The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Despite the power inequity, he controlled his forces with a single purpose, while big business was controlled by many minds with diverging goals. He couldn’t save the world, but he could focus on the small piece of the earth he could save.

  He wasn’t strong on patience, but he’d been forced to learn it. When patience wasn’t possible, he worked off his restless energy by freeing prisoners of war. He needed only to be patient a little longer. Even as he and his cohorts moved in on their objective here in California, other players had opened a new offensive back in Colorado—one that would strike a serious blow for the world’s green stuff and, as an added bonus, royally screw his father. The best of both worlds.

  Like him, dark figures moved through the guts of his father’s favorite company, Merryweather Biotechnologies in Denver. This time their special task force would be successful in securing the prototype and the technology data. This time they wouldn’t fail, because this time they knew when and where to strike. Knight would fall, he thought with a grin, on the technology and on good old dad. And Knight’s daughter would play her role, then die. Everyone knew trouble came in threes. Dad was going to get a pointed and painful reminder of that little truth.

  Though he was Green One, for tonight’s diversionary attack he followed Four’s lead. This team had been pulled together from three separate cells to minimize exposure. He was careful to ensure that even if the Feds tracked one of his cells back to the source, they’d have no evidence he was the leader of, let alone the mastermind behind, Green. They’d believe his carefully projected image of a rich, rebellious dilettante playing at environmentalist. He smiled. Only one person knew the truth, and he’d never tell. Their mutual passion and their mutual secret bound them more securely than any oath of loyalty.

  His earpiece crackled. Two, using the latest in stealth technology, verified that Four had taken down the security system. Two breached the door. They were armed, but with tranquilizer guns, not bullets. Lost lives could cost them the PR war, which was almost as important as their hidden battles to free the hostages to technology. Distraction and delay weren’t as inspiring as big headlines in the short term, but they were in this for the long term.

  They padded down the hall with Three on point. A guard rounded a corner, and Three fired. The guard collapsed without a sound. When they reached the labs where the POWs were caged, they split up. One entered his target lab and headed straight for the windows. After opening them, he turned to the cages. His lab was a prison camp for several apes used in medical research. No wire cutters for his teams. They were all armed with the latest in high-tech, portable lasers that cut through wire and padlocks like butter.

  In minutes he’d freed the POWs and herded them out the window. He followed, then crouched and stared across the lawn for a last scan of the area before jogging across the lawn. He’d almost reached the cover of the trees when he heard a shout. One turned toward the sound, firing a tranquilizer in the guard’s direction as he ran backwards. The dart hit the guard in the chest. He stumbled forward a few steps and then fell on his face. Without further incident, One reached cover, the trees closing round to shelter him from hostile eyes like the loving arms of his mother, had his mother actually had arms even remotely loving.

  The small wooded area was alive with the chatter of their freed POW’s. One smiled. It sounded like he’d suddenly been transported to the jungle. He jogged deeper into the trees, glad for the night vision goggles. He didn’t want to step on any of the freed hostages, darting about as they adjusted to their new freedom.

  He didn’t see the others on his team. It wasn’t part of the plan. There’d be no risky rendezvous to gloat or celebrate. Just a swift, silent strike and a swifter, more silent retreat, with each man disappearing into the night.

  At the edge of the woods, not far from the Los Angeles estate where his dad was being honored yet again for his rape of the environment, Leslie Merryweather shed his gear, stuffing it into the duffle he’d left stashed behind a rock. In a short time, he was back in his tux. He pulled the flask from the pocket and sprinkled a bit on his clothes, then drank a bit, gargled and spit it out. He’d parked his car with the rear toward the trees, so it was a simple matter to unlock the trunk, stow his gear and close it again without being spotted by any of the valets working the host’s party. This lab hadn’t been on their original strike list until he’d seen its proximity to the gala. Sometimes fate was kind.

  He adjusted his tie to a crooked angle, mussed his hair, and then staggered out of cover. A young woman in an almost transparent dress spotted him.

