Strong Light of Day

by Jon Land

  Like I told you, the sites marked on that wall map in Alexi Gribanov’s office contained mostly farms and ranches. Kind of places known to use pesticides. What do you think I’d find if I checked which pesticide they’d been using?

  Caitlin recalled posing that question to Calum Dane before she knew what she did now. A fresh chill grabbed hold of her, despite the steam-baked interior of Captain Tepper’s truck, laced with the stench of stale cigarette smoke. She fished the cell phone from her pocket and pressed Tepper’s contact.

  “I can feel the winds picking up already,” he greeted.

  “I need you to call the land records office in Austin.”

  “Check the time, Hurricane. They’re gone for the day.”

  “Then get somebody back. It’s an emergency, maybe the key to this whole thing.”

  “Let me see, who can I piss off on your behalf? What is it you need?”

  Caitlin told him.

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Far from it.”

  “What is it with you? How is it you keep going from tilting at windmills to jousting with giants?”

  “Not like you to wax poetic on me, D.W.”

  “I don’t even know what that means, Ranger. Just stay by the phone and let me see what I can come up with.”

  79

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Guillermo Paz stood outside the San Fernando Cathedral near Main Plaza in San Antonio, studying the plaque that proclaimed it to be the oldest cathedral sanctuary in the United States. Jim Bowie was married here before dying at the Alamo at the hands of Santa Ana, who used the building as an observation post. The cathedral claimed that Bowie, along with Colonel William Travis and Davy Crockett himself, had been ceremonially buried in the church’s graveyard as their official resting places. But Paz knew of other locations that had made the same claim. Since the heroes’ bodies had all been burned after the famous battle, he supposed anybody could claim anything they wanted to.

  Paz mounted the stone steps to an odd feeling he couldn’t quite identify. The double doors were open, allowing the scents of cleaning solvent and incense to pour out at once. A strange combination, for sure, and one that left Paz suddenly discomfited, his neck and shoulder muscles tensing the same way they did in the presence of an enemy.

  The last time he’d been here, the floors had just been refinished with a fresh coat of lacquer, the wooden pews restored to their original condition as well. That was a source of great pride to Paz, given that the money he’d left behind on a previous visit had funded the renovation. He’d even done some of the work on the roof himself, enjoying the hot sun burning his naked back and shoulders, along with the view of the world provided from up on the hot slate. But something was off today, and he saw what it was as soon as he passed through the doors into the chapel itself.

  The historic, pristine chamber in which he’d invested his money and passion, where he’d come to understand his new being and psyche, had been hit by vandals. The altar was awash in clutter, with broken pieces of the wooden statue of Jesus he’d refinished himself strewn about the shredded carpet. And, as he advanced up the aisle, past pews, knee rests, and book pockets that it looked like the vandals had taken an ax to in places, Paz was aware of a stench clinging to the air and resisting all attempts of both the solvent and incense to vanquish it.

  Feces.

  Someone must’ve have left piles of it smeared amid all the damage, maybe going so far as to pull down their pants and defecate right in the Lord’s house.

  Paz spotted his priest on his hands and knees at the cathedral’s front, swabbing the floor with a sponge drawn out of a bucket overflowing with suds. He was still wearing his dark slacks, shirt, and priest’s collar, an ensemble to which he’d added fluorescent yellow rubber gloves.

  The priest stiffened at Paz’s approach, lurching back to his feet and almost spilling the pail of soapy water in the process. He looked old, his hair mussed and face reddened, the exertion plainly telling on him. His eyes had a haggard dullness to them that seemed sad as well.

  “Oh, it’s you,” the priest said.

  “Who did this, Padre?”

  “If I knew that,” the priest said, trying hard to smile, “I would’ve called you already.”

  “You don’t have my number,” Paz said, towering over him and blocking out a measure of the light coming from the flickering candles his priest had set upon the remains of the bema in a show of defiance. “So I’m going to give it to you.”

  This time the priest managed a slight smile. “Just a figure of speech. That isn’t necessary, my son.”

  “I’m afraid it is, Padre. Have you ever read Aristotle?”

  “Some.”

  “His writings were the first to turn me on to how I could find relevance to myself in the writings of others. To this day, his work still resonates the most of any of them with me, mostly because of what he had to say about friendship. Specifically, that ‘without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.’ When I started reading him, I didn’t really have any friends, people important to me, like you or my Texas Ranger.”

  “Thank you, my son.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Paz told him. “It’s me who should be thanking you.” He stopped and rotated his gaze about, embracing the revolting stench for what it said about whoever had done this. “Aristotle believed that friendship was all about two people engaging in common activities solely for the sake of developing the overall goodness of the other.”

  “That sounds like something God might say, doesn’t it?” the priest asked, remarkably comfortable in Paz’s presence outside the confessional that had once solely defined their relationship.

  “That’s the point, Padre, what all our talks have finally made me realize. ‘To love another person is to see the face of God.’”

