Home Invasion (18 page)

Callahan called six of the local ranching families and invited them for a barbecue at his place that night. Five of them accepted. The other family already had plans.

But that was enough. Counting the kids, there would be more than twenty people at Callahan’s house that evening. With the two agents and Earl dressed in boots, jeans, Western shirts, and Stetsons, they would blend right in and be able to leave without being noticed when the barbecue was over.

That was the plan, anyway. They would just have to wait and see how it played out.

Ford and Parker had mapped out the route they would take in Callahan’s old pickup. They checked the guns and ammunition they had taken from the dead FPS agents. Callahan used his tractor to haul a trailer loaded with bags of feed and fertilizer up to the patio. They unloaded enough of the bags to form a hollow, then concealed the weapons in it and covered them with some of the unloaded bags. Callahan drove the tractor back into the barn and hid the guns under a tarp in the back of the pickup. The truck was full of gas and ready to go.

All that was left was waiting, and while they were doing that, they tried to figure out the connection between the disarming of Home and the town’s proximity to Casa del Diablo. As Parker had said, the whole thing might be a coincidence, but the agents were going to try to prepare for any eventuality.

That was the way they had stayed alive in such a dangerous profession.

That afternoon, Callahan asked them, “What’re you boys plannin’ to do once you get there?”

“We’ll get the lay of the land, figure out what’s going on there, if anything.”

Callahan snorted. “No, I mean about this whole nerve gas shit. You can’t let those people in Washington get away with plottin’ against our own citizens.”

“We have to get proof, and we have to get the word out,” Parker said. “If the public knows about the gas, the government won’t dare use it. They wouldn’t be able to cover it up. There would be such an uproar, the President would probably have to resign.”

Callahan shook his head. “I don’t know about that. I ain’t sure you’ll ever get that fella out of office, now that he’s there. If he can get enough of the military on his side, he’ll just up and declare himself President for life, like those little tinpot dictators down in the Caribbean.”

“The country won’t stand for it,” Parker insisted.

“And while General Stone and the FPS may have signed on to do his dirty work,” Ford said, “there are enough members in the regular branches of the service who have enough sense to know they’re not supposed to be fighting their own countrymen. Remember that mess at the Alamo a few years back?”

Callahan nodded and said, “Hard to forget about it. You’re talkin’ about a military takeover, though. That ain’t the way we do things in this country.”

“I know. And so do enough members of the President’s own party, or at least I hope so. I hope enough of them still have enough decency to stand up to him once they find out what he’s been doing. They’re the ones who’ll have to throw him out of office, if he won’t go voluntarily.”

“You fellas are more optimistic than I am,” Callahan said with a sigh. “His own bunch won’t ever turn on him. And you’ll have a damn hard time get-tin’ the word out, anyway, what with all the TV folks kissin’ up to him all the time.”

“There are still some honest people on the radio,” Ford said.

“And don’t forget the bloggers,” Parker added. “They’ve shown that they can spread news the mainstream media doesn’t want heard. All it’ll take are a few brave men and women at first who are willing to tell the truth. It’ll mushroom from there.”

“I hope you’re right,” Callahan said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

The guests began to arrive while the sun was still up. Callahan already had meat smoking in a barbecue pit, and delicious aromas filled the air. Ford, Parker, and Earl were dressed in their cowboy clothes. Callahan introduced them as his cousins from Houston, as they had planned. None of the guests seemed to doubt the story.

As they stood near the barbecue pit, Earl complained under his breath, “I look like an idiot in this getup. You two can pass for cowboys, but me …” He shook his head.

“You’re right, Earl,” Ford said. “You look like a little kid in a Hallowe’en costume. Or you would if kids still dressed like cowboys for Hallowe’en.” Ford grinned. “You just need a cap pistol.”

“Oh, thanks,” Earl said dryly. “That makes me feel a
lot
better.”

Parker took a pull on the beer he held. Callahan had filled a big washtub with ice and shoved a few dozen bottles of beer down into it.

“We’ll leave when everybody else does, right?” he asked.

“Yep,” Ford said. “I doubt if anybody’s watching close enough to notice there’s one more pickup leaving than drove up earlier.”

Earl said, “Uh … guys? What’s that thing?”

The agents turned to him. He nodded toward a range of hills about half a mile north of the ranch house.

Ford’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the aircraft flying slowly over the hills. It had an odd, streamlined look about it, and Ford recognized it instantly.

“Drone,” he said as the craft swung toward the ranch. “Damn it! Somebody’s decided to take a closer look.”

“You mean it’s a remote-controlled plane?”

“Yeah, with high-powered cameras mounted in the nose,” Parker said. “We’d better get in the house, otherwise it can look right into our faces from that altitude.”

