Ring of Fire (2 page)

When Erin put up her hand and started to protest, Nate shook his head.

“Save it, hotstuff. We
are
going to bring our own twenty first century civil war to a close. And we’re gonna send these assholes back to their caves. Let them lick their wounds and think up their next battle to claim a past that never existed. But until we do, Erin, know I’m going to be riding you hard.”

He glanced at the tall black man who was regarding him closely.

“As for you, Sam? You’re gonna need to dig down deep. Go back to basics. Understand who you are in their eyes. Forget all those aristocratic, educated attributes that have been showered upon you. No amount of charm or expertise matters to these pricks. All they care about is that you are a black man and—even worse—that you are my friend. Which means one thing. The only person they’re gonna go after more than Erin is
you
.”

Nate plopped his Oakley’s over his eyes, ignoring the fact that it was three in the morning and the sun wouldn’t be up for hours. He didn’t have to bother. The three people surrounding him knew him only too well. They could see his eyes blazing no matter how dark his shades. Nate hoped that they saw his intent as clearly. His boyhood friends were fighting to shatter everything that mattered to him. They were after his land, his people and his values. But they didn’t stand a chance. Like the scrapheaps of bullies who had enslaved people, and fought world wars to impose their ugly inhumane values, they were history, dead meat. They just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter 2

Nate watched Erin climb up on the fire engine and head back to the station with her squad. He forced himself to accept that she was almost as safe with his cousin Connor as she was with him. Hell, probably more. Connor treated her like the accomplished firefighter that she was instead of a fragile woman, as breakable as a Faberge Easter Egg.

Forcing his thoughts away from Erin, Nate studied the fire site. He tried unsuccessfully to quiet the raging fire ants crawling up the back of his neck.

“What’s jerkin’ a knot in your tail, Nate?”

Dan Coulter, Nate’s long time Lieutenant, never let Nate off the spot. Dan deciphered Nate’s expressions as only a skilled detective could.

“C’mon, Big Dog, what are you sniffing that the rest of us can’t smell?”

Nate huffed out a sigh.

“Hell, Dan. Look around. Not much mystery here. This is penny ante stuff. Who cares about a few scraggly unkempt crack cookers in their trashed hovels? Who the hell bothers with such insignificant crap?”

“You tell me, Nate. Other than one or the other of the kingpins, are you saying there is a smaller underground war taking place as well?”

“No, Dan. This is an example of cleaning up the chum. Getting rid of the scum that’s left, that’s too insignificant to be part of the real enterprise. Blowin’ up a trailer is just a night’s fun for the bag whores. Like shooting fish in a barrel. They hit up the little guys, the ones they call the carpet sharks who are so desperate they comb the carpet for shards when someone spills their baggie.”

Nate sighed, the furrows on his forehead deepened.

“We all know who the kingpins are behind this outrage. As soon as we know whose shit-trailer this is, we’ll know who blew it up. It’s simple. If it belongs to one of Jeb’s sycophants, Cougar’s responsible… and vice versa. That’s what the crack heads pay for. Protection. Latest our C.I. is telling us is that 60% of the little guys’ profits go to their enforcers. And the kingpins hire the enforcers.” Kicking at a still smoldering log, Nate frowned. “No, these bonfires are warnings only. A reminder to the arm-pickers that they better decide whose army they’re on. “

Sam threw Nate a troubled frown. “I don’t get it, Nate. My understanding is that as much of 80 % of the crystal is made outside of the U.S.; primarily in Mexico. Why is it such a big deal here in Northern Minnesota? Surely these small time criminals mostly make it and sell it for the locals.”

“That used to be the case, Sam. And you’re right about the super labs. They are the big producers. And they’re the ones with the equipment and the access to large quantities of the ‘raw materials’. What a lot of people don’t know is that there is an alley from Mexico to Canada that runs right through Northern Minnesota. Our local hotshots figured out that the Cartels will pay big money to get their transports up that alley safely. Hell, ask any Mexican Cartel and they’ll tell you local protection all along the transportation route is the key to mega profits. Besides once the supplies get over the border to the labs it is repackaged in smaller quantities—if you call hundreds of thousands of methamphetamine doses a small quantity. Again, our boys are happy as clams to wait at the border, pick up the smaller doses and send it right back down the trail. Suddenly ‘small producers’ who weeks before were protecting truckloads of supplies now control shitloads of finished product worth millions of dollars on the street. “

“Phew! So they make money coming and going?”

