Stand Your Ground (6 page)

The police chief was supposed to set a good example, so Cobb tried not to use his cell phone while he was driving unless it was an emergency. For that reason, he radioed John Howard Stark while he was still at the site where he practiced his fast draw and did his target practice.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Stark, this is Charles Cobb. We met yesterday in Fuego.”

“Of course, Chief. How are you?”

“I'm fine,” Cobb said. “My dispatcher said you wanted to talk to me. Something about strangers in town?” Stark didn't answer the question directly. Instead he said, “Do you know who Alexis Devereaux is, Chief ?”

“The name's familiar,” Cobb said, frowning slightly. “I can't quite place it, though.”

“She's a lawyer, used to work at the White House. Now she shows up on TV a lot. The cable news networks like to bring her in as an expert on the talking head shows.”

“Oh, yes, I know who you're talking about. Very staunch supporter of the administration.”

“Except when the President isn't being liberal enough to suit her,” Stark said. “Like in the case of those prisoners who were just transferred to Hell's Gate.”

“Are you saying that Alexis Devereaux is in Fuego?”

“She is, Chief, and so is Phillip Hamil.”

“I feel like I should know that name, too.”

“He's some sort of professor who turns up on the news shows, too. In the past he's advised the administration on U.S.–Arab relations.”

Cobb lifted the hand that wasn't holding the phone and scrubbed it over his face. He felt a sudden weariness settling into his shoulders. “Would it be correct to describe these two as publicity hounds?” he asked.

“In my opinion it would be.”

“We're going to have camera crews in Fuego, aren't we?”

“Maybe more than that,” Stark said. “According to what I've been told, there are a number of men of Middle Eastern descent in town this morning, too. I saw a couple of them at the motel just a little while ago.”

“It's not illegal to be of Middle Eastern descent,” Cobb pointed out.

“Of course not. And it might not even mean anything. But I've got a hunch you may have a mob of angry protesters on your hands, Chief.”

“That's racial profiling.”

“It's common sense,” Stark said, sounding slightly impatient.

Stark wasn't even a cop, Cobb thought, but he knew what law enforcement officers everywhere were aware of if they had half a brain: facts didn't lie, and a thirty-year-old Middle Eastern male was a hell of a lot more likely to have trouble in mind than an eighty-year-old grandma. Stopping and interrogating Grandma just because of some misguided notion of political correctness was nothing more than a waste of valuable time and resources.

“Where are you now, Mr. Stark?” Cobb asked.

“As a matter of fact, I'm out at the prison visiting with George Baldwin.”

“Why don't you stay there for a while?” Cobb suggested.

“What, you think I'm going to cause trouble?”

“No offense, but you seem to have a history of trouble cropping up wherever you are, Mr. Stark. Most of your problems have been with the Mexican drug cartels, but we both know they have a lot of ties with Islamic terror networks. The friends of those fellows who are locked up in Hell's Gate, in other words.”

“All I said was that there might be a protest, not some sort of terrorist incident.”

“I can't rule anything out until I've investigated the situation,” Cobb said. “I don't want your presence aggravating things.”

“All right, I'll stay put,” Stark said, although he didn't sound very happy about it. “How about letting me know what you find out?”

“Yes, I'll stay in touch. Good-bye, Mr. Stark.”

Cobb broke the connection and slipped the handset into the pocket of his uniform shirt. He sighed as he reached for the key in the police cruiser's ignition.

So much for a peaceful Sunday.

 

 

Jerry Patel hadn't slept much the night before. A little while not long before dawn when sheer exhaustion had claimed him, that was all. And when he woke up he had wished for a few seconds that it was all just a dream . . . but of course it wasn't.

Other than that he had lain there in bed whimpering. Lara had tried to comfort him at first, but after a while she had given up in disgust.

She was nervous about what was going to happen, too, he knew, but if anything, she was more fierce in her dedication to their cause than he was. She had said, “It has to be done, Jerry. I know some of the Americans are your friends, but they must be taught that they cannot mock the Prophet.”

Patel knew she was right. They were only doing what was necessary. The blood that would be spilled today and in days to come would be in a holy cause.

The face that looked back at him from the mirror on Sunday morning was gaunt and hollow-eyed, though. Maybe when all this was over, he could rest then.

