“Tell me the whole thing.”
For the next few minutes they did, with Finley doing most of the talking. Grayson found most of the story irritating— he didn’t like incompetence, and these two never should have allowed themselves to be discovered that way—but some of it was interesting.
“Who was the young man with Brannock?” he asked.
“We have no idea,” Finley said. “Brannock called him by name once. I believe it was Kyle.”
“Kyle . . .” Grayson repeated. “Brannock’s file says that all the ranch hands working for him are Hispanic. Immigration looked into it to see if any of them are undocumented, in case we needed to use that against him, but amazingly, they’re not. Maybe this man was one of his relatives.” Grayson waved the hand that held the drink and went on. “I’ll find out, but it’s not really important, I don’t imagine. Did you at least finish the readings you were supposed to take?”
Both men seemed to squirm a little, even though they didn’t actually move. Finley said, “I have most of the water samples I need. We weren’t able to complete the seismological readings, however.”
“I was just about to when Brannock and his buddy jumped us,” Todd added, sounding defensive again.
“You can finish up with all that once we’ve seized the land,” Grayson said. “It doesn’t really matter what you find. The project is going ahead anyway.”
With a worried frown, Finley said, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to proceed until we’ve nailed down all the parameters. There could be ecological damage. There could even be a threat to the human population. If anything went wrong, we could be talking about a disaster of catastrophic proportions.”
Grayson tossed back the rest of his drink and smirked.
“We’re talking about Texas,” he said. “After all this time, the stubborn bastards still vote for Republicans. So who gives a damn?”
Chapter 22
Kyle and G.W. were quiet as G.W. drove back to the ranch house. Kyle didn’t know what his grandfather was thinking about, but his mind was full of a mixture of anger and worry.
The anger was because of the outrageous treatment G.W. was receiving at the hands of the federal government. The idea that they could just come in and take away the land that had been in the Brannock family for generations, first with phony tax charges and now with some crazy story about Spanish land grants, made Kyle furious.
At the same time, despite his own checkered past, he had never taken on the federal government. His scrapes had always been with local law enforcement agencies, like the cops in Sierra Lobo.
If you got the feds mad at you, there was a good chance you’d wind up disappearing in a black hole somewhere, never to be seen again, especially in these days of what was essentially one-party rule on the federal level.
The governor of Texas, Maria Delgado, was a Republican, Kyle recalled, and had clashed frequently with the Democratic administration in Washington. So far she seemed to be holding her own in that struggle. Kyle wondered if it would do any good to appeal to her.
He would have to bring up that possibility with G.W., he decided, and with Miranda, too, the next time he talked to her.
Thinking about Miranda made him realize that he was eager to see her again. He would be glad when she was back from El Paso, hopefully with the injunction that would stop the Internal Revenue Service in its tracks.
Of course, it might not matter. Even though everybody was afraid of the IRS—and rightfully so—in this case the Bureau of Land Management’s planned seizure of the valley struck Kyle as an even bigger threat.
It was certainly more mysterious, that was for sure. And a little sinister . . .
G. W. broke into Kyle’s gloomy musing by saying, “I’m glad you were out there with me tonight, son. When the odds are against you, it makes a difference, havin’ somebody you can count on to back you up.”
“I’m not sure anybody’s ever thought of me as somebody they can count on.”
G.W. looked over at him and said, “How you see yourself isn’t necessarily the same way everybody else in the world sees you. Try to remember that.”
Kyle nodded. He wished that what his grandfather had just said was true . . . but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
Roberto Quinones, G.W.’s foreman, was waiting for them on the porch when they got back. The stocky, middle-aged man had a rifle across his knees. He stood up and came down the steps to meet them.
“Roberto, did you plan on sitting up all night?” G.W. asked him.
“If I needed to,” Quinones said with a nod. “I knew there was a chance you and Kyle would not be back tonight, so I thought it best to stay alert. With as many enemies as you seem to have these days, señor . . .”
He left the statement unfinished.
“Did anything happen while we were gone?”
“No. Everything was quiet as could be, thank the Blessed Virgin.”
“Good,” G.W. said, “because it looks like we’ve got more enemies than we even knew about. More than just the dadgum IRS.”
The moon had risen by now, and its silvery light revealed the frown that creased Roberto’s forehead.
“What do you mean, señor?”
“The Bureau of Land Management is after the valley now, too.”
“Madre de Dios,” the foreman breathed.
G. W. told him about the encounter with the two BLM agents and the wild story Finley had spun about a clause in an old, forgotten Spanish land grant making the ranch federal property.
“That cannot be true, señor,” Quinones declared emphatically. “If it were, surely someone would have found it before now.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Kyle said. His grandfather and Roberto turned to look at him, and both of them seemed a little surprised, as if they wouldn’t have expected him to come up with any kind of theory to explain this sudden flurry of trouble.
“Well, get on with it,” G.W. said.
“Those guys from the BLM have been around for a while, right? You said you’ve spotted them sneaking around before.”
