Wyoming Bold (9781460320891)

by Palmer, Diana

“Please,” Grier added.

  “There was a man. I’d forgotten until a friend of mine—” he didn’t name Merissa or the circumstances under which she knew about the man “—brought it up. There was a DEA agent who came to me about a possible incursion in my territory. He said a shipment of narcotics was being brought across by men in paramilitary uniforms and he needed assistance to stop them.” His eyes narrowed with memory. “He was in an unmarked car. I was in my patrol vehicle. I followed him to the site. It was dark, but there was a full moon, so I could see the movement. I got out of my vehicle and when I saw the perpetrators, I realized that I needed backup. But when I went to call it in, he stopped me. He said that he had other agents in place, I just needed to go in with him to support them.”

  “He said there were other agents there?”

  “Yes. I had no reason to distrust him. He had proper ID. I always check,” he added. “Checked, that is. Anyway, I pulled my service weapon and we went in sight of the suspects. He called out first that we were federal agents, for them to stand down and put their arms on the ground.”

  He blinked. “The rest...is still a bit hazy. I was shot, but not by the suspects. The shot seemed to come from behind me. It hit my lung. I went down. I remember looking up at this flashy Hispanic man. He had a gold-plated automatic aimed at me and he was smiling. He said that it was stupid to tangle with a cartel the size of his, and that I wouldn’t have the chance to do it again. I remember it felt like being hit by a fist, several times. I lost consciousness and came to in the hospital.”

  “How did you get there?”

  Tank managed a smile. He felt as if there was bile in his throat. The memory was still sickening. “Of all things, I honestly believe it was one of the mules who called an ambulance. He slipped back when the other men were driving away. The other man, I vaguely remember, was cursing because he’d called for help. They argued. I passed out before they left. I talked to dispatch when I got out of the hospital. The 911 operator said the Hispanic man actually apologized and said that if he could have stopped it, he would have. He said that he and his family would pray for me.” He shook his head. “They must have, because the doctors said they’d never seen a man in my condition live to tell about it.”

  Blackhawk winced. “I know about gunshot wounds. My brother worked for us, and for the CIA. Over the years, he was shot at least twice, and one wound was life-threatening. It was rough on the family as well as on him.”

  “My brothers almost went crazy,” Tank recalled quietly. His eyes fell. “So did I. I didn’t deal with it well.” He shrugged and managed a smile. “I’m still not dealing with it all that well.” He shook his head. “I was in the hospital for weeks.”

  Grier’s dark eyes were icy. “These people think of their adversaries as insects. They don’t mind killing anyone—women, children, it’s all the same to them. The only thing they care about is the money.”

  Tank laughed shortly. “I noticed. The guy had a gold-plated automatic, for God’s sake!”

  “Did Sheriff Hayes tell you how he and his new wife escaped the kidnappers?” Blackhawk asked with a smile in his black eyes.

  “He did tell me some things about it, but not all the details,” Tank replied.

  The two visitors exchanged glances. “One of the kidnappers owned the house where they were kept. He had an outhouse with, get this, a gold-plated, jewel-encrusted toilet paper holder. She used it to cut through their bonds.”

  Tank laughed. “I don’t believe it!”

  “Neither did they.” Grier shook his head. “I thought I’d heard everything. I used to work with our Hostage Rescue Team,” he added. “I do know about hostage-taking. In many cases, the victims are dead in the first twenty-four hours. Hayes and his wife were very lucky.”

  “Which brings us to you, and the purpose of our visit,” Blackhawk added, leaning forward. “Hayes Carson arrested a major player in the cartel, which was founded by the late, great drug lord they called El Ladŕon. The guy was carrying gold-plated hardware. Thing is, Hayes Carson was in the company of a supposed DEA agent. When people started asking questions about the man, and started digging into his identity, things popped. A bogus secretary got a job with Carson’s office and managed to get her hands on the computer—she erased evidence of the man’s presence at the arrest. When they hired an outside consultant to try to recover the evidence from the hard drive, he was killed.”

  “This sounds big,” Tank said quietly.

  “It is big,” Grier added. “Obviously somebody doesn’t want the agent identified. We want to know why.”

  “Especially since it seems he’s been feeding information to the major drug cartels for several years, as a rogue DEA agent,” Blackhawk agreed.

  “If you can remember anything, you need to tell us,” Grier said. “We have reason to believe there may be a connection between the rogue agent and a politician who’s running for office.”

  Tank stared at them, frowning. He’d heard all this, but he did have a question. “What does that have to do with the cartels?”

  “One of them seems to be feeding money to his campaign, hoping for better access across the border with his election,” Blackhawk said solemnly. “It’s an ugly business. And we also have reason to believe that the rogue agent has a background in assassination.”

  “This just gets better and better,” Tank said, shaking his head.

  “What can you tell us?” Grier asked.

  “For one thing, your rogue fed posed as a surveillance firm installer and bugged my damned house,” Tank said.

  Grier looked around worriedly.

  “No worries” came a good-natured voice from the doorway. “I fried them. The chap’s good, but he leaves a lot of nasty footprints!”

