Power and Empire

by Marc Cameron

  Turf wars notwithstanding, whoever killed Aaron Bennet had come gunning for Callahan. The fact that the killer or killers went to Buttermilk Place instead of Buttermilk Circle gave Caruso a little peek into their intellect and psyche—but, in his experience, assassins hit the wrong person more than a quarter of the time. Two of the first fugitive cases during his early career—when he worked for the FBI more than just on paper—had been victims of mistaken identity. In both cases, the killers had realized the screwup and rectified it in short order.

  Caruso checked the rearview mirror several times a minute as he drove, knowing that the people who wanted Callahan dead were very likely back there now. Traffic was heavy and it was getting dark, which would work to Caruso’s favor if he needed to avoid an attack but made it easy for any bad actors to blend into the sea of headlights behind him.

  He took the exit toward Campbell Road, watching to see if anyone followed. Three sets of lights came off behind him. He turned left to pass back under the freeway, but instead of continuing down Campbell, he camped out at the green light, squirting through just as it turned red to make a quick left back up the frontage road to the east, paralleling the turnpike back in the direction they’d come from. No one behind him did anything crazy to follow.

  Callahan turned to look at him but said nothing. She obviously knew he was working to shake off any unseen tails.

  Caruso glanced across the dim interior of the Expedition. “How long since you’ve had anything to eat?”

  “I’m fine,” Callahan said.

  Caruso decided to press the issue. “Seriously. How long?”

  She gave a dismissive shrug. “I don’t know. I had that coffee for breakfast.”

  “Before that?” Caruso said. “I’ve been with you since before seven this morning and I haven’t seen you eat so much as a breath mint. You’re starting to look a little hollow around the cheeks.”

  Callahan beat her head against the headrest. “We’ve known each other for what, twenty-six hours? I don’t think you’re allowed to call me too skinny.”

  “What?” Caruso grinned. “You’ve called me bastard, son of a bitch, and asshole—along with pretty much every other name in the book over that same time period.”

  “I did not.”

  “Not even in your brain?”

  Callahan laughed out loud. “That doesn’t count.”

  Caruso turned his head to look at her as he drove. “So you admit it?”

  “I admit that I may have thought one or two unflattering things about you.”

  “Good,” Caruso said. “Then I’ll admit I am hungry. Can we please get something to eat?”

  • • •

  Moco pounded his hands against the steering wheel, craning his head left and right in search of the lady cop’s Expedition. He cursed Gusano for eating the dab. He’d been forced to eat the rest of his hash oil plain. Without the benefit of the coconut oil, it wasn’t doing a damn bit of good.

  Taillights flashed and blinked in a confusing river of red. Oncoming headlights blinded him. She’d gotten away from him—and now the boss was going to set him on fire—or pump him full of so much dope he wouldn’t pass out while the guys cut his feet off with a chainsaw.

  This. Could. Not. Be. Happening.

  The Worm sat with his nose pressed against the passenger window, head bobbing to his tunes. He held one of the Glocks in his lap, which was the only thing keeping Moco from shooting the stupid bastard in the back of the head.

  Moco’s mobile phone buzzed as he merged back onto the turnpike. It was the kid.

  “What?”

  “You want me to wait outside or follow them in?”

  Moco’s stomach did a flip. “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re going into the restaurant,” the kid said. “Want me to sit on her car?”

  “What restaurant?” Moco shot a look at Gusano. “Never mind. Just tell me where you’re at. We’ll meet you outside.”

  “Texas Roadhouse,” the kid said. “I’m on the north side of the parking lot.”

  “Wait there for us.” Moco ended the call. He turned to Gusano, suddenly feeling as if he might make it through the night without getting his feet sawed off. Even his anger at the Worm began to fade. “Get ready, my friend.”

  Gusano raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain we are going to the correct restaurant?” His tone said he was serious.

  • • •

  Ten minutes after he cut back under the turnpike at Brand Road, Caruso sat with his back to the wall across the booth from Callahan, watching her slather cinnamon butter on a Texas Roadhouse hot roll. She spoke with her hands as much as her voice and was imbued with such energy and fervor that her red hair bounced in time to her words. The food animated her and she appeared to forget about Detective Little and the dead bodies at Matarife’s ranch.

  Two hot rolls down, Callahan suddenly put both hands flat on the table and looked across at Caruso with narrow eyes. “You know why they’re trying to kill me, don’t you?”

  Caruso started to say something, but she cut him off.

  “It’s not because I’ve gotten into their business, if that’s what you were going to say. I muck up people’s illegal criminal enterprises all the time.”

  “Okay.” Caruso shrugged. “Enlighten me.”

  Callahan gave a tired smile. “It’s because they don’t think I’m playing by the rules.”

  “But you are.” Caruso did a quick scan of the room before making eye contact to show he was listening.

  “Ah,” Callahan said. “But they don’t know that. Your buddy, John—or whatever his name is—grabs Flaco and pressures information out of him, and then blows away Matarife’s yard help and his girlfriend . . . naked in the swimming pool. Except your friend’s pretty good at staying hidden, so they can’t find him. I’m the face of the investigation, so they’re coming after me.”

