Blood Country: The Second Byron Tibor Novel

by Sean Black

  ‘Come on. Come on. Let me see you,’ Byron whispered, in the darkness.

  Was it another cop? Someone in plain clothes? It would have made sense to have law enforcement out in civilian clothes and vehicles to aid the search. A fugitive would hide at the first sight of a black-and-white. Much less so with a regular car. They might still hide, but a second or so later than if someone in uniform had been cruising past, and a second would be all a vigilant cop would need to see them.

  The cops were standing next to the sedan now, smiling while they talked to the driver, completely relaxed. The driver was moving to the rear of the car, ready to start pumping gas.

  The cops said their goodbyes and started back to their patrol car. Thea Martinez stepped away from the sedan and looked around, searching the shadows.

  64

  Thea’s car sat parked in the side street next to the gas station. Byron watched it for a long moment. Her friendly chat with the cops had thrown him off. It wasn’t that she’d run into them. With all the cops out on the road, it was likely that she would. No, it was their manner. Thea had painted herself as Enemy Number One of the Kelsen County establishment, yet they’d all but given her a hug.

  He pulled up the chain-link fencing where it had been cut away, and squeezed through the gap. He had picked up some clothes from a charity deposit point, but even without prison blues, he still looked every inch the fugitive from justice. Hell, even in a Hugo Boss suit and wingtips he carried that air. That was part of why he’d made such an effective overseas operator, especially in high-risk areas.

  He skirted the edge of the lot, staying where there was least light, then walked down the sidewalk and crossed the street a half-block past the gas station. He doubled back and turned down the street where Thea’s sedan was parked.

  Looking for signs of a surveillance operation he came up blank. Not that he would know. At least, not if it was being conducted properly. He reached the car and opened the rear passenger door.

  Thea started as he settled onto the back seat. He still had Mills’s Glock but he kept it out of view. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  It was a strangely formal exchange for such an out-of-the-ordinary situation.

  She half turned to look at him. He didn’t need his psycho-neurological synesthetic powers to see that she was scared. Her widened pupils and shaking hands, clamped to the wheel to minimize the obvious tremor, told him that much. ‘What should I do now?’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s the best idea to stay parked up here. Martin’s got every single deputy he has out looking for you.’

  ‘You’re right. You should drive.’

  ‘Where? There are roadblocks on every road out of town.’

  ‘Your office?’ Byron offered.

  ‘My office is in the basement of my home.’

  She must have registered something in Byron’s expression because she quickly added, ‘I’m trying to keep the overheads low. Being St Thea Martinez of Kelsen County, pro bono work a specialty, doesn’t exactly leave me rolling in dough at the end of the month.’

  ‘Wherever you feel comfortable. My continued liberty isn’t your responsibility.’

  ‘No kidding,’ Thea shot back. ‘And to think you wouldn’t let me try to get you off. I’m still trying to work that one out.’

  Byron looked through the rear window as headlights flashed past on the road behind them. Thea took the hint. She started the engine, put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb, heading down the side street and taking a right down a narrow alleyway. Driving seemed to relax her a notch or two. It did the same for Byron. He had spent most of the afternoon and early evening in perpetual motion.

  Thea glanced at him in the rearview. ‘An advantage of staying in the same one-horse town all your life, apart from college and law school ‒ you get to know all the back alleys.’

  Byron remained silent.

  She took a deep breath and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eye. When it fell back, she pushed it away with her fingers. ‘I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,’ she said, more to herself than Byron.

  ‘Why not? You strike me as someone who’s fairly accepting of risk.’

  ‘There’s risk and then there’s risk. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Byron.

  She slowed the car, took another turn, straightened back up and gave him a long rearview glance. ‘I saw what you did to Mills.’

  For a second Byron was panicked. What did she mean, she’d seen what he’d done? ‘He’s fine, right?’

  ‘Physically, yes. Mentally, I wouldn’t be so sure.’

  For a second Byron had worried that Martin and his merry men had blundered in rather than following standard protocol when dealing with a suspected explosive device. Byron had constructed the scene to look like an honest-to-goodness IED but, apart from the can of gas, there had been nothing to cause any harm. Unless, of course, someone lit a match or started firing, which he hadn’t entirely ruled out. ‘I don’t think Mills was ever fine mentally,’ he said drily.

  Thea didn’t laugh. ‘He’s a bully. But he’s still a human being.’

  Safe in the gloom of the back seat, Byron rolled his eyes. If there was one thing that worried him more than a reactionary with totalitarian tendencies, like Mills, it was a bleeding heart. At least with someone like Mills you knew what you were getting. With someone like Thea, the consequences of their actions were often unintended and consequently much harder to predict.

  ‘I had to buy myself some time. Keep Martin and his posse occupied for a while.’

  This time it was Thea’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘And you didn’t enjoy teaching Mills a lesson?’

  ‘Do I have to answer that question, counsellor?’

  ‘You already did.’

  ‘Did you get a call from Romero? When they released him I gave him your number.’

  She fell silent at the mention of the name. Her eyes flicked back to the road. ‘We can talk about that later.’

