“You want the air turned up?”

“It’s high enough. Air conditioners usually give me a cold.”

“Know what ya mean. Normally I prefer to suck on a cold beer.”

“Got one?”

“No, I figured you Mounties had a reputation for being goody-two-shoes type of guys. Never swear, never tell a lie … follow the letter of the law.”

“Yeah, that would be me.”

Approximately five minutes down the road, they spotted a side road partially obscured by bushes.

“Could put a cover team in there,” suggested Jack.

“Yeah, but it is still about five minutes away. A lot can happen to a guy in five minutes.”

“I know, but I’ll have you and a policewoman. That’s more than I’ve had other times.”

“Your funeral.”

“I know,” said Jack, quietly.

“Glad you know,” said Adams abruptly. “Let’s check out your map.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Adams turned at a T-intersection where a sign indicated they were turning on to Country Road 14.

“I’ll let you know when we’re about twelve miles along,” said Adams. “Keep your eye open for that U on the map.”

At around twelve miles, Adams slowed the car down, but there was nothing to see except sand dunes or the odd shack. Adams drove for another two miles before turning around and driving back.

“That has to be it,” said Jack, minutes later, pointing to a sun-bleached skull of a long-horned steer. It had been nailed to a fencepost from which a rusted gate hung open on one hinge. The nose of the skull had deteriorated in the sun and it was missing one horn.

“That skull is your U you think? How do you figure?”

“Bet it used to have two horns. Using your imagination … it could be a U.”

“Yeah … maybe. Doesn’t look like any recent vehicle tracks on the other side of the gate,” noted Adams. “Still, with wind and sand, things disappear pretty quick. Okay, we’ll take a look and see where it leads.”

They drove through the desert as the trail wound in and around sand dunes and over hills. The Camaro periodically bottomed out in the sand and there were several occasions when both men feared the car would get stuck, but Adams was able to continue on.

“Christ, at this point I don’t know if we’re still in Texas or if we’re in Mexico,” said Adams with a worried look on his face as he glanced at Jack.

“I don’t care. Let’s keep going,” replied Jack.

Moments later, they saw the roof of a mobile home sticking up from the far side of a sand dune.

“It’s about time,” breathed Adams with relief as he stepped on the throttle to give the car an extra boost along the trail leading over the dune.

The engine roared as the tires spun through the sand and the car burst over the top of the dune and slid down the other side.

“Oh, fuck,” said Adams under his breath, while instinctively reaching for the gun in the holster on his belt.

chapter twenty-three

District Attorney White took the call and recognized Davidson’s voice immediately.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” said Davidson with a chuckle.

“Believe what?”

“The Mountie from Canada arrived this morning. Adams picked him up and we all went for lunch and then left them alone. Talk about two peas in a pod! I’m on my other phone to one of our people doing the listening. They’ve only been alone together a couple of hours and sounds like they are already doing something they shouldn’t be.”

“What are they doing?”

“The Mountie had some map they were following.”

“I don’t remember reading about that … just a minute,” said White, reaching for a file folder.

“Don’t bother looking. The Mountie didn’t mention it in any report and said he didn’t want people knowing about it. Hang on, I’m talking in two phones at once here. I’ve got the guy listening to the bug on my cellphone … He just told me it sounds like the two of them may have driven into Mexico.”

“Christ, that didn’t take long. Where in Mexico?”

“We’re not tailing them. Adams would spot that pretty quick.”

“I know. I meant a satellite tracker.”

“We, uh, the four of us here talked about that. The only ones we have are being used on more important targets.”

“I see,” replied White. He thought of Davidson’s comment after they first interviewed Adams. White wondered if the agency would move Adams in case the cartel would murder him. Davidson’s reply had been, ‘That would save everyone a lot of embarrassment.’

“Anyway, this whole thing could be wrapped up in minutes,” continued Davidson.

“They’re talking?”

“No, I don’t mean that. Something is going on. Adams’s voice has gone up a couple of octaves. He’s not a guy who gets scared easily. Hang on, my other phone … sounds like they’re in deep trouble. Maybe about to be grabbed … not sure yet. Talk of guys pulling rifles on them. They’re out of the car … I better call you back.”

Unaware that Adams was reaching for his pistol, Jack looked at the scene before them as their car slid to a stop in the sand. The collection of other short lines he had seen on Slater’s map he now knew represented other house trailers. There were a dozen of them scattered like pick-up sticks around a small road paved with blacktop.

Half the trailers had trucks and SUVs parked beside them. There were no cars except the one he and Adams were in and it was attracting attention. Several men from different trailers had stepped out and were gesturing in their direction.

Jack could not see past some sand dunes to know where the blacktop road went, but it ended abruptly near where they had arrived.

“Look at all the skid marks at the end of the road,” noted Jack. “Kids must be drag racing out here.”

“Those aren’t from kids,” replied Adams tersely, holding his pistol in his lap. “It’s from light aircraft landing. We just drove into the middle of a drug dropoff zone.”

“Oh, shit,” said Jack under his breath, feeling very stupid. It hadn’t occurred to him a smuggler’s drug dropoff site would be this big and include a paved runway.

To the right of their car and close to where the runway ended, sat a Mexican on a large cooler under a wooden lean-to. The man was fat, unshaven, and reminded Jack of a bad guy out of an old Mexican Western movie. The man’s thick black eyebrows knotted together as he stared at them suspiciously.

“Damn it, the two guys over by that black pickup were hauling a table out of the trailer. Now they put it down and are grabbing rifles out of the cab,” warned Adams, with a nod of his head in the opposite direction.

Jack looked past Adams out the driver’s window and saw two men. Both had dark scowls on their faces and held their rifles at waist height as they started to approach. Jack estimated if the two men continued to walk, they would reach their car in about a minute.

“Take my gun while I try to drive us the fuck out of here!” said Adams.

“Keep it,” replied Jack. “We’d never make it with what you’re driving, anyway,” he added as he opened the car door and stepped out.

“What are you doing? Get back in here!”

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he added, as he closed the door.

“What the fuck …” He glanced back at the two men approaching. Using a pistol to go against two guys with rifles at this distance wouldn’t be ruled an act of self defence, it would be classified as suicide …

Adams quickly got out of the car and said, “I’ll cover you.”

“No!” whispered Jack heatedly over the top of the car. “Smile and wave at the guy behind me in the lean-to. I’m going over to talk to him.”

“Him? He’s not the one with the rifles!”

“Ignore those two. Keep your back to them and act like you haven’t seen them.”