“Look,” he said.
An electric company truck was parked beside the pole. The lift on the back of the truck had just descended, and a man in coveralls was climbing out of it.
“Come on,” Parker said. He took off at a run toward the truck, reaching to the small of his back for his gun as he did so.
The coverall-clad man saw him coming, reached into one of the garment’s baggy pockets, and brought out a gun of his own. Parker darted to the side as the weapon blasted.
He sent a return shot toward the man at the truck, then had to duck behind a parked pickup as the man fired shot after shot while backing toward the truck’s cab. He yanked the door open, dived in, and the truck lurched into motion. Another man must have been inside at the wheel, keeping the engine running.
The agents’ SUV screeched to a stop beside Parker. “Hop in!” Ford called. He had gone back to get the vehicle rather than following Ford, a hunch telling him that they might have to give chase.
Ford floored the accelerator even before Parker had closed the door on the passenger side. Momentum swung it shut.
“How’d you know?” Ford asked as he took a corner at high speed. The power company truck was a block ahead. It wasn’t built for speed. The SUV, with its high-powered and specially-modified engine, was.
“I figured somebody might have seen us leaving the hotel with that laptop. Did you bring it with you, by the way?”
“Yeah, I ducked back in the room and got it. Might still be something salvageable on it.”
Parker nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Anyway, if they saw us with the laptop, they’d have to figure we’d try to find out what’s on it. They followed us out of Corpus to the motel.”
“They didn’t have any way of knowing that we plugged it into the wall.”
“No, not for sure, but it’s a reasonable assumption.”
Ford frowned. “They can put their hands on an electric company truck and cause a power surge to the motel just on the assumption that we might have the computer plugged in?”
“They didn’t have anything to lose if they were wrong,” Parker pointed out.
“Maybe not, but being able to mount an operation like that on almost zero notice means they’ve got a lot of pull, whoever they are. That sounds almost like something—”
Ford stopped short as he realized where his thoughts were going.
“Yeah,” Parker agreed, his face and voice grim. “It sounds almost like something we could do if we had to.”
Ford still had the SUV moving at a high rate of speed, weaving in and out of traffic, blasting through red lights, cutting into their quarry’s lead. The power company truck caromed off several parked vehicles as it took a couple of turns too fast. Then it roared onto the freeway frontage road, past a couple of strip shopping centers, and onto the freeway itself.
“He’s heading back to Corpus,” Ford said as he followed the truck onto Indian Point Bridge, which stretched for more than a mile over the waters of Nueces Bay. “That’s his mistake. He’s got nowhere to go while he’s on the bridge.”
With a screeching of tires and brakes, cars pulled over to get out of the way of the speeding truck and the pursuing SUV. Ford began to pull even with the truck, coming up on the driver’s side so the passenger couldn’t shoot at them.
The truck swerved toward the SUV, banging into an armored fender. Despite the SUV’s built-in protection, the truck had more weight behind it. The collision forced the SUV toward the railing.
Ford fought the wheel and brought the SUV under control again. He dropped back a little and said, “I’m gonna go around them and block the road. Keep the driver busy.”
“Will do,” Parker said as he lifted his gun.
Ford floored the gas pedal again and sent the SUV surging forward through the gap between the truck and the railing. Parker opened fire from his window, peppering the cab with bullets. He saw the driver hunched low in an attempt to avoid the gunfire.
The SUV roared past the truck, rocketing over the bridge now. Ahead, off to the left, loomed the World War II-era aircraft carrier, USS Lexington, now moored permanently at Corpus Christi as a floating museum.
Parker reloaded as Ford opened up a lead on the truck. When he was still a hundred yards or so from the end of the bridge, he slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel, sending the SUV into a sideways skid that brought it to a stop blocking all three lanes of traffic.
The two agents piled out of the vehicle and crouched behind it, guns leveled across the hood at the truck barreling down on them. They opened fire, concentrating their shots on the truck’s front tires, both of which blew with loud explosions. The truck slewed crazily back and forth on the bridge.
“Holy crap!” Ford exclaimed. “He’s not stopping!”
There was no time to move the SUV out of the way. All Ford and Parker could do was turn and run as the electric company truck continued toward the SUV, sparks shooting into the air now from the rims of the front wheels as they grated across the concrete.
The crash was spectacular. Both gas tanks exploded, sending a huge fireball into the air and making clouds of oily black smoke roll over the bay. The force was enough to shake the entire bridge and knock Ford and Parker off their feet.
As they picked themselves up, Ford said, “The laptop was still in there.”
“I know,” Parker said. “Nobody will get anything off of it now.”
“So they did what they set out to do. They just had to blow themselves up to do it.” Ford turned his head to look at the Lexington nearby, with its towering superstructure that had once been the target of Japanese pilots determined to crash their planes into it. “Like kamikazes …
In the underground bunker, a man sat in front of a computer, watching the flow of information from around the world. He leaned forward a little in his chair as a report about all the chaos in Corpus Christi, Texas, came in. He picked up a secure phone that rang in an office upstairs.
