“My next door neighbor is a small Asian family who own the donut shop in Gilmer.”
Danny chuckled, but tried to remain authoritative.
“Point taken,” he offered. “Butmypoint is that we have to put revenge aside if we hope to seek justice. Justice is what your family would want, Tisha. Not revenge. Killing someone won’t bring back your sister. Bombing some country won’t bring our citizens back. It’ll just make us as bad as the people who attacked us. All it will do is add to the body count. They spilled innocent blood. Spilling more innocent blood won’t stop these mad men.”
“It’ll stop one terrorist from killing any more.”
“Yes, and it will create ten thousand martyrs for the cause that will lend reason for a hundred aspiring human bombs to step up and take his place. You said that yourself. Those were your words. Is that what we want?”
“Then we kill their leaders.”
“Two reasons that won’t work, Tisha. First, we can’t find their leaders. Better soldiers than us are looking and haven’t found them. Second, terrorist groups have a network of leaders. Cut the head off a snake and two more appear in its place. Besides, if you do manage to get the entire leadership, what you have are a bunch of wild terrorists without direction. You’d have a bunch of directionless kooks running around without supervision. In effect, the inmates will be running the asylum.”
“Yes, but...”
“Officer Warner, let me boil this down for you,” he said, cutting her off. “We’re shorthanded. Turning down a volunteer isn’t an easy job for me. I need all the manpower I can get on this thing. But I cannot,will not,jeopardize the investigation by adding some officer to the team with a personal score to settle. Especially a score that can never be settled. Now if you want on this team, you have to set personal issues aside and do your job. Can you do that?”
“Sir, I don’t...“
“Yes or no, Officer? Can you put your personal agenda aside and help me on this investigation or not?”
“I believe so, Sir.”
Danny looked at his watch and noticed the time.
“It’s late. I need to go home.”
“Sir, I...”
“It’s late, Officer,” Danny repeated. “I’ll be back in the office first thing in the morning. When does your shift end tonight?”
“It ended an hour ago, Sir. I’ve been doing internet research, trying to find out as much as I can about terrorist groups, about the other attacks and everything.”
“I admire your heart, Officer. I admire your dedication. But be careful about being too overeager. I need my personal aide to be clearheaded.”
“Aide?”
“That’s right, Officer. You’ll need to leave that uniform at home tomorrow. Effective immediately you’ve been transferred to my command. Homicide detectives don’t wear uniforms. And they don’t just ‘believe’ they can put personal agenda aside. They know it.”
“Sir, I... I can’t thank you enough. I just...”
“You can thank me tomorrow,” Danny said, tapping his computer. “When you teach me how to use this dang thing for something other than playing solitaire.”
***
Danny was not as dumb about computers as he’d let on. He just didn’t like them. They crashed; they ran slow at the most inopportune times. They deleted things at will. They failed to print documents sent ten times, only to shoot out 100 copies of that very document the next day. Entire investigations had been lost within a matter of seconds.
Years of work gone. An entire team’s notes gobbled up, shredded, destroyed by some collection of metal and plastic with the most sadistic sense of humor. No matter what anyone said, Danny knew that computers had minds of their own. Souls that originated in the bowels of some circle of hell reserved only for manmade objects. The whole “artificial intelligence” concept was alive and well and living on his desk at home and at work. He didn’t need help with a computer. And he wasn’t training an aide. To Danny, he was training someone with the potential to replace him. Perhaps not replace him as captain, but definitely take an open spot in Homicide left by his pending departure.
Every departure creates a void and each void needs to be filled. There comes a time in every cop’s life when the realization has to be accepted. You’re just not as young as you once were. And when that realization occurs, it’s time for said officer to get out before his mouth manages to write a check his decrepit rear end can’t cash.
He’d made a promise, a promise to solve this case. And he would fulfill that promise, come hell or high water. But after all debts were paid, he told himself, he would get out of Dodge.
The night air howled through Danny’s open window, sending a chill down his spine. He shivered, but made no move to close the window. Aside from the mild but necessary ventilation it provided, the chill in the night air provided Danny with one other necessity. It made him cold. Not just physically cold. Rather, the chill in the air seemed to possess an almost ethereal power to chill him to his very core, to blanket his heart, his very soul, with a welcome coldness. A calculating coldness constructing a wall of determination inside him.
Fear wasn’t something he was accustomed to feeling. But if nothing else, the fear he felt had managed to do something no other emotion, no other action could. It made him angry. He hated being afraid. Always had, but a fear built on confusion was even worse. One built on the ignorance that insanity so often occasioned drove a man like Danny mad in every definable sense of the word.
The crinkling of the padded envelope in his tension-filled hands alerted Danny. He couldn’t remember picking the envelope off of his desk so he was surprised when he found his hands gripping it with such ferocity.
He released his grip somewhat and began squeezing the envelope, trying to determine the contents without opening. He felt momentarily like a kid before Christmas trying to guess the contents of his Christmas gifts. Though he was all too aware that this was no benevolent gift from a long-dead European Saint.
