by Jon Land
The fierce intensity and confidence gleaming in Bone’s eyes told Paz that this was the plan, and he let the Comanche think it was working. Briefly. Then he lurched forward suddenly, a blur of motion that had him first knocking the blade-wielding hand aside and then snatching the man’s wrist and twisting until it audibly snapped and went limp like a broken doll’s arm.
The giant’s eyes flashed uncertainty, but not pain. Paz was lunging for the kill when those eyes changed again, enough to tell him he’d walked straight into Bone’s trap, even before he caught the blur of a second blade jerking forward in Bone’s other hand.
* * *
“I’m on my way!” Cort Wesley said into his walkie-talkie, rushing against the flow of the last of the fleeing workers.
“Not a lot you can do,” Caitlin warned him. “Nola triggered a blast that left a debris pile too big to blast through. And we can’t go back because Paz blew up the tunnel that way, too.”
Cort Wesley ran through the sprawling assembly line of the massive drug manufacturing plant, charging through breached airplane hangar–like doors that led into a storage chamber piled from floor to ceiling with the rectangular steel storage drums he recognized from that warehouse in Houston. They contained the very kind of narcotics that had almost killed his son, enough pills to cause who knew how many more overdoses.
Then something else caught his eye.
“I’ve got another idea, Ranger,” he said into his walkie-talkie.
* * *
Paz twisted at the last minute, so Bone’s knife blade dug into his side, scratching up against his rib. Fiery pain burst through him, but he’d been spared the fatal blow that otherwise would have resulted.
He clamped his hand over Bone’s, pinning the blade in place to keep him from either jerking it in, deeper and around, or yanking it out. Their eyes met, and Paz saw in the Comanche’s a realization that the tables had turned, that he’d missed his best chance. He tried to surprise Paz by hammering him with the hand attached to his broken or dislocated wrist, the pain somehow still not registering. The resulting blows, though, had little or no effect, Bone unable to make his fingers work themselves in a way that otherwise would have done real damage.
Still, Paz felt himself growing weak, his purchase atop the speeding, swirling train growing more precarious, as he began to lose feeling in his legs and feet from the shock of his wound. Bone seemed to sense that, and he pushed the blade in all the way to the hilt, spilling more blood in what was now a steady stream that dripped down onto Paz’s combat boots. Paz pretended to try using his other hand to help yank the blade out, a distraction meant to allow him to push Bone off the train car. But the Comanche was ready for the move, his mouth open in what looked like a black hole, which gave Paz an idea for his last chance.
Risky, indeed, yes, but as his priest once told him, quoting T. S. Eliot, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go.”
Thinking of Father Boylston was all Paz needed to find the strength to yank the final half mound of plastic explosives from his pocket and force it into Yarek Bone’s gaping mouth. Paz pushed a trigger stick into the puttylike mixture and, as Bone’s eyes bulged in panic, used all his strength to launch the big man backwards across the top of the train car.
Paz felt his balance waver, but he managed to dip a hand into his pocket for the detonator and found the plunger. The blood was still leaking from his side when he depressed it and watched Yarek Bone’s eyes bulge before the plastique wedged inside his mouth exploded.
The blast threw Paz off the train as it shredded Bone’s torso and eviscerated everything above his sternum. The train shed Bone’s lower body around the next curve, the dangling legs making it look like the remains of a department store mannequin.
Paz hit the platform hard, just in time to see the last three cars of the train and the engine spin off the tracks, folding up like an accordion. The old locomotive had completed its final ride, with what was left of Yarek Bone painting the ceiling above it.
“Ouch,” said Paz.
* * *
“When are you ever going to learn, Nola?” Caitlin said. The two of them were trapped, with the tunnel blocked off in one direction and the train platform blocked in the other.
Nola looked unfazed. “What are you worried about? Pops’ll come to our rescue.”
“Pops?”
“I call him that on account of he’s Dylan’s dad. You know, like family.”
