Chapter One

“I can’t believe that idiot judge set bail for Ortiz,” Jimmy Fenn said. “I may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but even I saw this jump coming.” He glanced to his rearview mirror and cut across a lane of traffic, shearing onto the entrance ramp at high speed up onto the Interstate en route to their destination—approximately thirty minutes south of Austin, Texas. The big V-8 engine roared in response to Fenn’s hard acceleration. He quickly assimilated, blending with heavy fast moving traffic, and began working his way to the inside against a concrete barrier separating southbound from northbound lanes. Once to the inside, he pushed his speed upward. He sped southward heading for Manuel Ortiz’s suspected hideout in New Braunfels offered up by an informant, almost fifty miles down the highway. Once Jimmy did not have to watch traffic so intensely, he looked sideways at his partner on the passenger side, thirty-seven-year-old Carlee Cayne. “What’s your take on it, Cayne?”

Carlee glanced at him. “Take? I’m not allowed a take. All my decisions on this situation, or any other for that matter, come in the field on how best to handle the decisions and orders of others above my pay grade,” she replied, glancing again, seeing he must have noted her dour mood.

“Come on. It’s just you and me here. Don’t you have an opinion?” he asked.

“Of course I do. But what difference does it make? At the end of the day, the result should be that we found Ortiz, slapped the cuffs on him, and then took him in to be locked up. This is what we’re paid to do as deputy marshals in the field, not second guessing a federal judge’s decision on whether bail should have been denied or not.”

Jimmy Fenn held a gaze on Carlee for an inordinate amount of time, considering the speed he drove in relatively heavy Interstate traffic, constantly weaving in and out of slower moving vehicles. “You seem a might touchy this morning.”

Carlee sighed. “Sorry, Jimbo. Didn’t mean to snap at you.” She bobbled her head. “If you must know my opinion, I agree with you. That judge was an idiot for letting Ortiz post bond pending trial. The judge might as well have shouted, ‘Fly! Be free!’ from the bench. Once the judge discovered Ortiz’s link to that drug cartel kingpin, he had to have known Ortiz was a flight risk. So, yeah. That makes the judge an idiot, in my opinion.” Carlee paused and smiled warmly at Fenn. “You’re a good partner, Jimbo, and have been for…what, six years now?”

“Thereabouts.”

Carlee appreciated her long-time partner. Jimmy Fenn was an unencumbered thirty-five-year-old single guy. He was extremely good-looking, drawing stares from passers-by all the time. He had dark hair, always neatly trimmed to a professional length, slender, and quite tall at six-three. Unfortunately, he was also totally unavailable to date. Even thinking about that, today, was an irritant. He was her best friend, for God’s sake. Why couldn’t he be her boyfriend, too? “My pissy mood certainly has nothing to do with you, my friend. It’s what Turner told me before he put us in charge of this operation.”

“Eh, don’t pay any attention to him. He just has a twisted sense of humor.”

“To you it’s a sense of humor. To me it’s just twisted. He’s sexist and that twisted sense of humor, as you call it, always seems to be directed at me, like I’m some ditz from a secretarial pool.”

“Really? Is it that bad? What the heck did he tell you?”

“Just before we left headquarters a few minutes ago, he pulled me off to the side and whispered in my ear, ‘Now, darlin’, try not to shoot yourself or kill anyone today,’” she drawled sardonically, impersonating her supervisor’s arrogant tone. “Jimbo, I do not like Supervising Deputy, George Turner, at all.” She turned to look out the window and added, mumbling, “The sleazy bastard.”

Fenn snapped a fast hard look sideways at her. “Are you serious? He said it just like that?”

“Yep. Just like that.” She frowned at Fenn. “Get that slack-jawed look off your face. Surely, you can’t be that surprised.”

“I know he has hit on you a few times, but I had no idea that he impugns your job performance.”

“He most certainly does, on a regular basis. I have a feeling his snarkiness is nothing more than cheap shots in retaliation for my refusals of his disgustingly frequent indecent proposals. I never give him satisfaction of a verbal response—just walk away, not smiling, not frowning, nothing. It pisses him off. I can tell. And, after shooting and wounding that guy in the spring and then that other one I had to kill last month, it has provided Turner with a wealth of material to use when sniping at me.”

“Those were justified—both times. You had no choice in either case whatsoever, for Christ’s sake. I was there. I witnessed both shootings. I know. Either one of those boys would have killed you, or me, if you had not put them down.”

“I know,” Carlee deadpanned. “But that doesn’t stop Turner.” She sighed. “I’m getting tired of this job…damn tired.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that,” Fenn whined. “If you leave the Marshals Service, what’ll happen to me? I don’t want to break in a new partner.”

