Strong Vengeance

by Jon Land

  89

  UVALDE, THE PRESENT

  Caitlin and Braga heard the sound too, Braga looking at her smugly.

  “There goes your one potential witness,” he said.

  “Man you claim was acting on his own.”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  Caitlin held his stare for a long moment. “So what’s to say he didn’t kill you too before we got him?”

  Braga’s eyes lost their confident gleam. He looked away, about, as if in search of some kind of exit.

  “Those powerful friends of yours gonna fast rope down from the ceiling or storm the building to rescue you? I don’t think so, Mr. Braga, meaning there’s nothing to stop me from mixing pieces of you with Thoms’s. Make a nice follow-up in Texas Monthly, don’t you think?”

  “You,” Braga started, stopping as if something had stolen his breath. He tried to hold Caitlin’s gaze but couldn’t, not liking the surety of the message it held. “What do you want?”

  “To know what happened that night on Galveston for starters,” Caitlin told him.

  Braga swallowed hard, keeping his lips pinned closed. “What’s it matter now?”

  “It matters to me.”

  Braga looked away again, Caitlin certain he was done talking until he began to speak softly, his lips not seeming to move and his eyes fixed on the floor. “Tu eres como un clavo caliente en el culo … And a pain in the ass like you will be dead before you can use any of this against me.”

  “Chance I’m willing to take, sir.”

  Braga twisted his gaze back on her defiantly, trying to find the customary bravado that had eluded him. “I didn’t kill anyone. It was Alvin Jackson. We followed the map, the first real one his grandfather had ever drawn from memories of the stories passed down. I didn’t believe for a minute the treasure was real. Alvin thought those kids had followed us out to the island to steal the treasure and went at them with a knife in one hand and the damn lawn tool we’d used to find the hollow in the other. I tried to stop him, Ranger, I did. And when I couldn’t I tried to help those boys as best I could. Only one of them was still alive. I guess he must’ve been the one who tore off the pendant Beaudoin Chansoir had given me. Didn’t realize I’d lost it until we were back home.”

  “The FBI pinned the murders on Mexican workers so business on Galveston could go on as usual,” Caitlin picked up. “You got lucky back then, Mr. Braga, but your luck has run out today.”

  “Really? How exactly do you intend to prove it? You know I’ll deny this conversation ever took place.”

  Caitlin eased a smaller pouch containing half of a broken pencil from the front pocket of her jeans. “You’ve got quite a temper, Mr. Braga. In our office conference room, all you broke was this pencil, though I strongly suspect you’ve broken far more than that in your time over the years. We got your DNA sample off the other half of this pencil and, you know what?, it turned out to be a perfect match for the DNA on this charm here. That’s how I intend to prove it, sir.”

  Caitlin looked into Braga’s eyes, trying to judge his intentions, but his expression was utterly blank, devoid of reaction or emotion like a statue with its features left unfinished. She waited for him to notice the piece of paper she was holding.

  “This is that DNA report, sir,” she said, crumpling it into a tight ball. “You tell me what I need to know to stop these terrorists and what happened thirty years ago goes away.”

  “Just like that?”

  Caitlin stuffed the crumpled page in her pocket. “Just like that. You have my word, the word of a Texas Ranger. How many barrels we talking about here?”

  Braga nodded sullenly, no longer defiant, face wrenched tight against the pain. “Ten thousand.”

  The number registered like a kick to her gut. “Ten thousand? Ten thousand barrels of radioactive waste?”

  Braga nodded again.

  “Where can I find them? Where have you hid them?”

  “They were stored in one of my unused underground refuse cells in Covel Gardens, but they’re gone now.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Loaded onto freight trains for transport all across the state, as of this morning.”

  “Where? Which yards?”

  Caitlin listened to his answer, feeling herself go cold.

