by Jon Land
“Now,” Jim told her, “I want you to take an extra good look at paragraph three here—it specifies this pardon is conditional on you furnishing information on the Church of the Redeemer compound to the best of your ability and knowledge.”
“What’s that mean exactly?”
“Just what it says.”
“And who decides if I’ve done so to the best of my ability and knowledge?”
“Me, Beth Ann.” Before she could voice further protest or question, Jim continued, “And let me tell you something else. This letter here comes with my word attached. That means if those suit-wearing folk in Austin don’t keep their word to you, they’re gonna have to face me and, believe me when I tell you, that is something they most certainly want no part of.”
Beth Ann finally smiled. “Do I have to sign something now?”
“Nope, you just have to talk.”
* * *
And talk she did, becoming a veritable fountain of information that exceeded even Jim’s expectations. Some in the Ranger command suggested the possibility of wiring her up to perhaps get even more incriminating evidence on Max Arno. But Jim dismissed the idea out of hand, certain it would only make Beth Ann nervous and ultimately detract from the contribution she was already making. He’d mounted his argument toward that end, convincing all except his partner, D. W. Tepper, who’d recently joined the task force at Jim’s request as his second-in-command.
“Who you protecting here, amigo?”
“Just living up to my word, D.W.”
“Something in your eyes tells me it’s more than that.”
“My eyes? Like what?”
“Don’t know, on account of it’s something I ain’t never seen before exactly. Please tell me it’s not cause for concern.”
“It’s not cause for concern, D.W.”
“You’re not lying to me now?”
“Have I ever?”
Jim wasn’t, of course, at least not at the time. Over the course of the ensuing weeks he’d followed the informant’s book to a T, making Beth Ann Killane utterly dependent on him and making sure she knew it. Because it was impossible for them to exchange all the necessary information inside the diner, Jim suggested they pretend to be seeing each other socially. He still carried his gun on these occasions but didn’t wear his Stetson or Ranger badge.
“See,” D. W. Tepper intoned, after Jim tried to explain those particular actions, “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“That you had eyes for this woman all along.”
“Beth Ann Killane?”
“You running any other informants on this case I’m not aware of?”
“I’m just going by the book here, D.W.”
“What book is that, amigo?”
“The one we learned up at Quantico when we did a month’s training with the FBI. Make the informant totally beholden to you, I believe was the way the instructor put it.”
“He must have, since I never heard you use the word ‘beholden’ in twenty years. But tell me, amigo, does making a lady beholden include getting her to sleep with you?”
Jim Strong didn’t bother hiding his anger. “Take a look at my eyes again, D.W. See how pissed off they look. You want me to pop you one, just keep talking like that.”
D. W. Tepper leaned back in his chair, laid his boots gingerly on the table between them and fired a match off the right heel. “Just let me know when I’m proven right,” he said, lighting up a Marlboro.
“You smoke too much, D.W.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“Moving a little slow there. You been in a scrape or something?”
“Met up with Boone Masters in a bar outside San Antone.”
“I would’ve paid to see that one.”
“Save the money for Masters’s medical bills since I busted him up pretty good.”
* * *
Jim Strong had been telling the truth: bedding down with Beth Ann Killane had neither occurred nor was his intention at the time. The problem was times change.
Beth Ann’s desire to do anything to aid her son’s plight knew no bounds. When Jim steadfastly refused to give her a camera to snap off pictures of the complex, she used her drawing skills to provide an amazingly accurate conception of the entire place in perfect scale.
“What about the weapons?” Jim asked, thumbing through her various drawings.
“Sorry, Jim. I’ve never heard or seen anything about weapons.”
He leaned across the table and took both her hands, squeezing them in his. “Here’s how it is, Beth Ann. That’s the last bit of information we need before we’re ready to saddle up and put an end to the misery this man is bringing onto innocent children. But we wanna do it without any loss of life, and if those weapons get out and things turn to shooting, lots of innocent folks guilty of nothing more than looking for something to believe in are gonna get hurt and maybe killed.”
Jim let his point sink in before continuing.
“I can control things only up to a point, Beth Ann, and with the Rangers that point is when guns get pointed our way. Best way we can avoid that is to include securing of the guns in our plans to make sure this goes off without a single scratch being suffered by any involved.”
“I’ll see what I can find out, Jim, but I just don’t know. These are peaceful, God-fearing people mostly. They want to build their own lives where the government won’t bother them, sure, but I just can’t see them resorting to violence.”
Jim knew the guns were on the premises, but didn’t want to push the issue too far at present. “We’ve just got to be sure, Beth Ann. The mere possibility means we’ve got to assume the worst: that the guns are there and someone may overreact and use them. We can’t have that, not the Rangers and not the members of the church either.”
Beth Ann frowned. “I’ll see what I can find out, Jim.”
