Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [82]
“Certainly. We should need no more than twelve hours at most. Our timing will be precise, as always.”
“Very well. Contact General Garaldo and issue the orders. Sunday morning, we strike.”
“Sunday morning,” Herman repeated, his voice soft and silky with anticipation. Operation Casa del Diablo would be the boldest stroke Rey del Sol had ever attempted. If they were successful, the cartel wars would be over. There would be only one left, standing victorious over all the others.
With his business concluded, Enrique Reynosa y Montoya drank the rest of his lemonade, stood up, and walked past the gurgling fountain toward the pool, stripping off his robe and tossing it aside as he went.
“Señoritas!” he cried as he reached the edge of the pool. “Bid welcome to the King of the Sun!”
Then he made a clean dive into the cool water and came up surrounded by lovely, young, nude, and willing female flesh.
It was good to be him.
CHAPTER 34
With the resources that the enemy had at their command, Fargo Ford knew it was only a matter of time before he and Parker and Earl Trussell would have to run again.
It felt so good to rest and catch their breath at Rye Callahan’s ranch, though, that they allowed a couple of days to slip past.
On Saturday morning, though, Ford called a summit meeting of him, Parker, and Callahan. The three men nursed cups of coffee on the ranch house patio while Earl stayed inside to put away a huge plate of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. For a little fella, he sure could eat.
“We need to get out of here,” Ford said.
“Not on my account,” Callahan replied. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
Parker shook his head and said, “We know that, Rye. But by now the men who are looking for us are bound to have found those bodies and that burned-out pickup. They’ll know that we’re probably still somewhere in the area, and they’ll start checking out the ranches around here.”
Ford gestured toward the slate-tiled roof that overhung the patio. He and his companions had been careful not to venture out into the open while they were here, and the SUV they had brought with them was stashed out of sight in one of Callahan’s barns. They had gone over the vehicle, making an intensive search of it to be sure there were no tracking devices hidden in it.
“They’ve probably got an eye-in-the-sky satellite up there right now, taking surveillance photos of the whole area. I know you’ve been going on about your business, but they’ll still wonder if we’re here.”
“Maybe you could slip out durin’ the night,” Callahan suggested. “I’ve got a couple of pickups. You can use one of them.”
Parker shook his head again. “Those satellites have infrared capability, too. It’ll look bright as day out here.”
“Then what are you gonna do?”
“You have any friends you could invite over for a fandango?” Ford asked, drawling out the last word.
“So you can mingle with them and slip out that way?”
“That’s the idea.”
Callahan rubbed his angular jaw. “Yeah, that might work. It’d have to be folks I trust, but there’s a few of those around here. Not as many as there used to be. A lot of the old guard’s died out.”
“You don’t have to tell them anything about us,” Parker said. “Maybe just that we’re cousins visiting from somewhere. Would the guests know you well enough to know that wasn’t true?”
“Not really. I’ve never been a real talkative sort, I guess you could say.”
Ford grinned. “All right. Can you get them here tonight?”
“That’s short notice … but most people will turn out for a barbecue.”
“All right. We’ve got ourselves a plan.”
They went inside and found that Earl wasn’t just eating breakfast. He had turned up a map of Texas from somewhere and was poring over it.
“What are you looking at, Earl?” Parker asked.
The young man frowned as he studied the map. “I got to thinking about that town called Home.”
They had kept up with the story on the news channels the past couple of days. After a few scattered incidents of violence,