Retribution Road

by Jon Coon

  He was darkly complected, because of his Cajun ancestry, lean like a swimmer or runner, but with staunch arms, shoulders, and neck from years of workouts. Carol watched and said nothing. She liked what she saw. It wasn’t until he bent down to pick up the maul that he saw her standing in the shadows.

  “Hope I didn’t wake you.” He set the maul aside and walked toward her. He pulled on his shirt and opened his arms for her hug, then backed away. “Sorry, I’m pretty sweaty.”

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “I woke to close the windows and saw the lights. You don’t usually practice anger management in the middle of the night. What’s up?”

  “You know me too well. Yeah, it was bad.” He led her to the deck, and they settled into the double rocker. The dogs dropped beside her and muzzled her for attention.

  Two days had passed since Gabe pulled the truck from the quarry, but maybe he needed more time. She leaned forward and stroked the dogs’ heads for a few silent moments, then sat back. “Are you ready to talk or do you need to split another cord or two?” She stood, moved to the edge of the deck, and sat, looking into the night.

  “I guess I’m ready, but this involves you, and I needed to work it off before we talked. This is a tough one.” He rose and sat beside her, then took her hand. “There’s not an easy way to tell you this, so just brace yourself.”

  She turned to him and saw a seriousness she’d not seen before. “It’s not Paul?” She tensed and squeezed hard.

  “No, no sign of him, but it was his truck, and there was a dead girl in the seat.”

  “Oh dear God!” She leaned against him with a gasp.

  “Dear God, is right,” he said and held her. What had that boy gotten himself into this time?

  They sat together, hearts aching, fearing the unspeakable. They watched the moon rise higher through the trees until moonlight blanketed the slow-moving river, and they listened to the bird calls welcoming the night. Or scurrying to hide from it. Both realized that whatever tomorrow had in store was going to be life changing. And it wouldn’t be for the better.

  Chapter 4

  Galveston, Texas

  Earlier that night, in Galveston, Texas, DEA agents and Texas Rangers had waited in darkness on the edge of the Christmas Bay channel, at the west end of Galveston Island. They talked quietly back and forth on secure radio channels. “Radar’s got traffic approaching the bridge,” Agent Martin reported. “Two targets coming in hot.”

  “Got visual,” Captain Tom Bright reported from the Blue Water Highway bridge. He scanned with night-vision optics and could clearly see two go-fast boats approaching. He kept low on the bridge. Rangers had both ends of the bridge blocked and were also keeping low profiles. Captain Bright checked his watch: oh-four-twelve. Clear night, sun up in a couple hours. As the two boats drew closer, he turned on the camera and kept it on them as they passed under the bridge. When they were out of sight, he walked back to his car and drove west toward the compound where the drugs would be unloaded. The trap was well planned and, if successful, would be another of the largest busts in task force history. One of several over the past few months as part of a war on the cartel whose cocaine had created an epidemic of fatalities along the Gulf Coast.

  If successful …

  The last two raids had ended in bloodshed on both sides, and now, if the rumors were true, the cartel was targeting task force family members to get information about future operations. Fun and games were over. The cartel was out for blood.

  Captain Bright passed the San Luis Island development and turned down a shell road running beside a narrow canal. Lights off, he found a spot wide enough to park and began walking. Soon, in the moonlight he could see the dilapidated tin boat sheds and icehouse from what had once been a shrimp fishery. Two shrimpers, freshly painted with new rigging and new nets, floated in their slips. The paint and the rig were all for show. The boats had not boated a shrimp in years. The crews had moved on to more profitable cargo. And thus far had been lucky.

  Bright approached the nearest boat shed and was waived into its shadow by a young DEA lieutenant. “Any time now,” Walker said. He held his MP5 firmly. No signs of nervous anxiety, just total conviction.

  Bright found a spot to plant the camera, checked the focus, and put the remote in his pocket. He carried a pair of Kimber Target .45s with Crimson Trace Lasergrips and was a legend among the Rangers for his deadly accuracy. He unsnapped both holsters, sat calmly, and waited.

