Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) (23 page)

As soon as the truck stopped, they swarmed onto the hood and began clawing at the windshield and leaping against the doors and windows.

“My God, Flynn!”

“Just stay cool. They can’t get in.”

“How do you know that?”

“Armor glass. It’ll take two or three blasts from a ten-gauge shotgun to knock out one of these windows. Dog teeth can’t do it.”

Mac was on the porch, standing back in the shadows, so still he was hard to see. He had the same ability to remain motionless that his brother did, and his father had in his time.

Slowly, his cupped fist went up to his lips. In it, Flynn could see something silver. “He’s using his dog whistle.”

An instant later, the dogs scurried back under the porch. Flynn rolled down his window.

“Hey, Mac.”

Mac walked toward the truck. “You got a shit of a lotta nerve comin’ out here, Carroll.”

“I need some help.”

“Oh, well, good. Allow me to accommodate you. Who’s my rape victim?” He leaned into the window and said to Diana, “After I blow this shitbag’s head off, we’re gonna party.”

“I didn’t drop the big one on Weezy,” Flynn said. “The jury did that.”

“You put him in the same courtroom with them. Chained to the fucking wall.”

“Your brother is obstreperous.”

“You want a cup of coffee, come on in.”

As they entered the shack, which was all gray boards, split shingles, and tin on the outside, a luxurious bachelor pad unfolded. The ample living room was paneled with exotic woods, a collection of stag, lion, rhino, and elk heads decorated the walls, and a brilliant black and yellow tiger skin lay before the big stone fireplace.

“Well, asshole, you came at the right time,” Mac said. “Cissy!”

Flynn held in his shock as Cissy Greene, Governor Greene’s oldest daughter, came sliding out of the kitchen. Cissy was not underage, not quite, and she was as ripe as a woman ever can get, her curves florid, her face glowing, her lips beckoning moistly. How in the world this very bad man had hooked up with her he could hardly imagine, but here she was, big as life and a lot prettier than her pictures.

“Cissy, this here is Asshole Flynn and his boyfriend. What’s your name, son?”

It was cruel and it wasn’t true, but Diana went red. “I’m actually a woman,” she muttered. “My name is Diana.”

“Oh, the goddess Diana herself, my goodness, I am honored! No wonder you appear so ferocious. Meet Actaeon up there.” He gestured toward the magnificent stag head.

“I thought I had him torn apart by his own dogs,” Diana snarled.

“Hell no! He lived through that and came to Texas. Where else? I got that sucker from one mile.
One mile
, girl! Not my best shot, but decent.” He smiled. “The reason you-all are lucky is that Cissy here is a terrific coffeemaker. Just drop the grounds in her mouth, pour in boiling water and make her gargle. Personally, I can pack a bullet a lot better than I can make a cup of java.”

He gestured at them to sit, and Flynn and Diana dropped down onto the magnificently soft leather couch. It was light tan, and Flynn thought better of asking him what it was made of. The Nazis had done lampshades and gloves. Mexican drug lords were way past that.

“Is that a tattoo,” Diana asked, fingering a faint shadow in the surface of one of the couch pillows.

“Guy was a bandito. Low-grad South Texas bangers. Assholes.”

Diana jumped to her feet.

Mac directed a frank gaze at her. Flynn could see that he was taking in her beauty. “If I saw you naked, would you have me torn apart by my own dogs?”

“I’d whip your sorry ass myself.”

“Oh! Upon my word, Flynn my love, I see the attraction now. Coffeemaker can’t keep me in line, but I’ll bet goddess here keeps your ass good and red.”

“Mac, we’re not on a social visit. You’re the best gun I’ve ever known, and the only person I know who’s hunted tiger. I have a job for you.”

“And if I do it, you’ll get Weezy a reprieve?”

“No can do. You’ll get a hell of a tiger skin, though. Better than this scrawny tourist rug.”

“‘No can do?’ You worthless sack a shit. Sometimes I really wonder why I bother. I’m too damn affable, that’s my problem. So I’m tellin’ you right back, ‘no can do.’ But I am curious. Since we aren’t in India or Siberia, what tiger?”

“We’ll get to that.”

“Not today we won’t. ’Cause you just decided to get the fuck out of my house.”

“Let me ask you this. Are you a patriot?”

“Shit, I knew that was gonna come up! Goddamnit, every cop who comes out here pulls that same card out of his hip pocket. Dubya has hunted this sliver of mine, my friend. A saint who got his ass handed to him by the negro.”

