Home Invasion (17 page)

By the time the Federal Protective Service had been in Home for a week, the town’s guns were gone. They had been turned in voluntarily, albeit grudgingly, or confiscated wherever and whenever the FPS found them. Alex suspected that some of the citizens had managed to hide a few guns, but probably not many. She had heard that other people had left town, slipping through the FPS cordon and taking their guns with them. She suspected that Colonel Grady didn’t really care about that. He just wanted to be able to say that Home had been disarmed, as the settlement agreement with Emilio Navarre called for … and as the President had ordered.

She faced Grady now across his desk in the mobile command post. The colonel had ordered everyone else to clear out. It was just the two of them.

“You’ll be glad to hear, Chief, that we have fulfilled our mission in your town.”

“Does that mean you’ll be leaving?” Alex asked, not really thinking for a minute that it did.

“As a matter of fact… yes,” Grady said.

Alex’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? I mean, you’re really leaving town?”

Grady nodded. “My officers and I will be packing up and pulling out later this afternoon.”

Alex sat back in the folding chair. “I don’t believe it. This is some sort of trick.”

“I work for the federal government, Chief,” Grady said with a flash of anger in his eyes. “We don’t play tricks on people.”

She managed not to laugh at that statement. Keeping her face and voice solemn, she said, “With all due respect, Colonel, I won’t be sad to see you go.”

“It won’t make me sad to leave, either.” For the first time, Alex sensed a slight chink in the man’s armor. “I haven’t enjoyed cracking down on my fellow citizens like this. But I signed on to faithfully carry out the orders of the President, and I have done so. There are no longer any illegal firearms to be found in Home, or in the surrounding area.”

Technically, that was true, Alex supposed. Any firearms still here
hadn’t
been found.

Not that there were very many of them. She didn’t know for sure, of course, but she guessed there probably weren’t much more than a dozen guns left in town, including the ones she and her full-time officers had been allowed to retain. The reserve officers had had to turn their guns in like everybody else. There might be a few more in the area outside the city limits within that ten-mile cordon, but not many. The FPS had been remarkably thorough with their searches, sweeping through the area like locusts.

“What happens now?” Alex asked.

Grady smiled thinly. “We’ll be setting up permanent checkpoints on the main roads leading in and out of town. Anyone attempting to bring in a gun or guns will be subject to immediate arrest.”

“What’s happened to the people you’ve already arrested?”

“That’s none of your concern. They’re being held in a secure location.”

“What about their rights?”

“Under martial law, they have none.”

“But Home isn’t staying under martial law, right? Isn’t that what you meant when you said the FPS was leaving?”

“That’s true. But those suspects were arrested under martial law, so they will remain under our jurisdiction.”

One more twisting and perverting of the Constitution, Alex thought. After everything they had done so far, what did one more outrage really amount to?

“Did you call me in here just to tell me this, Colonel?”

“I thought you’d want to know.”

“Oh, I do, don’t get me wrong. I just wish it had never come to this.”

Grady leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “You know, Chief Bonner, you’re a very intelligent woman. To protect your people, you’ve kept this situation from escalating until someone got hurt. If you’re ever interested in moving up in law enforcement, say on a federal level …”

Alex stared at him in amazement. “You’re offering me a job? Working for this … this modern-day Gestapo?”

Grady’s features hardened. “It was just a thought,” he said. “Obviously, not a good one. Forget I said anything.”

“I’ll try, you can count on that.”

The colonel stood up. “All right, I believe we’re done here. Best of luck to you, Chief.” He gave her a curt nod but didn’t offer to shake hands. That was fine with Alex.

She left the giant mobile command post and found Delgado leaning against the fender of his police car that was parked next to hers.

“I heard that the colonel sent for you,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Alex told him. Delgado looked surprised, too.

“I figured we’d be stuck with them from now on,” he said when Alex finished explaining the situation.

“So did I. But I suppose they have other things to do. Other constitutional rights to violate somewhere else.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”

Alex debated briefly with herself whether to tell him the rest of it, but it was so outrageous she had to share it. “You know, J. P., he offered me a job.”