Moving unhurriedly so as not to attract attention, the three men turned and walked across the patio into the house. Outside, Callahan’s guests noticed the drone plane as well and started pointing and talking about it.

“You think the guys flying that thing saw us?” Earl asked nervously once they were inside.

“I hope not,” Ford said. “Maybe we made it inside before it got close enough.”

He had a bad feeling, though. The cameras on a surveillance drone like that were powerful enough to zoom in from a long distance and pick up quite a few details. Even before the drone finished its pass, it could have captured digital images of everybody at the gathering, and right now somebody could be running those images through government computers at mind-boggling speeds, searching for matches.

The drone circled back over the hills. Ford thought for a second that it was leaving, but then it swung around again so that its nose pointed toward the ranch house. He grabbed a pair of binoculars Callahan kept on the mantel over the fireplace and lifted them to his eyes, peering through them and locating the drone in time to see the hatch in its belly slide open so something could poke out.

“Damn!” he exclaimed as he threw the binoculars aside. “It’s armed with a missile.”

“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!” Earl babbled. “Not again!”

Ford slammed the sliding glass doors aside and ran out onto the patio. “Everybody out!” he bellowed. “Get out of here! We’re under attack!” It made him sick to think the lives of all these innocent people were in danger because of the plan he and Parker had come up with. They had known the government—or at least, certain people inside the government—wanted them dead at all costs. And yet they had brought these civilians into the line of fire because there was no other way.

They hadn’t counted on a surveillance drone discovering their presence on Callahan’s ranch before they could make their getaway. Now it was too late for second-guessing. All they could do was try to scatter the people caught on the bull’s-eye.

Parker and Callahan joined in on the yelling, too, shouting at the guests to move. Ford saw a sudden plume of smoke in the air near the drone and knew the missile was on its way.

“Incoming!” he roared. “Incoming!”

Screaming and yelling incoherently, the guests ran toward the barn as Parker waved them in that direction. They had only seconds, but at least they put some distance between themselves and the house before the missile came whistling in and slammed into the building. The massive explosion shook the earth, sent debris flying high into the air, and created a cloud of dust and smoke.

Ford and Earl were the closest ones to the blast. The impact knocked them off their feet. With his ears ringing, Ford grabbed Earl’s arm and hauled him upright.

“Are you okay?” he shouted.

“What? “ Earl was deafened.

“Okay?”

Earl must have read his lips, because the little scientist nodded his head.

The drone flew overhead and swung around for another pass. Ford knew some of the drones carried only one missile, but some were armed with two.

Just their luck, this craft was a two-fer.

As the drone lined up for a second missile run, Parker stepped out of the barn holding the RPG launcher that had been in the SUV belonging to the Federal Protective Service. He lifted the weapon to his shoulder, lined up the shot, and fired. The grenade streaked through the dusk toward the drone.

The second missile launched, but it had barely cleared the drone’s nose when the RPG struck it. Both of them detonated, and the huge, mid-air explosion was close enough to the drone to send it spinning crazily out of control across the sky. A couple of seconds later, the drone slammed into the side of a hill and blew up in a brilliant burst of flame.

Realizing that they had gained a few moments’ respite, Ford shouted to the stunned party-goers, “Move! Get in your trucks and get out of here!”

Everyone had arrived in either a pickup or an SUV. They were parked in the open area between the barn and the ranch house. The house was on fire now from the explosion. That was good, Ford thought. The blaze would confuse the footage from any heat-sensitive cameras pointing down at them from orbit. With a big, intense source of heat like that, it would be harder for the camera to pick out individual figures.

As scared people began piling into their vehicles, Ford and Earl ran over to join Parker and Callahan in the open double doors of the barn.

“Come on!” Ford said. “We’ve gotta get outta here now, while everybody else is scattering. Maybe they won’t be able to pick us out on the satellite footage.”

“Those sons of bitches!” Callahan said bitterly as he looked at the wreckage of his home. “They blew up my house!”

“Yeah, and they’ll figure out that you know who we are and what we’re after,” Parker said. “You’ve got to come with us, Rye. It won’t be safe for you to stay here.”

Callahan glared at him. “This place has been in my family for generations. I won’t abandon it.”

“You’re not abandoning it forever,” Ford said. “You’re just giving yourself a chance to stay alive so you can reclaim it later.”

“Well …”

“Come on, Mr. Callahan,” Earl urged. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

That was true enough. With the skidding of tires on gravel, the guests were getting the hell out of there while the getting was good.

“All right,” Callahan said abruptly. “I don’t like it, but I reckon you fellas are right.”

The four of them crowded into the pickup. They wouldn’t have made it if Earl hadn’t sat on Ford’s lap.

“I don’t like it any better than you do, you big ape,” Earl said.

“Remind you of sitting on Santa’s lap, does it?” Ford shot back.

