The Bleeding Edge

by William W. Johnstone

  He stayed on his feet and fired the rifle again. This time his bullet punched into the man’s torso about halfway between his belt buckle and his chin. His gun sagged. Ben shot him again, this time in the head. The man fell in the loose sprawl of death.

  Señor Espantoso wasn’t so dreadful anymore.

  Stark came to his feet and hurried to check both bodies. They were dead, all right, a richly deserved death as far as he was concerned.

  From the doorway, Ben asked, “Should I go help Reuben and the others?”

  “No,” Stark said. “We’re gonna get these kids out of here.” He looked at the seven surviving prisoners, three boys and four girls. They were tied hand and foot, but they weren’t blindfolded or gagged. Stark told them, “We’re here to help you. You’ll be all right. Ben, help me cut them loose. We’re going out the window.”

  That would probably be safer than trying to fight their way back through the house. From the sounds of the shooting, there was still quite a battle going on.

  The prisoners were still whimpering and crying, semi-hysterical from fear. As Stark drew his knife, several of them cringed as if they thought he was about to stab them.

  “It’s all right,” Stark told them, trying to keep his voice as calm and reassuring as possible. “We’re gonna get you out of here. You’ll be safe soon.”

  They were bound with plastic restraints. Stark began cutting them loose. Ben had opened a pocketknife and was doing likewise. Stark kept talking in an attempt to stop the youngsters from panicking as soon as they were free. They needed to stay together and under control while they were fleeing from the ranch.

  “Mr. Stark!” That was Miranda Livingston’s voice. “Mr. Stark!”

  “In here!” Stark called to her. The shooting in the house had slacked off a little, although it was still going on.

  Miranda appeared in the doorway, a .38 revolver in each hand.

  “Reuben sent me to look for you,” she said. “We didn’t find the kids, but I see you did.”

  Stark nodded, glad that she was here.

  “Come help these young ladies,” he told her.

  The female prisoners were still wearing their cheerleader outfits, although the garments had been ripped up so much they were little more than rags. Stark figured the girls had been assaulted, probably numerous times, and they would probably struggle for years to recover from this ordeal, if they ever did.

  He was glad those two sons of bitches who’d been in here were dead. No matter how long they burned in hell, though, it wouldn’t be as long as they deserved.

  Miranda hurried over and slipped one of the revolvers into a holster clipped to her belt. She helped the girls to their feet, saying, “Don’t worry, you’re going to be all right now.”

  Stark switched off the light in the room, then went to the window and pushed back the heavy drapes. It was dark enough now that he couldn’t see much outside. He unlocked the window, shoved the glass up, and knocked the screen out. The house had only one story, so it wasn’t very far to the ground, only a few feet, an easy drop.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Ben, can you find your way back to the river in the dark?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Ben said.

  “You lead the way, then. Boys, you follow Ben here.” Stark paused. “You’re wounded, Ben. You all right to do this?”

  “You bet I am,” the man from Dry Wash answered without hesitation. “Come on, fellas. I’ll get you back to where we left our cars.”

  “Miranda, you take the girls next, and I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “What about Reuben and the others?” she asked.

  “I’ll let them know we’ve got the kids,” Stark said. “I’ll catch up to you.”

  Holding the .45 ready, he edged up to the door while Ben and Miranda were hustling the kidnapping victims out through the window. Miranda’s presence seemed to have calmed down not only the girls but the boys as well. Stark was glad she had come along.

  He looked out and saw that the hallway was clear except for the bodies of the cartel gunmen who’d fallen there earlier. Stark hurried back to the big sitting room and looked across it to the other corridor. Dave Forbes was coming along it supporting a wounded Reuben Torres. Reuben’s left leg was stained with blood.

  “Reuben, Dave!” Stark called. “We got the kids! Everybody get out the best way you can and head for the rendezvous!”

  Reuben waved the gun in his hand to show that he understood. The shooting on the other side of the house had stopped, but it was still going on outside, although a lot more sporadically than it had been a few minutes earlier.

  Stark turned and ran back up the hall to provide a rear guard for Ben, Miranda, and the escaping teenagers. He threw a long leg over the windowsill, levered himself through the opening, and was about to drop to the ground when muzzle flame suddenly bloomed in the darkness to his right. Somewhere up ahead, a female voice cried out in pain. Stark thought it was Miranda, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He leaped to the ground and opened fire. More tongues of flame stabbed through the shadows at him. He dropped to a knee as bullets whined past his head. A girl screamed.

  The muzzle flashes retreated. Stark could tell the attackers were running away now. He leveled the .45, aiming at the sound of their rapid footsteps on the hard-packed ground, but before he could fire again, Miranda cried, “Mr. Stark, don’t shoot! They’ve got one of the girls!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Stark leaped to his feet and ran toward the location of Miranda’s voice. He called her name softly, and she said, “Here!” He could hear the pain that drew the word taut.

  Dropping to a knee beside her, he said, “How bad are you hit?”

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. “A bullet nicked me on the hip and knocked me down, and then one of them came out of nowhere and grabbed one of the girls. Help me up and we’ll go after them.”

