by Diana Palmer
CY PARKS WAS GRUMPY. He hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and he was groggy. Even after four years, he still had nightmares about the loss of his wife and five-year-old son in a fire back home in Wyoming. He’d moved here to Jacobsville, where Ebenezer Scott lived, more for someone to talk to than any other reason. Eb was not only a former comrade at arms, but he was also the only man he knew who could listen to the unabridged horror of the fire without losing his supper. It kept him sane, just having someone to talk to. And not only could he talk about the death of his family at Lopez’s henchmen’s hands but also he had someone to help him exorcise the nightmares of the past that he and Ebenezer shared.
The knock on the door came just as he was pouring his second cup of coffee. It was probably his foreman. Harley Fowler was an adventurer wannabe who fancied himself a mercenary. He was forever reading a magazine for armchair adventurers and once he’d actually answered one of the ads for volunteers and, supposedly, had taken a job during his summer vacation. He’d come back from his vacation two weeks later grinning and bragging about his exploits overseas with a group of world-beaters and lording it over the other ranch hands who worked for Cy. Harley had become the overnight hero of the men. Cy watched him with amused cynicism. None of the men he’d served with had ever returned home strutting and bragging about their exploits. Nor had any of them come home smiling. There was a look about a man who’d seen combat. It was unmistakable to anyone who’d been through it. Harley didn’t have the look.
None of the ranch hands knew that Cy Parks hadn’t always been a rancher. They knew about the fire that had cost him his family—most people locally did. But they didn’t know that he was a former professional mercenary and that Lopez was responsible for the fire. Cy wanted to keep it that way. He was through with the old life.
He opened the front door with a scowl on his lean, tanned face, but it wasn’t Harley who was standing on his porch. It was Ebenezer Scott.
Cy’s eyes, two shades darker green than Eb’s, narrowed. “Lost your way?” he taunted, running a hand through his thick unruly black hair.
Eb chuckled. “Years ago. Got another cup?”
“Sure.” He opened the door and let Eb in. The living room, old-fashioned and sparsely furnished, was neat as a pin. So were the formal dining room—never used—and the big, airy kitchen with not a spot of dirt or grime anywhere.
“Tell me you hired a housekeeper,” Eb murmured.
Cy got down an extra cup and poured black coffee into it, handing it across the table before he sat down. “I don’t need a housekeeper,” he replied. “Why are you here?” he added with characteristic bluntness.
“Did you keep in touch with any of your old contacts when you got out of the business?” Eb asked at once.
Cy shook his head. “No need. I gave it up, remember?” He lifted the cup to his wide, chiseled mouth.
Eb sipped coffee, nodded at the strength of it, and put the mug down on the Formica tabletop with a soft thud. “Manuel Lopez is loose,” he said without preamble. “We think he’s in the vicinity. Certainly some of his henchmen are.”
Cy’s face hardened. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he here?”
“Because Jessica Myers is here,” Eb replied. “She’s living with her young son and her niece, Sally Johnson, out at the old Johnson place. She got one of Lopez’s accomplices to rat on Lopez without giving himself away. She had access to documents and bank accounts and witnesses willing to testify. Now Lopez is out and he’s after Jess. He wants the name of the henchman who sold him out.”
Cy made an impatient gesture. “Fighting out in the open isn’t Lopez’s style. He’s the original knife-in-the-back boy.”
“I know. It worries me.” He sipped more coffee. “He had three, maybe four, of his thugs living in a rental place near Sally’s house. Two of them attacked her last night when her truck had a flat tire just down the road from them. It was no accident, either. They’ve obviously been gathering intelligence, watching her. They knew exactly where she was and exactly when she’d get as far as their place.” His face was grim. “I think there are more than four of them. I also think they may have the same sort of surveillance equipment I maintain at the ranch. What I don’t know is why. I don’t know if it’s solely because Lopez wants to get to Jessica.”
“Is Sally all right?”
