“So what are you gonna do? Bust me out of here?”
“I could, you know.”
Jake could tell she was serious. He shook his head and said, “No, I don’t want you getting in more trouble than you already are. Just keep your head down, and maybe everything will blow over without doing too much damage to your career.”
“I don’t care as much about my career as I do stopping whatever Saddiq and his friends are planning to do next.”
“You don’t think they’re through?”
“Not at all,” Gretchen replied with a shake of her head. “Do you?”
“No,” Jake admitted. “I don’t. And I have a bad feeling that whatever they’re going to try to pull off next, it’ll be worse than what they’ve already done. A lot worse.”
A feeling of gloom settled over the room. After a moment, Gretchen said, “Well, we can stand around here moping, or we can go down to the restaurant and get some supper.” She summoned up a smile. “You’re buying.”
“You really think they’ll let us do that? I was told if I wanted anything to call room service.”
“Your guards can follow us, can’t they? Besides, you’ll have your own personal guard in the form of a Homeland Security agent.”
“Who’s also in all kinds of trouble,” Jake pointed out.
“The guy at the elevator may not know that. We can give it a try, anyway.”
The idea of having dinner with Gretchen held a lot of appeal, Jake realized. They had fought side by side, which created a near-unbreakable bond . . . and she really was very attractive, as well as smart and tough.
“All right,” he said. He gestured at his jeans and T-shirt. “I’m not dressed for anything fancy, though, and nobody’s brought me the rest of my stuff yet.”
“Trust me, the hotel restaurant isn’t that fancy.” Gretchen picked up her purse. “Let’s go.”
The elevators were only a couple of doors away, and just as Jake expected, as soon as the FBI agent posted there saw them coming, he stepped forward and said, “Hold it, Rivers. You’re not going anywhere.”
“We’re just going downstairs to get some dinner,” Gretchen said. “Agent Rivers is in my custody.”
She reached for her ID, but the guard said, “Yeah, you showed me your badge and papers earlier. I know you work for Homeland, Ms. Rogers, but I also know you were mixed up in the same incident that got Rivers here in trouble. I’m gonna need the word of somebody a lot higher up than you before I’m letting him off this floor.”
“You can follow us down there,” Jake said. “I give you my word, man, I’m not trying to get away—”
His efforts at persuasion were probably doomed to failure, but he didn’t get to finish because at that moment, the elevator dinged and the door of one of the cars slid open.
Barry stepped out in his casual, loose-limbed way, by himself, no FBI agents in sight. Jake, Gretchen, and the guard turned to look at him, and the guard exclaimed, “Hey, aren’t you—”
“I sure am, son,” Barry said, and in the next split second his right fist rocketed out to crash against the man’s jaw and knock him back against the wall. The agent’s hand had barely twitched toward the gun under his coat.
As he bounced off the wall, Barry slipped behind him, got an arm around his neck, and clamped down on the hold until the man passed out. Barry lowered him gently to the floor, glanced along the corridor, which was empty, and then straightened to grin at Jake and Gretchen.
“Are you two ready to get out of here and get back on the case?” he asked.
CHAPTER 43
“I promise you, I didn’t hurt either of those agents who went up to Las Cruces with me,” Barry told Jake and Gretchen as the Kenworth Z1000 rolled east out of El Paso on Interstate 10. “They just went to sleep for a little while, like the guard up there at the elevator.”
Barry was behind the wheel, Gretchen in the passenger seat. Jake sat on the sofa in the sleeper, leaning forward so he could take part in the conversation.
“I know that,” he said in response to his uncle’s promise. “I still feel a little bad about it. They were fellow agents, after all.”
Without taking his eyes off the road unrolling in front of them, Barry asked, “Would you rather be stuck on the sidelines while the rest of this plays out?”
“You know better than that.”
Gretchen said, “So you don’t think this is over yet, Mr. Rivers?”
“Call me Barry. And I figure Saddiq is just getting started. The two attacks they’ve carried out prove they can do it, even though we kept the one this morning from being as bad as they wanted. Next time they’ll try for something even more spectacular.”
“We were talking about that earlier,” Jake said. “It seems to me that after hitting a couple of freight trains, they’ll go after a bigger target.”
“A passenger train,” Gretchen said, nodding. “The same thought had occurred to me.”
“There are hundreds of them, from commuter lines to the Amtrak trains that run all across the country. How are we going to figure out which one they’re targeting?”
“I have informants all over the country,” Barry said. “I’ll put the word out again. That led us to the Zaragosas smuggling Saddiq into the country. Maybe we’ll get lucky again.”
Gretchen said, “I have some sources I can reach out to as well.”
Barry glanced over at her with slightly narrowed eyes and said, “No offense, Ms. Rogers, but you don’t hardly look old enough to have developed any sources.”
“I was recruited into Homeland Security while I was getting my master’s in Criminal Justice.” She looked back at Jake. “The FBI wanted me, too. And so did the CIA. That was five years ago, and I’ve done a lot since then.”
Jake held up his hands and said, “Hey, it was him who doubted it, not me.”
