by Jon Land
“Yeah, the details of the drug shipments coming in across the border over tribal lands,” Caitlin conceded.
“The operative word being tribal,” Tepper snapped at her. “Since when do the Texas Rangers have jurisdiction on land the federal and local authorities don’t even go near? Hell, the Canadians pulled out all their monitors and guards three years ago.”
“Which means nobody is doing a damn thing about fifty billion in dope coming across that border. Sound familiar?”
“Different border altogether, Ranger, and different times.”
“You talking about the same Rangers I am, chasing bandits and druggers across the Rio Grande with guns blazing?”
Tepper turned back to the display case, Caitlin studying his suddenly flat reflection in the glass. “Lots of bodies buried in the desert on that account.”
“Now it’s frozen rivers. Only difference I can see, Captain.”
“Where’s your evidence?”
“Burned or under water, except for the guns.”
“What guns?”
“I called it into Jones. Homeland Security’s got them now.”
“Our Homeland Security?”
“Is there another?”
“Don’t crack wise with me, Ranger. You’re not exactly banking a lot of friends these days as it is.”
“I need to get into Arno’s compound, Captain, and I need the Rangers with me.”
“You need to lay low or risk being arrested by any of five different agencies on any of a dozen charges. More probably before the day is through. I can’t even keep track anymore.”
“I’ve got a source who puts the boy on the premises under duress. And if that’s not enough, I’ve got the tip of Dylan Torres’s finger on ice. You want a DNA match, I’m sure I can get it.”
“Look, Ranger, I know you wish these were Earl Strong’s times when all you needed was a hunch to ride roughshod over the world. But they’re not. Internet and the twenty-four-hour news cycle subjects us to a scrutiny we can usually dodge down here in our little corner of the world. But you’ve expanded your territory to the whole damn country.”
“Not me, Captain—Malcolm Arno. He gets his weapons distributed and extremist army in place, and anyone who doesn’t abide by his beliefs or convictions can consider themselves an endangered species. That judge in Galveston was just the beginning.”
“And you wanna take him down?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Then let the system do its job. I’ll ride with you all the way to Austin on horseback if that’s what it takes to make people listen.”
“You’re not listening to me, D.W. Arno figures as long as he’s got Dylan Torres as a hostage, I’ll stay out of his hair. Give him the time he needs to move his plans to the next stage.”
Tepper spun toward her again, his actual face looking craggier, more pitted and gaunt than its reflection. “How many trained men you figure he can muster with arms in that compound?”
“Three, maybe four hundred seems a safe bet, almost all with military backgrounds to boot.”
“Unless this goes Waco. Then we’re talking, what, three, four thousand innocent bystanders on top of that?”
“Something like that, I suppose.”
“A potential massacre, in other words, if we go in with guns blazing.”
“You tell my father the same thing before the Church of the Redeemer raid?”
“I didn’t have to.”
A couple snapping pictures joined them by the display, so Caitlin and Tepper slid sideways to a larger case featuring original art from the era depicting the battle as it was believed to have happened at that time. So much had been lost to myth and legend that nobody was really sure of all the details, when and how all the principals had died. Caitlin and Tepper fixed their eyes forward, speaking squarely to each other’s reflections now.
“Right, Captain, because Jim Strong came up with a way to minimize the casualties.”
“What’s your point?”
“What if I could do the same thing?”
“You and Masters alone, some kind of half-assed commando mission?”
“Yes or no, Captain?”
“You’re not asking for my permission, Ranger, so don’t expect me to give it.”
“Anybody give Jim Strong permission to stake out the parking lot of the Tackle and Gun twenty years ago?”
“That was different.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“You know your problem, Ranger?”
“Oh boy…”
“Shut up and listen. That day in the parking lot, watching that gunfight, screwed up something inside you, messed up your balance and left you seeing the world a different way. If your granddad Earl was still alive at the time, he would’ve counseled you on the pain that goes with it. But your dad wasn’t much for that kind of talk and figured it would pass. Only it didn’t, and I get the sense you’ve been waiting for this day ever since. That you and Arno glimpsing each other across that gravel set you on a course of violence that could only lead to this.”
