Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [119]
Cochrum ambled up behind her and grinned. “I was waiting to see whether you’d fall for his pitch, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she snapped. “That’s sexual harassment. You’re a lawyer. You ought to know that.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it. I was just saying that you did good not to believe this guy. He’s not on our side.”
“I never claimed to be,” Garaldo said. “But I can speak your language, and I don’t mean English. I mean … one million dollars if you turn me loose.”
“You want me to betray my country for a million dollars?” Cochrum demanded.
“I’m sorry. I meant five million.”
“You might as well shut up—” Wilma began.
Cochrum stopped her with a curt gesture. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” he told Garaldo. “Keep talking, General …”
CHAPTER 47
Alex wasn’t sure what worried her the most: the dangerous mission she was on, the possibility that the deadliest nerve gas on the planet might fall into the hands of a madman … or the fact that in a few minutes her son, her only child, would be in the middle of a fight to the death. There was no way she could have talked Jack and Rowdy out of taking part in the battle with Garaldo’s men. At least they had gone with J. P. Delgado, and Alex knew he would do his best to look out for them.
In the meantime, she had a job to do, and she couldn’t afford to waste any time. She had already had to hide a couple of times to avoid the cartel patrols, and that had delayed her. But now she was at the rear door of the warehouse where Phil Pearson stored the hay he sold at his feed store. He kept a truckload at the store, but the rest of his stock was here.
“Sorry, Phil,” Alex muttered under her breath as she used the barrel of her rifle to wrench the lock off the door. The hasp came free with a screech of nails.
She stepped into the shadowy, cavernous warehouse. The piled-up bales of hay loomed on both sides of a narrow aisle like twin mountains. A forklift was parked in the aisle. The air was thick with the smell of hay and floating dust motes. That dust would help the fire burn with a fierceness that was akin to an explosion.
Alex had a cigarette lighter in the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t smoke, but like a lot of law enforcement personnel, she carried a lighter with her because it often came in handy. That was certainly the case now. She trotted to the far end of the aisle and flicked the flame into life. Dashing back and forth between the two piles of hay, she set the stuff on fire in several different places as she hurried toward the back door. Behind her, the flames began to crackle as the blaze caught hold.
Alex was running by the time she reached the door and burst outside, and it was a good thing because the hay went up with a gigantic whoosh! behind her. A wind sprang up in her face as oxygen rushed into the warehouse to fuel the conflagration, but that wasn’t enough to keep the heat from battering her back. Alex kept moving until she was a good hundred yards from the building.
She stopped and turned to look at the thick cloud of gray smoke billowing up from the fire. It would be visible all over town … hell, from all over the area, she thought. And some of Garaldo’s men would have to come check it out. They were probably pretty jumpy by now with their commanding officer missing.
Grim-faced, Alex set her rifle on single fire, pointed it toward the sky, and pulled the trigger three times, then waited and fired twice more.
No turning back now, she thought. The signal had been given.
Let the battle for Home begin.
“I can’t stand it no more,” Rye Callahan said. He started to climb out of the gully.
Earl caught hold of his arm and stopped him. “Wait a minute,” the little scientist said. “Ford and Parker told us to wait here.”
“Yeah, well, we been waitin’ for a couple of hours now, and there’s been all sorts of shootin’ in town. I reckon something could’ve happened to those boys, and it’s up to us now to put a stop to whatever hell-raisin’ is going on here.”