The wind shifted, and rain spattered hard against the window. It was coming down so heavy that the house was suddenly nothing more than a huge shadow behind the glass. Romeo grabbed one of a pair of hooded black raincoats off a hook.
“I want to check the house again and make sure that plastic we put over the cut-outs is holding up to this wind.”
Cody slid open a drawer on the desk and removed a heavy-duty stapler.
“I’ll come with you.”
Cody’s phone rang. When he answered it he heard Dr. Smith.
“Mr. Zane, our mutual friend emerged from his coma early this morning.”
“Good, and what sort of shape is he in?”
“He’s weak from his brush with death, but I expect he’ll recover fully. By the way, the payment you gave us entitles him to three more days of care, so there is no rush to get here.”
“Hold on for a moment, Doctor; I need to fill my partner in.”
Cody told Romeo that Serge was awake, then asked a question.
“Do you want to drive there and back or question Serge over the phone?”
“Let’s try the phone, dude. If he talks, then we’ll save ourselves some time.”
Cody asked the doctor to place Serge on the phone. The doctor told him to hold while he arranged things on his end. After placing his phone in speaker mode, Cody waited for the call to be transferred. There was silence on the line for so long that Cody thought the connection had been dropped, then, Serge spoke.
“Zane?”
“That’s right, and since we’re talking you know I kept my end of our deal.”
“I’m alive, yeah, but for how long?”
“I’m on speakerphone with Romeo, Serge. You tell us everything you know, and we’ll have no reason to see you again. We paid a lot of money to keep you alive, whether you stay that way is up to you.”
“I’ll talk. I’m not fool enough to try and come at you two again. And to hell with Jack Begley. That cowardly bastard left me to die.”
“What do you know about Vivian?”
“Vivian and her father contacted us saying that they knew who you really were and where we could find you. Begley leapt at the chance and we met with them outside the Citadel.”
“Vivian’s father? What does he look like?”
“He’s in his forties, maybe even his fifties given all the white in his beard. But the guy is in shape, with a scar on his throat.”
“Vivian’s last name is Richards; did you get a first name for the father?”
“I’m not sure what Vivian’s last name is, but the guy said his name was Ryker, Vince Ryker.”
Cody and Romeo’s posture grew rigid as they stared at each other.
“Did you say Vince Ryker?” Romeo asked.
“Who was that? Was that you, Haydon, I mean Slade?”
“Yeah, now what about Ryker?”
“I can tell by your voice that the name means something to you. So, I guess I helped you?”
“We thought Ryker died over two years ago,” Cody said. “We also believed that his son was his apprentice, not his daughter.”
“He’s alive, and he wants you two dead.”
“What else can you tell us about him?” Cody asked.
“That’s about it; I only met him once.”
“All right, and that clinic will nurse you for three more days and then kick you loose. If either of us ever sees you again, Serge, the doctor will have wasted his time, understand?”
“You’ll never see me again, and I’m through with the Citadel.”
Cody ended the call and put his phone away. “Ryker is alive; we have to tell Spenser.”
Romeo flipped up the hood on his raincoat. “We’ll call him from home. With Ryker around, I don’t feel right leaving Emma alone.”
“Yeah, we should place May Ling and Emma somewhere that Vivian doesn’t know about.”
“That bitch is his daughter, and Ryker trained her too.”
“Having her become friends with Emma was a sly move. We’re lucky she didn’t try shooting us in the back.”
“Let’s get home, Cody. I’m getting a bad feeling about all this.”
They had shut off the lights and were nearly out the door when the laptop beeped. It was warning that a motion detector had been activated. It was the third time the warning had sounded, the other two incidents occurred when it was set off by fallen tree branches.
Cody had been about to state that it was likely a false alarm when another sensor went off, followed by the rest of them.
“What the hell?” Romeo said.
Cody brought up the cameras in a grid that displayed all eight of them. Each camera showed a view of a different segment of the surrounding terrain. Together, they revealed sights that placed them on high alert. Men, dozens of men, and each one was cradling a shotgun or holding a handgun.
“That’s a lot of dudes,” Romeo said. “Shit, Cody, who are those guys?”
As he was talking, Romeo was on the move and headed toward the second-hand gun safe they had put in the trailer. It held their rifles, ammo, and the four grenades.
Cody was studying the images on the laptop. A rough estimate of the murky figures moving through the rain put the forces against them at more than forty men. They had placed the motion detectors five-hundred feet from the house, but the cameras were nearer. That meant they only had seconds until there was contact.
Romeo passed a rifle to Cody, along with two grenades and spare magazines, then he stared at the laptop. Although Romeo didn’t possess the iron nerves that Cody exhibited, he showed no signs of panic. Romeo knew his capabilities and that of his partner. Experience had taught him that they would find a way to survive. Although he might never become one, Romeo had the stuff to be a Tanner. He didn’t panic; he triumphed over odds.
“We need to get out of here,” Romeo told Cody.
“Yeah, the trailer is a deathtrap now.”
“Do you think we can sneak past them? With this downpour, visibility is low.”
“Let’s go see,” Cody said.
