Shadow Boys (17 page)

The aunt said good-bye and walked down the aisle toward the front. She managed all this without looking at or speaking to Raul again.

“Don’t mind her.” Bobby shook his head. “That branch of the family thinks they’re better than us mortals.”

“There’s a party for Junie?”

Raul wondered why he didn’t know about the celebration. He had always been included before, at least when Bobby was in charge.

“Junie’s aunt.” Bobby stared at the floor. “She does things different.”

The crowd had gotten larger. The ceremony was supposed to start in a few minutes.

“You had fun in college, didn’t you?” Bobby fiddled with the knot of his tie.

The question came from nowhere. Raul was confused. He nodded after a moment.

“Junie’s aunt and her people, they’re real big on college.”

While he was in school, Raul worked two jobs and spent whatever extra time he had at the ranch. He didn’t have a lot of free hours for the traditional college pursuits—beer drinking, chasing girls.

He wasn’t much of a drinker and, truth be told, there was only one girl he wanted to chase, and she was still in high school.

“Not having a mama around,” Bobby said. “That’s not a great way to raise a young lady like Junie, you know what I mean?”

Raul shrugged, not understanding at all where the conversation was going.

“Living on a ranch out in the country.” Bobby smoothed a wrinkle from his pants. “Looking back, that might not a been the best move for her to meet people.”

The memory of one of the people she did meet near the ranch hung between them. Neither man acknowledged Wayne or what they’d done.

“She seems happy,” Raul said.

“College is gonna be good for Junie,” Bobby said. “Her aunt’ll make sure she gets into a sorority and everything. You know, to meet the right kinda people.”

“The right kind of people?” Raul said. “What does that mean?”

Silence.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, son.” Bobby’s voice was hard to hear. “She’s an attractive young woman.”

Raul’s breath caught in his throat.

“I’ve always taken a shine to you. You know that, don’t you?”

Raul nodded.

“First time we met in that interview room, I knew somebody oughta be looking out for you.”

Raul’s badge seemed heavier.

“My wife had just died. I suppose I needed somebody who needed me back. Me and Junie both did.”

“What are you trying to say, Bobby?”

“Junie. She’s gonna go to college. And she’s gonna meet her a boy there.” Bobby’s voice was soft. “She’s gonna have a different kind of life than what you’re offering.”

Both men were silent for a long few moments.

Raul tried not to sound indignant when he finally said, “So you don’t want your daughter to be with someone like you?”

Bobby’s face was blank.

“You don’t want her to end up with a cop?” Raul said.

“A cop?” Bobby shook his head. “That’s only half of it. You saw the way her aunt is.”

Raul sat there for a moment, numb. With Bobby and Junie, he’d never been conscious of their different ethnicities.

“I’m sorry, son,” Bobby said. “I had her for eighteen years. Now her mother’s people want to get more involved.”

“But you’re her father.”

“They’re her flesh and blood, too,” he said. “Hell, they don’t even like to call her Junie anymore. Not sure there’s much I can do to stop it.”

Raul didn’t reply. Instead, he got up and left the auditorium.

- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO -

I strode past a Suburban parked in Piper’s driveway. The SUV had exempt plates, the mark of a law-enforcement vehicle. It was empty, locked.

The official transport of Deputy Chief Raul Delgado, currently fighting his way across Piper’s bedroom floor.

A woman in running shorts and a tank top watched me as she power walked down the street.

I nodded hello and then jogged to the Lincoln.

The beeper was rattling in the console when I got in.

Theo Goldberg’s number.

I put the phone together, called.

He answered after the first ring. “Why don’t you carry a cell like everybody else?”

“Because the people we work for are listening in.”

“The No Such Agency?” he said. “We haven’t done anything for them in a couple of years.”

No Such Agency was a euphemism for the NSA, the National Security Agency.

“That was a rhetorical statement, Theo. I meant that in general someone is listening to most everything we do electronically.”

“Their in-house counsel, the one in charge of our account, he was such a putz. Every invoice he wanted to audit. Thought we were padding the bill.”

“An ethical government employee. What’s this world coming to?” I started the Lincoln. “Why are you calling me, Theo?”

