Collision Course (6 page)

Picking
up her Glock, she locked the clip in place and racked the slide. “Better get
your ear muffs on. I’m about to pepper my target up there.”

“Have at
it.”

She
usually shot in groups of three, changing her stance and angle for direction.
But now she unloaded all thirteen bullets in rapid succession, burning a large
circle in the silhouette’s head. She picked up the H&K, clip already in
place, and did the same thing to the groin area.

“Whew!”
Ben whistled softly between his teeth. “Somebody definitely got on your bad
side. Remind me not to piss you off.”

She
smiled at him as she walked back to fill both clips. “I find what I’m doing
here to be a great stress reliever.”

“No
shit.”

“Why
don’t you go ahead and shoot while I take a break and reload?”

“Sure.”
His grin was slow and lazy and any other woman would have found it sexy. “Hope
I don’t embarrass myself after the show you put on.”

“My
folks tell me you were a sniper in the Marines. I’d bet your skills far
outweigh mine.” She tilted her head. “When did you get out?”

His face
sobered. “Three years ago. Two tours in Iraq were plenty for me.”

The same
pain darkened his eyes that she knew others saw in hers. The war in the sandbox
left its scars on everyone.

“So what
brought you here? We’re sure not the hot spot of the world.”

“Which
is what appeals to me. The county commission was advertising for candidates and
it seemed made to order. Quiet. Not so much going on. Nice people.” He grinned
again. “For the most part.”

“Why
don’t I shut up and let you shoot.” She nodded at him. “Let’s see what you’ve
got.”

For the
next hour they alternated, almost as if they were competing with each other. By
the time they finished, the paper targets were shredded and they were both
dripping sweat. They policed their brass casings and packed up in a
companionable silence. But when she got to her truck, Ben touched her arm.

“Think
you might join me for dinner one night? Compare war stories?”

Casey
tensed. “I don’t—”

“I know,
I know.” He held up a hand. “No mixing business and pleasure. I got the message
loud and clear.” He winked. “Despite the fact I might have different ideas
about it.”

“Ben…”
she began.

“Joking,
Casey. A friendly meal is all I have in mind. Right there at the Half ’n Half.
How much trouble can we get into with your folks giving me the eagle eye?”

She
couldn’t argue with his reasoning. They’d be in a restaurant surrounded by
people. Anyway, she hadn’t had anyone to discuss her experiences in the Middle
East with. Maybe listening to someone else’s take, his experiences, would help
her deal with her own. Put things in a better perspective.

At his
wry comment, she had to laugh. “I guess it’s okay. As long as we both know the
boundaries and keep them in place.”

“Yes,
ma’am.” He winked again. “No problem on my end. Just two friends getting
together to talk about stuff no one else understands.”

Maybe it
would be okay, after all, but she’d still keep her guard in place. “All right,
then. Maybe later in the week?”

“I’ll
count on it.” He touched the brim of his cap and headed for his SUV.

Casey
watched him go with a wistful feeling.

Why
can’t I get interested in a decent guy? My life would be so much better.

But she
was still too locked up inside herself even to consider it.

More’s
the pity.

At least
she had found a place to put some of her skills to use. She sighed and headed
home to shower and change. Sometimes life just sucked.

*****

Trey
felt as if he’d been on the road forever. When the cab dumped him off at the
station, he bought a ticket for the next bus leaving. For Seattle, of all
places. Not that he gave a rat’s ass. It got him out of the city and away from
Bennett’s hit men. At one of the stops, he got off for a minute to grab some
food from the convenience store. He hadn’t eaten since dinner yesterday, and
his stomach sent him urgent messages.

By three
in the afternoon, they’d reached a fairly good-sized city so he hopped off and
told the driver not to wait for him. The bus station had a rack of free
newspapers. He grabbed a copy of the Auto Trader, got a soft drink at the snack
bar and sat down to see what he could find. An hour later, a cab dropped him at
a home in a nice but low-end neighborhood where some kid had decided to sell
his pickup to buy something flashier. Buying from a private seller worked the
best because it always took them longer to file the paperwork. By the time
Bennett’s computers caught up with it, he’d be long gone in another direction.

