Texas Showdown Read Free

then at Blancanales. "Might have to change your nose a little," he said. "Add a couple of scars." He looked at Brognola. "How did you... arrange this?"
    "We didn't murder this man..." Brognola protested.
    "It's more complicated than that," Blancanales explained. "The Feds have an informer in a gang. The informer gave us this information about Marchardo getting a Texas offer. So we hired Marchardo to bodyguard a drug shipment, so that we can watch him, monitor his phone conversations..."
    "The Feds?" Lyons shook his head. "Now the Feds are running drugs? They need money that bad?"
    "Lyons, it's a scam, honest," Brognola told him.
    "Best way to know the trade is to get in the trade," Blancanales continued. "And it works out. Now we take the shipment north, Marchardo makes his connection in the Caribbean, and he — that's me — goes back to Texas with you two as the other two guys in the routine last night. Perfect."
    "How well do people know Marchardo?" Gadgets asked Brognola. "The Pol looks like him, but does he sound like him? Does he act like him? If Marchardo has friends in Texas..."
    "We don't know about the friends," Brognola admitted, "but the physical aspects are right. We intended to switch Blancanales for Marchardo, so we videotaped him, sound-taped him, everything."
    "Do they know what happened?" Lyons pointed at the corpse. "I mean, he has friends there, and they're in mourning, and then the Man himself shows up..."
    "That is one thing we're positive of," Brognola stressed. "No one knows of Mr. Marchardo's demise."
    "Whoever had the shotgun knows," Lyons said.
    "We already checked that. All he knows is that he killed a hood with a pistol. No one stayed around to check id. No one knows Marchardo's dead. Positively no one."
    "I hope so." Lyons looked down at the corpse. "Otherwise we will be positively dead."
    "Nah," said Brognola softly. "The real danger is the Caribbean connection coming up. We got two agents in it already. You're gonna have to watch your pretty asses up there, all of you."
    * * *
    Jorge waited in the shadows of the doorway. He hoped the four men would leave the old house before the afternoon light faded. He already had photos of the four as they entered the La Paz house, but he wanted more. He had reloaded the camera so that the second set of photos would be on different negatives. It was important. It meant money.
    Now that his fear had passed, he could think of the money. When the colonel called the night before with the orders, Jorge thought the job only routine. Wait in the doorway until men from a drug gang went to the house... A simple job. Nothing difficult.
    There had been a shooting at one in the morning. All the people on the street knew that. He bought that information when he arrived an hour later, though they would have told him for nothing. Then the waiting began. The night passed.
    Would they return? He waited from two in the morning, shivering all through the night in the doorway. Day came and with it, fear. What if he had slept on his feet and not seen them? What if they had tricked him and gone over the roof? What if he had to tell the colonel that they did not return? The colonel did not like excuses. Soldiers who made excuses never became officers.
    Now, he had a future. He had the photos. First, the two North Americans. Then the two who looked Mexican. Or Cuban. European? It did not matter.
    He had the photos. Others would identify the gangsters.
    But the second roll of film meant money. Perhaps enough for a motor scooter, or a television, perhaps a new parade uniform.
    Voices! Jorge braced his shoulder against the wall and found the opposite doorway through the view-finder. He pressed himself far back in the doorway, waiting until the first North American appeared.
    The motorized 35 mm camera caught the gangsters as they emerged. Full face, profiles, hand gestures, each man with the others in a group. Jorge took thirty-six exposures in a minute. Then the men got into a