Vengeance Is Mine

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sounds to me like this fella Ramirez is a damn fool,” Threadgill said. “If he had a grudge against you, John Howard, he should’a just gone ahead and killed you first thing.”

  “Yes,” Stark said. “He should have. But he didn’t.”

  “Like I said, damn fool. Got any more of that jerky, Nat?”

  Ryan said, “The chopper’s back. It’s done.”

  Ramirez lolled back in the bathtub and nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Make sure Hammond is notified.”

  The bathroom was so opulent it should have been in a despot’s palace somewhere, all gold and ivory and thick carpet. Ramirez had the jets in the big spa tub running full blast, swirling hot water around his body. He had been in there for hours. He was going to look like a prune when he finally got out.

  Ramirez was just trying to feel clean again, Ryan supposed, after the things he had done to Elaine Stark.

  Raping her, and letting a dozen of his men rape her, hadn’t been enough for Ramirez. He had tortured her, too, personally using cold steel and hot flame to inflict so much agony on the woman that by the time it was over she had been nothing more than a mutilated husk of a human being, whimpering and pleading for death. Even then, Ramirez had withheld that release from her, choosing to make her suffer even more. With her blood coating his hands and spattered all over his face and clothes, he had stood there and waited for her to take her own sweet time about dying. Only the time hadn’t been sweet at all.

  Ryan had seen and done a lot of bad things in his life. He had killed innocent men in cold blood, more than he could ever remember. He had carried out torture himself, when it was necessary. But he had never taken any pleasure in the work other than a certain amount of pride in a job well done, certainly not the sort of giggling glee that Ramirez had taken in what he’d done to Elaine Stark.

  It wasn’t right.

  Stubbornly, Ryan shoved that thought out of his head. He tried not to think about how easy it would be to kneel beside that sunken tub, force Ramirez’s head under the water, and hold it there until he drowned like the mad dog that he was. Even considering it, however briefly, was unprofessional. Right and wrong never entered into Ryan’s decisions. Only life or death, and, to a lesser extent, profit or loss.

  Still, he knew the time was coming for him to move on. There were no legal, binding contracts in the world in which he lived; he was a free agent and could leave Ramirez’s employ any time he wanted to. Ramirez might not like it, but that was just too bad. If he tried to stop Ryan from going, he would quickly find out that when Ryan’s loyalty ended, he made for a dangerous enemy.

  In the big tub, in the swirling water, Ramirez sighed and went on, “I just wish there was some way Stark could be there when they find her. He should see what his foolishness has caused.”

  “Maybe he already did,” Ryan said. The faintest trace of a smile pulled at his lips.

  Ramirez sat up sharply, splashing in the water. “What? What do you mean by that, Silencio? Stark is in jail!”

  Ah, now this was the good part, getting to lay some news on Ramirez that would shake him up a little. Ryan said, “Not anymore. Someone got into there earlier tonight and broke him out.”

  Ramirez slapped both hands against the water and started cursing. Ryan let the profane outburst run its course, and then he continued, “The chopper pilot says there was a car parked out at Stark’s ranch when he dropped the body. He couldn’t see the license plate or really tell much about it, but it was there. Seems to me that Stark might have gone there, since he was on the run by that time.”

  “Madre de Dios! Who did this? How?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d say that some of Stark’s rancher friends might be behind it, but to be honest, they don’t seem competent enough to me to have pulled off something like this. Whoever’s responsible for it staged a distraction. They wrecked a truck on the outskirts of Del Rio and made it look like it was leaking toxic waste. Turns out it wasn’t, of course, but it drew all of Hammond’s men away from the jail except for a couple of deputies, who got knocked out when Stark was set free.”

  “He must be found! Do you hear me, Silencio? I had taken everything away from Stark, including his freedom! He must be found and taken back to jail, so that he will spend the rest of his life in prison, a toy of men who will do my bidding. Failing that, he must be killed. But first, he must be found!”

  “Of course, Don Ernesto.”