“No, I don’t know.”
That’s when they heard a rumbling, followed by the crackling of the walkie-talkie Caitlin had clipped to her belt.
“Stand clear, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said over the roar of whatever machine he was driving.
Caitlin had no chance to respond before the pile of earthen debris and concrete was split right down the center by the shovel of a massive front loader with tires as tall as Guillermo Paz.
“Hop on,” Cort Wesley called down to Nola and Caitlin, waiting until they were on board to reverse.
They rode the loader as far as they could, plowing a path through any and all debris that had been shaken loose by the explosions. The ceiling was shedding swaths of tile, concrete, and earth, maybe ready to collapse altogether.
It was time to speed up that process, as they drew close to the still intact stairwell that provided their only escape route.
“You read me, Doyle?” Cort Wesley said into his walkie-talkie, and they started up the spiraling stairs he’d taken down from the surface.
“I was getting ready to take a nap, son.”
“Wait another a minute and let’s see if you still got what it takes, Ranger.”
“Be somewhere else in sixty seconds,” Doyle Lodge told him. “That’s all I got to say.”
* * *
Roland Fass emerged from his hiding place behind the steel drums packed with opioids, inside the expanded storage area. He’d proven himself to be many things over the years, but mostly a survivor, content to continuously remake himself into something else. Someone had once accused him of having a spine made of Jell-O, which Fass took as a compliment, since it meant he could adopt any shape.
Something he was clearly going to have to do here.
The operation was finished, and so, eventually, would be everyone involved in it. Senator Lee Eckles may have thought himself immune to the efforts of the law, but that didn’t include the likes of Caitlin Strong, as evidenced by her laying utter waste to a facility deemed impregnable. A bunch of explosions were all it had taken to bring it down. How exactly was it supposed to survive a nuclear war?
Fass felt a rumbling that he first mistook for originating inside him, because that’s what it felt like. Then he realized it was everywhere, around as well as within him. His last conscious thought was of a wall of darkness dropping toward him from above, before his breath was punched away and the world was swallowed in a single gulp.
112
WASHINGTON, DC
Senator Lee Eckles banged the gavel hard to bring to order the public hearing before a packed committee chamber. It was wall-to-wall people, spectators, and press. Goddamn standing room only, and nationally televised on the major news networks, to boot. He could barely remember what this hearing before his Senate health committee was about, he was so excited.
Since Roland Fass was the only man who could link him to the drug business that had ended in a spectacular debacle, Eckles felt like he’d been granted a mulligan, coming out of the whole mess with his reputation enhanced. In absurd counterpoint, he’d called this hearing to excoriate the parties behind the massive drug network that had been toppled by a mysterious, unidentified force—rumors ranged from the Navy SEALs to Delta Force, the marines, the spirit of John Wayne, and ghosts from the Alamo. He was one of a select few to know the truth, which was fine, since there was no evidence of his actual involvement or that of the cadre of power brokers who’d backed his play from the beginning. He’d already deactivated the netw
ork they’d used to communicate, rendering everyone associated with the operation untouchable.
“I hereby call this hearing to order,” he said, again banging the gavel dramatically.
Today’s hearing was about the shutdown of the drug distribution warehouses scattered throughout the country, which had been set up under his auspices. The only paper trail, though, led straight to Roland Fass, who, as best he could figure, was buried under a million tons of rubble. That meant his connection had been wiped out; he was untouchable, as well.
Eckles had actually come to believe that today was going to mark the unofficial opening of his presidential campaign. Though he didn’t have the support of those well versed in placing their men in and around the White House, it didn’t mean he needed to abandon the effort. He didn’t need them, didn’t need anyone, was popular enough to gain the presidency on his own.
“Anyone having business before this committee today, please come forward so you may be heard,” he announced, repeating the Senate’s boilerplate, ceremonial committee greeting.