  “Targets running dark about five minutes out,” a forward observer reported.

  “Roger that. Five minutes,” Walker answered. “Snipers ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “EOD?”

  “Ready.”

  “Hard and fast and good luck, everyone,” Captain Bright said quietly.

  “Roger that, sir.”

  They heard the boats before they saw them. As the two sleek black shadows approached the shore, powerful spotlights from the boats swept the compound, startling and blinding the agents and Rangers. Automatic weapons fire from one of the boats raked the boat shed to Bright’s left. The snipers returned fire, and then Bright heard the big engines roar to life as the boats turned to run.

  “Now!” Bright commanded, and before the boats could complete the one-eighty turn back to open water, the first of several large, mid-water explosions created geysers fifty feet high. The boats were lifted by the water and then slammed hard back into it. The crews were thrown overboard and both boats swamped. As the crewmen tried to swim away, they were met by two DEA boats and several gun barrels pointed down at them by serious-looking agents.

  “Hard and fast. No casualties on the task force team. Millions of dollars in drugs recovered and all of it on camera for the early morning news,” Walker said with a dry smile. “Nice working with you, Captain Bright. Planting those charges in the water was brilliant. Let’s do this again sometime.”

  “You’ve got my number, Hoss. Call me anytime.”

  The next morning was Saturday. Emily was on the couch eating cold cereal and drinking a Coke. Carol had left on the TV, tuned to the morning news. Emily looked up from her phone and shrieked, “Mom, Grandpa Tom is on TV!”

  “Hang on, Dad,” Carol said to her phone, “Emily says you’re on TV. I’ll call you right back.” She had been telling her father about Paul’s disappearance and the dead girl.

  Carol came quickly from the kitchen. The story of the drug bust was on the national news. Carol quickly dialed Gabe at the RV and told him to watch. The three-minute report showed the boats going airborne, the crews being arrested, and then the mountain of cocaine bricks. It ended with an interview of Captain Tom Bright, who discussed the recent drug fatalities and finished with a strong warning against using the hard-hitting coke.

  Carol called her father back and answered his questions about Paul. Her dad offered to fly over from Texas, but Carol suggested he wait until there was news. She was still on the phone when, a few moments later, Gabe knocked on the porch door. Emily answered. His two stout black labs, Smith and Wesson, dropped on the southwestern-patterned area rug in front of the river-stone fireplace, having been told many times the new couch was off limits. Gabe, however, was allowed to sit on the couch, and did so.

  Emily pounced down beside him. “Wasn’t that cool? Grandpa on TV. I remember when you were on after the bridge fell in, but you didn’t say much. He got to say a lot.”

  “He’s a pretty cool guy. That’s for sure.”

  “I talked to him last week. He said we can come and pick out horses before school starts. I can’t wait. He’s going to bring them home for us. How cool is that?”

  “Now that the barn is done, that’s perfect.” He smiled almost as much as she did.

  Carol came around the bar from the kitchen. “That was my dad on the phone. Have you heard anything?”

  “About what?” Emily asked.

  “Your brother has moved, and we don’t know where he’s gone,” Carol answered. “Don�
�t worry. It may be nothing. But we need to find him.”

  Emily frowned. “Well, have you heard anything, Gabe? Is he in trouble or is this just another one of his stupid stunts?”

  “Like your mom said, it may be nothing, but we’re concerned, and hopefully we’ll hear from him soon.”

  Carol nodded her thanks to Gabe and blotted a tear Emily didn’t see before saying, “I made an apple pie today. I had to do something. I was going to save it for tonight, but it looks awfully good. Anyone interested in pie for breakfast?”

  “Ice cream?” Emily asked.

  “Never. We never have ice cream in this house, you know that.” Carol laughed. They always had ice cream.

  “Oh, Mom.”

