by Land, Jon
A motorboat sped toward the scene, cracking a gondola from its path and then slamming a small skiff tending the braziers out of its way. Impact sprayed fresh fuel and kindling across the water’s surface, the motorboat jostled just enough to keep a gunman poised in the rear from opening fire with his assault rifle when he’d intended to. Caitlin resteadied her SIG and parted the crowd as she aimed, a clear path between her and the gunman now.
He got his weapon leveled.
Caitlin fired hers. Three times, the pistol’s roar echoing over the panicked cries and Baroque music. She hit the gunman twice, stealing his balance and pitching him into the outboard motor. Plenty of bullets left to use on the boat’s driver, whose right hand had dropped from the wheel.
Caitlin fired at him until she heard the click of the hammer striking an empty chamber as the SIG’s slide locked in place, the motorboat now veering straight for one of the braziers. The violent crash caused a flame burst that showered fiery embers into the air to rain down on the fuel and kindling pooled on the surface.
POOOOOOFFFFFFF!
The exploding speedboat sent a hot wind blowing up against Caitlin as flames erupted on the water, faces twisted in fear along the Riverwalk framed by the glow. Caitlin managed to steady herself with a shallow breath and grabbed a second magazine from her jacket.
“Caitlin!”
Dylan’s cry reached her before she’d jacked it home and she swung toward the boy in the same moment he rushed past her, straight for a big man she hadn’t noticed wielding a big knife.
“Dyl—”
Caitlin wasn’t sure if she started to scream his name or only thought to, as the boy hit the man low with a classic football tackle that drove him up and over the retaining wall. He splashed into the water below with Dylan ready to spill over after him involuntarily, until Caitlin grabbed the boy’s baggy Brown University sweatshirt and drew him backward before he lost the rest of his balance.
Fresh magazine in place, she moved back to the wall in search of the man lost amid the fiery sheen caught in the river’s reflection. She rotated her eyes and pistol, but the river and the night gave up nothing.
Caitlin stepped back, even again with Dylan, the boy’s face shiny with perspiration and looking like a Halloween mask in the river’s angry orange glow.
“Water fire, all right,” she said, falling well short of a smile when fresh footsteps pounded her way.
She shoved Dylan behind her, pistol coming back around.
“Drop the gun!” ordered a blue-uniformed Providence police officer now in her line of vision. “I said, drop the gun!”
Caitlin let the SIG fall to her feet and raised her hands in the air, making sure Dylan did the same.
4
FIESTA, TEXAS
“SkyScreamer?” Cort Wesley Masters posed to his younger son, Luke.
“Come on, Dad,” the boy prodded, “take a chance. You never do anything exciting.”
Cort Wesley wasn’t sure where Luke was going with that, until the boy grinned over his own comic reference to the last few years that had seen Cort Wesley and Caitlin Strong taking on just about every bad guy Texas had to offer. He let the boy lead him about the day-glow brightness of Six Flags in Fiesta, just outside San Antonio, located in an old limestone quarry where the two-hundred-acre park was surrounded by majestic ten-story cliffs. From the parking lot, Luke made straight for the SkyScreamer, the sight of which left Cort Wesley’s stomach fluttering. The latest park attraction turned out to be a towering twenty-story swing ride that spun at speeds in excess of forty miles per hour.
“You’re scared,” Luke said, as they took their place in line under the crystal clear night sky.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re gritting your teeth. You never grit your teeth.”
Cort Wesley stopped gritting his teeth as the line began to move. “I thought we were gonna do the Go-Karts.”
“Later,” Luke told him. “After we do the Boomerang.”
“Boomerang?”
“A super-coaster. My favorite part is when it goes backward.”
“Backward,” Cort Wesley repeated.
“You look pale, Dad. We can skip the Rattler if you want.”
“I appreciate that, son,” Cort Wesley said, moving up yet further in line and hoping the SkyScreamer would break down before their turn came.
