by Jon Land
“I’m guessing this is your daughter.”
Fireplug remained silent, caught between thoughts and intentions. His milky eyes swam wildly.
Cort Wesley held his gaze on the girl. “That your father?”
She nodded fearfully, tears starting to stream down her cheeks.
“Relax, honey, you got nothing to worry about long as your daddy cooperates. If he doesn’t, I’m going to shoot you in the face.” Cort Wesley held the girl’s terrified stare long enough to cast her a wink accompanied by a quick smile. He waited until she wiped her tears aside with no fresh ones to follow, before turning back toward Fireplug. “So, you ready to cooperate?”
“You’re a fool for doing this,” Fireplug told him. “You know who I work for?”
“Let me take a guess: Mexican Mafia.”
“That’s a what. Not a who.”
“Garza.”
Fireplug looked unsettled by the mere mention of the name.
“Heard he’s not real.”
“Oh, he’s real all right, and you just killed two of his men.”
“I thought they were your men.”
“Same thing.”
Cort Wesley glanced at the corpses. “Too late anyway. Question on the table now is do you and your daughter join them or not?”
“You would kill a child?”
“Only if you make me.”
“What is it you want?”
“Five years ago an American named Clayton set up a shipment. Hired men from the Mexican Mafia to drive a truck they picked up here across the border. You remember what I’m talking about?”
“I remember,” Fireplug told him. “But I only know Clayton as the voice on the other end of the phone.”
“See how easy this can be? Now, you want me on my merry way, all you have to do is tell me what was inside the truck and where it was headed.”
“The Mexicans were supposed to be killed. That was the plan.”
“Figured that much out for myself.”
“I don’t know what was in the crates. Only the American, Clayton, knew where they were going.”
“Let me ask you something again: names Jesus and Rodrigo Saez mean anything to you now?”
Fireplug’s expression changed just enough.
“Thought so,” said Cort Wesley. “Two of your men who were supposed to get killed that night. ’Cept they didn’t. Came back here to tell you one hell of a story about a gunfight in the desert with the Texas Rangers, then went back to staging cockfights in another of Garza’s ware houses.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cort Wesley resteadied his Smith on Fireplug’s daughter. “Yes, you do.”
“Houston!” Fireplug blared suddenly. “They delivered the crates to Houston! Paid me extra on account I was never gonna get my truck back.”
“Crates . . . ?”
Fireplug nodded.
“But you don’t know what was inside.”
He shook his head.
“Where in Houston?”
“A skyscraper downtown with an underground loading area. The delivery was timed for after-hours. Easy in, easy out. They didn’t know the address when they left.”
“Downtown Houston.”
“They said there was a park almost right across the street from it; no, not a park. Signs advertising the park was coming there.” Fireplug’s gaze was darting fearfully between his daughter and Cort Wesley. “It’s all I know. I’m telling you the truth.”
Cort Wesley lowered his pistol. “I do believe you are.”
The color washed back into Fireplug’s cheeks. His breathing steadied. “Would you really have done it, would you have shot my daughter?”
Cort Wesley cast the girl another wink and started backing up for the door. “Why don’t you ask her?”
34
HOUSTON, THE PRESENT
Harm Delladonne watched the big man strolling about his office, studying the various paintings hung from the walls with an admiring glance.
“You got good taste,” said Guillermo Paz. “No bowls of fruit, flowers, stuff like that. I like paintings with people in them. I like looking at their faces, imagining what they’re thinking.”
Delladonne tightened his gaze on Paz. “Why don’t you tell me what I’m thinking, Colonel?”
“That maybe you got the wrong guy, some fruitcake who likes art instead of someone who can fix your problems.”
“Are you the wrong guy?”
“Depends on the problems, I guess.” Paz swept his eyes about the sprawling office, letting them linger briefly on the loft above, connected to the main floor by a steel spiral staircase. “Hard for me to figure a man like you having the kind that require a man like me.”
“Is that a requirement for you taking the job?”
“Not with the money I’m getting paid for this one.”
Delladonne met his stare, refused to break it in spite of the focused fury held in the big man’s. “You love your country, Colonel?”
“I used to.”
“Because I could buy it. That’s right. I could buy up the oil futures, close up your wells and put your nation out of business. I just want to make sure we understand each other.”
Paz nodded and broke off the stare, seeming to relent. “You know your name sounds like the poison. Belladonna.”
“Take a seat,” Delladonne said, offering him the Oriental armchair set before his lacquered ebony desk.
Paz didn’t move.
“Take a seat, Colonel.”
Paz approached and sat down, the chair creaking from the strain of his bulk that spilled off the seat. A stench rising off him assaulted Delladonne like driving past a garbage truck on a hot summer day.
“You were able to assemble a team?”
“What were my orders?”
“Where are your men?”
“Raping schoolchildren somewhere.” Paz waited for Delladonne’s reaction. “I’m kidding. That was a joke.”
