Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels)

by Land, Jon

  Cort Wesley fished the old photos Luke had found in Araceli Ramirez’s kitchen from out of his pocket and flipped through them. He located the one picturing both families, children and all, from 1973 and handed it to Jan McClellan-Townsend.

  “Yup,” she said, “that’s them for sure. The Cantús on the left and the Torres family on the right.”

  Cort Wesley took the picture back, seeing a trace of Dylan and Luke in both Mateo Torres and his wife. Not much, but enough to notice how Maura had come by her strong features and, by connection, how her sons had done the same.

  “Babies look close to the same age.”

  “They should,” Jan McClellan-Townsend said, the sun having shifted enough to catch her in its rays while leaving Cort Wesley in the shadows. “They were born the same day in seventy-three.”

  “Some coincidence.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “The Torres woman gave birth to twin girls at a time the family couldn’t afford to provide for the one they had. The Cantús had a son and desperately wanted a daughter. Call it an arrangement of convenience, Cort Wesley.”

  Cort Wesley cocked his gaze back toward Dylan as he fit things together in his mind. “The Cantús adopted one of the infants?”

  “Well, I think the fathers shook hands on the deal. Back in those days, when it came to migrant workers, that was enough.” McClellan-Townsend stepped out of the golf cart to stretch, her back and knees cracking like silenced gunshots. “Got so Cantú and Torres built themselves quite a franchise as growers, moving from farm to farm and training the other workers on how to tend the crop after they’d nursed it from seedlings. They had a true green thumb, Cort Wesley, and that pun is intended given how much cash they made for the landowners. But this farm held the first crop they tended and they always kept that in mind.”

  “Even after they stole the crop of a man named Regent Tawls and burned up his farm?”

  Jan McClellan-Townsend shook her head slowly, smiling as she regarded Dylan again. “Your daddy sure can put two and two together, can’t he? Let’s just say, Cort Wesley, that the two families became victims of their own ambition, coming to a bad end as a result. Happened about seven, maybe eight years after that picture you showed me was taken. But you need to get the rest of the story straight.”

  Cort Wesley thought of another old-fashioned snapshot he’d just flipped past, one picturing Maura right around the age of seven, the latest of any found in Araceli Ramirez’s shoe box. “How’s that exactly?”

  “To start with, Cantú wasn’t that family’s real name.”

  “No?”

  Jan McClellan-Townsend shook her head. “Enrique was born to the daughter of Esteban Cantú, who I’m guessing you’re familiar with. But he decided to take her name back instead of going by his father’s, figuring the familiarity some people had with it might help in his business dealings.”

  “What was his real name?”

  Jan frowned, struggling to remember it until her spine straightened and she tapped the soft roof of the golf cart. “Guajardo, I think,” she said. “Yup, it was Guajardo.”

  70

  QUINTANA ROO, MEXICO

  “When you said pilots,” Juan Aviles Uribe started, as he walked alongside Ana Callas Guajardo in the clearing carved into her vast stretch of acreage, which extended all the way to the edge of the jungles of the Yucatán, “I had no idea you meant…” He let the remark trail off, still amazed by the sights around him.

  “Toys,” grunted Ramon Reyes Vasquez, her other most trusted captain, shaking his head. “How do you expect to do any damage to the Americans flying toys?”

  The “toys” he was referring to were among the largest radio-controlled model airplanes in the world. A variety of models produced in monster scale compared to their far smaller, and more truly toylike counterparts. The bodies of the bomber, fighter, fixed-wing, airline, and biplane models had been custom fashioned out of lightweight plastic, fiberglass, and polymers with one additional major ingredient molded into every inch of the design.

  The key ingredient for Guajardo’s purposes.

  Some were powered by mini turbine jet engines, others by turbo props. They averaged fifteen to twenty feet in length, with wingspans stretching equal to that in some cases, and heights of up to six feet when the tail fins were included. It took only limited imagination to picture miniature crews manning the cockpits and, when viewed alone with nothing to betray their true scale, the radio-controlled planes looked every bit the same as the full-sized versions on which they’d been modeled.

