The Ranch

"I understand how you feel. But we still have to ask the hard questions and investigate everything. Please?"

"Alright," Marie submitted. "But I don't like it."

"That, too, is obvious. Did he cheat on you and that's the reason for your divorce?"

"That's not exactly why I divorced him. He wasn't cheating on me at the time. But there had been a time in the past when things got out of control for him and a woman. He wasn't actively seeing her at the time of the divorce, but he did love her.

"Who was she?"

Marie hesitated before answering. "Please be kind," she finally pleaded. "She has had a rough time. She was raped when she was younger, and it affected the way a lot of people treated her. That includes her husband who she wasn't married to at the time of the rape."

There was a pause as Diane most likely stared at Mrs., Garner waiting for more. John could imagine it as he had seen her use that stare a number of times in other interviews

"Her name was Sarah Michaels," Marie began again. "When she was seventeen, she was asked to babysit Julien Evans by his mother Britney. Britney's husband, Sean, raped her, taking her virginity and getting her pregnant all at the same time. The whole town knew about the event. How could they not? Many speculated that it was possible that Sarah wasn't really raped, but was having it off with the guy. He and Britney had an open relationship, so it was a possibility. But Sarah was working on schoolwork and using a tape recorder to take notes. The whole episode was caught on tape. The gossips stopped their caterwauling when that fact came out. It was Roy who had to make the arrest, of course. And there has been bad blood between the two families ever since.

"Sarah was dating Mark Nelson, Roy's brother at the time, and there were plans to marry in the future. So, he stepped up and Sarah Michaels became Sarah Nelson before she was even showing that she was pregnant. The child she was carrying could have been Mark's and come early, but people knew. Jeremiah was sired by Sean Evans and was being raised as the son of Mark Nelson. They never told the boy about his true heritage, either.

"But Mark was certainly no angel. At the start of their marriage, it was already noticeable that he harbored some resentment towards the boy. He started drinking and it only got worse later on. Two years after Jeremiah was born, Sarah gave birth to a girl. Lisa. If anyone were to check, DNA would verify that Mark is related to the girl, but it was Roy who was her real father."

"You know this for a fact?" Diane queried.

"Yes."

"Roy told you about it?"

"No. His mother did. I don't know why, but she took a great dislike to Sarah. Just about every night, Roy was picking Mark up at the Desperado bar and driving him home. One night, he and Sarah got the drunk fool into bed and left him passed out. As she walked Roy out, she started crying. She had lost her virginity by having it ripped from her by being raped, and the man she loved could only cope with it by getting drunk every night. It was a real mess. Roy stayed awhile to comfort her and one thing led to another and they ended up having sex. Neither one of them knew that Sylvia was home and saw them. She came to me and tried to tell me that Sarah was after Roy like, quote, the hussy she was, unquote, and it was all her fault. I knew better. I didn't have any trouble believing that the event would have happened, but I knew that Sarah wasn't like my mother-in-law described. She wasn't the bad person that Sylvia wanted to make her out to be."

"That's what led to the divorce?"

"Indirectly," Marie answered then paused. "There was a fire."

"Yes. We have the records about that. In fact, we have quite a few questions about it."

"Roy wasn't allowed to investigate it himself because he was too close. But he was kept in the loop. He always said that he thought the fire was a decoy. He suggested that someone was trying to frame his brother for something and the way they were doing it was to burn down the stable. I never understood that. Anyway, after the fire, Mark sent Jeremiah away and Roy spent a lot more time at the ranch seeing to it that Mark wasn't going to treat Lisa the way he had been treating Jeremiah. He wanted to be sure his daughter wasn't a punching bag like Jeremiah was. And I'm sure he was still in love with Sarah, too. He just wasn't acting on it. I, on the other hand, was not getting any of his attention. That's what led to the divorce."

"You said the fire was a way to frame Mark. Who would have wanted to frame him?"

"The only ones I can think of that would want that was the Evans'. But I don't understand how burning down the stable could frame Mark for anything."