Eb nodded. “I got to her in time, luckily. I broke a couple of bones for her assailants, but they got away and now the house seems to be without tenants—temporarily, of course. Have you noticed any activity on your northern boundary?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Cy replied, frowning. “All sorts of vehicles are coming and going. They’ve graded about an acre, and a steel warehouse is going up. The city planning commission chairman says it’s going to be some sort of production and distribution center for a honey concern. They even have a building permit.” He sighed angrily. “Matt Caldwell has been having hell with the planning commission about a project of his own, yet this gang got what they wanted immediately.”
“Honey,” Eb mused.
“That isn’t all of it,” Cy continued. “I investigated the holding company that bought the land behind me. It doesn’t belong to anybody local, but I can’t find out who’s behind it. It belongs to a corporation based in Cancún, Mexico.”
Eb’s eyes narrowed. “Cancún? Now, that’s interesting. The last report I had about Lopez before he was arrested was that he bought property there and was living like a king in a palatial estate just outside Cancún.” He stopped dead at the expression on his friend’s face. Cy and Eb had once helped put some of Lopez’s men away.
Cy’s breathing became rough, his green eyes began to glitter like heated emeralds. “Lopez! Now what the hell would he want with a honey business?”
“It’s evidently going to be a front for something illegal,” Eb assured him. “He may have picked Jacobsville for a distribution center for his ‘product’ because it’s small, isolated, and there are no federal agencies represented near here.”
Cy stood up, his whole body rigid with hatred and anger. “He killed my wife and son…!”
“He had Jessica run off the road and almost killed,” Eb added coldly. “She lived, but she was blinded. She came back here from Houston, hoping that I could protect her. But it’s going to take more than me. I need help. I want to set up a listening post on your back forty and put a man there.”
“Done,” Cy said at once. “But first I’m going to buy a few claymores…”
It took a minute for the expression on Cy’s face, in his eyes, in the set of his lean body to register. Eb had only seen him like that once before, in combat, many years before. Probably that was the way he’d looked when his wife and son died and he was hospitalized with severe burns on one arm, incurred when he’d tried to save them from the raging fire. He hadn’t known at the time that Lopez had sent men to kill him. Even in prison, Lopez could put out contracts.
“You can’t start setting off land mines. You have to think with your brain, not your guts,” Eb said curtly. “If we’re going to get Lopez, we have to do it legally.”
“Oh, that’s new, coming from you,” Cy said with biting sarcasm.
Eb’s broad shoulders lifted and fell as he sat down again, straddling the chair this time. “I’m reformed,” he said. “I want to settle down, but first I have to put Lopez away. I need you.”
Cy extended the hand that had been so badly burned.
“I know about the burns,” Eb said. “If you recall, most of us went to see you in the hospital afterward.”
Cy averted his eyes and pulled the sleeve down over his wrist, holding it there protectively. “I don’t remember much of it,” he confessed. “They sent me to a burn unit and did what they could. At least I was able to keep the arm, but I’ll never be much good in a tight corner again.”
“You mean you were before?” Eb asked with howling mockery.
Cy’s eyes widened, narrowed and suddenly he burst out laughing. “I’d forgotten what a bunch of sadists you and your men were,” he accused. “Before every search and destroy mission, somebody was claiming my gear and asking about my beneficiary.” Cy drew in a long breath. “I’ve been keeping to myself for a long time.”
“So we noticed,” came the dry reply. “I hear it took a bunch of troubled adolescents to drag you out of your cave.”
Cy knew what he meant. Belinda Jessup, a public defender, had bought some of the property on his boundary for a summer camp for youthful offenders on probation. One of the boys, an African-American youth who’d fallen absolutely in love with the cattle business, had gotten through his shell. He’d worked with Luke Craig, another neighbor, to give the boy a head start in cowboying. He was now working for Luke Craig on his ranch and had made a top hand. No more legal troubles for him. He was on his way to being foreman of the whole outfit, and Cy couldn’t repress a tingle of pride that he’d had a hand in that.
