Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(39)
The media was as disappointed by the unexpected turn as the prosecution. Rawls had denied them the show they were anticipating. One national outlet had nicknamed him the Dark Prince, poking fun at his dark hair and Mediterranean features, marred by scars and pits—the pits had been left by acne, the scars from when a well cap blew on an offshore rig and sent steel bits into his face. When the first wells he invested in struck big, he let his investment ride, like a bettor on a hot streak, building the stake for founding his own company, which would ultimately grow into REPCO.
“… not guilty.”
The media never focused on that, choosing instead to belabor the various rumors and tall tales that had accompanied Cray Rawls on his climb up the corporate ladder. How he had punched out rivals who underbid him, sabotaged the rigs of competitors who encroached on his perceived territory, and burned down an East Hampton country club that had denied him admission. To them, he was no more than Texas trash, even though that experience was mired in a long-forgotten stage of his life.
“In the eleventh count of the indictment…”
Cray Rawls wasn’t going to let rumors or lawsuits spoil his day, especially not while he was on the verge of something that would catapult him to the forefront of American business moguls. He would be a billionaire many times over, thanks to the greatest scientific discovery ever known to man. He would buy the goddamn East Hampton country club that had denied him admission and make those behind his ridicule and embarrassment kiss his feet if they wanted to stay members.
Literally.
“… not guilty.”
“… not guilty.”
“… not guilty.”
Once he’d been acquitted on the nineteenth and final charge, the jury was dismissed with the thanks of the court and the bailiff offered to have Rawls spirited out of the courthouse via a rear entrance. Rawls declined, thirsting for the whir and click of the cameras, the microphones shoved in his face, and the media outlets begging for interviews.
True to form, his journey down the front steps of the Wake County courthouse was a portrait in sticking it in the face of both overzealous prosecutors and their parade of holier-than-thou “harmed” who had put all their problems at REPCO’s doorstep. He’d sent them bottled water by the truckload and had knocked on hundreds of doors himself to check on their well-being. And in return he got the blame for everything from autism to Down syndrome to cancer, even if such maladies had struck before any of REPCO’s coal ash had allegedly polluted the groundwater. One woman went so far as to blame him for her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, breaking down on the stand when his lawyers reminded her, under cross-examination, that exposure to coal ash doesn’t cause that.
Having entertained the media’s questions just long enough to stick it in her face and the faces of all the others, Rawls climbed into the back of the limousine, and then noticed the man already seated there.
“What are you doing here, Sam Bob?” he asked the minerals broker from Houston.
“Your driver thought it best I wait in the car.”
“I’m not talking about the car. I’m talking about here in North Carolina.”
Sam Bob Jackson swallowed hard, his heavy breathing pushing his stomach in and out over his belt as if there was something trying to free itself from inside. “We’ve got a problem, Cray. A big one.”
33
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Daniel Cross stood next to Razin Saflin as Ghazi Zurif knocked on the back door of Hoover’s Cooking.
“Health inspectors,” Zurif said, showing his fake identification to the man who answered.
“Why didn’t you use the front door?” the man wondered, adjusting his apron as Cross and Saflin flashed their fake IDs, too.
“It’s procedure with surprise inspections,” Saflin explained.
“Since we don’t want to disturb your customers,” Zurif added. “Cause as little disruption as possible.”
And there are security cameras in the front of the restaurant, but not here in the back, Daniel Cross thought.
He returned the ID wallet to his jacket, hand closing around the capped syringe filled with ten milliliters of clear liquid in his front pants pocket. Ten milliliters seemed a safe estimate; a bit on the high side, in all probability, but he’d opted for it to make sure the demonstration his ISIS handlers had requested achieved its desired results, and then some. Truth was, everything up until today had been theoretical. Even Cross wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, once things got rolling—how many would die, or how fast. He hadn’t conducted any tests on humans, for obvious reasons. So, little did the diners about to lunch at Hoover’s Cooking realize that they were about to become part of the living fabric of history.
Well, the dying fabric, Cross thought, trying not to smile.
“We’d like to start with the kitchen, if you don’t mind,” he heard Zurif say to the man in the apron.
PART FOUR
The Rangers have done more to suppress lawlessness, to capture criminals, and to prevent Mexican and Indian raids on the frontier, than any other agency employed by either the State or national government.
—Alex Sweet, Texas Siftings magazine, 1882
34
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“So what is it you’re saying, exactly?” Caitlin asked Doc Whatley, Bexar County medical examiner, from the side of the sink in his lab.