by Jon Land
“I don’t know. I only know it wasn’t drugs.”
Caitlin jerked her pistol away from Rodrigo and aimed straight for Jesus’s head. “Tell me what it was or I’ll shoot your brother in the face. Look me in the eye and see if I’m serious. Look me in the eye and tell me I won’t do it.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, but . . .”
“Talk!”
“There was another man with us, an American! He was in charge. He dropped us at the border, to die.”
Rodrigo’s mention of an American confirmed everything she thought she’d heard that night. “Not all bad, I guess,” Caitlin said to him.
“He was very scary.”
“Did he shoot you in the leg?”
“No, señorita.”
“Then I guess he wasn’t scarier than me, was he?”
Rodrigo swallowed hard.
“What was this American’s name?”
“I don’t know. We drive the truck to Houston and unload it there.”
“Houston?”
“Sí.”
“That was your only stop, you unloaded everything there?”
Rodrigo nodded. “The American was in charge. Afterwards, he comes with us back to Juárez to pay Garza.”
“You poor dumb shit.”
Rodrigo’s eyes narrowed.
“He was going to kill you. Only reason you’re alive today is ’cause my partner and I happened to be staking out the area.”
“We won’t be alive tomorrow now.”
“Not my problem.”
“Garza will find us!”
“Give him my regards. Tell him I shot you and I’m gonna shoot him.”
Caitlin rose, brushing off her jeans even though they were clean. But the action made her feel no less dirty because the real dirt was in a place no amount of brushing could rid.
“How many boxes?” she asked Rodrigo.
“Three dozen, maybe four.”
“How big?”
Rodrigo spread his hands to show her.
“You’re full of shit.”
“No.”
“You were running drugs and nothing else.”
“No!” Rodrigo rasped, throwing up his hands in front of his face as if to ward off an expected bullet.
“I’m not gonna shoot you. You’re right, you and your brother don’t get yourselves gone, you’ll be dead anyway.”
Caitlin reached down and counted a thousand pesos from the cash that littered the dirt floor.
“But don’t worry,” she told Rodrigo, “I’ll pay your mother back the money you owe her.”
14
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
“And did you?” D. W. Tepper asked her.
“What do you think?”
“Yeah, stupid question.”
“You don’t look surprised.”
“That’s pretty much the way I always thought it went down. Ever figure out if Garza caught up to the Saez brothers?”
“Nope. It didn’t seem to matter much at that point. And there’s no such person as Garza.”
“I’m sure that’s just what he wants you to think.”
“You ever seen Garza, Captain?”
“Nope.”
“A picture even?”
Tepper shook his head, stifled a raspy cough born of years nesting with Marlboro Reds. “Nope. Pray to God every Sunday but never seen him neither.”
“See, Captain, that’s the point. Mexican Mafia likes nothing better than watching us chase our tails in search of a spook story.”
“There’s plenty who’d disagree with you there, some of them Rangers.”
“Nobody’s perfect, even Rangers.”
Tepper’s drawn, tired eyes scolded her from across the table. “So, what, you working at this torture center’s about some stab at forgiveness?”
“For what?”
“You just told me for what.”
“I did what I had to in Juárez that night, Captain.”
“Doesn’t make it any more right or less drag on the conscience. It ain’t the Ranger way, girl, ain’t part of our code or any decent man’s.”
“Felt different at the time,” Caitlin managed, stung by his comment.
“That supposed to justify what you did?”
“It’s what kept me going through all the rehab.”
“And look where that got you.” Tepper stopped to steady his breathing, stifling a cough. “Only thing I can figure is working with these torture victims is gonna somehow make you feel better about what you did to the Saez brothers.”
“Lots of things I’m trying to change in my life right now.”
“Well, I knew something had changed you before you finally met up with Cort Wesley Masters; I just didn’t know what.”
Caitlin ran it through her head again, the events that followed her return from Juárez. “I filed a report based on anonymous sourcing and the Department for Public Safety dispatched a forensics team to the site. Took as many blood samples as they could find. One of them came back a match for Masters.”
“The American you remember being there, giving the orders.”
“Yup. And what went down from there, you pretty much know.”
D. W. Tepper leaned across the table again, the cracks in his leathery face deepening into crevices. “Something you gotta hear now.”
Caitlin looked at Tepper for a long time after he had finished telling her about Cort Wesley Masters being released from Huntsville.
“You’re telling me this new kind of DNA test proved it wasn’t his blood in the desert, when another test proved it was.”
“DNA don’t lie.”
“It did the first time, apparently.”
Tepper refitted the standard-issue Ranger Stetson hat over his head. Caitlin found herself studying the sweat stains burned into the brim.
“Been struggling with this ever since I found out myself the other day. I don’t tell you, you can’t be on your guard. I do tell you, what you did chews you up inside.”
Caitlin’s hands tightened into fists and she rapped one down on the table hard enough to rattle their coffee mugs. “That son of a bitch was there the night Charlie Weeks was killed, sure as I’m looking at you right now.”
