the road and onto a steep, well-used two-lane track winding downhill to the river. It was muddy and greasy from the recent rain, and he let gravity do most of the work. I was wondering if he’d be able to get back out since his tires looked about shot to me.

  Salvadore pointed. “Somebody’s already been down here since it rained. I hope it’s your friends.”

  I squinted through the dirty windshield. “Me, too.”

  The sun was behind the tops of the trees when he steered around a rusting farm truck melting into the ground and onto a wide, level clearing full of beer cans and bottles and cold firepits.

  Perry Hale’s truck was parked facing us. Kevin gently slowed to a stop with several yards between us and the pickup. The cab was empty.

  The pit of my stomach fell out for a moment, and I wondered if some of Daddy Frank’s boys had intercepted my friends. I’d absorbed everything the Williams boys knew about the Wadlers, and knew they were kin to water moccasins.

  Before any of us could speak, well-armed shapes appeared at each window. I recognized them right off, but poor Kevin and Salvadore nearly jumped out of their skins.

  “Good to see you, boss. Sir, you better kill those headlights.” Perry Hale waved toward the road. “We don’t need to attract any attention to ourselves.”

  “Shit, man!” Kevin shut off the motor that ticked in the cool air. “Y’all scared the daylights out of me. I cain’t turn the lights off. Wired ’em to come on any time the truck starts.” He paused, considering their camouflage clothing. “Y’all army?”

  They didn’t answer, so I spoke for them. “Perry Hale, these are friends of ours, the Williams boys. They saved my bacon earlier today.”

  Neither Perry Hale or Yolanda looked too hard into the cab. Instead, they swiveled to keep an eye on our surroundings. Yolanda spoke for them both. “Good to meet y’all, but if I were you, I’d let this guy out of your truck and get gone.”

  Salvadore opened his door with a pop and slid out so I could scoot across the seat. “You’re prob’ly right about that. Mr. Ranger, I believe you now. Y’all take care.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “You don’t owe me nothin, Mr. Ranger. Here.” He opened the door and rooted under the seat for a moment before passing me a worn pump shotgun with a barely legal barrel. “Ain’t no plug in here, and it’s loaded with double-ought buck. Here’s five more shells. Stick ’em in your pocket.”

  “I’ll get it back to you.”

  “Don’t matter. It’s probably hot anyways. Drop it in the river when you’re done. Y’all take care. Kevin, get us outta here, we ain’t got no business on this road no mo’.”

  * * *

  Perry Hale and Yolanda were dressed for war. Each carried AR-15-style rifles and wore mid-size MOLLE packs. The tricked-out rifles hanging across their chests looked to be Colts, but I don’t know much about them. I’m like a lot of other law-enforcement officers, I have the tools I work with, but not into all the specifics about weaponry I don’t own.

  “Lead off.” I pointed upriver. “That way.”

  Perry Hale led the way, and I settled into what had become my position in the past, staying in the middle with Yolanda watching the rear. A pleasant breeze kept the skeeters away, and we passed the time in silence broken only by crickets and birds.

  The bayou Salvadore mentioned came up right on schedule, a thick gruel of muddy water spilling into the already reddish Sabine and lined with overhanging trees.

  A whipporwill called nearby.

  I spoke low. “We’re halfway there.”

  Yolanda’s voice came over my shoulder. “I think you’re right. This is what I saw on the satellite map.” We walked another hundred yards before she spoke up again. “What do you want to do when we get there?”

  “Find that boy before it’s too late. Help’ll be here soon, and if we’re lucky, that vigilante we’ve been after’ll show up, too.” I didn’t figure anyone had caught him. The guy seemed to be a charmed traveler, and with the luck he’d already shown, I expected him to come driving up at some point.

  Dusk had arrived by the time we reached the boats tied up to a tree. The dirt lane was where Salvadore said it’d be.

  I paused and pointed at a game trail that peeled off to the right. “All right, guys. This is where we separate. Salvadore said this winds around that barn up yonder and comes out up near where this lane comes in off the highway. I’m gonna take it and come in from the front. Y’all cover the rear.”

  “Then what?”

  Yolanda’s question was a good one. “I don’t have any idea.”

  Chapter 54

  Sheriff Buck Henderson pulled up in front of his office where a highway patrol car waited in the parking lot. He stopped next to it and stepped out at the same time Deputy Mills exited his own cruiser.

  Buck scanned the lot, making sure they were alone. “You get rid of that product yet?”

  Mills popped his trunk. “Not yet, but I’ll dump it in a few minutes. Here’s the bins you wanted.”

