the light by now, and he saw Deke standing several feet away, six-gun leveled just as Longarm had expected. Four more of the outlaws accompanied the man.
“Time to go inside,” Deke said. “Somebody wants to see you boys.”
Longarm didn’t like the tone of amusement in Deke’s voice. If the outlaw was that happy about something, it couldn’t bode very well for the two prisoners. As they started walking toward the house, with a couple of the men flanking them and Deke and the other guards following closely behind, Longarm said, “The boss must be here.”
“Must be,” said Deke, still sounding cheerful.
Longarm and Coffin exchanged a wary glance. They hadn’t been able to work out a suitable escape plan, but the meaning in each man’s eyes was clear: They had run out of time, and if either of them saw even the slightest opportunity for escape, they should seize it without hesitation.
They were taken in through the rear door of the house, then escorted down the same corridor by which they had left it. Their destination was obviously the same large comfortably furnished room in which they had first confronted Deke and Sonia.
Sonia was in that room now, Longarm saw as the door was opened and he and Coffin were prodded through it. She stood next to the fireplace, wearing another expensive gown that hugged her lush figure and showed off its appeal. A man in a dark gray suit was standing beside her, his back to the newcomers.
Longarm recognized the man anyway. He should have been shocked, he supposed, but he really wasn’t.
“Here they are,” Deke said, and Franklin Barton turned from where he stood beside Sonia to smile arrogantly at Longarm and Coffin.
“Indeed it is,” said Barton smoothly. “I’m glad you remember me, Mr.
Coffin.”
“It’s only been a few days, Barton,” Longarm said. “I reckon it’d take longer than that for us to forget a skunk like you.”
For a moment, Barton’s eyes turned hard and cold and his jaw tightened. Then he relaxed and gave a dry chuckle. “Well, we can certainly all see that you’re not a diplomat, Marshal Long.”
“Never claimed to be. I’m just a fella who tries to do his job.”
“So am I.” Barton waved a hand, the gesture encompassing the room as well as Sonia and Deke. “And my real job is here.”
“You mean you’re the one who’s ramroddin’ this gang?” asked Coffin, his expression a mixture of anger and amazement.
“Indeed I am.”
“But ... why?” This time puzzlement won out on Coffin’s bearded face.
Barton reached over to Sonia, taking her hand and lifting it momentarily to his lips before he turned back to the captive lawmen. “Isn’t it obvious? What man wouldn’t betray even those closest to him for a beautiful creature such as this?”
“The two of you met in Arizona last year, didn’t you?” guessed Longarm. “You were with the Vice-President, Barton, and Sonia was with her father.”
“You are a smart man, Custis,” said Sonia. “You have figured it all out, no?”
“Maybe not all of it,” Longarm said slowly, “but I reckon I’m on the right trail.”
Anything to keep their captors from killing him and Coffin for a while, Longarm thought. He said, “You didn’t want Coffin and me coming down here after Sonia because you knew she hadn’t really been kidnapped. Grabbing her in Del Rio was just one more part of your scheme.”
“But of course Don Alfredo wouldn’t be dissuaded from the idea, so I had no choice but to go along with him and hope that the two of you would meet a bad end down here south of the border,” said Barton. “As you soon will. But go ahead, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Seems to me like what you’ve probably got in mind is to make Don Alfredo pay a big ransom to El Aguila in order to get his daughter back alive and unharmed.”
Barton nodded. “Excellent reasoning. For a price, Guiterrez will get Sonia back as pure and untouched as she was when she was taken from Del Rio.”
Longarm supposed that statement was true enough, even though Barton didn’t mean it the way Don Alfredo would likely take it.
“That’s it?” asked Longarm. “This whole scheme was just to bilk some money out of Don Alfredo?”
“Of course not. The important part is where that money will go,” Sonia said proudly. “It will go to help free Mexico from the iron hand of the corrupt dictator Diaz and his lackeys such as my father.”
“That sounds like revolution talk to me,” said Longarm.
“It is!” Some of the same fire he had seen in Sonia’s eyes during their lovemaking burned in her gaze now as she stepped toward him. “Soon the government my father represents will be nothing but a bitter memory in the minds of the Mexican people.”
Longarm had crossed paths with Porfirio Diaz in the past, and held no affection for the Mexican president. In fact, the two of them had been outright enemies, and nothing would have pleased El Presidente more than the death of the man known south of the border as El Brazo Largo.
But that didn’t mean Longarm wanted to see Diaz overthrown when it would also mean that Franklin Barton would get away with betraying his own country. Longarm figured that Barton’s interest in revolution was more financial than political, so he said skeptically, “You’re not getting anything out of this, Barton?”
