The Mission War Read Online Free

pride had been battered and he was determined to make someone pay for it.
    â€œI heard you. I am going,” Ki said.
    He turned toward his horse and Carlos struck. He kicked out savagely, driving his boot behind Ki’s knee. The pain was excruciating. Ki’s knee buckled and he fell to the ground, skidding on his face. His leg filled with fire.
    He came automatically to his feet, assuming an aggressive stance, but there was nothing he could do. There were too many of them, and Carlos, his eyes narrowing at Ki’s poised body, at the hands held loosely yet menacingly before him, lifted a rifle and cocked it, aiming at Ki’s chest.
    â€œWhat is this?” Mono demanded. The bandit leader stormed to where Carlos stood peering down the sights of his Winchester repeater at Ki’s heart.
    â€œHe tried to attack me,” Carlos said.
    â€œWell, shoot him then. I won’t have that.” Mono might have been giving the order to swat a fly.
    â€œIt wasn’t like that,” another voice said.
    Mono turned to find Diego Cardero, smiling and with a cigar between his teeth, standing there.
    â€œWhat did you say?” the bearded bandit leader demanded.
    â€œCarlos is a liar. He kicked the man because he needed to kick something. A dog would have served his purpose. Carlos is a small man. He is still angry because the American woman kicked him in the face.”
    Mono looked from one man to the other, from the assured, handsome face of Diego Cardero to the bruised face of Carlos who still stood, finger on the trigger.
    â€œAh, do what you want,” the bandit leader said in disgust. “My head hurts.” Then Mono walked away heavily, leaving Diego and Carlos.
    â€œLeave him alone,” Diego said.
    â€œTell me why, Cardero.”
    â€œWe need the man.”
    â€œHis head.”
    â€œWe need the man. I am telling you that, me, Diego Cardero.”
    Diego seemed not to have moved, not to have quit smiling. But now Carlos could see that Diego’s hand was resting on the butt of his holstered revolver and that the dark eyes of the man had grown cold and threatening.
    Carlos hesitated. “What do I care about the Chinaman,” he said at last. But he did care. It was the second time in two days that he had been shown up: once on account of the woman, once on account of the Chinaman. Carlos wasn’t the kind to forget that.
    They would both die. And so perhaps would Diego Cardero.
    Ki watched the Mexican walk away, watched the swagger and stiffness of him. That was not the end of trouble with Carlos, he knew.
    Diego was still watching Ki. “Better get on your horse,” he said.
    Ki nodded. Just for a moment their eyes met and Ki sensed something. He knew already that this one was not like the others. There was a soul behind those eyes—perhaps a dark, killing soul, but some sort of spirit lived within the bandit.
    Maybe that would help. Maybe.
    Ki swung aboard his horse and had his hands lashed to the pommel. Jessie was kept well away from him so that there was no chance of communication.
    Mono clambered aboard his roan heavily and sat there with a pained expression on his face. He looked around scowling and then said, “Let’s go. There is gold waiting and we have a long ride ahead of us.”
    They rode slowly from the clearing then, the day growing hot as the sun rose to torture the desert and its inhabitants. Buzzards sailed high against a white sky and Ki glanced at them hoping they were not a foreboding.
    They rode silently, slowly, through the long dusty arroyos and across the red desert flats, riding deeper into Mexico, farther toward the cartel lieutenant, Kurt Brecht, who wanted their heads.
    And behind them the lone man followed like a phantom, invisible to all but Ki who could only speculate and wonder.

Chapter 3
    They rode deeper into Mexico, the sun always present, glaring and white. To their right a low line of chalky mountains lifted