Culprits Read online

  “So,” Hector said. “What do you think of my house? Never in my life did I ever think to own a home. With my lifestyle…ay, it never seemed to be in the cards.”

  “Yeah, it’s a great fucking house,” said Cochran. “Get down here. You are going to tell us where that money is.”

  “You guys are determined. I have to give you that. Finding me. That took determination. Coming all the way here? That took determination. But your surveillance skills? I’m sorry to say that they are not worth shit. I clocked you right away. How long you been here? I say a couple of weeks. Am I right?”

  “He just keeps talkin’ shit,” said Eddie.

  “I’m only asking once more, old man,” said Cochran. “You can walk down or I’ll have Eddie here put one in your leg and you can fall down.”

  “All right,” said Hector, his hands still raised. He took the first step down the stairs, his foot landing squarely on a pressure plate hidden under the carpet runner. Immediately a series of pops could be heard coming from outside the building.

  “Guys?” said Dayton, speaking up for the first time since they had entered the house. “You hear that?”

  “What the hell?” said Cochran.

  “Like I said,” said Hector. “Your surveillance skills are shit. You know. I really loved this house. Feliz Navidad, gilipollas.”

  The pops heard inside the house came simultaneously with a series of bright flashes outside the windows. Each of the multicolored Christmas lights encircling the home had been filled with a mixture of plastic polystyrene, hydrocarbon benzene, and gasoline, more commonly known as Napalm. The liquid fire burst from the bulbs and immediately coated the front of the building’s old wooden frame. Anyone looking from the street could see the flames ignite and spread their way up the walls.

  Inside, Hector took another step down the stairs, tripping another detonator plate that sent an electrical signal to each of the presents under the Christmas tree, causing them to explode, sending a shower of fire across the floor and around the room. In a matter of minutes the building was engulfed in a fire that burned so hot there was no chance of saving the building. It was all the fire department could do, once they arrived, to keep the flames from spreading to the surrounding houses.

  Two weeks after the fire, Sarrah Samir was sitting at her dining room table when she heard the loud thump of something being drop on her front porch followed by three short knocks on the door. Rising from the table she walked over to the door and put her eye to the peephole. Through it she could see a man with distinct features dressed in a heavy black coat and a knitted watch cap pulled down to cover his ears. As she observed him he raised a gloved hand and gave another three raps at the door. With the safety chain latched she opened it a crack.

  “May I help you?”

  “Sarrah Samir?” said the man.

  “Yes.”

  “You knew Hector Gonazles?”

  “Hector?” she said.

  “Yes,” said the man. “You knew him?”

  Sarrah smiled. “Yes. Yes, we were friends,” she said. “And you?”

  “We were friends as well. From work.”

  “I did not know he still worked. I thought he was retired. What kind of work do you do?”

  “Consulting.”

  “In?”

  The man thought for a moment. “Securities,” he said. Hector was very good at helping me in… opening new accounts.”

  Hector was a good man,” she said. “He used to volunteer at our school. Mostly in the cafeteria, preparing and serving food to the children. We are a poor school and any help is appreciated.”

  “You’re a teacher.”

  “Third grade. Thomas Paine Elementary. I am also an admistrator, a playground supervisor and sometimes a janitor. It was always a pleasure to have Hector with us. The children loved the days he came to school. Sometimes, he would sit in on the classes. He would tell stories.

  “Stories?”

  About places he’d lived in his life. Mexico, South America, different parts of the United States . They were usually silly stories, but the children loved them. He used to….”

  She paused, an odd look had come over her visitor’s face.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. No,” he said. “It’s just… I guess you never really know someone.”

  “How did you know about me?”

  “Hector,” said the man. “He contacted me a week before he…before the fire. He told me about you. About you being friends.”

  “I’ll miss him,” she said, then. “Oh, but I’am being rude. You should come in. I can make tea.”

  She undid the chain on the door.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t stay. I’m only here to pick up… ”

  He turned and gestured behind him at a black Cadillac parked at the curb.

  “Hector’s car.”

  “Yeah. It’s a….”

  “1968, Fleetwood Cadillac,” said Sarrah. “it’s a…”

  “Classic,” the two said together.

  “He has told me this many times,” said Sarrah.

  “Well the old bastar..., um, the old guy, he went and left it to me.”

  “See, he was a good man,” she said.

  “And he left you these,” he said reaching down to pick up two heavy looking duffel bags. “May I set these inside?”

  “Yes, of course. What’s in them?”

  “Ms. Samir,” the man said pleasantly, “I’m just the delivery guy.”

  He carried the bags into the house and set them on the living room couch. After refusing another offer of tea he left the house, walked down the porch steps and along the walkway toward the curb.

  “And the bags? Don’ t you want to know what’s in them?” Sarrah called after him.

  “Hector left them for you,” O’Conner said over his shoulder.

  With that, he climbed into the car, brought the engine to life and drove away.

  Once he was gone Sarrah shut the door. She turned and studied the two duffels sitting in her living room. Finally she crossed the room, reached over and slowly unzipped one of the bags. As the contents became visible her eyes widened.