  “Looking for a place to puke, Leslie?” Her gaze raked his tall, dashing figure, her body angled so the light would shine through her clothes.

  He lifted the flask in a mocking toast. “Love the new—” He gestured towards her chest. “Who did them?”

  “Go to hell.” She turned and stalked away, everything bouncing in agitation.

  He laughed, then pretended to take a drink. A white coated man approached from the house.

  “Your father is looking for you, Mr. Merryweather.”

  “Is he?” Leslie straightened up. “Tell him…I’ve already left. I have a golf game in Denver tomorrow.” Had to keep up his image as a useless waste of space. And he wasn’t sure he could keep the triumph out of his eyes in his dad’s presence. The old man had always known when his only son was up to something. This wasn’t the time. Soon, but not yet. He veered back to his Jag. Inside, with the motor racing, he applied serious pressure to the pedal, spewing gravel at the parked cars as he sped away. Once out of sight of the house, he slowed. Not the night to get picked up for driving drunk, not with what he had in his trunk. His plane waited at his father’s private airstrip. At the other end, not far from another airstrip, his new chess piece should be waiting for him.

  * * * *

  “I’ll see what I can turn up, but a storm is shutting us down as I speak,” Bryn Bailey said. She looked at her watch and winced. She was already late for the Kirby clan dinner party, and the storm would slow her down even more, assuming she ever got on the road. “Whole city may be closed tomorrow.”

  Bryn had been with the Bureau since graduating from college twelve years ago and could have been their poster girl—had they had one. Vigorous and driven, she was beautiful, but much less high gloss after a year in the wild, wild west. Her power suits had given way to designer jeans that were comfortable and collected an impressive collection of wolf whistles. The spiked heels were now snakeskin cowboy boots that had changed her walk from stabbing to kick-butt.

  She told herself it was the wind that had softened her sleek, dark hairstyle, but her dark, less-steely gaze couldn’t be explained away by wind gusts. Bryn blamed it on Jake Kirby, a colleague and a friend, despite his choice to join the US Marshals Service instead of the FBI. And riding herd on Dewey Hyatt. The two of them had managed to take the edge off her “take no prisoners” approach to law enforcement. She’d never expected to feel comfortable in a West she’d considered irretrievably chauvinistic. At first she’d put a penny in a jar every time someone called her “little lady,” but quit when she realized that it was a habit, not a put down. Inherent in their recognition that she was different from them was an appreciation for that difference that she liked. If she hadn’t partnered with Jake a year ago, she’d still be in DC, bitching her way through her usual cases.

  She didn’t miss it. She liked that she didn’t have to act like a man to succeed here. Whatever perks she lost by being female were balanced by the benefits of being female. There was a growing satisfaction in doing her job without worrying about who was ahead of her and who was closing in from behind. Not long after she moved here, she’d felt a tectonic plate shift inside as she realized that having it “all” was driving her crazy, not happy. She now sang along with the country music station, the only thing her new SUV seemed able to pick up as she drove down the freeway and she had learned how to “push her tush,” something Dani Kirby, Jake’s
sister-in-law, insisted was the key to happiness.

  After a few more assurances to the voice droning in her ear—why did men have to say the same thing three ways before they could move on?—she was able to ring off. The reports coming in on the lab strikes were brief, details scarce, but her gut, her instincts were telling her there was more to this than the usual grandstanding. If only the facts backed her up.

  Phagan had told her he thought Green was planning an offensive for later this year, but hadn’t learned what. After six months, he still hovered on the outside of their magic inner circle. Outside that circle, Green operated in tight, isolated cells. It wasn’t clear which cell member was the contact with their control either. He was impressed with their security—and Phagan wasn’t easy to impress.

  Not the result she’d hoped for when she inched out on a limb for him a year ago. He’d contacted her online, inviting her into VR—virtual reality—as was his habit. That time, though, there’d been a difference. He came, not to court, but to ask a favor. A huge favor.

