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“But they will be coming. Right?”

Cooper kept his eyes straight ahead. Mack lowered his head. Grant was matter-of-fact about their situation. No point sugaring the pill.

“Secret.”

Realization flooded Cruz's face.

“To the outside world, yes. But not to—”

Grant held up a hand to stop her.

“Secret. Doesn't matter what our people know. Can't admit this mission.”

His tone softened.

“Mechanical failure. Tragic loss of life.”

He wanted to touch her. Reassure her. But he couldn't.

“Nobody's coming for us. We're on our own.”

“Shit.”

“It is.”

Cruz realized something else, and it showed in her face. Grant nodded his agreement without speaking. Mack's leg was getting worse. There'd be no more chasing along the back streets for him. Cruz's Texan heritage played in Grant's mind. This was going to be their last stand. Their Alamo. The street café was going to be their mission that became a fortress. He hoped it wasn't going to be a fortress that became a shrine.

Mack broke the tension.

“So just for the record, Sarge. James Bond: Connery or Craig?”

Grant knew where Mack was going with this. Bringing up Bond's sacrifice in the street near the crash site without having to mention it.

“No question. Connery's the man.”

Mack nodded.

“Yeah. I'm with Wheeler on that. Bond didn't know shit.”

Cooper caught the vibe but kept his eyes on the crowd. Cruz was beginning to understand. Grant kept quiet, letting Mack play it his way.

“Apart from one thing. He got that right.”

Mack leaned his M16 against the wall and unclipped the webbing belt of spare clips. He handed the .45 to Cruz, then pushed himself upright. The leg could barely carry his weight. Cooper looked from Mack to Grant, then jerked a thumb towards the rear of the café.

“Jim. Back door. Can't be seen from the street.”

Grant didn't speak. In combat these were the hardest moments. Cooper and Mack had been together since training. Their bond was forged in combat. Their friendship was a thing of legend. Their minds were in agreement now. Mack walked as straight as his bad leg allowed, but he was veering towards his right. Cooper came from around the counter.

“You go left. I'll go right.”

Mack slapped his good leg and shook his head. “I'm faster to my right.”

“What the fuck? You aren't gonna outrun 'em.”

“Who says?”

Agreement was reached. They went through the door side by side, then separated. Mack lunged to his right and kept on lunging. Cooper went left, firing from the hip as they opened a gap. The crowd split, half surging towards Mack while the other half took cover and fired at Cooper. Machetes were raised. Angry voices shouted defiance.

Grant didn't wait to see the inevitable. He guided Cruz towards the back door, and they disappeared into the shadows.

the present

I always thought Mexicans were short fellas.

—Jim Grant

fifteen

Dirt and gravel crunched
under the tires as Grant slowed the hearse to a stop. Ghost Town Road had given up on tarmac half a mile back. Now it was only the width of the road that stopped it becoming a dirt track. Even minor roads in America seemed to be as wide as the M1.

Grant turned the engine off. The hot metal didn't tick as it cooled because it didn't cool. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky and baked everything it touched. The roof of the hearse was as hot as the hood. The leather seat burned into Grant's back. The Terlingua Trading Company forecourt shimmered in the late afternoon heat, a long, low storefront with a covered walkway out front and the Starlight Theatre restaurant and saloon at one side. A bleached square block of a building stood guard across the forecourt, a historical remnant of days gone by. The words
terlingua jail
were carved into the lintel above the door.

The medical center hardly warranted a mention—an unnamed afterthought at the far end of the Trading Company premises. A small green cross was the only sign that it had anything to do with doctors and medicines.

Doc Cruz's hideaway. In plain sight but almost invisible.

Grant studied the storefront but didn't get out. His heart was pounding. Over the years he'd faced angry men, pissed-off women, and armed insurgents, but this was proving to be the hardest thing he'd ever done. One hand stroked the soft velvet of the stethoscope case. He took a deep breath. He'd come a long way to do this. After a few minutes to gather himself, he grabbed the case and got out of the hearse.

“Have a seat. This
won't take long.”

The gray-haired Mexican looked younger than Grant had expected. Lined and weathered but with a youthful face. Maybe it was the grin lines around his mouth or the crow's feet that crinkled when he smiled. The Mexican didn't wave Grant to a seat because both hands were busy applying a dressing to a woman's arm. On the floor next to her chair a small child clung to her legs, fear and doubt filling his eyes.