“Why are you
not
calling me? I’ve beeped you like ten times.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I’m your supervisor, Jonathan.” He sounded huffy. “I should be accorded a certain amount of respect.”

I pulled away from the curb. “The mess you got me into with the deputy chief. I’ve been busy with that.”

I checked the rearview. Still no sign of Raul Delgado.

“Your performance review is coming up.” Theo made a tsk sound. “I’d hate to give you a less-than-stellar evaluation.”

I stepped on the brakes, and the Lincoln stopped in the middle of the street, neighbors and bystanders be damned.

“Am I the kinda guy you give a bad performance review to?”

No response.

“Think that one through, Theo.” I lowered my voice. “Carefully.”

He cleared his throat several times, a sure indication he was agitated. And nervous.

“The Culpepper shipment,” he said. “Our client needs to take possession as soon as possible.”

“Transport taken care of?”

“That’s all been arranged. They’re waiting on your call.”

I accelerated away. “You really stepped in it this time, Theo. The Delgado mess.”

No response.

“Did you hear me?” I turned onto Lovers Lane.

“I, um, don’t think we should be talking about that on an open line.”

I started to reply, but the phone went dead.

Mason Burnett tried to control his breathing.

Anger filled him, swelling up inside like water from a bitter well. The feeling battered against his chest, threatened to overwhelm him.

He watched Jonathan Cantrell hustle across the street after exiting a one-story house with two large trees in the front yard. Mason was parked at the end of the block, maybe a hundred yards away.

His ears rang, palms were sweaty. The stench of booze and cigarettes from the breath of his long-dead father filled his nostrils.

He slid the transmission into drive as Cantrell got into the Lincoln.

Daddy’s face filled his vision, indistinct like a mirage but close enough to touch, almost like a mirror. Father and son, one and the same, two sides to the same battered coin.

The Lincoln pulled away from the curb.

Mason waited a couple of seconds and did the same.

The Lincoln stopped after only a few feet, right in the middle of the road.

Mason took his foot off the gas.

After a long moment, the Lincoln slowly headed toward Lovers Lane.

Mason gently accelerated. When he was even with the house where Jon Cantrell came from, he saw the most extraordinary thing—Deputy Chief Raul Delgado staggering outside, tie askew, shirt dirty and untucked.

The Lincoln turned the corner.

Mason slowed, his attention torn between Cantrell’s vehicle and Delgado.

He made his decision and sped up to follow the Lincoln.

The anger lessened just a bit.

- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE -

I removed the battery from my phone as I drove.

The Dallas North Tollway formed the backbone of the northern part of Dallas, a concrete ribbon running from downtown up to the suburbs, the ever-growing ring of farming towns turned bedroom communities, which were fast encroaching on the Oklahoma border.

Seemed like a large chunk of my life had been spent on the oil-stained surface of the Dallas Tollway, chasing dopeheads and drug dealers and other lowlifes, or women who should have known better than to ever give somebody like me their digits.

The Lincoln barreled through the traffic like a bull charging through swamp grass, and twenty minutes after leaving Piper’s place I pulled into the parking lot of the building next to the address where the misdirected shipment of weapons and supplies were to have been delivered.

The lot was empty. The building appeared undisturbed since my previous visit.

I parked on the other side of the first building, completely out of sight from the target structure. Then I ran to the rear boundary, where a single Dumpster sat roughly on the dividing line between the two properties.

Several trees grew around the Dumpster, so I found a spot that was out of sight from both parking areas but afforded me an unobstructed view of the target building.

The pickup crew was a group of ex–Army Rangers. They worked for a private contracting firm that specialized in the transport and safekeeping of items that your traditional moving companies shied away from.

Two years ago, at the behest of one of Saddam Hussein’s daughters, they’d moved ninety kilos of gold bullion from Tikrit, Iraq, to a villa in the South of France. That operation had involved a truck convoy, a plane, and a Liberian freighter. This would be a stroll in the park in comparison.

My disposable cell chirped with a text from the transport team leader.

ETA about 1 min.

I texted back that everything was a go.

As my phone dinged that the message had been sent, a black Suburban pulled into the parking area of the target building.

