The Grey Man- Partners

by JL Curtis

  Yogi padded over to the old man as Annetta cocked her head, “Nothing I can think of Captain. I had the list from the pass down and bought everything yesterday. Coffee is going faster, but that usually happens as the weather cools off.”

  “Roger that. If you need me, I’ll be available.”

  “I hope we won’t need you,” Annetta replied.

  Road Trip

  Two weeks later, Clay pulled into the front yard a little after six in the morning to find the old man sitting on the porch, a cup of coffee in hand. Getting out, Clay asked, “Got a spare cup for your driver?” He pushed Yogi away and ruffled his fur as he stepped onto the porch.

  The old man laughed, “You know where it is. Yogi, leave him alone. Did you preregister?”

  Clay nodded as he went through the front door the old man was holding open, “Sure did. Hell, if I gotta pay to hear Rudy talk, I’m going to do it as cheap as possible.”

  The old man almost snorted coffee out his nose, “Rudy’s leading the sessions? Rudy Webb?”

  Clay stirred his coffee, “Didn’t you even read the itinerary? Of course Rudy’s leading the practical all day tomorrow. Then somebody from HPD is doing an ethics thing on Wednesday.”

  The old man rolled his eyes, “This should be interesting… It will definitely show the difference between old school like us, and the new kids like Rudy.” Smiling he continued, “Billy did say he’d see us there, though.”

  Clay smiled, “Yeah, he’s giving a point/counterpoint with the DA from Harris County on testifying in court. That should be educational, or at least interesting. At least we don’t have to leave the hotel this time!”

  Ricky knocked at the back door and came in, “Hola, Senor Boone! Senor John, is Senor Guilfoile going to pick up the colts this week?”

  The old man handed a cup of coffee to Ricky, “Eddie should be up tomorrow. He’s picking up all three of them, which I’m sure will make Diablo happy. Anyway, I’ll be back on Friday. We’re going to a conference in San Antone’. If you need me, call the cell and I’ll get back to you as soon as I get the message.”

  Ricky nodded, “I will, but only if necessary Senor.”

  ***

  As Clay pulled into the hotel portico, the old man asked, “Why are we here three hours early?”

  Clay snorted, “You want a good room, or a broom closet by the elevator, John? You know damn well I like my sleep, which means peace and quiet. I ain’t getting one of the fancy rooms facing the Riverwalk, I want one on the front of the building, as far from the elevators as I can get. Less noise, and peace and quiet as long as your snoring doesn’t penetrate the walls too bad.”

  The old man laughed, “You’re just spoiled. You’ve been living in the country too long, but since we’re here, let’s go see what we can get.”

  After some dealing with the lady on the front desk, they had adjoining rooms on the fourth floor, opposite end of the hall from the Riverwalk, and facing the bank building across the street. The old man grabbed their bags while Clay parked the car and humped them up to the room.

  After they checked in to the conference, they adjourned to the café in the hotel for coffee and a late breakfast. Just as the meal was delivered, the old man heard, “Oh geez, I gotta put up with y’all today?”

  He looked up to see Billy Moore, wearing what the old man thought of as Billy’s ‘Sunday go to meeting suit’, and grinning ear to ear as he dropped into a chair at the table. “Morning, Billy. I’m assuming I can sleep through your lecture, since I’m pretty damn sure I’ve heard all this before.”

  Billy dramatically placed his hand over his heart, “Oh, the slings and arrows I must endure as a little ol’ defense lawyer… So Clay, how are y’all doing? Did you bring Ronni?”

  Clay chuckled, “Doin’ good Mr. Moore. Ronni has too much stuff going on at home to come, and she doesn’t really care for the shopping here. She’d rather go to Dallas or Houston. She says too many tourists and not enough good bargains here spoil the shopping.”

  The waitress came by, “Would you like anything, sir?”

  Billy nodded, “A cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll if you have one, please. And the bill for these two old reprobates.”

