Chapter 13

Dwayne Holt, Darla's driver/bodyguard, was big, part black, and shaved his head bald. He wore a prosthetic hand on the stub of his left forearm. He rarely wore the fake hand. He preferred a hook, he told David. For reasons Holt didn't specify, he'd worn the prosthetic hand for his first day on the job, and David had not asked him ask why.

Holt was Darla's driver, but he wasn't driving for Darla at the moment. He sat behind the wheel of the Escalade, and David occupied the passenger seat. Flint had remained at the compound to accept delivery of the armored limo. They were en route to the Johnson shelter to pick up Mary Pace. David used the time to get to know the newest member of his household.

The big man — 6'5", 240 plus pounds, no excess fat that David could see — was thirty-five years old, divorced with one child. His ex-wife had remarried and moved to the east coast with his daughter. To Dwayne's sorrow, he rarely saw the girl.

"Do you have visitation rights?" David asked.

"Yes, but money's been a problem. Like Flint, I got hit by shrapnel. Same firefight as Flint. Same IED. He almost lost a leg. I lost my hand."

"IED?" David said.

"Improvised explosive device," Dwayne said. "When I got hit, the wife couldn't take it anymore. She cut and run. No great loss. She'd been runnin' around on me for a while. Fidelity and loyalty weren't her strong suits. But I miss Katy. Katy's my daughter, short for Catherine. This job is a godsend. I'll be able to save up and fly her out here during the Christmas break."

"How old is she?" David asked.

"Nine." Dwayne smiled, flashing straight white teeth. "She's a beauty." He sighed. "We were very close. Still are, but..." he shrugged.

"Would she prefer living with you?" David said.

Dwayne jerked his eyes off the road momentarily to look at David. "Don't know," he said, his eyes on the road again. "Maybe. Yeah, I think she would. That's never been an option, so the possibility hasn't been discussed."

"How would her mother feel about that?" David asked.

Dwayne snorted derisively and said, "Probably happy. As mothers go, my ex would make a better lumberjack. She might fight me for custody out of spite, though."

"Katy's welcome at the compound, Dwayne," David said.

"You're shitting me, right?" Dwayne said gruffly.

David laughed and said, "Not at all. Why wouldn't she be welcome? We took in Patty when we hired her mother, and we're taking in an eleven-year-old boy next Tuesday. The woman we're picking up will head up our homeschool program. The only negative I see that you've got to consider is the current threat June's husband represents. Living in the compound could be dangerous for anyone living in the compound."

Not with Flint and me and three of our buddies protecting the compound, Dwayne thought.

He said, "I'll talk to Katy and her mother tonight."

"If she wants to be with you, and her mother doesn't put up a fight, don't worry about a plane ticket. We'll call the ticket a hiring bonus," David said.

Earlier, Noel Perry had driven by the address that Pete had given him. He hadn't liked what he saw. The address was a walled estate, not a house. The video cameras that covered the street hadn't been difficult to spot, either. Fuck, it's a fortress, he'd thought.

Now, he stood on the side of mountain behind and to the side of the walled estate, wishing he had a pair of binoculars. Three homes, not one, he mused from his bird's eye view of the walled fortress.

Perhaps a closer look would tell him more.

The alarm wasn't loud, but Flint heard it. He'd heard it before when it had been installed and tested the previous day, an alarm that sounded when an intruder entered a danger zone on the mountain, dangerous for the inhabitants of the compound, that is. While hurrying to the security room, he wished it was manned, but the personnel that would monitor the security systems wouldn't start work until Monday.

Had a wild critter set off the alarm? That was a possibility, but the security specialist had installed the intrusion alarms to avoid rabbits and coyotes. Of course, the intruder could be an innocent hiker. Flint groaned. The mountain presented security problems that he suspected would give him fits.

Inside the security room, he turned off the alarm and studied the monitor tied to the camera feeds directed at mountain. Nothing. A mouse click switched the monitor to a different camera, and Flint spotted the interloper. He dialed the camera for a close-up.

Middle-aged, non-descript, certainly not an assassin — maybe, Flint thought. Why is he crouching? Fuck, he's studying the compound. He might not be an assassin, but he could be a reconnaissance asset.

Flint reached for a microphone, turned it on, selected the speakers he wanted to use that had been installed on the rear wall, and said into the microphone, "You on the mountain. You're on private property. Leave immediately or you'll be arrested for trespassing."

A lie. David didn't own the mountain, but perhaps the interloper wouldn't know that. Flint watched as the man stood up, held up his empty hands, turned and walked away. Flint adjusted the camera to a wide-angle shot and kept his eyes on the man until he disappeared from the monitor.

"Not good," he muttered as he retrieved the videotape that had recorded the event. "At least I've got the asshole's picture."

"Mr. Hershey," Noel Perry said into a pay phone, "whatever you were paid for those contracts, you weren't paid enough." He described what he'd seen and experienced that morning in minute detail.

Pete Hershey groaned and said, "Is there anything else you can do?"

"I can stop by a mapping service and buy some aerial photographs of the estate, and perhaps I can acquire building plans from the city's building-permit department, but I can do neither until Monday."

"What about surveillance when a vehicle leaves the estate?" Hershey asked.

"Possibly, but not me. They captured my face on video cameras, Mr. Hershey. I should make myself scarce."

"Return on the next flight. Write up your report while you're in the air. I'll send someone else to acquire the aerial photography and building plans, and I'll order in a full physical surveillance team. If the targets can't be taken inside the estate, maybe we can take them when they leave."

"Yes, sir," Perry said and hung up.

"What was that alarm about?" Nora asked Flint. She grinned. "The alarm and your voice blasting out toward the mountain threatening someone with arrest?"

He told her, and with the answers to the questions she asked, when he finished speaking she knew as much as he about the incident. She's an excellent interrogator, he thought.

"Give me a copy of the videotape," she said. "I'll see what I can do about identifying the man on the mountain."

"Will do," Flint said. He'd frankly not even considered using the awesome forensic capability of the FBI in his security effort. He'd keep the possibility in mind for future needs.

"Wanna see the new armored limo?" he asked.

Nora grinned. "Sure. We'll use it to drive to the ranch this afternoon. David, Darla and I are going riding."

He frowned, which made Nora laugh.

She said, "As a guess, you just experienced the angst of a protector when the protected announces that he wants to go on with his life in a normal fashion."

He smiled. "Good guesser."

"You're welcome to join us on our ride, Flint," she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "On the horses, anyway," she added.

"Tease," he quipped.

"Always," she said. "Patty will be joining us."

"I hope you're teasing about that," Flint said, his expression and tone of voice suddenly serious.

"Nope," Nora said. "I mentioned horseback riding, and that little girl got so excited I thought she was going to pee her panties. I'll go armed on the ride to the ranch, ride shotgun for you, so to speak, and you can have our back door checked to make sure we're not followed. On the return trip, we'll be stopping by the hospital to visit Vince. We'll be fine, Flint."

"Easy for you to say," he said. Still, he had to admit that Nora riding shotgun for him did provide some comfort.

"How big is that limo?" Nora asked. "Mom and Pops will be returning with us?" She grinned. "After hearing raves about June's cuisine, they want to find out if we exaggerated."

Flint groaned and shook his head. "It's not a stretch, party limo with a hot tub, Nora. It was designed for short-trip, urban transportation for a high-level drug dealer who got busted. Besides the driver and shotgun seat, it seats four."

"That'll work. We'll buckle Patty in on David's lap. He won't mind, and I know Patty won't. She's madly in love with my husband."

Flint laughed. "Her, and every other female he meets."