  PART TEN

  “People are always asking me what a Ranger is like. They mostly have a notion that he’s a big-hatted, belted, and spurred fellow wading through a cloud of pistol smoke with a gun in each hand. You know what I tell them? I tell them the truth. The Texas Ranger is a family man, a good neighbor, humble, kindly, and conscientious. He’s a man of integrity, fearless, and courageous. He’s tough when the occasion demands, able to handle any situation, and never retreats. He sits tall in the saddle and casts a long shadow. I know, I raise ’em.”

  —From a 1963 interview with Colonel Homer Garrison conducted by Stan Redding (as quoted in Time of the Rangers by Mike Cox)

  90

  UVALDE, THE PRESENT

  “Course I heard you,” Captain Tepper said, the cell phone transmission strangely clear and distinct. “I’m not totally deaf yet. Four freight trains covering the major population centers in the state that might not be so major anymore if we don’t beat this. What else he tell you?”

  “All four trains are scheduled to head up the rails at five o’clock tonight. That’s how long we got to end this once and for all.”

  “How many of Braga’s fingers you have to break to get that out of him?”

  “None, but he’s got a bullet in his leg courtesy of Jalbert Thoms before Cort Wesley dumped Thoms in a trash compactor. Braga needs an ambulance and I need you to get Jones on the line.”

  “I can’t, Ranger. He’s gone.”

  “Figures.”

  “Sounds like you’re not as surprised as you should be.”

  “I’m just hoping I’m wrong.”

  * * *

  Caitlin was surprised when Jones actually answered his phone, his voice, along with a mechanical hum, filling the car through the Bluetooth speaker.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” she snapped at him. “What Braga told me about someone holding his strings.”

  “Look, Ranger—”

  “Don’t bullshit me here, Jones.”

  “I had no idea where this was going. If I had…”

  “There you go again.”

  “Listen to me, Ranger. You know what was at the top of the list in our most recent threat assessment? The nuclear waste materials stored on site at virtually all the country’s nuclear plants now. Nobody wants the shit, so that’s where it stays. Trouble being that’s a recipe for an enterprising terrorist igniting the mother of all dirty bombs. So some contacts were made to get rid of it.”

  “You brought in Braga. Let him do your dirty work. Literally. And he jobbed it out to al-Awlaki’s homegrown terrorists.”

  “We had to reduce the risk. Priority one.”

  “A million lives in Texas being Priority two, then.”

  “Hear that sound, Ranger?” he asked, speaking over the constant whirring din. “That’s the sound of me flying out of the state on a government jet. As far as the world’s concerned, I was never there.”

  “So you, Homeland Security, is just dumping this mess in our laps.”

  “What mess is that, Ranger? I think we must have a bad connection here. Sorry.”

  The mechanical hum and Jones’s voice both vanished with a click.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Caitlin.

  “Guess that leaves it to us,” Cort Wesley told her, holding an emergency ice pack against his forehead.

  * * *

  Caitlin called Tepper to give him the news.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  “I seem to recall me saying exactly the same thing. This is Rangers all the way now, Captain.”

  “Suits me just fine. But I’ll tell you this much: your friend Jones ever sets foot in this state again, even one of those armored suits
won’t be able to save him.”

  “You still got that bazooka in your basement, D.W.?”

  Caitlin thought she heard him chuckle until a raspy cough swallowed it. “Know what, Hurricane? Looks like sometimes even a dangerous wind blows in the right direction.”

  * * *

  Tepper called back twenty minutes later.

  “These freight lines link the big cities and major population centers, all right,” he reported. “The governor’s ready to shut down every freight line in the state as soon as we give him the word we’re ready to deploy.”

  “Make sure he doesn’t shut them down a moment too early, D.W. If we spook al-Awlaki, he just might blow all ten thousand barrels as they stand. Until we know what his game is, we need to play this close.”

  “Young Roger’s working up some casualty scenarios based on estimates. Says each one of those barrels is like a mini-dirty bomb about to be blown out into the air. Says the level of contamination multiplies geometrically with each blast as far as spread and size of the killing cloud goes—that’s what he called it, a killing cloud—or, in this case, four of them.”

