The world held its breath. If nothing happened soon, the news cycle would move along and there would be something else for the cable networks to yammer about twenty-four hours a day.
“Governor Delgado wants me to come to Austin,” Miranda told Kyle Wednesday evening as they sat on the porch with G.W. “She didn’t say exactly what it’s about, but I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with the land grant.”
“Maybe they’ve found something that proves it’s a phony,” Kyle said.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Miranda said with a nod. “If it is, then maybe this long nightmare will be over.”
G.W. rocked back and forth slowly as he said, “They’ll just come up with somethin’ else.”
Kyle and Miranda turned to look at him. Kyle said, “You mean some other excuse to try to seize the ranch?”
“Yep. It’s pretty obvious by now that they want it—danged if I know why—and they’re not gonna stop at anything to get their hands on it. Anyway, even if the governor’s got proof the land grant is fake, what’re you gonna do with it?”
“Shout it from the rooftops,” Miranda said. “Spread the news as far and wide as I can through the media.”
G. W. grunted.
“The government’ll claim it was all a misunderstandin’,” he said, “and the press will downplay the whole thing until everybody forgets about it. Then they’ll spring some new claim, and the whole thing’ll start over again.”
“Well, you’re sure a pessimist this evening,” Kyle said.
“Just tryin’ to be realistic,” G.W. insisted. “But I could be wrong. Lord knows, I have been plenty of times before. And don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’re doin’, Miranda. I know that if there’s really a way out of this, you’re more likely to find it than anybody else.”
“I’m glad you have that much faith in me, G.W.,” she said. “I hope I can justify it.” She turned to Kyle. “Do you want to come to Austin with me?”
“Of course, I do,” he answered without hesitation. They had become closer than ever the past couple of days as they spent most of their time together. “But I can’t.”
“Don’t stay on my account,” G.W. told him.
“I’m not.” Kyle grinned. “I just want to be here to see it when Grayson gets his butt handed to him again. I missed it the last time.”
“And it’s a good thing,” G.W. said. “If you’d been there, you might’ve jumped right in.”
“Dang right I would have.”
“That wasn’t the deal I made with Grayson.”
Miranda said, “You’re lucky those other agents honored that deal. They could have opened fire.”
G.W. sighed and said, “Yeah, I know. There’s a part of me that still wishes everybody else would just clear out and leave me here to face this by myself. It’s my ranch, after all. At least it is until I’m gone.” He looked over at Kyle. “Then it’ll be your spread, son. I don’t have anybody else to leave it to.”
“Now, don’t start talking like that,” Kyle told him. “You’re gonna be around for a long time yet.”
That brought a laugh from G.W. He said, “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m old. No matter what happens with the government, I don’t have that many more years left in this world. I don’t plan on dwellin’ on the fact, but there’s no point in denyin’ it, either.”
“Right now let’s just concentrate on keeping the BLM off your land,” Miranda suggested. “Governor Delgado’s sending a helicopter for me in the morning. I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” G.W. said as he got to his feet. “Right now I’m sorta tired. Reckon I’ll go on in and let you young people enjoy the rest of the evenin’ out here.”
Kyle knew his grandfather was going inside so he and Miranda could be alone. He appreciated that consideration, too, and wasn’t going to argue with G.W. about it.
There was no telling how long Miranda was going to be gone—or what might happen while she was in Austin—so he wanted to enjoy the time they had together.
The helicopter arrived a little before nine o’clock the next morning, setting down not far from the ranch house. Miranda, who had gone back to her apartment in Sierra Lobo several days earlier and packed up enough things for an extended stay at the ranch, waited until the dust had settled and then left the house carrying an overnight bag.
Kyle and G. W. stood on the porch watching her go. Kyle had already said his good-byes to her and still seemed to taste her kiss on his lips. Both men waved as she paused in the chopper’s doorway and lifted a hand in farewell to them.
The rotors began to turn again, and a moment later the helicopter lifted off and zoomed to the east. Kyle had a lump in his throat as he watched while it dwindled to a tiny dot in the sky and then disappeared.
“She’ll be back, son,” G.W. said. “Don’t worry.”
“I know,” Kyle said. “But will we still be here?”
“One way or another, I will be,” G.W. said with grim determination.
They went back in the house, and a short time later G.W. announced that he was going out to check on his stock.
“Those cows don’t know a damned thing about politics,” he said, “and if they did, they wouldn’t care. Somebody’s still got to look out for ’em.”
“Roberto and the regular hands have been doing that,” Kyle pointed out.
“Yeah, and I trust those fellas completely. But I like to lay my own eyes on things, too. Want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Kyle said. “There’s nothing going on here.”
Less than a minute later, he had reason to regret saying that. He figured he must have jinxed things.
He and G.W. had just stepped outside to go get in the pickup when they saw dust boiling up from the road. Somebody was coming from the direction of the gate, and in a hurry, too.
“Damn it,” G.W. said. “That looks like trouble.”
Kyle knew that prediction had to be right.
A moment later one of the jeeps used by the defenders raced up to the ranch house. The driver called to them, “Somebody’s coming! Lots of somebodies!”
