by Jon Land
“Do the best I can.”
The two of them standing up now, eye-to-eye with each other.
“Just make sure it’s enough, Frankie.”
Cort Wesley was barely outside The Walls when he dialed a number on his throwaway cell phone.
“Who is this?” came Caitlin Strong’s greeting.
“Guess.”
“Masters?”
“Didn’t even need three tries.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Then you won’t find out what I got to tell you. About your friend Clayton.” He listened to Caitlin Strong breathing on the other end. “Come on, Ranger, meet me for coffee. I’m buying. Make us square for the drinks last night.”
“Not necessary.”
“Okay. You can buy.”
“You got something I really want to hear?”
“Cost you a coffee to find out.”
“I’ve lived to regret less, Masters.”
“Good. Then you won’t be disappointed.”
28
VENEZUELA, THE PRESENT
Guillermo Paz stood before the crumbling frame of the village’s new schoolhouse as the flames crackled and hissed. Around him, the seven men who had accompanied Paz on this operation poked and prodded the villagers to keep them in a tight pack. The villagers could do nothing but watch in shock and dismay as the new buildings erected on their behalf slowly burned to the ground.
His orders were to burn everything: their ramshackle shanties, storage huts and meeting places too. But Paz couldn’t find the sense in that. After all, those structures had been in place long before the bleeding hearts arrived spreading their false message of hope with lumber and construction plans, along with the promise of electricity and satellite dishes in the future. So he’d only burned what was new and thus the reason for his coming.
You’re an ungrateful lot, he wanted to shout at the desperate mass of humanity consumed by their own weakness. Don’t you see what I have done for you? I could just as easily have left you with nothing but the mountains for refuge, even had you all shot as you stand. But I didn’t. Instead I disobeyed my orders. For the first time ever, I disobeyed my orders and you thank me with tears and pleas for mercy. You have no idea what I have sacrificed for you, what I will leave behind me when I’m gone from this village. . . .
The thoughts continued to churn through Paz’s mind, but he pushed them aside. More of the schoolhouse’s timbers and beams crumpled inward, coughing charred embers into the afternoon sky. Paz looked up at the dark clouds that had rolled over the sun. A storm was coming, something else for the villagers to be thankful for since it would save them the trouble of extinguishing the flames consuming this and the other buildings.
His men kept cocking their gazes back toward Paz for instructions, wanting to be gone from this place as much as he. He’d chosen them because they always followed orders implicitly and, like him, honestly enjoyed their work. He addressed them neither by name, because that would have been too respectful, nor rank, because that would no longer have been accurate. Instead, he’d christened these men the Seven Dwarfs since, compared to him in size, they essentially were. The point was lost on the majority of them, who’d never seen or heard of the American movie. They had been culled from Andes villages set back from civilization, like Paz pure-blooded Venezuelan Indian for whom electricity and running water were still luxuries and whose warrior tradition dated back centuries.
Paz mostly agreed with President Chavez that technology and education were good things only to the extent they could be controlled. Once the bleeding-heart foundations and international relief groups sank their teeth into things, the inevitable upshot was the fermenting of discontent among the masses. The reason why there were no rebels in Venezuela was that President Chavez knew when to make an example of those efforts attempting to provide an alternative.
Matters normally handled, on a freelance basis, by Guillermo Paz and his seven dwarfs. But not anymore, not after today once word reached Caracas that Paz had disobeyed. Worse, he had interfered in official state policy.
Don’t you see what I have done for you?
His satellite phone rang and Paz stepped aside to answer it, angling himself away from the sun in order to read the caller ID. The ten zeroes made him smile.
“Been a long time,” Paz greeted in English.
“Your services are required.”
“Where?”
“The United States. Texas. And you’ll need to get a team together.”
Paz looked at his seven dwarfs, still poking and prodding at the villagers.
“I could use a change of scenery,” Paz told the man on the other end of the line.
29
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
“Here you go,” Caitlin said, handing Cort Wesley Masters his cup complete with cardboard sleeve he seemed fascinated by.
She took her seat again at a table on the patio outside Starbucks on the Riverwalk on West Crockett Street, arranging her chair to be in the shade while Cort Wesley drank up the sun. A breeze seemed to be lifting off the nearby waterway, alive with tour boats and pedestrians along its edge. Just an illusion, of course, since the man-made channel’s churning waters were more decorative showpiece. Caitlin remembered the first time her father had taken her here as a little girl. Not nearly as many tourists or stores back then, but they’d taken a boat ride during which her popcorn had spilled over the side.
“Says HEAR MUSIC COFFEEHOUSE over the entrance,” Cort Wesley noted. “I thought we were just meeting for coffee.”
“We are. Others like to get themselves some music at the same time. Something new, I guess.”
“Well, I prefer the old.”
“So what is it you’ve got to tell me?” Caitlin asked him.
Cort Wesley took a sip from his cup and nearly spit it out. “Shit, what is this?”
“A latte.”
