by Jon Land
Caitlin studied Hollis’s reaction, saw nothing of note.
“And why does that bring you to me?”
“Because someone from DynaTech called you yesterday.”
Still no response, other than a slight flicker of his eyebrows.
“You must be mistaken, Ranger.”
“Would’ve been late morning, early afternoon maybe.”
“I was in a meeting at the time.”
“Which time?”
“Both of them.”
Caitlin studied him briefly. The man wasn’t much of a liar. Of course, he couldn’t have known that she had a videotape of the receptionist addressing him by name. “And it doesn’t strike you as strange that someone from DynaTech would have called you?”
“Or someone in my department? Not really.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because MacArthur-Rain owns DynaTech. We purchased RevCom and managed the transition. I recall running background checks on all our new employees.”
“Since you dumped all the old ones. Why’d you do that, by the way?”
“What?”
“Background checks.”
“A requirement in the post-9/11 age, especially in view of this company’s considerable international business dealings.”
Caitlin eased her chair a bit closer to Hollis’s desk. “When exactly did you swallow up RevCom?”
Hollis’s expression remained etched in stone. “I don’t recall. MacArthur-Rain has any number of subsidiaries and off-sites, hundreds in fact. I deal with background checks and security issues for all of them, far too many to remember the precise details of each.”
“What’s an off-site?”
“Business we contract with to perform specialized services for us.”
“Before you swallow them up, that is, like you did with RevCom?”
Hollis’s face finally cracked. “I’m confused, Ranger. What exactly brought you here again?”
“Accusation made by a former employee of RevCom.”
“And who’s that?”
“Can’t say.”
“Can you tell me the gist of the accusation?”
“Nope. Not at this time.”
“What can you tell me?”
Caitlin pulled from her pocket the black computer chip Cort Wesley Masters had lifted off Peter’s bedcovers the previous night, recognizing it from a facsimile in Mexico. “Know what this is?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Ever seen one before?”
“Definitely not.”
“Because we’re thinking something like them, lots of something like them, were smuggled out of Mexico five years ago and delivered right here to this building,” Caitlin said. “It’s a simple chip, bit outdated now, I’m told. Who here would know something about that?”
“You’d have to talk to someone in our technologies division.”
“Where’s that?”
“Well, that all depends.”
“On what?”
“Which technology you’re speaking of. We have over a hundred offices in more than sixty countries pursuing over a thousand projects at any one given time. Hospitals, schools, oil fields, reconstruction efforts—the list is too long to reel off now.”
“What about military?”
Hollis didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“So you see what I’m getting at here.”
“Not really.”
“Maybe someone at MacArthur-Rain was buying cut-rate chips out of Mexico. Maybe some of those chips malfunctioned, caused a whole lot of people a whole lot of heartache. Maybe you can point me in the direction of the person I should be talking to on the subject.”
“That could take some time.”
“How much?”
Hollis was starting to get riled, impatience showing in the reddening of his neck just over his shirt collar. “It’s doubtful the information you’re seeking is even housed here. I’ll need to track down where that division’s located.”
“What if it was related to the work you’re doing in Iraq?”
“I’m not allowed to discuss the specifics of our government contracts.”
“Even to tell me if you got people over there or not. Hell, I can get that from the newspaper.”
“Then I suggest you keep reading,” Hollis said, holding Caitlin’s stare.
“You’re not being much help here, Mr. Hollis.”
“You haven’t given me much call to be, Ranger.”
“How ’bout to aid in the investigation into one of your government contracts?”
“We have our own internal division to handle such things.”
“Very objective, I’m sure.”
If that particular remark bothered Hollis, he didn’t show it. Caitlin extended her hand across his desk, eyeing the computer chip lying before him.
“You don’t mind, I’ll have that back.”
Hollis handed it to her, seeming to have forgotten it was there. “MacArthur-Rain does wish to cooperate with you, Ranger.”
Caitlin rose and stood over his desk. “You’re a lousy liar, Mr. Hollis.”
He started to come out of his chair but stopped and sat back down. “Excuse me?”
“I spoke to a woman named Grace Devallos yesterday at DynaTech, so she called you. She told you all about me, who I was. But when I met you a few minutes ago, you pretended you never heard of me before, even though you were probably pulling my file off some database yesterday. You wanna tell me I’m lying?”
“No, Ranger, you’re just wrong.”
Caitlin looked down at his phone. “How ’bout you make a call to your boss? The two of us can go see him together, set all this straight.”
“My boss?”
“Owner of the company. CEO, CFO, COO, B-O for all I care.” She picked up the receiver and stuck it out toward him. “Come on, make the call.”
When he didn’t, Caitlin simply nodded and spun the phone toward her.
“Okay, just give me the extension and I’ll call him.”
Hollis tried to look intimidating. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Ranger.”
