Strong As Steel

by Jon Land

  “Who’s Bane Sturgess, Gunny?”

  “Nobody. It’s a place, not a person. An international arms broker based in New Braunfels.”

  “Strange place to set up shop.”

  “That’s the point. Arms brokers don’t like to advertise their presence. Some of the big ones operate warehouses the size of a small town. Others are more like consolidators who operate out of a storefront. Bane Sturgess falls mostly into the latter category, although they do maintain several warehouses as way stations, all of them outside the U. S. to avoid the red tape and regulations.”

  “By ‘consolidators,’ you mean they move shipments from one place to another without ever actually coming into possession of the ordnance themselves.”

  “That’s right, Captain. Some of these outfits move merchandise as big as tanks, choppers, and transport aircraft. Others stick to smaller armaments. Most never actually own a goddamn thing. They arrange shipment of the ordnance from one place to another and pocket their fee.”

  “Any idea where Bane Sturgess fits into that spectrum?”

  “Definitely smaller scale, more boutique in that the company specializes in the kind of small arms surplus exactly like those dead gunmen in Dallas were carrying. I’d watch my back with them, though. I’ve heard they also dabble in the mercenary world, moving men the same way they move guns, and they fancy themselves special operators. The principals of the company, all former low-level military, are no strangers to the occasional bad deed themselves.”

  “In other words, Gunny, all this sounds right up their alley. Kind of men who like to play with their own merchandise.”

  “If there’s money to be made, they go flag blind, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  “You mind if I ask you a question now?” Tom Baer asked, after a pause.

  “Fire away, Gunny,” Cort Wesley said, instantly regretting the lame attempt at humor.

  “This Texas Ranger of yours, she took out four professional shooters armed to the teeth, on her lonesome. Have I got that right?”

  “You do.”

  “Man,” Baer continued, the amazement ringing in his voice, “she’d fit right in with our kind, wouldn’t she? Step right in and hold her own.”

  “Besides the men you and I have spent much of our lives around, she’s as good as it gets. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was born in the middle of a gunfight.”

  “I’ll go you one better, Captain. Uniforms like you and me do our shooting in battlefield environments. This Ranger does her shooting in the real world, where bystanders roam free and she’s got maybe the length of a breath to think out her next move. No intelligence, no sit-reps, no drones, no surveillance. One minute she’s driving to the shooting range and the next minute the shooting range is coming to her.”

  “Well put, Gunny,” Cort Wesley told him.

  “We could learn a thing or two from this gal, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “I already have,” Cort Wesley told him.

  * * *

  “Approaching your destination.”

  “Was that you or the other guy, champ?” Cort Wesley asked the fuzzy shape of Leroy Epps.

  “Only destination I know is where I be now, and you most certainly haven’t reached there yet, bubba. Wish I could say the same for…”

  “Didn’t catch the rest of that, champ,” Cort Wesley said, figuring Leroy’s comment had gotten lost somewhere in the celestial ether.

  But the look on his face said otherwise, and then he was gone, as Cort Wesley pulled into a space directly in front of the address in question.

  Cort Wesley’s destination, the offices of Bane Sturgess, occupied a stand-alone building set right on the main road, near a strip mall and several office park–style buildings featuring individual offices that had all the originality of roadside motels. It was located on East Common Street, a few miles and maybe an age or two removed from the Gruene Historic District the city was known for.

  The route his navigation machine had laid out had taken him down Seguin Avenue from one underpass to another and across ten blocks of San Antonio Street until he passed the Main Plaza with its old fountain, sculptures, music pavilion, and meticulously landscaped grounds. Cort Wesley thought he may have watched a parade or two from this vantage point as a boy, on a rare family outing, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “You have reached your destination.”

  He was glad the navigation device told him the trip was over, because he was tired of driving his truck with only a single hand. He’d forced the right one into position a few times, even managed to squeeze the wheel like normal. Each time, though, his hand ended up going numb, reminding Cort Wesley that he’d become a statistic, the latest in the one percent of men his age to suffer a stroke, or a “warning” stroke, as Dr. Shazir had called it.

  He stepped out of his truck, closing the door to his pickup to trap the soft scent of Leroy Epps’s talcum powder in his wake, still wondering what the ghost’s unfinished comment may have been.

  Cort Wesley didn’t have to wonder long.

  An embossed placard alongside a heavy entrance door read “Bane Sturgess,” and nothing more. Could have been a law office or accounting firm, except those didn’t come equipped with high-security entrances requiring all visitors to be buzzed in.

  Before ringing the bell, Cort Wesley moved to a window, where he spotted a crack in the wooden slat blinds and peered inside. More than just his right hand went numb at what he saw.

  35

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  The four new pictures Young Roger had brought up on his screen weren’t overhead shots at all; they were wide-angle crime scene photos, taken at night—two nights ago, specifically—at the site in the desert on the outskirts of Sonora where Caitlin had found D. W. Tepper. It was the hole from which four bodies, and something else that remained unidentified, had been pulled from the ground.

