Too Sexy for his Stetson (31 page)

Thirty seconds.

Chillingly mesmerized, Brandy couldn’t tear her gaze from Thigpen’s knife. He sliced.

Nothing happened.

Twenty seconds.

He continued to slide the blade futilely against the wire.

“Damn it—it’s covered with some fucking resin coating.” His biceps bunched as he rammed the knife back and forth in a frantic sawing motion.

Ten seconds and counting.

Sweat dripped from Thigpen’s forehead.

In a frenzied effort, he pressed his weight into the motion.

Five seconds.

Like paper against stone, nothing.

Four seconds.

“Come on, you son of a bitch.” Thigpen.

Blade reached with his free hand and pulled the wire taut.

Three seconds.

With his entire body thrust into the action, Thigpen rammed the knife in a savage swipe across the iron–willed wire.

Two seconds.
Brandy’s pulse roared in her head as Blade turned to her, his face twisted in anguish. “Brandy—”

The world stood still.

Then all at once the wire ripped apart.

The timer stopped blinking…

Thank God, the timer stopped blinking.

Brandy’s heart thundered, then seemed to stop. Her hands shook.

Blade collapsed onto his back, arm draped over his forehead.

“Well, hell, we’ve got one second to spare.” Thigpen dropped back on his haunches and huffed out a breath.

“Jesus Christ,” Blade hissed. He pulled Brandy down, his strong arms wrapping around her, bringing her against the heat of his body. She crumpled against him and waited for her heart to start beating again.

****

By the time Blade hobbled out of the powerhouse alongside Brandy and Thigpen, the raging fire in his thigh had numbed. He glanced around. Outside, the fog had lifted, revealing the LCCS chopper, which had settled on an open grassy spot just south of the dam. A Blackhawk hovered above, military personnel descending by rope from its underbelly.

Thigpen placed a hand on Blade’s shoulder, stopping him. “How’s that leg?”

Without answering, Blade looked around. Swarms of officials, SWAT Deputies, and government officials had entered the chase to round up the Neo Nazis, many of whom had fled into the forest. Off to the northwest, Blade noted another chopper, circling near the top of a rise—over Coogan’s residence. Most likely his departure taxi. No doubt he intended to put as much distance as possible between himself and Idaho, USA. Probably an international border.

A tremor vibrated Blade’s chest. He closed one hand around his holstered Glock, the other clinging to the AK–47 that Thigpen had supplied. One way or another, he would stop Skip Coogan.

“Your leg.” Brandy dropped to her knees. Her hands shook as she tentatively removed the blood soaked material and inspected the torn flesh in his thigh. “Damn, Beringer, this is serious.”

Thigpen kneeled down, examined the wound, and then ripped another strip of fabric from Blade’s pants. “The bleeding has almost stopped. Direct pressure ought to do it until you get to the hospital.”

Dizzyness struck. Blade sucked in air as Thigpen tied the compress in place over the hole in his thigh.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Brandy said, still trembling. “We’re getting you to the sheriff’s chopper and heading for Emergency.”

Ignoring what she was saying at the moment, Blade dwelled on the fact that Brandy was safe, alive, fussing over him.
And
she’d said she loved him. His heart swelled. They’d beaten the odds. They had a chance to make a life together. But first, he had a job to do. He squared his shoulders.

“Coogan is
not
getting away.” In a gimpy lope, Blade ran toward the chopper, but no way in hell was he headed for the hospital.

****

Minutes later, the LCCSD helicopter swooped down in a clearing near a ridge overlooking Lake Shoshone, close to Skip Coogan’s rambling, not–so–humble abode. The moment it touched down, Brandy, clinging to Tonya’s rifle, jumped out ahead of Blade. While he and Rambo followed on her heels, she tried not to think about how much blood he’d lost. She wanted to tell him to stay back, but she knew she couldn’t and that he wouldn’t. All she could do was stick with him, yet she heard herself say, “Let me take point.”

It was like talking to the wind.

They tromped a pathway that wound through a forest of aspen and fir trees cloaking the house. Blade, toting the AK–47, somehow managed to keep up with her. The sound of Skip’s get–away taxi thrummed on the opposite side of the property.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Leaves rustled and branches swayed. Brandy forged on and prayed Blade wouldn’t drop from exhaustion. He stuck to her like a magnet and then kicked up the pace, pressing her forward.

