Strong Justice

by Jon Land

  “We will murder their police. We will attack their schools. We will kidnap their children. We will strike fear into their hearts and change their country forever, as they have changed ours. We will make their streets even bloodier than the streets of Juárez.”

  “We thought this meeting was about the coup,” another of his officers said, “and the attacks you ordered on the American tourists.”

  “And now I’m ordering those attacks be halted. Once the government is ours, the Americans must feel safe here again so they do not suspect the truth.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “That we are the ones who’ve gone to war with them.”

  “War?” raised the colonel. “War with the United States?”

  “Two hundred men, even twenty, can do far more than two or even twenty thousand. Look at Mumbai. It took all of ten men to claim an entire city.”

  “Mumbai,” said a captain who’d been educated in the United States, “is not New York or Los Angeles.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then what is it you’re not telling us?”

  Montoya had been waiting for that question. His catlike eyes peered through the temple’s half-light, meeting each of the officers’ stares before responding.

  “Our foe will be on its knees when our guerrilla war begins, already mortally wounded. The Americans have financed our plans with their appetite for our drugs, and now they will pay the ultimate price for that. Don’t you see?”

  It was clear from the men’s expressions that they didn’t.

  “I chose you because, like mine, your blood runs pure and unpolluted. Like me you understand that the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end in 2012. It’s here in the drawings made centuries ago, how we will lay waste to a vast army to the north. But the point of the prophecy is figurative, not literal. The world will end as we know it, and we are the instruments to bring that to pass. We are soldiers of God, fulfillers of the prophecy.”

  “What did you mean about our foe already being on its knees?” the major wondered.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Montoya said, grinning.

  65

  ALBION; THE PRESENT

  Caitlin was on the road early in the morning, wanting to beat the traffic west to Albion. The quicker she got there to pick up the blood samples from Sheriff Tate Huffard, the quicker she could get the lab results back and determine what exactly Hollis Tyree’s water project had inadvertently unleashed on the town. This as Captain Tepper led a raid on the hotel where Frank Branca Jr. was headquartered.

  She parked amid the cream-colored squad cars emblazoned with the logo for the sheriff’s department. Caitlin entered the sheriff’s station to find a deputy she didn’t recognize sitting at the desk behind the waist-high swinging door.

  “May I help you, Ranger?” he greeted, rising.

  “I’m looking for Sheriff Huffard.”

  The man sized her up, eyes holding on the SIG holstered on her hip. “May I ask what your business is with him?”

  “That’s between him and me, Deputy.”

  “Well, I’m afraid the sheriff isn’t available. Left strict orders not to be bothered unless it was an absolute emergency.”

  Caitlin gazed about the room at the other deputies present, realizing she didn’t recognize any of them either. “I believe this pretty much qualifies there.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Not to you, sir, no.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the incident at the H.E.B.? Because that’s none of your concern anymore, Ranger.”

  She hitched her hands up to her hips. “I’m afraid it is, on account of the fact that the Rangers were called in on that in an official capacity.”

  “It’s over.”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation, Deputy. As resident Ranger, that’s my call, not yours. Or didn’t you know that?”

  “Tell you what,” the deputy said, advancing just enough to appear menacing, “leave me your number and I’ll have Sheriff Huffard give you a call.”

  “Why don’t you do that now and I’ll just wait here?”

  The other unfamiliar deputies rose from their chairs.

  “You’re not from Texas, are you, Deputy?” she asked suddenly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your accent’s all wrong, the way you pronounce your words. You from back East or something?”

  Caitlin could see the man stiffen. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, Ranger.”

  “We’re just talking here.”

  “And now we’re not.”

  The deputy stared at Caitlin. Caitlin stared right back.

  “Why don’t you just tell me where I can find Sheriff Huffard?”

  “We’re done.”

  “Whatever you say,” Caitlin said, backpedaling for the door, letting the deputies see how close her hand was to her SIG. “You boys have yourselves a nice day now.”

  Caitlin waited until she was on the freeway, with the outskirts of Albion shrinking behind her, before calling D. W. Tepper on her cell phone.

  “We’re just pulling up outside the hotel entrance now,” he told her. “You on your way back with those samples?”

  “Not exactly, sir.”

  “Don’t make the indigestion I already got worse, Ranger.”

  “Sheriff Huffard’s gone.”

  “Say what?”

  “Ran into a bunch of deputies I never saw before who said he’s unavailable.”

  “Sounds bad.”

  “Exactly why I—” Caitlin stopped, a sound toying with the edges of her consciousness.

  “Ranger?” she heard D. W. Tepper ask, as her eyes lifted to the rearview mirror to find one of Albion’s squad cars tearing toward her with lights and siren both going. “Think I’m being pulled over, Captain.” Caitlin studied the police cruiser’s growing shape in her rearview mirror. “Just stay on the line.”

  She considered and reconsidered her options as the cruiser continued to close. No way her V6-equipped SUV could possibly outrun it. And if, for whatever crazy reason there was going to be a gunfight, better to have it on still ground rather than from moving vehicles. She didn’t know what kind of shots these men were, but she knew how good she was.

  “How you wanna play this, Ranger?” Tepper asked.