“No, Caitlin, he wasn’t. And now you got a certifiable psychopath who may be out to end your life in a hurry.”
“Cort Wesley Masters isn’t a psychopath.”
“What is he then?”
“I heard he took over his father’s loan sharking business when he was only sixteen. I heard he came back from the first Gulf War with the ears and scalps of his Iraqi victims for souvenirs.”
“You believe all that?”
“Question is where does the legend end and truth begin, Captain.”
Tepper started to slide out of the booth, every joint creaking and cracking from sitting for such a long stretch. He coughed up some mucus, then swallowed it back down, his eyes growing curious.
“What do you think, Ranger?”
“That I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
Tepper looked as if he were ready to offer a rebuke to her until another coughing spasm overcame him. His eyes fought back their watering and grew stern. “Think that’s the way Jim Strong would’ve handled things?”
“Jim Strong never met Cort Wesley Masters, Captain.”
15
HOUSTON, THE PRESENT
“Pleasant trip, I trust, Mr. Hanratty,” Harmon Delladonne said to the man seated in front of his desk.
“Not really.”
“I’d suspect so, considering you flew coach. If you wanted to sign the deal memo in person, I could have sent a jet for you,” Delladonne said, extending a Montblanc pen across his desk.
Hanratty didn’t take it. “I’m not here to sign your deal memo. I’m here to tell you to shove it.”
Instead of responding, Delladonne rose and moved around to the front of his desk where a pair of brandy snifters had been set next to a dec
anter. Its crystal form glistened in a band of sunlight stretching from one of the windows on the far wall.
Delladonne watched Hanratty recoil at his approach, jostling his chair. Hanratty was a big man with unnaturally broad shoulders and thick white hair. A Korean War vet who’d earned a Purple Heart and Medal of Valor when he single-handedly stormed a machine-gun nest armed only with a knife. He breathed noisily through his mouth and smelled of talcum powder.
“You look tense, Mr. Hanratty. Let me pour you a drink,” Delladonne said, removing the heavy top from the decanter. “This is Henri IV Dudognon, the most expensive cognac in the world,” he continued, as he poured matching levels into the two snifters. “Something you’ll now be able to enjoy with all the money I’m paying you. Come on, let’s toast to our mutual success.”
Delladonne extended one of the snifters toward Hanratty who refused to take that too. “I don’t drink.”
“A good time to make an exception, I’d say. So we can toast our futures.”
“Our futures have nothing in common. I thought I’d made that abundantly clear.”
Delladonne ignored him, rolling the liquid around in his glass. “This is as close to perfection as it gets, Mr. Hanratty. Aged for twenty years in the same distillery where it’s been made for three centuries. When you sip Henri IV Dudognon, you’re tasting history. You’re tasting all the things that have come to pass, some you could control and others you couldn’t. That’s why I wanted you to toast with me, so we could celebrate the things we still can.”
Delladonne studied the man against the backdrop of the sprawling office that made Hanratty look tiny and ineffectual. The motif of the office, which included a loft accessible via a steel spiral staircase, was never the same. The latest was Japanese, the office laid out with shoji screens, bamboo flooring and seat cushions on the floor as well as standard furniture. Japanese art, including portraits, landscapes and elegantly etched figures of calligraphy, hung from the walls in minimalist fashion in keeping with the reverence that Japanese culture has for open spaces. The forty-six-story steel-and-glass structure of MacArthur-Rain’s corporate headquarters was a gleaming showpiece as well, dominating the Houston skyline from all angles.
“You understand why I’m telling you this, of course.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Because men like us understand opportunity, know how to take hold of it when it’s presented to us.”
“There is no us. There’s you and there’s me, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
“You didn’t get where you are by turning away from the kind of opportunity I’m offering you, the kind of opportunity that will give you the liberty to appreciate things like Henri IV Dudognon and the money to buy them.”
With that Delladonne tucked the Montblanc pen into Hanratty’s shirt pocket.
Hanratty dropped it to the floor. “You can take your pen and your cognac and go to hell.”
Delladonne laid his glass back on the desk. “If my offer wasn’t generous enough, Mr. Hanratty—”
“I never read it.”
“Then you can’t know, can you?”
“I don’t need to. Some of us are happy with what we’ve got and don’t need million-dollar bottles of cognac to make us think we’re better than we really are.”
Delladonne’s dark eyes brightened. “So you have heard of it.”
“What?”
“Henri IV Dudognon. I never told you what it cost, but you knew.”
“What’s your goddamn point, Mr. Delladonne?” Hanratty posed, shifting anxiously in the chair.
“Simply that we’re more alike than you think, just like I said. And if you’d read my offer, you’d understand how much I respect that. If you’d read my prospectus, you’d understand how vital your factories are to the security interests of this country.”
“My jewelry factories,” Hanratty repeated, realizing the sweat was making his shirt stick to the leather chair.
“That’s right.”
“But you can’t tell me why.”
“Classified, I’m afraid.”
