Smoke Signals (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 4) Read online

  Sunset wasn’t until 6:14 p.m. but with the heavy overcast and steady cold rain, it was dark by five o’clock when Mateo Trujillo and the Canadian mercenaries reached the overlook above the town. Heeding Mateo’s suggestion that there might be a sizable amount of money stashed at the original marijuana processing camp, they had stopped and searched the place thoroughly. There was nothing like the chance to pick up some easy money to motivate men to muck through the muddy site and search every enclosed space that might hold paper currency.

  They found three one-hundred-dollar bills that had gotten lost in the shuffle.

  Enough to hint that there had once been more.

  Not nearly enough to reward the amount of effort expended.

  Baker, Charlie and Dog were in foul moods when they tromped out of the camp and set off for Tesla. Mateo, at the rear of the line of march, stayed just close enough not to lose sight of Dog. He ordinarily did well enough in rough terrain he already knew, but in this unfamiliar yanqui wilderness, finding his way back to the town would have been a matter of pure luck.

  He didn’t blame the mercenaries for being frustrated when they didn’t find the money. He felt the same way. Still, it had occurred to him that a young smartass like Julián Fortuna might have thought it a fine joke to hide the money he’d stolen right under Mateo’s nose. Force Mateo to backtrack after he’d caught up with Julián.

  So rather than risk embarrassment, he’d set the Canadians to work for him. If they’d found the money, he would have used it to pay the balance of their fee. There was a risk involved in doing that, though. Having been paid in full, the mercenaries might have felt free to abandon or even kill him.

  Now, they wanted to keep him alive at least long enough to get paid.

  They undoubtedly could have moved faster than he could keep up. The fact that Dog remained in view told Mateo he was safe for the moment. When he finally caught up with the others on the outlook above town, Mateo sensed that while he might be out of the woods, he was not out of danger. Nor were the others. They all fixed their gazes on the same thing.

  The house where Able had died was brightly illuminated.

  The mercenaries looked at each other, asking and answering a question silently.

  Baker then turned to Mateo. “You turn any lights on in that house?”

  Mateo shook his head.

  “Neither did we, and Able sure as hell didn’t.”

  Mateo moved closer to the edge for a better look. “All the curtains are drawn, but I don’t see any shadows.”

  Baker said, “Could be a party going on at the front of the house and we wouldn’t see it from here.”

  Charlie added, “With the rain we wouldn’t hear it either.”

  Dog nodded, agreeing with both points.

  “I’m thinking it’s a trap,” Baker said. “Somebody knows we’re here.”

  Mateo directed their attention to another point of interest. “Over there, at the far end of town. The last house.”

  The thinnest sliver of yellow light escaped from an attic window.

  The mercs looked at the narrow band of illumination and then at each other.

  Baker told Mateo, “Good catch. Looks like someone thought he blocked off the entire window, missed by just a little.”

  Mateo said, “That or it’s where the real trap is.”

  The mercenaries went into another silent exchange of thoughts.

  Baker broke the silence, saying, “What really matters is where our SUV is, and can we still use it? Otherwise, it’s going to be a long hike home.”

  “Less so for you than me,” Mateo replied. “Canada is closer than Mexico.”

  Charlie said, “Hey, if somebody else came to town, they didn’t walk, did they? Hell, no, this is the U.S.A. They drove. Shit, if we have to, we’ll steal their ride.”

  Dog nodded cheerfully. Baker liked the line of thought, too, but he was disturbed he hadn’t been the one to think of it. The world was turning upside down. So he asserted his leadership by saying, “Let’s get down there and reconnoiter.”

  “Rules of engagement?” Dog asked.

  “You see someone, you waste him,” Baker said.

  Charlie and Dog nodded.

  Baker gave Mateo a look, as if daring him to object.

  He didn’t. He only said, “I’ll wait here until you’re ready for me.”

  All three mercenaries gave Mateo the same look. He understood their unvoiced insult perfectly. You miserable piece of chickenshit.