  Chapter 12 - All Debts Paid

  by Richard Brewer and Gary Phillips

  Déjà vu.

  That feeling of having been somewhere before. In this case, though, it was true, he had been here before. In fact, he’d been to the Crystal Q ranch twice before, and one of those times had taken him all the way into the big ranch house and to one of the biggest scores of his career, but he’d never expected to return.

  Never say never in this line of work.

  Watching the house over the past couple of days had been confusing. He had been surprised to find that security hadn’t been beefed up since his last visit. Arrogance or stupidity? O’Conner wasn’t sure. He had power bars and bottled water, and relived himself up here. The nights weren’t too cold and with a fleece-lined windbreaker on, he napped lightly by force of habit propped against the tree, gun under his splayed hand.

  During the day there were the usual ranch hands responsible for the cattle going about their business. Texas cowboys on horseback and ATVs making sure that the animals were fed, watered, fattened for slaughter and whatever else needed taking care of in the maintenance of the spread.

  That was during the day; nighttime and that personnel wasn’t around, gone home or the itinerate ones off into that bunkhouse some acres from the house. Using the wide trunk of one of the old oak trees overlooking Harrington’s fancy pool as cover, hunched down or sometimes on his stomach, he’d continually surveyed the terrain. He couldn’t see any movement in house. The pool was lit from lights in it but the rest of the grounds were in gloom. The emerald water seemed to float in a sea of dark. The grounds ahead of him were clear. A well-mowed, too green lawn stretched before him, ending at short brick steps leading to a patio area that butted up against the ho
use. Two French doors on this side allowed access to the home. Looking around again through his binoculars, he was struck once again by what appeared to be a lack of security. He had originally come loaded for a battle. A compact Mac10 with an extended magazine was slung across his chest, extra magazines hung from the bandolier. He also had a canvas weekender bag packed with pertinent items. But he was beginning to wonder if such might have been overkill.

  Arrogance or stupidity?

  Still, he had come with a mission, an action had to be taken. O’Conner could understand vengeance. Maybe more than most people, and maybe now more than ever, but it was time for things to come to an end. This vendetta of Harrington’s. The bodies in the ground. Hector one of them. Enough was enough. He refused to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder because some shit-kicking Texan yahoo couldn’t take a punch and let it go.

  As O’Conner contemplated his next move, the backyard was flooded by light. He ducked down behind the tree. He watched as a pair of guards appeared from opposite ends of the house, their bodies having activated the motion sensor lights that covered the back grounds. The two men move toward each other, meeting in the middle of the raised brick patio that marked the center of the house. They scanned the grounds while chatting between themselves. Both carried M-15 rifles, and holstered handguns sat on their hips. One guard pulled out a pack of cigarettes, made an offer to his cohort, and the two grabbed a quick smoke. With one last look around they separated and headed back to their opposite corners. O’Conner stayed where he was, and once the two men rounded their corners, he started counting. Thirty-five seconds later, the lights clicked off.

  He watched the cycle two more times. Ten minutes for the guards to make their rounds, thirty-five seconds for the lights. Using his field glasses, he scoured the outside of the house. Again, he didn’t see any cameras, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any around. But his waiting was over.

  The next time the guards came around, he readied himself by the tree. As soon as the two men disappeared from view, O’Conner sprinted across the expanse of grass. In twenty-two seconds he made it to the house and flattened to the ground just behind a set of oversized potted plants. Forty-eight seconds later the lights clicked off, leaving O’Conner in darkness. No one seemed to notice the extra seconds it took for the lights to turn off.

  Ten minutes later, the lights returned and O’Conner allowed himself to rise into a crouch, like a runner at a starting line. As the two guards met at the center of the patio, both looking out at the backyard, O’Conner charged forward, a taser in one hand and his collapsible baton in the other. At the sound of his approach, the men began to turn. O’Conner raised the taser and fired. Two electronically charged prongs shot out in front of him, their connector wires trailing behind. The darts sunk into the guard to the right in the upper shoulder and neck. The device had been altered to deliver more voltage than a regular one. The man convulsed and peed himself as he fell to the ground, spasming.

  O’Conner immediately dropped the taser to concentrate on the second guard, who was bringing his rifle around toward his attacker. O’Conner, in a smooth, downward motion, slashed the baton across the guard’s forearm, forcing him to release his hand on the gun’s trigger. He followed up with a brutal palm heel strike under the man’s jaw then a punch to the face, smashing his nose and sending him staggering backward. Two quick cracks to the skull with the baton and the guard was out on the patio tiles. O’Conner applied similar cracks to the tasered guard’s head. He proceeded to bind them with zip ties and gag them at the base of the house. Still no one else came to check on things.

  “This isn’t right,” O’Conner muttered. Yet it didn’t smell like a trap. Being this kind of clever wasn’t Harrington’s style. He put on his gloves, tugging the supple leather tight on his large hands.

