Dreading that he would find her body, he snugged the compact H&K to his shoulder. Finger curled around the trigger, he shouldered the door open and stopped in shock at the sight of Ignacio Lavaca lying in a pool of blood. The Devil Woman’s personal bodyguard had taken two bullets to the face. Carlos frowned at the sight of the man’s undone trousers and then almost laughed at the realization that Ignacio had been taking a mierda at the moment an assassin had come calling.
“Señorita?”
There was no answer. He searched the house without finding anyone else. She was gone, and he knew that she hadn’t been killed, but taken by men who’d killed her soldiers with professional ease.
“Hector!” Carlos bolted from the house and charged across the courtyard. “They have taken La Jefa! We have to follow them!”
The door swung open at the same time Carlos reached the control room. He charged past the startled technician and closed his laptop, noticing that the security system was finally up and running.
“Get in the van. You drive and I’ll use this to keep the SUV in sight. We can radio Incencio and tell him we are following. He’ll know what to do.”
“We can stay right here and you can follow with your toy.”
“They’ll be out of range soon. The ones I have left are not as strong as the first two. We have to go!”
“You will not tell them the cameras were down, will you?”
Carlos stuffed the laptop and a walkie-talkie in a small blue daypack. He slung it over his shoulder and grabbed another, larger drone off a shelf. “Not if they don’t ask me.” His voice softened. “If they do, I’ll tell them you were doing maintenance.”
“You will not mention what I was doing while it was rebooting?”
“No.”
Outside, Carlos dropped to one knee and launched his drone. It rose with a familiar buzz and shot off toward the east. Minutes later, Hector steered around Eusebio’s body and raced through the darkness. The van’s bright headlights picked up fine dust still hanging in the air from the Expedition’s passage.
“If they are driving fast, we might not catch them.” Hector leaned forward as if that position closer to the windshield would help him see better. “They could take any of the intersecting roads and we might miss where they turned off.”
“That is why I brought this.” In the passenger seat, Carlos’s face was lit by the glow of the computer in his lap. His fingers raced across the keys until he stopped and pointed at the screen. “There! I have them five kilometers ahead.”
Hector momentarily took his eyes from the road to see where Carlos was pointing on the screen. There was nothing but a cloud until a quick flicker of brake lights flashed on, then off as quickly as they’d come on.
“What is that?”
“Dust from their vehicle.”
“How fast can the zumbido fly? They are driving pretty fast.”
Carlos moved the toggle switches in his lap with experienced thumbs. “The drone might catch them. I learned to upgrade it when I was in the military. It will fly over fifty miles an hour. He cannot drive that fast on these roads, and pretty soon Incencio can intercept them.”
“What if you lose the signal?”
“That will not happen if you stay this close.” Carlos fished the walkie-talkie from the backpack at his feet and pressed the talk key. “Incencio.”
The voice came back startlingly clear and sharp with irritation. “Who is this?”
“Carlos.”
A beat.
“What?”
“Someone came into the ranch and kidnapped La Jefa.”
“Qué? Se llevaron La Jefa!? How? How did they get in?”
Carlos and Hector exchanged glances. “We do not know, but they have her, and we are behind them in the van.”
“You two are chasing them!? Where are the others? Where’s Ignacio?”
“Dead. Everyone is dead, and we’re following in the van, a few kilometers behind the drone.”
“How many?”
Carlos swallowed and looked across at Hector. His face was expressionless as he concentrated on the road. “One, I think. Somehow they took out the security system before he got in. Hector got it back up and running, but it was too late. They were already gone.”
Hector visibly relaxed, and he nodded.
Silence for nearly thirty seconds. Carlos was about to key the radio again when Incencio came back on. “You have them in sight?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
He relayed their location.
“Good. Stay behind them, and we will catch up. Do not let them get away, or your cráneo y columna vertebral will decorate her tree.”
Carlos shivered at the thought and prayed that the chase wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes, the life of the drone’s battery at that speed. “Sí, jefe.”
Chapter 38
Once we were away from the rancho, I sped up as fast as I could safely drive on the dirt road. I grew up running just those kinds of roads and they were as familiar as the back of my hand. Since it was night, I wasn’t worried about the plume of dust rising behind the Expedition and giving our position away.
At first I was leery about driving fast with the NVGs, but though the world was stock pond green, it was still clear. One thing I had to worry about, other than the bad guys popping up, was a deer running out in front of the SUV.
It was that flash of light in my rearview mirror back at the compound that worried me, too. I’d left someone back there and hoped they weren’t organizing a chase.
I was like a horse going to the barn with the wind in his nose, but no idea where we were going other than away from that ranch. We crossed other intersecting dirt roads a couple of times. Once we came to a Y, and I took the left fork only because it angled toward the states and hopefully a highway.
For once technology was on my side. At that particular moment, the compass in the dash told me we were pointed northwest, the general direction I wanted to go. That technological cooperation went away as soon as I punched my cell phone alive. The familiar No Service alert was what I expected, but I had an ace in the hole from the ranch.
