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  A pistol cracked from somewhere to his right, distracting Bolan for a split second before he made it out as a .45. Granger was pitching in to help, her second shot dropping the forward runner in a boneless sprawl. His sidekick skidded to a halt, couldn’t decide which way to turn his automatic rifle, so he swept the parking lot at large with crackling fire, hoping to score a lucky hit. He drew more fire from Granger, off the mark this time, and ran toward the stacks again.

  They’d lose him there, and Bolan couldn’t have that, even if he gave up the chance for an interrogation. Lining up his shot, be put a round between the shooter’s shoulder blades, the impact lifting Bolan’s target and propelling him some six or seven feet, shoes churning empty air. He landed facedown on the asphalt, rifle skittering away from lifeless fingers, and lay still.

  All done...except that one of them was still alive and whimpering.

  Bolan crossed to stand by the shooter who had been on fire a moment earlier. Reached down to pluck a pistol from the burned man’s belt and to toss it out of reach, into the shadows. Crouching down beside him, breathing through his mouth to minimize the stench of roasted flesh, Bolan asked, “Who sent you after us?”

  “You...get...nothin’...from...me.”

  “A name, that’s all,” Bolan replied. “You don’t owe them a thing.”

  “What the hell...do you...know?” Wheezing smoke came from the man’s mouth and nose.

  “I’m guessing Crockett,” Bolan said.

  “Screw...you.”

  “Or maybe Ridgway?”

  One eye widened slightly, or the other might have narrowed. With the scorching on the shooter’s face, Bolan couldn’t be sure. A wink? He doubted it. More likely pain, sending a tremor through seared flesh.

  “So, nothing?”

  “Uh...uh.”

  “Okay then.”

  He rose, backed off a pace and plugged a mercy round into the shooter’s blackened forehead.

  “Jesus God!”

  And turned to find the Ranger watching him, a grim expression on her face.

  “We’re done here,” Bolan told her. “Time to go.”

  Chapter 4

  “You blew that guy away like it was nothing,” Adlene Granger said.

  “You saw him,” Bolan answered. “He was suffering.”

  “So that was mercy?”

  “Partly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll agree we couldn’t help him, right? And who knows when the first responders might arrive.”

  “We could have called it in anonymously.”

  “Then what? If they saved him, what comes next? You want him talking to police, or to whoever sent him and his buddies after you?”

  “How do I know that they weren’t after you?” she challenged.

  Bolan ticked the points off on his fingers. “First, nobody knows me here. Second, there’s no way they could know who was specifically coming to meet with you. Third, the Yukon had a set of Texas plates and wasn’t rented. Fourth—”

  “All right, I get it.”

  They were rolling north on Dwyer Avenue, circling back toward Alamo Plaza and Granger’s car, left in the parking lot when they had ducked the shooters there. Taking their time, they might have been returning from a late date, taking in a movie.

  Or a massacre.

  “Okay, so someone set me up.” Her voice was grim.

  “Not necessarily,” Bolan replied.

  “How’s that?”

  “Did you tell anyone about our meeting?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then no one could have leaked it. They’ve been trailing you. You missed it. These things happen.”

  “Trailing me. Damn it!”

  “They obviously knew your brother. Maybe they had time to check his cell phone after he was—”

  “Killed. Go on.”

  “But even if they didn’t, you’re a logical connection. Sister, law enforcement, who else would he talk to?”

  “No one.”

  “What’s your next move?” Bolan asked her.

  “Try to stay alive, I guess. How’s that?”

  “When are you back on duty?”

  “After Jerod’s funeral. I’m on bereavement leave.”

  “About the funeral...”

  “Oh, God. Don’t tell me.”

  “It’s the first place that they’d look for you, after your home.”

  “God damn it! So, I can’t go home and can’t bury my brother? That’s just frickin’ great!”

  “You can report what’s happened. See about protective custody.”

  “For life? Get serious. You’re only here because I couldn’t trust the locals or my own department.”

  “What, then?” Bolan asked.

  “Looks like I’ll be a fugitive.”

  “I hate to mention this,” said Bolan, “but you dropped one of those guys back there.”

  “He was escaping. Sue me.”

  “I was thinking of ballistics.”

  Granger thought about that for a moment, then replied, “No problem. Texas doesn’t have a database of cartridges or slugs from law enforcement weapons. Maryland tried that, a few years back, and ditched it. Said the deal was too expensive and had never solved a crime.”

  “So, what’s your next move?”

  After more thought, then she said, “How ’bout I stick with you?”

  Now it was Bolan’s turn to think. He hadn’t come to Texas looking for a sidekick, only information that would clarify the situation and, if need be, point him toward potential targets. Granted, local expertise might come in handy, but he didn’t want to take responsibility for Adlene Granger’s safety.

  Or was it too late to make that call?

  “You’ve seen the way I work,” he said. “It just gets worse from here.”

