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  The building was warm. I unzipped my ranch coat. “Did you finish the assignment I gave you?”

  He toed the tile floor with a worn-out boot. “I guess.”

  “Where is it?”

  He pulled a handful of folded papers from his back pocket and handed them over. I didn’t say anything about the condition of his work. Getting him to do it at all was a success. While I untangled the crumpled and dog-eared pages, we drifted along behind the herd of juniors charging up the wooden stairs in a thunder of footsteps. “Good.”

  We reached the second floor, and the chattering class swarmed to the round banister overlooking the rotunda floor to stare down at where we’d just come from. The joists creaked underfoot, noticeable even over the noisy chatter.

  “This way.” Kelly pointed toward the open set of double doors leading into the municipal courtroom on the northwest corner. “This is our first stop before we go upstairs to the Grand Jury room.”

  I caught her eye and tilted my head toward Arturo. She agreed with an eyebrow without breaking her patter.

  You don’t need a lot of words after twenty years of marriage.

  Chapter 11

  In the back of the horse trailer, Kahn’s men opened wooden boxes labeled “fragile.” Excited as kids, they withdrew automatic rifles packed in foam peanuts. The interior smelled of fresh oil as they passed M4 carbines toward the back.

  Other boxes yielded tactical vests, ammo, and an assortment of supplies.

  Two of the youngest Syrians, Usman Muhammed Al-Zahwi and Muhammad Qambrani, slapped in magazines and brandished the weapons, dancing and waving them around. Though he was smiling and laughing, the taller Al-Zahwi’s eyes were dead pools of darkness. The short and skinny Qambrani looked like a young college student, as his papers stated.

  * * *

  Finally dressed in warm clothing, the Mexican team unloaded full magazines and whispered among themselves as their breath fogged in the icy air. They inserted the magazines into the M4s and passed the weapons to anyone who hadn’t yet picked one up.

  Two of those who spoke only Spanish watched the Syrians clown around. Gerardo Torres and his friend Rafael Fuentes were usually the ones making the rest of their team laugh, but they held back, glaring at the Syrians’ strange dress and antics.

  * * *

  Richard Carver and the American team were at the front of the trailer, leaning against the metal and watching the others. They had their own weapons. Carver noted that whoever had planned and funded the operation had provided the same rifles as those he and his men carried, a suggestion he’d offered months earlier when a man calling himself DeVaca made contact. Their conversation had been brief and to the point, and when he agreed to be part of the takeover, DeVaca told him he would provide all that they needed.

  Carver said they preferred to use their own Colt M4s, and urged DeVaca to provide the same weapons so they could all be familiar with the rifles, and the necessary 5.56 ammunition.

  As the others slapped magazines and charged the bolts, his finger slipped down to the safety and flicked it off. All of those foreigners with automatic weapons made him nervous.

  * * *

  The trailer slewed, throwing those standing off balance. Qambrani and Al-Zahwi grabbed for purchase and fell against the hard aluminum wall. Qambrani dropped his weapon and Torres grabbed it up. He jammed it back into the Syrian’s arms and pointed at the floor.

  Al-Zahwi’s eyebrows became one and he started forward just as the trailer slewed again. He grabbed a bar over the nearest window to hold himself upright. The truck accelerated and stabilized before taking the next turn much slower. It stopped.

  Their silent argument over, the terrorists stood. Facing the rear, they waited for the doors to open.

  Chapter 12

  Arturo started after his class, but I pulled at the sleeve of his jacket. “C’mon. I want to show you something.”

  Kelly returned to her urchins. “All inside, and keep your hands to yourselves. I . . . said . . . hands to yourselves there, Sister Sue. Take a seat when you get in . . . and not out here on the railing, mister! Good lord. Y’all are gonna send me to an early grave. You get off of there right now . . .”

  We left them behind and scaled the next rise of stairs to the third floor, but I wanted to take Arturo even higher. We stopped at a narrow set of painted wooden steps dead-ending at an odd access in the ceiling. I figured someone closed it to keep the heat downstairs.

