Stand Your Ground Read online

  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.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Kincaid was at the computer behind the library’s main desk when the door opened and Warden Baldwin came in accompanied by a man Kincaid didn’t recognize. The stranger was dressed like a cowboy, in boots, jeans, a faded blue shirt, and a straw Stetson. He was tall, and while he was getting on up in years, he still had an impressive width of shoulders and moved with the graceful ease of a younger man.

  To Kincaid’s experienced eyes, he moved like a man who was no stranger to trouble.

  “Lucas, I didn’t expect you to be here today,” Baldwin said.

  “Just getting a little extra work done.”

  Baldwin chuckled and said, “Some people might accuse you of brown-nosing. I know that’s not the case, though. You’re just a man who genuinely likes to work.”

  Kincaid shrugged. He didn’t bother explaining that he didn’t have anything better to do than work.

  The warden turned to his companion and went on, “John Howard, this is Lucas Kincaid. He runs the library here. Lucas, my old friend John Howard Stark.”

  The name was familiar to Kincaid, but he couldn’t place it right away. He extended his hand and said, “Mr. Stark.”

  “Call me John Howard,” Stark said as he gripped Kincaid’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucas.”

  Kincaid nodded, instantly feeling a kinship with this older man.

  “I thought the inmates usually ran the library in most prisons,” Stark went on.

  Baldwin grimaced and shrugged.

  “Several of them work here, but regulations say that a member of the prison staff has to be in charge,” he explained.

  “Ah,” Stark said. “Regulations.”

  Baldwin rolled his eyes.

  “All those by-the-book officers we had back in ’Nam would’ve loved the way things are run today,” he said with a note of bitterness in his voice.

  “From what I hear, that’s about the only kind of officers left in the military these days,” Stark said. “Our last few Democratic presidents have fired all the ones who actua
lly cared about getting things done and defending the Constitution. They all wanted yes-men who’re willing to fire on American citizens.”

  “I hope and pray that if that day ever comes, enough of our guys will have the backbone to stand up and say no.”

  “I do, too, George,” Stark said as he nodded slowly, but Kincaid thought the older man sounded like he wasn’t convinced of it.

  Baldwin put an affable smile on his face and said, “Well, we’ll leave you to whatever you were doing, Lucas. Just don’t work too hard on your day off.”

  Kincaid returned the smile, although the expression was smaller on his face, and said, “I won’t.”

  Baldwin and Stark left the library. As the door swung closed behind them, Kincaid thought that there went a couple of tough old birds. If you were in a fight to the death, you could do a lot worse than to have those two at your back.

  He thought as well about what Stark and Baldwin had said about the current state of the military, especially its upper echelons. He was afraid Stark was right when he was doubtful about the generals’ ability to stand up to the politicians. Too many of the top brass had made it to their elevated ranks by compromising and playing politics. They would go along with their orders, no matter how unconstitutional those commands might be.

  Kincaid had served with plenty of guys—and some gals—who had their boots planted solidly on the ground of freedom and would never pull a trigger on their fellow citizens. If it ever came to that, it would mean war . . . war within the military first, then war against whatever would-be Democrat dictator was currently occupying the White House.

  The only good thing about the situation, Kincaid mused with a faint smile, was that the right side, including civilians, had most of the guns in this country, despite the best efforts of the mealymouthed liberals trying to do away with the Second Amendment . . . and they knew how to use those weapons.

  Kincaid hoped fervently that such a bloody clash never came about, but he was confident that if it did, those on the side of freedom would win in the end.

  And if they didn’t . . . well, he hoped he never lived to see that.

  An underground bunker . . . somewhere

  “Sir, we’ve got some unusual satellite intel coming in.”

  “Put it up on the screen.”

  One of the giant screens in the room changed its feed in response to the young technician’s fingers moving around on the touch screen in front of him.

  The big screen displayed a satellite view of a town somewhere, surrounded by large swaths of green and brown. Although it wasn’t readily apparent from this height, the green patches were fields under cultivation. Evidently wherever this was, the growing season was fairly long there.

  Movement was discernible outside the town. Brown, irregular patches appeared to be dust clouds.

  “Is this real time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Zoom in.”

  The soldier did so, and as the image moved closer to the ground and resolved, vehicles became visible. They were closing in on the town from the northeast and southeast.

  “Looks like some sort of military maneuver. Classic pincers formation. Should we check with DOD?”

  “Where is this happening?”

  “Texas, sir. That town is called . . . let me see . . . Fuego.”

  That name meant something to the man in charge. He had known something was going to happen there, although he wasn’t privy to the details. But he knew something was going to happen . . . and he knew his orders were to ignore it.

  Those orders came from high up.

  Very high up.

  Almost as high as the chain of command went.

  “Sir? Should I call the Department of Defense and see if they already know about this?”

  “No.”

  The man in charge moved up closer behind the tech. The two of them were the only ones on duty on this Sunday morning.

  It had been another Sunday morning, more than eighty years earlier, when the Japanese fleet steamed toward Pearl Harbor and changed the world forever.