“You’re not from Texas, are you, Mr. Hollis?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then let me enlighten you: know what a Ranger’s jurisdiction is?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“As far as his or her horse can ride. Of course, it’s cars now, so I guess that means we make our own jurisdiction when we get there.” Caitlin slid back from his desk. “I’m here now. I don’t get to have a heart-to-heart with your boss today, I’ll just wait a bit.” She fastened her Stetson back in place. “Tell him I stopped by, if you don’t mind. And that I look forward to catching up with him real soon.”
52
HOUSTON, THE PRESENT
Albert Johannson was in the midst of giving his statement to the Rangers when Caitlin’s call caused a temporary delay.
“All that time you didn’t know you were working for MacArthur-Rain,” she said from a bench in Discovery Green overlooking a man-made pond. She thought she saw some fish cruising about the surface, but wasn’t sure. The park was like an oasis in the midst of a desert of the steel and glass that formed downtown Houston.
“How could I? There was nothing about it in the employment contract or anything else I had to sign or read. No corporate gatherings or off-site meetings. Nothing like that. But it makes sense, that’s for sure.”
“Why?”
“Because MacArthur-Rain’s the Antichrist of modern conglomerates. The master of the no-bid contracts. Know why?”
“Tell me.”
“Because they don’t have any competition: they’ve bought it all up.”
Caitlin let Johannson’s comment settle a bit. “All right, let’s try something else. Tell me where most of Peter’s work for RevCom was focused.”
“Signal integration.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Obtaining Internet, phone and televisio
n all from a single provider. These providers have been offering to bundle these services for years. By 2009, 2010 maybe, they’ll have a virtual monopoly on sales and service, not to mention wireless routing, so everything is channeled through the home PC.”
“I think something about his work attracted the attention of MacArthur-Rain. I think that’s what gave birth to Fire Arrow, Mr. Johannson. Some big government contract took Peter and his team to Iraq, and it was MacArthur-Rain all along.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Johannson?”
“When it comes to that kind of work, MacArthur-Rain is the government.”
Cort Wesley Masters sat down on the bench next to Caitlin as soon as she’d repocketed her cell phone.
“You followed me all the way to Houston,” she said to him, in what had started out as a question.
“Protecting you, I prefer to call it.”
“How’s that?”
“By making sure no one else was following you.”
“And?”
“I’m it.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“How was your morning?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Stir the pot a bit?”
“We’ll see.” She hardened her stare on him. “Seems to me you got better places to be right now, Masters.”
“Damned if I can think of any, Caitlin Strong.”
“How ’bout with your boys?”
“Rangers got that handled,” he said, looking away from her in that moment. Caitlin wondered what it was in his eyes he didn’t want her to see. “Nothing I can do they can’t right now and I’m deeply appreciative for the help.”
“Your boys are gonna need other kinds of help. Counseling, something like that.”
“We’ll get there in time.”
“You don’t seem to be in any particular rush.”
“You handle your business and leave mine to me.”
“You plan on hanging around them this time?”
“Was no other time, Ranger.”
“And me thinking birth qualifies.”
“I had an arrangement with their mother. Things are different now obviously.”
“Different today than yesterday, tomorrow too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean exactly?”
“You’re not telling them the truth yet, Masters. Allows you the freedom to turn your back and walk away. Straight out of their lives as quickly as you wandered in.”
“You being the expert here is based on what? ’Less you got kids of your own stashed somewhere I don’t know about.”
“I’m not a parent, but I had one, just one, after my mom died. And the loneliest I ever felt in my life was the day my father died. Got through my mother passing ’cause we had each other. When he died, it was just me. I still remember that feeling plain as day and I don’t really think I ever got over it.”
“Now you know what I’m doing here, Ranger: making sure the same thing doesn’t happen to my sons, at least not yet. You think that giant’s gonna just fly back to whatever shit-smelling country he came from? You think a company like MacArthur-Rain’s just gonna give up and admit they been beat? Nope, they ain’t going away and you know it, know it so well you decided to pay them a visit up close and personal today. Let them see your face, face of the person who gunned down two of the ones they sent yesterday.” Cort Wesley grinned knowingly. “No different at all, Ranger.”
“From what?”
“From yours truly. Me walking into that bar the other day in East San Antonio was the same thing.”
“Except I didn’t shoot up the place.”
“No, you just shot your mouth off. Same thing in a lot of ways, sticking your intentions right in their face.”
Caitlin yanked the right leg of her jeans down over her boot to even it with the left. “Still doesn’t make me like you.”
“Except we’re still both doing things the way they were done before, not now. You and me, we play by our own rules and when they don’t work we make new ones up.”
“If you can’t see the difference, Masters, I can’t begin to explain it.”
“I can prove I’m right.”
“How?”