After missing the first nine years of the boy’s life, Cort Wesley reveled in moments like this. With Luke having just celebrated his fourteenth birthday, who knew how many more of them there’d actually be? But the truth was he missed Caitlin Strong and his older son, Dylan, more than he’d thought, finding the mere days almost as tough to bear as the months he spent a couple years back in Mexico’s infamous Cereso Prison. He’d finally made it home after nearly a year away to find his sons almost like strangers again to him, like they were living the early part of their lives in dog years. Luke was filling out, wearing his hair longer, disappearing for long stretches into his room with only a cell phone for company—in short, becoming a teenager. Cort Wesley had spent so much time worrying over Dylan these past few years that he hadn’t even considered the possibility of his younger son following right in the older one’s footsteps. Just when it seemed Dylan had finally got his head turned straight, if his recent dedication to his studies and finding the right college was any indication.
A Masters boy visiting colleges, an Ivy League one no less!
It was hard for Cort Wesley to imagine that, and he wondered what his lifelong criminal father, Boone, who never finished high school, would’ve made of it. Boone had gone to the same high school as Caitlin’s father, Jim, where they played football together before losing touch until a legendary bar fight years later sent both of them to the emergency room. Cort Wesley found himself wondering what his late dad would have thought of him shacking up with the Texas Ranger daughter of Jim Strong too.
But that’s the way it was, whether Boone Masters or anyone else liked it or not. And, truth be told, it was nice to have a few days alone with his younger son, especially since Luke was morphing quickly into the more extrovert and daredevil ways of his older brother. Except for the fact that he’d started to look a bit more like Cort Wesley, while Dylan continued to boast the strong, dark features and tumbling, tangled hair of their mother. Maura Torres had been the last woman Cort Wesley had grown really close to before Caitlin Strong, close enough for him to give her two sons he’d not met until her murder. Looking at Dylan always reminded him of her, while looking at Luke reminded him too much of himself. The boy’s hair was starting to thicken into waves and his eyes were the same steely brown as Cort Wesley’s, in contrast to Dylan’s hauntingly black ones. Luke had the same long neck, high cheekbones, and even held his head slightly to the side when listening to others or pretending to. And like Cort Wesley, sometimes his smile carried a menace with it that belied the gesture—sometimes, though more often lately.
Cort Wesley had never been to Six Flags Fiesta before, and he found himself feeling guilty over the notion that too often his boys got dragged into the violent parts of his life, and yet he’d never just up and taken them to this nearby amusement park on a whim. He and Caitlin had talked about it a few times, but one of the four of them was always too busy with something else.
Now, soon to be seated next to Luke in a swing with his feet dangling two hundred feet above the ground, Cort Wesley was beginning to wonder if he could have found a less stomach-churning way to have some quality time. Strange coming from a man who had jumped out of airplanes in the dead of night for Special Ops missions back in his army days, and had inspired fear in pretty much every Mexican drug runner who worked the streets of San Antonio while he was playing enforcer for the Branca crime family. That stage of his life had happened before he’d met his sons or Caitlin. Cort Wesley didn’t even recognize that man anymore; the one who looked back at him in the mirror now was an entirely different being, albeit with the same powerful frame and
deep-set eyes.
As of late his reflection had come to take on the look of his own father, especially the gray patches that were starting to advance backward from his temples. In Cort Wesley’s memory, the graying hair was the only thing that ever really changed in his father, Boone Masters being the same man in his late twenties as he was in his early fifties when cancer claimed him fast. Man had managed to survive all manner of the law and rival criminals seeing vulnerability in Boone’s independence, only to lose his life to a bum pancreas ruined by too much alcohol.
Cort Wesley thought of his dad these days only when he was with his sons, wondering if the worry he felt over Dylan and Luke might have been matched by that which his father had experienced over him. Boone Masters never showed much emotion, but then again neither did Cort Wesley, both of them real good at turning their faces into masks that could be swapped out given the situation.
