According to visual surveillance, Daniel Cross was presently hunkered down in the apartment, working behind a computer. The lock on the building’s front security door was broken, and Paz led his men through, submachine guns whipped out from beneath their coats. They shoved a kid zooming toward the door on a skateboard out of the way and stepped over a drunk passed out on the stairs, en route to Cross’s third-floor apartment.
Paz stood before the door, his men taking their flanking positions. An electronic sweep before he’d been given the go signal revealed no trip wires or any other defense against intrusion. Not that Paz required such intelligence. He trusted his own instincts and the brujeria he’d inherited from his mother more than any machine, and right now that brujeria told him he had nothing to fear. But he also was struck by an odd feeling he couldn’t quite identify, that left him distinctly unsettled.
Shaking the sensation off, Paz lifted his right leg off the floor and aimed the heel of his boot straight for the flimsy latch. The door shattered on impact, the hinges themselves as well as the latch, sending the splintered remnants rocketing inward.
A shaft of light illuminated a shape in a desk chair, swinging toward him, silhouetted by the flimsy, drawn blinds, something dark and shiny held in his hand. Sound-suppressed fire from his men tore the figure apart. The whole chair wheeled backwards and slammed into the blinds, which dropped from their mounts and folded over what was left of what had been sitting there.
“Madre de Dios,” one of Paz’s men muttered.
*
“A dummy?” Jones repeated, wondering what Guillermo Paz had tucked in his hand, when he returned to the van.
“Stuffed animal, actually, dressed in clothes and a baseball cap.”
“Don’t tell me, Colonel: facing away from the window so my surveillance team wouldn’t figure things out.”
“The blinds cracked enough to let them see what they expected to.”
“Yeah, there’s a post in Alaska waiting for them, as of tomorrow.”
“I left my men in the apartment to make sure it was secured for your tech team. Tell them to watch out for the candy wrappers.”
“Candy wrappers?”
“They’re crumpled up everywhere. Hershey bars, I think.”
“You could have told me that much over the radio, Colonel,” Jones said.
“But there was something you needed to see,” Paz told him, showing Jones what he’d been holding. “Right away.”
Jones looked at the framed picture, shaking his head. “Oh, shit…”
15
WEST HOUSTON, TEXAS
“Well, poke me with a stick!” Sam Bob Jackson said, entering the reception area of his office with a wide grin, hands clasped before him as if he were praying. “If it ain’t Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, in the flesh!”
Caitlin popped up from her chair and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson.”
The owner of Jackson Whole Mineral clasped the hand in both of his. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting. I knew a Texas Ranger would be coming, but I didn’t know it’d be you, by God.” His eyes narrowed, head canting slightly to the side, as he pulled his hands back. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”
“Why, I’m the one who presented you that commendation on behalf of the Texas Chamber of Commerce after you plum near saved the state from those Russian fellas fixing to do us harm, just like your daddy did back in his time. Hell of a thing, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not allowed to comment, Mr. Jackson, though I am curious about how you came by the information you did.”
Jackson winked. He was a big man, with a triple chin dangling over a string tie that made him look like a fake cowboy. His belly hung well over his belt, which looked to be stitched from the same leather as his boots.
“Well, Ranger,” he winked, “I suppose we both got our sources.”
Caitlin nodded, figuring it was best to leave things at that.
“Now, let’s go down the hall to my office so I can help you out in whatever it is that brought you here.”
Jackson Whole Mineral occupied a floor of a gleaming new office tower located, appropriately enough, in west Houston’s Energy Corridor, with a clear view of the Katy Freeway out one of Sam Bob Jackson’s office windows. Caitlin took a seat in front of his desk and watched Jackson struggle to adjust the designer blinds just enough to keep the sun from her eyes.
“There we go,” Jackson said, finally. “You comfortable?”
“I am, sir.”
“How about something to drink?”
“Your assistant already offered.”
“Yeah, Muriel’s a peach, ain’t she?”