  The world was going to change today, too, the man in charge thought as he slipped a small syringe from his pocket, took the cover off the needle, and plunged it into the technician’s neck. The young man jerked in his chair, exhaled a startled “Ah!” and died.

  The autopsy would show heart failure brought on by habitual drug use.

  Such a tragedy, and to the rest of the world an unnecessary one, at that.

  But to the man who withdrew the needle, put the cap back on it, and slid the now-empty syringe back into his pocket, it was an absolutely necessary death.

  The world couldn’t be told just how far up the chain of command what was happening today really went.

  The American people had to be kept in the dark about what was really going on in their country.

  What used to be their country, the killer thought as a thin smile tugged at his lips.

  They had given it up willingly. Traded their freedom for cradle-to-grave government assistance. Government control. That was bad enough just on the surface.

  But if they had known who really ran the government now . . .

  Grasping the dead technician’s shirt collar, the killer dragged him out of the chair in front of the console and dumped him on the floor.

  Then he picked up a microphone attached to a wired intercom system—cell phones didn’t work down here, because of all the shielding and because they were too easily hacked to start with—and said, “This is Colonel Mohammed Havas. I need medics. The man on duty with me in the command center has collapsed . . .”

  Raymond was pacing back and forth agitatedly when Officer Chuck Gibbs walked into the police station.

  “What’s the matter, Ray?” Chuck asked.

  The dispatcher stopped pacing and swung around to face the young officer.

  “Have you seen the chief?”

  “Not today,” Chuck said. “He’s supposed to take over patrol when my shift ends, though, so I’m sure he’ll be here. One thing you can say for the boss, he’s always punctual.”

  “He’s not answering his cell phone or his radio,” Raymond said. “Something’s wrong.”

  Ray was a good guy, Chuck thought, and a good dispatcher. Anybody who thought he couldn’t handle the job just because he was born with Down syndrome was full of crap.

  But every now and then Raymond overreacted to something just like anybody else might. Chuck suspected this was one of those times.

  “Why are you tryin’ to get hold of him?”

  “Because of the gunshots!”

  “Gunshots?” Chuck repeated with a frown.

  Raymond shook his head a little and said, “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t.” Chuck was taking this more seriously now. “What’s this about shots?”

  “I got a couple of calls about them a little while ago. They said it sounded like somebody was shooting a pistol and a shotgun down at the other end of town.”

  “Right here in town?” Chuck pointed at the floor to emphasize what he was asking.

  Raymond nodded impatiently and said, “Yes. If somebody was shooting outside of town, I wouldn’t be as worried.”

  “No, I reckon not. How come you tried to call the chief about it instead of me? I’m the one who’s on duty this morning.”

  “I knew you were busy with that traffic stop out on the highway west of town,” Raymond said.

  The Fuego city limits included the highway, but not the land on either side of it. Because of that, the PD sometimes worked radar out there, as Chuck had been doing this morning.

  “And I talked to the chief earlier and knew he was coming back here,” Raymond went on.

  Chuck smiled again and said, “He was out in the country doin’ his usual Sunday morning gunfightin’ practice, eh?”

  Chief Cobb thought his officers didn’t know about that . . . but they did, of course.

  “Yes. So I thought he could check it out
quicker and easier than you could.”

  “You were probably right about that,” Chuck said with a nod. “But you couldn’t get hold of him?”

  “No. And then somebody else called and said there were some bright lights in the sky, and I know what that means.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Raymond leaned forward over the counter and answered earnestly, “Fuego is being invaded by aliens.”

  Chuck would never laugh at Raymond. They were friends. They had gone to school together and had been in some of the same classes because kids like Ray were mainstreamed and had been for a long time.

  Sometimes, though, it was difficult not to laugh. Chuck made an effort and controlled the impulse. Instead he said, “I’ll go down there and check it out. Down around the McDonald’s and the Dairy Queen and the motel, right?”

  “That’s right. And keep an eye out for the chief!”

  “Will do,” Chuck said with a nod as he went out.

  It was a little after eleven o’clock now, he thought as he got back into his cruiser. The fast-food places were open by now. There was an open field behind the DQ, and sometimes jackrabbits and even coyotes came up in there, scrounging for food. The rednecks who hung out there—and Chuck could think of them that way because he was a redneck himself, and dang proud of it—had been known to grab guns from their pickups and take some potshots at the varmints, just to break the monotony of small-town life.

  Chuck figured that was all it was, but he needed to be sure. As for the bright lights in the sky Raymond had mentioned . . .

  Well, he didn’t believe it was aliens from outer space, but he didn’t have a clue what they might have been. They had mysterious lights down in Marfa, but those showed up at night, not on a Sunday morning.

  Chuck did see something odd as he drove east along Main Street, though. Dust clouds were rising east of town. Somebody was out there riding ATVs around, he supposed. He hoped nobody wrecked out and broke a neck.

  As he approached the edge of town, he spotted the chief ’s car parked at the motel. Maybe Raymond had finally been able to get hold of him after all. Chuck swung the cruiser off the street and into the motel parking lot. He would check in with Chief Cobb before he did anything else.