The SUV drove slowly across the parking area, making a circuit around the empty office.

I swore under my breath, tapped out another message.

Hang tight. Go on my OK only.

My finger hovered over the Send button. The Suburban could be nothing. Could be a real estate broker looking for some real estate.

The SUV stopped by the rear entrance to the building. At this angle, the exempt plates were visible.

The driver’s door opened, and a man in his late forties got out.

I hit Send.

Too late. A nanosecond later a large panel van pulled into the parking area.

The pickup team had arrived.

The guy from the Suburban couldn’t see them.

The van stopped immediately, clearly receiving my message.

The guy from the SUV looked around the parking lot and then tried the back door. It didn’t open.

He walked back to his Suburban, leaned inside, and came out with a pistol.

A suppressor was attached to the end of the weapon.

He shot the dead bolt on the door at the same time as a police helicopter flew overhead.

- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR -

Mason Burnett fired a second round into the lock and kicked the door open.

Metal fragments from the dead bolt scattered on the concrete sidewalk, pinged the side of his Suburban.

The Lincoln Navigator he’d been following had pulled into this driveway thirty seconds before but was nowhere to be seen.

He realized he should be looking for the Lincoln, but there was something about the empty building that stopped him.

He was a cop. He’d seen too many supposedly vacant structures in the city, full of too much stuff they shouldn’t contain.

The week before, he’d been in an unoccupied warehouse near Love Field with a lieutenant from auto theft. The warehouse had contained nearly a thousand third-row seats from various GM vehicles—Tahoes, Yukons, and Suburbans. It was an easy-to-steal item but one that brought top dollar on the street.

There was nothing unique about this building on the Dallas North Tollway. There were a million like it. But something about the situation didn’t feel right. An ex-contractor pulling in here. The connection to the East Coast law firm.

And now the crate that was barely visible through the tinted glass.

A shipping container marked on one side: “Border Patrol—Forward Operating Base. Do Not Open Unless Authorized.”

Almost surely what Cantrell was after.

The container was by the rear cargo door, out of view from most of the building, except the back.

Mason took a quick stroll through the place and determined it was in fact empty except for dust, rat crap, and the strange box. Then he approached the shipping crate at an angle, wary.

The container was made from a plastic material of some sort, a polymer that appeared to be indestructible.

Two side-by-side doors on the front, secured by a heavy-duty padlock.

A stenciled warning above the lock:

No Unauthorized Entry!

—

May Contain Hazardous Material!

Mason examined each side of the container. He ran a finger down the corners, touched the exterior walls. The material felt cool and slick, except for the rear, which was slightly warm. Mason wondered if the warmth could be his imagination. He rapped the surface with a knuckle, got a solid sound back.

Then he returned to the front, to the doors. He shrugged once and shot the padlock with the silenced pistol.

The lock shattered.

Mason stared at the still-unopened doors. He wondered what a fix-it man for a fancy-pants bunch of lawyers would be doing with a government-issued shipping container in an empty building in North Dallas.

A helicopter buzzed overhead. DPD air support he’d arranged. Because you never could tell what a deserted building might bring.

Only one way to find out what was inside.

He yanked open the doors.

On the ceiling of the shipping container, a battery-operated light flicked on, illuminating the interior.

What he saw took a moment to process. The longer he stared at the contents, the more his brain refused to believe what his eyes were seeing.

It wasn’t the row of M-4 carbines lining one wall. Maybe twenty of them, standard US Army issue.

Nor was it the crates of ammo underneath the rifles, full-metal-jacket 5.56 millimeter rounds. It wasn’t the other stuff either—the medical supplies, communications equipment, several boxes of what appeared to be Border Patrol jackets.

None of that mattered to Mason Burnett.

What made his pulse quicken and palms sweaty was a large metal box that took up the rear third of the shipping container.

The metal box had a series of dials and gauges on the front, each the size of a pie pan. There were also a half dozen throw switches like the kind you find at a power plant or an electrical substation.

Mason lowered his silenced weapon as he stared at the contraption.

“What the hell—” He took a half step back.

In the middle of the metal box, right at eye level, was a yellow-and-black trefoil, the three-prong emblem that was the international warning for radioactivity.