Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(50)

“What’s what short for?”

“Cray. Crayton or something?”

“No, Christopher Raymond. One thing I got left my real mother gave me.”

Jackson’s teeth curled over his lower lip. “That Bible-thumping couple … I heard they got killed in a fire and you inherited all they had—enough to get you out of Texas.”

“True enough.”

“The fire was suspicious,” Jackson added, after a pause.

“You should keep that in mind, next time you decide to make a move like this without consulting me.

“It’s under control, Cray.”

“Is it? I don’t think so, given we’ve still got a full construction crew sitting in the shade on my dime, all because some Comanche are communing with nature. All the more reason to find out more about this guy Masters you decided to pick a fight with.”

“No other choice I could see.”

“You shouldn’t have been looking. You’re hired help, my friend. Next time you get it in your mind to make a decision on your own, find a bucket of ice water to stick your head in. This goddamn state’s full of two things—oil and bullshit—and I don’t have any use for either. The sooner I can get this mess cleaned up, the sooner I can fly the friendly skies the fuck out of this circus you call a state.”

Rawls finally turned from the window, and west Houston’s Energy Corridor beyond, and focused on the muted wide-screen television, which currently showed a slew of flashing lights and a cordoned neighborhood in Austin.

“Like I was saying…” Rawls noted, shaking his head.





45

AUSTIN, TEXAS

“So, what do you think?” Daniel Cross asked the two men in the front seat of the car parked as close as they could get to Hoover’s Cooking. “You guys happy? You wanna give me high marks, praise, something like that?”

Zurif and Saflin turned toward him at the same time, startling Cross enough to send his shoulders whiplashing back against the seat rest.

“Praise comes only from Allah,” said Zurif. “But you can rest assured you have proven yourself before His eyes.”

“And the rest of this holy mission follows in accordance with His will,” Saflin added.

Zurif nodded in agreement. “We are nothing when measured against the scope of that. The sooner you realize and accept your place, the more peace you will find basking in Allah’s good graces.”

“I told you I’m not interested in converting. That’s not what this is about.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” said Saflin. “You are now one of us, a soldier in the army of the one true God, who owes all to Him and His word.”

Saflin and Zurif kept talking, but Cross stopped listening to them. Suddenly these two men were no better or different than the bullies and braggarts who’d terrorized him through every year of his schooling. He could almost hear them chanting “Diaper Dan,” the way kids in school did sometimes. Nothing had changed, and he felt stupid for deluding himself into believing that it had. Except he was right—it had changed, because he was the one with the power now, him. He was the one who had injected the contents of the syringe into the jug of cooking oil, the kind cooks slather over their grills. All Saflin and Zurif did was provide the distraction and then plug up the kitchen exhaust fan outside to make sure the oil could do its work.

“Well, let me tell you boys something,” he said, suddenly emboldened by the endless stream of law enforcement, fire, and rescue vehicles. Their flashing lights made the street look like the Fourth of July beneath the helicopters battling for space in the sky overhead. “Everybody in that restaurant is dead, every single one. As in one hundred percent, as in I delivered what I promised, as in I’m serving up—no pun intended—the ultimate weapon to you, so your friends in the Middle East can save themselves from the coalition that’s been kicking their ass.”

“They’re your friends, too, now” from Zurif.

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” from Saflin.

“A little fucking respect would be nice, maybe a thank-you,” Daniel Cross said. “Maybe you don’t get what you’re looking at over there, but it’s a microcosm of what you can do to the whole of the goddamn U.S. of A., thanks to me. Now, that’s terror.”

Saflin and Zurif looked at each other, their glances furtive and excited at the same time.

“The proper communiqués have been sent,” Zurif told him.

“We’re expecting a message as to when to expect arrival, any minute,” added Saflin.

Cross leaned forward again. “Wait a minute. They’re coming here? From the Middle East?”

“A top-echelon team under one of the senior commanders. What did you expect?” Zurif asked.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Saflin asked.

Cross couldn’t answer either of those questions, because he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this time really was different. He found himself gazing ahead again, not just toward the chaos he’d wrought but also toward the future he was helping to create.

“O say can you see…”

He spoke the words instead of singing them, but the effect was the same. Both Saflin and Zurif looked as if they were about to speak, when a uniformed Austin policeman rapped his knuckles against the driver’s side window.