Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (6 page)

“We have a candidate.”

“But someone has to . . . to die for that to be possible.”

Ah, and there was the rub. Though Tomas Rivera would gladly die for his wife, his death would serve no purpose.

“What if, Carlita?”

“I think it would be a miracle.”

His wife was a devout woman. Tomas had no intention of telling her that if his plan worked it would be no miracle but the blackest of sins. Even for him. He who had committed such atrocities in his time.

“Hope for a miracle, my darling.”

Carlita’s eyes drifted closed.

“Always,” she sighed, slipping back to sleep.

Chapter Six

A
NNA HAD ASKED,
“Who are you?”

That was the question of the hour. Leland wasn’t certain himself, and he couldn’t believe he’d just volunteered himself as her son’s keeper. As soon as he’d said the words, he wished them back. But then Anna closed her eyes, seemingly at peace for the first time since he’d met her, and he didn’t have the heart to say no.

Zach walked with him to the parking lot and they watched Anna being loaded into the ambulance.

“Where are they taking her?” asked Zach.

“To Presbyterian,” answered one of the EMTs.

“Can I ride with her?” Zach asked.

“Sorry, no one under 18 in the ambulance unless they’re the patient.”

Zach looked at Leland with longing in his eyes. “I understand you don’t know me at all but, please, can you take me?”

Leland could refuse as well, but that would be cruel after everything that had just happened. “Okay, but let’s get the hotel to move you to another room first.” He stuck out his hand. “We weren’t properly introduced earlier. I’m Leland Hollis.”

Zach shook his hand and his head at the same time. His eyes held an obvious protest about not following right behind the ambulance.

“I understand your concern, Zach, but they won’t let you see her as soon as she gets to the hospital anyway, and you don’t want to bring her back to this mess, do you?”

There was a long pause. Leland stared the boy down, and the kid straightened his shoulders.

“No. ’Course not.”

“Alright then. It’ll only take us a few minutes. We’ll move y’all’s stuff to my room for now and get the management to come up with a new room or have yours cleaned before we get back.”

“Yeah, ’kay. That’s a good idea. We don’t have much stuff. Just a carry-on bag with a change of clothes and our passports. I think my mom’s purse is still in the bathroom though.”

“Right, with your medicine. Let’s gather everything and call the front desk from my room.”

They gathered the luggage, Anna’s purse and the grocery bag of games and electronics Max Mercado had brought with him. Zach walked up the stairs with Leland stumping behind. He’d left his own door wide open, and the boy wandered inside.

“I gotta grab something.” Leland’s ankle hurt like hell from his earlier sprint down the stairs, and he popped three Vicodin from his dopp kit. After dumping his unfinished glass of scotch down the drain, he locked his patio door and grabbed a shoulder holster and jacket. He wasn’t going to just tuck his Ruger GP100 into his waistband at the hospital. This had all the hallmarks of being more serious than he’d first suspected.

Zach picked up an unopened game from the paper bag he’d brought upstairs and walked to the trash can, preparing to drop it in. “I can’t believe I let my dad inside for this.” He shook his head. “I wanted this game so badly last week. I begged for it, but I wouldn’t have traded my mother for it.”

“She knows that.”

The boy didn’t answer.

“So tell me about this game,” said Leland, unsure of how to proceed.

Zach tossed the case to him.
Millennium Terminator II.
“Bad guys come back through time trying to change things up so that they can fix their fortunes in the next century.

Leland hadn’t heard of it, but that meant nothing. “Sounds tight.”

“Maybe. I’ve heard the graphics aren’t everything they were expected to be.”

Leland picked up the 3D handheld gaming console. “Are you a big gamer?”

The boy shrugged.

“What do you like to play?” asked Leland.

“RPGs mostly. Role-playing single-shooter games are my favorite.”

“I used to game a little myself but not anymore. I don’t know much about the current market.”

“The graphics are everything now. I think Phoenix Circle is the best company, but there’s a pretty big debate about it in the gaming world. The better technology still comes out of Japan.” Zach’s eyes lit up as he spoke about something he obviously loved.