Delladonne slid a flash drive across the table. “This contains everything you need on your targets, all the information we’ve been able to collate.”
Paz picked the flash drive up between two massive fingers. “Where can I look at this?”
“I’ll secure an office for you downstairs.”
Paz glanced around the office again. “You mind if I use yours? I kind of like the surroundings. Makes me feel, I don’t know, thoughtful.”
“Then, by all means, Colonel, be my guest.”
“You believe in God, Belladonna?”
“I believe in His power.”
“What if I were to tell you that I knew He was real?”
“I’d say I hope He’s on your side.”
“Guess we’ll see about that, won’t we?”
35
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Peter was sitting up on his bed, surrounded by parts of the broken cable box he’d disassembled using some combination of coins scattered across the bedcovers. He now seemed to be in the process of reassembling the box, showing a focus and intensity much more in keeping with the man who’d left for Iraq two years ago. The precision with which he worked, fitting the chips, diodes and transistors back into their respective slots was striking and totally out of character with the man she’d been trying to reach.
Caitlin left the door open and rejoined Ranger Tim Berry in the hallway.
“Don’t know how to explain it,” Berry said, exchanging a glance with the other posted Ranger, a big man named Rollins. “One minute we look in he’s lying on the bed staring at the busted television, and the next he’s sitting up with the cable box in front of him taking off the back. Figured it was best not to rile him any, so we let him have at it and called you.”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
“Just about.”
“He took the whole thing apart in thirty minutes.”
“And also did some fiddling with the chip things,” Ranger Rollins told her. “Don’t think
I ever saw him blink. Man gave a whole new meaning to the word focused.”
“I’ll say,” Berry chimed in.
“But we made sure it was unplugged,” Rollins added as an afterthought, “so he didn’t hurt himself none.”
“Is this what he did for work?” Berry asked her.
“Good question.”
36
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Caitlin stepped back into the hospital room and closed the door behind her this time. Peter didn’t acknowledge her, too busy fitting the last pieces of the cable box back together and then using the quarter he’d been given at the Tampa Survivor Center to screw the top back on.
Still apparently oblivious to her presence, he climbed down off his bed and hobbled over to the wall-mounted television in his bare feet. Caitlin watched him reaffix the cable leads appropriately, tuck the cable box back into the slot tailored for it, and switch on the television.
Instantly a crisp picture and clear sound replaced the snow and static from the other day.
“That’s better,” Peter said, looking satisfied, vital, alive.
Then he climbed gingerly back into the bed, wincing as he lay backward against the stacked pillows, the familiar blank stare overtaking his visage again. Whether or not he was actually watching the television, Caitlin couldn’t tell.
“That was good work,” she said, not wanting to lose him.
Peter glanced her way, acknowledging her presence in the room for the first time. “Simple.”
“You’re very good at it.”
“It’s what I do.”
His statement flushed Caitlin with a fresh rush of anger. How does an expert in cable television software integration end up being tortured in Bahrain? What if they had gotten the wrong man? What if this whole thing was about mistaken identity? It didn’t seem possible, but then none of this would have seemed possible just a week ago.
“What else do you do?” Caitlin asked him.
Peter continued to look her way but didn’t respond, starting to slip into his fuguelike state again. She thought of visiting the location of RevCom, his old company, of the phone call the woman behind the counter had made as soon as she had left.
Caitlin yanked her cell phone from her pocket. “Can I show you something?”
Peter’s eyes flashed to life at the sight of the phone being extended toward him. Able to relate to machines now more than people. That was the key, the trick, what she’d been missing up until this point.
Caitlin jogged her phone to the video mode and selected the play command. Instantly the video of the receptionist at DynaTech moving back behind her desk and picking up the phone began to play. Peter’s eyes widened, transfixed by the images on the tiny screen. Whether or not he recognized the interior as that of his former office at RevCom, she couldn’t tell.
“Can you get this to play on the television?” Caitlin asked, pointing toward the wall-mounted set.
“Need tools,” Peter said.
“Like what?”
“Tools. Cables. Leads. Ties. USB adapters. Gotta splice and rewire.” Each item spoken as a separate sentence, a separate thought, his mind rewiring itself around the obstacles his torturers had left behind.
“I’ll get them for you,” Caitlin promised.
She approached Ranger Berry in the hallway, Ranger Rollins standing by the window overlooking the parking lot.
“Hospital must have an I.T. division.”
“I.T.?” Berry questioned.
“Technology department for the phones, cable, that sort of thing. I want you to get a tool kit up here and give it to Peter Goodwin.”
Berry frowned, looking critical. “Long as there’s nothing sharp.”
“Just keep an eye on him while he works.”
“Works?”
“Ranger Strong,” Rollins called from the window, “you should have a look at this.”
Caitlin joined him by the window.
“See that car down there, black Mercury with the dented door?”
Caitlin found it quickly in her line of sight, parked in the steaming sunshine, all windows down. “What about it?”
