by Jon Land
Until the alien outdoor landscape of Titans of Terra suddenly claimed the warehouse, from its blacked-out windows on down.
“Oh, shit.” Fred.
“Oh, fuck.” Frank.
The soldiers from Man of War stopped, their images appearing confused and stopping just short of looking at each other. This as dinosaur-size monsters appeared everywhere and began attacking them.
“Bad.” Fred.
“Really fucking bad.” Frank.
And then it got worse. The History Comes Alive figures appeared on the scene to be besieged by the monsters of Titans of Terra, while the heroic humans who’d been programmed to battle them began exchanging fire with the Man of War rampaging characters instead. The sound was deafening, the gunfire constant and realistic to the point of expended shells clanging against the ground as futuristic assault rifles spat them out, one after the other.
Dane watched figures darting and twisting around him, close enough to reach out and touch, getting blown apart in a fashion so realistic he expected to look down to see his clothes splattered with blood. The problem was that the victims included the historical figures whose programming shouldn’t have even incorporated that. But he was also conscious of Fred Bass desperately hitting keys to deactivate the system—to no avail, as if these projections had found minds of their own. He noticed Frank Bass moving to a bank of black, obelisklike structures that served as visible conduits between the game environment and the off-site supercomputer actually controlling the action. Dane watched Frank stoop down and do the simplest thing of all.
He pulled the plug. And instantly the warehouse Calum Dane had bought for three-quarters of a million dollars returned to its blank canvas—no blood, bodies, severed limbs, or any other evidence of battle whatsoever left behind. As if nothing had ever happened.
“Whoops,” Fred managed.
“That didn’t go well,” Frank added.
And then Dane felt Pulsipher come up to his side. He was tempted to borrow the man’s gun to shoot both twins in the head.
“There’s a call from the main office, sir,” Pulsipher reported. “A Texas Ranger has requested a meeting with you about an ongoing investigation.”
“He say what this investigation was about?” Dane asked, feeling his neck hairs prickle and a slight quiver in his stomach.
He noticed the concern in Pulsipher’s gaze, recalling what he’d told Dane the day before about one of the kids from the Armand Bayou field trip who’d been found in the woods.
“It’s a she, sir.”
45
MARBLE FALLS, TEXAS
Jones was already seated at the counter of the Blue Bonnet Café, fork digging into a piece of cherry pie, when Cort Wesley entered. The Blue Bonnet offered the best pie in the state, made even better by a happy hour between three and five P.M. on weekdays. Cort Wesley couldn’t tell if this was Jones’s first slice or his second.
“Sit down, cowboy,” he greeted. “What can I get you?”
Cort Wesley took the stool next to him. “Man, you really are out of the loop, aren’t you?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Those Russians you had me bug yesterday? Somebody wasted them.”
Jones stopped his next forkful halfway to his mouth. “Did I just hear you right?”
“You did. I was the one who identified the bodies.”
Jones tried not to reveal how concerned he clearly was. “Since you kicked the shit out of two of them, I’m wondering if you’re a suspect.”
“What the hell’s going on, Jones?”
Jones turned back to his pie but left his fork on the plate. “Don’t ask me. I’m the one whose operation just got fucked.”
“And what operation is that?”
“Need-to-know basis, cowboy, and you most certainly do not need to know.”
Cort Wesley rotated his stool so he was facing Jones straight on. “Maybe we need to start this conversation again.”
Jones dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “You mind if we take a rain check on that pie? I’ve got some calls to make.”
He started to slide off his stool, then stopped when Cort Wesley locked a hand over his knee, pinching just enough.
“Ouch,” said Jones flatly.
“I didn’t know you could feel pain … or anything else.”
“You must have me confused with the man I used to be.”
“You sound like Paz.”
“With good reason, since a certain Texas Ranger has messed up my life big-time, too.”
“This would be the same Texas Ranger who saved your life last year?”
“Not exactly my recollection, but you can believe whatever you like. Destroyed my career would be a more accurate way of putting it.” Jones turned back toward the counter on his stool and picked up his fork again. “It’s happy hour. Why don’t you order a slice?”
“Already did: a slice of humble pie. How’s it taste, by the way?”
“You think this is funny?”
“You see me laughing?”
Jones shoved his plate aside and twisted his stool to face Cort Wesley. “Alexi Gribanov was a lot more than just a strip club owner.”
“Of course he was. Why would you give a shit about him otherwise?”
“You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you, cowboy? Remind me of a certain Texas Ranger we both know.”
“Get back to Gribanov, specifically the reason behind your interest in him.”
“Take a guess.”
“Based on the circles you move in, Jones, only one thing comes to mind: he’s a Russian spook, the strip club thing just a cover.”
“Yes and no.”
“Can’t be both.”
“It is in this case.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you needed to bug his office.”
Jones hesitated, as if weighing whether he should tell Cort Wesley any more. The scowl that followed indicated he realized he didn’t have a choice.
