The Last Honorable Man (17 page)

When he was through repeating the plan for the tenth time, Del couldn't quite meet Elisa's gaze. Instead he stared out the back window of his Land Rover at DuPage Street, a block away from the Dallas County Courthouse, where his arraignment was scheduled to begin in half an hour.

Elisa sat as stiff as a mannequin in the seat next to him. “You cannot go to the courthouse.”

“I have to.”

“You said you were going to fight.” Her voice crackled like fire on dry tinder.

Del sighed. He shouldn't have left this for the last minute. He should have said goodbye at home. Or slipped out of bed this morning before she woke. God knew, he tried.

He met Clint's gaze in the mirror. “Give us a minute?”

With a sympathetic nod, Clint stepped out of the vehicle and closed the driver's door behind him.

“I am going to fight. But
through
the system.”

Her head snapped toward him. Her gaze was sharp as a buck knife. “The same system that sells guns to an army run by a madman?”

“The system I've spent my whole life upholding.” It tore him up to think his country might be responsible for
any of the suffering in San Ynez. But he still couldn't turn his back on the American way.

She popped the car door open, stepped into the street. A car blared its horn at her as it swerved to the center lane. More deliberately he followed, and joined her on the bench at a bus stop a few yards away.

“You could come with me to Canada,” she said.

“And abandon my family?”

“You would rather have them visit you in prison?”

He shook his head slowly. What would his grandfather say? His father? He didn't know. He did know one thing. “I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, 'Lis. I can't live as a fugitive. I just don't have it in me.”

“And I would rather die than live with that kind of injustice.”

He kicked a pebble, and a pigeon scrabbled after it as if it were a breadcrumb. He felt bad for giving the bird false hopes. “I guess we'll always be on opposite sides of the coin on that one.”

She stared at the cement between her sandals. “You said you loved me. Was it just…the moment? Or did you mean it?”

He tipped her head up to his with his hand on her chin. Del had never thought twice about the term
broken heart.
He figured it was just a romantic notion for love-struck teenage girls. After today he might have to revise that assumption. Because when he lifted Elisa's head and saw the tears glistening in her eyes, it felt like someone had stuck a handsaw in his chest and was hacking away.

“I never say what I don't mean,” he told her, willing her to believe it. “Especially that.”

“I…I love you, too.”

A grin tried to crack on his face even as his heart fell
into two neat halves. “I was wondering when you were going to work up the nerve to tell me.”

She jerked her chin away.

Clint walked toward them. He didn't say anything, and his eyes were hidden by mirrored shades, but a tap on his watch told Del what was on his mind. Del would be late if he didn't get moving.

He pulled Elisa to her feet and put her in the front passenger seat, lowering the power window and leaning in as he shut the door between them. “Even if they convict me, they can't lock me up forever. When I get out, I'll come for you.”

“Do not make promises you might not be able to keep.”

He hardly let her finish her complaint before he crushed his mouth over hers. Damn it, he hadn't meant to kiss her. He'd meant to make a clean break. Say his goodbyes and walk away, even if it killed him.

They'd left his bed only a few hours ago, and already his body was hungry for hers again. His need for her was a physical craving. Only, it wasn't just the physical release he craved. The moment she was out of earshot he longed to hear her voice; the moment she slid out of his grasp he longed to feel her again; the moment a kiss ended he longed to taste her again.

He was the man who had pledged to help her, the Texas Ranger, and yet somehow he'd come to depend on her strength. Her resolve.

Damn, but she wasn't even gone and already he ached for her.

He broke off the kiss before it was too late, before he couldn't walk away at all, and thumped his palm on the roof of the car to signal Clint to go. “Wherever you
are,” he said, focusing all his will, all his strength into that one sure statement, “I'll find you.”

The first of her tears rolled down her cheek. Even with all she had been through, this was the first time he'd seen her cry, Del realized.

She shook her head, then looked at him through glazed, wet eyes. Her head tilted as if something were broken inside her. “You were right before. We do not believe in the same things. We are too different.”

The car rolled forward a foot. Del kept pace on the curb, his face twisting. “'Lis? No.
I will find you.
”

She looked over her shoulder as the Rover pulled into traffic. “It would better for us both if you did not.”

 

How many blocks passed before she reined in her emotions, Elisa could not be sure. What she was sure of, was that Clint Hayes scowled at her through every one of them.

“Damn women,” he mumbled, his hands strangling the steering wheel. “Ought to be a law against 'em.”

“I am sorry,” she said, though she was not sure what she was apologizing for, other than being female. And maybe for whatever woman had ruined his opinion of the gender.

“Damn well ought to be sorry,” he said, spearing her with a hard look. “You didn't have to do that, you know?”