“Latte what?”
“You told me to get you whatever I was having.”
“I thought it’d be coffee.”
“It is of a kind.”
“I’m talking the black normal tasting kind.”
“You’ve heard of lattes, of course.”
“Heard of ’em, yeah. Just never thought I’d be drinking one.” Cort Wesley took another sip, trying to get used to the taste.
“They’re everywhere now,” said Caitlin.
“Yeah, a lot can change in five years,” Cort Wesley followed, waiting to see her reaction. “Made a trip to The Walls this morning,” he resumed, when she just kept sipping her latte.
“Hopefully not ’cause you missed it.”
“Not hardly. I wanted to check some things with a military friend who works inside, got the kind of connections we can use.”
“We?”
“I asked my friend to check out who was holding this boy Clayton’s leash. Now that we know it was him in the desert that night your partner got killed and not me.” Cort Wesley sat back and sipped his latte, pretending to like it.
“That what you came here to tell me?”
“My military friend said he’ll check things out. Promised to get back to me soon.”
“You should have waited ’til then to call me.”
“Thought about it. Then I figured you deserved this opportunity.”
“To what?”
“Apologize for jailing me for something I had no part in. I don’t remember you saying how sorry you were for getting things wrong. Lady, there was a time . . .”
Caitlin leaned forward, meeting his gaze with the back legs of her chair pitched in the air. “A time what?”
Cort Wesley held her stare. “You really don’t want me to answer that.”
“Wouldn’t have asked the question if I didn’t.”
He slid his chair back, ever so slightly, just enough to ease his hand closer to the pistol tucked into his belt beneath his shirt. “You wanna finish what we started in El Paso, just say the word.”
“An
d me thinking we were past that.”
“Some things are tougher to get past than others, Ranger.”
“Like seeing your husband helpless as an infant after some genuine sadists had their way with him for God knows how long.”
“He’d be plenty worse off than that right now, if it weren’t for me.” Cort Wesley looked away long enough for Caitlin’s glare to soften. “You too.”
“Why didn’t you just kill me instead?” she asked him.
“I wanted to.”
“Something stopped you.”
“And when I figure out what it was, I’ll let you know.”
Caitlin settled back in her chair. “Good thing, since I wasn’t the one who framed you, Masters.”
“Just like I wasn’t the one who shot up your partner. Someone else put my blood in the desert to set me up. Thought you might be able to help me figure out who. I figure after last night you owe me that much.”
Caitlin just looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Drinking my coffee.”
“You mean latte.”
Caitlin took another sip and uncrossed her legs, watched Masters fighting his eyes off the sight. “Thing I’m wondering is how they came by the blood that ended up in the desert. Don’t suppose you left a deposit at the Red Cross.”
“I used to spill blood, not give it, Ranger.”
“Thing is I did some checking too ’bout how something like this could happen.” Caitlin studied Masters briefly before continuing. “And what I found has to do with degradation of the blood sample. Difference between a sample taken from a blood bank or something and something fresher. They could tell now that what they found in the desert had been refrigerated. That’s what got you exonerated.”
“Means somebody had to have stolen my blood.”
“Whoever’s pulling the strings here put some serious thought into things.”
“Sure, they chose me, easy target, knew you’d come gunning.”
“And get myself killed in the process.”
“That being the likely result almost sure to have figured into their thinking.”
“Guess we fooled them, didn’t we?”
Cort Wesley fumbled the coffee cup, realization flashing in his eyes. “Shit . . .”
“What?”
“I got kids.”
“As in children?”
“That’s right, Caitlin Strong. Two boys. But don’t worry. They don’t know I exist. They’re safe, sound and oblivious to me on a cul-de-sac in Shavano Park. Anyways, right around that time I get contacted by their mother through my friend Pablo Asuna. One of the boys might be sick, she says, may need the kind of transplant with blood or something. I figure she’s hitting me up for money but turns out she needs to find out if my blood’s a match. So I go get a sample taken and sent over to some lab.” Cort Wesley passed the coffee cup from one hand to the other. “Since it turned out the boy was fine all the time, it must’ve been a setup.”
“There you go.”
“Apology accepted,” Cort Wesley told her. “Close as you can come, I imagine.”
“You were set up, all right.”
“Just not by you, Ranger.”
Caitlin’s gaze grew even more stoic and grim. “You got bigger problems now, Masters.”
“How you figure?”
“ ’Cause whoever set you up knew you had kids.”
Cort Wesley stopped drinking, laid his latte cup on the steel table before them. Caitlin looked at him, studying the way the sun hit his face. Until their first meeting in El Paso, she had known his looks only from mug shots. An angular and chiseled face with gray eyes and steel-black hair. Hard and unforgiving, but somehow forced, as if he were putting on a show for the camera. Up close the face was just as chiseled, but some gray hair had been sprinkled in with the black, softening his features somewhat. And his eyes were more like charcoal than plain gray.
“We got the same enemies here, that’s what you’re saying.”
