The Bleeding Edge

by William W. Johnstone

“Under arrest?” Hallie said, obviously flabbergasted. “What in the world for?”

  “We’ll decide that later after I’ve talked to the DA.” Lozano took hold of Stark’s arm and turned him toward the SUV. “Come on.”

  “Wait a minute! He’s my client!”

  “You can see him after he’s been booked.” Lozano opened the rear door and told Stark, “Get in.”

  “John Howard!”

  “It’s all right, Hallie,” he told her. “I’ll see you at the jail.”

  “But . . . but this is crazy!”

  “These days, it seems like everything else in the world is, too,” Stark said. “So I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Stark was booked into the jail in Devil’s Pass. Instead of putting him in the holding tank with the drunks, Sheriff Lozano had him placed in a cell by himself.

  “No need to put you on suicide watch, is there?” Lozano asked through the bars of the door after it slid shut and locked.

  Stark snorted and said, “Not hardly.”

  “Fine. You’ll have a chance to talk to your lawyer and post a bail bond in the morning. It’s too late to take care of that tonight.”

  Stark nodded. He sat down on the bunk and tested the mattress with his hand.

  “You may not know this, Sheriff,” he said, “but I’ve spent the night in places that were a whole heap worse than this.”

  Lozano started to turn away, but he paused and said, “You brought this on yourself, you know.”

  “I suppose you could look at it that way. But the way I see it, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Somebody had to help those folks at Shady Hills. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else.”

  Stark wasn’t sure that was completely true, though. He wasn’t certain anybody else would have been so blasted stubborn. His wife, Elaine, had told him more than once that he could give any mule in the world a run for its money when it came to hardheadedness.

  Lozano grunted and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” As he walked away from the cell his footsteps echoed from cinder-block walls painted an ugly, institutional green.

  Stark leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He hadn’t been frightened, but he’d been concerned about being placed in with other prisoners. It probably wouldn’t have been too difficult for the cartel to send somebody after him in those circumstances. Lozano must have known that, too. Stark was the sort of man who was willing to rely on himself and take his chances no matter where he found himself, but it didn’t hurt anything to decrease the odds against him.

  The lights dimmed but didn’t go out. He stretched out, rolled onto his side so that he was facing the wall, and went to sleep.

  By ten o’clock the next morning he was walking out of the jail a free man, at least for the time being, with Hallie at his side. The judge had set his bail at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but several bail bondsmen were champing at the bit to write the bond for him. Paying the bail for John Howard Stark was good publicity, Hallie had explained.

  Because Stark was news this morning. Big news.

  She showed him the huge headline on the local paper: BATTLE AT RETIREMENT PARK. Stark’s picture was on the front page, along with an even larger photo of the two burned-out vehicles. They really did look like something from a war zone, Stark thought.

  “What did they wind up charging me with?” Stark asked.

  “Inciting a riot, disturbing the peace, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted manslaughter,” Hallie said.

  “And bail was only a quarter of a million? I got off light.”

  “Oh, it’s not over. The DA hasn’t decided whether to charge you with manslaughter or murder in the deaths of those fourteen thugs.”

  “Wait a minute,” Stark said. “I didn’t kill all of them myself.”

  Hallie shook her head.

  “It doesn’t matter. According to the law of parties, you planned the whole thing, so you’re just as responsible for their deaths as whoever actually killed them.”

  “Which nobody really knows, since it was in the thick of battle.”

  “That’s right. But Jack Kasek and the other volunteer captains are going to be arrested and charged, too, under the same statutes.”

  “Blast it, that’s just not right!” Stark said.

  “No, it’s not,” Hallie agreed. “But from the looks of things, John Howard, you’d better get used to the insides of courtrooms and jail cells, because you’re going to be seeing a lot of them.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “You don’t have to tell me,” the president said as the chief of staff came into the Oval Office. “I saw it on the news for myself. That bastard Stark’s raising hell in Texas again.”

  “What I came to tell you, sir, is that the attorney general wants to see you.”

  “When?”

  The chief of staff hesitated, then said, “He’s outside now.”

  The president sighed.

  “All right. Bring him in. And you’re sitting in on the meeting, too.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  A minute later the three of them were alone in the Oval Office, two grim-faced men in front of the desk and another behind it. The president clasped his hands together and asked, “Do you think we need to bring federal charges for civil rights violations against Stark?”

  “I don’t see how we can avoid it,” the chief of staff said. “He masterminded this whole thing. Not only that, but the secretary of state has asked for a meeting with you as well. We’ve got the Mexican government raising hell because half a dozen of those dead men were Mexican nationals.”

  “In Texas illegally, I might add,” the attorney general said.

  The president waved that off and said, “What does that matter? For all intents and purposes, the border’s open anyway, and it’ll stay that way as long as the wetbacks are so good at getting phony Social Security cards, registering to vote, and voting for us.”

