There’d been no sign of being tracked when they were up the mountain checking out the C-4 sample, and that should have been pretty obvious. She hadn’t been home for more than an hour when R.J. called, so if the DHS people were back at their hotel, there’d be no way they could have tracked her to El Paso.
“We’re too close, we’re too close,” she said aloud.
Then R.J. called back. “They’re at the hotel. Their car is there.”
“Man! That’s like you lifted a boulder off my back.”
“Yes. Still, I don’t know where they went down I-20...”
“Maybe... I dunno. At least they’re not on top of me.”
“If you’re really under heavy surveillance, there’d be more than one set of watchers. But that’s not the feeling I’ve gotten from talking to the guys up at Midland. After Dan Tanner got hurt, the murder investigation was taken over by another guy and I talked to him about the case. He said the DHS guys signed their statements and never came back.”
“I hope you were careful about talking to the cop.”
“Oh, sure. His old lady runs a bar up there, and I knew he usually goes there at night. I went up there and played it like I was just bumping into him and was interested because of Dan Tanner getting bit by that dog.”
“Okay. Okay, that’s good. If anything comes up...”
“I can’t watch them full-time. You really ought to have somebody who can.”
“Let me think about that,” Hawkes said.
She didn’t have to think about it, because if Coffey came through that night with the C-4, she’d freeze everybody in place, and then... bang!
Max Sawyer arrivedat nine o’clock, got out of his Jeep, looked up and down the street, moved his AR-15, wrapped in a blanket to obscure its outline, into the garage. “You hear from Coffey?”
“Not yet. He’s supposed to show up at ten o’clock if he gets the stuff without a problem, or call if there is a problem.”
“You gonna pay him the rest?”
“If he’s got the stuff. But we might have another problem.” Hawkes told him about the DHS people showing up in Monahans at the same time she was there.
“You know what? R.J. says he doesn’t know exactly what theywere watching. I bet they were watching my place. But I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Then why did they go south on I-20? Unless...”
“What?”
Hawkes said, “I was out at the shed a couple nights ago and thought maybe somebody had been in there and was sneaking out the back when I got there. I really... felt somebody. I even fired off some shots down the creek bed, with Terry’s AR, but I never saw anybody. I thought maybe I was imagining things. I sorta thought it might be a woman and I guess this DHS guy has got a woman assistant...”
“I don’t think she’s his assistant. I think she might be running the show,” Sawyer said. “She’s mean as a snake. Knows a lot about guns. Pulled this little Sig nine on me after that cop got bit by Rooter. When things cooled down, I asked her if she’d have shot me. She said ‘yes.’ Something about her... I believed her.”
“If it was her, then they know about the tanker,” Hawkes said. “They might have followed it, they might know about Winks.”
“Ah, boy.”
“So I need to warn Terry and Vic off,” Hawkes said.
“You want me to take care of Winks?” Sawyer asked.
“Think you can?”
“Sure. Happy to do it, and we’ll have to do it sometime, anyway,” Sawyer said. “I’ll tell him we need to meet this morning, before the next delivery. Nothing much out there at three o’clock in the morning. Good spot for me to take him out.”
“Consider the possibility,” Hawkes said. “We’re so close... You better move your Jeep around the corner, where Coffee won’t see it... And hey, I’m really sorry about Rooter, him getting shot. I liked that dog.”
“Me, too. I’ll fix Tanner’s clock someday, when enough time has passed.”