  The double glass doors were electronically locked but a quick search of one of the guards produced a key card that let him into the house. Producing a Glock with a suppressor on its end, O’Conner surveyed this part of the house he hadn’t been in before. He was in a large room. A pool table sat in the middle of the floor, balls racked and waiting for a break. The walls were adorned with the heads of several exotic and probably endangered animals. He didn’t get the supposed sport of hunting four-legged beasts. It was humans who were deadly.

  Moving forward, he made his way in the main entry hall. A wide expanse of stone tiles made up the floor and a large curved stairway led up to the second story of the house, the bedrooms, and, O’Conner figured, Harrington. Starting up the stairs, he heard someone coughing from another room. It was a deep, wet cough that built in intensity until it ended with a final hack that seemed to clear things up for the moment.

  “Goddamn it,” said a voice. “Flora! Flora, you here?”

  O’Conner froze, expecting Flora, one of the housekeepers he knew, to respond to the person in the next room. But the only answer was silence.

  “Goddamn it,” said the voice. “Fuck it.”

  O’Conner heard the sound of a chair scrapping across the floor, then there was the chuck of a refrigerator door shutting followed by a succession of drawers opening and closing. By now O’Conner was sure the voice belonged to Harrington. With his gun raised in front of him, he moved slowly toward the kitchen door, a sliver of light shining out from under the bottom. With a rush he pushed the swinging door open and stepped into the room, his eyes and gun quickly covering the room in search of any threat.

  Harrington sat at a granite kitchen counter, an open carton of ice cream in front of him. He was in his slacks, undershirt, and paisley silk robe. A half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey and glass were nearby as well. He viewed the intruder, a look of surprise on his face. That look morphed into one of weary resignation.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  O’Conner leveled his gun on Harrington’s chest. Always sight on the center mass.

  “Who else is in the house?”

  “I’m it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You’re O’Conner.”

  “I said, who else is in the house?”

  “And I said I’m it. You can believe me or not. You want some ice cream?” He looked at the open container then back to O’Conner. “Rocky Road,” he said with a bitter smile. “Seems about right, don’t you think?”

  “How can you be the only one around?” said O’Conner. He lowered his gun but remained alert. “Last time I was here you practically had an army on us.”

  “Oh, the times they are a changin’,” Harrington said. He started reaching into the pocket of his bathrobe.

  “Easy,” said O’Conner, the gun coming back up.

  Harrington raised one hand in innocence, the other slowly pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the robe pocket. He set the paper down on the table and with two fingers slid it across the counter toward the career thief.

  O’Conner took a step forward and, gun in one hand, reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of reading glasses. Not prescription, the magnifying kind he bought at a Best Value drug store. He then picked up the paper and with a shake of his hand he unfolded it and gave it a quick glance. He looked back at Harrington.

  “From your wife.”

  “Soon-to-be ex. Read it.”

  Keeping his gun trained on Harrington, he perused the paper. “Huh.”

  “Keep going.”

  O’Conner finished reading then set the paper back on the counter. “She really doesn’t like you.”

  “No shit.”

  “So, she sent this out to all members of the North Texas Citizens Improvement League?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Harrington. “Each and every mother-lovin’ one of them. She has the dates and details of practically every under the table deal we’ve ever bankrolled and the names of all the participants.”

  “Including you.”

  Harrington raised a spoon of ice cream in acknowledgement. “The cherry on t
op of the shit sundae.”

  “Leaving you…”

  “Abandoned. Cut from the League and any further dealings with it. You read it. I am forever and a day ‘persona no bienvenida’ to all my former Leaguers. And in addition to my ostracization, they get to contribute a healthy sum of cash each month to support the lifestyle she’s so become accustomed to in exchange for her silence, and most of that money is coming from my accounts.”

  “They can do that?”

  “The power of the League is not to be underestimated.”

  O’Conner figured Collier must have lived. That he’d convinced the board that Harrington was too much of a liability now. He said, “What about the money from the safe?”

  “Fuck. That’s small potatoes. Teeny, tiny potatoes compared to what’s at stake now. They could give a shit.”

  “What about you?”

  Harrington gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “I barely have a shit left to give.”

  “You came at us hard.”

  “I did,” said Harrington. “It was business. You took from the League. You took from me. Was I just supposed to let that go?”

  “People are dead.”

  “Some of mine too. Like I said, it was business. Now that business is done.”

  “Not between you and me.”

  “For fuck’s sake. You telling me you never had any collateral damage in your career? Come on, O’Conner, no dead bodies piled up in your past?”

  O’Conner’s eyes shifted out of focus in remembrance, then he was back in the present.

  “Thought so,” said Harrington. “I can see the answer in your face. Are my guards dead?”

  “No. Damaged.”

  “But they could have been, yes? I don’t think you brought those guns to just wing ’em.

  “Correct.”

  Harrington regarded him.

  “What do you want from me, O’Conner? An apology? Well, you aren’t going to get it. More money? I don’t have it. I’m the victim here. I’m the one who got robbed. I’m the one who’s fucked. And not just by you.”

  “I want the business between us to be over.” He’d already fed damning information to his hacktivist contact to leak to the SEC.