They stepped out into a rain so hard that they felt the weight of it as it pounded on their shoulders. The sound the water made as it slapped the hoods of their raincoats was loud, loud enough to drown out any sounds made by the men approaching them on all sides.
Thinking to improve his vision and hearing, Romeo lowered his hood. He regretted it in an instant as water struck his eyes and momentarily blinded him. As Romeo was raising his hood again, Cody grabbed his arm while using his rifle to point.
The men were closing in and were so near to each other that there was no room to slip past them. While the grenades could open a hole in the line of men, they would also give away their position and intention. The remaining men would shoot them dead before they made it a hundred feet. Attempting to start their trucks would have the same effect, and they’d be handy targets behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“The house,” Cody mouthed. Romeo nodded his understanding and they rushed toward the unfinished home in a low crouch. As they did so, death moved in from every side.
128
Bombs Away
ROBBIN’S COVE, CALIFORNIA, FEBRUARY 2004
Jorge Garcia sloshed along the driveway beside six other men as he closed in on Cody and Romeo, the men he blamed for his downfall.
More than a year earlier, Garcia’s friend and subordinate Denny Haydon disappeared while leaving behind a number of dead cartel soldiers. Even worse, millions in profit had either gone missing or been destroyed by fire.
Garcia’s superior blamed him, then the man gave him three days to find Haydon. It was a ridiculous request, but his failure would give Garcia’s boss a reason to get rid of him. His superior inside the cartel had hated him because Garcia killed an acquaintance of the man. It had been business done on orders, but Garcia was still the one who had pulled the trigger. Only one day later and with no success at locating Haydon, Garcia was attacked in his San Diego hotel room and nea
rly killed.
He fled and was replaced in the cartel by someone who turned out to be an undercover agent of the Mexican government. Arrests followed six months later, then, a stronger cartel moved in and took over. The cartel Garcia had spent his life helping to build was no more.
The only good thing that came out of that situation was the death of his former boss. The man’s charred body was discovered in the desert after he’d been burned alive. Garcia would like to thank the man who did it.
The young men he was closing in on would share a worse fate than his boss if Garcia had his way. He had given his thugs orders to that effect. They were to capture Cody and Romeo alive if possible. If they did so, Garcia promised to double their fee.
That compensation varied depending on who the man was. The twelve men who made up Garcia’s crew were being well-paid. The other men, the thugs he’d recruited for the attack, most were satisfied with a pittance and the chance to have an adventure.
Many of the men were natives of Dallas, both black and white, with some immigrants from El Salvador mixed in. While a few of them wore rain gear like Garcia had on, most had just poked holes in heavy garbage bags. They were wearing the makeshift raincoats over their shoes and street clothes. Garcia didn’t care if they lived or died. He intended to use them as pawns. Besides, the more that died, the less money he’d have to pay out.
Garcia had liked Denny Haydon, which was rare for him. He wanted the men who killed his friend to suffer before they died.
The man on Garcia’s right pointed at something up ahead on the left. Garcia looked and saw a darkened construction trailer along with two pickup trucks. They were just three more gray shapes in the torrential rain, as the sky was so dark that there was barely any daylight.
As they drew closer, the home came into view. It was still in an early state of construction and the scent of its wet wood frame could be detected on the air. It was the aroma of wet pine.
Garcia sent forth three men to check out the trucks and the trailer. As the men entered the job trailer, Garcia expected to hear gunfire. But no, it remained silent, and the men returned just moments later. Because of the rain, the man giving a report of what was found had to speak near Garcia’s ear.
“There’s a laptop on the desk beeping like crazy and an open safe that has some loose rounds in a box.”
“What about the trucks?”
“No one is in them. Should we flatten the tires?”
Garcia’s phone vibrated in his pocket. When he dug it out from beneath the layer of rain protection he wore, he saw a text message. The other men with him had reached the house and found two pairs of wet footprints inside.
The news pleased Garcia, but he didn’t smile. Garcia never smiled, nor did he permit his face to express what he was feeling. He had learned as a young boy growing up in a slum to never let anyone know what was going on inside him. If others knew your feelings, they knew your thoughts. Thoughts were precious things that controlled the very essence of your life. Garcia had learned that lesson early as well. It had taken him from the slums and made him a rich man.
Garcia gestured for the other men to follow him to the house. His prey was cornered. Now it was time to capture them.
* * *
The inside of the home was like a maze without walls. It was a wooden skeleton made of 2"x4", 2"x6" and 2"x8" lumber made of pine. Rain drummed hard onto the plywood roof and outer walls and filled the home with a ceaseless noise.
After entering, Cody had led Romeo up the stairs and into what would become the attic. Although the sub-flooring had been installed, there were still gaps through which you could view the floors below. Cody and Romeo lay on the attic floor and gazed downward, watching as Garcia’s men entered the home.
Romeo leaned over and whispered to Cody. “We can take out a lot of these guys with the grenades.”
Cody shook his head. “Once we dropped the first one, they could shoot up at us. We need to end this quickly.”
“How? There are three dozen guys down there, and more coming in.”