“Let’s get out there,” G.W. told Kyle. They ran to the pickup.
When they were in the truck, speeding toward the gate, G.W. took his phone from his pocket and handed it to Kyle.
“See if that gizmo’s workin’,” he said.
“No service,” Kyle reported. “Just like before.”
Cell phone service had mysteriously reappeared after the confrontation with Grayson, but now it was gone again and that was yet another indication of bad trouble on the way, thought Kyle.
Men were crowded up to the gate and fence when they got there. They jumped out of the pickup and hurried to join the others. Kyle peered along the road to town and saw a dark mass of vehicles rumbling toward them.
“Those look like trucks of some sort,” G.W. said.
“They’re troop transports,” Kyle said, remembering his days in the army, relatively brief though they had been. “They’re going to war against us, G.W.”
With a sigh, G. W. said, “Never thought I’d see the day when American troops would be used like this.”
“Wait a minute,” Kyle said, frowning. “I’m not sure they are. Something’s not right about those trucks. . . .”
As the vehicles came closer, he thought he realized what it was. He asked for a pair of binoculars, and one of the men thrust some into his hands. He raised the glasses to his eyes and peered through them.
“Those aren’t American trucks,” Kyle reported a moment later. “They’ve got the United Nations insignia on them, and they’re flying United Nations flags.”
“Good Lord,” G.W. muttered.
The trucks, more than a dozen of them, didn’t pull up on the side of the highway next to the fence. Instead, they circled out into the open country on the other side of the road, swinging around wide so that they came to a stop pointed toward the fence
where Kyle, G.W., and another six or seven men stood tensely.
Troops began to pour from the backs of the trucks. They wore fatigues and bright blue helmets.
“Son . . . of... a . . . bitch,” G.W. said slowly with heartfelt passion. “That fella in the White House did it. He sicced the damn UN on us.”
“That’s sure what it looks like,” Kyle agreed. He focused the binoculars on the uniformed men scurrying around and got another shock. “That’s not all, G.W. It looks to me like every one of those soldiers is Chinese.”
Chapter 55
The troop transports weren’t the only UN vehicles on their way to the ranch. Over the next hour, armored assault vehicles arrived and moved into position across the highway. G. W. watched in astonishment and asked, “What the hell’s next? Tanks?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Kyle said.
No tanks showed up, though. Kyle supposed they should be thankful for small favors. He estimated that at least two hundred Chinese troops in United Nations uniforms were on hand. A number of them armed with automatic weapons formed a picket line along the front of the UN position and stood there staring impassively across the highway at the defenders.
“Hold your fire,” G.W. told the men with him. “Whatever those varmints are plannin’ to do, we don’t want to jump-start it. Let’s see how the hand plays out.”
Once all the Chinese troops were in position, a tense, expectant silence settled over the landscape. Kyle figured something else was bound to happen, and a short time later, it did.
A black SUV appeared on the highway, coming toward the ranch. Kyle said, “They’re bound to have the road closed off in both directions to move that many troops around, not to mention they wouldn’t want any witnesses to this. So whoever that is, the UN forces let them through.”
“You know who it is,” G.W. said. “Only one son of a bitch it could be.”
Kyle nodded.
No one along the fence was the least bit surprised when the SUV came to a stop in front of the gate and Slade Grayson stepped out of it.
Grayson was back in his sunglasses and expensive suit. As he sauntered toward the fence with his usual arrogance, Kyle thought that what he could see of the man’s face looked a little puffy, no doubt from all the cactus needles that had been stuck in it a few days earlier.
If the wounds still bothered Grayson, though, he didn’t show any signs of it as he stopped a few feet on the other side of the gate and rocked back and forth a little on his toes, obviously quite pleased with himself.
“I told you I’d be back, Brannock,” he said.
“I never doubted it for a second,” G.W. told him.
“As you can see, I’ve brought some men with me this time who won’t hesitate to open fire on you if you keep defying the government.” Grayson gestured toward the Chinese troops, then turned his head and called, “Colonel Ling!”
One of the blue-helmeted soldiers approached. His spine appeared to be as stiff as a steel rod, and his face was set in hard, flat lines, like stone.
“Colonel, please explain your mission to Mr. Brannock and his friends,” Grayson said.
“Certainly,” Ling replied in unaccented tones. “The president of your country has requested assistance from the United Nations in quelling domestic terrorism. This peacekeeping force is here to assure that international law is followed and that dangerous, terroristic activities will be put to an end in this region.”
“You see us engagin’ in any terroristic activities, old son?” G.W. drawled. “We’re just standin’ here . . . on my private property, I might add.”
“By defying a lawful order of your government, you are in violation of international law,” Ling said. “I call upon you to cease this illegal behavior and surrender to Mr. Grayson.”
G.W. shook his head and said, “That’s not gonna happen.”
As if Ling hadn’t even heard what G.W. said, the colonel went on. “You will be given a grace period in which to comply with this order. If you fail to do so, all appropriate action will be taken to ensure that you do.”