  “I need access to Pathphinder,” he told her. Pathphinder was the Internet “handle” for his former partner in crime, Phoebe Mentel Kirby. Like Dewey Hyatt, Phoebe was on probation for those criminal activities. She was also Jake’s wife and Jake wasn’t about to let any unhallowed contact with her former partners jeopardize her probation. He liked having her around too much.

  “Yeah, Jake will let that happen,” Bryn said, “when real-time hell freezes over.” She added the “real-time” adjective because the last time she’d said this to him, he’d turned their VR world into a frozen-over hell. The guy had a puckish sense of humor. “The only time Dewey sees Phoebe is when he’s with one of us. You know contact with you would violate her parole.”

  “That’s why you’ll have to be our go-between.”

  “And why would I risk pissing Jake off like that?”

  “Because it could be my ticket—and yours—into the inner circle of Green.”

  Green. How had he found out she was investigating Green? For months she’d been trying to plant someone inside this elusive and crafty environmental action group. It was as if Green had a sixth sense for Feds. Or a contact in their office. She didn’t like to think it, but it had happened and would again. There was always someone who needed money more than their integrity. Maybe it was time to step outside the official box.

  “If I help you, you’re in?” she asked, stalling as she reviewed the pros and cons. Pros were obvious. Phagan wasn’t a Fed. Cons were obvious, too. If he wanted access to Phoebe, it was her B&E—breaking and entering—planning skills he was after. Phoebe had earned her path “phinding” rep planning B&E for Phagan and Dewey. Her probation required her to stop illegal acts, not encourage them.

  “Like flint,” he said.

  “What’s the job?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that, arling’. You’d have to do something about it.” He gave her a virtually sincere look. “When the time is right, I’ll deliver the goods. Until then, well, you’ll have to trust me.”

  Trust him. Like a wish before dying, the last two years of contact with him streamed through her head. Every taunt, tease, and love note. And with the teasing, had been solid leads to crimes committed by some very nasty characters.

  As if he followed her thought processes, a tiny angel of herself appeared on her right shoulder, with a diminutive devil on the other. She looked at the angel. It smiled in a very un-angelic way.

  “You know you want to,” it said.

  She looked at the devil.

  “You want to bad.”

  She looked at Phagan. His virtual smile was wide and hopeful, his teeth too white and glinting in the sun behind his head. It invited her to forget reason, to forget caution and listen to her heart. She’d never been very good at listening to her heart, but her reasonable, logical brain knew there was a time for caution and a time to leap into the abyss.

  So Phagan and Phoebe had done some path “phinding”—with Bryn as go-between. It had been an education to see Phoebe go after a system. She had a genius for finding weak spots in security. She also had an instinct for finding the strengths of a system and using that against them. It was fortunate that Jake kept her on a very short leash. It almost drove Bryn mad that she couldn’t tell who or where the system was housed. Phagan’s VR world was stripped of all identifying marks.

  And then nothing. As near as she could tell Green hadn’t used the information. There’d been no report of a break-in that remotely resembled Phoebe’s plan.

  So why hadn’t Green used the plan? Instead, everyone seemed to be in a holding pattern. Until tonight. Were Green operatives even now moving on an unsuspecting lab with information she’d helped provide? And where was Phagan? Since her last contact with him, he’d been ominously silent.

  It wasn’t like him. He liked to touch base with her every day, even it if was just an email smiley. She hated to admit it, but she was worried about him. Could Green suspect him? They’d managed to smoke out every other person she’d sent against them but this time she was the only person who knew Phagan was working with her. Six months had passed since Phagan began his online dance with someone called “Forest for the Trees,” and still no face-to-face meet with any of the Green leadership to show for giving Phagan her trust six months ago, except a few more wrinkles around her eyes. This was the first time she’d stepped outside the lines. If Phagan failed her, it could mean her career.

  Out there, somewhere past her personal worries, her brain gnawed at the few facts she’d learned. Why had Green chosen tonight to act? In the past, their operations had coincided with environmentally significant days, like Arbor Day. Was there something else that she’d missed in her obsessive monitoring the past six months?

