Stand Your Ground (4 page)

“Just be sure the camera crew is there tomorrow,” Alexis Devereaux said as she wheeled the powerful sedan through a long, gentle curve in the highway. The speedometer needle hovered right around 90.

“The producer promised me they would be.”

The reply came from the car's speaker, through the built-in phone.

“Well, stay on him,” Alexis told her assistant back in Washington. “This place is way out in the middle of nowhere. I don't want them getting lost.”

“Yes, ma'am. By the way, Colin Evans from the State Department called.”

Alexis took her right hand off the wheel, clenched it into a fist, and hammered it down on the seat beside her.

“By the way?” she repeated. “By the way? You didn't think that was important enough to lead with, Crystal?”

“I—I'm sorry, Ms. Devereaux. There's an awful lot to keep up with—”

“That's why you make the big bucks,” Alexis said coldly, although she knew perfectly well that Crystal
didn't
make big bucks. She did. But Crystal ought to be happy earning what she did, because a lot of people didn't have jobs these days, and many of the ones who did worked part-time for minimum wage and no benefits. “What did Evans want?”

“He didn't really say, but I got the impression he'd found out somehow about that court order you got—”

“Well, that's no surprise. The administration can promise all it wants to that they've stopped reading everybody's emails and listening in on everybody's phone calls, but nobody believes that for a second. And with good reason. Is State going to try to quash the order?”

“He didn't say. He just told me to have you call him.”

“Fine.”

“Do you want me to give you the number?”

“No, I've got it,” Alexis said, without explaining how she happened to have the cell phone number of an undersecretary at the State Department. It was none of Crystal's business that she banged Colin Evans twice a week when they were both in town.

Alexis added, “Just stay on that news producer,” and then broke the connection.

She would call Colin later. She wasn't in the mood to do it now. If she did, she might say things she would regret later. He was a good source. Better as a source than he was in the sack, when you got right down to it, although Alexis couldn't really complain about that part of their relationship, either.

She had come up behind a truck. Without slowing down, she swung out into the other lane and zoomed past it.

That was one good thing about this godawful state, maybe the only good thing, she thought. You could see a long way on these flat, straight, mostly empty highways. You didn't even have to take your foot off the gas.

Alexis didn't like taking her foot off the gas, on the road or in life.

She had gone to Washington as a very junior White House counsel, a member of the legal staff working for the first female president. By the time that chief executive's two scandal-marred terms were over, Alexis had risen to the position of senior White House counsel. Her rise in power had been fueled by intelligence, hard work, and a great deal of subtle, discreet back-stabbing.

Once that administration had drawn to an ignominious close, Alexis had gone to work for a K Street lobbying firm and done good work for it for several years before becoming an associate at one of the city's most prestigious law firms. She had assisted in several cases at the Supreme Court. She took advantage of her blond, slightly square-jawed, girl-next-door good looks to get plenty of airtime on the cable TV news networks as they began seeking her out to appear as a consultant on their broadcasts. Eventually she had left the firm and established her own practice, smaller but more visible, and it wasn't long before most of the country knew her as a beautiful, tireless crusader for liberal causes.

Those prisoners who had just been transferred to Hell's Gate were tailor-made for her.

Alexis had been campaigning for years to have Guantanamo and the other military prisons closed down and the so-called terrorists moved to civilian facilities where they belonged. The military had too much power and couldn't be trusted.

Of course, a previous president had promised to do that very thing, but that was just one more broken promise in the tsunami of broken promises that had swamped his administration. Healthcare reform disaster? What healthcare reform disaster? Nothing to see here, move along, move along. This wasn't the healthcare reform you were looking for.

And so Gitmo and the political prisoners being held there illegally—as far as Alexis was concerned—had been all but forgotten as just one more scandal among many.

Or they would have been if not for Alexis and a few others continuing to beat the drums. Writing magazine articles, appearing on TV, organizing fund-raisers complete with Hollywood stars. Until finally somebody got around to doing something about the things Alexis and the others had been demanding.