  “Is that Aristotle too, my son?”

  “No, it’s from the musical Les Miserables. I forget exactly when I saw it. I had to leave early.”

  “What happened?”

  “When the French troops stormed the barricades, I stormed the stage. Got carried away with the story.” Paz stiffened again, his eyes churning through the scene around him. “Whoever did this needs to pay. I know you won’t tell me to make that happen. You can even tell me not to, if it makes you feel better. But, see, I’ve got no choice, because I’ve got to make amends to you.”

  “For what?”

  Paz turned his gaze downward, massive shoulders slumping in genuine embarrassment. “Because I keep seeking answers elsewhere—I just can’t stop myself. First it was those college classes, then teaching English to immigrants. More recently I’ve been visiting a psychic.”

  The priest’s expression tightened. “A psychic,” he repeated, trying not to sound judgmental.

  Paz shrugged. “I thought she could show me something I couldn’t see on my own. A glimpse of the future, maybe. Or maybe I wanted to be connected with my mother so she could tell me I was a good man and that she was proud of me. That’s what I’ve got to make amends for. But I always end up back here with you because, to paraphrase Aristotle, the great enemy of moral conduct is the failure to do what’s right even in full awareness of what’s wrong. People rely on me to do what’s right now. Because there really are monsters that go bump in the night and people need me to bump back.” He gazed about him again, nose wrinkling at the stench-laden air. “Like at whoever did this.”

  “This isn’t your fight.”

  “If it’s yours, Padre, it’s mine.”

  “Aristotle again, my son? Or another musical, perhaps?”

  “No, that one’s all on me. I’m not asking you for permission or blessing here.” He sniffed the cathedral’s rank air again, his nostrils opening as wide as quarters. “It’s a done deal.”

  “‘God made the earth by his power,’” the priest recited. “‘He founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders,
the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.’ Does that sound familiar, my son?”

  “Jeremiah, chapter ten, verses twelve and thirteen.”

  The priest nodded, impressed. “Describing the Lord’s control over the forces of nature. Like you.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It’s neither good nor bad; it just is. Like nature itself, my son.” The priest seemed to shake himself from a spell, finally peeling the yellow gloves from his hands. “But you came here for something else. What can I do for you?”

  Paz grinned as his phone rang. “You already did it, Padre.” He checked the caller ID. “And I need to be someplace else.”

  80

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Cort Wesley saw Caitlin standing on the tarmac, halfway between the private terminal and the taxi ramp, as Jones’s private jet slid to halt. Jones got up from the other side of the plane, after unhitching his seatbelt, and moved to electronically lower the recessed stairs into place.

  “I wouldn’t be so set on deplaning,” Cort Wesley cautioned.

  “Why’s that, cowboy?”

  “’Cause it looks like we’re headed somewhere else in a hurry.”

  * * *

  “Why, Ranger,” Jones greeted, his brain still buzzed by the whiskeys he’d drunk to celebrate his return to Homeland Security’s good graces, “I’d like to say it’s been too long, but…”

  “Last time we were together, I saved your life, as I recall.”

  “That’s right. After I got shot up because of you.”

  “‘Shot up,’” Caitlin repeated. “Sounds like something a Texan would say.”

  “Looks like you’ve rubbed off on me,” Jones grinned. “I’m thinking of relocating on a permanent basis,” he continued, butchering his impersonation of a Texas drawl. “Maybe you can recommend a real estate agent.”

  “Got just the man. Goes by the name of Baal Z. Bub.”

  “You know him from experience?”

  “Nope, just reputation, but I think the two of you would get along just fine.”

  “You mind telling me where we’re going on the government’s dime, Ranger?”

  “West Texas,” Caitlin said, turning her gaze on Cort Wesley. “To find some missing kids.”

  * * *

  “We should’ve secured a subpoena to get this information,” Captain Tepper had said when he called Caitlin back thirty minutes later, while she was still seated in his borrowed truck. “It won’t be admissible in court now. No way, no how.”

  “I’m not looking to serve a warrant, D.W., don’t worry.”

  “Worry about you? Why would I bother?… Can I ask you one question, Ranger? Just one question?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why does every single day have to end for you with a gunfight at the O.K. Corral?”

  “Just tell me what showed up on those land transfers I asked you to check.”

  “Calum Dane’s been a busy man when it comes to such things,” Tepper told her. “There’s pages and pages of them I got up on my computer screen right now, lost in the haze of the Marlboro I’m smoking. You hear that, Hurricane?”

  “Must be from the pack stowed in that extra pair of boots you keep in the closet. I tossed out all the others. That’s the pack I dipped in horse laxative.”

  She heard Tepper make a lot guttural sound on the other end of the line before his voice returned. “I was able to roust a supervisor who was working late at the records office. Man didn’t sound especially happy about it. Now, tell me what I’m looking for? There’s tons of stuff, variances and the like, for that Midland skyscraper Dane built.”