  There was no way to know what this change in their usual modus operandi meant. Not with the paucity of facts she had and using a brain too tired to produce more than a boatload of unanswered questions and lots of unease. Her last cup of coffee had faded from her system a couple of hours ago. The clock sounded loud in the quiet, empty office. Somewhere there was someone on night duty, but not here where all the smart agents left for home ahead of the storm. Usually Dewey stayed until she left, but he’d had to report to his parole officer before they met for dinner with the Kirbys. It annoyed her that she missed him, that she liked having him working with her as a pseudo-partner.

  To escape her thoughts, she grabbed her purse and rose to her feet in one smooth, determined motion. Moping around the office was as useful as hitting herself with a two-by-four. She could at least be with friends eating good food and great desserts. She snagged her coat as she passed the rack. Out in the hall, she hesitated long enough to hear the door click closed behind her. As she rounded the corner, she heard the elevator ping and picked up the pace, but checked when she saw someone waiting in the elevator. It was instinct to reach for the weapon in the holster nestled in the curve of her back, even as she recognized him.

  Donovan Kincaid raised his hands above his waist, the palms out so she could see they were empty. “You’ve gone country. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  And I wasn’t expecting you, she thought. She didn’t wonder how he’d gotten in the closed building. To be a specialist in keeping people out, you first had to know how they got in. She shrugged. “Stuff happens.”

  “That it does,” he said. “I knew the storm wouldn’t scare you home early.”

  Did he? Bryn arched her brows. “I’d planned to be, but something came up.”

  “Something always does.”

  Donovan Kincaid studied her without embarrassment, so she returned the favor. He still looked like Harrison Ford and had the charm—and a rakish air of mystery packaged with military bearing—to match the rugged good looks. He was a man who could make a woman feel feminine and fluttery, even when she was pointing a gun at him. She’d never understood the younger woman/older man attraction until she met Donovan. She’d been tempted, though not enough to join
the parade of women that sighed after him. She remembered liking him, but not trusting him—because of what she knew about him and what she didn’t.

  Back then, his dossier placed him in Vietnam as a sniper, but he wasn’t a loner and seemed to be free of “issues” and post traumatic stress disorder from his three tours of duty in Asia. He did have issues with peacetime, she recalled. He was a natural-born soldier with a romantic streak that helped him with women. He loved the life, the danger. No surprise he’d turned mercenary, selling his skills to those perceived as the good guys in the world’s various conflicts. A few blank spots hinted at some CIA involvement. Then he turned up as a security specialist for a government contractor, which is how she’d met him. She believed that it was Kincaid who’d sent her the information that nailed his employer—once it became clear that that employer wasn’t on the side of the angels. He had to be on the right side, even if he was no angel himself.

  She hadn’t kept track of Kincaid because of the flare of attraction that hummed below the surface every time she was around him. That might have been a mistake, she decided. Did his presence here mean he’d set up shop in Denver or was he just passing through?

  “I like the new you,” he said with a smile that warmed the cold hallway. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m late for a dinner appointment.”

  “Really?” His smile turned intimate. “You have changed.”

  A year ago, her hackles would have popped up, but after hanging with the Kirby men, her hackles were plumb worn out.

  “I live in interesting times.”

  His chuckle was sexy as hell.

  You’d think that being interested in two men would give you some immunity, she thought ruefully, and wondering, for the thousandth time, how a pair of criminals had become yin to her oh-so-legal yang?

  “How about I walk you to your car?” His manner was easy, but as she entered the brighter light of the elevator, she could see the worry in the back of his gray eyes that had a few more lines than she remembered fanning out from them. Snow still dusted his brown hair, which had been mixed with a bit of distinguished gray as long as she’d known him. He topped her by at least five inches. The navy coat he wore with casual confidence looked expensive. He smelled expensive, too, dispelling the odor of pizza and sweat that usually prevailed in the elevator.