Strong Vengeance
Page 34
Al-Awlaki looped around a series of outlying structures that looked like portable storage containers, coming face-to-face with a number of flattened orange rafts hanging from hydraulic emergency lifts that would launch them to the sea once inflated. The process to manage that task was surprisingly simple, as it had to be for a man in the midst of panic to handle the effort. But al-Awlaki felt no such rush, only contentment and surety that fate had delivered him this far and had grand plans for him ahead. He moved to the nearest emergency raft and studied the rigging. He pulled a cord that inflated the raft and automatically activated the launching system, the storm no longer seeming so fearsome.
Until a flash of lightning illuminated the dark figure of a phantom silhouetted before him.
105
NORTHERN GULF STREAM, THE PRESENT
It was a woman, al-Awlaki realized, edging closer to the raft now lying horizontal, close enough to board. Her hair was twisted into a wild tangle, her face pale and her frame silhouetted against the pounding storm as if the rain slanted to avoid her. Something dark dripped from both her hands, one of which held a pistol aimed straight for him.
* * *
“I’m a Texas Ranger!” Caitlin announced, holding her ground as the wind howled, strong enough to buckle her knees. She felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, about to be lifted up and out into the sky. “Stay where you are or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”
Caitlin had studied dozens of photographs of the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, one of which pictured him while in college at Colorado State University twenty years ago before becoming radicalized. That shot, showing him with close-cropped hair with the texture of a Brillo pad, resembled the man before her too closely to be coincidence.
“You’re going to put your hands in the air now!” she said loud enough for her words to rise over the storm.
The man didn’t move, didn’t raise his hands. “What are you?”
“Already told you that.”
“Another test, is that it?”
Caitlin raised her gun further.
“You’re Him, aren’t you? Coming to me in guise to find whether I’m worthy or not.”
“Don’t move!”
But al-Awlaki’s eyes caught fire, seeming to glow in the blackness between them. “No, I see it now! You are Iblīs!”
“I said, don’t—”
“Šaytān!” al-Awlaki bellowed, twisting to reveal a pistol wedged in his belt.
His right hand went for it, even as he thrust himself backward over the lip of the escape raft. A sputtering whirring sound told Caitlin the hydraulic system had been activated to launch it. She opened fire in the moment al-Awlaki’s pistol cleared his belt, pulled the trigger and just kept pulling.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The sounds might have been whippets of thunder or the thin echoes of her gunshots. Either way, the air burst from the escape raft in a rippling wheeze, its flattened remnants and passenger sent hurdling downward into the storm-ravaged air before disappearing into the dark depths of the sea.
Caitlin had just reached the edge to look down in search of him, when Paz swung round a corner supporting Cort Wesley. Both of them joined her gaze, having glimpsed the raft’s plunge as well.
“It was al-Awlaki,” she told them both. “I sent him to hell for sure this time.”
EPILOGUE
In the spring of 2008, the Rangers became involved in a headline-grabbing case somewhat reminiscent of the Branch Davidian standoff fifteen years earlier. Once again, it involved a splinter religious group with a fortresslike house of worship standing prominently on private property.…
When the Rangers got ready to enter the four-story temple, a group of fifty-seven men ringed it, holding hands. Their leader told Captain Caver they intended to offer “passive resistance.”
“Define ‘passive resistance,’” the captain said.
The man replied that the men would continue to stand around the temple but once the Rangers approached they would not physically resist. Instead, he said, they would kneel and begin praying.
“That’s a damn good idea,” Caver told the man.
Still concerned about an attempt at violent resistance, Caver had his own plan. The Rangers let the men stand around the temple all day long before finally approaching it later in the day. If the men had any fight in them, the West Texas heat had sucked it out of them.
—Mike Cox, Time of the Rangers
NORTHERN GULF STREAM, THE PRESENT
“Never thought I’d be setting foot on this thing again,” D. W. Tepper said moments after he’d arrived at the rig on a Coast Guard cutter.
The storm had blown out shortly after dawn, its residue being a crystal blue sky and oppressively humid air smelling of sea salt and musty foliage churned up by the winds on shore. Guillermo Paz and his men were gone by the time the first Coast Guard patrol boats and cutters converged on the scene. Caitlin couldn’t comprehend how he’d managed it until she recalled the launch al-Awlaki and his men would’ve used to escape had things turned out differently. The launch that had snared on the rig’s mooring leg after she disabled it, long gone now with Paz having appropriated the craft.
Tepper gazed around him, face wrinkling at the sight of the bodies of al-Awlaki’s men lying where Paz and his commandos had gunned them down. “Let’s see if we can get this sorted out.”
* * *
It took several hours to even approach that point. All the terrorists had been killed, although the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the four found inside the bridge seemed muddled and contradictory, to be figured out later.
“Good news,” Tepper told Caitlin and Cort Wesley, “is that the Coast Guard is in the process of locating each and every one of those five thousand barrels. How they bring ’em up’s a different story, but they’ll get it done, you can bank on that.”
“What’s the bad news?” Caitlin asked him.
“Waters are too deep to bother looking for al-Awlaki’s body.”
“It’s there, Captain. I’m not worried.”