“Chatter. Something’s been going on here in your great state as of late that’s attracted Russian attention in all the wrong places.”
“As in KGB.”
“Technically they don’t exist anymore…”
“Technically.”
“And they go by different initials, FSB, now. But the answer’s yes. They might as well still call themselves KGB, based on how they operate.”
“So why’d you need me to do your dirty work, a man who’s got the NSA on speed dial?”
“I already told you. The number I used to have for them doesn’t exist anymore; none of the numbers I used to have exist. Thanks to what went down last year, when I took a stand against them and took three bullets for it.”
“Get back to Gribanov.”
“I had a hunch.”
“Bullshit,” Cort Wesley said, watching a tray go by with pieces of banana cream and chocolate cream pie. The sight and smell made his mouth water. “You don’t play hunches, Jones, only sure things.”
“No such thing in this market, cowboy.”
“Then, since you’re an agent without portfolio, maybe I should be having this conversation with somebody else.”
Jones tried to flash the trademark smirk but came up short. His face was flat and freshly shaved, with a dollop of shaving cream clinging stubbornly behind his right ear. Even in the light, Cort Wesley couldn’t quite make out Jones’s eye color, as if Jones had been trained to never look at anyone long enough for anything to register. He was wearing a sports jacket over a button-down shirt and pressed trousers that looked like a costume on him. His hair, normally tightly cropped and military style—“high and tight” was the nomenclature—had grown out just enough to make his anvil-shaped head look smaller.
Caitlin had met Jones for the first time overseas, when he was still “Smith.” She’d told Cort Wesley back then that she had him made for CIA, but he’d moved on to some shadowy subdivision of Homeland Security and, for a time anyway, had pretty much carte blanche to protec
t the homeland any way he saw fit. That included utilizing the services of Guillermo Paz and the band of killers the colonel had assembled for any purpose Jones deemed worthy. Their paths had crossed his on several occasions since he became “Jones,” and none had ended particularly well.
“Stay awhile,” Jones said suddenly. “Order yourself a piece of pie while I tell you a story.”
“What story?”
“About what put Alexi Gribanov on my radar to begin with. Believe you’ll recognize the other characters too.…”
46
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS; 1983
A day after watching the shootout in downtown Houston, Boone Masters was waiting outside the headquarters of Texas Ranger Company F, when Jim Strong emerged.
“What brings you to the right side of the law, Mr. Masters?”
“Maybe I’ve come to confess my crimes.”
“I don’t have that much time.”
“Got enough to tell me what that gunfight in Houston yesterday was all about?”
“An internecine battle between rival gangs. Simple enough in my mind.
“I’m talking about the Russians who ripped me off being targeted by a Russian wearing the jacket I gave him.”
“So was I,” Jim Strong told him. “And your job’s done here, sir. It died with those men. The Texas Rangers, me in particular, and the State of Texas would like to thank you for your service.”
“And what if that don’t sit too well with me?”
“Sounds like you’ve seen the light.”
“Nope. The enemy of my enemy is an even greater enemy.”
“I don’t think it goes like that.”
“It does to me, Ranger. And maybe I can help you out yet.”
“How’s that?”
“I can’t be sure, until you tell me what it was exactly that happened yesterday.”
“You were there, same as me. Russians killing Russians.”
Boone Masters nodded. “Like an organized crime war or turf battle, something like that?”
“I don’t think, no.”
“Then what do you think, Ranger?”
“I think the Cold War suddenly got red hot to the touch. I think the Soviet Union is up to something no good at all, right here in Texas.”
* * *
Masters looked at Jim Strong for what seemed like a long time after he said that. “Doesn’t explain why Russians are killing Russians.”
“It does if Stanko’s crew was in the way of the new boys in town, who needed him out of the way.”
Boone Masters tried to make sense of what he was hearing. “Stinko and his boys ran the Russian rackets in the state. You want to move stolen merchandise, you go to them or you don’t go to anybody.”
“Something you learned the hard way.”
“Just like you did, yesterday, Ranger. I saw the look in your eyes when that gunfight broke out. Or maybe it was ’cause you forgot that yesterday was also Bring Your Kid to Work Day.”
“Well, I suppose that gives us something in common, given that describes every day in the Masters household,” Jim retorted. “What was your boy’s name again?”
“Cort Wesley. And, however this shakes out, I’ve done my part, so I’m going to assume he’s now absolved of that association with any criminal activities.”
“You’d assume correct. Your job’s done,” Jim Strong said, leaving it there.
“I like to see things through to the finish, Ranger, and we’re not even close to that yet, here.”
Jim Strong didn’t look impressed. “Your contact got gunned down in that park, Mr. Masters. There’s nothing more I can see you contributing.”
“Then you’re not looking hard enough, Ranger.”
* * *
It was four days later that Boone Masters approached a first-floor storefront in an office park, which had been rented so recently that the FOR LEASE sign still hung in the window.
A Russian looked up from a box he was unpacking. “We’re closed.”