  “You’re not a normal Fed, I take it,” almost smiling as she spoke.

  “Not even close.”

  “Some kind of spook then.”

  “More or less.”

  “I shouldn’t push it, right?”

  “Good call.”

  “You’re not collecting evidence to build a case.”

  “Correct.”

  “A little Texas frontier justice, maybe?”

  Bolan let that pass. They were a mile out from the Alamo.

  “Look,” she continued. “All I’m saying is, I know what fighting’s all about. Tonight wasn’t first blood for me.”

  “I’ve seen your file,” Bolan informed her.

  “Oh? Well then.” A brief hesitation followed. “So I have a file? In Washington, I mean?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Right. We’re good to go then?”

  “Sergeant Granger—”

  “Adlene,” she corrected him. “First date and we’re already shooting people. May as well be on a first-name basis.”

  Bolan had to smile at that. “Adlene, I normally don’t work with partners.”

  “You’re a loner, eh? Afraid I’ll slow you down and get all dewy-eyed? I thought you’d seen my file.”

  “I have.”

  “Then you know that I spent two years in the sand. It wasn’t a vacation, and I’m not a clinging vine.”

  “If anything goes wrong—”

  “I’m on my own. Got it.”

  Another beat passed, before he said, “You have some information for me?”

  “Sketchy. Jerod didn’t want to tell me too much on the phone. I got a name and an affiliation, but it just might get us started.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Craig Walraven. I’d never heard of him before. Have you?”

>   “First time for me, as well.”

  “He works for Lone Star, meaning Ridgway, but his last gig was a mouthful. Something with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Fissile Material Disposition.”

  And there it was. The linkup to a possible catastrophe.

  Tom Green County, Texas

  IN KENT LUTTRELL’S OPINION, the only thing worse than receiving bad news was passing it on to his boss. It was a part of life sometimes, but he had learned from grim experience that Waylon Crockett liked his news served sunny-side up, not scrambled and burnt to a crisp. He especially wouldn’t like hearing that plans to secure the great coup of a lifetime had failed like a cheap retread tire on a hot desert highway.

  He wouldn’t be happy at all.

  The call from San Antonio had come in moments earlier, one of Luttrell’s men phoning to alert him that the pickup had unraveled. Gone to hell would be more like it, since the two marks had not simply slipped away from Bryar Haskin’s team. The Ranger and her pal, whoever he might be, had slaughtered four good men—well, not that good, apparently—and left them for the cops to find. Now he would have to sweat it out, waiting to see if any of them could be traced back to the New Texas Republic.

  He assumed the FBI and ATF had lists of the Republic’s members. Those who occupied the compound; staffers at the tiny storefront offices in Dallas, Houston and El Paso; likely anyone who’d shown up at a public rally since the movement started. That was standard for the thought police: collecting names, addresses, phone numbers, affiliations.

  If they weren’t eavesdropping on the NTR’s phone lines, Kent would have been amazed. Prepaid cell phones helped a little, and he had a scrambler on the compound’s landline, but when cameras on satellites could read your lips from outer space, was anything or anyone truly secure?

  Fat chance.

  Quit stalling. Breaking bad news to the boss was like yanking a Band-Aid off a hairy arm. The more slowly done, the worse it stung.

  Luttrell left his small bungalow and walked across the compound to a larger one, Crockett’s combination living quarters and command post. Kent knocked once and waited in the moonlight until Crockett made his slow way to the door. It opened, and he saw that Crockett had a pistol in his hand, prepared for trouble even here and now.

  “They called?”

  Luttrell nodded. “It isn’t good.”

  “Awright. Get in here.” He sounded weary. When the door had closed behind him, Crockett ordered, “Tell me.”

  For a second Luttrell thought about that old expression: Shoot the messenger. He shrugged it off and said, “Something went wrong. I don’t have any details yet, except the team went down.”

  Crockett blinked once. “All four of ’em?”

  “All four.”

  “What about the pigeons?”

  “Flew the coop. They’re in the wind.”

  “No way to track them?”

  “I’ve got people sitting on her house and on the mortuary where they took her brother. We’ll hear something if she calls headquarters. Otherwise...”

  “We’re screwed.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “While she’s out there running her mouth.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way to me,” Luttrell replied. “We know she hasn’t tipped the DPS.”

  Meaning the Texas Department of Public Safety, an umbrella unit based in Austin, covering the Texas Rangers and the Texas Highway Patrol, the state’s Criminal Investigations Division, plus its Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. They had that side covered and would know if something broke.

  “And what about the Feds?” asked Crockett.

  “I can’t swear she hasn’t called them, but the deal tonight wasn’t their style. They wouldn’t dust Haskin and his boys then run away. We’d see them on the tube, hyping their victory. They’d be out at the gate with warrants.”

  Nodding, Crockett said, “Okay then. Who?”

  “You’ll know as soon as I do,” said Luttrell.