  Blackhawk glared at him. “Rourke. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Working,” Rourke said with a grin. “You boys are a long way from home.”

  “You know Rourke?” Tank asked the men.

  “Yes,” they said in unison, and not in a happy tone.

  “Now, now.” Rourke chuckled. “I don’t step on your toes. At least, not much.” He sobered. “This chap is quite good. He’s efficient and he has all the aspects of a chameleon. If he has a background in assassination, Cy Parks has a man working for him who might know something about him.”

  “Carson.”

  “The sheriff?” Tank asked.

  Blackhawk shook his head. “Not the same Carson. This one is Lakota.” He made a face. “We have a mutual cousin.”

  “He’s Native American?” Tank asked.

  Grier nodded. “Damned good at his job. He was employed by the government at one point. But he didn’t fit comfortably in a conventional unit, so they transferred him to spec ops. He worked with us on one job.” He shook his head. “Scary fellow.”

  “Bad attitude,” Blackhawk agreed. “Most snipers miss occasionally. This guy—never.”

  “We’ll talk to him when we get back home,” Blackhawk said. He cocked his head at Rourke. “I thought you were bogged down in that job in South Africa.”

  “I made enemies,” Rourke said shortly, and he didn’t smile. “I hate damned politicians. They’re arming eight-year-old kids and sending them out with automatic weapons, too doped up to care what they shoot.”

  “Run for public office and put a stop to it,” Grier suggested.

  Rourke made a sound deep in his throat. “Not in that country. All I want for Christmas is to see the rebel leader hung by his entrails.”

  “Bloodthirsty,” Blackhawk muttered.

  “Not if you saw what he did to a village near the capital,” Rourke replied.

  “How do you know Kirk here?” Grier asked him.

  “I was on special assignment back in the day when Tank was serving in Iraq.”

 
“Tank?”

  Tank grinned. “I killed one. They stuck me with the nickname and I’ve had it ever since. I came out of the army and landed a job with the border patrol.” He looked at his two visitors. “I never want to wear a badge again.”

  “Well, the job does have a few drawbacks,” Blackhawk said mildly, and smiled. He glanced at Grier. “Our wives forget what we look like from time to time.”

  “You married?” Grier asked Tank.

  “Not yet.” Tank laughed. “Haven’t really thought about it much.” He was thinking about it now, but he wasn’t going to share those very personal thoughts with his guests.

  “Can you describe the man who led you into the ambush with the drug cartel?” Grier asked.

  “Yes. He was a tall blond man with black hair, short, had a British accent and a Texas drawl and red hair and spoke with a Massachusetts accent,” he rattled off, tongue-in-cheek.

  They blinked.

  “Same suit, different face, hair color, complexion and accent,” Tank told them. “The guy who came out here to install the surveillance cameras was the same height, but everything else was different. He’s a chameleon.”

  “I’m beginning to realize that,” Blackhawk replied. “The descriptions we’re getting of him are just the same. His height seems to be the only constant.”

  “No,” Rourke interrupted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. “There’s another. He’s a master of disguise. Even in a field of spies, that talent would stand out enough to be conspicuous. That’s your key. That’s where to start looking. And Carson would be your best bet to find a trail.”

  “Not to mention the politician who’s lining up to go to bed with the drug cartels,” Tank added. “Might not be a bad idea to put a tail on him.”

  Blackhawk pursed his lips. “Not bad at all.”

  “Which is why we’ve already done it,” Grier said.

  “Way ahead of me,” Tank said. “See why I’m not in law enforcement anymore?”

  “What bothers me is why he’s after him,” Rourke said, indicating Tank. “He can’t really identify the man. If he could, the would-be assassin would have no problem just killing him outright.” He hesitated. “And if he was here on your place, why not just shoot you down in your own front yard?”

  Tank stared at him. “There were witnesses when he was here. We had several cowboys working in and around the house, and our men go armed in winter. Wolves,” he explained.

  “It’s illegal to shoot a wolf,” Blackhawk reminded him.

  “Yes, it is, but if a rabid one goes for my throat, I’m shooting him and the charges be damned,” Tank replied firmly.

  Both men chuckled.

  “He bugged the phones at the Bakers’ home, too,” Rourke reminded Tank.

  “The Bakers?” Grier asked.

  “She’s a...friend of mine,” Tank said.

  “With rather special skills,” Rourke said.

  Tank gave him an irritated glance.

  “What sort of skills?” Blackhawk asked.

  Tank hesitated.

  “Tell them,” Rourke said firmly.

  Tank sighed. “She’s psychic. I don’t mean like those people on television who charge money to tell you things you want to hear. She’s the real thing. She came over here in a blizzard to warn me that a man was going to try to kill me because of something I didn’t remember. She described the shooting, every detail. She didn’t even know me when it happened, and she sure as hell wasn’t there,” he added firmly. He shrugged. “Spooked me, I can tell you. She told our foreman, Darby Hanes, to take someone with him when he went to cut a tree that had fallen on the fence line. He didn’t want to, but I made him.” He paused. “Tree fell on him and he became stuck. He would have died if he hadn’t taken another hand along.”

