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He was a smart man. He had a degree. He knew that it was impossible for Merissa to get that information except through physical, and probably illegal, means.
But how did she know that he’d forgotten details of his ordeal, like the man in the suit, the DEA agent, who’d led him into the ambush and then disappeared?
He turned off the computer and got to his feet. There had to be a logical, rational explanation for all this. He just had to find it.
He’d left his car keys in the truck. He threw on his coat and trudged out through the snow to the garage to get them. The snow was getting really deep. If it didn’t let up, they were going to have to implement some emergency procedures to get feed to the cattle stranded in the far pastures.
Wyoming in snowstorms could be a deadly place. He remembered reading about people who were stranded and froze to death in very little time. He thought about Merissa and her mother, Clara, all alone in that isolated cabin. He hoped they had plenty of firewood and provisions, just in case. He’d have to send Darby over.
He frowned as he noticed that Darby wasn’t back yet. It had been several hours. He pulled out his cell phone and called Darby’s number.
It was Tim who answered.
“Oh, hi, boss,” Tim said. “I started to call you but I wanted to make sure first. Darby got hit with a limb when we brought the tree down.”
“What?” Dalton exploded.
“He’s going to be okay,” Tim said quickly. “Bruised him a bit and broke a rib, so he’ll be out of commission for a bit, but nothing too bad. He said if he’d been there alone, he’d probably be dead. Tree pinned him, you see. I was able to get it off. But if I hadn’t gone with him... He says he owes his life to that little Baker girl.”
Dalton let out the breath he’d been holding. “Yeah,” he murmured unsteadily. “I believe he just might.”
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner,” Tim added, “but it took us a while to get to town, to the doc. We’ll head back in a few minutes. Have to go by the pharmacy to pick up some meds for Darby.”
“Okay. Drive carefully,” Tank said.
“You bet, boss.”
Dalton hung up the cell phone. He was almost white. Mallory, coming into the room with a steaming cup of coffee, stopped short.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I just got cured of my skeptical attitude about psychic phenomena,” Tank said, and laughed shortly.
CHAPTER TWO
DALTON COULDN’T FIND a cell phone number for Merissa, or he would have thanked her for the information that saved Darby’s life.
He looked up her business on the internet, though, and sent her an email. She responded almost immediately.
“Glad Darby is okay. Take care of yourself,” she wrote back.
* * *
AFTER THAT EXPERIENCE, Tank took her advice a lot more to heart. And the first thing he did was to place a call to Jacobsville, Texas, to the office of Sheriff Hayes Carson.
“This is going to sound strange,” Tank told Hayes. “But I think we have a connection.”
“We’re talking on the phone, so I’d call that a connection,” Hayes said dryly.
“No, I mean about the drug cartel.” Tank took a deep breath. He didn’t like speaking of it. “I had an experience on the Arizona border not too long ago. I was with the border patrol. A man who identified himself as a DEA agent took me out to a suspected drug drop and into an ambush. I was pretty much shot to pieces. I recovered, although it’s taking a long time.”
Hayes was immediately interested. “Now that’s really odd. We’re looking for a rogue DEA agent down here in Texas. I arrested a drug dealer a couple of months ago in company with a DEA agent that nobody can find information about. Even his own guys don’t know who he was, but we think he may be linked to the cartel over the border. Several of us, including the local FBI and DEA, have been trying to chase him down. Nobody can remember what he looks like. We even had our local police chief’s secretary, who has a photographic memory, get a police artist to sketch him. But even then, none of us could remember having seen him.”
“He blends.”
“I’ll say he blends,” Hayes said thoughtfully. “How did you connect your case to mine?”
Tank laughed self-consciously. “Now, see, this is going to sound really strange. A local psychic came over to warn me that I was being targeted by a politician who has something to do with the drug cartel and a mysterious DEA agent.”
“A psychic. Uh-huh.”
“I know, you think I’m nuts, but...”
“Actually, our police chief’s wife has the same ability,” came the surprising reply. “She’s saved Cash Grier’s life a couple of times because she knew things she shouldn’t. She calls it the ‘second sight,’ and says it’s from her Celtic ancestry.”
Tank wondered if Merissa’s ancestry was Celtic. He laughed. “Well, I feel all better now.”
“I wish you could fly down here and talk to me,” Hayes said. “We’ve got a huge file on El Ladŕon’s operation, and the men who’ve taken over after his unexpected demise.”
“I’d like to do that,” Tank said. “But right now we’re pretty much snowed in. And with Christmas coming, it’s a bad time. But when the weather breaks, I’ll give you a call and we’ll set something up.”
“Good idea. We could use the help.”
“You’re recovering okay from your kidnapping?”
“Yes, thanks. My fiancée and I had an interesting adventure. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” He laughed. “She held one of our captors at gunpoint with an AK-47, was really convincing. And then she confessed, when it was all over, that she didn’t know if it was loaded or the safety was on. What a girl!”
Tank laughed. “What a lucky man, to be marrying a woman like that.”
“Yes, I am. We’re getting married tomorrow, in fact.” Hayes chuckled. “And going on our honeymoon to Panama City for a few days. Next week is Christmas, so we have to be back by then. You married?”
“No woman in Wyoming crazy enough to take me on,” Tank said dryly. “Both my brothers are married. I’m just waiting to be snapped up by some kind passerby.”
“Good luck to you.”
“Thanks. Keep safe.”
“You do the same. Nice talking to you.”
“Same here.”
Tank hung up and went looking for his brother Mallory. He found him in the living room, by following the exquisite sound of a score from a popular movie. Mallory, like Tank himself, was a gifted pianist. Mallory’s wife, Morie, was better than both of them.
Mallory noticed his brother standing in the doorway and stopped playing with a grin.
