Chapter 15 #2
men who’d been coerced to allow themselves to be packed with condoms of product. It was an inventive way to move the newer
drugs. The border patrol would be looking for transfer trucks and vans, but a busload of apparent tourists wouldn’t even raise
eyebrows. All he had to do was threaten the people not to cause trouble. They wouldn’t, of course. They all had family members
under threat of death if they caused any trouble or babbled about their presence on the bus.
“Are we driving another semi with the drugs?” Josie asked as the minutes dragged.
She was watching out the window. They passed a law enforcement car with lettering in Spanish. The driver threw up a hand.
Josie waved and smiled.
He ignored her question. No need to discuss it prematurely. “Don’t do that,” Raines said. “They might ask us to stop.”
“They’re more likely to ask us to stop if we act suspicious,” she countered.
He let out a breath. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
“You’re very jumpy,” she noted.
“It’s Vega,” he muttered. “Velasquez’s rival cartel.
They say he might try to hijack us. Not that he can, once we get to the outpost. It’s between points that I worry about.
” He was setting the stage so that she wouldn’t be taken unawares and cause trouble.
She wouldn’t know until the last minute that he was in cahoots with Vega, and with any luck, she’d die in the shootout so that she couldn’t spill the beans to anyone who might alert Velasquez.
“Our boss is smarter. Isn’t he?” she fished.
He seemed to relax a little. “Much smarter,” he agreed. “And our men are better trained.”
“So no worries, right?” she persisted.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Right.”
Something was wrong. She wasn’t sure what. It was one of those feelings she got, the ones that curled up cold and tight in
the pit of her stomach. Part of it was this proximity to the end of the assignment. If anybody was going to die, this was
the perfect time—when victory was in sight. That was surely part of her unease. But there was something else, something not
connected to her job. Something related to someone she knew. So many things could go wrong. What if it was John?
Her heart jumped. No. He wasn’t in danger. How could he be? It must be something related to the danger she was in. Yes. That
had to be it. She only hoped that she could get a message off to the right people in time to stop this delivery. Lives hung
in the balance. It would take cool nerve to pull it off. You could plan for months only to have one tiny detail derail months
of work. It had happened to her; her partner had died because one tiny detail went awry in a raid. She drew in a slow breath.
She had to stop anticipating trouble. It would be all right. And her premonition might be nothing more than a sleepless night.
It probably was.
“It’s the middle of nowhere,” she remarked as the car sent up small clouds of dust in its wake.
“Isn’t it, though,” he laughed. “And there are no regular patrols where we’re going. Don’t worry. This is going to be a picnic
of a job.”
She glanced at him. He sounded laid-back! But he was sweating and not because of any heat this late in the year. There was something he wasn’t telling her. She had to hope there were no major surprises in store.
Meanwhile, the Big Spur was chaotic. Odalie had been kidnapped by Tanner’s nemesis, Phillip James, and it wasn’t for ransom.
The whole family was anguished. It was worse because Stasia’s boss, Tony Garza, had told the family to ignore any phone calls
until he got to the ranch. He was coming from New York. But he had a private jet, which would make the trip faster.
Tony knew, as none of the others except Tanner did, that James wanted nothing but revenge. No ransom. He was going to kill
Odalie and make Tanner suffer for blowing his cover in a massacre overseas. Heather was in tears. Cole held her hand while
JJ sat close and assured her that everything would be all right.
John was worried sick, like the others. He was concerned about Josie as well, but she was hardly likely to be in any danger
from closing a real estate deal. Odalie was in terrible danger. He loved his sister. Waiting for Tony to arrive was pure torture.
He wondered why Odalie had gone to the Bahamas.
John and the family had just been in New York to watch Odalie sing at the Met. Tony had been shot, luckily only grazed, but
when Stasia told Odalie, she’d left the special Christmas performance in a heartbeat with Stasia and rushed to the nearby
ER, because they hadn’t known if Tony was dead or alive. Which told the family what her true priority was—Tony. But afterward
the family had gone home and apparently Odalie and Tony had argued. Now she was a captive who faced almost certain death.
But Tony seemed to know exactly what to do. He was a former—some said present as well—mob boss and he had contacts everywhere.
John knew if anybody on earth could save Odalie, it was Tony.
Sure enough, Tony arrived with everything well in hand. And when Phillip James called the ranch, it was Tony he spoke to.
