C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE
The president was flipping through the pages of his morning briefing: gas prices nearing five dollars a gallon, more saber-rattling in the Middle East, protesters wearing Nike T-shirts, drinking Starbucks coffee, and Web surfing on their iPhones while waving signs and loudly proclaiming that all corporations are evil and should be abolished . . . all business as usual, in other words.
Then he stopped and his eyes narrowed as he read the report from Texas.
“What's this?” he asked his chief of staff. “Doesn't the president of the United States have better things to do than worry about some minor disturbance in a state full of conservative yahoos? Why should we give a damn what happens down there? Our party hasn't carried Texas in the past thirty years!”
“That fellow Stark is involved,” the chief of staff explained. “His name is flagged, just like you ordered, sir.”
“Oh, yes,” the president said with a frown. His predecessors had all kept track of John Howard Stark, so he'd thought it would be a good idea for him to do the same. “Wasn't there something a few months ago about a possible civil rights violation . . . ?”
The chief of staff shook his head and said, “Nothing ever came of that. No matter how Justice spun it, there was just too much evidence that Stark was defending himself. The three defendants in the case are still awaiting trial.”
“So what's this about?”
“Some sort of gang attacked the mobile home park where Stark lives. We don't really know why.”
“Do we know who's involved?”
“DEA says there are indications that it was one of the cartels.”
The president shook his head in confusion.
“Why would they be interested in attacking a bunch of trailer trash?”
The chief of staff winced.
“I wouldn't use that term to describe the residents, sir.”
“Well, of course not,” the president snapped. “What sort of fool do you think I am, Ron? But that doesn't change the fact that's what they are, and I don't understand why one of those drug cartels would even bother with them.”
“From what I understand, in situations like this a lot of times the cartel wants to use the land as a drug-smuggling route. Maybe they're trying to scare off the residents.”
“Don't they have enough ways to bring in their drugs?” The president snorted in disgust. “To hear some people tell it, our southern border is wide open anyway!”
The chief of staff looked like he was trying not to say something. After a moment he responded, “The Border Patrol has had to make quite a few budget cutsâ”
“We're still spending too much money on law enforcement that ought to go to social programs. You know that, Ron.”
The chief of staff sighed and said, “Yes, sir. At any rate, that's why that item was included in the briefing summaries, because of Mr. Stark's involvement. Is there any action you'd like to take regarding it?”
The president frowned in thought and finally shook his head.
“Not right now. But alert the Justice Department to keep an eye on the situation. If Stark is involved in this, there's always a chance it could escalate. There are certain news organizations that would love to distort the situation and make it look like he's some sort of hero again.”
“Yes, sir.” The chief of staff decided it might be a good idea to nudge the president on to another matter. “If you'll look at the latest economic numbers, you'll see that another three million people have given up and stopped looking for a job, so that means the unemployment rate will be going down again.”
A broad smile wreathed the president's face as he said, “Ah! Good news. And those shortsighted fools in Congress say that our stimulus policies aren't working! The numbers don't lie, do they, Ron?”
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Elsewhere in Washington on this hot, miserably muggy summer morning, a man was working out in his private gym. Despite the fact that he was in late middle age, he looked somewhat younger. Close-cropped gray hair and a certain weathered cast to his skin were the only outward signs of his years. He was bare to the waist, wearing only a pair of workout pants. His body was still lean and strong as he went through his martial arts routine. He kicked, punched, and easily defeated the opponent he could see in his head, and when he was finished a fine sheen of sweat covered his face and chest. He wasn't breathing hard, though.
“Bravo.” The comment came from a woman who'd been standing at the side of the room, leaning on a pommel horse as she watched him. She was half his age, about thirty, and beautiful with a supple, curved body revealed by the spandex leotard she wore and long red hair pulled back this morning in a ponytail. “You're a remarkable specimen, Simon.”
“You make me sound like an insect pinned to a board,” he said.
“Not at all. You're more like something that should be on display in a museum. There aren't many like you around.”
“Then that makes you doubly lucky to be with me, doesn't it?”
He slid his arm around her waist, pulled her against him, and kissed her.
When she pulled away after a long moment, she said, “There's a phone call for you. I told him he'd have to wait, that I couldn't interrupt you while you were working out.”
“Who is it?”
She shook her head and said, “He didn't give me a name. But how many people have your number?”
Not many, he thought without replying. And the ones who did have it were generally worth talking to.
He went over to the bar where she had set his phone down. He picked it up with his left hand. His right was missing the thumb and index finger, both of which had been shot off cleanly several years earlier.
