The Bleeding Edge Read online

  The problem was, it was easy to do that in a crowd.

  “What I mean,” Stark said, “is how many of you are willing to pull the trigger knowing that you’re probably going to kill somebody? Can you do that? Can you end a human life? Are you absolutely sure?”

  Some of the hands went down, and a murmur of confusion went through the room.”

  “John, what are you doing?” Jack Kasek asked quietly.

  “Making certain,” Stark said. He waited.

  A man stood up. He had a white crew cut and thick glasses. Stark didn’t know him. He said, “If somebody’s threatening me or my wife, if he’s trying to take away everything I hold dear, then damn right I can pull the trigger.”

  Several other men called out, “Yeah!” and another said, “Count me in!”

  Stark nodded.

  “Good. Because if it comes down to a real fight against those drug smugglers, that’s what it’s gonna take. Each and every one of you will have to decide what’s worth fighting for, and if you’re willing to fight for it. And if you are . . .” Stark drew in a deep breath. “If you are, then Shady Hills belongs to us, and by God, they’re not gonna take it away from us!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The meeting continued for another hour, and during that time Stark settled, however uncomfortably, into the role of general of this elderly army.

  His “troops,” despite being past retirement age, weren’t ready for the rocking chair or the rest home. In fact, most of them were still pretty spry, keeping fit with gardening, yard work, handyman chores, and regular workouts. A number of them still worked part-time, many at the MegaMart in Devil’s Pass. Not surprisingly, there was also a high percentage of veterans, some of whom had seen combat in Vietnam or Korea. One of the men, Bert Loomis, had even gone into Berlin with Patton at the end of World War II and declared that he was still ready, willing, and able to live up to the legacy of Old Blood and Guts. Stark took one look at Bert and wasn’t just about to deny him that chance.

  Nor was it just the men who volunteered to patrol the park and protect it if trouble loomed. A couple of dozen women, who said they had experience with guns, volunteered as well. Despite the chivalry bred into him, Stark didn’t turn away the women, either. Shady Hills needed all the help it could get.

  The volunteers were split up among the six captains, depending on where in the park they lived. Jack Kasek had drawn up a map clearly marked off into sections, and it was spread out on a table at the front of the room. The volunteers gathered with their captains, and then Stark addressed the entire group.

  He did a quick head count before he started talking. There were seventy-two volunteers, but they weren’t spread out equally among the captains. Some had fewer people to work with. Stark decided that he would speak with each captain individually and urge that they talk to their friends and try to come up with more volunteers. It was best to delegate that job, though, since they knew their neighbors better than he did.

  “This is a mighty fine start,” Stark told them. “Each group will provide a couple of volunteers every night to guard the front gate in shifts. There’ll also be two-person patrols moving around each section of the park from dusk to dawn. The captains and I will get together and work out schedules, and they’ll pass along your assignments to you.”

  “We’ll be armed?” one of the men asked.

  “Yeah, like I said earlier, you’ll need your weapons with you. But even though I told you that you had to be prepared to fight, you’ll need to guard against getting trigger-happy, too. The last thing you want to do is shoot one of your friends and neighbors. That’s why nobody stands guard alone or patrols alone. There’ll be at least two people working together at all times. That way you’ll be less likely to panic and start shooting when you don’t need to.”

  The other residents who had come to the meeting had stood up and gathered in smaller groups to talk. Many of them had begun to drift toward the door.

  “Hold on, folks!” Stark called to them. “We’re not done here.”

  A man said, “But you’ve got your volunteers, Mr. Stark. What do you need us for?”

  “We all need each other,” Stark said firmly. “You’re all old enough to have heard that saying about hanging together or hanging separately. It’s true. These men and women up here may be on the front lines, but they need support from all of you. You can provide coffee and sandwiches for the gate guards and the patrols. You can make sure we’ve got plenty of ammunition. And you can write and call and email your representatives in Congress and tell them exactly what’s going on here. They may not be willing to do anything to help, but we don’t want them to be able to claim they didn’t know anything about it, either. Get on the Internet and use all the social media you can to get the word out about what we’re facing. Public opinion is mighty important these days.”

  “I don’t know anything about that stuff,” one man said.

  “Better learn,” Stark told him. “The people who don’t want us to be able to stand up for ourselves are mighty good at it. They can twist the truth or tell an outright lie and spread it all over the world just by tapping a few keys. It’s up to us to get the facts out there and keep on doing it until people start to see the truth again.”

  Most of the residents still looked dubious about that, but several of them nodded. It was a start, Stark thought. And things had to start somewhere.

  When the meeting broke up, Hallie and Alton Duncan came up to Stark, along with Fred Gomez.

  “You were just about the youngest person here tonight,” Stark told Hallie with a smile.

  “Yeah,” she said wryly. “Do you know how long it’s been since I was the kid of the bunch?”

  “You’re always the kid as far as I’m concerned,” Alton said.

  “Where’s Aurelia?” Stark asked Fred.

