FBI agents Lori Bennett and Mark Williams were in a predicament: How to get onto the Cherokee reservation and tail Ranger Cordell Walker without sticking out like sore thumbs. They traded their standard-issue work vehicle for Lori's less-conspicuous Chevy and changed into casual clothes. When they hit the road, they were Monica and Matt Willis, newlyweds on their way home for a family reunion. Just outside of the reservation, Mark pulled the car over and popped the hood. He loosened a couple of wires and limped the car onto the main street of the reservation. Looking exasperated, he stopped by a group of teenage boys playing basketball who eyed him suspiciously.
"Anyone know where I might find someone who can look at my car? We seem to have developed some engine trouble," he asked.
"Tom Whitefeather at the end of the street," one of the boys spoke up, pointing to a weathered wood-sided building at the end of the way. "He's my uncle. He can probably help you with your car."
Lori jumped out of the car, faking a panic attack. "Did you boys see a little dog? When we stopped just out the road to see what was wrong with the car, my little dog jumped out and ran! We looked but we couldn't find him! Did he come this way?"
The boys all looked at each other and shook their heads no but said they'd watch for a stray dog.
Lori and Mark got back in the car and headed down the dusty street. "A lost dog?" Mark asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We need some excuse in case we have to go sneaking around here. We don't exactly blend, you know," Lori reasoned.
"Good call."
They pulled in front of the building the young boy indicated was his uncle's as Walker drove by them and on out towards the woods away from the main part of the reservation.
"And bingo," Lori said, "it's show time."
Mark went looking for Tom Whitefeather to see about repairs to the car, while Lori went on the search for her missing dog. As Mark and Tom looked under the hood, Lori pointed the direction Walker had driven and asked what was out that way.
"Nothing but woods and a few old cabins," Tom Whitefeather replied.
"Is it okay if I walk out that way? You see, our dog got loose and ran, and maybe he ran that way?" Lori put on her best please-help-me look.
"Sure, I wouldn't want my dog running around in those woods. Coyotes and all, you know."
Lori took off into the slowly fading sunlight, calling out for a dog that was never going to come.
A little over a mile out the dirt road, Lori saw where Walker had turned off into a clearing. She crept into the woods, trying to get a better look. Standing in beams of the truck's headlights stood Walker and a small woman with long, dark hair. Lori eased closer, kneeling in the brush to get a better look. The woman looked a lot like the female ranger who was supposed to have died in an explosion in her own home the week before. The story had been plastered all over the front page of every Dallas newspaper and had been the lead story on the local TV news for days afterward: a beautiful young Texas ranger tragically killed three days before her wedding.
The bigger story now, though, would be that perhaps the ranger was apparently not dead. She seemed to be limping a little, so she must have been injured; but if that was her standing there with Ranger Walker, she was certainly not dead, and Westbrook must have known something was up. Lori headed back toward the road and back to where Mark was waiting with the car. She needed to check in with Westbrook to tell him what she saw.
Sydney tore into the care package Alex had sent with the same reckless abandon of a five year old on Christmas morning.
"Oh, Walker, this is fantastic! Alex thought of everything!" Sydney exclaimed joyously as she pulled out a stack of celebrity gossip and fashion magazines. "Oh, and the latest Patterson novel! I've been wanting to read this, but with the wedding plans, I hadn't had any time! And my favorite!" Sydney held up the bag of chocolate candy.
Walker just smiled. Alex's thoughtfulness was just one of the many things he loved about her.
Sydney stopped cold, holding the picture frame that held the photo of her and Gage. The picture was familiar – the same photo had been in a frame on her nightstand and she knew Gage kept a framed copy on his dresser. She remembered the moment the picture had been taken. It was at the get-together at the Walker ranch just before Angela was born. Gage had been seated at the picnic table with Sydney standing behind him, teasing him about the amount of desserts on his plate. She had reached around him to try steal a bite off of his plate and had ended up cheek to cheek with him, her arms crossed over his broad chest in a hug, Gage's strong hands on her forearms. Just seconds before Alex had snapped the picture, Syd had reached up and dabbed a bit of whipped cream on the tip of his nose. Their smiles in the picture spoke volumes. Although it had been months before either one of them had spoken the words 'I love you,' the picture radiated the feelings between them so much that Sydney and Gage had chosen to use the photo on their engagement announcement.
Tears filled Sydney's dark brown eyes and she struggled to keep them from falling. "Walker, how's Gage doing, really?"
"He misses you, Sydney."
"I miss him too," Sydney sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I miss him so much. I hate this. I want this to be over."
"We're working on it. We have a good lead." Walker told her about Victor Ortega. "Now it's just a matter of finding him," Walker finished.
Sydney's stomach turned as she recalled the events at Casa Diablo and the thought of another Ortega, especially Ramón Ortega's son, still free and looking for her.
"I hope you find him soon, "Syd said, her voice just above a whisper. "I want to go home."
Two weeks had passed with no luck in finding Victor Ortega. Walker had discovered that much of the information Westbrook had given him about Ortega was useless, not that he had expected much else from the slimy FBI agent. With it all about guaranteed that they were getting no help from the feds in tracking down the elusive Ortega, the rangers were on their own.
Gage was growing more miserable by the day. His moods were unpredictable, and he rarely spoke to anyone. If he did, it was usually to snap somebody's head off for the littlest thing. When a well-meaning assistant moved Sydney's picture on Gage's desk to make room for a stack of files, Gage launched into a tirade and stormed out of the office. Trivette found him later in the rangers' gym, relentlessly pounding at a punching bag. Gage spent a lot of time in the gym these days. If anything, grief had him in the best physical shape of his life.
