Secession: The Storm (44 page)

“Have you heard anything about HPD Detective Temple?” Zach asked as he opened the passenger door, the dome light illuminating the cruiser’s interior. The ranger couldn’t help but notice the fellow sitting behind the wheel seemed barely old enough to shave.

“Yes, sir. She is at the sheriff’s department in Orange, Texas. I’ve been instructed to take you there,” replied the nervous rookie. It felt good to sit down, Zach taking the opportunity to lean back and close his eyes for a moment.

No sooner had he gotten comfortable than his cell phone sounded an annoying tone. The caller ID informed him it was Detective Temple.

“Glad you made it,” he answered.

“Same back at ya, Ranger. We are safe and sound here, surrounded by adoring men in uniform who seem to be concerned over our every need.”

Zach grunted, picturing Samantha Temple and Cheyenne descending upon the remote department in the wee hours. He was sure the few male personnel working the graveyard shift were convinced they’d died and gone to heaven.

Before he could think of a clever retort, Sam continued. “Any word about Alcorn?”

Zach sat upright, the mention of his rogue boss killing any comedic creativity. “No.”

“The Louisiana State Police are looking for him. So is half of Texas. The last anyone laid eyes on him was over 20 minutes ago. Better watch your back.”

After digesting the news for a bit, Zach nodded his head as if Sam could see his nonverbal response. The adrenaline rush was wearing off, his mind finally processing the irrational data it absorbed in the last few hours. The man he had reported to for years was as dirty as they come. Finally, he responded, “Yeah. Okay, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“You got any idea what you are going to do with those documents?” Sam asked.

“Right now, I need to sleep for about two days. I’ll figure it all out after that.”

The car slowed for an intersection, the deputy glancing both ways for oncoming traffic. Zach was stuffing his cell phone back in a pocket. The car started to roll.

It seemed like only a fraction of a second before Zach heard the driver’s surprised voice, “What the hell….” And then the world exploded.

Zach’s entire frame was slammed against the seatbelt, the nylon material cutting into his flesh like a dozen sharp blades. Before his body could react, the ranger’s skull smashed into the window, white lines of agony pulsating through his jarred brain.

His vision returned a few moments later, the interior of the police car bathed with brilliant white light. Dazed and disoriented, Zach’s head throbbed with even more vigor as he attempted to get a look at what had just happened.

For a moment, the ranger thought he was awaiting admittance at the pearly gates. Fluffy shadows and billowing silhouettes surrounded him. Those, combined with the ultra-bright light, reminded Zach of Bible school images of heaven. The pain surging through his body quickly dispelled that notion, immediately followed by the realization that the pillow-clouds were airbags, and the heavenly illumination was generated by the vehicle that had just rammed their car.

Alcorn!

Zach managed the door handle, rolling out of the undamaged passenger side of the cruiser. Barely overriding the ringing in his ears, he recognized what sounded like distant popping noises. The door glass erupted in a blizzard-like shower, the fragments reminiscent of a snowfall blurring the headlights as bullets tore through the patrol car. The ranger kept moving, his tortured intellect screaming commands to his body to move away from the incoming fire.

The soft, fresh grass of the roadside ditch soon replaced the hard, hot pavement. Zach stayed low, coaching his numb right arm to draw his weapon. The limb wouldn’t respond.

It took superhuman effort to reach his .45 with his left hand. At the same moment that he finally managed to pull the weapon, he spotted the profile of someone moving by the T-boned sheriff’s car. He recognized Alcorn’s outline, the major creeping cautiously around the wreck, his pistol directed at the passenger compartment.

Zach chanced movement. He had to chamber a round into his pistol and was unable to use his free hand. For a split-second, the ranger’s mind returned to his training, the instructors compelling the recruits to practice charging their weapons with only one working limb.  

Rolling onto his back, Zach pinched the .45’s slide between his boots and pushed, the pistol’s action doing its job and loading the first round into the chamber. Alcorn saw it, too.

Both men fired at the same moment, both working their trigger fingers over and over. The firefight’s thunder rolled through the pines, flashes of muzzle-lightning shattering the rural Texas night.

And then it was quiet.

Zach’s automatic locked back empty, the eight rounds in his magazine expended in less than two seconds. His first thought was to reload, but that reaction was quickly overridden by the hot streaks of burning fire that seemed to be consuming his right shoulder.

Dropping the useless firearm, Zach reached with his good hand to soothe the agony. Warm, sticky thickness of blood oozed through his fingers. His blood. He was hit.

It required every bit of willpower to scramble to his feet. He had to get away – Alcorn would be coming. Straining against the protests of agony blaring from every nerve in his body, Zach started to stumble away. He glanced up, expecting to gaze into the muzzle of Alcorn’s weapon pointed at his temple, but the major wasn’t there.

Zach’s head needed to clear before he spied the body lying beside the wrecked police car, the prone outline backlit by the still shining headlights. It wasn’t moving.

Zach limped over, his worthless right arm making the short trip difficult and unbalanced. Alcorn moaned as his subordinate approached, as much from the dreaded anticipation of verbal confrontation as physical misery.

There was a crimson hole in the major’s chest, another in his stomach. Zach knew the man at his feet claimed no hope of survival. The senior officer’s eyes were open but unfocused, his chest heaving to draw in air.

