Strong from the Heart--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  Caitlin weighed her options. “That lid got blown off when your sister called me in on this. I don’t figure on ICE breaking down the doors, but they’ll wait us out for as long as it takes. Means we need to find a way to take these kids out of their reach.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”

  * * *

  “You want to do what?” D. W. Tepper, captain of Ranger Company F, blared over the phone.

  Caitlin pictured him reaching for a cigarette. “You heard me, Captain.”

  “Well, that’s a new one, anyway.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Our necks better be made of Silly Putty, if we’re going to stick them out this far.”

  “Not the first time for that at all. And put down the Marlboro, D.W.”

  “Jeez, Ranger, what are you, psychic now, like that seven-foot Venezuelan giant of yours?”

  “Speaking of Colonel Paz…”

  3

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Twenty minutes and another phone call later, Caitlin inspected the three-page document Principal Mariana Alonzo had printed off an email attachment she’d just received.

  “You Rangers sure work fast,” she complimented.

  “Always been our way,” Caitlin told her, folding the document in thirds so the proper section was face out, “long before there was any such thing as email, or even electricity.”

  “You ever wonder what it was like, ranging in those days?”

  “Strongs have been Rangers almost as long as there’s been a Texas. I never really had to wonder, since I grew up with all the stories about their exploits.”

  “I’ve heard of your grandfather. Your father, too.”

  “Well, ma’am, my great-grandad William Ray and my great-great-grandad Steeldust Jack had their share of adventures too.”

  “I’d love to have you back sometime to talk about that history to our students.”

  “Let’s take care of the ones I came here about today first,” Caitlin said, pocketing the now trifolded set of pages.

  * * *

  “You sure about this, Ranger?” Mariana Alonzo said to Caitlin, after bringing from her office to the main lobby, just out of sight of the barricaded entrance, the six students that the ICE officers had come to collect.

  Caitlin ran her hand through the hair of a trembling girl who looked all of ten years old, then used a tissue to wipe the tearstains from the cheeks of a boy who was all of nine.

  “As sure as I am that if we don’t do something fast, ICE might breach the building.”

  “What happens then?”

  “This is still Texas and I’m still a Texas Ranger, ma’am. Just ask your sister.”

  “I did, after she told me you were coming.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “To stay out of your way. That everything I’d heard was true.”

  Caitlin bristled. “I wouldn’t put much stock in those stories. The press is prone to exaggeration.”

  Alonzo nodded. “She told me you’d say that, too.”

  Caitlin felt the boy whose cheeks she’d swiped clean tug at her sleeve.

  “Are you going to save us from the bad men?”

  She knelt so they were eye to eye and laid her hands on his shoulders. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Diego. I’m scared.”

  “Well, Diego, let me show you what happens to men who scare little kids.”

  * * *

  The bald ICE agent named Orleans smirked when Caitlin emerged from the school entrance with the six children in tow, school principal Mariana Alonzo bringing up the rear. Cameras clacked and whirred as she brushed aside microphones thrust in her face.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Orleans said, once Caitlin reached him, her charges gathered protectively behind her. “Good thing you came to your senses. If it makes you feel any better, I hate this part of the job as much as anybody.”

  “I hope that’s the case, Agent. I truly do.” Caitlin eased from her pocket the document Captain Tepper had just emailed. “Because this is a duly executed warrant naming these six children as material witnesses to a crime, subject to protection by the Texas Rangers until such time they are called to testify.”

  Orleans started to turn red. Caitlin could feel the heat radiating through his uniform, dragging an odor that reminded her of a gym bag with yesterday’s dank workout clothes still stuffed inside.

  “You lied to me, Ranger.”

  “No, I didn’t, sir. I told you I was here to defuse the situation, and that’s what I’m doing. I said I’d fetch the kids from inside before somebody got hurt, and that’s exactly what I did.”

  “You mean nobody’s been hurt yet, Ranger.” With that, Orleans snatched the warrant from her grasp. “This is bullshit and you know it,” he said, having barely regarded it.

  “That’s not for either of us to say, sir. It’s for a court to decide now.”

  “You want to tell me what crime exactly these six suspects are material witness to?”

  “Did you just call them suspects?”

  “Answer my question, Ranger.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, sir. It’s a confidential investigation.”

  Orleans turned his gaze on the imposing group of five armed men dressed in black tactical garb behind him, then looked back at Caitlin and smirked again. “So you think we’re just going to let you parade these suspects past us all by yourself? You really think we’re going to just back down and stand aside?”

  The blistering roar of an engine almost drowned out his last words, as an extended cab pickup truck riding massive tires tore onto the scene and spun to a halt between the ICE agents and their Humvees. The springs recoiled as a huge figure with a pair of M4 assault rifles shouldered behind him emerged from the cab, towering over those he passed, including the men with “ICE” embroidered on their jackets.

  “This is Colonel Guillermo Paz,” Caitlin told Orleans, “an agent of Homeland Security, just like you, sir. He’s going to help me parade these ‘suspects’ past you.”

