SPY IN THE SADDLE (16 page)

Maybe she picked up on the game he was playing, because she nodded toward Yo Tee. “What about him?”

“He has no more useful information. If his body is found with his men, local police will write it off as a battle between rival drug bosses. No sense dragging the U.S. into this.”

“No! I have money—” Yo Tee protested.

Chapter Thirteen

Lilly watched as Shep shrugged at the offer of riches.

“I don’t care about money. I’m here for information,” he said. “You have to know more.” He didn’t look as if he was buying the man’s I-know-nothing act.

Lilly wasn’t, either. If the terrorists had crossed the border weeks ago, why the smuggling moratorium that had been strictly enforced by Yo Tee’s men? That had to have cost millions, to him and his smuggling buddies. He wouldn’t have done that without good reason.

She glanced down the hallway—still empty—then back to him. “So what’s planned for tonight at Galmer’s Gulley?”

The man pressed his narrow lips together so tightly they nearly disappeared.

Shep put the rifle barrel right between his eyes. “What are you sending across the border tonight?”

She knew him, she was in love with him, and the way he growled at the man still sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine.

Tension and the sense of impending violence filled the air, the silence broken by a single word Yo Tee squeaked out at last. “Weapons.”

Lilly glanced at the hallway. He might still have men in the building, recouping and planning another attack. But there was nobody in sight, so she looked at Yo Tee again, waiting for more. According to confirmed intel, those terrorists were going to bring chemical weapons into the U.S.

Shep glared at his captive. “Why didn’t the weapons go with the men?”

“The vials weren’t ready yet.” Yo Tee hesitated. “They wanted a lot, and the lab messed up first batch.”

“Where are the vials?”

But that was the question Yo Tee decided to make his last stand on, because he just stared straight ahead and wouldn’t say a single word no matter what Shep threatened him with next.

* * *

T
HE
M
EXICAN
AUTHORITIES
arrived first, but they didn’t enter. They simply secured the perimeter and locked down the entire factory compound, as far as Shep could tell from the window. They probably had their orders. Looked as if some kind of international deal had been made at the last second.

It wasn’t long after that his team arrived on FBI choppers. Shep debriefed them and passed on the latest intel about the terrorists to the Colonel via a secure phone. Yo Tee was immediately flown out to a secure location by the FBI for further interrogation, while Shep’s team searched the building for the chemical weapons.

Unfortunately, several hours of thorough work later, they still didn’t have anything. Tension mounted higher and higher as they went over ground they’d already covered. By the time Shep ran into Lilly at the loading docks, he was brimming with frustration.

She was eyeing the truck they’d passed while being marched inside when they’d first arrived, five giant rolls of paper in the back, one still on the loading dock.

She narrowed her eyes as she measured up the roll. “We know the weapons were about to be shipped to the border. This would make sense.”

“They’ve been scanned. No traces of chemical agents,” he told her. “We haven’t found any traces in the whole damn factory.”

But she kept looking. “Because the lab isn’t here. If the vials came here in airtight containers, all they would have received here would have been extra wrapping. No contamination.”

Shep pulled out his cell and called Ryder. “Do we have a plain old metal detector?”

“If we don’t, we can get one. Where do you need it?”

“Loading docks.” He walked around the roll still waiting to be loaded. Nothing looked disturbed, nothing betrayed that anyone had messed with the paper, no cuts, no bulges.

Lilly strode over. “Boost me up.”

He did, and she moved without hesitation. They had practice at this.

She banged on the top of the giant roll, felt around. “Doesn’t look like anything has been inserted through here. Maybe through the bottom.” She jumped down.

Shep gave the roll a push, but it didn’t budge an inch. It had to weigh a ton. “Let’s try that with a forklift.” There were plenty of those around.

He hopped on one and drove it over, tipped the giant roll to its side, then got out to inspect the bottom. He crouched next to Lilly, the both of them running their fingers over the ridged surface of layers and layers of paper, looking for any hidden openings.

By the time they were done, finding nothing, a Mexican army Jeep was driving up. The arriving lieutenant handed Shep a metal detector without asking any questions, then drove away.

