Retribution Road

by Jon Coon

  She nodded slowly. She knew he was speaking truth.

  “Please, Señora Caldera, listen to Carol,” Gabe continued. “This road we’re on, it has no good end. You know that. Let’s choose a better one.”

  She softened and stepped back, nearly falling into a chair. She blotted tears and said softly, “I’ve prayed so hard for a way for this to end. I never imagined it could until we destroyed you or you destroyed us. All we’ve ever gotten from you is hatred and death. Why should I trust you? Can I trust you? Are you really going to help us?”

  Carol moved closer and took her hand. “This is real, Lareina. I promise with all my heart.”

  Lareina didn’t pull away. She looked deeply into Carol’s eyes, looking for truth. It was so hard to tear down that wall. It went against everything she believed to be true.

  But the woman who held her hand had risked everything coming here. Could she be, after all the years, a messenger of peace? Mother Mary, please help me.

  After a long silence, Lareina folded her other hand over Carol’s and said, “In God’s name and for the sake of my—no, our children—I will trust you. What do you need from me?”

  “Señora, where is Juan? Is he planning another attack?” Gabe asked.

  “Bendita Virgen, Blessed Virgin,” she said and crossed herself. She dropped her head into her hands sobbing. “You ruined us. He’s going to destroy Miami.”

  Chapter 43

  CALDERA HID THE SUB IN the mangroves on the west shore of Totten Key, just south of Key Largo on the eastern rim of Biscayne Bay. The sub, which drew less than two feet with all the ballast dumped, had come easily through the cut between Adams and Rubicon Keys, and by the dark of the moon, was now camouflaged with mangrove cuttings. From the air undetectable. From the sides, the light-green hull blended into the vegetation, and as there was little traffic on this side of the bay. Caldera got his first decent night’s sleep of the past week.

  He needed to paint the hull black. Black as night, black as the dark shadows the sub would hide in at the end of its voyage. He left the sub, walked the shallows out to a bridge, and then the Overseas Highway, Florida Route 1, where he caught a ride to a hardware store in North Key Largo. He found lunch, brushes and paint, everything his project would require, including a six-pack of cold beer. Using fake ID he rented a car and drove back to Rubicon Key, all in less than four hours. Back at the sub, he cleared small areas of the fiberglass hull and prepared the hull for its coat of black. Black like the night. Black like the pit of hell. Black like the tomorrow that would not come.

  Nothing was left. His distribution network had been destroyed, years of careful personnel recruiting and management vaporized. His revenue stream, once a river, now a dry riverbed. Lareina and the children nearly killed in the air raid. He’d seen it on the news from Miami on his phone.

  He desperately wanted to talk to Lareina, to know that she and the children were all right, but knew NSA could monitor any call he made. So, he looked at his phone with frustration and put it back in his pocket.

  He was heartbroken and alone, the good he’d attempted was obliterated. The caravan to the US border would fail. Children in the camps would starve, hospitals would go without medicines, schools would close. The only thing left was revenge: retribution for decades of US and Mexican government apathy. The gringos were behind everything, and now they had to pay. It was time for them to feel real pain and loss. The kind he’d intended in the Baytown refinery attack. This time would be different. This time they would know the force of his hatred and the might of his revenge. His own personal jihad.

  So he painted with a fury, and he waited, and he swore this time would be different.

  All Señora Caldera could tell them about her husband’s plan was the target. She realized that an attack on Miami would destroy all hope of redemption for Juan and therefore for Chiapas. She called her children to her side and explained the urgency of her trip to find their father. Then she ran to her room, changed, and rode with Gabe and Carol to the plane. She sat beside Carol, who held her hand and tried to assure her they would find him before it was too late.

  Gabe was on his phone as they rode back to the plane. He alerted Senator Benson of the threat and told him of Tom’s crash, presumed death, and then their success with Señora Caldera. Benson listened carefully and promised to pull out all the stops to find Tom and the sub. Senator Benson told Gabe and Carol to take Lareina to Miami as soon as possible.