  Caitlin felt another cold blast of air surge through her, as if the air-conditioning had pierced her skin. “We’re still three hours from San Antonio, D.W.”

  “Hopefully we’ll have the cavalry ready to move by the time you get here.”

  She pushed the rental car’s accelerator down even further. Cort Wesley looked across the seat and watched Caitlin remove the crumpled-up piece of paper she’d told Braga contained the DNA proof linking him to the Galveston Island murders from her pocket.

  “Oh,” she said, handing it to him. “Forgot to give you this.”

  “What is it?” Cort Wesley asked, starting to uncrumple it.

  “Luke’s progress report. He’s getting all As.”

  91

  SOUTH TEXAS, THE PRESENT

  “It’s worse than we thought,” Tepper told Caitlin and Cort Wesley over the rental car’s Bluetooth system thirty minutes later. “I’m gonna put Young Roger on to provide the particulars, which means I’m gonna have to listen to them over again and get even sicker at the prospects.”

  A pause followed, longer than it seemed.

  “Can you hear me okay?” Young Roger’s voice started.

  “Just fine,” Caitlin told him.

  “First off, we’ve identified four separate freight trains loaded with these barrels.”

  “Tell them the worst part,” she heard Captain Tepper say in the background.

  “This isn’t the kind of radioactive waste the Japanese were pumping into the ocean back when the earthquake and tsunami caused their disaster. That was just treated water. Dangerous, for sure, but nothing compared to the spent fuel rods contained in the barrels we’re looking at here. We’re talking about the purest and most dangerous form of radioactive material.”

  “Ten thousand barrels full of it.”

  “The freight lines that show Braga inventory about to be shipped slice through Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston. I just finished the computations, determining that as much as fifty percent of the state’s population lives within the exposure range of one of these rail lines at rush hour. Now, not all those lines you’re looking at are going to be carrying the radioactive barrels and not all those people are going to be exposed, but I think you get the idea.”

  “Give them the casualty estimates,” Tepper ordered in the background.

  “Until we know the precise number of barrels and their locations, my estimates are rough. But I believe we’re looking at up to three million people at risk of exposure with half that likely to receive a dosage of radiation in the moderate to high category. Of those, we’re looking at a fifty percent casualty rate.”

  Caitlin didn’t need a smart phone or calculator to run the numbers. “That’s seven hundred fifty thousand people!”

  “Roughly.”

  “And you’re telling me all of them are going to die?”

  “Not right away and some not at all. That number covers those at the most mortal risk.”

  Caitlin couldn’t even conceive of a civil disaster of such proportions, imagining overloaded hospitals and three of the nation’s most populace cities dissolving into panic. She’d seen scenarios run for biological and other terrorist attacks and none of what they portended was good. She glanced toward Cort Wesley who’d gone stiff and pale with beads of sweat forming over his lower lip.

  “Tell me how we’re playing this, D.W.,” she said to Tepper.

  “Rangers are taking lead on a unified state effort that would make Sam Houston himself proud. We’re gonna take each and every one of these freight trains at the same time before the bad guys know what hit them. We’re gonna shut down every inch of track in the state until such time that we check under every tie and train car for explosives. And once we’ve got all those barrels in hand, we’re gonna truck them down to NASA in Houston and load ’em up on a ship bound for goddamn Mars.”

  “Good thing there’s no intelligent life there,” Caitlin noted.

  “I’m starting to think it’s not much different here,” Tepper said. “How far out of town are you?”

  “Another two hours, give or take.”

  “The four freights carrying Braga’s barrels are all scheduled to roll at five o’clock, just like you said. We’re planning simultaneous raids at all four depots for just before then. That should put you back in town right around show time at the Intermodal Terminal here. You got my permission to speed.”

  “We’re already doing ninety, Captain.”

  “Make it an even hundred, Ranger.”