Delgado’s eyebrows went up. “The colonel?”

“Yeah. He said that I’d done a good job of controlling the situation so that my people didn’t get hurt.”

“Like the Vichy government in France during World War II.”

Alex grimaced. “You had to be a history major. I feel a little dirty, though, like I have been collaborating with the Nazis.”

“It’s a funny thing,” Delgado mused. “The liberals have always accused anyone who didn’t agree with them of being fascists. They’d even play the Nazi card from time to time. And yet, less than fifteen years after they took over everything in Washington, they’re the ones who come marching in dressed like storm troopers and occupy an American town. They wiretap ten times more than conservative administrations ever did, they run up the national debt to astronomical levels that will leave the country crippled for decades, if not centuries, they take over more and more of the industries … and still they turn around and act noble and claim they’re just doing it for the good of the country. I’m not sure there’s ever been a society where those in charge preached one thing and did just the opposite to the extent that these people do.” He stopped, shook his head, and chuckled. “I didn’t mean to start lecturing like a college professor.”

“Don’t worry, you weren’t,” Alex told him.

“No?”

She shook her head. “No college professor would ever say anything like that about the left. They adore the President and his bunch as much as the media do.”

“You’re probably right about that.” Delgado straightened from his casual pose. “Some people would say that our job’s going to be easier now.”

“How could they think that?”

He shrugged. “There are no guns. Everybody knows that if there are no guns, there won’t be any crime, ever again.”

Alex knew he was being sarcastic, but she shook her head anyway.

“Something tells me our job just got a whole hell of a lot harder, J. P.”

The splashing of the water in the fountain was like the merry notes of a guitar playing. Enrique Reynosa y Montoya leaned back in his comfortable chair, closed his eyes, and smiled. He heard the girls splashing and laughing in the pool at the other end of the courtyard, and that pleased him as well. Soon he would join them. He loved visualizing them in their sleek young nudity, all smooth skin and dark hair and flashing eyes, the sort of erotic image that many men conjured up in their minds. The difference was that when
he
opened his eyes, the beautiful girls were really there, at his beck and call, ready to whatever he wished in order to please him.

But first there was business to be dealt with.

Herman had been waiting patiently. What else was he going to do? As the head of Rey del Sol, Señor Reynosa had the power of life and death over thousands of people, including Herman Guzman.

But there was no point in making Herman wait any longer. Enrique sat up, smiled across the table at his second-in-command, and said, “You have a report from across the border?”

“Yes, Señor Reynosa. The American Federal Protective Service has withdrawn its forces from the town.”

“Permanently?”

“It appears so.”

Reynosa reached for the glass of lemonade that was coated with moisture from the heat and humidity. He drank only non-alcoholic beverages, and he never used the drugs that his cartel smuggled so successfully over the border. He believed in keeping his body healthy, so that he could fully enjoy other pleasures.

Such as the young girls who swam naked in his pool like seals.

After taking a sip of the cold lemonade, Enrique said, “So, the town of Home has no guns.”

Herman shrugged. “The police are still armed, but there are less than half a dozen of them. And some of the people no doubt hid their weapons, but there cannot be many.”

“Not enough to matter,” Enrique said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “There is nothing to stop us from putting our plan into operation.”

“The American soldiers have set up checkpoints on the highways, to make sure no one brings guns back into Home.”

“We have our agents in this so-called Federal Protective Force, have we not?”

Herman smiled. “We do, Señor Reynosa. We have agents in places the foolish Americans would never dream of.”

Enrique nodded, thinking of the beautiful Julia Hernandez. She had been brought here to his villa when she was, what, fifteen? He couldn’t remember for sure. She had been quivering and innocent, but he had taught her well, and she had learned quickly. Her intelligence was just as important as her physical skills. She moved now in the highest circles in Washington, and no one there ever dreamed that she was not who she appeared to be. No one had any idea who her true master was.