“The collaboration is going better than expected,” Lilly remarked.

Shep turned on the professional-grade instrument. “I bet it’s the Colonel’s doing.” If there was anything the Colonel, the head of the SDDU, couldn’t do, Shep hadn’t seen it yet. The man was a legend in the unit.

He started scanning the roll of paper on the bottom and moved up, careful not to miss an inch. He was at the midpoint when the metal detector went off, issuing a series of loud beeps.

He put the detector down and pulled out his cell phone, called Ryder. “I think we have something.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

Lilly tapped the roll as he was hanging up. “Looks like the paper was wrapped around the container in the middle. I don’t think unrolling it here would be wise.”

He agreed. “We’ll transport everything back to the U.S.”

“How about I take care of that?” She reached out a hand for the cell phone. “I’ll request a reinforced truck that’s built for this kind of thing. Bombproof and airtight. They’ll take everything to a special lab in D.C. for containment and analysis.”

Ryder was running from the back, overhearing that last bit. “That sounds like the best plan of action. How fast can they get here?”

“Couple of hours.”

Shep handed her the cell phone, and she dialed while he shot Ryder a questioning look. It wasn’t like their team leader to let the bureau swoop in and take over without a fight.

“We have terrorists to catch on the border.” He scanned the roll of paper. “In there?”

Shep nodded. “Looks like it.”

Ryder grabbed the metal detector and checked again, then jumped up to the back of the truck and scanned the rest of the rolls. Every single one of them beeped.

The rest of the team was coming from the factory by the time he came back out.

Jamie spoke first. “What do we have here?”

“Probably enough chemical weapons to take out Capitol Hill,” Shep told him. “The FBI will transport them to their lab safely. We’ll take the truck to our meeting with the tangos.” So they wouldn’t suspect that anything had gone wrong. The van had plenty of room in the back for a couple of surprises—his whole team and some serious weaponry.

Ryder gestured toward Jamie with his head. “You’ll drive the truck back. The rest of us will wait here for the FBI then catch up to you with the choppers.”

Jamie nodded and moved toward the forklift. “Let’s get these rolls unloaded.”

While he did that, Shep took the metal detector and scanned all the rolls remaining on the loading dock to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. But the metal detector didn’t go off again.

Jamie left with the truck, and the rest of the team went back inside the factory to finish their search of the floor and offices, hoping to find some information on the terrorists. They didn’t. So they looked again. And again.

He went to the basement with Lilly.

She stopped as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Thanks for having my back today. I mean it.” She smiled. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about. We’re good together and I’m in—”

“You’re in a difficult position. I know. You’re supposed to evaluate us and we had this...thing,” he said rapidly, afraid that she might go in another direction.

She could have been killed today. He couldn’t handle the thought. He could have been killed, too. They’d make a terrible couple. Neither of them would have a worry-free moment. This was not the life he wanted for her.

“Anyway. You do the job you were sent here to do. We made a mistake. We won’t make it again. It’s no big deal. Just forget it, all right?”

The smile slid off her face. A stricken look came into her eyes, but she blinked it away as she turned from him, her shoulders stiff. “Forgotten already. I’ll go left.” She started out with hurried strides. “You go right. Call out if you find anything.”

But neither of them did.

Hours passed before the FBI’s special truck arrived.

Ryder let them take over at that point and ordered his team onto the choppers.

Shep ran with the others, glanced back, slowed when he saw Lilly still standing by the FBI truck, talking with the agents who’d come with it. He waited for her to turn. He wanted at least to give her a last wave.

But she didn’t look his way.

“Shep?” Ryder called for him.

“Coming.” He didn’t know what he would say to her, even if he could run back. And he couldn’t. They both had jobs to do.

He ducked his head to avoid the spinning rotors and pulled himself into the chopper, hung on as the bird lifted and banked sharply to the left.

He watched as she finally lifted her head, pausing in the conversation to look after him.

Her job with his team was done. She’d be going straight to D.C. with the truck. He wasn’t going to see her again, which was for the best.