  To complete his point, Young Roger merged the photographs together, laying the night crime scene shots over the generic overheads taken during the day. The match was almost perfect.

  “So,” Caitlin started, “you’re telling me Communications Technology Providers found this site for whoever dug that hole.”

  “That appears to be the case, yes.” Young Roger nodded.

  “And now the folks who worked there are all either dead or shot-up in San Antonio General. Any notion as to how this discovery relates to the time frame?”

  “The project goes back quite a while. I haven’t been able to access the time and date stamps for these reports, but it’s pretty clear they were looking for what they ultimately found for several months at least.”

  “And when did they find it?”

  Young Roger replied as he returned to the screen featuring CTP’s original pictures of the find. “These were all in a file marked ‘Current,’ so your guess is as good as mine. But since that hole in the desert was dug sometime in the past seventy-two to ninety-six hours, I think that gives us a notion.”

  “But no notion as to what they pulled out of that hole,” Caitlin said, eyeing the screen now, too.

  “That’s not entirely true,” Young Roger said, bringing up a sheet containing data that made no sense to Caitlin. “CTP’s seismic, geothermal, and geo-mapping studies revealed three separate objects.”

  Caitlin recalled that her father had surmised that three shipping crates had been removed from that freight car back in 1994. “My lucky number in this case.”

  “According to this report, the three objects were identical in size, three by four feet, approximately. They were heavy, too. CTP was able to measure the degradations in the ground to see how much they’d sunk after being buried. Amazing software, given that it actually takes into account the precise amount of rain the area got over twenty-five years, to provide the most accurate measurement possible.”

  “Which is…”

  “Between two and three hundred pounds.”

  “Any idea what th
ey were made of?”

  Young Roger shook his head. “If they were able to figure that out, I haven’t found the information yet.”

  “How about their contents?”

  “I’m still working on that, but it’s a long shot since CTP never actually examined the objects physically. Speaking of which…” Young Roger added, thinking of something else.

  He eased out the evidence pouch containing the piece of paper that hadn’t quite burned up amid the ash at the site in the desert overlooking the burial site.

  “I don’t have all the answers on this yet, Ranger, but I can tell you that red smudge isn’t blood at all. Near as I and my equipment can figure, the smudge comes from a credit card machine.”

  “You mean that smudge up the side when the cash register paper roll’s running down?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you’re telling me it’s a credit card receipt.”

  Young Roger nodded. “More to follow as soon as I can get to it.”

  * * *

  Upstairs, Caitlin learned that Captain Tepper was currently at a Ranger company commanders’ meeting in Austin. His longtime assistant, Flora, didn’t know when he was due in, but she expected it to be soon.

  “I’ll wait in his office,” Caitlin said.

  “Er…”

  “What is it?”

  “The captain keeps his door locked now.”

  “You have the key?”

  “Captain Tepper has the only key.”

  “Guess I’ll wait for him somewhere else.”

  Caitlin was heading to the desk she worked from, downstairs, when a call came in, CORT WESLEY lighting up at the top.

  “I’m in New Braunfels,” he greeted her. “You need to get up here fast. And bring the cavalry.”

  36

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  “A Texas Ranger? You’re kidding. And a woman?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “What is she, like, your mom?”

  “Close as I’ve got, I guess,” Dylan said, arms folded behind his head, fingers between his head and the pillow, on his twin bed.

  It made for a tight squeeze, and he had to say, it was the best medicine for a hangover he’d ever experienced. The close quarters left Selina as much atop as alongside him, and he liked losing his hand in her thick, black hair.

  “I want to meet her,” she said, angling her frame to better regard him. “I want to meet Caitlin Strong. Think she’d like me?”

  “If she doesn’t, you’ll be the first to know. She tends to get real protective about me and my brother.”

  “Your gay brother.”

  “You shouldn’t say it that way.”

  Selina tightened her gaze. “All I’m saying is that if he looks anything like you, it’s a waste, from a lady’s perspective.”

  “So you’re a lady now?”

  “Last time I checked. You have an issue with that?”

  “I was thinking you’re still more like a girl.”

  “That’s because you’re still in college.” Selina eased off him, and Dylan turned onto his side so they could face each other, the bed frame creaking under the weight and strain. “College boys, college girls, right?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “So tell me something.”

  “Okay.”

  Selina cupped her hand under her head, something mischievous flashing in her eyes. “Am I your first older woman?”

  “Am I your first younger guy?”

  “You mean boy?”

  “Not a lot of difference between twenty-six and twenty-two,” Dylan told her.

  “No,” Selina chided, stepping off the bed fully naked. “Not when it comes to a man and a woman, if you see my point.”

  What Dylan was seeing in the afternoon light sneaking in through the drawn blinds made his mouth gape. He swallowed hard and knew she’d caught him in the act, was glad when she swung toward his desk, which was empty save for the gun safe.

  “What’s the combination?” Selina asked, gliding toward it.

  Dylan couldn’t stop looking. He climbed out of bed after her, but not until pulling on his boxer briefs. “It’s open. When my dad gave me the gun, he insisted I keep it in the box, but he didn’t say I had to lock it.”