  Ramirez was too upset to hear the mocking tone in Ryan’s voice. The Vulture could rant and rave all he wanted to, but in the end, his words were meaningless. Ryan’s instincts told him they would not have to go looking for John Howard Stark.

  Before it was over, Stark would come to them.

  They took turns sleeping during the night. Two men were always on guard, even though Stark knew it was very unlikely anyone would find them here on the old McCarthy place before several days had passed. When it was his turn to sleep, Stark’s rest was troubled and fitful. His dreams were haunted. In his mind’s eye he saw Elaine as she had been when she was a young woman, fresh and beautiful, and then as a wife and mother and his partner on the ranch, older, more mature, but every bit as beautiful, if not more so, and then finally as she had looked when he pulled back that bloodstained canvas, and the horror of it all was just too much for him. After he had snapped awake a couple of times with his heart hammering and tears in his eyes, he made sure he didn’t go back to sleep. Instead he got up and wandered through the deserted house, trying to be quiet so the others could sleep. He thought about the old man who had lived here so long ago. Stark had never known him well, but McCarthy had had his own life, full of the same small triumphs and bitter defeats, the moments of bliss and the long dark hours of despair, the loved ones who make life worth living but who are all too often gone too soon. Glory and tragedy, laughter and tears, and it was all multiplied millions and millions of times over, no, billions, all over the world, as men and women ceaselessly struggled to capture the fleeting wonder of life before succumbing to the ultimate triumph of death.

  Stark was damned glad when it got to be morning.

  They breakfasted on water, hot canned soda, and junk food. Judging by the haggard looks on the faces of the other men, they hadn’t slept well, either. They hadn’t been married to Elaine, of course, so they didn’t feel the same level of grief that Stark did, but they were human, after all, and what they had seen would have disturbed anyone except the most sociopathic monster.

  “If the weapons come today, we can move tonight,” Stark said, preferring to think about tactics rather than . . . other things. “We’d better try to figure out our plan of attack. It’s too bad we don’t have more intel about Ramirez’s place.”

  “Where can we get some?” Finnegan asked.

  Stark shook his head. “Damned if I know. There was a newspaper article a while back, an exposé I guess you’d call it, about Ramirez, and if I remember right, it had a couple of aerial photos of his place.”

  Finnegan reached for his briefcase, which had been brought in the night before along with the food. “Hang on. Let me work the Net for a while.”

  “How are you gonna hook up to the Internet?” Stark asked with a frown. “Even if you’ve got a laptop in that briefcase, there’s no phone line out here. Hasn’t been for years.”

  Finnegan grinned and took out a computer no bigger than a hardback book. “Another of the miracles of digital technology. This brick is part of a wi-fi network. Wireless Internet, you know.”

  Stark just shook his head. “If you can do that, more power to you, Jack. You’ve left me behind, though.”

  Finnegan opened the little computer, booted it up, established a connection, and was soon searching through the archives of the Del Rio newspaper. It didn’t take him long to locate the story about Ramirez that had gotten its author killed, dismembered, and scattered up and down the Rio Grande. Stark told the others about that.

  “A damned shame,” Finnegan said, “but the guy’s
death won’t be in vain. He’s going to help us bring Ramirez down.” Sitting cross-legged on the floor with the computer in front of him, he pulled his briefcase over and took out more apparatus, including a cable. In minutes he had a small, battery-powered printer hooked up and spitting out prints of the two aerial photographs that accompanied the news story.

  Stark and the others huddled over those photos all morning, studying them and figuring out the best way to approach the Vulture’s compound and get inside. “Once we’re in we don’t know what we’ll find,” Sheffield pointed out.

  “No,” Stark agreed, “we don’t. We’ll have to improvise. The important thing is to get to Ramirez.”

  “You want him for yourself, John Howard?” Macon asked quietly.

  Stark had to think about that question, but not for very long. “I want the son of a bitch dead,” he said. “I don’t care who does it. If you have a shot, take it.” He looked around at the others, and they all nodded in understanding.

  “What sort of men does he have working for him?” Nat Van Linh asked.