Carlee laughed melodramatically. “Oh sure. Let’s make this about you.” She sighed. “Honestly though, I don’t think you need to worry. This is all I know how to do. If I left the Service, all I could do is jump from one law enforcement job to another, if I could even find one. And, if I’m tired of this job, how could that be an improvement, not to mention the hassle of it all? In the beginning, I didn’t think I’d be at this job for as long as I have. I really thought David and I would have had a couple of kids by now and I would be knee deep in soccer, softball, parties, school functions, and holidays…you know, living the housewife’s dream.”

“Thanks to Rylee, that sweet girl of yours, part of that dream will come true anyhow. That’s something you need to hear spoken aloud, I think, especially now.”

Carlee stared at her partner for a couple of seconds. She drew a sincere heartfelt smile. “I suppose you’re right. Thank you for that.”

“As for David, that good-for-nothing ex-husband of yours,” Fenn continued, “was a dick and probably still is. I knew it before he walked out on you. But, it wasn’t my place to convince you. It broke my heart watching you go through that divorce. It has taken you a long time to regain your footing after the breakup a couple of years ago.”

“That sure is the truth. Poor Rylee has not gotten over it yet.”

“Have you sat her down and explained it all to her in terms a ten-year-old girl can understand?”

“Jimmy Fenn,” she said and then paused, staring at him incredulously, “don’t tell me you think I’m a ditz, too. Of course, I’ve explained it to her. She and I have had marathon discussions about it. I have explained it to her forty ways from sundown. She understands it intellectually but not in her heart. To her, it’s like having a limb suddenly removed. She can understand how—maybe even why it happened—but it doesn’t make the pain of loss any less.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like a parenting critique.” He said no more, clearly leaving the subject where it belonged, in the rearview mirror with everything else shrinking away behind them as they sped southward.

After a quiet minute, “Three years, actually,” Carlee said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been divorced three years, not two.” Carlee sighed. “In hindsight, I wish you would have gotten in the middle of my business when you saw it coming. Clearly, I did not, but…oh well.” She gazed at Fenn quietly, with a questioning face, for a moment.

Fenn looked across at her in flicking glances. “What? Why are looking at me like that?”

“I wish you weren’t into guys.”

“Oh, that. Not only am I gay, I don’t want to get married, period—man or woman. I don’t even want a dog, for Christ’s sake. I’m happy with my single situation, approaching ecstatic, actually.” He grinned smugly. “I don’t want a relationship beyond a couple of months. If I want to climb on a jet and fly to Tahiti this afternoon, I can do it…with supervisory blessing, of course. I don’t need to clear it with anyone outside the Service. Just do it. Now that, sweet friend, is livin’ the dream.”

“For you, maybe.” She paused and thought about Fenn’s situation for a second. She added, “I didn’t know there were that many gay guys in Austin. I keep thinking you’re going to run out of choices.”

Fenn lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “Never happen.”

Carlee stared down the highway, watching the intermittent dashed lane markings blur beneath the car. She realized if this conversation went any further, it might drive her into a funk that may create hesitation at the wrong time. She had to get her head in this game or suffer dangerously negative consequences. She unsnapped the keeper strap on the holster holding her Glock 40 sidearm, released the magazine, and popped it out of the handgrip, checking its load, making sure it held a full complement of ammunition. It was a habit, a ritual she went through before each operation of this nature. At a glance, all was as it should be. She snugged the magazine back into its handgrip cradle, slapping it with the heel of her hand. It clicked into place securely. She then returned it to the holster on her hip, strapping it and then snapping it down. “I think I had better table this conversation for another time, before it clouds my judgment. Where was it Ortiz found to hole up?”

“The Ortiz brothers have a cousin in New Braunfels, Daniel Vega. It’s just luck we found out about it so quickly. Otherwise, Manuel would have been across the border into Mexico, right into the protective arms of his brother, the cartel king, before we could act to apprehend him. Vega rents a house in an older part of New Braunfels.”

“I heard Turner talking about that cartel. According to what he was saying, Rogelio Ortiz is one bad dude,” she said.

“Ruthless for sure,” replied Fenn. “Then again,” he added, “all those types have to be ruthless to build an illegal empire of such scope. Not only must they keep eyes open for law enforcement but, also, from rival factions looking to move in like hyenas over a carcass. It’s a dangerous world they create for themselves.” He paused. “I wonder what the average life span is of those guys.”

“Don’t know. But, it would not surprise me to learn surviving to their fiftieth year, for most of them, to be an extraordinary feat,” she replied. “Did I hear right? It was Vega’s neighbors who didn’t like the idea of Manuel Ortiz possibly taking up residence on their street?”

“Uh-huh. Little did the neighbors know it was only temporary while Rogelio got resources to Manuel so he could skip the country. It worked out well for us, timing-wise.”

“Incidentally,” Carlee said, “you just answered your own question.”

“Huh?”

