Dead Heat (43 page)

Lucy saw Tobias and Trejo at the front door of the mansion. Trejo started running toward the barn. She hadn’t seen Sanchez yet. Where was he?

They stayed in the shadows. The benefit of having young guards was that they were inexperienced. They looked for a leader, and whoever was supposed to be in charge wasn’t giving the orders. Lucy and Sean ran to the back of the barn where Kane and Ranger had taken cover.

“What the hell happened?” Kane said.

Sean responded. “They spotted me on the mountain and tried to grab me. I knocked out one of the guards and hid in the shack where I found Lucy. If you hadn’t set off the charge, they would have found me.”

Kane turned to Lucy.

“I didn’t know Sean was here,” she said. “I needed the diversion to get Michael and Bella to safety.”

“Where are they?”

“The truck.” She hoped.

Kane nodded. “Donnelly is inside the barn. He’s in a bad way. He knows we’re here, but we couldn’t get to him.”

“Trejo is coming.”

“They’re going to kill him,” Ranger said.

Kane concurred. “They know there’s a breach; keeping him alive creates more problems.”

“Plan?” Sean asked.

“We go in hot. That’s the only way.” Kane looked at Ranger. “You go with Kincaid. I’ll go with my brother.”

Sean tried to object. Kane was firm. “It’s safer” was all he said.

Ranger had a knife in hand.

Lucy bit her lip, took a deep breath, and nodded that she was ready. She didn’t want to do this. She had to.

Or Brad would be dead.

They left their post, walking around the exterior of the barn in opposite directions; Lucy with Ranger and Sean with his brother. Ranger took lead. First guard he saw he took down with a quick karate chop, not unlike the one Sean had used only moments ago. Lucy followed him around to the front of the barn. Sean and Kane rounded the opposite corner a half minute later. They made eye contact then rushed the doors together.

Lucy didn’t know what to expect. What she saw was Jaime Sanchez and Vasco Trejo standing over a bloodied and beaten Brad Donnelly.

Sanchez immediately fired on them. Trejo took cover in one of the stalls. Sanchez followed, then fell to the ground as someone—Kane? Sean?—shot him. He wasn’t moving.

Lucy dove for cover as well, her gun in hand, looking for Sanchez or Trejo, but the stalls made it difficult to get eyes on the suspects.

She saw Brad lying in the middle of the barn. She didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Kane said, “Cover me, hard.”

Lucy was stunned when he ran over to Brad. Ranger and Sean immediately laid down a round of gunfire to cover him, and Lucy followed, now that she understood what he wanted. Kane dragged Brad into a stall to protect him from the cross fire.

They crouched behind old equipment, uncertain if Trejo and Sanchez were dead. Ranger motioned to Sean to check the stall where Sanchez disappeared, and motioned for Lucy to guard the door while he checked Trejo.

Sean called out, “Sanchez is dead.”

A moment later Ranger said, “Trejo disappeared.”

Kane said, “How the fuck did he get out?”

“This place is full of holes in the wall. He must have slipped out. He’ll be in hell soon.” To Lucy he said, “You sure the kids are clear?”

“Yes,” she said. If Michael had obeyed her.

He cares for Bella. She saved him; he’ll save her.
Lucy had to believe in him.

“Plan B,” he said and pulled out a detonator.

As soon as he pressed the button a giant explosion rocked the mountain. Lucy fell to the ground, her hands on her head. She couldn’t hear anything, but felt Ranger pulling her up.

Go, go, go.

He was shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear him.

She scrambled up and ran with him. She glanced back. Sean was helping Kane drag Brad out of the barn.

When she emerged through the doors, her eyes widened at the sight of the mansion engulfed in flames. “Chopper,” Ranger said.

She shook her head. “Michael and Bella. They’re at the truck.”

“I’ll get the fed out on the chopper,” Ranger clarified. “You go to the truck.”

The four of them, bringing Brad with them, ran toward the landing pad. Ranger jumped into the chopper. “I need to hot-wire this.”

Sean leaned over and pressed some buttons, did something else that Lucy missed, and twisted a wire. The blades started turning.

“You rock, Little Rogan,” Ranger said.

Kane strapped Brad into the copilot’s seat. “Take him home, Ranger.”

“Roger that.”