Hamil and Fareed had given strict orders that everyone was to stay in their rooms until the time came for the operation to begin. So no one was moving around the hotel this morning except for Mr. Stark, who still seemed to have no idea what was going on. Patel had seen the big American walk to the café for breakfast, then get in his pickup and drive off.

In a way, Patel hoped that Stark had left for good, although he hadn't seen the man load any belongings into the pickup. Despite Stark's crimes against Islam and its allies in the past, he had been friendly to Patel. He seemed like a good man, not a devil.

Patel was at the counter in the lobby, puttering around, trying to stay busy and keep his mind off what was going to happen, when the door opened and the blond woman came in.

Alexis Devereaux wore a dark blue dress today, along with stockings and heels, and she was sinfully beautiful. Literally sinful, since Patel felt a sharp twinge of guilt to go along with the surge of lust she provoked in him.

She smiled and said, “I'm expecting a satellite truck and a camera crew to show up any time now, Mr. Patel. In fact, they should have been here before now. I'm afraid they've been delayed. When they get here, could you send them on out to the prison?”

“To . . . to the prison?”

“That's right. They're going to be doing a field report for one of the news networks on the new prisoners who were brought out there last week and the conditions in which they're being kept. I'll be appearing on the broadcast as a legal expert.”

“I . . . I see.”

She frowned a little as she looked at him and asked, “Are you all right? You seem nervous, and you're sweating.”

“My apologies,” Patel said quickly. He used the sleeve of his white shirt to wipe away the beads of perspiration from his forehead. “I am perhaps becoming a bit under the weather, as they say.”

“Oh, I hope not. Maybe you'll feel better later. Can you take care of that for me? About the TV crew, I mean?”

“Yes, of course,” Patel replied without hesitation. Hamil wanted plenty of press coverage. Having a famous lawyer on TV from the prison was a good thing.

His hands were on the counter. Alexis reached out and rested her fingertips on the back of Patel's right hand for a second. Her touch was warm and made his pulse leap.

“Thank you,” she said.

Patel knew the way she acted didn't mean anything. Alexis was just one of those women who were naturally a little flirtatious with men. But that didn't stop his heart from pounding harder and his mouth from going dry.

“Yes . . . yes, of course.” He struggled to get the words out.

She lifted her hand—the hand she had used to touch him—and wiggled the fingers in a wave. As she walked out of the motel lobby, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the subtle sway of her elegantly clad rear end.

Behind him, Lara cleared her throat.

Patel jumped.

When he looked around, his wife was glaring at him.

“You want her, don't you?” Lara demanded. “That blond American bitch.”

“What? No, don't be crazy.”

Patel hoped his denial was convincing. Even with everything else going on, keeping his wife from being angry with him was still an important consideration.

He really
had
turned into an American, he thought gloomily.

“She's only important because of the publicity she can provide for our holy cause,” Patel went on. “You know what Dr. Hamil said about her.”

Lara sniffed and shrugged her shoulders.

“Perhaps. But you were still drooling over her.”

He might have continued denying his wife's accusations, but at that moment the glint of the morning sun off a windshield in the parking lot caught his eye. A vehicle had just turned off the highway.

Maybe that camera crew Alexis Devereaux had asked him about, he thought.

A second later he saw that was wrong. The car that came to a stop in front of the motel office was a police cruiser.

Patel's eyes widened in instinctive fear.

The police car's lights weren't going, and the siren had been silent as the vehicle rolled to a stop under the canopy just outside the office. Patel reminded himself of those things and tried to remain calm.

Just in case, though, he said to Lara, “Go back into our quarters.”

“I should stay out here.”

“No!” His voice was sharp, and for one of the few times in their marriage it possessed a note of command. “Do as I say.”

“Well . . . all right,” Lara said grudgingly. She disappeared through the door behind the counter and closed it after her.

Patel took a deep breath as he watched the chief of police get out of the car. He knew Charles Cobb, but not well. In the three years that Cobb had been chief, he had gotten to know all the merchants in town, but didn't seem to be close to anyone.

Cobb wore his police uniform, but something about it wasn't right. Patel frowned as he tried to figure out what it was.

As Cobb opened the glass door and came into the lobby, Patel realized what had struck him as odd.

The chief wasn't wearing a standard service revolver or automatic in a holster with a flap over the butt, or any other sort of keeper.