Tepper’s comments stung Caitlin with the harshness of their disapproval, especially since she couldn’t dispute a single one of them. Two forces had indeed been born that day outside the Tackle and Gun, meshed on opposite sides of the spectrum until the time they were destined to converge again.
“Jim Strong had a plan, Captain,” she said to spare herself further pondering on the subject.
“I was there, Ranger.”
“Easter Sunday’s just two days off.”
Tepper turned from his scrutiny of a drawing of the Alamo wall being breached. “Tell me you didn’t just say that.”
“Can’t.”
“Your dad and I had a dozen Rangers. You’re gonna need an army.”
“I know,” Caitlin told him.
100
SAN ANTONIO; THE PRESENT
Cort Wesley sat outside the entrance to the Alamo on a park bench in the grassy plaza, the ghost of Leroy Epps next to him with absolutely nothing to say. Could be Cort Wesley’s imagination couldn’t conjure up any intelligent words for him to impart or could be old Leroy was at as much of a loss here as he was.
Cort Wesley remembered Leroy once telling him he had no desire to get out of Huntsville. The world had just gotten too big, nothing seemed to go right, and nobody seemed happy. Inside, life was laid out for you and you were spared any decision-making, most of which had turned out bad for him. He figured his transformation into a better man inside the brutal prison known as The Walls was due primarily to that burden having been lifted from him so he could turn all his attention inward since there was no place else to look.
For the first time, Cort Wesley figured he knew to what Leroy Epps had been referring. Relationships were the problem. Nothing ever came from them but pain, no matter what you tried to tell yourself.
“Nothing to say, champ?” he said out loud. “You never been at a loss for words before as long as I’ve known you.”
Epps finally grinned. “Got one of those root beers, bubba?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Then I got nothing to tell you.”
“I’m happy to do the talking, champ: I’m gonna get my son back.”
“Glad to hear that.”
“Normally you’d have something critical to say on the subject.”
“You get me that root beer, I’ll see what I can do.”
The old man turned away, as if he didn’t want Cort Wesley to see the thoughts lurking behind his milky, bloodshot eyes. Cort Wesley found himself fearing Epps knew something bad was coming and didn’t want to pass any hint of it to a mere mortal, at least not for less than a root beer. Funny thing being, Cort Wesley probably would’ve gone and bought him a bottle, if Caitlin Strong hadn’t emerged through the Alamo’s big double doors. Anything to get some worthwhile advice from one of the few people in the world he trusted, dead or alive.
“Well?” Cort Wesley asked when Caitlin was close enough
to hear.
“Captain Tepper told me I’m gonna need an army.”
It was all she needed to say, the statement’s implication, coupled with her dour expression, saying the rest.
“So what do we now, Ranger?”
“We take his advice.”
101
MIDLAND, TEXAS; THE PRESENT
The workman who doused himself in cheap aftershave to cover the sewer smell that hovered over him like a cloud had been waiting outside Malcolm Arno’s office for three hours when his receptionist finally relented and sent him in.
“What can I do for you?” Arno asked the man, after opening a window in spite of the air-conditioning.
The man remained standing before his desk, soiled hands scraped raw from futile washing held by his side.
“You can sit down.”
“No, sir, I can’t,” the man said. “I don’t deserve it.”
“And why’s that?”
“Your daddy was a preacher.”
“He was a minister.”
“But you’re not.”
“It wasn’t my calling.”
“So you can’t hear my confession.”
“We’ve got two reverends and a priest on the grounds to handle that.”
“It’s not them I’ve wronged, sir, it’s you.”
The first wave of the man’s smell reached Arno, tolerable for the moment. “You work for me here?”
The man nodded. “You were kind enough to take me in, give me a chance after I fell into the bottle for some years.”
“We all have our demons.”
“I’ve done you wrong, Mr. Arno, and I can’t live with that no more.”