Tepper took his hat off, exposing his pale skin to the sun. “Winning sure feels good, I’ll tell ya. Guess there’s still a place for gunfighters like you in this world after all, Ranger.”
“It means a lot to hear you say that,” Caitlin told him, her now bandaged hands still throbbing.
Tepper felt about an empty ledge behind him. “Thought I set my bottle of root beer down here,” he said, frowning. “Matter of fact, I know I did.” He continued, still mystified by the bottle’s absence. “Anyway, what we do know is that you managed to solve the case your dad, granddad, and me couldn’t. Teo Braga’s no better than the garbage he disposes of. Soon as he recovers from that gunshot wound, we’ll arrest the son of a bitch as an accessory to whatever you want to call this.”
“It won’t stick, Captain. You know that as well as me.”
“But it’ll feel good to make him uncomfortable for a time,” Tepper said with a wink. “I’ll tell you this much, he and Jones are a goddamn match made in heaven.”
“Or hell,” Caitlin told him.
* * *
She and Cort Wesley stood near the edge of the Mariah not far from where Anwar al-Awlaki had dropped sixty feet to the sea.
“I’d like to pick up our conversation,” Caitlin said to Cort Wesley.
“Which part?”
“The one about you not wanting me around anymore.”
Cort Wesley eased his arm around Caitlin’s shoulder and drew her in close. “I don’t recall saying anything of the kind.”
“I think I’m done looking for fights I don’t need. I think that’s finally been burned out of me.”
“Earl or Jim Strong ever face a similar transition?”
“My granddad after the Galveston Island fiasco when he was near eighty and my dad after his heart started to give out. What?” Caitlin added, when Cort Wesley continued to look at her without responding. “What?”
“I believe you know.
”
She gave up on that train of thought. “Like you’re any different. Like Dylan’s not exactly the same and even Luke more than you think.”
“I believe a point is coming here.”
“We’re the Addams Family of Texas, Cort Wesley. A genuine freak show. All that’s missing is the old, dark mansion.”
Cort Wesley started to smile. Then his expression went distant and dreamy as he tightened his grasp on her. “Moments like this got me through Cereso. Picturing them’s how I won all those fights.”
“You forgetting the boys?”
“Not once. Never. You still up for that vacation? Guns, cell phones, video games, and teenage girls all left behind.”
“Well, I’ve never been to Disney World,” Caitlin said, feeling the rigid band of muscle that extended from the bottom of his rib cage across his abdomen.
For a moment, Cort Wesley thought he spotted Leroy Epps casting him a wink from a nearby stanchion he was leaning against. Then he moved his gaze toward the deep blue waters before them, empty and strangely calm for as far as the eye could see.
“Actually, I was thinking about a fishing trip instead,” he said, joining Caitlin in a smile and then a kiss.
Turning away from the Gulf, he noticed Leroy Epps was gone, an empty bottle of root beer left on the rig’s grated deck where his ghost had been standing. He watched Caitlin retrieve it, shaking her head as she poured out the last few drops.
“I believe Captain Tepper may finally be losing it, Cort Wesley.”
He took the bottle from her, certain he could smell the talcum powder with which old Leroy regularly doused himself. “Losing something’s not a problem, Ranger, when you know how to get it back.”
“Amen to that,” Caitlin said, kissing him again as a laughing gull swooped toward the choppy waters below and plucked a grunion from the surface.
Forge Books by Jon Land
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
CAITLIN STRONG NOVELS
Fifth-generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong pursues justice the Ranger way in this thriller series from critically acclaimed author Jon Land.
Strong Enough to Die
Strong Justice
Strong at the Break
Strong Vengeance
Strong Rain Falling
Strong Darkness
BLAINE MCCRACKEN SERIES
Rogue agent Blaine McCracken and his seven-foot Native American right-hand man Johnny Wareagle will do anything it takes to keep the country safe in this action-adventure series.
Day Of The Delphi
Kingdom Of The Seven
The Fires Of Midnight
Dead Simple
BEN KAMAL AND DANIELLE BARNEA SERIES
Palestinian-American detective Ben Kamal and Israeli detective Danielle Barnea fight for justice in the volatile Middle East.
The Walls Of Jericho
The Pillars Of Solomon
A Walk In The Darkness
Keepers Of The Gate
Blood Diamonds
The Blue Widows
The Last Prophecy
www.tor-forge.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JON LAND is the critically acclaimed author of thirty novels, including the bestselling series featuring female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong: Strong Enough to Die, Strong Justice, and Strong at the Break. In addition, he is the author of the nonfiction bestseller Betrayal. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and can be found on the Web at www.jonlandbooks.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STRONG VENGEANCE
Copyright © 2012 by Jon Land
All rights reserved.
Cover Photographs by Victor Habbick Visions and Miguel Navarro/Getty Images
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Land, Jon.
Strong vengeance / Jon Land.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3099-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-9278-7 (e-book)
1. Texas Rangers—Fiction. 2. Treasure troves—Fiction. 3. Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3562.A469S84 2012
813'.54—dc23
2012011654
e-ISBN 9781429992787
First Edition: July 2012