“Damn straight. I’ll admit it. At first I didn’t get the significance of their M.O. I’ve been following Jeb and company for a couple of years—when they were mostly doing the small stuff. But about eighteen months ago we started picking up on rumors that they were thinking about going international. I figured if anyone could it would be Jeb. At that point he and Cougar were working together. And sure as shit the DEA boys sent me evidence that Jeb, in particular, was making a big move.”

Dan interrupted. “But, Nate, you
already
know all of that. I repeat, what’s got you lookin’ at this little bonfire like it’s more than just a good place to roast wienies and marshmallows?”

Nate turned to Sam and shook his head in disgust. “I think Dan’s been with me too long. He’s starting to get as paranoid as I am.”

“From what I’ve seen of your instincts, Nate, they are anything but paranoia.” Sam didn’t couch his admiration. “No, man, if we could package your insights, we could sell them to every police force in the country and become overnight millionaires. So c’mon, Nate. Give the lesser humans among us an inkling of what’s causing the ‘knots in your tail’ as Dan calls it.”

Nate breathed out a deep sigh. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share his thoughts. They were preliminary at best. But he knew he was on to something, something big. Maybe it would help to articulate the mutterings in his head. Damn, Sam was about the smartest guy he’d ever known and Dan had been with him so long that he couldn’t put anything over on him. Maybe talking it through would help.

“Okay. But know I’m thinking out loud, right? Something’s brewing. You’re right Dan, we know these bonfires are small potatoes. But in the last ten days, what have we had? Ten, fifteen fires? Nope—and this is what is interesting. We’ve had twenty–three fires. Remember not only do I keep track of crimes in my bailiwick, but I have a personal interest in fires and the people who are sent to fight them.”

He looked from one to the other of the men who were gazing at him in silence. He was glad he had their attention. He just wished he had more proof that serious danger was in the offing.

“Best I can do is to describe two smart aleck boys getting ready to fight. First one pokes the other, and gets poked in return. Then one moves on to a jostle, just hard enough to throw his pal off balance. The pal returns the favor. And then what happens? It escalates first in taunts then outright threats. Pretty soon, their yahoo buddies on both sides are egging them on. Before you know it there is a fierce brawl and no one is able to stop it—especially the good guys on the sidelines who didn’t understand what was happening.”

Dan’s brow knotted in thought.

“So you think this is the big guys pokin’ at one another, getting ready for a bigger fight?”

“Yeah, Dan, I do. I know both Jeb and Cougar too well to miss their signals. Think about a line of stock cars revving up at the starting line. Yeah, they snort and snarl and blow smoke up each other’s ass, raring to go. But go back for a minute to the brawl metaphor. What if after knocking each other down a couple of times and the blood is flowing, one of the fighters flashes a knife and the other responds with a gun. Before you know it someone on the sidelines pulls a sawed off shotgun and I’ll be damned if some other runt doesn’t yank out an AK-47. And what do ya know? Damned if we’re not off to the races.”

“So, what’s next, Nate? And more important what are we gonna do to stop it?”

Nate shrugged and grinned.

“Now dude, if I knew that I really
would
be as brilliant as I try to convince you that I am. No, Dan, I’m not sure what Jeb and Cougar are up to. I do know that just as when we were kids, no matter how many times we fought—and hell, that’s what we did for daily exercise—no one stopped until the other two cried uncle. Most times that took broken noses, a hell of a lot of blood and a few dozen men in blue to break us up.”

Nate’s grin left his face as quickly as it came as he realized how familiar the scene in his mind was.

“It’s weird, but we may be lining up for a similar brawl. And in the strangest way, the players are the same. Jeb is the cocky one. Yeah, even cockier than me. Cougar seems more thoughtful but only because no one is quicker on the draw than Jeb. No one except me of course.”

He chuckled and his grin was heartfelt this time around.

“But hot damn, if anyone had told me years ago that I would be leading the men in blue to stop the fight I’d have laughed in their faces.”