  “A few Colombians, but mostly just typical Mexican gunners and drug runners. They’re plenty tough and dangerous, I suppose, don’t get me wrong about that, but to Ramirez they’re just cannon fodder. There’s another man, though. . . .” Stark thought back to the times he had seen the one he was talking about. “He’s probably Ramirez’s personal bodyguard and top lieutenant. About fifty, I’d say, and he looks Mexican. . . dark skin, high cheekbones, hawk nose . . . except he has red hair. And he’s damned dangerous when he wants to be.”

  That last statement came from Stark’s musing about everything that had happened. He was convinced there had been times when the red-haired man could have killed him. The only real try he’d made had been when Stark was in the hospital, though, and his luck had been bad there. He hadn’t been part of the gun crew that had invaded the ranch, nor the bunch that had killed Newt and Chaco. Stark wouldn’t have been surprised if the man had been around somewhere during those operations, though, monitoring things and seeing just how well Ramirez’s gunners carried out their missions. He had to wonder, as well, if the man had been responsible for kidnapping Elaine and laying waste to the Diamond S. It seemed like something he would be capable of.

  Like a gun, though, the redheaded killer couldn’t fire himself. Somebody else—in this case, Ramirez—had to point him and pull the trigger.

  “Watch out for him,” Stark concluded. “With luck we can get through all the other men between us and Ramirez. I don’t know about that hombre.”

  “He’s one man,” Finnegan said. “We’ll get him. Don’t worry, John Howard.”

  Stark was going to worry, though. He had seen too much not to.

  Nat leaned over one of the photos and said, “Shouldn’t we be thinking about our exit strategy, too?”

  Threadgill laughed. “You don’t really think we’re gettin’ out of there, do you, Nat?”

  “Damn it,” Stark snapped. “I didn’t ask you fellas to go on a suicide mission.” He looked away. “Maybe we’d better just call it off. It was different when . . . when we thought Elaine might still be alive. I was willing to risk everything to save her. Now I don’t know. I can’t ask the five of you to give up all you have . . .”

  His voice trailed off into a long moment of silence that none of the others seemed willing to break. Finally Will Sheffield said, “You’re not asking us, John Howard. This is strictly a volunteer job.” He looked around at the others. “Right?”

  “That’s right,” Macon said. “And that’s why I think Nat’s got a point. Let’s figure out how we’re going to get out of there alive. You can’t stop me from going with you, John Howard, but I do want to get back home.”

  After a moment, Stark nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s get to work figuring this out.”

  They had been strategizing for another hour or so, snacking and swigging from the water bottles as they did so, when Finnegan’s cell phone rang. He answered it and after a moment handed it to Stark. “Tell this fella exactly how to get here, John Howard.”

  Stark took the phone and said, “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “You don’t need to know that, friend,” a man’s voice said. Finnegan shook his head at the same time and moved his hands back and forth, warning Stark not to pursue that line of questioning.

  “You’re right, I don’t,” Stark said. “You need directions out here?”

  “Yeah. Any time you’re ready. Starting from Del Rio.”

  It took Stark only a couple of minutes to give the man detailed directions for how to find the old McCarthy ranch house. When Stark was finished, the man said, “See you in an hour,” and broke the connection.

  Stark handed the phone back to Finnegan. “Can that fella be trusted?”

  “All the trust that money can buy,” Finnegan replied with a smile. “He wouldn’t have survived in the illegal arms business as long as he has if he was in the habit of double-crossing his clients.”

  Stark just shook his head. “You’ve got some friends who are handy to have, Jack.”

  “Oh, they’re not friends,” Finnegan said. “Just . . . business acquaintances.” He looked around. “My friends are all here.”

  Stark knew what he meant. He just hoped that friendship wasn’t going to get all his friends killed.

  Thirty-six

  The truck arrived in the early afternoon. Stark and the others heard the rumble of its engine before the vehicle itself came in sight. They waited in the house, Macon holding the shotgun and Threadgill cradling his pistol, until they were sure who the visitors were. Stark kept a close eye on Threadgill. It wouldn’t take much to set him off and start him shooting.