  Arturo frowned.

  “Wait a second.”

  I climbed the pale green steps that were barely shoulder wide. A simple sliding lock was set into the standard-size door fitted into the ceiling. I slid the latch with my thumb, put my shoulder against the door, and pushed upward. It opened without a squeak into a round, unheated room. I climbed higher and used an old-fashioned hook and eye to secure it to the wall. The whole thing reminded me of a trapdoor in the floor of a kid’s tree house.

  “C’mon up, hoss.”

  He followed me into a large, round chamber illuminated by two feeble lights and a dim glow coming from above. More bare wooden stairs wound upward against the outside wall like those in a lighthouse. Simple wooden frames on the whitewashed clapboard walls held a black-and-white pictorial history of Ballard and the Big Bend region from the horse-and-buggy days to the 1950s.

  Arturo circled the room that echoed with his footsteps. “These pictures are cool.” His accent was not as heavy as those of some of the kids who’d immigrated to our town.

  “Yep, they are, but they’re not why we’re up here. You’ll ruin your eyes looking at ’em in this light. You can come back some other time.” I pointed at the ceiling. “We’re going higher.”

  Some of the steps creaked as we climbed the curved stairs to the next level and into the frigid observation deck some folks call the lantern room. I made a fishhook turn on the bare floor and waited beside the pony wall surrounding the stairway’s opening. I could tell Arturo was impressed when he emerged to find a 360-degree bank of candlestick windows.

  He spun in a slow circle staring at the dome and tall windows far overhead. Most kids do the same thing the first time they get up there. Any other time we could see the entire town and the highways radiating away from the courthouse all the way to the Davis Mountains, but our fourteen-square-block burg was completely obscured by the raging storm.

  Wind moaned around the cupola, and snow piled on the sills.

  “Whaddaya think?”

  Arturo put his fingers against the cold, wavy glass. “It’s amazing. What are we doing up here?”

  “I wanted you to get this chance before the weather gets worse. I thought we’d be able to see the town, but the snow’s so heavy I can’t see the water tower over there. Try using some other word besides ‘amazing,’ by the way. It’ll improve your vocabulary.”

  His forehead wrinkled, as he missed the point. “The other kids would love this.”

  “They won’t have time to see it today. I ’magine they’re gonna shut school down in an hour or so, which makes you the lucky one.”

  Not much of a reward on my part for him doing his homework, it beat listening to a dry lecture about Grand Juries, even if it came from my wife. When I was a kid, little things that didn’t hold much meaning for adults made a huge impact on me. I hoped these few moments away would do the same thing for him. A shiver ran up my spine, and I slipped my hands in my coat pockets. I think he was glad that I was chilly, because it gave him an excuse to zip up his own thin jacket.

  At least he’d brought one. I knew for a fact that half a dozen of those knotheads down there weren’t wearing anything but what they call hoodies. Most of them would be freezing to death on the way home, but they’d rather shiver and complain all the way instead of lugging jackets around.

  When I was a kid, I loved coats, but as the Old Man always told me, “The times, they are a’changin’.” I’ve been thinking for a long time they’re changing for the worse.

  “Thanks
for finishing your assignment.”

  He made a noise that I took for “you’re welcome.” “It was kinda fun.”

  “You like history?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yessir?”

  “Yessir.”

  “History was always my favorite, too.”

  “Do I need it to be a Texas Ranger?”

  “No, but you need it to graduate. You want to be a Ranger?”

  He bent his knees, swayed, and did that annoying thing young people do with their hands and fingers, thinking it looks cool. “Yessir. There’s a lot of criminals that need killin’, ese.”

  I didn’t like where the conversation was headed. “Number one, do not use that gangbanger crap around me.”

  He lowered his eyes, realizing he’d crossed an invisible line. “Sorry.”

  My voice softened. “And second, that’s not why we go into law work. It ain’t to kill people. A Ranger’s job’s to keep the public safe and to work with other agencies to solve crimes.” I wanted him off the track he was following. “Besides, you don’t get out of high school and go straight into this branch. You have to be in another division of law enforcement first.”

