Finally Rourke loaded all the bugs into a small bag and carried them out to the bed of the pickup truck.

He came back inside grinning. “He was efficient,” he mused. “But the work was just a little sloppy. I suppose he thought your man might show up sooner than he expected,” he told Tank.

“A good thing he didn’t,” Tank replied. “There might have been trouble.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Rourke added. He smiled at Merissa. “Everything is fine,” he told her when he saw her expression. “Most people wouldn’t have suspected him of foul play. He seems to be quite good at disguise.”

“He was polite and he had nice manners,” Merissa said heavily, sitting down at her desk. “I didn’t even realize...”

“Hold it,” Rourke said. He had an instrument in his hand and it was flashing. He motioned Merissa out of her chair. He got down on one knee, looked under the desk and extricated a small device.

“Hi, pal,” Rourke said into it. “Sorry about the earache, mate.” And he smashed the device with his shoe. He chuckled. “Missed that one. He’ll have a hell of an earache, I hope.”

Merissa ground her teeth together. She wasn’t used to espionage of any kind, and it disturbed her. The man had rung alarm bells in her head, but she hadn’t felt that intuitive something that told her the whole situation was wrong. That was unusual. But, then, her gift was sporadic, which was why it was so difficult for scientists to accept the validity of such unusual abilities.

“I should have seen it, though,” she pointed out.

“You’re not infallible,” Tank said fondly, and with a smile. “I don’t mind. It makes you more like the rest of us. We make mistakes, too.”

“Seen what?” Rourke asked, frowning.

Tank hesitated. “She sees things. She knows things before they happen,” he said reluctantly.

“Ah, yes.” Rourke wasn’t weirded out. He just smiled. “I have this old chap who works for me, on my place in South Africa. He has a gift like that. I learned long ago to listen when he made warnings.”

Merissa was fascinated. “You don’t think I curdle milk, then?”

He burst out laughing. “Not at all. I’m rather used to psychic phenomena. Africa is a place of the supernatural, you know. We’re surrounded by it. Many of the native people still cling to old beliefs and ancient ways. They’re wiser than we are. We think we own the world. They know we don’t, that there are forces far more powerful than our modern devices.”

She was fascinated. “I’ve always loved reading about Africa. There are webcams all over that you can plug into and watch wildlife in real time.”

He nodded.

“It’s very nice for people who can’t go there,” she said. Her eyes took on a merry gleam. “And there’s always YouTube,” she added. “I’ve been to all sorts of mysterious places through the eyes of personal video cameras.”

“Why would he plant bugs here?” Tank asked suddenly.

Rourke glanced at him. “Because he knows you have an interest...here.”

Tank felt sick to his stomach. He looked at Clara and Merissa, recalled the anguish they’d been through at the hands of Merissa’s brutal father. Now he was putting them in danger, just by being close to them.

Merissa walked up to him and looked up into his eyes. “Some things happen because it’s part of a plan, one we don’t know about, can’t know about. Life is a test. Life is lessons. People come into our lives at certain times, for certain reasons.”

“Predestination,” Rourke mused, nodding his head.

“Well, sort of,” she faltered. “I mean, the future isn’t set in stone. I think it can be changed by decisions we make. But I think there’s some overall plan for our lives. We call it God,” she said, nodding toward her mother. “Other people call it fate or luck or chance. But I do believe in it.”

“So do I,” Tank replied, and looked deeply into her eyes for so long that she flushed a little.

“Did you say anything in here that you would have minded him hearing?” Rourke interrupted, looking from one woman to the other.

“Nothing at all.” Clara laughed. “Just general conversation.”

Merissa nodded. She didn’t want to remind Clara that they’d been talking about her father. But that wasn’t what the shadowy eavesdropper was interested in. He wanted to know about Tank, about his movements, where he was, what he was doing. He was planning tragedy for Tank, not for Merissa and Clara. So she kept her silence.

“We’d better go,” Rourke said.

Tank nodded. He touched Merissa’s cheek with his finger. “Don’t worry, everything’s back to the way it was.”

“He did a pretty good job on the wiring, coincidentally,” Rourke told them. “If he hadn’t added the bugs at the same time, I’d call it perfect.”

