He heard a whooshing sound behind him.
The world blew up.
That was what it seemed like, anyway. The pavement jumped under Chuck’s feet and a wave of concussive force slammed into his back. The tremendous impact lifted him off his feet and threw him forward.
Chuck had no idea how long he flew through the air, cocooned by heat. It seemed like a long time.
Then the ground came up and hit him and even though he was mostly stunned, he was aware that he rolled over and over. That went on for so long he figured he’d been blown all the way to the other end of Main Street.
When he finally came to a stop, though, he lifted his head, blinked his stinging eyes, and saw that he was lying on the road less than a block from the blazing inferno that had been his police cruiser.
Clearly, the grenade’s explosion had ignited the gasoline in the car’s tank. The cruiser’s body had blocked the shrapnel from the grenade, though, saving his life.
Chuck couldn’t hear anything except a hum. The blast had deafened him, maybe permanently.
He wasn’t aware that he was still under attack until he saw bullets chipping up the pavement a few yards away from where he sprawled.
The man who had fired the grenade launcher, along with his companion, had come around the burning cruiser and now ran toward Chuck, firing pistols as they charged.
Chuck’s muscles didn’t want to work at first, but his brain kept screaming at them that they were about to die. Reflexes, instinct, and training kicked in. Chuck reached down to his hip for his weapon, a 9 mm Glock.
Luckily, the gun was still in the holster where it was supposed to be. Chuck drew it as he rolled onto his belly. He gripped his right wrist with his left hand to brace it as he returned fire, just as he had practiced on the range.
Like a lot of young men in West Texas, Chuck had grown up taking potshots at jackrabbits and coyotes. At this moment he was scared almost to the point of hysteria, but muscle memory was his friend.
He drew a bead, squeezed the trigger, and saw one of the attackers jerk back as the slug from the Glock punched into his chest. The man stumbled and fell.
A bullet kicked up dust and concrete fragments close to Chuck’s head. He rolled again, this time on purpose, and lunged to his feet. The Glock erupted again and again as he ran for the cover of a parked car.
More gun-toting men were coming down the street toward him. Chuck thought at first they were Hispanic, then realized they weren’t from this part of the world at all.
His mind flashed back to news broadcasts he had seen, footage that came from countries in the Middle East where angry men who looked just like these yelled and waved burning U.S. flags and chanted about death to America.
The town was under attack by just such a mob.
Fuego was being invaded.
And Chuck was smart enough to know he couldn’t stop an invasion by himself.
Behind him, only about ten feet away across the sidewalk, was the mouth of a narrow passage between buildings. He turned and dashed into it, feeling as much as hearing the bullets that whipped past his head. The welcome gloom of the passage swallowed him up. When he reached the end of it he cut left along the alley that ran behind the buildings.
He had to get back to the police station, he thought, and tell Raymond to call in all the other officers. Hell, they were going to have to get help from the Rangers or even the National Guard.
Fuego was at war again, and this time it wasn’t with a neighboring town’s football team.
Andy Frazier had a semi-private room in the hospital on the south side of Fuego, but the other bed was empty at the moment. The hospital was fairly small, and most patients who had anything seriously wrong with them usually wound up being transferred to hospitals in El Paso or Midland/Odessa.
Since nobody else was in the room at the moment, Jill had gotten onto the bed beside him, and they were making out. Jill rubbed her hand over his groin through the sheet, and Andy’s hand was under her shirt, heading for her left breast, when the door opened and a big shape loomed there.
“I know what you guys were doin’,” Ernie Gibbs said with a grin as Andy and Jill hastily put a little distance between each other.
“Gibby, what are you doing here?” Andy asked the team’s starting right offensive tackle and backup defensive end. Also probably his best friend.
“Just wanted to see how you were doin’,” Gibby said. His close-cropped hair was so fair it was almost white. “When are they gonna let you out of this place?”
“Tomorrow, maybe, the doctor says.”
Jill slid off the bed and unobtrusively rearranged her shirt.
“When can you get back to school?”
“Don’t know,” Andy said. “Maybe in a week or so?”
“Your leg’s not, you know, healin’ up miraculously or somethin’?”
Andy shook his head and said, “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Dang. That means we’ll have to finish out the season with Pete Garcia at quarterback. He’s a pretty good kicker, but he’s no Andy Frazier at QB.”
“Well, you’ll all just have to do your best.”
“I know.” Gibby chuckled. “But hey, we already ruined McElhaney’s perfect season, didn’t we? I don’t really care if we win another game.”
“Oh, man, don’t say that. We can still make the playoffs . . . if we don’t lose another game.”
“Yeah, I don’t see that happening,” Gibby said. “You need anything? Want me to sneak in a six-pack for you?”
“I’m sure that would go over real well.”
“All right, then. I’ll let you get back to what you were doin’.” Gibby leered. “I’m sure Jill was takin’ care of you real—”
Jill had started to blush, but evidently she forget about being embarrassed when something boomed in the distance, clearly audible even through the hospital room’s closed window.
“What in the world was that?” she exclaimed.
“Sonic boom?” Gibby suggested with a frown.