“Shut up, both of you,” Parker grated from behind the wheel. He stomped the gas and sent the truck racing out of the barn. They fell in behind the others who were fleeing from the devastation.

Sitting in the middle, Callahan twisted his neck to look back at the burning ranch house. “By God, I got a score to settle with them FPS varmints now, too, and I intend to settle it!”

“You’ll probably get your chance,” Ford said. “But for now, you’re coming with us while we check out things in Home.”

Knowing that it was possible they were being watched and that a small army of cold-blooded killers might be moving to intercept them at that very moment, the four fugitives headed west across the Texas plains, into the dwindling light of a dying day.

Except for a few fluffy white clouds over the mountains to the west, Sunday morning dawned clear and beautiful. It was a late summer day with a hint of coolness in the air that presaged the autumn and winter to come.

The Federal Protective Service troopers manning the checkpoint on the state highway approximately five miles east of Home had painted the words STOP HERE in big letters across the westbound lane of the highway. A couple of orange traffic cones were set up behind the words. One of the black RVs was parked beside the road to serve as the command post for the checkpoint, and also as a place for the men who weren’t on duty at the moment to sleep, eat, and chill out.

As the sun rose, two men in full gear were standing beside the road, watching for traffic. There hadn’t been much. Not many people other than the media were going in and out of Home these days, and the troopers didn’t have to worry much about the media, although they checked all the vehicles. The reporters were on their side.

Hector Reyes stifled a yawn. It was contagious. Adam Sutherland, on the other side of the highway, yawned, too. Hector grinned across at him.

“I don’t know why we’re out here,” Adam said. “Nothing’s gonna happen today. Everybody knows they can’t get away with bringing guns into town.”

“You can never be sure of that,” Hector said. “Sometimes things happen to surprise you.”

Adam shook his head. “Not on this mission. Nobody even wants to come to this backwater town anymore. It wouldn’t surprise me if the whole place just dries up and blows away in a few years.”

“Me, neither,” Hector agreed.

Adam suddenly stiffened and peered off into the distance to the east. “
Something’s
coming,” he said. “Can’t tell what it is yet.”

Hector stepped out into the road and shaded his eyes with his hand. The sun hadn’t been up very long and was still low to the horizon.

“Looks like a truck,” he commented a moment later.

“More than one, I’d say,” Adam responded as he joined Hector in the middle of the highway. “Looks like a couple.” He shrugged. “Not too surprising, I guess. The people in Home may not have their guns anymore, but they still have to eat. I’ll bet those are grocery trucks.”

“Maybe.” Hector shrugged. “We’ll find out in a minute.”

It was true. The trucks advanced at a steady speed, the growl of their engines audible now in the early morning air.

Adam started to frown. “Are … are they not slowing down? Surely they’re not going to try to bust through here!”

But then he relaxed as the whine of brakes joined the engine sound. The two trucks slowed gradually. Adam and Hector moved to opposite sides of the road again and covered the vehicles with their assault rifles. The sound of the brakes grew louder until the pair of trucks finally came to a stop. The front wheels of the first one sat on top of the words painted on the highway.

Adam walked toward the driver’s door while the man behind the wheel rolled down his window. “You’ll have to step out, sir,” Adam called up. “These trucks and their contents will have to be inspected before you can continue, by order of the Federal Protective Service.”

Hector came around the front of the truck and stepped up beside him. Adam didn’t do more than glance at him. Most of his attention was centered on the man behind the wheel of the truck.

So he never saw the silenced pistol in Hector’s hand. He just felt the muzzle of it press against his ear for a second before Hector pulled the trigger and sent a.32 round bouncing around inside Adam’s skull. The beautiful morning turned red and black and then went away forever for Adam Sutherland.

Hector caught the body and lowered it to the ground. He nodded to the driver, who pressed a button on the truck’s dashboard that lit up a light in the enclosed back.

Hector walked around the truck again and went to the RV. He opened the door and called, ȌHey, guys, come out here for a minute and give us a hand.”

The other four members of the detachment emerged from the vehicle a moment later, a couple of them yawning sleepily. Hector waited until all four of them were out, then shot the last one in the head, just as he had Adam.

Before the other three realized what the coughing sound behind them really was, several men armed with automatic weapons stepped out from behind the first truck parked on the highway and covered them. The FPS troopers reacted instantly and started to swing their own weapons up, but Hector said, “No! Stand down!”

The men were well-trained, so they hesitated. Only for a second, but in that second, every hope of fighting back was lost. Hector said, “Put your guns on the ground.”

“Reyes, you son of a bitch,” one of the men said as they reluctantly complied. “What’s going on here?”

“Destiny,” Hector said.