  “Let you know when I’m done. You smoke a cigarette this morning, sir?”

  A brief silence followed her question, then, “How the hell you know that?”

  Caitlin felt the shoulder gravel crunching under her boots and stood stark still outside her SUV, angled slightly to the side in a shooter’s stance with right hand poised over her SIG. The squad car ground to a halt twenty feet from her, lights left on but siren extinguished. Another pair of deputies she didn’t recognize climbed out but left their doors open, remaining poised behind them.

  “You boys aren’t cops,” Caitlin told them. “You know it and now I know it. Cops would’ve already shown their guns, not draw them only to hold them low enough to figure they couldn’t be seen. Show those pistols now and the next thing you boys see’ll be the ground coming up hard. That clear enough?”

  The men looked at each other, remained silent.

  “Tell you something else. My nine-millimeter shells’ll cut through those car doors like a knife through butter. You got a move you wanna make,” Caitlin continued, “now’s the time. Or maybe you should make a call to whoever you’re really working for, ask him what you should do about the Texas Ranger ready to shoot you down as you stand.”

  The men looked at her.

  “I’m gonna assume I wasn’t speeding. I’m gonna assume you pulling me over was just a friendly gesture to remind me about that busted tail-light I haven’t gotten around to getting fixed yet. That’s the way we can leave this. Just get back into our cars and go our separate ways, no harm done. Sound good?”

  The men hesitated, right shoulders held a bit higher as if still thinking about raising their guns. Then the shoulde
rs relaxed, and Caitlin stood there watching the two of them climb back into their cruiser. She waited for them to pull away before sliding back behind the wheel of her SUV.

  “Captain,” she said into her cell phone.

  “Tell me I didn’t hear what I just thought I did.”

  “Didn’t hear any gunshots, though, did you?”

  “I figured they were coming.”

  “Not yet anyway,” Caitlin told him, watching the police cruiser disappear back down the freeway.

  66

  SAN ANTONIO; THE PRESENT

  Cort Wesley watched Tepper’s face darken as he pocketed his phone and moved gingerly to climb out of his truck parked outside of the Hyatt Regency.

  “What Caitlin have to say?” he asked, when Tepper drew even with him en route to the dozen Rangers already holding inside the lobby.

  “Stick to what we got before us here and now, Mr. Masters, if you don’t mind.”

  “Glad to, sir,” Cort Wesley said and followed Tepper into the lobby.

  The night before he and Caitlin had checked themselves and the boys into two different motels, leaving his truck parked outside a room at the second before walking down the street to a third. Good thing about San Antonio was there was no shortage of inexpensive motels where both amenities and questions were kept to a minimum. Because a killer and God knew what else was running loose out there and the lives of his boys were in danger. And, if nothing else, holing up in motels for a time would keep Marianna Silvaro’s social services Gestapo from coming to collect his sons.

  He never thought anything would bring him back to the Branca family, but this was different—riding up in an elevator with Captain Tepper and five other Rangers, the rest dispersed strategically about the lobby and exits. They stepped out on the eighth floor and rounded a corner toward Frank Branca Jr.’s suite overlooking the Riverwalk with Cort Wesley taking the lead.

  A strange feeling struck him even before he reached the door, almost like a residue hanging in the air he couldn’t identify by smell but knew was there all the same. At the suite door, Cort Wesley saw instantly the latch had been blown. Scorched metal and wood marred the area where the key card slot and knob had been. He’d seen miniature shaped charges produce such an effect during raids in the Gulf War, but knew they were strictly military ordnance by definition.

  He could tell from the way their drawn weapons were now raised and ready that the Rangers had come to pretty much the same conclusion. He looked toward Captain Tepper who nodded, a signal for Cort Wesley to ease open the door, the stench of blood and death assaulting him immediately.

  “Nobody touch a goddamn thing,” Tepper ordered, advancing into the suite ahead of Cort Wesley when it was clear the shooters were gone.

  Cort Wesley followed Tepper inside, running his eyes over the bodies of Frankie Jr. and his three bodyguards with the captain.

  “You got an opinion on what you see here, Mr. Masters?”

  “Wasn’t a mob hit, that’s for sure.”

  “How?”

  “All four were dropped by controlled three-shot bursts, military-style with M16s or a more recent version maybe. They picked up the spent shells, so there’s not much more to say on the subject.”

  “That’s a lot to assume, sir.”

  “Not when you’ve been on the other side of this kind of work.”

  Tepper held his gaze on him for a long moment, giving Cort Wesley’s eyes the time to wander toward the body of Frank Branca Sr. slumped in his wheelchair, the victim of a three-shot burst as well. Judging from the blood trail, he’d been wheeled back away from the window after he’d been killed.

  Sons of bitches, Cort Wesley thought, feeling his hands tighten into fists.

  “So how you figure this went down?” Tepper asked, snapping him alert again.

  Cort Wesley saw it all in his mind, how quickly and expertly it had happened, based on the positioning of the bodies and how none of them had had time to draw their own weapons. The guards had been taken first while they watched television, followed by Frank Jr. since he’d been standing when hit instead of sitting. The shooters had shot Frank Sr. last.