  Guajardo ignored Vasquez’s caustic comment and turned back to Uribe. “But you found me the men I needed. You did the job expected of you.”

  Vasquez grunted again, insulted by her slight.

  Right now, the latest hundred of the men supplied by Uribe were learning how to master the elaborate remote control device, held in both hands at once to better allow for supple and rapid maneuverability with the thumbs. Even at this size and scope, the model planes were easy to control given that there was little to learn beyond takeoff, in-flight maneuverability, and landing. The onboard sensors accounted for variations in wind speed and current and made the adjustments automatically, while each plane’s course could be followed on a miniature screen built into the remote control.

  “What’s the range?” Uribe wondered.

  “One mile,” Guajardo told him. The roar of so many engines forced her to raise her voice to be heard. Around her the sweet smells of her flowering trees and plants were overcome by the lingering heavy scent of gasoline vapors, more fuel than she had anticipated being required to drive the remote-controlled planes’ hundred-horsepower engines. Guajardo had gotten the idea for this stage of the plan after learning that the manufacture, distribution, and even flight plans of any and all model aircraft were not regulated in the least. And by manufacturing them down here, no one even knew they existed. “More than enough,” she finished.

  Vasquez uttered a low guttural sound, something like a growl, still not able to grasp the machines’ purpose and potential. Guajardo was not surprised, given that she had not selected him for command responsibility based on his skills as a thinker. He’d been chosen instead for his ability to instill fear in the minds of those who served under him, the greatest deterrent to betrayal and double-cross in a business and culture driven by both.

  “These were built a retooled toy manufacturing plant I purchased in Guadalajara,” she continued. “The reason the models are so varied is that the purchase orders had to be made to look legitimate, especially since each is supposedly manufactured to order. A fleet of identical model craft could have raised eyebrows.”

  But Vasquez remained unimpressed. “This is your grand plan, what you have staked so much of our resources on?”

  “It’s part of my grand plan,” Guajardo told him patiently, “but far from all. Just the only part of direct concern to the two of you.”

  “Toys will not bring the United States to her knees,” Vasquez persisted, “no matter how many of them you manufacture.”

  Uribe smiled smugly, believing he had now figured everything out. “Unless they were carrying germs, micros, or whatever.”

  “Microbes,” Guajardo corrected. “But our fleet will not be carrying any microbes or any weapon at all.”

  “Then how do you intend to attack the Americans?” Vasquez huffed, making no effort to hide his disdain or cloak his displeasure.

  “There are many forms of attack, and the one we are about to launch will not harm a single American physically, not even one.”

  Vasquez had turned red in the face, his massive shoulders seeming to grow wider still in the confines of his sweat-dampened olive drab shirt. “You said we’d be bringing the United States to her knees.”

  “I know, and it is no less true today than when I said it, comandante. But did you honestly think we were going to wage a traditional war against Am
erica?” Guajardo shook her head to further emphasize her point. “I have worked for five years building a plan of attack that would hurt our enemy in ways she cannot possibly imagine. What happens when you drop an atomic bomb?”

  “People die,” Vasquez replied smugly, back in his element.

  “And afterward?”

  “More die. From the radiation.”

  “The results of our attack will be similar in that its effects too will linger. That was always the prime component for me. Buildings can be replaced or rebuilt. Lives can be mourned and avenged. But I sought a means to hurt America in a way in which the pain would linger and linger and linger, perhaps beyond our lifetimes, potentially forever.”

  Vasquez and Uribe ducked instinctively to avoid one of the giant radio-controlled planes coming in for a landing. Others buzzed the sky far overhead, birdlike specks on the horizon. The ones flying nearer to the ground struggled for space to maneuver, too close to their counterparts for comfort.

  “But not from these toys alone, of course, jefa,” Uribe said respectfully.

  “As I told you, they are just one element of my plan.”

