Colorado Flames WIth A Texas Twist (20 page)

*~*~*

James pulled onto the ranch as a bit of melancholy hit him square in the chest. Soon, this place wouldn’t be his home. Once he left, he would be on the outside and no longer a member of this team. During his time at Wild Bluff, he’d made a difference. He was proud of his service. Some would disagree about their methods, but they’d made the world a better place. Removing the worst offenders from this world had allowed him to make up for the lack of action he’d seen in the Marines. It wasn’t a perfect solution or a perfect world, but he’d done something good here and he would always be proud of his work.

Emotions hit him as he entered the house. The thick lump in his throat didn’t go away as he made his way into the kitchen. Marshal was sitting at the table drinking coffee.

“Hey, James, how you doing?”

“I’m good.”

“Did you have a good time with Brody?”

“Yeah, I did. He’s amazing.”

“Oh no, let me guess, you’re really serious about him?”

James nodded and grabbed a cup for coffee. Before he left, he’d need to schedule a time to sit and talk to Duff. His mind was made up, he needed to be with Brody.

“I’m going to leave the ranch.”

“Whoa, give it a few months before you make such a huge decision.” Marshal sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “You really need to think this through. I don’t want to lose you.”

James nodded and chewed on his lower lip. “Thanks, buddy, but I’m certain I’ll be leaving.”

“Just give it some time.”

“I will.”

“So, who are we looking for?” Marshal opened up a laptop and began typing. James moved to sit beside him, looking over his shoulder.

“Brody’s real name is Brock Anderson.”

“Okay, let me see what I’ve got.”

Marshal typed in the name and pulled up the information for Brock Anderson. James read over Marshal’s shoulder. Everything was laid out exactly as Brody had told him it would be. There was mention of his parent’s troubles and some other associations with family members who had run-ins with the police.

“Was this what you expected to find?” Marshal asked.

“Yes. It’s exactly what he said it would be.” He was relieved that Brody had told him everything. He hadn’t been mistaken in trusting the man. His heart filled with hope. They would have a future together, of that, he was certain.

“Okay, let me look at the case files and see what happened to the people convicted.”

After banging on the keyboard for a few more minutes, Marshal found the information on the guy Brody had turned in to the police.

“It looks like Landon Mercer is out of jail. He hasn’t checked in with his parole officer this week.”

“Pull up a photo.” James wanted to know what their enemy looked like.

“What are we going to do?” Marshal asked as they stared at the photo for the guy.

“Do you have his credit card data?”

“Nope.”

“Let me call a few hotels.”

James looked up information for the hotels in the area placing a few calls. He dialed the first three, not getting a hit. On the fourth, he found Landon in Pueblo. Though he knew where the guy was, he still didn’t know what to do. Maybe Landon was due for an accident.

One thing for sure, he’d start watching the guy now that he knew who he was. Maybe he could wait until he was doing something illegal and call the cops on him. It would make things easier in the end.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mike Jarred’s phone buzzed in his pocket, leaving him wondering if there was trouble at home. Connor Ellison, his partner for the last year, had gone back to Houston to see friends. He always worried when Connor made the trip south, but he didn't have time to worry today. The bust was going down in just a few minutes. They’d moved the timing up one day. Twenty-four hours may not seem like a lot but on an operation like this, those few hours could have a huge impact in how smoothly their op ran.

The reason for the change was their man on the inside who’d turned against Ruiz gave them new information. He was driving Raphael Ruiz from the airport to his compound. They were planning on stopping outside of the gate to Ruiz’s place. Their informant had given them the code to the gate, and they were already inside and had been since three in the afternoon the day before. He’d secured his team’s position and felt confident in their ability to accomplish their task.

When they’d entered the compound, they’d only had to deal with four guards. The security was minimal because Ruiz wasn’t on property. Ruiz had grown complacent and that was why they were able to take over this home. Mike had kept one guy on watch through the night and the rest of them had slept. They’d traded out guard duty midway through the night, allowing everyone to get some rest.