Nate shook his head.

“Now if only along the way, my old buddies hadn’t bought into the most hideous philosophy I know, that of the fucking white supremacists, I’d be resting a little easier. In addition to engaging in an industry that preys on the weak, and has given them a degree of wealth neither of them could ever have imagined, they are out to settle scores. Blessed with self-righteous rage at a country that allows them to spew their hate speech along with their bullets, they apparently don’t see the irony of their actions or their beliefs.”

Turning to the guy who’d become nearly as close to him as his cousins, Nate apologized.

“I’m damned sorry you are going to be involved in this, Sam. We’ve dealt with racist shit all of our lives. Hell, we’re surrounded by reservations and the Indians have always had to put up with the assholes who think a different shade to your skin that isn’t a suntan makes you less human. Or less than human. But Sam, a righteous guy like you, who is my second in command? What can I say, except you’re gonna have to watch your six like you never have before.”

Sam broke in with a snort.

“Don’t pull any punches, Nate. You think I haven’t heard the trash talk? Hell, I’ve listened to it all my life. Why would it be any different here in Northern Minnesota? Except that you’re right, Nate. Being connected to you doesn’t help my reputation with the racist assholes. It’s bad enough who you are in your own right. But the word is out. The badass detective has gone one better. Now, he’s teamed up with an uppity nigger! And hell, let’s put it all on the table. Adding insult to their assumed injury, it doesn’t help that the woman I’m in love with, and who loves me back, is a gorgeous blonde Swede. The only thing that could be more damning is if Annika were German. Hell, I doubt I’d be standing here today with all my essential body parts intact if she were.”

“I wish I could disagree, Sam. To say none of that matters. But, we both know that it does. The worst part of it is that I haven’t figured out yet what Jeb and Cougar have planned for us—or for each other. All I know is that it’s bad, and this town and all of us are going to have to pay the price to find out.”

Sam nodded in agreement.

“What’s the next step, boss?”

Nate guffawed.

“Why Sam, I think it’s time you met some of the kids I hung out with until two of them ended up in jail and I went off to college on a basketball scholarship. And if you think that didn’t cause some upset, you haven’t seen what the rats left in the outhouse do to the one who escaped if they ever get their teeth on him again.”

Chapter 3

Erin heard him come into their bedroom and roused up to watch him undress. Nate was stealthy, obviously not wanting to wake her. She smiled to herself. Many times she’d look up and see him watching her when she had thought he was sleeping. Without fail, lust gleamed in his eyes. Now she understood why. There was something profoundly erotic about being a voyeur. Watching her gorgeous lover lost in thought strip off his clothes had her wide awake eager to see each part of his glorious body bared to her hungry gaze.

Nate took a long pull on the frosty bottle of beer he was holding in his hand and put it down on the bedside table. With a sigh, he unhooked the shoulder holster that held his regulation Sig and laid it on the end table by the sofa. Erin had noticed at the fire site that he was wearing a rig. That was unusual. As cocky as he was, Nate usually didn’t bother to show muscle. Instead he tucked a gun in the back of his jeans and relied on the one in his boot for backup. But tonight he must have been sensing a threat, one he took seriously. Erin watched him put his back-up Ruger and knife next to the rig, then tossed the badge that he wore on his jeans’ pocket on top of the heap. With that move he put aside the badass cop and became one hot-assed man.

Slowly unfastening one button at a time, Nate turned away from her as he stripped off his shirt. As much as she loved the front of him, his back was a work of art. Erin thought of all the famous sculptures she’d studied in museums and knew that she’d never seen a back as gorgeous as Nate’s. His shoulders were broad and heavily muscled. Sculpted by his torturous workouts, his muscles rippled and gleamed in the soft light of the lamp. His back narrowed to his waist without an inch of fat along the way to spoil the view. He toed off his metal studded boots and bent over to yank off his socks. She couldn’t squelch her gasp at the sight of his hard butt outlined in his jeans. It was only when he turned around that she saw his quirky grin and realized she’d given herself away.

Nate winked at her and then unbuttoned the top button on his jeans.

His voice was low and sent shivers of desire shooting between her legs.