“Yeah,” Boone said, ignoring the two other men, who’d suspended their unpacking chores to eye him tightly, hands moving to the familiar bulges beneath their jackets. “And thanks to you the man I used to do business with is closed permanently.”
“Leave your name and I’ll get back to you,” the man who’d spoken first, who Masters now took to be the leader, instructed.
“Nice jacket,” Masters complimented. “Maybe you don’t remember me giving it to you.”
The Russian looked confused, then straightened up all the way and hitched his shoulders. “Fits perfect.”
“I can see that.”
“Thank you for the gift.”
“You’re welcome. Son of a bitch Stanko stole from me,” Masters told him. “You returned the favor by wasting the prick.”
The Russian tried so hard to look calm that it produced the opposite effect. “Maybe I’m out of practice with my English, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Masters took a step closer, drawing a flinch from the men he’d identified as no more than muscle. “I heard all about how you Russian gangsters do business, and I don’t really give a shit, except for how that affects mine. You knocked Stinko off to take his territory. I’m part of that territory.”
“Stinko.”
“What I call the man you put a dozen holes in, up in Houston last week.”
He was wearing a wire that finished with a tight looping around his balls, making them itch horribly. It was all Boone Masters could do not to start scratching his crotch as if he had crabs.
“Something wrong?” the Russian asked suddenly.
“Sure, plenty. I got merchandise warehoused and I’ve got no one to move it, on account of you shooting the guy who used to handle that end of things for me. Like I said, he was ripping me off, so I’ve got no problem with him getting dead in a hurry. My problem is with you standing there playing hard to get, bub.”
“Bub?”
“Figure of speech, like ‘man’ or ‘dude.’”
“Oh,” the Russian said, even though it was clear he didn’t understand. “But, bub, I know nothing of this Stanko, and I’m a legitimate businessman.”
“So how come you just used his real name instead of the one I gave him?”
The Russian stiffened. Boone thought he spotted him exchange taut glances with his two thugs.
“What is it we can do for you, my friend?” he asked, leaving it there.
“Handle any major appliances?”
“I’ve been known to.”
“I was paying Stanko a twenty percent service charge.”
The Russian smirked, suddenly looking comfortable. “Closer to forty would be my guess.”
“Then we seem to have settled upon thirty percent,” Boone Masters said, extending his hand. “The name’s Boone Masters.”
The Russian took it. “Anton Kasputin.”
“So when can you handle the first load, Anton?”
* * *
Masters left his son Cort Wesley home the night Kasputin’s trucks came to empty a warehouse full of major appliances “borrowed” by the Texas Rangers from Sears on the promise they’d be returned in perfect working condition.
“You gonna move in and bust them when they make the pickup?” he asked Jim Strong from the other side of a diner booth, where they’d met for breakfast. “Maybe find the guns they used on Stinko and his boys right on their persons?”
“Nope, not my intention at all.”
“Then what is?”
“I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
“You haven’t told me shit.”
“You wanted to keep playing the game, Mr. Masters, but it’s gotta be by my rules.”
Boone took his mug of coffee in hand but left it short of his lips. “Know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“I heard your grandfather, William Ray Strong, rode with the Frontier Battalion, and your famous dad, Earl, tamed
oil towns that would’ve put the Old West to shame. I think you’re doing the same thing here, going frontier with some kind of one-man show. I think you got a tip from somebody about something and you’re running it as far up the flagpole as it’ll go, instead of passing it up the ladder. I’m guessing you had a bad experience with such government types before and learned the lesson to keep things where they lie. So tell me, am I right?”
Jim laid his cup down and rested his elbows on either side of a fruit plate he was struggling to get through because his daughter, Caitlin, had made him promise to eat better. “As rain, Mr. Masters.”
“How many times I gotta tell you to call me Boone?”
“Not my way, sorry.”
“So what’s on the docket next?”
“Just let me know once you got the pickup scheduled with your new Russian friends.”
“They’re not my friends, Ranger.”
“And neither am I, Mr. Masters”
* * *
But Boone Masters never did tell Jim Strong, once he’d set up the meet with Anton Kasputin to take possession of the major appliances the Rangers had borrowed from Sears. Instead, he took it on himself to follow the four semis, packed with his own boosted merchandise, from the east San Antonio warehouse, north for a good couple hundred miles, until they came to a fenced-in complex of buildings with a rusted FOR SALE sign clanging in the wind against the main gate. He parked down the grade and stowed his truck out of sight and had just started toward the fence line when something rustled in the bed of his truck.
Masters drew the .357 Magnum holstered back on his hip, under the denim jacket he’d had since high school, and yanked back the canvas balled up in the bed of his pickup.
“What’s up, Dad?” asked his son, Cort Wesley.
Masters reholstered his pistol. “What the…”
Rage swallowed the rest of Boone’s words as he jerked his fifteen-year-old son up and out of the bed, the boy’s boots scratching against the cargo liner, and slammed him hard against the cab.
“What the fuck, boy?” he finally finished.
