“Joey there’s nothing to forgive. I love you so much. What is going on? Why are you calling? You said you couldn’t... Please…tell me the truth. I have...I need to know what’s happening.”
Overwhelming certainty shot through her. Nauseated and lightheaded she grabbed the desk. “Oh, God!” She cried holding the precious handset that connected Joey to her. “You don’t think you’re going to make it. Oh God, Joey, please…please tell me where you are. I’ll get you help.” The floor stopped her descent. Her legs wouldn’t hold her.
“I’m sorry, baby. I have to go. This is it.”
Ember sobbed into the phone. “No!” The screamed response was wretched from somewhere deeper than her soul could fathom. “No! Please God! Joey don’t hang up. I love you! Please don’t go.” God No! Please don’t take him! She couldn’t live knowing he was hurt or dying. Holy God No!
“I’m sorry, little girl. Remember—I loved you.” The line clicked and when it did Ember lost the tenuous grasp she had on her reality. She felt someone pick her up and hold her before merciful nothingness overwhelmed her.
*
Low voices softly heralded a returning consciousness. “Why Adam? Why would he call after telling her he couldn’t contact her again? She was just getting over his leaving five months ago.”
“He left to keep her safe, Kee. I don’t know why he called. Chief said Joseph didn’t think he was going to make it through this one. Morales has an army surrounding him. If Joseph felt the odds were stacked against him? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe talking to her gave him peace. I just don’t know. I haven’t walked in his shoes. I’ve always had a team to count on. He only has himself. Maybe that’s why. Maybe she makes him feel…connected?
“How can you do it? How does a man face death and walk into the danger?”
“I guess each one of us has our own reason. I walked toward it because as a team we were stronger, better…more capable. I can’t imagine working alone. The pressure. Knowing nobody is there for you. Nobody is coming back for you? It must be a desolate feeling.”
Desolate. That word resonated with Ember’s soul right now. She was on her side facing away from Keelee and Adam. Tears fell unrestricted across her nose, over her cheek and onto the sheet. Joey knew no one was there for him and now she knew—deep down in the fabric of her DNA—she knew Joey would never be coming back. She couldn’t hold back her quiet sobs any longer.
Ember heard the bedroom door close before she felt Keelee’s hand on her shoulder. Em reached over clutching Keelee like she was a lifeline. Keelee lay down behind her wrapping her arms around Ember. But even the body heat of her new best friend couldn’t stop the shivering. Cold, so damn cold and alone, even wrapped in caring arms.
“I got you Em. I’m here.” Keelee’s soft reassurances drifted through the anguish that had built within her.
In between involuntary sobs and shuddering breaths, she asked, “Have they heard anything? Is he gone?” She didn’t recognize her own voice. Rough and raw from crying.
Keelee shook her head on the pillow. “No. Chief hasn’t left the communications facility. Jacob called Gabriel, but he’s out of the country—out of reach. Right now, everyone is praying that Joseph will be alright.”
Ember pulled Keelee’s arms tighter around her linking their hands. “Thank you, Kee. Thank you for staying with me.” She fought back the tears ending with ragged stuttering breaths and hiccupped gasps of emotion.
“Hey, where would I be but right here? You’re my friend and you’re exhausted. Try to get some sleep. I promise I’ll wake you if I hear anything…good or bad.”
Ember stilled and quieted but couldn’t shut her brain off. Even sleep wouldn’t be an escape. Closing her eyes summoned his image. Dry-eyed, her heart lay in shreds, desolate.
Her whisper barely carried to Keelee. “I guess I never really believed he wouldn’t come back. I thought, hoped—there would be a way we could be together. I just couldn’t comprehend he wouldn’t come back to me…but now I know he won’t be back. Ever.”
“You don’t know that, Emmy. He’s a King. By all accounts, they are resilient men.”
“Even if he lives through this Kee, he won’t be back. He knew I still expected him to come to me. That call? It was the only closure he could give me. He…he told me he loved me. At least I have that.”