  They had reached a quiet residential neighborhood of older, smaller wooden houses. They looked neatly kept with fresh paint and mown lawns. McMansions they were not.

  They turned into a driveway. Thea reached up to the sun visor and hit a clicker. A garage door opened. She drove inside, and hit the clicker again, closing the door behind them. She got out, looking back at Byron. ‘If I’m going to be murdered by a homicidal psychopath then I may as well have it happen in the comfort of my own home.’

  65

  Thea slid a key into a rickety back door and pushed it open. Byron followed her inside. A short hallway led into a kitchen. A cat yowled from the far doorway and padded across to Thea, rubbing itself against her legs.

  “I know, cliché, right?” Thea said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Single cat lady. I’m working my way up to a full dozen.’

  ‘How many do you have so far?’

  ‘Three,’ she said. ‘And maybe a couple of neighborhood strays, but I’m not sure whether they count.’

  Byron wasn’t sure how to respond so he didn’t say anything.

  ‘You have any pets?’

  Before he could answer that one, Thea laughed. ‘Who am I asking?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, for a start, you don’t actually exist, do you? Not on any official database. Not with the name and details you gave when you were arrested.’

  She crossed to the sink, reached down and picked up a water bowl, filled it from the tap and put it down on the floor. By the time she straightened up, Byron was standing directly behind her. He reached over and grabbed her wrist. ‘You ran my fingerprints?’

  She spun round, breaking his grip on her wrist. Her hand raised and shoved him hard in the chest. He stepped back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have touched you.’

  Her left hand was feeling in the sink behind her for a knife that Byron could see lying in a po
ol of soapy water. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘Please. I promise I won’t touch you again.’

  She stopped feeling for the knife but kept her hand where it was.

  ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘This isn’t … I’m not who you might think.’

  ‘So who are you?’

  ‘You want my name, or do you want to know who I am?’ he asked. A better question might have been, did she want to know what he was? The only problem with that was that he wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. Objectively he guessed he was . . . what? Part man, part machine? A cyborg? But that word conjured a creature, at least in his own mind, that was far more machine than he felt.

  ‘Is there a difference?’ Thea said.

  If someone had run his prints, it didn’t really matter now whether he lied or told the truth. If his prints were run on any system that connected in any way to any national or international database, it would set alarm bells ringing. Alarm bells that would ripple outwards until they hit someone in the State Department, the CIA or the Pentagon, and likely all three. The Kelsen County sheriff would be the least of his worries.

  ‘My name is Byron Tibor.’

  She studied him. Her hand moved out of the sink. ‘Sorry, is that supposed to mean something?’

  Byron rubbed at his face. ‘Tell you what, you tell me about Romero and I’ll answer whatever questions you have as truthfully as I can.’

  ‘As truthfully as you can?’ Thea said. ‘Thought I was supposed to be the attorney.’

  ‘I don’t have all the answers. Nor do I understand everything that’s happened to me. That’s what I was trying to get at when I said that.’

  ‘Now you have me interested.’

  She walked past him to a refrigerator. ‘Does Byron Tibor drink wine?’ She pulled it open, took out a bottle, crossed to a cupboard for two long-stemmed glasses and put it all on the small table in the middle of the room.

  ‘Would you mind if I took a few minutes to get cleaned up first?’ he asked her.

  ‘Sure. The bathroom’s at the end of the hall.’ She nodded towards the door leading out of the kitchen. ‘Don’t take too long. I really want a glass of wine and I don’t like drinking on my own.’

  Byron walked past her to the door. He could smell her perfume. He couldn’t imagine a woman like her having to drink alone, except by her own choice.

  * * *

  Closing the bathroom door behind him, Byron laid the Glock on a shelf over the sink and within easy reach of the shower. He took off his clothes, turned the shower on hot, and got in. He scrubbed himself clean and got out. It was only then he realized that he couldn’t see any towels. There was only a wash cloth, but that wasn’t about to do the job.

  He padded to the door, opened it and called down the hallway, ‘Hey, do you have a towel I could use?’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Oh, shit. Sorry. I just did laundry and haven’t put any towels back in there. Hang on.’

  He closed the door again and waited. There was a tap at the door. He opened it a crack. Thea handed a towel through the gap. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He caught her eyes lingering on what was visible of his broad shoulders, wide chest and muscular arms.

  She saw that he’d caught her checking him out and got flustered. ‘You’re welcome. I’m just opening the wine.’

  He closed the door, dried off, finger-combed his hair, and got dressed.

  Thea held out a glass of white wine as he walked back into the kitchen. ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the glass and sitting down at the kitchen table.

  He took a sip. It wasn’t bad.

  She watched him over the rim of hers as she drank. ‘So,’ said Thea. ‘I have bad news about your friend Romero.’

  Byron wondered if that was why she had needed the wine. To fortify herself to break bad news.

  ‘It’s partly what happened with him that made me decide to come and meet you,’ Thea added. ‘I’m not sure if that’ll be any consolation or not.’