Skip’s house came into view, as did the ground–hovering chopper. But Brandy’s gaze suddenly caught sight of and locked on the man himself. The man sprinting toward the waiting bird. Her pulse slammed into overdrive. Coogan wasn’t getting away this time.

Rifle ready, she took aim. Her heart pounded. Her trigger finger itched. But Blade lunged in front of her and zeroed in on Coogan, who at the same moment reached the helo and vaulted into the open doorway.

Brandy hesitated. Her FTO had a wager in this battle as well. Deferring to Blade, she held her breath and her fire.

Blade swayed, the weight of his rifle taking its toll. The weapon dropped to the ground. Instantly his Glock came out. He staggered. Steadied his aim.

The bird started to lift, Coogan silhouetted in the doorway.

Blade wobbled, fired. His shot went off side.

“No! You’re not getting away!” Brandy aimed at the rotor blades as the craft started to lift. She squeezed off a round. Then another, and another. Sparks flared. Shells zinged against metal. The bird sprouted a fiery halo. Sputtered. Tilted. It whined a song of defeat, the
thwack–thwack
turning to
flop–flop.
A second later, the chopper’s belly smacked the ground, the earth vibrating as the machine crashed like a giant eagle with broken legs.

While flames plumed into the air, Skip jumped ship and took off running.

“I’ll get him,” Brandy yelled.

Of course, her FTO, operating on minus umpteen pints of blood and with a gaping hole in his thigh, half–sprinted, along with Rambo, ahead of her.

Shit!
Brandy stalked after Super Hero and the Wonder Dog.

By the time she closed the distance and moved in to back up Blade, he and Coogan stood, facing each other, separated by twenty–five feet of sultry Idaho fauna and—if the look on their faces was any indication—a shitload of regrets.

Rambo crouched at Blade’s side, a mass of controlled tension ready to pounce, waiting for Blade’s command. Brandy’s heart went out to Blade as he faced the man he’d admired for so many years. A smug–mouthed Coogan seemed less ruffled than he should have been, perhaps betting on Blade’s loyalty, which he no longer deserved.

“Call off your dog, Blade.”

Blade swayed. “You’re under arrest, Coogan.”

From her vantage point behind the cover of a Douglas fir, Brandy watched, her heart twisting. Could Blade bring himself to shoot Coogan if it came to that? Did he have enough blood left to remain conscious and aim straight?

Coogan’s gun hand hung at his side. His gaze dropped.

The next instant his attention zeroed in on Rambo.

In a snap of the wrist, his arm raised.

Brandy’s finger automatically squeezed the rifle’s trigger.

Bam! Bam!

In tandem, two shots exploded.

Coogan dropped.

Brandy stood, staring straight ahead, Tonya’s rifle pressed bruise–tight against her shoulder.

Blade, his arm extended, gazed the length of his smoking Glock.

They’d both fired.

Brandy’s shot had hit dead on target. She’d aimed at Coogan’s right hand. Though she hadn’t shot to kill, she knew Coogan wouldn’t have hesitated to take her out if he’d seen her first. Blade’s bullet had entered well above Coogan’s heart, missing his vital organs, precisely in a non–life–threatening spot in his right shoulder. Probably the same place Coogan would have placed a bullet had he fired at Blade.

“Rambo, achlung,”
Blade commanded.
Watch.

Rambo hovered next to the downed police officer, who thrashed, moaning, on the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY–NINE

T
wo days later, Brandy sat on one side of a U–shaped configuration of tables at the sheriff’s department with three other Little Chute deputies. Blade and Sheriff Nobel sat opposite her. They were all focused on Thigpen, who, along with the U.S. Attorney and the FBI Agent in Charge, occupied the head table, leading the wrap–up of the Neo Nazis’ attempted attack on Fort Shoshone Dam.

Brandy’s pulse kicked up when Thigpen said, “We offered Coogan certain immunities in return for full disclosure. He’ll still go to jail for the rest of his life, but he won’t be executed.” He gestured to a sheath of papers. “Coogan’s downfall began eighteen years ago in Phoenix, Arizona when he became involved with the flow of drugs coming across the border from Mexico.”

“So that’s what the whole thing was about? Drugs?” A lump swelled in Brandy’s throat as she stared at Blade. Her FTO wore anxiety on his face in parallel furrows across his brow.

“Jesus,” he said, “I can’t wrap my mind around why Coogan would have gotten involved with drugs in the first place.”