“Pulled into the parking lot just behind you and been waiting ever since,” Rollins reported. “One man inside, near as I can tell.” He turned from the window to face her. “You want me to check it out?”
“No,” Caitlin told him, “think I’ll handle that myself.”
37
JUÁREZ, MEXICO, THE PRESENT
Cort Wesley drove off in Pablo Asuna’s Ford, only to park it in the shady section of a wreck-strewn lot a half block away and settled back to wait.
He didn’t have to wait long.
It wasn’t more than thirty minutes later that a pair of massive black SUVs tore up to the entrance of Fireplug’s warehouse. Four men jumped out of the lead vehicle and three from the trailing one, all with weapons drawn. None of them Garza obviously, but likely to be his underlings, here to sort out the mess Cort Wesley had just made inside.
The gunmen emerged through the front door minutes later, carrying the bodies now wrapped tightly in garbage bags and duct tape. They hoisted the covered corpses through the lead SUV’s tailgate. The one who looked to be in charge stood off to the side, smoking a cigarette. Fireplug was next to him, pleading his case. The leader seemed to be shrugging him off, ignoring his claims and explanations. Just stamped his cigarette out with his shoe and climbed back into the rear of the trailing SUV, as if Fireplug weren’t even there. Then the vehicles tore out of the parking lot, heading back for the highway.
Cort Wesley pulled out after them in the thin traffic, keeping his distance. If they made him, things were gonna get ugly in a hurry, and he didn’t like the odds. So he stayed back farther than he probably should have, playing it safe and drifting back even more when the SUVs turned onto Highway 45, heading south toward Chihuahua. He left the windows open, avoiding use of the air-conditioning to preserve power and fuel, figured he had enough to get to the city at which point he’d have to fill up.
The SUVs continued on, passing through the outskirts of village after village mired in abject poverty, then through a stretch of desert spawned by volcanic ash en route to the city. Cort Wesley felt anxious upon entering Chihuahua itself, since the snarl of traffic made spotting him all the easier. Pablo Asuna’s Ford proved a blessing here, since it blended in perfectly with the other ancient wrecks with temperature needles battling the red.
From here the SUVs headed for the foothills of the Sierra Madres, a breathtaking expanse of mountains that dotted the landscape for as far as the eye could see. With his fuel gauge flirting with E, Cort Wesley was just about to abandon the pursuit when he saw the SUVs bank hard to the left toward a road that sliced through the lower reaches of the mountain range. The brush flora here was rich, lush green at the core but browning closer to the tips. Brown through and through meant it was dead, soon to be cracked and scattered by the wind with the remnants overtaken by the outgrowth of neighboring brush. If memory and knowledge served him right, Cort Wesley knew there were ribbons of streams cutting through the landscape. Last he knew, this area was still undeveloped. Judging from the Mexican federalés guarding the entrance to what looked like a private road, that was no longer the case.
The SUVs passed by the uniformed federalés without having to stop. Cort Wesley drove on, holding his breath hoping that they hadn’t spotted him. Last thing he needed was to go up against corrupt cops who’d buried many a body in the desert he’d just driven through. So he parked along the road a good ways up and circled back down on foot until he was overlooking a series of land-rich estates, all enclosed by either walls or fences. His vantage point allowed him a glimpse of a few massive villas within, one with a horse paddock and another featuring individual basketball and tennis courts. He thought he might have heard the light wop of balls being hit, but couldn’t see anyone playing.
Since he didn’t know which estate the SUVs had pulled into, he figured he’d wat
ch for a time, see which one they eventually pulled out of. Cort Wesley tightened his gaze downward, trying to narrow down the field a bit, hoping to spot an armed guard on patrol, all the indication he needed.
Whoever framed him, whoever stole five years of his life, might well be residing in one of the estates below. Cort Wesley took out his Smith & Wesson, passed it agilely from one hand to the other, weighing the odds.
Find the right house, wait until nightfall, and get his revenge while the getting was good. He still had four full magazines, sixty more shots, with him. Plenty.
Cort Wesley settled back to watch.
38
EAST SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Pablo Asuna heard the overhead bay door descending, the breeze he’d been relying on to keep the garage cool gone in an instant.
“Hey,” he called, lifting his head up from under the hood of a supercharged Dodge pickup with an engine he had custom installed, “who did that? Who the fuck’s there?”
Then he saw the big man; no, not big—huge. Five average-sized men flanked him in the half-light. Different shapes and haircuts, not smiling. They looked like dwarfs compared to the big man.
“I like your truck,” Paz said over the still-roaring engine, its idle fast but smooth.
“It’s not mine. I’m just working on it.”
“Stolen?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Nothing. Just making conversation.”
Could have been any number of things brought a man like this here, none of them good. Asuna started thinking about weapons, how close he was to something he could make quick use of: against this man, nothing came to mind.
“Ease into things, you know?” the giant continued.
“No, I don’t.”
The big man’s face wrinkled in displeasure. “Everyone talks tough in this town.”
“There’s a good reason for that.”