“The look in your eyes when I sat down next to you: you were glad to see me and don’t bother trying to deny it.”
Caitlin didn’t.
“My kids, your husband. I’m the only one knows what you’re feeling, willing to do whatever it takes to make this right.”
“I’m not conceding your point.”
“You telling me the lawmen who made the Texas Rangers legends weren’t as much outlaws as the men they gunned down?”
“You asking me if they skirted the law sometimes, the answer is yes.”
Cort Wesley let her see he was staring at her. “Sounds like breaking the law to me.”
“You should know, Masters.”
53
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Guillermo Paz stood outside the San Fernando Cathedral on West Main Plaza in San Antonio. A plaque outside said it was the oldest cathedral sanctuary in the United States. Paz didn’t know what that meant exactly and didn’t care. He would’ve preferred a church in east San Antonio but too many of them had locked doors and bars across their stained-glass windows.
Paz walked up the stone steps and entered the chapel where the famous Alamo hero Jim Bowie was married before dying at the hands of Santa Anna, who used the building as an observation post. Bowie was buried in the church’s graveyard, along with Davy Crockett and Colonel William Travis.
He didn’t know where Santa Anna was buried, even though the great general had been a childhood hero of his until Paz realized how he’d squandered all his vast power on a foolish crusade, just like Hugo Chavez was doing in Venezuela now. Maybe this was an opportune time to have made the move circumstances had forced upon him. There were plenty of Chavezes in the world. And the best thing about them was that they’d always need men like Paz.
But now another set of circumstances had forced him to seek counsel from a priest yet again. Of course, San Antonio was nothing like La Vega, the slum in which he had grown up, and the San Fernando Cathedral was nothing like the crumbling church structure at the foot of the hillside. Even the crucifix that hung atop the weathered door was cracked in two.
Inside the cathedral, he squeezed into a confessional only slightly larger than the one in La Vega. Instantly the door slid back, revealing a face cloaked in shadows on the other side of the screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since my last confession.”
“How can I help you, my son?”
“I need to talk to you about something that happened yesterday.”
“Did you commit a sin, my son?”
“I tried to kill some people. I failed. I’m not sure which is the greater sin.”
“Excuse me?”
“Two children and a woman. This is turning into some week. First, back home I disobeyed orders for the first time by not burning a village, and then I come up here and fail.”
The priest considered his words. “Perhaps you made yourself fail.”
“Padre?”
“Perhaps you could not let yourself kill these children you mentioned.”
Paz hesitated. “Hadn’t thought of that to tell you the truth.”
“But it’s possible.”
“Look, it’s the woman I’m here about. Our eyes met, Father, and I knew the look in them because I know my own. It was like I was looking at myself, and I don’t know if I can finish the job now because I’m afraid of what might happen.”
“Killing is a sin even God cannot forgive without cause, my son.”
“You ever read philosophy, Padre?”
“A little.”
“I do a lot, thanks to a priest like you who taught me how to read. Kierkegaard’s my favorite, because I’ve always been able to relate what he says to
my life. Take ethics, for example. Kierkegaard believed that ethical development begins when an individual forms a total commitment to something. He thought that was the road to self-understanding. Whether that road gets you anywhere or not depends on how well you live out your beliefs in an honest and devoted way.”
“And does that describe you, my son?”
Paz felt thoughts rattling around in his head he couldn’t quite get a handle on. “It did. Now I’m not so sure. Here’s the thing, Padre. Kierkegaard left the judgment stuff to others, mostly yourself, which is why I’ve always liked him.”
“So you’re saying this woman has made you see and judge yourself differently.”
“I think that’s it, yeah. I’ve gone my whole life and never run into anyone like this woman before. I’m not even sure she was real now. There was something about her. . . . Could she be an angel, Father, one of the badass ones who fought the devil and all?”
“God has His reasons for whom He places on this earth, my son.”
“Amen to that. I knew it had to be true or how else could I be the way I am? Live with all the things I’ve done. No way unless I was supposed to be doing them, right?”
“God may supply our nature, but what we do with that nature is up to us. The concept of free will.”
“I never thought I had that before, thought I was just a piece of someone else’s grand scheme. Yesterday I looked into this woman’s eyes and saw the other part of me too.”
“You are free to decide not to kill, my son. I believe that’s what happened to you yesterday.”
“I never fail, Father, never.”
“Perhaps your definitions of success and failure are confused. Did you ever consider that?”
“Not really, no. You know the story of David and Goliath?”
“Of course.”
“I always figured David killed him because inside he was just as much a monster. He just didn’t know it yet. So this woman, she’s just like me. But she doesn’t know it yet either.”
“What are you afraid of, my son?” the priest asked Paz, his own voice cracking with fear.
“Nothing until yesterday. Now I’m not so sure. This woman scared me, Father. More than anything else, I think that’s what I came here to confess.”