They ran low, out of the way of the blades, toward the edge of the mountain as the chopper lifted into the sky. No guards were around to shoot them down. The entire complex was on fire.

“Let’s get those kids home,” Kane said and led the way.

*   *   *

Michael left Bella in the truck with the black box and told her to hide behind the seats. Then he crawled twenty feet up to get a better vantage point.

He knew that they’d been seen.

He’d tried to hide, to stay low, but the backpack Lucy had put the box in practically glowed in the dark. He didn’t realize it until Bella said she heard something. He glanced back and saw that they stuck out like a big pink thumb.

He’d dumped the backpack in some bushes and ran with the box all the way to the truck. Hid inside. But they’d been followed.

So he lay there, gun out, watching. Listening.

He heard nothing.

Then an explosion—bigger than the one at the prison—made him slide down the mountainside several feet.

He lay there stunned, his arms over his head. When he could think, his first thought was that he didn’t know how to drive the truck. If everyone was killed, how could he get off this mountain with Bella? He never wanted her to see what he’d seen.

He reluctantly took his hands off his head and crawled back up to the road. He peered carefully. From the location of the smoke and light, the mansion must have exploded. That had to be the work of Kane and the others. The general wouldn’t blow up his own mansion.

Relief flooded through him. He would wait here, just like Lucy told him to do. He pulled the St. Jude medal from his shirt and kissed it, like he’d seen Father Flannigan do. Maybe there was a God after all.

He’d started crawling back down to the truck when he heard the chambering of a bullet.

He looked up. The general was standing on the path above him. His white clothes were dirty. Or was that blood? Definitely blood. His hair was as wild as his eyes. He had a gun only twenty feet from Michael’s head. He wouldn’t miss.

“You. I saw you. I didn’t believe it.”

Michael had Lucy’s gun in his hand, but his hands were flat on the dirt. The early dawn was still hidden while they were among the trees, and the gun was black. The general must not have seen it.

“I will rebuild and I will dance on your grave,” the general said. He spit on the ground, staggered a bit, then slipped. He clutched his stomach with his free hand. He’d certainly been shot. He was bleeding. But he still had a gun on Michael.

Suddenly the sound of a helicopter rose over the sound of the fire. The general half screamed in rage as he turned his face to the sky. “That bastard stole my chopper!”

Michael didn’t know or care who he was talking about. He aimed and fired the gun at the general. He pressed the trigger over and over, remembering Javier and Richie and Tommy and all the others this man killed. He was crying, no sound, just tears running down his face as the bullets stopped coming out of the gun. He still pressed the trigger, because evil always came back.

Then he heard crying. It wasn’t him, it was a little girl.

Bella.

He looked in front of him. The general lay on the edge of the path, his chest a bloody mess, his eyes open and glazed.

He was dead.

He couldn’t hurt anyone again.

Michael crawled back to the truck. He found Bella huddled on the floor, her arms over her head. He said, “Bella, it’s okay. I killed the monster. He can never hurt us again.”

CHAPTER 36

It was two in the afternoon by the time Lucy and Sean arrived in McAllen with Padre, the seven boys, Michael, and Bella. They had a story but weren’t sure it would hold.

“It’ll hold,” Kane said. He had looked at Lucy. “Honesty is a good trait, but not this time.”

Lucy had called Ryan the first time she had an opportunity, but he didn’t answer. She left a voice mail saying that she was fine, she’d be at the McAllen hospital that afternoon and needed to talk to him.

Lucy wasn’t surprised to see Sam Archer there—Ranger had delivered Brad hours before they arrived.

“How is he?” Lucy asked.

“He’ll live.” She closed her eyes, just a minute. “They tortured him. Bad.” Then she breathed deeply and composed herself. “But he’s alive.” She looked at the boys, who all cowered around Padre and Michael. “What happened? Is that Bella Sanchez?”

“Yes. It’s a long story.” Three nurses spoke to Padre. One took Bella; the other two ushered the boys in another direction. Padre and Sean went with them. “Kane Rogan and his team found them. And Bella.”

“Oh, dear God, I’m relieved. That many boys? What was he doing?”

“There were more. Dead.” Lucy would never forget them. She caught Michael’s eye as he rounded the corner. “That’s what Kane said,” she added quickly.

“Have you talked to your partner?”

