Page 1 of Wyoming Cowboy Undercover

Chapter One

A gunshot fractured the quiet night.

ATF agent Rocco Sharp stiffened behind the wheel of his parked Ford Bronco, where he was waiting to meet his informant. Darkness wrapped around him on the overlook of the mountain, surrounded by trees. Which was the point. To pick a location where prying eyes wouldn’t see them.

A cool August breeze washed over him through the rolled-down window. His skin prickled. He climbed out of the SUV and listened, hoping it wasn’t another bad sign. The first had been that his contact was late.

In nine months, Dr. Percival Tiggs had never once been late.

Pop! Pop!

More gunfire ripped through the night. To the west. Far in the distance, but it sounded closer than the first shot. He reached into his vehicle, tapped open the glove box and grabbed the binoculars that were beside a flashlight. From this catbird seat, he had a view of the road below, as well as the mountainside and the river bathed in moonlight. He could easily see an approaching vehicle.

Peering through the binoculars, he focused all his attention on the twisting road that cut through the canyon and mountains. He picked up the soft purr of a finely tuned engine along with the rumble of low gears and the growl of a powerful V-6. Possibly V-8. Getting closer.

Sure enough, headlights pierced the darkness. A light-colored vehicle raced down the narrow, treacherous road. Rocco recognized the make and model. Old school. Vintage-style Land Cruiser.

Percival.

Was he blown?

Right behind him was a black heavy-duty hauler truck with two rear wheels on each side—a dually. Orange muzzle flashes burst in tandem with gunshots fired from the passenger’s side of the truck at the sedan. Metal pinged. Sparks flared. The sedan zipped past the turn for the overlook.

Had Percival missed it deliberately to keep from leading anyone to Rocco? Or had he simply been going too fast to take the turn?

Either way, it wasn’t good for Percival.

Before he lost sight of them, Rocco tried to home in on the rear bumper of the truck to get the license plate. He rotated the focusing ring on the binoculars, sharpening the image. There was a tinted film and splattered mud over the plate, making it impossible to read. But he glimpsed two bumper stickers. One with an iridescent silver tree on a white background. The other was red and scratched. A white bolt of lightning ran through it.

The vehicles disappeared around the curve of the road. Swearing to himself, he hopped in his Bronco and took off down the path that would converge with the road. They were a good thirty-minute drive from the outskirts of town, but still within the sheriff’s jurisdiction. The special task force he worked on had a good relationship with the department. He called Dispatch and relayed the details of the truck in case they had a deputy in the vicinity who might be able to intercept. Wyoming Highway 130 crossed twenty-nine miles through the Medicine Bow Mountain Range. If they stayed on it, they’d be near Laramie.

“Headed east on WYO 130,” he said, taking a hard right turn onto the road, kicking up dirt, “but they haven’t passed Wayward Bluffs yet.” That was the first town on the outskirts of the mountain range before Laramie.

“Agent Sharp, we don’t have any deputies in the area,” the dispatcher said. “But Deputy Russo was checking out a disturbance at the Wild Horse Ecosanctuary—”

“That’ll have to do.” He knew the location. About twelve miles from Wayward Bluffs.

Rocco clicked off the call and put the phone in his pocket.

No guarantees that Angela Russo would make it in time, but it was worth a try.

Red taillights came into view. Rocco pressed down on the accelerator, desperate to catch up. To give Percival a chance to lose whoever was chasing him. But with the winding road he could only risk going so fast.

A hairpin turn was coming up, but a thicket of tall pines would obstruct his view. Both vehicles took the acute bend. Through tree branches, he barely made out their lights.

Rocco slapped the steering wheel. Despite the air whipping over him, sweat rolled down his spine.

Recruiting an asset like Percy was a tricky game. Endangering the life of another. Trying to balance it with protecting them while pushing them to get the information needed. Someone was selling ghost guns—untraceable firearms—along with machine guns, military-grade explosive devices and specially marked armor-piercing bullets. Almost anything was legal in the Wild West of Wyoming, except the explosives, but the supplier was trafficking the deadly weapons and ammunition across state lines, putting them in the hands of criminals and gangs.

Innocent lives were being lost. Just last week, two fellow ATF agents out of the Denver office had been critically wounded in a raid. Armor-piercing rounds had punched through their Kevlar vests. Bullets from the same supplier that he’d been after for a year.

One of those agents had been a close friend. This was now personal for him. Still, he didn’t want to jeopardize Percy’s safety.

The ends didn’t always justify the means.

Rocco whipped around the hairpin bend, his tires squealing against the asphalt. The scent of burned rubber stung his nose. On the straightaway, he could see them clearly headed downhill. He hit the accelerator harder, eating up the distance between them.

Pop!

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