  Caruso put his hands on the table as well, an interrogation tool called mirroring. She’d be familiar with it, but he did it anyway. “I want you to think about something,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Do you honestly believe that someone who calls himself ‘the Slaughterer’ and sells human beings at online auctions or murders them on camera really gives two shits if you play by the rules? I doubt he even sees any rules.”

  Callahan shrugged. “Maybe not,” she said. “I thought it might get you to spill something useful about your friend John . . . What was his name again? I know he’s gone off the reservation—and when this is over, it’ll be my job to stop him. Our job, really.”

  “Nice try,” Caruso said. “I need to hit the restroom. If the waitress comes back while I’m gone, order me a bone-in ribeye, medium rare, and broccoli.”

  Callahan nodded, eyeing the last roll. “Are you gonna eat that?”

  • • •

  The restrooms were to the right, but Dominic Caruso turned left, heading for the front door. There were several emergency exits, but there was only one public entrance to the restaurant, and he’d made sure he had a table that watched the door. It wasn’t likely, but anyone who was bound and determined to kill Callahan might decide to come in through the kitchen. Caruso decided he’d do a quick check of the parking lot to look for anything out of the ordinary. Their waitress caught him as he was walking past a big barrel of peanuts in an alcove just inside the front door.

  “Everything all right, hon?” the young woman with wide hips and a black ponytail asked.

  Caruso held up the keys to the Expedition. “I forgot something in the car,” he said. “I think my friend could use some more hot rolls, though.”

  The cowbell on the front door clanged, and Caruso saw the reflections of two men in the plate-glass window as they entered behind him. The waitress said something about getting the rolls for Callahan, but Dominic stopped listening as soon as he saw the Santa Muer
te tattoo on the reflection of the man in the lead. He was short and stocky, with the brim of a tattered denim baseball cap pulled low over a flat nose. The man behind him was taller and staggered a little, like he might have had a bit too much to drink. Both wore their shirttails untucked—a convenient way to hide handguns.

  Caruso kept his back to the men and his head down.

  “It’s a forty-five-minute wait,” the hostess told the two men, obviously hoping to persuade the shady newcomers to go somewhere else.

  “That’s okay,” the man with the flat nose said. “We’re meeting friends. We’ll find them.”

  Caruso waited for both men to walk past before holding a finger to his lips so the waitress could see. When they were out of earshot, he leaned in and said, “I’m FBI, call nine-one-one and tell them there are federal agents on scene.”

  “What—”

  “Do it now!” Caruso hissed. He reached inside his shirt collar to pull out a gold FBI badge, letting it hang from a chain around his neck. Ahead of him, the men worked their way around the bar area, stopping to look at each booth as they went by. Callahan was on the other side of the restaurant, short enough that she was hidden behind a high wooden barrier. Caruso had taken the gunfighter seat, so her back was to the door. He estimated the men would be on top of her in less than a half a minute.

  He rested his right hand on the .40-caliber Glock 22 in the holster under his jacket. There was no way to know how many off-duty cops were in the restaurant. He didn’t want to draw the pistol too early, for fear of a blue-on-blue shooting. He took out his cell phone with his left hand, glancing down just long enough to punch in Callahan’s number.

  It went immediately to voice mail.

  Caruso cursed under his breath.

  Thirty feet ahead, the guy with the flat nose motioned to his partner, who had stopped to watch a soccer game above the bar. The taller man shrugged, swayed on his feet a little, and then the two men turned down the row of booths where Callahan sat. She was in the back corner, the one that had given Caruso the wall—which meant that they’d get to her last. But it also meant she wouldn’t see them until they were almost in her lap.

  Caruso took slow breaths, planning his next move. The wall beyond the two bad guys made for a decent enough backstop. But the booths on either side were packed with people. A little boy climbed in and out of the booth where his parents sat, and chased crayons that rolled across the floor. Caruso was an excellent shot, but little kids were like quicksilver in their ability to dart into the line of fire.

  The two guys from Santa Muerte were five paces away now, so intently focused on what they’d figured out had to be Callahan’s booth that they didn’t bother to look behind them. The taller one was now in the lead.

  Caruso picked up his speed, closing the distance in moments. He could sweep his jacket, draw, and fire two rounds from the Glock in a hair under one second. But the men were both armed, and stacked one in front of the other. He’d have to shoot more than twice, and those would have to be head shots.

  Caruso’s hand closed around the grip of his Glock when the tall guy and Flat Nose were four steps from the booth. He shouted, “FBI!” at exactly the same moment a teenage boy to his right slid into the aisle to block his path.

  The Santa Muerte soldiers spun, dragging pistols from under their shirts.

  Caruso grabbed the teenager with his left hand and shoved him sideways, out of the line of fire, while he brought the Glock up. The startled kid had no idea what was going on and fought back, infuriated that Caruso would lay hands on him. He grabbed at the table in an effort to push himself up, screaming bloody murder. Caruso pulled the gun back to keep the kid from knocking it out of his hand—or accidentally eating the barrel.