G.W. nodded and said, “Yeah, Roberto and the boys saw ’em first, several weeks ago.”
“So this effort to seize your ranch has been in the works for a while, by the BLM as well as the IRS. Sounds to me like some good, old-fashioned rivalry between the two bunches.”
G. W. scratched his jaw as he frowned in thought.
“You mean they’re competin’ to see who’s gonna ruin me first?”
“That’s the way it looks to me.”
“Yeah, but why?” G.W. swept an arm out to indicate their surroundings. “Just to get their hands on this ranch? I understand why it’s so important to me, but how come it means enough to two different government agencies that they want to destroy me over it?”
Kyle could only shake his head and say, “Now that’s one I can’t answer, G.W.”
San Francisco
Ben Gardner limped slightly as he crossed the airport terminal. He had wrenched his knee when he vaulted over that stone wall at the hotel in Manila. The blast from the rocket fired by the drone had collapsed the wall on top of him, too, fortunately not breaking any bones but leaving him bruised and sore.
Of course, this was hardly the first time he had been knocked around during the course of a mission for the Company.
This wasn’t actually a mission, though. The terminally ill Chinese man had approached him with information. Gardner hadn’t gone looking for it.
What he’d found on the tiny USB drive Pao Ling had given him had come as more of a shock than it should have, Gardner supposed. He tried to be nonpartisan most of the time—domestic politics weren’t really a concern in his job, or at least they shouldn’t have been—but it would have taken a blind man not to see the way things had been going in Washington in recent years. Gardner’s eyesight was just fine.
So he had laid low in a Company safe house in Manila for a few days while he tried to figure out wha
t to do next.
Normally, he would have reported to his handler and sent the file from the drive through secure channels, but he wasn’t sure that was the best idea this time. There was a question of whom he could trust.
He decided the best method for figuring that out was the old-fashioned way.
He wanted to look people in the eye while he was talking to them.
Because of that lack of trust, he figured he would be better off not reaching out to his usual sources of help. Manila was one of the many world capitals where he had stashed emergency caches of cash and documents over the years. Thinking that he would catch a flight from there to the States and fly with one of his phony passports, he left the safe house and started toward the emergency drop site, a shoe repair shop on a rather shabby side street.
The bell over the door rang as Gardner entered the shop. There were several pairs of shoes in the front window that were for sale, but they had a layer of dust on them showing that they hadn’t been touched for quite a while.
No customers were in the place, and no one was behind the counter. But a moment later, an old Filipino man pushed past a curtain that hung over the entrance to a back room. His name was Ferdinand, Gardner recalled, just like the former dictator many years earlier—or the flower-sniffing bull.
Gardner had done a favor for Ferdinand one time, a favor involving the old man’s grandson, drugs, and a smuggler who wanted the young man to work for him. Gardner had paid a visit to the smuggler, and since then the man hadn’t come anywhere near Ferdinand’s grandson.
Because of that, the old cobbler had been more than happy to agree to Gardner’s request that he hang on to a sealed package until Gardner showed up to reclaim it. If more than five years went by without the American paying a visit to the shop, Ferdinand was supposed to open the package and do whatever he wanted with the contents.
The old man had sworn a solemn oath that he would protect the package with his life. Gardner had assured him that that level of devotion wasn’t required to pay the debt. But Gardner was confident the money and the documents would still be there at the shop.
Ferdinand greeted him with a smile, as always.
“Benjamin,” he said, speaking his native language, “I wondered when you would be coming by to visit with me again.”
“My work keeps me busy,” Gardner answered in fluent Tagalog. “Much to my regret. How is your grandson?”
“Doing well in school. No more troubles, thanks to you, my friend. He is thinking about becoming a doctor. Can you imagine that? The grandson of a humble cobbler, a doctor.”
“I wish him the best,” Gardner said. “Now—”
“You came for the package you left with me.”
“That’s right.”
Ferdinand turned to a shelf on the wall behind the counter. It was crowded with shoeboxes with no lids. On the end of each box, a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it had been taped.
The old man didn’t have to check the numbers. He knew exactly which box to reach for. He pulled it out from under several others that appeared identical and set it on the counter.
Inside was the package wrapped in brown paper and sealed with tape.
“No one has bothered it,” Ferdinand told Gardner.
“I didn’t think they would have.” The American took the package out of the box and reached in his pocket for a knife to cut the tape.
That was when a taxi crashed into the front window, spraying shattered glass everywhere. The thin wood and plaster of the wall was no match for the speeding vehicle. Its front end surged toward Gardner.
Instinctively, he threw himself out of the way. The fender brushed his hip as the taxi went past.
The car hit the counter and splintered it. The only thing that saved Ferdinand was the fact that he had jumped back, tripped, and fallen through the doorway. The taxi lurched to a halt just short of where he lay.
Gardner had the package in his left hand. In his right was the knife he had planned to use to cut the tape.