  “That’s how you started out?”

  “Yep, as a highway patrol officer with the DPS. You can do the same thing.”

  He stared out the wavy windows, shivered, and mimicked me by stuffing both hands in the pockets of his jeans. “But I have to graduate first?”

  “Right. You don’t graduate high school, you can’t go to college, and without college these days, you can’t get into any aspect of law work.”

  “Vato! I’d like to skin out of this one-horse town and get a job somewhere to make some money.”

  I frowned at him and he realized what he’d said. Instead of calling me “dude” again, he plowed on. “I hear they’re hiring pretty good out in the oil fields. If I had fare to Midland, I’d head out as soon as this weather clears.”

  The kid had no idea what he said sounded like “fair to middlin’,” a phrase the old-timers used to describe the grade of cotton bought at the gin. It evolved to mean they were feeling good, but not great.

  “Well, staying in school’s best, and I doubt they’re hiring high school kids to do anything right now.”

  “I could get a job at a gas station.”

  “There ain’t no money in pumping gasoline. You’d be wasting the years you should be getting an education. Get a job around here and work on your lessons at the same time.”

  “Oh my God, bro.” He saw my eyebrow. “Sorry. Who’s gonna hire me? Every kid in town wants a job, and kids only get shit jobs anyway.”

  “I don’t see many of the other kids out working too hard to find one this time of the year.” I thought about Andy at the Posada and his holiday decorations. “I saw a feller fifteen minutes ago that’ll probably hire you. You do good and he might hire you to sweep his sidewalk.”

  “I don’t want to sweep sidewalks, that’s sh—.”

  “Shit work.” I leaned forward, pleased at the surprised expression on his face. I usually don’t talk like that around kids, but I needed to get his attention. “You don’t want a job. You want to get gone out of town, and you’re just looking for an excuse.”

  Arturo stared at the painted floorboards. “I want to get away from my old man. He’s mean, and the farther away I can get from him, the better.”

  “That’s more like it. Now you’re telling the truth. I believe he’ll be away for a while.”

  He ran fingers through the long hair hanging in his eyes. “INS get him? They send him back across?”

  He meant the Rio Grande. “Soon if he’s not there already.”

  “Good. He ain’t my real dad anyway. Mama, she don’t think much of him, either. Calls him a fronchi, even though he don’t have his card.”

  I bit back a grin at the derogatory word native-born Mexican Americans use to describe legal immigrants from Chihuahua, Mexico, who bear the U.S. green card that reads, Fronterizo Chihuahua or Chihuahua Frontier.

  “Don’t let any of them hear you say that, or you’ll likely get your butt handed to you.”

  Like any kid I’ve ever been around, Arturo changed conversations on a dime when something caught his attention. He pointed to the badge on my chest. “Those are way more cool than regular cop badges.”

  The distinctive star cut from a real silver Mexican cinco peso fascinated most boys. Granddad was a Ranger in 1962 and wore one of the badges based on the style from the 1800s. The one on my shirt was his.

  “There were sixty-two of these give out back in Granddad’s day. The new ones are different. You can earn one, but it’ll be tough. Right now there are only two hundred and fourteen of us.”

  “I can do it.”

  “You need to keep your nose clean. One juvie violation, one serious mark on your record, and you’ve blown your chance. Your record has to be spotless.”

  A faint wrinkle appeared in the smooth skin between his eyes. “Do they take someone who’s mano izquierda?” He flexed the fingers on his left hand.

  I wasn’t sure what Arturo meant. My Spanish wasn’t bad, but I had to think about it for a minute. “You mean lefties? I thought that was zurdo.”

  “It depends on who’s talking Spanish to you, but yeah.”

  “Why wouldn’t they? There’s nothin’ wrong with being left-handed.”

  “Where my people come from, a mano izquierda is evil.” When I raised my eyebrow, he explained. “When the old people see someone use this hand, you can see it in their eyes. Mano . . . left-handed people . . . are witches, maybe, and they don’t like it. They cut their eyes and sometimes make the sign.” He crossed himself and waved at his eyes with two fingers in a way I’d never seen before. “I think that’s what my stepdad didn’t like about me. I didn’t want to be left-handed. I’m not evil.”