Tank held up a hand. “I’m not conceding that you’re better than me. I was just thinking, however, that Morie puts us both in the shade.”
“Indeed she does,” Mallory replied with a smile. He got up. “Problems?”
“Remember I told you what Merissa said, about a sheriff in Texas whose case was connected to the shooting I was involved in?”
Mallory nodded, waiting.
Tank sighed. He perched himself on the arm of the sofa. “Well, it turns out that there actually is a sheriff in Texas who was kidnapped by a drug cartel—maybe the same cartel that shot me up.”
“Son of a gun!” Mallory exclaimed.
“His name is Sheriff Hayes Carson. There was an assassination attempt against him by one of the drug lords he arrested, just before Thanksgiving. He and his fiancée were kidnapped by some of El Ladŕon’s men and held across the border in Mexico. They escaped. But Carson says he had a run-in with one of the drug cartel henchmen before that. There was a DEA agent in a suit who was at the scene. The local police chief’s secretary saw the guy, and has a photographic memory, but even when the police artist drew him, neither Carson nor the feds could recall him.”
“Curious,” Mallory murmured.
“Yes. I remembered, after Merissa came here, that it was a DEA agent, in a suit, who led me into the ambush on the border.”
Mallory let out a long breath. “Good God.”
“Merissa says the same guys are coming after me because they’re afraid of what I’ll remember. The damnedest thing is, I don’t remember anything that would help convict someone. I only remember the pain and the certainty that I was going to die, there in the dust, covered in blood, all alone.”
Mallory got up and laid a heavy, affectionate hand on his shoulder. “That didn’t happen, though. A concerned citizen saw you and called the law.”
He nodded. “I vaguely remember that. Mostly it was a voice, telling me that I’d be all right. Had a Spanish accent. He saved my life.” He closed his eyes. “There was another man, arguing with him, telling him to do nothing. It was too late—he’d already made the call by then. I remember the other man’s voice. He was cussing. He had a Massachusetts accent.” He laughed. “Sounded like old history tapes of President John Kennedy, actually.”
“What did he look like?”
Tank frowned. He closed his eyes again, trying to remember. “I just vaguely remember. He was wearing a suit. He was tall and very pale with red hair.” He started. “I never thought of that.” He opened his eyes and looked at Mallory. “I think he was a DEA agent.” He frowned. “But why would he tell the other man not to get help for me if he was a fed?”
“Was he the same one who took you out there?”
Tank frowned. “No. No, it couldn’t have been him. That guy, the DEA guy, had dark hair and a Southern drawl.”
“Did you describe him to the sheriff?”
Tank got up. “No, but I’m about to.”
He picked up his cell phone, found Hayes Carson’s number in the stored files and autodialed the number.
It only took three rings before Hayes answered. “Carson.”
“It’s Dalton Kirk, in Wyoming. I’ve just remembered a man who called for help when I was shot. There was another man with him who tried to stop him from calling 911. The other man was tall, with red hair and a Massachusetts accent. Does that sound anything like the man you remember?”
Hayes actually laughed. “No. Our guy was tall and sandy-haired and had a slight Spanish accent.”
“A Spanish guy with blond hair?” Tank chuckled.
“Well, people from Northern Spain are often blond and blue-eyed. Some have red hair. And they say the Basque people of Spain settled in Scotland and Ireland.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I, but one of our federal agents is a history nut. He knows all about Scotland. He told me.”
“This whole thing is really strange. The man who led me into the ambush was tall and dark-haired. The man who was with the guy who called 911 was a red-head. But I remember them both wearing the same suit.” He shook his head. “Maybe the trauma unseated my memory.”
“Or maybe the man uses disguises.” Hayes was thinking, hard. “Listen, did you ever see that movie The Saint that starred Val Kilmer?”
Tank frowned. “Once, I think.”
“Well, the guy was a real chameleon. He could change his appearance at the drop of a hat. He could put on a wig, change his accent, the whole deal.”
“You think our guy might be someone like that?”
“It’s possible. People who work in the covert world have to learn to disguise themselves to avoid detection. He may have a background in black ops.”
“If I knew somebody in military intelligence, I might be able to find out something about that.”
“We have a guy here, Rick Marquez. He’s a police detective in San Antonio. His father-in-law is head of the CIA. I might be able to get him to check it out.”
“Great idea. Thanks.”
“I don’t know if he can find out anything. Especially with the odd descriptions I’ll have to give him.”
“Listen,” Tank said quietly, “it’s worth a try. If he’s ever used disguises in the past, there’s a chance somebody will remember him.”
“It’s possible, I suppose. But in covert work, I don’t imagine using disguises is exactly a rare thing,” Hayes said. He hesitated. “There’s another interesting connection, in my case.”
“What?”
“My fiancée’s father, her real father, is one of the biggest drug cartel leaders on the continent.”
There was a very significant silence on the other end of the line.
“He helped us shut down El Ladŕon,” Hayes added quietly. “And he saved the man’s family who helped rescue me and Minette. For a bad man, he’s something of a closet angel. They call him El Jefe.”
“A sheriff with an outlaw for a future father-in-law,” Tank said. “Well, it’s unique.”
“So is he. I can ask him to dig into his sources and see if he can come up with anything, like a budding politician with drug cartel ties.”
“That would be a help. Thanks.”
“I’m just as much involved as you are. Stay in touch.”
“I’ll do that. And we should both watch our backs in the meantime.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
* * *
TANK’S NEXT MOVE was to drive over to Merissa’s house through the blinding snow. What he wanted to talk to her about wasn’t something he was comfortable discussing over the phone. If there was an assassin after him, he might monitor calls. Anyone in black ops would have that talent.
When he pulled up at the front door of the small cabin, Clara, Merissa’s mother, was waiting there. She smiled as Tank got out of the truck and came up the steps.