Whatever was in the padded envelope was small—about the size of a box of matches—and hard, perhaps metal. Reflex perhaps that he stuck an ear to the package as if listening for a ticking noise. A noise that, to his relief, was not there.
Slowly, carefully, he opened the package. Tipping it over, Danny nearly spilled the small tape recorder onto the floor. Only his quick reflexes stopped the shiny metal walkman-type tape player from meeting an undesirable fate.
He noticed a tape was already in the recorder but there were no instructions to play whatever was on the tape. Perhaps the sender thought it would be too cliché, or perhaps he simply wagered on Danny’s ability to utilize common sense.
A stranger sends me a mysterious package in the mail with no return address. The mysterious package turns out to be a tape recorder with a mini-cassette tape already inside. I’m guessing this is not going to have some cheesy 80’s mix on it.
Danny had seen this movie before. This is where the cop gets ransom demands, after Dr. Evil’s introductory show of power. “A million billion gajillion dollars or I’ll blow up my neighbor’s house.”
Unfortunately, Danny knew this was not going to be funny. And it was going to be well over the head of Austin Powers to solve this mystery.
Danny thought about having the tape recorder dusted for prints but he was not a stupid man. Anyone that would go to these lengths to conceal their identity wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave a fingerprint.
He decided to see what message from the dark side he’d been lucky enough to receive.
Pressing play, Danny was instantly met with the sound of strange music. Middle Eastern, he guessed. Like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, though, as it possessed an almost cheesy quality about it. Any minute, he expected someone to invite him to purchase a Slurpee.
A voice on the tape recorder spoke in a whisper. He wasn’t sure but it seemed to be in a foreign language. Suddenly, the cheesy music stopped. There was a silence on the tape broken
only by occasional clicks and ticks and the ever-present hissing noise commonplace on most handheld devices such as this.
Suddenly another voice and this one was speaking directly into the tape recorder.
“Captain Peterson,” The voice began. Ice crawled up his spine as the thickly-accented voice resonated through his bones. He instantly froze at the very mention of his name. Danny had to admit he had half expected whatever was on the tape to be generic. To be addressed to the American Infidels, to the city of Longview or at most, to the Longview Police Department, but to hear his own name called out.
There was no other way to say it. It scared the crap out of him.
Two words into the message and Danny knew he was listening to something very important. The fact that they knew he’d been promoted meant the tape was made recently. Wherever they were, whoever they were, they were close enough to catch the local news. A moment of paranoia reminded Danny that the very man behind the voice on the tape could be watching him that very moment.
“Captain Peterson,” The voice repeated, half yelling in English that was obviously labored for the speaker. “You and your people have been warned. Allah has chosen you to be His great casualty. Your blood will spill. Your children will cry out. Your wives will bathe themselves in the blood of the dead husbands. Allah be praised.”
Danny stopped the tape. Whoever this idiot was, he was no poet. But he was no phony. At least he didn’t appear to be. He went to great lengths to appear genuine. But then Danny was no analyst.
His jaw tightened. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to relieve the headache that was suddenly throbbing in his temples. If his blood pressure got any higher, he told himself, they’d likely find him face down on his desk in the morning. And it would be hours before they figured out he hadn’t just fallen asleep pulling an all-nighter.
Danny took a deep breath and pressed play again.
“Fall down on your knees, Captain Peterson, and beg forgiveness from the one true God and His Great Prophet,” the voice continued. “We have only just begun to show you the power of God. In days to come you will marvel. You will witness the truth of Allah. You will seek Allah. You will fall down before Him. You will grovel at his feet. You will die worse than the other infidel dogs. Your time is coming. Mourning will reign in the hearts of your women and children. Allah be praised.”
The tape rambled for several minutes. A few times, his English broke off as he muttered what appeared to be some passionate Arabic philosophy. Mostly, the speaker repeated many of the same veiled threats laced with incessant praising of an imaginary deity invented in an obviously schizophrenic mind. Had the guy not been addressing Danny by name, he might have thrown the tape in the garbage, written it off as some kook with too much time on his hands.
The longer he listened, it didn’t sound authentic any more. It sounded more like somebody that watched too many snippets of previous terror tapes on CNN. But Danny’s denial was just that, denial.
He was doing everything he could to talk himself out of the truth. The truth was the police station was gone. The Wal-Mart was gone. Lives were lost. Innocent victims had perished. The truth was that the world in which Danny lived had suddenly changed. And Danny was doing everything in his subconscious power not to change along with it. If this was just some maniac, he was a determined maniac.
“We have begun a new Jihad,” The voice said. “We fight to honor our martyred brothers. We continue the fight they have begun. None of you are safe. Not one. Not even your women and children. Past, present and future will all die away. Allah will leave none alive.”
Something about the tape suddenly troubled Danny. Whoever the guy was, he sure was going to out of his way to mention women and children. The first salvo had been fired, Danny thought to himself. But it was against a law enforcement agency. It was against a symbol of American Imperialism or Capitalism, Infidelism, Christianity or whatever these idiots wanted to term it. Something you could hate if you were on that side of the fence. Yes women had died, and even a few children in the Wal-Mart blast, but something stood out about the way he focused so adamantly on women and children. What were they planning now? What symbol? Were they going to start taking out Girl scouts, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Avon ladies?