“Dad, move up. It’s almost our turn,” Luke was saying, and Cort Wesley realized they were almost to the front of the line.
Above them, the SkyScreamer’s lighted arms whirled into a single glowing ribbon that seemed to brighten the entire night. So focused was Cort Wesley on the ride that he barely noticed the Latino man, wearing sunglasses in the dark, almost directly across from him on the opposite side of the ride’s base, raise a cell phone to his lips.
“Le tengo,” he said. “I’ve got him.”
5
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
“A Texas Ranger,” the detective said again, shaking his head. He’d introduced himself as Finneran, but Caitlin had stayed with “Detective” so far.
He’d offered her a chair at the table in the interview room equipped with a one-cup coffeemaker that dispensed barely half that after Finneran had pressed the start button, but she refused it. The room was overly bright and Caitlin paced along the length of the counter while the detective fiddled with the Keurig machine before trying another K-Cup.
“I’d like to speak to the young man,” she said, forcing herself to sound polite. “That’s going to be the last time I ask you nicely.”
Finneran shot her a look, appearing ready to respond when the machine spit out yet another half cup that he added to the first. “As soon as his interview with another detective is complete. They know anything about patience in Texas?”
“We’re not talking about ‘they,’ we’re talking about me and the young man I’m responsible for, and right now you’re treating us like suspects.”
“We call that routine procedure up in this neck of the woods,” said Finneran.
“Well, Detective, I call it a load of crap.”
“Maybe you should watch your mouth, Ranger.”
“I was; that’s why I said ‘crap,’” Caitlin told him.
Finneran smirked, seeming to enjoy the superiority he thought he held over her. “When was the last time there was a gunfight on your River Walk, Ranger?”
“A gang incident six months ago. Several bystanders still healing after being caught in the cross fire. I wish you’d have been there to help us sort things out, Mr. Finneran.”
“That’s Detective.”
“Not from where I’m standing right now.” Caitlin watched him sip the coffee without adding cream or sugar. “You call my captain back in San Antonio?” she asked Finneran, trying to picture D. W. Tepper’s reaction when he learned she’d gunned down four men while taking Dylan on a college visitation trip.
“My own captain did. Your captain said he wasn’t surprised and that we could keep you as long as we wanted.”
“And you seem to be doing just that, sir.”
The Providence Police Department was headquartered in a modern, gray-steel and glass building spiraling six stories into the air maybe a mile from the site of WaterFire. From this fourth-floor interrogation room, Caitlin could actually see the glow of flames still burning and soft wisps of smoke dissipating as they wafted into the air.
“But now I’d like to speak to the young man,” Caitlin continued. “If you can just tell me what room he’s in…”
Whatever Finneran was about to say dissolved into a glare. He was a beefy man with red spiderweb veins growing out of his ruddy cheeks and a stomach that tested the bounds of his button-down shirt. “What were you doing carrying a gun outside your jurisdiction?”
“Texas Rangers don’t have a jurisdiction.”
“State lines don’t count?”
“Our rules and regs require us to be armed at all times anywhere anytime.”
“This is Rhode Island, Ms. Strong.” Finneran was breathing noisily through his mouth, seeming to squeeze words in between breaths. “Your rules and regs don’t mean a goddamn thing here.”
“Where’s Dylan Torres?”
“Being interviewed in another room.”
“Outside of my presence.”
“His ID says he’s eighteen. That means we can speak to him alone.”
“To interview or interrogate? Maybe you’re forgetting he just survived a pretty tough scrape and could use some support instead of being treated like one of the gunmen who came after us.”
Finneran sipped some more of his coffee, ignoring her.
“Is he a suspect?”
No response.
“Am I a suspect?”
“You killed four men tonight and fired off at least a magazine’s worth of rounds into a crowd. Would a Rhode Islander be a suspect in Texas if they’d done the same thing on your streets?”