Caitlin hardened her stare. “Stay out of this, Masters.”
“Too late for that.”
She eased her chair back ever so slightly. “I’m warning you.”
“Whoever was pushing drugs through the Chihuahuan took five years of my life away, Ranger.”
Caitlin laid her hands on the wrought-iron table. “It wasn’t drugs; something else, packed in crates.”
“I don’t really care what it was. I care who was behind it, one name coming to mind immediately.”
“Garza?”
Cort Wesley spun the coffee cup around in his hands. “Never seen him personally.” Caitlin watched him sip some more of his latte and wrinkle his nose from the taste. “I’m thinking I’ll take a trip across the border, maybe change that.”
“Forget it.”
Cort Wesley puckered his lips and laid his coffee cup atop the table, pushing it aside as he rose. “Free country last time I checked, Ranger. I wanna go to Mexico, I’m going to Mexico.”
Caitlin felt her shoulders stiffen, tightening against the muscles in her neck. “This isn’t your fight, Masters.”
“ ’Til last night, you mean.”
PART FOUR
The often cited “One Riot, One Ranger” appears to be based on several statements attributed to Captain McDonald by Albert Bigelow Paine in his classic book, Captain Bill McDonald: Texas Ranger. When sent to Dallas to prevent a scheduled prizefight, McDonald supposedly was greeted at the train station by the city’s anxious mayor, who asked: “Where are the others?”
To that, McDonald is said to have replied, “Hell! Ain’t I enough? There’s only one prizefight!”
—Mike Cox, with updates from the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, “A Brief History of the Texas Rangers”
30
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
First thing the next morning, Caitlin drove out to the offices of RevCom, the cutting-edge software company where Peter had worked. He had gone to Iraq on their behalf, meaning that’s where the trail started.
The problem was RevCom was gone; its former location in the Center City Industrial Park on the outskirts of San Antonio’s downtown business district now occupied by a company called DynaTech.
Realizing the task before her had just become substantially more complicated, Caitlin decided to check the place out anyway. Before opening the door, she fastened her Stetson over her hair, tied up in a bun. It felt good to be wearing it again, even better to feel the reassuring weight of the badge pinned to the lapel of her crisply ironed blue cotton shirt. She’d opted for trousers instead of jeans and they felt a bit tight in the waist and seat, reminding her just how many years had passed since she’d last donned them. She wore the same boots she’d worn the day she faced off against Cort Wesley Masters in an El Paso bar. Nice to have her SIG holstered back on her hip, as well, as opposed to strapped on her ankle.
Caitlin stepped through the same door she remembered from the entrance of RevCom and approached a reception counter, a lone woman seated at a desk behind it. A door with an electronic keypad stood just to her right, the secret world beyond closed off to all but a select few.
She reached the counter and removed her hat politely as the receptionist rose from her chair and approached. Not something she was used to doing, DynaTech hardly the kind of place that received many unsolicited visitors.
“How may I help you, Ranger?” the woman asked, forcing a smile.
“Well, that’s a good question and, truth be told, I’m not sure you can. See, I’m looking for a company called RevCom. Think I might have the wrong place.”
“You do and you don’t. It’s the right address but RevCom’s gone.”
“Ma’am?”
“Out of business. Kaput, as they say. Finito.”
Something was wrong about the woman’s tone. Caitlin couldn’t say what precisely, or how she could even tell. Her dad had always told her to trust her instincts. A feeling was as plain as a smell, once you learned t
o distinguish one from another.
“Don’t suppose you’d have a forwarding address, maybe contact info for ’em?” Caitlin asked, readying her cell phone for the anticipated information.
The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ranger.”
Caitlin subtly placed her cell phone down on the counter alongside a penholder. “Now ain’t that a shame. See, there’s new information just come our way about an employee of theirs thought to have been killed in Iraq some five years back. Man named Peter Goodwin.”
“Thought to have been?” the woman asked, stirring that same feeling in Caitlin again.
“ ’Fraid I can’t say any more on the subject, except to someone who worked for RevCom at the time. Wouldn’t happen to be anybody here fits that description?”
“I told you they went out of business.”
“ ’Course you did. I just figured a few of their former employees might have stayed on.”
“I wouldn’t know for sure, but I can tell you there aren’t any here now.”
“Damn shame’s what it is with this news breaking and all. You didn’t know Peter Goodwin, did you, ma’am?”
“No. How could I?”
“When I mentioned his name, I thought you recognized it. That’s all.”
“Maybe I did. He was killed in Iraq, right?”
“Actually, ma’am, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“But you already did say.”
Caitlin smiled at her and redonned her hat. “Nothing more I can accomplish here. I best be going, ma’am. You have yourself a good day.”
The woman looked as if she wanted to say something but stopped short, as Caitlin continued toward the door. She tipped the brim of her Stetson before exiting, cell phone left on the counter with its video camera lens angled for the woman’s desk.
31
HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS, THE PRESENT