“He wasn’t expecting a surveillance expert to check his work, I imagine,” Tank said, tongue-in-cheek. “Oh, Greg’s going to mend your squirrel and truck him up north to release him,” he added. He smiled. “The little guy’s going to be fine.”

“Thank goodness.” She sighed.

Tank lifted his forefinger. “No saving snakes.”

She put up both hands, palm out, and grinned. “It’s winter. No snakes to save.”

“Good point.”

He followed Rourke down the steps and into the truck. He waved as they drove off.

“Saving snakes?” Rourke queried.

Tank chuckled. “That’s a story and a half. Let me tell you about it.” He did, all the way home. Rourke almost fell out of the truck laughing.

* * *

MERISSA WORRIED ABOUT the conversation she and her mother’d had—the one about her father. She knew the criminals weren’t going to be concerned with her, but it disturbed her that they’d mentioned her father’s employer, and his location.

“You don’t surely think they’d call him for some reason?” Merissa wondered aloud, having explained her fears to her mother.

“Sweetheart, why would they?” Clara asked reasonably. “They don’t have any quarrel with us.”

“They wired our house...”

“To get information about Dalton,” Clara said sadly. “I’m sorry about that, but it doesn’t put us on the firing line. They’re just desperate for any tidbits on his movements. It doesn’t concern us.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Merissa replied.

“Of course I am. Want to watch the news with me?” she asked.

Merissa shook her head. “I think I’ll work for a while.”

She smiled. “Good idea. Take your mind off things.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

She went into her small office and sat down at the desk.

* * *

TANK WAS WATCHING the news when the doorbell rang. He was alone at the house. The wives had returned home, and then they had all flown to Denver for a cattle show. It had been planned for a while, but it was a good thing, under the circumstances. Tank had worried about having family members in the way, in case the rogue agent made a move.

Christmas was a few days in the future, but he didn’t mind being by himself. Rourke was around, and so were plenty of cowboys. It wasn’t as if he was alone. Now that the snowfall had stopped, there was a window that allowed them out of town. At least, temporarily.

Mavie opened the door to two gentlemen wearing dark suits. One was slender and olive-skinned with long black hair in a ponytail. The other was blond with dark eyes. Both were unsmiling.

She raised her eyebrows and looked wary. “We haven’t seen any flying saucers.”

They burst out laughing at the “men in black” assumption. She grinned. “Can I help you?”

“We’re here to see Dalton Kirk. Is he in?” the dark-haired one asked politely.

“Yes. Come in out of the cold.”

Dalton, hearing voices, came into the hall. He frowned. Were these more of the bogus fed’s accomplices?

“I’m Jon Blackhawk, Senior FBI agent from San Antonio, Texas,” the dark-haired one said politely. “This—” he indicated his companion “—is Garon Grier, he’s SAC at my office.” They both produced credentials for his inspection. He handed them back.

“SAC?” Dalton asked, frowning.

“Senior Agent in Charge,” Garon replied. He smiled. It looked as if he didn’t do it often. “We heard about your visitor. We’d like to talk to you. We’re friends of Sheriff Hayes Carson, from Jacobs County. He’s involved in a case we’re working.”

“Come in and have a seat,” Dalton said, leading them to the living room. He turned off the television. “Mavie, can you bring coffee, please?”

“Certainly. It’ll be right up,” she said politely.

The two men sat down on the sofa, facing Dalton in his easy chair. “We’ve done some checking,” Blackhawk said. “I know this is an unpleasant memory for you to revisit, but we need to speak to you about what happened when you worked for the Border Patrol in Arizona.”

Dalton took a breath and managed a faint smile. “Not a subject I revisit often,” he agreed. “But I can tell you what I remember.”

“Please,” Grier added.

“There was a man. I’d forgotten until a friend of mine—” he didn’t name Merissa or the circumstances under which she knew about the man “—brought it up. There was a DEA agent who came to me about a possible incursion in my territory. He said a shipment of narcotics was being brought across by men in paramilitary uniforms and he needed assistance to stop them.” His eyes narrowed with memory. “He was in an unmarked car. I was in my patrol vehicle. I followed him to the site. It was dark, but there was a full moon, so I could see the movement. I got out of my vehicle and when I saw the perpetrators, I realized that I needed backup. But when I went to call it in, he stopped me. He said that he had other agents in place, I just needed to go in with him to support them.”