“Interesting. You sound like you know a lot about this.”

“I read about it online. I can show you this new game . . . if my mom—” Suddenly his face was serious and the light that had been there a moment before was gone.

“That’d be great,” Leland enthused even as he realized he was extending the time he’d be spending with the kid. He picked up the house phone and dialed the front desk as Zach continued staring at the sack.

“I’m not so sure. None of this seems very important anymore.” The boy picked up the bag of pricy electronics and put it in the garbage can.

Leland ignored the theatrical action until after he’d talked with the front desk about a new room and hung up the phone. “Your mother is gonna be okay. Let’s head up to the hospital to see her.”

On the way out the door Leland pulled the bag from the trash and set it on the coffee table. This was shaping up to be a long evening, and electronic entertainment might be in order no matter what Zach was feeling at present.

The boy stared out the window on the drive downtown, not talking. As they merged onto Central Expressway, Leland realized this was probably not a good thing. “So how long have you and your mom been at the hotel?” he asked.

“Just checked in this afternoon.”

“Where did you come from?”

Zach wasn’t making eye contact. Instead, he was staring at the intricate leather bracelet on his own wrist, snapping and unsnapping the clasp. “Cancun,” he mumbled.

“Are you from there?”

“No.”

So the boy was now giving him as little information as possible. Leland didn’t want to treat this like a police interrogation, but Zach wasn’t making it easy.

“Was this a vacation?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

“Where you from?”

“Here.”

“How do you like Dallas?”

“Sucks.”

Oookay
. One and two word answers. Not so good. Leland had no idea what he was doing. No clue what teenagers thought or felt. The kid had been “Chatty Kathy” for a few moments when they were talking about video games, now he wouldn’t talk at all.

Maybe this was normal. Leland wasn’t Dr. Phil, but there was this elephant in the middle of the living room, so to speak. Hell, he might as well go for it.

“So that thing with your father. Has this been going on for a while?” They were on an exit ramp and just pulling to a stoplight.

At first Leland wasn’t sure the boy had even heard him, then Zach looked away from the window to stare into his eyes. The pain there was palatable, intense. Zach shook his head.

“I’d never seen my dad like that before, but now I’m wondering if maybe it’s been going on for a long time. They used to argue before he moved out. I’d hear him yelling, but I didn’t think—” His eyes filled and his face grew red. “All this time I’ve been blaming her. I didn’t want to believe that my Dad . . . I still can’t believe what he almost—” he shook his head again as tears ran down his cheeks. “Why can’t we go back to how we were before?”

A car behind them honked. The light was green. Saved by an impatient driver, Leland felt a ridiculous amount of relief over not having to delve into that question right now.

“I don’t know, Zach. But it’s going to be okay.” Leland gave him a quick nod, then drove, still at a complete loss.

“How is that possible?” the boy asked, but turned away when Leland might have answered.

What he would have said, Leland had no idea.

His home life had been “difficult” at best. Although he knew his father, Leland’s parents had never been married and his mom had been nothing like Anna Mercado. He’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and would probably have ended up in juvey or the state penitentiary but for joining the ROTC in high school.

He’d been looking for a way out, a place to belong. And he’d found it in the rigorous military student-training program. With his significantly above-average IQ he’d earned a full college scholarship offered through ROTC. Anxious to leave his childhood home behind, he’d joined the Army when he graduated from Sam Houston State University and never looked back. After two tours overseas, he’d joined the DEA.

Zach Mercado was from a completely different place—a privileged background, a good home, a good mom, every advantage. Except for a dad who was a lunatic, willing to hurt the boy’s mother in front of him, and a failing heart.

Zach was staring out the side window again.

“We’re almost there,” said Leland, about to turn into the hospital parking area.

“How is she going to forgive me?”

Zach’s question brought him up short. “Forgive you? For what?” Leland pulled into a parking place.

“I let my dad into the hotel room.”

Leland clenched his jaw.

“I let him in and he . . . he could have killed her. I can’t believe I did that for a damn video game. What kind of person am I?”