“This will be the most patriotic thing you have ever done, Mac. Because what is at stake here is America. Our land and our people as we are now. So, if that matters to you, now is the time to face the fact that Weezy killed all those nuns because he’s a total wacko and is best left to his fate.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s it. That’s my play. Except I know why you’ve latched onto Cissy Greene. Obviously.”

“Your boy has got fine card moves,” he said to Diana. “He won a lotta money out here at poker, before civilization set in. Jesus God, you put Mexicans in the sheriff’s office and whaddya get. Screwed is what!” He gave Flynn a long, sad look. Flynn knew that he was thinking about his poker game. When a wealthy rube sat down at his hallowed table, he soon discovered that he couldn’t get up until he lost. Then he was kicked on the ass and told to go home.

“You want some Blue Label?” he continued. “I got a coupla cases I could let you have. Finest scotch in the world.”

“Why offer me a bribe now?”

“Not a bribe. Sealin’ a deal. I feel good, ’cause I’m gonna do good. Although savin’ America and shootin’ a tiger surely can’t be played outa the same deck of cards.”

“The tiger’s just a first step. We have to get past it to get to what I really want.”

“Okay, mister police, so your idea is I start by killin’ an endangered species. Then what? Weezy leave some nuns behind?”

“You did it, didn’t you? Weezy’s taking a fall for you.”

The convent had been on land wanted by Reich Development. The Sisters of Mercy would not sell, and it was soon being rumored that Reich had put a bounty on them. At the time, Eddie had thought Manny the Torch was going to be coming over from Dallas, so that was who the department was watching for. Then Weezy had showed up and blown them all to kingdom come. He’d imploded the building, and very professionally.

Because he’d come across as a nut case, the suspicion that it was a contract killing had never been followed up. In the State of Texas, though, nobody could be crazy enough not to get the needle for detonating nuns.

As always with Mac, the waters ran deeper than they appeared. To understand him, you had to read the eddies and whirlpools.

His face, previously throwing off smiles like confetti, had grown careful, the lines around the eyes tightening. His physical stillness had also returned, and Flynn knew that this could still go south real fast. Way south. He thought about his gun out in the car. He imagined Diana trapped under this monster while Cissy squealed and hit at him with her curling iron.

“You’re a clever man, Flynn Carroll, I’ll give you that. Now what more do I have to do?”

So he was going to let it pass—for the while, anyway. “We’re gonna have to go on the hunt of a lifetime, you and me. At some point, we will be tracking the most incredible tiger on the planet. Not a half-starved tourist tiger concerned only about its mange. Eighteen feet of pure Siberian fury, and as smart as we are. At least.”

Mac’s mouth had dropped open. His eyes went kind of glazed. He said, “If you weren’t the straightest shooting cop in Texas, I’d tell you to your face that you’d lost your mind.”

“The tiger is only the front door. Behind that door is hell, Mac. The real thing. Might as well be.”

“We’re gonna be tying a knot in the devil’s tail?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“So what’s our next step, Detective Carroll?”

“Me and Diana, we’re in danger.”

“I don’t like this, Mackie!” Cissy shrilled.

“Send her home, Mac, she doesn’t need to be here.”

“She can’t go home. Her daddy got caught in bed with the damn secretary of state again and the missus has cleared out of the Governor’s Mansion.”

The secretary of state was Charles Forte. A guy. “Well,” Flynn said, “boys will be boys. But at some point, we will have to go places where Cissy cannot follow.”

“She shoots pretty good.”

“I can outshoot you,” she said, her baby fat wobbling prettily.

Flynn would get back to that later. “We need to use your computers now, Mac.”

“My computers are off limits to the po-lice.”

“They’re also unhackable. The most anonymous damn computers I’ve ever encountered. Everything proof.”

“This I gotta see,” Diana muttered.

“You’re not gonna see much, son.”

“Quit calling me that!”

“I can let you open a browser. Nothing else.”

Flynn knew that Mac’s computers were vitally important to a big part of his business. The Texas Rangers had discovered that they were connected to a server farm he owned in Thailand, and were probably responsible for sending out billions of spam emails a day. His hackers in the Philippines used the system to do a brisk trade in government secrets, stealing from one country to sell to another. But never America, not Mac’s beloved America. Or probably not.