  Byron wanted to ask her what that meant. Had she ignored Romero’s plea for help? Byron didn’t want to believe that, but maybe she hadn’t wanted to get mixed up in it. Or hadn’t realized what was at stake. He guessed that she would tell him in good time, and even then it would be in her words with no way for Byron to know if what she said was true or not.

  ‘He’s dead?’

  Thea took another mouthful of wine. ‘Yes. His body was found this morning. Out in the desert. I’ve asked for an autopsy by someone outside the county, but I don’t hold out much hope.’

  ‘You don’t trust the county coroner?’ Byron asked.

  She laughed. ‘For one, he’s not exactly a coroner, more a family doctor who was given a pathology lab and some scalpels. And, like most everybody else around here, he’s not about to rock the boat.’

  ‘Everyone apart from you, you mean?’

  ‘For all the good it’s done me.’

  ‘So why do you feel guilty about what happened with Romero?’

  ‘Who said I felt guilty?’ Thea said.

  ‘You said that you only helped me because . . .’

  Thea waved her hand as she took yet another sip of wine. Her glass was already a third gone. ‘I hesitated when I got his message. Made some phone calls instead of getting in my car. By the time I went to try and catch up with the deputy who had him, he was gone. My calling them had only sealed the deal. I think so anyway. I was hoping that if they knew I was aware they had him, they might have second thoughts about hurting him. More fool me, right?’

  Byron was relieved. She hadn’t ignored Romero. She just hadn’t been decisive enough. ‘A man tells you he’s going to be killed and then he turns up dead? Isn’t that going to pull in someone from outside?’ he asked.

  Thea topped up her glass. ‘It didn’t last time. Or the time before that. Or with the one before that. Why would this be any different?’

  Byron took her point. Somewhere like Kelsen, where everyone who mattered was in on whatever was going down or at least was enjoying the benefits, it was hard to break the cycle. ‘So how did they do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Drove him out to the desert and left him without water. Probably beat him up before they left. No water and this heat for an elderly man who was injured? It wouldn’t have taken long.’

  Byron raised his glass in a silent toast to Romero. What a chickenshit way to kill such a brave man. They hadn’t even had the balls to end his suffering and put a bullet in him. That would have been difficult to explain away, even for them.

  ‘He was a good man,’ said Byron, the wine tasting bitter at the back of his throat.

  ‘A lot of good men have died here. And women for that matter. That factory is a death trap,’ said Thea. ‘At least a dozen women have been either killed or seriously injured working there. When it happens they just ship them back over the border, either in a wooden box or a wheelchair, and carry on like it was nothing.’

  They took a moment to contemplate those who had passed. Byron was sure of one thing. If the warden or the sheriff wanted to take him down, he was taking them with him.

  ‘So,’ said Thea. ‘Now you know about your friend.’

  ‘You mean it’s my turn to tell my story?’ Byron said.

  Thea nodded.

  ‘You may want to put another bottle of wine in to chill. If you have one,’ he said.

  ‘That long or that bad?’

  ‘A bit of both,’ said Byron.

  Thea got up, opened a larder cupboard and popped a bottle of the same wine they were drinking into the inside door of the refrigerator. He’d barely finished his first glass, so he could hardly blame the alcohol, but he felt something stirring inside him as he watched her. There was a grace to the way she moved and, if he was honest, a feminine sensuality that he felt himself pulled towards. Given the circumstances, it was almost surreal to be feeling what he was. Or perhaps it was another sign of a human response – complex and irrational – to a crazy situation. Maybe there was mo
re hope for him than he wanted to believe. Too bad he was possibly facing his final few hours or days.

  66

  Although Thea was opening a second bottle of wine, he doubted that any amount of alcohol would make the unabridged version of his story seem credible. He decided to edit certain details, and stick with the parts that were easily digestible.

  With what had happened, especially in New York, the authorities had been forced to create their narrative of why a man called Byron Tibor had done what he had while fleeing their grasp. Their version was full of carefully constructed lies, mostly of omission. Maybe if he followed their model and left out the parts that were hard to believe, he could come up with something that bore some resemblance to the truth.

  The start was easy enough. There was no dispute about his credentials or, for that matter, what he had done for his country.

  ‘So you were some kind of special-forces guy?’ Thea asked.

  She seemed entirely skeptical. He didn’t blame her. Bars across the country were full of men who spun women some bullshit story about their military career. They were never cooks or engineers or infantry grunts, no, sirree, they were always special forces of some stripe. Delta Force. SEALs. Army Rangers.

  ‘I had special-forces training but I mostly worked for the State Department. I was a troubleshooter,’ Byron told her.

  ‘Is that code for someone who kills people?’ Thea asked.

  ‘Killing people was less than zero point one per cent of the job, so it’s not code. I did kill people, yes, but more often than not it was indirect. I’d call in strikes, that kind of thing.’

  ‘And the rest of the time?’

  ‘The majority of the time I was involved in building alliances, gathering intelligence, making sure that local communities got what they needed. Clean water, sanitation, schools, books. Not very exciting but probably more effective in the long run for the country’s interests than drone strikes.’