  The mercenaries’ disapproval didn’t bother Mateo in the least.

  He even gave them a reason to approve of his decision.

  “If I went into town and I got killed, how would you get the second half of your fee? If one of you dies, I’ll still be able to pay the other two, and each of you will get more.”

  Able might have been up to finding a reply to that.

  Baker, Charlie and Dog only departed.

  Ernesto’s first decisions were to have the camp guards reclaim their assault rifles and then present his credentials to the armed men who formerly had considered him the least capable member of their ranks. He spoke to them in a house in the center of town.

  “I am not the man you once thought I was. I was one of our homeland’s marines. In the line of duty, I have killed a number of men. The only one I remember clearly was a sicario who came to my wife’s house to threaten her and her family. I put a round in his left ear and, I’m certain, it exited his right ear.

  “I don’t wish to waste any ammunition or alert the men who will be coming to this town soon with Fausto Zara’s top lieutenant. So if any of you wish to challenge my leadership I will be happy to fight you with a knife. This will not be a game. It will be to the death, and your death will come quickly, I assure you.”

  Ernesto spoke in a quiet emotionless voice.

  John took him seriously. So did everyone else.

  There was no challenge to his authority.

  “Bueno,” Ernesto said. “I will put you in the best positions to both kill our enemies and defend each other. Your first job, and mine, is not to save our own lives but to save the lives of our compañeros.”

  Julián nodded to himself. Even though he wouldn’t be among the armed men, he approved of the message of selflessness. Thought it was good management. He glanced at Freddie Strait Arrow, saw him also nod. Even the tall American indio and his woman looked impressed.

  The only dissenters were the stunning woman standing next to Freddie, her and Basilio. That fool still refused to believe Ernesto was anything more than the bumbler he’d pretended to be. Qué idiota. What an idiot.

  “You will not shoot first,” Ernesto continued. “I might shoot first. They might shoot first.” He nodded at John and Rebecca. “But you will not shoot first.”

  Ernesto looked at Marlene. She shook her head. She would not be using a gun.

  “Be glad you will not shoot first,” Ernesto said. “You will sleep better if you do not have to shoot at all.”

  “But if we see a compañero is in danger,” one of the men asked, “then may we shoot?”

  “Yes, good. You see there are exceptions and that is one of them. But all of you put your firing selectors on single shots. You are not trained to shoot on automatic.”

  John showed his approval of that measure with a nod.

  Ernesto told everyone, guards and workers, where they would be positioned and what their responsibilities would be. He embraced each of them and said, “Compañero.” They replied in kind. Everyone was surprised when Freddie did the same to Ernesto.

  Ernesto, who’d been introduced to the young man who owned the town, bowed to him.

  Then he turned to John, asked him and Rebecca for a private moment.

  After they stepped into another room, he asked John in a quiet voice, “Is it important that we take any of these men alive?”

  “Not at the cost of one of our own,” John said, “but if possible, yes. We can learn more from the living.”
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  “Bueno.” Ernesto had exactly the same thoughts.

  He turned to Rebecca. “Is that a bow you carry, señorita?”

  “It is.”

  “Are you proficient with it?”

  “I am.”

  “I would like to give you a place where you may take advantage of your skill then. I will be as far from you as possible as I tend to draw much enemy fire.”

  Rebecca looked at John for an opinion.

  He told her, “I’ll be right there with you.”

  Ernesto nodded, as much in manly approval as professional acquiescence.

  “I was sure you would say that, señor. In case you haven’t heard it many times before —”

  “I know,” John said. “A guy my size has to keep his head down.”

  Special ops personnel from Canada’s Joint Task Force 2 served with their American counterparts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Canadian troops in Afghanistan were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by the U.S. government for their actions. In Iraq, JTF2 personnel rescued a British and Canadian Peacemaker Team that was being held hostage. The men in those instances were the crème de la crème of their units.