His team was made up of four guys from the DEA and six Brazilian Federal Police Officers. He’d worked with two of the Brazilian Federal Police guys before on other operations. They all wanted this guy taken down and when his friend in Brazil, Alexsandro, had approached Mike, asking if the USA could benefit from Ruiz being arrested, he’d jumped at the chance to be a part of the operation.

They were hidden well behind the wall surrounding the compound. He doubted that anyone could see them. Movement was kept to a minimum so anyone watching the area wouldn’t know they were there.

Their man at the airport had called about an hour earlier, saying that Ruiz had landed. The waiting game had him shaking. His team was nervous too. This was one of the biggest takedowns in Brazil in the last few years. Cleaning house, taking on some of the worst criminals was immensely important to Brazil now that they were becoming more of a world leader in the global community.

Alexsandro lifted his right hand and waved Mike over. He glanced at his men and then moved to Alexsandro, wondering what was going on.

“They are about two minutes out. I want you to give the go ahead on the operation when you’re ready.”

Mike nodded and clicked on his mic, noticing that his hand was shaking. He had to calm down or they wouldn’t get through this.

“All on, it’s show time. We have ninety seconds before the operation starts. We want Raphael Ruiz alive.” Mike moved back to his position, waiting for the first car to come into view.

I have a visual,” one of the guys from Alexsandro’s team said.

“On my mark.” Mike gave the command, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. The first car came into view and stopped. Two guys got out. They moved to the center of the road, holding their positioning. Two more cars came into view and they stopped. This was going exactly to plan. Next would be the taxi Ruiz was in. Four of the guys had automatic weapons. Everyone on his team knew to take them out first. He didn’t like creating casualties on operations, but the men who were close to Ruiz would kill first then ask questions later.

After a few more seconds, the taxi pulled up and stopped. Ruiz stepped out as the cabbie exited his vehicle. One of the goons with a gun stepped up to the cabbie and lifted his weapon. Mike opened his mouth to give the command to act when a shot blasted through the canyon, shocking the hell out of everyone.

Chaos erupted around him. Alexsandro’s men opened the gate and rushed forward. He followed but stopped dead still when he saw that Ruiz had been hit, his head half gone.

“Where did that shot come from?” Mike shouted. He doubted that anyone heard him since they were trying to subdue Ruiz’s men.

Two of Ruiz’s men were dead in the gunfire that followed, the rest were on the ground with zip strips binding their wrists and ankles. Standing in front of Ruiz, Mike glanced around, searching for movement. He saw a flash at the top of the rise that disappeared on the other side.

“Fuck, where did that shot come from?” Mike yelled.

Alexsandro was beside him, his eyes wide. Had he set this up? Mike doubted it. He wouldn’t have called the US in to witness the execution if he was behind it.

“That way,” Alexsandro pointed. “What do you all think?” the man asked the other men.

“Yep, up the hill,” a few guys said.

“Fuck. I need a car.” Mike turned around, pissed that they’d left their vehicles at the barn on the property and had hiked here. They did have one motorcycle hidden in the bushes behind the fence. He grabbed the helmet and jumped on, starting the engine in a quick flick of his wrist. The bike purred to life quickly and he was gone, racing after the unknown assassin.

His main objective was to find the bastard and figure out why the fuck he’d killed Ruiz. Then he’d make sure the guy paid. They had a firm case against the fucker and now it had been taken away from him. How could he explain this to his supervisor? Who the fuck would believe this? God, he had to find out who had taken it upon themselves to kill this bastard. Had this been government sanctioned? And which government? Damnit, he was freaking screwed.

Mike raced down the road on the bike, almost wiping out on a sharp curve. He recovered, trying like hell to figure out where the fucker had gone. Movement to the right caught his eye. The guy was moving fast, racing down the hill to a set of buildings. If the man made it to the city where millions of people milled around, he’d never find him. He had no visual and thus, no clue who he was looking for.