“About bail not being denied,” she said. “Rogelio’s drug cartel is very prosperous, operating across the border from Del Rio in Ciudad Acuña. Rogelio secured a high-priced attorney from some firm in San Antonio, convincing the judge Manuel was no flight risk and managed to have bail set.”

“That I didn’t know,” Fenn said. “But there’s no way he’s going to avoid prison time for that string of violent armed robberies.”

“True enough. It’s also the reason he jumped bail and we find ourselves chasing him down to take him back. Once we do, Manuel Ortiz will not see the light of day before, or after, the trial for many years. I have a feeling he will be a might testy about going back with us.”

Fenn glanced at her. “Ya think?”

“Where is Vega’s place?” Carlee asked.

“It’s in a rundown neighborhood near the Guadalupe River, probably the oldest area of New Braunfels. I was briefed before you came in to work this morning.” Fenn tilted his head thoughtfully. “In fact, you seem to be late to work quite often these days. Does that have anything to do with George Turner?”

“It has everything to do with the jerk. The less I’m around Turner, the happier I am.”

“Ah. That explains that. Anyhow, Daniel Vega’s place is an old shotgun style house. You know the type, a house with two front doors side by side.”

“Just point it out to me when we get there. What about backup?”

“Local police, Texas Rangers, and State Troopers have been notified. They’re ready to move in as we speak. We just have to meet up with them at a predesignated place, and close in together as a unit.”

Fenn peeled off, exiting the Interstate in New Braunfels and met up with other law enforcement in the parking lot of an agreed upon convenience store. It only took a couple of minutes to coordinate the operation. “Follow me,” announced a local police officer, as he dropped into the driver’s seat of his city cruiser, the lead car. Jimmy Fenn and Carlee Cayne followed closely with two other cars behind them. They had not driven far when the lead officer eased over against the curb and stopped in the older residential neighborhood. Cottonwood, oak, and pecan trees were huge. Some were dead and obviously had been for years, standing like nightmarish behemoths—another indication of the age of this neighborhood. Several of the houses were abandoned and yards overgrown. The New Braunfels officer slid out of his cruiser. His movements slowed. He crouched and glided, pistol held down to his side, displaying cautious stealth. He stabbed the air with a firm, stiff finger pointing to one house three down from where he’d parked.

“Showtime,” Fenn said, as he got out of the car. He closed the car door with a light hand.

Carlee got out and met up with him at the rear of the vehicle. He opened the trunk. Inside lay items necessary to such an operation. He handed Carlee a Kevlar vest and retrieved two short-barrel 12-guage pump shotguns. These were assault weapons—no fore-pieces. Instead, these weapons were fitted with perpendicular handgrips for maximum control to chamber shells quickly when needed. After strapping her vest on, Jimmy Fenn handed her the other shotgun. She jacked a shell into the chamber. “Let’s go get this done,” she said.

“I’ll lead the breach, Cayne. You did last time,” Fenn said. He quickly slid the pump on the shotgun back then forward, chambering a shell. “How about you go around back so we can keep Ortiz buttoned up in there?”

Carlee did not answer, simply responded, peeling away from the single-file string of heavily armed law enforcement personnel. Alone, she trotted to the side of the house and up an old, cracked, and heaved double ribbon concrete driveway nearly camouflaged by overgrown Bermuda grass and a variety of invasive creeping weeds. She stopped short of a dilapidated one-car detached garage, yawing to a severe angle. The structure set back and to the left of the house. Clearly, it had not been used to park cars in for decades and should have been demolished years ago. She backed up and leaned against the blistered and peeling white paint on the back corner of the old house. She drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly through rounded lips. She craned her head around the corner to scope possible egress points Manuel Ortiz might use. Windows lining her side of the house were all obviously sealed with multiple layers of paint slathered on over decades. None had been opened in many years. That was clear enough. Carlee assumed all the windows on the other side of the house had to be in the same condition. If so, the only other escape route for Ortiz narrowed quickly to the back door, centered at the rear of the house, or diving through one of those windows. There was no porch. A pumice construction block laying on its side served as a step down out of the higher-than-normal pier and beam house. Judging by a dense stand of unkempt crepe myrtle bushes, standing as tall as trees at the opposite corner of the house, and a back gate chained with a padlock binding it, it seemed the only reasonable escape route out of the yard would be directly toward her. That was a good thing, if Ortiz bolted.

This thought had scarcely completed when she heard a hard rap on the front door. Fenn shouted, “Daniel Vega—US Marshals—open up!”