  Baker, Charlie and Dog, though deadly without a doubt, were washouts. Worse, they felt the loss of Able’s leadership more keenly than ever as they moved into Tesla. Baker took point; Dog walked slack; Charlie in the middle looked for threats on both the right and left. Their search for targets was aided by a momentary slackening of the rain.

  They were immediately pleased to see the Lincoln Navigator SUV was right where they left it. All they had to do was … shit, Baker thought. Able had the key fob on him when he’d been killed and then … double shit, that greaser Trujillo had taken the fob.

  Charlie crept up close to Baker and whispered, “Damn, look at that. Somebody took all the wheels off our ride.”

  Baker hadn’t noticed until Charlie pointed it out, but he was right. All four wheels had been removed. Not stolen. They rested next to the SUV, and the lug nuts lay right there next to the wheels.

  Dog joined them, having seen the situation for himself. “Wiseass prick, whoever he is, left the lug wrench right there with everything else. Letting us know — ”

  “All we have to do is put the wheels on and we’re good to go. Only that prick doesn’t know we don’t have the key.”

  Charlie and Dog looked at Baker, dumbfounded. We don’t?

  Baker shook his head.

  Well, fuck.

  Baker looked both behind them and farther up the road. He didn’t see anyone sneaking up from the rear. Didn’t mean someone wasn’t waiting right around the first bend in the road, though. Up ahead, there was another car parked at the curb, some small buggy about half the size of the SUV. The good thing about it, all its wheels were right where they were supposed to be, and heated vapor from the tailpipe showed the motor was running.

  Baker, Charlie and Dog looked at each other, sharing the exact same thought.

  Gotta be a trap.

  Didn’t fucking matter. A working car was still the best way to get out of this damn place and find a way home. If someone was going to open up on them, so be it, they’d just have to shoot faster, straighter and in greater volume. Show the bastards they were messing with the wrong guys.

  Charging the car in the same order they’d entered town, the mercenaries’ plan lasted all of one stride. Then, without a sound and seemingly by magic, an arrow embedded itself in the back of Dog’s left leg, a hair lower than the kneecap. The arrowhead penetrated the fabric of Dog’s pants, the soft tissue of his upper gastrocnemius and severed his patellar tendon.

  Dog’s leg collapsed like the 1929 stock market and his fall was just as abrupt.

  Charlie whirled to protect his comrade. With a remarkably accurate instinct he fixed on the point from which the arrow must have come. He even thought he saw who must have been responsible for shooting Dog. He had a target. What he didn’t have was time.

  An arrow was already coming his way. Traveling at 170 feet per second, it gave Charlie no chance to either evade or block it. Had he not turned around, the shaft might have hit him in a kidney. As it was, the point of penetration was his umbilicus. Thanks to the distance of the shot and Charlie’s well-toned abdominal muscles, the arrowhead stopped just short of his spine.

  Charlie was in no immediate danger of dying but the impact of the arrow and the sickening wave of pain that followed knocked him on his ass and hors de combat. Out of the fight.

  Baker hadn’t noticed Charlie fall. Seeing Dog go down from an arrow had spooked him. Able gets his throat ripped out by some monster out of a nightmare, and now somebody was going after them with archery? He wasn’t prepared for this shit.

  He sprinted for the small car with the motor running. Wondering what the hell was next. Pots of boiling oil? The mercenary’s conjecture was answered in a more familiar and contemporary fashion.

  A burst of automatic weapon fire stitched the pavement ten feet in front of him, bringing Baker to an abrupt halt. He pivoted, intending to retreat at speed. Only, looking back, he saw a line of poorly dressed men holding AR-15s. These guys didn’t look like trained military, but there were enough of them to shred his ass no matter how badly they shot.

  And the guy who laid down the fire to keep him from reaching the small car?

  That dude knew exactly what he was doing.

  Moving very slowly, Baker gently placed his weapon on the wet pavement. Then he clasped his hands on top of his head. He glanced over his right shoulder and saw a guy with an assault rifle approaching him. He was the one, Baker knew.

  The guy who’d fired the burst and organized the trap.

  But who the hell had shot Dog with an arrow?