  ***

  After two hours of point and counterpoint between the Harris County DA and Billy Moore, they called a break for fifteen minutes, and everyone hit the restrooms and grabbed some of the munchies and drinks. The old man overheard two young investigators talking about why Billy was giving them the various ways a defense attorney would try to discredit their testimony.

  Without thinking, he said, “It’s because Billy believes in the rule of law. He wants to win fair and square, and he knows all the tricks to confuse you during your expert testimony. Y’all may not know it, but he also represents us through both CLEAT and TMPA, if we need a lawyer.

  The younger of the two officers asked, “How do you know so much about him?”

  The old man replied, “I served in the Army with him, and he’s been my family lawyer for almost thirty years. I think it’s pretty fair to say I know him pretty well.”

  The older officer asked, “Are you still working? As an investigator I mean?”

  Cronin was taken aback, What the hell? These young punks… do I look that old? Facing them, he swept his jacket back enough for them to see the badge, “I’m a captain with Pecos County. Been doing this for a little over thirty years. And I’m the chief investigator for the department, so yes, I’m still working.”

  The older of the two gulped, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded sir…”

  Clay interrupted the old man’s reply, “John, we need to get back in there, Billy wants to chat before the next session kicks off.” As they walked away, Clay said, “Kinda hard on those boys weren’t you?”

  The old man asked, “What do you mean?”

  Clay chuckled, “Oh you bowed up like a damn teenager, and your voice went into asshole interrogator mode…”

  The old man said plaintively, “But they asked if I was still working! Do I really look that old?”

  Clay laughed, “Both of us are dinosaurs. These kids haven’t even lived as long as you and I have been in law enforcement. They can’t comprehend folks like us, that actually have spent a career doing what we do. Hell, they figure we don’t even know how to use a computer.”

  The old man rolled his eyes, “Rudy, right?”

  Clay nodded as they walked up to Billy, who asked, “Italian for dinner?”

  The old man, still distracted by the young investigators comments said, “Italian in San Antone’? What, are we getting pizza?”

  Billy replied, “No John, there are actually good Italian restaurants outside Italy…” Turning to Clay he continued, “Pasta work for you?”

  Clay shrugged, “As long as I don’t have to do dishes, I don’t care.”

  Billy said, “I’ll meet y’all back here at five thirty. I’ll make reservations for six. We can walk it from here, okay?”

  ***

  Billy, Clay and the old man sat in a corner of the bar in the hotel over good scotch as Billy said, “Well, what did you think John? Did the food meet your expectations? Was it Italian enough?”

  The old man groaned, “Oh yeah. That was excellent. I wouldn’t have thought they could produce that quality of food in a tourist town like this! That Frutta di Mare was as good as anything I had in Italy.”

  Clay chimed in, “The spaghetti and meatballs weren’t bad either.”

  Billy shook his head, “You sir, are a philistine of the highest order. Not bad, he says. Not bad? Clay, I’m firmly convinced if it’s not steak and potatoes, it could be a million dollar meal and you would say that it just wasn’t bad.”

  Clay smiled, “I know what I like. The other stuff is edible, but not for everyday fare. And when you’ve eaten spicy foods most of your life, stuff like that is, what’s the word? Bland? Yeah, that’s it.”

  Billy glanced at his watch, “Well, time for me to head home. The b
ird should be at the airport in about thirty minutes. I wonder if they’ve got a shuttle van here?”

  Clay got the waiter’s attention and sure enough, there was a van available. Billy shook hands with them, and went to catch his plane. Clay and the old man finished their drinks and called it an early night.

  ***

  The old man zoned out on Rudy’s incessant reminders about digital pictures, digital measurements, digital this, digital that and looked slowly around the room. Clay was half-asleep, after deciding that old school still worked. As he looked around, he saw a few grey heads, but not many. Some baldheads, but he figured those were the tac-bruiser types. He wondered how many would still be here in five years, much less in ten years.

  Other than a smattering of Rangers, it looked like all the attendees were front line LEOs from around the state. He didn’t see a single Fed, or at least none that he knew. No CBP, no DEA, no DHS, FBI, or Secret Service. Usually there were at least a couple of Fibbies attending, if for nothing else, than keeping track of what the local yokels were up to.