“Do what?”

“Rip Del up. Leave him in pieces after everything he's done for you.”

She squirmed deeper in the bucket seat. “I did not ask for his help.”

“How about sex, did you ask him for that? He'd already given you his name, a ring and every penny he
had, but you had to seduce him, too. Make sure he had nothing left when you were gone, not even his self-respect.”

Clint's anger knocked the breath out of her. “I did not seduce—”

But she had known Del well enough to realize that once they made love, his commitment to her would grow even deeper. She would not be just the woman to whom he owed a debt. She would be his wife, in every sense of the word. He would not do anything to jeopardize her safety.

Even save himself.

“I am sorry,” she said again, and this time she meant it.

“Aw.” Clint waved his hand impotently. “Wouldn't have goddamn mattered. Damn Del, it's like he's got this code of honor of his hardwired in his brain.”

The last honorable man, she had once thought of him. She had been right.

“Please take me to the courthouse.”

“You've got a train to catch.”

“I need to say goodbye properly.” She could feel him appraising her from behind his mirrored lenses. “He deserves better, but it is the best I can do.”

At the next corner Clint swung the Land Rover in wide U-turn. “So help me, lady, you do right by him this time or I'll put you on a plane to San Ynez myself.”

They hurried through the parking garage at the courthouse, counting the minutes before Del's case was called. At the elevator Clint punched the up button and checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes. We'll make it.”

She nodded and nervously watched the lights indicating the elevator's descent to their level. She had no idea
what she would say when she found Del. If he would even talk to her.

The last light blinked on, a bell dinged and the lift doors opened. Before she and Clint could step on, a man stepped out of the stairwell to her right, pulling a deadly looking pistol from beneath his sport coat.

Clint shoved her to the floor with one hand and reached for the gun at his hip with the other. A shot exploded, echoing like thunder through the concrete garage, and Clint hit the ground rolling, blood already spreading across his left shoulder. His gun clattered to the cement beside Elisa. She picked it up, and the shooter dived for the cover of a steel drum being used as a traffic barricade. Before he could set up for another shot, Elisa dragged Clint behind the minivan in the parking space next to them.

She was searching for something to stanch the flow of blood from Clint's arm when cold metal touched her temple. A second man stepped out from behind her.

Knowing it was useless, she instinctively raised the ranger's gun a fraction of an inch. The first man appeared, smiling, and kicked it from her hand. “I don't think so, sweetheart. Move away from ranger-boy. You're coming with us.”

T
he fifteen steps to the front entrance to the Dallas County Courthouse looked like Mt. Everest to Del. He dreaded the climb. Loathed the pack of reporters that waited for him at the glass doors like feral dogs at a rabbit hole.

With a deep breath he focused on his goal—get in, enter his plea, get out—and started forward. Standing here broiling in the sun wasn't going to help.

“Ranger Cooper, you've been charged with negligent homicide. What do you have to say?”

“Ranger Cooper, how will you plead?”

Never slowing his forward momentum, he shoved a microphone out of his face. “Haven't you people figured it out yet? I'm not a Texas Ranger anymore.”

The burly anchor for Channel Seven blocked his path. “
Mr.
Cooper, how will you plead when your case is called?”

“Guilty on a charge of assault and battery if you don't get out of my way.”

A dozen lights flashed in his face. Half the news crews walked away. They'd gotten their sound bite for the noon report. On to ruin someone else's day.

Del pushed through the dispersing crowd into the cool lobby and through the security checkpoint. Turning the last corner before he reached his assigned check-in area, his stomach dropped. His grandparents sat rigidly on a hard wooden bench. Dressed in their church clothes, they looked older and grayer than when he'd seen them just a few days ago.

His steps slowed. He fought a childish urge to turn and run the other way like he had when he'd been seven years old and left the gate to the chicken coop open. The coyotes had taken three of Mami's best hens.

It wasn't fear that fueled his apprehension over facing his grandparents with his failure all those years ago. Nor was it now. They would never hurt him or stop loving him.

Shame was what held him back. Deep and raw remorse.

Bad enough he'd left the Rangers in disgrace. Been branded a criminal. But to have his grandparents in the court when the charges were read against him…that would be worse than the rest combined.

Seeing his grandparents disappointed had always hurt Del more than any physical punishment could.

They stood when they saw him.
“Querido,”
Mami crooned, her hand brushing his cheek and a tear in her eye.

“You shouldn't have come.”

“We wouldn't be anywhere else,” his grandfather
said. “Jury can see what kind of person a man is by what kind of family he's from.”

“This is just an arraignment. The judge will read the charges, I'll enter my plea and they'll set a court date. No jury.”