It hadn't taken her long to realize what a terrible development that was for her.

She had lost the main thing that kept getting her on TV.

But it also hadn't taken her long to figure out a way to salvage the situation. Now she could use her standing as one of the nation's top celebrity lawyers to make sure that the prisoners were being treated properly and that their rights weren't being violated. That ought to be worth some airtime, and a producer at one of the news networks agreed. He had promised Alexis that a field reporter and a camera crew would be in Fuego to document her unannounced and unexpected visit to Hell's Gate.

Now, she thought as she sped across the flat West Texas landscape, if only she could discover that the guards were mistreating the prisoners. Mistreating them physically and disrespecting their religion.

That would be a wonderful example of just how bigoted and intolerant those awful Christians were.

 

 

A lot of what was on TV these days bored Stark, unless he happened across a channel that showed old movies, so he always traveled with several books stuck in his suitcase. His favorites were Western novels.

He read one of them Saturday afternoon. The motel seemed to be busy, with lots of people coming and going, although he didn't really pay much attention to it. When he left to go to dinner, he frowned slightly as he saw that the parking lot was full.

More than full, really. A number of vehicles were parked on the vacant lot next to the motel, and the No Vacancy sign was lit up. It appeared the Patels were doing a booming business. Nobody was moving around the complex, though. Stark couldn't help but wonder where they had put all those people.

It was none of his affair, he decided, so he walked on to the café and enjoyed a good chicken-fried steak for dinner.

He was lingering over a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie when a good-looking woman came into the café and asked the cashier behind the counter, “Is there another motel in town besides the one right over there?”

“No, ma'am, I'm afraid not,” the cashier replied.

The stranger blew out an exasperated breath, shook her head, and said, “Great. Where am I supposed to stay? Who would've dreamed that every room would be booked in a place like this?”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” the cashier said with the sort of genuine sympathy one found in small towns. “You might find something in McElhaney. It's ninety miles farther west—”

“My business is here,” the blonde interrupted. She reached into the pocket of her tight, stylish jeans for a phone.

Stark was about as far from being a member of the fashion police as anybody could be, but he thought the jeans went well with the dark blue silk blouse the woman wore. The outfit suited her. She wasn't young anymore, but she was still extremely attractive.

And he wasn't so old that he failed to notice that.

Something about the woman interested him besides her looks. She seemed familiar somehow, as if he had seen her before. He was trying to figure out if they had ever met when he suddenly realized who she was.

He left a twenty and a five on the table with his ticket to pay for the meal and a generous tip. Then he stood up, carried his Stetson, and walked over to the counter.

“Hello, Ms. Devereaux,” he said.

“Hi,” she said, nodding distractedly in his general direction without really looking at him. Clearly, she was used to people recognizing her and coming up to her to say hello. Why wouldn't she be? She had been on TV quite a bit, after all. Everybody knew people who had been on TV.

“I couldn't help but overhear about your problem,” Stark went on.

She had her phone out now and was scrolling through something on its screen.

“Unless you've got a motel room in your pocket—” she began.

“I might,” Stark said.

That prompted her to look at him, finally. Interest sparked in her eyes at the sight of his tall, broad-shouldered form.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

Not the same thing she obviously believed he did, he thought, but he was flattered that she hadn't rejected the idea out of hand. He said, “I have one of the rooms over at the motel—”

“You do, do you?”

“And I thought maybe if I could find somewhere else to stay, I could give it up and let you have it,” Stark went on.

“Oh.”

He wasn't sure if she sounded disappointed or relieved—or both.

Then a look of recognition appeared on her face, and she went on, “Wait a minute. I know you. Don't I?”

“We've never met in person,” Stark said, “but you've talked about me on television, when you were being interviewed as a legal expert, and before that as a spokesman for the White House.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “You're—”

“If I recall correctly,” Stark said, “you called me a murdering, right-wing, vigilante lunatic.”

“You're him. John Howard Stark.”