“Ryan,” he said into the phone.
That was his real name. He still used it despite the fact that officially Simon Ryan was dead and had been for a number of years. Making that true hadn't been all that difficult, considering the help he'd had from friends in high places. Certain people in the government were more than happy to lend him a hand when he needed it, and in return he cleaned up the messes that they couldn't clean up themselves. It was an arrangement that had made him comfortably wealthy.
“Hello, Simon,” a familiar voice said in his ear. “Have you seen the news this morning?”
“I don't keep up with the news,” Ryan said. “The people I work for tell me all I need to know.”
“There was some trouble in Texas last night.”
“That doesn't have anything to do with me.”
Although he had been born and raised in El Paso and had spent quite a bit of time in Texas, he didn't remember any of it particularly fondly. He had spent time in a lot of other places, too, and he didn't miss them. In the case of Texas, he hadn't been there since the incident that had cost him those two fingers on his right hand.
“An old friend of yours was involved.”
“I don't have any friends in Texas.”
“What about John Howard Stark?”
Ryan's left hand tightened on the phone. Stark wasn't the one who had maimed him, but it wouldn't have happened if not for the rancher. Ryan felt a little grudging admiration for Starkâthe man had gone against the odds, taken on something much bigger than himself, and somehow survivedâbut he felt a deep and abiding hatred for Stark that was much stronger.
Over the years, Ryan hadn't tried to keep up with what Stark was doing. He'd been busy with other things, busy carving out this new life for himself. He had heard about Stark being there at the Alamo when everything had gotten crazy and bloody, and that hadn't surprised him. But since then . . . nothing. Ryan hadn't even known whether Stark was still alive.
“He's no friend of mine,” Ryan told the man on the phone.
“He's no friend of anybody in power in this town,” the man said with a harsh note of anger creeping into his voice. “He was on TV this morning spouting some sort of drivel about how Americans should stand up for themselves. He's getting on the nerves of a lot of people, Simon. Important people.”
“And you're calling on their behalf to ask me to do something about it.” Ryan paused. “You know my price.”
“Maybe you'd consider giving a discount, since you have your own score to settle with him.”
Ryan laughed. He was genuinely amused.
“They don't mind spending the money they gouge out of the taxpayers, but it's a different matter when it comes out of their own pockets, isn't it?”
“Be reasonable, Simonâ”
“No, you be reasonable,” Ryan broke in, his voice slicing across the other man's. “The price is five million. You and I both know good and well that's nothing to the people we're talking about.”
“My God, it's not like he's a head of state or something! He's just an ignorant redneck from Texas!”
“Fine.”
Ryan thumbed the phone off.
It rang again less than thirty seconds later. He was ready for it. “Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal. The money will be in your Cayman Islands account by the end of business today. When will your part of the arrangement be taken care of?”
“I don't give timetables, you know that. It'll be done when the time is right.”
“That had better not be long.”
“I don't care for threats, either,” Ryan said.
“It wasn't a threat,” the man said hastily. “Our friends are just very anxious to have this over and done with. Stark's a dangerous man. People tend to rally around him.”
“Don't worry,” Ryan said. “Pretty soon the only ones rallying around John Howard Stark will be his pallbearers.”
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO
“Well, here's the TV star now,” Hallie said as she opened the door of her father's mobile home in answer to Stark's knock.
Stark grimaced.
“What was I supposed to do?” he said. “That gal stuck a microphone right in my face and asked me what I thought about what happened. I told her.”
“You sure did, John Howard,” Alton said from his chair. “You told her real good. Come on in here.”
Hallie closed the door behind Stark. She said, “It almost seemed like you were daring them to come back here.”
“That wasn't my intention. But I wasn't going to sugarcoat things. If there's more trouble, we need to be ready for it.”
“That's why there's going to be a meeting at the community building tonight,” Alton said. “We have to talk about what we're going to do.”
“That makes it sound even more like you're forming a vigilante group,” Hallie said. “You know what'll happen if the media gets wind of this, don't you? They'll paint you as a bunch of gun-crazy, right-wing, racist nuts. They'll say you're prejudiced against Hispanicsâ”
“Half the people whose homes got shot up last night are Hispanic,” Stark pointed out.
Hallie shook her head. “That doesn't matter. They'll still accuse you of trying to form an anti-Hispanic vigilante group, and politicians all across the state will condemn you. Maybe all across the country.”
Alton snorted and said, “You think any of us care what some politicians think of us?”