  Blackhawk just nodded. “We have people in our community in Oklahoma with that gift. Science won’t believe it exists. But it does,” he added quietly. “I’ve seen it work. She might have saved your life.”

  “And put herself on the firing line,” Grier interrupted. “If he’s after you and he knows about her gift, she may be in danger, as well.”

  “I’m taking care of that,” Rourke told them. “Nobody’s hurting her. I promise you.”

  Grier’s eyes were narrowed. “I still don’t understand why he’s after you,” he said thoughtfully. “Sure, you might be able to describe his height, remember something about the way he looked or walked or stood. But he’s paranoid about getting rid of anyone with any sort of memory about him. He had a computer expert killed in Texas for trying to recover an image off a hard drive in Sheriff Carson’s office. He’s gone to great expense trying to bug your house.” He frowned. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What did your friend say again, about the reason?” Blackhawk prompted Tank.

  “She said he was after me because of something I didn’t remember.”

  Grier glanced at his companion. “Perhaps a hypnotist.”

  Blackhawk nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Tank frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “We’ve done it out of desperation a time or two in murder cases. Sometimes you see things but don’t remember them. Like a license plate number or an identifying mark. Little things solve big cases,” Blackhawk said.

  Grier nodded. “Would you be willing to do it, if we could get someone up here?”

  “Certainly,” Tank agreed. “But I’d already promised Sheriff Carson I’d fly down there to talk to him in person.”

  “We could set it up at his office,” Grier replied. “In fact, I know a hypnotist in San Antonio who’s worked with us before on cases.”

  “Let me wait until my brothers get back from that conference in Denver,” Tank asked. “I can’t leave the ranch with no one in charge here.” What he really meant was that he couldn’t leave Merissa. The stalker had been in her house. God knew what he might do if she was alone, without Tank’s protection. Mallory and Cane would make sure nothing happened to her, or Clara, in his absence.

  “Not a problem,” Grier said. “Think you can make it before Christmas?”

  “Yes. I’ll make my arrangements and get in touch with you when I’m coming,” Tank told them.

  “That’s a deal.”

  They finished the coffee, complimented Mavie on its strong perfection, shook hands with Tank and left.

  * * *

  “IS SOMETHING GOING on that I shouldn’t know about?” Mavie wanted to know.

  Tank shrugged. “A lot, probably, but we don’t keep secrets from you,” he added with a smile. “They want me to see a hypnotist. They think I might remember something about the man who shot me.”

  Mavie shivered. “That might not be a good thing, boss. You remember too much as it is.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” He smiled. “I’m going to get some paperwork going in the office.”

  “I’ll clean up the kitchen, then I may go watch television before it’s time to make supper.”

  “You and your soap operas.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Getting harder to find one to watch, they’re cancelling so many of them.” She sighed. “I miss the old days and the old soaps.” She shook her head. “These new ones are heavy on intimate stuff and spare on relationships.”

  “Sort of like the movies.” He studied her. “You know, Hollywood producers never seem to notice what keeps drawing people back to movies like The Sound of Music and The Day the Earth Stood Still and Ben-Hur. It’s because they were powerful stories about people, and you could take your children to see them. Except for cartoon movies, what sort of films can you take children to see these days?”

  “I loved Star Wars.” Mavie sighed.

  “Yes, well there are rumors that they’re going to mak
e the new ones more adult-friendly.”

  Mavie glowered. “I can see where that’s headed, if it’s not just rumors. I guess Star Wars will just be for grown-ups now.”

  Tank laughed. “They will never do that. Imagine having to give up on all that merchandising for kids.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right.” She threw up her hands and went back to the kitchen, muttering about the world in general and modern movies in particular.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “YOU’RE GOING TO TEXAS!” Mallory exclaimed when he got home.

  Tank nodded. “I need to talk to the sheriff down there and compare notes. Maybe we both saw something that we don’t remember and discussing it will pop it out.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Cane said quietly. “For you to go alone.”

  “I’m not taking Rourke with me,” he told his brothers. “In case you wondered. He’s needed here, to keep an eye on you and the Bakers.”

  “But, Tank...” Mallory began to protest.

  “Not to worry,” Rourke interrupted as he came into the room. “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but I’ve got it covered. He won’t be going alone.”

  “You’re not coming with me,” Tank said shortly.

  “No. But I have someone who’ll be at the airport when you get there.”

  “Who?” Tank asked.

  “Nobody you know. Nobody you’ll recognize. And nobody will recognize him, either. But he’ll be watching. If you get into any trouble at all, you’ll be safe.”

  “Thanks, Rourke,” Mallory said. “I was concerned.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Cane replied.

  “I’m a grown man,” Tank protested.

  “Yes, but you’re our brother, too,” Mallory said, “and we worry.”

  He grinned at them. “Nice of you.”

  “We’d miss the piano playing,” Cane said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Even if it is pretty sad compared to Mallory’s.”

  Mallory grinned. “Truer words were never spoken.”

  Tank threw a napkin at him.

  * * *

  HE BOOKED A flight online and then he drove over to Merissa’s house to see her.