John hit the stop button. The Evans'? Would Julien kill his own father? Would Britney have killed him? She had divorced him after the trial but she had kept his name. Would she kill him years later? If so, why? He needed more information. And the only way to get it was to somehow make them talk about it. He needed more evidence of the arms deal anyway, so it was easy to decide to put a bug on them. He picked up his phone and called Jake.

"What's up, boss," Jake said as he entered the apartment.

"Do we have a judge we can talk to about getting approval for listening devices to be used? It should be someone federal."

"That would be Judge Dell. He's in Des Moines."

"You have his FAX number?"

"Sure."

John handed him the request he had filled out asking for permission to put listening devices in the warehouse. The request said it was for gathering information on the illegal weapons sales that the Evans' were a part of. But he hoped it would also turn up something on the other issues: especially if he could talk Johnson into trying to get them to brag about it.

Steve Johnson sat in the office listening to Julien and his mother outside the door. He had just managed to finish putting the bug in the phone receiver when they could be heard outside. "I'm telling you, Ma. Something is going on," he heard Julien saying as he screwed the cap back on the earpiece of the phone. "This is the second time that someone has been checking up on something that we really want to stay buried."

"You worry too much, Julien," Britney answered. "What is it this time? Some unknown man in black?"

"Don't sell Skinner's information short, Ma. You know he's right."

"It should be as much as we're paying him," she answered. "It's just that he can get a little over excited."

"The feds have requested everything on the case of the Nelson fire seven years ago, and now they came back to get the report on old man Nelson's car wreck. I don't think he's overexcited."

"Sweety. There is nothing that ties us into ether of those two events. Calm down. We have another delivery to make tonight, and I don't want you saying anything to Sabrina about this. There's no need to worry her about it."

With that the door opened and they found Johnson sitting on the couch across from the big desk. "There you are," Johnson said. "I was beginning to think I had missed you somewhere."

"What do you want Johnson?" Britney asked suspiciously

"Money," he answered.

"Excuse me?"

"What I want is money. You can't live without it and I plan to live very well."

"So, you're trying to blackmail us? That's not very smart."

"I didn't say anything about blackmail. I just said that I want money."

"Well, you're not getting it from us. That way is a dead end around here as a couple of people could attest to if they were still around," Julien laughed.

"Julien!" his mother admonished.

"I done said I don't want to blackmail you. But I do mean to be paid for my services. When do we go again?"

"Tonight," Britney answered. "And I'll be watching you. If you think you can try to get extra from me, it won't go well, if you catch my drift."

"A dead end like Julie was talking about?"

"Hey! No name calling."

"That's exactly what I mean, Johnson."

"So, how many have you had to kill to keep this operation going? I've had to kill five people before."

"Looks like he's got you beat, mom."

"Enough, Julien! Get out of here and find something to do. Go get tonight's shipment ready."

"Yes, ma'am." The younger Evans went out the door leaving Britney Evans alone with Johnson.

"You should do well enough to leave things alone, Mr. Johnson. I don't want to spread around what has had to happen in the pass."

"So, you have had to kill?"

"Let's just say that a couple of people are no longer causing difficulty."

"Yeah? Who were they? One of mine was my old man. He tried to beat me one time too many."

"Mr. Johnson, I don't need to know that about yours. And you don't need to know about mine."

"I bet Julie couldn't have done it, could he?"

"I think you better stop calling him that. He did get you this job, after all. And as to whether he could or not doesn't matter. One of them was his father, and I couldn't ask him to do that."

"His father? Jees! What'd the guy do?"

"He got out of prison and tried to take over my operation. And just so you know, Julien did have the balls to get rid of the body. Now, I suggest you get off this subject and get ready for tonight."

John couldn't believe it had worked so well. It had taken two days to get the approval for the listening devices, and on the first day, Specialist Steve Johnson had engineered a secret confession out of Britney Evans for killing her ex-husband. He only needed two more things and he would be ready to reel in the fish. He hoped he would get the first during that night's delivery, but the other he was unsure of.

