A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 (27 page)

     “Turn right at the yellow billboard,” he might say. Or, “Turn left at the 7-Eleven.”

     By giving the driver his marching orders as they went, Tom could keep his eyes on the prize instead of looking around for street signs.

     Another aspect of the Rangers’ tail policy was for the driver to stay in contact with local authorities by radio, generally on a secure tactical channel, to keep the locals advised of their tail.

     Randy and Tom chose not to do that in this case, since local law enforcement was expected to be part of the problem.

     That being the case, there would be no local backup should Randy and Tom run into trouble. The local cops didn’t even know they were there. They were on their own, in every sense of the word, and they knew it.

     So they needed to be careful.

     The suspects left State Highway 87 and turned onto Farm to Market Road 1348.

     Here’s where it got a little trickier.

     Farm to Market roads were seldom traveled, except by the farmers and ranchers who lived or worked down that road. Any vehicle at all which traveled down the road would be looked at with suspicion. A strange vehicle nobody could identify would be even more suspect.

     Tom gave Randy his updated instructions.

     “Fall back more. Traffic is thinning out. Slow down and turn at the third telephone pole on the right.”

     Then the Rangers got lucky.

     As Tom watched through the binoculars, their suspects turned onto FM 1348, then took a hard left after a quarter mile onto a private road.

     Tom had no idea where he was. But he knew the suspects were on a private road because their truck was kicking up a cloud of dust.

     They were driving up the long caliche driveway of a rural ranch house.

     “Scratch that,” Tom said. “They’re home. Forget the right turn. Go up a few miles and turn around. We’ll go back to Lubbock and spend some time on SLEN.”

     As they continued on Highway 87, a quarter mile away from and adjacent to the ranch house, Tom continued to watch the pickup. He saw it come to a stop and four men exiting. They walked in the direction of the house and were climbing its steps when Tom lost visual.

     Seven minutes later, after they turned around and headed south toward Lubbock, he noted that the pickup was still in the yard but the men were nowhere in sight.

     Their prey had gone home to roost.

RANGER Book 1:

A Humble Beginning

Will be available in February, 2016 at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, selected Hastings stores and other fine booksellers.