Keelee hugged her and kissed the back of her head. “I’m so sorry, Em. What are you going to do?”
“When I go, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Her shoulders shrugged almost of their own volition. “I’ll leave. This is a beautiful place and I have friends here, but…”
“Will you keep in touch?”
“Yeah, of course. I need to pack and get ready. Joey said things were going to happen fast. When word comes, I want to be able to be gone. There are too many memories here that I can’t face right now. God, am I even making sense?”
“Yeah, you are. I’ll help you. You can take my Jeep. It’s an old four-wheel drive but very reliable. I never use it and God knows you’ll need it if you leave now. The snow is wicked deep this year and the storms won’t let up until March.”
“I’ll pay you for it.”
Keelee laughed but without any humor. “Oh no, you won’t. I don’t need the money and you need the transportation. When you get tired of it or buy one you prefer, pay it forward. Give it to someone in need.”
“Keelee?” Em tilted her head back and Keelee lifted up so they could see each other.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way but…I love you, girl.”
Keelee smiled sadly before she put her head back on the pillow. “I love you too, Em. Now go to sleep. We’ll pack in the morning.”
“Not going to happen…sleep I mean.”
“Then just lay here and rest.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“King.” Jason’s deep voice carried over the line.
“Hey, lawyer dude. Got a pen and paper?” Joseph watched the traffic creep past the funeral home.
“Joseph? Yeah, hold on a sec.” He could hear his brother’s movements through the phone as he reached for something to write with. His deep voice muffled for a moment when he spoke, “I got your last email and completed the actions you requested. I worked it all through Gabriel offline as you instructed. He blessed the actions and release of information...which is unprecedented. Told me to tell you good luck.”
“Thanks. Have the documents and the letters been sent to the ranch?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I need another favor. Take these coordinates down for me.” Joseph rattled off longitude and latitude markers quickly. “I need you to fly to that airstrip and land in exactly sixty-four hours. If I’m not there—leave.”
“What is going on? And why in the hell are you using a masked IP address to bounce your cell?”
“I could ask how you know I’m masking but I won’t. The fact of the matter is, I’m done, Jason. I’m pulling out. As you’ve probably assumed, you’ve been coordinating my exit strategy. In order to leave it clean for Ember, no one in the community can have any doubt. Fury has to die.
“Dude have you thought what this could do to Mom if it’s not controlled right? Man, it could kill her.” Joseph felt Jason’s concern over the phone.
He knew it could play out badly. That’s why he called in a favor. “Gabriel has her out of the country with his wife and kids. They’ll be out of contact until this is over. She won’t see the news. Once a positive identification is made and the press does their thing, he’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”
“Are you sure your woman will do what you ask?”
“No, she’s a stubborn little minx. Honestly, she could just tear up or burn the letter, but I got to dream man. I got to hope.” Joseph cleared his throat and dropped the line of thought blocking out the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. “Just be there, okay?”
“
You got it. What type of range do we need?”
“Bring the G6. You won’t be on the ground long enough to refuel.”
“Roger that. See you in two-and-a-half days.”
“God willing, but listen to me. If I’m not there, you don’t wait. You get your ass out of Dodge and fast. Understand?”
“I’ll wait as long as I can, but I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“Land. Look for me. If I’m not sprinting across that runway, you clear out.” Joseph’s growl contained almost as much gravel as Jason’s voice.
“Alright. In case I don’t see you again...I love you, Joseph. You’re the head of the family even though you’re not around much anymore. You’ve been more than a brother to me.”
“I love you, too, kid. Keep kicking that addiction’s ass for me. You’re more than what you do, buddy. You always have been. I got to go.”