“Even assuming that we can send Lopez back to prison, that won’t stop him from appointing somebody to run his empire. You know how these groups are organized,” Cy added, “into cells of ten or more men with their chiefs reporting to a regional manager and those managers reporting to a high-level management designee. The damned cartels operate on a corporate structure these days.”
“Yes, I know, and they work complete with pagers, cell phones and faxes, using them just long enough to avoid detection,” Eb agreed. “They’re efficient and they’re merciless. God only knows how many undercover agents the drug enforcement people have lost, not to mention those from other law enforcement agencies. The drug lords make a religion of intimidation, and they have no scruples about killing a man and his entire family. No wonder few of their henchmen ever cross them. But one did, and Jessica knows his name. I don’t expect Lopez to give up. Ever.”
“Neither do I. But what are we going to do about Lopez’s planned operation?” Cy wanted to know.
Eb sobered. “I don’t have a plan yet. Legally, we can’t do anything without hard evidence. Lopez will be extra careful about covering his tracks this time. He won’t want anything that will connect him on paper to the drug operation. From what I’ve been able to learn, Lopez has already skipped town, forfeiting the bond. Believe me, there’s no way in hell he’ll ever get extradited from Mexico. The only way we’ll ever get him back behind bars again is to lure him back here and have him nabbed by the U.S. Marshals Service. He’s at the top of the DEA’s Most Wanted list right now.” He finished his second cup of coffee. “If we can get a legal wiretap on the phones in that warehouse once it’s operating, we might have something to take to the authorities. I know a DEA agent,” Eb said thoughtfully. “In fact, he and his wife are neighbors of yours. He’s gung-ho at his job, and he’s done some undercover work before.”
“Most of Lopez’s people are Hispanic,” Cy pointed out.
“This guy could pass for Hispanic. Good-looking devil, too. His wife’s father left her that small ranch…”
“Lisa Monroe,” Cy said, and averted his eyes. “Yes, I’ve seen her around. Yesterday she was heaving bales of hay over the fence to her horse,” he added in the coldest tones Eb had ever heard him use. “She’s thinner than she should be, and she has no business trying to heft bales of hay!”
“When her husband’s not home to do it for her…”
“Not home?” Cy’s eyes widened. “Good God, man, he was standing ten feet away talking to a leggy blond girl in an express delivery uniform! He didn’t even seem to notice Lisa!”
“It’s not our business.”
Cy moved abruptly, standing up. “Okay. Point taken. Suppose we ride up to the boundary and take a look at the progress on that warehouse,” he said. “We can take horses and pretend we’re riding the fence line.”
Eb retrieved high-powered binoculars from the truck and by the time he got to the stable, Cy’s young foreman had two horses saddled and waiting.
“Mr. Scott!” Harley said with a starstruck grin, running a hand absently through his crew-cut light brown hair. “Nice to see you, sir!” He almost saluted. He knew about Mr. Scott’s operation; he’d read all about it in his armchair covert operations magazine, to say nothing of the top secret newsletter to which he subscribed.
Eb gave him a measuring glance and he didn’t smile. “Do I know you, son?”
“Oh, no, sir,” Harley said quickly. “But I’ve read about your operation!”
“I can imagine what,” Eb chuckled. He stuck a cigar into his mouth and lit it.
Cy mounted offside, from the right, because there wasn’t enough strength in his left arm to permit him to grip the saddle horn and help pull himself up. He hated the show of weakness, which was all too visible. Up until the fire, he’d been in superb physical condition.
“We’re going to ride up to the northern boundary and check the fence line for breaks,” Cy said imperturbably. “Get Jenkins started on the new gate as soon as he’s through with breakfast.”
“He’ll have to go pick it up at the hardware store first,” Harley reminded him. “Just came in late yesterday.”
Cy gave him a look that would have frozen running water. He didn’t say anything. But, then, he didn’t have to.
“I’ll just go remind him,” Harley said at once, and took off toward the bunkhouse.
“Who is he?” Eb asked as they rode out of the yard.