The
truck turned out to be in decent shape, and the kid had cleaned it up for the
sale. The whole process took less than half an hour and Trey was on his way
again. But now he headed south, away from the direction the bus had been
heading. He figured he’d drive until he got to a place where no one would
search for him, and then hide out until he could get his information together.

Not a
city, although he could get lost in the crowd. But Bennett had contacts in
every urban center of any size in the country, not to mention globally. No, he
needed to find a place as far removed from where Bennett would expect him to be
as possible.

But
first, he needed some sleep. He found a decent motel in one of the small towns
he drove through, got a room and prepared to crash for the night. But he set
the alarm on his watch for seven. He needed to get an early start.

*****

Charles
Bennett was not a happy man. Not only had Haggerty slipped through his hands
but El-Salaki had called several times demanding a meeting. He couldn’t put it
off for long. Now, as he sat in his den, he stared at the two men who had let
Trey slip through their hands, wishing he could dispose of them for their
stupidity.

“He got
on a
bus
?” he asked for what must be the hundredth time. He had a hard
time absorbing the fact the man had escaped on public transportation. “How was
it possible? You were supposed to have him boxed in.”

They’d
told their story over and over but he wanted to hear it yet again. See if
they’d remember something they missed. Or if he’d overlooked anything. But
nothing in the retelling gave him a clue. Except they should have been better
prepared for their quarry to do what he did.

He
turned his gaze to Holland. “Tell me again why you weren’t you standing at the
rear door instead of by his car.”

Holland
shrugged. “I told you, boss. He slowed Price down when he bolted for the door
the way he did and I wasn’t expecting him to come running out. I figured he’d
head straight for his car, like we talked about.”

“Okay,
okay.” Bennett stuck one of his ever-present unlit cigars in his mouth, almost
chomping all the way through it. With an effort, he tamped down his anger,
knowing it would get him nowhere. “The question is where do we go from here? He
wouldn’t be able to take a plane or rent a car. They’d ask for identification,
and I doubt if he could have gotten fake credentials in such a short time. So
you have nothing.”

“No, it
turns out we do have some good news,” Holland told him. “We hit pay dirt at the
bus station. It wasn’t too busy this morning, and one of the clerks recognized
the picture. Said he thinks he sold him a ticket to Seattle.”

“Seattle?”
Bennett said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “You can bet he
won’t go all the way there. And he’ll dig up transportation someplace and then
find a hole to crawl into.”

“What do
you want us to do next?” Price asked.

If only
he could send them to El-Salaki in his place and confess their incompetence. It
was on his head, though, and he’d have to take the heat.

“I don’t
know yet. The smart thing would be to check every stop the bus made but it’s
too time-consuming and I’d say unproductive. Haggerty’s smart. He’s figured out
a way to lose himself. Blend into the population.”

“He has
to be somewhere,” Holland protested.

“Yes,
and the search for him may be taken out of our hands. My ‘business partners’
want to turn their own men loose to find him. Go home. Don’t say a word to
anyone. I’ll call you when I know where we go from here.”

The
burner cell phone in his pocket rang yet again as the two men walked out of the
room. He picked it up, knowing who waited on the other end and resigned to what
would happen. Before the caller could speak, he said, “I’m on my way. Make arrangements
for someone to meet me when I arrive.”

He
disconnected the call and used the landline to dial a familiar number. When his
personal pilot answered, he said, “Vince, prep the plane. I’m leaving now for
the airport.”

Then he
got Frank on the intercom and told him to get ready to leave.

Heaving
his bulk from the deep chair, he let out a heavy sigh. Today promised to be a
long one. He could see his empire and his fortune crumbling away if he didn’t
find and eliminate Trey Haggerty soon.

*****

Trey rubbed
at the grit in his eyes, forcing himself to stay awake. He’d been driving
steadily for two days, the pickup sturdier than he expected and eating up the
miles with ease. The kid must have kept the engine in great shape. Stopping
only for food, which he ate as he drove, and to take care of necessary bodily
functions, he managed to cover about fifteen hundred miles. Although fatigue
gripped his every muscle, fear kept his adrenaline flowing and his senses
alert.