Joseph hung up and disassembled the phone with practiced ease. Joseph looked up at the slice of sky he could see from his position hidden in the shadows of the foul-smelling alley. The December morning sun couldn’t quite penetrate the overcast skies. It was a typical winter day in Juarez, Mexico. Traffic sped through the heart of the city. The busy drivers remained unaware of the pending drama about to unfurl. Armed guards patrolling the perimeter of the building down the street were the only indication of anything unusual. Hell, strike that. In Juarez, armed guards were common.
Two guards stopped their casual pacing and pulled up short. They glanced toward the door of the funeral parlor. A subtle indication the memorial service was letting out. SF had himself a nice little ceremony. Only Joseph knew the SF’s neck had been broken before he plummeted down the steep tiled steps in his lush hacienda. All the cartel’s hierarchy attended SF’s funeral. Intense security had been focused away from the vehicles and onto the attendees. Just the distraction he needed.
Joseph put his helmet on and nudged his motorcycle off its stand. When the Morales family exited the funeral home, half of his entourage of guards went with the wife and kid and half left with the drug lord and his lieutenants. Joseph waited for the caravan carrying Morales and his minions to pass before he pulled into the heavy traffic. He followed at a discrete distance until the road narrowed just before his primary exit.
Joseph thumbed the small switch he held in his hand. The lead suburban’s engine blew. Civilians drivers slammed on brakes and people swerved to avoid the fireball. Unsuspecting motorists struggled to understand what was happening. A second push of the switch detonated the trail vehicle’s explosive charge. The SUV flipped end over end landing in the path of oncoming traffic. Horrific grinding of metal against concrete filled the sudden silence following the detonation. The third push of the button triggered a carefully constructed and weighted charge under Morales’ armored vehicle. Not enough to kill, but enough to incapacitate. The doors of the vehicle flailed open as the stunned guards stumbled out. Joseph hit the gas and came level with the disabled vehicle. His Uzi sub-machine gun palmed smoothly and the guards fell with a pull of the trigger.
Joseph dismounted the bike and stalked towards Morales, who’d exited and hobbled away from the vehicle when the gunfire started. The dazed man swayed. His wild eyes scanned the dead men surrounding him in the middle of the road. Blood ran from his nose and ears. The percussion of the explosion had done its job. Disbelief and shock crossed the face of the self-proclaimed king of Juarez’s drug trade.
Joseph stopped five feet in front of the son of a bitch and lifted the visor of his helmet as he leveled the Uzi. The drug lord’s eyes latched onto Joseph. Joseph saw when the man’s mind finally understood what was going on. Looking down the barrel of a sub-machine gun can do that to a person. That type of visual tends to make things real clear, real quick.
“You went after my woman, amigo. You had the balls to send an assassin to kill my woman! Did you think that Spaniard could take me out? That bastard murdered my woman.” Joseph heard the approaching sirens and sneered under the helmet. He kept his gun leveled on the man backing away as he shouted, “I will have revenge for her death. But your woman and your child will pay, not you. You take from me. I take from you. Guardian doesn’t control me anymore, motherfucker. The wrath of Fury will rain down on you.”
The squeal of tires from responding forces, either Morales’ or the Mexican government’s, signaled the imminent need to move. He mounted his bike and slammed forward through the rubble. His primary escape route remained uncompromised. Joseph glanced at the review mirror as he leaned down over the powerful motorcycle nailing the throttle wide open. Morales still stood in the middle of the road staring after him. Now the scene was set, the players were identified and shit was about to hit the fan. Bonus? He was still alive. So far…so good.
*
Joseph carefully parked the motorcycle he had used during this afternoon’s op where it could be seen if someone was looking for it. The bike was bait. A green tarp positioned over it partially hid it from view. The kid he paid a hundred dollars US should have delivered the message to Morales’ minions by now. The only wild card to be played was whether or not Morales himself would come. The profile Jared’s intelligence section had built on the man suggested he would, but that remained to be seen.