  I felt sorry for the kid. I never did like superstitions, or the dusty old church ideas of sin and sinning. “Kid, there’s nothing evil about it. The Rangers don’t care about which hand you scratch your butt with. They care about what kind of person you are. Act right, and you’ll be just fine.”

  He laughed and started to answer, but was interrupted by a familiar sound that I never thought I’d hear in my courthouse, the hard, staccato pounding of automatic weapons.

  Chapter 13

  Because of the snow and Bowden’s questionable driving skills, Kahn made an executive decision. “Stop here.”

  “Wicked said for me to circle the block and park in front of that last house over yonder.” Despite his argument, Burt Bowden was grateful to let off the gas and pull to the curb. He was nervous and having second thoughts in his involvement with the takeover.

  “I am in charge here. Do as I say. Shut off the engine.”

  “I’ll let y’all out and pull around. I don’t want to make Wicked mad.”

  “You shut off the motor and give me the keys.”

  The cab was filled with the big diesel’s growl as Bowden glanced at the courthouse through the frosty drivers’ window. He was in a pissing contest with a man with death in his eyes. “This is my damn truck.”

  “Give them to me.”

  Bowden killed the engine, rolled down the window, and dangled the keys outside as if he were arguing with a juvenile. His voice trembled. “I’ll do what I want.”

  “You shouldn’t have angered me.” Kahn pointed at the courthouse. “They see us.”

  Bowden turned his head. The Syrian drew a long knife from his belt at the same time and plunged it into the rancher’s throat, then slashed outward with the keen edge, cutting through cartilage, tendons, and arteries that spouted a fountain of blood. The keys flew into the storm as Bowden slapped both hands to his neck in a vain effort to close the huge wound.

  Kahn wiped the blade on the cloth seat as the man gurgled and thrashed his life away behind the steering wheel. He opened the passenger door. “Your vehicle smells of cow shit. I like the odor of infidel blood much
better.”

  Kahn left the warm cab and slammed the door. He kicked through the accumulating fluff and unlocked the metal doors to release the now heavily armed mixed bag of terrorists.

  Richard Carver stepped down and took in his surroundings. His men had trained for a different arrival scenario. “What happened? We were supposed to launch from the other side of those houses.”

  Kahn watched him, hands full of a nasty-looking H&K MP5. He seemed disinterested and answered in a soft, accented voice. “Change in plans.”

  Despite the Beretta M9 in the thigh holster near his hand and the battle-slung Colt M4, Carver avoided the jihadist’s dead gaze. From the shape of the stubby weapon, Kahn could bring it to bear in an instant. “It don’t make me no never mind. Let’s go, boys.” No longer in charge, Carver joined the flow of terrorists who took the most direct route to the courthouse and stormed into the west entrance.

  Kahn watched the rest of the men pour from the trailer and charge the courthouse.

  * * *

  DeVaca, aka Wicked, backed his van across the southern lawn and slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop just short of the entrance. Brandishing automatic weapons, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion squirted through the doors and rushed inside to fan out through the historic building.

  Watching his men peel off to complete their assignments, DeVaca tugged a ballistic vest over his Pendleton shirt and smoothed it closed with the Velcro on the sides. He tugged a black cap down over his dark hair. With everything but her eyes hidden by the hijab, Dorothy handed his weapon back and followed him toward the tax office to pick up his first target.

  Each team had specific instructions and targets.

  Richard Carver and Tom Jordan met Kahn in the rotunda.

  The California team listened for instructions from Wicked. DeVaca pointed upward. “Shut it down.”

  The tallest member, Usman Muhammed Al-Zahwi, shot up the stairway, followed by short and skinny Muhammad Qambrani.

  Shouts of fear rose throughout the first floor as Scarecrow dropped his pack and slung a heavy satchel over his shoulder. He fell in behind the Syrians.