  “She stayed home. She said I didn’t need her along, and that she knew I wouldn’t do anything foolish. And she didn’t want to leave Antonio there by himself.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Fred shrugged. “He still feels like this is all his fault. He’s the one who brought Shady Hills to the attention of the cartel.”

  “Maybe so,” Stark said, “but this has turned into something a lot bigger than that. I don’t think they’re really interested in Antonio anymore.”

  “Then what do they want?” Hallie asked.

  “The whole place. They want to run us off, probably so they can transport their dope through here.” Stark paused. “That’s just an excuse, though. The real reason they’ve got it in for us is because we stood up to ’em. They’re able to run things because so many people are scared to death of them. If folks see that they can fight back against the cartel and win, that weakens the cartel’s grip on everything.”

  “People who fight back against the cartel usually wind up dead,” Fred said.

  “Usually. But that’s not gonna be the case here, and that’s going to make a difference.”

  “Do you really think you can win?” Hallie asked.

  “I do,” Stark said. “That bunch is arrogant. They’re gonna think that we’re just a bunch of helpless old farts, and they’re going to underestimate us. That’s half of winning the battle right there.”

  “For your sake—and the sake of everybody else in Shady Hills—I hope you’re right, John Howard.”

  Nothing had happened to interrupt the meeting, and the night continued to pass quietly. Guard and patrol schedules hadn’t been drawn up yet, but some of the men offered to take their turns right away, so the park wouldn’t go unprotected.

  Stark didn’t know all the guards, but since he was going to have to trust them sooner or later, he figured he might as well start now.

  He went home and got a good night’s sleep.

  The next day he and the other five captains met at Jack’s house to work out their schedules and plans, then spread out through the park to talk to each of the volunteers individually and make sure they u
nderstood their responsibilities. It went well, and Stark picked up a few more volunteers who had thought it over after the meeting and decided to get more actively involved. That was good, because even though there wouldn’t be any roaming patrols during the day, Stark and the other captains thought it would be a good idea if at least a couple of guards were on duty at the gate around the clock.

  “I could get one of those security gates put in,” Jack had said when they got together that morning. “You know, the kind where you have to punch in a code to get it to open.”

  “No offense, Jack,” Stark had said, “but those are designed to keep out salesmen and discourage amateur burglars. They won’t stop anybody who really wants to get in. Neither will the wooden fence along the front or the chain-link around the rest of the property. You’d have to build a stone wall, top it with barbed wire, install bunkers at the gate, and lay mines around the outer perimeter if you want to stop anybody who’s really determined to get in.”

  Jack had grinned and replied, “Well, maybe that’s just what I’ll do,” but Stark knew it wasn’t. Jack didn’t have that kind of money. If everybody in the park pooled their funds, it might not add up to what would be needed for measures like that.

  Besides, even with the local authorities on their side—something Stark wasn’t convinced of—they would probably balk at the idea of a minefield.

  Of course, there were some measures that residents of the park could take that wouldn’t be quite so extreme. . . .

  Several days passed in preparation, but when nothing happened, Stark sensed the atmosphere of urgency that had gripped the park following the raid was beginning to weaken. People were starting to hope that the trouble had blown over and that everything would be all right now.

  Stark knew better than to believe that. He was convinced the drug smugglers were just biding their time.

  Either that, or they were busy getting ready, too.

  And that was the most worrisome prospect of all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The fifth morning after the raid, a sheriff’s department SUV pulled up in front of Stark’s mobile home. Sheriff George Lozano got out and came toward the porch.

  Stark saw him through the window and met him on the porch with a pleasant nod, asking, “What brings you out here this morning, Sheriff?”

  “Rumors, Mr. Stark,” Lozano said.

  “What sort of rumors?” Stark asked, even though he figured he already knew the answer.

  “That you’ve turned this park into an armed camp. I see by the guards at the gate the rumors are true.”

  “A couple of fellas standing around chewing the fat doesn’t make this an armed camp,” Stark said.

  Lozano snorted.

  “It does if one of them is holding a deer rifle and the other one has a shotgun,” he said.

  “Both perfectly legal weapons,” Stark pointed out.

  “Are you saying that if I searched this place, I wouldn’t find any assault rifles?”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’d find, Sheriff,” Stark said. “I’ve only been in a few of the houses. I know you’d need a mighty broad search warrant to search the whole park, though. Not sure a judge would give you that much leeway.”

  As a matter of fact, Stark was relatively sure there weren’t any assault rifles in the park. The residents who owned guns had their hunting rifles and shotguns, along with handguns they had bought after Texas began issuing concealed carry permits. Maybe there were a few weapons that had been modified illegally, but not many, Stark thought, because the people who lived at Shady Hills were law-abiding citizens.

  And as usual these days, there was a good chance they would get penalized for that.

  “Why did you come to see me, anyway?” Stark went on. “Jack Kasek and his wife own the park.”

  “Because I knew you’d be the ringleader of any militia that was forming out here,” Lozano replied. His voice was hard and blunt.