Walker made weekly trips to the reservation to check in with Sydney. His visits and the care packages from Alex were the highlights of her lonely weeks. She joked with Walker that it was a good thing she no longer had a wedding dress to fit into since Alex always remembered to fill the care packages with Syd's favorite treats. With nobody else but David Jackson knowing where she was and stopping in to visit her, the weeks were long and time was dragging. She prayed that a break in the case would come soon so she could get home and back to Gage.
A break finally came when Dallas PD sent over surveillance photographs for another case the rangers had been working on. There had been numerous complaints about a club called One Eyed Jack's, a nuisance bar that was a front for drug sales and prostitution on the seedier side of town, and the rangers were working to find out who was behind all the illegal activity. Trivette was studying the photographs when he noticed Victor Ortega in several of the shots. He pointed them out to Walker.
Walker looked over the photos. That was definitely Ortega, and in each shot, there was another dark haired man with him. Walker wondered if he could be the Marco that Sydney had told him about.
"Trivette, see if there's any way to identify who this man is with Ortega," Walker directed, already suspecting he could be the man Sydney heard in the alley, and hoping Trivette could come up with a name.
A few hours later, Trivette knocked on Walker's door. He had a name.
"Marco Mendoza. Wanted by the feds for a whole list of things including drug smuggling and illegal weapons sales. He's suspected of being the contact person that helped that drug cartel buy explosives from the Iraqis."
"If that's the case, I imagine he had something to do with the explosives in Syd's house, too. Convenient that Westbrook never brought his name up in conversation, isn't it?" Walker remarked sarcastically. "I think I need to go have a talk with our secret agent man. Trivette, you and Gage go check out One Eyed Jack's and see if Ortega and Mendoza are hanging around while I see what Westbrook has to say for himself."
Westbrook watched Walker leave, and when he was safely out of earshot, he slammed his door and began pacing. Westbrook had denied that the feds had anything on Mendoza, but the rangers already knew about him. Not only that, they had made the connection between Mendoza and Ortega, and it wouldn't be long before they tracked one or both of them down. This was supposed to be Westbrook's case and he wasn't going to let that bunch of hotshot cowboys make him look like an ass again. He needed to think of something. Getting his old job back depended on it. Getting out of Dallas depended on it.
Westbrook knew he had an ace in the hole. Lori Bennett had informed him that Ranger Cooke was, indeed, still alive, and was being hidden in a cabin on the Cherokee reservation. Walker must have stashed her there while investigating who blew up her house. The question was why, and how could Westbrook use that ace to his advantage.
Westbrook thought for a while and then made a series of phone calls. The first to his assistant asking her to set up a meeting with all of the agents in the Dallas office the next morning, and the next few were to the local newspapers and TV stations letting them know he would be holding a press conference the next afternoon.
The next morning, Agent Westbrook stood in front of a conference room full of Dallas FBI agents. On a screen behind him was a picture of Victor Ortega.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've received some very credible information that Victor Ortega is responsible for the explosion that killed a Texas Ranger. We are going to go public with this information today in an attempt to smoke him out. I'm going to make the announcement that he is the FBI's main suspect in the case in a press conference later this afternoon. It's expected that once we make this announcement, Ortega will try to escape to his family's home, Casa Diablo, in Mexico. We've already alerted border patrol as well as the Mexican authorities so they know to watch for him and we will be staking out the most likely route we expect him to take. We hope to have Ortega in custody within the next thirty-six hours."
"Hey Walker, take a look at this," Trivette motioned to the TV over the bar at CD's where he, Walker, and Gage were waiting for Alex to join them for lunch.
Walker looked up to see Westbrook on the television. It looked like he was holding some type of press conference on the steps of the Dallas Federal Building. Walker grabbed the remote off the bar and turned up the volume.
'The FBI has identified a key suspect in last month's explosion at the home of Texas Ranger Sydney Cooke.'
The reporters gathered on the steps began to shout questions. Westbrook waved them down and held up a picture, continuing to speak.
'We've discovered credible evidence placing this man, Victor Ortega, at the scene. We expect to have an arrest soon.'
"What the hell is he doing?" Walker muttered.
In a house outside of Dallas, Marco Mendoza called Victor Ortega over to look at the TV. Westbrook was taking questions from reporters about the explosion and the evidence that put Ortega at the scene.
'No, I'm sorry, we can't elaborate on the evidence.'
'Is there any word on a memorial service for Ranger Cooke?'
'Actually, we've discovered that Ranger Cooke was not killed in the explosion as first thought. It's now suspected that Victor Ortega may be holding her at a remote location near the Cherokee Reservation.'
"Oh, really," Victor Ortega smirked at the TV. "Marco. I thought you said she was dead the second she opened her door? What went wrong?"
"I don't know, Victor. I don't know."
Victor crossed the room and opened a desk drawer. Pulling out a gun, he checked the magazine and held the gun out, aiming it and clicking off the safety. "Marco."
Marco turned to him. Victor smiled, clicked the safety back on and tucked the gun into his waistband. "Marco. Get the car. We're going on a little road trip."
Walker couldn't believe what he heard. Nobody but he, Alex, and David Jackson knew where Sydney was, and now Westbrook had just jeopardized her safety, announcing to the entire Dallas area that she was alive and hiding on the reservation. Beside him, Gage sat open-mouthed, staring at the TV.
When Gage could finally speak, he turned to Walker. "What the hell is he talking about?"
Walker grabbed his Stetson off the chair beside him. "Gage, you're riding with me. Trivette, follow us. We have to get to the reservation before Ortega does."