  Both of his subordinates winced.

  “You, uh, can’t use that word, sir,” the chief of staff said.

  “And you can’t condone voter fraud,” the AG added.

  The president snorted in disgust.

  “Are either of you secretly taping this meeting?” he asked.

  Both aides reacted with vehement denials.

  “Then don’t worry about my choice of words,” the president went on. “I know what I can say in public and what I can’t. As for the other, half the shining lights in our party never would’ve gotten elected in the first place without a little judicious ballot box stuffing, so let’s not be hypocrites among ourselves.” He looked at the attorney general. “I suppose you should launch a full-scale investigation right away—”

  “No, sir.”

  The president looked shocked that the attorney general had not only interrupted him but had disagreed with him as well.

  “Did you say no?”

  “We’re still hurting over that nerve gas business. Half the country hates us to start with, and the other half was pretty shaken when that news broke. Sure, we were able to spin it as one inexperienced politician breaking under the strain of the job, and there are quite a few people who have convinced themselves that it never even happened, that the right-wing extremists made up the whole thing. But Stark is still widely regarded as a hero. Back when he first came to Washington’s attention with that raid on the drug cartel in Mexico, there was an attempt to use the IRS to bring pressure on him. It had to be dropped because public opinion ran so high against it. All federal charges against him were dropped, in fact. I think we might be wise not to even bring it up this time.”

  “But for God’s sake, if he’s some rabble-rousing, right-wing racist, we have to do something!”

  The chief of staff said, “You know, I saw something on the Internet about how the Nazis surrendered the day after Stark was born and there had to be a connection.”

  “That’s a joke, for God’s sake!” the presiden
t burst out. “Anyway, that’s Chuck Norris. Stark wasn’t even born yet when World War II ended.”

  “That doesn’t change anything, sir,” the attorney general said. “There’s a certain folklore growing up around Stark. We’d be risking a big drop in the polls if we went after him.”

  Those words, “a big drop in the polls,” got through the president’s annoyance and shook him.

  “You think so?”

  “Definitely,” the chief of staff said.

  “What are the numbers this morning?”

  “Forty-five percent approval rating, sir.”

  “Well . . . it could be worse.” The president sighed. “All right. No federal charges against Stark.”

  “And it would probably be good if the local district attorney dropped any state charges against him, too,” the AG said.

  “Can you make that happen?”

  “Of course.”

  “So he gets off scot-free,” the president said bitterly. “He goes around acting like we’re the bad guys, and he gets away with it.”

  “For now.” The attorney general smiled. “But things always catch up to that sort in the end, sir.”

  “I suppose.” The president looked at the chief of staff and went on, “Tell the secretary of state to schmooze those damn Mexicans and get them to calm down. Promise them a few billion dollars more of aid or something. Whatever it takes.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The two men got to up to leave, but the president said to the attorney general, “Oh, by the way, I heard that one of your staffers passed away. My condolences.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was quite unexpected. Heart attack, you know.” The attorney general shook his head. “A real shame.”

  Stark could tell that Hallie had been crying as soon as he answered her knock on his front door that afternoon. Her eyes were red and puffy. But she managed to put a smile on her face as she said, “I’ve got some good news, John Howard.”

  “You don’t look much like it’s good news, whatever it is,” Stark told her. “Come in.”

  She wiped at her eyes as he closed the door behind her.

  “I know,” she said. “But this is because of something else. I’ll get to that. First, I wanted you to know right away that all the charges against you have been dropped.”

  Stark drew in a deep breath. He couldn’t have been more surprised.

  “Dropped?” he said.

  “Yes. The district attorney himself called to tell me. Also, he’s not going to pursue those more serious charges against you like he said this morning that he was.”

  “What in the world changed his mind?”

  “I don’t know,” Hallie said, “unless it’s the fact that there’s been an outpouring of support all across the country for you and the residents of Shady Hills.”

  “Yeah, I had to quit answering the phone because so many newspeople wanted to interview me. But that’s not all that’s going on,” Stark said. “Half the country may think we did the right thing by standing up to those cartel thugs, but the other half thinks we’re the thugs.”

  “Oh, John Howard. You’ve been reading the blogs again, haven’t you?”

  “I like to see what people are saying about me and my friends. Or at least I thought I did. I swear, you’d think that we went out last night and clubbed a bunch of baby seals instead of defending ourselves from bloodthirsty criminals.”

  “I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Hallie smiled again. “Anyway, that’s the good news.”

  “But that’s not all the news, is it?” Stark guessed.

  “No. Some of the people here in the park will be facing weapons charges. They didn’t have permits for their guns, or they’d let the paperwork lapse. They’ll be fined and have their weapons confiscated. The district attorney wouldn’t budge on that. I think he felt like he had to have something to show for all this.”