A month ago, he had rented out five rooms in a hovel that called itself a hotel. Their position was in northern most wing of the rattrap. Since that time, he had cut holes through the paper-thin sheetrock linking five rooms into one. Luring the cartel to the room he was supposed to be in would take two items, a lamp, and a fan. The light to show occupancy and a remote controlled electric fan directly in front of the curtain draped window to draw the asshole’s attention. A John Doe corpse he’d liberated from the hospital morgue in a neighboring city and held on ice in the bathtub for the last week was defrosting on the bed. Mr. Chilly was wearing the leathers he had worn this afternoon and had some unique dental work recently installed. The bed his frigid friend occupied was rigged to blow along with a five hundred gallon propane tank that sat one hundred feet from the building. Bullets had a tricky way of ricocheting now didn’t they?
At the end of the farthest room, he waited, careful to avoid the gasoline soaked bedding. He almost didn’t see the black SUV creep up without its lights on. A second and then a third vehicle pulled in. Joseph watched from his sheltered position as the men deployed and formed a semi-circle around the front of the building. The back of the building abutted a ten-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire. Joseph double-checked the monitors he installed to ensure Morales hadn’t staged any men along his escape route. He put on his tux jacket and adjusted his bow tie. He checked the documentation in his pocket. The wallet that linked the dead body with the cover he used as Fury stayed with Mr. Chilly in the decoy room. It would be protected from fire by a piece of foil from the staged food that Mr. Chilly would never eat.
One of Morales’ men pulled the tarp off the motorcycle and gave a wave to the men in front of the room. Joseph drew a deep breath when Morales stepped to the front of the lead SUV. What he wouldn’t give to slice the bastard’s neck now. Stick to the fucking plan. He sneered as he hit the remote that activated the fan in front of the window. The sudden movement of the curtains propelled the militants into action. In unison, a barrage of bullets flew into the room shattering the glass and riddling the pressed paper walls. As the men advanced on the room, Joseph keyed the remote detonating the outside propane tank. The concussion of the blast sent the men flying. Joseph keyed the switch again and the far room erupted in flames and then exploded.
He put the remotes in his pocket and lifted himself out the back window, through the cut fencing, and darted across the highway. He keyed the remote again. The series of explosions would prevent any sign of his egress. He ran across a service road and vaulted over a small retaining wall. After dropping soundlessly onto the green carpet of a highly manicured lawn, he took a second to assess the devastation behind him. Fucking perfect. One dead assassin. Lots of dead
bad guys.
Now for the PR blitz Gabriel would put into motion. His exit was Guardian’s coming out party. The organization was taking its rightful place at the forefront of the war against evil on an international scale. He wiped down the remotes and tossed them into a garbage container beside the gardener’s shack. Joseph insured the small smoking area was vacant before he emerged from the recesses of the back buildings. Pulling out a cigarette case, he placed several used butts around his feet and lit up a fresh one. He stretched his legs out in front of him when he sat down on the bench. The speeches for the awards ceremony being held at the small elegant hotel rumbled on in the background. He would wait until they broke and then leave with the rest of the crowd, an unseen addition to the multitude. No sense drawing attention to himself. Blend in, move out and move on.
“Hey, mind if I join you?” The woman’s sultry voice carried over to him from the far side of the building. A willowy blonde wrapped in something pink and shiny glided across the cobblestones to the bench where he sat.
He measured her against his vivid memory of Ember. The blonde may have been pretty, but she couldn’t hold a candle to his flame-haired beauty. “No, please feel free.” A flurry of sirens blasted down the busy road behind the back wall.
“Thanks, I needed a break. Can you believe how dry and long winded those guys are?”
Joseph drew deeply on his cigarette before he offered the woman a light. “Yeah. Which one do you think was the worst?”
“Pfft…Carlson of course, he always is a blowhard. What, like this is the fourth year in a row he has won for top sales? But seriously, Howard is just as bad. Good thing his wife gave him the cut it off sign this year.”
Joseph chuckled. “Same stuff, different year, huh?”
He felt the woman’s eyes on him and leaned back. Turning his head towards her, he returned the stare.
Joseph Page 19