  92

  SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT

  “Five minutes, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said from behind the wheel, having exchanged places with Caitlin, as they tore through the outskirts of the city.

  “Gonna be close,” she noted.

  “So what else is new?”

  A traffic light turned red just before him, and Cort Wesley sped through it anyway, honking his horn. They could see the signs for the San Antonio Intermodal Terminal, opened by Union Pacific Railroad just a few years before at Old Pearsall Road, near Interstate 35 and Loop 410. The new three-hundred-acre terminal normally processed containers carrying clothing, electronics, and household items that originated at West Coast ports via ship from the Pacific Rim. The containers were then loaded onto trains headed to San Antonio’s facility where they were off-loaded onto either eighteen-wheelers or smaller Union Pacific freight trains for passage up through the state.

  According to Young Roger, their target was a fifty-car Union Pacific freight train that was to twist its way through the city proper to New Braunsfels, San Marcos, and other intermediary points en route to Austin. But those intermediate stops were moot right now.

  Because San Antonio itself was sure to be al-Awlaki’s target, not more than ten minutes from departing the yard.

  Cort Wesley joined the convoy of San Antonio PD, Highway Patrol, and Ranger vehicles just before it sped into the yard through the open gate manned by Union Pacific personnel. Even above the sirens and racing engine, Caitlin heard the sound of a helicopter overhead before its distinct shape swooped low over the scene. It looked like the one chopper operated by the San Antonio police department, but she couldn’t be sure.

  As planned, their entry took all but the most senior yard officials on scene totally by surprise. The freight train with its share of radioactive waste loaded onto its many cars was just ready to roll when a Ranger parked his extended cab pickup across the tracks directly before the cab. Meanwhile, the same SWAT team Caitlin recognized from Thomas C. Clark High School months before took up strategic positions around the train, their body armor and ATAC helmets making them look like Star Wars storm troopers. She thought she spotted Captain Consuelo Alonzo and D. W. Tepper rushing out of the yard’s administrative headquarters, as more police support personnel moved to backup positions for the SWAT team and the Rangers prepared to
approach the cab of the now stalled train. All fifty freight cars it carried were closed, denying view of the deadly black drums contained inside.

  Barren of shade, heat had been building all day in the yard, reaching its apex here in the late afternoon just as the temperatures began to cool and a stronger breeze started lifting off the water nearby. Right now, though, that breeze did nothing but fan the heat and whip chalky rail dust and dirt into the air, swirling it about in mini-funnel clouds.

  As a little girl, Caitlin recalled her grandfather’s colorful tales of how he and other Rangers searched covered train cars in search of a gang of murderous hobos who’d wreak havoc in small towns and then hop aboard the next freight to escape. Earl Strong had finally caught the bunch by pretending to be one of their own, snoozing in a car they had the misfortune to board. One of them approached with a pipe wrench raised overhead, intending to kill him for sport, when Earl shot the man straight through the hand with his .45. He jailed the other five, two after they were released from the hospital and three more whose mug shots revealed numerous wounds inflicted when they had the bad sense to not go quietly.

  “I got one demand here,” Caitlin heard Captain Alonzo roar when she burst from Cort Wesley’s rental, her voice rising over all other sound. “She goes nowhere near that train.”

  Tepper followed her gaze all the way to Caitlin. “As the person in charge here, Ranger, how you think I should handle the good captain’s request?”

  “Looks like you got things well in hand here, sir. I’m happy to sit this one out.”

  “Done your part already anyway,” Tepper said, aiming his next words at Alonzo, “since we’d never even be here to stop this if it wasn’t for you. What’s the time, Captain Alonzo?”

  “Four-fifty, Captain Tepper.”

  “Then what do you say we commandeer this train?”

  93

  SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT

  Caitlin stood next to Cort Wesley, watching eight Rangers wielding shotguns and assault rifles approach the train cab from both sides and directly down the track. The yard dispatcher had already ordered the freight to stand down, but Tepper wasn’t about to take any chances.