  * * *

  “Colonel G!” a first-grade boy beamed, coming up only to Paz’s waist as he hugged him tightly, before Paz could lift him into the backseat of his truck. “You remember me from preschool?”

  “Of course I do, Marcus.”

  “Do you still work there?”

  “No, I moved on. I do that a lot. Learn what I can from a place and then try another.”

  “I miss you, Colonel G. You never finished the story of what you did to those bad men who tried to hurt you when you went home for your mommy’s funeral.”

  “They’re not alive anymore, Marcus.”

  “Really?”

  Paz fixed his gaze on the ICE agents, who’d edged closer, weighing their options. “It’s what happens to bad men.”

  * * *

  “Thank you, Colonel,” Caitlin said through the window, eyes even with Paz’s in the driver’s seat.

  “‘The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.’”

  “Robert Kennedy?”

  Paz’s eyes widened. “I’m impressed, Ranger.”

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  “Edward Bulwer-Lytton didn’t believe in luck. He called it a fancy name for being always at the ready when needed.”

  “Describes the two of us pretty well, I suppose.” Caitlin looked at the four kids squeezed into the big pickup’s backseat, Diego and Marcus in the front, staring wide-eyed at the giant behind the wheel. “You know where to take them.”

  Paz cast his gaze back toward the ICE agents frozen in place fifteen feet away with scowls plastered across their faces. “And if they follow?”

  “They won’t get very far,” Caitlin told him. “Principal Alonzo yanked out the valve stems on their tires while we were loading the kids.”

  * * *

  Caitlin’s phone rang with a call from Captain Tepper, just as
Guillermo Paz was driving off and the ICE agents were discovering their flat tires.

  “Now who’s psychic, Captain?” she greeted. “Kids are safe and I didn’t even have to shoot anybody.”

  “Good thing you saved your bullets, Ranger, ’cause there’s somewhere else you need to be right now. A town in the desert called Camino Pass, formerly with a population of two hundred and eighty-eight, according to the last census.”

  “Formerly?”

  “Looks like they’re all dead, Ranger. Each and every one of them.”

  4

  HOUSTON

  Cort Wesley Masters braked for an arriving ambulance, then pulled his truck into a no parking zone striped in front of the entrance to the Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital. He rushed through the automatic doors so fast he banged into the one on the right, which didn’t open fast enough.

  “My son!” he blared to the admitting nurse, before adding a name. “Luke Torres!”

  Leaving it there.

  He’d gotten the call at the Holiday Inn Express a few miles from the Village School on Gentryside Drive in Houston. After watching his younger son play soccer the night before, he’d returned to his room with no plans beyond a room service dinner and watching whatever football game he could find on television. His oldest son, Dylan, was back at Brown University, back playing football for the Bears under their new head coach, James Perry. And Cort Wesley was staying overnight to begin the college-visiting process with Luke at nearby Rice University.

  Turned out the hotel didn’t offer room service, so Cort Wesley fished a sandwich from the available offerings in a lobby cooler, then fell asleep in his clothes, watching two college football teams he’d never heard of play on a network he found only by scrolling through all the available channels. He was showered and ready to go in the morning, making his way through the motel lobby, when he’d gotten the call from someone at the hospital telling him his younger son, Luke, was currently in the emergency room.

  “What happened?” Cort Wesley heard himself ask, his stomach having sunk to his feet.

  “Sir, you just need to get down here,” the voice attached to a name and a title he’d already forgotten told him.

  “Was he in an accident? Is he all right?”

  “We aren’t permitted to release that kind of information over the phone.”

  “But he’s okay. Can you at least tell me he’s going to be okay?”

  Cort Wesley had hung up and resumed his stride through the lobby while the man was halfway through his curt rejoinder again. And now here he was, glaring down at the admitting nurse, who seemed to be reading from the same script.

  “Mr. Torres?” he heard a voice call.

  Cort Wesley turned to see a bearded doctor wearing a white lab coat flecked with what looked like blood. Luke’s maybe? Had he been attacked, singled out by one of his father’s many enemies yet again?

  “It’s Masters,” Cort Wesley corrected. His boys had always gone by their legal name, which was given them by their late mother and his former girlfriend, Maura Torres. “How’s my son?”

  “I’m Dr. Riboron, Mr. Masters. Your son is in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.”

  “Recovery from what?”

  “My understanding is he hasn’t turned eighteen yet.”

  “Not until the spring,” Cort Wesley acknowledged.

  “In that case, I can tell you he’s recovering from an overdose.”

  “An overdose of what, Doctor?”

  Riboron held Cort Wesley’s stare for a long moment before responding. “Opioids.”

  Cort Wesley’s stomach took the same path to the floor. “Say that again.”

  “He was transported from the Village School by Houston paramedics, who administered Narcan during transport.”

  “Who called nine-one-one?”

  “I don’t have that information handy, Mr. Torres.”

  “Masters,” Cort Wesley repeated. “Can I see him?”