“Yes, ma'am. And you're Alexis Devereaux. And this—” Stark waved the hand holding the Stetson to indicate their surroundings. “I think this is what they call in the movies a meet-cute.”

Phillip Hamil arrived in Fuego that evening, as well. He had caught the red-eye from Washington to Dallas, where one of the members of his organization had a car waiting for him. Then he had spent the day driving across Texas, one of the places he hated most.

This was one of the last bastions of Republican strength in the country, and even it threatened to turn purple because of the growing liberal enclaves of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.

Over the past decade, the Democrats had become as adept at getting the illegal alien vote as they always had been at turning out the dead vote, so it was only a matter of time until a tipping point was reached.

Hamil didn't really care about American politics except for putting the system to use in furthering his own cause, the cause of Islam. The Democrats were the most useful because they were the most easily manipulated. Appeal to their emotions and they would fall into lockstep behind any idea, no matter how stupid and obviously unworkable it might be, especially if it involved raising taxes and soaking the evil rich.

The Republicans came in handy, too, because they gave the Democrats an enemy and kept them united. The pundits kept saying that the Republican Party would eventually wither away and disappear because of demographics.

Hamil hoped that wouldn't actually happen. If the Democrats ever attained complete control, with nothing to hold them back from implementing their ideas, the United States would collapse into complete and utter chaos, probably within twenty years.

That was obvious to anyone who looked at the situation with clear, unbiased eyes. Hamil and those like him needed the country to stay at least somewhat functional.

Who wanted to take over a madhouse? That would be more trouble than it was worth.

None of which kept Hamil from despising Texas and everything that it stood for. Thanks to the relentless politically correct drumbeat of the American media on both coasts, “cowboy” was an insult these days, but that didn't stop many of the people in Texas from continuing to embrace what it had originally stood for.

In fact, there was one of them now, Hamil thought as he turned the car into the motel driveway. The man, tall and broad-shouldered and wearing one of those ridiculous-looking cowboy hats, was going into the office with a stunning blond woman in jeans and a dark blue blouse.

Hamil brought his car to a stop. His hands tightened on the wheel.
Wait a minute
, he thought. He recognized that woman.

She was Alexis Devereaux.

A smile slowly appeared on Hamil's lean face. He hadn't known that the Devereaux woman was going to be in Fuego this weekend. This was an unexpected but welcome development.

The whole world needed to know about what happened here, and Alexis Devereaux could help get the story out.

He would have to be sure that she wasn't killed right away, Hamil decided.

The blond American bitch could die
after
she had served her purpose.

 

 

Jerry Patel leaned on the counter in the office lobby, feeling dizzy and trying not to collapse. If he didn't know better, he might have worried that he had been exposed accidentally to the same poison he had used in the ice machine.

He knew that wasn't the case, though. He was all too aware of why he felt so weak. He had spent the day running to the toilet and throwing up, and he hadn't been able to eat a thing.

So much death. So much.

And most of it seemed completely pointless to him. The motel could have served as a rendezvous point without it. Nearly all of the guests would have checked out and moved on, and if anyone else stopped during the day looking for a room, Patel could have told them that the motel was booked up. Mr. Stark was the only one staying for several days, and somehow he was still alive. Patel had seen him walking to the café a while earlier.

But Fareed's orders had been explicit. He had shown up the night before with the cylinder of poison and instructions to hook it up to the ice machine's water supply line so that the odorless, tasteless, deadly stuff would go into the ice and kill anyone who used it.

Dozens of Americans would die for no good reason except . . . dozens of Americans would die.

Patel supposed that was reason enough for Fareed and the other leaders of the clandestine network that ran across the entire country. All he knew was that he was too afraid of Fareed not to follow the man's orders.

The office door opened. Patel looked up and saw a woman coming into the office. Mr. Stark had opened the door and held it for her.

Patel caught his breath and straightened as he recognized the blonde. He couldn't put a name with the attractive face at first, but he was sure he knew her from television or the movies. She was that beautiful.