Now he flicked the blade open with a practiced twist of his wrist as two men leaped from the taxi’s front seat. Both were Filipino, squat, ugly, vicious-looking men. Hired killers, Gardner had no doubt. They both wore khaki trousers and golf shirts, but Gardner figured neither of them spent much time on the links.
They came at him from different angles. They might not be top pros, but they weren’t amateurs, either. A swipe of the knife made one man retreat, but the other got close enough to land a brutal punch to Gardner’s ribs.
Gardner grunted and stumbled to the side. He caught his balance and slashed the blade at the man who had hit him. That allowed the other one to charge in as he flicked out a blade of his own.
Gardner felt cold steel burn a fiery line across his side. The wound wasn’t deep, nothing more than a scratch, but it stung. Gardner feinted low, then speared the point of his knife into the man’s upper arm. He tried to twist toward the second man, but he knew he might be too late....
The would-be killers had forgotten about Ferdinand. The old man rose up behind the ruined counter clutching a big revolver in both hands. Gardner didn’t know where Ferdinand had gotten such a hogleg or if he could aim it properly.
Ferdinand dispelled any doubt by squeezing the trigger. Flame licked from the revolver’s muzzle. The second attacker went down like he had been punched in the chest by a giant fist.
That left just one man for Gardner to deal with. The thug was wounded, which slowed his responses enough for Gardner to slip past his defense and bury the knife in the man’s throat. He ripped it to the side and leaped back to avoid the fountain of blood that spurted from the man’s ruined throat.
The man collapsed and bled out in a matter of heartbeats.
The other man was dead, too, with a scorched bullet hole welling blood in the center of his shirt pocket.
Somewhere not too far away, police sirens clanged.
“Go out the back,” Ferdinand told Gardner urgently. “When the police arrive I will tell them these men stole that taxi, crashed it into my shop, and tried to rob me. Such things are not uncommon in this neighborhood.”
“And they’ll think you killed both of them?” Gardner said.
“There will be none to claim otherwise.”
The old cobbler had a point there. Gardner shrugged and said, “Thank you, Ferdinand.”
“Our accounts are square now . . . almost. If you ever need help again . . .”
“I know who to call,” Gardner said. He shoved the package inside his coat, put away the knife, and clambered through the wreckage until he could make his way through Ferdinand’s back room and out into a filthy alley.
He knew the attack was no attempted robbery. Somebody had sent those two men after him. Whoever had sent in that drone to kill Pao Ling had figured out that Gardner was still alive and might have the information Pao had given him. They had picked up his trail, probably when he left the safe house, and organized this hasty attempt on his life.
He was going to have to drop out of sight and stay that way as much as possible until he got home and turned everything over to somebody who would know what to do with it. If they picked him up again and had time to make the proper preparations, it might be him they sent a drone after next time.
Knowing that, Gardner had called on every bit of tradecraft he possessed. He had changed his appearance as much as he could, shaving his head and subtly altering his features with makeup and a couple of rubber prosthetics he carried for just such a problem. The picture on one of the fake passports matched that look. With that and the cash, he’d been able to buy a ticket on a nonstop flight to San Francisco. . . .
Which was where he found himself now, unsure of his next move. Normally, he would be glad to be home again.
Unfortunately, as sickening as the thought might be, there was a good chance home was now where his deadliest enemies lurked....
Chapter 23
For somebody like Kyle who didn’t work at a
job with regular hours, Monday was just another day of the week.
This one was a little different, though, because on this particular Monday there was a chance he might see Miranda Stephens again.
It was crazy for him to feel that way, he told himself sternly as he ate breakfast by himself in the kitchen. Despite their late night the previous evening, Kyle’s grandfather was long since up and out somewhere on the ranch, tending to whatever needed doing.
Kyle had meant to get up early, have breakfast with G.W., and find out what he could do to help. But not surprisingly, he had overslept.
At least he could clean up after himself, he decided. G.W.’s breakfast dishes were in the sink. Kyle washed them, along with his own, and put them in the drainer.
Then he went outside to see if he could find something else that needed to be done.
Years ago, G. W. had put in a vegetable garden near the barn by making half a dozen sets of rectangular wooden frameworks that were four feet by six feet on the sides, as well as six inches deep. He had filled those frameworks with topsoil to form raised beds in which were planted tomatoes, green beans, red and yellow peppers, two different kinds of squash, and corn. Those vegetables grew better in the topsoil than they would in the more sandy soil found here in the valley.
That sandy soil supported two large beds of watermelon and cantaloupe, though. When Kyle was a kid, nothing had tasted much better to him than a good yellow meat or black diamond watermelon fresh out of the patch.
Now he saw several of the women who were married to some of G.W.’s ranch hands picking vegetables from the raised beds. Kyle walked over to them and asked, “Can I give you a hand, ladies?”
One of the women made a shooing motion and said, “No, señor, you have more important things to do.”
“As far as I know, I don’t have anything to do.”
“Señor Brannock said you were looking after the place today, in case more men from the government came to take it away.”
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