Strong Cold Dead (39 page)

Again.

It was like he had “Sucker for Love” tattooed across his forehead. Was it really that obvious?

Dylan was a prisoner of his emotions, just as Ela was of her beliefs. In both cases, their vision had ended up skewed; they had seen what they wanted to be before them, instead of what was really there.

“We're going to stop this,” he heard himself saying. “No one else is going to get hurt.”

He had no idea how the shit piled in that limestone storage chamber worked, only that it had to be the source of whatever Ela and the Lost Boys had really been up to—whatever the schematic, kind of a map, of some area of Houston was really about.

Dylan …

He heard his father's voice in his head, wanted to tell Cort Wesley that he had been right all along and that Dylan only wished he could do it all over again.

“Dylan.”

This time the voice was accompanied by a gentle but strong grasp of his shoulder. He looked up to see Cort Wesley Masters leaning over him, eyeing Ela sadly.

“She's dead, son.”

“I … think I knew that.”

Dylan retrieved the schematic, map, or whatever it was from the ground and extended it upward.

“What's this?” his father asked him.

“You tell me, Dad,” he said, feeling the tears welling in his eyes. “But whatever it is, it's not good.”

 

95

D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS

“Rawls pretty much confirmed my thinking when he finally came clean about the fact he's there for water and not oil,” Pierre Beauchamp continued, inside the Black Hawk cabin, as they streaked through the sky toward Dallas. “That Inuit village where the residents all died was located on a volcanic plain, directly over a fault line, accounting for high acid levels from time to time in the river they drew their water from. Before I came down here, I did some checking and learned there's a similarly ancient volcanic plane located in the general area beneath that Indian reservation as well.”

Probably right in the area of White Eagle's patch of land, Caitlin thought, as Young Roger leaned forward.

“So you figure some portion of the aquifer feeding the reservation its water has levels of acidity comparable to this river,” he presumed.

Beauchamp nodded. “Corn wasn't a staple of the Inuit diet; fish was. So, yes, I think the fish was contaminated with the very same toxin that killed all those people in that Austin diner. And since that area has been abandoned ever since, we have no way of knowing how often the toxicity has returned.”

“But like you said,” started Caitlin, “fish was as much a part of the Inuit diet as corn is for the Comanche on that reservation. But I'm guessing only a small portion of the
cuitlacoche
is affected when the contaminated water leaches upward. And that's the portion that can be weaponized.”

“All well and good,” Jones noted. “But in case we're forgetting, those folks in Hoover's Cooking weren't killed by accidental leaching. They were murdered, and in case you didn't read the report, no trace of any such toxin was found in the remains of their food—either what was left on their plates or inside their stomachs.”

“That's because it was gone,” Caitlin interjected.

“Ranger,” said Captain Tepper, holding his box of Marlboro reds in his lap, “if I weren't strapped into this damn thing, I'd come over there and shake some sense into you.”

“Hear me out on this, Captain. It's the only thing that makes any sense, the only explanation for how the waitstaff in Hoover's was killed too, even though they didn't eat or drink anything during the same period.”

“Christ on a crutch. So what killed them?”

“Smell,” Young Roger answered, before Caitlin could. “The neurotoxin entered the body through the nasal cavity, just like it did to those Inuit in 1930.” He paused to let that sink in, then went on. “More specifically, through the paranasal sinuses. I'd recommend the CDC teams on the ground now perform detailed examinations of those sinuses in the remains of the victims, along with the throat, larynx, and primary nasal passages, in search of any abnormalities in the form of lesions or even the slightest tissue damage. I expect they'll find enough—at least something that proves we're looking at a weapon spread through smell.”

Caitlin turned back toward Tepper. “Go back to the days Jack Strong got himself involved with the same reservation, D.W. All those men who got torn apart in those hotel rooms were already dead, or totally incapacitated, when they were attacked. That's how it all happened so fast; that's why they never even screamed. The Comanche were trying to scare John D. Rockefeller off by perpetuating the myth of a monster spawned by nature, some otherworldly force rising when necessary to protect them. But that monster was no more than warriors turned into violent killing machines after ingesting a particularly potent strain of peyote. That's what those manacles I found in the cave were for, to keep the warriors restrained until the effects of the drug finally wore off.”