Grant moved slow and gentle. He lowered himself onto a faded wooden chair near the door. The boy's eyes followed Grant's every move. Grant had seen it before on the council estates of Bradford. Children who had witnessed domestic abuse were as much victims as their mothers. The doctor used soft hands to fasten the bandage over cooling cream and cling film. A burns dressing. Either from scalding water or being held against a hot stove. Bullies were universal. Apart from the derelict jail across the forecourt, Terlingua didn't look like it had much in the way of law enforcement. In Texas Grant doubted if Mexican women were high on the priority list.

The doctor soothed. The boy relaxed. Words were exchanged in Spanish. The woman took money from her purse, but the doctor pushed it away. The boy cowered until gentle words coaxed him out of his shell—gentle words and a jar of sweets the doctor took from his desk. The woman thanked him profusely. Even without an interpreter, there was no mistaking that. The boy took a sweet. The woman smiled through her pain. Eduardo Cruz walked her to the door and out onto the porch.

Grant waited nervously on the chair. He hadn't felt this uncomfortable since his last visit to the headmaster's office at Moor Grange School for Boys. Just after he'd cracked one bully's skull and broken the other's nose. This felt worse. This felt like shame.

When Eduardo Cruz came back in, his demeanor had changed. He looked at the stranger with careful eyes. Worry creased his brow. The smile had gone.

“I wondered how long it would be before you came for me.”

Grant felt as if he were being admonished. He had no excuses. “I'm sorry.”

Cruz looked out through the window. “Stealing a hearse is as low as you can get.”

Apology turned to confusion.

“What?”

Cruz's shoulders sagged. “Please tell me you left Hunter alone. He has nothing to do with this.”

Then Grant understood. He tried to wave Cruz's concerns away. “Hunter Athey told me where to find you. He loaned me the hearse.”

Cruz was cautious with his response. “Why would he do that?”

“Because Sarah couldn't lend me her car again.”

“Hunter and Sarah know you are here?”

“Yes.”

The doctor's façade began to crumble. Being strong in the face of his enemies. His hands were shaking as relief flooded his body. The aftermath of an adrenaline dump that was as much induced by fear as the fight or flight instinct. He waved a hand towards the hearse.

“I thought Macready was being symbolic. Bringing me back in a coffin.”

“I'm not here from Macready.”

“Then why are you here?”

This was going to be the hard part. Getting started. Grant felt the words stick in his throat. A pulse thumped at the side of his head. He tried to take a deep breath but his nose felt blocked. He picked the velvet case up from the chair next to him and cradled it in his lap. He paused for a moment, then clicked it open and held the stethoscope out to Pilar Cruz's father.

sixteen

“I don't understand. It
wasn't an accident?”

Eduardo Cruz left the stethoscope in its case, his fingers tracing the curves as if they could feel his daughter's neck. He looked at the Englishman who had come all this way to return it. Grant forced himself not to lower his eyes.

“That's the story they put out. Mechanical failure during an aid drop.”

“But that wasn't true.”

“No.”

Silence. Both men were lost for words. Grant because he felt ashamed at leaving it so long before fulfilling his lover's dying wish. Doc Cruz because he was overwhelmed by memories of his daughter. Moisture threatened to leak from his eyes, but he held it in check. For Grant, the best way forward was to tell it the way it was, army regulations be damned.

“It was a snatch squad—in and out to grab a tribal leader under cover of the aid drop. Pilar was our medic. Helicopter was brought down in the township. Mission was secret. So they went with mechanical failure.”

Cruz continued to stroke the smooth lines of the tubing. “So she died in combat.”

It wasn't a question. It was a grieving father coming to terms with a change in circumstance. He had already put this behind him once. Now it was an open wound, the past dredged up by this stranger from across the pond. It was hard to tell from the old man's face whether this was good news or bad. Grant kept quiet. In the end, what difference did it make how a person died? You were still dead. But he'd made a promise.

Grant nodded at the velvet case. “She said you gave her that.”

Cruz smiled a sad little smile. “When she graduated medical school. Her ticket out of Absolution.”

Grant put added warmth into his voice. “She was the best medic I ever worked with.”

Cruz looked up from the stethoscope. “But she was more than that to you.”

“Yes.”

“Jim Grant. From her letters. I never thought I would meet you.”

“I wish you didn't have to.”

“Because if she had lived, you would have drifted apart.”

“My fault, not hers. She deserved better.”

“She chose you.”

Grant shrugged and kept quiet.

Doc Cruz nodded. “Nobody could make Pilar's choices for her. She was like her mother in that way. If she chose you, that is good enough for me.”

Grant wondered if the doctor would think the same if he knew the whole truth—something Grant would keep to himself. There was no point piling Grant's guilt on top of the doctor's grief. On a need-to-know basis, there were some things a father didn't need to know about his daughter's death. Grant stuck with the safe path. “She should have got a medal and a folded flag.”