* * *
Beth Ann Killane wasn’t exactly an important person inside the Church of the Redeemer. But she was welcomed warmly into the fold and could count any number of folks she was on a first-name basis with to the point where she looked forward to attending the services, retreats, special events, and especially the Reverend Arno’s fiery sermons. She endeavored to curry more of his favor by taking charge of the choir when her predecessor’s arthritis took a turn for the worse. With the Easter service coming up, this placed her in Arno’s company on a daily basis and he began to take real notice of her.
“Sister Beth Ann,” he greeted when she was packing up her music sheets one evening.
Hearing Arno’s voice nearly sent her leaping out of her skin, but Beth Ann recovered quickly enough to throw on a smile and push the hair back from her face. “Reverend Arno, what a pleasant surprise.”
“I wanted to thank you for all your hard work on the church’s behalf, sister.”
“No thanks necessary, Reverend. I’m pleased to be able to contribute.”
“I notice you always come alone to the services. Do you have children, sister?”
“A boy, Reverend.”
“No girls as pretty as their mama?” Arno asked, his smile gleaming.
Beth Ann thought his words sounded like someone had slathered them with grease. She fought not to show how revolted she was, based on all Jim Strong had told her, replying, “No, Reverend, just a single son.”
“Got a picture of him handy?”
Beth Ann started to fish one from her handbag, then thought better of it. “Not on me, I guess.”
“Well, I’m sure if he looks anything like his mama, he’s a good-looking boy indeed.”
Arno’s smile glimmered again and Beth Ann thought she smelled dried sweat trying to push its way through the layer of aftershave with which he always doused himself. In the thin light of the church, he looked merged with the shadows of the candle flames dancing around him. For some reason Beth Ann had the feeling tentacles were about to shoot out of his eyes.
“Our children are our true treasures, siste
r. Now I’m aware your son’s had his problems with the law.”
“You … are?”
Arno nodded. “Make it my business to be aware of such parts of the lives of the members of my church, especially those who extend themselves for it, like yourself. I raise this because I believe I can help your boy if you let me. The Church of the Redeemer has helped any number like him and I’d be proud to extend myself to Danny on your behalf.”
Beth Ann had started to smile, when she realized she hadn’t told Arno her son’s name. The fact he used it anyway, with so much casual familiarity, left an even queasier feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said with no recollection of ever forming the words. “Thank you, Reverend.”
“No, sister,” Arno smiled, stretching a hand to her shoulder and rubbing it gently. “Thank you.”
* * *
Beth Ann went straight to Jim Strong’s motel room in Odessa from there, shaking up a storm even through her second cup of the coffee brewed from the in-room machine.
“He touched my shoulder,” she said, still trying to compose herself, “and I swear I felt scales on his palm, like a darn lizard. I wonder if the Reverend Arno’s even human.”
“You’re doing a wonderful job for us, Beth Ann,” Jim said, stroking the same shoulder Arno had rubbed. “Thanks to you, hundreds of folks are gonna be saved from the sickness you’ve just begun to realize is going on.”
Beth Ann looked at him, resolute now instead of scared. “I’m gonna find those guns for you, Jim, and that’s a promise.”
She’d torn out the pins that normally held up her hair in the nervous frenzy that accompanied her into the room. Jim had never seen it down before and the result was to cast Beth Ann Killane in a totally different light for him. She wasn’t wearing her waitress uniform, and the jeans and sweater did a much better job of highlighting the lines and curves Jim had pretended not to notice before. He reached over and kissed her before he realized what he was doing. Pulled away quick, but Beth Ann reeled him back in for a second kiss even quicker.
“I don’t wanna be alone tonight,” she said softly, hugging him. “That man put thoughts in my head that make my skin crawl.”
Jim Strong hugged her back. “It’ll be over soon. I promise.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let go of me. Promise me you won’t.”
“I promise.”
43
MARBLE FALLS; THE PRESENT
“They slept atop the covers that night,” D. W. Tepper told Caitlin, “but underneath them the next. When your father told me, I damn near smacked him upside the head.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“This was Jim Strong we’re talking about. He got something in his mind, it was gonna take a better man than me to get it out. Sound familiar?”
“You’re as good a man as they come, D.W.”
Caitlin watched Tepper’s jowls tighten. “Truth is I didn’t blame him a bit. He hadn’t been with a woman in the eleven years or so since your mother passed, and if God wanted to drop Beth Ann Killane into his lap, who was I to argue?” He shook his head, gaze going misty. “She was quite a woman to look at, I’ll tell you that much. Not when you first laid eyes on her, though. Her beauty kind of grew on you.”
“They had an affair?”
Tepper nodded. “Lasted until the day of the raid.”
“When she was killed.”
Tepper turned his attention back to his food. “I don’t like eating with the past as company.”
“How’d she die, D.W.?”
Tepper pushed some eggs into his mouth, a slight trail left on the right side. “What I just say?”
Caitlin forked home another mouthful from his plate.
“Aw, hell, order your own, will you, Caitlin?”
She did just that, certain Tepper had gone as far as he intended today with the story of her father’s affair with Beth Ann Killane.
“I can’t get the connection between a drug ring at the northern border and white slavers in Mexico out of my head,” Caitlin said, after the waitress had slid away from their table.