  “Militia’s a buzzword, Sheriff. It conjures up images of wild-eyed domestic terrorists, which is exactly what the people who throw it around want it to do.”

  “Are you denying it?”

  “Damn straight I’m denying it,” Stark said. “We don’t have any militia out here. Maybe we’re being a little more watchful these days, but after what happened, can you blame us?”

  Lozano didn’t answer that. Instead he looked at Stark for a long moment and then asked, “How many people have moved out of here in the last five days?”

  Stark’s mouth tightened. That was a troubling aspect of the whole situation. There had been close to two hundred mobile homes in the park on the night of the raid. But since then, starting the very next day, trucks and work crews had shown up to move some of them out. Only about a dozen so far, but the owners had given up their leases, found other places to live, and moved out, lock, stock, and barrel. If trouble erupted again, Stark felt sure that more of the residents would leave. If the trouble was bad enough, it might cause a mass exodus.

  “What’s your point, Sheriff?” he asked.

  “My point is that the people who have left did so because they were afraid. They know something’s coming, and they don’t want to be here when it happens.”

  “If that’s the way you feel, then I’d think you’d be trying to give us more protection out here.”

  “I’m giving you all the protection I can,” Lozano said. He took off his Stetson and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. “Look, Mr. Stark, I hate those drug smugglers as much as you do.”

  “I sort of doubt that,” Stark said quietly.

  Lozano ignored him and went on, “I’d like to put a stop to all their activities in this area, I swear I would. But I have limited resources, and not only that, I have lawyers watching my department with eagle eyes, just waiting for us to violate some poor criminal’s civil rights. I work for the county commissioners, and they’ve made it clear. If I or my deputies do anything to open the county up to a federal lawsuit, they’ll take it out on my ass.”

  “So we’re supposed to pack up and get out and let the cartel have this land so the county won’t get sued?” Stark didn’t bother trying to keep the disbelief and scorn out of his voice as he asked the question.

  “That’s not what I said, damn it! But arming yourselves. . . turning any little thing into a bloodbath . . . that’s not gonna help anything, Stark.”

  “If there’s a bloodbath, it won’t be us who causes it,” Stark said grimly.

  “But some of your people will die,” Lozano shot back at him. “Have you thought about that?”

  Of course he had. He had lost sleep over it, in fact, lying awake and thinking of the violent end that some of the residents would likely come to if there was another confrontation with the drug smugglers. The very idea sickened Stark.

  But he had a hunch that if the people of Shady Hill didn’t try to defend themselves, things would be even worse. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that those cartel gunnies would storm in here and try to wipe out the whole park.

  Talk about your bloodbath.

  “Sheriff, I don’t know what to tell you,” Stark said. “There’s no militia, we don’t have any assault rifles—or bazookas or tanks, either, although under certain circumstances I wouldn’t mind—and we’re not going to start any trouble. We’ll fight if we’re forced to in order to defend our loved ones and protect our homes, but probably ninety-five percent of the people in the state of Texas, outside the city limits of Austin, would tell you the same thing.”

  Lozano clapped his hat back on his head and snapped, “Fine. Consider yourself warned. Step outside the bounds of the law and you’ll be treated like any other criminal.”

  “You mean the media will talk about how I’m just a misunderstood victim of a heartless American society and a bunch of Hollywood actors will come and wave protest signs about how I should be released because I’m a political prisoner?”

  The sheriff just made a frustrated noise deep
in his throat and turned to stalk back to his SUV. Stark had to chuckle as he watched Lozano walk off.

  Then his expression grew more serious. Every instinct in Stark’s body warned him that a storm was brewing and that it would break soon with all the ferocity of a cyclone. But that might not be the worst of it. Those who survived could face an even greater ordeal when it was over, if what Lozano was saying was true.

  Having a Mexican drug cartel gunning for you was bad enough.

  Stark had good reason to know that having the federal government on your ass was even worse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The residents of Shady Hills preparing themselves for an armed invasion probably would have drawn more attention from the media if not for another story that broke that week, the unexpected (by some) revelation that the former president who had ordered the nerve gas attack on American citizens opposed to his policies had had extensive ties in his youth to an Islamic terrorist group in the Far East. Evidence had surfaced to indicate that he had taken part in the planning of a bombing attack on an American embassy, an attack that had never taken place because the CIA had discovered it in time to stop it. The network pundits and news anchors were having a field day ganging up on the former chief executive, no doubt in the hope that that would make everyone forget they had been his biggest cheerleaders for years and years and were largely responsible for getting him elected to high office in the first place.

  Rats, sinking ship, etc., etc., Stark thought as he watched the near-hysterical coverage day after day. But at least it kept attention focused somewhere else other than the Shady Hills Retirement Park.

  As dusk settled in on the day Sheriff Lozano had paid his visit to the park, Stark drove his pickup out to the gate to check with the guards there. Four men were on duty. He didn’t recall their names, although he remembered talking to them at the organizational meeting. They introduced themselves to him again and shook hands.