What followed was a master class in how to handle a kidnapping. Tony had neatly turned the tables on Phillip James and recovered
a shaken, but undamaged, Odalie. Surprises galore had heralded the rescue, resulting in an unexpected liaison and even a wedding!
So John had been too caught up in his own terror over Odalie to give much thought to Josie.
But after the excitement at home was over, he got Tanner to one side. His brother had evaded Heather’s phone call many days
ago, when she tried to pin him down about Josie’s situation.
Now John had his brother at bay, and he wasn’t taking “no” for an answer.
“You know something,” John said firmly. “I don’t think Josie is down here on any real estate deal. I want to know what’s going
on.”
“How would I know?” Tanner asked with innocence written all over him.
“You two were very cozy at Thanksgiving,” John replied. His pale eyes narrowed. “What were you talking about so intently?”
“Just the little statuettes that Maddie Brannt makes,” Tanner said. “No big deal. No hidden messages.” He smiled. “You’re
watching too many spy thrillers,” he added with a warm smile.
John frowned. “I just have this feeling, like Mom does, that something’s not right with Josie.”
Tanner knew about those feelings. He took a long breath. “Josie’s just doing a land deal, that’s all,” he assured John without
giving anything away. “Listen, if I knew something, wouldn’t I tell you?”
John gave him a wry look. “I’d never play poker with you,” he said instead of what he was thinking. He was being stonewalled. He knew it. But his brother had played in the big leagues of intelligence gathering. John didn’t have a chance. He knew that, too.
“But if anything comes up that I have any knowledge about,” he added, putting a big hand on John’s shoulder, “I’ll tell you.
Is that good enough?”
John searched his eyes. It was all he was going to get. He sighed. “Okay.”
“How about those champion bulls that Dad sold to the Mexican rancher?” Tanner asked abruptly.
John grimaced. “Vet removed the drugs from their stomachs. Poor little things. One died, in spite of his efforts—the container
broke and some of the product spilled into its stomach. Dad called the man in Mexico and told him he was refunding the price
of the dead calf. The Hispanic man was furious, not at the money, but at whoever had put the life of the little animal in
jeopardy.” He smiled faintly. “The guy has a heart. I thought maybe he was into the drug smuggling, but his outrage wasn’t
practiced. It was real. He was ready to call somebody out for what they did to the animals.” He smiled. “I liked him. So did
Dad.”
Tanner knew something about the Hispanic rancher that John and Cole didn’t, but for the moment, he had to keep his own counsel.
“He did sound like a man who cared about helpless things,” he concurred.
John sighed, sticking his hands deep into his pockets. “I’m just uneasy about Josie,” he said.
“Stop worrying. She’ll close her land deal, and she’ll call you,” Tanner said with a smile.
John relaxed a little. “I guess.”
Tanner studied him. “You seem a little more interested in her than you used to be.”
John had to admit that his brother was right. “She kind of grew on me,” he confessed. “I know she’s had some legal issues. It doesn’t seem to matter. She was great with JJ, and Mom liked her. Funny, though, she doesn’t really strike me as a criminal. I guess I’m just rationalizing it.”
He might be, but Tanner knew John was in for a surprise when the truth about Josie came out. He just hoped she was savvy enough
to know that her buddy Raines was about to sell her out. He’d been in touch with the authorities back east; in particular,
Rodrigo Ramirez, who was one of the top agents. Ramirez had relatives high up in the Mexican government, and he himself was
a veteran undercover agent. He was still wanted in two foreign countries, after all these years. His life would have made
a great movie.
Not that he could tell his brother this. But Ramirez had knowledge that most agencies didn’t, and he and Tanner went way back.
He said that Vega was going to pull a major takeover of Velasquez’s operation, and that he had people in place to take a shipment
right out from under Velasquez’s nose.
That would be the job Josie was doing right now, and she was in terrible danger, not only of being killed in a crossfire,
but also of being unmasked. One man in Vega’s group knew her from a former undercover op, and he would recognize her on sight.
Tanner only hoped that she was as good as Ramirez said she was. Nobody had forgotten several DEA agents who’d been killed
on undercover assignments. It was dangerous, but necessary work in the war to keep illegal narcotics off the streets.
But he smiled at John. “She’ll be fine. Now, let’s go calm Mom down,” he added on a chuckle.
“That will take more than us,” John sighed.