But the thought squeezed his heart, sending a pang of pain deep into his chest.

* * *

N
IGHT
HAD
FALLEN
and the borderlands were deserted, the Rio Grande a dark ribbon, snaking in the distance. Keith drove the paper-factory truck, Shep and Jamie in the back. The other three men on the team had taken the three best strategic high points around Galmer’s Gulley.

When the SDDU’s Texas headquarters had first been established, a dozen men had been assigned to the task. Six came to their trailer office, and another six had been sent to South America to trace why and from where the terrorists were coming.

They weren’t Middle Eastern as first assumed. They were part of the South American drug cartels. They’d come in response to the U.S. shift in drug control toward stricter measures. The cartels had bought many politicians in their own countries. Those who couldn’t be bought they killed. And now they decided to put U.S. lawmakers in their crosshairs, apparently.

Most likely, the attack was to be the first in a campaign of intimidation. The threat had to be tracked to the source. Except everything had turned out to be more complicated and dangerous than anticipated, so the rest of the team was still stuck in South America.

The Texas half had to handle tonight on their own. And they would, if Shep had anything to do with it. They’d been here way too long, preparing for this moment.

Small holes had been drilled into the side of the truck and in the doors in the back so he and Jamie could see out. The team members were all in radio contact with each other.

Keith drove to the exact coordinates Yo Tee had finally given up to the FBI just half an hour ago. Nothing like leaving things to the last possible moment.

Keith pulled the truck into a spot where the elevation and some mesquite would keep it out of sight as much as possible. Someone who smuggled the kind of load he was supposed to be carrying wouldn’t stay out in the open advertising it to every border agent who happened by.

Then they waited.

And waited.

Long minutes ticked by before Mo said, “Movement at the north end of the gulley,” over the radio. “I see two.”

“Two more a little lower,” Ryder added.

“Another two on my side.” That came from Ray.

Okay, all six were here now. Yo Tee had confessed to transporting six, more than the original intel had indicated, but the team could definitely handle this many.

But then Mo said, “Wait. I got more movement. Two more. I have four here altogether.”

And as Shep watched the moonlit landscape, he noticed more movement. “And four more coming in the back way.”

Either Yo Tee had lied or the terrorists had come in two groups and never told him about the second just to be on the safe side.

Jamie swore quietly next to him.

“Twelve. Everybody got that? Anybody seeing more?” Ryder was asking, but nobody responded. “We have a full dozen, then,” he finished after a minute.

They were outnumbered two to one.

“What kind of weapons?” Shep asked. The men he was watching approached on foot and kept to the shadows and indentations of the land, making it difficult to see what they were carrying.

“Semiautomatics,” Keith said from up front. Apparently, he had a better angle.

“Ah, hell,” Ray swore. “One of mine has a grenade launcher. He’s staying behind while the others are moving forward.”

“Must be their plan B,” Jamie said next to Shep.

Shep gripped his weapon tighter. A grenade launcher could take out the truck and everyone in it. Their bulletproof vests wouldn’t be able to help a damn.

“Coming my way,” Ray whispered.

Made sense. The guy with the grenade launcher would want the high point, too.

“Take him out quietly,” Ryder ordered.

“I can see five now on my side,” Shep told Jamie.

“I see three on mine. They all stopped.”

“Do I get out?” Keith asked.

“Stay in the cab,” Ryder told him. “Let them initiate.”

The men started walking again. Three went up to the cab, five to the back. The one with the grenade launcher was climbing to Ray’s high point, so that left three more out there somewhere, watching from out of sight.

Shep could hear the truck’s door open, Keith’s boots slapping to the ground as he got out.

He greeted them in Spanish. “Everything’s okay. You take this truck, I have a ride waiting to take me back across the border.” His grandfather had been Mexican. He had enough of the blood in him to pass for a Mexican driver, especially in the dark.

“Open the back first. Let’s see.” One of the men barked the words at him.

Shep and Jamie braced themselves for action. They had a Kevlar shield set up in front of them to duck behind, stretching the width of the truck and three feet high. As they held their weapons ready, sounds of a scuffle came over the radio.