  Buck clicked a pocket-size flashlight to life and flipped the lid off the nearest box. Bundles of cash wrapped in clear plastic were packed inside. He grinned. “Looks like payday.”

  Deputy Mills reached in and picked one up. “I’ve never seen this many hundreds at one time. What’s in the others?”

  “Let’s see.” Buck lifted the lid and peered inside. “Why, this ain’t nothing but canned goods. Leave it and get the rest.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We put the money in my car and then pretend you never saw it.
Go dump that product like I said. After tonight, this cash is gonna be ours.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the feds are going to raid Daddy Frank’s fertilizer barn tonight. I told them they’d all be there.”

  “They’ll rat us out, too.”

  “No they won’t. Not this family. Most of ’em won’t be taken alive, and the others won’t talk.”

  “They’ll come after us after they get out of jail.”

  “Lots of people die in prison.” Buck unlocked his trunk and picked up one of the boxes. “Let’s get gone.”

  “Let me check this other bin.”

  Buck came back at the same time a cargo van appeared on the street and turned slowly on the opposite side of the parking lot. The driver rolled his window down and waved.

  Deputy Mills set the blue plastic bin on the edge of his trunk and squinted at the stranger. “Who’n hell’s that?”

  While their attention was on the van, a loud voice split the silence. “Don’t move! Don’t move! Hands! Hands! Hands!” Armed men dressed in black and wearing body armor with the letters DEA poured out of the van, aiming shotguns and semiautomatic carbines while at the same time another van skidded to a stop, discharging even more agents.

  Startled by the loud commands, Deputy Mills lost his grip on the plastic bin. The lid flipped off, pulling the lead of a friction fuse. The bin exploded, vaporizing Sheriff Buck Henderson, Deputy Mills, and most of the car and saving the good people of Newton, Texas, the cost of two trials.

  Chapter 55

  The clouds broke, brightening the dripping woods long enough for Tanner Wadler to use the lowering sun over his shoulder to push east. A thick line of brush ahead told him the anomaly in the woods identified a clearing on the other side. Heavy growth depended on sunlight, and he pushed through a tangle of briars and brambles anchored by still more yaupon bushes.

  He stumbled through, onto the shoulder of a familiar highway. Recognizing the area, he followed the pavement northeast, not away from the gathering of men at Daddy Frank’s fertilizer barn, but toward the turnoff leading right back to it.

  One eye swelled shut, he followed the tree-lined ribbon of pavement, frequently checking over his shoulder. If a vehicle appeared, it would take only a couple of steps and he’d be invisible once again. The sun settled behind the pines. It was usually his favorite time of the day, when the light changed, signaling the coming dusk.

  The whine of approaching tires ahead gave him time to duck into the pines. A pickup containing a young man with a girlfriend snuggled against his shoulder passed, intent on their conversation.

  He stepped back into the clear and traveled a hundred yards before another vehicle approached, this time from behind. He was on a bend in the road and slipped back into the woods. A truck containing a man he recognized cruised well under the speed limit.

  It was someone looking for him.

  Tanner remained where he was until the truck passed from sight.

  Aching, sick, and heartbroken, he continued down the road, stepping into the brush time after time to wait until there was nothing on the road but diminishing taillights. There was a lot of traffic for that time of the day, and he was sure the drivers were people he couldn’t trust.

  The one truck he wanted to see was driven by Alonzo, and Tanner hoped to be back at the turnoff to the fertilizer barn before he arrived.

  Chapter 56

  The intersecting lane leading up to the barn looked to be an easy, almost pleasant walk under any other circumstances. As they turned onto the pine needle–covered track, Perry Hale and Yolanda changed in a way I’d seen months earlier. One minute they were simply watchful, and the next they reverted to their military training. Guns came up, their knees slightly bent, and they advanced as if walking into a possible ambush.

  We might have been, for all we knew.

  Separating, they held close to the trees, in case they needed to duck in a hurry. The faint sound of a slamming car door stopped us. I stopped and spoke softly. “All right. I’m gone. I’m going to slip up on this place and take a look around. They’ll act differently if somebody sees me and this badge, but they might go sideways at the sight of two people geared up like you. Y’all stay out of sight unless something happens. Find a place and watch my back, ’cause if I come a runnin’, we’re gonna have to bug out quick.”

  Yolanda pointed to the east and the dark woods. “We’ll stay in the trees. But I think you should let us do some looking, too.”

  Perry Hale slapped me lightly on the shoulder. “Try not to just walk in there like you want to do.”

  “You’re getting to know me pretty well.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we’re here.” He turned back to Yolanda. “You ready, babe?”

  Eyes hidden under the cap pulled down almost to her eyebrows, she drew a deep breath. “Whenever you are.”