“We’ll use the grenades, but in a different way… and I’m not sure it will work.”
“What’s your plan?”
Cody explained, and Romeo got a sick look on his face.
“We might die too.”
“I know, but if we tried to fight our way past them, we’d never make it.”
Romeo balled a hand up into a fist. “Damn Ryker, these guys are here because of him, just like Begley and his guards. The bastard won’t come at us himself.”
“We’ll deal with Ryker, but first we have to survive this.”
Romeo looked up to where a thick piece of plastic was secured over a hole in the roof. It was a cut-out for a narrow skylight, as a part of the attic was designed to be used as a spare bedroom or office space. The hole was big enough to fit through sideways. Romeo went first, after prying off the plastic.
The boys climbed out onto the roof. They were kept from sliding off by supporting themselves on narrow strips of wood hammered into the plywood sheeting. Those safety strips were installed for the roofers who would have followed.
They searched to see if anyone outside was looking up at the roof. They saw no one, however, visibility while peering through sheets of rain was difficult. As water poured down through the hole and into the attic, Cody and Romeo took out their grenades.
* * *
From where he stood just inside the home’s doorway, Garcia could discern a difference in the sound inside the house. He and his men were staying on the ground-floor and guarding the home’s perimeter while the others climbed the stairs to flush out Cody and Romeo.
Garcia had reiterated his order that they were to be taken alive if possible, while also reminding his mercenaries that the two were deadly.
Most of the men had looked back at him as if he were telling a joke. They were fifty, fifty armed men on the trail of two. Two men were not deadly, not when you were an army of fifty.
Rain, Garcia thought. Rain was entering the house from somewhere. He thought that Cody and Romeo might have climbed out of one of the holes that were there for the windows. If so, it would do them no good. He had a man stationed on each corner of the house who was ready for such a thing.
Then, above the rain came the clunking noises. When Garcia cocked his head to determine where it was coming from, he saw two objects drop from a hole near a flight of unfinished stairs. They landed side by side near a metal support column. When Garcia realized they were grenades, he leapt backwards through the open door.
Madre de Dios! Although there was a sense of panic in Garcia’s mind and movements, his face was as impassive and inexpressive as always.
129
Desperate Measures
ROBBIN’S COVE, CALIFORNIA, FEBRUARY 2004
Vince Ryker parked behind the rented bus with Texas plates that he figured must belong to Jorge Garcia. It was parked on a side street a block from the house Cody and Romeo were building. In front of the bus was a black Lincoln Town Car. It also had Texas plates, and there was a portable GPS navigation system atop the dashboard.
Vivian was seated beside Ryker and wearing a stylish raincoat, hat, and boot set. The outfit was pink, and the wet hat rested atop the dashboard. Vivian laughed as she pointed out the window.
“Garcia brought in a busload of men? That should put Xavier and Romeo in the ground.”
Ryker frowned. “We’ll see.”
“Are you serious? You think they have a chance?”
“Even though they’re not legit, those boys were still trained as Tanners. If Garcia and his men had come at me in my prime, I would have made them pay dearly. Two of me… I don’t know.”
“But you can’t really think they’ll survive an attack like this.”
Ryker laughed. “No, they’ll soon be dead, but I’ll tell you something. Garcia could rent a smaller bus to head back to Dallas. I’ve seen these boys in action, especially Zane. I expect a lot of men will die today.�
�
“As long as two of them are Xavier and Romeo I don’t care how many of them die.”
Ryker shrugged. “Well yeah, why would you?”
* * *
As he had reached in his pocket for the grenades, Cody’s hand brushed against the stapler he had been carrying. After using the tool to staple his raincoat to the roof, he handed it to Romeo to do the same.
“Staples? You think they’ll help us to hold on?”
“It can’t hurt,” Cody said.
When they were ready to pull the pins, Romeo looked sickened by what they were about to do.
“I really wanted to finish this house.”
“Me too, but now it will save our lives, ready?”
“Yeah, and let’s hope it’s enough.”
The boys laid flat at the apex of the slanted roof with one of them on either side of it. Cody was closer to the hole they had climbed through and had a clear shot at the staircase. He pulled the pin on the first grenade and hurled it through the opening, that was followed by his second grenade and the ones Romeo had.
The explosives had a four to five second fuse and a blast radius of about fifty feet. While they would certainly kill or injure many of the men climbing the stairs, those men were not Cody’s primary target. The goal was for one of the grenades to reach the first floor and explode near the acetylene gas cylinders the welders had left behind.
The first grenade made it to the second-floor landing where it bounced and hit one of Garcia’s thugs in the shin. The fool picked it up and looked at it. The second grenade bounced off the stairs and went through the opening that led down to the ground floor, as Cody had intended. The third grenade followed that path as well, while the fourth one clunked down the stairs on a route that took it past Garcia’s men.
The first grenade had the shortest fuse and went off in the hand of the imbecile who was holding it. The fool and three of the men nearest him died while others were injured. When the two grenades near the acetylene tanks went off, they ignited the gas in the tanks with a devastating effect.
Young Guns Box Set Page 57