He doused his running lights, then dimmed the cockpit as deeply as he dared. At a minimum, he needed his artificial horizon and his compass.
“Where is it now?”
“Gone. It went out.”
“Went out? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it is gone, as in disappeared. Jesus Christ, why do I have to spell everything out?”
He pushed back a flare of anger. They were getting on each other’s nerves. “Let’s not fight,” he said.
“This is a goddamn nightmare!”
He flew on. There was nothing else to do.
When the light didn’t reappear and nothing else happened, he restored his instrument lighting but left the running lights off. They’d been in the air now for two hours, and he had another three hours of fuel left. Like so many of these drug wagons, this plane had been modified to fit larger tanks.
“We can make El Paso,” he said. “We’ll land at Sunrise Airport. I’ve flown in there.”
“We can’t rent a car without identifying ourselves.”
“That’s not the plan.”
“I don’t want to steal another one. It’s too risky.”
“That’s not the plan, either.”
“So we buy?”
“We can’t buy.”
“Then what? I don’t get it.”
He said nothing.
The storm now behind them, they flew into a gradually spreading dawn, and he was relieved to finally see the horizon. As the plane began to feel like a more solid platform in the sky, the sense of disorientation that had dogged him from the moment he’d taken off faded.
The light that Diana had seen coming up was also gone. What it might have been they would never know. The sky is a big place.
The landing at Sunrise was surprisingly easy. He squawked their approach and got immediate clearance. They hit the runway with a single bounce, then Flynn throttled back.
“That worked well,” Diana said. She sounded ready to kiss the ground.
“The Cessna is a forgiving airplane.”
He pulled out one of the disposable cell phones and dialed a number.
“Hey, Miguel.” He shifted into Spanish. Diana’s face immediately reflected the predictable suspicion. “Compadre, I’m at Sunrise and I’ve got an airplane somebody on the West Coast probably wants back. It’s on the apron in front of the old Bellanca hangar. The bogus on it is NT273, it’s a Skyhawk.”
“What’re you up to? I thought you quit the cops.”
“I did. Private enterprise now.”
“Anything there for me?”
“An airplane.”
Diana interrupted. “What are you saying? What’s going on?”
He closed the phone, pulled out the battery and the chip, and crushed it between his hands. “A friend’s going to pick us up,” he said.
“That’s off the reservation, damnit. Way off. And you know it.”
“Nothing’s off the reservation anymore. He will pick us up, he will take care of the plane, he will get us where we need to go.”
“You can’t have involved the El Paso police.”
“No police.”
“Then—oh, Christ, not a gangbanger?”
“He’s honest. A good guy.”
“You’ve tangled us up with the drug trade. Flynn, this is not a direction for us.” She opened her door. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
He climbed out, also. They needed to get away from the plane anyway. The way it had been hidden, it could well be on some DEA list.
“Miguel and I went to grade school together. When we were six, he beat me to a pulp. Put me in the hospital. Last year, he did ten years on a case I worked. We’re good friends.”
“He did ten years last year?”
“He blew his way out.”
“Good Christ!”
“Not with explosives.”
“But he’s an escaped convict. You can’t get an escaped convict involved in this.”
They walked into the lobby. Flynn eyed the sandwich machine. He was definitely hungry.
“He got off for good behavior.”
“Who shaves nine years off a ten-year sentence for good behavior?”
“It was very good behavior. I thought you’d be comfortable with an ex-con.”
“Don’t throw that in my face, okay? I wasn’t guilty.”
“Neither was Miguel.” He put some money in the machine and got a ham and cheese sandwich. “Avoid the pimento,” he said.
“No food,” she muttered. “Later.”
“That’s right. Sorry.”
Miguel had gained so much weight that the only reason Flynn recognized him when he finally ambled in was that there was nobody else coming through the doors this early in the morning.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Thanks for the plane, man. That’s gonna be some useful hardware.”
“No problem. You better get a paint job on it, though, I think it’s probably on the list. Not to mention its former owner.”
“You movin’ stuff? You on the sweet side of the law at last?”
“I’m still honest.”
“The plane tagged?”
“Don’t know. Could be.”
“We’ll find anything like that.”
“I need clean transportation. Car or truck.”
“I got a Range Rover, good VIN, good plates, not a problem.”
“Done, let’s go get it. We’re on a schedule.”
He gave Diana a long look. “Man, I’d like to see her work a pole.”
