Strong As Steel

by Jon Land

  “Get back to the date, son.”

  “Here’s where dates get a little confusing, because the only calendar ninety percent of the world knows is the Gregorian, which is your basic three hundred and sixty-five days. Three hundred and sixty-six in a leap year.”

  “That much I know.”

  “What you don’t know, what pretty much nobody knows, is what came before it. Remember, there were no millenniums back then, no BC and AD, or BCE and ACE. That didn’t come about until the sixteenth century, when the term ‘solar year’ became the standard. You following this, Dad?”

  “Just keep talking.”

  “Okay, back to the date, here on this third line,” Dylan said, pointing to the last of the squiggly, shapeless letters stenciled in a long-forgotten language. “When ‘He who died for his crimes and suffers in death’ actually died.”

  “The tricky part,” Cort Wesley recalled.

  “Because of the Jewish calendar, the prevailing one of the time. This date on the final line has to be referenced with that perspective in mind. The date itself was easy, because it’s just a number: fifteen. And the month, this string of Aramaic letters here,” Dylan said, tracing his finger over them on his laptop screen, “translates as Nisan.”

  “Like the car brand?”

  Dylan nodded. “But pronounced like ‘nigh.’ Nisan was the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. So whoever’s bones are in that ossuary died on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the year 3970—that’s this string of figures here.”

  “What’s that tell us?”

  “Will you let me finish?” Dylan said, shaking his head. “The seventh month in the Hebrew calendar is actually the fourth month of the Gregorian one we use today.”

  “April.”

  “Boy, Dad, you’re really getting the hang of this shit,” Dylan mocked, blowing the hair from his face with a burst of breath, only to have it tumble back into place yet again. “Anyway, the day, the fifteenth, remains the same because even back then this calendar was solar-based, three hundred and sixty-five days, just like now. The same intercalary cycle we use today.” Dylan hesitated, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come. “You see where I’m going with this?”

  “I have no idea what ‘intercalary’ means.”

  Dylan seemed to ignore his statement. “Okay, let me spell something else out for you. That year, 3970 in the Hebrew calendar, translates into the year thirty-three in ours. Thirty-three AD.”

  Dylan worked the keyboard again, adding the translation he’d just provided, of the third and final line, to the first two. Cort Wesley eased closer to the screen to view the final product. His right arm, the one that had gone bad on him, started itching, and he stretched his left hand over to scratch it.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Just an itch. I can’t see the screen.”

  Dylan rocked his frame backward so Cort Wesley could see the three lines in the middle of his laptop’s screen:

  He who died for his crimes

  and suffers in death

  15 Nisan 3970

  “Oh my God,” Cort Wesley managed, feeling like somebody had smacked him with a brick.

  “Exactly, pretty much.” Dylan grinned.

  69

  SONORA, TEXAS

  Looking for something to pass the time over the course of the drive back toward Sonora and the off-the-beaten-path gas station/convenience store that Young Roger had found, Caitlin placed a call to Mo Scoggins. The former special assistant to Governor Ann Richards had tried to call her father off the case in 1994, something that had stuck in Caitlin’s mind since she’d heard that part of the story. Scoggins had parlayed his former position in pursuit of his own political interests, which led to his becoming Texas’s current lieutenant governor. He maintained thinly disguised ambitions for the governor’s mansion and beyond.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, Ranger?” Scoggins greeted her, taking her call immediately.

  “I’ll get right to the point, sir,” Caitlin said. “I’m working a case that goes back to my dad’s time, and I think it’s something you might be familiar with.”

  “Well, I lose my car keys at least once a day and I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast this morning, but I’m willing to give it my best.”

  “Consider this off the record, sir. You recall a run-in you had with my father, Jim Strong, back in 1994?”

  Scoggins hesitated before responding. “Well, I wouldn’t call it a run-in, but I do remember the circumstances, yes. The run-in should’ve happened afterward, once I learned he ignored everything I told him. Not that I was surprised. He had his job to do, just like I had mine. Your dad crossed more lines than a drunken driver, and his efforts blew up an active federal investigation into the affairs of Luna Diaz Delgado that could have put a substantial dent in the Mexican drug trade at the time.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about, sir. I know my father paid a visit to Delgado after learning that her life was in danger. I’m blank about what happened after that.”

  “My advice, Ranger,” said Maurice Scoggins gruffly, “is to leave things there.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that any more than my dad could, sir. It’s just not the Ranger way.”

  Caitlin could hear Scoggins breathing noisily on the other end of the line. “It would seem you’re making the case for both Governor Richards’s and my own initial inclinations regarding the Rangers.”

  “I know the governor’s mansion hasn’t always held our greatest allies, but Rangers are just trying to do what’s best for the state of Texas here.”

  “As are we in Austin, Ranger.”

  “I didn’t mean it as an either/or, sir,” Caitlin said, in as conciliatory a tone as she could manage.

  “And what is it you’d like to know? If it’s not classified, I’ll do my best to fill in the blanks, if for no other reason than to dissuade you from your current pursuits.”

