James Patterson - Gone

“Gentlemen,” Cody said, looking us over, “I got a call early this morning, and I was wondering if you all might be able to help me with a special assignment.”

A special cattle-farm assignment? I thought. What could that mean? Sounded organic, and not exactly in the Whole Foods kind of way. Where was that guy from Dirty Jobs when you needed him?

“Involving?” my skeptical son, Brian, asked.

“Touchdown,” Cody said solemnly.

“Touchdown?” Trent said, suddenly wide-eyed. “Oh, no. That’s bad.”

“Bad? What do you mean? What’s touchdown? ” I said.

“He’s the bull, Dad,” Trent said. “That big boy I showed you the other day. You know, the orn-ry big boy.”

“That’s right,” Cody said. “Like it or not, Touchdown needs to go on a road trip today, and I was hoping you could help me get him out of the bull pen and into his trailer.”

After we helped Cody hitch a trailer to his pickup, the boys piled into the truck bed, and we drove over to the bull pen.

Cody backed the trailer opposite the gate of the bull pen and got out and dropped the trailer’s ramp.

“Trent?” the farmer said to my son as he removed a stafflike metal pole from the truck bed.

“Yes, Mr. Cody?” Trent said.

“I see that Touchdown is way over there on the other side of the field, grazing. Why don’t you hop on over that fence and see if you can’t get his attention.”

“Really? Oh, wow!” Trent said. “Can I really? Dad, is that OK?”

“I guess,” I said. “But you better be ready to do some quick climbing back when he sees you.”

“This is going to be good,” Eddie said, hopping up onto the fence as Trent lowered himself into the pen.

“Hey, Touchdown!” Trent called as he did some jumping jacks.

The truly massive black Angus bull kept on grazing until Cody made a yodeling call. At the sound, Touchdown suddenly stopped chewing and popped his head up and over in our direction like a dog being called by its master.

It was obvious Cody hadn’t needed Trent’s help but just wanted to get my seven-year-old involved. I smiled. The more time I spent with Cody, the more I liked the old farmer.

“Ah, you don’t scare me,” Trent said, waving at the bull some more. “I’m over here, dummy! Nanny, nanny!”

Trent hadn’t gotten the third nanny out when Cody yodeled again, and the bull turned and started to approach. We laughed as Trent shot up the fence. A squirrel couldn’t have done it quicker.

As Touchdown drew up, I suddenly understood why spectators screamed so loudly at bullfights. They were terrified. It was truly monstrous, a ton or more of pure muscle snorting viciously as it trotted toward us.

I instinctively stepped back from the fence while Cody stepped forward. He shot a hand out over the railing and grabbed the huge, door-knocker-sized ring drooping from the beast’s nose. Then he attached the ring to a clip on the end of the metal pole he was holding.

I thought the thing would go nuts and rip Cody’s arm off, but instead it just grunted a few times and placidly looked at the farmer.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Cody said calmly to the bull as we all stood there in shock. “Mike, could you get the pen gate open so I can lead Mr. Touchdown into his trailer?”

I ran over and followed instructions. Pulling on the pole like it was a leash, Cody walked the bull along the fence and out the gate. The bull paused for a moment on the trailer’s ramp, but then Cody let out with a cowboy “Yeehaw!” and the bull moved his massive bulk the last few feet into the creaking metal trailer like he’d been booted. The septuagenarian slammed the trailer gate closed and ran the bolt. Only then did he unclip the pole and pull it out through the slats in the trailer.

“OK, everybody,” he said. “Count all your fingers and toes. All there?”

We nodded.

“Excellent job, then. Well done, boys. Trailering a dairy breeding bull is about the most dangerous thing done on a cattle farm. Thanks for the backup.”

“How’d I do, Mr. Cody?” Trent asked.

A wide smile creased Cody’s weather-beaten face as he put his big hand on Trent’s head.

“You did fine, son,” he said. “Just fine. We just might make some good country stock out of you city boys yet.”

“Mr. Cody, where is Touchdown headed, anyway?” Trent wanted to know.

Cody looked at me. After a second, he took off his hat and scratched at his bald head.

“Well, he’s got a … well, a date, I guess you’d call it.”

“A date?” Eddie said, giggling. “Touchdown has a girlfriend?”

“He sure does,” Cody said, nodding. “Why, just two farms over, the prettiest little cow you ever saw is right now waiting for him to get over there.”

“What are they going to do when he gets there? Hold hooves and go bowling or something?” Trent asked, beginning to really crack up.

Great. Here we go , I thought. It was too early in the morning for cows and bulls, let alone the birds and the bees.

“Something like that, Trent,” I chimed in before Cody could explain things in more minute detail. “Look at the time. Last one back in the truck is a rotten Homer!”

As we were bumping our way back to Aaron Cody’s farmhouse, towing the four-footed, twenty-five-hundred-pound bachelor of the month behind us, I noticed on my phone that I’d missed a couple of calls.

I blinked at the screen, not knowing what to think. I didn’t get many calls these days. Actually, I guess I had a bit of an idea. Both of the calls were from the same person, Emily Parker of the FBI.

I wanted to call her back right there and then, but I knew I needed some privacy. My little, and not-so-little, Bennett pitchers had big ears, and if it was something important, I didn’t want to get everyone riled up. Or more riled up than usual.

When we met back up with Seamus and the girls, who were done with the milking, I told Mary Catherine that I was going to walk the mile and a half of country road back to our house.

“Any particular reason for the sudden return to nature?” my sharp-as-a-tack nanny wanted to know.

“Just need a little exercise,” I said.

“Is that right?” Mary Catherine said, her blarney detector obviously going off like gangbusters. “Whatever you say, Mike.”

Gravel sprayed as she drove away with my brood. I slipped my phone out of my pocket as the car crested the hill.

“Mike,” Emily answered on the second ring. “I assume you’ve heard what happened.”

“Assume I live with cows, Parker,” I said. “I couldn’t be more out of the loop if I tried. What’s up?”

She proceeded to tell me about the previous night’s amazing events in Los Angeles. A half-dozen men with automatic rifles had opened fire in a suburb east of the city. Two LA County narcotics detectives, along with four members of a notorious Vietnamese gang, had been murdered in the middle of a busy street.

I hadn’t even begun to digest that when she told me about the even bigger news, the home invasion and murder of the celebrity rapper King Killa and singer Alexa Gia.

“I’m at the home invasion right now, Mike. It’s the same exact M.O. as with the mobster in Malibu. The victims were poisoned with the same still-unknown substance, through the ventilation system. I’ve been to crime scenes, but never in an astronaut suit borrowed from the Centers for Disease Control.”

“So it’s Perrine,” I said.

“No question. The Vietnamese and the rapper both had strong ties to the drug trade. Perrine has some kind of elite paramilitary hit team treating LA County like it’s a war zone.”

“It sure seems like it,” I said. “So how do I fit in?”