He didn’t want to, but he had to follow on foot from here. If he stayed on the bike, the road would take him out of the way and he might not catch up to this guy again. A car coming from Ruiz’s compound raced down the road towards him. He waved as he hopped over the rail and took off, running as fast as his legs would take him.

In all of his preparations for this operation, he’d never accounted for someone crashing their party to assassinate Ruiz. The car stopped at the top of the hill and feet pounded behind him. He didn’t look back for fear of losing sight of the man running in front of him. In less than one minute, the guy would be close enough to have the cover of buildings and people walking around, strolling through town as they went about their business. Mike thought about firing at the guy, but he didn’t know if any civilians would get caught in the crossfire.

He was fucked.

*~*~*

James had what he needed so Marshal left the kitchen and headed to the control center, wanting to find out how Zander was doing. He missed his guy. Sleeping alone for the last few days had driven him crazy. He needed Zander in his arms.

The call came in and Grant held up his hand getting everyone’s attention. “Say that again?” No one made a sound as Grant listened to the caller at the other end. “Shit. I’m putting you on speaker.”

Noise crackled over the phone as Grant switched to speaker. Marshal hoped he heard Zander at the other end, but Grant turned his focus to him and he knew the news wasn’t going to be good. Marshal dropped to the nearest chair as desperation swam through him.

“It’s Roger. Things didn’t go well. I was in communication with Billy up until a few seconds ago. I think we have a problem.”

“Shit, what type of problem?” Duff asked.

“Zander had to run. It looks like someone else was there to bust up Ruiz’s welcome home party. Billy couldn’t see everything, but Zander was being chased last he saw. He wasn’t able to meet up with him. We may need to get out of here early. I’ll call you back when I have more information.”

Roger hung up and Marshal slumped, putting his head on the table in front of him. He couldn’t take too much more of this. Zander was being followed, but Roger hadn’t said who was after him. They’d all had close brushes and they knew the dangers associated with their chosen profession. Having Zander in trouble hurt like hell. He didn’t want to think about his lover injured, lying in blood in the middle of Brazil. There was nothing he could do about the situation though.

Marshal took a deep breath and sat up. “Okay, who could have been at Ruiz’s compound?”

Silence fell on the control room and all eyes turned to him. Pain lanced his heart, but he wasn’t going to break. He’d had a few setbacks recently, and physically he was still down for the count, but he knew how to run an operation and how to fix the situation when things went wrong.

“Probably the DEA,” Tucker supplied. “They were planning a joint raid of Ruiz’s compound. It was supposed to go down tomorrow but they might have changed days if they got new intel.”

“Okay, who do we know at the DEA?” Marshal asked.

Duff stood, his lips twisting into a frown as his brows pinched together. “You aren’t thinking of contacting them before we know what’s going on?”

“No, but if Zander ends up in their custody, I want an out. We need to have a person high enough up to call to get Zander released.”

“Good thinking,” Tucker said. “I’m on it. We’ll have a name before we need to use it.”

“Okay, next, we need to be patched into the Brazilian police communications.”

“That’s going to be difficult since we’re not there,” Mike Willson said. “I’ll see what I can do though.”

“It may be impossible, but let’s see what we can accomplish to get Zander and the guys home,” Grant said.

They went to work, Marshal included, searching the internet, looking for any mention of what was happening in Brazil. It was a long shot. This operation was tricky from the beginning, but it had gone from difficult to totally fucked up in the last hour. The phone rang and everyone stilled.

Grant answered, placing the call on speaker. “It’s Roger again. Billy has made contact with Zander. He’s ditching his equipment and Billy is going to pick it up. That will allow Zander room to move freely. Billy is going to head to the rendezvous point. I’ll be making my way to our new hotel. Once I hear something, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Roger, just keep us informed and stay safe,” Grant said.

“Got it.”

Grant hung up, his gaze on Marshal’s. He didn’t know what was worse, Marshal staring at him or the other guys avoiding his gaze. Grant sure as hell didn’t want to lose Zander. Being stuck behind on a mission sucked because no matter what he did here in this control room, he couldn’t actually help Zander.