Enrique forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “When General Garaldo’s forces take over those checkpoints, our agents with the FPS will be able to tell him what to do to keep their superiors from finding out what’s going on until it’s too late.”

“Certainly. We should need no more than twelve hours at most. Our timing will be precise, as always.”

“Very well. Contact General Garaldo and issue the orders. Sunday morning, we strike.”

“Sunday morning,” Herman repeated, his voice soft and silky with anticipation. Operation Casa del Diablo would be the boldest stroke Rey del Sol had ever attempted. If they were successful, the cartel wars would be over. There would be only one left, standing victorious over all the others.

With his business concluded, Enrique Reynosa y Montoya drank the rest of his lemonade, stood up, and walked past the gurgling fountain toward the pool, stripping off his robe and tossing it aside as he went.

“Señoritas!” he cried as he reached the edge of the pool. “Bid welcome to the King of the Sun!”

Then he made a clean dive into the cool water and came up surrounded by lovely, young, nude, and willing female flesh.

It was good to be him.

With the resources that the enemy had at their command, Fargo Ford knew it was only a matter of time before he and Parker and Earl Trussell would have to run again.

It felt so good to rest and catch their breath at Rye Callahan’s ranch, though, that they allowed a couple of days to slip past.

On Saturday morning, though, Ford called a summit meeting of him, Parker, and Callahan. The three men nursed cups of coffee on the ranch house patio while Earl stayed inside to put away a huge plate of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. For a little fella, he sure could eat.

“We need to get out of here,” Ford said.

“Not on my account,” Callahan replied. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

Parker shook his head and said, “We know that, Rye. But by now the men who are looking for us are bound to have found those bodies and that burned-out pickup. They’ll know that we’re probably still somewhere in the area, and they’ll start checking out the ranches around here.”

Ford gestured toward the slate-tiled roof that overhung the patio. He and his companions had been careful not to venture out into the open while they were here, and the SUV they had brought with them was stashed out of sight in one of Callahan’s barns. They had gone over the vehicle, making an intensive search of it to be sure there were no tracking devices hidden in it.

“They’ve probably got an eye-in-the-sky satellite up there right now, taking surveillance photos of the whole area. I know you’ve been going on about your business, but they’ll still wonder if we’re here.”

“Maybe you could slip out durin’ the night,” Callahan suggested. “I’ve got a couple of pickups. You can use one of them.”

Parker shook his head again. “Those satellites have infrared capability, too. It’ll look bright as day out here.”

“Then what
are
you gonna do?”

“You have any friends you could invite over for a fandango?” Ford asked, drawling out the last word.

“So you can mingle with them and slip out that way?”

“That’s the idea.”

Callahan rubbed his angular jaw. “Yeah, that might work. It’d have to be folks I trust, but there’s a few of those around here. Not as many as there used to be. A lot of the old guard’s died out.”

“You don’t have to tell them anything about us,” Parker said. “Maybe just that we’re cousins visiting from somewhere. Would the guests know you well enough to know that wasn’t true?”

“Not really. I’ve never been a real talkative sort, I guess you could say.”

Ford grinned. “All right. Can you get them here tonight?”

“That’s short notice … but most people will turn out for a barbecue.”

“All right. We’ve got ourselves a plan.”

They went inside and found that Earl wasn’t just eating breakfast. He had turned up a map of Texas from somewhere and was poring over it.

“What are you looking at, Earl?” Parker asked.

The young man frowned as he studied the map. “I got to thinking about that town called Home.”

They had kept up with the story on the news channels the past couple of days. After a few scattered incidents of violence, the Federal Protective Service had succeeded in disarming the town. According to a statement issued by the commander of the FPS forces, Colonel Charles Grady, all firearms in Home and the surrounding area had been either turned in or confiscated, and so the FPS had withdrawn the previous afternoon.

Neither Ford nor Parker believed that everyone in the town had turned in their guns. A few people probably had some stashed that the FPS storm troopers hadn’t found. By and large, though, the town probably was disarmed.

