He wished he could have taken her to Texas with him. But she had her work, and she’d told him she was behind. There would be plenty of time for trips later on.
They were boarding business class now. He went onto the gangway, smiling at the flight attendant who was waiting down the ramp at the door of the plane. She checked his ticket and indicated his seat assignment.
He hadn’t planned to go business class, but his brothers had insisted. He didn’t fly anywhere enough to make it exorbitant this once. In the spring he’d be on planes a lot, going to seminars, visiting other ranches, visiting congressmen to lobby for better laws for the cattle industry. He’d be working on brochures for their own spring sales and planning the big twice-a-year cattle sale on the ranch. He was going to be busy. So this trip would be something like a working vacation for him. He’d talk to the sheriff, but he also had plans to visit a ranch in Jacobsville to check out some Santa Gertrudis cattle to add to the brothers’ breeding stock. They had a very small seed herd of the native Texas strain. He wanted to pursue it. A good bull wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. New blood every two years kept their breeding herds viable.
As he took his seat, he noted that the ponytailed businessman took a seat across from him. The flight attendant made a beeline for him and offered him anything he wanted. She was also grinning from ear to ear, like the woman who’d flirted with him in the airport.
Tank just shook his head. The man had a real gift.
* * *
IT WASN’T A long flight. At least, it didn’t seem long to Dalton. He read a couple of magazine articles, dozed for an hour or so and listened to the flight attendant telling the businessman across from Dalton about her whole life. He smiled to himself. The guy really had something. The flight attendant was very pretty.
When they landed, Dalton hefted his carry-on from the overhead compartment and got in line to baby-step out the door. No matter how organized the crew was, it was still a free-for-all trying to get off a plane.
As he approached the exit, he noted the flight attendant slipping a piece of paper to the businessman. He chuckled to himself.
* * *
A DRIVER WAS waiting for him at the entrance to the concourse, holding up a sign with “Dalton Kirk” on it.
He raised an eyebrow. His brothers, no doubt. He wondered why they thought he needed a limo to get to his hotel. San Antonio wasn’t that large a city, but apparently it was large enough to house a limousine service or two.
But as he started toward the man holding up the sign, the businessman suddenly bumped against him.
“Sorry,” he said loudly. But under his breath, he said, “Don’t go near the guy with the sign, it’s a trap.”
“My fault,” Tank replied.
He kept walking, not even looking toward the man with the sign. Once they were outside the airport, the businessman drew him to one side.
“Rourke sent me,” he told Tank. His face was very somber. “He didn’t say anything about a driver waiting for you here.”
“I thought my brothers did it for a surprise,” Tank replied, looking around.
“If they’d done that, I’d know about it,” the other man replied. “I left my car in overnight parking. I’ll drive you down to Jacobsville. Boss is expecting you. You’re going to stay with him.”
“Boss?”
“Cy Parks,” the man replied. “He owns one of the biggest...”
“...Santa Gertrudis cattle ranches in south Texas,” Tank finished for him. “In fact, he was on my list of people to see. I want to talk to him about a new bull.” He hesitated. “But I promised to check in with the local FBI office...”
“Later,” the man replied, looking around them with narrowed eyes. “If they sent someone to the plane, they’ll be watching. Let’s go.”
For the first time, Tank noticed a bulge under the man’s jacket.
“You packing?” he asked as they moved quickly toward the parking lots.
“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else.
* * *
JACOBSVILLE WAS JUST a few minutes drive down the road, through some beautiful country. “It must be really pretty here in the spring,” Tank remarked as he looked across the flat horizon with small groves of trees and the “grasshoppers,” or oil pumpers, dotting the landscape.
“One landscape’s pretty much like another,” his companion replied. He glanced at Tank. “You should have questioned who I was, you know,” he said. “If that rogue agent is on the job, he’ll know Rourke is working for you and that he said he’d have somebody at the airport.”
Tank was very still. His eyes narrowed as he looked hard at the man driving the car.
There was a patient sigh. “I am the real deal,” he replied. “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t have assumed I was.”
Tank chuckled. “Okay. Point taken.”
He turned off the main road down a long ranch road between two white-fenced pastures with two levels of electrified wire in between. There were sleek, red-coated cattle eating at several points where hay had been provided.
“Nice cattle,” Tank remarked.
“Boss only stocks the best” was the reply. “We had to put out surveillance cameras here as well because somebody walked off with one of his prize bulls in the middle of the night.”
“Did they catch the perp?”
The tall man pursed his lips and glanced at Tank. “I caught him.”
“With the bull?”
“Fortunately. Rustling still carries a heavy penalty here in Texas, and we had proof. He’ll be serving time for the indefinite future.”
“You’re a tracker,” Tank murmured with narrowed eyes, and nodded when the other man glanced at him with surprise briefly visible. “I served in Iraq,” he explained. “There was a spec ops team assigned to my unit. Funny, the things you remember in a combat zone, but I remember how one of those guys walked. It’s a gait you don’t see in many people.”
“Cash Grier, the local police chief, has it, as well,” the man agreed.