Andy said, “That wasn’t a sonic boom. You hardly ever hear those anymore, and anyway, that’s not what it sounded like.”
“Well, something blew up, that’s for sure.” As Gibby started toward the door, he went on, “I’ll go find Chuck. He’s on duty this morning. He’ll know, if anybody does.”
Gibby’s older brother Chuck, who had also played football for Fuego High, was one of the town’s half-dozen police officers. He was a good guy and had been known to turn a blind eye to some of the things the current team got into, like the time he’d caught them drinking out at the reservoir.
“I’ll come by and see you tomorrow if I can,” Gibby threw over his shoulder as he left the room.
Once the big lineman was gone, Andy said to Jill, “Go over there and open the window, would you?”
“What’s wrong? Do you need some air?”
“Seems like I keep hearing something else,” Andy told her.
She went to the window and raised it. Even under the circumstances, Andy couldn’t help but notice how good her butt looked in the tight jeans.
She had a worried expression on her face as she turned back toward him.
“I hear it, too,” she said. “Some sort of popping noise . . .”
Andy’s heart suddenly began to pound harder. It was like what he felt when the game was on the line, but even worse.
“That’s not popping,” he said. “Those are gunshots. A lot of gunshots.”
Between the explosion and the gunfire, he knew something bad was happening in Fuego.
As one of the town’s cops, Chuck Gibbs might well be right in the middle of whatever it was.
And Chuck’s little brother Ernie—Andy’s best friend Gibby—had gone to look for him. Big, good-hearted Gibby . . .
Who would probably waltz right into disaster before he realized just how much trouble he was really in.
Fuego had five churches: Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Christian, and Ch
urch of Christ. Anybody who belonged to some other denomination had to go elsewhere to worship.
Even though church attendance had been dropping steadily ever since those running the government had decided that their so-called love for tolerance and diversity didn’t extend to the Christian faith, resulting in official treatment that ranged from benign neglect to outright hostility and harassment, the churches in Fuego still put people in the pews every Sunday. Other folks might be willing to give up their religion, but not these West Texans.
Randall Harper, who was pastor of the First Baptist Church—which was also the only Baptist church in Fuego—was approaching the home stretch of his sermon about forgiveness. It was a little longer than some of his sermons. He didn’t have to worry about wrapping up and getting everybody home by noon today, since the Dallas Cowboys didn’t play until later in the afternoon.
Although that wasn’t nearly as much of an issue these days, when the Cowboys had pretty much been mediocre for the past three decades. It was getting harder to find somebody who remembered when they were actually good. Tom Landry and Roger Staubach were just names in a football history book now.
Randall tried to force his mind back onto what he was saying. That was one of the hazards of being a veteran preacher. Once you’d written your sermon and practiced it a few times, you could deliver it without paying much attention. Under those circumstances, a fella’s thoughts tended to stray.
The sound of an explosion somewhere not far off jolted Randall back to the here and now. He stopped in mid-sentence. Many of the people in the congregation had jumped at the sound. A loud murmuring started.
Randall caught the eye of one of the deacons standing at the back of the church by the doors and nodded to the man, hoping he would take the hint to go and see what was going on.
The man returned the nod and vanished through the sanctuary doors.
Randall lifted his hands and said, “It’s all right, folks. Brother Winston’s gone to see what that was. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The church’s music director and youth minister, Mark Corder, had gotten up from where he was sitting on one side of the platform and wandered over toward the pulpit.
“That didn’t sound like nothing, Brother Randall,” he said. “I hear something else. Sounds like trucks.”
“The volunteer fire department truck, maybe?” Randall suggested. The explosion could have been the result of a gas leak, he supposed.
All he knew for sure was that he had lost control of this worship service. Everybody was talking worriedly now, and they weren’t going to shut up until they found out what was happening outside the church.
Randall looked over at Mark and said, “Maybe we should sing a hymn or something—”
At that moment, the doors at the back of the auditorium burst open. Winston Cramer, the deacon Randall had sent to check on the situation, charged into the church yelling, “Run! Everybody run! Look out—”
A chattering sound ripped through the air, and Winston’s body came apart in a grisly spray of blood and shredded flesh. The bullets tearing through him flung him forward to land facedown on the carpet runner between the sections of pews.
Screams filled the church as armed men poured through the doors behind Winston. Some had pistols, some had shotguns, some had automatic weapons. They opened fire on the congregation, slaughtering men, women, and children as those innocents leaped to their feet in fear-stricken panic. The invaders moved inexorably up the center aisle, splattering the pews on both sides with blood and shredded flesh.
Horrified, Randall gripped the sides of the pulpit and stared in shock at the terrible carnage. An odd thought flashed through his mind.
The First Baptist Church of Fuego had been founded in 1880, when bands of Apache Indians still strayed up out of the Big Bend now and then and raided the isolated ranches and settlements. Randall remembered reading in the church history that the first pastor had delivered his sermons with a six-gun lying on each side of the pulpit, flanking his Bible. The men of the congregation had brought their rifles to services with them, too, just in case of trouble.
Randall wished he had a couple of those six-shooters right now.
Not that they would have done much good against such an overpowering, heavily armed force.
