The Call of Bravery

Duncan’s footsteps retreated. Eventually he came back with a bag of frozen vegetables and a washcloth to wrap it in. He said, “There’s a lot of blood in the bathroom,” and Con shrugged.

“Nose,” he mumbled, and grabbed for the bag as it slipped.

“Don’t suppose you want to tell me what it was about.”

He shook his head.

“Did Dad do this to you?” Duncan’s voice had changed a while back to sounding almost like a man’s. Now it was so hard, so unforgiving, that change was complete. “Or Mom?”

“No,” Con whispered, wincing when he realized one of his teeth was loose. He wriggled it with his tongue.

“I saw the kitchen.”

“They were fighting. This was a couple of guys.”

Duncan sighed. His weight compressed the edge of the bed as he sat. “You know, you can run away instead of getting into it every time.”

Conall shook his head.

“Sometimes it’s better to be smart than brave.”

He got it, he really did. But…there wasn’t much to him. Pride was about it. If he ran, he wouldn’t even have that. He wasn’t like his big brother.

He told himself he didn’t care, and almost believed it.

Conall shrugged again. Duncan tried to talk to him for a bit, then finally gave up and went away.

Alone again, Con realized that today, for the first time, not caring was easy.

CHAPTER ONE

DOMINGO GARCIA STAGGERED toward the storefront and artistically fell against the large window, which shivered from the blow but didn’t break. He slid to a sitting position on the sidewalk.

Crouching on a concrete staircase dropping to a basement apartment not thirty feet away, Conall MacLachlan watched with admiration. Garcia played a homeless guy like no one else; Conall didn’t even want to know what he’d rolled in to make him stink like that. The sacky army fatigue jacket did a great job of hiding a bulletproof vest.

As they’d hoped, the steel door to the storefront slammed open. Two big men appeared, one with a snarling Rottweiler on a leash, the other using his body to prop open the door.

Clutching his bottle of cheap wine in a brown paper bag, Garcia peered blearily at them. “Hey, dudes.” He pretended to look alarmed. “Your dog won’t bite me, will he?”

The handler laughed and told Garcia in obscene terms that yes, indeed, the Rottweiler would rip him to shreds if he didn’t move on.

Garcia whimpered and got to his hands and knees, coincidentally a few feet closer to the door and the dog’s frothing muzzle. Then he demonstrated his one true talent. Everyone had to have one. Garcia’s was handier than most, however, for a special agent with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. He could puke at will, assuming he’d primed his stomach in advance. Conall had sat with him an hour ago while he consumed two huge burritos in green sauce at a little Mexican joint a few blocks away.

Now, with sound effects and spectacular retching, he brought them back up. Vomit spattered the dog handler’s shoes and pant legs; even the Rottweiler backed up in alarm. Garcia managed to drop the wine bottle and shatter it, adding to the mess and stench. The other guy swore. All their attention was on the stinking pool of vomit and the seemingly drunken homeless man crawling on the sidewalk. The dog whined and scrabbled backward toward the door.

Conall murmured into his transmitter, “Now,” and moved, coming in fast while Johnny Harris did the same from the other direction. At the same time Garcia sprang to his feet, his Sig Pro pistol in his hand.

“Drop your weapons! This is a police raid. Drop them now!”

Conall slammed the doorkeeper to the sidewalk and went in first, low and fast. Garcia leaped over the dog and was on his heels. Reinforcements sprang from a van parked halfway down the block and within seconds were on the two guards, dragging them away from the window glass in case of flying bullets before cuffing them.

The interior was poorly lit, the window having been covered with butcher paper, the bare overhead bulb maybe forty watts. Two men burst from a rear hallway, firing as they came. Conall took one out with his Glock while Garcia brought down the other. They kicked weapons away and plunged down the hall. The back of the store was the drug distribution facility; the guys packaging coke were already wild-eyed at the spray of bullets and had their hands up before Conall went through the door.

Garcia and Harris checked out the bathroom and office while Conall kept his gun on the pathetic trio in front of him. Within moments, other agents arrived to cuff and arrest.

It was all over but the cleanup. Conall’s experienced eye weighed and measured the packets of cocaine, leaving him disappointed. They wouldn’t be taking anywhere near as much off the street as they’d hoped. Either this operation was more small-time than they’d realized, or a shipment was due and their timing had sucked.

That was life, he thought philosophically, holstering his weapon.

And I’m bored out of my frigging skull.

As he all too often seemed to be these days.

* * *

LIA WOODS SAT on the middle cushion of the sofa, a boy perched stiffly to each side of her, and watched Transformers. She’d seen bits and pieces of it before; Walker and Brendan were addicted. This was the first time she’d sat down with the intention of watching beginning to end.

In her opinion, the movies were too violent for the boys at eight and ten, especially as traumatized as they were. But their mother had given them both the first two Transformers movies on DVD, and Lia couldn’t criticize Mom, even by implication. Not when she’d died only three days ago.

Besides, she could see the appeal of the movies to the boys. Chaos erupts, and regular, nerdy guy seizes control and ultimately triumphs. The fantasy must be huge for two boys who’d now lost both parents, who had no idea what would happen to them. For them, it was a fantasy worth clinging to.

The sound of a car engine outside made her frown. People didn’t drop in on her unexpectedly. Her farmhouse on ten acres was reached by a dead-end gravel road she shared with five other houses. Only one was past hers. There were new neighbors there, renters, Lia thought. She hadn’t tried to get to know them. She’d as soon keep her distance from all her neighbors, and was glad the men she’d seen coming and going weren’t friendly.

Or nosy.

This car, though, had definitely turned in her driveway. She touched each of the boys reassuringly and murmured, “I’d better go see who’s here.”

Walker turned his head enough to gaze blankly at her before looking back at the TV; Brendan kept staring as if she hadn’t spoken.

Lia left them in the living room and paused at the foot of the stairs, listening. Quiet. Arturo and Julia must still be asleep. Thirteen-year-old Sorrel was most likely lying on her bed listening to her iPod, or prowling the internet on Lia’s laptop. Maybe harmless, maybe not, but Lia couldn’t watch her 24/7. She could and would check later to see what websites Sorrel had visited.

Outside, a car door slammed. She opened the front door and had a freezing moment of panic. The dark sedan, shiny except for a thin coat of dust from her road, was clearly government issue, as was the man walking toward her, wearing a suit, white shirt and tie. If he was from Immigration, she was screwed. There was no time to hide Arturo and Julia.

He paused at the foot of the stairs. “Ms. Woods?”

“Yes.” She stepped onto the porch and drew the door mostly closed behind her. “What can I do for you?”

He was a large man, in his late forties or early fifties at a guess, with a receding hairline and the beginning of a paunch. “I’m with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. I’d like to talk to you.”

Lia knew she was gaping. “To me?”

He smiled. “You’re not under suspicion, I promise you. I’m hoping that you can help us.”

“Help you.” She must sound like an idiot, but…wow. She’d never even smoked marijuana. Excessive drinking had been a way bigger problem in her high school than drug use. Her crowd in college hadn’t been into drugs, either. Was there any chance he was lying and really with Immigration after all?

“May I explain?” he said.

She blinked. “Yes, sure. Why don’t you— Actually, let’s stay out here on the porch. Give me a moment to check on the kids.”