Zach kicked away the empty pistol lying next to the immobile man.

The movement prompted Alcorn’s attention, his stare boring into his adversary’s face. “I guess I fucked this up royally,” the dying man gasped.

“Why, Major? I just have to know why,” Zach demanded, the question burning through his mind since he realized who had kidnapped Cheyenne.

Alcorn actually smiled, then his frame racked with a deep spasm of coughing. The red spots on his torso seemed to grow larger. “My first leave as a ranger… New Orleans… the French Quarter. There was a girl, Zach. A beautiful woman. I didn’t know until a year later that I had a son.”

Zach didn’t understand. “Sir?”

“I couldn’t do right by her. The department was so tight-assed about that sort of thing back then, and she didn’t want to marry anyway. I had to watch him grow up from afar. I sent money… ran interference when I could.”

The major paused, a painful hack so strong his whole body seemed to convulse. Zach took a knee, watching the dying man gather himself to finish his confession.

“He did well, Zach. I helped now and then… but he did it mostly on his own, despite not having a father around,” the senior officer explained, his eyes searching for some sign of compassion from his charge. “You see, he always hated me… always thought I was some sort of Neanderthal completely out of place in his modern world. Now, I fear he was right. I’ve destroyed everything for him. I ruined it all.”

“How so, Major?”

“You are going to release those documents, Zach. I know you are. They will ruin my son’s life. I’d ask you not to, but I know you will.”

Zach shook his head, still trying to clear the brain fog. “I don’t understand, sir. I’m sorry, but I still don’t get it.”

The major hacked again, a thin line of spittle and blood now running down the man’s cheek. “Aaron Miller… the president’s chief of staff… is my son.”

Zach was stunned. Despite the exhaustion and wound, his commander’s statement sent the ranger’s mind on a quest to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

“The cartel money… in the NY Jets gym bag… the girl?”

“I kept that money for a rainy day,” Alcorn coughed. “When Hendricks went nuts, I was desperate to get those sealed records to protect Aaron. I could just see some reporter getting a tip and making the connection that tied it all together,” he explained, pausing to catch his breath and gather his thoughts. “I hired a con I knew to bribe the clerk in Baton Rouge and end this, but he fucked it up….”

He paused momentarily, deliberating whether his intense need for absolution outweighed his hedonistic desire to avoid facing how he screwed up so many lives. Realizing that he was at the confessional point of no return, he continued. “…Figured with that quick trigger finger of yours, you’d kill him… wrap up the loose ends. That’s why I assigned that case to you.”

Zach felt ignorant, like a puppet who just discovered he had strings. “When I brought Hendricks out, you couldn’t let him talk. He’d expose your son.”

Alcorn barely nodded. “I was there just to make sure the FBI teams didn’t take him alive. I heard over the radio that you were going in. So I separated myself from the group of rangers I’d brought with me. I wandered off in the woods to take a piss and found a good place to take the shot.”

Zach could connect the dots from there. Kara Hendricks’s call and the documents in the lockbox had re-exposed the major’s son.

As the young ranger’s supervisor, Alcorn was uniquely positioned to know the inner workings of Zach’s life – both professional and personal. No doubt the major had put Zach under surveillance, probably from the moment he’d left the bank branch.
Those papers were the key,
Zach realized, his neurons firing in rapid succession, assimilating his newfound information with the events of the past. Ross Garcia had died, not because of the damage he could do to Heidi Clifton, but due to the threat the court documents posed to Aaron Miller.

Zach’s mind was compiling the facts far too quickly to acknowledge Alcorn’s remark. The ranger suddenly stiffened, the dawning horror of his boss’s level of corruption becoming subjective again. “You are the one who called Buffalo and warned him we were coming. I was supposed to have been the first one through that door,” he muttered.

The major nodded, “You were damned lucky. Too lucky. I was running out of time and getting desperate. Taking your girl was the only way I knew for sure to get to you.”

Zach’s deepening scowl exposed his growing anger. Data assimilation and somewhat objective interpretation of events had begun to yield to a flurry of emotion. The man who he thought embraced and embodied the legacy of the Texas Rangers had taken innocent life… had ordered Zach’s execution… had kidnapped Cheyenne…. had desecrated not only his pledge to “protect and serve,” but also violated any sense of morality he might have ever claimed.

Sputtering again, Alcorn seemed to make one last ditch effort at defending his actions. “I know you don’t have any children yet, but you’ll understand when you do,” he whispered in a voice growing weaker by the second.

Alcorn stopped talking, his chest’s heaving struggle now slower, longer gaps between rise and fall. A few cycles later, it stopped.

Zach checked for a pulse, the act more from habit than any hope of the man beside him still having a heartbeat. Alcorn was dead.

For a few moments, the ranger just sat, staring at the man he’d esteemed and trusted for years. The betrayal stung, its ache enhanced even further by the fact that Zach had considered Alcorn a mentor.

He shook it off, the throbbing in his own body shortly overriding his mental torment. He needed help. Soon.

The ranger fought to stand. Reaching through the patrol car’s open door, he felt for the deputy’s pulse and found none. The odd angle of the man’s head was something Zach had seen before.
A broken neck… at least he went quickly
, he mused.