Because Leland had been asking himself that same question for the past several weeks, he understood the depth of Zach’s pain. Guilt could be a wretched thing. May Max Mercado roast in hell one day. The man had done a horrible injustice to his own child.

Zach was crying in earnest, but somehow, despite his inexperience, Leland knew this wasn’t the time to coddle him. It was time to speak frankly.

“You’re a good son who loves his mother. You made a mistake. I doubt this is your first, and it sure as hell won’t be your last. Tell her you’re sorry and ask her to forgive you. She will. She loves you more than she loves herself.”

Zach looked at him, tears wet on his face. “How do you know that? You don’t know her.”

“You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

T
HEY PARKED IN
the ER entrance at Presbyterian and hustled into the hospital. It took a few minutes to explain who they were and to locate Anna’s exam room.

“Hello,” Leland knocked on the door but Zach burst in and threw his arms around her neck. “Mom!”

Anna was in a hospital gown and a nurse was leaning over her, examining the cut on her arm.

Anna hugged her son with one hand.

“No doctor yet,” Anna reported. “Just lots of nurses, taking blood and such. More important things are happening here tonight than me.”

The nurse looked up from her work apologetically. ”There’s been a big pile up on LBJ. We’ve gotten five trauma cases in the past half hour.”

“No worries. I’m fine,” said Anna.

“The doctor will be here as soon as he can to take a look at that arm,” the nurse promised before slipping out the door.

Zach gripped Anna’s fingers, silent but anxious. Leland understood the boy’s concern. The kid was wondering if his mother would forgive him.

“Thank you so much for bringing Zach,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

“It’s no problem,” said Leland, anxious himself to leave the two alone so they could talk.

“Oh, but I think it was. I appreciate your saying that though.” She squeezed Zach’s hand. “We’re a mess and I know it.”

“Mom.” The boy sat in the chair beside the bed, never letting go of her hand.

“Honey, it’s gonna be okay. I’ve been lying here thinking. Mr. Hollis came along at just the right time, and I’m very grateful.”

“I’m so sorry.” Zach bent his head, no longer able to look her in the eye.

“You’re sorry? You’ve nothing to be sorry for, darling.”

“I let him in.” The boy was crying now and Leland felt like he was eavesdropping again, distinctly more uncomfortable than he’d been on the hotel patio an hour ago.

“He’s your father, Zach. Of course you would let him inside.”

“But Mom, I think I knew something was wrong. I should have been suspicious that he was using the games and iPad to convince me to let him in.”

Leland inched silently toward the door, seconds from a clean get-away. He could feel the concern and care in the room even though he’d never experienced that acceptance with his own parents. Zach was going to be okay. His mother loved him. She didn’t hate him for betraying her or letting his dad in their hotel room. The doctor was going to sew up Anna’s arm. Max Mercado was going to jail. They were going to have a happily ever after . . . well, sort of.

“Wait, please,” Anna called to Leland. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You have already, I’ll just be going.” His back was to the door when the doctor breezed in, barely knocking.

“Hello, Mrs. Mercado. I’m Dr. Travis. I have your preliminary blood work. Mr. Mercado?” He shook Leland’s hand but didn’t give him a chance to answer or correct the mistaken assumption. “And your son?” He nodded to Zach.

He dove in without giving anyone a chance to answer. “I have a few questions. The first one is for you, Mrs. Mercado. Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

Chapter Seven

A
LL THE NOISE
around her faded away. Anna started to shake her head, then stopped and closed her eyes.
Oh sweet Lord.
There hadn’t been a snowball’s chance in hell until this morning when she’d had sex with her soon to be ex-husband. “Only if God is out to get me,” she murmured.

“Does that mean it’s a possibly?’” Dr. Travis asked.

Extremely aware that her son was in the room and listening intently, along with Leland Hollis, who she really didn’t know at all, she closed her eyes and nodded. “It’s an extremely unlikely possibility but, yes, it’s possible.”

Anna imagined she could hear the blood coursing through her veins. An explanation was necessary, if not for the doctor, at least for her son and this stranger who’d become the next best thing to their guardian angel tonight.