  Stark took hold of her arm and hauled her to her feet, but he said, “You’re getting out of here. I’ll find the girl. Can you move fast enough to catch up with Ben?”

  “She won’t have to,” Ben said as he loomed up out of the darkness. Stark almost shot him but held off on the trigger.

  “Where are the kids?” Stark asked tersely.

  “I ran into Keith and Luiz and some of the other fellas and sent ’em on to the river with them. We’re missin’ one, though.”

  “I know. I’m going to find her now. Take Miranda. Get her back safe.”

  “We can come with you and help—” Miranda began.

  “You’re both wounded,” Stark said. “Now go! We’re wasting time!”

  He set off at a lope in the direction the fleeing gunmen had taken. Miranda called after him, “Be careful! There were three of them!”

  A faint band of red light, the vestiges of the day, lingered just above the western horizon. Stark trotted toward it, and as he ran he reloaded the .45, his movements smooth and efficient even though he was working by feel.

  Three against one wasn’t very good odds, especially when the three were bloodthirsty cartel thugs, with a hostage to boot. But this was a job Stark needed to finish. He might not ever do anything else in his life, but this he was going to finish.

  Like a runaway freight train, somebody came out of the darkness and slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. Stark twisted, knowing that if the attacker landed on top of him, the weight might break his ribs and incapacitate him. That was the same as a death sentence. He hit the ground, but whoever had crashed into him landed beside him.

  Stark rolled and came to his feet. His eyes were adjusted well enough to the darkness by now that he could make out the huge shape of the other man. The big, bearlike figure was about to lunge at him again.

  Stark’s memory flashed back to the first night at Fred Gomez’s mobile home when the three men had come looking for Antonio. He didn’t think it was likely that two of the cartel foot soldiers would be this massive, so he took a chance and said, “He
y, Chuckie.”

  The man stopped short and said, “Huh?”

  Stark shot him three times, the blasts coming so close together they almost sounded like one. At that range, even somebody as big as Chuckie couldn’t stand up to three .45 rounds in the chest. He flung his arms in the air and went over backward, dying without a sound.

  “Chuckie!” a man screamed not far away.

  Stark whirled toward the cry, but the man was already shooting. A bullet gouged a furrow in Stark’s upper left arm and knocked him halfway around. He didn’t know where the girl was, so he hated to return the fire, but if he stood there and let the gunman kill him, he couldn’t do her any good anyway.

  So he triggered twice at the muzzle flashes and heard a shout of pain. Flame split the darkness again. Stark felt the impact of the bullet and rocked back a step. He fired again and then his strength suddenly deserted him. Without even realizing he had fallen, he found himself on his knees.

  A rail-thin shape sauntered toward him, silhouetted for a second against the last of the light from the sunset. Jalisco. The gunslinger, Stark thought. Nacho and Chuckie were dead, but Jalisco was still alive.

  “You and me, old man,” Jalisco said as his gun came up.

  Stark dived forward and fired. At the same time he thought he heard another shot somewhere nearby. Jalisco staggered to the side. The gun in his hand roared and spat fire. Stark triggered again and again until Jalisco spun off his feet and fell to the ground with a heavy thud that told Stark he wouldn’t be getting up.

  Stark’s ears rang from all the blasts. His voice sounded odd to him as he called, “Girl! Girl, are you there?” He wasn’t sure he would be able to hear her, even if she answered.

  But then she came stumbling out of the shadows, whimpering, saying, “Please don’t kill me, please, please . . .”

  Stark struggled to his feet. He reached out for her and said, “It’s all right, it’s all right.” His hand fell on her shoulder and she flinched and started to pull away, but he went on, “I’ve got you now, you’ll be all right.”

  “You’re . . . you’re hurt!”

  He felt the wet heat of blood on his side and his arm, but he was steady enough on his feet, especially when she slipped an arm around his waist to help him.

  “Come on,” Stark said. “We need to get to the river.”

  “How . . . how will we find it in the dark?”

  Stark looked up at the sky. The stars had come out.

  “We’ll find it,” he said. “There’s somebody up there showing us the way.”

  They didn’t have to steer by the stars the whole way to the river. With a throbbing whup-whup-whup from their blades, helicopters with bright searchlights flew over the landscape, lighting it up almost as bright as day. Flashing red and blue lights appeared in the distance. It wasn’t long before men in helmets and flak jackets were swarming all over the area between the river and the cartel’s headquarters, rounding up Stark, his friends, and the rescued teenagers like they were stray cattle.

  Stark didn’t mind being rounded up, either. Everybody who was wounded needed medical attention as soon as possible, himself included. Almost before he knew what was happening, he found himself in the back of an ambulance, speeding toward Devil’s Pass. He was headed for the hospital. . . .

  But he knew that as soon as he was patched up, he’d be headed for jail. He didn’t mind. Seven of those kids were still alive who wouldn’t have been otherwise. Whatever the government did to him now, it would be worth it as far as he was concerned.

  Anyway, he figured to have the last laugh on them.