  “Then your plan cannot come too soon; the Texas Ranger investigating the killings in Willow Creek was spotted across the border earlier today.”

  “Caitlin Strong,” said Ana Guajardo, struck again by the irony that another Strong was investigating a second mass killing in the same town divided by a century. Or maybe it wasn’t irony at all, maybe it was something else. “I’m taking measures with her involvement in mind.”

  As if on cue her cell phone rang.

  “I’m in San Antonio, mi hermanita,” Locaro’s strangely soft voice greeted. “Your information was correct.”

  “Kill as many as you have to, mi hermano, but there’s been a slight change in plans.…”

  71

  SAN ANTONIO

  “Sorry I’m late, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin said, after squeezing through the crowd to take a seat between him and Luke in the bleachers overlooking the St. Anthony’s playing field.

  “Where you been?”

  “What’d I miss?” she said, settling down.

  “Just the warm-ups. Game’s about to start. Now answer my question.”

  Caitlin smiled at Luke and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “There was a misunderstanding at the border.”

  “This misunderstanding have a name?”

  “Jones. He’s not too pleased I’ve been messing with his people.”

  “His people?”

  “That’s the way Jones sees it.”

  Cort Wesley gnashed his teeth, the muscles in his shoulders rippling under his shirt, recalling his own interactions with the man. “Maybe I should’ve plucked out his eyes when I had the chance.”

  “Dad,” said Luke, frowning.

  “You never met the man, son. You need to give me a pass on this one.”

  “On one condition,” the boy said, as the crowd rose for the national anthem.

  “Name it.”

  “We just enjoy the game.”

  “We’ll enjoy it a lot more if St. Anthony’s wins,” Caitlin said, easing her arm from Luke and focusing all her attention on the field as the school band faced the home side of the field.

  72

  SAN ANTONIO

  For a moment, Locaro didn’t recognize the song the band was playing. It had been so long since he’d heard the American national anthem, and when he did it stirred nothing but hate in him. That’s what made this night so enriching, so rewarding.

  He looked at his release from Cereso Prison as rendering him immortal in the sense that he’d already accepted death upon his life sentence there. Being released had made him feel freer than he could ever remember. No one could hurt him, no one could stop him. He was playing with the house’s money here, God’s money, even though he neither believed in nor prayed to Him. Locaro worshipped violence in its purest form, a means to an end. The men he’d killed in that Juárez bar had no idea of the meaning taking their lives had for him. The act had renewed his spirit and purpose, filled him with a vast surety of his potential to achieve whatever ends he sought by similar means. Tonight Locaro would kill again, but tonight it would be toward a specific purpose instead of just sport and practice.

  Until wielding his machete about through muscle and flesh, he’d remained unsure of what his years in Cereso had done to his speed, reflexes, and embrace of the very act itself. But as soon as he’d cut his first man in that Juárez bar, he knew. The tightness in his spine, the pleasant flutter in the pit of his stomach, the pleasure he took in the sound of their screams and the terror in their eyes. When the light was right, he could follow the machete arcing through the air in their reflection, seeing his victims’ deaths coming just as they did.

  And tonight there would be more, lots more.

  Somewhere in this crowd lurked the man he’d never gotten the chance to fight when they’d been in Cereso at the same time. From his windowless cell in the solitary wing he could hear the crowd roar through the many bare-knuckled brawls that kept the vast prison population from killing Cort Wesley Masters. He’d stay alive only so long as he remained el Gringo Campeón, certain to be killed the day he lost.

  Locaro realized his men, fellow prisoners sprung from Cereso as well, had all clamped their hands over their hearts. So he did too as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played on, shifting in his wheelchair to better ready the machete to draw.

  73

  SAN ANTONIO

  “We got plenty to talk about, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin said, as they retook their seats, both of them joining the crowd in applause as St. Anthony’s took the field, their face-off man moving to the center circle.

  “We sure do, Ranger.”

  “You found what you were looking for?”

  “I believe so, and it looks as if you did too.”