“You would.”
“The truck’s gonna set you back. Not much.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna set me back one airplane.”
“You come in here with a hot airplane and expect a clean truck in return? Man, that ain’t right.”
“Neither is dealing in stolen goods.”
“You aren’t a cop anymore. You tell me that, it’s gonna stand up in court. I know the law.”
“Eddie is still a cop, and Eddie still doesn’t care for your ass.”
The negotiation was starting to take too long, but Flynn could not betray his urgency. He just wished he believed that he could get away from their opponent, but he did not believe that. Maybe they were out of his gunsights right now, but he doubted that it would last.
Finally, Miguel said, “The plane is a good trade.”
They headed for his house, where the Rover waited. Diana was silent, furious at Flynn for letting an outsider so close.
Flynn wondered how long it would be before the perp and his friends showed up in Miguel’s life, and extracted from him every tiny bit of information he possessed.
“Where you goin’? Or should I ask?”
“See Mac.”
“Mac? Ain’t nobody shot him yet?”
“Mac dances too fast.”
“Where’s he keepin’ himself these days?”
Flynn laughed. “That I’m not gonna tell you. The plane is worth four times the truck. That’s enough for one day.”
“I wouldn’t sell Mac. Mac’s my friend.”
“Everybody’s your friend, Miguel. That’s why you have no friends.”
Twenty minutes later, they were heading out of El Paso in the Rover. Across the Rio Grande stood the dirty hills of Juarez, a most dangerous city, but bright in the light of dawn.
Flynn thought it would be nice to be in Juarez right now, hiding in a small hotel somewhere, deep in the city’s maze of streets.
Even there, though, it would just be a question of time, wouldn’t it? From now on, it would always just be a question of time.
“Who’s Mac?” Diana asked.
“MacAdoo Terrell. The worst person I know and one of my oldest friends. Maybe the worst person in Texas, which is saying a fair amount.”
“MacAdoo Terrell and Errol Caroll?”
“Mac and Flynn. Our parents died before we were old enough to kill them. At least Eddie got a decent name. He was the third membe
r of our gang.”
“And why are we going to see the worst person in Texas?”
“Because we need a friend.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Where the Rover had come from, Flynn hoped he would never know. It had the feel of death about it. Why he knew that, he couldn’t really say, but he knew it. It was his cop sense, he supposed, which had been in overdrive for a while now.
They were a few miles west of the little town of Iraan, pronounced Eerie-Ann in West Texan.
“We’ll turn north on Three Forty-Nine,” Flynn said. “Mac’s got fifteen thousand acres of hell and good hunting up there.”
“What’s so bad about this guy?”
“What isn’t? He won’t show himself right away, incidentally. When he does, it’ll be a near thing for me. He’s got any number of reasons to want me dead, and we don’t have enough money on us to do more than get him to think about changing his mind.”
“A lot of people don’t like you, Flynn. Casinos. Your boss.”
“Eddie Parker? We grew up together.”
“Well, he seemed pretty sour on you. Why does this guy hate you?”
“First off, Eddie has been pretty sour since we were about five. Second, I put Mac’s brother on death row.”
“And he can’t blow his way out?”
“Not so far.”
“It strikes me as foolish to expose ourselves to more danger than we’re already in.”
He turned onto Mac’s road. It went back three miles, and it rode like it hadn’t been spread with gravel in a good long while.
“Shouldn’t we get our guns ready? Mine’s in my backpack.”
“I know where your gun is.” He took his out of its shoulder holster and laid it carefully in a cup holder. “They won’t do us any good.”
“I just do not see why we’d come to some criminal lair or hideout or whatever it is.”
Flynn saw Mac’s shack huddled down in its draw, a ramshackle mess but topped by a very large, very clean American flag.
“See that? That’s why.”
She shook her head. “A crook wrapped in a flag is still a crook.”
He knew that Mac would already have the truck in the sights of one of his superb rifles.
“There are gonna be dogs,” he said. “Don’t get out until Mac calls them off. They’ll tear you to pieces.” He pulled a little closer to the shack and the dogs immediately swarmed out from under it. They were Mac’s own special breed, Weimaraner–Pit Bull mixes. Loyal, fast, lethal. If a bullet was going to stop one—and that was the only thing that could—then it was going to have to be well placed. Their wide heads, huge jaws, and yellow-gold Weimaraner eyes made them look the part of the hell-hounds that they were.
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.”