Джеймс Паттерсон - Texas Outlaw

And then she realizes this isn’t over. Harris and two of McCormack’s men are still crowded around her. Harris—her former boss, that son of a bitch—reaches for his pistol.

Ariana scrambles onto her knees and pries the gun out of Carson McCormack’s dead fingers.

“Freeze!” Ariana shouts, pointing the gun at Harris.

He stops, his gun half in, half out of its holster. He looks scared for an instant, and then he realizes the odds remain in his favor. He grins.

“Ariana, sweetheart, you’re still outnumbered.”

Keeping her gun on Harris, she glances around quickly. The guy with the broken nose and the other man both have their AR-15s aimed at her.

She turns her attention back to Harris and sees that he’s pulled his gun the rest of the way out. He hasn’t raised it yet, but his body language tells her that he feels confident she won’t shoot.

He’s wearing a bulletproof vest, and although it’s unlikely to fully stop a bullet at this close range, she’s sure it’s giving him extra confidence. She raises the gun so it’s aimed at his face. Then, still crouched over Carson McCormack’s body, Ariana reaches down slowly and picks up the walkie-talkie.

“Rory,” she says into it. “If you can hear me, I’ve got Harris. Put your gun on one of the other guys.”

Harris chuckles. “It’s still three against two, sweetheart,” he says. “And as soon as the shooting starts, your boyfriend ain’t gonna be able to hit a goddamn thing. That shot against Carson was impressive, but we both know he ain’t no Gareth McCormack with that thing.”

“You’ll be dead first,” Ariana says.

“You’ve got to hit me for that to happen,” he says, and he begins leaning his head from side to side, like a boxer bobbing and weaving. “The rest of us here, we’ve served in war zones. This ain’t nothing new to us.”

Ariana’s arm begins to tremble. She can’t help it.

She knows that if she pulls the trigger, she’s dead. Even if Rory gets someone with his first shot. Even if he gets them all after the fact. As soon as the first shot is fired, she’s dead.

“It’s three against two,” Harris says again, unable to keep from grinning. “Your call.”

Ariana prepares to pull the trigger.

If she has to die today, she’s going to go down fighting.

“Actually,” she hears someone say in a nasal voice. “It’s two against three.”

She looks over and sees that the soldier with the broken nose—the one Rory had talked to at the gate that day—is pointing his AR-15 at McCormack’s other man.

Harris looks like a gambler who thought for sure the three aces he was holding would be a winning hand, only to find himself penniless after his opponent dropped a royal flush.

Ariana glares at Harris and says, “Your call, sweetheart .”

Chapter 103

I WATCH THROUGH the rifle scope as Harris and the other man lower their weapons and set them in the grass. Ariana, with the help of Mr. Broken Nose—or McQueen, as I guess I need to start calling him—makes the two men lie on the ground with their hands clapsed behind their heads.

When I’m sure they have the threats secured, I sling McCormack’s M24 over my shoulder and start down the ladder. It takes me almost ten minutes to walk over to where they are. When I get there, Ariana gives me a tight hug.

She was stoic through it all, but when she’s in my arms and I can feel the tremble of fear in her body, I get a sense of just how scared she was.

“You saved my life,” she whispers in my ear.

“I owed you one,” I say, and then when we break the embrace, I wink and give her a smile.

I walk over to McQueen and extend my hand.

“I had a feeling about you,” I say.

“I couldn’t stand by and be a part of this anymore,” he says. “I knew what we were doing was illegal, but I never signed on to hurt innocent people. I didn’t sign on to kill Texas Rangers.”

“You did the right thing,” I say. “If most of your brethren in the armed forces are more like you—and less like Gareth McCormack—then America is in good hands.”

“If the rest of the Texas Rangers are anything like you,” he says, “then Texas is in great hands.”

We both laugh. It feels good to laugh.

I ask McQueen if he’ll help us until the cavalry arrives. When more law enforcement officers get here, I’ll ask him to give up his gun.

“You’ll be arrested,” I say. “But I swear I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re treated fairly. We’ll need a cooperating witness to help us make sense of everything that’s been going on here. If I have anything to do with it, you won’t see the inside of any jail cell.”

He considers my proposal.

“The other option,” I say, “is you take off right now. You’ll be a fugitive, but I won’t stop you from going. Not today. I owe you that.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’ll stick around and do the right thing. Like you said, it’s not too late.”

I nod my head and turn back to Ariana.

It’s been an intense forty-eight hours. Her hair is a mess. Her face is streaked with dirt. Her clothes are torn and dirty.

But she has a smile on her face that gives me butterflies.

“What now?” she says.

I nod to Harris, lying in the grass with his hands over his head.

“You want to do the honors?”

She smiles even bigger.

“With pleasure,” she says.

She walks over and kneels next to Harris’s face.

“Chief John Grady Harris,” she says, “you have the right to remain silent…”

Chapter 104

THIRTY-SOME HOURS later, Ariana and I are at the Rio Lobo police station, talking through the latest in the investigation.

A lot has changed.

Instead of the two of us by ourselves in the cramped conference room, there are at least fifteen other people representing a variety of agencies: the Texas Ranger Division, the county sheriff’s department, the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and Homeland Security. Each has at least a few representatives here.

And this meeting is only the tip of the iceberg, just the epicenter of the investigation tornado. Out and about in Rio Lobo, there are two dozen Rangers—not to mention at least twice that many other law enforcement officials—doing investigative work. Most of them are at McCormack’s ranch, searching the buildings and the property, bagging evidence, scouring the hills with cadaver dogs, excavating hidden graves. At least ten people are just inventorying all the cocaine and illegal guns we’ve found. Other investigators are interrogating town officials. We don’t yet know how widespread the corruption was and who all was in on it, but I feel certain that the arrests we’ve made so far—Harris, his right-hand man Hank Humphreys, and fifteen of McCormack’s soldiers—won’t be the last.

The town population has probably doubled in size overnight if you add all the law enforcement officials and all the journalists who have converged on this little map dot, vying for rooms in the motel, which was vacant a day ago and is now filled to capacity, with the overflow bunking in RVs or tents set up in vacant fields. Every major newspaper in Texas is here, not to mention all the national news channels. Reporters from CNN and Today aren’t too famous to wait sixty minutes for a restaurant table. The town’s two stoplights can’t tame the street traffic.

I’ve been told that what happened in Rio Lobo is the top story on every news network. This won’t go down as the biggest drug bust in US history, but it will certainly make the top ten.

Not that I’ve seen the news myself. I’ve been working nonstop since I climbed down from the oil derrick, with the exception of about two hours of sleep and the time it takes to shower and put on clean clothes. The El Paso company commander brought me new pants and shirts since everything I had burned up in my truck.