Strong Vengeance

by Jon Land

  Another silent burst of heat lightning blazed the sky to the west, illuminating the face of Guillermo Paz seated in the big truck’s driver’s seat. He was breathing hard and squeezing the wheel yet harder. He looked even more mountainous than usual, wearing a long-sleeve shirt that rode his arms tight enough for Caitlin to see the tight bands of muscle coiling on his forearms through the sleeves.

  “I see the circus has come to town, Ranger,” he greeted, gaze drifting down the street

  “You shouldn’t be here, Colonel. You’re still a wanted man in Texas.”

  Paz let his gaze drift down the street again. Another flash of lightning pierced the sky, making his eyes look like twin flashbulbs. “Looks like the circus has other things on their mind tonight.”

  “There’s nothing new on the terrorists.”

  “There will be, Ranger, and very soon. I saw it in a dream, the same way I saw this.”

  “This or what came before?”

  “There were four men, gunmen, yes? In the dream I couldn’t see their faces and they all looked the same, and bullets were bouncing off their skin.”

  Caitlin could only shake her head. “You really do amaze me, Colonel.”

  “Who were they?”

  “It doesn’t matter right now.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

  Caitlin moved closer to the window. “This isn’t your fight.”

  Paz looked away, toward nothing in particular this time. “You saved my life, Ranger.”

  “I seem to recall it being the other way around, Colonel.”

  “You know what I mean, so I’ll ask you not to tell me this isn’t my fight.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Paramilitary group that calls itself Rubicon X-Ultra. I believe they were hired by a man I’m chasing down on another investigation. They’re the ultimate ghosts. No address, no Website, strictly referral, friend-of-a-friend crap. Nobody has any idea how to find them, even Jones.”

  “I do,” Paz said simply, turning back toward her.

  76

  SHAVANO PARK, THE PRESENT

  Caitlin and Cort Wesley sat side by side again on the porch swing, both Dylan and Luke sleeping inside or at least trying to.

  “Captain Tepper approved use of the Ranger plane for us tomorrow,” Caitlin said, sipping from a mug of steaming coffee even though humidity held the night in its grasp as tightly as the day.

  “So long as there’s room for the boys on it.”

  “Plenty.”

  “Guess they’ll be safer in the air than on the ground here.”

  “They’ll be safer anywhere than on the ground here.”

  “Glad we’re of the same mind on that, Ranger.”

  “When are we not, Cort Wesley?”

  He looked at her face framed by the light mist rising from her black coffee. “There it is again.”

  “What?”

  “The look you get whenever it comes down to guns.”

  “Mine didn’t do us much good tonight.”

  Cort Wesley looked away, far into the night. “I almost wish I hadn’t put that backup Glock in the glove compartment.”

  “So Dylan wouldn’t have been able to use it.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “And you’d likely be dead,” Caitlin said. “Me too.”

  Cort Wesley looked back at her, his eyes full and sad. “We dragged both of them into our shit tonight, Ranger, and I only wish it could be just as easy to drag them out. Dylan especially. Know what my biggest hope for him’s been these past three years? That he keeps his gunplay to cardboard cutouts and never fires at a man. Guess I need to come up with a better wish.”

  “How about that he stays on just the track he’s on: compassionate, smart, kind, and brave as hell.”

  “Don’t forget hot, Ranger, or haven’t you noticed how all the girls look at him.”

  “That fatherly pride talking?”

  “Maybe a bit of jealousy.”

  “How do you think I look at you?” Caitlin slid away from him, nearly spilling her coffee in the process. A stiff breeze blew up, rattling the wind chimes Luke had hung from the porch eaves. “The truth is I got myself this coffee and was coming out here to tell you that I want to stay. The two of us together, under the same roof. No more disappearing or ranging to parts unknown.”

  “A happy couple.”

  “Well, not sure if I’d go that far, but I’m starting to think desk duty suits me just fine.”

  “No,” Cort Wesley said simply.

  “No what?”

  “No, I don’t want you moving in, because that’s not who you are. This isn’t who you are. You like coming around when the time suits you because it helps temper that gun of yours and remind you of why you do what you do. But you dial it down all the time that way and you’ll hate yourself in the process because it’s just not who you are.”

  “My granddad managed okay.”

  “He was eighty years old.”

  “Seventy-nine.”

  Cort Wesley started to speak, then stopped and grinned instead. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  “Amazing those boys in there are turning out as good as they are. Maybe we’re not as bad at this parenting stuff as we think.”

  “You just made my point for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Figure it out,” Cort Wesley said, easing himself closer to her on the swing, as he extended his hand. “Daps, Ranger.”

  PART EIGHT

  “The versatility of the Texas Rangers is reflected in the diversity of the assignments in which they have engaged,” the DPS reported to the legislature. “Running the gamut from cattle rustling and burglary to the investigation of bank robberies, they have encompassed the field of law enforcement in establishing and manning road-blocks, engaging in man hunts, seeking escaped prisoners, diving for drowning victims, searching for missing persons and lost children, and rendering reports on parole violators.” Rangers also assisted the legislature’s Crime Investigation Committee “in that body’s successful efforts to ferret out crime interests within Texas.”