“I’d like to be heard, if I may,” a voice boomed from the gallery, and Eckles watched Caitlin Strong rise and start forward.
“You are out of order, Ranger,” Eckles said, hammering his gavel over the murmurs sifting through the crowd. “As far as I know, you have no business before this committee and are not scheduled to testify.”
“I’ve got business, all right—not with the committee but with you, Mr. Chairman. See, sir, I’m here to place you under arrest for murder.”
The murmurs rose to a heated pitch of voices, silenced by Eckles banging the gavel so hard and so frequently that he broke the handle. “This isn’t Texas, it’s not the Old West, and you can’t just barge in here and do your typical grandstanding on national television.”
“Guess I should’ve remembered to wear some makeup, Senator,” Caitlin said, holding a manila folder in her hand, halfway between the hearing table and the raised dais where Eckles sat, dead center.
“And who are you alleging I killed, Ranger? Don’t tell me … John F. Kennedy?”
“No, sir,” Caitlin told him. “Thomas Janeway. And I’ve got the warrant right here.”
Eckles closed his fist over what remained of the gavel.
“You recall the name, Senator?”
“Tommy was killed in that car accident on the Sam Houston Parkway I managed to survive when I was little more than a boy in 1989.”
“You were almost twenty-five years old at the time, sir. You may recall he slammed into a station wagon and killed an entire family, in addition to himself.”
“Exactly. Because he was behind the wheel. I was in the passenger seat, lucky to survive, and I have blessed my stars ever since.”
“You were even luckier to get away with it, Senator, because your friend ‘Tommy’ wasn’t driving that car at all. You were.”
Eckles waited for the audible gasp to subside before responding; the gavel was no longer in any shape to pound on the table.
“I’m afraid you have your facts wrong, Ranger.”
Caitlin approached his desk, removed an eight-by-ten photo from the manila folder, and slid it before him. “Then I’m guessing this picture, taken a half mile back at the tollbooth you ran, must be wrong too, sir, since it shows you, and not Thomas Janeway, behind the wheel,” she said, producing proof of an idea that had first been triggered in her mind when she had spotted the security camera at the Northwest Vista College parking garage.
Eckles tried very hard to not regard the photo, but he couldn’t resist a glimpse. “It’s obviously doctored,” he said smugly. “I once served as a county commissioner in Texas, so I know full well that, back in those days, toll systems dumped violators’ photos every six months. What you’ve got here has all the value of one of those pictures taken inside an arcade concession booth for a dollar.”
Caitlin stared straight up at him. “Here’s the thing, Senator. I didn’t get this photo from some old bin or archives in the Department of Public Safety. I got it from Thomas Janeway’s family.”
Eckles swallowed hard.
“He was dead, of course, by the time the ticket for the toll violation, and the picture proving it, got there. So his parents put it with the rest of his things, where it remained until I paid them a visit. They never knew you were behind the wheel, Senator, that your family put the fix in to pin the blame for the accident on their son. My guess is your family’s people destroyed all trace of the film, but they must’ve forgotten about the violation that had already been mailed. So the original photo that’s been gathering dust for thirty years or so is the only sure proof there is left that you’re a murderer. You killed Thomas Janeway and that family of four because you were drunk behind the wheel. No statute of limitations on that, back home, last I checked.”
Eckles summoned enough bravado to wave the photo before her. “It’s the back of two heads, Ranger.”
“With yours in the driver’s seat and Tommy’s slumped to the side next to you. If you look closer, you can see a reflection in the windshield, thanks to those big road lights overhead. Your reflection, Senator. Your face. You can keep that copy.”
Eckles managed to rap the remains of the gavel down once, over the murmurs that had again begun to pick up through the crowd. “The committee will take a fifteen-minute recess.”
“Fine by me,” Caitlin said, reaching for the handcuffs clipped to her belt. “The state of Texas has waited thirty years to see justice done in this matter. We can wait a little longer.”