“
Querido,
you said your rangers agreed that you did nothing wrong. This Garcia's death, it was an accident.”

He shuffled foot to foot. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a discussion about what was really happening here in the courthouse hallway. “Things have gotten a little complicated. There are more people involved, not just rangers. Nothing is exactly what it seems.”

Papi thumped his cane on the floor. “What does that mean?”

Del shifted his gaze left and right to see who might be watching. Or listening. “I can't explain right now. Please, just go on home. Mom will be worried, being there alone. I'll come by as soon as I can and fill you in.”

“I don't like this, son. Not one bit.”

“I know, Pap. But I have to go check in before they call my case. Please. Take Mami home.”

Walking away from his grandparents was almost as hard as watching Elisa drive away. His chest felt as if it had been filled with concrete, and a lump the size of Amarillo rose in his throat. He almost went back to them, realizing he hadn't told them he loved them, but he only had nine minutes before his case was called.

He laid his hand on the door to the room where his lawyer was supposed to be waiting to check him in. A siren screamed by outside, close. His ears tuned it in a second before he chastised himself for caring. He wasn't a cop anymore.

Someone clapped his shoulder from behind.

Del turned. The cement in his chest settled lower. “You son of a bitch. Who are you?”

Mr. Baseball, dressed today in a conservative pinstripe and carrying a briefcase, nodded down the hall.

“I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me who you are.”

The man sauntered away, whistling. “I'm the man who just might be able to make your life worth living again.” He turned in a small conference room two doors down.

Del checked his watch. Eight minutes. Swearing, he followed Mr. Mysterious. The man made himself comfortable at the conference room table, setting a file folder out in front of him.

“Nothing more,” Del said, “until I know who you are.”

The man straightened his tie. “You can call me Mr. Bradford.”

“Who do you work for?”

“The same person who used to employ you, only at a higher level. Uncle Sam.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Do you want to play twenty questions, or do you want me to tell you how you can walk into that courtroom in—” he checked his watch “—seven minutes and clear your name.”

“What are you going to do? Buy another judge?”

“I don't have to.” The man shoved the file across the table to Del.

Reluctantly Del sat, opened it and started reading.

“Since you're running short on time, I'll save you the trouble of reading. It's a deposition signed by a federal agent saying that you didn't kill Eduardo Garcia.”

Del's stomach bounced off the floor of his abdomen. He looked up, speechless, then back down to the folder to confirm.

“We had a mole in the warehouse that day.” Bradford, if that really was his name, smiled smugly at Del's disbelief. “Your tax dollars at work.”

“If you had an undercover operative in there, how come you're just now sharing this information?”

“Our man was so deep we couldn't get a report from him until last night.”

Del flipped a few pages in the deposition. “Eduardo was the middle man who set up the sale. The deal went bad, and the buyers tied him up and executed him. With a shotgun.”

“Five minutes before the Texas Rangers arrived.”

Del cocked his jaw. It was possible. “Buckshot can't be traced by ballistic matching, like a regular bullet.”

“There was no way to know the blast that killed Garcia hadn't come from your weapon.” The man shrugged. “Until now.”

Del closed the folder, tapped his fingers on the cover. “It's a neat story.”

“I thought you'd like it.”

“Too neat.”

The man leaned back in his chair. “If you don't want my help, I'll take my folder and go. If, on the other hand, you want to clear your name, you hand that to your lawyer and all charges will be dropped. The records will be sealed, of course. Classified. But your slate is cleared. I might even be able to put in a word with the DPS. Get you rehired.”

He could have it all back. His reputation, his job. It seemed too good to be true. The trouble with things that seemed too good to be true is, they usually were.

Still, he wasn't ready to let go of the folder. “And Elisa?”

“Your wife's association with a gun smuggler makes her an undesirable in this country. Even marriage to a U.S. citizen can't prevent deportation of someone judged to be dangerous or involved in criminal activity.”

Del shoved his chair back and stood. “She didn't know Eduardo was working for Sanchez.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“That's what I know. Furthermore, if you had an operative in the warehouse, he wasn't a mole. If he was, he wouldn't have been there alone. He would have had cover for himself and that cache of weapons. And if he wasn't a mole, there's only one other explanation. He was selling guns to a foreign military. An activity the United States Congress seriously frowns upon. So yeah.” He snatched the folder from the table. “I'll take your deposition and give it to my lawyer. We'll tell a story to the judge and all those nice reporters waiting outside. Only it might not be exactly the story you'd been hoping for. So, if I were you, I'd start worrying less about how I'm going to clear my name, and more about how you're going to clear yours.”

He turned to leave.

“You're an idiot, Cooper. You can't win this. You're dealing with the highest levels of this country's government.
The highest.
”

“The higher they are, the farther they have to fall.”