“What’s your name?”
“Daniel, sir, Daniel Killane.”
Arno felt his heart skip a beat in the very moment the rest of the man’s stench hit him like a freight train, nearly spilling him out of his chair. What he’d just heard, though, was more than enough to keep him upright and listening, his recognition of the foul odor pushed as far back as his mind would hold it.
“I believe our families have a history between them.”
“What are you doing here, Mr. Killane?” Arno asked, feeling as if he was listening to himself talk.
“Like I said, you were kind enough to—”
“I mean in my office now. What’s this wrong you’ve committed?”
“I cut the bonds off a boy’s wrists and then I called a Texas Ranger to say he was here.”
Maybe it was the air-conditioning, or a chill blast of air pushed through the window by an advancing storm, but Malcolm Arno suddenly felt cold enough to shiver. “What Texas Ranger?”
“Caitlin Strong.”
Arno wasn’t sure if Daniel Killane was still speaking or had stopped. He gazed across his desk and saw this soiled mess of a man as the young boy his father had followed down into the root cellar to pretty much end both their childhoods. He wanted to feel hatred for him but all he felt was … nothing, until his thoughts turned back to Caitlin Strong.
“Her daddy was the one who killed yours after yours shot my mama.”
“Sit down, Mr. Killane.”
“I—”
“Please.”
Killane finally took the chair, easing himself to the edge to leave as much of the upholstery free of him as possible.
“What did you tell this Texas Ranger?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Arno, I’m real sorry.”
“Just tell me what you told her.”
“Everything she asked about this place, mostly about its defenses. How many guards, what kind of guns…”
“Where to find the boy?”
Killane squeezed his eyes closed before nodding. Arno thought he might be finished, but then they snapped open with a pleading desperation like none he’d ever witnessed before.
“She’s coming, Mr. Arno, she’s coming with an army probably led by that boy’s father. They’re planning a full frontal assault. Storm this place like it was the beach at Normandy with plenty of men and guns both.”
“A full frontal assault,” Arno repeated.
Killane nodded again, leaving his eyes open this time.
“The Ranger tell you when it was coming?”
Killane’s eyes did the nodding this time. “Yes, sir, so I could make myself scarce, maybe take flight if I so choose.” Those eyes growing moist now, even his tears seeming to stink. “I didn’t know what I was doing. When I saw that boy, it brought everything from that day back—”
“Mr. Killane…”
“—how much it hurt when I found my mom shot, so I—”
“Mr. Killane…”
“—did something bad without thinking on it, just like the days when the only friend I had was the bottle. But you changed all that. You took me in, gave me a chance, and this is—”
“Mr. Killane!” And this time, Arno snapped upright so fast he jostled the items atop his desk blotter.
“—how I repay you.”
Daniel Killane lapsed into silence, having spoken his peace.
“You still haven’t told me when the assault’s coming,” Arno said.
“Easter Sunday, sir, sometime just after midnight.”
Arno felt suddenly unsteady on his feet, grasping the edge of his desk for support. Easter Sunday … History repeating itself to a T. This Ranger wasn’t only a master of irony, but also an adroit strategist, just like her father.
“Can you forgive me, sir?” he heard the human sewer ask him. “Can you find it in your heart?”
“Forgiveness is for God.”
“Maybe if we prayed together, maybe if we prayed.…”
Malcolm Arno was thinking instead about lifting the .45 from his top desk drawer and putting a slug in the man. Right in the face to obliterate his desperate eyes and teeth half rotted by crystal meth. Drown the man’s very identity, leave him with nothing to take to the grave with him.
“Could we pray, sir?”
Then again, he might be of some use yet.
“I’ll leave the grounds. I’ll pack up and be on my way,” Killane continued, hanging his head so low it looked disconnected from his neck.
Arno circled around to the front of his desk and lay his hand down on the man’s shoulder, the shirt beneath his touch wet with rancid perspiration that nearly made him gag.