No, the holster attached to the gun belt strapped around Cobb's hips was open at the top and cut down so that the gun would come out quickly with nothing for it to snag on. And the gun itself was a big revolver with wooden grips, like something out of an old cowboy movie.

It looked distinctly out of place on the black police chief.

Cobb smiled, but it wasn't a very friendly expression. He said, “Good morning, Mr. Patel.”

“Chief,” Patel said. “What brings you here on a Sunday morning?”

He was pleased by how steady his voice sounded. It wasn't easy to achieve that effect, that was certain.

“I'm not really sure,” Cobb replied. “I've had a report of something, and I'm checking it out.”

Patel held his hands out to the side and said, “Anything I can do to help you, I'll be glad to, Chief. You know that.”

“Sure, sure,” Cobb said, nodding. “Do you have any vacancies, Mr. Patel?”

A curious frown creased Patel's forehead. He thought that was a plausible reaction to such a question from the chief of police.

“As a matter of fact, the motel is full,” he said.

“This late in the morning? Haven't most of your guests usually packed up and left by now?”

“I don't really have any control over when they check in and check out,” Patel said. “I just serve the public.”

“Of course. I've been told that you have a lot of guests of Middle Eastern descent.”

Damn it!
Everyone had been supposed to stay out of sight until the time came for the operation to begin. Obviously, some of the men had not been careful enough.

Maybe he could still keep the chief from getting too curious, Patel thought. He would play the discrimination card. That nearly always worked.

“I can't turn away anyone because of their ethnicity. That isn't legal.” Patel couldn't resist adding, “I would have thought that
you
would know that, Chief.”

Something sparked in Cobb's eyes. He said, “You mean because I'm black?”

Patel shrugged, spread his hands again.

“Your people have always suffered from prejudice.”

“
My people
are the citizens of Fuego, black, white, brown, whatever color,” Cobb snapped. “I think I'll run the plates of some of the cars parked out there.”

“You can't—” Patel began.

“Yes, I can,” Cobb interrupted. “I don't need a warrant or a court order to check license plate numbers.”

He started to turn away from the counter but stopped abruptly as he swung around. A man stood in the doorway.

Patel had been concentrating on the chief and hadn't noticed the newcomer, either. At the sight of him now, though, Patel's heart started to thud in his chest even harder than it had when Alexis Devereaux touched him.

Fareed Nassir stood there with a look of undisguised hatred on his hatchet-like face and the burning desire to kill in his eyes.

Patel was hiding something. Cobb was sure of that. The motel owner was trying to put up a good front, but Cobb could tell he was scared to death.

That was enough to convince Cobb that John Howard Stark might have been right about some sort of protest brewing.

Cobb could imagine a group of protesters turning into an angry mob and causing some real damage. He was old enough to remember what had happened at the American embassy in Iran nearly fifty years earlier. He was not going to let something like that happen on the streets of Fuego.

No, sir.

So he turned away from the counter with anger building inside him. Nobody was going to threaten his town, no matter what political axe they thought they had to grind.

As he did, he saw a tall, lean man standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light outside. That sight alone was enough to surprise Cobb and make him stop what he was doing.

Then the man moved a step deeper into the lobby and Cobb saw his face.

That glimpse was more than enough to tell Cobb that right here was trouble on two legs.

Bad trouble.

His mind flashed back to a night many years earlier, when he'd been a rookie cop in Fort Worth and had walked into a convenience store on the south side. The clerk, a middle-aged Vietnamese man, had been standing at the counter with his hands pressing down hard on it.

In front of the counter had been a young black guy, about the same age as Cobb, wearing a hoodie with his hands shoved in the pockets.

As soon as the “customer” turned and looked at him, Cobb had known what was about to happen. He had seen the urge to kill in the man's eyes.

He had survived that night only because his reactions were fast. He'd grabbed a rack full of chips and shoved it right into the guy, knocking him backward.

That had given Cobb enough time to draw his weapon and yell for the would-be robber to get on the ground.

The man hadn't obeyed the order. He had fired through the hoodie pocket instead.

The shot went wild and hit a display of soft drinks in plastic bottles, spraying the sticky brown stuff all over the floor.

