“That had occurred to us,” he said.
“And Jesse is the one who threw a spanner in the works,” Lee continued, and now the FBI director started to see what was behind her request for a meeting.
“Ye-es,” he said thoughtfully. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“It’s occurred to me,” Lee told him. “And it’s occurred plenty to the press. Jesse’s name and face have been splashed all over the papers and the TV from one end of this country to the other.”
“Your point being?”
Lee took a long breath. “Mr. Director, I was raised on a ranch. On a ranch, if you’ve got a predator that kills your stock, you don’t wait for it to come back and do it again. You go out and hunt it down. I’ve been a hunter since I was fourteen years old. It’s kind of why I do what I do now, as a matter of fact.”
“And why are you telling me this, Sheriff Torrens?” Benjamin regarded her carefully. Lee met his gaze squarely.
“I figure with all the facilities you government agencies have, and with the threat to Senator Carling still very much alive, you might have been looking to get a line on where this Estevez person goes to ground,” she said.
Benjamin leaned his chair back and looked out the window, waiting to see if she’d say more. It was usually an effective technique. Most people eventually felt obliged to fill the awkward silence and would expand on what they’d already said. But the tall, blond woman didn’t fall into the trap. She watched him impassively through those uptilted eyes. There might be Native American ancestry there, he thought. Eventually he had to break his own silence.
“And if we did?” he said, and she shrugged her shoulders.
“I’d be interested to know where he could be found. As I said, I’m a hunter and I don’t wait for trouble to come to me.”
“What about your deputy?” he asked, and she shook her head immediately.
“Jesse doesn’t know I’m here. He doesn’t need to know about any of this. He’d figure he could take care of himself.”
“And you figure he can’t?” he asked, but she shook her head again.
“No. I figure he probably could. But probably isn’t good enough. And I don’t want to spend the next five years or so waiting for Estevez to drop the other shoe.”
The director leaned forward and steepled his fingers, resting his chin on them, then replied.
“As a matter of fact we do have a line on Estevez. Several, in fact. He has a fondness for vintage planes and cars and boats, and that’s helped us track him down. Seems that someone who sounds very much like him has residences in Panama, Thailand and in Marseilles.”
“He does get around. I’d appreciate knowing where he might be at any particular time.”
“Thailand would be best. More secluded than Marseilles and easier to go unnoticed there than in Panama,” Benjamin mused. “And if you planned to, say—visit Thailand, I’m sure we could help with any special needs you might have. Mind you, I’ll be leaving this office in a week or two. But I’ll speak to my successor. I’m sure he’ll be only too willing to continue the arrangement.”
She rose from the chair, a graceful feline movement, and extended her hand across the desk.
“I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Director,” she said. Benjamin took the hand, remarking once more on the strength of her grip.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Sheriff,” he said.
KOH LARN ISLAND
THE GULF OF SIAM
THAILAND
“Paolo! There’s someone on the beach. Get rid of them!”
A tall figure, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, was moving down the beach from the headland. Estevez watched as Paolo emerged from the villa, glanced up the beach and hurried down the three steps on to the sand, trotting toward the interloper.
Estevez turned back to the lounge chair he’d been reclining on. Then he paused and looked at the two figures, now growing closer together. He reached to the table beside the lounge and picked up the ten-by-fifty Nikons that he kept there. He raised the glasses and focused them. Then he smiled.
Tall, shapely and blond. She stopped as Paolo called to her. She carried a beach towel over her left shoulder and a large raffia beach bag in her right hand. She was wearing cut off denim shorts that revealed the lower curve of her buttocks and displayed her fine legs to full advantage. Other than that, she wore only a brief bikini top. He zoomed the binoculars onto the full, firm breasts, barely contained by two small triangles of yellow and red fabric. He fancied he could see the slight bulge of the nipples there. She wasn’t a girl, he thought. She was a woman. And she was at that age where a beautiful woman realizes her own sexuality and the power of her own body. She stood waiting for Paolo, her hips thrust slightly forward in an unconsciously provocative pose. He ran the glasses over the smooth, rounded belly above the shorts. Unconsciously, his tongue passed across his lips, moistening them. He saw Paolo gesturing for the beach bag and nodded agreement. Even a beautiful woman like this could have a nasty surprise in a harmless looking bag like that. Still, once Paolo had checked her out, there was no need to get rid of her. Maybe he should ask her up to the villa for a drink. Then dinner. Then who knew what? He set down the Nikons, slipped the Walther P5 that he always kept nearby into the rear pocket of his linen slacks and walked briskly across the patio to the beach.
Let me see the bag,” Paolo demanded, holding out his hand. Lee took half a step backward.
“Why?” she asked. Paolo snapped his fingers impatiently. “I told you. This is a private beach. You’re trespassing.”
“Then I’ll leave. So there’s no need for you to see my bag,” she said in a slightly annoyed tone.
“You’ll leave all right. But I’ll see the bag first,” Paolo told her. “I want to be sure you’re not planning on coming back later.”
She snorted derisively. “Bet your ass I’m not. And I’m damned if you’re putting your paws all over my bag.”
“One way or another, I will see it,” Paolo told her. He flicked up the tail of his beach shirt on the left-hand side to reveal the grip of the large automatic in his waistband. Lee allowed her eyes to widen a little.
“Hey! Hold on a minute, feller! There’s no need for that! Take the bag!” She passed the bag to him. He took it and rifled through it. There was very little in it. A pink T-shirt, sun lotion, Nokia cell phone, a plastic bottle of water, now lukewarm, Bolle sunglasses and a worn leather billfold. His eyes kept darting down to the bag as he examined it, then back up to the blond woman.