  Perry Hale’s attention flicked between me and the far end of the lane, his carbine hanging muzzle down in the middle of his chest. “I’m swinging wide around to the front. You cover the rear.” He pointed to one side, then the other and made some kind of motion with his fingers. They separated and disappeared into the woods, leaving me alone in the middle of the lane.

  Wondering about their ability to communicate without speaking, I waited for five minutes to give my SRT team members plenty of time, then stepped onto the thin game trail through the woods. Blue jays argued in the trees, and I marveled at how peaceful it was right then but could go sideways in an instant.

  I struck out with the twelve-gauge cradled in my left arm, though a lot slower. Understory brush raked my shoulders, and I had to duck several times. It became harder to see as the sun went down. Occasionally briars caught my pants, pulling loose with a soft ripping sound.

  Noise from my left told me there was a lot of activity in the unseen barn. More doors slammed. It sounded like a parking lot, and I wondered just how many people were there.

  One thing was for certain, we were outnumbered. I hoped my earlier phone calls had jump-started reinforcements.

  Chapter 57

  The atmosphere in the barn was alive with excitement and expectation. Armed men waited in small groups for Alonzo’s arrival with the cash, sitting on bags of fertilizer and on buckets, talking softly.

  Daddy Frank was anchored like a deeply rooted tree in the wide aisle running the length of the barn. He checked his watch and waved to Jimmy Don. “As soon as that Semtex gets here, you tell the boys get a package and one of them detonators over there that Alonzo fixed up before he left. There’s fresh batteries there, but don’t put the damned things in until they get the plastic set on those lines. I want all them to go up at six in the morning.”

  Four teams of two were assigned to place the explosives on the exposed oil pipeline valves. Standing up to sixteen feet above ground, the valves were much larger than the pipes themselves and weighed up to eight tons. Destroying them would be catastrophic to BranCo in monetary value, public relations, and to the environment as a river of crude oil could pour out for hours before the company managed to shut off the flow.

  “Jimmy Don, you and Sammy have the most important job. Get that refinery offline.”

  Sammy Saxton licked his dry lips. “I have the perfect place to set the charge. It’s right close to . . .”

  “I don’t care where you put it. Just blow the damned thing up.” Daddy Frank cut him off. Already thinking of something else, he walked up to the double barn door and stopped just inside. “Where the hell’s Buck?” He made eye contact with Boone, who’d found a place in a shadow outside the door so he could watch the lane.

  “I tried to call him.” Jimmy Don’s voice full of concern came from behind. “He didn’t answer.”

  “Well, call him again.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Sammy.” The old man didn’t take his eyes off the darkening woods.

  He was farther inside the barn. “Right here.”

  “You and Clifford Raye take and
carry some long guns outside. I don’t like all of us being in here without having somebody keep an eye out.” He stopped in the door. “Buck woulda already done that, if he was here.”

  Minutes later, Sammy and the others appeared in the doorway, loading magazines into AK-47 rifles.

  “Good. Now you boys go on halfway up the road. No, stop just shy of the highway and wait for Alonzo. Give me a call when he gets here, then make sure nobody’s following him in. I wouldn’t put it past some of these feds to just let him drive on in big as Dallas and lead him right to us. The way he’s been acting, he’s liable to have a whole damn train of cars behind him.”

  Sammy, Clifford Raye, and two other men in jeans and T-shirts ambled down the road, angering the old man. “Goddamn it! I didn’t say get there in the morning. Y’all get your asses where I told you.”

  Knowing the old man’s temper, they broke into a jog and disappeared up the road.

  A night bird peeped. Tree frogs that had been tuning up broke into a familiar chorus and filled the air with their high-pitched croaks. Daddy Frank remained where he was just inside the door, listening.

  “Jimmy Don.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Something don’t feel right. Get some more boys out here and keep a lookout.”

  Jimmy Don’s eyes flicked to the dog. Mud lay on his stomach, watching all the activity around him. He didn’t seem concerned. “What don’t feel right?”

  Daddy Frank met his son’s eyes. “You questioning me don’t feel right, for a start.”

  Chastised, Jimmy Don melted back into a teenage boy afraid of his daddy. “Yessir.” He turned. “I need four of y’all out here till Alonzo pulls in. Boys, it’s almost go time.”

  Chapter 58

  After paralleling on either side of the lane in near silence for what seemed to be three hundred yards, Perry Hale slowed at the sight of a tired barn squatting in a small clearing in the old-growth forest. Reflecting light from bare bulbs spilled between the cracks of warped, vertical planks. Bright as day on the inside, dim beams escaped through holes in the roof. A pool of yellow spread out from the open back doors.