“You're saying they brought their mythical killer back when the need arose,” said Jones, “only this time thanks to Cray Rawls instead of John D. Rockefeller.”

“I believe so, yes. And I asked Young Roger here to look into the possibility of smell as a weapon, even before I had any inkling about this corn fungus. This ringing any bells with you, Jones? Because the military's had a program in it for decades.”

“Sure,” Jones cut in, “under nonlethal weapons development. Last time I checked, though, what we're facing here is pretty damn lethal.”

“On that subject,” began Young Roger, “in 2007, a fireball hurtled out of the sky and blasted a forty-foot crater in Peru. The crater filled with boiling liquid and a noxious gas poured out that sent dozens of people to the hospital. Some of them suffered temporary paralysis and nerve damage. It was determined that whatever leaked out of that crater affected their nervous systems. Sound familiar?”

“Any of them die, kid?”

“Not a one,” Young Roger told Jones. “But you ever hear of an Israeli company called Odortec?”

Jones stiffened. “That's classified.”

“Not here, it's not,” said Tepper. “Keep talking, son.”

“Odortec has been specializing in scent-based weapons of the
nonlethal
variety for law enforcement for years. Word is they've expanded their horizons considerably as of late.”

“Word from where?” Jones challenged.

“The Deep Web. Would you like me to cite the specifics?” Young Roger asked him.

“Homeland's connected to this company … have I got that right, Jones?” Caitlin challenged.

“I'm taking the Fifth,” he said, still glaring at Young Roger.

“The fact that the toxin disappears when the smell does makes it close to the perfect weapon,” Young Roger said, addressing all of them. “No trace elements, no residue, minimal collateral damage, and no way to trace anything to potential perpetrators.”

“I imagine that would make aroma the perfect means of delivery,” Caitlin ventured. “Right, Jones? An untraceable weapon of mass destruction.”

“You said it,” Jones conceded. “I didn't.”

“You might as well have,” Caitlin told him. “Man oh man, where does it stop?”

“It doesn't, Ranger. You want to talk to me about new avenues in lethal weapons development, fine, let's have that conversation. Right now, people scream when we use drones; they scream when we launch raids; they scream when we take out a wedding party to take out a dozen militants who'd cut the heads off their own children.”

“Something I'm trying to get straight here,” Captain Tepper said, his words aimed squarely at Young Roger. “These two incidents, the one up in Canada a long way back and now the one down here at Hoover's—it wasn't
eating
the food that did the deed; it was
smelling
it?”

“That's right.”

“But in both cases the food had to be cooked … have I got that right, son?”

“As rain, Captain. An aquifer on that reservation created a super-deadly strain of corn fungus, but not until heat was added to the equation. Kind of like a final catalyst.”

“Any kind of heat?”

“I suppose. Why?”

“Because,” Caitlin answered, before Tepper could, her gaze fixed on Jones, “what would happen, exactly, if somebody blew up a whole bunch of that toxic
cuitlacoche
?”

 

96

B
ALCONES
C
ANYONLANDS,
T
EXAS

Cort Wesley studied the bloodied piece of paper that Ela had given Dylan.

“Ten red Xs,” Dylan said, following his eyes, standing over Ela Nocona's body, which was now covered with an extra tarpaulin. “I think it's a map. I think they're bombs.”

“Safe assumption.” Cort Wesley nodded, without looking up.

“Ela said something about backpacks. She stopped her cousins from using whatever was inside them, but then the killers showed up. She said they spoke Arabic.”

“Arabic,” Cort Wesley repeated, drawing out the syllables.

“You have any idea what that's a map of … where in Houston?”