The “maid” watched as I reached between the seats and dug her satellite phone from Victim’s backpack. One eye on the green road, and the other on the phone, I punched in Sheriff Ethan Armstrong’s number. SAT phones are glorious inventions as long as there are no obstructions overhead. We were good there, because the only thing above us was stars. Off to the right, a dark ridgeline of mountains was far enough in the distance that they wouldn’t interfere with the signal.
A two-track road angled off, but I suspected it was nothing more than a ranch road, or one leading to an unseen house. I wanted pavement and with it, the speed we needed to put some distance between us and the bad guys.
The phone rang seven times on the other end before a gruff voice answered. “This is Ethan. Something better be on fire.”
“It is, in a sense. This is Sonny.”
“Sonny!” I could imagine him starting upright in the bed, shaking Marilyn awake. “Where are you? People are looking . . .”
“Save it. I’m in trouble.”
“I almost didn’t answer. Your number didn’t come up.”
“That’s because I’m calling from a SAT phone that belongs to a cartel leader.”
“You don’t hear that every day.” He processed that bit of information for several seconds. “Where are you?”
“Somewhere in Coahuila, heading north with a prisoner.”
“Prisoner! You can’t take . . .”
“You gonna talk about jurisdiction, or listen?”
“Fine.”
“I think I have the Hidalgo cartel leader in custody. I intend to cross at Langtry, but I need extradition papers ready and signed by the time I get there. And by the way, I’m probably only thirty minutes ahead of her people. I’m moving pretty fast here.”
“Sonny, you know the Mexican government won’t ext
radite on a phone call. The papers on our end take days at best. And you know there’s no crossing at Langtry. There isn’t even a bridge.”
“I’ll deal with that little detail when I get there. I know you can get things done when other people can’t. I need those papers.”
“It’s going to be next to impossible. The judge is gonna ask for evidence. Do you have that?”
“I have a verbal confession from that other undercover agent we heard about.”
“You found him? How?”
“We’ll talk about that later, when I have time, but he told me about the whole operation and that’s all I need to know.”
“It still won’t fly with a judge.”
“It’ll have to. Look, I’m crossing at Langtry one way or another. If I can’t wade the river, I’m gonna float this gal across like everyone else.”
“Wait, what? You said gal? That rumor of the Devil Woman is legit?”
“I have her in here with me.”
“Not voluntarily, I imagine.”
“Took a little persuading.”
“That’s probably an understatement. You know they call it kidnapping on this side of the river.”
Her glare from the other side of the Expedition was hot as coals.
“We’ll hammer out the details when I get to the border, but I can’t show up at any bridge crossing with her all trussed up, in a stolen Expedition. The border guards on this side’ll stop me for sure. That’s why I’m headed to Langtry, but I don’t know these highways down here and they’re dangerous as hell, especially with a prisoner most people don’t want me to bring back. The navigation system in the dash shows me a dirt road that leads almost to the river. I think I can find it. Why don’t you contact agent McDowell and get him to help? A request from both you and the FBI might kick things into high gear.”
Ethan’s voice was even, telling me he was thinking hard. “He might, after he bucks and snorts for a while. You haven’t told me what she’s under arrest for?”
“She ordered the execution of Border Patrol agent Frank Nelson for a start, and for the order resulting in the attempted murder of the Nelson sisters in Del Rio. Then there’s drug trafficking and if we dig a little, I bet we can find that she’s ordered the murders of American citizens down here.”
“You’re a damned liar!” She thrashed in the seat. “He’s lying! I’m being kidnapped!” Her voice went up to a shriek.
“She’s pretty loud.” Her outburst didn’t faze Ethan one bit. “I bet she has anger issues, too. Look, I’m tellin’ you, they’re gonna ask for evidence.”
“See if you can get Agent McDowell and Major Parker to the hospital in Ft. Stockton and have them tell Agent Manual Trevino that we know what happened to them on the highway that night. This gal here is blackmailing agents by threatening their families if they tell that they’ve been turned and paying off these agents who are afraid to talk. Tell Trevino we have her in custody, so she can’t issue any more orders for murder raids.”
“You bastard! You’re making all of that up! I own a ranch. I have businesses, but I am not a murderer!”
Ethan’s voice was loud in my ear. “Son of a bitch! That all makes sense now. How do you know all that?”
“A little bird told me.”
“I’m gonna need a name for the extradition papers, if we ever get to that stage.”
I turned enough to see her face. “Tish Villarreal.” Her head snapped around and her eyes widened when I spoke her name. Bingo! I’d gotten all that from Esteban back in El Cruce. The undercover agent’s stock went up with her reaction.
“Look, there’s no number that comes up on this phone.”
“I don’t have the time to figure this out to get you a number, so I’ll call back around noon.”
“We can’t get all that done by then. You know as well as I do how long it takes to get to Ft. Stockton.”
Back when we were kids, he and I referred to distances by six packs of beer. Ft. Stockton was two six packs away from Ballard.
“They’ll have to bring the papers later. I know they won’t be there when we show up, but like you always said . . .”
“The wheels of justice turn slowly. Fine then. I’m on it.”
The phone went silent, and I punched in another number.