His favorite scam, though, was to wait until a big shipment of drugs was moving up through the region, then tip off the DEA for a reward. His going rate was ten percent of street value. It was a perfectly legal business, but risky—which was where the guns came in. As often as not, the DEA guys found all the mules and guards involved with the shipment dead, shot from a distance with a high-powered rifle.

“This is interesting,” Diana said, calling to Flynn from the computer room. She had begun to work, with Mac hanging over her like a morbidly fascinated vulture.

Flynn went in. “Where’s Cissy got to?” He didn’t like these people where he couldn’t see them.

“Coffeemaker’s making coffee,” Diana said.

“I have no secrets from my lover,” Mac said.

“Yeah, you do. Among them that she’s a hostage.”

“She can walk outa here anytime she wants.”

“She’s gonna walk into Iraan? Thirty miles? Cissy’s in your clutches so you can get a pardon for Weezy, am I right? Does she know she’s a hostage?”

“Maybe, but she doesn’t care. In fact, she starts coming as soon as the big bad evildoer just brushes past the subject of sex. She’s your classic con hag, rich, bored, and hot as oatmeal. There was a bunch of Tri-Delts out here from UT trying to outhunt their boyfriends. I cut her outa the herd.”

“There’s a Jay Elder on the board of directors of the Texas Animal Rescue League,” Diana said.

“Could be a hit. This is the place near Austin?”

She was silent, working. “Jay Elder is an attorney, in practice twenty-three years. He’s got property around Lake Travis west of Austin. He’s also got a Louis C. Morris on his client list.” She tapped a few more keys. “Interesting.”

“A Louis Charleton Morris died thirty-seven years ago. An infant. So we know that our guy is wearing an alias, and he’s fortyish. Fits the picture.”

“Man, you are good with those suckers,” Mac said, “whatever the hell you’re doing.”

“I am good, son,” Diana replied. She clicked a couple more keys, and paper came out of the printer. “Jay Elder, Louis Morris, the animal group, and a satellite view of the facility.”

“I’d pay for your services,” Mac said. “A lot.”

“They’d cost more than you have. Whatever you have.” She turned off the laptop, then turned it over and examined the base. In a moment, she had a black oblong object in her hand. She swung it high overhead and smashed it to bits on the desk. Gouges of mahogany flew.

“Hey hey HEY, what the hell? What the hell did you just do?”

“Nonsecured computer used in a classified operation. Hard disk has to be destroyed. Legal thing, son. Sorry.”

“Damn you!” He came at her.

Flynn saw that the rage in his eyes was damn serious, and he stepped between them. “Hold off! Just hold off!”

Mac stopped, but that was going to last maybe five seconds.

“Jesus, Diana!” Flynn said.

“He’s got a backup system.”

“It doesn’t fucking work!” he shouted.

“I fixed it. All of your stuff is on it, none of mine. If I’d left traces, you’d draw federal interest. You don’t want that.”

“Anybody ever gets me, it ain’t gonna be a fed.”

“It’d be a drone strike.” She took out her credential. “Ever seen one of these?”

Mac looked at it. Now he shifted his eyes back to Flynn. “What kinda crowd are you running with, buddy?”

“It’s a long story. Suffice to say, if you help us, there will be credit earned. Significant credit.”

“Flynn, if it don’t involve saving Weezy’s life, it don’t mean a thing to me. That’s my little brother, man!”

“Don’t keep hitting me with that, you’ve got the governor’s daughter strapped into your guillotine and we both know why. Weezy will not take the needle.”

“As long as she stays by my side. But since when does a twenty-year-old do anything for more than a couple of long farts? Soon’s I run outa horse, she’s gone.”

“Mac, don’t reveal a crime to me.”

Mac spread his hands. “So, okay, let’s go tiger hunting.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

They’d taken a suite at the Four Seasons in Austin on Mac’s dime. They were using one of his laptops and any calls were made over one of his cell phones. His security was the best.

Mac and Cissy had ordered up champagne and caviar, fried wontons, Snickers bars, the list was long. She was pleading to invite friends, and Flynn thought it wise to let that happen. With them would come grass and crack and X and coke, and for Cissy a useful oblivion. In anticipation of the fact that they would be separated, a friend of Mac’s, Giorgio Budd, had appeared.

Cissy and Giorgio bickered in the living room. He was a masseur, but she didn’t want a massage. Flynn could hear them from the bedroom he and Diana had made into an office.