  “Since, according to you, my father destroyed the case against Delgado twenty-five years ago, it doesn’t seem like I can do much additional damage.”

  “Your reputation would lead me to believe otherwise, Ranger.”

  Caitlin didn’t argue the point. “Sir, I’d just like to know what exactly my father did that got you and the governor so upset. This is only about background for the current case I’m investigating,” she lied. “I’m not looking to jam anybody up over it.”

  Dead air filled the line, broken only by the sound of Scoggins breathing noisily again.

  “Can we speak off the record?” he said finally.

  “As far as I’m concerned.”

  “Good, because what you’re about to hear didn’t come from me.”

  70

  CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO; 1994

  “Thank you for seeing me, Señora Delgado,” Jim told the woman, while they sat on the veranda waiting for the iced tea the Red Widow had told one of her subordinates to fetch.

  “I pride myself on having respect for the law, Tejano.”

  The spray of the sun’s light made her face look even more vibrant and beautiful than it had in the Chihuahua railroad station, during their initial meeting. She dressed like a woman who fell into her clothes with the ease with which most folks fall into bed. Everything just rode her right and, truth be told, Jim Strong was glad for the opportunity to see her again, even under tense circumstances.

  “I’m glad to hear that, señora, I truly am.”

  “Does your visit pertain to that missing cargo?”

  Jim nodded, as another of the Red Widow’s men brought their iced teas on a silver tray. “I’m here to see if you have a big man, a real big man, in your employ, who has a kind of patchwork face.”

  “Did you say ‘patchwork face’?”

  Jim nodded. “That’s the way the motel clerk described him.”

  Delgado shook her head. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of man I’d easily forget, if I ever had occasion to meet him.”

  “I’ll take that
as a no, señora. Problem being, he knows you. He had the address of your hacienda here in his motel room, and that can’t be a good thing.”

  “I should say not, Tejano, most certainly not.” She set her tea down on a table to the side of her chair and crossed her legs, seeming to shrink the distance between them. “If I’m in such danger, why didn’t you just call to alert me?”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  “You’re a Texas Ranger. I’m sure you could have gotten it.”

  “No way I could be sure you’d come to the phone.”

  “But I came to the door, didn’t I?”

  “I guess I wanted to see you again,” Jim said, the honest answer surprising him.

  Luna Diaz Delgado let her gaze linger on him. “I was thinking the same thing about you. I might have had you killed in the train station otherwise.”

  “You did bring a lot of guns with you.”

  “None about now, though, are there?”

  “Guess we can call that progress,” Jim followed, surprised by the ease of their conversation.

  “I’ve lost a husband, you’ve lost a wife,” she said, appearing to be even closer to him. “That’s a lot to have in common with someone. Raising kids alone—something no one pays much attention to, for those in our respective positions.”

  “You speak like a very educated woman, señora.”

  “After my parents were murdered, I was raised in poverty. I saw education as the best means to lift me out of that.”

  “Sounds like a worthy endeavor.”

  “And then some, Ranger. It provided the foundation for my life as a businesswoman. You have a problem with me calling myself that?”

  “Not at all, except that a big part of your success, the biggest part of all, involved bullets, not brains.”

  “And that poses a problem for you?”

  “It’s a crime, señora.”

  The Red Widow looked genuinely confused. “It’s just that I thought I was talking to a gunfighter.”

  “My father was the gunfighter,” Jim scoffed. “I’m just a lawman.”

  “I’ve heard different.” Delgado eased her chair closer to his, the motion graceful, like everything else she did. “So, Tejano, did you come down here to rescue me from this big man with no face? Do you think my men aren’t enough to do the job?”

  “That depends what’s got that big man’s attention, señora. Comes down to the contents of those three crates I believe he has in his possession. If I had a better notion of what those contents are, I might be able to help you out here in that regard.”

  “Do you love your daughter, Tejano?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Because if you love her you won’t give those crates another thought, not if you want to see her grow up.”

  “We’ve come too far for that.”

  Delgado sat back in her chair. “I’ve also heard this isn’t even a Ranger case anymore.”

  “True enough,” Jim said, not bothering to ask how she’d learned that.

  “So you shouldn’t even be involved anymore. Why come all the way down here anyway?”

  “To find out why it’s not a Ranger case anymore.”

  And that’s when the shooting started.

  * * *

  “How many men you have here?”

  “Not enough, not against this.”

  Jim Strong palmed his .45. “Well, you’ve got me. However many it is, Rangers have held off more.”

  Glass shattered behind the distinctive clacking of automatic weapons fire, joined soon by a series of explosions that rattled the wrought iron table and spilled the remnants of Jim’s iced tea.

  “Not against assault rifles, grenades, and RPG, Tejano.”

  The Red Widow took Jim by the hand and jerked both of them away from the table as the echo of ratcheting fire echoed closer, the invaders having penetrated her hacienda by now.

  “My husband taught me to prepare for this day,” she continued, leading Jim Strong onward.

  “You mean, besides praying to God to make the bad men go away.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about my Hector.”