  The old bomber was slow and steady. The afternoon became evening and the evening night. Fortunately the electronics had been upgraded to include IFR so that when they were on approach in heavy clouds, Carol wasn’t flying blind.

  She made an acceptable landing at Homestead Air Force Base. They were met and rushed to a chopper waiting to take them to a bunker on the south side of the base.

  Senator Benson met them in a conference room. He was gracious to the attractive Señora Caldera, who in turn thanked him for his offers to help solve her state’s economic woes.

  The military strategists had decided the most effective way to inflict maximum damage on Miami was to cause a nuclear blast at the Homestead Nuclear Power Station on Biscayne Bay, south of the heart of the city. They had dispatched military security and were establishing a secure perimeter.

  But as that was happening, a cluster of seaweed and debris made its way west, up the channel that came from the deeper part of the Bay providing cooling water for the nuclear plant. It moved slowly and at times passed or merged with similar mats of seagrass Caldera had launched over the past two days. The flat, black hull of the sub, with the conning tower and masts removed, was invisible beneath the camouflage, and it motored unnoticed toward the inlet.

  Gabe paced anxiously. “I’ve got to get out of here. Can you get me back on that chopper?”

  “I’m going too,” Carol said, “There’s nothing we can do here. At least we can be another set of eyes up there.”

  “Do we still have the tracking devices to pick up the signals from those subs?”

  “Yes, but weren’t all of them found after the raids?” Benson said.

  “You didn’t get Caldera’s sub. He’s still out there,” Gabe said.

  Lareina sat quietly beside Carol, saying little, watching everything.

  “That unit is probably still on the Poseidon,” a tech sergeant offered. “I’ll call the hangar and find out.”

  “Could we be so lucky?” Gabe said. He stood and stretched his back. It had been a long day.

  “Got it,” the tech said, “They’re sending it over now.”

  “Have them meet us at the chopper.” He and Carol were on their feet headed toward the door. “Señora, do you want to come with us?”

  “If it’s all right, I’m going to wait here. I’ve tried calling Juan several times. He might answer.”

  Senator Benson gave her a hard look.

  “It’s all right,” Gabe said. “We can trust her. If she talks with Juan, it will be to convince him to take your offer and call this whole thing off. Isn’t that right, Lareina?”

  “You have my word. On the soul of my dead madre.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Gabe said, and they ran to the Jeep that would take them to the chopper.

  Once onboard, Gabe asked the pilot, “Can you find the submerged channel that comes in from the bay? The one that pulls in the cooling water?”

  “Could be tricky at night, but we’ll give it a shot.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  They were in the air and over the bay in a matter of minutes. It was four A.M. and black as pitch. Then, Gabe got a signal on the tracker.

  He gave the pilot a range and bearing from his computer, and they flew in low.

  Lareina had her cell phone out on the table in front of her, and she stared at it intently, as if staring hard enough might make it ring. Senator Benson sat across from her, still undecided as to whether she was someone he should trust. In her pocket, she felt her other phone silently
vibrate. The one Juan used. The only one.

  She stood and said “El baño, por favor. Sorry. May I use a bathroom please? I’ll leave my phone here.”

  Benson nodded and motioned for a guard to go with her. In the bathroom, she read his text and her fingers flew as she answered. Her last word was “tracker.”

  “There, look there,” Gabe said.

  They were two miles from the power plant, and beneath them a cluster of seagrass moved against the current as if purpose driven. The chopper hit the mysterious cluster with a powerful spotlight, and the outline of the sub became visible.

  “We have to stop it. It could be carrying tons of Semtex. If it gets to—”

  “It’s not getting anywhere,” the pilot said. He called the base on his radio, and a fighter was scrambled.

  “We’ll stay on her until the cavalry arrives, then we’re hauling grass.”

  “Roger that.”