“That would depend on whether the men he or she killed were trying to do the same to them. We tend to give awards to such people, instead of treating them like criminals.” Caitlin moved away from the counter, facing Finneran halfway between it and the table. The empty holster felt strange on her hip. “Your crime scene techs find the victims’ guns?”
“They found two pistols, yes, but we’ve yet to determine who they belonged to.”
“So it’s normal at this WaterFire thing for speedboats toting men with assault rifles to be part of the show?”
“You’re not exactly in a position here to be a smart-ass, Ranger.”
“They got anything like Rangers in Rhode Island, Detective?”
“Closest thing we have is the state police.”
“Then maybe we should call them,” Caitlin said, holding his stare. “What about the man who dropped into the river? You find him?”
“Not a good time to dredge the bottom,” Finneran sneered, checking his watch impatiently.
“The man Dylan pushed into the water wasn’t shot. He probably swam away. You should be looking for him.”
“Really?” the detective said, crossing his arms. “And what else should I be doing?”
“Telling me everything you’ve learned about the two men whose bodies you recovered.”
“They weren’t carrying IDs.”
“What about fingerprints?”
“We’re running them now.”
“They were Latinos, Mexicans probably.”
“We figured that much out all by ourselves.”
“I’ve made a lot of enemies south of the border in my time.”
“From what your captain said, it seems like you’ve made enemies in lots more places than that, Ranger.”
Caitlin looked Finneran straight in the eye. “And I seem to keep making new ones.”
Finneran drained the rest of his coffee and laid his cup down on the countertop. “Rhode Island doesn’t have much need for gunfighters up here, given that we don’t share your border problems.”
“That’s right. Last time I checked you weren’t in an all-out shooting war with Massachusetts or Connecticut.”
Finneran’s eyes widened, his nostrils flaring as he opened his mouth to speak, when Caitlin ran right over his words.
“You ever been in a gunfight, Detective?” she asked, leaning forward.
“You think being in the number you have is what law enforcement’s supposed to be about?”
“Ever fired on a suspect?” C
aitlin resumed, instead of responding. “How about even drawn your gun? Let’s try that one.”
“This is Rhode Island, Ranger,” he said finally. “We tend to look down on violence here, not embrace it.”
“Maybe you’d feel different if you’d come up against the kind Texas Rangers deal with on a regular basis.”
Finneran continued to hold her stare. In the small room’s overly bright light, the veins on his cheeks looked like Magic Marker drawings a child might have left while he was napping.
“We did an additional check on you, Ranger. I can’t even add up all the men you’ve killed. You’re supposed to be some kind of goddamn legend.”
“Not at all. I’m just doing my job, like you’re supposed to be doing yours.”
“You say you came up here to visit Brown University with this eighteen-year-old boy you’re not related to. You say these men were watching you earlier in the day and likely trailed you to WaterFire.”
“Somebody’s pulling their strings. You let me out of here, and I’ll find out who.”
“Back in Texas?”
“The general vicinity, anyway.”
Finneran gave her a long look, as if seeing Caitlin for the first time. “Know the last time anybody up here killed four people in self-defense?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”
“Never, Ranger, never. Looks like you’ve made history in a second state.”
“You find anything else on the dead men’s persons?”
“Pertaining to you, no. But you may want to take a look at this,” he said, taking a picture enclosed in evidence-seal plastic from his jacket pocket.
He laid it on the countertop, and Caitlin moved up between Finneran and the Keurig machine to regard it.
“Oh, shit” was all she could say.
6
SAN ANTONIO
Guillermo Paz sat in the back of the classroom, trying to make himself as insignificant as possible. It wasn’t easy, given the stares the other students, all younger and of college age, kept casting back his way as if to make sure he was real and not some kind of apparition. They didn’t know his name, his background, even the fact that he’d once been wanted in the city for murder until someone in Washington made it all go away. What they knew was that a seven-foot man with long black hair twisted into ringlets falling well past his shoulders, and arm muscles the size of softballs, had joined their philosophy class.