  “You’d better make it quick. I gotta go wake up The Man.”

  Dallas, Texas

  HALF PAST 2:00 A.M. and Simon Coetzee had been asleep just long enough to slide into a dream of hunting humans. His beloved South African homeland may have turned into a cesspool, but at night, in dreams, Coetzee did his part to cleanse it.

  This morning, he was just about to squeeze the trigger on his .460 Weatherby Magnum rifle when the shrilling telephone beside his bed jarred Coetzee out of Africa and back to Texas in a bitter rush of disappointment.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” the caller said, expecting him to recognize the voice.

  Which, of course, Coetzee did. “You know what time it is?”

  “Late. Early. I don’t know. We got a problem.”

  “Scramble this,” said Coetzee, stretching out an arm to press a button at the base of his bedside phone. A red light glowed in response.

  “Okay, ready,” Waylon Crockett told him from the other end.

  “All right. What is it?”

  “I toldja ’bout that Ranger and her brother. Granger?”

  “Yes. You were supposed to handle her.” Coetzee, after all, had taken care of Jerod Granger. Such a relatively simple thing.

  “Um, well...somethin’ went wrong,” said Crockett.

  “Oh?”

  “She met this other guy...and, um...my boys moved in on ’em...but, um...well, shit. My guys are dead.”

  “How many?”

  “Four.”

  Coetzee inhaled, held it, willing his anger to subside. Eyes closed, in darkness, he waited for the throbbing in his temples to recede.

  “You there?” asked Crockett.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “Dunno. I thought—”

  “You’re telling me this woman and a man you’ve never seen before took out four of your men.”

  “Tha’s right.”

  “And I assume that the police are now involved?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Can these four be identified?”

  “They wouldn’t have I.D. on ’em,” said Crockett. “We got rid of all that when we came out as a sovereign nation under God. No driver’s licenses or social insecurity, nothin’ like that.”

  “Plastic?”

  “Say what?”

  “Would they have credit cards? For petrol or whatever?”

  “Petrol?”

  “Gasoline.”

  “Nope. We’re completely off the grid. All cash and carry.”

  Thank heavens for small favors. “That leaves fingerprints,” said Coetzee.

  “Um...well...a couple of ’em mighta been inside a time or two.”

  “Meaning in prison.”

  “Or a county lockup. Somethin’.”

  “So their prints are in the system then.”

  “I reckon so.”

  “And can be traced to you.”

  “Well now, our membership is confidential.”

  “In this day and age?” Coetzee smiled bitterly in the darkness. “Feel free to deceive yourself if it amuses you but never lie to me.”

  “I guess the Feds might recognize ’em.”

  “And when they come knocking, you can easily explain that these four brainless yokels were your members on a previous occasion, but you sacked them for erratic and irrational behavior. You have no idea what they’ve been up to since you parted company. Of course you’d love to help with the investigation, but you have no useful information.”

  “That might work.”

  “Can you remember all of that?”

  “I ain’t an idjit,” Crockett bristled.

  “I keep waiting for s
ome evidence of that,” Coetzee replied.

  “Hey, now—”

  “You realize I’ll have to pass this news upstairs.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It won’t be well received.”

  “I’ll make it right. You tell him not to worry. We’re already lookin’ for the two of ’em.”

  “See that you get it right this time,” said Coetzee, then he cut the link.

  Preston Hollow, Dallas

  LAMAR RIDGWAY WAS not awakened by a telephone. He left that inconvenience to his butler, who had served him for the better part of thirty years without complaint. In short, he knew his place. The gentle tap on Ridgway’s bedroom door was followed by the butler’s deep voice, softly calling out his name.

  “What is it, Fabius?”

  “You’ve got a phone call, sir.”

  Sweet Jesus! “Awright, bring it in.”

  The butler entered, strode with purpose toward the king-size bed, and passed the cordless phone to Ridgway from a white-gloved hand. “I’ll just be right outside, sir.”

  “Hmm.” Ridgway sat waiting for the bedroom door to close, before he raised the phone and said, “Better be good.”

  “It’s not, sir.” Simon Coetzee, Ridgway’s master of security for Lone Star Petroleum and Aerospace Technology.

  “Awright then. Don’t keep me hangin’.”

  Coetzee didn’t ask if they were scrambled. He’d installed Ridgway’s elaborate home security system, knew it inside out.

  “It’s Crockett,” he began. “This business with the Texas Ranger and her brother.”

  “Christ, is that still draggin’ on?”

  “They planned to finish it this evening, sir. Unfortunately—”

  “They screwed up?”

  “Four dead, all Crockett’s men. The woman and her contact still remain at large.”

  “This contact...”

  “Male, identity unknown. We’ll check flights into San Antonio, of course, sir.”

  “But you likely won’t get squat. On top of which, he coulda drove in, even rode in on a goddamn bus.”

  “Yes, sir.”