It took her a moment to realize she was talking about Ryan. “Last night. I left a message earlier.”

Sam looked around, then pulled Lucy to a quiet corner. “He’s investigating something for me. There’s a mole in my division. I narrowed it down to three names.”

“Who?”

“Victor Gray and Chris Garber from the McAllen office. And Nicole Rollins from the San Antonio office. Brad’s partner—I haven’t told him yet. I won’t—unless I get confirmation.”

And then it clicked. The one thing that had been bugging her.

“It’s Nicole.”

“How can you be certain?”

“The ransom. Asking for Sanchez’s two gangbangers to be released. Why not Mirabelle?”

“She was released.”

“But no one outside knew that. Only us.”

“She came late to the staging area with the maps of the warehouse,” Lucy continued. “She stayed there when Tom and Clark were pinned down with fire.” Lucy wondered about what Kane had told her earlier. “Was she involved in an operation several months ago related to guns stolen from a military base and found in Colombia? Six Marines were murdered when they were forced to land and the guns were stolen.”

Sam dry-heaved. “Yes,” she said, her voice clipped. “She developed the intel on that operation.”

“She’s been privy to everything in this case, from the planning of Operation Heatwave to the op at the warehouse,” Lucy said. “Your agents in McAllen only got involved two days ago.”

Nicole knew what car Lucy drove and could have rigged it; she knew where Bella and CeCe were staying in foster care. She was out of town when Lucy’s house was broken into, but she could have hired the two thugs who’d attempted to intimidate Lucy.

“We need evidence,” Sam said. “I can’t go to my boss with an unproven theory. I hope your partner finds it.”

Lucy wished she knew what was in the black box, but Kane told her it was now his.

“If it’s important to law enforcement, I’ll get it to the right people.”

She didn’t really have a choice. And Michael was okay with it. He’d handed it to Kane, not her.

Her phone vibrated. It was Ryan. “Hello? Ryan?”

“You’re at the hospital? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t reporting the gunshot to her arm—it was minor. She’d have Sean re-dress it when they got home, and it was hidden under her jacket. “I came to check on Brad.”

“Fucking amazing. Where have you been?”

She stuck to the story they’d all agreed to. “We interviewed Michael and he told us about the boys still locked up in Mexico. Sean called Kane. He and his team rescued them, brought them to Jack’s house in Hidalgo.”

“Why didn’t you call? Send a team down?”

“Send an FBI team into Mexico?”

“I see your point. But—”

She hated lying. She felt physically ill. “It was hardly sanctioned, Ryan.”

“And Isabella Sanchez?”

“Kane found her. I don’t know the details. He’s writing up a report—there’s a process RCK uses for these sorts of things.” She was deliberately vague. “I’m with Sam Archer. She told me about your assignment. It’s Nicole.”

“Well, fuck, Lucy. You took my thunder.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“When this big black guy handed me a DVD. He said, ‘Watch it.’ Then he left.”

Ranger. It had to be. Kane must have known exactly what was on those DVDs.

“And?”

“Sanchez or whoever had those disks must have been blackmailing her. She killed a drug dealer in San Antonio five years ago. Took his money and drugs. Don’t know what happened to them, but the murder and theft is all on tape. She flashed her badge, he was unarmed, and she shot him.”

Sam took the phone from Lucy and listened to Ryan repeat the information. Sam said, “She’s at the DEA office right now. I have her doing a mountain of paperwork.” She listened, then said, “Thank you, Ryan. I honestly couldn’t have done this without you.”

She handed the phone back to Lucy. Ryan said, “Lucy, I’m on my way to the office. I thought you might want to be part of the takedown.”

“You earned it, Ryan. I did nothing.”

“But you told me it was her. Just now.”

“On a hunch. I didn’t have the proof, you do. You have backup?”

“Juan sent Nate and Kenzie down; they’re with me now. We’ll get her. Let me know how Brad’s doing.”

“I will.”

“Juan wants you back ASAP.”

“I know. I’m in trouble.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But Lucy? Don’t lie to me again.”

He hung up.

She stared at the phone. How had he known?

*   *   *

Lucy walked into Brad’s room after Sam Archer left to deal with the fallout of the Nicole Rollins situation. He was sleeping. His head and chest were bandaged, and both arms were in casts. His face was severely bruised.