Dead Shot (A Cal Murphy Thriller Book 1)

Chapter 46

Chapter 46
Gold hated feeling out of control, yet at this moment, it was as if his hands were tied behind his back while in the driver's seat of a speeding sports car headed for a 45-degree turn. Off-road danger was imminent. Could he survive?
Statenville had survived plenty of scares under his watch. New snooping citizens. Disgruntled employees. Curious trespassers. They could all be persuaded. Brandish a handgun or flash some cash-whatever the situation called for. In most situations, the person developed an immediate case of amnesia. There was an unused rocky quarry in a secluded canyon for everyone else.
But a federal agent? Working at Cloverdale Industries? With access to every room? This was far beyond a simple breach.
Gold had implemented rigorous "background checks" for all new employees. He even checked his current employees at the time. Everyone understood the sacred secret that they kept. Should it get out, it not only meant that they lost their healthy paychecks, but they would also likely go to federal prison for a long time. He underscored the serious nature of their "business" every opportunity he had at closed corporate gatherings. But Walker, the innocent basketball coach needing a few hours to help support his elderly mother, passed his background check without as much as a raised eyebrow. He had a few run-ins with the law, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to make Gold suspect Walker wasn't who he claimed to be.
Yet Gold's failsafe had been eluded and now he was dealing with his nightmare scenario. Not only that, but Walker had been working with another agent. How much the other agent knew was a wild card. If they were really working together, Walker wouldn't have likely tied him up. At this point, Gold had to take a risk. Without one, life as he had crafted it for the good people of Statenville would be gone forever. One misstep and Statenville would turn into a rural ghost town like every other small town in America that hadn't figured out a way to beat the gloomy economic times. But Gold only told himself that to assuage his conscience. He knew it was never really about Statenville or its people.
He took a deep breath. Hyperventilating wouldn't allow him to think clearly.
Then he stopped and smiled. It was in moments like these that he patted himself on the back for adding every local law enforcement personnel to the Cloverdale Industries payroll. It was strictly a cash payroll with laundered money hand delivered weekly in an unmarked envelope. It bought Gold the extra help he needed when he needed it.
Right now, he needed it more than ever.
***
Walker sped toward Cloverdale Industries. His long deep-cover assignment was almost over. It would already be over if Cooper had his way. Not everyone at the FBI's Salt Lake field office agreed with Walker's tactics. In fact, most people didn't. Going off script and using unorthodox - and at times, illegal - methods to achieve his assignment didn't make him popular.
But when Cooper showed up and began leveling career-ending accusations, Walker knew he had to overstep protocol bounds to get the job done. He wanted out of the hellhole he referred to as Statenville. And if he had his way, every TV station with a news crew within 500 miles would descend upon this podunk town and cover the story of the year. He didn't care that he would never get any credit for single-handedly taking down the Northwest's biggest drug cartel. His just reward would be seeing the Statenville city limits sign vanish in his rearview mirror never to be seen with his own two eyes ever again.
However, there was still plenty of work remaining in order to get released from his assignment.
Code Enfuego for Buddy Walker!
His scanner, tuned into the local sheriff's office, squawked an esoteric code as well as a brief description of Walker and his car from a dispatcher.
It was in moments like these that he reveled in the fact that Elliott Mercer was sitting right next to him in the passenger's seat.