“Grier.” He frowned. “Wasn’t he a government assassin?”
“Yes, he was,” the man replied. His black eyes were full of secrets as they met Tank’s.
Tank cocked his head. “Am I seeing a similarity about which I shouldn’t speak?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
He pulled up at the steps of the ranch house. It was sprawling and had paved flagstones leading to the front porch. There were mesquite trees around the compound, a huge barn out back, fenced pasture and a garage. There were stables out near the barn.
The tall man got out of the car. Tank followed him to the front porch, where a man with silvering black hair and green eyes was waiting.
“Cy Parks,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand.
“Tank Kirk.” They shook hands.
“Tank?” Parks asked, amused.
Tank shrugged. “I killed one in Iraq. The name stuck.”
“Come on in. Lisa made a cake and coffee. We can talk before the kids get back from a friend’s Christmas party,” he added with muffled laughter. “Once they’re home, it gets harder to have a conversation.”
“I’ve got a new nephew back home.” Tank laughed. “We’re up to the eaves in big plastic baby toys.”
“We’ve moved on to the next level of those,” Parks said, indicating scattered games and spinning toys and little pedal cars. “Good thing it’s a big house.”
“You’re telling me!” Lisa Parks laughed. She came out to greet them. She had green eyes, like her husband, but blond hair and she wore glasses. She was a pretty woman, still slender after two children. “Come in and have coffee and cake.” She glanced at the tall man. “I know. You hate cake, you don’t drink coffee...you’d rather be dragged behind a mule than sit arou
nd talking to people all day.”
The man gave her an enigmatic look.
“How about checking out that truck we noticed earlier?” Parks asked the man. “Take one of the boys with you. Just in case.”
The man glowered at him. “I invented stealth.”
“I know that. Humor me.”
The other man sighed. “You’re the boss.”
“Oh, and Grier called,” Parks added darkly. “It seems you’ve upset his secretary. Again.”
“Not my fault,” the man said with the first strong emotion he’d shown since Tank had met him. His eyes flashed. “She starts it and then runs to her boss to tattle when she can’t take the heat.”
“This is not my problem,” Parks replied. “Take it up with Grier.”
“Tell him—” he indicated Tank “—not to be so trusting. He never even asked me for ID.”
“What good would that do?” Parks muttered. “You never carry any. Which reminds me, I also had a call from a sheriff’s deputy who stopped you for speeding yesterday...”
“Tell you about it later,” the tall man said. “I’ll check on the truck.” He held up a hand when Parks started to speak. “I’ll take one of the boys with me,” he said with irritation.
He walked out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” Parks said when he’d gone. He shook his head. “He’s head of the class when it comes to risky operations, but he’s a pain every other way.”
“Who is he?” Tank asked.
“Carson.”
“Is he related to your sheriff, Hayes Carson?” Tank pressed.
“Well, see, we don’t know if Carson is his first name or his last name,” Parks replied. “In fact, if you hack into government mainframes, you discover that he doesn’t even exist.”
Tank blinked.
“It’s a long story. Right now, let’s just eat cake. My wife—” he smiled at her “—makes the best pound cake in south Texas.”
“Flatterer,” she teased as she put the cake on the table and passed out plates and forks and a knife. “Well, don’t stand on ceremony, dig in. I’ll just get the coffee!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
TANK LIKED CY Parks and his wife. They were surprisingly down-to-earth people, despite Parks’s unconventional background. He, along with local doctor Micah Steele and counterterrorism teacher Eb Scott, had formed a small unit of mercenaries who went all over the world as part of their jobs. They were taught, in turn, by a group of legendary fighters, now retired, whom they still kept in touch with.
Eb Scott’s school drew pupils from all over the earth. He taught all sorts of subjects, including small-arms instruction, defensive driving, hostage rescue and demolition. There were rumors, unsubstantiated of course, that the occasional government agent benefited from Scott’s instruction.
“Is there anything you guys haven’t done?” Tank asked Parks when they were strolling through the barn to look at some of his prize yearlings.
Parks shrugged. “We never took over a country.” He chuckled. “But one of our locals, Grange, did. He used to work for Jason Pendleton, but he’s got his own place now. His father-in-law manages it for him while he’s occupying the Military Chief of Staff position in Barrera, over in South America.”
“I understand the president of Barrera has family locally, too,” Tank remarked.
He nodded. “His son is Rick Marquez. Rick’s a lieutenant of detectives with San Antonio P.D. now, and his mother still runs Barbara’s Café in town. Good food. Almost as good as what my wife cooks.”
Tank nodded. “That was good cake.”
“She’s a wonder.” He glanced at his companion. “You married?”
Tank shook his head. He smiled secretly. “But I have prospects.”
Parks chuckled. “Good for you.”
“I appreciate the hospitality,” Tank added. “I travel a lot for the ranch. You get sick of hotels, no matter how good they are.”
“Tell me about it.”
Tank sighed. “I just hope your sheriff has some ideas about how we can track down this guy before he offs one of us,” he said quietly.