Hanratty nodded to himself. “You need my factories to build weapons. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“I can’t answer that question.”
Hanratty’s features flared anew. “You don’t own this country, Delladonne. You may think you do, but it’s a crock. You want to buy up every defense contractor in the country, go ahead. But leave my factories alone.”
“I’d like you to reconsider. I’d like you to join me for a glass of Henri IV Dudognon,” Delladonne said, extending Hanratty’s snifter toward him again.
“I’m sure you would,” Hanratty shot back, chest puffed out so his old-fashioned tank-style T-shirt pushed up against his white dress shirt. “How’s it feel to have someone stand up to you, Mr. Delladonne? How’s it feel to have someone tell you to go to hell?”
Delladonne slid back behind his desk. “There’s nothing I can say to make you change your mind?”
“Not a fucking word,” Hanratty said, rising slowly. He leaned over and plucked the Montblanc pen off the floor. “Think I’ll keep this as a souvenir.”
“Be my guest. But what a pity,” Delladonne continued, shaking his head. “A truly sad day for all you’ve spent a lifetime building.”
Hanratty started for the door along a thin stretch of sunlit flooring that made him feel as if he were clinging to the lone path through a wilderness. He stopped halfway there and swung round, something about Delladonne’s tone gnawing at him. “What did you mean by that?”
“Check your BlackBerry. E-mail inbox.”
Hanratty did, having trouble maneuvering his thick fingers about the tiny keyboard. Finally he found what he was looking for, turned rigid, broad shoulders shrinking.
“What, what the hell is this?”
“E-mails from your suppliers, coming in right on time.”
“They’re canceling our posted orders.”
“Can you blame them? After all, your company’s being investigated for violations of the Patriot Act. Rather serious charges.”
“What in God’s name have you done?”
“Nothing; you did it all yourself. But you’ll have nothing to worry about, once the investigation clears you. Of course, in the meantime all your suppliers will be subpoenaed as well to see if they might be complicit in your activities. And your clients in the private sector will be informed of your status as a matter of course.”
Hanratty stood there, trapped between thoughts. Outside, clouds swept over the sun, stealing his path to the door from him. He felt lost.
“I’m reducing my offer by one-third,” Delladonne told him. “If the papers aren’t signed in the next twenty minutes, I’m reducing it by another third. I want to make sure you understand that.”
Hanratty remained motionless, silent.
Delladonne pulled the glass he’d poured for him away from the edge of the desk. “See, you should have joined me for a Henri IV Dudognon. There was never a doubt about how this was going to finish, only what side you were going to end up on.” Delladonne held his stare at the man’s hunched frame. Funny how he didn’t look so big and broad anymore. “And you chose the wrong one.”
Hanratty started to speak but got caught between breaths and ended up gagging. Then, choosing his steps carefully, he continued on to the ornate double doors that opened automatically at his approach.
“Don’t forget to sign all four copies, Mr. Hanratty. You can keep the pen.”
The doors closed after Hanratty had disappeared through them.
“Impressive,” Clayton told Harm Delladonne, emerging from the darkest of the room’s shadows behind an ornate pillar.
“The man’s a true patriot. He just didn’t know it. Now tell me about Goodwin.”
“He’s in some kind of rehabilitation center in San Antonio. Was found wandering the streets in Bahrain, just as we suspected. But the police took him to the British Embassy instead of ours. Th
at was nine months ago, just before we last met.”
“Nine months and you’re only finding out about this now?”
“Took the British some time to realize his brain really is alphabet soup. Then more time passed while they put through the paperwork to get him out of the country, a predicament further complicated by the fact that it didn’t take them long to realize he was an American citizen.”
“So why not just transfer him to our embassy?” Delladonne asked.
“Because he wouldn’t say he was American. Diplomatic protocols, you see. It’s complicated.”
“Wouldn’t say,” Delladonne repeated.
“Didn’t say much at all, in fact, practically nothing. Other than to insist he didn’t exist. Apparently it’s an actual condition brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder. So he ends up in England and only then are arrangements made to transfer him back to an appropriate facility stateside.”
“To Texas.”
“A psychiatric hospital in New York first where they determined the cause of his PTSD. Then a facility in Florida, then San Antonio.”
Delladonne inhaled deeply. “You’re telling me your suspicions have been confirmed.”
“We won’t be getting anything more out of his head, if that’s what you mean, sir.”
Delladonne’s dark eyes fixed on Clayton, not blinking. “You understand what you’re saying here? You understand how vital the contents of his brain are to the future of this company and this country?”
“That’s why I’m telling you personally, sir.”
Delladonne sucked in another deep breath and let it out slowly. “But that same brain holds the seeds of our potential undoing, doesn’t it?”
“It could, yes.”
“Clearly an unacceptable risk. You understand?”
“I do, sir.”
“Inform me when it’s done, then.”
“I will.”
Delladonne started to turn away from him, then swung back. “And, Clayton?”
“Sir?”
“Erase his entire presence. As if he never existed.”
“Who, sir?”
Delladonne smiled thinly.