“My new foreman.” Cy leaned toward him with mock awe. “He’s a real mercenary, you know! Actually went on a mission early this summer!”
“My God,” Eb drawled. “Fancy that. A real live hero right here in the boonies.”
“Some hero,” Cy muttered. “Chances are what he really did was to camp out in the woods for two weeks and help protect city campers from bears.”
Eb chuckled. “Remember how we were at his age?” he asked reminiscently. “We couldn’t wait for people to see us in our gear. And then we found out that the real mercs don’t advertise.”
“We were like Harley,” Cy mused. “All talk and hot air.”
“And all smiles.” Eb’s eyes narrowed with memory. “I hadn’t smiled for years by the time I got out. It isn’t romantic and no matter how good the pay is, it’s never enough for what you have to do for it.”
“We did do a little good in the world,” came the rejoinder.
“Yes, I guess we did,” Eb had to admit. “But our best job was breaking up one of Lopez’s cocaine processing plants in Central America and helping put Lopez away. And here he is back, like a bad bouncing ball.”
“I knew his father,” Cy said unexpectedly. “A good, honest, bighearted man who worked as a janitor just up the road in Victoria and studied English at home every night trying to better himself. He died just after he found out what his only child was doing for a living.”
Eb stared off into space. “You never know how kids will turn out.”
“I know how mine would have turned out,” Cy said heavily. “One of his teachers was in an accident. Not a well-liked teacher, but Alex started a fund for him and gave up a whole month’s allowance to start it with.” His face corded like wire. He had to swallow, hard, to keep his voice from breaking. The years hadn’t made his memories any easier. Perhaps if he could help get Lopez back in prison, it might help.
“We’ll get Lopez,” the other man said abruptly. “Whatever it takes, if I have to call in markers from all over the world. We’ll get him.”
Cy came out of his brief torment and glanced at his comrade. “If we do, I get five minutes alone with him.”
“Not a chance,” Eb said with a grin. “I remember what you can do in five minutes, and I want him tried properly.”
“He already was.”
“Yes, but he was caught and tried back east. This time we’ll manage to apprehend him right here in Texas and we’ll stack the legal deck by having the best prosecuting attorney in the state brought in to do the job. The Hart boys
are related to the state attorney general—he’s their big brother.”
“I’d forgotten.” He glanced at Eb. His eyes were briefly less tormented. “Okay. I guess I can give the court a second chance. Not their fault that Lopez can afford defense attorneys in Armani suits, I guess.”
“Absolutely. And if we can catch him with enough laundered money in his pockets and invoke the RICO statutes, we can fund some nice improvements for our drug enforcement people.”
They’d arrived at the northernmost boundary of Cy’s property, and barely in sight across the high-wire fence was a huge construction site. From their concealed position in a small stand of trees near a stream, Eb took his binoculars and gave the area a thorough scrutiny. He handed them to Cy, who looked as well and then handed them back.
“Recognize anybody?” Cy asked.
Eb shook his head. “None of them are familiar. But I’ll bet if you looked in the right places, you could find a rap sheet or two. Lopez isn’t too picky about pedigrees. He just likes men who don’t mind doing whatever the job takes. Last I heard, he had several foreign nationals in his employ.” He sighed. “I sure as hell don’t want a drug distribution network out here.”
“Neither do I. We’d better go have a word with Bill Elliott at the sheriff’s office.”
Cy shrugged. “You’d better have a word with him by yourself, if you want to get anywhere. I’d jinx you.”
“I remember now. You had words with him over Belinda Jessup’s summer camp.”
“Hard words,” Cy agreed uncomfortably. “I’ve mellowed since, though.”
“You and the KGB.” He pulled his hat further over his eyes. “We’d better get out of here before they spot us.”
“I can see people coming.”
“They can see you coming, too.”
“That should worry them,” Cy agreed, grinning.
Eb chuckled. It was rare these days to see a smile on that hard face. He wheeled his horse, leaving Cy to follow.