Stark followed the woman into the office, nodded, and said, “Mr. Patel, this is—”

“Alexis Devereaux,” Patel interrupted as he realized who the woman was. “Ms. Devereaux, I've seen you on the news so many times. It . . . it's an honor to have you here in my motel.”

She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

She was so gracious, Patel thought. But then, she would have to be, the way she must be surrounded by admirers all the time. She would have learned how to deal with them.

“Ms. Devereaux saw your No Vacancy sign,” Stark said. “She's looking for a place to stay, and I hoped you might be able to help her out.”

An image suddenly flashed into Patel's mind. A horrible, dreadful image of the beautiful Alexis Devereaux lying on the floor with her lovely face contorted in agonized lines of death.

“No,” Patel said instantly. “I'm sorry. The motel is completely full. There is no room.”

Stark said, “Well, actually, I was thinking that maybe you could give her my room. I can find somewhere else to stay.”

Patel shook his head.

“No,” he said again. “There is nowhere else. I . . . I am very sorry, Ms. Devereaux. It would be such an honor for you to stay here with us, but it is impossible.”

She let out an exasperated sigh and said, “This is ridiculous.”

“It certainly is,” a new voice said. “Hello, Alexis.”

Patel had been so busy staring at Alexis Devereaux and trying to banish the awful mental image of her dying that he hadn't noticed the office door opening again. Now he looked toward the door and saw a handsome, well-dressed, dark-haired man coming in. He wore a smile on his face, and as Alexis turned toward him, he held out his arms to her.

“Phillip!” she exclaimed. “Phillip Hamil, is that you?”

“Of course it is,” he said.

She threw herself into his arms and said, “I never expected to see a friendly face in this godforsaken place!”

 

 

Stark thought the well-dressed stranger—Phillip Hamil, Alexis had called him—looked familiar, and that name rang a bell, too. After hugging him, she stepped back slightly and said, “What are the odds that two old friends from Washington would find themselves in Fuego, Texas at the same time?”

“Well, I don't know about you,” Hamil said, “but I'm here to pay a visit to my old friend Jerry Patel.” Hamil extended his hand over the counter. “Hello, Jerry. It's good to see you again.”

“And you as well,” Patel said as he smiled and gripped Hamil's hand.

The funny thing was, it seemed to Stark like the motel owner had never seen this visitor before. That was just an impression, a hunch, really, but it puzzled Stark anyway.

Alexis kept her right arm linked with Hamil's left as she turned and said, “Phillip, this is John Howard Stark.”

Hamil's carefully plucked eyebrows rose as he said, “Really? Yours is a famous name, Mr. Stark.”

“Infamous is probably more like it in certain circles,” Stark said, “such as the ones the two of you travel in.”

Stark had remembered why he recognized Hamil's name and face. Like Alexis Devereaux, Hamil had appeared on TV often enough that he would seem familiar to anybody who watched the news very often. Whenever he was interviewed, the graphic at the bottom of the screen always identified him as “Dr. Phillip Hamil.” He was some sort of professor, Stark recalled, not a medical doctor, and he was an expert on U.S.–Arab relations.

Hamil laughed and said, “I'll admit, you've gotten under the skin of a number of my political acquaintances, Mr. Stark. Several presidents have gotten some gray hairs over the activities of you and your friends.”

“Just trying to do the right thing,” Stark said.

“Of course.” Hamil put out his hand. “It's all politics. There's nothing personal in it.”

Maybe that had been true at one time, Stark thought as he shook hands with Phillip Hamil, but not anymore. Politics had become the religion of the left, since they had no real religion of their own, and as true believers everything became intensely personal to them, including politics. No one could disagree with them simply on the basis of logic and reason. No, anyone who opposed even the smallest part of the “progressive” agenda was not only wrong but also evil, to be demonized, spat upon, and destroyed.

It was a damned shame people had to get like that, Stark had thought more than once, instead of being able to sit down and work out their differences like reasonable human beings.

But elections had consequences, even stolen ones, and one such consequence over the past decade had been a hardening of the Democrats' belief that “compromise” meant that they should get everything they wanted all the time, every time, in every way, and anybody who didn't go along with that was just a crazy Republican obstructionist.