  He was mighty curious, though, if he had imagined that other shot that had helped him bring Jalisco down. And if it was real, if he hadn’t imagined it, then who had fired it? One of the men who’d come with him? If that was the case, why hadn’t the fella stuck around to help?

  Stark would have pondered it some more, but the drugs coursing into his veins through an IV were starting to take hold, and he let the welcome darkness claim him.

  “He did it again? Again? I don’t frickin’ believe it!”

  “Well, he didn’t actually invade Mexico this time, sir,” the chief of staff said. “The battle took place on American soil.”

  “What about the hostages?”

  “One was killed, but the other seven are all right. In remarkably good shape, in fact, and unfortunately, the press managed to get to some of them before we could slap a lid on the thing. They all talked about how Stark and his friends were like the Navy SEALs or something from a video game. And of course those interviews are all over the Internet by now. That genie’s not going back in the bottle, sir.”

  “Screw the genie,” the president said. “What are we going to do about Stark? Surely he and his friends broke dozens of state and federal laws!”

  “Yes, sir, undoubtedly. They also have the Mexican government so upset there are going to be protests lodged for a week. But he’s also widely regarded as a huge hero.”

  “Again.”

  The chief of staff sighed.

  “And it certainly doesn’t help matters that one of the bodies found at the ranch was identified as a known Islamic terrorist and member of Hezbollah. But if it’s any comfort, sir, you’re the not the first president Stark’s caused trouble for.”

  “It’s no comfort at all,” the president snapped. “He’s in the hospital, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the custody of the local authorities?”

  “That’s right. He hasn’t been charged with anything yet, but the sheriff down there isn’t going to turn loose of him any time soon.”

  “The district attorney in that county . . . he’s one of us, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The president nodded and said, “Let him know, unofficially, of course, that if he doesn’t charge John Howard Stark with murder, he’ll never be elected again.”

  “What about the people who were with Stark?”

  “I don’t give a damn about them,” the president said with a shake of his head and a dismissive wave. “They’re not important. But whatever it takes . . . John Howard Stark is going to prison.”

  Ryan set aside the gun he was cleaning and answered his phone.

  “You bastard!”

  “That’s no way to talk,” Ryan said. “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Wait!”

  Ryan didn’t break the connection.

  “You’ve seen the news? You know what happened?”

  “I know all about it,” Ryan said.

  “You could have prevented this if you’d just killed Stark weeks ago like you were supposed to. Like you were paid to!”

  “Only the first half of my fee. I wouldn’t dream of trying to collect the other half until the job is done.”

  The man on the other end of the connection heaved a sigh.

  “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you why you’ve waited so long. You’d just give me that crap about how everything has to be done at the right place and the right time.”

  “It’s not crap if you live your life by it,” Ryan snapped. “If that’s all you’ve got to say—”

  “No. You can still do the job.”

  “What’s the point? Stark’s going to be tried for murder. I saw that on the news, too.”

  “As long as he’s alive, he’ll be stirring up trouble. Mark my word for it. Even in prison he’ll do something to embarrass this administration. Some people are just too damned larger than life. But he’s not larger than death.”

  Ryan had his own reasons for it, but he said, “Don’t worry about it, amigo. I give you my word. John Howard Stark will never see the inside of a prison cell.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  It was the trial of the century. It didn’t matter that the century was less than a quarter finished. All the TV pundits and newspaper editorialists and celebrity bloggers said so. Some people even proclaimed it to be the trial of the millennium, which had bare
ly gotten started. The trial had its own Twitter hash tag. “Who is John Howard Stark?” was a question on Jeopardy! There would never be a bigger legal spectacle.

  Which was all a bunch of bull as far as Stark was concerned.

  Hallie had begged him to bring in some high-powered firm of defense attorneys. Stark refused, saying that he had faith in her and she was plenty good enough as far as he was concerned. She told him she wanted to seek a change of venue.

  “You won’t get a more sympathetic jury in San Antonio or Dallas or Houston,” he said, adding with a shrug, “Fort Worth, maybe. But here is fine. This is my home now, and we’ll have the trial here.”

  The district attorney made a perfunctory offer of a plea bargain: plead guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder and get a life sentence. That was better than lethal injection.

  When Hallie passed along the offer to him, Stark just shook his head.

  So they went to trial, and the prosecution called witness after witness: survivors from the cartel who had been granted immunity; the students who had been rescued, testifying as hostile witnesses because they’d had to be subpoenaed and threatened with prosecution themselves to get them into court, where their testimony might hurt Stark’s case; and Reuben, Ben, Miranda, and the others who had gone in there with Stark to free the prisoners, also testifying under subpoena and the threat of jail time. Stark had told them just to tell the truth. He wasn’t just about to be responsible for any of his friends being charged with perjury. Besides, he knew that if they didn’t cooperate with prosecution, the district attorney would come after them next, and he would come with all legal guns blazing.

  “John Howard, this is crazy!” Hallie whispered to him while they sat at the defense table during a brief break. “I’m doing what I can, but there’s just too much evidence against you. Pleading self-defense when you’re tackling some would-be car thieves is one thing, but when you assemble an armed group and launch an invasion—”