  “Go back further.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know. Look for something under Glasscock County.”

  “There’s fifty pages here.”

  “Do a search.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tepper said, and Caitlin could hear computer keys clacking, accompanied by the soft whir of the hard drive. “Got a hit here, all right. A farm in Glasscock County. Looks like Dane bought it two years ago, a whole lot later than the bulk of his other transactions. I didn’t realize there were any farms left in Glasscock County, with oil having overrun the whole Permian Basin.”

  “There’s a few, Captain, but Calum Dane didn’t buy this one to grow anything but trouble.”

  * * *

  “It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” Caitlin told Cort Wesley, after explaining what she’d learned from Captain Tepper, coupled with something Dane had said back in his office that she couldn’t get our of her mind.

  “You know what I thought of when I made my first million dollars, Ranger? Picking cotton in those fields, the scars I’ve still got to show for it. You’d figure I could put all that behind me, not bother looking back. But all I could think of was that farm, still up and operating with no regard for the workers out doing the picking. Time seemed to seize up whenever I thought about those days, to the point where nothing I was accomplishing seemed to matter, and wouldn’t, until the farm itself was dead too.”

  “You figure that’s the farm he bought two years ago in Glasscock County,” Cort Wesley concluded. “And where he’s now got the kids stashed.”

  “Will the two of you listen to yourselves?” Jones blurted out, words only slightly slurred, as if he were sobering up in a hurry. “You’re talking about taking on one of the richest and most powerful men in America, effectively charging him with a crime that would put him away for life.”

  “That’s just for starters, Jones,” Caitlin told him. “I’m also looking at Dane for that fire at his Waco petrochemical plant from a few years back, along with the disappearance of Brandon McCabe in New York City five days ago.”

  “Who?”

  “Young man who shot off his mouth at a Dane Corp shareholders meeting the same day he vanished.”

  “So you think Dane kidnapped him too?”

  Caitlin’s expression remained flat. “McCabe’s hotel room had been sanitized by a crew of professional cleaners—the kind of crew you’d use, Jones. They got everything except some plastic shavings that a latter check I requested found stuck to the ceiling.”

  “Plastic shavings,” Jones repeated, shaking his head. “Ranger, you never cease to amaze me.”

  “Then try this out: McCabe had an artificial leg. Those shavings were a match for the kind of plastic it was made out of.”

  “This just keeps getting better.” Jones could only shake his head again, frowning. “Where’s the nearest airport to this farm? I want to get going.”

  “We can’t take off yet. Somebody else is coming.”

  “Not—” Cort Wesley started to protest, then veered his thoughts in midstream. “Why?”

  “Because,” Caitlin said, as a black pickup truck that looked more like a tank screeched to a halt in an area of the tarmac used by limousines carrying celebrities and politicians, “I think we’re gonna be needing him.”

  And that’s when her phone rang, the 202 area code of Washington, DC, flashing on her screen.

  “How you doing, Congressman?” she greeted Asa Fraley, before he had a chance to announce himself.

  81

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “You will cease and desist on Calum Dane, Ranger,” Congressman Fraley told her, his tone making it sound to Caitlin as if a snake had uttered the words.

  “Sounds like something somebody else wrote for you, sir,” she told him.

  “Never mind who wrote it. I’m just a little ole country lawyer trying to do right for my people.”

  “And Dane doesn’t live in your district any more than Christoph Ilg does.”

  “I’m talking about Texans in general, some of which clearly need to be protected from the likes of you.”

  “Why, I’m just a little ole Texas Ranger, Congressman. Who’d need protection from me?”

  “Stow the b
ullshit, Ranger. I know you’ve been threatened with this before, but I’ve got the power of Congress backing me up. You don’t back off this now, the president himself won’t be able to save you from what’s coming.”

  “This, or him?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You started by telling me to back off Calum Dane. Now you’re telling me to back off ‘this.’ What’s ‘this,’ exactly, sir? Would it be my investigation into those missing kids?”

  “That’s not your jurisdiction.”

  “I’m a Texas Ranger. The whole state is my jurisdiction. And that’s a fact, not a campaign slogan. Or maybe there’s been concern expressed about my opening the books on that chemical plant fire. Now, Waco is part of your district, if I’ve got my geography right. That means a dozen of your constituents were killed in that fire, Congressman. Still want me to back off?”

  “Why does everything have to be a show for you? You could’ve just walked up and arrested Christoph Ilg on those rustling charges, but you just had to play for the cameras.”

  “Not that you’d know anything about that, Congressman. And, speaking of which, how’s your brother? I’ve got a call into his probation officer, just to make sure he’s toeing the line.”

  Caitlin could hear Fraley’s breathing intermittently over the line. “I’m writing up a subpoena as we speak. I’m gonna haul your ass before my government oversight committee with the cameras whirling. Let the whole country see what a loose cannon you are.”