EPILOGUE
A Ranger is an officer who is able to handle any given situation without definite instructions from his commanding officer or higher authority.
Texas Ranger Captain Bob Crowder, quoted by the Texas Department of Public Safety
HOUSTON; THREE MONTHS LATER
Caitlin got the bad news on the morning Luke would be graduating early from the Village School.
“Lee Eckles is dead,” D. W. Tepper told her over the phone.
“How, Captain?”
“Heart attack, by all accounts.”
“My ass.”
“I’m surprised he lasted this long, Ranger.”
“But not long enough to give up the identities of those at the top of the food chain. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since word is he was getting ready to start identifying the real power behind this whole thing. Men like that have enough money to bribe Saint Peter to get into heaven.”
“Where a whole bunch of folks won’t be headed, thanks to you burying the rest of their stash.”
“Small consolation.”
“It’ll have to do for now, Caitlin. Sometimes patience makes for a better weapon than bullets. Meanwhile, go have a good time at the boy’s graduation. You got plenty to celebrate.”
* * *
Luke had decided to graduate early from the Village School, having amassed enough credits to don a gown in January instead of waiting until June. With all that happened, he hadn’t gotten his college applications or his campus visits nearly finished. Better to spend the next few months focusing on that, he believed, and Cort Wesley agreed. So did Caitlin and his older brother, Dylan.
And, apparently, so did Guillermo Paz, who arrived only slightly late, taking a chair alongside them on the aisle instead of one way back in the rear, as was his normal custom, to avoid drawing attention. A few hushed whispers spread through the crowd when Paz took his seat, but he seemed unperturbed and didn’t so much as cast the crowd the kind of look that would have either silenced them or sent them heading toward the exits.
Luke leaned in toward Caitlin. “I invited him,” he whispered.
His hair was combed beneath his tasseled cap and his graduation gown fit him straight out of a picture. A decent crowd filled the Village School auditorium, though nothing like the primary spring graduation, which was held outside to manage the overflow. Luke likely would have been named valedictorian, if not for the drug incident that had tarnished his repu
tation, though not his academic record. As it was, he’d submitted an essay along with other early graduates, a portion of which might be read from the stage by Head of School Julia De Cantis to showcase the direction in which the early graduating class saw its future heading.
Caitlin sat in silence, occasionally squeezing Luke’s hand, while Dylan blew the hair from his face on the other side of his father, looking like he’d much rather be somewhere else. Nola Delgado hadn’t shown up, but Caitlin figured Dylan would be meeting up with her later, the two being generally inseparable.
As the head of school read excerpts from the submitted essays, Caitlin listened for Luke’s, knowing when his came even before he squeezed her hand.
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”
“You learn that one from Paz?” Caitlin asked above a sprinkling of laughter through the crowd, glancing at the huge shape tucked into the end of the row.
“Yogi Berra,” Luke corrected.
“Well,” Caitlin said, exchanging a smile with Cort Wesley next to her, “it’s still about as true as it gets.”
* * *
On the way out of the auditorium, Caitlin stopped by a trash container. She took the Vicodin from the pocket where she still tucked it and jiggled the pills that were left inside. Then she looked toward Cort Wesley and cast Luke a wink before tossing the orange prescription bottle into the trash can.
“Don’t believe I’ll be needing these anymore.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I love penning these pages to finish out another Caitlin Strong adventure, love giving you insight into the crazed mind of a writer and how this particular book came to be. Fortune, as they say, is the residue of design, and Strong from the Heart was born of a combination of both.
First, the design. I knew I wanted this book to follow the lines more of a traditional high-stakes, high-action thriller. More Steve Berry and James Rollins. A big story featuring a big McGuffin, to use the term Alfred Hitchcock coined to describe what everyone is after. Well, when in doubt, turn to the headlines, right? I wanted to base a story on something current, something people were talking about and fretting over. A genuine crisis.