  “Just like I know it was really you who killed him, señora.”

  Jim felt Delgado squeeze his hand tighter, squeezing until he was ripe with an agony he wasn’t about to show with a grimace. She finally let go when they reached the pool house.

  Inside, she yanked back a throw rug, revealing a trapdoor sectioned out of the tile floor. Jim yanked the hatch up to reveal a ladder descending into what looked like a sewer tunnel.

  “Escape route?”

  “My husband was a man who believed heavily in preparing for anything, above all else.”

  “Before you killed him, you mean,” Jim said, beginning his descent.

  The Red Widow grabbed a thick flashlight from a cutout in the flattened earth wall, switched it on, and closed the hatch. Much to Jim’s surprise, she didn’t argue the point or avoid it. Instead, she seemed to embrace the truth Jim had gleaned from instinct as opposed to evidence. This woman hadn’t earned the nickname the Red Widow, la Viuda Roja, for nothing.

  “If I hadn’t, the cartels would’ve come for me and our sons, too. If you want to judge me, feel free, but we both live in worlds where showing any weakness at all is a recipe for death.”

  Jim watched the beam bounce about as she clambered down the ladder.

  “How’d you figure it out?” Delgado resumed, when he remained silent.

  “I didn’t. I guessed. But I remember when your husband was assassinated, none of the cartels claimed credit. I seem to recall them distancing themselves, instead, and it never sat right with me that they wouldn’t have killed you at the same time.”

  “This way,” Delgado said, taking the lead down the winding tunnel, which had been constructed to veer around the heavy limestone and shale deposits. “My husband, Hector, was a fool. He believed that God was his partner, that so long as he went to church and was kind to the poor, his power would multiply. I used to go to church with him.” She stopped and swung back toward Jim, her face silhouetted by the glow of her flashlight. “Do you have any idea how hard that was for me, Tejano?”

  “I do, señora, on account of you losing your parents the way you did.”

  The Red Widow started on again, one hand sliding along an earthen wall to brace herself. “You’ve done your research.”

  “It’s my job. There’s fact, there’s assumption, and there’s outright guessing,” Jim Strong told her. “And I’m going to take a guess at something here. Whatever was in those crates that were headed down here on that freight train has something to do with your husband, with God, with the Church—things you hate the most in the world.”

  “I didn’t hate my husband, Tejano.”

  “No, you just killed him.”

  Luna Diaz Delgado stopped and swung all the way around toward him, so the flashlight was suspended between them. The light caught both of their faces equally, but the combination of anger and sadness that filled Delgado’s face rode her features so well that Jim thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. At the age of thirty-one, she had also become the most powerful criminal force in Mexico because she knew the alternative was to watch her sons die, unless the cartels took her first.

  “You used his death,” Jim resumed, before Delgado could dispute his point, “as an excuse to wipe out the other cartel leaders and their families. Sounds to me like you became what you hated and feared the most. You turned yourself into a victim, a martyr, some kind of twisted avenger that made you a folk hero. Until now. Thanks to whatever’s inside those crates, you took too big a bite, and now the monster is biting back.”

  An explosion rumbled the ground above them, as if to illustrate Jim’s point. In the spray of his flashlight, he could see that the color had washed out of Luna Diaz Delgado’s face.

  “Who are they, Tejano?”

  “I have no idea.”

 
; “Not even a guess, an assumption?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what was in those crates, so I can come up with one?”

  She smiled thinly, sadly, in a way that made Jim’s insides turn to mush. “You’ve already figured it out. You pretty much said it yourself—you just don’t realize it.”

  “Realize what?”

  “I wanted the Church to pay for all the pain it’s brought me,” the Red Widow said, her voice cracking a bit. “I wanted the world to relinquish the false hopes the Church breeds. I wanted the true believers, the millions and millions of them like my husband, to know that they’ve been party to the greatest lie ever perpetrated on mankind. I won’t tell you what procuring those crates cost me, or how important it is that I get them back. But I will say that I’ll be performing a service by revealing the truth to the world that believes what it wants to believe, what it’s told to believe, Tejano. I had to purchase all three, even though the contents of only one contains what I needed to find the solace I’ve been after since my parents were killed.”

  The glow of the flashlight revealed her big, dark eyes moistening. But she didn’t dry them with a swipe of her sleeve because, Jim knew, that would have shown weakness, something she could never let anyone see in her.

  “I was the ring bearer at their wedding and, when they found me in the church, I was still clutching the ring. I’ve kept it all these years as a reminder. It gave me the strength I needed to kill my husband, gave me the resolve to keep looking until I found what I was truly searching for, until I found what I needed, what the world needs.”

  Jim took a step closer to Luna Diaz Delgado, swallowing the light that had illuminated the swath between them. “What’s in those crates, señora? What was stolen from that freight car?”

  “Call me Luna, please.”

  “What’s in those crates … Luna?” Jim repeated, her name nearly catching in his throat.

  “Ossuaries.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Burial boxes from times long past. Not for the bodies, just for the bones.”