Grinning, Grayson said, “What the colonel means, Brannock, is that you’ve got until tomorrow morning to get the hell off this ranch . . . and if you don’t, we’ll blast you and all your friends right off the face of the earth.”
Miranda was impressed when she was ushered into the office of Governor Maria Delgado. Not with the office itself, which was furnished rather functionally, but with the grace and strength of the woman who occupied it. The governor shook hands warmly with Miranda and waved her into a comfortable brown leather chair in front of some bookshelves.
A stocky, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair sat in another chair like the one where Miranda took a seat, and Governor Delgado settled down in a third one. She smiled and said, “Ms. Stephens, this is Dr. Anthony Zara. He’s been heading up the team that examined the land grant at the heart of the federal government’s attempt to seize Mr. Brannock’s ranch.”
“Hello,” Miranda said to Dr. Zara. “I’m familiar with your work, doctor. I would have approached you to enlist your expertise, if Governor Delgado hadn’t beaten me to it.”
Zara nodded. He seemed a little stuffy, thought Miranda, but that was to be expected in a university professor with a worldwide reputation as a historian and archeologist.
“I’m glad I was consulted,” he said. “This has been a fascinating experience. I knew as soon as I examined the document that we were dealing either with a previously unknown land grant—or an absolutely top-notch forgery. The challenge lay in determining which it was.”
“And what did you find out?” Miranda asked. She was anxious to hear the verdict.
Zara wasn’t going to be rushed, however. He said, “We couldn’t examine the paper on which the actual document is written. Determining the age of it would not have been too difficult. But the federal government refused to turn over even a small sample to us.”
“Well, that’s pretty suspicious.”
“Indeed. Nor would they share a sample of the ink with us. All we had to go by was a digital reproduction of the document. So we began by concentrating on the language itself, to see if there were any anachronistic words or terms included in it. That would have been a determining factor in and of itself.” Zara shook his head. “But the language was authentic. It read just as an eighteenth-century Spanish land grant should read.”
Miranda felt her heart begin to sink a little. She said, “So if you couldn’t prove the paper or the ink weren’t old enough, or that the language was wrong, what was left?”
“A question we asked ourselves at great length, I assure you,” Zara said. “The answer came from a member of our team I didn’t really expect to contribute much, to be honest. A young man who’s a computer expert. He was able to blow up sections of the document in fine detail and extremely high resolution. He’s the one who came upon the key to the whole thing.”
“Go ahead, doctor,” Governor Delgado urged. From the look on her face, she already knew what was coming and didn’t want Miranda tortured by waiting any longer.
“A document such as this one purported to be, in order to have been produced in the eighteenth century, would have been written with a quill pen,” Zara said. “The tip of every quill, as you might expect, is different and produces tiny irregularities in the edges of the letters that are unique to that pen. These irregularities are invisible to the naked eye, but if the image is enlarged enough, you can see them.”
Now Miranda’s heart beat faster instead of sinking. She said, “The lettering on the land grant didn’t have those irregularities, did it?”
Zara shook his head and said, “No. The edges of the letters are smooth. That document was made to look as much like an authentic Spanish land grant as it could, and whoever did that has a fine hand . . . but he used a modern writing instrument. There’s no doubt of that.” Zara sat back in his chair and looked satisfied. “The document is fake. Conclusively. And that will stand up as
evidence in any court of law in the land, I assure you.”
Miranda’s pulse pounded. She said, “Then it’s over. The government doesn’t have any right to take G. W.’s land. No right at all.”
“Yes,” Delgado said, nodding solemnly. “But the question still remains . . . will they back off once we make this public? Or will they stonewall, deny that Dr. Zara’s team is correct, and continue with what they’ve been doing?”
“But how can they do that?” Miranda asked.
“They’re the federal government—and they’re Democrats. They’ve come to believe that with ninety-five percent of the media and more than half the country on their side, they can do whatever they want. They don’t think the rule of law applies to them anymore. And for all practical purposes they’re right.” The older woman smiled. “But we’ve got more ammunition now. We can keep fighting. I don’t intend to give up, Ms. Stephens. Do you?”
“No, ma’am,” Miranda said without hesitation. “And I know G.W. and Kyle won’t give up, either.”
Before any of them could say anything else, one of the governor’s aides came into the office. He went over to Delgado and said something quietly into her ear. She frowned and told the man, “Send him in.”
A moment later, Colonel Thomas Atkinson came into the office. He wore a suit today instead of fatigues, but Miranda recognized him instantly. The grim look on the retired soldier’s face made fear spring up inside her.
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” she burst out before the governor could say anything.
Atkinson looked at Delgado and said, “Your call, Maria.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about sharing information with Ms. Stephens, Thomas,” she said. “What is it?”
“Somebody at Brannock’s ranch got a message out via ham radio a little while ago. Evidently, the feds have shut down cell phone communication again, but they didn’t think to block the ham frequencies. If what we’ve been told is true . . . Chinese troops wearing the uniform of the United Nations have moved in, closed off all access to the ranch, and laid siege to those defending the place.”
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