  The truck was a big old panel job with MASSEY PLUMBING painted on the sides. Two men were in the cab. The driver killed the engine, opened the door, and hopped out. He was a short, skinny man wearing an untucked cowboy shirt with the sleeves cut off and a straw Stetson with a tightly curled brim and a battered crown. His hair was pale, his skin sunburned. When the passenger climbed out, he proved to be much bigger, with broad shoulders and a prominent gut. He wore his brown hair in a buzz cut.

  “Hey, Jack!” the little man called. Stark recognized his voice from the brief phone conversation earlier. “Anybody home?”

  The men stepped out onto the sagging porch. “I’m Jack,” the banker said.

  The little man grinned and slapped the truck fender. “Got your merchandise here.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Everyone gathered around the rear of the truck. The big man ran the sliding door up its grooves. The interior of the truck appeared to be full of plumbing equipment: stacks of plastic and copper pipe, bins full of faucets and washers and plastic elbows and joints, pipe wrenches hung on racks, a couple of plungers and a drain auger, even an old toilet.

  Stark frowned. They couldn’t fight Ramirez and his small army with this junk.

  But then the little sunburned man climbed into the back of the truck and worked hidden catches and swung up trapdoors in the floor and pulled out the racks of tools and equipment to reveal a small-scale armory. As Finnegan had promised, there were assault rifles and submachine guns and grenade launchers and more than a dozen pistols. Helmets, Kevlar vests, and strap-on body armor hung from hooks. It was like the inside of a SWAT van; only a few moments’ work would cleverly conceal all of the lethal cargo.

  “There ya go,” the little man said. “If you’re satisfied, Jack, make the call.”

  Finnegan looked at Stark. “What do you think?”

  “There’s plenty of ammo for all of this?” Stark asked.

  “You bet, hoss,” the little man replied.

  “And the truck goes with it?”

  “Yep.”

  Stark nodded. That would make the approach to Ramirez’s place easier, all right. He looked at Finnegan and nodded again. Finnegan took out his cell phone, thumbed in a number, and in a moment said simply, “Do it.” He broke the con
nection and looked at the little man. “The money is on its way to the Caymans right now.”

  “Done and done,” the little man said happily. He took a cell phone of his own from his shirt pocket and made a call. “Come on in.”

  A few minutes later an SUV drove into sight. “There’s our ride outta here,” the little man explained. “Pleasure doin’ business with you boys.”

  Sheffield spoke up. “When you sell weapons to people, don’t you ever wonder what they’re going to do with them?”

  The little man grinned and shook his head. “None o’ my business, hoss.” He motioned to the big man. “Come on, Billy.”

  They climbed into the SUV. The vehicle’s windows were so darkly tinted that it was impossible to see into it. The driver wheeled it around and drove away.

  “That was just creepy,” Macon said.

  “There’s a whole lot that goes on in the world that normal guys like us never see,” Finnegan said.

  “That’s all right with me,” Nat said. “I’ve seen enough trouble to last several lifetimes.” He glanced at Stark and added, “So, I guess a little more won’t hurt, will it?”

  “This’ll be the last of it as far as I’m concerned,” Stark said. “One way or another, this ends tonight.”

  The bridge over Amistad Dam spanned the Rio Grande at the southern end of Amistad Reservoir, north of Del Rio. There were customs offices at both ends of the bridge, but the checks the agents ran on vehicles passing back and forth over the dam were cursory. Late that afternoon, Sheffield and Threadgill drove the plumbing truck across, explaining to the Border Patrol agents that they were on their way to a job at a hacienda on the Mexican side of the border. Tradesmen such as plumbers and electricians crossed the border all the time, coming and going. An hour later, Stark and the others crossed in one of the rental cars. The back was full of fishing equipment now, bought at one of the marinas on the U.S. side of the reservoir, along with Mexican fishing licenses. Finnegan, who was at the wheel, grinned up at the agents and commented, “I hear the catfish are really biting up around the Arroyo de Caballo.”