A man answered. The watcher told him what had happened, and then the man on the other end of the phone asked, “What about Trussell?”
“No word, sir. I assume he’s still out there somewhere.”
“Damn it. All they had to do was kill him and recover that laptop, then let those bunglers from the Agency take the blame”
“Yes, sir. But according to eyewitness reports, Parker and Ford didn’t have the laptop with them when they fled the scene of the crash on the bridge. It must have been in their vehicle. Our people have impounded the wreckage and are searching it now to confirm that. But I think you can tell the boss that part of it has been taken care of, at least”
“I’ll decide what to tell the boss,” the man on the other end said coldly.
“Yes, sir, of course.” The watcher took the chastisement in stride. Everything they did here was for the common good.
“Monitor the situation closely and keep me informed of any further developments. Any time, night or day, you understand”
“Yes, sir”
The watcher heard a sigh from the other end. “They may have destroyed the laptop, but Trussell knows everything that was on it. We have to find him, too, and shut him up for good.”
“Yes, sir,” the watcher said, but the connection was already broken. The other man had been talking to himself there at the end.
Upstairs, he left his office and went up another flight of steps to the second floor, to the residence. He went to a sitting room, where he knew he would find the man he was looking for.
He was there, all right, and he looked up and asked, “What is it, Geoff?”
“A report from Texas, sir. It appears that the laptop computer stolen by Earl Trussell has been destroyed.”
“What about Trussell himself?”
“I’m … sorry, sir. We had an operation set up to take care of Trussell in a manner that would provide culpability for Langley and deniability for us, but it was unsuccessful”
“Failure is unacceptable.” The voice w
as cold and hard. “I want that little weasel Trussell dead. I’ve got too much else on my plate right now to have to worry about him.”
“Yes, sir, of course, but you really shouldn’t, uh, put such sentiments into words.” He laughed. “Are you saying this place might be bugged, Geoff? This place?”
“Well, that’s not likely, of course, but it never hurts to be careful.”
“Don’t tell me about careful. I’ve been careful all my life. That’s how I got where I am today.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take care of this Trussell problem. The world doesn’t need to know about Casa del Diablo”
“No, sir.”
“I trust you’ll take care of it. “ The President of the United States looked in a mirror and straightened his tie. “Now, I’ve got that state dinner to go to.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President shook his head. “Why does everything seem to happen in Texas? Maybe we should just let the redneck bastards secede if they want to. Good riddance.” He smiled brilliantly, knowing that the media would fawn over him as usual. “How do I look?”
CHAPTER 13
“Well, that’s it,” Fargo Ford said as he closed the encrypted cell phone. “Mission over.”
Brad Parker stopped pacing the motel room floor and frowned at his partner. “They’re not even going to let us look for the guy.”
Ford shook his head. “Nope. We’re done. Stick a fork in us.”
“No thanks.”
“We don’t have any choice in the matter,” Ford pointed out. “We’ve been ordered back to Langley for debriefing. We’re supposed to catch a plane out of here tonight for DFW, then switch planes there and proceed straight on to Washington.”
“When does the plane from Corpus Christi leave?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“That gives us several hours,” Parker said.
“Several hours to do what?”
“Go back to that hotel and see if we can pick up the trail of our target.”
Ford shook his head, and yet he knew exactly how Parker was feeling. It was incredibly frustrating to go through everything they had, to survive the dangers that had faced them, and yet in the end everything they’d done had to be considered a failure. They didn’t have the target or the laptop that must have contained vital intel.
“After all that trouble at the hotel, if we go over there don’t you think they might be looking for us?”
“Really? Who got a good look at us?” Parker asked. “The target, and the two guys who were trying to kill him.”
“You’re forgetting about the security cameras,” Ford said. “By now the cops are bound to have studied that footage. They probably have our faces out there. Hell, we may even be on the news, for all I know.”
“If that’s true, don’t you think they’ll be watching for us at the airport?”
Ford’s frown deepened. “You’re right. And yet the orders were to catch that flight this evening.”
“Something’s not right here, Fargo. These people we’re up against… they know too much. They get things done too quickly.”
“Like we’re fighting our own people,” Ford mused.
“You said it, not me. But I can’t help but wonder.”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment, both of them obviously deep in thought. For years they had served their nation, putting their lives in jeopardy again and again with little thought for their own safety, traveling the wild places and the back alleys of the globe in search of America’s enemies. Neither man was the sort to make speeches or wave the flag. They were pragmatists who believed they were doing a job worth doing well.
But in recent years, they had seen unwelcome changes creeping over the country. They had watched as the intelligence community became more and more political, and those politics increasingly leaned to the left. They had seen operations fail because the higher-ups had tied the hands of the men in the field. They had seen important information ignored because it conflicted with some bizarre notion of political correctness, sometimes with tragic results. They had seen power concentrated more and more in an elitist minority centered in Washington, with branches in the national news media in New York and in the entertainment capital of Hollywood. To those people, the honest opinions of the vast majority of Americans just didn’t count anymore.