  “As soon as we finish running some tests. We’re keeping your son here under observation and will let you know if we determine admitting him is necessary.”

  “We’re supposed to be visiting colleges today,” he said, wondering if that sounded as lame to Riboron as it did to him.

  “You’re going to have to postpone your trip.”

  The lights in the emergency room reception area suddenly made Cort Wesley’s eyes ache. And there was a buzzing in his ear that reminded him of the sound made by a finicky transformer high up on a telephone pole. He glanced at the fluorescents overhead, wondering if one of them was about to blow.

  “The police will want to talk to you, Mr. Masters,” Dr. Riboron said over the buzzing. “And your son as well.”

  “Did anyone from the school accompany him here or show up later?”

  “From the school?”

  “Teacher, administrator—something like that.”

  “No.”

  Cort Wesley looked down to keep the light from his eyes. “No?” he echoed, the buzzing getting louder in his ears.

  “I don’t have all the details, sir. You should check with reception.”

  “I want to see my son.”

  “We’re finishing up those tests now. Shouldn’t be more than another few minutes.”

  “Did Luke say anything about how he got the pills?”

  “We haven’t had the opportunity to ask him about that yet.”

  “I’m wondering if he volunteered anything on his own.” Cort Wesley could feel himself groping for words, speaking with the buzz sounding as a constant backdrop. “You know, like maybe he accidentally took more pills than he should have. You know, from a prescription for a sports injury or something.”

  Riboron took a step backwards, seeming to disappear into a shadowy zone untouched by the brightness that was blinding Cort Wesley. “Doctors are extremely averse to prescribing opiates to minors without their parents’ permission. And…”

  “And what, Doctor?”

  The shadows deepened around Riboron. “He didn’t swallow the drugs, Mr. Masters. He snorted them.”

  5

  CAMINO PASS, TEXAS

  “You mind doing a pass over the town?” Caitlin said to the helicopter pilot through her headset. “Like to see what I can see from the get-go.”

  “Would if I could, Ranger,” he told her. “But airspace over Camino Pass has been closed.”

  Caitlin knew it must be bad, when Captain Tepper arranged for her to take the Ranger helicopter. But all he had at that point was a report from a Homeland Security border patrol team about a mailman who’d been found wandering through the desert—and what the Homeland agents had found in the last place his route had taken him.

  Officers from the highway patrol had rushed to the outskirts of Camino Pass and cordoned off the entire area to await the arrival of a surge capacity force dispatched by the Department of Homeland Security. That force comprised representatives from various federal and local officials attached to DHS in some capacity, including Caitlin, in this region.

  The town had been blockaded to a one-mile radius in all directions, and that extended to helicopters. The DHS officers who’d found the mailman wandering through the desert had been placed in quarantine until such time as it could be confirmed no airborne organism was responsible. The surge capacity force currently en route would perform a detailed inspection of the town, going house to house to tally up the dead and to search for any potential survivors. The fact that there had been no sign of life anywhere in Camino Pass since the Homeland Security agents had called in their report didn’t bode well for finding anyone still breathing.

  Normally, the flight from Stinson Airport in San Antonio would have been routine, but flying of any kind had proven to be a challenge since Caitlin had suffered what doctors referred to as a blast injury, thanks to the percussion of a propane explosion she’d set off several months before. The blast, at a besieged Spanish mission in the desert Southwest, had temporarily
ravaged her hearing in one ear, and while the hearing had quickly returned, the rest of her symptoms had refused to abate. Doctors explained that the percussion had caused something called blast overpressurization, resulting in tiny fracture lines along portions of Caitlin’s skull, which proved agonizing as they healed. They’d prescribed treatment with low doses of Vicodin so long as the pain persisted. After ridding herself of the fog that had accompanied the initial doses, Caitlin had adapted well enough to function, though she was downing, on average, four pills on a good day and six on a bad one. Unfortunately, there were more bad days than good, as the healing process continued to take its own sweet time.

  Caitlin swallowed a ten-milligram pill with water, as the Ranger helicopter landed on a closed-off section of the four-lane highway, just short of the command center, which had been set up far enough away from Camino Pass to hide even the slightest glimpse of the town. A highway patrol captain whom Caitlin recognized as Ben Hargraves was waiting when she jogged up to join him at the makeshift roadblock.

  “When I saw the helicopter, I was hoping it was Homeland,” he greeted. “As in experts who could tell me what the hell we’re facing here.”

  “Nice to see you too, Captain.”

  “Forgive my manners, Ranger, but this is as strange as it gets.”

  “How have you been able to confirm initial indications that whatever happened killed almost three hundred people?”

  Hargraves nodded. “Thanks to a thermal imaging machine on the highway patrol chopper. From the looks of things, they died in their sleep, the whole goddamn town.”

  “Sounds like something in the air,” Caitlin said, trying to make sense of what Hargraves had just told her. “Or water maybe.”

  “That’s right. As I recall, you’ve had some experience with these kind of catastrophic events.”

  “Unfortunately, you might even call me an expert, Captain. Not a distinction I’m proud of.”