Putting the car in park and turning off the ignition, Nicholas hopped out and then used the remote on the SUV’s key fob to open the rear tailgate and let his dogs jump down.
“How’s the truck working out?” she asked.
“It’s just fine, thank you,” he replied. Maggie had an easygoing way about her that he liked. Upon first seeing him, people often did a double take, but when she had met him at the plane last night to escort him to the guesthouse, she treated him just like any other guest. She had been professional, with just the right amount of Texas charm thrown in.
“I hope you don’t mind, but since you weren’t here I let myself in and put away the groceries you asked for.”
Nicholas did mind. He didn’t like the idea of anyone being in the guesthouse while he wasn’t there. Nevertheless, there wasn’t anything he could say. He was a guest, and he was sure she had done it only as a courtesy.
“Thank you,” he replied.
“You’re welcome,” said Maggie as she smiled at Argos and Draco. “I did a little research on your dogs last night. They’re an amazing breed.”
Nicholas smiled. “It’s the only type of dog I’ll ever own.”
“I bet they get expensive pretty quick in the eating department.”
“You can’t put a price on animals like these,” he said, patting each of them.
“May I?” asked Maggie as she approached.
Nicholas nodded and Maggie walked over to Argos and Draco. She held a hand out to each of them to smell and then scratched them behind the ears. “You could probably make up half your food bill renting them out for pony rides at birthday parties.”
Nicholas smiled again.
Lowering her hands, Maggie took a step back. “If there’s anything else you need, just give me a buzz. My number is posted next to the phone in the kitchen.”
“I’ll do that,” he replied.
He watched her as she walked back to her truck and climbed inside. She honked the horn and gave him a wave and a warm smile as she drove off. Nicholas waved back.
Once she had gone, he mounted the stairs along with the dogs and let himself inside. The dogs needed to be fed, but he wanted to check his equipment first. While he didn’t have any reason to distrust Maggie, he didn’t have any reason to trust her either. She was a nice woman, but he’d had plenty of nice women try to slip knives between his ribs over the years.
He made his way to the master bedroom, where he looked the equipment over. All the cases were still locked and appeared to be just as he had left them.
Unpacking two of them, he set up his satellite uplink and connected his laptop. As everything was powering up and signals were being established, he fed and watered the dogs. By the time he was done, he was ready to go online.
Sitting at the dining room table, he navigated to the site Caroline Romero was using to communicate. He had left her a message alerting her that he had arrived in Texas. Now there was a message waiting for him in return. It read:
Caroline’s previous appeal for help had contained such intimate information, things only the two of them could know, that he had no doubt that she was the author and that she was in very deep trouble.
Being the man he was, he wanted to rescue her immediately, sweep her into safety, but he needed to be careful. Telling her about the ranch and where he was staying was out of the question, at least for the moment. A lot of time had passed since they had last seen each other. A million things could have changed. Plus, he still had that twinge that something about this entire thing might not be right. Meeting in public was a much better option.
He also liked the idea that they would meet someplace where he wouldn’t have to get out of his car. It made him feel better about traveling into McAllen.
Conducting a quick search for Casa De Palmas, he learned that it was a three-star hotel in the heart of the city. Next he pulled up satellite imagery and got a good feel for the layout of the property. Once he was familiar with the location, he began planning his routes to and from the hotel—as well as likely locations for an ambush. He was taking nothing for granted.
CHAPTER 10
McAllen, Texas, sat only five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, and just beyond that was the highly dangerous Mexican city of Reynosa. Nicholas had both stolen from and sold information to some of Mexico’s worst organized crime figures. He could envision a million scenarios, none of them good, whereby the meeting at the Casa De Palmas was only a ruse to draw him across the border to an undesirable end, so he had made sure to take appropriate precautions.
Because of his size, even weapons designed for children were usually too large and unwieldy for him to handle. They also fired only lower-caliber ammunition that didn’t have enough knockdown power for his taste. To remedy the situation, Nicholas had all of his equipment custom made by some of the finest gunsmiths and engineers in the world.
His favorite weapon was a three-shot, .45-caliber handgun with a tiny grip and a dramatically ported barrel that helped significantly reduce the pistol’s recoil. Despite the clever design, it took everything Nicholas had to control the weapon and bring it back on target for follow-up shots. Nevertheless, it was an incredible equalizer—an elephant gun that put the mouse on equal footing.
There was an array of other gear that Nicholas never traveled without, and he took his time loading up the Denali. If he couldn’t return to the ranch, if he had to run, or if any of a million other things happened, he always wanted to be prepared. He had learned at a very young age that no one else was going to look out for him. Only
Be that as it may, Nicholas hadn’t come all this way to allow himself to be paralyzed by his doubts. He had come to repay a favor.
Once all his gear was loaded, Nicholas gave the dogs a few minutes of exercise and then had them hop into the cargo area. He closed the tailgate, walked around to the front, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
A white-tailed hawk spun circles in the sky above as the Denali made its way across the ranch and out onto the county road, south toward McAllen.
Had he wanted to, Nicholas could have enlisted the help of Knight’s security team, but he had decided against it. This was personal. He refrained from involving others in his affairs whenever possible. The less people knew about him, the better—even Knight’s security team.
And while Caroline hadn’t specifically asked him to come alone, the message had been clear. She was in trouble and didn’t want anyone else to know that she had reached out to him. Fair enough. He could understand that. He had his dogs and more than a few aces in the hole, just in case.
As he drove, he was gripped by a tumult of emotion. There was apprehension, of course. It was always that way when he traveled outside his comfort zone. There was also a twinge of excitement. It had been so long since he had last seen Caroline. She was not only brilliant, she was beautiful, and much like that evening at the hacker conference years ago, he had found himself changing clothes multiple times before settling on the right thing to wear for this meeting.
Even he knew the effort was ridiculous. Their relationship had never been anything more than friendship, but still, she mattered to him and he wanted to look his best. In a sudden bout of impulsiveness, he had even shaved off his neatly trimmed beard in the hope that along with it he might be able to shave off a few years. It was ironic that a soul dealt such a miserable hand and treated so cruelly by life could possess such hopefulness; his