  The chopper gained altitude but kept the sub spotlighted. The pilot answered a radio command, then banked sharply away as fast as it could go.

  The fighter jet was on a firing run.

  Juan read everything Lareina had to tell him about her meeting with Carol. It was a last chance, make-or-break, life decision. If he blew the nuclear plant, everything he’d fought for was over, including his own life. He would have his revenge, his retribution, but they would spend the remainder of their lives on the world’s most wanted list, and the odds of survival would not be in their favor.

  Lareina pled with him to give Carol’s offer a chance. He looked up from the sailboat where he sat with the remote control and realized it was over. The norteamericanos had won, but somehow there was a chance for redemption. He flipped the protective cover on the remote wireless detonator and flipped the switch.

  An eruption of sand and water sent debris hundreds of feet in the air and shattered windows and cracked block foundations and walls a mile away. But the nuclear plant remained undamaged.

  At the Air Force base, the blast was both seen and felt. Coffee cups fell from tables and computers jumped on desks. And in the chaos, Señora Lareina Caldera vanished from the bathroom, not to be seen again.

  “War Eagle, report,” the jet’s radio blasted.

  “This is War Eagle. I don’t know what happened, but that blast wasn’t us. I haven’t fired anything.”

  The chopper kited in the blast, knocked sideways but not down. The engine coughed and gasped but then regained power and pulled them up out of the stall and inevitable crash. Gabe and Carol were tossed violently in their seats, and his computer was lost out the open cabin door.

  When she could sit straight again, Carol grabbed Gabe. Her eyes were in full panic mode, and her grip bear-trap strong. “What . . .?”

  “The sub, tons of explosives. Thank God he didn’t make it any closer.”

  “The jet?”

  Over the headset, the pilot said, “We just got word it wasn’t the jet. Something else set it off.”

  “Lareina stopped him.”

  “I’d say you stopped him. It was your idea to go to her, and it worked. Hopefully this is a new start. You were the miracle we were looking for. I’d say it’s time to go home.”

  Just before dawn, a forty-foot sailing catamaran motored from its slip and into the clear water of the Atlantic, east of Key Largo. Wearing a delightful bikini, Lareina sat at the helm while Juan raised the mainsail and jib. She set the autopilot, stood, and stretched. Juan came, encircled her in his arms, kissed her neck, and asked, “Are you sure you’re comfortable with our decision? We could get lost in the islands for years. They would never find us.”

  “We have children. We have people who need us. I gave my word. We have to go back.”

  “And you trust her? The captain’s daughter.”

  “I do. She took a great risk coming to us like that. After everything that’s happened, she probably wanted to kill us. I would have. And she must have known she could have been killed flying in like that uninvited. She was very brave.”

  He held her and looked out into the Atlantic’s tempting swells. “Then should we call them with our decision?”

  “As much as I’d like to enjoy the boat for a day or two, get rid of these tan lines and swim naked in the Gulf with you, we need to call them now, before they change their minds. Before it’s too late to have a future we can live with.”

  The shell of the new ranch house was under roof, and the new barn was getting its first coat of paint. The state helicopter dropped them near the house, and they stood, taking in all the activity. Emily was the first to arrive, on an ATV. Paul and Angelica followed in the new white Ford pickup.

  Hugs, luggage, lunch, and when they were comfortably back in the bunker, Carol came to Gabe’s room. She closed the door behind her, locked it, and walked into Gabe’s surprised arms. The kiss was monumental. When she let him up for air, she said, “It’s time for you to take us home. This was Dad’s place. He’s gone now, and we have our own place. I’m tired of being friends without benefits.”

  He stepped away, looking into her eyes. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

  She nodded, as if his thoughts were written on his face. “I meant let’s get married. Today if we can. Maybe being married to a cop who is a national hero wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’m willing to risk it. Let’s go home.”

  “Well, since you put it that way . . .” He kissed her again, and his hands found places they had not been before.