Cy nodded. “You’re worried about your family.”
Tank agreed. “And not just my family—my girl,” he added softly, referring to Merissa. “She’s the one who warned me. This rogue agent bugged her phones, as well as the ranch. Rourke’s got his eye on all of them, but it’s still unsettling.”
Cy clapped him on the shoulder. “I know how it feels, believe me. But we’ve got plenty of people trying to ferret out his identity. He can’t hide forever.”
“I hope you’re right,” Tank said.
* * *
TANK ENJOYED CY’S two little boys. They were smaller versions of their father, both with dark hair and green eyes. They wanted to know all about Tank’s ranch and what sort of cattle he ran. He got a kick out of listening to them hold forth on the subject of genetics. Obviously they were already headed in the direction of becoming ranchers when they grew up.
Tank called Merissa early the next morning.
“Anything going on that should worry me?” he asked her gently.
She laughed breathlessly. She hadn’t expected him to call, and she was all aflutter at the sound of his voice. “Not much,” she said. “Your man came and fixed the car for us. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. You’re sure he was our man?” he added worriedly.
“Oh, yes. Rourke came with him,” she added. “He’s a very interesting person.”
Tank ground his teeth together. “He’s my friend, but he’s a merc,” he began.
“You aren’t...jealous?” she asked shyly.
“Jealous?” he burst out. “Of course I’m jealous! You’re my girl!”
There was a soft gasp. He could almost hear her heart beating. “Oh, that sounds...very nice.”
He grinned from ear to ear. “Does it?”
“I like Rourke a lot. But not in that way,” she said primly.
He chuckled. “That sounds very nice, too,” he repeated her words.
She laughed.
“I love to hear the way you laugh,” he said softly. “I miss you.”
There was an indrawn breath. “I miss you, too. You aren’t going to be there a long time, are you?”
“No, just today. I’m going to talk to the sheriff later...” He paused as a car pulled up out front. He peered through the curtains. It was a squad car. He grinned. “Speak of the devil.” He laughed. “It’s the sheriff. I have to go. You take care of yourself. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes. You do the same. Bye.”
“Bye.”
He hung up and went outside. Cy Parks joined him on the porch.
A tall blond man in a uniform got out of the Jacobs County Sheriff’s Department vehicle and came toward them.
“Tank Dalton?” the man asked with a smile as he studied Cy’s companion.
Tank grinned. “Sheriff Carson?”
“Hayes.” He shook hands. “If it’s not too early for you, I thought I’d ask if you could come over to my office for a chat.”
“Go ahead,” Cy told him. “If you need a ride back, I’ll send one of the boys.”
“No need.” Hayes grinned. “I’ll bring him back.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
* * *
TANK CLIMBED INTO the patrol car with Hayes and they drove to the sheriff’s office.
“How’s your arm?” Tank asked him.
Hayes grimaced. “Still painful. I’m doing physical therapy and hoping I’ll regain at least partial use of it, but things are unsettled right now.” He shook his head. “I’ve been shot before, but I never had consequences like these.”
>
“I know what you mean,” Tank replied quietly. “I had injuries that required multiple surgeries. It was a few months ago, but I still get jumpy if there’s a car backfire.”
“Law enforcement is not a job for the weak of heart.”
“I totally agree,” Tank said. “That’s why I market cattle now.”
Hayes laughed. He led the way inside the building to his office, and offered Tank a seat. “I like my coffee strong.”
“Me, too.”
“Good thing, that’s the only way you’ll get it around here.” He produced two cups of coffee and put Tank’s in front of him. “There’s cream and sugar...”
“I don’t want either. ”
“Same here.”
Tank leaned back in the chair. “Did you ever catch the would-be assassin who shot you?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Hayes said with evident irritation. “We’ve put pressure on everybody we know. I even had my father-in-law ask around.” He leaned forward with a grin. “That’s how you indicate you’re really desperate—you involve a drug lord in your investigation. But my wife’s father has a good heart. He’s just in an illegal business.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t seem to run out of applications for jobs on his horse ranch in Jacobsville. But just between you and me, I think a lot of the applicants are undercover narcs.” He chuckled.
“That wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Hayes sipped his coffee. “We identified the shell casing,” he said. “Unfortunately the bullet’s still in me. The surgeon refused to remove it. He said it would complicate my recovery if he went in digging around delicate tissue.”
“I’m still wearing one of mine, too,” Tank replied. “I remember reading about Doc Holliday of O.K. Corral fame—they said when they examined his body, he was carrying several ounces of lead...bullets that doctors had just left in him.”
“In those days, the late 1800s, it would have been lethal trying to remove them,” Hayes agreed. He put down the coffee cup. “I’m still trying to understand why this man, whoever he is, targeted you and me. Neither of us can actually describe him. We don’t know who he is, or who he works for.” He frowned. “My office computer was destroyed, and when I had one of Eb Scott’s computer techs try to recover the hard drive, he was killed.” His eyes narrowed. “What is this guy trying so hard to cover up?”
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