“I told her I was going to stay the night with you. She pointed out that there was no one Max could stay with.”
“She could take him with her. He’ll go.”
“They tried taking him earlier. He’ll go outside for a little while to answer the call of nature, but he won’t get in any vehicles. He just sits at the hospital door waiting to get in.”
“That dog’s a Marine’s Marine,” Shel said.
Don grinned. “I’d say there is a resemblance.”
“Have you met Will?”
“Just over the phone. I’d hoped to meet him. It seems he and another agent-”
“Remy.”
“That’s the one. They’re out working on something.”
Shel tried to think about that, but it was hard getting his thoughts to stay connected long enough to make sense of them. “Bobby Lee Gant was the only business we had here.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maggie would know what’s going on.”
“You can ask her in the morning. Both of you need to get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. How’s the family doing?”
Shel tried to listen as Don told him about soccer games and birthdays. It made him sad to think he’d missed all those things, but he knew it was the pain meds. They tended to depress him too.
Somewhere in there, though, he hung on to Don’s voice and felt more at home than he had in a long time. And he slept.
›› The Bloody Skull
›› Charlotte, North Carolina
›› 0119 Hours
Fat Mike knocked at the office door.
When Victor looked up, he saw his second standing there with a sheaf of papers rolled up in one big fist.
“Where have you been?” Victor demanded.
Fat Mike entered the room and dropped into a chair in front of the desk. The chair squeaked in protest. He took a pull on his longneck.
“I been out doing what I always do,” Fat Mike said. “Keeping your six clear.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to leave.”
“You were on the verge of pulling a mean drunk. You still are. Nobody wants to be around you when you do that. Me included.”
Fat Mike, Victor reflected, was probably the only person in the world who could talk to him like that. The only reason Victor allowed it was because Fat Mike was being truthful, not disrespectful. There was a difference.
“I’m not drunk,” Victor said.
“No, and I’m surprised. If I was you, I think I would be. Or maybe seriously messed up about now.”
Victor nodded at the sheaf of papers. “When did you take up reading?”
“A long time ago. I’d do it more often but my lips go numb after a while.” Fat Mike leaned forward and spread the pages on the desk.
Victor was in a mean mood and knew it. He glanced at the pages and saw that there were photos in the midst of the blocks of type. “At least it has pictures.”
“Yeah,” Fat Mike said, taking no offense. “Did you get a good look at them pictures?”
Intrigued, Victor slid the pages over to his side of the desk and studied them. He recognized Shelton McHenry’s photo at once. The man was in Marine dress at some military function.
There were a lot of other pictures. Evidently the Marine’s career had been extensive. His work at the NCIS had gotten him mentioned on several occasions.
“So this is our jarhead,” Victor said.
“Yeah.” Fat Mike took a pull on his beer. “He’s still military-issue. Assigned to an NCIS team in Camp Lejeune. I’ve got more information coming on the rest of the team.”
“Where’d you get the info?”
“From Beetle. Computers are his thing.”
Beetle was a computer whiz. He was also a hanger-on of the Purple Royals. He was a paraplegic, the victim of a motorcycle-van collision when he’d stolen a sled at fifteen. He still rode on a specially converted three-wheeler, but these days he did most of his cruising on the cyber highways.
“Beetle was glad to do this research,” Fat Mike said. “But I think it would mean a lot to him if you’d give him a kind word.”
“I will.” There was more information on Shelton McHenry in the printout pages than had been on the television all day. “Did you pay him?”
Fat Mike grinned. “Yeah. Gave him enough cash and drugs to keep him smothered in the vice of his choice for months.”
Victor nodded. “When he gets information on McHenry’s friends, pay him again.”
“Happy to. Beetle’ll probably be happy too.”
“Somebody thinks this jarhead is some kind of hero,” Victor grated.
“Guy’s been around,” Fat Mike said. “Pulled Iraq. A lot of special-ops assignments. He’s looked death in the face.”
Victor studied the Marine’s classic handsome face. “Pretty boy.”
“That he is.”
The dark, violent anger writhed inside Victor. He felt it moving, and he embraced it. When he had that, he could do anything.
Victor read through the bio on the man again. “McHenry. Where do I know that name?”
Fat Mike grinned. “Now that was the part I was waiting for you to remember.”
Victor put the papers down and looked back through all those years. “That skinny farm boy we ran into in Qui Nhon was named McHenry.”
“Yeah, he was.” Fat Mike rifled through the pages till he found the one he was looking for. He pushed it across to Victor. “Turns out maybe we should have killed him that night too.”
“We needed him to get us through the checkpoints.” Victor remembered that night like it had been yesterday. They’d sweltered in the truck as the kid, McHenry, drove along Highway 19 out of the coastal city. “If he hadn’t been along, we wouldn’t have gotten out of the city.”
“I know. And without him, we wouldn’t have gotten one of those guys that killed Tran’s family.” Fat Mike took in a breath and let it out. “Once we dumped that body off, I wanted to kill him. But you didn’t.”
“We needed him to get back into Qui Nhon.”
“We coulda walked back in,” Fat Mike said. “We did it plenty of times before.” He tapped the paper. “You read that report, you’ll see Shelton McHenry’s father is Tyrel McHenry.”
Victor couldn’t believe it. “That guy was the same grunt we jobbed in Qui Nhon?”
“Yeah. Ain’t that a kick in the head? Just proves how small this world is. If we’d killed Tyrel McHenry back then, he wouldn’t have had a boy that grew up to kill Bobby Lee.”
23
›› Rafter M Ranch
›› Outside Fort Davis, Texas
›› 2441 Hours (Central Time Zone)
The mare delivered her foal without any trouble, but Tyrel McHenry stood watch all night just in case. Since he’d laid the foundations of the ranch house, there hadn’t been a horse born on his ranch whose birth he hadn’t attended.
The same could be said, more or less, of the cows. When the calving season began in the winter and extended into the spring, it made for long days and long nights. Tyrel stayed horseback for days on end, making cold camps and watching over his flock. From time to time, he had to help out with the birthing. Sleeping on the ground when it was still holding on to winter temperatures had gotten harder over the years, but when the day came that he couldn’t do it anymore, he figured they could just cover him on over.
Sitting there on a bale of hay and watching the mare nudge her new baby to its feet, Tyrel reflected that maybe he wouldn’t have too many more years to watch miracles like the birth of a new animal. He was getting older. He could see it in the wrinkles on his face and the slackness and weathered cracks of his skin.
Growing old bothered him. He disliked the idea of infirmity. He’d seen people-some of them younger than him-who just couldn’t seem to take care of themselves anymore. If he ever reached that time in his life, he figured it would be better to just cash in his chips and get up from the table.
But it doesn’t really happen like that, does it? he told himself. You just keep right on drawing cards, even if you got a losing hand, because you just can’t stop yourself.