“Eenie, meenie, miney, mo,” he said to himself, pointing to a few shoppers exiting Neiman Marcus. “Oh, that’s right, you’re all gonna go.”
The accidental rhyme brought a smile to his face. Making the drive out to the Comanche Indian reservation had actually saved him from the men who’d showed up at his apartment. That made him think back a few weeks to the first time he’d met Razin Saflin and Ghazi Zurif, when he responded to a knock on his apartment door.
*
“We’d like to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“The posts you’ve been leaving on certain message boards, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.”
“Are you following me?”
Zurif and Saflin looked at each other.
“Because I’ve only got, like, fourteen followers.”
“We know who you follow,” Zurif said.
“That’s why we’re here,” Saflin added. “Because we follow Allah and nothing else.”
“He sees your message as divine providence in pursuit of His will.”
“You guys aren’t cops, are you? If you are, you’d have to tell me.”
They looked at each other again.
“One of your messages said you could serve Allah,” Saflin started this time. “We’d like to know how.”
“I never mentioned Allah.”
“Our cause is His cause. Serve us, and our movement, and you serve Him.”
“Do I need to convert to Islam or something?”
“Your service is testament to your faith,” Zurif said. “Your actions before Allah are an acceptance of His grace.”
“Now explain what you wish to place before Him to fulfill His word,” Saflin added, in what sounded like an order. “How you think you can help us.”
*
Cross had told them, holding nothing back. Let it all spill out behind the pressure released from a lifetime of pent-up frustration, the only way to escape the shadow of Diaper Dan. How his expertise in chemical engineering had landed him a freelance job on the Comanche reservation. How he’d uncovered a blight of dead animals in the course of his analytical work. With his curiosity piqued, how he’d conducted his own methodological study of the land to ascertain what was killing wildlife that included birds and small game. He had been amazed by what he found, and not about to share it with a soul until he was sure—amazed to the point of giddiness when his own experiments provided confirmation that he had found an ancient, deadly, and unstoppable weapon.
Diaper Dan no more.
Let the real losers shoot up their school, take a few lives, and eat a pistol barrel when SWAT closed in. Daniel Cross set his sights on the whole country, wanted to take thousands of lives. Millions maybe. He hated them all, no exceptions. Because if they didn’t hate him, they ignored him or frowned when he passed, which was even worse. Now he’d be able to show them all, each and every one, thanks to what he’d found on that Indian reservation.
Zurif and Saflin said they needed a demonstration to prove he wasn’t full of shit and that he really could pull this off.
No problem.
Cross would give them a demonstration, all right. Tomorrow.
He couldn’t wait.
PART THREE
Four newly raised ranging companies, have all been organized, and taken their several stations on our frontier. We know they are true men, and they know exactly what they are about. With many of them Indian and Mexican fighting has been their trade for years. That they may be permanently retained in the service on our frontier is extremely desirable.
—Victoria Advocate, November 16, 1848
24
SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS
“Since when do you drink Hires?” Caitlin asked, rolling around in her hand the frosty bottle Cort Wesley had just given her, fresh from the fridge.
He took a seat next to her on the porch swing of his house in Shavano Park. “I’ve kind of developed a taste for it.”
It was the kind of place he never expected to live. His girlfriend Maura Torres’s house, actually, inherited by his boys after they’d witnessed her murder. He could have moved them elsewhere, but Cort Wesley wanted Dylan and Luke never to forget what had happened here, or the impression that violence seen up close and personal can leave on a person. In his experience, those who disagreed with that thinking had never experienced violence firsthand.
“You ever do any personal appearances?” he asked Caitlin suddenly.
“Like what?”
“Like at a prestigious prep school, maybe as the graduation speaker, come May.”
“Graduation speaker?”
“Part of the deal I cut with the principal of Luke’s school.”
“Do I want to know the details?”
“Luke gets to room with Zach next year. That enough?”
“What’s the date of this graduation?” Caitlin asked him, and sipped her root beer.
She hadn’t had root beer since she was a little girl, at a local soda fountain with her granddad. A scoop of vanilla ice cream floated amid the suds on top, on Earl Strong’s recommendation.
“You got that look, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said to her.
“What look might that be?”
“The one that says something’s grabbed hold and won’t let go.”
“Sam Bob Jackson.”