Barry said, “Do you think any of those sources are going to help you? The word’s going to get around pretty quickly about you being in trouble with your bosses.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Gretchen said with a shrug. “Anyway, I’ve gone rogue now, haven’t I, just like the two of you? That’s liable to make some of my contacts more likely to help me.”
“Speaking of going rogue,” Jake said, “maybe we ought to ditch the truck, Barry, and find a more inconspicuous means of transportation.”
“The license plates and all the identifying numbers have already been changed,” Barry said. “And after everything that’s happened, it’s not as noticeable as it was. I think we still blend in all right.”
“I get it. You just don’t want to give it up.”
“I will if I have to. But I think we’re okay for now.”
The big rig rolled on into the night.
* * *
Francisco Zaragosa stalked back and forth across the terrace next to the swimming pool at his estate outside Ciudad Juárez. The night was warm and fragrant with the smell from the gardens next to the terrace. Lights glowed warmly in the trees. The scene was tranquil, even serene.
But rage burned in the heart of Francisco Zaragosa, and all he wanted to do was kill.
Daniel Colón was dead. One of his most trusted lieutenants. Maybe his most trusted. And more than thirty other members of the cartel had been killed in the past two days, as well, including that idiota Paco Reyes.
All of them wiped out by the same two men.
Those two had disrupted the operation at the freight yard in El Paso, too, and no doubt displeased Bandar al-Saddiq. Zaragosa didn’t really care about that, but he had taken money from the man to assist with the operation, and he didn’t like being interfered with. He’d been brooding about that all day.
Such defiance could not be allowed to go unpunished.
Laughter made Zaragosa stop pacing and turn toward the house. Angel and two of his girls were headed toward the pool, obviously bent on a nighttime swim. All three were nude. The girls were fifteen years old—maybe.
“Angel.” Zara
gosa spoke sharply, although his voice was not loud. “I am expecting a phone call, and until I get it, I must think.”
Angel stopped and looked embarrassed, not by his nudity but because he had annoyed his brother. The girls stood there giggling quietly, completely unashamed. Zaragosa could tell by looking at their eyes that all three of them were high as could be.
“I’m sorry, Francisco,” Angel said. “We just wanted to swim. It’s a warm night.”
Zaragosa controlled his temper. He nodded and said, “I know you meant no harm. But take your friends and go back inside, please.”
Angel bobbed his head eagerly.
“Come on, girls,” he said. They didn’t argue with him as he turned them back toward the house and started them on their way by patting their rear ends. They all must have enjoyed that, because he continued patting and they kept giggling.
Zaragosa rolled his eyes and sighed as one of the servants stepped out of the house carrying a specially shielded and scrambled satellite phone.
“The call you were expecting, señor.”
That was sooner than Zaragosa had anticipated, but at the same time, he was eager to talk to Bandar al-Saddiq.
“Señor al-Saddiq,” he said into the phone. “I hope you are well.”
“I have no time for pleasantries,” Saddiq replied coldly. “I would rather talk about those two men who have been such an annoyance to us.”
“Jake Rivers,” Zaragosa said. “I am unsure of the other man’s name. His identity seems to be quite an enigma. But Rivers, I know, is an agent of the American FBI. The other man is probably some sort of federal law enforcement officer, as well.”
“His name is Barry Rivers,” Saddiq said. “He is the younger man’s uncle and is sometimes known as Dog. From what I’ve been told, he is a somewhat legendary figure in the American intelligence community. Some even doubt that he is real. But he is very real—we’ve seen plenty of proof of that.”
Zaragosa raised his eyebrows even though Saddiq wasn’t there to see the reaction and said, “You have better sources of information than I do, it seems.”
“I visited with one of my other associates earlier today, and then he contacted me later to give me the names. He assures me that the two men have been dealt with and will no longer interfere with us.”
“Dealt with how?” Zaragosa asked harshly.
“Jake Rivers has been suspended from the FBI and placed in protective custody along with his uncle,” Saddiq said. “In a hotel, no less. House arrest, I believe they call it. The woman who was at the freight yard with Rivers works for the American Department of Homeland Security and will be prevented from interfering in the future by her superiors.”
Zaragosa sat there for a couple of long seconds, then said, “That is all? A slap on the wrist?” His voice rose in anger. “They killed more than thirty of my men! They killed my friend Daniel!”
“And nearly a dozen of my men died at the freight yard this morning,” Saddiq said. “Such an affront to Allah cannot be allowed to stand.”
Zaragosa leaned forward and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
“What did you have in mind?”
“If you can find out where the two men and the woman are, I believe they should be killed. Not only will it prevent them from possibly interfering with our plans in the future, they deserve death for what they have done already.”
Zaragosa didn’t actually care whether Saddiq’s plans succeeded or failed, but he agreed completely with the man’s final statement.
“If they are still in El Paso, I can find them,” he declared. “And once found, we can take steps to ensure they will never bother us again.”
“I’m glad we see this matter the same way, my friend.”
“Allow me to make some other phone calls,” Zaragosa said. “I have contacts at all the hotels in El Paso, as well as among the authorities. I can locate them. If you’d care to wait, I’ll use another phone . . .”