  “And then some. I know the motive behind the murder of those children in what’s left of Willow Creek. I had it figured pretty close, but to look at those men at the table, those fathers…”

  She let her voice trail off, the crowd erupting as St. Anthony’s won the face-off and went on the attack, back passing to set up their offense with their front line jostling and twisting for position in front of the goal.

  “Goes back to the past, Cort Wesley,” Caitlin resumed.

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  “Tell me about your field trip to the Rio Grande Valley with Dylan.”

  Before he could start, Dylan cut in front of the goal, took a perfect pass at stick level, and shot in the same motion. The ball zipped past the goalie, hit the back of the net, and dropped.

  The crowd on the St. Anthony’s side lurched to its feet en masse, hooting and cheering the goal. Caitlin turned toward the scoreboard now flashing a one for the home team.

  “To begin with,” Cort Wesley started, when they sat back down, “Enrique Cantú and Mateo Torres weren’t your average itinerant migrant workers, Ranger. They specialized in cultivating a certain kind of crop already known to flourish south of the border before it came north to Texas.”

  “Marijuana,” she said softly, so Luke wouldn’t hear. But his attention was rooted squarely on the game, watching his brother’s every move even on the sideline when Dylan came out for a breather with the rest of his line.

  “And that’s not all. Cantú wasn’t that family’s real name. Enrique chose to use his mother’s maiden name instead of his father’s: Guajardo.”

  “You’ve got my attention, Cort Wesley.”

  “I’ve saved the best for last, Ranger.”

  But the crowd erupted again before he could continue, when the St. Anthony’s goalie made a spectacular scoop save on a rocketed, bouncing shot, cradling the ball in the box while looking for someone to clear. Everyone on the home side sprung to their feet again, except for a grouping of military veterans watching the game in wheelchairs from field level just off a back sideline.

  * * *

  Locaro didn’
t understand the game at all and didn’t care. He cared only about the player wearing the number forty-one burgundy jersey for the St. Anthony’s side, the player who’d scored the first goal.

  Dylan Torres.

  All that stopped Locaro from giving the order to his snipers to open fire was being still unsure of where the younger Torres boy was located in the crowd on the home side of the field. One of his men was already seated there, constantly shifting position in search of him.

  “Lo encontré, jefe,” Locaro heard through the tiny wireless bud in his ear that looked like a hearing aid. “I found el muchacho americano.”

  Locaro raised the hand holding a similarly small transmitter. “Prepárense para disparar,” he told his snipers camouflaged on the school roof. “Prepare to fire.”

  * * *

  “The two little girls in those pictures were sisters, Ranger,” Cort Wesley continued.

  Caitlin looked at him, forgetting the game and the noise.

  “Twins,” he elaborated, “both born to Carmen and Mateo Torres. But they couldn’t afford to raise both of them, so the Cantú family offered to take one in.”

  “A third sister,” Caitlin realized, “along with Maura and Araceli. That means her life’s likely in danger too, and her family’s. What was her name, Cort Wesley? Did Jan McClellan-Townsend tell you that?”

  Cort Wesley nodded. “Ana.”

  “Ana Cantú.”

  “Not Cantú, remember? Ana Guajardo,” Cort Wesley said, the row just behind them jostling as a small Latino man wearing a baseball cap squeezed into a seat behind Luke.

  74

  SAN ANTONIO

  With his man in the crowd now in place, Locaro saw no reason to wait any longer. His snipers’ instructions were to take out as many players as they could measure in their sights in rapid succession. Two of them, placed strategically apart from each other on the rooftop. In the chaos that followed, Locaro and his remaining men would storm the field blazing an indiscriminate path through the resulting panic while Locaro himself took care of Dylan Torres. By then, he fully expected the protective forces of Guillermo Paz to have joined the fray as well, and it unnerved Locaro no end that neither Paz nor his men seemed to be anywhere about. He could only hope that the guise formed by the wheelchairs and fake military uniforms complete with various medals awarded for distinguished service would hold long enough.