“We’re a good start. If we get in over our heads, we’ll have a talk with JJ,” he added.
John laughed. “JJ has been the best thing that’s happened to this family in years, aside from Tony marrying into it,” he added.
“JJ kind of makes up for all of us being grown and having other matters to deal with. He’s a good kid.”
“Really good,” Tanner agreed as they walked back toward the house. “And if it wasn’t for Josie, he’d be in foster care somewhere.”
John’s heart leaped at the mention of her name. “He would,” he agreed. “It was lucky for all of us that she went to that rodeo.”
“It was. But Christmas is helping keep some of his sadness at losing his dad at bay,” he added. He shook his head. “It’s a
dismal life for some people.”
“We’re lucky,” John agreed.
“Very lucky.” And he was praying silently that the luck would hold, and that Josie wouldn’t get into a situation she couldn’t
escape from.
Later that day, Tanner stopped by the detention center where Sheriff Dunn Marlowe was working out the schedule for his deputies
and cursing.
He looked up as Tanner entered. “Bad timing,” he muttered.
“What’s biting you?” Tanner asked amusedly.
“Two deputies want to be off duty at the same time, one for a birthday and the other for a wedding. The one who’s left shows
up when he has time. Meanwhile, I seem to be the only employee of the damned department who works!”
“Fire them all and raise your own salary,” Tanner suggested, dropping into the visitor chair in front of Marlowe’s desk.
“Oh, I’m tempted,” the sheriff replied darkly. He sighed and ignored the computer screen. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to know if you’ve heard anything about Velasquez moving that shipment,” he said simply. “The family—well, the two
who have apparent psychic abilities—thinks she’s in danger and they’re worried.”
“They should be,” Marlowe said, not pulling punches. His eyes narrowed. “All I can find out from my source is that this guy
Raines is about to double-cross his boss. Vega is going to try to hijack the shipment.”
Tanner’s heart jumped. “That puts Josie right in the line of fire with no backup.”
He nodded somberly. “I don’t know where it’s going down, how they plan to move it, where the hijacking may take place . . .”
He ran an impatient hand through his thick black hair. “My dad has a ranch on the border. One of his men is a former border
patrol agent. He’s trying to find out some stuff for me, but apparently the border patrol knows nothing more than I do.”
“Pity one of us doesn’t know Velasquez personally,” Tanner sighed.
“I know him,” Marlowe said tightly. “Not personally, but I know what he looks like. He bought some purebred calves from your
father.”
“What?” Tanner exploded, leaning forward. “When?”
“He was there, in person, at the private sale,” Marlowe said. “I saw him. It was all I could do not to throw down on him.
It would almost be worth going to prison for the rest of my life.”
Tanner knew the cause of Marlowe’s violent antagonism for the drug lord, but he wasn’t going to risk Marlowe’s black temper
by airing it. “Are you sure it was him?”
He nodded. He looked up. “Worse, he seems to have an affinity with Josie.”
That was news. “I don’t understand.”
“There are rare instances when two people meet who should be strangers, but aren’t,” Marlowe explained. “The bartender, who
does some surveillance work for me undercover, said that Velasquez was more tender with her than he gave the man credit for
being.”
Tanner nodded. “Dad said that when he was there buying the lot of purebred young bulls. He was outraged to find them loaded
up with drugs in their stomachs.”
“He was,” Marlowe conceded. “It surprised me. I never thought of a drug lord having tender feelings for any damned thing, not even a calf.”
“I’ve heard things about him as well. He built his workers in Mexico a church. He pays high wages. He has almost no turnover
in personnel. Some of his people are second-generation employees. He pays his taxes, goes to church, helps people in trouble . . .
you can’t say a word against him in any small town near his ranch if you don’t want to get knifed.”
Marlowe’s face tautened. “So I’ve heard.”
“But you don’t want to believe it,” Tanner replied.
Marlowe looked up. His eyes narrowed and burned like lasers on Tanner’s face. “Don’t. Can’t. Won’t.” He enunciated each word.
His pale eyes narrowed and glittered. “Tanner . . . ?”
“I know nothing,” Tanner said casually, leaning back against the door facing. “But hadn’t we better get somebody with really
good resources to find out where Josie is, before Vega’s men off her?” His face tightened. “Because he will. And you know
it.”
Marlowe took a breath. He opened his cell phone and dialed a number.