A few minutes later, all the troopers except Hector were dead, each shot once in the head after Hector made them remove their helmets. The men from the trucks stripped their uniforms off them, and five of the men from the cartel began to put them on. Hector handed around lists of the day’s call signs and radio broadcast protocols.

“There are three more checkpoints,” he said. “One on the state highway on the other side of town, and on the farm-to-market road north and south of town. Colonel Grady talked about how there would be checkpoints on the smaller roads, too, but that was just a bluff. General Stone decided it wasn’t necessary to go to that much trouble.”

“Why not? “ one of the killers asked.

Hector waved a hand toward the town, which was out of sight in the distance except for the barely visible water tower. “Because those people have given up. Hell, they let the government come in and take their guns. Most of them swore they’d never do a thing like that, but when it was their own skins on the line, they caved. They’re beat, man. Beat down all the way. They got no fight left in ’em anymore.”

“I hope you’re right,” the other man said as he settled one of the FPS helmets on his head. “But in the end, it won’t really matter, will it?”

Hector smiled. “Not one bit, man.”

The ringing of the phone on the table beside the bed woke Alex. She groaned and rolled over, reaching blindly for it. She couldn’t find the phone and had to open her eyes and, when she did, the first thing she saw was the clock. It was only a few minutes after seven. She had planned on sleeping in this morning in hopes of making up for some of the sleep she had lost over the past few days, and she had gotten a start on it, but now that plan was ruined.

Because nobody was going to be calling at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning with good news.

She finally got a hand on the phone and lifted it from its base. She thumbed the Talk button and said, “Yeah?”

“This is Ed Ruiz, Alex. Sorry to call you so early, but I thought you’d want to know.”

Alex sat up and pushed tangled hair out of her eyes with her free hand. “Know what, Ed?” Why couldn’t the mayor just spit it out, whatever he wanted to tell her.

Ruiz did. “Pete McNamara died early this morning, about an hour ago.”

Alex drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “Damn,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Ruiz agreed. “I guess we all knew it was coming. Nobody expected him to last this long, especially the doctors. But it’s still hard.”

It was. Pete had never really regained consciousness after the stroke that had felled him in the courtroom, although he had shown signs of awareness on occasion. He didn’t have a DNR order on file, and he and Inez hadn’t had any kids to make the decision for him. So after his condition had been stabilized enough for him to be moved, he’d been brought back to the small nursing home near the hospital and placed under Dr. Boone’s care. They’d put a feeding tube in his stomach and waited for nature to take its course, one way or another.

Now, several months later, it had finally gotten around to finishing the job of killing Pete McNamara, Alex thought, the job that Jorge Corona and Emilio Navarre had begun the night they broke into his house.

“All right, Ed. Thanks for telling me.”

“I kept hoping and praying that maybe the doctors were wrong, that maybe one of these days Pete would wake up and be himself again.” A hollow laugh came from Ruiz. “But if Pete had been aware enough to know what was going on in his hometown, he wouldn’t have wanted to live. He would have been so sickened by all of us that he would have rather been dead.”

“We don’t know that,” Alex said. “And we did what we had to do to keep a bunch of our people from getting thrown into some secret prison or worse. Nobody knows where they took Wendell Post and Elmer Davis. Dave Rutherford doesn’t think we’ll ever know … or see them again.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we don’t want to know. There’s nothing we can do about it, is there?”

Alex didn’t answer that. There was no answer she could make, not one that she wanted to admit to, anyway.

She said goodbye to Ruiz and hung up the phone. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, she got up and pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt. Jack would still be asleep—the phone wouldn’t have awakened him, since he could sleep through anything short of an earthquake—so she thought she might as well have a look around town before coming back here to fix some breakfast.

She clipped her holster to her belt, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and put on a cap. As she went out to her patrol car, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses. She drove downtown and parked in front of the bank.

Nothing was much quieter than a little town this early on Sunday morning. In a little while, people would start moving around more, pulling into the parking lots of the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, the Catholic Church. One of the convenience stores at the crossroads was closed; the other was open but didn’t have any customers. A gasoline truck was parked at the side of the road, its driver filling the convenience store’s tanks. Alex leaned against the fender of her car and looked up and down, both ways along the highway and the farm road. Peace and quiet.

The
whup-whup-whup
eggbeater sound of a helicopter suddenly intruded on the tranquility. She looked up, searching the pale blue sky for the aircraft. When she spotted it off to the east, she realized it was coming toward Home.

It was low, too, and getting lower. Alex straightened from her casual pose, her muscles stiffening with tension. It looked like the blasted chopper was going to land somewhere in or near the town. She hurriedly got into the car as the helicopter dipped out of her sight.

The high school, she thought. It looked like the helicopter was landing on the high school parking lot.

And whatever it was carrying couldn’t be anything good, she thought as she gunned the patrol car in that direction.