A familiar voice answered. “Perry Hale.”
“It’s me.”
We went through the where are you, how are you discussion. I again explained where I was, and what was happening. This time my passenger was quiet, stewing with rage.
“I’m gonna need some help here.” The relief I felt at having Perry Hale on the line caused my voice to shake. He was calm and competent in any situation, and simply talking to him brought my emotions to the surface once again. “Where are you guys?”
“Ciudad Acuna.”
“You’re a little over an hour from Langtry. I plan to cross there, but I have bad guys on my tail. I may be an hour or more south, maybe two, depending on how these roads are.” I gave him the best description of my location. “I know there’s no crossing there, but I can’t follow a main highway up to the border. It’ll be too easy to intercept us, and I figure I have an ass-load of bad guys trying to find me.”
“You have an exfil point in mind?”
“Yeah, a place called Chalk Canyon.”
“Hold on. Yolanda’s bringing up a map now.”
“I’ll probably get there before y’all do.”
His voice was full of enthusiasm. “Maybe not. I have an ace up my sleeve.”
“I hope you have all four. We’re gonna need ’em.”
Chapter 39
The dirt road twisted a couple of times, and then the next thing I knew, I was on a paved highway. I figured it was the same one I’d come in on with Judge’s team, but in the nighttime desert, most everything looks the same. I palmed the wheel onto the two-lane and headed north. The Expedition’s big engine roared, pressing us back into the seats.
I glanced at the navigation system in the dash, seeing the hardtop I was on, and a spiderweb of dirt roads branching off. After punching at the screen for a few seconds, I magnified the map and identified narrow trails leading toward the rough country on both sides of the river.
I knew the area a few miles west of Langtry pretty well. I’d worked a human trafficking case there a couple of years earlier and learned how illegals and smugglers came across using Chalk Canyon. Though not as long or rugged as the canyon south of Big Bend, the deep, winding cut’s as isolated now as it was back when Black Jack Ketchum robbed a train there back in 1897 and got away with $6,000 in gold and silver.
It worked for him back then, and in that part of the world, little had changed on this side of the Rio Grande. I planned on using that same terrain to evade those guys who were after us.
When I glanced at the Devil Woman, a.k.a. Tish Villarreal, she was looking into the side mirror, likely hoping for a glimpse of headlights. It was still dark back there, but I could’ve sworn I’d seen another flicker of lights back behind me at one point while I was dialing Perry Hale.
She finally spoke. “You’re going the wrong way.” Tied up and strapped in the seatbelt, she could only use her nose to point at the dash. “You can see there are no towns there, only a few isolated ranches.”
“Last time I looked, the states were north, and that’s the direction we’re going.”
“Turn up here. It is a house I own. We can stop there and negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
“I have lots of money. You said you have information on me. You already know who I am. I bet it came from one of my people. Tell me who he is and I can make you a very rich man, and in your position, we can make millions more. I have a magnificent house in Texas. I can set you up in it.” Those dimples of hers appeared, and she gave me a smile that would melt the heart of any single man in the world. “You can have me, too.”
“Not even remotely interested.”
The dimples disappeared, and her fa
ce hardened. “Then you will die, and I will hang your remains from my tree.”
I stifled a shudder, recalling the sickly sweet smell of carrion that suddenly seemed to waft from her side of the SUV. “Pipe down. That’s not happening.”
“I heard you Rangers were smart, so show some intelligence. This is the only way you or your family will live after this night.”
That was the last thing she should have said to me.
A fury I’ve rarely felt in my life washed over me like a tsunami and to control my hands, I gripped the wheel so hard I was afraid I’d break it off. It was all I could do not to backslap her through the door glass. The last person that laid a hand on one of my family members was on the wrong side of the grass back in the Ballard Cemetery.
“Lady, you have seriously underestimated me. Do not threaten my family or even think of it. If anyone comes around my people on your orders, I’ll hunt down everyone you know. I’ll find a way to kill you, even in prison, and I’ll personally burn your damned ranch to the ground.”
“You won’t do that. You’re an American. You’re a Texas Ranger.”
Words poured from me in a demonic voice I didn’t recognize. “I’ll do anything to protect my family. I’ll get down and roll around in the gutter with you and be worse than the scum you live with. If anything happens to me, I have people you don’t even know about who’ll pick up where I left off. I’m your worst nightmare.” I gave her a good, long look, “I’m a damned ghost from over a hundred years ago.”
Chapter 40
Fifteen minutes after he called Incencio, Carlos sucked in a frightened breath. He’d done that half a dozen times since the chase began. His body was wracked with fear, filling his stomach with acid that intensified as the chase wore on.
Once he thought he’d lost the black vehicle running wide open through the night when they came to intersecting dirt roads. They had to slow while he scanned one particularly wide dirt road to see if they’d taken it.
Another time he was fooled when he thought they’d turned on a ranch road that led to a dark house sitting by itself in the desert. He wasted valuable minutes while Hector stopped the van and they followed the road with the drone to the house, and then flew around the structure to be sure the Expedition wasn’t parked behind it.
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