  The old man decided to give Bucky a call at lunch, to see if he’d been able to push the rope any on the info Montoya had passed, and that thought led the old man down a rat hole of how to plan an operation. How many bodies. Figure one, maybe two trucks, one outrider. So four, seven, ten, maybe two in the back of each truck, fourteen. Out of that, eleven we’d have to take.

  Set up the ambush, maybe L-shaped? Shoot the first driver, and third driver, make that twelve after the first two shots. Silenced rifles, accurate shooters, under a minute total to get them all. So shooter/spotter overwatch to control the ambush, four-maybe five parallel to take out the individual shooters, and two, maybe three to set the tail end of the ambush and take out the riders in the back of the trucks. Maybe some claymores, nah, probably det cord in the offside ditch in case anybody gets there from the trucks.

  Need a straight stretch at least five hundred yards long for containment, a little elevation wouldn’t hurt, ‘cause people seldom look up to see if there is a threat above them. What if it’s a house or building? Need an entry team then. Different folks or the same? How do they mix, or do they?

  How much would they want in pay? When they guarded me, it was a thousand a day per man. Shooting stuff will be pricier, two grand a day? Or fixed price, twenty k per man, hundred k loss bonus?

  Clay punched him in the arm, “Hey, wake up! It’s lunchtime. You were off in never-never land there. You ready for more rubber chicken?”

  The old man said, “I’ll pass. I need to make some phone calls. I’ll grab a burger from the café.”

  ***

  The old man didn’t get any satisfaction from Bucky, but he didn’t blame him either. Bucky’s hands were effectively tied under the current administration’s restrictive ROE both on the border, and within the various agencies.

  The rest of the day, the old man paid scant attention to the lecture, turning options over and over in his mind. Retirement would be a necessity, especially to protect Pecos County if things went south. Hell, no great loss there, I’m over sixty-five. I can retire any time, and it’s not like I really need this job anyway. Will is done; Jesse’s got access to all the books, everything she’d need to take over. Aaron can run it for her, if she doesn’t want to. Dunno if she’ll keep the cows.

  Clay finally asked at dinner, “What’s wrong John? You get news you didn’t like at lunch?

  The old man shrugged, “Nothing I didn’t expect. It’s the whole Muslim terrorists coming across the border with weapons that’s bothering me. It’s not like DHS or CBP is doing anything. Nor is anybody else…”

  Clay leaned back, “If you’ve got any info, I can push it up our chain, you know that.” Taking a sip of coffee, he continued, “This isn’t like you. Something’s really got your balls in an uproar. Is it Jesse, Aaron and the baby coming back?”

  The old man replied, “Oh, that’s part of it. But it bothers me even more that intel appears to be getting purposely manipulated, changed or just flat excluded from summaries that are being sent around. I think things are a lot worse, or more things are going on than the administration is letting on. And I do worry. I worry about Jesse and Jace, Aaron, and folks like Matt that are still putting their asses on the line overseas. And I worry about our folks, the LEOs down here on the border.”

  Clay nodded, “It’s a war between us and the cartels, no question. And we’re losing…”

  The old man continued, “Look at the situation we got into. If it hadn’t been for you having the chopper, and me with a big gun, those two border patrol kids would have been dead, and for what? What would have happened if the cartel had RPGs and shot at us? Could you have dodged it?”

  Clay thought for a minute, “Maybe, if I saw it far enough away. If it’s something like a MANPAD, nah. I’m dead meat at that point.”

  ***

  The next day of the conference was an ethics briefing and discussion. It caused much eye rolling among the attendees, as the presenter tried to detail the ethical requirements for LEOs during homicide investigations. Late in the afternoon, they finally did a case sharing session, and the old man and Clay payed close attention, looking at each presentation to see if they might have anything similar in their cold cases or anything that might help the other investigators.

  Most of the cases seemed to be centered on Dallas, Austin, and Houston, with a smattering of cold cases folks were bringing back up in case somebody or something might ring a bell or cross to a more current case.