She heard the front door open and a conversation ensued that she could not make out. But, then she heard fast moving footsteps pounding the old wooden floor toward the rear of the house. She shouted as loud as she could, “He’s running! Back door! Back door!” Her warning was followed by thunderous pounding of many footsteps racing through the house toward the back door. She rolled around the corner and squared her stance, holding the gun high, ready for whoever appeared. She had a clear lateral view of whoever might come racing out that door. She didn’t know if it would be Daniel Vega or Manuel Ortiz that would appear, but she figured it had to be Ortiz. He had the most to lose.

Fenn shouted from inside the house, “Stop, Ortiz! Freeze!”

At that instant, the rickety and tattered screen door at the rear of the house swung open and slammed against the house. Manuel Ortiz appeared, leaping to the ground right over that makeshift construction block step to the ground.

Carlee saw he brandished a semi-automatic handgun in one hand and a machete in the other. “Drop your weapons!” she ordered.

Ortiz spun to face her. He did not comply, snapping the pistol to firing height, aiming in her direction.

Fenn came flying out the back door at the same instant, clearly misjudging the drop. He stumbled and was falling.

Ortiz reacted, swinging the pistol toward Fenn.

In that brief flash of time, Fenn squeezed off a round from the shotgun. The shot went wild as he tumbled to the ground.

Ortiz fired almost simultaneously at Fenn.

Carlee followed by firing a twelve-gauge load of double-aught buckshot into Manuel Ortiz’s midsection.

The unfolding scenario slipped into slow motion as Ortiz flew backwards, landing hard onto the grassless ground. He grimaced. His face could not get any tighter. He put both hands over the wound and pulled his knees up, squealing in pain. And then, after scant seconds, he stopped screaming. His face relaxed. His hands fell away from the bloody wound as his knees fell sideways. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be shortly.

All the support personnel streamed out the back door, lowering their weapons as they stepped into the yard, spotting the body of Manuel Ortiz. One ran to him and kicked the gun a safe distance away, just in case.

Carlee ran over to where Jimmy Fenn lay on his back. “Jimbo, Jimbo,” she shouted. “Are you hit?”

“The only thing that hit me was the ground. My pride is injured, but nothing else.” Fenn rolled his head to meet her manic expression. “It’s okay, really. He didn’t hit me.”

Carlee dropped to her knees beside him, placed her shotgun on the ground. Her head wilted forward appreciatively. “Thank God. I thought he hit you squarely.”

“Nah. I just fell out the back door. If you had not put him down, he would have taken a second shot and, at that range, he would have put a bullet between my eyes.” He came up to recline on his elbows. “I owe you my life, Cayne. Thanks.”

Carlee straightened and sat back on her heels. Pent up tension left her as adrenaline drained away. She slumped her head forward, taking a few calming breaths, exhaling through rounded lips. She then looked over at the lifeless body of Manuel Ortiz. “Crap.”

“What?” Fenn asked. “Are you upset he didn’t take that second shot?”

“No, funny man, that’s not it at all. That’s the third man I’ve shot this year. Two are dead and one is still on crutches. Do you realize what this means in this politically correct environment we live in these days?”

“Don’t think that way. You have all the testimony you need to justify this shooting.” He pointed to the other law enforcement personnel. One was reading Daniel Vega his rights for aiding and abetting a known fugitive, his cousin, Manuel Ortiz. Another was cuffing him, while two of the other guys were talking on their phones. “All of those guys will testify on your behalf.”

Daniel Vega seemed stupefied, staring at his dead cousin. No matter how they turned him, Vega’s eyes remained fixed on the body of Ortiz. He mumbled almost continuously, “Manny, Manny. What have they done to you? Manny, Manny.”

“It’s great that I’ll have all the supporting testimony needed,” Carlee said, “but it’s not entirely what I was talking about. One of the guys I had to use force against and died was a black man, the injured one is a Latino, and then, of course we have Ortiz over there. They’re all minorities, Jimbo. Even if things go perfectly, I bet Turner won’t hesitate to put me on desk duty for an indefinite period.” She rolled her eyes. “And he would likely relish having me so near every day, all day long. I don’t think I could stand him for a single week, much less a month or two.”

“Come on, now,” Fenn said, coming to his feet. “Don’t talk like that. I’ve got your back. None of those shootings were about race. It was about criminals with extraordinarily bad attitudes and hate for law enforcement. We’ll face it together, whatever they throw at you. You know that.” He dusted his pants and stepped toward her.

Carlee relaxed somewhat on those encouraging words. She sighed, turning away to walk toward the car. Fenn hurried to her side. She smiled at him and nudged him with her shoulder. “You’ve always had my back,” she said. “You’re a good partner and a great friend, Jimmy Fenn.”

“And you’ve always had my back. Case in point…” He gestured back toward Ortiz’s body.

Carlee hinted a smile. “What would it take to make you un-gay?”

“I’ll be your friend, no matter what,” he replied.

“I realize that, but…well, you know,” she said, bobbling her head.

Fenn laughed. “Yeah. I do.” He nudged her back.