“Maybe not. But then you'll have the ACLU down on your ass, and some actors will fly in from Hollywood on their private jets to condemn you and declare themselves supporters of the common man, and every left-wing website and blog will be fanning the flames against you.”
“They say you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies,” Stark drawled. “Sounds to me like those are pretty good enemies to have.”
“Morally, I agree with you, John Howard. Legally, you may be setting yourselves up for trouble.”
Alton declared, “I'd rather take my chances in court than get my butt shot off by some drug-smuggling punk.”
“You may get the opportunity to do just that,” Hallie told him.
“And you'll represent me if I do, won't you?” her father asked with a grin.
Hallie just sighed and then smiled back at him.
Other than a few satellite trucks from various TV stations cruising around the streets, the park had been quiet today. Stark was grateful for any peaceful respite. They might not get too many in the future.
“What time's the meeting?” he asked Alton.
“Seven o'clock. That's why I asked you to come over. I thought maybe you'd have dinner with us, and then we'd all walk over there together.”
“Sounds good,” Stark replied with a nod.
“Better bring your guns, too. Everybody I've talked to says they're going to go armed from now on.”
Stark smiled and said, “That'll probably make a few liberal heads explode if they get wind of it.”
“Like I said,” Hallie told him, “they'll call you gun-crazy lunatics.”
“I think you said nuts before.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“This is serious, John Howard. You're going to stir up all sorts of trouble.”
“I know it's serious. There's nothing more serious than people standing up for their rights. And it's a mighty sad day in this country when people have to worry about getting in trouble for doing that.”
“You're right,” Hallie said softly. She put a hand on his arm. “You're right. I just don't want to see anything bad happen to you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Stark said. “There's no reason to worry about me.”
There was more truth to that than either Hallie or Alton knew, he thought.
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Being summoned back to Señor Espantoso's headquarters wasn't something Nacho Montez really wanted to get used to. Despite his sleek appearance, the señor reminded Nacho of a rattlesnake.
On the other hand, the life that Señor Espantoso lived was exactly the sort of life Nacho wanted for himself: the women, the luxurious surroundings, only the finest things for the señor.
One day, Nacho vowed,
he
would be the señor, the hombre everyone feared and wanted to please. When he told himself that, it calmed his nerves and allowed him to keep his voice steady as he said, “We did as you ordered, señor. We went to frighten the old people who live in the retirement park.”
“That bastard Stark didn't sound frightened when he was on television this morning talking about how they would fight back next time.”
“Stark,” Nacho muttered. The spark of hatred glowed a little brighter within him.
“Did you think that shooting a few guns in the air would cause everyone there to flee? You didn't even kill anyone!”
“We tried to burn down two of the trailers. The fire might have spread to even more of themâ”
“But it didn't happen that way,” the señor broke in. “One mobile home was damaged by fire, some others have bullet holes in them. That's all.”
“I didn't think you would want us to commit mass murderâ”
Again Señor Espantoso interrupted him, saying, “Why not?”
“Señor?” Nacho asked with a puzzled frown.
“Why would you hesitate to kill anyone who is in the way of the cartel?” Espantoso demanded. “Do you think we fear the American law?”
“No, butâ”
“The local authorities are afraid of us. They know that if they incur our wrath, they and their families run the risk of dying. Horribly. Painfully. And the ones who run the American government? Ha!” Scorn dripped from the señor's words as he continued, “They fear something even worse. They fear being accused of not being tolerant. They fear being accused of not being sensitive. They fear being accused of being racist! And worst of all . . . they fear not being reelected. Because of that, they issue rules under which their DEA and their so-called Border Patrol have to operate, rules that make certain those agencies have little or no chance of ever accomplishing anything. They spend less and less money on enforcing the law and more on giving handouts to bankers and insurance companies and sending tax money to people who never paid taxes in the first place. They say they are trying to control guns, and yet they
give
guns to us. To us!” He shook his head. “Your old grandmother is more dangerous to us than the toothless American government, Montez. This is
our
day! We do what we want.”
It was a stirring speech, and Nacho was in awe of Señor Espantoso at this moment. The man deserved his name. The horrible one. The dreadful one. The phantom who came in the night and brought death. Tomás Beredo was all of those things and more.
“What is it you want us to do, señor?” Nacho asked, his eyes wide.
“Your job is simple, Montez. . . . Gather as many men as you need. Take them and wipe the Shady Hills Retirement Park off the face of the earth.”
Nacho took a deep breath and risked saying, “It may take time to get together enough men and gunsâ”
“A week,” Señor Espantoso snapped. “And when that week is up, no one will ever dare to defy the cartel again.”