  The knock at the door brought the fun to a halt. “Gabe, you and Mom are needed in the conference room. It’s about Grandpa. I can’t find Mom, and she’s not answering her phone. Is she with you?”

  “Busted.” Gabe laughed quietly and kissed Carol again. “Give me a minute, Em. I’ll find her and meet you in there.”

  “Okay.”

  He waited before opening the door and then peeked out into the hall. “Coast is clear. Let’s go.”

  When they opened the doors into the paneled conference room with its high-back leather chairs and trophy heads on the walls, Senator Benson stood beside a chair with its back to the table. Emily, Paul, and Angelica were seated. The table was set with platters of brisket, beans, corn, and fresh bread. Not the funeral fare Carol expected.

  “What’s going—” Carol began.

  “We have something to share,” Paul said.

  Carol felt a knot rising in her stomach and looked at Gabe for reassurance. She got none.

  “It’s not that, Mom. We’re not—”

  “Sorry. Please go on.” Her relief was evident.

  “We have a plan, and it’s a good one. There’s a scuba shop in Austin that trains dive instructors. I’ve gotten a job there, and I can work off most of the tuition while Angelica is in school getting her nursing credentials. They have a great police science program, and we can travel in summer and make enough to pay our own bills while I finish. We want to come home long enough to fix up Dad’s truck, but then I want to come back here and be a Ranger, like Grandpa and his dad. I can dive like Gabe and carry on our family traditions.”

  He waited.

  Angelica went next. “I know you don’t know me well, but I love Paul, and I promise I will never do anything to hurt him. He’s asked me to marry him, and I said yes, but not until he had a plan we could both commit to. We’re going to wait a year to make certain this is right, and then we will marry. If you agree.”

  “He’s young,” Carol said.

  “I’m four years older, but I’ve been on my own since I was fifteen. Trust me, please. I wouldn’t be doing this if I had any doubts.”

  “Paul, what about you?”

  “I’m all in, Mom. This is what I want, and Angelica is the one I want to share it with.”

  “Are you planning to live together in Austin?”

  “We found a loft with two bedrooms. I’ll get a job as a nurse’s aide or LPN. Paul will be working in the dive shop. We can afford it if we’re careful. I’m Catholic, so it’s separate
beds until we marry.”

  “It does sound like a plan,” Gabe said, offering his hand. “Congratulations, Paul. I’m sure you will do well.”

  “I agree,” Carol said. “I think the two of you will make a great marriage. Angelica, welcome to our family. I couldn’t be happier.” She wrapped Angelica in a warm hug.

  Bob Benson smiled. “Congratulations to you both. Paul, when you’re ready, I might still know someone in the Rangers, and I’ll be happy to write that letter for you. Angelica, I’ve got your paperwork processing. As you know, it’s a long process, but we’re going to be proud to have you as an American citizen. After everything you did to help us, it’s the least we can do. Now I think there’s just one more little thing before we hit that barbecue.” He spun the chair to face the table.

  “Wasn’t that one hell of a show?” Captain Tom Bright said, then laughed heartily. His arm was in a sling and stitches ran across his right temple. He’d been ridden hard and put away wet, but his smile was undamaged, and he was still able to hold a cigar in one hand and a double shot in the other.

  Carol shrieked. “You ass!” She ran to hug him. “Where have you been?”

  “In a cow pasture in a coma for while. Bob’s guys found me talking to a fence post. Not a bad conversationalist actually. Better than the soccer ball in that Tom Hanks movie.” He winked at his family, all of whom appeared torn between disbelief and jubilation, between confusion and hilarity.

  “Anyway, I just got out of the hospital. Things are still a little fuzzy, but the doc says I’ll be back in the saddle in a week or two.” Tom looked at his daughter, and his face sobered. “Bob told me what you did. Darlin’, if that works, you should get the Nobel Peace prize. I’m really proud of you.” He looked again to the faces around the room. “All of you.”