Except for the tiny police force. That good-looking female chief had been interviewed several times, and she had declared that she and her officers would keep the town safe until everything was settled and the people had their guns returned to them.

The CIA agents knew
that
was never going to happen. Not with the way the President was smirking and preening for the cameras, obviously filled with arrogant pride that he had succeeded in taking away the guns of a whole town.

“What about Home?” Parker asked Earl.

“Look.” Earl put a finger on the map. “This is where Home is.”

Curious, Ford peered over the little scientist’s shoulder. “Yeah. So what?”

Earl moved his finger over a short distance, into a range of small but rugged mountains. “And
this
is where Casa del Diablo is.”

Parker frowned. “How far away is that? Fifty, sixty miles?”

“Yeah,” Earl said. “And the highway that’s closest to the lab is the same state road that runs right through Home.”

Ford and Parker glanced at each other, and each of them knew that alarm bells were going off in the other’s head.

“What exactly are you getting at, Earl?” Ford asked.

“I don’t know. I just got this uneasy feeling all of a sudden…. The project was getting pretty close to finished when I decided to jump ship. Enough time has gone by since then that they could have finished up the prototype batch of the nerve gas.”

“How much of the stuff are we talking about?” Parker asked.

Earl took a deep breath. “I don’t know for sure. I was high enough in the pecking order to be privy to some of the details of the project, but not all of them. My guess? Maybe a hundred canisters.”

“How big would those canisters be?”

Earl held up his hands to indicate dimensions. “About the size of an oxygen tank like the ones you see old guys using sometimes.”

Parker’s voice was sharp. “How would they be transported?”

“Very
carefully,” Earl said. “Lots of protective packing, to make absolutely certain that they wouldn’t be jostled around and spring a leak.”

“What about temperature?” Ford wanted to know.

“Best to keep the stuff cool. It’s less volatile that way.”

Ford frowned in thought as he tugged at his earlobe a couple of times and then ran his thumbnail down the line of his jaw. “So we’re talking about refrigerated trucks, big enough to carry, say, fifty canisters each.”

“Yeah,” Parker agreed, “they wouldn’t put the whole shipment in one truck. They’d split up in at least two, maybe three or four.”

“And they’d have to take it somewhere, because it doesn’t do them any good just sitting in a lab,” Ford mused.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Earl said. “Homeland Security and the FPS put a ton of money into this project. The bosses are going to want to have the stuff where they can get at it easily in case they need to use it.”

A shudder went through Ford. “I hate to think about Weldon Stone having the capability to wipe out a whole town so easily.”

“Son of a …” Parker said in a low, stunned voice. His finger stabbed down on the map at the dot marking the location of Home. “You think there’s going to be a test, Fargo? Is that really why the FPS disarmed the whole town?”

Ford thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “No, if the stuff is really as fast and lethal as Earl says it is—”

“It is,” Earl said. “Don’t doubt it for a second.”

“Then it wouldn’t matter whether the people in Home still had their guns or not,” Ford went on. “All the FPS would have to do is fly over the town, release the gas, and then waltz in a little while later to collect the bodies. The citizens wouldn’t ever know what hit them.”

Callahan spoke up. “Wait just a damn minute. I been listenin’ to what you boys are saying, and while I’m as upset about what’s goin’ on as anybody, you’re talkin’ about the U.S. government murder-in’ a whole town-ful of its own citizens in cold blood. You really think they’d do that?”

“I’d like to believe they wouldn’t,” Ford said, “but I’m convinced it’s the FPS that’s been trying to kill the three of us for the past week. I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“You’re right, though, Fargo,” Parker said. “It’s not going to be a test. That doesn’t make sense when you factor in the business of disarming the town. I think it’s just a coincidence. The President and his cronies saw their chance to make a move when the lawsuit came up, and they grabbed it.”

“Yeah, but there’s something going on here,” Ford insisted. “My gut tells me there is, and I’ve learned to trust it.”

“Mine, too.” Parker’s finger tapped the map again. “I think when we leave here tonight, we’d better head for Home.”