  Texas Department of Public Safety, Department of Public Safety Biennial Report Fiscal Years 1951–52, pp. 12–13 (As quoted from Time of the Rangers by Mike Cox)

  77

  SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT

  “Look at the world, my brother,” Anwar al-Awlaki said, standing stiff and still at an observation window at the Tower of the Americas, his hands like claws against the glass. “Look at the world that is about to change at our hands.”

  Sam Harrabi tried to, but everything beyond looked blurred to him, as if someone had drawn a sheer curtain before his eyes.

  Built originally for the 1968 World’s Fair, the Tower of the Americas remained to this day one of San Antonio’s prime tourist attractions, featuring a revolving restaurant and newly renovated banquet hall, along with a view of the entire city. On the clearest of mornings, like this one, the view seemed to stretch beyond the horizon, and al-Awlaki imagined he could see the rest of a state that would soon be ravaged by his plans. And that was only the beginning. No part of the United States would remain unaffected, life in his cursed homeland changed irrevocably forever.

  “You never considered your Arab heritage much while growing up, did you, my brother?”

  “No, sayyid, I suppose I didn’t.”

  “Quite the opposite, I’m told. You were more prone to extol the virtues of America. You even wrote an award-winning essay on the subject.”

  “You read it?”

  Al-Awlaki nodded. “Along with your high school graduation speech. Very impressive, but, as I’m sure you’ll agree now, very wrong. You were laying the very foundation for the split from your people in favor of a country that ultimately betrayed you.”

  “I am grateful for the chance to avenge that betrayal, to grasp the heritage I had forsaken.”

  “You are fortunate God does not hold grudges, my brother. He brought me
to you in the wake of the tragedy that has come to define you. The world truly works in mysterious ways. You and all your expertise were delivered onto me. As Allah wills, yes?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And now we are about to bequeath on America what the Koran itself called a thousand years of pain.”

  Before al-Awlaki could respond, a bird swerved at the last moment and hit the glass.

  “You know what it is like to lose your way. But we cannot afford to lose our way now, my brother,” he said, as feathers fluttered through the air seven hundred fifty feet up. “The price we pay for that is too great.”

  78

  AUSTIN, THE PRESENT

  “Thanks for seeing me, Professor,” Caitlin said, entering the apartment to the blast freeze of an air conditioner cranking out frigid air nonstop. She felt goose bumps prickle her flesh, even as her eyes glanced around at the various academic memorabilia displayed on shelves and hung on just about every wall.

  Al Dahlberg, the University of Texas at Austin history professor interviewed by Jim Strong thirty years before, clearly retained his passion for his school. Just over eighty years old now, his studio apartment was situated in an assisted-living center specifically because it offered a view of the edge of the campus, including the infamous tower where a sniper gunned down sixteen people and wounded thirty-two more in 1966.

  Captain Tepper had managed to wrangle the lone Texas Ranger airplane, a twin engine Cessna, to transport Caitlin, Cort Wesley, and the boys to Austin. Cort Wesley adamantly refused to let her make the journey alone and, just as adamantly, insisted that after last night his sons not be let out of his sight unless he was sure they were safe. He took them to explore the campus while Caitlin spoke with Professor Dahlberg, who looked pretty much exactly as she had pictured him in the tale from 1979, albeit with thicker glasses and grayer, thinner hair.

  “As I said on the phone, sir,” Caitlin began, while Dahlberg closed the door behind her, “I believe my dad interviewed you way back in ’79 about the murder of those fraternity boys on Galveston Island.”

  “I remember the incident well, Ranger. Terrible tragedy.”

  “And your talk with my father?”

  The old man frowned. “Not as well, I’m afraid, the mind not being as sharp as it once was.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “I’ve made tea. Would you like some?”

  Caitlin told him she did, if nothing else to relieve the chill the cranked-up air conditioner was pushing through her bones. They sat at a table just beyond the galley kitchen in full view of an older, non-widescreen television.

  “You gave my father a lot of information on Jean Lafitte and Jim Bowie, the two of them running slaves from the Campeche colony on Galveston and—”

  “The Mother Mary!” Dahlberg interrupted excitedly. “Of course! I remember now. Jim Strong … That would make you Caitlin Strong. Of course! I’ve read all about you.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read, sir.”

  “I’m a historian, Ranger. I understand the limits of words in recording deeds.”

  Caitlin watched Dahlberg pour brewed tea from a pot. It was dark and smelled strong. She added sugar and sipped from the steaming cup.

  “I buy the Indian variety direct from an importer. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  Dahlberg filled his own cup, both his hand and aim steady. Caitlin could tell by the way he held his eyes and moved them that his mind remained sharp and vital, perhaps even more so than he was letting on.

  “The Mother Mary,” he repeated, sitting back down and offering Caitlin a cookie from a plate laden with multiple varieties.

  “You were kind enough to tell my father everything you knew about its legend; from the stranger on board, to the unidentified language spoken by the slaves the ship was carrying, to the appearance of Lafitte and Bowie on deck.”

  “And don’t forget their theft of whatever that stranger had hidden on his person.”

