Labyrinth (49 page)

Authors: Jon Land

“You've sold me on the severity of the problem,” Caitlin told him, feeling the wind sift through her hair. The air was bitingly cold, the bright sun offering a measure of respite, though not very much. “But I don't really see how the Texas Rangers can help you solve it, sir.”

“Rangers can't; you can.”

“Come again?”

“You've become a real authority on the subject, Ranger Strong.”

“Not by choice, I'll tell you that much.”

“All the same, you've been fighting your own war on drugs for more than two years now.”

“Sure, back where it's smuggled in through tunnels dug out of the desert floor or old irrigation lines. Where I come from, we still got drug mules carrying product in rucksacks or on the backs of donkeys.”

“While up here,” picked up Gage, “it's driven by the truckload across frozen rivers by men who speak French instead of Spanish. You can see what I'm getting at.”

“Not really, sir, no.”

“Problem's the same; only the language and geography's different.”

“I speak Spanish, not French.”

Gage gave her a longer look this time. His thinning hair blew about in the stiff breeze, exposing a swatch of bald patches. He smoothed it back into place as best he could, but then a fresh thrust of wind tousled it once more.

“Only language drug people speak is money. Accents don't matter a whole hell of a lot to them. Where we're at now is the planning stage. Trying to handle this piece meal's gotten us nowhere. What the Task Force is putting together is an overall strategy, kind of a master plan.”

Gage had continued to kick at the gathered snow, revealing a deep symmetrical, crisscrossing pattern cut in the ice. Caitlin followed the pattern further out onto the ice, convincing herself it ran from one side of this frozen swatch of the St. Lawrence River all the way across to the other.

“What is it?” Gage asked her.

“These trucks of yours carry enough weight to need snow chains?”

“Never thought about it.”

Caitlin rose from her crouch, brushing the snow from her gloves. “You should, sir. What we got here looks to be big freight jobs running on double tires with only the outer ones chained. You're talking about some haul, if it's drugs they're carrying in those cargo bays.”

Gage finally looked up from the chain marks and studied Caitlin for what seemed like a long time, long enough for her to note his cheeks had gone cherry red in the cold while his nose remained milky pale, like his whole face was out of sync.

“I'm operating on a shoestring here,” he told her. “Six agents, some locals and state cops out of New York, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a tribal policeman, and now you.”

“Well, now that makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“It's like this,” Agent Cage explained. “The growers buy homes at foreclosure sales mostly across Quebec and British Colombia as well as outside Toronto and other venues. They pretty much gut the interiors to turn them into grow houses for an especially potent strain of marijuana known as BC Bud. The head growers get all the soil laid down, seeds planted, lighting and environment set up and turn things over to immigrants to handle the tender loving care.”

“Did you say immigrants?”

“I did indeed, Ranger. Chinese mostly, totally beholden to the druggers for their very lives after being smuggled out of their home countries. A separate syndicate charges a fee to get the immigrants into Canada and then turns them over to the druggers to work off the rest with a ticket to the good old USA when the time comes. Poor bastards can see the American Dream across the border and will do pretty much anything they're told.”

“My granddad arrested plenty of Mexican runners in the 30s bringing marijuana and black tar heroine across the border for pretty much the same reason.”

“Hardcore druggers have certainly made a life's work out of feeding on desperation, haven't they? By the time their pigeons realize they've signed onto a sham, fear keeps them in tow.” Gage shook his head, thin wisps of hair shifting with it. “Not much changes.”

Caitlin looked toward the vast expanse of land across the frozen river that looked postcard pretty and very small in the distance, thinking about another front opened in a war they were already losing. “In this case, it just gets worse.”

Chapter 3

Quebec; the present

“
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
” Caitlin asked Beauchamp, watching the black-garbed figures heading up the walk to the front, three of them lugging the gasoline cans.

“Didn't Agent Gage explain what the Angels do to the houses once they're done with them, once the mold sets in?”

“Burn them to the ground. Only this house hasn't been harvested yet. No mold yet, nothing like that. And there's still people inside.”

“Meaning â¦”

“Jesus Christ,” realized Caitlin, binoculars still glued to her eyes, “they're on to us.”

“It does seem that way, eh?”

Caitlin moved closer to the window in response. “How many immigrants we got in that house?”

Beauchamp checked his notebook, flipping back a few pages. “Seven, by my count. I recognized two of the Hells Angels, the big bald ones with those arrow tattoos painted on their skulls: the LaChance brothers. They're from your side of the border in Michigan but wanted for murder in Canada too.”

Caitlin lowered her binoculars and watched the Mountie fumble for his cell phone. “Then how âbout we go arrest them?”

But Beauchamp had the phone at his ear. “We gotta call Gage first. See how he wants this handled.”

Caitlin was already on her feet, pushing the blood back into her legs, taking her mind to a distant, yet familiar place. “Only one way it can be handled, Mountie.”

“He's not answering.” Beauchamp's eyes flared in the room's thin, ambient light. “I've heard the Rangers are the next best thing to Mounties.”

“Funny,” said Caitlin, “I've heard almost the same thing.”

Standing now, Caitlin pressed her binoculars back against her eyes and focused on the grow house. She caught splotchy glimpses of some of the Angels spreading the gasoline about, dousing everything in their paths. There were glimpses, too, of the biggest ones, the American LaChance brothers, smacking a few of the Chinese around, ignoring their protestations since clearly they held no more value than the lumber and furnishings about to go up in an inferno.

“They're gonna burn those Chinese along with everything else,” Caitlin said and pushed back her jacket to expose her holstered SIG Sauer 9-millimeter pistol.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Beauchamp asked her, pocketing his phone and ripping out his pistol in its place.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Christopher Tobias

ISBN: 978-1-4532-1413-8

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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