“Start with what you know, Ranger.”
“First time I talked to Frank Gage, head of the DEA task force, he took me out to an Indian Reservation in upstate New York and explained how the drug traffic across the frozen rivers has gone off the charts in the past couple years; ice bridges, he called them. Gage suspected a new financial source was behind the surge in traffic up there. Then yesterday I came across the fact that the brother of the two Angels I killed in that Quebec grow house is running kidnapped kids through Mexico.”
Tepper forced down some eggs and looked like he was swallowing tacks. “You’re a Texas Ranger, Caitlin. That doesn’t make you the law for the whole goddamn hemisphere.” He dropped his fork on the plate. “You get your teeth in something, I swear sometimes you can’t even see what you’re biting.”
“That include the army medic Mark Serles? Strange thing is that I went to the Intrepid last night to tell the kid there was nothing more I could do, that the army had jurisdiction.”
“Kind of what they told me this morning.”
“Jurisdiction over what exactly? Kid’s a wounded soldier, not a criminal. Somebody’s hiding something, Captain, and it almost got me blown to hell last night.”
Tepper nodded dramatically, curling his fingers together and cracking his knuckles. “So a Texas Ranger under my command gets back from pissing off the federalés in Mexico, after getting back from pissing off a drug task force on the northern border, and now wants to piss off the whole of Washington.”
“If I have to, yes.”
Tepper could only shake his head. “Is there anyplace on this planet that’s safe from you?”
“I seem to do all right in Texas.”
“Everything’s relative, Ranger.” Tepper held her gaze briefly before continuing. “You hear from Masters?”
“He’s working on a lead.”
“Why does the way you just said that worry me?”
Caitlin didn’t answer him.
“I talked to my nephew who’s a lawyer,” Tepper resumed. “He says Masters can fight the extradition in federal court.”
“Your nephew have much experience in the area?”
“Nope, but he recommended somebody who does. Real sharpshooter when it comes to the law. Every bit as tough as a Ranger except he carries a business card instead of a gun.”
Caitlin’s BlackBerry rang, nothing showing in the Caller ID. “You mind if I take this, Captain? Could be Cort Wesley.”
“Go right ahead,” said Tepper, digging back into his eggs with his attention remaining on her.
“Caitlin Strong,” she answered.
“It’s me, Ranger,” an anxious voice announced. “Sergeant Mark Serles.”
44
SAN ANTONIO; THE PRESENT
Caitlin put the phone on speaker and held it so Captain Tepper could hear. “I’ve been worried about you, Sergeant.”
“I know I caused you some trouble and I want to apologize for that.”
“Where are you?”
“Back at Intrepid.”
“Back?”
“They moved me across to Brooke for a time. I needed some treatment. I’ve been losing it lately, seeing everything but little green men climbing down the walls. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you this way.”
“You didn’t, Sergeant. It’s my job.”
“Well, there’s no job for you here. I’ve been letting things get to me, but I’m better now.” A pause. “They’re gonna start fitting me for my new legs tomorrow.”
“Now there’s cause for celebration.”
“I’m gonna walk out of here, Ranger, and that’s a fact.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute, Sergeant.”
“I don’t even remember all the stuff we talked about. I been telling lots of stories to lots of people, and sometimes they roll
into each other.”
“Hard to keep the facts straight at times, isn’t it?”
“Ranger?”
“I’m just making the point that you’ve been through a hell no one had a right to expect of you. Be a shame if someone was making that hell worse by applying undue pressure.”
“I don’t think I know what you mean.”
Caitlin could feel her neck stiffen with tension, a pounding settling between her still ringing ears. “Anybody making you do or say something you don’t want is gonna have to face me sooner or later. That’s what I mean.”
Silence.
“I appreciate that, ma’am,” Serles said finally. “I really do.”
“Just keep it in mind, M.J. Texas is a big place for sure, but you’d be surprised at how hard it is to hide all the same.”
“Nobody needs to do any hiding as far as I’m concerned. Those things I told you, whatever they were, one thing I’m sure of is that they didn’t happen. Truth is I can’t remember one lick of how I lost my legs. Guess my mind’s gotta make stuff up in order to cope.”
“You said they sent you over to Brooke Army Medical Center for a time after we met.”
“They did, ma’am,” Serles said, sounding clearly embarrassed. “I’d rather not say where exactly, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
“Because these kinds of things tend to stay with a man, come back and haunt him long after the deed is done.”
“I understand, Sergeant,” Caitlin told him, her eyes on Captain Tepper.
“I had a nice sit-down with Colonel Gilroy. He’s been square with me from the start and no one knows what I’m facing better than him, having been through it himself. So if you don’t mind, Ranger, I’d like you to forget our conversation from the other day ever happened. My brain’s as busted as my body, but at least they can fix that with the right meds. I feel better already and that’s the God’s honest truth. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
“Not a waste at all. Just keep our number handy in case you need it again.”
“Thank you, Ranger. I truly mean that.”
“Thank you for your service and sacrifice, Sergeant. And I truly mean that.”