  “Come help me serve. Ask Gabe if he wants coffee.”

  “That would be nice, thanks.”

  The conversation continued until the pie and ice cream were gone, and Carol said, “Okay, Gabe and I need some adult time, Emily, and your room needs the clothes picked up and the carpet vacuumed. Scram.” With mild protest, Em hugged Gabe, then pranced off to her room, affectionately known as “the princess suite.”

  Carol invited Gabe out onto the large front porch. She looked back to make certain Emily was out of earshot, then closed the door and curled up next to him on the nicely padded loveseat swing. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “Have you really not heard anything?” she asked quietly. She looked at him expectantly.

  “Nothing. We went to the house. They cleared most everything out in a hurry, but there were drug traces in the carpet and bedroom. The place still reeked of pot.”

  “I never should have . . .”

  “That wasn’t really our call, as you might remember. You didn’t throw him out. He bailed.”

  “What about the dead girl?”

  “Not his girlfriend. The girlfriend has several tats. None on this one. She still hasn’t been identified, but soon. Immersion distorts everything, but her teeth are good. Dental will ID her in time. We got the autopsy today. She OD’d on wicked-strong coke. Heart failure and brain damage. Dead before the truck went into the water. Hard to tell how long she was submerged.”

  “Coke doesn’t usually kill. What happened?”

  “This stuff does. Customers want a bigger bang, like the new pot with ten times the THC. This stuff has got the bang and there’s a lot of demand. Until it gives you a heart attack or a stroke or both. They might as well be selling rat poison.”

  “I hope Paul’s all right.”

  “I’ve got to be honest. It doesn’t look good.”

  She took his hand. “I know you have to do your job, but . . .”

  “The job is to find out what really happened. Let’s just pray Paul wasn’t involved.”

  She nodded, then asked, “What’s next?”

  “The lab guys are trying to chemically map the drugs. When they’re done, I want to talk to your dad, see if there are similarities.”

  “What about finding Paul?”

  “With a couple days’ head start, they could be anywhere. If they were dealing, we have to assume they’ve got money. If he had anything to do with that girl’s death, he’ll be laying low, so it’s going to be hard. But we’ll find him.”

  “You’re the best. I know that.” She squeezed his hand and then released it. “Have you heard from Alethea?”

  “Not in the past couple weeks. She’s on book tour and it’s going pretty well. I think Cas is with her. That trip to the hospital slowed her down, but she says she’s doing better. The new house is coming along. I stopped to check on it this afternoon. The storm did a lot of damage to her property. It’s going to take some work to clear the downed trees and make it livable again.”

  “Do you really think she offered to trade her own life to save Emily? That’s so unbelievable.”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That’s just who she is.”

  “I wonder.”

  “What?”

  “Who she really is.”

  “Well, she’s the person who saved me after Katrina. Without her I’d have ended up in a padded cell. And I guess she’s one of the two folks I completely trust. You are the other, and sometimes I’m not so sure about you.” He laughed. She hit him in the ribs with her elbow.

  “Let’s pray that she’s with us for a lot longer because, well, life is just better with her in it.”

  “But that snake and all the voodoo stuff? Can any of that be real?”

  “You still have doubts? There’s a lot more in this world than what we can easily understand. And you’ve seen enough to know that’s true. Or, as she says, ‘that’s for certain sure.’”

  Chapter 5

  PAUL EVANS AND ADRIANA CORTEZ (usually called “Chica” or something worse) waited in the dark car beside the grass airstrip near Gulfport, Mississippi. Car headlights would be the only lights on the field, and then only for as long as it took the pilot to get his bearings and get the twin-engine Piper Aztec on the ground.

  Paul had been quiet for too long. He was working up his courage to confront her about the events of the past two days.

  “I want my truck back, Adriana. What did you do with it?”

  “Once we get to Mexico you can have any truck you want. You’ll see. It’s hermoso, beautiful, there. You can go diving every day. It’s paraiso. Paradise. Now shut up and leave me alone.”