“You’ll do no such thing, Mr. Killane,” he said, channeling his father more than he ever had before. “Now, let’s pray together, you and me.…”
102
ODESSA, TEXAS; THE PRESENT
“It’s good to see you again, Colonel,” Caitlin said, rising with Cort Wesley as Guillermo Paz neared their table in Odessa’s Pancake Alley restaurant right off I-20.
“I’ve dreamed of you a lot lately, Ranger,” Paz said. “I knew you’d be calling.”
“Wanna thank you for the help you extended to Cort Wesley down in Mexico.”
Paz studied them both briefly. “It wasn’t enough, apparently.”
“Not yet.”
* * *
“I need your help, Colonel,” she’d told him over his satellite phone the day before.
“So I’ve been told.”
“By who?”
“We have mutual friends.”
“Jesus Christ … Don’t tell me—”
“Who do you think set this all up, Ranger? Who do you think put me together with Sandoval?”
Caitlin thought of Jones manipulating the scene, arranging a private army for Sandoval to wage war on the drug cartels to eliminate further incursions over the border. Homeland Security indeed.
“This army you’re building is gonna wipe out the cartel druggers.”
“That was the plan.”
“Was?”
“Until something more important came along,” Paz told her.
* * *
Paz looked around the old coffee shop, Caitlin still wondering how much this Pancake Alley resembled the place where her father had met Beth Ann Killane, allowing him
to save many lives while losing the one he cared about the most. Fresh-baked pies were on display in a case with a mirror back. Various pastries, almost surely homemade as well, sat in cake stands with a plastic cover. A single waitress roamed the booths and tables wielding a Bunn coffeepot, ready with a smile and a refill. For a moment Caitlin saw her as Beth Ann herself and half expected to see Jim Strong seated at his regular back table where he’d turned her as an informant against the Reverend Maxwell Arno.
“Where are your men, Colonel?” Caitlin asked him.
“En route over land via a route cleared by our mutual friend in Washington. Their weapons are coming here separately.” He looked outside as if to read the sky. “They’ll be arriving anytime now.”
“I’ve got the satellite imagery right here,” Caitlin said, reaching for the photo arrays laid across an open chair.
“No need, Ranger,” Paz told her, seeming disinterested. “Our mutual friend has already briefed me.” His eyes moved to Cort Wesley. “Your son is inside this place.”
Cort Wesley nodded, very slowly. “Yes, sir, Colonel.”
“It will be my pleasure to help free him.”
“How many men you bringing?”
“I was told to expect two hundred soldiers, so I planned for three hundred. But I wasn’t told how many of them had seen actual combat.”
“From what we’ve heard about the Patriot Sun, plenty,” Caitlin chimed in.
“Have you ever read Foch, Ranger?” Paz asked, the chair beneath him creaking from the strain of supporting his bulk.
“Who?”
“Ferdinand Foch, a French military theorist. He wrote that victory is a thing of the will.”
“Well,” said Cort Wesley, trying to smile, “we got plenty of that.”
103
MIDLAND, TEXAS; MIDNIGHT, EASTER SUNDAY
Malcolm Arno watched the throngs of those living within the complex walls pouring into the meeting hall for the midnight service his father had so looked forward to every Easter. Said he enjoyed it more than the sunrise and morning sessions that followed. Said he could never remember a single Easter mass where the weather didn’t cooperate, convincing him his fated blessing had come from the very power he worshipped.
True to that form, tonight’s weather was clear as a bell. A cold front had passed through earlier in the evening, carrying the promise of rain that never actually fell. The humidity and desert fog it had wiped from the scene would make it impossible for Caitlin Strong’s army to approach the complex surreptitiously, commando-style. And if they tried, one of Arno’s many spotters or the early-warning security systems he had already in place, would betray their presence and make them easy fodder for the snipers and gunmen his field commanders had placed in the towers and wall—all camouflaged so as to make sure nothing deterred the enemy’s approach. The bulk of his best-trained troops were already concentrated outside the walls, prepared to prevent the enemy from fleeing and to come up on their rear flank to catch them in a deadly cross fire.