Cort Wesley folded it back up. “I think I do, son. Now let's see if we can get there in time.”

*   *   *

Cort Wesley climbed the ladder back into the shed first, lending Dylan a hand the final stretch of the way.

“You need to call Caitlin, Dad.”

“That's the plan.”

Cort Wesley opened the shed door all the way, revealing what looked like a wizened corpse standing before them, holding an ancient double-barreled shotgun.

“This is as far you go,” said White Eagle.

 

97

D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS

Both Black Hawks landed at the Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex on Mountain Creek Lake in southwest Dallas, a fifteen-minute drive from Klyde Warren Park.

“We got drones up and active over the target zone,” Jones reported, eyes fixed on a tablet, after they piled into a pair of massive SUVs.

“What about intelligence as to who Cross and company might be meeting there?” Caitlin asked him.

“We're running every picture of every person who entered the country flying international in the past forty-eight hours. Problem we're facing is that plenty of these ISIS fighters aren't in any databases, and if the mother ship in Syria did send a team here, you can bet it would consist of those not on our radar.”

“What about running a cross-match on all known leaders?”

“Those deployments at Quantico have served you well, Ranger.”

“Just answer the question, Jones.”

“Nothing, so far, from our facial recognition software. We get a hit out of Klyde Warren Park, it'll trigger an alarm you'll hear from coast to coast.”

“Is that supposed to make me breathe easier?”

Jones looked up from his tablet. “Right now, we're not just the front line on this, we're the only line. Washington only wants to know what it wants to know. No Black Hawks were requisitioned out of Martindale. We never landed at Grand Prairie, and the SUVS we're riding in don't have tags that match up with any existing registration. For all intents and purposes, we're not here now and whatever ends up going down in Klyde Warren Park will lead absolutely nowhere.”

“Just the way you like it, Jones.”

“Not a question of like; it's a question of need. If we show up and find Zurif, Saflin, and a geek with the secrets of the universe, it's going to get messy. We show up and find ISIS making a field trip, it's going to get even messier. Right up your alley,” Jones said, just as his tablet made a pinging sound. He zoomed in on what the drones circling overhead had locked onto below, in Klyde Warren Park. “Looks like we've got a firm location.”

He angled the tablet screen so Caitlin could see the frozen image of three figures seated at a picnic table, all immediately recognizable.

“What about the fourth guy?” she asked Jones.

 

P
ART
T
EN

Charlie Miller was one of the first Rangers to see the value of the Colt 1911 pistol as a peace officer's weapon. However, Miller had a severe dislike for the grip safety on the pistol. His solution was to tie the grip safety down with a length of rawhide. He also carried his pistol with a round in the chamber and the hammer on half cock (a practice that is definitely not recommended). To make matters even more interesting, Miller disdained the use of a holster and generally just carried the .45 auto shoved down in the front of his pants. In later years, his big belly pretty well made this a concealed-carry technique.

—Sheriff Jim Wilson, “Texas Ranger Tales” http://sheriffjimwilson.com/2011/10/14/texas-ranger-tales

 

98

K
LYDE
W
ARREN
P
ARK,
D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS

The SUVs were able to make spaces for themselves in a rear corner of a parking lot on the northbound Woodall Rodgers Freeway access road, normally reserved for the park's Savor restaurant. They had no staging area per se and had to rely on the cover of the SUVs for their final weapons check and prep.

“What'd you tell the Dallas cops?” Caitlin asked Jones.

“What they need to know: nothing.”

“Come again?”

“You want to run the risk of them doing something stupid?”

“We could use the backup if this goes bad, Jones. To help with the evacuation, if nothing else.”

“I'll take that under advisement,” he said, and turned away.

The logistics necessitated that Paz and his men use only light weaponry, including submachine guns tucked under light jackets that fell just below their waists. Even without flak jackets, which Guillermo Paz never allowed his men to wear, that was sure to draw some attention to them. A necessary trade-off, and one that Jones was willing to accept, given that their targets were stationary and confined.