He imagined she wasn't going to sleep very well tonight. He'd have to make long-range plans to protect her. Moving her around seemed the best security until the trial ended. And with Vargas' long reach, who knew how long that could take?
Slater must've dosed off because a foreign sound, the dull clank of metal on wood flickered through his subconscious and brought him springing to full alert. He reached for his handgun lying on the floor, and slipped it out of the holster as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. As he stood, he quietly turned the knob on the girl's bedroom.
She lay quietly under a pile of blankets, black strands of hair the only thing he could see from his angle. He eased the door shut, and clinging to the wall, traced his steps back through the great room to the patio window. He saw Harris' broad frame silhouetted against the pale glow of the moon, but McKidd wasn't in sight.
Soundlessly Harris hunched over, weapon in hand. Slater still couldn't see anything, but obviously something had drawn the deputy's attention. Slater strained to see what had alerted Harris, holding his breath, tightening his grip on his weapon.
Focused on the scene in the back entry, Slater didn't hear the front door open until a floorboard suddenly creaked behind him. He swung around, raised his weapon to fire, and aimed at a large, dark shadow lurching toward him. But he wasn't fast enough and all hell broke loose.
Slater took the first bullet high in the chest, the pain of it searing through his muscle and shattering his clavicle. He got a round off before he was spun around from the impact, but it went astray. The second bullet caught him low in the back and he wondered briefly if it would paralyze him. The third one sank deep into his thigh.
At the sound of the first report, Harris flew through the back patio door, crouching low, aiming his weapon, and firing like a madman. The first intruder went down with a shot to the head and one to the chest, but the second one managed to hit Harris in his upper thigh, close to the groin. He went crashing down like a felled buffalo, his handgun skittering across the floor.
A third intruder entered from the front landing and ran down the hallway.
No, Slater screamed silently, feeling his blood drain steadily onto the hardwood floor, knowing he was helpless to keep the attacker from reaching the girl. Shivers started to rack his body, his skin felt clammy, and his mouth was parched. He recognized his body going into shock.
As the second shooter advanced on the defenseless Harris, Slater panted shallowly and tried to scrabble out of the way, reaching for his backup weapon. But he was too weak and his arm flopped uselessly at his ankle.
He clamped his chattering teeth together and made a last-ditch effort. He hardly felt the weapon leave its holster, but suddenly the grip was solid and warm against his clammy palm.
The second hitter loomed over Harris, lifting his gun for the head shot, when Slater's bullet took out the back of the man's skull. Harris lay sprawled on his back, bleeding profusely from his leg.
The girl's screaming penetrated the roar in his head. She raced out of the bedroom into the hall and ran smack into the third hitter. Slater saw Harris' fingers jerk faintly in an attempt to reach his discarded weapon.
At that moment, another figure entered through the glass patio door behind Harris. Slater opened his mouth in warning, but no sound came out. A hard blow to the back of Harris' head with the butt of a semi-automatic rifle and all movement stopped.
God, Slater thought, they were all going to die here. Now.
Right before he passed out, he glimpsed the round sweating face of Manuel Ruiz as it twisted into something vicious with satisfaction while he loomed over the fallen Harris.
Ruiz placed his heel on Harris' chest, aimed the barrel at his skull as Slater's eyes fluttered shut. From a distance he heard the faint jumble of words:
His last thought before he lost consciousness was,
'Slater, Slater, can you hear me?'
Bella's pretty face, worried and damp with tears, floated in front of Slater's eyes as he opened them.
'Esperanza?' he moaned. 'Is she alive?' His voice petered off into the creaky sound of an old man and he tried again. 'Did they get her?'
Bella shook her head. 'Let's just worry about you right now.'
He felt the motion of the gurney beneath him as she placed her hand on his cheek. 'What happened? Christ, is everyone dead?'
'They're taking you into surgery.' She gripped his hand. 'Don't worry. Rafe and I will handle everything.' He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes and felt the soft press of her lips on his before his lids became so heavy he couldn't hold them open.
He heard Hashemi's voice at his feet. 'You'll be okay, man. They'll fix you up.'
That must mean the girl was dead, Slater thought, as an anvil of grief and guilt pressed on his chest. And he must be dying because Bella would never kiss him on the mouth, and Hashemi hated his guts after the little talk they'd had about her at the safe house.
Suddenly, the memory of the slaughter that'd happened there panicked him and he struggled to sit up. 'Ruiz,' he muttered weakly. 'He's – '
Heavy hands held him down. Hashemi's voice. 'Take it easy, man. Calm down.'
A moment later a mask descended over his mouth and he floated off to a blessed, undulating oblivion.
Santos knew the text message that came through as he boarded a plane from LAX to Sacramento was meant for Vargas and had somehow been sent to his phone by mistake:
Santos settled back into his first-class passenger seat and fumbled with the seat belt before responding. Even though he hadn't ordered any moves against the witness, he was afraid he knew what the message meant.
He was a cautious man, after all, and many things could happen between arrest, arraignment and trial that could extricate Vargas from the charges ADA Torres brought against him. Hasty action was not Santos' style, but rushing in headlong without thinking about the consequences was exactly the kind of action that Diego would take.
He texted back. ?
A few moments later the answer in English:
That meant the girl plus three others were dead.
Fuck! M.R. stood for Manuel Ruiz, their deep-cover informant in Bigler County. The girl was surely dead, along with three deputies or agents, whoever had been guarding her, probably the sheriff included. Ruiz had become a casualty, too, either by accident during the attack or eliminated by the assassination team under Vargas' direction.
Santos wondered if the lovely ADA Isabella Torres was one of the casualties and felt a brief and unfamiliar wave of regret. More likely the sheriff and deputies.
And, if they were fortunate,
But, Mother of God, how was he to clean up this mess? And who had survived the slaughter?