  Neither of them could add anything, and didn’t have any other reason to stay, so rather than waiting until the next morning, they decided to hit the road after the last presentation, figuring a night in their own beds was better than another night in a hotel.

  The old man drove to the ranch, giving Clay a break, as Clay nodded off in the passenger’s seat. He was still conflicted, wrestling between doing the right thing and staying within the law. As he pulled into the ranch, Clay woke up, “Damn, did I nod off there?”

  The old man chuckled, “For about two hours. Hell, you were asleep before we got out of San Antone’.”

  Clay rubbed his face, “Well, I ain’t as young as I used to be. ‘Preciate your driving for a bit. Guess I better ease on to the house, since I told Ronni I’d be in tonight.” The old man grabbed his bag out of the back seat as Clay came around the car, “John, if there’s something you want me to push up my chain, just let me know, okay?”

  The old man stuck out his hand, “Thanks for the ride. If I get something concrete, I’ll get with you. Say hi to Ronni for me, and y’all come up some time when Aaron and Jesse get here with Jace, and we’ll do some steaks.”

  Clay nodded, “Will do, and Ronni will make a dessert!”

  Winding Down

  Aaron stopped short of pulling the door open, mentally centering himself before he walked into the team spaces. Taking a deep breath, and letting it out in a huff, he swung the door open. It had been two weeks since his hearing, and most of that time had been spent at Medical and at Balboa, getting full workups on his leg and getting refitted for his prosthetics.

  Glancing quickly around as he walked in, it looked like everyone was busy, and for that he was thankful. As he walked back to the office area, he noted that the desks were back in the office, and saw Snake sitting behind one there, talking to another Marine.

  Painfully aware that this was one of the last times he’d be wearing MARPAT, he stepped into the office and caught Snake’s attention, “Aaron! Where you been man? Everybody’s been wondering!”

  The other Marine turned and Aaron saw it was an officer. Pavlovian response kicked in and Aaron popped to attention, “Sir, sorry for disturbing you. I’ll just wait…”

  The captain waved him off, “At ease Gunny. Miller, right? I’ve heard a good bit about you. I’m Garber. I was pulled back from Thirty-First MEU to take over.” Garber stuck out his hand, and Aaron shook it. “Sit. I was getting with Snake and catching up
with the situation here, but according to Snake you’re the expert.”

  Aaron pulled a chair around as the captain sat down in the other office chair. Aaron got a better look at the captain, who was much older than the average captain. Aaron realized he must be looking at a Mustang officer, especially if he was addressing Snake by name.

  Snake chimed in, “The good captain here is my former platoon sergeant when I was a boot, Aaron. We go back a ways. Of course the captain here went aviation and pulled a degree outta his ass, then ruined his reputation by becoming an officer!”

  Garber laughed along with Snake and said, “Pretty much true. Got my degree while I was at Beaufort flying as a Blackhawk crewman. Applied and got picked up for TBS, survived it and here I am.” Grinning at Snake he continued, “I’m truly sorry to hear what happened to you, but I’m putting the teams back on the standard org table, by direction of the general, and we’re going back on the alert cycle as fully qualified at the end of the month. What I need is your input on the folks on the team, positional capabilities, and how you ran them.”

  ***

  Jesse sat at the dining table as Jace chased Boo Boo around the couch, putting a list together of what they would be taking back to Texas. It was a truly short list, as other than clothes, the guns, baby stuff and a few pictures, most of the furniture, dishes and cookware was going to stay for Matt and Felicia. Trash bags in the back of the pickup? Nah, probably not. Aaron might not like that. U-Haul? It’s going to be a two-day trip with Jace and Boo Boo.

  Flipping on the computer, Jesse did a quick search for U-Haul trailers, and was flabbergasted at the prices for a trailer leaving California. If she was coming from Texas, it was a third the cost! Mumbling to herself about the number of people wanting to leave California, she searched for truck bed caps, then went to some of the used items search lists. Fifteen minutes later, she’d found a truck cap in Oceanside that would fit Aaron’s truck.