Johnson was wired for both sound and video. John coordinated with the FBI office in Des Moines to have surveillance vehicles in place where the truck, or trucks as the case may be, would come out of the pastureland of the Nelson ranch. The mission was observance only. He wanted to be sure that he had everything in place when the time came to round everyone up. The vehicle the FBI was using came with three persons. Special Agent Halsey and Agent Kendall who was the communication technician and a third to drive. If it all went smoothly, Britney Evans and her group were going to have a bad day in another week or so. And John wanted to be sure that the right people were in on it.

Johnson wasn't in the first truck. He wasn't in the second truck. He was relegated to a space on the third truck with a last one following to be sure that they were not followed. The fourth truck would have quite a space between them and the third. It was a tactic that had worked before for Britney, and she needed to be sure tonight as well.

The trucks pulled onto the road from the break in the fence and made their way towards the Senator's cabin in the woods. Steve looked behind him and noticed that the fourth truck wasn't there. "What happened to the fourth truck?" he asked the driver. The man looked at him and smiled.

John was in the surveillance vehicle. It was just getting ready to follow the convoy when Johnson asked his question. "Hold up," he ordered.

"Three trucks in convoy," the driver answered. "The fourth will make it in due time."

"There's a fourth truck," John told Agent Halsey. "We'll have to wait on him to come out or we'll miss our chance."

"If we delay, we could lose them," Halsey said. "Those wires are only good for a short distance."

"We wait," John ordered emphatically. Fifteen minutes later, the last truck pulled onto the road and turned on its lights. John gave a nod and Halsey told the driver to move out.

Halsey was nervous. The fourth truck didn't seem to be in any hurry and they were already out of range of the audio/video wire that they had placed on Johnson. It took half an hour for the last truck to get to where the deal was taking place, and the agent was concerned that they would miss the sale to whatever buyer they had set up.

Finally, they began to hear the crackling of the equipment as they were on the edge of the wire's range. Once they had a good picture and sound, they pulled off the road and hid.

"Bring that crate over here, Johnson," they heard Julien order. The video feed showed a few men milling about moving crates into place while some provided security around the perimeter. There was the sound of another truck pulling into the area and Johnson turned towards it, the camara showing the last truck coming to a stop. The mic picked up Julien asking the driver if there were any problems before Johnson had to move on. The answer to the question was not heard.

"No problems," Johnson muttered. "There can't be." His was the most dangerous part of the mission, and he really wanted there to not be any problems. If the FBI van had been spotted, his position would be perilous.

He plopped the crate that he was carrying down and looked at Britney as she talked with the Senator and the Egyptian buyer Akbar Solvina. "They're all good, Akbar," Britney said. "Just like the last batch."

"How do you get these things out of the states?" Johnson asked suddenly.

"Shut it Johnson," Britney ordered.

"Sorry. Just curious."

"Remember what I said about those other two people?"

"Yeah. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just curious. Believe me, I don't want to end up like them. Is that the piece you used on your husband?"

"You talk too much. Get back to the truck!"

"What's he mean, Britney?" the Senator asked.

"You didn't know?" Johnson piped up. "The fool tried to take over her operation and she got rid of him."

"Shut! Up! You damn fool!"

"You killed Sean?" the Senator went pale.

"What do you care, Sabrina? You didn't seem to mind when Mark Nelson went away."

"But that was an accident."

"Believe what you will, bitch. He's not blackmailing you anymore, is he?"

"This Nelson guy. Is he the other one you had to kill?"

"Britney. Did you really kill him?"

"Yes! If you could keep your damn hands to yourself instead of letting them roam all over the bodies of those young girls you hire to act as pages, I wouldn't have had to, would I? so don't go getting all moral and high class on me. We got a job to do."

That was the last piece that John wanted. The only thing that they didn't have was the question Johnson had asked. But the soldier had moved around the area and got video of the crates being loaded on another, bigger truck and he had gotten a view of the license plate. The FBI could handle that part of the case. He only had to wait for the time of the final showdown.

A man sat in a blue Chevy Cruze at the fast-food place. He was actually no more than twenty at most, and in fact had had to borrow the car for his mission. He had been there for about five minutes when a man rode up on a motorcycle. The man got out of the car and walked towards the entrance. He didn't pay any attention to the man on the bike, but just entered the restaurant. He took his place in line, looking at the menu boards above the ordering stations.