Cruz indicated a glass display frame on the office wall. “I got the folded flag.”

Grant ignored the interruption.

“She showed more courage than I could have. I always felt guilty that the army couldn't tell you that. Medals are only a piece of metal on a ribbon. What's important is what's behind them.”

Cruz slowly closed the velvet case. “And you thought giving me this would bring you peace?”

“There is no peace. Only acceptance. Then you move on.”

“Absolution, then.”

“I'm past being absolved.”

Cruz caressed the scarred velvet. “Nobody is beyond Absolution.”

Grant sensed a change in the atmosphere—a shift away from the distant past towards more recent history. There were sounds of a commotion outside. Cruz ignored the distraction and stood. He crossed the room and put the stethoscope case on his desk.

“Nobody is beyond Macready either.” He looked out of the front window. “And sooner or later we all get to ride in the hearse.”

He turned his gaze on Grant. “That's why Macready is afraid of you.”

The commotion was getting louder. Grant stared back at Doc Cruz. “I'm here to see you. I'm no threat to Macready.”

Heavy footsteps came along the covered walkway. Cruz couldn't help but glance towards the door. When he looked back at Grant, his shoulders slumped. An air of resignation descended over him.

“That's not what he thinks.”

The door burst open, and a big man filled the gap. Dirty jeans and a sleeveless shirt. The cowboy hat was stained with sweat around the brim. He took one step into the room and slammed the door behind him. One hand balled into a sledgehammer fist. His voice was hard as nails.

“Me and you gonna have words.”

This wasn't something Grant
wanted to do. He'd come to Absolution with every intention of keeping out of trouble. He'd accepted Macready's taunts without response. He'd taken a chill pill and not let any of the needling from Macready's men annoy him. This was a mission of mercy in memory of a fallen colleague and lover. It didn't look as if Macready was going to let that rest.

Grant prepared to get up from his chair.

The big man ignored him and crossed the room towards Doc Cruz. “What you doin' touchin' my wife?”

Grant looked through the window. The injured woman was sitting on the steps hugging her son. The boy was crying. So was the woman. Doc Cruz didn't retreat from the advancing husband.

“Treating, not touching. For the burns that you inflicted.”

The man stood tall, puffing his chest out. “Ain't inflicted nothin'.”

Doc Cruz counted the negatives but kept a smile in his voice. “That's a double negative, amigo. Means you just said you did cause something.”

The big man looked confused. Grant prepared to get up if needed, but Cruz seemed to have this under control. The cowboy hat was pulled low over the man's eyes, and he leaned into his words. “Woman burned herself. She's clumsy is all.”

Cruz held his hands out and shrugged his shoulders. “And she grabbed her own arms, causing bruising with her fingers.”

Cruz looked at Grant but spoke to the big man. “Bruising I am familiar with.”

The big man hunched his shoulders. He'd had enough of the word games. “Familiar with my wife.”

Both fists squeezed tight. Grant stood up but didn't advance. He took in the man's sleeveless shirt and dark skin, his Mexican heritage. It appeared that not all wife beaters were Texan. This fella was just a dirtier version of Scott Macready, laying hands on his woman simply because he could. Grant kept his voice friendly. Arms relaxed, flexed and ready for action.

“I always thought Mexicans were short fellas.”

The big man turned towards Grant. “What?”

Grant gauged angles and distance. “Or maybe they always looked small next to John Wayne.”

He moved in front of the window so the sun turned him into a silhouette. “Small, greasy ratfucks. Mexicans. In
The Alamo
.”

The husband took one step forward and squinted into the sun. Grant stepped sideways, letting the full glare blast into the Mexican's eyes. “But you're a big ratfuck Mexican, aren't you?”

The words stung the big man into action before he had time to think. Thinking wasn't his strong suit. He lunged forward and swung a roundhouse blow towards the silhouette in front of him. Grant stepped under the swing and flashed a jab upwards into the man's throat. One blow. Full force. And it was all over.

The man doubled forward, clutching his throat. His face went from red to purple as he struggled for breath. Panic filled his eyes. He became a drowning man in the desert. His eyes watered. His mouth opened and shut like a goldfish. Grant guided him towards the chair and sat him down. He made an it's-all-yours gesture towards Doc Cruz. If a man was going to get injured, then a medical center was the best place to be.

The doctor began treating his new patient. Soft hands. Soothing words. It was no wonder his daughter had been such a good army medic. Grant thought about that while Doc Cruz got the Mexican's airway working again. He waited until the urgency diminished before leaning forward.

“Now. What did you mean about Macready?”