Stark tried not to let any of that show on his face as he shook hands with Phillip Hamil, who asked, “What brings you to this part of Texas, Mr. Stark?”

“Like you, I'm just visiting an old friend,” Stark said.

“Who might that be?”

Being a lifelong Texan, Stark was too naturally polite to tell the man it was none of his business. Instead he said, “George Baldwin.”

Hamil cocked his head to the side.

“From the prison?”

“That's right. George and I served in the military together, a long time ago.”

“I see. Well, I hope you enjoy your visit.” Hamil turned toward the counter again. “Now, Jerry, what's this about you not having a room for Ms. Devereaux?”

“We're . . . we're full up,” Patel said. Stark heard an undercurrent of nervousness in his voice. “I'm sorry, but—”

“But you're holding one of those rooms for me, right?” Hamil broke in.

“I am? I mean, yes, of course I am.”

“Well, there you go. Give her my room.”

Alexis said, “Oh, no, Phillip, I couldn't put you out of your room. That just wouldn't be right.”

“Nonsense. I insist.”

“But where will you stay?”

Hamil gestured at Patel and said, “I'll bet Jerry here can put me up. Hate to put you on the spot like this, Jer, but hey, what are old college buddies for? You've got a sofa you can make up for me, don't you?”

“Of course,” Patel said. “Of course you can stay with Lara and me. We'd be glad to have you.”

Despite his effusive words, Patel looked like he was welcoming a scorpion or a diamondback rattler into his home, Stark thought.

“So it's all settled,” Hamil said.

“And nobody gets put out of a room,” Alexis said. “Mr. Stark was trying to give up his for me when you came in, Phillip.”

“You know how chivalrous Texans are,” Hamil said with a chuckle. “Maybe we'll see you again before you leave, Mr. Stark.”

“Could be,” Stark said. He tugged on the brim of his Stetson and nodded to Alexis. “Good night, Ms. Devereaux.”

“Good night, Mr. Stark,” she said. “It's been a pleasure to meet you.”

Stark gave everybody a smile all around and left the office. He wasn't smiling inside. Something really odd was going on here, and he thought he knew what it was.

It couldn't be a coincidence that just a few days after those Islamic terrorists had been brought to Hell's Gate and locked up there, a couple of liberal icons like Alexis Devereaux and Phillip Hamil showed up in Fuego.

There was only one explanation that made any sense.

One of the networks was going to do a live broadcast from here. They might even try to get into the prison. A little ambush journalism at its finest.

Tomorrow when he went out there, Stark thought as he let himself into his room, he would have to warn George Baldwin that trouble was likely on its way.

 

 

Once both of the Americans were gone, Fareed came out of the office into the motel lobby, where he and Hamil embraced and slapped each other on the back. Hamil was glad to see his second-in-command.

Fareed Nassir was tall and lean, with wiry muscles, a shock of black hair, and a face pockmarked from a childhood illness. Hamil knew that he had personally executed at least three men, traitors to their cause who had tried to sell them out to the infidels. It was quite likely that Fareed had killed more than that, but the details didn't matter.

Patel was staring at them. Obviously, he was unaware of Hamil's place in the organization. Hamil smiled thinly and said, “Judgment.”

Patel swallowed and nodded.

“Judgment,” he replied. “I had no idea—”

“That's all right. You weren't supposed to know about me. But you did a good job of playing along. For now there are only two things you need to know.”

Patel nodded again, indicating that he was ready to hear them.

“One, I'm in charge here, and two, you need to go shut off that ice machine and put a sign on it saying that it's out of order. Lock it up if you can. Do it quickly, before Ms. Devereaux has a chance to get any ice out of it.”

“You don't want her to—”

“Absolutely not,” Hamil said. “The more media coverage we can get tomorrow, the better.” He smiled. “We want the whole world to know that the triumph of Islam is inevitable. We want everyone to watch as we plunge a dagger into the heart of America.”