“This your boss?” she asked, looking over his left shoulder. But Paolo’s gaze wasn’t diverted. He heard the soft whisper of footsteps in the sand. It could only be El Jefe, he reasoned.
“Good afternoon,” she said and, from a few yards away, Estevez replied, his voice friendly.
“Buenas dias. Paolo, is the young lady carrying anything we should be concerned about?”
Now Paolo glanced quickly behind him and, as he did, Lee’s right hand moved smoothly to the heavy towel draped over her left shoulder. The night before, she’d turned up the bottom six inches and sewed it into a pocket. Her hand went into it and closed over the checkered butt of the Ruger .22 automatic concealed there.
“Everything is in order, Jefe,” Paolo said. Then he saw the look of alarm in Estevez’s eyes and he swung back, dropping the beach bag, reaching across his body for the Browning Hi-Power.
Crack-crack!
The two shots were so fast they almost blended into one sound as she put two of the hollow point Long Rifle .22 slugs into his wrist, smashing into the junction point of bones, nerves and tendons. The Browning, half-drawn, fell from his suddenly limp fingers. His wrist felt as if someone slammed it with a hammer, the painful buzz of injured nerves ringing up his arm.
He made a choking noise of pain and doubled over, his left hand clutched to the destroyed right wrist.
“Hold it!” Lee called as Estevez started to turn away. He froze in place, looking into
the barrel of the Ruger. It wasn’t a big gun—a .22 or a .25 at most—but it was only a few yards away and the woman had already proven she would hit what she aimed at. Right now, she seemed to be aiming at his left eye, and the barrel of the gun was steady and unwavering. A headshot from a .22 would be lethal at this range.
“Get on your knees,” she ordered, and when he hesitated, the barrel of the .22 made a quick gesture downward. He sank to his knees in the hot sand.
“Don’t want you running off on me,” she said. Then she glanced at Paolo, still doubled forward over his wounded hand.
“You,” she said, and when he didn’t answer: “You with the broken wrist!” At that, he looked up at her. He saw the Ruger was still trained on Estevez, still rock-steady.
“I’ve got no argument with you,” she said quietly. “You can stay or go, it’s your choice. But if you stay, you’ll get what he gets.”
“Paolo!” Estevez’s voice cracked like a whip. “You know what happens to those who betray me!”
For a moment, Paolo hesitated. Then Lee smiled grimly.
“Hear that?” she said. “That’s the sound of a dead man making threats. Now stay or go. You choose.”
Paolo chose. Still hunched over and nursing his shattered wrist, he turned away and began to shamble up the beach, leaving Estevez behind.
“Paolo!” Estevez shouted after him, his face darkening as blood rushed to it. “You’ll pay for this! I swear it!”
“Shut up,” the woman said. He swung his gaze back on her now and noticed that her eyes were following Paolo as his stumbling figure moved further away. Estevez’s right hand began to steal behind his back to the Walther in his back pocket.
Seemingly intent on the deserting bodyguard, Lee felt a small glow of satisfaction as she saw the movement. She’d assumed Estevez would be armed. She’d hoped so. She didn’t like the idea of shooting him in cold blood—although if it came to that, she would do it. The Ruger was loose in her hand, held lightly. She waited until Estevez took a grip on the Walther and began to bring it around from behind his back.
He had the gun halfway leveled when the woman looked back at him. In the same instant, the barrel of the automatic in her hand swung, foreshortened in his gaze, and spat out the same spiteful double crack.
Compared to the Blackhawk .44 she normally carried, the .22 had virtually no recoil. And it was much lighter and easier to conceal. That was why she had chosen it. She was used to the gun. She kept one at home for varmint shooting, which was pretty much what she was doing now, she thought. The two bullets struck Estevez in the forehead, a fraction above the left eyebrow and barely half an inch apart. His body went limp instantly and he slumped forward like an empty bag, dead before his face hit the sand.
She looked down at him dispassionately. The Walther was close by his outflung hand, half-buried in the sand.
“I’m so glad you tried,” she said.
She turned and walked back the way she had come. Her hired runabout was beached around the next headland and on the brief trip back to Pattaya Beach, she’d lose the Ruger overboard. It had come into the country in the diplomatic bag and now it was time to get rid of it. She’d picked it up when she first arrived, using the fake passport supplied by the FBI. That, she would burn once she was back home.
Later that night, she called an unlisted number in Virginia. The man who answered—Linus Benjamin’s replacement—spoke with a pleasant southern accent. She identified herself, using the name from the fake passport.
“This is Laura Templeton,” she said, giving him a second to recognize the significance of the name. “It’s done.” There was a slight pause and he replied.
“That was quick,” he sounded impressed. “Any problems?”
“None. It’s done and I’m going home.”
“Well, stay in touch, Laura. Maybe we could do business again,” he said.
Her reply was cold and uncompromising. “I don’t think so. I don’t make a habit of this sort of thing.”
She hung up, leaned back and sighed. Her bag was packed on the bed beside her and her plane was leaving in three hours. It was time to get back to Steamboat Springs.
And Jesse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John A. Flanagan, now a full-time author, is a former advertising and television writer. His adventure series for young adults, Ranger’s Apprentice, has spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list.
Background for the Jesse Parker series came from his many visits to the ski resorts of Colorado and Utah. Storm Peak was published in 2009.
John lives with his wife, Leonie, in Manly, Australia, on Sydney’s northern beaches.
John Flanagan, Avalanche Pass
(Series: Jesse Parker Mystery # 2)
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