All he had was his faith and the Word of God. He grabbed his Bible, held it aloft, and shouted, “Stop! Stop this madness! In the name of the Lord—”
One of the intruders raised his weapon from the family of four he had just cut down in a welter of gore. Fire flickered from the gun’s muzzle as the man wielding it screamed, “Death to the infidels! Allahu akbar!”
Randall felt the bullets punching into his body. He staggered back as beside him Mark Corder’s head flew apart from a hail of bullets fired by another of the killers. The Bible slipped from Randall’s fingers and thumped to the platform.
As his knees folded up and he fell, he sent a last desperate prayer for his soul heavenward.
And as death claimed him, he added a prayer that God would take vengeance on these unholy monsters who had invaded His house and murdered His people.
CHAPTER 15
“You two know each other?” Travis Jessup asked as Alexis Devereaux glared at Stark. She seemed to be annoyed by the fact that he kept on smiling pleasantly at her.
“We’ve met,” Stark said. “And of course I’ve seen her on TV many times.”
“And me, too, of course,” Jessup said. “You’ve seen me, haven’t you?”
The newsman had introduced himself to Stark a few minutes earlier when Stark came into the reception room outside George Baldwin’s office. He had stopped at a restroom along the way to the office.
Anyway, Alexis wanted to meet with Baldwin, not with him, Stark reasoned, so he didn’t horn in on their conversation.
It was clear from her expression now that she wasn’t happy he was here.
Stark had known who Jessup was, and Jessup had recognized Stark, too. Very few in the news media were fond of John Howard Stark. Most of them considered him a crazed, violent, right-wing vigilante.
The only exceptions were a couple of rogue cable networks that dared to swim against the tide of liberal swill dished out by the rest of the media as “objectivity.”
Stark meant ratings, though, and that was more important than ideology, so all the networks had covered his previous clashes with the Mexican drug cartels operating in partnership with Islamic terrorist organizations, as well as his part in the bloody fiasco at the Alamo caused by political correctness gone amok.
Because of that, Jessup ignored the fact that Stark hadn’t answered his question and suggested, “Why don’t we get the two of you to sit down together for a dialogue about the situation here at the prison? I’m sure it would be very instructive for our viewers.”
“I don’t think so,” Alexis replied coldly. “Mr. Stark and I really don’t have anything to say to each other. Besides, he’s hardly an expert on prisons and the judicial system . . . other than being arrested a few times.”
“But never charged with anything,” Stark pointed out.
“Only because for some reason unfathomable to me, you have a few friends in high places.”
Stark shrugged and said, “A few friends in low places, too, to quote Garth Brooks.” He turned to Jessup and went on, “But Ms. Devereaux is right. I’m no expert. I wouldn’t have anything to add to the discussion.”
Alexis said, “Phillip Hamil is in town. You should find him and see if he’d like to come on with us.”
“He is? That would be excellent. I’ve interviewed Dr. Hamil a couple of times. I’m sure he’d be glad to cooperate with us.”
Stark didn’t doubt it. Hamil struck him as a person who liked being the center of attention . . . just like Alexis.
It might be amusing to watch those two trying to upstage each other, he thought.
Alexis turned to George Baldwin, who had followed her out of the office, and said, “I suppose we s
hould go ahead and start our tour now, Warden.”
“By all means,” Baldwin said. “I’ll be happy to show you around the prison.”
Alexis’s tone sharpened as she said, “I don’t care about the rest of the place, just wherever you have those political prisoners locked up.”
Baldwin looked like he wanted to argue again about whether the terrorists were actually political prisoners, Stark thought, but he didn’t say anything.
Stark also noticed that Travis Jessup had made an unobtrusive gesture toward the two people with him. The tall, bearded man made some adjustment to the equipment he carried, and the attractive, ponytailed woman with the camera lifted it to her shoulder. Stark figured she was already recording, and so was the soundman.
From here on out, everything that happened would be documented.
In a firm voice, Baldwin said, “I’m certainly willing to show you what you want to see, Ms. Devereaux, but I think it’s only fair that you let me show you the rest of the facility, too. After all, there’s a lot more to Hell’s Gate than just the one wing you’re concerned with. There’s also the story of what an economic boon this facility has been to the citizens of the county.”
Alexis looked equally stubborn, but she said, “All right, if that’s where you’d like to begin, perhaps you can tell me why Hell’s Gate was scheduled to be closed until those prisoners were transferred here from Guantanamo and other, even more shadowy military prisons?”
Stark could tell that the question surprised his old friend. Baldwin’s jaw clenched and a little muscle jumped in it for a second before he said, “I don’t know where you heard that rumor—”
“It’s not a rumor. The federal government’s contract with the Baldwin Correctional Facility wasn’t going to be renewed when it expires next year. Without that contract, the prison would have to close. But now that you’re housing those political prisoners here, the government is willing to keep the place open indefinitely. The government is paying you back for your shameful complicity in this matter.”
“Any time a government contract is up for renewal, there are going to be negotiations,” Baldwin said stiffly. “I assure you, nothing has been settled regarding any of this. And to be blunt, Ms. Devereaux, it’s not really any of your business, either.”
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