“I’ll hold,” Saddiq agreed.
Zaragosa took his regular cell phone from his shirt pocket and made several calls, speaking in quiet but intense Spanish to the people on the other end of the connections.
When he picked up the satellite phone, he reported, “The wheels are in motion. My people will be reporting back soon.”
“Very good. We can sit and talk while we wait.”
That prospect didn’t really appeal to Zaragosa, but he didn’t see a gracious way to refuse. These Islamists were just another bunch of religious fanatics, as far as he was concerned. But their money spent as well as any other.
Saddiq went on, “You are very devoted to your brother, are you not?”
“I promised our mother that I would take care of him,” Zaragosa replied. “And he has a good heart. Just not a very good brain. Not everyone is blessed to have both.”
“True. And who is to say which one is the best to have, eh?”
Zaragosa didn’t want to talk about Angel. He said, “Is there anything I can do to assist you in the future, Señor Saddiq? Other than to dispose of those troublesome Yanquis, that is?”
“You have done more than enough, my friend. Our operation will be moving on to a different part of the country.”
“I have connections from one end of the country to the other,” Zaragosa said. He added proudly, “There is nowhere the Zaragosa cartel cannot reach.”
Saddiq said, “I will bear that in mind.”
Zaragosa’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and said to Saddiq, “You will excuse me.” He thumbed the phone and said, “Qué?”
He stiffened in anger as he listened to what was said. Then he responded in a burst of furious Spanish and broke the connection. His face was dark with rage as he picked up the satellite phone.
“What is wrong?” Saddiq asked. He must have heard Zaragosa’s angry response to the news.
“Jake and Barry Rivers and the Rogers señorita are gone. They eluded the agents guarding them and disappeared. They are wanted fugitives now.”
“But if the law finds them, they will just be arrested again.”
“I know,” Zaragosa said as he got his anger back under control. “That’s why I’ve given orders that my men must find them first.” He shrugged. “Now it may even be easier. We won’t have to kill any police or FBI agents. And in the end . . . those three will still die.”
CHAPTER 44
“I think you wanted them to get away,” Mitchell Cavanaugh said as he stared coldly across the desk at Walt Graham.
It was the next morning, and the two men were in the federal building office Graham had borrowed from the SAC in El Paso. Cavanaugh had stormed in here a few minutes earlier, having just found out that Jake and Barry Rivers were no longer in custody.
“You should have detailed more agents to guard them,” Cavanaugh went on. “Better yet, you should have locked them up! You know that Barry Rivers is too much of a . . . a madman . . . to ever cooperate if he doesn’t want to!”
“That’s right,” Graham said, making an effort to keep his own temper under control. “But I had no reason to suspect that Barry wouldn’t respect my authority.”
“Since when has Rivers respected anybody’s authority? The man’s been a loose cannon for decades!”
What Cavanaugh was saying was true, of course, and Walt Graham knew it. Younger agents might believe that “Dog” was just some intelligence community urban legend, but Graham had been around long enough to know that he existed—and to be aware of all the good he had done over the years. Only a few people in the government knew how much justice Barry had dealt out—and how many evil men he had sent to the hell they so richly deserved.
“Look, I’m sorry they got away,” Graham said. “Maybe I should have done more to prevent it.” He spread his hands. “What can I tell you? It was a judgment call.”
Tight-lipped, Cavanaugh said, “Maybe a man with such questionable judgment shouldn’t have such an important position in the FBI.”
“If you want to get me fired, Cavanaugh, you just go right ahead,” he said, not even making any pretense of civility anymore. “I’ll stack my record as an agent up against anybody’s, and I have some friends in high places, too, just like you do.”
“I am the friend in high places for a lot of people,” Cavanaugh sneered.
“Well, if I have to walk away from this job, so be it. Anyway, you don’t know how many times I’ve been tempted to do just that over the years . . . every time I have to deal with some politician like you.”
The contempt dripped from his voice as he said it.
Cavanaugh went pale. He lifted his hand, pointed a shaking finger at Graham, and said, “You’d better deal with this, and deal with it quickly, or you’re going to regret it.”
With that, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the office.
Graham straightened, glad to see the pompous Cavanaugh go. After the door had slammed behind the man, Graham lifted a hand and scrubbed it wearily over his face.
He shouldn’t be this tired so early in the morning. Maybe it was time for him to get out of the game, he told himself. Maybe for more reason than one.
Because honestly, he couldn’t swear that he hadn’t hoped Barry and Jake would slip away. It hadn’t been a conscious thought on his part . . . but it could have been in the back of his mind.
That was no way for a man sworn to uphold the law to be thinking.
He hadn’t expected the Rogers girl to disappear with them, however. But on thinking about it, he wasn’t really all that surprised. He had spent only a short time around her, but that had been enough to tell him that she had the same sort of stubborn, wild streak that ran through Jake and Barry. They were devoted to fighting the bad guys, but they were going to do it their own way.
Well, in the end, if that got the job done . . . and if he was being honest, they might stand a better chance of it, not being bound by rules and regulations . . .
“Wherever the three of you are,” Walt Graham whispered, “good luck, and Godspeed to you.”
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