Cobb would have returned fire, but he didn't have to. The Vietnamese clerk reached under the counter, came up with a sawed-off shotgun, and blew a hole in the robber's chest big enough to drive a pickup through.

That was the only time in his career Cobb had come close to firing his weapon in the line of duty.

That was about to change, though, because he saw the same look in the eyes of the man who had just come into the motel lobby, that same eagerness to kill.

The man's hand darted under the lightweight jacket he wore.

Cobb knew the man was reaching for a gun. Every instinct in his body screamed a warning at him. His muscles and nerves began to react automatically.

But he had to wait, had to actually
see
the gun before he could respond. That was what years of training and serving as a law enforcement officer had taught him. The habit was too ingrained to discard it now.

The man's hand came into view, and sure enough, it was holding a short-barreled automatic. The gun wouldn't be very accurate except at close range, but no more than ten feet separated the man from Cobb.

That was enough evidence for Cobb. His hand flashed down to the butt of the Colt.

It was a good draw, as fast and smooth as he'd ever made. A gunfighter's draw, just like the old days.

The tall man never got a shot off. Cobb fired from the hip and put two slugs into his chest. The bullets punched all the way through his skinny body and shattered the glass door behind him.

The shots were deafening in the relatively close confines of the lobby. As the man Cobb had just shot dropped his gun and collapsed, the chief swung back around toward the counter to see what Patel was doing.

The motel owner had clapped his hands over his ears and his mouth was wide open, as were his eyes. Cobb figured he was screaming but couldn't be sure because his own ears were ringing so loudly from the gun blasts.

The door behind Patel flew open and hit him in the back. The impact knocked him forward so that he fell across the counter. His wife—Lara was her name, Cobb remembered somehow in that desperate split second—lunged through the door, and Cobb suddenly found himself seeing the same thing that unlucky robber had seen in that Fort Worth convenience store so many years earlier.

He was looking right down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

He might have had a chance if he hadn't hesitated. Maybe it was because she was a woman. Whatever the reason, Cobb didn't pull the trigger.

Both barrels erupted in flame as the shotgun went off with an even more ear-slamming roar.

The world turned red in Cobb's face, then black.

Then nothing.

 

 

Patel thought his head was going to explode. The shotgun blast was bad enough, so loud and so close that it seemed to jolt his brain inside his skull.

The sight of the police chief's body lying on the tiled floor in front of the counter, gushing crimson blood from the stump of its neck, was even worse. Screaming, Patel forced himself to look away from it.

That was a mistake. His gaze landed on the dark, shredded lump of flesh and bone that had been Charles Cobb's head.

The double load of buckshot fired at such close range had blown the chief's head right off his shoulders.

Patel's knees buckled. He would have fallen if he hadn't caught hold of the counter and hung on to it with the desperation of a drowning man.

He was drowning, all right.

Drowning in horror.

Slowly, he became aware that somebody was shaking him. He looked over and saw Lara standing beside him. Her mouth moved, but he couldn't hear what she was saying.

He couldn't hear anything except his own screaming and the gunshots.

Gradually, words began to penetrate his stunned brain. He heard her say, “—it!” Or maybe it was “Shit!” That would certainly be appropriate under the circumstances.

No, she was saying, “Stop it!” He realized that as she took hold of his shoulders with both hands and continued shaking him. “Stop it, Jerry! Get ahold of yourself!”

What Patel wanted to do was crawl under the counter, curl up in a ball, and stay there until all the bad things in the world had gone away.

He couldn't do that. Lara was right. He had to cope with what had happened, because this was just the beginning.

Hard though it might be to believe, things were only going to get worse.

As an example of that, several men appeared outside the ruined door, glass crunching on the sidewalk under their feet as they rushed into the lobby. Some of them carried pistols, the others automatic weapons. They jerked from side to side, searching for someone to shoot.

Patel and Lara both thrust their hands in the air to let the men know they were no threat.

One of them yelled, “Fareed!” at the side of the second body lying on the floor. The front of Fareed's shirt was sodden with blood, but other than that he looked a lot better than the police chief.

Equally as dead, though. His lifeless face was slack, and his dark eyes had begun to glaze over as they stared at nothing.

The men started shouting at Patel and his wife, some in English, some in their native tongues, demanding to know what had happened. Patel could only stutter, unable to get a coherent word in.