  “And that girl at the party … I saw them carry her out. What happened to her?”

  “She’s fine. She just needed to sleep it off. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine when the plane gets here.”

  “I need to pee.”

  “Fine, go pee. Just watch out for snakes and gators.”

  Paul got out of her Corvette and walked behind it. From his pocket, he pulled her phone, and, holding it as if he were holding something else, he popped the back and used a paper clip to open the lid and flip out the SIM chip.

  “What are you doing?” she called from the car.

  “What do you think?”

  “Well don’t make a career of it. Hurry up.”

  “You’re welcome to help.”

  “Fat chance. Just hurry up.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure she wasn’t watching, then pulled out the SIM chip he’d hidden in his underwear, the one from his own phone that she had destroyed, and inserted it into her phone. He closed the phone, zipped his fly, and with her phone concealed in his coat, sat back down in the car. She was smoking a joint.

  “Is that a good idea now?”

  “Relax, we’re safe now. No one is going to find us out here in the middle of nowhere. Here, have a hit. It’s the best there is.”

  Later that evening, as they were clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, Gabe’s phone rang. Marty was calling from the state police office.

  “Paul’s phone just came back online. He’s just outside Gulfport at an old abandoned airfield. We’re sending a chopper for you, and we’ve alerted the local police.”

  “Thanks, Marty. I’ll be ready.”

  “News?” Carol asked.

  “Yeah, chopper’s on its way. We need to turn on the yard lights and get the dogs in.”

  “Can I go? I might be able to talk some sense to him.”

  “Good idea. Get your stuff. But only if there’s room in the chopper.”

  “I understand.”

  “Chill, Boy Wonder, just a little bit longer and we’re golden.” Chica sat back in the seat, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. She held the smoke and let it out in small bursts like smoke signals. She moaned softly and melted slowly.

  Paul took advantage of her distraction and slid her phone down between the seats. He sat back and opened his window. Smoke rose into the clear midnight sky. He was half asleep when the plane flew over. She bounced awake. “What the . . .? They were supposed to call.”

  The plane circled and began its approach. It landed cleanly on the grass, taxied to the end of the field, and turned.


  “Let’s go. Hurry up,” she ordered.

  “I don’t think so. I wasn’t dealing, you and your friends were. You go. I’m staying here.”

  She pulled a small pistol out of her purse. “Our friends want to see you in Mexico tonight. Get out of the car.”

  “Why would anyone you know want to see me?”

  “Wise up, kid. Your grandfather is Tom Bright, the famous Texas Ranger, right? That’s what you said. He’s cost us a lot of money. And you’re going to help get it back. Get out of the car.”

  Paul opened the door and eased out of the seat. He checked the terrain, looking for the closest cover, but hesitated. Two armed men from the plane were walking toward them. “What the hell’s the holdup?” the larger one asked.

  “He doesn’t want our all-expense-paid vacation.” Chica snickered.

  “Let’s go, kid. You either come with us or we leave you here face down, full of holes.”

  “Yeah, okay. I get it.” Paul raised his hands and moved toward them.

  As they walked back toward the plane the leader said, “You were supposed to be on your phone, Chica. We called you a half dozen times.”

  “I had it right here. It never rang.” She pulled the phone from her purse and looked at it as if confused. “Those aren’t my calls—what the hell did you do?” She glared at Paul.

  Headlights and blue lights and sirens came at them from the opposite end of the field.

  “He tipped the cops, that’s what he did, you stupid puta.”

  Paul broke into a run toward the police cars. Chica fired her .380 and hit him twice in the back. Each shot felt like a baseball from a line drive. As he fell, he saw the flight crew leader cut Chica down with a blast from his .45.

  “We needed him alive, puta.”

  Paul’s vision went fuzzy and he couldn’t feel his legs. He was being dragged to the plane and wasn’t strong enough to fight back or run. They strapped him in and left him bleeding.