Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(64)

To further complicate our problems, Dale says that if he doesn’t show up at McCormack’s ranch soon, he’ll at least need to find a place with cell service so he can call and give him an excuse.

“I’ll tell him I’ve got a flat tire and that I won’t be there till morning.”

“What about tracking devices?” I say. “Are there any on the truck?”

“Not that I know of,” Dale says. “But it ain’t gonna be hard to figure out where I am. If they ain’t able to get me on the radio or the phone, there ain’t but one place I can be.”

As we talk, I feel claustrophobic. We’re standing in wide-open country, but I feel like walls are closing in around us.

“If we can’t get out,” I say, “we’re going to have to bring someone in to help us.”

“You think Tom and Jessica can help?” Ariana asks. “You think they can get in here without arousing suspicion?”

I don’t want to involve the Aarons. It’s too dangerous, and I’ve already put them at risk enough.

Unfortunately, the person I have in mind is someone I don’t trust nearly as much as Tom and Jessica Aaron.

My lieutenant—Kyle Hendricks.





Chapter 81



I USE A flashlight and do my best to look for a tracking device of some kind on the tanker. When I’m satisfied there isn’t one, Dale and I leave Ariana to guard the tanker truck. I hate to abandon her, but both Dale and I need to make phone calls and she’s the only one left to keep an eye on the truck and the evidence inside.

We drive south, heading the way Dale came in. I haven’t been this direction in the open space yet, and before long the hills start to flatten and the roadway smooths out. I turn my lights off and do my best to drive by moonlight. The desert hills are pale in the darkness, and the roadway is a clear corridor through the sagebrush and cacti.

Dale says we have about one more mile before we get to the highway—and McCormack’s roadblock—and I feel anxious that we’re not going to get a signal before his men see us. But we keep checking our phones and finally discover we have one bar.

I park the truck and let Dale make the first call.

“Hey, boss,” he says. “I’ve had some bad luck.”

He tells McCormack the elevator in the tunnel was malfunctioning, and he had to climb down via ladder and carry up the whole load, just two or three kilos at a time.

“Then I’ll be damned if I didn’t blow a tire as soon as I got on the road,” Dale says.

He looks nervous in the moonlight, but he is able to keep his voice calm.

“I think he bought it,” Dale says afterward. “Your turn.”

I try to mentally prepare myself for this call. Kyle and I have been butting heads since the day in the bank. Somehow I need to get through to him. I could go over his head, call Company E in El Paso. But they’d be wondering why I was going outside the chain of command. The first thing they would do is check with Kyle before sending anyone. Then he would tell Harris, and Harris would tell McCormack.

And then it would be over—his men would descend on us and we’d fall in a hail of bloody gunfire, like a reenactment of The Wild Bunch.

I need to get Kyle to come out here without tipping off McCormack.

The best way to do that, I figure, is to lie to him. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him there was an oil tanker full of cocaine. But there is one thing he might believe.

“Yates,” he says when he picks up, “you better be calling me from Fort Stockton by now.”

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” I say, cutting to the chase. “A way for us both to walk away from Rio Lobo looking pretty good.”

If Kyle’s anything, he’s opportunistic. If I can convince him that I want to play ball, work out some kind of deal with him, then he might agree to what I’m asking.

He takes a breath and says, “I’m listening.”

“I know where Ariana Delgado is,” I say.

“Then you better tell me where,” he says. “Right now.”

“Hear me out first.”

I tell him that I don’t trust Chief Harris, so I want the Texas Rangers to handle the arrest without the help of local law enforcement.

“You and me,” I say. “We’re going to bring her in together. That way we know she gets a fair shake.”

The other end of the line is quiet as he’s thinking.

“I could just bring her in myself,” I say. “Take all the credit. But I’m trying to show you that I’m a team player. I want to patch things up and move on.”

“All right,” he says finally.

“I don’t want Harris involved,” I say. “He can’t know.”

When he agrees to this condition, I give him the GPS coordinates and tell him to meet me there at first light. It makes me nervous to wait until then, but if Dale is right, then the entrance used to access the open space is going to be guarded by McCormack’s men. If Kyle drives in at night, they’ll be awfully suspicious. If he drives in during the day, that would be more understandable, maybe even expected.

I tell him that if he sees any of McCormack’s men at the entrance of the open space, he should tell them that he’s just going out there to poke around and look for the missing fugitive.