  Baker faced forward and saw who. A tall woman with a bow was walking his way. Next to her was an even taller guy, looked like an Indian. He scooped up Dog and Charlie’s weapons and handed them off to a couple of the civilians with their own assault rifles.

  Damn U.S. Everybody had a fucking gun.

  The tall guy stopped a few feet from Baker and said, “Federal officer. You’re under arrest. You and your friends.”

  Trying to brazen things out, Baker said, “What’d we do wrong? Hell, we’re the victims here. Someone vandalized our truck.”

  Rebecca stepped forward and asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Ohio,” Baker said. He’d never been there but thought it sounded plausible.

  Rebecca shook her head. “Bullshit. I know that accent. You’re from Alberta.”

  Baker squinted at her, as if that would help him think better.

  “So are you,” he said. “I still don’t know what my friends and I did wrong.”

  John told him. “One of you killed a Mexican migrant named Gustavo Morales. We have several witnesses.”

  Something in Baker’s eyes moved, but not as fast as Rebecca’s foot. She kicked Baker’s right knee. He fell almost as quickly as Dog had. Ernesto came up behind Baker, reached inside the collar of the mercenary’s jacket and pulled out a fighting knife.

  “Very good reflexes, señora,” he told Rebecca. “Very good instincts.”

  Rebecca glared down at Baker. “I’m RCMP, dummy. If the Americans don’t want to execute you or pay for your keep, you’ll be spending the rest of your life behind bars back home, I promise you that.”

  Baker silently cursed himself for having allowed any witnesses to his crime to live.

  Then again, it hadn’t been his decision, and maybe he had a bargaining chip.

  He said to John, “You think I could get some consideration if I gave you a major drug dealer?”

  John told him. “Sure, I’ll see you get dessert with your last meal.”

  Baker told him where Mateo Trujillo was waiting anyway. If this prick wouldn’t cut him any slack maybe the prosecutor would. At least, he could hope he’d get to do his time back home. Canada didn’t have a death penalty.

  From the attic window of a nearby house, Be
ebs called out, “All clear?”

  John said, “Yes.”

  Beebs replied. “Wait until you see the video footage I got. Can you say viral?”

  Marlene had watched the encounter on the street from a darkened room on the first floor of the house from which Beebs had shot his video, with Freddie looking on. Everything went as well as she or anyone else could have hoped. In his typical fashion, Tall Wolf deflected credit from himself. He’d set up others to claim the major shares of praise. The Mexican fellow with the military background had organized the situation with beautiful simplicity. Immobilize one vehicle, incentivize the other, surround your targets with superior force.

  Leave the bad guys with only one real chance to flee, and then attack once they made the inevitable choice.

  Tall Wolf’s woman, Bramley, had carried out her role with brilliant efficiency. Two arrows, two men down. Marlene felt sure her other skills were also top-notch. Knowing that Bramley would spend much of her free time at her future husband’s side would have to enter into Marlene’s calculations for any plans she made for Tall Wolf.

  In a way, though, having Bramley on hand would be a comfort. She would be a defense against random threats facing Tall Wolf. Bramley would help make sure Tall Wolf was alive and well when Marlene came for him in the end.

  Tall Wolf had been joking when he said Marlene might not like the way he tasted when she finally got around to eating him. Tall Wolf’s real appeal for her, though, was that he made an interesting adversary and a useful tool to help advance her other plans.

  She’d never really known anyone else like him.

  He’d infuriated her for quite some time, but the passage of time had eased her past that.

  The way things would end between them was never in doubt, as she saw it.

  So there was no reason to hurry the outcome.

  And if she didn’t like the way he tasted, she could add a little salt.

  From the back of the house, where Julián Fortuna, Basilio Nuñez and the women from the camp had taken shelter, a female voice cried out, “¡Detiene!” Stop!

  Pounding footsteps and the bang of a door being flung open argued that the command to halt, now being repeated more loudly and shrilly, had been ignored. Marlene smiled. In fact, she was counting on something like this happening.