  “Guess that about sums it up,” Tepper said, making Cort Wesley realize he had spoken all his thoughts out loud.

  The suite hadn’t been tossed. But things had been disturbed just enough to tell Cort Wesley, the shooters had come here with something else besides killing on their minds. The couch cushions were too even and all the chairs were tucked neatly under the suite’s dining table instead of them being angled toward the fifty-inch, wall-mounted plasma television.

  “The briefcase Frankie Jr. had with him yesterday is gone,” Cort Wesley heard himself say this time. “Contents were what he was selling.”

  Tepper took off his hat and mopped his brow. “Well, guess it’s safe to say he never got to complete the transaction.”

  67

  TUNGA COUNTY; THE PRESENT

  Hollis Tyree III listened to the light squeak the Watertec 100 made as it chewed through dirt, sledge, and rock in search of water deep below the surface. Its thick black tubing shook from the pressure, and Tyree thought he felt the very earth vibrating in protest beneath his feet.

  He imagined that the wildcatters and speculators who flooded Texas in the time of his grandfather felt the very same way as the drill bits attached to their derricks churned through the sludge. They’d creak and groan, their wooden supports not always strong enough to withstand spring storm winds. Here, eighty years later, wood had been swapped for steel, oil for water. But little else had changed and Tyree found himself taking peculiar comfort in that.

  He’d once seen his father take a bullwhip to a journalist who’d infiltrated his work force to uncover safety violations. Snapped the whip out a half-dozen times until the man’s shirt was a tattered, bloody mess and he was lying in the mud. Hollis Tyree Jr.’s boots kicked up dirt as he strode over and jerked the journalist’s head out of the muck.

  “You write a single word about what you saw and I’ll drop your family down a well. You hear?”

  The journalist nodded, sending flecks of grime and blood flying. He remained true to his word because he knew Hollis Tyree Jr. meant everything he said, how far he’d go to preserve his dream. Well, now his son had no choice but to go just as far, no matter where exactly that took him. Albion for him had become what that journalist was for his father. Tyree didn’t relish the prospects of going up against Caitlin Strong and the Texas Rangers, but she hadn’t left him much of a choice. Too much was at stake here to lose it all thanks to the craziness infecting one goddamn town. He needed to buy the time required to get things buttoned up once and for all, even if that meant shutting this particular site down for a time.

  Tyree pictured himself taking that same whip to Caitlin Strong. Losing his children had hardened him into the man he should have been in the first place. He understood now why his father had sought to toughen him up, to teach him nothing came without paying a price for it. He’d dispatched a veritable army to Mexico to find his children, when he should have taken his dad’s bullwhip and headed down there himself.

  Well, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake again, not with Albion.

  The rumbling around him got louder and it took Tyree a few moments to realize it was actually coming from an SUV tearing to a halt just a few yards from him. Meeks jumped out, followed by four of his guards wielding assault rifles, each taking up a ready position as if expecting an attack.

  “What’s happening, Meeks?” Hollis Tyree asked, approaching them.

  “Professor Lamb was found murdered this morning, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Single bullet to the head. Execution style. And there’s something else.” Meeks started to reach into his pocket. “The lab report you commissioned just came back.”

  Tyree saw worry flash in Meeks’s eyes for the first time as he took the pages and unfolded them, scanning quickly until he came to the final conclusive paragraph.r />
  “This can’t be.”

  “Let’s go, sir,” Meeks prodded. “Now, please. You may not be safe here.”

  But Tyree read the report again; nothing changing, the results the same.

  “What have I done, Meeks? What in God’s name have I done?”

  PART SEVEN

  One day on the firing range, an FBI agent spotted a Texas Ranger with a 1911 model .45 caliber pistol shoved inside his belt; no holster, cocked and unlocked. The agent came up to the Ranger and tactfully asked if carrying a pistol that way wasn’t dangerous.

  “Son,” the Ranger said, “if that damned old thing wasn’t dangerous, I wouldn’t be carrying it.”

  —Texas Ranger parable

  68

  SAN ANTONIO; THE PRESENT

  Captain D. W. Tepper entered Cooper’s Bar and Grill after Caitlin and Cort Wesley had already sat down at a corner table. Cort Wesley arranged his chair to keep an eye on Dylan and Luke who were playing video games on leftover machines supplied years before by the Branca crime family. The sight made him think of his last views of both junior and senior earlier in the day.

  Tepper stopped to greet a singer named Mike Blakely who was tuning up his guitar and ramping up the sound system for that night’s acoustic show; a CD release party with a band called The Rats opening, according to the marquee outside.

  Tepper continued on to the table and removed his Stetson as he took a chair centered between Caitlin and Cort Wesley.

  “I like this place,” Cort Wesley said to him.

  “Ex-Ranger’s a partner, so it tends to attract a lot of law enforcement types.”

  “Makes me feel right at home these days.”

  “Well, now that we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries,” said Tepper, “maybe we can discuss what the hell’s going on in Albion. For starters, I can tell you the Department of Public Safety had no idea what the hell I was talking about.”

  “It’s Hollis Tyree’s doing,” Caitlin told him. “For sure.”