Thigpen lifted one shoulder. “Who knows what influences a man’s decisions? Money’s usually a prime motivator. In Arizona, it started with him looking the other way when deals went down. Since it was impossible to stop the flow of heroin and cocaine crossing the border, he decided he may as well profit from it rather than bang his head against a brick wall.”

“When he moved to Milwaukee,” Crazaniak, the FBI Special Agent in Charge, said, “He hit it off with fellow cop Joey Secada, who had similar ethics. Secada had connections with some high society drug clientele in Chicago and Milwaukee.” The agent, a candidate for a special forces poster—tall, dark, and dangerous—added, “Again, Coogan succumbed to the allure of money falling into his hands by simply turning a blind eye.”

U.S. Attorney James Greer, yet another addition to the room’s overflow of testosterone—as in ripped and more than able–bodied—said, “But then, he got involved directly with Santiago Feliciano, the Mexican drug lord.”

Blade cringed. “Jesus—just like that, he dove neck–deep into big–time shit?”

“So deep,” Thigpen affirmed, “that even if he’d tried to get out, he would have upset the Mexican applecart, for which he would have been dead every which way to Sunday.”

Blade sank back in his chair, his angst palpable. “On the surface, he was a damn good cop… but all this time, my friend led a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde double life.”

Brandy swallowed. “Did my mom know about his drug connection?”

“No, Coogan stated that she never knew,” Thigpen said. “However, the Abbott woman found out about the drugs, and Coogan’s illicit affair ended up getting him into even more trouble. Abbott threatened to expose him. His only way out was to kill her. One thing led to another. He framed Amanda Wilcox to save himself from a murder indictment.”

Brandy’s heart raced as Thigpen said the words she’d waited years for the whole world to hear. Her breath whooshed out, and a giant weight lifted from her shoulders. At the same time, she watched Blade blow out a long breath, and his obvious heartache weighed her back down.

The long breath he expelled wobbled. “So how did Coogan get connected with the Neo Nazis?” he asked Thigpen.

“After Brandy’s mother went to prison, she petitioned for an appeal. Her battle to reopen the case made Coogan nervous. He’d dodged the bullet once, but he didn’t want to take another chance. He needed to get rid of his wife, Amanda Wilcox, and to accomplish that, he needed inside help at the prison.”

“Enter the NNFF,” Special Agent Crazaniak said. “Coogan made a deal with the white supremacist hierarchy. A female Freedom Fighter, one of Amanda Wilcox’s fellow inmates, stabbed her to death, solving Coogan’s problem, or so he thought. Once Amanda had been eliminated, Coogan decided to move to Idaho. But he didn’t leave his connections behind. He was still joined at the hip to the Mexican cartel, and knew that, sooner or later, the NNFF would pressure him to return their favor.”

Blade pushed back from the table, his chair angrily scraping the floor.

Brandy cut in. “So ten years later, when I hired a lawyer and tried to reopen my mother’s case, Coogan got nervous all over again.”

Thigpen nodded. “Big time. And the tangled web kept spinning proportionately. He was forced to call on the NNFF again, this time to eliminate Secada, who had threatened to tell the truth, and who was demanding a cool million dollars to disappear.”

Blade shook his head and asked, “Was Coogan behind the logging truck attack on Brandy and me?”

“He hired Morrisey to stage a fatal accident for Brandy. He says he never thought Morrisey would go after her while she was with you.”

Blade’s eyes closed. “And he had no qualms about taking out the dam and flooding the Scuppernong Valley?”

“Qualms or not,” Agent Crazaniak broke in, “the plan suited both Coogan’s needs and the supremacists’ agenda. Deputy Wilcox would disappear in a disaster, and the Neo Nazis would get rid of hundreds of nonwhites occupying
their
territory.”

Blade’s expression said it all. Forlorn, hurt, angry, betrayed. Brandy’s heart ached for him. Her mother’s redemption came at a price.

Sheriff Noble stood. “It looks like the Secada homicide investigation is wrapped up.”

“Wow.” Brandy shook her head. “Coogan might have gotten away with murder again if Morrisey hadn’t messed up getting rid of Secada’s body.”

“But Morrisey
did
mess up,” Thigpen said. “After he stabbed Secada, he tied the body to a boat anchor and dumped it in Crystal Lake. His knot–making skills were lacking. The body didn’t stay moored to the bottom.”