  “I haven’t, Professor. In fact, that’s why I’m here.”

  Dahlberg bit into a cookie and sipped his tea, his eyes urging her on.

  “I don’t think you were entirely truthful with my father. Or, more accurately, you chose not to tell him all the truth.”

  Dahlberg showed no reaction. “An interesting conclusion, even for a Texas Ranger as celebrated as you.”

  “And I wouldn’t insinuate such a thing if the whole truth wasn’t vital to an investigation I’m currently involved in that may be connected to more murders, even more than happened from that tower you can see from your window there.”

  Dahlberg smiled slightly, the gesture looking sad and reflective. “Well, I’m past the time of being able to do anything about it anyway.”

  “About what, sir?”

  “Jean Lafitte’s lost treasure. When your father came to me, I was still entertaining the notion of tracking it down myself.”

  “And toward that end you left out certain parts of the story you’d figured out on our own.”

  Dahlberg tapped the table with both hands.

  “Remarkable conclusion, Ranger. If you were my student, I’d give you an A.”

  “That language those slaves spoke, sir. I believe you knew it was likely Portuguese since this was right around the time the best of the slave traders figured out Brazil made for easy pickings with a lot less sail time to boot. So the way I figure it the Mother Mary picked up this Quentin Cusp, or whoever he really was, around the same time the ship picked up the slaves Lafitte and Bowie later stole.”

  Dahlberg smiled longer this time. “In point of fact, I believe Cusp had booked passage on the ship to take him to the United States. An unusual business had brought him to Brazil and he was returning to the United States in the hopes of expanding it considerably based on the samples he was hiding in a pouch on his person.”

  “Samples, sir?”

  “That would become Jean Lafitte’s lost treasure, Ranger: diamonds.”

  * * *

  “Almost everyone believes large-scale diamond mining didn’t begin until 1858 in South Africa,” Dahlberg continued, almost dreamily, as Caitlin’s teacup rattled back onto its saucer, “but nothing could be further from the truth. Diamonds were discovered by alluvial gold miners in Brazil in 1725, right about the time that Indian diamond sources were near exhaustion and European demand for the stones remained insatiable. Cusp was actually an employee of the Hearst family and, yes, the Hearsts were already involved in such endeavors as early as 1820 and before. They saw an opportunity to open the American market for diamonds on the European model and the contents of the pouch Cusp carried on his person were to be the means to begin that process.”

  “Until Lafitte and Bowie made off with them.”

  “Bowie traded in at least a portion of his, explaining his sudden purchase of huge tracts of land in Texas. But Lafitte died in a battle at sea in 1823, his share of the treasure lost forever.”

  “What if it’s not?”

  Dahlberg nearly spilled his tea. “Pardon me?”

  “The fraternity president told my granddad about a Cajun, a kind of caretaker of the map that led to the lost treasure. Man named Beaudoin Chansoir. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you, sir?”

  Dahlberg nodded, almost reluctantly as if clinging to the last of his secrets. “His great-great-grandfather was a slave whose cooking skills led him to actually join Lafitte’s pirate outfit, which he remained a part of until Lafitte burned the Campeche colony and sailed south in 1821, on the hunt for more diamonds many believe.”

  “You’re saying he knew where the treasure, the diamonds, were hidden.”

  “And passed the information down through the generations. But this Chansoir and all that followed believed the treasure to be cursed, blaming it for Lafitte’s death. So they resolved never to pursue it themselves and left it to others to scavenge the bayou for it.”

  “Except Lafitte didn’t bury it in the bayou, Professor. He buried it on Galveston I
sland.”

  “No,” Dahlberg stammered, “that’s simply not the case. He abandoned his Campeche camp and burned it to the ground, just like I said.”

  “That’s right, maybe to ensure no one would ever come looking for his treasure. Lafitte figured he’d be coming back and what better way to assure the diamonds would be waiting when he did? Beaudoin Chansoir wasn’t about to give the true location up to anyone he didn’t want to have it.”

  Dahlberg looked as if the very life had bled out of his face. “Those students killed on Galveston Island … are you saying they actually found the treasure, is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, sir, I don’t believe so. But I do believe they got there around the same time somebody else may have.”

  Dahlberg’s eyes widened, his lower lip trembling within an expression trapped suddenly in disappointment and dismay. “But how can you ever be sure when there’s no one left alive who can tell you?”

  “Actually, Professor, I believe there is.”

  * * *

  “You can keep the shotgun seat,” Caitlin told Dylan, as he started to climb out of the rental car they’d picked up at the airport.

  “I’m a gentleman, Caitlin,” he smiled, climbing into the back to sit next to his brother. “You should know that.”

  “I do indeed,” she said, stepping into the car off the curb outside the assisted-living center where Cort Wesley had picked her up.

  “So?” he asked

  “Pretty much just the way I figured, only better.”

  “What now?”

  Caitlin reread a text message she’d just received from D. W. Tepper. “Captain says we’re supposed to meet up at the Medical Examiner’s Office at seven o’clock this evening. Gives us plenty of time to make another stop on the way home.” Caitlin pocketed her phone and cocked her gaze toward the backseat. “You boys ever been to the Louisiana bayou?”