  “That’s a shame. I guess I should’ve checked with everybody and made sure their guns were legal.”

  “You couldn’t think of everything, John Howard. And it wasn’t your responsibility to do that.”

  Stark nodded. He and the other residents could pitch in to see to it that anybody who needed help with their legal problems got it.

  He said, “That’s still not all of it, Hallie. Those weapons charges might make you mad, but they wouldn’t make you cry. There’s something else going on.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded.

  “I got a call from a woman named Jennifer Wesley. She’s Josh Mumford’s sister.”

  Stark didn’t know who that was; then something jogged in his memory.

  “Your friend in Washington is named Josh. The one who works for the Justice Department. Did something happen to him?”

  “He . . . passed away last night. A heart attack.”

  “Aw, hell,” Stark said quietly. He moved closer to Hallie and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. He was somebody more important than just an old study buddy, wasn’t he?”

  “Well . . . there was a time that he was. I hadn’t seen him in years, but . . . we were pretty close, back in those days.”

  Stark drew her against him and put his arms around her. They stood there like that for a long moment with him comforting her as best he could.

  Something was nagging at his brain, though, and finally he said, “Hallie, you told me something a few days ago about this fella Josh hacking into some Justice Department computers . . . ?”

  She moved back a little and lifted her head so she could look up at him.

  “The same thought occurred to me. But you don’t think there could be any connection between that and . . .”

  “How sure was your friend’s sister that he died of a heart attack?”

  “I don’t think there was any doubt. When he didn’t show up for work this morning his office called him but didn’t get any answer. One of his coworkers went to check on him and found him sitting at his desk, in front of his computer. The computer was still on. It looked like he . . . like he was sitting there when the attack hit him and died before he could get up.”

  Stark nodded. “That’s probably just what happened. For a second there I just wondered, that’s all.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Hallie said. “I thought the same thing. But we don’t want to go looking for conspiracies where there aren’t any.”

  “No,” Stark said, “we don’t want to do that.”

  But despite his words, he wasn’t completely convinced. As soon as got the chance, he told himself, he was going to do some searching on the Internet himself and see what he could find out about the death of Josh Mumford.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “It’s vigilante justice, that’s what it is, plain and simple, and it’s illegal!”

  “You mean people don’t have a right to defend themselves in this country anymore?”

  “The people in that trailer park weren’t defending themselves. They ambushed those poor men.”

  “Some of those poor men, as you call them, actually were committing a crime. They were in this country illegally.”

  “Now you’re just splitting hairs. This country was built on immigration. Since when is wanting to better yourself and provide for your family a crime?”

  “Well, when you do it by entering a country illegally and smuggling drugs—”

  “There’s no proof of that.”

  “Every member of the cartel gang who was killed at Shady Hills had a record as long as your arm filled with violent charges against them. Some of them were suspected of multiple murders.”

  “Suspected, that’s the key word. In this country you’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

  “You’re considered innocent. That doesn’t mean you really are. And that doesn’t hold true for conservatives, does it? You consider them guilty just because of their political beliefs. You accuse them of being vigilantes, and yet you’re ready to lynch them for their so-called crimes.”


  “I never said anything about lynching anybody! Don’t you, of all people, put racist words in my mouth!”

  “Of all people? What does that mean? Oh, never mind, I understand. That’s your way of accusing me of being racist just because I stand up for people’s right to defend themselves against evil.”

  “It’s funny how this so-called evil seems to have brown skin in your eyes.”

  “Let me read you a list of names: Gomez. Rodriguez. Torres. Hernandez—”

  “If you’re reading off a list of the victims, you’re just proving my point for me.”

  “I’m reading a list of some of the residents of the Shady Hills Retirement Park. I can go on if you want. There are more than thirty names on this list. And since you brought up racism, how about these names: Medford. Wilson. Parker. Stanton. Bell.”

  “White people’s names.”

  “No. They’re all African-American. What about Trinh? Nguyen? Chang? Mujabar? All residents of Shady Hills Retirement Park.”

  “So it’s a freakin’ U.N. out there! What does that matter? They have guns!”

  “Which the Second Amendment gives them every right to possess. An amendment which has been under constant attack by you and your cohorts for decades now, but somehow you haven’t been able to get rid of it yet.”

  “They acted outside the law!”

  “Evidently not. The local district attorney has dropped all the charges against the residents except some weapons-related offenses having to do mostly with paperwork, and the Justice Department has declined to open an investigation of so-called civil rights violations.”

  “Just because certain people in Washington are scared to do what’s right and are basing their decisions on public opinion polls doesn’t mean those decisions are correct.”

  “Don’t you trust the opinion of the public?”

  “If we did that, we’d have anarchy!”

  “Instead of being ruled by a bunch of elitists who think they know better about everything from what you can give your kid to eat to how and when you should die.”

  “Well, what if the government really does know best?”