He
barely paid attention to the scenery as he drove, one state blurring into the
next. He needed to stop soon or he risked falling asleep at the wheel. The
dashboard clock read ten o’clock at night when he started to pass through the
small towns of the Texas Hill Country, an area known everywhere for its
ranching and its colorful history. Losing his concentration, he needed to crash
soon before he had an accident.

His
headlights flashed on a sign with the message
Welcome to Connelly, Texas
,
except nothing on either side of the road denoted a town of any kind. Maybe it
was just a wide spot in the road but he hoped they had some kind of
accommodations. Five minutes later his headlights picked up the sign for
the—what else—Connelly Motel.
Vacancy
flashed in big red letters, the
most welcoming sight he’d seen all day.

As much
as he could see in the dark, the place sat in isolation, nothing near it except
land and trees. No other buildings. Nada. But unlike the places he’d stayed in
the past two nights, this one actually looked appealing. Built in the style of
typical Spanish architecture, the two-story structure had adobe walls and
arches along the walkway to the rooms and sported a classic red barrel tile
roof.

Trey
pulled up to the door marked Office and pressed the bell. Like similar
establishments, they locked up the lobby after a certain time. In five minutes,
he had a key card for a room on the side away from the road, parked his car and
dragged his ass and his duffel into the room. And ten minutes after securing
the locks and putting his bag on the bed next to him, he was dead to the world.

Charles
Bennett shifted in the deep armchair and pulled a cigar from his inside jacket
pocket. Chewing on it gave him some sense of satisfaction even if he couldn’t
smoke. He couldn’t believe Trey Haggerty, a man he’d hired for his brains as
well as his skill in the world of international finance, had done something so
stupid as answer the special phone. El-Salaki was a dangerous man to be caught
crosswise with. Bennett wouldn’t be at all surprised to find his history
littered with bodies of people who could damage him.

He’d had
the man investigated before their first deal together. Bennett had a hard and
fast rule—never go into anything blind. No, when he lay down with the devil he
knew every detail of the corner of hell waiting for him. The situation with
Trey had become a major issue. El-Salaki was hell-bent on eliminating him, and
Bennett couldn’t argue with him.

Although
he had to assume some responsibility—after all, he hadn’t locked up the phone—there
didn’t seem to be any other solution. Trey could put all of them in jeopardy
and the phone call had become a small part of it. If his curiosity got the
better of him—and Bennett knew in his gut it would—Trey might try to break into
the encrypted files marked
Bennett-Eyes Only
. Files for which he’d paid
a fortune to have multiple encryption installed. What if Trey succeeded? One
word to the wrong person and Bennett’s carefully constructed world would
implode.

He
thought he’d prepared for every eventuality. His private techie had assured him
when the firewalls were created only someone very skilled could breach them,
and even then it was a remote possibility. Haggerty was computer savvy, but
he’d never indicated he had advanced skills.

In any
event, with all the shit happening Bennett would see about beefing up security.
He swallowed a smile, aware his two partners had tried to break into the files
with little success. If it held against them, he had few worries about Trey
Haggerty.

He sat
waiting for the unpleasant conversation to begin.

An hour
ago his Gulfstream had landed on El-Salaki’s private island in the Caribbean
and one of the man’s flunkies had ferried him to the big house in a black SUV.
He sat across from the man who—despite the tropical climate—dressed as always
in a well-tailored silk suit, shirt and tie, the expression on his face far
from friendly.

In
contrast, Bennett wore slacks and a linen shirt and still sweated profusely, a
condition having little to do with the tropical climate. He cursed himself
under his breath for letting his nerves get the better of him. He was a
powerful man with many resources at his disposal. Behind his corporate facade,
he had his fingers in half the illegal operations in the world. Yet the man
sitting across from him with his dead eyes, a descendant of the ruthless
Bedouins, had the power to instill fear in him. For the first time, he feared
death might be staring him in the face.