Phillip Hamil ran up outside, also carrying a small pistol. As the others had done, he pulled the door open to step through it, even though most of the glass had shattered and fallen out.

At a sharp word of command from Hamil, the other men fell silent. He looked at the motel owner and asked, “What happened here, Jerry?”

Patel swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “The chief of police came in asking questions. Someone told him there were a lot of strangers staying here. He was going to check the license plates of the cars—”

“So you shot him?” Hamil sounded astonished. “All those vehicles were bought legally. And of course there are strangers at a motel. There always are!”

“No, no,” Patel said quickly, pushing at the air with his hands. “I didn't try to stop him, but then Fareed came in, and when he saw the chief, he . . . he—”

“He pulled a gun,” Hamil finished with a note of resignation in his voice. “Fareed always had trouble controlling his hatred for the Americans. I suppose he thought that since everything was about to begin anyway, he might as well go ahead and kill the chief.”

Patel nodded, glad that Hamil seemed to understand.

“Who shot Fareed?” Hamil asked.

“The chief did. He . . . he let Fareed draw his gun first, then . . . I never saw anything like it. The chief 's gun came out so fast, and he shot Fareed, and—”

“And you shot him with that shotgun,” Hamil said, nodding to the weapon Lara had placed on the counter.

“No, I—”

“Don't be modest, Jerry,” Lara broke into Patel's denial. “You were so brave.”

She looked intently at him, and he knew what she wanted. She intended for him to take credit for killing Chief Cobb. She didn't want to disgrace him and cast a slur on his manhood by admitting that she'd had to kill the chief herself.

After a second, Patel's shoulders rose and fell in an eloquent shrug. He couldn't bring himself to put the lie into words, but if Hamil wanted to believe he was some sort of hero, then so be it.

“You did the best you could in a bad situation, Jerry,” Hamil said. “I know that. I'm proud of you. Both of you.” He turned to one of the other men and added in English, “Go set off the flares to let the others know it's time to move in.”

As the man hurried out, Patel said, “But the operation isn't scheduled to begin yet.”

“We don't have any choice. People will have heard those shots. Some of them may be coming to investigate.” Hamil paused and leaned his head to the side. “Although, this
is
Texas, where everyone is in love with their guns, so maybe they won't. But we were going to launch the operation in another half-hour anyway, so we're only jumping the gun by a little.”

Jumping the gun, Patel thought. What a fitting expression for what was happening in Fuego this morning.

“There's something else I want to know,” Hamil went on. “You said someone told the chief about a lot of strangers being in town. Who could have done that?”

“I don't know, unless . . .”

Hamil just waited in silence for Patel to go on.

“The only one I can think of is Mr. Stark,” Patel continued after a moment. “Other than our men—and Ms. Devereaux—he was the only one around here this morning. I don't think Ms. Devereaux would have alerted the chief.”

“No, even if Alexis was curious, she wouldn't have bothered saying anything to some hick lawman. Besides, she's probably expecting protesters—better visuals that way—and she wouldn't have suspected our men of being anything else.” Hamil nodded. “No, I agree with you, it had to be Stark.”

The man Hamil had sent outside reappeared on the asphalt in front of the office. He had an odd-looking cylindrical object in his hand. It was some sort of gun, Patel realized.

The man pointed the thing into the air. It went off with a thumping sound, followed a few seconds later by a distant report. The man reloaded and fired again.

The flares descending slowly to the earth were bright enough they would be visible even against the Texas sky, Patel knew. They were the signal for all the men in other locations in Fuego to converge on the motel, along with the men who were waiting outside town.

In a matter of minutes, there would be a small army in the streets.

Phillip Hamil put his gun away in a shoulder holster under his stylish jacket. He said, “John Howard Stark has been an enemy to our cause long enough. After today, he will never cause trouble for us again.” He turned his head to look at Patel. “Where is he?”

“I don't know,” Patel answered honestly. “He drove off earlier, after eating breakfast at the café.”

“Did you see which way he went?”

“West, I believe. Out of town.”

“Toward the prison,” Hamil mused. “Stark told Alexis that he was friends with the warden out there, so there's a good chance that's where he is.” A smile creased Hamil's face. “He's going to make it easy for us. All he has to do is stay right where he is, and we'll be coming to him.”