  36

  Bonnie Porcaro had just taken a bite of her medium-rare ribeye when she heard what sounded like a very angry man in the aisle behind her booth. A petite blond woman in her mid-sixties, she had grown up in Harlingen, which was just about as close as one could get to Mexico and still be in Texas. She hadn’t been back to her hometown in more than twenty years, but she still understood enough Spanish to know what a man behind her had whispered.

  “Time to kill the whore.”

  That just wasn’t something good men said, even if they were joking. The slurred tone of his gravel voice told Bonnie this man was deadly serious.

  Her husband, Mike, sat across from her. He started to say something, but she raised her hand, shushing him. They’d been married more than four decades and he knew all too well when she was serious. At the same time, Bonnie Porcaro reached beneath the table with her right hand and drew a stainless-steel Kimber K6s .357 revolver from a simple pancake holster under her vest. The vest was stylish lightweight cotton and suited a woman of her age. It also did a nice job of hiding her sidearm—which she was seldom without.

  Bonnie had done her research, quizzing her nephew, who was a detective with the Dallas PD, and watching dozens of videos of different models on the Hickok45 YouTube channel. This was the first gun and holster she’d ever owned.

  Bonnie wasn’t a gun nut any more than a person who needed a pickup and bought one for a certain purpose was a truck fanatic. She did not concern herself with all the fancy gadgets and gizmos in the firearms culture. Still, she was practical and went to the range with her girlfriends once a month, religiously presenting the weapon the same way each time she took it out of the holster at night as her instructor had taught her. The little Kimber was plenty for her needs—and she was a heck of a shot. Her nephew told her so.

  Her husband’s eyes grew wide as she brought the weapon up. He didn’t say anything or try to be a hero.

  Bonnie had this.

  She shifted her body sideways in the booth, head toward the wall, feet toward the aisle and the threat. She was aware of the booth across from her, which was thankfully empty, making her shoot/don’t-shoot decision a little simpler.

  Bonnie’s finger tightened on the trigger as the front sight of her Kimber covered a tall and slovenly Hispanic man who was clutching a pistol that was tucked down into his waistband. He staggered, dragging his feet as if he were intoxicated. Definitely a bad guy.

  A male voice to the left suddenly yelled, “FBI!” causing her to pause her shot.

  Bonnie hardly had time to blink before the redheaded woman in the next booth swung around the corner with a long pepper grinder in both hands like a baseball bat. She bashed the tall man in the face, dropping him at the same moment that a second man, this one with a flat nose, staggered by. His attention split between the FBI agent behind him and the woman who’d just bashed his friend in the face, and the flat-nosed man roared, spewing curses in Spanish as he drew a black pistol from under his shirt.

  Bonnie Porcaro let the man’s silhouette blur, focusing on the Kimber’s front sight as she pressed the double-action-only trigger. Her instructor had told her over and over that slow was smooth and smooth was fast. The pistol barked twice. It was so loud on the range, but, oddly to Bonnie, it seemed to make no noise as it fired. She wasn’t even sure it had fired, and then thought maybe she’d missed if it had. The man with the flat nose just turned his head to look at her, as though he was put out by her behavior. He started to bring his gun around, but she’d already adjusted her aim and pressed the trigger again. The Kimber’s third bullet punched an almost perfect hole in the bridge of his flat nose.

  He lingered there for a moment, then pitched sideways on top of his dazed friend, who’d just been smacked with the pepper grinder.

  “FBI,” a man’s voice said again to her left. “Ma’am. Please put down your weapon.”

  Bonnie slowly lowered the Kimber to the table before raising both empty hands above her head. She’d trained for this as well. Across the table, Mike stared at her slack-jawed, as if he wasn’t quite certain who he’d been sleeping with for the last forty-four years.

  �
� • •

  Dominic Caruso secured the blond woman’s revolver while he aimed his own weapon at the guy Callahan had clobbered with the pepper grinder. Callahan had her handcuffs out and was already moving in. She looked up at the blonde.

  “You okay?”

  “He was going to shoot you,” the woman said. Her hands were still up, but she was remarkably composed for someone who’d just blown off the back of a man’s skull.

  Callahan slapped the cuffs on the moaning assassin and smiled. “You can relax, ma’am,” she said. “Lucky for me you’re a good shot.” She looked up at Caruso. “And that you had the good sense to call my cell. I knew something was up because you’d just left. I did a quick peek over the booth and saw these rocket scientists wander in.”

  Caruso scanned the restaurant, looking for any other would-be assassins. These guys tended to travel in packs. He saw no immediate threats, but what he did see was at least five more restaurant patrons with their hands either on the butt of an exposed sidearm or in a purse getting ready to draw one.

  “FBI,” he said again. “Everyone please relax and keep your firearms where they are.” He chuckled and helped Callahan to her feet. “Texas appears to be a bad place to become an assassin.”

  The blond citizen who’d saved the day gave a solemn nod, her hands just beginning to shake from the post-shooting adrenaline dump.

  “You got that right, hon,” she said.

  37

  The alarm on Jack Ryan, Jr.’s cell phone began to chime at two a.m., nudging him awake with gradually increasing volume. He’d read somewhere that being jolted out of a deep sleep was a good way to suffer brain damage—and if that was the case, he and most of the people he knew were in serious trouble.