“You'd really throw away everything for a woman?”

He stopped. “No, I'd be hanging on to the one thing that matters more than my job, my name, even my freedom. My self-respect.”

“I can have this whole thing taken out of here. Moved to a military tribunal.”

He pulled the door open. Kat and Captain Matheson stood ten feet down the hallway. Sensing trouble, they shifted to ready stances.

Del looked over his shoulder. Mr. Baseball looked as if he'd spent too much time in the sun. His face was red, and he'd popped a sweat.

Turning back to the hall, he gave Bull and Kat a silent heads-up signal with a faint jerk of his chin. “You can try,” he said to the man behind him as he walked out.

Kat and Bull flanked him on either side.

“What's going on?” Kat whispered.

“Hold it for later, Kat,” Bull growled under his breath. Bradford's footfalls echoed on the tile floor behind them.

“Cooper, wait.”

Grudgingly Del stopped and turned. His friends pulled up beside him, their duty faces on.

“We need to talk,” the man said, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Alone.”

“There's nothing you could say that can't be said in front of my friends.” He smiled. “Seein's how you all work for Uncle Sam.”

The man's gaze flitted nervously over the rangers before settling on Del. “What I'm about to tell you is highly sensitive information.”

“Get to the point.”

Mr. Redface shoved his handkerchief into his back pocket. “You were right about the warehouse. Our operative was the one making the sale. But it wasn't real. It was a sting. Our man didn't have any cover because we had no intention of busting the buy, and we didn't want to risk his cover by having a bunch of cops around.”

“What operative?” Kat asked, wide eyed. “What sting?”

Bull silenced her with a glare.

The man continued, uninterrupted. “Garcia was our in-country man. He made contact with Sanchez's people.”

“Using a trip with the World-Aid Organization as his cover.”

The man nodded, swallowed nervously. “He got Sanchez's men here, but we want the big kahuna himself.”

“Sanchez?”

“We're going to extradite him—forcefully—from his own country the way we did Manuel Noriega in the early nineties. He's harboring terrorists—not to mention producing a hell of a lot of drugs that find their way onto American streets. We just needed concrete proof. We had tracking devices in the packing crates with the guns. All we had to do was get them in his hands, wait for him to resell them to the terrorists, then snap a few satellite shots of nice little homing blips coming from terrorist training camps, and we had him cold.”

“So what happened?”

The man shook his head. “We don't know. Somehow they got wind he might be tied to the rebel faction in San Ynez.”

“Resistance,” Del corrected automatically. Then he closed his eyes.
“Elisa.”

If Sanchez's goons had found out Eduardo had a rebel—resistance—girlfriend, it would have cast doubt on his loyalty to the colonel. Except, the Fed here didn't seem to know she was a rebel.

“She's the wild card in all this. Details about her are sketchy at best. Her stumbling into Garcia's path just as he got wounded in San Ynez, forcing his care into her
hands, might not have been an accident. Sanchez might have ordered her to cozy up to Eduardo to spy on him. For all we know, that baby she's carrying isn't really even his—”

Del grabbed the man by his lapels and pinned him to the wall. The other rangers calmed the passersby.

“Elisa doesn't have any connection to Sanchez,” Del said. “She couldn't. She's part of the resistance.” He laughed. Finally, everything she stood for seemed so right to him. He knew what guilt she carried over her relationship with Eduardo. He couldn't wait to find her and tell her the father of her child hadn't been a traitor to his people after all, but a hero, as determined to stop Sanchez's reign of terror as she was. Maybe he could take a plane, be there to meet her train when it arrived in Detroit.

He laughed despite himself, filled with pride for her. “Hell, she's La Puma, the leader of the whole damn resistance movement. Sanchez would execute her if he caught her.”

The man Del held blanched. “Elisa Reyes is La Puma?”

“She was. Until she got pregnant and came to the United States to make a better life for her baby.”

“Oh, God.” The man closed his eyes. “I didn't know.”

Del's blood chilled. “What?”

“My men saw her pull out of the parking garage ten minutes ago with two of Sanchez's goons.”

 

Elisa paced the walls of her eight-by-eight cell, digging at the windowsill, testing for weakness for the hundredth time and still finding none. As far as she could tell, she had been back in San Ynez, in this hole, three
days, but she didn't know how long she'd been traveling before that. They drugged her, she thought. She didn't remember much of the trip.

She strode to the window and back again, her hand resting on her swollen belly. “It's all right, little one,” she said. She'd taken to talking to the baby during her captivity. It reassured them both. “I got out of here once. I can do it again.”

She wondered where Del was tonight. If he, too, was behind bars, or worse.