  Selina lifted the lockbox’s lid. “Splitting hairs, aren’t we?”

  “What good’s a gun if you can’t get to it?”

  “You can say that about a whole lot of things, boy.”

  “So you’re a woman and I’m a boy.”

  “You wanna be a man and I’ll be a girl?”

  “I’d rather just be us,” Dylan told her.

  “That’s no fun.” Selina gingerly eased the Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter from the lockbox. “It’s heavy.”

  “It’s loaded,” Dylan said, moving up close to her but stopping short of taking the gun from her grasp.

  “Will you teach me how to shoot?”

  “Doesn’t look like you even know how to hold it.”

  “That’s why I asked you to teach me. Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ve got some sales calls later this afternoon, but I’ve got time tomorrow. Come on,” Selina repeated, when Dylan hedged. “I taught you something, so now you teach me something.”

  “What’d you teach me?”

  “What it’s like to be with an older woman.”

  She aimed the Smith & Wesson at the mirror. Dylan was glad he never kept a round chambered, meaning Selina would have to rack the slide, something she clearly didn’t know how to do. He knew he should stop her from treating a loaded gun like a toy, but something held him back. He was afraid she’d think less of him if he made a big deal about it.

  Selina tried to hold the gun steady. “Maybe I should’ve been a Texas Ranger instead of a pharmaceutical rep.”

  “It’s not in your blood.”

  “But it’s in Caitlin’s?”

  Dylan nodded. “Going all the way back to her great-great-grandfather. It’s kind of a family tradition.”

  “What about your dad? He seems tough.”

  “He is. Busted plenty of heads in his time.”

  “Bet he’s shot some people, too.”

  “He was in the Gulf War, the real one,” Dylan told her.

  He could see her eyes gleam in the mirror. “I meant besides that.”

  “Er…”

  Selina swung toward him. “How about you, boy? You ever shoot anyone?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It’s sexy.”

  “Then the answer’s yes.”

  The gleam again. “Ever kill anyone?”

  “Is that sexy too?”

  “Even more so.”

  “I’m still taking the Fifth on that one,” Dylan said, not in the mood to stoke unpleasant memories.

  Selina returned the Smith to the lockbox, suddenly reluctant to meet his eyes. “I Googled you on my phone, came across some stuff about that shooting last year.”

  Dylan felt his shoulders stiffen. “So you asked me a question you already knew the answer to.”

  “It happened here,” she continued, “right outside this house.”

  “Wasn’t the first time.”

  “Huh?”

  “That somebody got shot here.”

  Dylan backpedaled and sat down on the edge of his bed, realizing he’d taken the lockbox with him and laid it across his thighs.

  “My mother.”

  Selina sat down next to him.

  “I was here. I saw it. Caitlin Strong killed the man who did it. I saw that, too.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “A genuine boy.”

  She started to ease her arm around his shoulders but stopped midmotion when Dylan shifted slightly to the side.

  “It was the first time I met her,” he said. “Did I tell you she was the one who took me to visit Brown?”

  “At least you were safe from gunfights there.”

  Dylan’s expression toyed w
ith a smile, recalling how his first trip to Providence, Rhode Island, had ended. “Yeah, about that…”

  37

  CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO

  Luna Diaz Delgado drew her granddaughter, Isabella, closer to her in the courtyard of her palatial home.

  “Today you learn a very important lesson, my love,” she said, while keeping her gaze locked on the man kneeling on the ground before her, under the watchful eye of gunmen on either side of him. “You see, this man stole from us. His name is Vittorio Garcia, and he says he needed the money to pay for an operation for his oldest son and heir. Did I state that right, Vittorio?”

  The man shuddering on the ground, bathed in dank sweat that stank of something like stale onions, nodded while keeping his gaze fixed downward at the pressed stone finish. “Si, jefa, it is true.”

  “Look at me, Vittorio.”

  He finally did, the reluctance clear in his gaze.

  “And is it true,” Delgado continued, “that you went to your superiors here to inform them of your plight?”

  Garcia tried very hard not to regard the men poised on either side of him. “Si, jefa. They said there was nothing they could do.”

  “They tell me you were a good worker,” Delgado said flatly, the emotion drained from her voice. “They tell me the men you supervise almost never fail to make their quotas, and on the few occasions they do, you make up for the shortfall from your own end. Is that accurate as well?”

  “You’d have to ask them, jefa,” Vittorio Garcia said, again fighting not to look up to either side.

  “Oh, I have, and that’s what they told me. You would beg me for mercy, Vittorio?”

  “No, jefa.”

  “No?”

  “I am guilty. After I betrayed the trust you showed in me, I am not worthy of your mercy.”

  “So you are prepared to die,” Delgado stated, taking the big revolver from the man standing behind her.

  “Si, jefa.”

  Delgado spun the cylinder, her small hand wielding the pistol with surprising dexterity. “Tell me one thing, Vittorio. Your son, he had the operation you paid for with the money you stole from me?”