As much as Ford hated to admit it, he didn’t really know who he was working for anymore … or if he could trust them.
“You’re talking about going off the reservation,” he said now to Parker. “I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.”
“I’m talking about getting to the bottom of this and finding out the truth. If we’re being set up, I want to know about it.”
Ever since Parker had been hurt on that mission several years earlier, he had been more reckless, more of a loose cannon. It was like he knew he was living on borrowed time anyway and didn’t care about his own safety anymore.
But that didn’t mean he was wrong about what was going on here. Something didn’t smell right to Ford, too.
“All right,” Ford said after a moment. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around the hotel and see if we can find out anything. We’re gonna have to be careful how we do it, though.”
“Whatever you say,” Parker replied with a nod. Ford got to his feet. “I saw a discount store down the road….”
The two men who got out of the pickup in the hotel parking lot an hour later didn’t look much like the Hawaiian shirt-wearing tourists who had been there earlier in the day. Now they wore boots, jeans, shirts with silver snaps instead of buttons, and Stetson hats. The pickup was a plain F-150 with nothing to distinguish it. They had stolen it from the outer reaches of the parking lot at the discount store, the location indicating that it probably belonged to one of the employees there and might not be missed for a while. They had altered the numbers on the license plate with electrical tape, anyway. That wouldn’t stand up to close observation … but most people didn’t pay much attention to anything except their own lives.
The hotel had a small parking lot in front for people who were coming and going, but guests were supposed to park in the attached garage. The first floor of the garage was valet parking. Ford walked in there while Parker stepped into the lobby to talk to the concierge.
In a perfect Texas drawl, Ford asked the Hispanic parking attendant, “I’m lookin’ for a friend of mine, little fella about ’yay tall.” He held out a hand to indicate a man in the range of five feet, four inches. “Kinda long blond hair, little mustache. Y’all happen to have seen him?”
The attendant shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t think so. Have we been parking his car? I wouldn’t have seen him if we haven’t.”
“Well, he usually uses valet parkin’ when it’s available, so I thought there was a chance.”
“Are you sure he’s registered here?”
Ford rubbed his jaw and grimaced. “I thought this was the place he said, but could be I’m wrong about that.”
The attendant pointed to a side door leading into the hotel. “Why don’t you go inside and ask at the desk? I’m sure they can help you.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” Ford nodded and headed for the door. He paused and looked back. “Say, I heard there was some sort of big trouble here earlier today.”
The attendant rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I never saw so many cops and ambulances in all my life. Somebody fell from a sixth-floor balcony and splattered himself all over the concrete next to the pool.”
Ford winced. “Man. That’s a bad way to go.”
“Yeah, well, this guy was dead when he hit, they say. He’d been shot.”
“That’s terrible. I didn’t know things like that happened in a place like this.”
“They never have before now.” The attendant shook his head again. “I’m thinkin’ about quitting.
But I need the job, so I probably won’t.”
“I hear you, b
rother,” Ford said. “I don’t like my job, either, but everybody’s got to do something, right?"
He grinned, waved, and went on into the hotel, through the side door into a corridor that led past several meeting rooms to the lobby.
Parker was coming down that same corridor toward Ford, evidently looking for him. Parker wasn’t moving fast, but Ford saw the glitter of excitement in his eyes.
“You got something?” Ford asked in a low voice as they met.
“The concierge thought she remembered a guy matching the target’s description getting into a cab earlier this afternoon, right around the same time all the trouble happened upstairs.”
“That must’ve been him,” Ford breathed. “The concierge didn’t remember the number of the cab, did she?”
“No,” Parker said, and Ford wasn’t particularly disappointed. That would have been too much luck to hope for. “But there are only two cab companies in town.”
“Then that’s our next stop,” Ford said.
And now that they had the scent, he wasn’t even thinking anymore about how they weren’t exactly following orders.
CHAPTER 14
It took a while and several bribes, but eventually Ford and Parker had the address where a cab driver named Mamoud Hajabanian had dropped off a fare he’d picked up at the hotel at approximately the right time that afternoon. Mamoud didn’t remember what the guy had looked like, though. All Americans were the same anyway, according to him.
Mamoud had driven over the bay bridge and delivered the fare to a motel in a strip of low-rent motels, sleazy dive bars, and tourist trap restaurants practically in the shadow of the Lexington. The motel had cabins painted pink, each with a plastic flamingo stuck in the ground just outside the door. Swamp coolers chugged in the windows. The place looked like it had been built in 1947 and hadn’t been remodeled or updated since, although the coat of pink paint appeared to be relatively fresh.
The office was an eight-by-eight cubicle with a sand-gritty linoleum floor and a counter topped by a sheet of bulletproof glass that had an opening at the bottom where credit cards or cash could be slid through. Ford would have been willing to bet that most of the place’s business was done in cash.
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