Danny thought of Lisa and the little Mendez.
With no answers, but tons of questions, Danny did what he always did. He got mad, packed up his things and he went home to think.
CHAPTER 11
Mama Mendez
Gray hair, a pudgy belly, crow’s feet and a slight but noticeable hearing difficulty hadn’t tarnished the lovingly authoritarian Luisa Mendez. What years of practice had drilled into her as wife and mother, time and inaction had not diminished. She was as she’d always been, Alex’s mother.
Gold does not tarnish. It ages. It needs polishing, cleaning, love and tender care, but it never fades. Neither had the life faded from Luisa Mendez. Diamonds are forever. So, too, is the spirit that dwelt within Alex’s mother. She’d been busy in the last couple decades. The death of her beloved elder son followed by that of the patriarch of the small Mendez clan were tough on Luisa, but not tough enough. The death of Alex’s father had struck hard at both of the surviving Mendez family members. Alex launched headfirst into family and work. Work had provided escape from the pain of losing his father. Not solace or true peace, merely escape. His mother had become a world traveler, selling the Mendez home in favor of the largest RV her 5’4” elderly body could navigate. For the last six months, her residence had been the front lawn of Alex’s Aunt Rita in Tucson.
She’d left the RV in Tucson and flown out to help Alex. It was faster. Alex had needed her and she’d hopped the first available flight to Dallas, hopped on another plane and landed at Gregg Co. Airport. Plane hopping had to be rough on her. It would have been rough on him, but he was no Luisa Mendez.
For a woman pushing hard at the seventy-year mark, there was a lot of vigor inside Alex’s mother. Contrary to what some thought, seventy was not old—especially if your name was Luisa Mendez.
Alex had hardly seen much of his mother since she’d arrived that morning. Alyson picked her up at the Gregg County Airport and had helped get her settled. She’d made a brief stop by hospital where she’d reassured Alex that she had everything under control at home before returning to Casa de Mendez and, most likely, taken to teaching Christina the all-important Spanish language that every non-practicing four-year-old Catholic needed to know. In return, Christina had probably taken to teaching Grandma the proper use of the DVD player, by way of aWigglesmontage or aVeggie Talesmovie marathon or perhaps showing her the proper way to throw Brandy’s ball for hours on end. The all-important things that every Grandma needed to know.
***
Danny hadn’t slept much. He’d gone home. He’d taken a shower. He’d settled himself in bed, turned the television on and crashed. Unfortunately, when you crash, you burn and Danny had burned out. What was left of him—mind, body spirit, heart and soul—burned itself to ashes. He was spent. He’d never dealt with anything like this.
He’d replayed the tape over and over again. The late hour of the night was quickly turning into the wee morning hours with each replaying of the psychotic diatribe. Each time, he found something more to make him uneasy.
Somewhere along the thirteenth playing of the tape, he became unnerved that he hadn’t noticed a train in the background during the first twelve or so reviews. Anything was significant, but everything was insignificant. This was a new ballgame. What mattered before no longer did. What you might dismiss before might now hold the single most important clue to solving whatever case he might manage to build. Heck, for all he knew, that subtle train noise in the background was a signal to some secret operative to go with the second phase of the plan. Then again, maybe he just forgot to turn the television down before pressing record. Railroad tracks weren’t that uncommon in East Texas. You couldn’t exist within the city limits of Gilmer without subjecting yourse
lf to the frequent noise of passing freight trains. Gladewater wasn’t as bad but it was close. Many of the small towns fell victim to their own limitations where trains were concerned. There was simply no escape. Large portions of Tyler and Longview even failed to give shelter from the blaring metal demons charging through on their way to the next set of small towns. And who’s to say the tape was made locally? For all he knew, the tape could have been made in Canada and mailed to fourteen different places before ending up in the hands of some string of thirty-seven messengers with absolutely no idea where the tape might have originated. But then, how did he call Danny by name? And how did he know of the recent promotion? It wasn’t in a cop’s training or nature to second guess himself, but this wasn’t your usual case. No, Danny sighed, the train whistles wouldn’t help him. There were simply too many unknowns.
Bottom line, Danny told himself somewhere along the 20th time through, assume nothing. It’s all important. And the less important it seems, the more important it probably is. It was the big picture that would solve this case. This time, he thought to himself, the case wouldn’t mete itself out on the details. Only a huge break or a stark revelation would blow the lid off this case. Unfortunately, Danny was running short on revelations these days, stark or otherwise.
***
It had gotten late again. Anymore, Alex seemed to live in the night. He often found himself catching catnaps during the day. Never truly sleeping, of course, merely losing consciousness long enough to suddenly burst out of the uncomfortable wood and leather chair, desperately looking for a clock so as to ascertain how long he’d left Lisa alone.
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