The man on the bike entered the place and took his own spot in the line right behind the youngster. He, too, looked at the menu boards. As he did so he leaned forward just slightly. Without moving his lips, he muttered two words towards the man in front of him, then fell back onto his feet properly. The man said nothing and didn't react to the intrusion. It was if he hadn't said anything at all.

When the first one got to the front of the line, he placed his order and paid for it. Once it got his food, he found an empty table and sat down to eat the burger and fries he had. The biker did much the same, sitting at another table two away from the first. Neither man talked to the other. Once finished, each took care of their trash and left. The one got in his car and exited onto the road heading right. The other started his bike and exited the place turning left.

John stood in the yard looking around at all the work that had been completed. It had been more than a week since the recon mission with the FBI and still he waited for the right message from Steve Johnson. In the meantime, he was pleased with the work on the ranch. The corral was now finished, the poles sunk to the proper depth, the wreckage of the bunkhouse had been carted away and the place for the new one that was going to be built had been staked out. The construction people declared that it would be several weeks yet before they could start as they had to wait on permits. There were three other building sites marked off as well: one for a small motel, one for a dining facility, and a third to house staff that would work the motel and dining facility if they didn't have a place in town. It had been an epiphany to think of letting people pay to do the work on the ranch. It would provide cheap labor, and also add to the jobs as staff would be needed for the motel.

He watched as the Cruze pulled into the parking spot it had been in earlier and the young man got out. "Well?" he asked.

"He said 'tomorrow night,'" the man answered.

"Thank you, Donaldson. Don't forget to give Cross her keys back."

"Yes, Sargent."

John stopped himself from wincing. The Private First Class was young. He would learn. At least there hadn't been anyone within hearing distance. He took out his cellphone used speed dial to connect to the person he wanted. "Agent Halsey. Would you meet with me for lunch tomorrow? You do know where the ranch is, right?" There was a pause as a reply came through. "Meet me here at eleven-thirty?" Another short pause. "Good. See you then." He hung up. It was nearly time to close the net.

The next morning, it was a chore to keep everyone looking busy. They still had to look like they were doing the work of the ranch to the Nelsons. The new tractor arrived at ten-o' clock and that made things seem more like they should be for a while. John had the idea to plant oats for the horses as well as feed corn for the cattle, though most of the cattle could do with the grass from the pasture. He was happy for the distraction but was also glad that the representative was gone by ten-thirty as he had to have Susan Matthews cut his hair before the FBI agent showed up

The agent sat in the small apartment that Jake left him in. John was in the bathroom situated along one of the walls. A loud buzzing sound was all he could hear. Once it stopped, the agent announced his presence. "What's going on, Sargent?"

"We need to wait a bit, agent Halsey. There is still one more person to arrive for this meeting," John called. Fifteen minutes later, Jake ushered Sheriff Nelson into the room. John was still in the bathroom and they could hear splashing every few seconds.

"Sheriff," Halsey nodded towards the man recognizing the uniform and the rank.

"How do you do?" Roy responded not knowing who this man was.

"I'll be out in just few seconds, gentlemen," John called from the bathroom. "Please have a seat and make yourselves comfortable." With that there was a lot of splashing, a banging noise, then silence. Within a minute, the man came out of the bathroom, looking nothing like what he had going into it. The jeans were replaced with camouflage pants. He wore no shirt but had on a brownish looking t-shirt, and the beard that had been prevalent for the last few weeks was missing. He walked to the closet and withdrew a camouflage shirt that he had hung there earlier that morning and pulled it on before turning to greet his guests.

As soon as he turned around, Roy gasped. If he had not already been sitting, he probably would have fallen. "J..J..Jeremiah!" he finally spouted.

"Nice to see you, Uncle Roy." Jeremiah Nelson acknowledged.

"You've been here this whole time and didn't say anything?" The anger was noticeable in the sheriff's voice. "Your mother has been beside herself wondering about you. You should have more respect than that for she who gave you life. And what's this get up you're wearing?"